Normalizing mind of beast for The Beast

The 70^th week of Daniel during the Tribulation period is divided in the middle with three-and-a-half years on each side. In the middle of the week, a transformation occurs in the life of the Antichrist where he goes from being the “man of sin” to the "son of perdition."

“In the first half, he’s a man, and in the middle of the week he dies,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “When a man dies his soul goes to hell. He’s killed and goes to hell and they lay him out ‘in state.’

“My educated guess of how it will happen is he will lie in state and have a state funeral and then, all of a sudden, he’ll just come up out of the coffin and say, ‘Hi guys, I told you I was God.’

“Now, if you had some wacko terrorist come in and slash some guy real good with a machete and kill him, and then he was laid out stone-cold dead, and they’ve got the TV cameras on him and pictures going out all over the world because he’s this world ruler who's brought in peace and subdued everybody, and then all of a sudden he just stood up, what do you think people are going to do?!

“He becomes the beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit and he’s no longer just a human now, he’s a demonic creature: he’s Satan incarnate, as it were. He's now the ‘son of perdition.’ Ezekiel 28 says he’s the prince (Antichrist) in the first half, and the king (Satan) in the second half.”

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In his 1990 book, Daniel the Prophet, Bible scholar Noah Hutchings  makes the point, “When a man in his own wisdom and pride looks downward and inward to himself, God gives him the mind of a beast because all beasts look down.”

From the Book of Daniel, we know that one-time world-ruler King Nebuchadnezzar (a picture-type of the Antichrist) was given the mind of a beast for seven years—the same time frame of this 70^th week in which the Antichrist is called a beast.

“Although (Daniel’s) dream was prophetic of God’s judgment against Nebuchadnezzar himself, it was a representation of the subduing of all Gentile nations under the authority of God at the end of the Tribulation period,” writes Hutchings. “We notice that although Nebuchadnezzar had been given two specific warnings, he continued to claim all honor and glory unto himself and defy the God of heaven.

“God gave him the mind of a beast and he was insane for seven years. During the seven-year Tribulation period, the leaders of the nations will act as mad men: they will defy God and accept the leadership of a ruler called the Beast.”

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In another chapter, Hutchings informs, “We read in Revelation 13:5 of the little horn on the beast: ‘And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. . .’

“This ruler of the last beast empire will try to force every man, woman and child to reject Christ as Savior and deny the existence of God, and then he will pass a universal law that everyone must fall down and worship him as God.

“The end of this Antichrist, demon-possessed madman which Daniel saw is also described in Revelation 19:19-21. . . Daniel was particularly interested in the fourth beast because it was the ruler of this kingdom who would make war against Israel and prevail against them for a time.

"The fourth beast was also the strangest and most horrible of all the beasts, and it would be destroyed by the Messiah when He comes to bring in His kingdom. So it would be natural that Daniel would want to know as much as possible about it.”