Revelation 13 (Con't)

I don't know you. I don't know who you are, but where's Mike? That's what I said. I said we got business. I'm not even going to introduce myself.

I'm just going to be real suspicious of what's going on right away. I was trying to see if my house was a cornerstone and I had to go back to my paperwork to see if you did the drive -on or not.

I did all those houses from 2005 to 2009.

Am I seeing what I'm seeing? Well, good to see everyone.

This is not a costume. Will you open us up with a word of prayer, brother?

Let's pray. Heavenly Master, Lord, I thank you for this good day. Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to be in your house again,

Lord, in this become. I just pray that you would give this of ourselves and fill us with you,

Lord, and give us a desire to learn more about you, to be more like you,

Lord, and less about ourselves. Thank you for your provisions throughout the week and this year and just everything that you go through.

I'm just so thankful that you know me, Lord. I'm just thankful for everything that you do for us and keep us on a daily basis,

Lord. We just ask that you will be with Mike this morning as he comes to teach what you've put on his heart.

Also, when he comes to preach later on, Lord, just bless him. Give him the liberty of his calling.

Lord, that we might be blessed as well. Thank you and we love you for everything you do for us. And most of all, we thank you for Jesus.

We ask this in his name. Amen. Amen. Revelation 13.

And I will be reading from the ESV. And the reason being is my car wouldn't crank this morning and I hopped in my van to leave and my

Bible, my new American Standard, is sitting in the front seat of my car. So, I have not converted.

There's still time. No! No! No! Hey, is anybody,

I do, because as we walk through one of these passages, does anybody have a King James in here?

You do? You do? Okay, because we will have to reference that. I may need you to read it for me. Or at least tell me how it's read.

Alright, beginning in verse 1. Revelation 13. And then I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns, seven heads with ten diadems on its horns and a blast of its names on its head.

And the beast that I saw was like a leopard and its feet was like a bear and its mouth like that of a lion's mouth.

And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne in 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 worshipped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast and they worshipped 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 forty -two months.

It opened its mouth and uttered blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.

Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given over every tribe, people, language, and nation.

And all who dwell on the earth will worship it. Everyone whose name has 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 up out of the earth and it has two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon.

It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence. It makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast whose mortal wound was healed.

It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven, from earth in front of the people.

And by the signs that it was 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 cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

Also it causes all, both small, great, rich, poor, free, slave, to be given a mark on the right hand of 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 616.

Just kidding. There is a textual variant that does say 616.

Do you want this Bible? Yeah. I was going to see if anybody was going to catch it.

There is a textual variant. And when we get to that part, there was an early...

Who was there when I did the introduction that lasted five or six weeks? Okay, I brought that up.

There is a textual variant, and it is the earliest textual variant and earliest manuscript, three of them, and 616 is what's used.

And just to let you know, kind of give you a hint, when you do Gematria, and we'll talk about all that when we get there, both of them come to Nero.

So just to let you know, it's just a good insight into how they understood the numbering of the name.

Anyway, we'll get to that. Now that I've caused all confusion right at the beginning. All right. So when we left last week, we got to around verse 5, and we talked about the beast was given haughty and blasphemous words.

He spoke and exercised authority for 42 months. Not to haughty you, but how do

I understand 42 months? This is just another way of saying 42 months, isn't it, if this is days?

Correct? Yes. What's another way of saying 42 months? Time, time, half of times, if we're going to use

Daniels or Liz here. So I do not believe this is literal.

Y 'all ought to know that at this point. I do not believe this is literal. What do I believe that this is?

Not what y 'all believe, because I'm teaching, and you don't have to adopt my way of understanding it, but to be consistent with the book,

I have to be consistent with each one of these. What have I taught these are? Church age. A period of time.

Yeah. Church age, yeah. Or those that have an apprehension to using church age, because that sounds too dispensational, okay, because remember that is people that don't like that, gospel age.

The time in which the gospel is going out, okay? Yeah, time, and here's how you come to that.

Time, okay, times, half the time. You add those together, where does that come to?

Three and a half years, and we get that from back in the game. I know you just need to include that. Yeah, because that's how it's coined here.

We're just going to use three and a half years just to make it easy. As I was saying, time, times, half the time.

All right, so during this time, this gospel age, it says that the beast will wage war with the saints.

That's what it says. During that time, we'll have the conquest of the church.

The church is being militant, meaning it's going out. It's proclaiming the gospel. But as it's making great gains in the world for the proclamation of the gospel, what's pushing against it?

The beast, and the beast at some point will wage complete war, as you brought up last week,

Stephen. Yes. Do I believe at the end of the age, there is going to be a worldwide individual that will raise himself up, claiming himself to be

God, and it will be global? Yes. But if you were to go, like we were saying, if you go to North Korea today, there's no way you can't tell me that the church in North Korea can't read this passage and go, hey, man, that fat guy that looks like a

Teletubby, he is, that's what he looks like to me, he thinks he's

God. And as he is killing and slaughtering Christians, which he is doing, the gospel is making great gains there.

And you can't tell me that when they read this, they go, man, he's an iteration of the beast.

Now, we got to, well, let's walk right through this.

In verse 7 it says, And also he allowed them to make war with the saints to conquer them. He had authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation.

Once again, we're seeing the counterfeit having the same categories that the

Lamb. Christ has over every nation, tribe, people, and language.

And it says in verse 8, And all who dwell on the earth will worship it, and everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the

Lamb who was slain. Okay, so I said I would deal with, there is a prepositional phrase to figure out where from the foundation of the world.

You got, Mike, right? You said you got the King James? Yes. Read verse 8 for me, if you don't mind.

Yeah, sure. And all that dwelt 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. Who has, anybody in here have the

New American Standard? I knew I should have brought it. What do you have,

ESV? Oh, I have New American Standard. Oh, well do it. She's got the right translation. It's the New American Superior Bible.

The New American Superior Bible. Will you read yours?

Yes. All who dwell on the earth will worship him. Everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the

Lamb who has been slain. Anybody hear the difference? Almost the same. Almost the same, but it's where they, you know, from is a preposition.

I don't want to get too deep into grammar, but it matters in how we're trying to understand this, okay?

But from is a preposition, and in the Greek, that from the foundation of the world, if you're in the

Greek manuscript, that is at the end of the sentence. Are you saying before? Huh? The word before in that one is the word from?

The ESV says before, and that says from? Yeah, it's from. All right. Yeah. That's where some differences lie, and there's 12 words separating from the foundation of the world that preposition.

So where does it go, okay? That's why I said I don't want to get too deep into trying to explain this because is it the land that was slain before the foundation of the world or those whose names were not written before the foundation of the world?

You see, that can make a difference. Now, if you'll flip over to chapter 17, it makes it easy to, you've got 13 .8

and 17 .8, and it says,

And the beast that you saw, who was and is not, is about to rise from the bottomless pit to go to destruction.

And the dwellers of the earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will marvel and see the beast because it was and is not and is to come.

So you take this, and if you harmonize it with the passage in 13, you would want to say that it is the names that were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.

Okay? If we want to harmonize them and say that's how we should understand it.

Honestly, to be clear, I'm not sure. You could see John could be saying one thing in chapter 13, but could be saying something else in chapter 17.

So whatever translation you have, whether it's the King James, which words it a little differently, and whether it's the

ESV or the New American Standard, at the end of the day, we're not sure. Okay?

Not sure. That's why when they're translating from the Greek into the

English language, they do interpretive work for us to try to get us so, one, that it reads better, and two, to try to make an understanding of how the interpreter understands it.

You got a question? I'm just saying that would line up with the passage in Ephesians, the part about them who were not chosen before the foundation of the world, because in Ephesians, we are chosen in him before the foundation of the world.

Correct. So that would be the positive, and then the antithesis would be those who were not written in the book of life.

Sure, and if you want to use that passage, you could also use the passage also, Hey, little buddies.

Hey, glad y 'all could join us. Look at the little guys. Yeah, you're right.

We could use that to help interpret what's being said, and we could even take the words of Jesus, because what this is saying is those who follow the beast are who?

Those whose names are not written in the book of life. That's what it's saying. Why do they follow the beast? Because their names are not written in the book of life before the foundation of the world.

And if we want to take the words of Jesus and use that to help us understand this,

I think it's in John 10. He says,

You don't believe because what? You're not my sheep. He says you're not my sheep because you don't believe.

He says, My sheep hear my voice. They come to me. They follow me, and my sheep, he basically says my sheep do what

I say. What does he tell them? But because you do not do what I say, because you do not love me, it's because you're not my sheep.

So what's the beginning part? Because they weren't chosen to be his sheep, therefore, what do they do?

They follow after whatever. And it's interesting that he's talking to the

Pharisees there, and if you remember when

Jesus is on trial, and they bring him out, and he says,

Behold the man. And he says, This is your king. Remember? Remember when Pilate says that?

And do you remember what they tell Pilate? We have no king but Caesar.

You see what they just did? They took who they were supposed to follow, the lamb, and we got a bunch of little guys coming in today.

Hey! Uh -oh. Little guys means people.

Little people. Little people. So they say,

Look, we're rejecting the lamb, and we're giving our allegiance to who? Caesar.

And who is Caesar? He follows under the umbrella of? Beast. The political state.

Yes. Yep. Political and religious. Remember, that's come together.

Even enrollment came together. It hadn't got, obviously, in the first century, it hadn't got to, you have to follow

Caesar, or bow down and worship Caesar, or die. Had not yet happened. There was pockets of that that took place right after the first century, obviously in Smyrna.

But remember, this is a huge date to remember if you're going to say, when did it become imperial -wide?

Does anybody remember the date I put up here? Imperial -wide through Decius, 249 to 250

A .D. That's when it became, you don't give allegiance to the

Roman Empire, take your pinch of salt, incense, flick it into his bust, and say,

Caesar Icorios, you then paid the penalty, and that could have been with your life.

That was not empire -wide. I'm going to make it clear. Empire -wide by an edict from an emperor until Emperor Decius in 249 to 250

A .D. when he started. So, we can come to the conclusion that at least verse 8 in chapter 13 is those who run after the beast, they do it because their names were not written in the book of life.

They're going to go after because they had not been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and was because we were chosen in Christ, those that are the elect of God.

What could we say about this text here? The Lamb was slain in our place before the foundation of the world.

Now, does that mean that Jesus was really crucified before the foundation of the world? No, this we're talking about in the mind of God.

In the mind of God, in His decree that in time and space,

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God that existed in eternity past, that called all things into existence and fashioned all things by His hand.

He is the one that reached down into the dirt and fashioned Adam, because it says all things were created by Him and nothing was created that wasn't created by Him.

It is Him that would come in time and space in the fullness of time, born of a virgin, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, and then that which

God had decreed, the crucifixion of His own Son, would come to pass.

But in the mind of God, it was before the foundation of the world. Look, once God decreed something in eternity past, it's as good as done.

It's finished. That's what's going to take place. Any questions? Yeah, the plan of redemption was not reactionary.

Never was. No parts of it. There's some

Romanesque language in there. Sure is. Before the foundation of the world.

I mean, that's foundational to what we believe. That is predestination. God predetermined in eternity past that He was going to do something.

And He did it. Why? Not based on anything within the center, but based on His own honor and His own glory.

None of us. No, none of us. And you know the thing of, well, why didn't He elect to save all?

Well, there is something, and this is hard to say for those of us that have lost loved ones, that are lost, that there is something more important than the salvation of all sinners.

And it's God's glory. And when we come to terms with that, we've got to remember that God's glory is far more important than any one of you or me.

Look, we're just a recipient of God's glory. I mean, look, none of us deserve to be saved.

Adam in eternity... Hey, when He created Adam in the garden, Adam didn't even deserve to be created.

Okay? And obviously we're talking about before the fall. Adam didn't deserve to be the vice -regent of all that God created.

God gave that to him out of sheer sovereign grace. Sure. And obviously the grace that was before the fall looked vastly different on someone than once they're a sinner.

Okay? Because then mercy is involved. Now, then you have in verse 9.

If anyone has an ear, let him hear. I know we've been in this study for a very long time, but how many times have we heard this?

At least how many times have we heard let him who has an ear, let him hear? At least seven times.

Because this was one of the last things that were said to the seven letters, to the seven churches. He would say this, let him who has an ear, let him hear.

Now, when he says, let him who has an ear, let him hear, does it mean, hey, just because you've got these little things that stick off the side of your head, does that, is he saying, hey, if you had these, you can hear.

What's being conveyed here? Yes, sir? The same time that you said that, I was thinking of the beginning of Isaiah 53.

I didn't hear you. The same time that you said that, I was thinking of the beginning of Isaiah 53. Who has to believe that report?

Yep. Whoever has an ear, let him hear. And what does it mean to, if you have an ear, let him hear?

Does it mean just, hey, this person has these digits that hang off the side of their head, and as someone speaks, you have the ability to have your eardrums massaged so that you can hear.

Is that what it's saying? Not everybody can hear spiritually. And that's what's being said. Right. This is having to, let him who has discernment hear.

And actually, as we get through this, we're actually going to have something that comes up and says, hey, let him who has wisdom calculate.

Okay, so this has to do with understanding, not just hearing. I mean, how many of us have had kids and say they tell them to do something, and they don't do it, and you say, did you hear me?

Well, they heard you. They just didn't obey you, okay? It just didn't go into their, it didn't compute in their brain that goes, hey, there's going to be consequences if I don't do this.

In this case, if you have an ear, if you have the ability to hear, not with your ear but with your heart, listen and obey.

Look, any time God says, in the Old Testament or in the New, when He says hear, what does it mean?

Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Jesus in His, He would teach,

He would say, let him who has an ear, let him hear. Let him who has an ear, let him hear. If you hear, you will obey.

That's the goal. And it says, if anyone has an ear, let him hear. And here's what

He says. If anyone is taken captive, to captivity, He goes. If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword, he must be slain.

And man, here's this, this kind of a paradoxical statement. Here's a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

I think the New American Standard says this is the perseverance of the saints. I like that better, not just because it's the New American Standard, but I like it because that's, we often talk about the perseverance of the saints.

That's an actual doctrine, and it's actually quoted. Anybody else say perseverance of the saints?

Anybody else? What does King James say? Faith of the saints. And it is.

Obviously, the perseverance of the saints is having faith in that. But it almost sounds, as we're trying to understand what's being said, once again, if anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity,

He goes. Okay? I believe that King James says it much better the way it is in the

Greek. And reason being, if we read this, it sounds like, hey, as we've just talked about predestination, something being predetermined, it almost sounds like, hey,

Dan, if you're going into captivity, well, captivity you go. But then, you have, in the next statement, if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword he must be slain.

You understand? Those two don't fit together. You see that? One's going to go to captivity. To captivity he goes.

But then one who uses the sword, the sword, do you all see how those don't, they're not equal?

Understand? No? Okay. They're not equal. Because one's saying, if a guy uses the sword, what's he going to die by?

The sword. But, it says here, if one's destined, I think, the

New American Standard says destined for captivity. I think they butchered that, just to let you know.

I think the New American Standard butchered that. And I'm going to like the New American Standard. Because, actually, the word is to lead to captivity.

So, the, what does the King James say? He uses that word, it says, he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity.

Yeah, alright, so, the idea is people that are leading people into captivity, do what?

Go to captivity. Which would make sense with the next statement of, he who kills with the sword, what's going to happen?

With the sword, he must be killed. Now, lex talianus, anybody know what that is? Law of retaliation.

That's what God's saying here. That's what he's saying. Look, and why is it, this is the perseverance of the saints.

The perseverance of the saints is this, if they come and they haul off Stephen Berry to captivity, he has full assurance that God's going to make that right.

And how's he going to do that? By hauling those others off into captivity. Now, that doesn't mean physical captivity, it's going to be final judgment.

Okay? The sword, if they come, someone comes in here and they kill the saints,

God has promised, right? This passage here, they will die by the sword. Meaning, they will suffer death, punishment for it.

Now, you might disagree with my understanding of that. If you do, that's fine. But there, if you go back to,

I think it's Jeremiah 15? Jeremiah 15 uses this, almost this quotation as well.

When he was talking about those going off into the Babylonian captivity, he goes, hey, there's going to be those of you that are destined for captivity and you're going.

Those that are leading people into captivity, they're going to go into captivity. Those who have killed you with the sword, they're going to die by the sword.

And what do we know in that particular case with Jeremiah, what do we know what happened to Babylon after the 70 years that God used them?

What happened to them? They ceased to exist as a world power anymore.

They were done. You know? So, here is the endurance and faith of the saints.

And it is that God will destroy those who destroy his church.

And you say, well, how do you know that? Because in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 17, he says that exact thing.

Those who destroy the temple of God, meaning who's the temple of God? The saints.

Remember, that's Paul when he speaks about the temple of God with the exception of when he says they were going to the temple.

When he says you are the temple of God, the temple of God is the dwelling place. Are you, and it says in 1

Corinthians 3, verse 17, those who destroy the temple of God, God will destroy.

That is the law of retaliation. God's going to make right everything that they're doing to his bride.

There's not a person in this room that's married that if a man goes and puts his hands on his bride, that he is not going to defend her to the death.

Well, we are the bride of Christ. And nobody's going to put their hands on Jesus' bride without consequences.

Now, those consequences may be delayed, but he will take care of it.

Now, moving on into verse 11. Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth, had two horns like a lamb, spoke like a dragon, and it exercises the authority of the first beast in its presence.

So, remember the... I'll just do this.

First beast was what? The political, governmental structure.

What's the second beast? He'll be the cheerleader for the first beast.

And ultimately, this will be false prophet.

And it's spoken of in 16, 19, and 20.

That's how we know it's the false prophet. It's actually named the false prophet when you get to chapter 16.

He says that beast that was rising up out of the earth had two horns like a lamb.

It spoke like a dragon. Wait a minute. He looks like a lamb. Why is he looking like a lamb?

Counterfeit. I mean, we could... We don't have time. Maybe I'll do it next week. We could just go through and look at all the contrast between the first beast, the second beast, and how it is trying to make a mere image of counterfeit to that of the lamb.

And here it is. It says that it had two horns like a lamb. It looks just like a lamb.

But what happens when he opens his mouth? It's a dragon. I mean, how many...

I had a guy that worked for me. He said, man, my girlfriend is so pretty. He talked about how, man, she opened her mouth when she...

Man, she could put a rendition of F -bombs together. I was like, good. How do you get past that?

So it's like that. What's on the appearance is not what's coming out.

And in this case, this lamb that looks like a lamb has two horns.

It spoke like a dragon. And when it opened its mouth, how do you know that? Because what did he do?

It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence. So this second beast is going to say, hey, check it out.

Worship that beast. You want to have full fulfillment in life?

Follow the first beast. And that's what we'll see here in a minute. It says here that it makes the earth and all of its inhabitants worship the first beast.

And why does it make all of its inhabitants worship the first beast? Because it had that mortal wound in its head.

So in its original context, okay, in its original audience, what was being prophesied would have been the upheaval, the death of Nero, which won the death of Nero.

When he killed himself, what happened to the Roman Empire? It went into chaos.

There was civil wars everywhere because there was really no leader.

Now, when Nero died, that would have been, he killed himself in 68

AD, and then you had Galba, Otho, and then

Bytilia. All of these lasted about 16 to 18 months trying to get power.

Those are men that rise themselves up. Hey, they were fighting, killing one another, raising up arms to fight against each other, basically raising up their own little armies to try to grab power.

Not only was that happening in Rome, but it was happening all over the Roman Empire.

Okay? So when one of those heads had a mortal wound, meaning one of those heads of this beast, meaning

Nero, how I understand it, once that happened, chaos all over the Roman Empire.

And Edward Gibbons said it a hundred times, read it, look, he wasn't a

Christian. Okay? The rise and fall of the Roman Empire. He was not a Christian sympathizer.

Okay? But he said it is a miracle that the Roman Empire survived that time frame between 68 and 69, right at the beginning of 70, until Vespasian comes along.

Now, when Vespasian comes along, what did he do? He handled this problem in the beginning of 70, and then he brings order back to the

Roman Empire. Brings it back to its golden age. Back to the

Pax Romana. Okay? So when he brings order back to it, the cheerleaders for the

Roman Empire are going, look, it looked like it was about to die. But look, it has a resurrection.

That's why you should worship the beast. Because it has all the answers to all of your problems. Roman Empire can fix it.

Hey, and every governmental structure after that says the same thing.

Same thing. Yes, sir? Yeah, you can't help but kind of see the correlation there between even like Germany in World War I. You know, they go through hyperinflation and all that stuff, and then along comes

Hitler in World War II, Third Reich, that whole thing. It's the restoration. You know, we're coming back.

We're better than ever before. You can see that. It's got just a newer, kind of a more recent history of a lot of what happened in Rome.

That's why I understand we apply the little book, 10 to 13, in an idealist perspective.

Because you're seeing these take place over the course of the Gospel age, and you will see it come and go, come and go, come and go, come and go, come and go.

We could take the Soviet Union, you know? The collapse of the Soviet Union. What happened when the...

I don't know what age is in here, but who wasn't around to know when the Eastern Bloc fell, okay?

When the Eastern Bloc fell, and then the Soviet Union fell, y 'all remember all of those

Baltic states that were under the iron heel of the Soviet Union? Y 'all remember what all happened?

Man, you had the fighting in Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia, all of those. You had a civil war break out, you know?

And that's what happens over the course of all of the church age. But at some point, it will culminate with one person raising himself up.

That will be the man of lawlessness, okay? And he will be the embodiment of everything else that has taken place over the church age until the culmination of all things and the consummation of the coming age, the new age.

It's amazing, though, because that mortal wound is trying to replicate Christ. It is, yeah. That's why you said that image, you're trying to pull away from Christ, because look, we've survived a wound.

Yeah, so that's why I said you had this constant counterfeit. So, all right, so at the beginning, it said at the beginning of the book,

John saw a lamb standing as if it had been what?

Slain. Slain. Now, look, it don't take a rocket science to figure this out. If the lamb is standing, it ain't dead no more, okay?

He is resurrected. What is this saying about this beast? It was dead, and it's had a resurrection.

That resurrection is false because it's trying to mimic that which

Christ has done. Remember, you have God the Father, the Son, the

Holy Spirit. I think I wrote this up here a couple of weeks ago. Just as the dragon gives his authority to the first beast, and then the second beast says, worship the first beast, because the authority of the dragon had been given to him.

The dragon's the devil. What do we see with the Trinity? The Father gives all authority to who?

The Son. The Son, and what does the Son do? He says, I'm sending someone like me, the

Holy Spirit. Yeah, and then what does that Holy Spirit do? It then empowers the believer to go out and do what

Jesus said at the Great Commission, which is, now all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth. Now you go and do what

I have already trained you to do, and I'm giving you the authority to do it by what? By giving you the power of the

Spirit. Look, we fail to remember that when

Jesus was baptized, being perfect man, fully God, fully man, when

He came up out of that water by John the Baptist, what descended upon Him? The Holy Spirit.

And it empowered Him to go out and do His Messianic work. Do you know the Holy Spirit that empowered

Jesus Christ is the same Holy Spirit that lives and resides within you today.

We are without excuse. Look, when I say we, I'm talking about me too. We are without excuse, because we have the same

Spirit living inside of us. What do we do? We suppress that. We quench it.

That's what Paul says, we quench the Holy Spirit. Now it says here in verse 13, and it performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of the people.

Does anybody remember when we heard this? What did the two witnesses do? The two witnesses back in chapter 11, what did they do?

They could call fire down from heaven. What does this cheerleader for the first beast do?

The same thing. Hey, I've got the power to call down fire from heaven.

He says, I've got the ability to do the same thing. Once again, a counterfeit. The counterfeit.

I can do what they did. I can perform great signs and wonders.

That's exactly what it is. And it deceives people. Now, do

I believe in application that signs and wonders can be done by unconverted people?

Yeah, I do. Now, yeah, his guys did that.

That's right. In today's time, don't think that just because these false teachers that are quote, doing signs and wonders, that they're false signs and wonders.

Now, making a guy's leg grow for an inch or two, that's hogwash. I mean, any parlor trick, we can do it.

We can do it right here on the table. You want to hop in there? I can pop your leg, move your hip a little bit. Oh, look, his leg grew.

No, no, no. I do believe that there are real false teachers that will perform signs and wonders.

Because Jesus even said, if possible, they can even lead away the elect. And that's in the rhetorical meaning it can't happen.

But, if possible. So, some of the most terrifying words in all of Scripture.

In Matthew 7, verses 21 through 23. Those people say, hey, on that day they will say,

Lord, Lord, did we not do miracles in your name? Did we not do this? Did we not this?

And you know what Jesus says? He doesn't say, no, you didn't do that. They were fake. That's not what he said.

He never says anything about what they did. He just says, depart from me, I never knew you. They can do fake signs and wonders.

False. False. Not meaning a slight of the hand. I really do believe that Satan has the ability to, through his demonic cohorts, to give people the ability to do signs and wonders.

Would you say, for instance, in some parts of the Roman Catholic Church, and we've got to go here in a second, there's been crucifixes that bleed.

Do I think that some of that's fake? Yeah, it could be. Could it be real? Yeah, it could.

You know, you have pictures of apparitions of Mary. Saying, hey, you know, follow me.

Well, one, we know that that's fake because if it was really an apparition of Mary, Mary would say, go to my son.

But what do they do? It pulls them away from Christ to follow something else.

So when people do signs and wonders, don't immediately go, that's fake.

Go, okay, this is being empowered by the evil one to mislead people that honestly, in my opinion, think they want to be misleaded.

Paul talks about it in 2 Thessalonians. He says that God at some point will send a strong delusion to those who would rather believe a lie than the truth.

So what does he do? God says, you want to believe a lie? Here you go. He just gives them over to their lies.

That is what I believe will take place at the end of the age with the man of sin.

We need to close up here. But he does all these signs from heaven to those on the earth in front of people.

And why does he do that? He does it so that they can then worship the beast. Worship the beast.

What is the goal of the false prophet? What's the goal of the false prophet?

Worship the beast. And what's the purpose of the beast? Be a dragon worshiper.

And if you're worshiping a dragon, you're worshiping Satan. Now I'm not saying you're bowing down, cutting cats' heads off, drinking their blood and all that.

That's all Satanic sounding, but that's not what it's talking about. If you're not following the true and living

God revealed through the person and work of Jesus Christ, you are a beast worshiper. There's only two roads.

Live road leads to destruction. Narrow way leads to life. Few be that find it. Pray for us, brothers, so we can go.

Be with us as we head into worship, Lord, that we would worship you in spirit and truth, that we would enjoy the company and fellowship of Satan.