Question: You write, “[the Antichrist] is almost certainly alive right now,” and, “We believe ...

Question: I enjoyed your article, “The Spirit of Antichrist”....I do have a few questions...you write, “[the Antichrist] is almost certainly alive right now.” Why do you believe this? Later...you write, “We believe that the Rapture...is the next event on the prophetic calendar, and that it must occur very soon.” Again...why do you believe this is true?

Response: If Antichrist “is not alive right now,” then he must yet be born and grow to maturity, which would put the Rapture at least 20 and more likely 40 or more years into the future. He takes power almost immediately after the Rapture. Daniel:9:27And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
See All... says he confirms the covenant for a week. That week is clearly the 70th week of Daniel, at the end of 69 of which Christ rode into Jerusalem and was killed and Jerusalem and the temple subsequently destroyed, as verses 25 and 26 declare. So verse 27 must refer to the only week which is left—the 70th. That week has been held in abeyance since Christ was rejected by His people Israel and the church was formed; and it cannot begin to run its course until the church is removed by the Rapture.

Secondly, I don’t believe the Rapture can be held off much longer because it marks the beginning of the Day of Christ, or of the Lord. Otherwise, the Thessalonian believers would not have been upset to learn that the Day of the Lord had already come (2 Thes:2:2That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
See All...). If so, they had missed the Rapture; but of course it had not come and Paul goes on to explain why. The apostasy had to ripen before that day dawned and immediately in that day the Antichrist would be revealed (2 Thes:2:3-4 [3] Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; [4] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
See All...). And that day comes “as a thief” during a time of “peace and safety” when no one expects it (1 Thes:5:2-3 [2] For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. [3] For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
See All...; 2 Pt 3:10).

Christ said He would come at a time of peace, prosperity, ease, partying, no thought of God’s judgment—as in the days of Noah and Lot (Lk 17:26-30)—indeed, at a time when few if any would even suspect He would come (Mt 24:44) and when not just the foolish but the whole church would be asleep (Mt 25:5). I don’t see how today’s pseudopeace and false prosperity, which is built upon impossible debt, can last much longer—or how the world could ever get back to this point after the inevitable crash and nuclear war. As for the Rapture being the next event on the prophetic calendar, I know of nothing prophesied which must come before the Rapture.