2 Obstacles to the Appearing of the Antichrist

You’re listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit www.lancelambert.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates. In this episode, Lance speaks about some of the obstacles that he believes will have to be removed before the Antichrist will be revealed and the Lord will return. Lance give a brief history of the foundations of Islam as well as sharing his thoughts on the current and future standing of Islam and of the United States in the years to come. If you haven’t already gotten your copy of the audiobook for My House Shall Be a House of Prayer, you can find the link to purchase it in the description or listen wherever you get podcasts. Let’s listen to Two Obstacles to the Appearing of the Antichrist. Lance Lambert: I'm very glad for that word because the worst possibility is these kind of sessions can be just a kind of biblical information. And what we need is something practical and relevant. How are we to react? How are we to respond? In what way can the Lord use us? We are to be a city set on a hill that cannot be hid. We are supposed to be salt that stops corruption. We are supposed to be a light in the world. We really need to know how the Lord would use us in these days. I'd like to turn you to one or two scriptures in the book of Genesis chapter eleven from verse one. Genesis eleven from verse one. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and bitumen had they for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city.  Chapter twelve and verse one. Chapter twelve of Genesis and verse one. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee, will I curse: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Hebrews, the Hebrew letter and chapter eleven verse eight. Hebrews eleven verse eight. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and architect is God. Then if you will turn with me to Zechariah chapter twelve. Zechariah chapter twelve. Just one verse, verse three. And it shall come to pass in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded, and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it. And then a Psalm, the second psalm, finally, psalm two. Really should read the whole psalm, but I will just read from verse six, the response of the Lord. Yet I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will tell of the decree: the Lord said unto me, thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. I think I will add one more verse to that, if you don't mind. In the new covenant, the Roman letter and chapter eleven. Roman letter, chapter eleven. I will read just verse 25 and 26-7. For I would not, brothers, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel until the full number of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written: there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As touching the gospel, they (the Jewish people) are enemies for your sake, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sake, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Could we just have a further word of prayer? Beloved Lord, we are so thankful we're found here simply in Your presence this evening. We worship you. We praise you that, Lord, you are here, that we are ready to meet with you. But Lord, we want just to confess in Your presence that without Your anointing grace and power, nothing eternal can be done. Lord, you have provided that anointing through the finished work of our Lord Jesus and made it a living reality in the person of the Holy Spirit. Into that anointing grace for both the speaking of Your Word and the hearing of it, we stand now. Let that portion be ours this night in a double portion, both for the hearing and the speaking. And Lord, help us in some very real way to know how we should react, Lord, not just to be fascinated by the prophetic word, but to know, dear Lord, what we should do. Hear us, we pray, for we ask all this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. I won't go over what I said last night or we won't be able to go very far this evening. All I will say is that I think most of us are very conscious that the world is in conflict, that there is war, there is strife, there is conflict. Even more interesting than the physical conflict and strife that there is all over the earth, I think, is the fact that in the atmosphere there is turmoil. It is not normal, this turmoil, I think. I have lived a reasonably long life and I was saved when I was 13, just before I was 13. And I can only say I have never known such turmoil in the heavenlies as there is at present. Now maybe it's I'm just getting old. Maybe I'm getting negative in my old age and things sort of depress, I don't know. But I have thought a lot about this turmoil that is in the heavenlies. And I told you the story about Lady Ogle, I'm not going to tell that story again. But all I know is that I have got to the place where I can sense something in the heavenlies. And I have wondered, am I wrong? Am I out of the will of God? Am I being disobedient? Or am I really touching something? I have become slowly convinced over the months of this last year that it is a colossal turning point in divine history. We are right on the threshold of this colossal turning point and it's almost as if there is a war in heaven over the whole thing. Everything is in turmoil. Not so strange when you read Daniel and you find that when the Lord said to Gabriel, get down to Daniel and tell him his prayer has been answered, he was waylaid. It took him three whole weeks to get through the conflict because the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece were having a fight and poor Gabriel got into the middle of it. I always imagined Gabriel finally coming into the door where Daniel was in prayer, wondering why the heavens were so brazen, why there was no answer, why it all seemed so hard. And in came this dear angel of God, this messenger of God. I imagine him with his halo, sort of somewhat cockeyed and his feathers messed up from the fight. And he hangs on to the door and says Daniel, oh, man greatly beloved. I was told to come to you right from the beginning, but I got into a fight and only when Michael the Archangel, your archangel, came to my help was I able to fulfil the command of God. Now, is that a fairy story or does it reveal something? Does it reveal things that we don't really fully understand about the unseen, about the invisible? I think it's very interesting in Revelation chapter twelve where it says and there was war in heaven. And it speaks of the angels of the enemy, of darkness, and the angels of God in a great battle until they finally cast Satan down on the earth. Now, is that merely symbolic? Or is it actually something that describes a condition at the very end of this age when the enemy will be forced out, as it were, of the heavenlies and onto the earth? And the best thing about it is, it says he knows his time is short. That's wonderful, I think because John used to talk about the seven years, the three and a half and the three and a half. And I think we can't spiritualise it. It's marvellous that there is such a short time. It says, he that endures to the end will be saved. That's physically, it means. But I think it's very interesting that there is such a time which has a limit and the Word says and the Lord will shorten the time, otherwise the elect would not be saved. So I find it very interesting that there is this turmoil. And I spoke last night about the fact that I believe it is the appearance of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is not someone who is substitute for Christ, but he is someone who is against Christ, absolutely against everything to do with the Lord Jesus as the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus, he contradicts it completely. Now, the Antichrist is described in many ways. That's how John, the apostle John, described him in his letters. Paul describes him as the man of sin, as the son of perdition or destruction. Meaning that he destroys everything that is of God that he can. Judas was called a son of perdition and the reason was that he sought to destroy the Saviour of the world. He sought to destroy the Son of God. And he is also called the Lawless One, not meaning that he is a Mafia type or a triad type, but rather that he is one who is against the revealed word of God, the revealed law of God, the Torah of God, we would say in Jewish circles. However, many Christians, immediately they hear the word Torah, think of law and they think of laws. Whereas Torah actually simply means the Word of God. In the same way that you and I speak of the word of God. And this Lawless One is against the law of God. Against the revealed word of God, the revelation that's come to us through the word, both in the written word and in the living word that is the Lord Jesus. So I think it's very interesting that there's a little phrase that says that his coming is according to the activity of Satan. People ask me, why is it called the mystery of lawlessness? There's nothing mysterious about criminality or lawlessness or anarchy. There's nothing strange about it. It's positively explicable. What is the mystery of lawlessness? It is that Satan is the strategist, the energiser, the power behind the Antichrist. This is the mystery of lawlessness. This thing that is happening in Europe, in United Kingdom and in the United States, this huge threat against biblical principles, let me put it another way, against principles that have been revealed by God as the foundation of life, this is not philosophy, it's not something human, it is not flesh and blood. It is the mystery of lawlessness. It is Satan's last final attempt to take the world and to frustrate the purpose of God concerning the Lord Jesus. Why he thinks he could win, I have no idea. He studies the Bible avidly, much more than most Christians do. He believes the word of God to be absolutely true. And it has always been amazing to me why Satan doesn't recognise every time he's tried to do anything, God has used him. I mean, it's most extraordinary how the Lord uses every attempt of Satan to fulfil his purpose, to fulfil God's own purpose. So you would think he'd give up. But if you've ever met a proud person, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. When a person is really proud and full of arrogance, there is absolutely, they have blinkers. They cannot see anything else. They are consumed with themselves, with their pride and with their own energy and determination. And that's the only way I can describe Satan. I think we need just to take a closer look this evening. The first thing I want to point out is what we read together in Genesis, right almost at the very beginning of the Bible. You remember they were trying to build a city and a tower. We really had no idea what they were trying to do except that they were of one language and one tongue. They were absolutely united. There was no division, there were no factions. They were one tribe. Do you understand? And they said, Come, let us make us a name. I think that is the key to fallen man. All through history, man has tried to make himself a name. He's tried to glorify himself, to forward himself, to fulfil his own purpose and intentions. And it is very interesting in this connection that they built a tower. This was the first skyscraper. And as I said last night, some people sort of laugh at this and say, oh, don't be so stupid. I mean, those people were running around in skins with cut holes. I mean, hairy creatures sort of look a bit like monkeys, really. They hadn't quite evolved as we have now. We are much more sophisticated and clever. I don't understand why people think like this. I don't think there is such a thing as evolution. I think it's devolution. In other words, I think man was much more intelligent to begin with and has slowly but surely devolved. And you can see it most clearly in the fact that his savagery and cruelty is just as great today as it was 6000 years ago or more, whatever. I find that interesting. Why couldn't they have been building a skyscraper, the first skyscraper? Were they so stupid? What about some of these extraordinary monolithic things that we discovered from ancient history? How did they know how to transport these stones, how to build them? I mean, we think, we seem to think that only in the 20th, 21st century could man have done things like that. It's a little stupid and more than a little arrogant on our part. I don't know what it was. Was it occult? Were they having, as someone has suggested, I think G. H. Pember suggested it, that they had sort of seances on the top of this tower, trying to contact spirits and so on? Or was it the first space exploration program? We really don't know. All we know is this it was so vitally important in the eyes of God that he decided it had to be stopped. Now, that is the key to what they were doing. Something so dangerous, so vitally important to God that his very purpose could have been affected and therefore he immediately took action. The action he took was he confused the whole lot. They called that city Bavil, which means in Chaldee, or in today's Arabic, Gate of God. The Gate of God. The Divine Gateway. Some Jewish scribe was told by the Lord, don't you call it Bavil. You call it Bavel. Babel in Hebrew means confusion. What fallen man called the Divine Gateway, God called confusion. This is the epitaph of world history all the way through history. Whatever great empire, Babylon, divine gateway, confusion, God said. Persia. Magnificent Empire. They called it a divine gateway. God said confusion. Hellenism, which is now looked upon as the source of European and Western civilisation. They called it the divine gateway. God called it confusion. The Roman Empire, they called it the divine gateway, the path of the gods. God said it's confusion. The League of nations, they called it a divine gateway into a new millennium. God called it confusion. And the United Nations is another organisation. They call it the divine gateway and still do. God says it's confusion. Bavel began at the very beginning of human history and is with us today. Interestingly, in the English Bible, Babel goes out basically with this chapter eleven, they cease building the city. And in one sense in the English translation, it's gone. It's finished. Actually, Ur of the Chaldees and all the cities in the complex were the Babel complex of cities. And the very next chapter, you have God taking the initiative. This time, the God of glory appears to our father Abraham whilst he was yet in Mesopotamia, in Ur of the Chaldees, one of the Babel cities. It had a very high standard of living. Abraham was an aristocrat according to the Talmud, he came from a very wealthy family. They had the idol making business, which was a very lucrative business indeed, since there were household idols in every home, idols on every street, every street corner, idols in temples, in every public building. There were huge idols. Very, very lucrative business. And according to the Talmud, Abraham was a very good salesman. He was the salesman for his father in this business. Then at some point, we don't know how, the God of glory appeared to him, and suddenly everything seemed like tinsel. If the Lord has ever met you, when he meets you, then suddenly you realise how empty your life is, how transient your life is, how temporal I t is and how meaningless it is without God. You've met the Lord. That's what happened to Abraham. And God said to Abraham, get out. It wasn't easy for Abraham to get out. It meant that he left a very high standard of living, a sophisticated standard of living, a standard of education and of social life. He went out to be a shepherd of sheep and goats and camels and donkeys, all of them very smelly creatures. Abraham was never the same again. From that moment, he never owned a property, he never owned a portion of the land that God was going to give him. He even bought the burial plot for his wife and family. It is extremely interesting when you really look at this story carefully. So here you have two things. You have Babel and remember that in the Hebrew Bible, we do not use the word, the Greek word, Babylon. Always, every time you read Babylon, it is the Hebrew Bavel all the way through. And now when you have the Hebrew New Testament and you have Babylon mentioned in Revelation, it is Bavel. So you have a continuity all the way through, from Genesis eleven, right the way through to Revelation 19, where you have this Bavel. Even if it's disappeared and Babylon has gone, still it's spoken of as if it is a worldwide system, a worldwide fact, from Genesis eleven all the way through to Revelation 19, there it is destroyed and it's the end of it. In Genesis twelve, you have Jerusalem, because Hebrews eleven tells us that when Abraham went out by faith, not knowing whither he went, he was looking for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and architect is God. In other words, you have one city produced by man and you have the other city produced by God. The Bible, I think some of you have heard me say this before, can be described, entitled The Tale of Two Cities. It is the tale of only two cities, and every human being, whatever their colour, whatever their background, whatever their race or ethnic origin, belongs either to Bavel (Babel) or to Jerusalem. All of us were born in Babel, but we are re-registered when we're born again. And then Jerusalem, which is above, is the mother of us all if we're born of God. So you had that wonderful 87th psalm about “glorious things are spoken of thee, oh city of God”. And then he goes on to talk and says, this one was born in Babylon, Bavel. But the Lord says, when I write up the peoples, that person who was born in Babylon is no longer registered in Babylon, they're re-registered in Jerusalem. And then he speaks of Philistia and Tyre and all kinds of other cities. So, I mean, it is really an amazing revelation we have in the word of God. What is interesting is that when you come to the Book of Revelation, which sums up the 66 books of the Bible, Babylon appears again, yet there is no Babylon. What is this? Babylon? Washington. Washington is Babylon. London is Babylon. Berlin is Babylon. Paris is Babylon. Beijing is Babylon. Moscow is Babylon. Some of us would say straightaway, oh, yes, clearly some of these. But it comes as a shock to us when we find that Rome is Babylon, when we find that Washington is Babylon. It is the whole genius of man. It is the production of fallen man. All his music, his architecture, his literature, it's all there if you read carefully those chapters, 17, 18 and the beginning of 19 in Revelation, it speaks of the glory of Babylon. Its music, its merchandise, its economy, its commercial. It's all there. So you have only two cities. Now, Daniel clearly saw in Daniel chapter two and Daniel chapter seven, these two chapters, he saw the whole of world history in the guise of four great empires. They're actual empires. They were literal empires. Babylon, Persia, Greek (Hellenistic), Roman. Why those four? Why is the Chinese dynastic empire never mentioned? Interesting, isn't it? Why is India not mentioned? These were also great empires in their own day. They're not mentioned only these four. Why? Because these four great empires were attempts by the enemy to take the world. They weren't just empires, they were attempts to take the whole world. Babylon was the first. It's Bavel, Babel. That's where it all began. And it goes all the way through. I don't know if I'm boring you to death, but the point I'm trying to get at is this really, that Daniel understood that the Kingdom of God, the Messiah, would come with the Kingdom of God in the fourth empire, the Roman Empire. Now, it is very interesting that he did come in the Roman Empire that was when the Lord Jesus was born, when he lived, when he died, when he was buried, when he rose again and ascended to the right hand of God. The interesting thing is, if you read Revelation 13, John the Apostle tells us that these four empires are going to rise again as the fourth one, the fourth kingdom, but this time, homogenised. In other words, there's something of every one of them. You'll read it in Revelation 13 and the first verses, it describes it completely. And you've got all the features of the four great empires of world history all homogenised into one last great attempt of Satan to take the world. Now, I don't know if I've made myself clear or whether, as I say, I'm boring you stiff, but why are we at a turning point? In my estimation? Because we have reached the point where the Holy Spirit said to the apostle Paul, the revealing of the man of sin. This sinful man is a human being, but he will, energised by Satan, given a wisdom, an affability, a kind of intelligence that is not merely human, this is the mystery of lawlessness, he will head up this last great empire. I am personally convinced that the European Union is the beginning of this and it's going to gradually increase in power and then other blocs are going to join. It's very interesting that the United Nations has divided the whole world into ten regions. This figure ten comes again and again in both Daniel and in Revelation. Is that fanciful or is it a key to something? I said last night, and I just say it again, that people have got this idea that the Antichrist will be some horned creature, a kind of mixture of Nero, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and a few others absolutely, obviously fascist dictatorial. There's nothing further from the truth. Without upsetting anybody, I hope you understand what I mean when I said last night, I believe he will be Clintonesque. Good looking, affable, forgivable, as simple as that. He will take the whole world. It says the whole world will worship him. The whole world never worshipped Hitler, and the whole world never worshipped Stalin, and the whole world never worshipped Saddam. It says the whole world will worship him. Meaning that they feel that this brilliant man will bring peace to the world, economic prosperity, and brotherhood. It will be multicultural, multiethnic and multifaceted. Now, it is exactly that philosophy that will come into clash with fundamentalism of any kind, whether it's Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Anyone who believes in absolutes will be on a direct collision course with this last great empire. You must surely know that this is at work in the United States. Multifaith, multicultural. The reason why you don't have prayer now publicly anymore in the name of Jesus is simply for this. It's already here, even in the States. In Europe, it is far more advanced and also in the United Kingdom. Where is this philosophy coming from? Who is the human brain behind it? We look in vain. I've been told that it's poor old Kissinger. Dear men. They say it's Kissinger who’s behind it. I think it's nonsense. I've heard a whole number of other names that have been given to me as to the human brain. I don't think there's a human brain. I think there's a Satanic brain. This is the mystery of lawlessness, and the way Satan has built a strategy, it’s so interesting. He said, I can't get them any other way. The first thing is to remove any faith in absolutes. When Einstein defined the Law of Relativity, he actually said, if I had known that it would be applied to morals and ethics, I would never have defined it. In the definition of the law of relativity, absolutes have gone out of the door. There's no such thing as absolutes. Absolute truth, no such thing. Absolute love, no such thing. There are no absolutes anymore. It's all relative. And with the relative, of course, the whole of our society is changing. With that comes multifaith, multilingual, multicultural because it's relative. Some of these things are not evil. They're not better than the other, but it's relative. Buddhism is better than Hinduism. Hinduism is better than Islam or the other way around. Islam is a little better than Buddhism. You know, it's a question of… Christianity, well, you know, it's one of the ways to God. This, this is so interesting to me. His coming is according to the activity of Satan. That is, it is Satanic energy and Satanic knowledge and Satanic wisdom that is actually the key to the coming of the Antichrist. Well, now, I just wanted to say all of that because I believe we have reached this turning point and I think it explains the turmoil that is in the heavenlies. Something tremendous is happening. Now, just in case anyone feels depressed by this, let me say straightaway the Lord Jesus is seated at the Father's right hand. He's not having a terrible sort of neurosis over the world situation and has risen up to fight. The Father said to him, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool and he’s seated. He only stands to receive saints. And I mean, it is to me wonderful to think of it like this, that the battle actually is already won. We're in the mopping up operations, but of course they'll get pretty deadly as time goes on. We need to keep our eye on that. Now, there are two major obstacles to the coming of the Antichrist. And here you can go to sleep if you want to for a little while. I’m going to talk about Islam, militant Islam, and I'm going to talk about the United States. Now, you may want to go to sleep while I talk about militant Islam and wake up for the United States or maybe you'd like to be awake for Islam and sleep for the United States. But these are the two obstacles. As I see it, there are two major obstacles to the appearing of the Antichrist. Both these obstacles, listen carefully to me, both these obstacles have to be removed if the Antichrist is to appear. The first is Islam. Islam was born in 622 A.D. The circumstances of its birth are quite remarkable. Muhammad was a man who could neither read nor write. He went everywhere looking for truth, so we're told. He searched in Christianity he found none. He searched in Judaism and it is said he found none. Then supposedly Gabriel, the Gabriel of Daniel, appeared to him. And Gabriel gave him revelation after revelation after revelation. Gabriel revealed to Muhammad that God had begun with the Jews, but the Jews were stiff necked and proud and they corrupted the revelation he gave to them in what we call the Old Testament. So he turned from the Jews to the Christians, and to the Christians he gave revelation after revelation in what we now call the New Testament. And they corrupted the New Testament. So now Gabriel turned to Muhammad and gave him revelation after revelation in what we now know as the Quran. Now listen carefully to me and some of you will know this. Islam teaches there are three Testaments. The Old Testament, the New Testament and the last Testament. The last testament is the Quran. And the Last Testament corrects all that the Jews corrupted in the Old Testament and all that the Christians corrupted in the New Testament. Have you got that clear? Because it's important because many people speak with Muslims and they say, oh yes, yes, we believe in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And if you don't question them carefully, and they may not of course always be well taught, but if they're well taught Muslims, they will tell you straightaway, but the Jews corrupted it and the Christians corrupted it. The Quran is Absolute Truth. The interesting thing about the Quran is this: it is in the most incredibly beautiful classical Arabic. It is so beautiful that Arabic speaking Christians love to listen to it being read. It's like Shakespeare in English. It is so beautiful. Where did it come from? Muhammad couldn't read or write, so we're told it was his wife who was older than him, Fatima, and that she was the one who turned all these revelations into this beautiful Arabic. Interesting. What does Islam teach? It teaches that the Quran is absolute and final truth and Muhammad is the greatest of the prophets, excelling the Lord Jesus. Now what is more interesting for you to know is what it teaches about the Gospel. It believes that Jesus was born of a virgin miraculously. It believes that Jesus was sinless. He never sinned. It believes that Jesus was the Messiah of God. It believes that he performed miracle after miracle. In fact, the Quran adds at least one miracle that is not in the New Testament. Then comes the change. He was rejected by the Jews. He was crucified, but he did not die. He swooned. He was taken down from the cross and revived. He did not die an atoning death. So there is no forgiveness of sin. There is no atonement. And the second thing, because he did not die, he was not raised from the dead. So there is no new birth. It believes that Jesus ascended to the right hand of God and it believes that Jesus is returning. He is going to return and Muhammad is going to follow him. In other words, you have the whole Gospel from the birth of Jesus, the sinlessness of Jesus, the Messiahship of Jesus and the ascension of Jesus, and the coming again of Jesus but you don't have the heart of the Gospel. It is completely rejected. There is no such thing as atoning death for sin and forgiveness of sins and there is no such thing as a new birth. So when Muslims will tell you that, yes, Jesus is coming back, this is well taught, Muslims, and you get all excited about it, just remember, this is what is taught about it. Islam divided very rapidly, basically into two denominations. Am I boring you all?The two denominations are Sunni and Shia. The Sunnis are the major grouping Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the oil sheikhdoms, part of Iraq, Syria, and then the others are Shia. And most of the Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan are Sunni. And then you have the other section, Shia, which is Iran and Iraq, a very large number, a majority in Iraq of Muslims are Shia, and Lebanon. Hezbollah is Shia. Hamas, for instance, of the Palestinians is Sunni. Al Qaeda is Sunni. Bin Laden is Sunni. Ayatollah Khomeini is Shia. Ahmadinejad is Shia. I don't know whether this helps you to understand the situation in the Middle East, but you've got these two major denominations. You actually have others, you have Islamic mysticism. We call it Sufi. Sufi. These are the dervishes. They got themselves into a state and had visions and things. Shia, the Shia Muslims, there was a great division when the Sunnis murdered the grandson of Muhammad and they have never forgiven them. And so this terrific division, much like Catholicism and Protestantism in Islam, is a bitter, bitter division. The Shia, what I would call — without getting into trouble, I hope with some of you — Pentecostal Muslims, they believe in visions, they believe in revelations, they believe in special prophetic utterances. Sunnis are like straight evangelicals. They don't believe any of that. When the Quran was completed, tthere was no more. So the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was the greatest single influence in modern Shia Islam, his name was Ayatollah, oracle of God. The spirit of Allah came upon him and made him utter things and so on. It's very interesting, all of this, but it may be too much for you. I don't know. I would just simply say that Islam has a world agenda. And that's the thing that even listening the other day to Blair and Bush and Gordon and Bush, they only speak of it. They said the militant Islam is attempting to clear whole areas of the world of all those who disagree with them and make them completely 100% Islamic. But that is not the world agenda of a militant Islam. It is the whole world. The Ayatollah Khomeini said we are in the last days and Israel is the stepping stone to the conquest of the United States. He said it not once, he said it a number of times. He asked the question, why have we got an Israel? Since Allah predestinates everything, how is it possible that Israel should have arisen within the Islamic homelands? It's an obscenity. And he said it is the judgment of Allah upon the lukewarmness of the Muslim masses. But he said if they will devote themselves 100% to Allah, if they will become, he used the word shahids, martyrs, then Allah will give them the victory. They will liberate Jerusalem, they will exterminate Israel, go on to exterminate the Jews and will conquer the whole world. So the threat of Iran, as I spoke about it last night, is simply this: if they get a nuclear device, they will without any shadow of a doubt use it on Israel because they believe that they are predestined to liberate Jerusalem and to exterminate the Jewish state. I don't know if there's more I should say on this. I don't want to just give a whole thing on Islam, but it's important for you to know it. I mean, do you think it's possible for Islam to take the world? I would tell you it is entirely possible. One in five of every human beings on the face of this planet is a Muslim. They are growing at an enormous pace. It is unbelievable when you take Europe, one in five in Paris is a Muslim. In the south of France, there are more mosques than there are chapels. One fifth of Denmark is Muslim. 1 million Muslims, Dutch citizens, 4 million in Germany. In every single European country, they are growing at enormous pace because of the large families that they have, anything between 10 and 14 children. And the whole of Europe has not got a replacement birth level. Sweden is the best. Britain comes next with 1.7. It's not replacement. Greece, believe it or believe it not, is 1.1. That means Greece is finished. Italy is 1.2. Italy! 1.2 means they're finished. Within decades they will be taken over by others. Multicultural, multifaith. It's the old thing. Isn't this interesting? And they're all completely taken by this new philosophy, 666, humanism, all to do with man. There are gods because people psychologically need them, but those gods are the project of their imagination and mind. It doesn't matter if it's Buddha or Krishna or Allah or Jesus or whoever, because it's all the same in the end. Choose the one that suits you best and you'll be happy. The Islamic agenda is to take the world. Now, please listen to me. Now, if you've been asleep, just wake up for a moment. The first attempt to take the world by Islam was 732 A.D and it was called the Battle of Tours. T-O-U-R-S. Tours, or some call it Poitiers. At that point, it was just 200, less than 200 miles from Paris. And the whole of Christendom quavered. It was understood on the Christian side that the superior Muslim forces would take the whole of Europe. If they had, the whole of history would have been changed. They would have gone on and stormed Italy, destroyed the Vatican. There would have been no Vatican and no Pope. They would have taken Germany. There would have been no Reformation. They would have crossed the English Channel to the British Isles and taken Britain. And then the Puritan Fathers, the Pilgrim Fathers would have been Shia Muslims fleeing from Sunni Muslims. Then the whole of North America would have been Muslim. Now, this may sound to you like a joke, but it isn't a joke. That's how near it came and unbelievably the Spirit of God, I don't know whether he was born again or not, but it had to be the Spirit of God, came upon Charles Martel and he became a Winston Churchill and rallied the Christian forces and incredibly, they beat Islam. And the Islamic forces fell back into Spain for 200 years, where they stagnated and finally withdrew to North Africa, where they stagnated even more. The second great attempt to take the world was with the Ottomans. Believe it or believe it not, it was as late as 1683 and it was the Battle of Vienna. Again, the whole of Christendom quavered, trembled. It looked as if Islam was going to win. They were going to destroy all the Christian places everywhere, as they had. Remember that Islam has a spirit of savage violence. When they took Egypt, they slaughtered every Christian they found. They exterminated the church in Egypt, basically, all the theological seminaries, all the Christian education centers, they went on to Libya, did the same with Libya, Cyrenaica as it was called, and then onto Carthage, now Tunisia, and they did the same thing there. Then they went into Central Asia, right through Iraq to the Nestorian Church, destroyed it completely. So you can understand that in the Battle of Tours, everyone was afraid. It was only a hundred years after the birth of Islam and they were so afraid they were going to do exactly the same thing with Europe. By the grace of God, they were defeated. 1683 was the second attempt and the whole Christian world trembled again because the Muslims were incredibly armed and trained and disciplined and the Christians were hopeless. And then the Spirit of God came upon a man called Jan Sobieski, a Polish king, and he unbelievably, like a Winston Churchill, he rallied the Christian forces and they beat the Ottomans. And the Ottomans retired back through Hungary, into Bulgaria, into Turkey, and into the middle east and stagnated because in the Islamic, am I boring you, in the Islamic psychology of predestination-ism, fatalistic predestination, everything is predestined by God. So why did God predestined their defeat? Something's wrong with them. They just fell to pieces, demoralised, until oil. And with the discovery of oil, a whole new spirit appeared in Islam. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, all these. Interesting that so much oil is in the hands of the Muslims. Indonesia, Nigeria, everywhere you look, large amount of the oil reserves of the world are in the hands of [Muslims] according to the covenant God made with Ishmael. It's exactly what the Lord said, I will make you great, much wealth will come to you, great nations will come out of you. Interesting. Now 9/11 was the first shot in the third attempt. Don't think for a single moment that 9/11 was an aberration, that they suddenly decided they'd try to do something. It was a brilliantly planned and executed attack. It was deliberate. It was the beginning of the last great war that is described in the Quran, that will end in the conquest of all the nations for Allah. It is interesting that Al Qaeda, led by Bin Laden and the Egyptian surgeon as his deputy, Zawahiri, it's very interesting that he actually says that there are seven phases. The first phase was 9/11. The second phase was that the United States would be provoked with its allies into war and this would cause Islamic youth to rally to Islam, which it is done, and they would become suicide bombers and everything else. The third phase began with 2007 and interestingly is centered, and we haven't seen this so far, on Syria and Lebanon for however long it lasts. Then there's a fourth phase. Then the fifth phase is the declaration of the caliphate from Afghanistan. Interesting, from Afghanistan. Now a caliphate can only be declared when there's enough areas of the world joined together without frontiers under Sharia law. The 6th phase is the extermination of all Jews worldwide and the extermination of all Christians worldwide. And the 7th phase is peace, because there won't be any Jews or Christians, and it is the house of peace, “Dar es Salaam”. I don't know whether this means much to you, but in my estimation, Mr. Bush has shown incredible courage and perception to have stood up to this militant Islamic force. And I think the same with Blair. Whatever mistakes they may have made, they have stood up and I think that we should honour them for it. Where I think they have made a mistake, if I may say it in passing, is that firstly, they never thought of the consequences after the removal of Saddam Hussein. They created a vacuum because they destroyed the whole Iraqi civil administration. The whole police were completely destroyed, rejected, and so were the security service, the army. So the result is that a huge vacuum developed in Iraq, which has been filled with gun law, anarchy, lawlessness. That, I think, was a terrible mistake. The second mistake, I believe, is even more tragic. George Bush and Tony Blair could have told those nations that they lead, that they believe this was a threat to the whole world. Now, they did say that, but they have all the time tried to protect Islam. Instead of coming out into the open and saying, this is an Islamic agenda to take the whole world, they're so afraid of a backlash on Islamic communities within the United States, within the United Kingdom, within Europe, they held back. And so all they kept on saying was, for instance, Mr. Bush said that Islam was a glorious faith. I mean, I heard him myself, unbelievably, in order to protect them. And Tony Blair keeps on saying about the decency of ordinary Muslims and how Islam is a peace loving religion. Of course, I mean, it's nonsense. Really, the nations concerned should have been told the whole truth and they haven't. So the result has been, now that we are in a total mess, the United States is divided from top to bottom on this issue. The United Kingdom is divided top to bottom. Europe has no division. It is all one side. So, I mean, it's very, very interesting what has happened in this. Now, before I go over to say something about the United States, let me just see if there's anything else I should say to you. I believe that the breaking of militant Islam will probably come. I'm not going to be dogmatic about it, but I think it will come through little Israel. I think they are going to try to destroy Israel. The world is appeasing the Iranians at present and at some point they're going to come. If Musharraf gets assassinated, then the whole thing will change overnight because Pakistan is already a nuclear state and has nuclear devices and the whole thing could be shared. So that's how near we are to a tremendous climax to this war on terror. Myself, my own view is that they will attack Israel or seek to, and God will in some incredible way deliver Israel. And when he does, militant Islam's back will be broken. Now, in the prayer meeting, not all of you were there, obviously, in the prayer meeting, when I was asked, I did say something about Islam. I am amazed at the number of Muslims coming to the Lord Jesus. Absolutely amazed. Indonesia, they are coming to the Lord in droves. It's incredible. Bangladesh as well. In Athens even, there's a work called Helping Hands that I am very much associated with through some of those who are full time workers in it. And every week, whole families of Muslims are turning to the Lord. It has never happened before. I lived in Egypt for three years. I knew some of those missionaries who'd spent their whole lifetime in Egypt and could count on one hand those they’d led to the Lord, at the most, two hands. But they all said to me, there will come a day when a huge harvest will be reaped from Islam. I believe the Lord is beginning to do that. In Bethlehem, for instance, 300 Muslims turned up on Christmas Eve at our dear Pastor Naim Churi in Bethlehem, and a whole large number of them got saved. I’ve never heard of such a thing. In Jericho, these old ladies are meeting in Bible study. I mean, these old Muslim ladies, and they've all found the Lord. They've burnt the place down seven times so that the leader has said, it's the only church in Jericho that's on fire. I mean, I've never heard of such things. Same in the Galilee, people coming to the Lord. I could give you so many stories. My funniest story is when I went to the Convocation of the Nations in the high holy days, you know, Sukkot and so on, and it was one of these third world affairs. You never knew what time you were going to speak or how long it was going to go on. And I finally gave the message I had to give, and then before we could get away, the brother who was leading the thing just said to everybody, would every Arabic speaking leader here, please stand up, every Hebrew speaking leader, please stand up. I want everybody to pray for them. And then he said to the board, will you board members go round Lance and pray for him? So I had people all over me, hands all over the place, and one brother lying on his stomach with his hands around my ankle, he wrapped his hands around my ankles. And they were all praying that I would live to be 120. And I said to them, I don’t, I’m not sure I want to live to be 120. But I couldn't stop them. They went on praying. So the moment they were over, I thought, we better get out. And I tried to get out and went by and said goodbye to everyone, we went out and so on. It was clear it was going to go on to some hour in the early morning. And when I got outside, I was stopped by a very fine youngish man. And he said, Brother, you cannot go. We have something to do. And I looked at him and I wondered what it was. And then he said, These brothers of mine, there were five, six other brothers, they were all pastors, we're Kazakhs, he said, every one of us is a Muslim. We found the Lord, he said, and each one of us represents 1000, at least 1000 in an assembly. And he said, we want to make you a patriarch of the Kazakhs. So with that, without any more to do, he put this great robe on me and this like pilot hat on my head. And he said, now you're a patriarch of the Kazakhs. We honour you, we listen to your tapes, we translate them. And then one of the brothers said, tens of thousands of Kazakhs are coming to the Lord. And the others all said, yes, it is absolutely [true]. And I said, are you really? Is it true? Absolutely true. This has never happened before. The Lord showed me that when the back of militant Islam is broken, thousands and thousands of young men and women, Muslims, will come to the Lord, born of the Spirit, anointed with the Spirit, and they will go out into the Muslim world to preach the Gospel. Is it possible? I can only say that when I think of those old servants of God I knew all those years ago who had such an influence on my life, and all said, the harvest will come. Islam. God is on the throne. Here's the last thing: the United States. I have said two or three times, those of you who take the update, you know it, I've said that I have this terrible feeling that the United States is like the Titanic, invincible, powerful, full of life, eating, drinking, listening to music, bands playing, all lights on, and they're sailing into an iceberg and don't know it. I have never so far departed from that feeling. God did something in this nation, its origins, its foundations, with a Bible. And what he did for this nation is incredible. And she is now the only superpower at present in the world. Soon she will be eclipsed by China and India and Russia, but at present she is the one superpower. Why I call her an obstacle to the coming of the Antichrist is that there is a biblical conscience still in the American people. Even though it's fast draining away, there is still this residual Judeo-Christian conscience in the United States. That means that she cannot stand by when there's genocide or when minorities are destroyed. I think Satan has long, long desired to destroy the United States. Now, I know some of you will tell me about all the commercialism of the states, the corruption, the Mafia, and a 1001 things, all of it, it's in every nation. But in many of the nations, any vestige of Biblical or Gospel conscience has long since disappeared. Here there is still such a conscience, and this is, I think, an obstacle. Now, I remember very well when Derek and Ruth Prince sought the Lord together with others here in the United States. They felt that the United States was beginning to fall away, and they called upon the Lord to hear their prayer and they called people to fast. This is quite a few years ago now, must be 20 years ago, I don't know. And Derek said to me, and Ruth was the witness, he said, the Lord clearly spoke to my heart by the Spirit and said, I will give America eight more years. Those were the Reagan years. Since then, the Lord has given the first senior Bush years, which I think were, to be honest, somewhat of a disaster. This is from my point of view, because if he had dealt with Saddam Hussein as he should have done, his poor son wouldn't have had this problem. And then you had the incredible election of George Bush, a miracle, really. I think it was the Lord in mercy and grace giving the United States one last chance. Bush has stood up with enormous courage on issues that are not popular, abortion, gay rights, gay marriage, euthanasia. But the one thing that has been, in my estimation, the fatal mistake, has been the Promised Land. It is very interesting that when I was first saved, everybody used the term the Promised Land. I never hear it today. People don't use the term the Promised Land. Everyone referred to the land as the Promised Land. Sometimes they said the Holy Land, but normally always the Promised Land. Now, in my estimation, who promised this land? God. To whom did he promise this land? To the seed of Abraham through Isaac, not Ishmael. Through Jacob, not Esau. He made a separate covenant with the seed of Ishmael that he has kept to the letter, as I've already said. But the Promised Land was promised to the seed of Abraham through Isaac and through Jacob. And the Lord said throughout their generations. So these people who tell me that everlasting doesn't mean everlasting well, okay, okay, olam in Hebrew can sometimes mean duration of a long period, but not necessarily everlasting. But what about throughout their generations? That means whilst there is a generation of the physical seed of Abraham through Isaac and through Jacob, this covenant is operative. Now, you all know that God is called I Am. What does that mean? He's not “I Was” or “I Have Been that I Have Been” or I Will Be that I Will Be.” He is, I Am that I Am. Now, that means God lives in the eternal present. Is this too much for you? In other words, this morning the crucifixion took place, and this morning the burial took place, and today the resurrection took place and the ascension, it's all in the present with God. There's no dimension of past and present and future. God made a covenant today with Abraham, and along comes an American president with his Secretary of State and says, we don't feel this was politically correct, this covenant you've made. We feel that we have to change it because this is unjust. It's not correct, it's not right. And so we change it. Now, what happens? Very simple. That nation, no matter who it is, that empire, no matter what it is, that superpower, no matter who it is, is on a collision course with God. The Ottoman Empire was one of the greatest empires of world history, lasting well over 400 years over a vast area of land. When the Sultan was asked if he would allow there to be a Jewish autonomous state within the Ottoman Empire answering to it, he absolutely refused and the Ottoman Empire disappeared. The British Empire started as the great protector of the Jews with the mandatory promise of a homeland and then became their enemy. And I remember very well Alan Redpath standing in the pulpit when I was just a lad, stayed for a few years. It was Sunday morning and he stood up at the pulpit and he said, he had a big loud voice and he was very worked up about the matter, and he said, as surely as I stand in this pulpit this morning, God will judge the British Empire and the British Isles. She will lose all her empire and all her colonies and will become an offshore island of Europe because of what she has done to the Jewish people. At that point, the navy was shelling these unseaworthy boats full of survivors from the Holocaust and the air force was bombing them, stopped them from getting to Palestine. I lived to see it. I lived to see the dissolution of the British Empire. I saw people get up in the church and walk out. Great patriots, British patriots. They couldn't believe that a British pastor should say such a thing in a pulpit after we'd fought this terrible war. How could he say such a thing? I lived to see it. I saw the birth of Israel on the 14th of May, 1948, and the dissolution of the British Empire beginning at the same date with the secession of India. Today, Britain, the British Isles, are offshore isles fighting for her independence, afraid of Europe, not quite sure where her destiny lies with the States or with Europe. The Soviet Empire meddled with Jerusalem. Do you remember the verse? I think I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone. It sounds so poetic, but it just means a stone large enough to rupture you. If you take it from one place you think it should not be and put it where you think, you'll rupture yourself. Which does not mean you're finished, but it does mean your lifting days are finished. And that's exactly what's happened with the Ottoman Empire and with the British Empire and with the Soviet Empire. Who would have believed that the Soviet Empire would completely disappear? But they were behind three of the five wars that Israel fought and which should have been the destruction of Israel. They came to an end. Now we have militant Islam. They are even more adamant about this. They are going to exterminate us and liberate Jerusalem. And they believe that it is predestinated by Allah. But you have the United States. Golda Meir once said, when you have friends like these, you don't need enemies. I think the same about Tony Blair. He's now the special envoy of the Quartet to the Middle East. It's a disaster. He is a friend of Israel. No doubt about it, but it's a disaster. They are sold on the two state solution. The problem with the two state solution is very simple. Every single part of Israel will be within cannon fire. Not even really modern rockets, old fashioned katyushas. Now you understand our problem. I think this turmoil is very… we are watching Islam rising to its climax, it hasn't reached there yet. It is going to come there. I believe that God will deal with it. Praise his name. I remember how clearly when the Lord told me that he was going to deal with the Kremlin and it seemed so ridiculous at the time because the Kremlin was as powerful as it had ever been at that point, but God dealt with it. Could you ever believe that he could do such a thing? I believe he will do the same with Islam. And when he breaks it, out of it will come thousands upon thousands who will come to know the Lord and put all of us to shame with their devotion and zeal for the Lord Jesus. But what about the states? If I was an American, to use a biblical term, I would weep between the porch and the sanctuary. Maybe the Lord would hear. When the Lord spoke to me, he said to me, don't speak to me anymore. I will not be deferred. I will not defer this thing. But that does not mean that the United States could not see the greatest awakening in its history. God could do something here in the United States that would bring thousands and thousands into a knowledge of the Lord Jesus. I don't know if I can say anymore. It's enough, I think, for one evening. The best thing in all of this is Jesus. Our Lord Jesus is on the throne and he's not disturbed. He's waiting till the Father makes his enemies his footstool. He will come back on time, not early and not late. We should praise him. May your security be in the Lord. May you find your rest in Him. May you know the deep, deep love of Jesus.