2 Thessalonians 2:3 – Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction…
Lord Acton writing to Bishop Creighton in 1887 made the now famous statement, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. (1) Throughout human history, there has been a parade of people who seem to be the embodiment of evil proving this very tragic truth. (2)
Khmer Rouge regime leader Pol Pot brought genocide to Cambodia from 1975-1979. It is estimated that anywhere from 1.5-3 million people died in a failed attempt at agrarian socialism based upon the failed communist teachings of Stalinism and Maoism.
The ensuing relocation and torture of citizens that included slave labor, along with executions that filled 23,745 discovered mass graves, along with starvation and disease, likely killed an additional 2 million people so that 25% of the nation’s population was murdered in some form or fashion by their government.
One of history’s most brutal women was Ranavalona I of Madagascar who had a 13-year reign of terror (1829-1842). Cutting her nation off from trade, enslaving citizens to pay off burdensome taxation, and committed to never-ending wars of expansion, half the citizens of Madagascar died as the total population fell from 5 to 2.5 million citizens across the island.
The Nazi holocaust (1939-1945) took the lives of some 17 million people. Adolf Hitler looked a lot like the Bible’s depiction of the antichrist – worshipped like a god with seemingly supernatural power trying to rule the earth with force and evil.
Joseph Stalin’s rule (1922-1953) included murder, famine, slavery, and massacres that took the lives of an estimated 15 million people at minimum, with some estimates being much higher.
Lastly, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong (1946-1976) imposed slave labor, killed political dissidents, exterminated entire classes of people, and let 15 million people starve to death with some estimates saying he is responsible for the death of upwards of 70 million people.
Jesus Christ is God who became a man and lived a perfectly righteous life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Satan has always worked through evildoers in every generation to counterfeit Christ with the anti-Christ. To be anti-Christ is to seek to remove Christ as Lord and replace Christ with another Lord.
2 Thessalonians 2:4 says he “exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” Throughout history, anti-Christ leaders are filled with demonic power to do anti-ministry.
2 John 1:7 says that the parade of anti-Christs throughout history will culminate in the coming of the Anti-Christ at the end of history, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.” We will look more into this antichrist figure in tomorrow’s devo.
Pray for fellow believers who are being oppressed and tortured by evil men and women as mentioned in this devo.
- https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/lord-acton-writes-to-bishop-creighton-that-the-same-moral-standards-should-be-applied-to-all-men-political-and-religious-leaders-included-especially-since-power-tends-to-corrupt-and-absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely-1887
- https://about-history.com/list-of-dictatorships-by-death-toll-the-top-10-biggest-killers-in-history/
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