215 The Antichrist in the Mirror: How Pride Blinds Us to the Beast

On the Internal Rebellion That Makes the External One Invisible

Feb 21, 2026

We are a people obsessed with signs. We read the headlines through the lens of Revelation, scanning the geopolitical stage for the rise of a beast, parsing speeches for the mark of the beast, decoding economic systems for the number of the beast. We hold our binoculars up, straining our eyes toward the horizon, vigilant tourists on a field trip through the end times. Is it the president? The tech visionary? The cultural icon? We whisper the possibilities, feeling a strange mix of dread and self-congratulation for our discernment.

All the while, the real rebellion is brewing in the one place we refuse to look.

It is here, in the quiet of my own chest. In the rising heat of my own thoughts. It is the internal antichrist, the one who sets up a throne in the center of my own being. Its name is Pride. And its primary mission is not to conquer nations, but to obscure my vision so completely that I would welcome the conqueror with open arms, believing him a savior.

The Scripture warns of a coming one, “the man of lawlessness…who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 ESV). We picture a throne in a rebuilt Jerusalem, a figure on a global screen. We miss the quieter, more insidious coup. Pride is the antichrist spirit that does the same thing within the temple of my own heart. It opposes God’s will. It exalts myself. It takes a seat on the throne of my affections and proclaims, “My will be done.”

This is the diabolical genius of it. The spirit of antichrist is not a foreign invader. It is a homegrown usurper. It uses my own voice. It dresses in the clothes of my righteous causes, my doctrinal correctness, my spiritual discernment. It whispers that my anger is holy indignation. It convinces me my ambition is godly zeal. It paints my stubbornness as steadfast faith. It is the log in my own eye, so massive it blocks all light, yet it feels like a part of my face. “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3 ESV). I cannot recognize the antichrist “out there” because I am in full communion with his spirit “in here.”

Pride is the original anti-anointing. Christ emptied Himself. Pride fills me with self. Christ took the form of a servant. Pride demands to be served. Christ submitted to the will of the Father. Pride elevates my will to the place of ultimate authority. Every act of pride is a small, daily rehearsal for welcoming the ultimate counterfeit. It is the conditioning of my palate to prefer the taste of my own authority over the bread of heaven.

This is why the warnings are so dire. It is not that the external Antichrist will be so cleverly disguised. It is that I will be so thoroughly blinded. My internal compass will be broken. My ability to discern light from darkness will be short-circuited by the very darkness I have been hosting. When the great deception arrives, offering peace, unity, and salvation on his terms, how will I know it is a lie? If I have spent a lifetime making peace with the little lies of my own superiority, my own rightness, my own centrality, the big lie will feel like truth finally recognized.

The Antichrist will not appeal to our humility. He will appeal to our pride. He will not ask us to kneel to a monster, but to stand tall as part of a glorious, final solution. He will offer to vindicate all our grievances, to elevate our tribe, to finally give us the recognition, the safety, the supremacy we feel we deserve. He will not look like a dragon to the one who has been nursing a serpent in his own bosom. He will look like a deliverer.

The preparation for recognizing the beast is not more prophecy charts. It is ruthless self-examination. It is the daily, painful practice of kneeling before the true Christ and asking Him to reveal the antichrist within. It is praying the prayer of the Psalmist with actual fear: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24 ESV).

It means looking for pride not in its cartoonish forms of arrogance, but in its pious disguises.

The pride of being right about a doctrine, while forgetting the love that is the greater command.
The pride of seeing the world’s sin clearly, while being blind to my own critical spirit.
The pride of my spiritual discipline, which quietly judges the weaker brother.
The pride of my suffering, which I wear as a badge of honor rather than a tool for empathy.
The pride of my independence, my ability to handle things, my quiet refusal to need the body of Christ.

This internal war is the real frontline. The battle for the soul of the world will be won or lost in the thousand small surrenders of my will to His. Each time I choose humility over being heard, service over status, forgiveness over being right, I am deposing the antichrist within. I am cleansing the temple of my heart so that when the ultimate false christ steps onto the world stage, his voice will ring hollow in a soul that has learned to recognize and reject the echo of its own pride.

We must put down the binoculars for a moment. We must turn the lens inward. The most dangerous antichrist is not the one we fear will control the world. It is the one we have already allowed to control our hearts. Defeat that one, and the other loses his power over us. We will see him for what he is: a pathetic imitation, a cheap copy of the rebellion we have already, by grace, begun to dismantle within ourselves.

Humility is not about thinking less of ourselves, but rather it’s about thinking about ourselves less.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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