Seven Signs of the Antichrist
- The Man of Sin
- Unaccountable
- The Great Deceiver
- Accepting Divine Honors
- The Head Wound
- Was, Is Not, and Yet Is
- Foretold
First Sign: the Man of Sin
The Antichrist’s major characteristic is that he will be revealed as “a man of sin” [2 Thes. 2:3], for which Donnie could be the proud poster boy. Jeffrey Epstein’s good buddy’s transgressions are countless; he has brazenly committed every one of the seven deadly sins repeatedly with no discernible sense of shame. Trump has boasted of his greed and sexually assaulting women, called on his critics to be arrested or killed, openly envies dictators, has cheated and betrayed employees, contractors, and followers, and constantly brims with overflowing rage at perceived slights because of his overwhelming vanity (more on that later). And who knows how many thousands of Americans died during the pandemic from listening to this man’s lies?
Second Sign: Unaccountable
All that is surely dreadful enough; what really makes people suspect an unnatural aspect to it is that Trump has gotten away with everything. Everything! He has survived business and marriage failures and his own bad advice on Covid, not to mention two impeachments and a failed coup. Now, having won the presidency again, this man will face virtually no consequences from all the crimes of which he has been accused from rape to tax evasion to rebellion and making a mockery of national security. Donald Trump strolls through life as if he knows he is somehow specially blessed, entitled, and protected, and so far, he has been.
Third Sign: the Great Deceiver
Anyone who has paid any attention at all must realize that Trump lies, all the time, to everyone. So much so, that trying to correct his falsehoods, or even to account for many of them, is a fool’s game. And to get him to own up to any of it is impossible, for Trump has truly mastered Hitler’s technique of the Big Lie: accuse continually, attack relentlessly, and never accept one’s own weakness or error.
As part of this strategy, Trump repeatedly charges his opponents of doing exactly what he himself is guilty of – so he is endlessly blaming everyone else for lying while admitting nothing. His huckstering is infinite – he’s even put his brand on the Holy Bible, as well as failed casinos, a university, steaks and more. Because his word is worthless, all who trust him, from intimate associates to underlings, allies, followers, and investors, must inevitably be betrayed if it in any way seems in his interest.
Many of those unfortunates, most often former close associates and intimate acquaintances, have then publicly uttered direly serious warnings about this man. Yet no matter what, from no matter whom, all such cautionary admonitions have gone unheeded, fallen on deaf ears.
Fourth Sign: Accepting Divine Honors
It is painfully obvious that Donald Trump cares for nothing and nobody other than himself. The size of his vanity is illustrated by the enormity of his name slapped on buildings and everything he sells. His pride is as immense as it is hollow, propped up by lies, and built on nothing but sand.
Worse, other people stoke it, and shamefully, some of these are professed Christian ministers who should definitely know better. Yet, they boldly compare him to the Cyrus, king of Persia, who liberated the Jews, and most disgracefully, even as a messianic figure like Christ. As he himself has, perfectly delighted to use their faith which he holds in contempt. These supposed people of God have made a deal with the Devil in their desperate but futile attempt to put sexual freedoms back in the closet. They should remember that followers of the Antichrist wind up in the lake of fire, too.
Fifth Sign: the Head Wound
This sign is one of the most shocking, and possibly the most definitive. That bizarre attempted assassination at the rally where the bullet merely grazed Trump’s right ear was so wildly improbable that it was either rigged – or meant to happen by Someone Else.
For the implications of Trump’s bleeding ear are literally apocalyptic. Because a little-known theory has circulated for many years that the Antichrist would be a politician who will overcome a head wound.
Here is the relevant verse from the Book of Revelation, talking about the seven-headed Beast from the Sea, identified as that special man of sin, the Antichrist:
One of his heads looked like it had been wounded fatally. His fatal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled at the beast. [Rev. 13:3]
The Beast, it was believed, would be killed by a “sword wound” to a head, or made to seem so. Then he must be somehow miraculously (or deceitfully) raised from the dead by Satan. (Sure would make a great scene in the movie.) Many thinkers, however, settled for the simple explanation of a political leader surviving a head injury from a failed assassination attempt, which nobody had ever done – until now.
Sixth Sign: Was, Is Not, and Yet Is
The language of prophecy is often pretty strange; images are highly symbolic and strangely interconnected which make a strictly literal interpretation impossible. Yet there are many curious connections that invite speculation on their meaning. Metals or animals often represent kingdoms or empires, for instance; horns, individual rulers. But interpretation can get really complicated very quickly.
The monstrous “Beast from the Sea” in Revelation is much like the beasts described by the Prophet Daniel centuries before. One of those critters had a number of horns, as does the Beast, so those sets of prophecies are often considered together. Curiously, the angel in Revelation refers to this Beast, doomed to destruction, as one who “was, and is not; and yet is.” [Rev. 17:8].
Based on this, Daniel, and the verse quoted before, many literalist prophecy teachers have thought it meant that the Antichrist yet to come could be the ruler of a revived Roman Empire. Some felt the context related more of a system that had been destroyed and was rebuilt rather than some individual ruler coming back. (This was where all the hysteria came from decades ago about the Common Market, predecessor of the European Union, as the “New Roman Empire”.)
Yet, that is precisely what Trump is. He was once president, then was not, yet is to be again. He somehow accomplished a feat achieved only once before in American history and that by Grover Cleveland – returning to supreme executive power after being out for a term. And that, after his failed insurrection should have left him justly banished forever in irredeemable disgrace as the traitor he is.
Seventh Sign: Foretold
This is where it gets really weird. One might reasonably wonder if the identity of a figure so important as the Antichrist might not be foreseen just by prophets but by sensitive artists and writers as well. Donald Trump has been foretold by them also, very clearly – and warned against, even by name, too.
The warnings that appeared in fiction were as ignored as all those from his associates. These, however, have an eerie ring of truth that is almost prescient in nature.
Many people are familiar with the fact that a 2000 episode of The Simpsons first predicted a Trump presidency as a joke, but it was actually put in as a warning. Since then, many Trump predictions supposedly from that animated series have appeared, many of them hoaxes. Yet there was one in 2015 — the last real prophecy of Trump’s political rise to come out in popular culture before it actually happened — and it predicted his run in 2024.
The first might be found in the Baron Trump children’s novels by Ingersoll Lockwood. He wrote two books, published in 1889 and 1893, about the fantastic adventures of a rich young German aristocrat who lived in “Castle Trump”. Although named Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Von Troomp, the kid goes by his title, “Baron Trump”. Since Trump has used the alias “John Barron” and named his youngest son Barron, too, it is likely he is quite aware of the books, although he probably never read them.
Ominously, after those books, Lockwood then wrote another novel called 1900; or The Last President, where New York City is torn apart by riots after the victory of dark horse populist candidate, causing the downfall of the United States. Funny kind of coincidence, that.
Of course, Trump and his infamous family have long been in the public eye. In 1954, Woodie Guthrie, the famous folk singer, wrote a protest song about Donald’s evil dad, Fred, “Old Man Trump”, condemning him for racial hatred stirred up by his segregated housing. So these last items may be based on simple notoriety, but their visionary accuracy is remarkable in any case. Could life be imitating art?
On May 9, 1958, CBS broadcast an episode of its Trackdown series, “The End of the World”. The show was a typical Western of the era, featuring a young Robert Culp as a Texas Ranger who in this episode wanders into a small town. There he encounters a sleazy con-man named Walter Trump, played by veteran character actor Lawrence Dobkin. This Trump terrifies the gullible inhabitants with tricks, predicting their destruction that very night from falling meteorites (!), unless they pay him for his specially marked umbrellas to form a magic wall of protection over them and their livestock. “I am the only one,” he proclaims just like Donald would years later. “Trust me! I can build a wall around your homes nothing can penetrate!” And a riot quickly follows.
When Culp’s character, Hoby Gilman, tries to intervene, Trump threatens to sue him. After resisting a bribery attempt, Hoby finally arrests Trump as he prepares to sneak away with his ill-gotten loot. Trump is then shot by the corrupt sheriff with whom he was in cahoots, but the town doesn’t return to normal until the citizens find the courage to put down their parasols festooned with Trump’s magic symbols, realizing at last that he lied.
As astonishingly apt as that is, the final set of predictions may be just as scarily accurate. According to Bob Gale, the screenwriter of the Back to the Future trilogy, the character of Biff Tannen, played by Tom Wilson, essentially the villain of the series, was based on Donald Trump when he was just a casino owner.
Biff Tannen had already been shown as a sexual assaulter and bully in the first movie. In this, the second film, Back to the Future II , he steals the time machine and a sports almanac which allows his younger self to basically take over the town. With his dirty winnings, Tannen builds a giant casino and rules as a despot, turning the community into a dystopian violence-ridden hellscape solely devoted to Biff’s glorification to hide his murders and other crimes. As speculation based upon character, the story could not be more jaw-dropping in its accurate depiction of Donald Trump’s worst flaws.
What about 666?
The one thing everyone knows about the Antichrist is that he is somehow associated with the number 666. This is generally thought to be a coded reference to the Roman Emperor Nero, still the best known of Rome’s many bad emperors. Nero’s death was feared by many Romans to be a fake, and that he would some day return even worse than before.
Donald John Trump does resemble Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus in so many ways, being likewise tyrannical, egotistic, and debauched. But the closest association with the number itself comes through real estate. 666 Fifth Avenue is just down the street from Trump Tower, and he seems to have had a complicated series of investments in the property along with his in-laws, the Kushners.
Yet it must be admitted that in this, the prediction has not yet been plainly fulfilled. If and when it is, the solution may suddenly seem obvious, just the way the head wound now does. Prophecy often works that way.
So could Donald J. Trump really be the Antichrist, or is he just the next worst thing?