hi meekandhumble. you may want to read the book of maccabees, and how antiochus epiphanus fulfilled the prophecy of daniel perfectly. this will shed a lot of light on a very misunderstood book of prophecy, that is misconstrued to this day by many denominations. antiochus did everything daniel said he would do, and died as daniel said he would die. its a fascinating read. Peace
As Benedict stated above, the prophecies of Daniel are basically past history. Ancient history even from our day.
To my mind the Anti-Christ would have to have the following abilities -
He’d need the military power to dominate the entire world. There’s only one nation that can currently do that, although in another twenty or thirty years it might find other nations can match it militarily.
He’d need technology such that '“no man can buy or sell without the mark of the beast”. In the poorest countries this is a long way off, but he probably wouldn’t care what the poorest nations did. But we now live in an age where air force officers at Edwards Air Force base drop missiles by remote control on Afghan tribesmen, and satellites can zero in on any point of the earth’s surface. No doubt you’ve looked at your own home via Google Earth or some other agency. We can navigate a strange city via GPS if we want to. Mobile phones can easily be triangulated.
Chips are already inserted for health reasons, and some security agencies probably use them. Our dog had one in case he was lost. And there are some that can be detected by satellite.
He’d go through an apparent death and resurrection, or maybe a real death and resurrection by the devil, just as Christ died and was resurrected by God.
He’d appoint ten “kings” as world wide administrators. These days they’d be more likely to be politicians, national presidents and the like as royalty is a bit thin on the ground in this modern age.
He’d need a crisis or series of crises to give him the excuse to seize power. I can think of 3 major flash points and they haven’t changed much in years - the Middle East, India / Pakistan, and North and South Korea.
He’d need a legitimate way of getting into power in the first place. At the moment, I can’t think of any immediate way this bloke could seize power legally. But I’m not au fait with the constitutional law of major powers.
I remember my old pastor passing comment on who he thought the anti-Christ might be, and that our particular “king” would be an Australian politician. The pastor died in 1992, but he commented, “I don’t see all these things happening until he’s in his seventies” (the Australian politician). The Australian “king” he was talking about turned 70 last year.
If he was right, the next few years are going to be instructive.