There are many End of the World Predictions. For the past several decades, a recurring theme in movies is that the U.S. government is involved in massive cover-ups and conspiracies, whether hiding crashed UFOs and evidence of aliens or concealing the truth about the impending end of the world. (Take Ronald Emmerich’s two movies, Independence Day and 2012, for example.)

This perception has become an integral part of the modern psyche and many Americans are convinced that the powers-that-be know that a catastrophe is coming but are doing nothing to prevent it—either because they can’t or because they’re plotting to benefit from it.

In addition, many Christians believe that there is a vast behind-the-scenes conspiracy to prepare the world for the Antichrist, and insist that covert agencies within the government are actively working to make America part of the New World Order (NWO) and lay the groundwork for the Mark of the Beast. After all, they reason, it will take a great deal of time to set up the Antichrist’s world empire, and when he finally arises, he will have only seven years to implement it. Obviously, his agents must be busy behind the scenes even now orchestrating world events to prepare the nations for him.

Many people point out that in 1972, Gary Allen of the John Birch Society wrote None Dare Call it Conspiracy in which he warned against the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, and insisted that a shadowy group of powerful elite was dedicated to subverting the sovereignty of nations and bringing about the New World Order, through “decisions reached by the ‘big boys’ in the smoke-filled rooms.” In Illumunism, The Great Conspiracy (June, 1976), he wrote that a powerful secret society called the Illuminati took over the Freemasons at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad in1782. The Freemasons have been a prime suspect of the Antichrist’s henchmen ever since.

Those of a more anti-Semitic bend insist that “the ‘big boys’ in the smoke-filled rooms” are all Jewish bankers, following the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion—in which Jews purportedly laid out their plans to take over the world. (Hitler believed the Protocols were real and talked about them in Mein Kamph.) Other conspiracy theorists insist that the Roman Catholic Church, secretly ruled by Jesuit “Black Popes” for the past 200 years, is already running the U.S., Israel, etc. and plotting to take over the entire world.

What are we to make of all these theories? Certainly we know that there have been great conspiracies down through history: every great revolution, good or bad—from the French and American Revolutions to the Russian Revolution—began with men secretly meeting “in smoke-filled rooms,” conspiring to overthrow the government of the day. So could the coming Antichrist have a powerful secret society working behind the scenes to prepare the world to receive him?

Yes, he could. But the true conspirators—if they exist—would probably put out red herrings to divert attention away from their own power grab. For example, the Russian secret police fabricated the document, The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion—basing it on the 1868 novel by Hermann Goedsche—to blame the Jews for Russia’s problems. Or take the hijacking of commercial flights on September 11, 2002 and the destruction of the Twin Towers: despite overwhelming evidence that these acts were carried out by al Qaeda, conspiracy theorists declared that the Jews were behind the attacks. Only when Hezbollah began getting more of a reputation than al Qaeda, did bin Laden order the release of videos proving that al Qaeda had done the deeds after all.

It is my opinion that the world is heading downhill the way it is, not because a secret cabal is orchestrating every election result in every country around the globe and precipitating every economic downturn, but because God, knowing man’s deteriorating moral condition as the end of the world approaches, says things must happen this way: “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come … Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse” (2 Tim. 3:1, 12). “And because lawlessness shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold” (Mat. 24:12).

Certainly there will be individuals and organizations whose goals will be in line with those of the Antichrist, and who will actively work to promote him once he arrives on the world scene—but I sincerely doubt that a highly-organized secret society exists for the express purpose of setting the stage for the coming Son of Perdition. More likely, just as the political and economic climate in Germany in the 1930s was ripe for the rise of Hitler and his Nazis, so the political, economic and religious climate in the Last Days will be ready for the Antichrist.