One of the most embarrassing things that a Christian can do is to try to persuade people to have faith in Christ based on prophecy schemes that may sound believable initially but ultimately lack solid evidence. These schemes often make promises about specific dates or timelines for the fulfillment of certain events, but as time passes, they prove to be incorrect.

We are all well aware that religious predictions frequently make claims about the end of the world that never actually happen.  Additionally, the idea of "Islam in Bible prophecy" is likely to be another unfortunate and misguided attempt to find connections between Islam and the Bible.  Instead, we should focus on the evidence that supports and verifies the teachings of the New Testament.  This evidence includes the impending events that mark the end of the Levitical priesthood, which align with the teachings of Jesus, his Apostles, and prophets from the early Christian era. 

In this essay, we aim to explain why early Christians never received information or warnings regarding Islam. Furthermore, we want to emphasize that Islam does not appear in any form in the Bible. Our goal is to demonstrate that a belief in a futurist eschatology, which asserts that Islam represents the fourth kingdom of Bible prophecy or that an anti-Christ figure will emerge from the Islamic world, is fundamentally incorrect and should be disputed for numerous reasons.  

A Word About Sectarian

Christian Eschatology

Most Christians from Evangelical, Pentecostal, or Charismatic backgrounds are taught from a young age to have a strong and hopeful belief in the Second Coming of Jesus.  These beliefs have similarities to extremist cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses, but without engaging in controlling tactics.  What are these similarities?

(1) Having an unwavering conviction that current events hold the key to understanding Bible prophecies.

(2) Believing that the existence of the modern State of Israel is a direct manifestation of God's plan to bring about the end of the world.

(3) Seeing various world religions such as Roman Catholicism and Islam as playing significant roles in the events described in the Old Testament prophecies found in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, as well as the Gospels, the epistles, and the Book of Revelation. 

While these three points are not the only criteria, they are sufficient for our exploration. We will use them to understand the increasing popularity among Muslim Background Believers (MBBs) that Islam is directly in the crosshairs of Bible prophecy.¹

We need to ask if current events are necessary to understand Bible prophecy?  We should also question if it is worth holding certain beliefs if they are used to convince people today at the expense of Scriptural authority and credibility in the future?

Other questions are also important to consider: What evidence is there that the modern Israeli State is the same as the Judæan and Israelite State mentioned in the Bible?

Additionally, what has occurred in the State of Israel over the past 70 years that suggests it is leading up to the Last Days discussed in the New Testament?

Lastly, we need to examine any assumed roles of Romans, the Catholic Church, and Islam in relation to Daniel, Ezekiel, the Gospels, the epistles, and the Book of Revelation. By contemplating these questions, we can gain a more credible perspective on Bible prophecy before discussing the potential dangers of assuming that Islam is mentioned in Bible prophecy and potentially regretting such claims in the future.²

The Fourth Kingdom of Bible Prophecy

One of the most common prophecy claims is that the fourth kingdom mentioned in Bible prophecy must be associated with a European power such as the Roman Empire, but lately it is being suggested to Islam itself.  Can this claim be supported with scholarly and historical evidence?  Although some may argue that it can be supported by referencing the Bible, a closer analysis reveals that it is yet another unsupported claim.

It is important to recognize that it is entirely possible to interpret the Bible in any way one desires, disregarding its context and intended meaning as presented in the Scriptures. 

For this reason, the 20/20 rule helps us stay within the proper boundaries when trying to understand Bible prophecies.  The question about the fourth kingdom, like everything else, is something that can be easily resolved by familiarizing ourselves with the Bible and redemptive history.

Referring back to the Book of the Prophet Daniel, in chapter 2 we find the story of King Nebuchadnezzar and his unusual dream which he could not remember upon waking up. 

Nebuchadnezzar was angry with his advisors, astrologers, and magicians because they could n0t reveal the content of his dream or provide an interpretation.  They requested that he at least tell them the dream, but that was the problem!  He could not recall it!

With the inability of his counselors to assist him in understanding his troubling but forgotten dream, Nebuchadnezzar threatened to execute all his ministers, including Daniel and his companions, under a hasty decree.

In order to avoid their own doom, they sought God's guidance, and God in His grace revealed both the dream and its interpretation to Daniel.  Daniel then requested an audience with King Nebuchadnezzar and explained to him that he had dreamt of a tall statue with a head made of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, shins of iron, and feet made of iron and clay.  Astonishingly, Daniel saw that the king had seen a small stone, cut from a mountain, coming down and striking the image on its iron and clay toes, causing the image to totter, fall, and shatter into pieces!

Subsequently, the stone proceeded to crush the fragments of the image into such small particles that they resembled wheat chaff on a summer threshing floor. Once this was accomplished, a strong wind arose and scattered the chaff, and in its place, the stone transformed itself into a mountain that filled the entire earth.

This was King Nebuchadnezzar's frightening, peculiar, and forgotten dream!

Daniel Recalls and Interprets

the King’s Dream

Afterward, Daniel continued to explain the meaning of the dream.  He stated that the image the king saw represented four kingdoms, with Babylon being the first, specifically the principality of Babylon.  Daniel said to the king, "You are represented by the head of gold." 

Following Babylon, there would arise another kingdom symbolized by a chest and arms made of silver.  Daniel 2:39, when compared to Daniel 5:1-30, reveals that this kingdom was a collaboration of powers known as the Medeo-Persian Empire.

This kingdom would also eventually be succeeded by a third kingdom, described as the belly and thighs made of brass.  This third power turned out to be the world-conquering empire of Alexander the Great, as shown in Daniel 2:39, compared to Daniel 8:1-8.

Then, a fourth kingdom would emerge. The king's dream portrayed this final kingdom with legs of iron that transformed into feet and toes made of a mixture of iron and clay. 

It is this fourth kingdom that some Muslim Background Believers want to associate with Islam and argue that this world religion will soon be directly destroyed by the cataclysmic return of our Lord.  However, this interpretation is not true, as we will elaborate on below.

Now, there are multiple questions that arise from this.  For instance, how long do these kingdoms last, when did the third kingdom end and exactly when does the fourth kingdom begin?

Let's first examine the timeline and details:

Neo-Chaldean Kingdom of Babylon 605-539 B.C. or 70 years.

Medeo-Persian Kingdom 539-311 B.C. or 228 years.

Greece 311 B.C.-141 B.C. or 170 years (1 Maccabees 13:41).³

The Maccabean Revolt freed the Jewish people from the rule of both the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. They had been under the control of both kingdoms for 170 years, during which they paid taxes. This period began in the year of the Minyan Shetarot, as determined by the Rabbis to be 311 B.C. According to Jewish calculations, this was approximately one thousand years after Moses.    

However, in 141 B.C., following 25 years of conflict, the Hasmonean State emerged on the global stage. Considering the ancient timeframe, it is impossible to simply hand over this distinction to Islam without any thought or consideration for the chronological order and circumstances. In reality, the period between the decline of Greek influence in the second century B.C. and the beginning of Mohammad's ministry in A.D. 610 spans seven hundred and fifty-one years, which is far too a significant gap to accept without it doing serious damage to the integrity of the prophecy timeline!⁴ 

In contrast, the image that the king saw does not allow for any gaps between the four kingdoms, therefore it is not possible for Islam to be the fourth kingdom mentioned in Bible prophecy.

Unfortunately, there are certain MBB ministries that are determined to depict Islam as a fulfillment of biblical predictions happening in modern times, even though it has been over 2,163 years since the establishment of the Hasmonean State. 

However, Jewish history clearly disproves these claims as absurd.  The first thing that needs to happen is this: we need to begin at the beginning and work forward to the rise of fourth kingdom.  If we do this we will arrive at the accomplishments of the Hasmonean family, but they lost their hard-earned sovereignty in 63 B.C. 

This occurred when John Hyrcanus II and Judah Aristobulus II extended an invitation to the Roman general, Pompey the Great, in hopes of resolving a political disagreement and a civil war between them. However, Pompey disregarded their expectations by attacking Jerusalem and transforming the Hasmonean Kingdom into a subordinate state within the expanding Roman Republic, all in that same year.⁵ 

Now, in this new arrangement, the people of Judea had obligations to pay tribute taxes to Rome.  Their other committment was to perform two daily animal sacrifices in the Second Temple to God for the welfare of the Romans.  This agreement remained in effect until it was broken by the Jews refusing to offer this good-will gesture 129 years later, in the autumn of the year A.D. 66.⁶

It was the Jews who broke the agreements made with Pompey and the Romans and breaking their oath to do so was the apostasy Paul foretold would happen in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.  The Jewish decision to renege of their acceptance of sacrifices on behalf of the welfare of Nero and the Romans was a declaration of war.⁷  At the same time, the Jews set up a sacrilegious act of their own in their most sacred space, which lasted for forty-two months and ended with the complete destruction of their Second Temple.  This period coincided with a terrifying rule of a Judæo-Idumaean coalition government, which is a topic mentioned in Daniel 2:42, 7:7, 20, 24, and Revelation 13:1, 17:3, 7, and 12.⁸

Now, with respect to what Daniel foresaw happening to the image, the coming of the Stone to strike this proud image on its feet of iron and clay is the next aspect we need to explain in the context of the Gospel tradition of Matthew and Mark and Luke.  Jesus’s Parable of the Vineyard is a Sod (סוֹד‎) interpretation and in it, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is alluded to there.  The parable reads as follows:-

“Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:

34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.

35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.

36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.

37 But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.

38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.

39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.

40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?

41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?

43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.

46 But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet” (Matthew 21:33-46).

The parable’s obvious meaning was apparent to those against whom it was directed and they wanted to arrest Jesus after he had the temerity to say such blatant and obvious things about them to their face!  And we will notice that the parable warned the chief priests and Pharisees that their conduct would result in the kingdom of God (which they thought they were surely entitled to) would be taken away from them and given to another nation.  Now, this Replacement Theology concept is true when it says that the Jews lost the kingdom of God and it was given to the Church.  Yet many Jews and even many Christians considered this tenet to be a horrible and disgusting doctrine, yet its very origins can be found here emanating from the mouth of the Son of God!  He did not say the kingdom would be taken from the Jews and then handed back to them and elsewhere he consoled the Apostles with words of assurance:-

“Fear not little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom” (Luke 12:32).⁹

These words are plain and clear and it is only a misguided affection to insist that the secular State of Israel and the largely atheistic or agnostic Jewish people are God’s chosen people and the Church is nothing and received nothing as a result of terrifying judgments that played out in the last seventy frightening years of the existence of the Second Jewish Commonwealth.¹⁰  I believe that all baby Christians (whether they are Arabic, MBBs or otherwise) would do well to thoroughly acquaint themselves with this necessary, vital and critical history so as not to advocate or promote anything that they will later live to regret.

Current Events Prognostications

Are Notoriously Unreliable

A cautionary lesson can be learned from the mistakes of others. Over the last 20 centuries, prophetic claims have been uttered but Father Time made sure every presumptuous utterance proved to be categorically false.  From the first century on Jewish messianic claimants persuaded thousands but could not deliver.  The second century, too, saw individuals in the Mediterranean basin raising the hopes of thousands only to see their dreams of Paradise, Utopia, and national glory and liberation cruelly and violently dashed to the ground by the Romans.

As recently as the post-civil war years in the United States large-scale apocalyptic movements in the New England States exploded with undeniable certainty that Jesus would return by the year 1844, then 1845, then 1879, then 1914, then 1925, then 1940, then 1975.

Evangelical Christians held their breath on the merits ofthe newly formed Israeli State and 1981 and 1988 were clearly marked as critical for confirmation of their greatest hopes.  But those expectations failed and attention quickly but quietly turned to 1999 and the year 2000, then 2012—the update of the calendrical madness has no end but the main thing we can learn about what happened is contained in a particular query: What aspects of these claims allow them to be so elastic as to be able to fail miserably and still seem to be credible and real? 

Is there a chance that the notion of current event prophecy is NOT the key to understanding Bible prophecy?  The answer to this question must detain us and, if we look at the chart we will immediately notice that “this generation” of the New Testament, found mainly in the direct teachings of Jesus, has to do with the contemporary period of the days of the Apostles and the early Christians, not another generation hundreds or thousands of years away: This is very important to realize and understand!  Just this one aspect, alone, changes the entire discussion about any so-called current events Bible prophecy claims and at the same time gives us insight, understanding, and wisdom that will be valuable to pass on to any new disciples whose mentorship, teaching, and instruction God may entrust to us.¹¹

The Indictment of Jesus Against

Aristocratic Jerusalem

Another important claim made by current events advocates is that Babylon the Great in the Book of Revelation may be one world power or another.  It depends on who you ask: It could be Vatican City or it could be Mecca, it could be New York City or it could be an amalgam of all world religions combined into one monstrous entity, however, regardless of the claims of what Jesus said about the guilt and penalties in respect to the persecution of the prophets, apostles, and saints of the Bible are not ambiguous.

In Matthew, we hear our Lord say,

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:29-39.

Is this indictment unclear in its meaning?  Or is it obscure in the crimes it describes?  We believe it is both clear and obvious that Jesus placed upon first century Jerusalem a direct expectation that they would be held accountable for the deaths of the prophets of God going all the way back to the death of Abel up the blood of Zacharius the son of Barachias, who was slain between the altar and the Temple.  The chart below serves to help us visualize just how extensive this edict against Jerusalem is and why and how it is quite impossible to share this unusual blame across time to include multiple entities at anyone’s whim or discretion.

Finally, in light of this aspect, we are able to see that the larger implications of this indictment make an interpretation of Revelation’s Babylon the Great impossible to be any other metropolis than first century Jerusalem.¹²

Conclusion

For the sake of time, I believe this study has extended far enough.  The several key aspects we have covered were the three weakest beliefs about end-times that are fundamentally flawed: The first thing we explained was who the four kingdoms of Bible prophecy are.  This was necessary in order to make sense of how and why the end could be near in the first century.  We showed what King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream reveals about the passage of these four kingdoms stretching from 605 B.C. to the formation of a Judæo-Idumean coalition war government on the eve of the A.D.70 Destruction of Jerusalem. 

We noted that the Neo-Babylonian head of gold persisted for 66 years and was overtaken by the Medes and Persians whose empire persisted for 228 years before Alexander the Great conquered the east and his successor’s power over the Old Testament people of God continued from Minyan Sheṭarot to the Hasmonean State’s independence in 141 B.C., the 170^th year, as noted in 1 Maccabees 13:41-42. 

We explained how in the 78^th year after its sovereignty the fourth kingdom came under Roman supervision in 63 B.C. and how later on, when Jesus was there, in the middle of the first century, he hinted that not only did the Jews still have this kingdom but at some future point they were in striking distance of the Stone when they (the chief priests and Pharisees) would be ground to powder and have that kingdom taken away from them and given to another nation, bringing forth fruits. 

The stone coming upon the wicked husbandmen is really another way of speaking of the Second Coming, but this essay will leave that study for a future time, but this present study should suffice to strongly suggest that incorporating alien notions of an Islamic eschaton into the Bible prophecy calendar framework is an extraordinary error and would represent a grave and unfortunate mistake.

Next, we examined current events prognostications which are notoriously unreliable, and why is that the case.  It is the case because “this generation” in the New Testament is the last one hundred years of the existence of the Second Jewish Commonwealth, the endangered Old Testament people of God.  “This generation” actually has nothing at all to do with current events as people have sincerely but mistakenly conceived it to mean!

We supplied a reference chart for this and we are encouraging Christians to use it along with the 20/20 contextual rule in their own studies and research about these controversial issues. 

Read 20 verses before the verse, read the verse itself, and read 20 verses after and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to your heart and mind God’s holy will (which is the relevant interpretation that does not exaggerate or deprive the New Testament of its foundational meanings which support the emerging reality of Christianity, which is the kingdom of God).  Put your trust in God so that you will be supplied with an understanding of the truth that will not fail or disappoint with the passage of time!

The next aspect that is overlooked is the blood crime detail where our Lord definitively blamed first century Jerusalem for murderous transgressions against God’s agents, the prophets, apostles, and saints.  These indictments are not misdemeanors but iniquities that extend all the way backward from the first century to the murder of Abel at the hands of his brother, Cain. 

And so, when we think of these three issues apart or in combination we can easily understand why the notion of Islam in Bible prophecy is a fundamentally flawed and unbiblical proposition and why it should therefore be challenged, repudiated, and avoided at all costs.  

Endnotes

¹ Muslim Background Believers, or “MBBs” are Christians who come from Islamic backgrounds.

² Things I told my best friend about Bible prophecy over 50 years ago came back to bite me and my friend has NO interest in the Bible after I frightened him about the so-called Rapture and great tribulation that was supposed to start when the State of Israel was seven years shy of becoming forty-years-old.  If I had known then what I know now about the antiquities of Judaism and Christianity my friend’s faith would not have soured when absolutely nothing happened all through the 1980s which showed him and an awful lot of other people that when Christians talk about Bible prophecy they may be convinced but they do not know what they are talking about.

³ All students of the Bible should be asking themselves how the first three kingdoms could survive for a couple of centuries apiece but the fourth kingdom is supposed to be still coming after an entire 20 centuries?  How does that make sense?  How does it make sense that 20 centuries ago Jesus seemed to think the fourth kingdom was ON ITS WAY OUT and the majority of Bible prophecy experts in the 21st century think it is now ON ITS WAY IN?

⁴ How and why would Islam be the subject of Bible prophecy when Mohammad’s ministry in Arabia began almost 800 years after the facts?  Even more serious than that, the Ottoman Empire was responsible for the direct demise of what remained of the Roman Empire, but that was much much later, in 1453—1,594 years further away from where the events need to be!   

⁵ Queen Alexandra Schlomzyyon single-handedly ruled the Hasmonean Kingdom state for 9 prosperous and happy years (76-67 B.C.) and, at the time of her death, she gave it to her younger son, Judah Aristobulus II.  Josephus chronicles how in no long time Antipater, an Idumean government official, fomented palace intrigue by suggesting to King Aristobulus IIs elder brother, Hyrcanus that the right to kingship should have fallen to him.  When Pompey and the Roman military became involved matters were settled in a way that was very unfavorable to the brothers and to the fourth kingdom their Hasmonean ancestors had fought, suffered, and died for.

⁶ The Sagan, Eleazar, the son of Ananias the high priest persuaded those who officiated in the divine services to receive no gift or sacrifice for any foreigner (Wars of the Jews 2.17.1:401-410).

⁷ Wars of the Jews 2.17.3:411-4:420.

⁸ See Josephus’s Wars of the Jews for the formation of the ten-toed Judæo-Idumean coalition government in A.D.66 (Wars of the Jews 2.20.1:556-4:568).

⁹ Jesus directly promised his Apostles the kingdom the first century Jews believed they would receive by entitlement.  We do not hate the Jewish people because, like ourselves, they are made in the image of God, and besides that, the Apostle Paul stated categorically that the Gospel belongs to the Jews first (Romans 1:16; Hebrews 8:8).  But do not let misguided affection for a people group lead you into prophecy errors or claims you may live to regret because you may not get a second chance to make a good first impression.

¹⁰ The catastrophic and unstable years of Jewish and Israelite history from A.D.66 all the way to A.D.136 are important for serious Christians to look into and become acquainted with.  Where a current events prophecy book from 1879 or even 1970 is totally and completely worthless today, a serious study of the Zealot war years will continue to be fruitful and valuable to you and any Christians you mentor 80 years from now and beyond!  What is true will not lose its value and worth over time, but lies, misformation, and mistaken notions will.  

¹¹  No Christian should want to cross their fingers and hope time won’t prove what they are now saying about prophecy is completely wrong.  Sagacity demands that you learn from the hard lessons other people have learned and not make the same mistakes.  It doesn’t really matter how popular a belief is or even if famous people hold these ideas to be true.  Only God can make a prophecy come true and it must be remembered that just because the Jews want to build a Third Temple, it is not the same thing as if they accomplished that ambition!  Don’t confuse mere rumors with facts!  We are not living in the designated generation and no matter what happens, if Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life there will never be an end-time Redux for our viewing pleasure.  In other words, what he promised to do by oaths saying, “Verily, I say unto you, ‘this generation shall not pass away until all be fulfilled’” means that within the specified time he has faithfully fulfilled his promises whether we understand the dynamics of it or not.

¹² Implicating or extending the indictment Jesus attached to the Jerusalem Aristocracy upon the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church, or Islam is an example of inadvertently or willfully violating a direct and authoritative claim of our Lord.  It is a completely unnecessary mistake to make and it complicates efforts to understand exactly what the Book of Revelation is talking about (See Luke 9:31; Luke 11:45-51; John 16:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 cf. Revelation 6:9-11; 11:8; 17:16 and 18:20-24, and 19:1-4).

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