We're gonna talk about one of
the beasts. There's two beasts. We're just gonna talk about one
of them tonight. But let me read this chapter
13 about these two beasts. And I stood upon the sand of
the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven
heads and 10 horns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was
like unto a leper, And his feet were as the feet of a bear, and
his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power,
and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads, as
it were, were wounded to death. And his deadly wound was healed,
and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped
the dragon, which gave power unto the beast. And they worshiped
the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to
make war with him? And there was given unto him
a mouth, speaking great things and blasphemies. And power was
given unto him to continue 40 and two months. And he opened
his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, his
tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto
him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power
was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. And
all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names
are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. If any man have a ear, let him
hear. He that leadeth into captivity
shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword
must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the
faith of the saints. And I beheld another beast coming
up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he
spake as a dragon. And he exercises all the power
of the first beast before him and causes the earth and them
that dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly
wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders so
that he maketh fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the
sight of men. And deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by the means of these miracles which he had power
to do in the sight of the beast. saying to them that dwell on
the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had
the wound by sword and did live. And he had power to give life
unto the image of the beast, and the image of the beast should
both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image
of the beast should be killed. And he causes all, both small
and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in
their right hand or in their foreheads, and that no man might
buy or sell save he that had the mark or the name of the beast
or the number of his name. Here is wisdom, let him that
hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is
the number of a man, and the number is 600, three score and
six. Some hideous looking creatures,
ain't they? Hideous looking creatures. And
what these beasts are, what these two beasts are, are just instruments
in the hand of Satan, in the hand of the dragon. And he uses
these beasts, these instruments in his hands to attack the Lord
Jesus Christ and his people. And two beasts are described,
hideous, hideous in appearance. A real, real monster. The first
one. And the second, that second beast
there in verse 11, who had two horns like a lamb. The second
appears humble, which makes him more dangerous than the first.
Because he's got horns as a lamb. And he appears like someone you
can trust. The first beast, he comes up
out of the sea. And you know, when you see in
the scriptures, the sea in the scriptures, when you see it referring
to people, it always refers to a great number of people, not
the sea actually. And you know, you've seen places
where you say, boy, it seems like a whole sea of people, as
far as you can see. Well, so he comes up out of the
sea, he comes up out among people, is what he's doing. And he says
he saw him as one coming up out of the sea. And this is Satan's
hand. This is what he uses as his hand.
This first beast has his hand. This is his right hand. This
is his hand. The second beast that comes up out of the earth,
this is Satan's brain. This is his mind. So he's got
something to use with his hand and his devious, devious mind. And that first beast, this first
beast, this one with this hideous, hideous look, is the nations
and governments of the world. That's what that first beast
represents, the nations and the governments of this world. And
it's obvious they're controlled by Satan. It's obvious that they're
run by Satan and all the people that's in power and authority,
it's obvious, we'll deal with that in a minute. And that second
beast, he comes up and he's representative of false religion. False religion,
anti-Christian religion. and the philosopher of this world.
But there's a third instrument, and we won't see it yet, but
look over in Revelation 17, five. Here's the third instrument that
he used. He got another instrument that he uses. And it's called
Babylon the harlot. And this is a woman, and upon
her forehead was a name written. Mystery Babylon, the great mother
of harlots and abominations of the earth. This is the third
instrument that he uses. Babylon, the harlot, the mother
of all harlots. And when he's talking about harlots,
he's talking about spiritual harlots, spiritual adulterers,
people that turn against God, turn against Christ. So these
three, these two beasts in Babylon, the great harlot, They're used
of Satan and his attack on the earth, on the Lord Jesus Christ,
on his people. And anti-christian persecution,
that's the first one. They hate Christ and they hate
his people. And our Lord himself said that,
if they hated me, they'll hate you. Don't you be surprised.
That's the first beast. The second beast is anti-Christ
religion. It's anti-Christian religion
because of all the signs and works and wonders and miracles
that it did. And then Babylon, she's a seductress. It's anti-Christian seductre.
You know, they seduce people. And the scriptures, Paul warned
about being seduced by the devil, being led astray by the devil. And so is Babylon the great,
great harlot. So remember that. The first beast
is persecution. People against God, people against
Christ. The second one is Antichrist's
religion because all this and all the miracles and works that
he did. And the third one is that one that seduces people
out, seduces them and seduces them into false religion, lulls
them to sleep, brings them and seduces them to believe a lie
and love a lie and go to hell with it. God said they'll go
to hell with the lie in the right hand over in Isaiah. But here's
the first thing, we'll look at this first beast here. And he
said, I stood upon the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rise up out
of the sea. And oh my, like I told you, the
seas represents nations, the seas represents governments.
And you know, you can see that, you can go see that in the Old
Testament in several different places. I'll not have you turn
there tonight. And Satan's always used nations,
Satan's always used governments. And he does now. But then it
said here he has seven heads and ten horns and ten crowns
upon his heads, the name of blasphemy. Ten horns and upon his horns,
ten crowns, the crowns upon his horns. And the title over his
head was blasphemy. blasphemy. And when it talks
about him having seven heads, that means that he assumes different
forms, different ways of dealing with things, different attitudes
throughout history. You go throughout history and
you'll see how Satan forms himself to beat that situation. You go
back into the Babylon, God, how he used Babylon. And how he used
the Assyrians. He used them, he said he used
them. And then you talk about the Roman Empire. Nobody was
crueler than the Romans. Oh, they were cruel. I read to
the men tonight, back about under Nero, and under Domitian, and
under the Caesars. They had altars made of incense,
and the emperors set themselves up to be God. And if you didn't
burn incense on their altars, then you was considered unpatriotic,
and they killed you, executed you. And they would persecute
you, and if you was a Christian, they'd persecute you until you
told somebody else was one, and they would kill both of you.
And I read to them tonight that Nero would set Christians on
fire. and set them on fire, and they'd
light up the night with their bodies burning, and they would
have a big garden party, and watch it happen in Nero's garden. And I'll tell you what, he, and
I'll tell you, that's the Roman Empire. Then you got the Grecian
Empire. They certainly didn't want anything
to do with God, didn't want anything to do with Christ. And then when
Lenin and Marx came and took over Russia, and destroyed all
the czars, the first thing they outlawed was religion. They had
the, there's the Roman Catholic, let me give you a little history
lesson here. The Roman Catholic Church is the west. And the Greek
Orthodox, or the Russian Orthodox, is the eastern part. But they
all come out of Constantine, who was the first fellow that
recognized Christianity. So he set up the Roman Catholic
Church so he could control it. And over here on the east they
had the Greek Orthodox Church and they all wore big crowns
and they wore big old long black robes and had big old beards.
And then they had the Orthodox Church in Russia the same way. All wore big crosses and you
know it was just a bunch of ceremonies and hocus pocus just exactly
like the Roman Catholics. But anyway, when Lenin and Marx
took over Russia, the first thing they did was outlaw God. God will not be mentioned in
Russia. God does not exist. And that's
why you'd rush into some of the cruelest, meanest people on the
earth, is because they do not believe a God even exists. And
if you don't have to answer to a God, you can do anything you
want to, and no consequences to it. That's just a little history
lesson. And then look at America. Look at America. People say,
well, America's, you know, it's a Christian nation. There's never
been so such thing as a Christian nation. You may, you all may
not like that, but there never has been a Christian nation.
There's been Christians in nations. There's been Christians in nations,
but there's never been a Christian nation. And I'll tell you this,
this is, this is, you know, when you look around you, you can
tell that Satan's running this world. You look at all the nations,
they all get together. And then all these big things,
and they're all, well everybody wants to be the big, big shot
of all the big shots. Why do they do that? Because
Satan's controlling them. Satan's manipulating them. Satan
just gives you an idea of several things he's doing right now.
He wants to bring socialism. He wants the government to take
every right, every power, and every authority out of the hands
of the people and put it in the power of the government. You
know why? So he can control us. That's right, I'm telling you
the truth. And I'm not trying to get in
religion, I'm just, I mean in politics, I'm just telling you
the truth. He wants people, he wants people under control. He
wants, he wants everything that could save us for, you know,
that we could defeat. Every time they pass a law, it
takes a ride away from somebody. And they're laboring hard, and
I tell you, you know all the abortions, Satan's the daddy
rabbit of abortions. He's a thief, he's a murderer,
he's a beginning. That's what I'm telling you,
he's running this world. People don't, they don't know
it, even the people that's doing it don't know it. The Jews, look
what they did to Christ. Satan was the son of perdition.
I mean Judas was the son of perdition So we can go on and on and on
it's obvious that Satan is behind everything that happens in this
world in China It's against the law to be a Christian In Vietnam
it's against the law to be a Christian They catch you with the Bible
catch you with a group of people meeting with somebody's home.
They're gonna come in there and they're gonna arrest you They're
arresting people in Canada because they're not kowtowing to what
they say they ought to do over this virus. So I'm telling you,
Satan is, he's cruel. He's cruel. He is cruel. And then it says here in Alabama,
that's a little history lesson. And then he has 10 horns. It
says he has 10 horns. And on those 10 horns, you know,
because having those seven heads, he can assume different forms. And he said having 10 horns,
that means he's very cruel. And these heads, these horns
are crowned with crowns, not the head, the crowns. And Satan
rules this beast. Satan's the one that wears the
crown. And he used the government's nations to carry out his plans.
And look what it says there in the last part of verse two. And the dragon gave him his power. He ain't got no power. Satan
gave him his power and his seat and great authority. These people
sell their souls to have a title and a name and a power. and prestige,
and a throne, and a title. And then look what it says on
his head. And upon his heads, on all seven of them heads, it
says, it's written the name blasphemy. That tells you how wicked he
is, blasphemous. Blasphemy, oh my. And I tell you what, these heads
here, these worldly rulers, they blaspheme God. They demand titles
of sovereignty, savior. Oh, how many men have said, oh,
listen, if it wasn't for me, our country would be lost. And
I saved the world. I saved our country. I saved
the world. They want to be called lord.
They want to be called master. They want to be called father.
There was Domitian. He outlawed Christianity altogether. Outlawed it. It was against the
law. And he, you know why he called
his name? He said, I'm master and I'm God. Both. And you'll either worship
me or die. And you know, no wonder Paul
was martyred. No wonder Simon Peter was martyred. Because they wouldn't do it.
And you know Daniel over in chapter 7. You can look at this your
own self. But Daniel saw four separate beasts over there. And
every one of them had these images. Every one of them had a certain
thing about them. But here in this beast, he's
combined in one. And look what it says. Talking
about this beast. He's anti-Christian government.
Now look at his body. And the beast which I saw was
like unto a leopard. Now, will you know whenever you
mention a leopard in the scriptures, you know what the first thing
he says? Can the leopard change his spots? Can the Ethiopian
change his skin? Neither can you that are accustomed
do evil do good. Well, he called him a leopard.
He's got spots and he can't change his spots. And when you talk
about a leopard, they're large, They're fierce. They're fast. They're swift. And they'll lay
like a big old cat. They'll lay down like a cat,
just waiting, waiting, waiting. Somebody get and reach it, pounce
on you. And that's the way he is. He's
a leopard. He can't change. And then look
what it said, his feet is as the feet of a bear. And I tell
you what, a bear is fast and a bear is ready to crush you,
ready to tear you, ready to take big cuts out of you. You know,
they talked about David when his son, oh my goodness,
his name slipped my, when his son was trying to take over his
throne. Anyway, when his son was taking
over his throne, you know what one of his advisors told him?
Absalom, that's who it was, Absalom. He said, you know when he was
fixed to take over, he says, now you gotta watch your father.
Because your father is a man of war, and if you mess him up,
he's like a bear robbed of his whelps. And I tell you what,
a bear, you go messing with a bear's whelps and you're in trouble,
and that's what they said David was like, he was that fierce,
like a bear robbed of his whelps. And then look at his mouth. And
his mouth as the mouth of a lion. Oh my. The mouth of a lion. The lion roars. He roars. Growls. Great big ferocious teeth. And that's why even Peter called
him a roaring lion. A roaring lion. And then in verse
three, look what it says. And I saw one of his heads as
it were wounded to death. Oh, one of his heads, now he's
got seven of them. So one of them received a wound.
And I'll tell you, these seven heads represent seven, seven
anti-Christian empires, countries, great empires. I'll show you
that over here in Revelation 17, 10. Look over here with me,
let me show you that. One of them received a wound,
and in fact, he received a wound to death. He died, his deadly
wound, he died from it. One of his heads died. But look
what it says there in verse 10. He says, there are seven kings
in the seven mountains, and seven kings, five are fallen, and one
is And yet another is not yet come. So there's five. One got
wounded, this is the head that just got wounded. And the other,
the seventh, has not yet come. And when he does come, this seventh
king, he must continue a short space. So you see, one of his
heads was killed, and it said over here in verse three, that
one of his heads was wounded to death. Now watch what happens
now. and his deadly wound was healed,
and all the world wondered after the beast. One of them appears to cease
to exist, but he is healed. He resumed his power, resumed
his power. And oh my, I done told you about
John's day in Rome, how they hated Nero and how they all done
the things that they do. You remember when Peter and John
were preaching, And they healed that lame man at the gate, beautiful
gate. And they called the Sanhedrin,
70, the big, the 70, the rulers over Israel, they called those
two men in their presence. And they said, we warned you,
and warned you, don't you preach again in this man's name. We
don't want you preaching his name. Don't mention him anymore.
Cease to teach or preach in his name. Now what if somebody come in
here and told us that? You know what Simon Peter told
him? Are we to obey God or are we to obey man? They ran back
out and went to preach it again. Put Peter in jail that night.
God come woke him up and said, come on. So the Lord's gonna protect his
people. And I'll tell you, this head, it was revived under Domitian
25 years later, Master and God. And it says here in verse 4,
listen to this now. And they worshipped the dragon.
They worshipped him. They worshipped Satan. They worshipped
him and give power unto the beast. And they worshipped the beast.
They worshipped. They're not conscious that they're
worshiping them. They're not conscious that they're
doing that. They're not saying, listen, I know the dragon's running
this, the devil's running this thing, Satan's running this thing.
They don't bow down and worship him that way. They don't do it
that way. But what they do is that they
attribute everything to themselves, and that's what Satan loves,
for them to be proud, to be feeling good about themselves. And then
look what it says. And they worshiped the dragon
which gave power to the beast, and they worshiped the beast
saying, who is like unto the beast? Who's able to make war
with him. And that's what they say about
countries, you know, who better not make war with us, we can
whip you. And then look what he had, look
at his mouth now. And where there was given unto
him a mouth, speaking great things and blasphemies. Ah. And power was given unto him
to go for 42 months, the gospel age. And listen to how he opened
his mouth. He blasphemed God. That's the
first thing he does. He blasphemes God. Blasphemes
God. Do you hear any of these rulers
of this world mention God? Do you hear any of them say anything
about God? Do you hear any of them say, we
need God? You ever hear one of them? You ever hear any president?
Except the last president that mentioned God, I think it was
Trump, but before him, the ones that actually had some sense
of God was Abraham Lincoln. The last one that I know of that
had any sense of God whatsoever. But I'll tell you what, and here
is this man, and he blasphemes against God. He blasphemes his
name. makes fun of his name. To say
that God ain't got no power is to blaspheme God. To say that
his name don't have all authority is to blaspheme his name. To
say that God's got a wonderful plan for your life is to blaspheme
God. People blaspheme God every single
day of their lives. Every free willer, every false
preacher, every president, every king, everybody that stands up
and talks about how great they are, and how great facts they've
done, and great things they've done, and how they love the people,
they are blaspheming God. God loves, listen, Satan, he's
controlling the world, but God's controlling him, and I'm thankful
for that. God will let him go so far, Did
I tell y'all about that time, and I've told you, I know I've
told you this. But you know, when you read Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress, they were out one night, and
they come up on this beautiful house, and they're tired, and
they're wore out, and they've been traveling, they're on their
pilgrimage. They see this great, big, beautiful
house up there, and they wanna go up there. It looks so inviting. All full of lights. And they
want to go and they come up there and they'll go by there to get
to this house and two great big old lions come charging out there. And it scared them. Oh, they
got so scared. And they're easing around them
big old lions. And them lions would come out,
and they'd get farther away, and they'd come out, and they'd
come out, and then finally they said, well listen, they're on
chains. So let's just stay out of reach of the chains and we'll
make it. And you know, that's the way
it is. We get scared to death sometimes,
but listen, God's got him on a chain. But I'm thankful for
that, ain't you? He may roar at you sometimes,
he may get on your shoulder and whisper in your ear, But I tell
you, if you cry sheep, you ain't gonna believe him. Oh no. And
then not only, but he blasphemes his tabernacle. He blasphemes
where God dwells, where the altar's at, where the worship's made.
And he even blasphemes them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to
make war with the saints. This is what I'm talking about.
This is that nation's persecuting the Lord's people. Listen, there's
nations that, who told us, said tonight, you're not even allowed
to take a Bible into Saudi Arabia and these Muslim countries. If
they catch you with a Bible, it's against the law. You bring alcohol into one of
their countries and it's against the law. They can go to England
and go somewhere else and do it, but you can't bring it in
there. Can't even bring a Bible. Ain't that something? I tell
you, I ain't gonna go nowhere where I can't bring a Bible.
Are you? Muslim nations, they don't even
believe in God. They just believe in a prophet. And they would cut our throats
and just laugh and laugh and just dance in our graves and
say, boy, what a wonderful thing I've just done for Allah. Just
what I did for Mohammed. Oh my, it's really, I don't,
but I tell you what, we don't know how bad it is, really. We
really don't, and I thank God we don't. I thank God we can't
see like God sees, and we can't, that he keeps things hid from
us, and keeps us in the light, and keeps these things hid from
us, but he warns us about these things. And oh my, it was given
to him to make war, And power was given over him and to overcome
them. I mean that means that he slaughtered
them, that means that he persecuted them, that means that they died.
And I tell you in England one time, there's two times in England
where they slaughtered Christians. Under Henry VIII, And then when they had the ejection
in the 1600s, anybody that was preaching the gospel, if you
didn't join the Church of England, you had to leave your pulpits.
They wouldn't let nobody preach publicly. John Bunyan spent 12
years in prison because he preached the gospel. He was a Baptist
preacher, and he preached the gospel, and they said, John,
you're gonna stop? He said, no, I ain't. They found
that he was preaching in a barn with a bunch of people, and they
come and arrested him. And they put him in a, you know they got
these here stone bridges over there, and in the bottom of them
bridges, they got cells on either side of it. And they put him
in Bedford in a cell under this, and that bridge is still there,
that cell's still there, he was under that cell. And they kept telling him, John,
we'll let you out if you don't quit preaching publicly. He said,
moss will grow on my upper lip for I'll not preach the gospel
when you let me out of here. There were some, sometimes there
were some men in this world. There always has been and there
always will be. God never left himself without
a witness. Now it's easy for us. We're standing
here. We got a good comfortable place and it's hard for us to
grasp these things. But we don't know what's going
to happen before it's all over. We really don't. But, and God
gives this man power. And then he, look at it there
in verse seven, and he comes over, comes the saints, and he
given power over all nations, kindreds, tongues, and nations.
And listen to this, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship
him. You know the only people who
don't? whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. You read it tonight,
my sheep hear my voice and they'll follow me. You know who don't worship him?
Those whose names are written in the book of life. That's who
does it. And I tell you what, let me Let
me go on here now and try to wind this thing up here. I don't
know how long, but here he goes and he says, the only people
that's not gonna worship him and bow to him and give in to
him, God saved us from him. God saved us from darkness. God
saved us from Satan. God saved us. He overcome him,
defeated him and I'm thankful. And I tell you what, there's
a book of life and every name was put in it. was put in it
before the foundation of the world. Because of that lamb that
was slain, God gave him all that book and every name was put in
it. You don't get your name put in there when you believe, you
believe because your name was put in there. You go down the
list, it's time! Dear God, I'll quit right here.
If any man has an ear, let him listen. That's what he said.
If any man has an ear, let him hear. Hear what I'm saying. He
that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. People that's
trying to take people captive and do what they did to the Lord's
people and people in this world, they themselves will go into
captivity. That man that comes here and
makes war and kills with the sword, he's gonna get killed
with the sword. And so he's saying, if you may
be taken captive and you may be killed with a sword. Here
is the patience and faith of the saints. You just wait. And our Lord said this, told
his people, in your patience possess ye your souls. In your patience possess ye your
souls. Our blessed Savior, Oh, gracious
God, thank you for allowing us to speak again tonight. Lord, this world's in darkness
and yet you brought us to the light. We've always known the
whole world lies in darkness, in wickedness, but you saved
us from it. And Lord, I pray you continue
to protect us, save us from this world. Don't let us in the world,
don't let the world in us. Please help us to honor you,
glorify you. And Lord, if we're ever called
on to face things that would be very, very hard, we know at
that time, at that time, you'll always give us the grace, always
give us the words, always. You always did, your people.
You always did. And we thank you for these dear
saints of God. We pray for our dear brother
Gary, God strengthen his body, strengthen his mind, give him
rest in his body, rest in his mind. And Lord Jesus, we pray
for the others among us who are weak in body, frail in body. God bring glory to yourself through
us and keep us for Christ's sake, amen. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there's
just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus, like the
fragrance after the rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth
proclaim. Kings and kingdoms will all pass
away. But there's something about that
name. Amen. Good night.