AND SO IT BEGAN: FROM THE ROOT OF ANTICHRIST’S TREE TO THE MANIFEST BEAST OF BABYLON (WITH VIDEO)

THEOLOGY

SCRIPTURE. “Now the Serpent was more crafty (subtle, skilled in deceit) than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And the Serpent (Satan) said to the woman, ‘Can it really be that God has said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’” – GENESIS 3:1, AMP

KEY TERM: “CRAFTY.” ‘Arum’ [עָר֔וּם]: “Cunning, subtil, [darkly] prudent; shrewd.” NOTE: “עָרוּם (’ārûm) appears eleven times in the Old Testament. Its context-driven nuance oscillates between ‘Sinful Craftiness’ [or] ‘Godly Prudence.’ The Word’s placement at Watershed Passages—Beginning with the Serpent in Genesis and recurring through Job’s dialogues and the Proverbs of Solomon—‘Creates a literary thread that CONTRASTS Deceptive Self-Reliance with Discerning Reliance on the Lord.’”

QUOTATION. “But still Adam holds his ground. ‘The Woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ He confesses his sin, but as he confesses, he takes to flight again. ‘You have given me the Woman, not I. I am not guilty, you are guilty.’ The double light of Creation and Sin is exploited. ‘The woman is surely Your creature, it is your own work that has caused me to fall. Why have you brought forth an imperfect creation, and is it my fault?‘ So instead of surrendering Adam falls back on one art learned from the Serpent, that of correcting the idea of God, of appealing from God the Creator to a better, a different God. That is, he flees again.

‘The Woman takes to flight with him and blames the Serpent; that is, she really blames the Creator of the Serpent.’ Adam has not surrendered, he has not confessed. He has appealed to his conscience, to his knowledge of Good and Evil, and out of this knowledge he has accused his Creator. He has not recognized the Grace of the Creator which proves itself true by the fact that He calls Adam, by the fact that He does not let him flee. Adam sees this Grace only as hate, as wrath, and this wrath kindles his own hate, his Rebellion, his will to escape from God. ‘Adam [and Eve both] Remain in The Fall. The Fall accelerates and becomes Infinite.’” ― DIETRICH BONHOEFFER,Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies, 1932; edited

NOTE. “God prohibited Adam and Eve from eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to PRESERVE their innocence, ESTABLISH a relationship based on trust and obedience, and PROTECT them from the experience of sin and its consequences, which included Spiritual Separation from Him. ‘The Prohibition was also a test of their FREE WILL to demonstrate their love and trust in God.’” – AI Overview, ret. Dec. 2, 2025; edited

Selah.

II. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL

When I was but a wee lad in the Lord, I came across a brilliant though somewhat controversial theologian named ERICH SAUER (1898–1959), a German Dispensationalist associated with the Plymouth Brethren. You will note the years of his matriculation which included the Nazi Era in Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

Ironically, despite his rich Biblical grounding, he was temporarily convinced that Hitler was, like America’s Trump, the vehicle that God would use to exalt the Christian Faith and protect Israel. The ‘Parallel’ here is astonishing here as we look back at the repetition of Error, as though Nazi Germany would in virtually every way serve as ‘Dark Harbinger of today’s America.’

His Theology however remained a virtual magnum opus among his peers, a two-volume masterpiece titled: The Dawn of World Redemption (1951), and Triumph of the Crucified (1951). I purchased copies of his work for mere comparative pennies, though today Amazon is posting them at well over $400 per copy!

THE BEGINNING OF BEGINNINGS. I have never read a more provocative, deeply engaging, almost poetic rendering of an Commentary to this Mind-Rending Idea. So here it is, verbatim, as he penned it over 70 years ago.

It is simply too profound, too rich, to merely paraphrase it. This section is from the first of his two works.

“AND YET! Into this Universe, which was appointed to the Highest, which the Creator had called that it should become a vessel to reveal His glory, there has entered ‘A BREACH!’ ‘The united harmony of the spheres is destroyed by a Harsh Discord. SIN has appeared, and criminally set itself against the holy, loving Plans of God to reveal Himself.’

Through the Sin of Mankind this Lower Earth is devastated (Gen. 3: 17, 18; Rom. 8:20), and, in the Heavenly World above, as the history of temptation in the Bible premises, ‘A FALL’ had taken place among the Angels prior to the Fall of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3: 1-7; 2:15). Yet how this was possible, and why God permitted it, no one can say. The Origin of Evil remains forever ‘a Mystery.’ Even the few hints that the Scripture gives are no more than suggestive.

Satan Before The Fall. God’s Universal Kingdom of Creation is divided, as it appears, into a number of Provinces, the Material and Spiritual Organization of each of which is entrusted to a definite ‘Angel Prince’ [e.g., my wife’s encounter with “Broad-Wing”] so to speak, ‘Viceroy of God.’ Thus, there are Angels for Children (Matt. 18:10), for Adults (Acts 12:15), for whole Lands and Nations, as Persia (Dan. 10:13), Greece (Dan. 10:20), Israel (Dan.10:21;12:1).

This assumes that in the World of Light as also in the World of Darkness there are ANGEL ORGANIZATIONS, which wield power in certain Regions and hold Ranks differing according to the size of the respective areas. Thus, the Scripture speaks, for example, of the Archangel Michael and his Angels, as well as of The Dragon and his angels (Rev. 12: 7). In fact Paul speaks of ‘Thrones, Governments, Princedoms and Authorities’ (Col. 1: 16; Eph. 1:21) not only in the Visibile but also in the Invisible World) …

THE FALL OF SATAN. There must therefore have arrived in the Prehistoric Eternity ‘A MOMENT!’ when this World-Prince of God ‘Renounced’ his allegiance to the Most High, and thereby ‘Changed’ from a ‘Lucifer,’ a ‘Lightbearer of the Divine Glory,’ into an ‘Adversary of God’ anda ‘Slanderer’ of His saints.

LUCIFER. in Latin equals ‘Light-Bearer.’ The name ‘Lucifer’ originates in ISAIAH 14:12 [‘Day Star’] and is first a figurative term for the God-Resisting KING OF BABYLON [‘ANTICHRIST’]; but who, however, in his turn, in the view of the Prophet, as it would seem, is ‘a Type’ of his Demonic Overlord, SATAN.

“How have you fallen from heaven, O light-bringer and daystar, son of the morning! How you have been cut down to the ground, you who weakened and laid low the nations [O blasphemous, satanic king of Babylon!]. And you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit upon the mount of assembly in the uttermost north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol (Hades), to the innermost recesses of the pit (the region of the dead). Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you, saying, Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms?—Who made the world like a wilderness and overthrew its cities, who would not permit his prisoners to return home?” – ISAIAH 14:12-17, AMPC

SATAN. ‘Shatan,’ i.e., Enemy, Adversary, quite generally: 1 Kings 11: 14, 23, 25; before a Court, Psa. 109:6; in Num. 22:22 even of the ‘Angel of Jehovah.’ Gk. ‘Diabolos’ i.e. Devil from ‘Dia-ballo,’ to cast through, to criticize, in an antagonistic sense ‘To Accuse’, either Falsely (2 Macc. 4:1) or by saying the Truth (Dan. 3:8): Comp. Luke 16:1 with Rev. 12:10.

From that time on: ‘A Mighty Breach runs through the Cosmos, and an organized Opposing Kingdom of Evil confronts the Universal Kingdom of God’ (Matt. 12: 26). Satan as a Ruler has in turn Princes and Authorities under himself (Dan. 10: 13, 20; Eph. 6: 12):

‘THE OPPOSITION between [Satan] and the Kingdom of God is henceforth the Theme and the essential Subject of the universal SUPER HISTORY outlined in Holy Scripture.’”

DK SUMMARY: ¡Este es todo el juego de pelota cósmico, amada! That is to say for all you non-Hispanic Gringos out there who also love the Lord: “This is the whole Cosmic Ballgame, beloved!” I mean, ‘All of it! That in its righteous turn must be the following equally GRAND QUESTION:

WHO among us all, dear friends, just WHO would not want to join in this Last Great Struggle for Christ and Truth and Eternity? Who?

III. ROOTS OF ANTICHRIST

We are swimming in some pretty deep waters here, beloved, but I strongly believe we are to finish this course in order to more accurately assess at least TWO THINGS by which we make Effective Spiritual Warfare: (1) Know the Nature of the Battle in which we are engaged; (2) Know the Enemy with whom we engage.- cf. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, c. 5^th Century B.C.

ORIGINS OF ANTICHRIST. After an extended search for a responsible Biblical treatment of this important issue and finding very little, I settled on an essay from a presumably Secular source, the Encyclopedia Britannica, by DR. ROBERT E. LERNER (Ph.D.Princeton, 1964). Title: “Antichrist” (Nov. 29, 2025; edited).

His Bio reports that he is Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Humanities, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He is author of several works, including: The Feast of St. Abraham (2001); The Powers of Prophecy (1983); and Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (1972).

OPEN. “‘Antichrist is the polar opposite and ultimate Enemy of Christ.’ According to Christian Tradition, he will reign terribly in the period prior to the Last Judgment. The term ‘Antichrist’ first appeared in the Letters of John (1 John 2:18, l2:22, and 4:3; 2 John 1:7), and the fully developed story of Antichrist’s life and reign is found in Medieval texts. As applied to various individuals and institutions for nearly two millennia, ‘Antichrist’ and ‘Precursor of Antichrist’ [“Whoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, is in his elation the Precursor of Antichrist”] have been, and remain, terms of the most intense opprobrium. – Pope Gregory the Great, c. 595 A.D.].”

ROOTS. “The Christian Conception of Antichrist was derived from Jewish Traditions, particularly the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible [the Tanakh]. Written about 167 B.C. it foretold the coming of a Final Persecutor who would ‘speak great words against the most High and wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws’ (7:25). Scholars agree that the Author of Daniel was alluding to the contemporary Hellenistic ruler of Palestine, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who tried to extirpate Judaism. But because Antiochus was not named, later readers could apply the prediction in Daniel to ‘Any Persecutor.’ Early Christians applied it to the Roman Emperors who persecuted the Church, in particular, Nero (reigned 54–68 A.D.).”

GOSPEL. “The Four Books of the New Testament that fueled Christian belief in Antichrist were the first two Epistles of John, the Revelation to John, and the Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians. The first three of these were written near the end of the 1st Century A.D.; the last was written either by St. Paul the Apostle shortly after 50 A.D. Neither 2 Thessalonians nor Revelation uses the term ‘Antichrist,’ but both works refer to ‘a COMING PERSECUTOR’ who is evidently the same person. The First Epistle of John introduces an important distinction between ‘the’ Antichrist who will come and the ‘many’ antichrists’ who are already active in the world. This Distinction not only enabled believers to denigrate contemporaries as ‘antichrists’ without having to label a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL as ‘the’ Antichrist but also allowed them to identify the ‘Body of Antichrist’ as a ‘COLLECTIVITY’ existing in the present but destined to have its Day of Triumph in the Future.”

CANON. “‘Nevertheless, Early Christians tended to emphasize the coming of the ONE GREAT ANTICHRIST!’ The Revelation to John refers to this figure as ‘The Beast from the Abyss’ (11:7) and ‘The Beast from the Sea’ (13:1). Many interpret the Number of the Beast in Revelation 13:18—given as 666, or in some readings 616—to be a Gematria reference to Emperor Nero. In the most sustained account of the Antichrist’s appearance, 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12, he is called ‘The MAN of Sin’ and ‘SON of Perdition.’ ‘He will come at a ‘Time of a ‘General [Church-wide] APOSTASY, will ‘DECEIVE people’ with signs and wonders, ‘SIT in the temple of God and Claim to be God Himself!’ Finally, he will be ‘Defeated by Jesus,’ Who will destroy him by ‘the Spirit of His mouth’ and ‘the Brightness of His Coming!’ (2:8).”

SYNCRETISM. “‘The MEDIEVAL VIEW of Antichrist’ communicated by Adso, Ripelin, and a host of other writers rested on the Principle that Antichrist is the Parodic Opposite of Christ in all things. ‘Antichrist’ literally means ‘Opposed to Christ.’ Thus, as Christ was born of a Virgin by means of Conception by the Holy Spirit, so Antichrist will be born of a Whore by means of conception by a spirit. Although opinions differed as to whether Antichrist’s father will be a man or a demon, in either case Antichrist will be, as commonly noted in the Middle Ages diabolical, ‘Full of the Devil’ from the time of his conception. Both Christ and Antichrist are born of the Jews, but Antichrist will be born of the Tribe of Dan—‘The Viper in the road’ (Genesis 49:17)—rather than the Tribe of Judah, and in ‘Babylon,’ not Bethlehem. Like Christ, Antichrist will grow up in obscurity and begin his open ‘ministry’ at age 30, gaining followers by giving signs and performing miracles. The signs and miracles once more are polar opposites of Christ’s, because Antichrist’s supposed miracles will be only tricks.”

JUDGMENT. “Antichrist’s Triumphant Reign (never clearly distinguished from the Start of his Ministry) will last for Three and a Half Years. Like Christ, Antichrist will come to Jerusalem but, as the Opposite of Christ, ‘he will be enthusiastically hailed and revered by the Jews. During his reign he will rebuild The Temple and sit on the Throne of Solomon in a sacrilegious and hideous inversion of just priesthood and just kingship. He will convert the Rulers of the Earth to his cause and persecute Christians dreadfully. All those who resist his wiles will be tortured, and—as Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:21—there will be ‘Great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now.’ The two great Prophets Enoch and Elijah, who never died but were spirited away to the ‘Earthly Paradise,’ will arrive to preach against the Tyrant and comfort the Elect, but Antichrist will slay them. ‘At the end of the allotted three and a half years, however, Antichrist will be destroyed by the power of Christ, whereupon, after a very brief interval, there will come the Last Judgment and the End of the World.’”

HETERODOXY. “‘Nevertheless, beginning in the 16th Century, the fixation on Antichrist as a coming or present terrible individual gave way to the view of Antichrist as a COLLECTIVE BODY OF EVIL.’ This position had been accepted in the abstract by some medieval theologians, but it was made concrete and popular by Martin Luther who insisted that the Institution of The Papacy rather than any given Pope, was Antichrist. Modern Protestants have characteristically preferred to conceive of Antichrist as ‘whatever resists or denies the lordship of Christ,’ though the idea of an Individual as the Antichrist gained popularity among some Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians in the 20th century. Roman Catholics have become less inclined to identify Antichrist as a specific coming individual.”

IMPLICATIONS. Now then Class, here is where we are as a result of where an often-Distractable and frankly Arrogant Church has taken us.

ALLEGORIZATION. Thanks to just a few Early Church Fathers (Origen, Augustine, et al.) we were moved away from a ‘Literalist’ Hermeneutic regarding Eschatology, to a ‘Spiritualized’ Framework of those passages. Thus, they were cast as moral lessons and therefore no longer had a literal, Future Fulfillment.
CALVINISM. This massive movement `took up where Augustine left off with their doctrine of “Perseverance of the Saints,” in which it is ‘God Alone’ (by the Holy Spirit) that was responsible for the ‘Endurance’ called for by Christ in Matthew 24:13: “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Therefore, while the Calvin would certainly adhere to the most Fundamental Tenets of the Christian Faith, he would not be so concerned about “falling away” because of a grotesque misreading of God’s Promise in Romans 8:35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Or, as it is universally interpreted and preached: ‘Nothing! No one! No matter what!’
HYPERGRACE. By the time The Evangelicals arose as a well-intended Reformation of past theological drifting beginning in the 1950s-1960s, the stage was set for a further Departure from Orthodoxy. It took place between the twin assaults of the Once-Saved-Always-Saved Heresy alongside the hideous Prosperity Gospel that largely came out of the Oral Roberts school of thought and practice. Since it was up to ‘God alone’ (and not ‘Christian Obedience’) that gets us saved, American Christianity’s conception of “Eternal Security” became something unrecognizable to both Christ and most Church Fathers.
DOMINIONISM. On top of all this, we witnessed in mostly stupefied ignorance as the waves of ROUSAS RUSHDOONY and his insidious, Hyper-Calvinist Christian Reconstructionism movement piled onto all this Error. They aggressively proposed the Restoration of Old Testament Law in order to ‘Construct a Theonomic Order,’ hardly distinguishable from ‘Theocracy, to TAKE OVER all leading institutions. Later to be resurrected by The Charismatics from the New Apostolic Reformation. Then later perfected by LANCE WALLNAU’S hideous Seven Mountain Mandate (with Bill Johnson, 2013).

DK NOTE. Thus has Satan spent no fewer than 2,000 years to ‘Reconstruct’ Orthodox Christianity to an Americanized False Gospel that would not only listen to, but receive its ‘Biblical Antichrist’ in the form of DONALD TRUMP. The very ‘One’ who promised to Restore American Greatness that had subtly become our ‘Golden Calf’ spawned by a Hype-Patriotic fervor unprecedented in all our history.

And IF I am right and true regarding these grave matters, here is what JESUS WARNS:

“Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.” JOHN 8:42-47, NKJV

RETURN! While there is still a little time, beloved, if you are following after Trump’s Christian Nationalism Movement, ‘please!’

IV. LAST THOUGHTS: AMERICAN BABYLON

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.’ So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness.

And I saw a Woman sitting on a Scarlet Beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The Woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication … Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” – REVELATION 17:1-4, 9, NKJV

I shall be quick at this last piece of business, beloved. I have for the past three years or so increasingly become increasingly convicted: ‘Donald Trump is the BIBLICAL ANTICHRIST, and that America constitutes what Scripture prophesied would be a massive, hegemonic world power called, BABYLON THE GREAT.’

Since I have treated this in considerable detail in two previous Commentaries, let me cut straight to The Argument as summarized by Christian activist attorney JOHN PRICE in his landmark book,The End of America: The Role of Islam in the End Times and Biblical Warnings to Flee America, 2013; edited.

Fair Warning: This will not be an easy read given its stunning content.

“What the reference to ‘Babylon the Great Riding on a Beast with Seven Mountains,’ could refer to instead, however, is the fact that the Earth has seven major land masses, or continents, containing various heights of mountains: Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica, each rising up out of the depths of the seas. ‘Since the Daughter of Babylon/Babylon the Great is described as the ‘End Times Hammer of the whole earth,’ its depiction as riding on, or having power or authority over, the Seven Continents of the Earth makes sense. No prior World Empire could make this claim. ‘The Bible only describes ONE ENTITY, Babylon the Great, as riding upon the back of the whole world. Only AMERICA can claim such sweeping influence over the globe.’ In addition, since Revelation 17:3 and 17:7 refer to Babylon the Great sitting upon or Riding on a Beast, a Dominant Position of Babylon the Great is clearly being depicted.”

CODA. So, there it is, beloved, the place where ten intense years of study have brought me to propose concerning both PRESIDENT TRUMP and the “New America” that he is rapidly fashioning. Nothing less than the Revelator’s PROSTITUTED END-TIMES BEAST, a hideous contortion of evil men and demons cast far from the Founder’s Vision of a ‘City on a Hill.’

If I’m right (and the vast majority of the White Church believe otherwise), then we have much to do to PREPARE for what is coming, dear friends.

‘Taking as many with us as possible, before Shiloh Arrives.’

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/r2xmxcX711E