Pope, a.k.a. the Antichrist

I believe there are Baptists that put stock in the prophecies of Malachy concerning popes. Basically, Malachy "predicted" all the popes by name as it related to their coat of arms, and supposedly the current pope is the last pope. The last pope, according to Malachy, will oversee the destruction of Rome and the end of the world.

If look at the actual prophecies, names, and coat of arms, most of them are vague and tenuous at best, and remind me of the predictions of Nostrodamus in their specificity.

Google "prophecy of popes" or "prophecies of Malachy".

 

I suspect mostly bias. Doubtless the prophecy of the popes reinforced the bias but the bias existed in some Baptict circles before that prophecy was well known. Either way I suspect the belief that the antichrist will be a pope is in error.

I suspect Islam is the end times system, their expected messianic figure the Mahdi/12th Imam is the antichrist, and their great prophet Issa (Jesus) is the false prophet.

Muslims expect Issa to come back and let everyone know that the world has been wrong about him all along and to point the way to the Mahdi. That gives you a false system with a Beast and a False Prophet after the pattern of Jesus and John the Baptist. It even comes from the Blood of Abraham.

FWIW, the Roman Empire is not the only possible interpretation of the ten toes in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The Islamic Caliphate could just as easily have been the replacement kingdom referred to. Partly iron and partly clay certainly could refer to the division of Sunni and Shia. And the Caliphate existed and ruled in the region as the Ottoman Empire until 1924.

I suspect the Pope, the RCC, and the European Union (the revived Roman Empire that so many are worried about) will be a sideshow.

But people have been wrong about things like this many times.

 

AC, no. The false prophet? More than likely.