I'm going to be reading in 2
Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 5 through 7 and then we're going
to kind of just work through some of the things we talked
about in the recent past around these matters. 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2 verses 5 through 7. Now remember ye not that when
I was with you I told you these things and now you know what
is withholding That he might be taken that he might be revealed
in his time for the mystery of iniquity doth already work only
he who now Let it or hold it or restrains will be Until he
be taken out of the way and then shall that wicked one be revealed
whom the lord shall consume With the spirit of his mouth and shall
destroy With the brightness of us of his coming even him whose
coming is after the working of satan with all power in Signs
and Lying Wonders. So we're going to stop right
there. There's a lot in those verses to deal with. So we're
going to back up and work with a few things. In verse 4, for
the last several weeks, we've been just dealing with this whole
concept of the objective of the enemy of mankind, who is the
devil, working through an agency by which he would both deceive
the world and control the world. working through an agency by
which he would both deceive the world and control the world.
That's the area of theology that most people are concerned with
and are interested in in terms of what we call in time events. And so a lot has been stated
around who is the man of sin the son of perdition and over
the last several weeks we have been working through revelation
chapter 12 and 13 on this matter those are the texts that inform
us revelation 12 and 13 which deals with the dragon and and
then we we call the uh first beast uh political and that can
be affirmed very clearly and the second beast of revelation
13 religio and this here is what we call our unholy trinity and
this is part of the parody of the book of revelation that we
have um Address that the book of Revelation has given us this
tension between two kingdoms And if you understand the drama
of the book of Revelation you understand that history is a
drama of two kingdoms from the beginning of time seeking to
subdue the other two kingdoms and I mean creation was actually
predicated on that in the the call of man to have dominion
over the world and his fall into sin and the devil's instigation
of their fall and his usurping God's rule in their hearts and
the chaos and mess that you and I are in now is a consequence
of the fall. And the battle that we are fighting
is a spiritual battle. It is intensely spiritual. And
I wish we were more aware of that. We are so carnal and so
fleshly that we often aid and abet the enemy more than we do. God, we should be much more aware
of the battle, but that, that requires God's mercy and it requires
our ears being far more inclined to God's word. So we'll, we'll
continue to work on some things in verse four. The apostle said
his objective is to be worshiped as God. That's his objective.
So the whole book of Revelation is really around the masses of
the people being brought into slavery and control of this unholy
trinity, the dragon, political, religious beasts. And those who
do not know Christ will be brought into that subjugation. The people that do not know Christ
will be brought into that subjugation. I want you to hear that now.
The way the book of Revelation depicts the struggle is in terms
of certainty. There are no ambiguous scenarios
in the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is the
unfolding of prophecy, and it lets us know how things will
be. And so it says certain things in very definitive terms. I'm
going to take you to a couple of verses to lay the foundation
for how you and I must be thinking. In Revelation chapter 13, go
there, Keep your hand at second Thessalonians, but go to chapter
13, and I want you to see two verses in the book of Revelation
that's going to help you understand that as God has entrusted the
church with these dark sayings and these difficult passages,
he doesn't entrust the church with these difficult passages,
laying a burden on the church to resolve the celestial or cosmic
conflict itself. He invests these difficult passages
of the book of Revelation into our life as a means of informing
us as to what's taking place in our world on a spiritual level
so that we might continue to keep our focus on the purpose
for which God called us. The book of Revelation is designed
to give the church, the body of Christ, true believers and
insight into the sovereignty of God in a world that is a mess. It's designed to help you and
I understand that while it looks like it's out of control, it's
not out of control at all. Now, from this standpoint, it
might seem like that is comforting, but you and I know that it's
one thing to talk about a storm, it's another thing to be in it.
It's one thing to talk about how you would handle a tornado
or a hurricane, were you in it? It's another thing to respond
to it with all of the sensory perceptions and all of the emotional
and psychological dynamics that come with mortal danger. It's
one thing to talk about the tribulation on an academic theoretical level. It's another thing to go through
tribulation in general. So the benefit of studying the
book of Revelation is that you get to have an objective viewing
of reality from God's perspective so that you might prepare yourself. All of the dark stuff that is
taking place throughout the book of Revelation, and we're going
to talk about that in terms of past, present, future, because
this is part of the struggle with interpretation, whether
or not the book of Revelation is past, present, future, are
part of some or part of all. The assumption that it's one
or the other is probably the major problem that's taking place
in eschatology today. If you are under the assumption
that the book of Revelation is all future, your assumption is
flawed. If you are under the assumption
that the book of Revelation is all past, your assumptions are
flawed as well. If you're under the assumption
that the book of Revelation is present and present only, your
assumptions are extremely flawed because present things really
only have their credibility based upon past things. You can hypothesize
the future. This is why people continue selling,
you know, Hal Lindsey's, you know, Left Behind series, not
Hal Lindsey, but the Left Behind series because it's all futuristic.
And any kind of prophecy or prognostication about future things seem credible
until the future becomes the present and then the whole thing
falls apart. And so it's hard to deconstruct
sufficiently and effectively future doctrines unless you are
really thinking people it's hard to deconstruct it I Myself believe
that the book of Revelation is both past present and future
Past present and future might not seem like a real You know,
so a brilliant position to take it does not mean that I don't
hold either one What it means is that there are truths that
require a past present future Hermeneutic in order to be cogent
with the book in order for the book to make sense We'll see
that as we deal again tonight with the number of the name but
in Revelation chapter 13 Listen to what it says over in verse
8. Are we there? Now I'm going to actually start
at verse 6. And I really should start at verse 5. But you guys
should know this portion. If not, read it about 10 times
and get a clear vision. Because this is describing beast
1, the political beast that comes up out of the sea. And he is
actually a compilation of all four of the biblical kingdoms
that God speaks of, Babylon, Medo-Persia, the Grecian kingdom,
and the Roman kingdom, all composite in one kingdom that would dominate
all of New Testament period. And so this political kingdom
is inspired and he is empowered by the dragon. Look at verse
four. And they worshiped the dragon. Do you guys see that?
they worship the dragon we know who the dragon is according to
chapter 12 right he's the devil and they worship the dragon who
gave power unto what the beast now if the beast here is beast
one political then what we need to understand just as a sound
interpretive grid is that political kingdoms political kingdoms are
empowered by the devil you need to know that You need to know
that political kingdoms are governed by the devil. Does that make
some sense right now? It's important for you to get
that. Categories, clear categories are essential to cogent interpretation. So follow this now. All political
kingdoms, no matter how benevolent they may appear to be, are in
their foundation and in their objective controlled by the devil. Matthew chapter 4 Jesus becomes
your model Before he goes into ministry He is tested by the
devil and the devil says if you will bow down and worship me
I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world now that proposition
was given from the devil to the Son of God and It wasn't given
to you and me, it was given to the Son of God. You and I wouldn't
even know if the proposition has legs to stand on because
we would still be begging the question, what kingdom do you
have that you might give it to us? But you'll notice that Jesus
did not, he did not disannul the proposition. He did not suggest
or even imply that the devil did not have power over the kingdoms
of the world, for certainly he does. Everywhere unregenerate
men live and exist the devil has authority So it's important
for you to know political kingdoms are governed by the devil ie
that is We start to develop what is called a syllogism proposition
proposition conclusion I cannot draw the conclusion that America
is governed by any other power on a secular political level
than any other nation ultimately Cannot say that America is a
godly country under a godly political secular construct Any more than
any other country in the world? Are you guys hearing me now if
I'm if I'm gonna follow the the the logic properly if the devil
rules the kingdoms of the world the political kingdoms of the
world if he does and Jesus made that dichotomy very clear and
when the secular religious rulers came to him and said, who are
you going to pay homage to when it comes to Caesar? He says,
well with Caesar, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's
and unto God the things that are God's. So there was a clear
dichotomy between these two kingdoms, these two entities. He did not
homogenize them. He did not subsume the Roman
Empire under God's authority and sovereignty so as to relinquish
or annihilate the distinction between the two. God is sovereign
over everything. But in terms of the direct influence,
objective methodology, aim and goal of political kingdoms, it
is always to usurp God's place and exercise authority over human
beings. It doesn't matter how benevolent
that kingdom is, ultimately over time that kingdom will manifest
the agenda of the devil. You need to know that. And so
that being the case even here when we read And they worship
the dragon which gave power to the beast and they worship the
beast saying who is like unto the beast Who's able to make
war with him? There was given unto him a mouth speaking great
things in blasphemies. You guys see that right? We've
been here for years, but I want some of you who are newer to
be more sensitive to the text a mouth means the ability to
propagandize to influence to indoctrinate to infiltrate, to
change the mind, to transform the thinking, to dictate, to
control. The mouth, a mouth speaking great
things, meaning he has the ability to yield forth decrees and edicts
and laws and rules and legislation in order to control the masses.
And that was given unto him, as the text says, Mouth speaking
great things and what? So then park it right there because
I just I feel the need to lay this foundation Because I don't
want our study in eschatology to be merely theoretical if in
fact indeed the kingdoms of this world are governed by the dragon
and the dragon is a Immuted immutably hostile towards God. There's
not a bone in the devil that loves God There's not a there's
not an ounce of benevolence on the part of the devil towards
God. He hates God with every fiber of his being Then he's
going to manifest in his control over the nations His hostility
towards God under the term or rubric blasphemy You see the
phrase listen to it there was given him a mouth speaking great
things and what blasphemies which means all of his policies will
always be unbiblical all of his policies will militate against
the truth of scripture the policies that he erects on a social political
governmental level will always be designed to blaspheme God
Now I say that so that you can identify him. Because you and
I can be deceived by, again, the propaganda machine that would
actually establish what I consider a faulty bifurcation or a faulty
paradox, a faulty antithesis between good and bad. You heard me talk about this
maybe about a month ago. And this idea that somebody will
assign this entity or this group of people as good and these people
over here as bad. And once they assign this category
of people as good and this category as bad, the only thing you and
I have to do is determine whether or not we're part of the good
or the bad. If we accept the proposition, am I making some
sense? This is what we call politics.
Let me help you. I just want to make this good.
I want this to be driven home. I am neither a Republican nor
a Democrat. So I know I lost some of you
right there. I am neither a Republican or
a Democrat because the Republican Party has demonstrated itself
to have been usurped and controlled by the same entity that's controlling
the Democrats. And so therefore, because we
are operating in America in a two-party system, And all the other parties
really don't stand a chance, because the enemy has stacked
the decks. This is what we call the dialectical process. It's
a dialectical structure that forces the agenda a certain way
by limiting the parties. So those folks who are Democrats
hate Republicans, and those folks who are Republicans hate the
Democrats, at least ideologically. well they're both on the same
trying we talked about that the pop car on the railroad tracks
popping against each other going in the same direction if you
if you fail to discern that the game is read like that then you
are going to uh... define categories by somebody
else preconceived notions and what you define the categories
based on somebody else's preconceived notion you are bound draw conclusions
and have results based on somebody else's agenda. And so it's very
important for us to know whether or not we are thinking biblically
when we are thinking in terms of in time activity. So the text
tells us that the dragon speaks blasphemies and power was given
unto him to continue 40 and two months. And he opened his mouth
and blasphemy against who God. Now watch this, to blaspheme
his what? Name. And his what? Tabernacle. Which is who? The church. See? And here it is. And them that
dwell where? The devil hates everything about
the kingdom of God. Now notice what he's doing. He's
blaspheming God. He's blaspheming God's name,
that is God's revealed identity, his redemptively revealed identity,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, preeminently in the person of
Christ. This is what we call Christianity. The name of God
is manifested in the person and work of Jesus Christ as the triune
God. It is within the framework of
what we call Christianity. Christianity is the thing that
the devil will seek to totally annihilate, totally annihilate,
and then those who bear his name. totally annihilate that that's
the tabernacle and them that dwell where in heaven so that
his objective is his fight is against heaven his fight is against
heaven now keep going I just want you to get this and it was given unto him to
make war with the what there you go see and to overcome them,
and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and
nations. He controls the nations. His battle is against the saints
because they are physically down here. His objective is to annihilate
anything that looks like God or represents God. If he could,
he would annihilate God. Verse 8, here it is. Now watch
this. And all that dwell upon the earth, do you see that? Shall
do what? So I want you to catch that first
clause. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him.
So now here's a necessary categorical distinction that's important.
In the previous verse, his attack was against heaven. In this verse
here, his control are over the earth dwellers. You guys got
that? In the previous verse, his attack
was against God, against God's name, against God's tabernacle,
against them that dwell in heaven. That's the kingdom of God. His
control are over the masses of the earth. They will do his bidding.
The dichotomy then is clearly set forth by Jesus. There are
people who are of this world, and then there are people who
are of the kingdom of God. Jesus becomes the point man for
the battle. When he came, his battle was
with the religious rulers of his day because they were of
the earth. That's John chapter 8, 9 and
10. And they were under the influence of their father, the devil. And
they received help from the political system called Rome to kill him. Are you guys following me? So
you have what we call our paradigm. We have our model. If you leave
this model, you will miss the whole process. The model is very
clear. This is why Jesus would say to
his disciples, if they did this to me, they'll do it to you.
If they've done this to me, they will do it to you. This is the
process. So you and I have to be very clear as to how this
works in order for us not to be deceived by politics and religion
as they merge together to seek to preserve its life down here
on earth. Are you guys following me so
far? The key to surviving is your ability to keep your mind's
eye fixed purely on the person of Christ. It is critical that
you have a gospel-centered, a Christ-centered worldview. And Christ must be
so clearly understood in your thinking, in your understanding,
in your epistemology, in your worldview, that He becomes your
saving grace in the midst of the storm. Because He made it
really simple. If you keep your eyes on Him,
you'll be saved. Deception will be inevitable if you fail to
see Christ as preeminent This is why the text is saying in
verse 8. I want you to hear it and They and all that dwell upon
the earth shall do what? Yes Do you see verse 8 is actually
the fulfillment of 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 4 You see that
verse 8 is the actual fulfillment of that the devil's objective
is is to show himself as if he was God. Sitting in the temple
of God, being worshipped as God, and therefore fighting off everything
that is called God, so that he becomes for people, God. In Revelation chapter 13 verse
8 says, and all that dwell upon the earth shall what? Now that's
important saints to know, because from God's perspective, There's
not a chance in the world that an earth dweller will do anything
but worship the devil. I'm going to take my time. Can
I do that? Because I want to make sure you get this. Otherwise, you're
going to have a hard time interpreting scripture. Now, remember, the
earth dwellers are not the physical or geographical dimension of
being down here on this terra firma like we are. Earth dwellers
is a spiritual position. Either you dwell in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2, Philippians chapter 3, or
you are an earthbound person and earth dweller. Am I making
some sense? You are still bound by this worldly
system. You still love this world. You still love the things of
this world. You are still inclined to pursue all that the world
will have for you. You are dictated by the propaganda
and ideology and the agenda of the world. It really does shape
your thinking. Such a person will worship the
dragon. In fact, they already are. Bow
down to me, which is worship, and I'll give you all the kingdoms
of the world. And so the men and women that are doing that,
he's parsing out to them material goods, worldly accomplishments,
fame, and success. Those who don't worship him are
either being directly persecuted or prepared for persecution.
they are being prepared for persecution. So when you become a Christian,
virtually anywhere in the world, but America, albeit it's coming,
when you become a Christian, you are being prepared for persecution
on the part of this world system. Is that okay? You guys understand
that? So there's not a chance in the world that earth dwellers
will fail to worship the dragon. There's not a chance in the world.
There's not a chance in the world that men and women who do not
know Christ will do anything but worship the dragon. The benefit
of this proposition and its emphatic nature to you and me is that
if we can actually define and clarify, get a real good portfolio
of earth worship, then we can actually examine where we are
and maybe help somebody. Because if we'd simply talk about
worshipping the dragon or worshipping the beast or whatever, and that
just remains some kind of aloof sort of term, epithet, then it's
ambiguous and has no clarity. But if I'm clear on what earth
worship is, I can see it in a person. And I can tell them, you are
still bound by this earth system. And perhaps they can be helped.
Am I making some sense? Okay, so now notice what it goes
on to say, because this brings me to the point of the comfort
of the revelation. 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." Now,
I know I talked about that a little bit before, but I want this to
be forced into your thinking. The language there is the language
of a registry of citizens who are part of another kingdom. The language there is the language
of a registry citizens who are part of another kingdom it's
a statement of post-victorians triumph it asserts that the citizens
of this kingdom are already in that kingdom their names are
there they are there themselves and thus they have escaped the
destruction that comes from those who are worshippers of the dragon
on the earth Do you guys see that? So the way the book of
Revelation sets it up for the believer is this way. If I'm
talking to a believer, and I know that believer understands his
position, his relationship, his purpose, and his destiny in Christ,
then I know that when they read verse 8 of our present text,
they can derive from verse 8 that God is saying to them, but you
are okay. Do you guys hear what I just
said? Go with me to Revelation chapter 17. Now the reason why that language
has to be set that way is because what God knows and we will come
to know soon is that the difficulties that have yet to come in your
life will come with fury and the only hope you will have is
what God has accomplished for us in Christ and secured for
us in Christ so that all we have to do is remember whose I am
in the midst of the storm. Because I can share something
with you just in case you don't know. When storms come you don't
have always the poise to think through a lot of theological
thoughts. One of the things that makes
me fearful of people right now in our present time, where we
are right now, is that, I'm in Revelation chapter 17, I am afraid
that people are lost now and we haven't even entered into
the floods of Jordan. You remember the sort of colloquialism
that was given in the book of Jeremiah? If you can't run with
the footmen, what are you going to do in the swelling of Jordan?
If you can't keep up with foot soldiers, when the swelling of
Jordan takes place, what are you gonna do? And people today
in the Christian church are languishing so badly in listlessness and
aimlessness when it comes to the things of God. The pulse
of concern for where they stand and what their purpose is in
Christ is so low that it's almost as if people are dead, spiritually. Dead, dead. And yet in America,
we aren't yet experiencing any kind of persecution. And yet
I believe that that's the problem. I believe because we have this
false lull, this false peace. It's like the quiet before the
storm. It's like the still glassy water
before the tsunami. But it's coming and it's going
to overcome everyone who is not already clear and prepared on
these things. And that's the nature of biblical
apocalyptic language, isn't it? That's the parable of the 10
virgins, right? Five wise, five foolish. And Jesus said, watch,
you just keep watching. Now watch. And so it really bothers
me that the evangelical church is not clear on these things
and not operating accordingly. But again, Revelation chapter
17 does the same thing. And I just want you to see it
too, because this is the way God comforts us. In Revelation
17, we're dealing with the harlot. You know, there's the virtuous
woman in Revelation 12 and then the harlot in Revelation 17.
And let me just say this, if I were dealing with a past, what
is called a preterite interpretation, you can write that down, that's
a Hebrew verb, past tense in the Hebrew, a preterite interpretation
of Revelation chapter 17, a preterite interpretation would include
this woman who is this great whore who is persecuting God's
faithful children as national Israel. National Israel and I
would agree with them fully The pick the depiction in Revelation
17 of this great horror persecuting the Saints of God as being National
Israel is undeniable because National Israel persecuted Christ
and The Book of Acts is filled with the persecutory beast which
was Judaism the Pharisees persecuting the Apostles and The church was
being persecuted everywhere. The Jewish nation had the power
by Rome to go after Christians. So a past or a preterite interpretation
of Revelation 17 would conclude that in the days of John, who
wrote this anywhere from 75 AD to 90 AD, it would have been
clear that the beast or the whore who is persecuting the church
is apostate Judaism, which has taken its lead with the Roman
Empire, who killed Jesus, who killed the apostles, and persecuted
the church, of which is the major target in Jesus' language in
Matthew chapter 24. See to it that when you go forth
to preach the gospel, you're going to be hated of all men.
They're going to bring you up to the synagogues. You're going
to be beaten. You're going to be persecuted. You're going to
be killed for my namesake. Brother's going to betray brother,
sister to sister, parents, children, and vice versa. All of that language,
ladies and gentlemen, in Matthew chapter 24 is Jewish centered. It's centered around the hostility
of the Jews toward the Christians in the first century. You can't
miss that. And you would if you held to
a futuristic interpretation. You would leap over the gospel
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You would leap over the book
of Acts. You would leap over all the New
Testament where Paul clearly said, and the Jews, they hate
everyone. That's 1 Thessalonians chapter
2. Remember that? Go back there for a second. I
want you to see it. And this is the Apostle Paul,
1 Thessalonians chapter 2. This is the Apostle Paul. Remember
he was a Jew Remember he was a Pharisee remember before he
was converted. He was part of this prosecutory
whore and So he knows what he's talking about when he says what
he says over in first Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 14 through 16
I want you to get this to get your eschatology correct for
you brethren became followers of the churches of God which
are in Judea and Christ Jesus for you also suffered like things
of what your own countrymen even as they have of the what? Watch
this who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets
and have persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary
to all men Now who said that? Paul said that who was Paul Jew
What kind of a Jew he was a Pharisee? He was more than that. He was
of the tribe of Benjamin highest pedigree there was he had the
right to identify the beasts, the religio beast connected with
the political beast in his power to persecute the Christians at
that time. Cause that, that was, that is
what was going on. Are you guys following me? What
I'm trying to help you do is to see the cogency of your Bible
in the area of the book of revelation so that you don't jump over it.
Paul under inspiration was telling the Gentile church, that they're
going to persecute you. In fact, they're persecuting
their own brother because they hate the gospel. That was that
past interpretation that was essential for the early church
to know. Now Mark what it says in verse 16, forbidding us to
do what? Speak. That means preach. To
the what? In order that they might what?
Say. To fill up their sin always for the wrath has come upon them
to the uttermost. Now Paul said that. Now Paul
would be hated just like I'm hated today in this very uh... sort of uh... apologetic jewish
age where there's a great deal of sympathy for the jewish nation
on the part of our country almost given them a totally utterly
total pass in terms of their responsibility to bow the knee
to god and income to christ just like the rest of us as if they're
already in the kingdom philosophically in ideologically and theologically
Christian worldview cannot entertain that notion But what you are
going to see over time is to not hold to a pro-jewish Interpretation
it's going to set you up for trouble But and I'm just sharing
that with you now so that if you are thinking well pastor
Jesse sounds very anti-jewish no, but what I do sound like
is I'm not being pro-jewish and And there's a difference between
not being pro-Jewish and being anti-Jewish. I hope you understand
that. But the end result is the same.
Jesus wasn't anti-Jewish and they killed him. Revelation chapter 17 then. In
Revelation 17, this great horror that John was astonished at is
said in verse 6, And I saw the woman drunken with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wonder
with great admiration and the angel said unto me, wherefore
do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of
the woman and of the beast that carries her, which had seven
heads and 10 horns. Now this is the same beast going
back to revelation chapter 13. This is the political beast carrying
the great whore. The great whore is the apostate
Jewish church. That's past preterite interpretation. Okay. That's what we call it.
Preterite view of eschatology. Listen to the language. The beast
that you saw was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit and go into perdition. That is, start to go crazy, start
to destroy, start to disrupt everything. And they that dwell
on the earth, there it is again, there it is again. Now watch
this. And they that dwell on the earth shall what? Now I want
you to park there. Here's another thing that I know
is important to understand. In Revelation chapter 13, They
that dwell on the earth shall what? Worship. In Revelation
17, they that dwell on the earth shall what? Wonder. So now I
want to tie those two concepts together and launch them in your
thinking too. You are what you think. Make no bones about it. As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he. You are what you think. And the
Lord is combining the posture and the thinking of the earth
dwellers in Revelation 13 and Revelation 17. Why does the beast
have so much control over earth dwellers? Because they have yielded
themselves to him in allegiance in order to have the material
goods of this life. Because they have given themselves
over mentally, emotionally, and psychologically to the themes
of this world system. You guys got that? So they wonder
after the beast. The idea there is to be fixed
on the vision of this great whore, this beast. It's a fixation on
what they see, and I've said this so many times. There are
two visions, one of which saves, the other of which damns. Which
vision are you transfixed on? There are two visions before
every human being. The vision of this world system
that looks like this seductive whore which propositions you
with all of the carnal material pleasures of this physical life
she's absolutely stunning even so much so that John is stupefied
by her and that what the text said John marveled at her with
great admiration and the angel said don't marvel at her so there
was a There was a demonic beauty emanating from her being On a
par with the dragon himself that oriental image in revelation
chapter 13. Remember i've told you the serpent
is beautiful to look upon There's nothing that is not beautiful
about the snake This is how he was able to break into dialogue
with eve Because of his beauty his his his uh His ability to
attract her, to spellbound her with his beauty. Everybody in
the Middle East is infatuated by the dragon, the beauty of
the dragon, the color scheme, the patterns, the way he moves.
And that's the language that God is using. It's called deception.
Deception. Well, the dragon's counterpart
is a whore. And the book of Proverbs teaches
us about the alluring power of the whore. Proverbs 7 all the
way through Proverbs 24. The whore dresses herself in
such an attire as to draw in the simple and the man that is
void of understanding. That is a picture of the person
who is gullible and led by their senses, without wisdom and driven
by their passions. Am I making some sense? The only
reason that a man would go into a harlot is because he is stupid
and driven by his lust. And that's a depiction of false
religion. And that's why most of our false
religious systems are hyper-sensual, anti-intellectual, given over
to emotionalism. It's the same dynamic that takes
place in the relationship with a man and the seductive whore.
Are you guys following me so far? That's the problem with
our churches. And if God should wake you up
and begin to arouse your soul for something more transcendent
than a good feeling on Sunday morning, you become extremely
aware and agitated that what's coming from the pulpit is not
what you need. And then you're on your struggle. And that's God's mercy if that
happens to you. Because the vast majority of people are just given
over to that emotionalism. And it's a sort of sensual liaison
with the cosmological whore called the false church. If we were
dealing with a present tense hermeneutic, or I would call
a historic view, Preterism is historic too. But if I were dealing
with a presentist historic interpretation of the great horror of Revelation
chapter 17, where I was dealing with first century Rome all the
way up to let's say the 15th century, I would identify that
horror as Catholicism. I would identify that horror
as Catholicism. Can I keep talking to you? This
is just what we call the historical unfolding of redemptive history
that makes manifest the methodology and the schemes and the agenda
of the devil from one generation to the next This is why you have
to understand the paradigm You have to understand the paradigm
The paradigm is given to us because throughout history The persons
will change but the principles won't change the actors will
change but the principles remain the same So from around 600 A.D. up to the Reformation, 1500 A.D.,
we had Catholicism that was combined with the Roman Empire, the Roman
Catholic Church, to become a persecutory entity under the power of secular
Rome with the sword going everywhere, subduing people and making them
Christians. Catholicism will argue with you
and people who are sympathetic to Historic Christendom will
argue that all of Catholicism wasn't bad like that, but you
don't need it all to be bad like that in any institution in any
Institution, let's say any company all you require in that company
in a pyramid scheme is is for the top three or four layers
to know exactly what the agenda is. Everybody else on the down
rungs, they're just following their stooges. Am I making some
sense? That's all you need with that
type of empire system. And the Catholic Church is an
empire system. It's a total empire system. It's Neo-Judaism. In
fact, it took where Judaism left off and picked up from there.
And this is why your Catholic churches look just like Old Testament
Israel down to the teeth. Am I making some sense to you?
This is why you got your high priest and your priest and your
bishops, archbishops is why you got all the ceremonial artifacts
looking just like the Old Testament temple because it's Neo Judaism. And with the same type of spirit
that dominated Judaism in the first century, persecuting true
Christians, that spirit now leapt on the Catholic church and the
Catholic church went about persecuting all those who would not submit
to it as well. That's a historic interpretation.
When we get into a more futuristic interpretation, a more futuristic
interpretation from the 15th century to the 21st century,
which is where we are, you and I are in the 21st century. So
we're 600 years removed, 500, 600 years removed from the Reformation
where believers said we've had enough with the Roman Catholic
Church dominating us and suppressing biblical truth and forcing us
to worship paganism, essentially worshiping the Pope who was depicted
for all that period of time as the Antichrist because he becomes
the vicar of Christ and everybody's focused on the Pope instead of
Jesus. It's interesting because even
the language that I'm using now about Catholicism, even that
too is becoming more and more dangerous here in America because
of Catholicism, ladies and gentlemen, is emerging once again as a very
prominent figure as well. But this is why I told you to
read Pilgrim's Progress because Pilgrim warned us about this.
John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, was one of the persecuted
preachers because he didn't receive his license to preach from the
English church, which had went apostate shortly after the Reformation
too, under the authority of the secular institution. And John
Bunyan in jail wrote the Pilgrim's Progress, and he warned about
that old man who looked like he was languishing and was harmless,
wearing all of the Roman paraphernalia. He said, be careful, he looks
harmless, but he'll rise up again in the latter days. That's the Pilgrim's Progress.
And John, that was, that's 400 years ago. He saw that 400 years
ago. He saw the emergence again of
Catholicism and that's what you guys are going to see. You're
going to see the emergence of a Catholicism and right now the
vast majority of your evangelical churches have already gone back
to Rome ideologically and practically. The vast majority of your evangelical
churches are ready to prostrate themselves and kiss the ring
of the Pope because they have abandoned gospel truth. When
you give yourself over to emotionalism and mysticism and the ecstatic
experiences that is supposed to be part of the Pentecostal
movement, you are asking to be Catholic. Are you hearing me? You're actually setting aside
the authority of the Bible, the sufficiency of the Bible, the
clarity of the Bible. And now what becomes your authority
is experience. And once your authority becomes
experience, now you have to have that experience affirmed by men.
That's what makes the Catholic Church different than the evangelical
church used to. It used to be the evangelical
church held to what we call the five solas, the Protestant church
did. The evangelical church did too. They believe that the Bible
is the final and sole authority of truth in all matters. But
not today. Today, it's the Spirit. It's
the Spirit. It's the Spirit. Are you guys following me so
far? Can I keep talking? It's the Spirit. The Spirit told me
this. The Spirit told me that. The Spirit told me that. That's
Catholicism. Well, not really. It's paganism. But Catholicism
brought it under the umbrella and ran that pagan spirit out
into the world and said, go get the pagans and bring them in.
They don't have to become Christian. They just have to get baptized
and they're good to go So that paganism which dominates our
church is actually the ecumenical spirit That makes the evangelical
church and the Catholic Church really one This message is not
gonna be nice over the radio. I'm gonna give it lots of hate
mail But I'm exposing the beast for you beast to the religious
beast I'm exposing it for And I'm exposing it for this reason,
not because I like exposing the beast, but because I know how
hard it is for some of you, how hard it's going to be for some
of you to stand on the truth. I know how hard it's going to
be for you to stand on the truth and be willing to lose everything
for the glory of God in Christ, because the religious world will
do just fine as long as we aren't talking about truth. Are you
guys hearing me? That's why you can get Pentecostals
and Baptists and Methodists and Catholics and Lutherans and Episcopalians
and all of them on the same stage talking about worshiping God,
because they threw the truth away. Am I making some sense? So I'll
share with you what you're going to see in the days to come. And
I'm going to give that formula. If I don't give it on the board,
I'll give it Orally to you here in a moment. What you're gonna
see is the apostasy Manifesting itself in a very clear and overt
way in the in the Christian Church Where you are out of your mind
to say that Catholics are not Christians You are absolutely
out man. Where did you get that notion?
They love Jesus just like we do. I Well, there may be individual
Catholics who do, but it's impossible to say that the Catholic Church
does because the Catholic Church denies every cardinal doctrine
of the gospel. It's written in their canons.
It's written in their doctrines, in their creeds. It's written
in their laws. They demand that you reject what
the evangelical church holds as Christian doctrine or you
are cursed. And they haven't recanted those
things. And they will not because they know that the church is
coming back to Rome. Are you guys hearing me? The
church is coming back to Rome. That's 2 Timothy chapter 4. In
the latter days, some will depart from the truth, taking heed to
seducing spirits and doctrines of the devil. That's 1 Timothy
chapter 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4 is very clear
that they will not endure sound doctrine. And because they won't
endure sound doctrine, they will find a system of religion that
is big tent in nature. and allows for everybody to just
kind of comfortably dwell there and call themselves Christians.
I had my sister report to me last Monday that there are Bibles
that are being printed up now by, out of all places, Wycliffe
Bible Translation to produce a hybrid Bible called a Chrislam
Bible. Chrislam. Chrislam. Chrislam. Can you figure it out? So now let me help you with that
just a little bit. I've, I've reserved the category of Islam.
I've reserved the categorical discussion on Islam for the future
because it's still a beast that has to emerge. It's there, but
it has to emerge. So I'm reserving that for the
future, but you can be sure that the objective of the whore is
to include Islam under its tent too. Are you hearing me? So somehow we have to get islam
to be sympathetic to The larger ecumenical objective and thus
get rid of its convictions as well And somehow we homogenize
christianity with islam and create a chrislam Well, we already got
a prophelic Protestants and catholics, you
got it. We already got a problem And
there are all kinds of hybrid terms that indicate a compromise
on the gospel on the part of the Baptists and the Methodists
and the Presbyterians too. The reason I'm sharing this with
you is because on an academic level, on a theoretical level,
this all sounds fine, but every day the hearts of men and women
are apostatizing from the truth as we speak. And at some point
it's gonna come close to home and you and I will have loved
ones whom we will be looking in the eyes who will abandon
biblical truth for the feel-good religion of an ecumenical movement,
and they will go to hell. Because they will have failed
to follow the path that Jesus did, which is suffering for the
glory of God when you stand on the truth. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? It's very important to know that. This is why we
try to tell brothers about the truth of the gospel while we
can so they can open their eyes and see this folly. so in revelation chapter 17 listen
to what it says verse 8 i've got about uh 15 20 minutes good
it's a good holy silence here isn't The beast that you saw was and
is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into
perdition. And they that dwell upon the
earth shall wonder, wonder. They will marvel. They'll be
fixated. They'll be transfixed. They'll be stuck on it. They
will be so elated by the things that are taking place in the
world, both in terms of the nations and in terms of religion, whose
names were not written. the book of life from the foundation
of the world when they here it is behold the beast that was
and is not and yet is you see it so the citizens of this world
are the citizens whose names are not written in the registry
in heaven and they will demonstrate that they are citizens of this
world because they will be putting all their energy and into saving
this world. Sounds familiar? I actually love, I actually love
history and I love present history. I love the dynamics of what's
taking place because it's the unfolding of scripture and God's
Word is right and I can see these things unfolding. I don't like
what's coming down the pike. but I like being able to see
what's coming down the pike. And I say that because I know
that I have to prepare as I've been preparing for 30 years now.
I see the window closing more and more from the time I was
a young man in my teens and God began to open my eyes to biblical
truth. And then my worldview began to
properly interpret what was taking place around me. And I saw gradually,
gradually, gradually over decades, the fulfillment of scripture
up to where we are We are not there yet. So I'm gonna relieve
you with a little bit of Chronological sensitivity right here. There
are a number of things that still need to come into play There
are a number of things that still need to come into play before
the beast emerges and shows himself for what he is in total but they
are taking place under the behind the scenes as we speak and Things
are forming and shaping and positioning themselves in order to facilitate
this great universal and global control that the beast is going
to engage in in a short time. So there are two things that
are taking place. Geopolitical issues. that are being strategically
controlled and morphed by the power brokers of our world, the
bankers and the leaders of our world. Those geopolitical leaders
are shaping the world. They're creating conflicts. They
are staging theaters of battle and war to deplete resources
and put people in the kind of fear and anxiety that's essential
to dominate And then on the other spectrum, we have the continual
shifting and sliding of apostate religion, where people are not
being sober and serious about the truth and are just kind of
on the Titanic while it's sinking, enjoying themselves, drinking
pina coladas and saying the Lord is good. But they are drowning
too. They are drowning too. They are
drowning too. And the two will converge at
a certain point. Are you guys hearing me? They
will convert and you will see it happening. But because of
the decline, the degree of decline, you won't have anything you can
do about it, but ride it out. You will see the decline on both
in the political and the religio. In fact, if you're discerning,
you can see it now and you go, it's still happening. It's happening
subtly. but it's happening. And it's
just a matter of time between before those two systems ultimately
converge. And then when those two systems
converge, the only objective will be is to go after the Christians
who have restrained because they will be the ones that are, that
are stopping the wholesale objective. So there's a revelation chapter
17 verse eight, uh, where the Lord says, If your names are
not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, which means your citizenship
is not in heaven, which means that you aren't trusting Christ
as Savior, which means that you aren't thinking on those things
which are above, which means you are not pursuing the glory
of God, and Christ is not the fixation of your life, then you're
going to be seduced by and controlled by the beast. In your outline,
I want to just talk briefly about the gematria your outline before
I go back to second Thessalonians and deal with the restraining
proposition that's there where it talks about the restrainer
in your outline Jim Mott Tria is the term and that has to do
with that beast that that is spoken of are the number the
number the name and the Mark of the Beast in Revelation
chapter 13, so go back to Revelation 13 I want you to look at that
with me for a moment, and I just want to talk about it about some
of the interpretations that have been rendered around that so
that you won't indict me for Being too superficial in handling
that I'll just touch on that again dealing with the past and
present and future tenses I want to share with you just a few
problems that exist for those who are enamored by the mark
of the beast. I told you last week, do not
be enamored by the mark, nor the number, nor his name. Do not be enamored by that if
you are a child of God. Do not be enamored by it. In
Revelation chapter 13, don't be worried about that name. Don't
be worried about the mark. be worried about your allegiance
to Christ. That will solve that problem.
Revelation 13, verse 16, and he calls it all both small and
great, rich and poor, free and bound to receive a mark in their
right hand or in their foreheads. We talked about the significance
of that for the last three weeks, didn't we? That it indicates
slavish control of the person who has received the mark. The
mark is a brand the heat the greek term there means to brand
something like you brand the cattle's To brand it Which means
it's the identification mark of ownership So and I told you
don't look for a literal brand Forget your social security card
your credit card your id all those forms of id your all of
these new all of those are just All of those are illusions, not
illusions, but illusions to control factors that are necessary and
essential for the functioning of life. Did you guys get that? None of us are complaining about
a GPS system in our cars if we have one. I don't have one, but
if we did, I'm still poor and broke, but if you got one, then
you're living high on the hog and you know, your car stopped,
you can call somebody, they can come get you. Don't you feel
good for having a GPS system? Well, the beast will be able
to hunt you down when he wants you to because of that. Now, okay, so I want us to think through
logically too. And one of the problems in the
Christian church is because we don't think logical, We don't
think logical, we think very emotional and we think in disjointed
ways. We don't follow fundamental principles
of reason and logic. We actually draw wrong conclusions
and get ourselves in trouble. The issue is not about having
a GPS device or having a credit card and even having people to
know who you are in terms of identification. The issue is
always a matter of the allegiance of your heart. The objective
of the devil is to have the throne of your heart. His job is to
occupy your heart. It makes no sense for you to
try to get rid of credit cards, identification cards, and all
of these other things, unless, of course, your objective is
for no one to have any control over you whatsoever. And there
are people who follow that flaw Objective you got hold rural
societies and these are groups of people who have systematically
cut themselves off from the government They know how to do it. They
can teach you how to do it, too And if you want to get off the
grid you might you can go But guess what? We got satellites
You know what? That means the government knows
where they are and anytime they want to get them they can get
them in life in juror societies Whether you know it or not, it's
no better than life in America, our life in Oakland, our life
in Hayward, our life in San Leandro. Life in a Jural society is filled
with a bunch of sinners, just like life everywhere else. Which
means Jural societies with all these folks who are thinking
just a little bit out of the box, does not have any advantage
over us. We still will be struggling with
bringing our bodies and our minds into subjection to Christ, no
matter where you are. Now, if you're tired of living
the hustle and bustle of paying these enormous bills, and I mean,
they are just so burdensome today, aren't they? Just every day we're
struggling to pay. If you want to try to go hide
up in the mountains somewhere and don't pay any bills for five
years, have at it. I don't, I can understand that. Wanting to break free from the
tyranny of paying bills. I fully understand that. But
will you have been participating when you do that in the great
commission? See, or will you have abandoned
Jesus commission just to preserve yourself? So what I told a man
16 years ago when we first started Grace Bible Church, We had just
a little handful of people. And we had just come out of a
certain religious tribulation. And we had learned a lot about
becoming myopic, tunnel-visioned, stuck in a grid of interpretation
that does not give you a more balanced and copious view of
what's really going on in the world. and this individual just
was excited about wanting to get off the grid. Pastor Jesse,
they're getting ready to do this, they're getting ready to do that,
they're getting ready to do the other thing. And as I listened to him and I began
to ask him, so what are these folks doing up there? He said,
well, you know, they plant their own corn, they're doing their
own chickens, they're doing their own cows, and they're having, and it all
sounded good a little bit, because I was still raising kids. And
I could not see myself doing chickens and cows while raising
kids, you know, it's just it just wasn't practically appealing
to me, right? But more importantly was the
anxiety level with which this person was seeking to evangelize
me. I knew that it wasn't of God. I knew that it wasn't of
God because he was actually acting like things were going to fall
apart the year subsequent. And here's what I'll say to those
kinds of notions. whenever you and I become fixated
on a perspective or an ideology or a doctrine and it becomes
the number one thing in our life, the things in the mirror appear
closer than they really are. Did you get that? And so one
of the things that I did when he when he got mad at me because
I wouldn't move on his his suggestion that we they're coming to get
us. So let's get off the grid. I told him I don't see this happening
for at least 3040 years. So he got mad at me. Well, it's
been 16 years and our work has continued for 16 years now preaching
the gospel virtually everywhere in the world. I've raised my
family up only got two to go. without just uprooting them and
taking them to some weird country, weird place in the annexed part
of California or Utah. And then what I had to say was,
any black folk up there with y'all? Any black folk up there doing
that? Because you know, black folk, listen, if you You got to have certain
prerequisite requirements to get black folk to go back to
the country. My wife would say, see you. Gematria is a hermeneutical device. by which you assign numerical
value to the letters of the Hebrew and the Greek. Geometria is a
hermeneutical device by which you assign numerical value to
the alphabets. Numerical value. It is a highly
subjective method of interpretation by which you can actually fudge
the names with these values to make numbers come up almost exactly
how you want them. And so if a person takes your
first name, let's say your first name is George, and they wanted
to use this hermeneutical device called gematria and look at the
numerical value of the word George, G-O-E-R-G-E, they could easily
work that out so that it comes up to 666. So because it's subjective,
who established that methodology? What are the ground rules? I'm
talking about the consistent ground rules by which it's done.
I already know the kind of hyper subjective fudging that people
who are into numerology and date setting get when it comes to
numbers. So the idea of a gematria form of interpretation, as your
outline has said it, has resulted in the church trying to identify
who the Antichrist is as a personage. So in your past interpretation
among the preterites, they would have anywhere from Nero to Caligula,
and a lot of your Roman Caesars, all because they can play and
fudge with the names. In the historic times, several
of the, again, Pope's names were numerically valued at 666. So which one was it? Was it the
Roman rulers, emperors, or is it the popes? Well, once we got
into the Protestant age, 1500 to 21st century, then our evangelical
churches were pinning the donkey numerically on different political
rulers in Europe and in America. Okay, so you had all that going
on. Well, one of the things that
was interesting is throughout this sort of divisive hermeneutic,
if you have your outline, you got Nero, the Pope, you see that
term Mohammed? That's Islam. That's Islam. So the term Mohammed was broken
down into its most contracted form and then assigned a numerical
value. And guess what they came up with? 666. Now once they did that,
you know what they made Islam? The Antichrist. Now that fits
conveniently in your futuristic interpretation of a Neo-Israel,
Europe, America model versus Russia, China, and the Middle
East, which is predominantly Muslim. Are you guys hearing
me? Now, I just want you to hear
what I'm saying. This is important for you to get in your head so that
you aren't swept away once you guys start hearing these things.
If you buy into that model, if you buy into the model that the
West is good and the East is bad, you buy into a dialectical
process that sets you up for an agenda that you have no control
over. Am I making some sense? If you
buy into the West is good, the East is bad, Then you buy into
us being the white hats them being the black hats And then
you're going to be set up for a political battle For which
the christian church is not supposed to be a part of Do you guys hear
what i'm saying? Now I want to make a warning
Uh, and then i'm going to open the floor for questions for 10
minutes, then we're going to shut it down I want to make I want to
share with you a warning that you need to receive And that's
this We are all different in our personalities and we have
different temperaments and predilections. Some of us are more cerebral
and intellectually driven. Some of us are more emotionally
driven. Some of us are artistic thinkers and others of us are
more didactic and linear in our thinking. So depending on your
personality type, you can be drawn in to certain propaganda
unawares. It can attract you and allure
you. Am I making some sense? And you got to be able to check
yourself and make sure that you're not just going into and buying
into that suggestion just because it appeals to you. You and I
personally cannot be the orbiter of truth. How I feel about it
cannot be the basis of whether it's right or not. This is why
it's so very important to have objective propositional truth,
giving you a foundation upon which to objectively critique
and discriminate and discern what that person is saying, whether
it has any validity or not. Because you are going to be hearing
in the political venues real soon a major push on the part
of America to be ready to go into the third world war. And
whether they will say it or not, is going to amount to Christianity
versus Islam. Do you guys hear me? Whether
they say it or not. Now hear me. Don't buy it. Do
not buy it. Do not buy it. There will be
another entity way above that that's controlling it all. And
it's called the dragon and beast one. Controlling the agenda. needing these two religion to
get on board because we've got numbers that can join the bandwagon
to become collateral damage for the agenda on the part of the
power brokers. You guys hear what I'm saying?
Don't do it. Be very careful not to get swept
up into a national religious battle. You will lose the gospel. And see, this is going to be
very unpopular, if it even has an opportunity to be aired, because
it's going to wake up a lot of people to what's going on. Questions
before we shut it down? Questions? Anybody have any questions? Microphone back there, all the
way back. Start back with Erica, and then my brother right there.
Erica, raise your hand. Yeah, give it to her. Put your
mouth right up to it. Kiss it like you're doing American
Idol. I'm kidding. Pastor, I had a question. Um,
I work with youth and I was hearing some, one of my youth speak a
little bit, um, concerningly about the adversary and how,
um, he was ready to pledge his allegiance to the adversary and
things of this nature. Now I've heard people profess
to sell their souls to the adversary, but I want to ask you, is that
really possible? Yes, possible. Uh, but it's unlikely. especially for a young person.
First of all, theologically speaking, everyone that's out of outside
of Christ is already sold to the devil. Ye are of your father, the devil
in the works of your father, you will do. Be sure of that.
This is why it's dreadful for us to think that we don't have
to preach the gospel to our children. Everyone who is not born of and doing the devil's bidding
already. The devil doesn't need you to do anything but never
ever come to Christ. That's all he needs you to do.
But just like Christ has, God has often used young people to
do great and mighty things for the kingdom of God. And this
is why we want to preach the gospel to young people so they
can get involved in ministry because old people ain't doing
it no more. Y'all just too tired. Y'all not even knocking on doors.
It's just true. God uses young people to to do
marvelous things. They're just dumb enough and
filled with enough testosterone to do it in Jesus name and god
get a lot of work done. But the same thing with the devil.
This is why we have a a world filled with young people that's
given over to the demonic influences of hip hop and R and B and rock
music and that whole culture of sensuality adrogynous men and women that
you can't even tell whether they're boys or girls. That's a whole
nother doctrine we'll get into down the line. So, all you can
do is pray for those young people and find ways that that's uh
appropriate for them to be exposed to the gospel. The gospel is
going to expose the coins we talked about. That's the only
thing that's going to expose the coins is the gospel. Next,
I saw somebody else's hand. No, back there. Back there, my Pastor you you said a lot of
things and some of them were I kind of got them I believe
but the main thing we just saying despite all the trials and tribulations
and the turmoil and stuff stay focused on Christ so that's the
bottom line of the whole message line from Genesis to Revelation
see it's so simple a wayfaring man can air in it But the problem
is we get too wise for our own pants. And the goal of the devil
is to get you to thinking that there's more to this than Jesus. He's with the five days over
and over. That's right. OK, thank you.
If you can stay on Christ, you will make it. If you miss Christ,
it's over with. It's over with. It's over with. God made your eyes, the eyes
of your heart to be fixed on his son. That's going to get
you through your trials. Next person. Up here. Could you please explain
a Catholic church rejecting the cardinal truth? Please explain
the Catholic church rejecting. And then, Nate, you can come
up here, my other brother. Get the mic and come up. I'll
give her a brief. Come up. Come up this way. The Catholic
Church rejects the cardinal truth of justification by faith alone
in Christ alone. This is the heart of the gospel. If you miss justification, you
have no gospel. Your gospel is totally a works
religion. And what that means is your salvation
is based partially on what Jesus did and on what you did. Once
you are basing your salvation on what Jesus did and what you
did, you are no better than the Jews. This is what the whole
book of Galatians was devoted to. The Jews telling the Gentiles,
you've got to be circumcised. The Catholic Church says anyone
who believes that their justification is based on the merits of Christ
alone and not their own good works is anathema. The two views
are mutually exclusive. They cannot coexist in the same
space. And this is why Catholics are
so driven to go through their mass and their penance and their
rituals because the Catholic church has told them the church
is what saves you. Even down to their death rights.
And that's how they steal the glory from God and keep men and
women in bondage because it's a hyper works religion. And then
it goes on. They don't believe in the, uh,
the sufficiency in totality of scripture as the means for, uh,
for divine revelation, but they believe in the authority of the
church over the scriptures. And therefore the church is the
final orbiter of revelation. This is why they have the apocryphal
books and other writings in conjunction with the scriptures. So as to
keep the people from having in their hands authority. And thus
they control the interpretation of scripture and they tell you
that you cannot understand that book without the church interpreting
that book for you. Which would completely disqualify
any of the Protestant evangelical churches from the 15th century
to the present time. They would be saying nothing
that happened since the days of the Reformation to now has
any salvific element to it whatsoever. That we're all lost, we're all
pagan, we're all unsaved. Are you guys hearing me? That's
what that logic would be arguing. My brother, uh, pastor, the,
the events that are going on in, uh, in revelations, um, are
they a lot of people say, Oh, you know, I'm going to wait until
and see how things happen, like an order. But could it be that
they're going on simultaneously that the events are going on
simultaneously at the same time? Like, you know, the cups and
the trumpets and the different Taking place if you're talking
about people being able to have a sort of chronological Sequential
unfolding of the tribulation period and things happening for
them to be able to tell where they are They're not going to be able
to do that because the way scripture is written it it it coalesces
Perspectives on the unfolding of redemptive history both in
terms of trouble and times of peace of prosperity in times
of poverty For instance, you'll read in one portion of the gospel
where Jesus says, and there will be a tribulation such as there
never was since the days of Noah. And yet it will also say, and
there will be giving in marriage and marrying and life will be
going normal like it was in the days of Noah. And so these tensions
are what keep people from being able to actually see what's really
going on. If you don't read the whole Bible in a sort of balanced
and broad view, you won't be able to see that they are both
taking place simultaneously sequentially and progressively. And yet there
are things that are taking place that are emerging and becoming
fixed Fixed entities in the unfolding of redemptive history that weren't
there before because we are moving towards the end. We're not stuck
We are progressively moving towards a climax without a doubt the
problem with people's assumption that they can be ready based
upon a an empirical perception of the unfolding of things is
that the empirical perception of the unfolding of things is
not where the danger is the danger is in the passion of your heart
and in your emotional uh connection in your involvement on on a uh
on an affection level with the things of this world your battle
will be every day to fight against giving your heart over to the
lust of the flesh another question nate back there
we got some questions over here okay we got about 10 more minutes
14 cranked up to 12 o'clock at night now so we My question, Jesse, is what happens
to, or I'd like some clarification on what happens to, because so
many people are enamored by the TV evangelist. A lot of preachers
are popping up because it's an easy profession that's very profitable. What happens to those sheep?
And I say that because sheep are very stupid. and they follow
them. And what happens to their souls
and what happens to them? Because I'm concerned because
I've had the blessing to be edified by you. And I've also had the
blessing by God to allow me to go see different churches and
see what goes on in there. And these people truly believe
that they're getting good, sound doctrine. And it's not it's not
truthful. They're not sheep. Which means they're not sheep.
My sheep hear my voice. and they know me and they follow
me. I want you to be very clear on this. This is part of the
emotional, empathetic disposition that Americans have, especially
American Christianity. I was reading JC Riles today
and he gave eight marks of apostate times. And in one of the marks,
I think I wrote it down. Yes, I did. You'll get it on
Sunday. He said, we are living in a culture where people are
not speaking the truth in love anymore and are afraid to tell
it like it is. And so we frame our words thinking
that we are loving people by calling them sheep. But if you
call a person a sheep, you have to know what the characteristics
of a sheep are. You call a sheep dumb and silly, but that's only
if that sheep has yet to be saved. Once that sheep is saved, that
sheep knows his master's voice. And then watch this. If that
sheep has heard the gospel and rejected the gospel for this
this pseudo-christian paganism that's going on in all these
churches, they're not a sheep. So the thing that we want to make
sure we are doing is making sure we're spreading the gospel far
and wide so that people can hear the gospel. A person cannot determine
where they stand until they hear the gospel. You didn't know you
were a sheep until you heard the crystal clear preaching of
the gospel. You were just involved in religion.
And so a lot of them are that way. They're just involved in
religion. They don't know the difference. And if you share the gospel with
them, the exaltation of Christ, the preeminence of Christ, the
solitude of Christ, the pure grace of God in Christ, redemption
through Christ, salvation through Christ, atonement through Christ,
justification through Christ, glory through Christ, so that
it takes the glory away from man altogether, and they hate
you, they're definitely not sheep. That's the litmus test. That's
how you know. That's just how you know. What would the church look like
under persecution? Because just going to church
in the 21st century, it's pretty much like free for all. But I
mean, I don't want to assume what it will look like. I'm talking
about the changes within the church, because there's going
to be a lot of, I think, if I'm coming to church to be encouraged
and all of that stuff, they're shaking going outside. I'm assuming
there's going to be a lot of shaking within the church. So
I would like to know what would the church look like under those
severe conditions. I talked about it earlier. That's why I'm talking about
these things now. I talked about it earlier. It's
one thing to talk academically and theoretically about a storm
when you're on the outside. When you're inside the storm,
that's totally different. But what the storm will do, as the
scriptures depict, is it will expose who are God's elect and
who are not God's elect. It will expose who are true Christians
and who are not true Christians. That's what tribulation always
does. That's why it's likened unto a purging. This is what
Daniel chapter 11 says. And at that time, many shall
be made white and purged and purified, and many shall be tried. That's what Daniel says in the
11th chapter and so the purifying the purging will be a time where
Many of us will have thought we were saved weren't saved and
became saved Many of us will thought we were saved and weren't
saved and then apostatized leave the church Everybody will be
humbled Everybody will see the real strength that they have
because it's one thing to say you can lift 250 pounds to jerk
it It's another thing for somebody to take that dead weight and
put it on your shoulder and see what you can do That's just a
metaphor for the weight of the trials that come The picture
can be described partially by what happened to the disciples
when Jesus was persecuted I'm going to talk about this a little
bit on Sunday when I explain what it means to be a prodigal
a But Jesus told his disciples who were self-confident, not
self-righteous, self-confident, that once the shepherd is smitten,
the sheep will scatter. And that's because they did not
have the power of the spirit of God to fortify them in the
midst of trials. Jesus knew that. And it was also
because there was no one who was to go to the cross with Jesus. He was to endure the wrath of
God alone. So when the shepherd was smitten, the sheep scattered
because the sheep have no strength apart from the shepherd. The
presence of the shepherd is what gives us our strength. The presence
of the shepherd is what gives us our strength. He fights our
battles for us and with us. He gives us stability of mind.
He gives us clarity. He gives us boldness. So automatically
you see this real dynamic that takes place in the book of Acts,
where now, where Peter scattered and cussed and said, I don't
know him. He stood boldly all through the book of Acts, preaching
Christ, rejoicing when he was persecuted for him. Nothing's
changed. During those times, you will
see Christians who will marvelously stand for the glory of God because
they will have been led by the spirit. They will suffer for
Christ with the same dynamic with which the early church suffered
for Christ. It won't be hard, but yes, you
will see people will leave. people will come. We don't know
how that's going to play itself out. There may be during this
time masses of people coming to Christ because of persecution
trouble. And then over time, because the
way that the nature of tribulation goes, it comes in waves. People
will fall off. We don't know what the what it
will look like in a sort of physical dimension. All we know is that
it will be a time where truth will be more important to us
then than it is now. It will be more important to
us then than it is now. And I'm talking about the reality
of things, the reality of God, the reality of our priorities.
And in a lot of this stuff, see, people are cheating on Jesus.
Now I'm telling you, people are cheating on Jesus. Next, next question. Any more
questions? Over here, you can pass it to
Gail and then over here. We'll shut it down in a few minutes. what you were saying, uh, revelation
17, eight, you said that, um, that there were fixed on the
vision of the great horror. And you said there were two visions.
The first vision I got was about the world, carnal pleasures,
people will be gullible and so on. I don't think I caught what
the second vision was. The picture of the lamb, all
true believers have been called to look to Christ. It was a look
that saved us. Isaiah 45, 22. Look unto me all
ye ends of the earth and be ye saved saith the Lord for I am
God and besides me. There's no Savior It's a look
that sanctifies us 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verses 18 through 21
beholding as a mirror all of us who are true believers are
beholding in a mirror the Word of God the glory of the Lord
in the face of Jesus Christ and that Revelation is changing us
from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of God that's called
sanctification then there's going to be a final look that will
change us into his image when he comes for we look for the
Lord from heaven who when he comes will change our vile bodies
so that they will be made like unto his glorious spiritual body
a look that saves a look that sanctifies and a look that glorifies
salvation is a look somebody else over here a couple
more we'll shut it down I just want to make a comment.
Um, the question that our sister had in terms of what the church
might look like under tribulation, my contemplation of lately has
been, um, not so much what it looks like, but being prepared,
preparing my heart, Lord God helped me with just the, because
just where we are right now, like you're saying, there's not
a lot of, um, heaviness on us, but even still in that we are
fault, you know, I'm just looking at my own walk, I'm falling.
And I'm like, Lord God, so help me right now, just little by
little on a day-to-day basis, help my heart so that I'm prepared
to be able to stand on the truth, stand, you know, fixed on you
and what you have done for me, for us. So that's just been my
contemplation. I just wanted to share that. do you value every day? Do you
value the benefit of waking up every day being saved? Do you redeem the time? The New
Testament imperatives are You know, be sober, be vigilant for
your adversary. The devil goes about as a roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour. Do not sleep like others. Do
not be drunken in a day. Do not be, give yourself over
the dissipation. You redeem the time. You, you,
you set your heart on God. You prioritize your life. You
be industrious. You work in every time you have
an opportunity to enter and engage in the things of God. That's
what you want to do because that's how you build the foundation.
That's Matthew 7, the man that built his house on sand versus
the man that built his house on the solid rock. The more I
come to know about Christ, the more that rock is being revealed
upon which I stand. I need to know him more and more
every day. Every day I need to know. And
I want to be acquainted with him by virtue of devotion to
him the day all hell breaks loose. And it's interesting because
his attention. The reality is that I'm securing
Christ based on my position, but that is affirmed by my daily
profession. See. Otherwise, I'm going to
set myself up to presume like the five foolish versions and
not have any oil in the lamp when the trouble comes, my brother.
Colossians 416, it speaks of an epistle from the church of
Laodicea. Yes. Is there a reason why that
epistle wasn't canonized? Absolutely. Because they didn't
have it first. It wasn't canonized because they
had it and decided not to use it. It was not around. So in
the period after the apostolic age, when they were gathering
all the epistles and determining which ones were authentic and
which ones were spurious or pseudepigraphous, the letter to the Laodicean got
lost. And so in God's providence, the
letter being lost was not needed. And that's how it is through
the books of the Bible. So when we have our Bible canonized,
we are not saying that there weren't other letters that God
had inspired to have written down. We are saying those letters
were for that time for those people. Because if it was meant
for us, God would have preserved it and it would have made it
into the canon for us. You guys understand what I'm
getting at? It's not necessary for, like john said concerning
the sayings and the doings of jesus if we wrote down everything
that jesus just did in his three and a half years ministry we'd
need computers you know all fill in this room And so what we have
is God's revelation for us in total in terms of its sufficiency
to give us a knowledge of God and to prepare us for glory.
That's what we have. But in terms of how history has
worked out and God has written letters, you get that in the
Old Testament. God doesn't have a problem with that. The letters of the
kings of Solomon, the letters of the prophets and different
names are enumerated and we don't have those letters. We don't
need them. They were for that time. One more question. Ladies first. I just want to know is, are we
going through tribulation right now? And is there a rapture? We are always going through tribulation.
Tribulation is a constant thing. Some parts of our world are in
the world. You should have tribulation,
John 16, 33. The church is always going through tribulation. the
tribulation intensifies in certain parts of the world at certain
times as we move towards the end it will be a more global
tribulation as the church apostatizes and goes away and becomes part
of that great horror and the real church the true church is
smaller more centralized and they can find us it will be intensified
in that way so we are always going through trouble always
always going through troubles always going through troubles.
That's very important for you to know. Your life is filled
with trouble. Mine is filled with trouble. In the world, you
shall have tribulation. Be of good cheer. I've overcome
the world. In terms of a rapture, as we've talked about in 1 Thessalonians
4, the snatching away. We'll talk about that next week
when we come back and formulate. I said I was going to do it today,
and I'll close it out by saying it like this. This will help.
The present study based upon 2 Thessalonians 2 and its opening
statements is this. That day shall not come until. That's the way the book, the
chapter opens up. And what that means is the Lord's
return. The Lord's return will not come.
So at the top of the categorical list is the Lord's return, but
it will not come until certain things happen. Are you with me
so far? So his coming will be equivalent
to us going to meet him. That's what they call the rapture.
Not a great term. It's a snatching away. The Bible
talks about the mystery of being caught up, caught up together
with him. And he, I don't like the word
rapture because it gets caught up with this, this, this in time
doctrine that has a lot of problems with it. But when Christ comes,
he will gather together. That's the sooner goggle all
of his people from all over the world, both living and dead at
that time. But that, that coming of Christ,
the Parousia won't take place until the man of sin, the son
of perdition, who is exalting himself against God, continues
to go through his work until he is revealed. There is a revelation
of the man of sin that I believe takes place every generation.
And the revelation of the man of sin is the ultimate apostatizing
of the church, where it leaves a Christ-centered view and takes
on the worship of Satan in whatever form the church apostatizes. And at the latter days where
we're moving to, the dark powers that are working now is creating
an apostate church that will emerge and become one with the
secular institution. And once that happens, we will
know that the restrainer is removed. That restrainer being removed
we'll talk about that Will mean we are on the brink and precipice
of christ's return and are going to be with him because the revelation
of the man of sin Also will be the appearing of our lord. Jesus
christ Are you guys hearing what i'm saying? That that language
will have to develop that more succinctly, but that's what paul
is saying. He said that's why don't be worried because Really
the manifestation of this universal Antichrist system is Simply the
door being open to the return of our master Only it will be
preceded by a short period of worldwide apostasy and persecution
which means you and I live in this sort of uh, This sort of
dual tension of looking forward to it and not looking forward
to it But I'm looking forward to it All right, let's stand
in prayer Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for your
mercy to us. Thank you for the grace to give
us a focus for these two hours. Bless my brothers and sisters
here in our study. Help them to be able to discern
truth. as they listen to different teachers. So germane, our brother
said, about all of these false teachers who are able to really
draw in many people, not talking about anything important whatsoever. Help us to know what it means
to feed on Christ, to drink in the Lord Jesus, to love your
word, to exalt him, to be enamored by him, and grant us grace not
to be lost, Lord. Give us traveling mercies as
we go our way. Prepare us to worship you on Sunday, we pray
in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.