Our music leader announced the first hymn for the day.

“Let’s turn to hymn 666.” she said.

Everybody broke out in laughter since 666 is the well-known “mark of the beast” in the book of Revelation.

I remembered another music leader announcing the same hymn, but he said, “Let’s turn to hymn 667 and go back one!”

It seems that our hymnal publisher would’ve left page 666 vacant like buildings skip floor 13 in their elevators.

John the Revelator wrote about a charismatic leader who would beguile the nations and attempt to lead people away from God. And ever since Christians have attempted to identify this evil world leader.

In the first century some declared he was Nero. In fact, with the ancient practice of gematria, 666 is revealed in the Latin form “Neron Kaiser.” But although he was a persecutor of Christians, Nero didn’t challenge God in the Jerusalem temple. Some believe a later emperor, Domitian, was the antichrist — he was “Nero-like” as it were. And throughout history the identification process continued: Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and others.

The most interesting interpretation I’ve heard was a radio preacher who insisted Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in each of his names, thus he was 666. I’ve visited President Reagan’s grave in California; it was very humble and not “antichrist-worthy.”

There is a sense in which any godless leader can be an antichrist. John wrote about “antichrists” — plural, lower case (1 John 2:18). But later in Revelation he described an epic and final conflict with Christ. As Dr. Lewis Drummond used to say, “There have been many antichrists, but the ‘granddaddy’ of them all is yet to come.”

Since we’ve been unable to identify this “granddaddy” so far in history, I think there’s a spiritual lesson to be learned; namely, speculation is interesting, but unproductive, though this hasn’t stopped many speculators who’ve tried to reveal the antichrist and to predict the date of Jesus’ return; thus far, unsuccessfully so.

One writer in the 70s implied that within 40 years of the founding of the modern nation of Israel (1948) “all these things” he wrote about might come to pass. However, Israel celebrated her 76th birthday last spring.

The ancient church at Thessalonica had speculators who quit their jobs and awaited the expected imminent return of Christ. Paul chided them and corrected their theology. He also rescinded their church pensions with his famous word, “If a man will not work, neither shall he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

Biblical prophecy is interesting, but we must allow room for various interpretations.

The important thing is to serve the Lord faithfully until we hear the midnight cry and the bridegroom comes for his church. 

“Reflections” is a weekly faith column written by Michael J. Brooks, pastor of the Siluria Baptist Church, Alabaster, Alabama. The church’s website is siluriabaptist.com.