King Saul and Antichrist

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning, Good morning, Good morning everyone. It is Thursday, September the nineteenth, twenty twenty four. It is currently eleven twelve am Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, if you've been listening for any length of time, you know that when I do sermon reviews that sometimes many times, most of the time, sometimes I guess may not be completely accurate. I think there are definitely times, let's say it that way, there are definitely times where the review just goes all wrong. It just it just turns into I mean, there's no nice way of saying it turns into a dumpster fire. It just turns into an absolute disaster.

1:06 It goes off the rails, and it just kind of like what happened, right, Because the original idea, Oh, let's I want to listen to a sermon, Let's just choose a random one, let's review it in real time, Let's see what happens. Because again I don't listen to it first. So sometimes when I you know, by the time I'm done with the sermon review, I'm like, why, why why do I do this? How messed up can things get? And sometimes it just feels like it becomes way too negative. And I don't like when it gets way too negative. So you know that I have, well kind of there's a typical thing I do when I feel that it goes negative. I try my best to say, Okay, that happened.

1:48 There's nothing I can do about it. Because because I review the sermons randomly, so there was no agenda, I didn't know what was going to happen. So everyone got to experience it in real time. Now what can I do? Do I just walk away? Do I just say, well, that was a train wreck, that was a dumpster fire, just walk away and let the fire burn itself out or let someone come put the fire out? Like, do I just walk away? Or do I go okay, okay, okay. Let's now try to take something from it and turn it into something positive. Let's try to do something with it so that we can expand on a text of scripture, explore something philologically, doctrinately, exegetically, and let's try to do something positive with it. Well, if you were listening yesterday. Oh, I broadcasted for a long time. Yesterday. There were a number of hours of broadcast. Yesterday. We were reviewing a message entitled Restoration of Israel Part one. Restoration of Israel Part one. And I obviously when I started the review, I had forgotten. I I mean, because I had listened to them before. But you know, I listen to a lot of things, so sometimes you just don't immediately go wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait, that's that program that's basically a radio program and they have you know, you know, ten fifteen minute music interlude, they have, you know, ten fifteen minute of prayer request Like I should have. That should have dawned on me, but I completely forgot. So obviously the review

3:22 kind of went off thrills, right, and it's not even anything that they had done. I mean, that's there's their radio program. I just wasn't ready in the middle of the review to go, oh wait, guys, here's like a fifteen minute music music musical interlude. Wait a minute, and it's like that. So I messed up the flow. It messed up everything. Also, I had no idea that they were just gonna drag out kind of like their intro They're just kind of like, took forever. Tonight we will be talking about the restoration of Israel, and just keep they kept hyping it and teasing it, and radio you'll call that a tease. They keep throwing out the teas and it just kept like okay, okay, okay. So we basically reviewed someone constantly teasing what they were going to do.

4:06 And then by the time we actually got to them starting to talk about the restoration of Israel, we'd already I had already been broadcasting well over an hour and it was like, oh man, this has turned into a disaster. But before that first hour ended, we already knew it was already a sign that things were about to get very weird, because we realized that they were utilizing a booklet called the Restoration of Israel written by Peter Ruckman, and I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, that can't be you know, the Ruckman Nights, ruckmanism. It can't be Peter Ruckman, all right, And next it's just say KJV only that would be that would be the biggest understatement ever. I mean, we could get into all the doctrine of Peter Ruckman and it's just it's it's a bizarre journey, right. I mean, he he was very he was prominent in some circles of the independent fundamental Baptist world. But there were many within the independent Baptist world who absolutely condemned Peter Ruckman and said absolutely not.

5:11 So to say controversial would be an understatement, right. So as soon as I heard that, I'm like, oh no, we are in trouble, right. And they made and there was a lot of statements made that we could discuss, but two statements that I'm for this episode that I want to focus on. They made two statements. One statement was that Solomon and the Old Testament represents Jesus, and I'm like, whoa, wait what, Okay, so we will explore that. The other one was that Saul King Saul in the Old Testament represents the Anti Christ. And I was like, okay, now as we continued our review, so just keep that in mind. Those were two statements. Or Solomon represents Jesus, Saul represents Antichrist. Keep that in mind or right. So we heard that and I acknowledged both of those statements and was kind of like, wait what, And I said that we need to do something with the Saul Anti Christ one rack. I kind of made a little statement there maybe we need to work on that. I told all of you that you could you take a piece of paper divided in have King Saul on one side, the Anti Christ on the other, and then see if you can find verses that would you know, connect the two or or something we could do with it. Right, So I kind of gave you that challenge, but we moved on. We just moved on because I mean, it's the middle of a sermon. Review so the first one ended it was a disaster. It was a train wreck.

6:38 It was it was just a waste of time from a review perspective, and that's my own fault. But the only way to fix that again would be I listened to what I review first. And I don't want to do that because then the reviews come across as having an agenda, being rehearsed, being overly produced, instead of the feeling I want to create. Hey guys, I'm in my studio. It's time for me to listen to a sermon. Come join me. Let's listen to it in real time. We just never know what we're going to get, all right, So the only way to fix it is to turn this into something I don't want it to turn into, because then people can accuse me of, oh, you just picked bad sermons so you can look good. No. I pick random sermons so that I can listen to sermons.

7:23 I can't help it if sometimes when the sermons I listen to I have strong disagreements with. But it wasn't even so much about disagreement. And the first one, right, the first one really wasn't so much about disagreeing. It was just kind of like, Wow, that was a long time to finally get to the topic. So then I was like, Okay, I've got to get back to the topic. So I decided let's do part two, and so we picked up where we left off. They had gone to a basically a commercial break. They come back in from their commercial break and boom we start the review and everything is going going pretty good. Throat. They make some They make a couple of references at the end of part one they made are part one of our review.

8:07 They made a statement about Matthew twenty four that I disagreed with, but we really everything was still kind of moving forward, all right, talking about the restoration of Israel. They quote some other verses. Okay, they made some kind of comments about the Holocaust and a verse in Isaiah that kind of made me very uncomfortable. All right, still though, trying to maintain a positive outlook, everything is going great. Then they get to Isaiah chapter nine, verse six, and then they basically make this statement that Jesus is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I'm like, wait, what in the world is going on? That is straight modalism, right, that's that's a heretical view of the Godhead. That's not trinitarianism. Look, there's no way. So we backed it up, we listened to it again, started doing some work, and we took it apart and they they have a blend. So we found their statement of faith and we found that their their statement of faith is just a convoluted mess. It utilizes some what appears to be trinitarian language, but at the same time modalism is all over it. So it's a it's it's by if I want to just be nice, it's a misleading, confusing, discombobulated understanding of the Godhead. That's to be nice. If I want to be probably maybe a little bit more blunt, and you may just straight

9:37 up say it's heretical and it's modalism. Now, the fact that they mentioned Peter Ruckman, all of a sudden, I realized, wait a minute, their idea of the Godhead really sounds like Peter Ruckman. So is this like a full blown Ruckman Night podcast? So it was crazy. So then so by the time we finished part two, I was just kind of like, wow, I mean, I love look on one hand, see this on one hand, it proves my theory. My theory is just hey, we just listened to random sermons and we just see wherever it takes us. And there's a little bit of fun in that. It can be. It can be tedious at times, it can be it can take us a long time. But who would have thought that a program about the restoration of Israel would have turned into a very important discussion about the Godhead and drawing a clear distinction between modalism and trinitarianism. That if we end up there, we've done something. And the reason why that's so important is, I hate to say it, just go listen to Christians talk about the Trinity. Just just walk around your church and get people to talk about the Trinity. Almost inevitably they give you some kind of modalistic understanding. Because churches do very most churches do a very poor job and explaining what modalism was, what modalism is, and condemning it. Churches do a very bad job of explaining the history of one is Pentecostalism and

11:08 condemning that understanding of the Godhead. We must at the church has to do a better job of helping people understand what the Trinity is and what it isn't and don't. And I've told the story before. When I the I mean, I had been a pastor what it feels like seventy two hours. I think it was the first Sunday night service, and I asked everyone in the congregation to give me a definition of the Trinity. By the time that service was over, I got called. I got in the car and I was driving home, and I basically was like I could have never dreamed that I would become the pastor of a church filled with absolute, complete heretics, because every single person in the church gave me a modalistic definition of the Trinity. One God manifest himself in three different ways. I'm like, that is, that's not the Trinity.

11:59 That's herod, that's you're all heretics. Okay, well I don't know what to say. Well, what do you say to your congregation who all give you, every single one gives you a fraudulent definition of the Trinity? What do you do? And and I mean wow. So so that we we've already dealt with that, we dealt with the trinitarian part. Now we can go back and do some work on Peter Ruckman. But what I want to do for this episode is I want to just set aside the review and I want to go back and maybe we'll do two episodes on this, maybe we'll do three, who knows. But I want to go back to those statements that I told you about just a little while ago. Those two statements are Solomon is a picture or represents Jesus in the Old Testament, and King Saul represents or is a picture of the Antichrist in the Old Testament. So the Solomon one is already a little just kind of like wait what. So I need to do a little research to see how common that view is. But it's hard for me to say that a man who murdered people, I sometimes prefer to him as David's hitman. He murdered people, and we could we could argue on the justification of what he did. But this man who only killed people, this man became a serial adulterer, a serial polygamist, and an idolator. And that's the man that pictures Jesus in the Old Testament. I mean, do we just look for some good things and say, boom, he pictures Jesus. I'm a little concerned with that, all right, So we'll get

13:31 to that one. That one was just a little more confusing to me. Maybe it's a common belief, but we'll we'll circle back to that. The one I think is much we can just immediately jump into is King Saul and the Antichrist. That King Saul is a picture of the Antichrist. If you want to understand or you want to get a better understanding of the Antichrist in a sense, his character, attitudes, actions, attributes, If you want to see it being played out in real time and history, you go look at King Saul. That's kind of the argument that was made. Now they did not expand on it, and the and the sermon we were reviewing. They just again it was supposed to be about the restoration of Israel, and he was just throwing out things. At times you were like, wait, wait, wait what we're talking about the restoration of Israel and you just said what like the whole Solomon Jesus thing, Like wait, what are the messed up definite? The full blown heretical understanding of the Trinity.

14:35 I mean, I don't know. It was so weird, Like I thought, we're talking about the restoration of Israel. But I said, okay, let's do a little bit of work. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about King Saul and the anti Christ. What we're going to do is going to work through some possible similarities. Now, I am by no means being dogmatic about anything that's going to be given to you. This is more of just to hypotheses. This is me taking a statement, one statement in a sermon which they did not expand on, justify, or even explain. I'm going to take that phrase from the sermon because the sermon reviews were such a train wreck.

15:16 I want to turn it into something positive. So we're going to take the phrase and then we're going to do our own work and we'll see. I want you to do your own work. I want you to. I want you to work on this right saw Antichrist saw Antichrist compare contrast. I want you to create your own little chart. Now, King Saul and the Antichrist, most would say are significant figures in biblical literature. I think that would be a fair way of describing them, all right, especially King Saul. Now I know Antichrist, you can get a lot of arguments because now you're getting into eschatology and nobody agrees on anything. At least with King Saul.

16:00 There's at least some agreement. There's probably even disagreement about King Saul. So who am I fooling? But it would be less disagreement about King Saul than there would be Antichrist. But we can say that they're both significant figures in biblical literature. I think that would be accurate. Now they obviously appear in different context. I think we can agree in there Saul, King Saul is the first king of Israel, and the Antichrist is a figure that basically demonstrates or shows ultimate opposition to Christ and Eschatology. Right, so King Saul is the first king of Israel, historical figure, right, real person, real first king and anti Christ. Of course, there's lots of ways, but we will describe the Antichrist as a figure of ultimate opposition to Christ and eschatology.

16:54 There are interesting parallels and contrast between them and their kingdoms. So I want you to think about when we think of King Saul, we think of Antichrist. We think of the individuals. There's King sauw, there's Antichrist, the Antichrist. There are many Antichrists, but the Antichrist, right, all right, So we think of the Antichrist and we think of King Saul. So we think of two individuals. But we also have to consider King Saul's kingdom and the kingdom of Antichrist. So two individuals, two kingdoms. How do they compare and how do they contrast? All right, So let's just do what we can here, all right, Let's consider King Saw an Antichrist under the heading of divine appointment and authority.

17:56 Divine appointment and authority. Now that one makes me a little okay. With King Saul, I can see divine appointment and I can see authority. He's the first king of Israel. God God, Israel wanted a king. He gave them a king, and that was King Saul. But do we see Antichrist in the same way. So divine appointment and authority. So, according to one source, King Sau was chosen and anointed by God as the first king of Israel. We see this in First Samuel chapter ten, verse one. Then Samuel took a vial of oil, poured it upon his head, kissed him, and said, it is not. Is it not?

18:47 Because the Lord Hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance. That's Samuel anointing Saul as king and listened to what he says. Is it not because the Lord Hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance. He was appointed by God. He has authority. He was appointed by God. So King Saul was chosen and anointed by God as the first king of Israel. He was given authority over the people of God to lead them and to represent God's rule, even though the people's request for a king showed a lack of trust in God's direct rule. Now, remember, Saul becomes king if you go back to First Samuel chapter eight, verse seven. All right, well, actually go back to first King's chapter eight. Let's go to First Samuel.

19:41 Did I say, first kings. First Samuel, chapter eight, verse Let's go to verse four. First Samuel, chapter eight, verse four. And then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel and said down to him, Behold, thou are old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. All right. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said into Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people, and all that they say into THEE. For they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Saul is appointed by God and is given authority, But it happens in the context of the people rejecting God's authority and God being king. They reject God being king, and they want Saul all right. Just so, even though there's divine appointment and authority, That divine appointment and authority happens in the context of the people saying, we don't want God, we want a king like all the other nations.

20:54 We want an earthly ruler. We don't want a spiritual ruler in whom we cannot see kind of concept. So how do would that fit with Antichrist? Well, the Antichrist, by contrast, is seen as a usurper of authority. He's empowered by Satan, seeking to oppose and replace christ rightful authority on earth. His rule is marked by rebellion against God, not divine appointment. So in this way, they're not there. They are different, but they're somewhat of a similarity. Right, because Saul becomes king because of the people's rejection of God. Well, the Antichrist seeks to take power by usurping that of power he opposes, and he wants to replace Christ's rightful authority on earth. But his rule is marked by rebellion against God, not divine appointment. So he's he's rebelling against God.

21:55 Saul is put there by God, but he's put there by God in the context of the people rebel. So there's a do we draw a contrast there or do we see that as somewhat similar? There's definitely similar circumstances. Now we could well, okay, well we could you can do a little bit more work on that, right, I would have to think about that. But so Saul comes to power because of the people's rejection of God. The Antichrist tries to usurp authority, comes to power, and his his reign is all about is marked by rebellion against God and not divine appointment. But so Saul becomes king and life in the context of rebellion, and the Antichrist comes to power and his whole his whole concept is rebellion and usurping authority. All right, I get I think that's more of a contrast than saying they have these in common. So again, remember the original statement was that Saul's a picture of Antichrist. Well, in this particular case, he sert does he serve as a picture of Antichrist or does he serve as really kind of a there's a there's a difference, So I don't I don't want to force say. The thing is, when someone makes a comment like that, you don't want to just disregard it, but at the same time you want to try to work it through. So you're trying to be I'm trying to be fair here, I'm trying to see there is

23:26 some similarity. So there's a part of me that wants to try to force it and say, see, Saul is a perfect picture, but there's another part of me says, well, Saul is divinely appointed. The Antichrist is seen as usurping authority. But yet Saul becomes the key in the midst of rebellion. So I don't know, I don't know how you can decide what you want to do with that. We may need to clean that one up a little bit, but we will see, all right, So number one, we'll call it divine appointment and authority. And I think that almost serves more as a contrast, right, maybe not necessarily the same.

24:07 I don't know, you can see what you want to do with it. How about the response to God's authority? Now, let's compare in contrast King Saul and the Antichrist as it relates to response to God's authority. King Saul may have began his reign with a measure of humility and obedience, but Saul quickly fell into disobedience. He repeatedly defied God's commandments, such as offering sacrifices without waiting for Samuel. We read about that in First Samuel, Chapter thirteen, verses eight through fourteen, all right, First Samuel chapter thirteen, verses eight through fourteen. We won't read that. You can write that down as a reference. Saul begins with some measure of humility and obedience, but quickly he falls into disobedience. He repeatedly defied God's commandments, such as offering sacrif vices without waiting for Samuel, and he spared King Agag and the best of the Amalekite livestock against God's direct orders. That's for Samuel fifteen. His disobedience led to God's rejection of him as king. So Saul starts off maybe looking right, but then it's just disobey.

25:24 He's offering sacrifices one he's not supposed to. He's not supposed to spare King Agag and the best of the Amalekite livestock against God's direct orders. And his disobedience leads to ultimately God rejecting him as king. Now, remember he only became king because the people rejected God in the first place. So in a roundabout way God, they rejected God as king. So God gives him a king that rejects God as king. So you want you want to reject me, and you want a king. Well, I'll give you a king that rejects me. It's almost a sense that way. Now, now, if we compare or contrast that to the Antichrist, the anti christ very nature is one of rebellion against God. He will exalt himself above all that is worshiped and claim to be God. Now, typically, now we could get into a whole We could get into a lot of discussions here, but we'll go with the typical passage that many would look at to prove this.

26:30 Now I have my disagreements here. But Second Thessalonians, chapter two, verse four, Second Thessalonians chapter two, verse four, we read. If we start in Second Thessalonians two verse one. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that you be not so soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter. As from us, as the day of Christ is at hand, let no man deceive you by any means. That the day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that the man of sin be revealed, the son of tradition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, and so that he as God sideth in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Now, Second Thessalonians two four, there's much debate about this. We've talked about this, and we said, well, wait a minute. First, when was Second Thessalonians written? Right, that's a good question. So let's do a little bit of research here and I'll try to show you here. Okay, So when was I'm going to ask ai? All right, all right? The Second Thessalonians is generally believed to be have written around fifty one to fifty two a D. Now, why is that important? Because

28:02 is it possible that what's being discussed in Second Thessalonians chapter two is not anti Christ at the end with some rebuilt temple. Is it possible to Second Thessalonians is referring to someone who is going to go into the temple leading up to seventy a d and showing himself that he is God. And remember we went through some historical accounts of that very thing happening prior to seventy a D. So with Second Thessalonians pointing towards seventy a D and not towards the end. Well, now your eschatology is going to come into play, right, depending on which team you're in, You're going to read this based on your team's eschatology. That's why I can't stand eschatology being taught as a system, because what you're taught the system, and then people just proof texts the system. We'll see this verse supports the idea that I gave you. Well, of course, because you're reading the verse and light of the idea that they gave you, I will argue, do more research, do more exploring and studying of Second Thessalonians, chapter two, verses one through four, and just look and search.

29:16 Is it possible that this has was fulfilled prior to seventy a D. All Right, I think I think that's very important to UH to consider. All Right, I think I think that's very important to consider. But typically when it comes to response to God's authority, if you see Second Thessalonians two four as referring to anti Christ at the end, then the anti christ very nature is one of rebellion against God. He will exalt himself above all that is worshiped, and will we claim to be God, and this will be viewed as happening at the end. So King Saul ultimately rebelled, and Antichrist his entire nature was rebellion. And Saul was in many cases doing that which he was not even a lowed to do, offering sacrifices, making he basically in some ways kind of acted as if he was God. The entire reign of Antichrist is one of deception, false miracles, and blasphemy against the true God.

30:17 And do we see something similar with King Saul? So what do we have with King Saul? We have divine appointment and authority, which is somewhat different than Antichrist. But let's just remember King Saul is appointed in light of rebellion. The people rejected God. They wanted a king. God gave them a king divinely appointed them. He had authority, But he gave them a king that was ultimately going to reject God's authority and rebel against him. Where Antichrist, we may not say, is divinely appointed, but he's in a surper of authority and he seeks to oppose and replace Christ's rightful authority, and his rule is marked by rebellion.

31:01 Against God, not divine appointment, So there is somewhat of a contrast, but it's still very similar in certain ways. Secondly, so there's a divine appointment and authority. Second is response to God's authority, and both King Saw and anti Christ demonstrate full blown rebellion ultimately against God and a rejection of God's authority. Right, how about number three, it's King Sauw and Antichrist again comparing and contrasting. How about the relationship with people or with relationship with the people to be more precise, For example, King Saul. Initially, King Sauw won favor of the people through military victories and leadership, so there was a point where the people were like King Saul is great, King Saul is awesome. The people were kind of drawn to him and supported him. However, as his disobedie and screw, so did his insecurity and paranoia, leading to unjust actions, such as his pursuit of David out of jealousy. We read that in verse Samuel eighteen through nineteen his slaughter of the priest of Knob for Samuel twenty two. His kingdom eventually fell into chaos, with the people's support shifting towards David. Now think about the Antichrist.

32:20 The Antichrist will garner significant global support through deception and a promise of peace, most would argue, some will point to Daniel nine twenty seven to support that. Remember you get to that. Yeah, there's some things in Daniel that can be hard to figure out, but okay. He will be admired by many for his power and apparent success. However, like Saul, his kingdom will be characterized by oppression, ultimately leading to destruction, and those who refuse to worship the Antichrist will face severe persecution. Now what I think is interesting though, just this is not in my notes Saul.

33:02 It gets the people's support, ultimately it begins to fall apart, and he becomes more violent and doing these horrible things, and ultimately he's going to be replaced by David. Right, And who's the ultimate fulfillment of the Davidic covenant that someone will sit on the throne of David and rule forever. Is that not Christ? Well Antichrist? At first the people seem to love him, and then more violence and threats and all the things that happen, and ultimately the kingdom of Antichrist will end and be replaced by the one that will sit on the throne of David. I think that there is a similarity. I think there's an interesting similarity there, right. So number one is divine appointment and authority.

33:56 Number two response to God's authority. Number three relationship with the peace. Now number four I kind of already kind of gave a preview of this, but number four is the end of their kingdoms. All right. I've already I kind of just jumped the gun a little bit that I threw in things that weren't in my notes at that point. But I think this one you'll kind of see now where I was headed. Saul's reign ended in tragedy and personal destruction. After losing favor with God, Saul was consumed by jealousy and paranoia, leading him to a downward spiral. His final act was falling on his own sword during the battle with the Philistines First Samuel thirty one four. His kingdom was eventually handed over to David, God's chosen king. All right, So that's what I wanted you to see. Saul's kingdom ends with going to David, now Antichrist. The antichrist reign will also end end defeat.

34:52 According to Revelation. Now you look at Revelation chapter nineteen. Some one comes with a sword, Saul dies with a sword. Anti Christ's kingdom really is going to be taken down by a sword, right, all right? The kingdom will be destroyed at the second coming of Christ, who will be overthrown and cast him to the Lake of Fire, making the end of his rebellion and the establishment of Christ's eternal kingdom. Now, like I said, I did not have this in my notes, but just just we got to draw the connection. Saul's rain ends with David. God makes the covenant with David that someone will sit on his throne, and the anti Christ kingdom is it's taken out basically by a sword. Look at Revelation nineteen. And then who's going to then sit on the throne of David Christ?

35:45 Who who is the fulfillment of that dividic covenant? I mean, the similarities there are too perfect. In that case, Saul dies by a sword, the anti Christ kingdom is taken out by someone on a white horse with a sword. He comes, takes out the kingdom and then sits on the throne of David. Saul was replaced by David. In a sense, Antichrist is taken out by the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. So I think the end of their kingdom very similar. All right, how about number five spiritual legacy, King Saul. Though Saul's reign ended in failure, he is often viewed with a degree of sympathy. He represents the tragic consequences of disobedience and the fallibility of human leadership, but he also shows that even the chosen can fall.

36:41 His story is a warning against pride and rebellion. Now, I think some people see Saw in a more sympathetic light. I think some people don't see him so much in a sympathetic light. I think you could say he was even the chosen could fall. I think to me it feels like God said, oh, you want to reject me, Well, let me give you a king that will reject me. That God knew exactly what was going on, right, That's my own feelings. Anti christ legacy is one of the complete opposite opposition to God. He is the embodiment of evil and rebellion, and eschatological terms, his actions represent the final and ultimate attempt to overthrow God's kingdom and his legacy is entirely negative. Some people see Saw more sympathetic.

37:27 Obviously nobody sees the anti Christ sympathetic. But both you can try to compare and contrast their legacy. Saul obviously just does very evil things and just becomes more and more rebellious and every anti God. In many cases he almost begins to act as if he is the divine authority. Where that's antichrist complete approach. So I don't know how we compare a contrast that one, all right. How about the kingdom's spiritual nature. Saul's kingdom was a physical, earthly kingdom meant to be a part of God's covenant plan for Israel. It was supposed to be a theocratic monarchy under God's law, but Saul's failures distorted this purpose. All right.

38:20 I don't know if it was ever supposed to be a part of God's covenant plan with Israel. I think in a sense, Guy's like, oh, you want to reject me, Well this is what you're going to get with earthly rulers. You don't want to You don't want me ruling and reigning over you. You want men. Well, when you get men, you get failure, you get sin get So. I think it was just to demonstrate that the sinfulness of man, that man, even the best man you can pick, is going to be a failure and is never going to obey God's law because man doesn't Now. The anti Christ kingdom will be characterized by spiritual deception and idolagy tree marked by the forced worship of the anti Christ and his image. It will be a counterfeit kingdom that seeks to mimic the power and glory of God's kingdom, but is ultimately under Satanic influence. So do we compare and contrast the nature of the kingdom. Saul's kingdom was more fleshly.

39:18 I guess the Antichrist the Antichrist kingdom is still going to be fleshly. I guess with a counterfeit spirituality maybe, But didn't Saul have kind of a counterfeit spirituality. Ah? I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with that one, all right. Both Saul and the Antichrist can be seen as tragic figures who fall from a place of authority due to their opposition to God's will. Both ultimately lead kingdoms that end in destruction.

39:59 Saul's king begin with divine appointment, while the Antichrist is a figure of opposition to God from the outset. Saul's disobedience led to his downfall, while the Antichrist in Tairain is rooted in defiance and rebellion against God. Saul's kingdom was an earthly kingdom of Israel, while the Antichrist is a global kingdom based on deception and opposition to the true Christ. So there is some key differences king Saul's kingdom serves as a warning about the dangers of disobedience to God, while the anti Christ kingdom represents the final culmination of rebellion against God's authority. Both figures illustrate the consequences of straying from God's will, but in different context and with varying degrees of opposition. I would say this, it's probably wrong to say Saul represents the Antichrist. Is a picture of the Antichrist. I think there are similarities.

41:05 To me, the most powerful similarity is that Saul Antichrist both have kingdoms, they both rebel and defy God's authority, and they both end basically with the throne of David. Saul ends with David by a sword Antichrist kingdom ends with a sword by Christ who will sit and reign on the throne of David. That I think is absolutely fascinating. There's great similarities there. Now you may find more similarities in that. That was we didn't get into each scripture.

41:47 We could have read scripture, we could have looked things up. I will say this, whenever we get to the character of Antichrist, just be very careful. Like that second Thessalonian's passage, everybody just immediately goes, oh, that's going to be another temple. But it was written in the fifty a D or in the fifties AD, right between fifty one fifty five a D. Well, that means it could very much been pointing to what was going to happen leading up to seventy a D. Because there were people who entered into the temple who basically started claiming divine authority. That happened prior to seventy a D. So whenever people say Antichrist, you've got to be very careful. Even in like I think first John that mentions Antichrist, that's referring to Gnostics and Gnostic leaders. Then maybe the Antichrist we've sometimes got to be very careful when we look at this concept.

42:45 But there is some interesting comparison and contrast between these two biblical figures Saw and Antichrist. Now you may want to work on that. Clean that up a little bit, it do a little extra. I just wanted I wanted to try to take something, get something positive from the horrible sermon review, because that drives me crazy. Now we still need to work on Solomon and Christ. I think that one is just that one makes no sense. But remember in the sermons there was no explanation, there was no justification, there was no proof, just stated in a dogmatic way and immediately moved on. And it didn't even really fit into the context of what was supposedly being discussed.

43:29 But it is interesting to work on. Now, could you not argue? No, I just want to think about this. If you look up every evil king, every wicked king of the entire Old Testament and you put them all together, don't they just simply demonstrate ultimately that are should I stated this way, When you take all of the evil kings in the in the Old Testament, isn't the Antichrist just the ultimate fulfillment of what all of those evil kings were pointing to an ultimate evil kingdom and an ultimate evil king, not just saw all the kings. Now Saul, his his end and the end of Antichrist are very so much similar. I do find that fascinating. But I think all the evil kings, all of that evil ruling and reigning, the ultimate fulfillment of all of that, the ultimate climax of all of that is Antichrist. He takes all of what the evil kings and their kingdoms look like, and He's and he he, he then ramps it up another one hundred percent. Isn't Antichrist the old picture of

45:01 man attempting to rule and reign without God? I don't know, but I've now handed it to you, so you can give me your thoughts if you so desire, and you can do your own work, build your own chart King Saul characteristics, attributes, actions, anti Christ. Maybe we'll do more work on it, all right. That was my attempt to try to take something from two really bad sermon, two parts of reviewing one sermon over almost three hours of broadcasting that all kind of went bad, and trying to pull something positive from it. Hopefully I was able to accomplish that. Thanks for listening. Everyone have a great day.

45:58 God bless