Revelation 13, I will read it
very quickly and then we will talk about it even quicker. Turn there with me. And I saw a beast rising out
of the sea with 10 horns and seven heads, with 10 diadems
on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast
that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear's and
its mouth like a lion's mouth. And to it, the dragon gave his
power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed
to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed and the
whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they
worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the
beast. And they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like the
beast, and who can fight against it? And the beast was given a
mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to
exercise authority for 42 months. It opened its mouth to utter
blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling. That
is those who dwell in the heaven. Also, it was allowed to make
war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given
it over every tribe and people and language and nation and all
who dwell upon the earth and worship it. everyone whose names
has not been written before the foundation of the world in the
book of life of the Lamb who was slain. If anyone has an ear,
let him hear." If anyone is to be taken captive to captivity,
he goes. If anyone is to be slain with
the sword, with the sword, must he be slain. Here is a call for
the endurance and faith of the saints. Then I saw another beast
rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb
and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority
of the first beast in its presence and makes the earth and its inhabitants
worship the first beast. beast whose mortal wound was
healed. It performs great signs, even
making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people.
And by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the
beast, it deceives those who dwell on the earth, telling them
to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword
and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath
to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast might
even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image
of the beast to be slain. Also, it causes all, both great
and small, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked
on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell
unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or
the number of his name. this calls for wisdom let the
one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast for it
is the number of a man and his number is six six six all right
this is the i would say one of the most confusing text of scripture
that is confusing because most of us, as I read that text, have
heard of that. We've heard of 666. We've seen
movies about the Antichrist. We've heard that about Antichrist,
which you did not hear that word there. You didn't hear it. You
won't hear it in referring to the beast of Revelation. John
does not use it in this letter. You see the idea of the of the
beast and the dragon and the beast of the sea and the beast
of the air and the mark of the beast and all of these things.
And every time you hear them, you think of a lot of stuff.
You think of some type of microchip for the hand. You think of some
type of implant for the brain. You think of some type of this
guy that's born of demons and he's waiting and one day he's
going to rise up and pretend like he's Jesus. You've heard
stories and Tim LaHaye, Lord rest his soul, He just recently
passed away. He is the author of the Left
Behind series. He's the one who came up with
the idea of writing the fiction of the Left Behind series to
supposedly parallel this type of thing in Revelation. But see,
we've been reading this text now for 17 weeks. 17 weeks we've been reading Revelation.
And not once have you heard anything of this nature. Come out. Not once have you heard anything
that John has written. Tell us about some person that's
coming to power to rule over the earth and make war with God.
Have you? Matter of fact, what we've been
hearing all the way through Revelation, which is written to believers
only. Hello. It's written to the church. We see that at the very beginning.
Jesus words in the very beginning. He writes to his beloved. He
writes to the angel of the churches of these seven cities that are
instrumentally or orchestrated in a circle there in Asia Minor
during this time. It is a seven. We know that there's
a lot of numbers and pictures of horror and anguish and pestilence
and persecution. We see through the seals and
through the trumpets that there is God's authority being exercised
through the fallen angels of heaven who are we know as demons. and Lucifer, the devil himself.
We know that the devil and his minions do nothing outside the
control of God's sovereignty. As a matter of fact, their only
commander is Jesus Christ, the righteous. We've learned that
through this text. We've seen that there is a time
throughout this world, especially after the ascension of Jesus
Christ, where the church of Jesus Christ is pursued. And the Church
of Jesus Christ is hated and the Church of Jesus Christ is
persecuted to such a degree that it causes many of our brothers
and sisters this very day to lose their very heads. In Somalia,
just yesterday, several Christians were beheaded in the streets.
There was suspicion that these three gentlemen were actually
indeed followers of Christ. And the leaders of that city
called up with them and they would not deny the accusation.
So there in front of everyone, they took their heads from their
body and they posted them on the sidewalk, mocking God and
mocking Jesus Christ and mocking those who follow him. And I thought
about as I read that yesterday, how often I've prayed for God
to save people from martyrdom. And it hit me strongly as I prepared
for this text this evening that we do not need salvation from
martyrdom. It is the call of Christ's people.
There is no such thing as salvation from martyrdom because Christ
has already given us salvation from martyrdom. As a matter of
fact, Paul's the essence of Paul's heart was, as Brother Jesse preached
this past Lord's Day, is that to live as Christ and to die
is far better. I do not know that which I should
do, for to me it is better to go and be with Christ. But for
you, it is better that I remain, that I may continue to feed you
and equip you and to grow you through the word of God. Friends,
there is no fear in death for the believer, though we do fear
dying. We do not have death to look
forward to, for we are alive in Christ. This text is clearly
part of the same conversation. As a matter of fact, the first
thing that we should understand when we go to this text is that
it doesn't start with chapter 13 verse 1. It actually starts
with the very last verse of chapter 12. And he stood on the sand
of the sea, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea. So here
we've got what? We've got the dragon standing
on the sea. We've got dragons standing on
the sand and he is doing what? What did we learn last week?
The devil is pursuing God's people, the woman, the church of Jesus
Christ. And the devil pursues us by the
will and the providence of God, the Father. The calamity that
happens in this world. We've seen picture after picture
of what's happening right now in this inter-advent stage is
what we call it. Inter-advent in between the advents.
The advent of Jesus Christ in the incarnation and the advent
of Jesus Christ in the second coming. The inter-advent. So
if I say that again, you'll know what I mean. From the time of
Jesus' birth to the time of Jesus' second coming. This is the historical
significance of what we see in this picture of this apocalypse,
of this revealing things. John is revealing to us that
which Jesus Christ has told him to show us so that, specifically,
the people of his day would be blessed and be encouraged and
would stand fast. So this great dragon that comes
from the abyss all of a sudden now is standing on the sea. And
imagine, if you can, the picture of this great dragon who we know
is who? Lucifer. Because when he fell, one third
of the angels of heaven fell with him. And we know that he
has been busy trying to thwart the glory of God and steal it
for himself or to share in it since eternity past. And now
this beast is rising out of the sea. Let me talk a minute. When
we think of 666, we often have the, I mean, I've been places
that drive throughs and the total be 666. And I think it's humorous. It doesn't bother me. There's
nothing superstitious about the number. I mean, if somebody said,
hey, would you rather go home with $1 or $666? Give me the
$666. Give me $6.66 rather than no
cents. I mean, but I've had most of
the time people will ring that and they'll go, oh, no. They'll
just delete a penny. If they add a penny, I'm like,
I'm not paying extra. I'm not paying extra. You know, yeah,
but they'll delete a penny or they'll throw something or they'll
add something there or they'll vote it all out and not ring something
up because they just don't, can't stand the idea of 666 being on
their cash register. That's very, very misunderstood
and I hope after tonight we'll show us what it actually means. But Hollywood has come up with
it. It is the nightmare of all nightmares.
Everywhere you turn, everywhere you look, people are scared of
the Antichrist. They're scared of the beast. They're scared
of the false prophet. They're scared of the great red dragon.
They're scared of the devil. And friends, though we should
have a grand respect for the authority that God has given
Satan, and we should understand he's not this toothless lion,
we should not fear him. We should not fear him because
he only operates in conjunction with the authority that Christ
has given him. And the same thing now we're
about to see with these two beasts. And I'm going to use this idea
of beasts. I'm going to call them it because
that's exactly what the scripture calls it. It. There's no personal,
there's no him or her to this. It is an it. So the beast is
an it and it has some descriptions. These two beasts. The reformers
thought these beasts were the Roman Catholic Church. Historically,
the Roman Catholic Church. If you read our, I've got me
a nice new little leather bound edition of our confession. I
like it. Smells really good, like chemicals
and poison. But in here, you see the context
of what the Baptists wrote and what they thought. Even what
the Westminster people, the Presbyterians thought. They thought the Pope
was the Antichrist. They certainly saw the Roman
Catholic Church and the papacy as an Antichrist in context. Earlier, some people thought
it was Egypt, some people thought it was Rome. I grew up being
told it was Russia. I grew up being taught it was
somebody that was going to come from Palestine. I grew up being taught
all sorts of things. People making predictions and
responses in 1968, 1967, 1969, 1983, 1984, 1987. I mean, even
the 2012, March something 2012 or May, God was supposed to return. The Antichrist
was supposed to be revealed and all this stuff. And it's yet
to happen because the scripture says, no man shall ever know
the day or the hour. ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.
We shall know the day or the hour. And that is something we
need to keep in mind as we hear these things. People sometimes
live in fear because they don't know, but there's one thing for
sure about historically what the church has thought about
this beast or either of these beasts. No one has ever thought
historically that it involved a singular person. Biblically,
we see the beast in Daniel chapter seven. There's four and we'll
go through those in a minute because there is this is an illusion,
not illusion. It's not a magic trick. It's
a looking back. It's writing to a Hebrew people
who then will also understand the picture of what is being
taught in Daniel chapter seven as it relates to their own circumstances
there in the first century Asia Minor, present day Turkey. Yes. Yes. No, but it's Hebrew focus is
what I probably should have said. Hebraic, Semitic writing. Semitic
writing. And yes, the people here were
very much being persecuted in the context that Christians who
were Gentile, Christians who were Jewish. And so imagine,
as I've said before, there is a good point that you bring up,
Mike. Imagine that many people might have read this and not
had an experience of the Old Testament. Their Hebrew Christian
brothers had to give them some understanding. But from the point
of view that John writes, he writes from a Jewish point of
view. He writes from a Jewish type of literature. So this this
apocalyptic writing, this allusion to Daniel seven. Daniel 7, you
can turn there, I'm not going to go through it, but I'll just
give you some pictures if you want to look at it. There are four beasts
who rise from the sea. This beast mentality or this
beast analogy actually stands for, most all the time in Scripture,
the context of great evil, the context of great darkness. The
context of great wickedness, it's usually always representing
a political system or a government that's very wicked. So, for example,
if we were looking at Old Testament times in the book of Daniel and
Daniel were writing about a beast coming out of the sea and the
specific beast had something, some characteristic, then people
would say, OK, which one is that? Is that Egypt coming after us?
Is that Assyria coming? Is that Babylon coming after
us? Which wicked people are coming? So in the same way that John
or that Daniel wrote, John is writing in that same type of
picture. And he's showing us here, he actually uses the four
beasts of Daniel to give himself one beast. that's coming out
of the sea. The sea monsters always symbolize
kingdoms. The sea is somewhat synonymous
with the abyss, as we saw over in chapter 11, verse 7, where
the dragon came from. Remember that? And the angel
opens up the great abyss and the great dragon comes out. The
four beasts of Daniel, one looks like a lion, one looks like a
bear, one looks like a leopard, and one has ten horns. Sound
familiar? We just saw it. But in Daniel
there were four beasts that constituted the whole council of evil against
God's people. And here in Revelation we have
one beast that's comprised of all four of those beasts in Daniel
chapter 7. And this is to show that it's not man, the whole
world has come together. That's what he's trying to show
us. The whole world has come together. Every government has
come together. Every institution of man. Every ruler. Every authority. You might say, well that hasn't
happened yet. Really? Really? You know, the problem
is we're so blind by nationalism that we're unable to see wickedness
in the lens and the face of it. Sometimes we just think that
Americans are really God's chosen people. Sometimes we think that
God has a special eye on a certain government. You know, the government
of God is Jesus Christ the King. That's it. There are no peoples
that God will allow to be established. There's not going to be a White
House in the new eternity. There's not going to be a temple
for us to have a king to sit up in and govern under Jesus
Christ like so many of the other false religions and cults believe.
Jesus is the King of Kings. He is the only one that will
rule. This beast that has a lion's mouth and feet like a bear, it
looks like a leopard, and on its head has ten horns. These
beasts represent the kingdoms of this world who oppose God's
people. Revelation's beast looks just
like the four of these. As some people say, this is John's
composite of Daniel's beasts to show that all this is culminated
and the world is fully evil and it's run by the dragon who is
Satan and it belongs to him because God has given him dominion over
it. And the only people who are not
a part of the devil's world are who? The church. And I'm not talking about the
church collective. I'm not talking about the church in proximity.
I'm not talking about the people who are pew sitters. I'm talking
about the beloved of God, those who are sealed by the Holy Spirit,
those who believe every moment of their lives in faith by faith
in Jesus Christ, that he is their righteousness, that he is their
propitiation, that he is the one who has taken the commandment
of God to be holy and fulfilled it fully. And so that all that
they are is all that he is. Then they are safe. I will argue
in a minute that I believe that the second beast even alludes
to the idea of world religions. And I will even argue that it
is very much alive in the ecumenical movement. You want to say that
again? Ecumenism. That means a collaboration of
so-called interfaiths and churches that work together that are not
united in doctrine or teaching. Ecumenism. It's crazy. What is that? Where's that going
on? That's when the Pope kisses the hand or the Lutheran Church
kisses the hand of the Pope. Do you see that? When was that? Two months ago? We're going to
undo the Reformation, they say. Because the Catholic Church is
saying, you know, we're good, we're cool. We're cool. We got it all together. We're
not, we're not separate anymore. We believe in faith alone, but
yet they still believe that salvation comes to the Eucharist. And when
the, when the priest holds the body and says, hocus pocus, that's
not what it really says, but that's what it, that's where
that word came from. As people who couldn't speak Latin, we're trying to
do it. And he holds up the bread and it becomes the body of Jesus.
So it's a bloodless sacrifice. And then everybody gets to eat
of the body of Jesus Christ, therefore partaking in the sacrifice
and gaining eternal life. The Roman church believes that
this very day. If you take of the bread of Jesus,
you eat of his body. And if you eat of his body, you
have eternal life. They're not with us. Not with
us at all. People say, well, that's not
a big deal. It is a big deal. It's a big deal when evangelicalism,
beloved, who say that they hold the gospel of God in their book
and they have the gospel of God in their mouth, but they do not
preach it to their neighbor, but they'd rather invite him
to a hot dog supper and say he's okay with God. That's a problem. Nothing wrong with hot dogs,
nothing wrong with suppers, nothing wrong with inviting him over
to do it. or even having hot dog suppers right in here. But
don't pretend that's going to lead them to Jesus. It is an
explicit gospel. It is a very exclusive gospel. Jesus is exclusively the only
way to salvation. Jesus alone is the only way to
God. And there is no other way. There
is no almost all of Jesus. There is no Jesus plus a little
bit of this. There is nothing but Christ who
can give us eternal life in God. There is nothing but Christ who
can give us atonement. There is nothing but Christ who
can satisfy God's judgment against us. Beloved, there is nothing
but Christ if there is to be life. This beast is a composite
of this world of evil run by Satan, who is the dragon. Well,
let's look at this beast for a moment. We know that he is
the agent sent by Satan. It says there in the text that
the dragon gave him his throne and his authority and his power.
I find that extremely ironic because we learned last week
that the dragon, Satan, is defeated. And even though he is defeated
and he knows he's defeated, he continues to march with great
ferocity against the people of God. But even then, he thinks
he's going to cause some damage. He knows that everything that
he has, all power that he has, all might that he has, all authority
that he has, all dominion that he has, has been given to him
by God. But yet he feels necessary. He
feels it necessary to exercise this very restricted, short term,
defeated kingdom. He's going to get other people
to do his work. I mean, come on, would you not
know something was up, even if you had never heard the Bible,
if all of a sudden this dragon comes flying out of the sea? I mean, that'd be cool. I'd be
like, look, a dragon. Or this big beast looking like a lion,
looking like a leopard, looking like a bear, man, bear, pig,
or whatever it might be. You know, all these things coming
and standing there and going, worship me. You know, we're like,
this is a little fishy. I'm not going to worship this.
It's a little fishy. This isn't what it's looking
like, y'all. Satan is the father of lies. He's the father of deception. He is the deceiver. He is the
blasphemer. He is the he is the mocker. He
is the one who counterfeits that which is true. That's why we
can't see it all the time. The gospel. is very, as I've
said, explicit. But friends, I can take a fake
gospel and wrap it with the skin of truth and you think it true
until you bite it. And then it's too late. Satan
does the same thing. He wraps himself in glory. He
wraps himself with teachers. He wraps up. Listen, nobody's
believe in the church of Satan. The devil didn't start that stuff,
well he did, but you know what I mean. That's not his plan to
thwart the kingdom of God. His plan is to take the world
and turn it into worshippers of himself. And the worship of
Satan, friends, is not what you think it is. It's not the paganism
with the pentagrams and the witch hats. That's not the worship
of Satan. The worship of Satan is found
in evangelical churches standing in pulpits where people say,
turn to John's Gospel chapter 3. Because Satan uses the Word of
God in everything that he does. Satan, in his stupidity, thought
he could actually tempt the Logos with the Logos. What do I mean? The Word for Word. In the beginning
was the Word, the Word was God, the Word was with God. And the
Word became flesh. And then Luke, we see in Luke's
Gospel, we see in other Gospels, where Jesus went out to be tempted
in the wilderness and the devil came to the Living Word with
the Living Word and tried to tempt the Word with the Word.
How stupid. But he did it. See, if I were
Jesus, I'd be like, dude, you know that's my word, right? You
know who you're talking to? But he didn't do that. All that
Jesus did was perfect. All that Jesus did was right.
All that Jesus did as a human being is exactly what God had
willed for him to do. Therefore, he is worthy to take
our sin and to suffer and die. because he fulfills the holy
requirement of God and the righteousness of God to such a degree, beloved,
that he is called the righteousness of God. Jesus did not just live
out the righteousness. Jesus is the righteousness. this
beast. He's an agent of Satan sent to
do, to cause havoc on the church. This woman through whom the savior
came, the dragon empowered it. Verse two B gave him his power
and his throne and great authority. It seemed in verse three there
to have a mortal wound, which was healed. And some people,
and we'll get to that later when we get onto some other things,
but some people talk about the very fact in Genesis chapter
three at the fall of Adam and Eve, where God comes. And I know
I'm talking very fast, but I want to get about 6,000 more words
out. Um, the word God comes. And after the fall, he says,
look, through the seat of a woman shall come redemption. I'm paraphrasing
here. And the serpent shall strike his heel, but he shall crush
his head. The head crushing of Satan, of
the serpent, of the great dragon was done when Jesus was raised
from the dead. You hear that? That's the mortal
wound that he lived through. But see, that's not the end of
Satan. He's been let out for a season to deceive the nations
even more. He's been let out to do and sent
out by God to continually do the work that God has preordained
for him to do, to continue to bring a semblance of judgment
against the world and calamity against even creation. But yet
it is all fruitless, because in the end, all those who are
not in the Lamb's Book of Life, plus the devil, plus all of the
angels that have fallen with him, will be put in that newly
created place we call hell. Because at the judgment of God,
God, by the word of His mouth, creates hell, and He puts unbelievers
in it, and He puts the devil and all the fallen angels in
it. And forever their torment will rise, as we'll see, the
smoke of the torment will rise eternally, daily, every single
day, without stopping. The scripture says that he had
these great diadems and he was revealed for his power. People
marveled at him. Can you imagine? You ever know
people to marvel at kingdoms? You ever marveled at your nation?
You ever marveled? You ever marveled at the power
of the Air Force? I'm not saying this is the Air
Force. I'm just saying I have. I've marveled at the power of
a symphony. It's the strength of it, what
it does to the insides of my body when I hear it live. I love the way that feels. That's
a lot better than jumping off a mountain, if you so like that
kind of adrenaline. Jumping out of an airplane. I
mean, we marvel at things that are powerful and strong. Friends,
the devil organizes the kingdoms of the world in such a way that
sometimes people marvel at. They worship, they follow. Names
on its heads were blasphemous. What is blasphemous about names?
I guarantee it says something like King of Kings, Lord of Lords,
Alpha and Omega. The very nature of Satan is that
he wants people to be their own God because that's what he wants
to be. He wants to share in the glory
that he has been given. He wants to share in the glory
that is God's shining through him. He wants to share so that
he could be worshiped as God is worship. He wants to take
what belongs to God and make it his own. And friends, that
is the work of what the devil is doing. And if somebody can
fall in love with that type of glory, imagine what they do to
people who said it doesn't belong to them. What does a king do when someone
rebukes him? What did Bloody Mary do to people
who just didn't agree with her religion? It's awful. I mean, think about
it for just a moment. About how amazing, people talk
about, I know that the conversation's been up in the news lately about
a secret or an underground or a private government, you know,
these people that are working behind the scenes to change large
things. Yeah, it's called Satan. He works
through the minds of unbelievers. He works in Capitol buildings. He works in churches. He works
in outhouses in the middle of the woods, and he works in high
stages and high companies. He works everywhere. He works
everywhere. And don't be deceived, beloved,
as we've seen already in the reading of this text. Don't be
deceived because everyone who is not in Christ is in Satan. There is no such thing as a neutral
position. The scripture says there are
two types of people in the world, those who are the beloved of
God who believe by faith and those who are not in Christ. And those are the only two groups
of people, the sheep's and the goats. Are you a goat or are
you a sheep? Who is like this beast? They
worshiped him. Who can fight again against it? This anti-worship of God, this
parody of true worship, this dragon has given this beast the
power to woo people and people are amazed with him. I mean,
think of let's just use it. Let's just use it in a very common
sense way. Celebrities. Who cares? I'd no more run to get an autograph
of a celebrity than I would run to catch a fly on a piece of bacon. Why? Because I don't care. But the world is infatuated with
celebrities. Why? They're nobody. If we stop looking at them, they'd
be nobody. If we stop listening to them,
they're nothings. But the world just, athletes,
we worship them. Listen, I appreciate good acting. I appreciate good athleticism.
I appreciate good martial arts. I love good markmanship. I'll
do. I love it when I see people that can 40 yards, 25 shots running. I'm like, ooh, son. But I ain't
worshiping. I'm not gonna shoot at him either.
I'm not worshiping. Why do we do that? Because that's
what the natural man does. The natural man loves that which
is amazing. But what is amazing in this world is nothing compared
to what is amazing in glory. And friends, the devil has duped
the world into believing that there is happiness and joy and
glory in worshiping man. Romans 1 is a depiction of what
God has done here. The wrath of God will be poured
out on all the unrighteousness of man who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. For what God is, or who God is,
is plain to them. For His divine attributes, namely
His creative power, is seen in the things which were made. But
they did not worship God or give thanks to God, but instead exchanged
the glory of God with a what? Say it. Lie. The lie of the beast. The lie of the world, the lie
that violates the very thing that John commands in 1 John
chapter 2. Do not love the world. Do not love the beast. Do not
love the world's ways for the love of the world. The pride
of life, the lust of the eyes, the pride of possessions, the
glory of men. If you love these things, this
is not from the Father, but it's from the world and the world
and everything in it is passing away. Do not love the world. For if you do have the love of
the world in you, the love of God, John says, is not in you. And the last thing he says in
that letter is what? Keep yourselves from idols. Man,
I got to remind him one more time. It's not even a right close. You don't close a letter like
that. Now go brush your teeth. I mean, that's something like
your mama would say when she's leaving out of town for a while. Do this, do this
and do well and be encouraged. Now brush your teeth. I mean,
keep yourself from idols. Keep yourself from idols. Don't
love the world. The world belongs to Satan and
Satan is trying to tempt us all to worship him through the worship
of the world. It's the same thing he did when
he tempted Jesus Christ. If you just bow down before me
one time, just right there. Oh Jesus, if you just bow down
one time. He said, you look at that, look
at the world. And I'm not saying look at this field. I'm not saying
look at this mountain range. I'm saying you look at this world.
That's what Satan said to Jesus. Look at this world. You see the
kingdoms of the world are mine. If you bow down to me, I will
give it all to you. That's the beast. Is it the Antichrist? John doesn't say that at all.
Matter of fact, in 1 John 2, 18 says Antichrist are coming
to the world and many have come and it is the last hour and John
and 1 John 2, 22. John says the Antichrist is the
one who designs the father and the son and 1 John 4, 3. The
Antichrist is anyone who denies it. Jesus has come in the flesh. And he goes on to say in 1st
John 7, or excuse me, 2nd John 7, he reiterates it reiterates
this for many deceivers have gone out into the world. Those
who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.
So there's four things that Jesus talks about who are the Antichrist.
Number one, it's not a person, it's a collection of people with
four belief systems. And they're the ones who deny
Jesus is the Holy Anointed One of God. They're the ones who
deny that the Father and deny the Son. They're the ones who
deny that Jesus Christ personally, explicitly, and they deny that
He's coming in the flesh. Why does that matter? Because
you can't get to God without Christ. And if Christ isn't completely
man, then his atonement didn't work. And if he wasn't also completely
God, then his holiness wasn't worth it. And if we believe that he just
evaporated into thin air and he's not coming back for his
church, then he's a liar. Amongst other things. When we
get through with our little local church series in a couple of
weeks, I'm getting back into second Thessalonians, second Thessalonians
chapter two, starting well in verse seven. It says the work
of the Antichrist is already here. It's already in the world.
It's already happening. These are the false teachers.
These Antichrists are those who perpetrate and purvey, they sell
the message of false teaching. That's why every New Testament
letter is very strict on the idea that we need to confront
those who teach a false gospel. What does that look like? We'll
look at it when we get into 2 Thessalonians. But for the most part, friends,
if you love somebody, you'll correct them if they're going
to drink poison. It's amazing to me that coming
back to my hometown without even any type of interaction
or conversation, nothing. I mean, Jesse wasn't holding
up a sign, yet nobody was a part of Grace Truth Church. But yet the churches of this
area decided, nah, not happening. You're not coming here. Nobody
had a problem until one person decided, that's not the gospel
we want in Claxton. And every excuse in the book,
we don't need any more churches, we have plenty. Or you're going to become
a coffee shop church and you're just going to try to attract
young guys and young gals and young couples and you're going
to steal all of our young people and we're going to have a bunch of old, I promise
you these people aren't going to leave your church to come
to ours. Or you're just going to come up
with another Jesus, all these different, and finally it came out. You believe
in a sovereign God. You believe in a sovereign grace.
You believe in a sovereign gospel. No way are we allowing you to
be a part of who we are. Sorry. Sorry. Good. Where'd that come from? Is everybody
who opposes the sovereignty of God, Antichrist? No, but they're
listening to it. It's one thing to say, I just
don't, I don't believe that. I can't believe that. I hate
that. And you work through it two years, 10 years or however
long. But then to go out and damage
people's lives and hurt people and what does that look? Is that
not demonic? And it happens all the time.
Friends, if they could burn Christians in America, They would. It's not to that place yet because
God is sovereignly forbidden it. He's kept our constitution
at rest. so that it is still foundational
to give us the right to live without being imposed on a religion
upon us for the lack thereof. But friends, the fabric of that
grace is waning. The fabric of that ability is
falling down because God one day will allow all his people
to suffer grand persecution. And then great revival comes.
You know what happened with the two heads sitting on the sidewalk
yesterday? Evangelism. Evangelism. You know what doesn't
happen when we're in love with the world? Evangelism. If we're OK with our intrinsic
myopic internal selves, me, myself and I and my pleasure and my
feet kicked up in my TV and the things I like, guys, we all like
stuff, but they're not eternal. Enjoy them as they are. Hold
them loosely. Let them go when the time comes. You think I want to fight for
my life? Persecution brings revival. Persecution
brings life. Persecution brings the spread
of the gospel. God permitted people to lie about
Stephen and not even permitted he ordained it. so that Saul
of Tarsus would approve for the first time in centuries the killing,
judicially, of a Jew for blasphemy. And they killed Stephen. And after his body was condemned
and stacked upon the stones, under the stones, it was also
a death sentence to interrupt a judicial proceeding or to violate
the untouchable, unclean corpse of a condemned man. And there
are people in Acts chapter 7 that loudly wail in the streets and
dig up the body of Stephen and drag him down the broad daylight
streets of Jerusalem. And they wail loudly. and they
bury him properly. Who are they? They didn't live
long enough to give their names. And it says that great persecution
started in Jerusalem and the church dispersed. Did God kill
Stephen? No. Satan did. But God sent it
to happen. See, that's a supremacy that
we don't like. Why? Deuteronomy 29.29. The hidden things of God belong
to him, but that which is given to us belong to us and our children
and our children's children for generations to come. Let's look
at what we do know and teach that instead of digging for what
we don't know because God doesn't want us to. The Antichrist, these false teachers.
This beast has been given a mouth, look here. And he's given the
ability to exercise authority for 42 months. That's three and
a half years, 1260 days. Or a time, times, and half a
time. Where'd you get that? A time is a year, and times is
a year. Times are one, two, and a half
of one is half, so that's three and a half. It's all the same
thing. We learned that last week. So all of these symbols and numbers
and all that, Revelation 11.2, this is 42 months, the nations
will trample the holy city. 11.3, 1260 days, the two witnesses
will preach. 12.6, 1260 days, the woman, the
church, is nourished in the wilderness in solitude. Revelation 12.14,
a time, times and half a time, the woman will be nourished in
the wilderness. Revelation 13.5 here, 42 months. 11.11 again, three
and a half days, the witnesses will be dead in the street. So
here's the same symbol, the same picture that there is a short
period of time that is set by God in which that will end at
the coming of Jesus Christ. This is what we're trying, that's
what he's trying to convey there. For the sake of time, I won't,
no pun, I won't go into all of that and who believes what and
where it comes from historically. But the number picture is thought
to be a significant indicator of suffering and persecution.
42 years of Israel in the wilderness, the first two years, and then
a 40 year sentence to stay there. 42 years. Three and a half has
also been thought to mean that it's a broken perfection, that
it's a broken seven. It's like the thwarting of God's
perfection in the context of suffering. Three and a half,
or 42, or 1260. Time, half a time, or times and
half a time. That's always hard to get out.
is not a number, a temporal thing, but it's what kind of time are
we having? It's not how long does this happen, but what is
happening during this time. And what is happening during
this time is suffering for God's people. Suffering for God's people. Beloved, even now when there
is very little persecution in our lives, is there not persecution
in your life? Do people look at you funny?
Do people expect you to fall into a debauched behavior? Do
people mock you when you don't return in profane words? Do people
belittle you because you have a Bible or that you don't want
to miss church? Do they poke fun at you? This
is light, light persecution, but it's still persecution just
the same. Friends, we are being persecuted.
This beast is given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words.
It allowed to exercise authority for this season, 42 months. It opened its mouth to utter
blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling. That
is those who dwell in heaven. And it was allowed to make war
on the saints and to conquer them. And authority has been given
it over every tribe and people and language and nation. There
is no peoples in the world who are escaping the calamity that
God is allowing through Satan. There is no place. There is no
government. There is no institution. There
is no. People who there is no place
where there is not a church that is affected by Satan. Beloved, if we don't think that
the devil would get his hands upon us as grace truth, we have
really lost our minds. He wants to, and if God permits
him, he will try and he will bring people into our midst who
will try to tear apart the fabric of our unity. And if we stand
on the Word of God and the blood of the Lamb, we will prevail. That's why no matter how hard
it is, we obey the Word of God with much fear and much trembling
for the Spirit of God dwells in us and unifies us and helps
us to understand that which is true and certain. And so in knowing
who we are and most importantly, whose we are, we do what is right
even when the world laughs. Somebody recently told me when
hearing about church discipline that we are going to exercise.
Why don't you just let the brother go? He's not here. Just let it
go. Don't don't do that. Don't do
that. Don't call the church to publicly
remove the brother. That's just that's just sort
of tacky. That's what they said. That's tacky. Tacky. Tacky. Is it ever tacky to obey
Christ? Is it ever tacky to love somebody
enough to do what Jesus says to do so that their soul can
be saved? Is it ever tacky? It's stupid to the world, but
it's not tacky. All who dwell on the earth, all
the world is in the clutches of this beast. And all the non-elect,
all the non-believers, all the non-sealed worship it. They adore
it. They love that he mocks Christ.
They love that he mocks the gospel. They love that he mocks God and
the presence of God and the people of God. Verse six. Consider what
we've seen this far. The work of Satan on the earth
and his target is the church. He does all that he can to hurt
and malign and mock the God of her. What does this look like
today? Who could be a part of this beastly
system? We hear much said these days. That is contrary to our
belief system, beloved, look at the news. And we can rationalize and we
can philosophize with people. We can say, OK, I understand
how you feel right there. But when it contradicts the clear
teaching of Scripture, we either have to say we stand with what
Scripture teaches in the context and understanding its meaning,
or we are going to go with the culture. What are we going to do? We stand
with Christ. That's what we do as a church.
That's what we do as God's people. Because we have security. If
anyone has it, let them hear. Look. Everybody will worship
it who is not saved. If anyone wants to be taken captive,
there he goes. What's verse 10 telling us? If
God has ordained His church to die in captivity, there they
go. If God has ordained His church
to be killed by the sword, then to the sword it is. But He says,
here is a call for the endurance of the saints. The security of
the saints is always the theme of Revelation, is it not? The
sealing of God's people is the reason it's been written so that
we can stand no matter what faces us, no matter what's banging
down our door, no matter what's coming against us collectively
and individually. And we can say, God is my refuge. God is my mighty fortress. God
is my tower. God is my hope and my salvation.
Jesus Christ is my king. And he's victorious over the
one who is in the world because he is in me. Therefore, I am
victorious. See? The entire world is after the
church, beloved. And sadly, people think that
the war on Christmas is a war against the church. No, it's
not. We'd all be better off financially
if we didn't spend so much money at Christmas. Starbucks took the snowflake
off the cup or whatever. Oh no, Starbucks is Antichrist. Duh. Duh, I'm not going to eat at
Starbucks. Don't eat at McDonald's either. Or Hardee's or Dairy
Queen or any other Queen or King or any other restaurant. Every
business is not the church. Hobby Lobby, they need to start
serving coffee. They're going away too. It's because they sell
a bunch of cool stuff and they got Christian people who own
their stock. Doesn't make it God's company. God's people will stand very
quickly. Give me five minutes. Verse 11,
Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth, and it had
two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon. See this
first beast, now a second beast. This one coming out of the earth.
Two horns like a lamb, spoke like a dragon. It exercises all
the authority of the first beast in its presence and makes the
earth. And all of its inhabitants worship the first beast, those
whose mortal wound was healed. Look at this, like a lamb. with
two horns. What are these two horns? Well,
number one, like a lamb is a mockery of Jesus, who is the lamb who
was slain. Like a lamb is to say that it's sort of trying
to pose itself as a Christ. With two horns, it's symbolic.
It's symbolic of maybe the two witnesses that we saw earlier,
the two lampstands that we see, or the two olive trees that were
called out in chapter 11. The representatives of Jesus
Christ, the church, Who is this beast? What is this
beast? Let me give you some historical
examples of who people think this is. The Pope. People think
it's the Pope. Some people think it's the papacy
in itself. Some people think it's the Roman church. Some people
think it's the Roman imperial cult, which we learned about
when we were at the other building. Some people think it's Judaism.
Some people think it is world leaders, but we see this as someone
who would appear to be the church, but not be persecuted in the
midst of the first beasts. Vengeful rage. Here's an antichrist, here's
a not Christ, here's a mockery of Christ. What is this beast? Chapter 16 and chapters 19 and
chapters 20, this second beast is referred to as the false prophet. What does a false prophet do?
Teach with their mouths things that are untrue. It does many things to take the
eyes off of Christ, who is the true lamb. It performs signs. What about the apostles? Did
they not perform signs? Bring fire down from heaven. Who was
that? The prophets bringing fire down
from heaven. Signs that allowed it to work
in the presence of the beast that deceives those who dwell on the
earth, and that tells them to make an image for the beast that
was wounded by the sword and yet lived. What is the sword?
The word of God. And it was allowed to give breath
to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast might
even speak and might cause those who would not worship the beast
to be slain. Listen, people became convinced. that this false religion is what
it's all about. People worshiped it. People built
churches for it. People live for it. When it says
he gave it breath, that's what it means. This is not some inanimate
object. These are human beings on the
world, in the world, on the earth who have false religion. And
brothers and sisters, there's Baptists in there, and Methodists
in there, and Presbyterians in there, and Pentecostals in there,
and all sorts of people in there. There's Calvinists in there,
and Pelagians, for sure, in there, and Armenians in there. And all
the other world religions, and the religion of self, and the
religion of man, and the religion of self-idolatry, and the religion
of self-esteem, and the religion of materialism, and the religion
of athleticism, and the religion of nationalism, and all these
things. And the Word of God is clear
that people are living for a non-gospel, for an anti-gospel. And so many
of them will say to you, I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus Christ. If
you say, John says, that you walk in the light, that you are
in the light, but you walk in darkness, you lie and you do
not practice the truth. Well, you don't know my heart.
No, I don't. But it's never wrong to repeat
Jesus. People not only live for it,
they lie for it. They lie for it. They make up
things about those who walk in the light, about those who walk
with Christ. And they say, look, these aren't
really part of the church. Kill them. We'll receive transgender
people into the body. We'll receive child molesters
into the body. We'll receive murderers. We'll
receive drug dealers. We'll receive them. Just come
on in. I'm not saying people who are saved and changed. I'm
saying we'll just let them take them out. Who's doing that? Read the news. Don't read the
news. It's depression. And the Presbyterian church split
over that, y'all. The Methodist church is splitting
over that right now. Unitarian church, universal church.
All these people, they tote this Bible right here. Same version. And they say it's okay. In this
very community, beloved, there are congregations. Now keep in mind, there's about
80 churches. There are congregations. Can you believe that? Yeah. There
are congregations here who hold to the insufficiency of Scripture.
What that means is that the word of God is a good tool and a measure,
but it is not authoritative. Those people are lost. They are not filled with the
spirit of God. They cannot be. Because the Bible
says it is authoritative and that it is only a reflection
in writing of the very mind of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that salvation only comes
to the hearing of this word. And there is no hope and peace
and any opportunity to see God without seeing the scripture. in so much that those who do
not worship die. Those who do not worship are
maligned and imprisoned. And then the beast gives a mark
of all those, not just the wealthy and the rich and the powerful
and the free, but the poor and the slave, their mark on their
hand and their forehead. Beloved, what is this looking
for? Verses 16 and 17. What people do with their lives
is how their hands are marked. You listen to me. Jesus says, you will know them
by their fruits. Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey
my commands. Paul tells us in Romans 12, 1 and 2, do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your what? Mind. So that which we think
and believe is our mind, and the mark of our mind is Christ.
If we're not in Christ, then we think evil things, we think
liberally in the context of the scripture, we think worldly. And we do worldly things with
our hands and we do not participate in those who live worldly and
think worldly and speak worldly. We're not welcome in the world.
That's the way it is. That's the mark. They're not
allowed a place in society. There's no success for them.
And what is this number? Who are these people? What is
this beast? It's easy. It's easy peasy. This calls for wisdom. Remember
what John said when he opened it. These things are written
that the reader may be blessed. These things are written that
you may understand and have wisdom. His number is six. Now if I just said six, what
would you say? Man. If I just said seven, what would
you say? God. If I said seven, seven, seven,
what would you say? God, God, God. Holy, holy, holy. Worthy, worthy, worthy. This
is the tune of the pictures of this apocalyptic writing. So
what is more wicked than seven? What is the antithesis of seven,
seven, seven? Six, six, six. These are the
men of the world. Blasphemers, adulterers, What
shall we do, beloved? We overcome the beast and the
dragon and the world by the word of our testimony and by the blood
of the Lamb. That's it. That's it. So as our brothers and sisters
are dying this very moment for their faith, they won. They win. We win. 2 Corinthians chapter
4. I was going to read that. You
know what it says. We struck down, not destroyed,
given over to death. Though we die, yet we live. This
light, momentary affliction prepares us for an eternal weight of glory
beyond all comparison as we look to the things that are unseen,
not the things that are seen. Beloved, we don't look to this
world. This world is just a passing, rotting ship that we are riding
on. And one day when we leave, we
get the very prize that we live for. Are we living for Christ
this day? Are we in Him? Are you in Christ? See, the gospel's there. This
isn't a scare tactic. I can scare everybody into believing
if I tell them they're going to be eaten by a dragon. But you can't scare someone into
loving Jesus. They've got to be born again. You've got to
have a new mind and a new heart, new eyes. How do you get it?
By hearing that Jesus Christ took your sin on Himself and
God satisfied His judgment against you in the body of Jesus and
then He raised Him from the dead. Believe on Christ and be at peace. Let's pray. Father, we love You.
We thank You, Father, that this Word is true. Lord, it was too
much to try to teach tonight. Lord, may Your May your spirit
just plant in us that which is needed. Next week we will review
some of this at a slower pace. We thank you, Father, that you
are so gracious to us. Hide this word in us. Give us
peace and pull all that you have willed for us in this life to
the forefront of our hearts and help us to see that every step
is yours. Every thought is held captive and all of our compulsions
are through the affection of Jesus continue to mold us in
that place. In his name we pray. Amen. Thank
you, beloved.