He Was, Is Not, and Will Come Again: A 7-Part Bible Study on the Antichrist, the Last Days, and the War to End All Wars
There is a sentence that has driven everything I've worked on for the past decade.
"A church that misidentifies the Antichrist will fail to recognize him when he arrives."
Read that again slowly. Because if it's true — and I believe it is — the stakes could not be higher.
Most of us grew up with a version of End Times prophecy that comes from books, movies, and American Evangelical culture. We know the Rapture. We know the microchip. We know the smooth-talking world leader who takes over the United Nations and forces everyone to bow down. We know the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. We know Russia and China as Gog and Magog. We know all of it.
But what if most of it is wrong?
Not slightly wrong. Not "different interpretation of the same passage" wrong. What if the dominant framework for understanding Bible prophecy — the one taught in the vast majority of American Protestant churches, the one behind the Left Behind series, the one virtually everyone absorbs before they ever sit down and actually read the texts — was built on a foundation of projection, politics, and anti-Catholic polemic rather than serious Scripture study?
That is the question this study sets out to answer.
He Was, Is Not, and Will Come Again is a seven-part Bible study I've been building for over a decade, and I am finally ready to teach it.
It begins not in Revelation, but in Genesis — because that's where Scripture begins — and it follows a single prophetic thread all the way through the entire Bible, from the Tower of Babel to the War that will end all wars. It reads that thread through the eyes of the people who actually wrote it: Middle Easterners. And it brings four distinct categories of evidence to bear on a single question:
Who is the Antichrist, and where does he come from?
The four pillars of the case:
Scripture — Not just Revelation. Genesis, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Psalms, Joel, Habakkuk, Matthew, 2 Thessalonians, and more. Read in context. Read as a whole. Read the way the Church was meant to read them — letting Scripture interpret Scripture, not letting the latest bestseller interpret it for us.
History — Because King Solomon was right: "History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before." The empires of the past are not just ancient curiosities. They are prophetic blueprints. Once you see which empire is being described in Daniel and Revelation, you cannot unsee it — and you will understand why the two World Wars are a pattern, not a coincidence.
The Church Fathers — This is where things get surprising. The dominant Protestant interpretation of the Antichrist — the European ruler, the revived Roman Empire — is not ancient Christian teaching. It is a product of the 16th century Reformation, built on the anti-Catholic anger of Martin Luther and his successors. The actual Church Fathers — the saints who sat at the feet of the Apostles, who read these texts in their original language and cultural context — taught something very different. St. Hippolytus of Rome in the 3rd century. St. Cyril of Jerusalem in the 4th century. What they wrote will stop you cold.
The Private Prophecies of the Saints — This is the layer most people have never encountered. The Catholic tradition preserves centuries of private prophecy — authenticated visions from saints across the ages — that describe the Last Days in extraordinary detail. An anonymous French nun in the 18th century described technologies that would not be invented for another 200 years. Multiple saints across multiple centuries described the same war, the same sequence of events, and the same ultimate outcome. When these prophecies are laid alongside the Scriptural argument, the convergence is not subtle.
Here is what this study will not do: it will not frighten you.
God did not give us prophecy to fill us with dread. He gave it to us because He loves us, and because He wanted us to know — before any of it arrives — that He is in control, and that the end of the story has already been written. Once you trace this thread from Genesis to Revelation and watch the full picture come into focus, the feeling is not terror. It's awe. And underneath the awe, something steadier: the unshakeable conviction that God sees it all, that history is moving toward a conclusion He has already appointed, and that His people will not be caught off guard.
Not if they've done their homework.
Over the next several weeks, I'll be sharing four preview posts — one for each of the four pillars of evidence — to give you a taste of where this study goes before we begin teaching it. No spoilers on the conclusion. But enough to make the case that the question is worth asking.
And then we'll sit down together and work through all seven parts.
I cannot wait to share this with you.
Stay with me.
— Eric Flegal
Which of the four pillars are you most curious about — Scripture, History, the Church Fathers, or the Private Prophecies? Let me know in the comments, and that's the first preview I'll write.
