The Beast of Revelation 13

We have done eight sermons or Bible studies, Sabbath Bible studies, this year so far on an outline of prophecy. We started with the first prophecy about Jesus Christ in Genesis 3 and showed how that message of God saving humanity through the first and second comings of Jesus Christ is all through the Bible. It's central to all prophecy. Then we went through the different covenants and how these covenants are God coming along, making agreements with human beings, making covenants with them to carry out that process. You and I are now part of the new covenant, which is a step in God bringing out His final desire, which is to live with humanity that wants to live with Him for eternity. We then went through a whole series of Bible studies that had slides to them, and I put them on the same design and did different things with them so that we could follow along every time I give one of these sermons or Bible studies and there would be a continuity. Well, I had a really nice slide presentation for today, and because of our technical problems, I can't show it to you. So you're going to have to use your imagination. Someone said, well, why don't you just have the kids come up and act out what you were going to show the slides on? I said, no, it's about the beasts. There's no way to do that. Although I had two parents volunteer their kids. Well, my kids can act like beasts. I said, no, no, that's okay. I'm serious about that. Two parents did. So we're going to do this with just getting into the Bible, but the slides allowed me to go through the material a lot faster. But we'll go through and pick up where we left off before. After those sermons where I discussed just these overview of Bible prophecy, I went through some specifics that are templates that start with Satan's plan and how God's plan stacks on top of that and God wins. We started with Daniel 2 and the image of Daniel 2 and how that shows that there are four empires that follow each other. The first one is Babylon because he says it's Babylon and then ends with the return of Jesus Christ to destroy all the empires instead of God's kingdom on the ground. We then went through Daniel 7 and part of Daniel 8 because Daniel 7 shows us four beasts. And we showed how with the description of those beasts, each one being an empire, and you lay that on top of Daniel 2, they're talking about the same thing. And then Daniel 8 talks about two animals, which you lay that on top, that's two of those beasts.

And we know from the book of Daniel alone, the first beast was Babylon, the second one was Persia, the third one was Greece. And we know that Greece was destroyed by the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire lasted 800 years. And since the fall of the Roman Empire, well, the Western Empire, the Eastern Empire did not fall until the 1400s.

And all through history there's been an attempt to reconstruct in one way or another the Roman Empire, which went from England all across what is now Central Europe all down to Mediterranean to Egypt. At one time, that's how great that empire was. So there's been attempts to recreate that. So we ended with, the last time, was we went through the Olivet Prophecy, just part of it. We're going to have to do a lot of work yet on the Olivet Prophecy, and we went through the first four seals of Revelation.

It showed how the Olivet Prophecy, Jesus said, all these things are happening, wars, rumors of wars, false religion. There's going to be diseases. There's going to be all these starvation. All these things are going to be happening, and that's the beginning of sorrows.

That's not the end. That's the beginning of sorrows. So we laid that on top of, these are the events that happened before this sort of revival of the fourth beast. Then we went to the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the first four seals of Revelation, and showed that they're describing the exact same events of Jesus' Olivet Prophecy where we stopped. Because Jesus' Olivet Prophecy then continues to talk about other things that happened after the beginning of sorrows.

And we know what happens in the fifth of the seals, so we're going to have to go through that some today. So that showed us what's going to happen and lead up to, and according to the four horsemen of the apocalypse, 25% of the world dies. That's when we'll know when things are that bad, oh yeah, the really bad part now starts. Now that all could happen very quickly. It wouldn't take very, that all could happen real quickly.

So we're looking at, and looking towards how do we know when prophecy is being fulfilled, the beginning of sorrows. There's absolute chaos in the world that leads to collapse of nations, collapse of empires, starvation, war, all kinds of things that ends up killing 25% of the world's population. It's never happened before. So what happens next? And what we're going to look at today is what happens at the end of the time of sorrows.

Not everything, because we're not going to have time to go into the abomination of desolation, but we're going to go through events that happen that lead into the absolute resurrection of that final resurrection of the Roman Empire. That doesn't mean, by the way, that the working on the creating of that empire doesn't exist before it shows up. It just means that that's when it actually gains power. The involvement in creating that may have gone on for a long time, but it shows up at a certain time when the beginning of sorrows reaches its pinnacle point, and then power is given to that beast, and it begins world conquest and world rule.

So let's go to 2 Thessalonians, because this is going to happen at the end of the beginning of sorrows. And as we go through this, you'll see why I put this in that context. 2 Thessalonians. Now, this we covered maybe a year and a half ago, two years ago, when I did give a sermon on the beast of Revelation 13. But since we're in this process of going through an outline of biblical history, we need to go through some of this again.

2 Thessalonians 2. Now, brethren, Paul writes, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you. So here is an explanation of prophecy, an aspect of prophecy given by Paul to Thessalonica. Now, we do know he actually had been there, talked to them, and written to them about this before. We don't know what he said. All we have is him saying, I'm reminding you of what I said. I wish we had all the details of what he said the first time.

Not to be soon shaken in mind or trouble, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. So somehow there was a belief that the day of Christ had already come. Christ had already come back the second time. Now, you think, how could they believe that? There are Christians who believe that today. That small, it's not a huge number, but Christ came back the second time through the Holy Spirit, and Christ is now ruling in His Kingdom on earth through the Church.

So you can see there's all different ways they could come up with that, that Christ has already come. He says, No one deceive you by means, for that day will not come, unless the falling away first comes, and a man of sin is revealed, the Son of Perdition. There's going to be a massive, complete turning away from God. And there's this man of evil.

This man of evil is going to do certain things that the whole world will see. This isn't going to be done in secret. Now, all kinds of things may be done in secret, and will be done in secret to get him to this point. We don't always know all the sort of secret things that are going underneath, but we are to be able to see the events as they happen.

This man, this is not a perdition, verse 4, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Now, there's two things here. This temple can't be the church, because of the way it's described here. It has to be a temple in Jerusalem. There is going to be some kind of temple in Jerusalem. I don't know whether it's a big edifice. I don't know whether it's a tent, but there will be sacrifices there. And when we go through the abomination of desolation, we'll have to explain that, because the abomination of desolation is set up in the temple. So, as we move towards these events, in this time of beginning of sorrows, there's going to be a movement, which already exists, to set up a temple in Jerusalem.

Of course, coming from San Antonio, and I know I've mentioned this before in that sermon a year and a half ago, coming from San Antonio, John Hagee has been raising millions and millions of dollars, huge, I don't know, 12, 15,000 people in his megachurch there, to send over to build a temple for years. And he's not the only one doing that. The United States is funding different evangelical churches, the building of a temple, and why are they doing that? Because they're trying to make sure this prophecy takes place. So, it's going to happen. We're not told how it's going to happen. When it happens, probably most people won't know it was funded by U.S. evangelicals, right? They won't know that. But it's happening.

So he's going to be in the temple, and he's going to exalt himself as if he is God or a god. Now that seems so strange to us today, but to the people that Paul wrote to, it actually wasn't that strange. They lived in an empire, which was the greatest empire the world had ever known, in power and in wealth, and the emperor was a demigod. The emperor was a god.

Now he could die, but as soon as he died, he went to join the other gods. So they lived in a world where in the palaces of Rome, the emperor spoke as a god with the power of the gods. That's why when I can't remember which comet streaked across the sky back in the first century in Rome, they declared it was Julius Caesar. He joined the gods. So as strange as it seems to us, a human being claiming, I speak as a god here, is not that strange to them. He says, do you not remember that when I was with you I told you these things? No, Paul, why didn't you write it down? God chose not to have him write it down. And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who now restrains him will do so until he's taken out of the way. In other words, God's going to keep this restrained to a point he doesn't. And when he does, this power is going to take place. It did not take place in the life of Paul. It was restrained. But it is going to happen in the future.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. So this man exists when Christ returns. Daniel 2, Daniel 7. Everything we're going through culminates with the return of Jesus Christ. That's how we know these things fit together. That's how we know now this lays on top of the first part of the Olivet Prophecy and the first four seals. Because this person is coming into power. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power signs and lying wonders. So this is important. The power of this person comes from Satan himself. And there will be all kinds of miracles involved. All kinds of things that don't even make sense. Things that make people believe he is a Messiah.

He is a Messiah. A God-man. Come to save us. Why would he come either to save them? Well, if 25% of the world has died, it needs saved, right? The chaos will be enormous. And how much of that chaos he actually instigates will be...I don't know. But we do know that false religion is part of the chaos. And the power then to this individual comes out of that. And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them a strong delusion that they should believe the lie and that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure and unrighteousness. God will say, you want this delusion, you can have it. And that's why this is worldwide. God will generally give us what we want until we get tired of it. That's why he's always been with human beings. Okay, if that's what you want. Until he says that's enough. So he's going to...you want delusion? Be deluded. So this comes out of that chaos. And this man goes to the temple in Jerusalem, sits in that temple, says he's speaking as a God for God, and the whole world says amen. Now that doesn't mean every individual, but it means the mass of the humanity does so. So where do we go from here to get the next details? Let's go to Revelation 13. So we've laid this on top. That's our next template. Now we've got to lay this on top of that.

Revelation 13. And notice all these prophecies we're going through, they always end up with God's plan. We can't get away from the first sermon on the Messianic prophecies of the entire Bible, and we can't get away from the covenants that were made, which was a sermon and a Bible study. We can't get away from that because all these prophecies end with, and here's what God's going to do about that, and here's what God's going to do about that. And Christ's plan is to get away from the first sermon on the Messianic prophecies of the entire Bible. And here's what God's going to do about that, and here's what God's going to do about that, and Christ is coming a second time, and He's going to stop this. That should be our focal point, by the way. We can get so wrapped up in worrying about the horrors of all this and hoping it doesn't happen in our lifetime, or we can look at what God's going to do.

I mean, glad that He's given us the information to be able to understand in a way what's happening and be aware of what He's doing, of what God is doing, and that He's involved with us in this, His people. Wherever His people are, and there's going to be actually a lot of people converted and come out of the Tribulation. There's a great conversion inside the Tribulation of people. What we talk about, you know, that's once again for the future. Revelation 13. Then I stood in the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast riding up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on these horns ten crowns, and on these heads a blasphemous name. In other words, it was against God. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, his mouth like the mouth of a lion, the dragon gave him his power, his throne and great authority, dragon, symbol of Satan. Now if I stop there, I think, okay, the sea there would be the Mediterranean, because that was the sea in which all the happening of the Bible throughout the scripture happens basically, except for, well even Noah ends up not far from the Mediterranean with the ark in Mount Ararat. So it all happens around that area. So that's the sea. So something goes out of that sea, which we're back to those other three empires were all around the sea. But the important thing here is that he saw this beast is like a leopard, like a bear and like a lion. Now if you remember, back in Daniel 7, the empire that came from Babylon, Babylon was a lion, Persia was a bear, Greece was a leopard, and the fourth one was a great iron beast. So what we have here, because if I don't have a template to put this on top of, I have no idea what these animals mean. But I have all three of these animals in another template. What we have here is Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. All that that system was is now brought together in one great last system that represents all of them. It represents everything that happens since Nebuchadnezzar. They all come together in one great resurrection of a beast. So this beast is the fourth beast of Daniel 7. Or it's something that I don't know what it is. So now we have, okay, the man of sin comes along and this new power rises up. Probably been working for a long time, but it now rises up and has its power. Satan's behind it. We'll go back to those beasts here in a minute in Daniel 7.

I tell you what, let's go to Daniel 7. Since I don't have slides to do this with, let's go to Daniel 7. And just to recap what we covered before. And there are certain details in Daniel 7 we haven't covered. There are certain details in Revelation 13 I'm not going to cover. I mean, there's no way to go through all those details. And there's a few of them to tell you the truth. I'm not sure what they mean. I'm not going to try to explain something I don't know what it means. But what we do have gives us a really amazing picture of what God's doing. Daniel 7 and verse 7 says, After this I saw in the night visions of behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth. It was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. And it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. The beast of Revelation 13 is terrible and has ten horns. And is built on Babylon, Persia, and Greece. The three animals are used. So this is that same beast that comes again upon the earth.

Now look at verse 23. We'll be back into Daniel 7 and 8 and other parts of Daniel when we get into the abomination desolation. But it says in verse 23, Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms. It shall devour the whole earth, trample it, and break it in pieces. Rome never trampled the whole earth. None of those other empires had that much power. This one is going to gain control, at least economically and through military might. Much of the world, or all of the world, will come under its… it doesn't mean it conquers every place, but every place becomes subservient to it in one way or another. So this is going to be absolutely unique in history. The ten horns are ten kings, which shall arise from this kingdom. Then it talks about another one, and what talks about these different horns and kings. I won't go through that right now. But this little one will rise. This little king. Verse 25 says, He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. And the saints shall be given to his hands for a time, times, and half a time. Now I want to center in on now being able to know where we are in this history, because when this fourth beast actually arises, the people of God, wherever they are, it doesn't matter what group they're in, it doesn't matter, scattered all over the world, are going to face persecution. So when the fourth beast rises, well the first things it does is the scapegoat for all this, as a man sitting in the temple speaking for God, speaking as God, is we have to get rid of these people. And it lasts for time, times, and half a time. Now when it comes to prophecy, there's almost nothing that all the Christian scholars agree with, with each other. They're all over the place. But time, times, and half a time is like 95% say that's an idiom at the time, in that time period, for three and a half years. So we have a three and a half year period in which the beast has power and exerts that power against anyone who follows God.

Let's go to the Olivet prophecy. I had a nice slide for this. Matthew 24. I sort of prowled into this slide, you know, maybe that's why God took it away. I had too much pride. Matthew 24. We read last time verses 3 through 8. We read the beginning of sorrows because that's the time period we were, the template we were building. After that, here's what comes next.

Verse 9. Then after the, you know, the beginning of the time of sorrows, then as that ends, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. You'll be hated by all nations for thy name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, will hate one another. And then many false prophets will rise and deceive many, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

But he who adores to the end shall be saved, and the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. The gospel is preached during this three and a half years, but the saints of God are persecuted. In fact, verse 15, which we'll cover in a sermon after this, begins a period he calls Great Tribulation. It's where we get the term Great. Actually, the Great Tribulation isn't in the Bible.

It's just, Christ says, this time is a time of Great Tribulation. So now we call it the Great Tribulation, which, you know, that's not a misuse of the term, but it's something that he just said, this is the time of Great Tribulation.

It begins now with the rise of this beast, a man sitting in the temple, which the Great, the abomination of desolation talks about that. We're going to have to go through that. And he begins persecuting the saints of God, anyone that follows God. Now, let's go to Revelation 6, because this was part of our last template.

The first four seals, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And in verse 8, it talks about the pale horse, the last part of verse 8 says, and power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with hunger, with death, by the beast of the earth. The beginning of SARS. Verse 9, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw the altar of the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which he held.

And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. And then a white robe was given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, till both the number of their fellows and their brethren who would be killed as they were was complete. So, the end of the time of SARS, we have persecution on the people of God. The fifth seal, after the first four seals, persecution on the people of God.

When the beast gains power, it brings persecution on the people of God. So we now know when this is happening. There's going to be persecution between now and then, but this is global persecution. It just won't be, by the way, on people who, say, keep the Sabbath. This is going to be on anybody who won't follow the beast. And of course, if you're a Sabbath keeper, you're not going to follow the beast, right?

So, those of us who are alive at this time will be persecuted. Now, there is a protection for part of the church. We'll cover that, too. Part of the church is protected. But there's a persecution. We have to understand that. The reason the church is protected is because they're being persecuted. They don't go before the persecution. They go because they're being persecuted. So we have to understand that, once again, in the timeline of what's happening.

So, we start to look at this and we start to say, okay, Daniel 7, this fourth beast gets into power, starts persecuting the people of God. All of it, prophecy, the seals, we all know when this happens. It's when this beast rises. What happens in Revelation 13 is an explanation of how it happens, or more explanation of how it happens.

So let's go back to Revelation 13. Let's just skip down to verse 5. I don't want to get into all these details. There's this beast that's being worshiped and there's an image of the beast that talks about that. I don't know. What does that mean? I don't know. There's been a lot of speculation in the last couple years that it's some form of AI. I don't know. But it's going to be something that causes people to worship this beast. And he was given a mouth to speak of great things and blasphemies.

He was given authority to continue for 42 months. Okay, this beast lasts 42 months. The fourth beast lasts three and a half years. 42 months is three and a half years. So we know now the fourth beast only lasts three and a half years. When it comes into power, that's all the longer it lasts. It may be exerting some kind of authority and doing things before partial with partial power, but it comes into power then. And that says all the longer it lasts. So he speaks of blasphemies against God and against His name, His tabernacle, those who dwell on the earth.

Now verse 7, And it was granted to him to make war with the saints, to overcome them, and authority was given to him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. And all those who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. And he who leads into captivity shall go into captivity.

In other words, this beast is going to be destroyed. He only lasts 42 months. He who kills with the sword shall be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. The patience and faith of the saints is going to be, God stops this and even tells us how long it's going to last. It'd be challenging to think, well, this could go on for what? The original Roman Empire went 800 years. No, this one goes three and a half years. So we have, once again, the same numbers, same timelines, all adding up.

And once again, he persecutes the saints. But there's another power in this resurrection of this Roman Empire. Like I said, I'm not sure how that would even look. It talks about 10 kings giving their power to the beast. There's a lot of nations on earth that used to be part of the Roman Empire. You know, is that 10 of those? Is that conglomerates a part of those? I have no idea what it's going to be. It's not going to be NATO. I can tell you that. It's not what we know today.

So we'll have to see what happens. Verse 11, then I saw another beast coming out of the earth, and had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. Now this is very interesting. Another beast. This beast isn't in those other ones, except in the little horn it talks about, something that's different than all the other horns. This is a religious power.

He speaks like a lamb, Christ. Or, I mean, has two horns like a lamb, so he sort of looks like he's Christian, but he speaks like Satan. There is a false Christianity that is going to be part of the ecumenical movement that brings about the coming of these two beasts into one world power.

It won't be just one religion, but it will have a Christian element to it, and we need to understand that.

And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell on it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so he even makes fire come down from heaven and the earth and the sight of men. So here's where this man of sin, the first beast, this political beast, gets this supernatural power because there's a religious leader trying to bring all religions together who performs all these miracles.

And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs, which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image of the beast, who was wounded by the sword and lived. He granted power to give the breath to the image of the beast. That image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. Now we begin to understand more and more of the persecution.

And all we have to do is go back to ancient Rome. It's interesting to read in the second and third centuries when Roman governors, Roman judges would tell the Christians, look, half my friends are atheists, but you must participate in the worship of the beast.

It was by law they had to sacrifice either to the emperor or in the name of the emperor. So if you went into the temple of Zeus, you were to bring a sacrifice to Zeus in the name of the emperor so that Zeus would continue to speak through him or all the other gods and goddesses would work through the emperor. And when we think of like the Fourth of July parade, there were lots of activities in Roman cities. There were giant political parades, but there were also religious activity where different gods and goddesses would be worshipped and there would be all kinds of sacrifices and dances and it was huge. One of the things that unified the Roman Empire was the acceptance of all gods, but all gods sort of became worshiped through the emperor who represented all gods. This very much is like what ancient Rome was and like I said some of the judges would say, look, you don't have to believe this, just go do a sacrifice. Who cares what you believe?

There was a public thing you had to do. Your personal beliefs they didn't care about.

Even atheists sacrificed. Even atheists went out and enjoyed the big parties, right, that they would have, the big ceremonies and parades. Just be part of the system and you can believe whatever you want.

This is similar here what's being described as what was actually happening in the closing couple centuries of the Roman Empire in the West before it then became quote-unquote Christian. And he causes all, both small and great, verse 16, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. He said, no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark of the name of the beast or the number of his name.

Now there's a lot of speculation of what that is. I've had people ask me, is that my credit card? Because there's a chip in my credit card. No. Now I'm sure this will involve chips because of the technology. Is it, I've had a number of people ask me, was it immunization forced by the government? Is that it? Not today, but at the time of the beast it may be.

I don't know what the medical world will be like then. It'll be controlled by the beast.

What is it? I'm not sure. It could be a whole combination of things, but you receive this mark or the number 666, and there's all kind of debates on what that is. I do know this.

This mark of the beast involves something that's mentioned in Deuteronomy, and that is God says, told in the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, He told Israel that His laws were to be in their mind and in their hands, in their thoughts and in their actions.

Whatever physical man of a station there is of this mark, is it a tattoo? Could be. I don't know. It will be a card, you know, like you're a card-carrying beast member. I don't know. But what it will do is you give your thoughts and your actions to the beast. You can't pretend, just like the Christians found out in the second, third century. They couldn't pretend to be members of Roman society because they literally had to give up their Christianity, even though they were told they didn't have to. And I imagine that's what's going to happen here. You go to church on Saturday, you just don't let anybody know.

Get together with your friends on Saturday morning and you're in somebody's house. No one will care.

You just have to, whatever religious requirements are.

They may even say, you could go to church on Saturday, that's okay because we accept all religions who accept the emperor, who accept the beast, we'll call it the beast, as a semi-divine being who speaks for the gods. We don't care. This happened before.

And Christians, and it didn't matter what they believed, some of these Christians were so far off, we would say they were absolute heretics, but they died because they would not accept participation in the beast worship system. This will involve a worship system. Nobody, and this comes up every once in a while too, none of you, nobody, has by accident already accepted the beast. Because the beast doesn't have power yet. I'm not saying he's not there. He doesn't have power yet. What he does, you will have to worship, and it will be public, you will have to worship the beast. And the false prophet will be there to enforce it as the religious leader of the world religion. And you will refuse to worship the beast. That's what Christians will do.

And when you don't do that, you will have no participation in the economy. Now remember, at the end of the Four Horsemen, the world economy has had to absolutely collapse. I mean, there is no world economy. So now you can get bread. Now you can eat. Now maybe you have electricity.

All you have to do is participate in the system that gives it to you.

That's all you have to do. Participate. Think what you want, but participate. And the refusal to participate means, okay, you have no electricity, you have no water, you can't buy food. You know, maybe it's just like the Nazis put big yellow stars on people's windows. There will be something that says, this person is not a true worshipper. Whatever it is.

Whatever it is.

That's what's going to happen. 666, whether it, you know, you take how different languages, their alphabet has numbers. 666 equals Latin. Therefore, it shows that it's going to be some kind of papacy. Or 666 is the sign of the number of men, because human beings were born on, created on the sixth day. Or it's a sign of Sunday worship. I mean, there's all these different ideas of what the 666 means. I can sort through all of them and think, well, I don't know.

I don't know exactly what it is. I'll know it when I see it, because God will show us. You'll have to participate in it. So you will know it then. You don't have to worry about, well, what if I don't know what it is now? Just watch. If it happens in our lifetime, you'll know it, because you won't be able to hide from it.

You'll be able to hide from what's going on, and you'll have to choose. So that gets us through, not the details. I deliberately skipped certain things because it would have taken 30 minutes to either cover it or leave you in as much, you know, sort of like, well, he didn't really tell us what 666 means. That's right. And there's lots of ideas, and I don't know which one's right. It may be something we're not even thinking of. Sometimes when you go through prophecy, you realize things happen that the people at the time said, oh, I never saw that coming. I saw it coming, but I didn't know exactly what it would be. So that's okay. We know enough.

So that gets us through the next template, which is the man of sin in Revelation 13. Now, we've covered that before about a year and a half ago, but I wanted to do it again to put it in the context of what we're doing. What I want to do for the Bible study, and we eat first, right, so that you have the strength to go through. It won't be a long Bible study. I want to jump ahead to the end of the tribulation and see what happens to the beast. It only lasts three and a half years.

What happens to it? Because some of it is a surprise, I think. Some of it we haven't really thought about in terms of what happens to the beast. We know Christ comes. So there's a little mystery there that we'll cover in the Bible study. Okay, and if you have any questions about Revelation 13, we can ask them at the Bible study. And some of it I'll just say, I have no idea.

But what we do know is immense. What we do have keeps us from shifting all over the place, jumping around from idea to idea, and centered in on not what Satan's doing, but what God is doing. Because that's what gives us the hope.