In 1907 The Reverend Robert Hugh Benson wrote a very unusual novel. Entitled Lord of the World, it attempted to describe a future world at the time of the Antichrist.
Hugh Benson is an interesting character. The son of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, he took the momentous decision to convert to Catholicism and shortly afterwards became a Catholic priest. Clearly in Edwardian times Catholic priests weren’t run off their feet the way they are today, because Benson was a prolific writer who also produced The Dawn of All with an outcome opposite to Lord of the World: a vision of utopia in which the Catholic Church has become triumphant.
Lord of the World is remarkable for its attempt to predict the future, from both worldly and spiritual points of view. Benson could give H. G. Wells a run for his money with his predictions of future technology, featuring air travel (and air warfare); however we do get reminders that this was a 1907 production when we read of having doormen to admit visitors. But Benson was even more on the money with his predictions about the moral slide of society – euthanasia as a widely-accepted and practised activity, and a general collapse of Christianity in the face of an advancing secularism. In a brilliant prologue, Benson lays the blame for this with Freemasonry. Interesting choice.
Benson envisages the Antichrist arising at a time of world tension, restoring universal peace but then eliminating the remainder of the last vestiges of Christianity (the remnants of the Catholic Church) on a pretext. The Antichrist has a strangely magnetic personality and the whole world falls in love with him. New humanistic rituals replace church services. It’s a fascinating read!
What does holy scripture have to say about the Antichrist? The New Testament references are, firstly, in St Paul’s second letter to the church at Thessalonica:
Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day [“the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him”] will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. (2 Th 2:3-12)
Secondly, in Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation where we see the dragon, the Antichrist (the first beast), and the False Prophet (the second beast) in an unholy parody of the Blessed Trinity:
The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”
The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. …
Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666. (Rv 13:1-8, 11-18)
It is very curious that neither of these passages is in the Lectionary, the system of scripture readings for the Catholic Church, either for weekday Mass [1] or for Sunday Mass.
What we can infer from these scripture verses is that the Antichrist will be popular to the point of devotion, thanks in no small part to the demonic “signs and wonders” that will accompany his arrival. The reference to the Mark of the Beast has a peculiarly modern ring to it – especially in a world that (however briefly) became used to the idea of a “vaccine passport” as a requirement to go anywhere or do anything in public. In the modern world, the technology certainly exists to force all people to have a mark in order to buy and sell; the type of tiny device[2] inserted under the skin of a beloved pet has for several years now been in use in Sweden, for a number of activities including purchasing.
We have already discussed signs of a One-World Government-in-waiting and there are now many voices outside the mainstream media warning of the dangerous trajectory our world seems to be taking: Agenda 2030, Great Reset, Build Back Better, the various goings on at the World Economic Forum, and so on. To my mind, these are all distractions. What is really behind these activities is the Antichrist, who remains concealed at the present time but will become evident in due course.
You will be able to recognise him by the number 666.
[1] Well, to be strictly accurate, 2 Thess 2:1-3a is covered on one weekday every two years, mentioning the Antichrist in very vague terms but missing out on all the following detail.
[2] If you’re wondering how such a small device can work, it may help to explain that they have no onboard power of their own but when they receive a low-powered radio signal, they respond with a numerical ID almost as if by reflection. In this way the device is kept tiny which in turn makes it straightforward to implant, and being inert and self-contained it is maintenance free indefinitely.
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