Luke 17:22-33 “Then He said to the disciples, "The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. (23) And they will say to you, 'Look here!' or 'Look there!' Do not go after them or follow them. (24) For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. (25) But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. (26) And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: (27) They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. (28) Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; (29) but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. (30) Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (31) "In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise, the one who is in the field let him not turn back. (32) Remember Lot's wife. (33) Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.”
Scripture clearly reveals to us that the Anti-Christ will reign over the earth for forty-two months. As revealed to us by the Lord in the gospel of Luke quoted above, the message of the gospel will no longer be openly preached in the earth at that time. But remember that the Anti-Christ will only reign over the fourth kingdom. And so initially the persecution of the saints will only impact the saints living in the nations that form part of the fourth kingdom. But as we have already seen, scripture reveals to us that the false prophet that will work with the Anti-Christ will be the main instigator in bringing more and more nations into the fold of Islam and worship of the Anti-Christ. As the false prophet goes into the earth, to convince more and more nations to turn to Islam and following the beast, so the persecution against the Lord’s saints living in those nations will increase. As we draw closer to the end time, Christians should be aware of any growing influence of Islam in the nations in which they reside, for all nations that have a significant portion of their population which are Muslim will very quickly fall under the influence of the Anti-Christ during his reign. It is in these nations and the nation of Israel, that all Jewish and Gentile believers will suffer extreme persecution.
Michael E.B. Maher
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