Clues to the Identity of the False Prophet

Off the sermon, again our pastor, Mr. Randy Delcindo. If you would turn over to 2nd Thessalonians, we'll get underway. I would let you know that I'll be covering a good bit of material here today. It will be fairly extensive in some ways, so if you feel that maybe the best thing for you to do is just simply listen and follow along in your Bibles.

You can get a CD later on, and then when you're at home, you can put that in, play it, stop it whenever you would like, take your notes, and so forth. What I want to cover today, and again, this was inspired by the letter that Mr. Rhodes sent out last week. I thought it would be good for me to review what I call the Unholy Trinity when it comes to prophecy. The Unholy Trinity would be Satan, the False Prophet, and the Beast. Today, we're going to look at two of those characters. We're going to look at Satan, who is the power behind the scenes, and we're going to be looking at the False Prophet, or as it says here in 2 Thessalonians, the man of sin.

Why do we cover this? Is this just some sort of intellectual exercise? Is this just something that we go into the Bible and we have some sort of academic knowledge? Brethren, it may well be that before Christ will come in our lifetime, it may well be, especially for you younger folks, that Christ will come in your lifetime. This is not just an intellectual exercise. As we're going to read in just a moment, if we don't get this right, and if we indeed are a part of God's church, if we indeed are people who are baptized, of God's Holy Spirit, and who our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, if we don't get this right, if we fall victim to this, we lose our eternal life.

We can lose our physical life, but what's more important? We can lose our eternal life. The stakes here are the very highest, and we have to understand exactly what this whole situation is about. Having said that, today we're going to go through quite a bit in terms of prophecy. We're going to look at 2 Thessalonians 2. We're going to go over to Revelation 13. We're going to go to Daniel 7. We're going to go to Ezekiel 7. So we're going to make our rounds today. I'm not going to even read all the things that I've got in my notes. I'll refer to some things.

Let's begin at 2 Thessalonians 2. What I want to do here is just simply read this section. We're going to come back later on and go verse by verse and analyze this section of prophecy. But I just want to give us a little bit of a ground to build on here. 1 Thessalonians 2, starting here in verse 3. Let no one deceive you by any means for that day, talking about the return of Jesus Christ and time prophecy, that day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and a man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.

Now, this is one of the keys we're going to look at today, this man of sin, the son of perdition. There's only one other place in the Bible where somebody's called the son of perdition. His name is Judas Iscariot, the renegade disciple. You've got that, Judas, and this individual here. Verse 4, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or all that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. That's a strong statement.

I'm going to go a little more into depth later on. We're not talking about a person who says he is a God. He's going to come up personage at the end of the age before the return of Jesus Christ, who will claim to be God. We don't want to fall victim to that. But the Bible says if we're not careful, even the elect can.

Verse 5, do not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things. 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 will do so until he is taken out of the way.

Verse 6 and 7 is rather muddy. I'm going to go through and clean that up and help you understand what those two verses are talking about. Verse 8, if then the lawless one will be revealed, interesting, he's called a lawless one. 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 in the end, Jesus Christ wins out. But there's going to be an awful lot of mayhem, there's going to be an awful lot of violence, there's going to be an awful lot of misery while he is on the scene.

This individual is on the scene. Verse 9, the coming of the lawless one is according to the workings of Satan, the power behind the scenes, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. What this individual is going to do, he's going to back up his claim. He is God. And people are going to believe it. Worldwide people will believe it. So we're talking about some pretty powerful signs. We're talking about some pretty spectacular wonders. For somebody to make the boast, they are actually God. And to have the whole world believe it. 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 that's where I get the idea that if we don't hold the love of the truth, what is the truth? John 17, 17. Your word is truth. If we don't hold the love of the truth of the Bible, if we allow those things to slip, if we allow ourselves to be neglectful spiritually, we'll fall victim to this deception. And it says, we won't be saved.

It is a salvation issue. It's not just some academic test here. So we need to know this. We need to know the clues. You know, the Bible talks about these mysteries. Well when you have a mystery, you've got clues. And today we're going to go through a number of clues to show you who this fellow is. For all we know, he's alive and well on planet earth right now. For all we know, he's walking on this planet. The Bible says that the time is being restrained, but we don't see who he is. We don't understand. We don't have enough to go on yet.

But there's going to be a time when he will be revealed. And you and I, and no one in this room, gets a free pass on this. Every one of us has to be aware to know who that person is going to be. Now I can't give you a Facebook page on this guy. I can't give you his zip code or a cell number or anything like that. But we will give you some clues to talk about him. Now if you've got something to mark your Bible, there's two places you're going to want to mark your Bible today. This is one of them.

This is the one in the Thessalonians 2. Put a marker there. Let's go right now to Revelation 13.

Because here in Revelation 13, we're going to start looking at the clues as to who this fellow is. Now the church has traditionally taught this man of sin as a powerful religious figure. A powerful religious figure to appear at the end time just prior to Christ's return. In our booklet, The Book of Revelation Unveiled, we reaffirm that teaching. But this is a religious figure. Here in Revelation 13, next Sabbath, I'm going to look at the third personage in this unholy trinity. Next Sabbath, we're going to be looking at the political power. The first ten verses of chapter 13 deal with that. I'm going to save that for next Sabbath. Next Sabbath, we're going to go through Revelation 13, we're going to go through Revelation 17, we're going to go through Daniel chapter 2, maybe more of Daniel chapter 7.

We're going to take a look at world politics and what the Bible has to say. We're going to take a look at what's going to be arising and what eventually is going to hurt this nation, what will hurt like this nation has ever experienced. But starting here in chapter 13 of Revelation, going from verse 11 to verse 18, we're talking now about this man of sin. Let's take a look at the clues. Verse 11. Then I saw another beast coming out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. Now here's one clue. When we think about the Lamb of God, we think about Jesus Christ.

Well, this one is—remember we talked about how this one is going to say He's God? Two horns like a lamb, He's not a lamb. He wants you to think He's a lamb. So what we have here are these two horns that are representative of something. We believe very strongly that this man is going to be a tool of Satan who's going to use his position of authority to influence mankind to worship this first beast, which is a political entity. When in verse 11 here, when it talks about two horns, we see and we believe—and we'll cover more of this as the sermon progresses this week and next—we believe that the first horn is the Roman Catholic Church.

We believe the second horn is the state, more particularly the Vatican. The Vatican is its own country. In 2008, Mary and I visited the Vatican. We were there. We took into hold the sights and sounds all around the area there. It's its own little country, its own currency. So what we have here is church and state, but it's being run by a very powerful religious figure. "'Like a lamb, but spoke like a dragon.' And out of the abundance of the heart the mouse speaks." Speaks the things that Satan would say, that Satan wants to have said.

Verse 12, and he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. Now, the first beast is his political power. 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. Now, when we're talking about the deadly wound being healed, we'll talk more about that next Sabbath.

That's talking about a healing of the Holy Roman Empire that happened in 554 A.D. under Justinian. We'll cover more of that next time, so we don't want to go into a lot of that now. But what I want to cover with you here in verse 12 is this idea of worship. Here you've got a religious power who wants mankind around the globe to worship this political power. Now, that certainly is not of God. So here we've already got some clues.

We've got the two-horn issue here, church and state. We've got this idea that this individual is acting like a false Christ and then later on he's going to call himself God himself. And of course, you've got this idea about worshipping the state. Verse 13, he performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on earth in the sight of men. 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 to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.

So again, great, powerful signs, this idea of worship. So the role of this second beast, the religious entity here, is to have people around the world worship the political entity as well as himself. Verse 15, he was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the beast to be killed.

To be killed. Something that we've thought about prophetically as we look at that particular section of scripture, verses 13 through 15, is that this individual, again, more clues as to how we can determine who this individual is, he's going to be a type of an Elijah, but a false Elijah. Elijah came to teach the people about the true God. Elijah came to restore the true worship of the true God. And as you see over in Malachi chapter 4, it was the job of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and vice versa.

Now this false Elijah is going to teach the people about a false God himself. The power, the political power, this false Elijah is going to restore the worship of the Holy Roman Empire. Now we're starting to close the gap here and talk about who we're looking at, the Holy Roman Empire.

And of course, this false Elijah will not try to mend families. This false Elijah will try to destroy all the families on planet Earth. Now put a marker here in Revelation 13. I would like you to turn to Ezekiel chapter 7. Some of the things I was covering in the announcement period about what's happening to us financially, we may see some of that right here in this chapter in Ezekiel. Look at Ezekiel chapter 7.

Now something we have to remember about the prophet Ezekiel. The prophet Ezekiel wrote in the 590s and the 580s BC. 590s and 580s. Israel, ancient Israel, the nation of Israel, no longer exists. They went into national captivity from 721 to 718 BC. This is much, much later on, many, many more years after Israel went into captivity. 590, 580, somewhere near. This is when Ezekiel's writing. He's going to be writing to Israel. So obviously he's not writing to the nation that's gone into captivity. He's writing to us today. This is what we're going to see as time stamps here, date stamps, where Ezekiel is writing to our nation today. Still chapter 7, verse 1. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, And you, Son of Man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel, to the United States of America, to the peoples of God, who also would include the people in England and Canada, Australia. An end, the end has come upon the four corners of the land.

When you're talking about an end coming to the four corners of the land, you're talking about total destruction. And of course, prophecy indicates our nation, the United States of America, will face total destruction. That's not something we like to think about. You know, those of us who are parents, and many of us, we don't like to think about those things happening to our kids or our grandkids. We don't like thinking about that happening to our next-door neighbors. They seem to be nice folks.

And yet, we're a nation that has gone off the rails spiritually. And God is going to deal with us as He did with ancient Israel. There's a price to be paid for our sin. Verse 3, And now the end has come upon you, and I will send my anger against you, and I will judge you according to your ways, and I will repay you for all your abominations.

So people think they can get away with their sin. And people today, when you watch news, it's just beyond you today when you see people and the way they're living. Yesterday, Mary and I took part in our shopping spree. We went over to one of the malls over here at Somerset, and Mary actually got some pretty nice deals over at Chico's. Some really nice deals. But I was reading or seeing in the news where some woman who wanted some special deals for her kids, she was a mother of three, she wanted to get one of these Xboxes or something. She took pepper spray and sprayed 20 people and caused a pretty good amount of injury on 20 people because she wanted to get those things before they could get to them. So she pepper sprayed people in the face. What does that say about our... You know, that's not typical for every average American. I understand that. But what does that say when people do things like that? Verse 4, My eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity, but I will repay you for your ways and your abominations. This is chapter 7, verse 4. Your abomination shall be in your midst. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. Now we can read right past that and not see something. You know that God has many names. In the Old Testament, you've got these compound names of God. Jehovah this and Jehovah that. This is one of the names of God. We don't see it in the English, but it's there in the original tongue. It's Jehovah Macca. It means the Eternal who strikes the blow. That's the name of God here. Yeah, His name is Healer. His name is all-bountiful Blessed. But one of His names is also the Eternal who strikes the blow. Verse 5, Thus says the Lord, a disaster, a singular disaster. It shows you again where this has a time stamp. There's only one singular disaster that the world can see. There's only one time in the world where the world has never seen anything before or like since this. And that's right here. A disaster, a singular disaster, behold it has come. And end has come, the end has come. It has dawned for you, behold it has come. Verse 7, Doom has come to you, you who dwell on the land. Time has come. A day at trouble is near.

Now prophetically, when we talk about a day of trouble, we're talking about a time of Jacob's trouble. We're talking about the time that the Bible refers to as the Great Tribulation. We're not there yet. We'll know when we're there, because when we enter the Great Tribulation, this country goes down. This country goes down. You know, you've got people right now, different parts of the country, the Occupy Wall Street group, the OWS group. They say, we want to tear things down and start afresh. Does it not strike these people if you tear everything down? Somebody else may walk in and take over. Verse 9, My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. I will repay you according to your ways, and your abominations will be in your midst. Then you will know that I am the Lord who strikes. Is that same name again? I am the Lord who strikes. We drop down to verse 12. The time has come, the day draws near, let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for the wrath is on the whole multitude. In other words, no matter who you are, no one escapes what's happening to this country. Then verse 14. Verse 14 is a verse we've looked at, we've speculated about, I will be speculating about this verse here. We see through a glass darkly. But notice verse 14. They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready. A time of war. The troops everyone is on stand by, but no one goes to battle, for my wrath is on all their multitude. We know our nation is going down. And yet it says here, despite our vaunted military, despite the fact we are ready, we have the ability, we don't use it. We don't use it. Could it be, and here's my speculation and I label it as such, could it be that at this point in American history, we as a nation have fallen victim to a tremendous spiritual revival? And the one we call in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is the man of sin. Our nation as a nation buys into the fact that we need to follow him. He tells America to stand down. In our religious fervor we buy into that. I don't know. All it says here is basically the call to war goes out, we're ready, but no one really goes. And we're overrun. We're overrun.

Let's go back now to Revelation chapter 13. People say it can't happen here. Well, why not? It's happened to every other great empire. Why can't it happen here? Revelation chapter 13 verse 16, And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand and on their foreheads.

That no one may buy or sell except the one who has the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. And here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man, his number is 666. Now what is that all about? Well, we've got a booklet that I'm going to read from.

The last thing about copying and pasting. I suggest that you study this booklet, the book of Revelation Unveiled. We've got that on our website. You can go there and read it on site. You can download it, or you can ask for a copy to be mailed to you. But let me just read a portion of that booklet that speaks to these three verses. And I quote, The second beast of Revelation 13 will cause all, they wrote to two scriptures here, Let me ask the question, What is behind this strange-sounding practice?

How will it affect people as time of the end draws near? There is historical evidence that in the ancient Babylonian culture, slaves were identified by some kind of mark, either tattooed or branded on the face or the back of the hand. There may be parallels between this and ancient practice of what God reveals will happen in the end time. Many have speculated about the meaning of this puzzling prophecy. Some have interpreted it in terms of supercomputers, unique personal identity numbers, and even microchips embedded under the skin.

However, we should consider that receiving of a mark on the hand or four could well be figurative. Remember from Revelation 7, verse 3, that God's servants were sealed on their foreheads. And on Deuteronomy 6, Moses told God's people to keep all of his statutes and his commandments, noting, You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

The hand and the forehead represent one's actions and thoughts, respectively, which should be dedicated to obeying God. Likewise, the mark of the beast is evidently a mark of disobedience to God. Many Bible students have pointed to God's seventh-day Sabbath as an identifying sign of his people, as it says in Exodus 31. And they see the mark of the beast as running counter to it. They believe the forced observance of Sunday, originally dedicated to worship of the sun as a God instead of the observance of the seven-day Sabbath, could be involved.

This view is strengthened by the fact that other prophecies in the Book of Revelation show a great counterfeit religious figure, and system will play major roles in leading people away from the true God and play into Satan's hands at this time.

The Bible does not explicitly define the specific method that the beast will use to identify those who participate in commerce at the time of the end. Some sort of advanced surveillance may be involved. As to the number of the beast, 666, we are told to count the number. That is, to be the number of a man. One early explanation is attributed to John's disciple Polycarp, who, according to his student Irenius, said this number is derived from adding together the numerical equivalence of the letters of the word Latinos, the Greek word for Roman, this being the name of the beast empire, its ruler and everyone in it.

So the number may well denote this general distinction, though it could be more specific. If you want to know all of that, I've got that in my notes, I'm not going to cover all of that, but you take the name Latinos, you take what the letter is, what the numeric value is, you add all those up and you come to 666.

The founder of Rome was Romulus, the Roman man, in the Greek that's Latinos, and so that's where that theory comes from. I'll just label that as a theory. And I'll just quote here another couple of sentences. However this prophecy is fulfilled, it is clear that it will involve compromising and contradicting God's commands. Having proof that one is officially associated in some way with the beast will be necessary for one to be allowed to engage in commerce.

Exactly how the end time number of the beast, 666, will be used and applied is not yet clear. But in some way it will be associated with the beast's name and applied to his evil activities. So that's what we have to understand about that section of Scripture. But those are all clues when we see all these things taking place. We need to remember these various clues that we've hit upon. Now I'm going to ask you to do a little multitasking here. You've got a marker in two different places in your Bible, 2 Thessalonians and Revelation 13.

We're going to compare these side by side. So you need to take those two markers and somehow get yourself where you can look at the one and then very easily at the other. We'll start with Revelation 13, verse 13. And what we want to do is we're going to see how the man of sin is equated to this false prophet. Revelation 13, 13 says this. He performs great signs, so he even makes the fire come down from heaven on the earth and the sight of men. So Revelation 13, 13, we see this idea of signs.

In 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 9, we read, The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.

So there we see where Revelation 13, 13, 2 Thessalonians 2, 9, show the same individual.

Now Revelation 13, verse 14, it says that he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was rented to do. So in Revelation 13, 14, we see this individual is a deceiver. We now look at 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 10 and 11, where it says, And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Verse 11, and for this reason, God will send them strong delusion.

So in verse 14 of Revelation 13, 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 10 and 11, we see this whole idea of deception.

So there we see some marks that this man of sin and this beast are one and the same.

This false prophet are one and the same.

Now it takes a little bit more of a careful eye to notice this next clue.

And as you're noticing the next clue, or as I state the next clue to you, you'll find that both the beast and the false prophet are of equal authority.

One doesn't defer to the other. They both need one another.

The beast is not weaker than the false prophet or vice versa.

They are both equally strong.

There is no hint of subordination in any description compared from the miracle-working false prophet to the false prophet.

To the political entity. None whatsoever.

That will again show you something as time progresses.

And you see a person who's...

He may first come onto the scene as a great healer. Maybe he goes into hospitals and everybody he touches is healed. God may allow him to do all sorts of marvelous things that just defy the imagination.

Just like God allowed Janice and Janbries, when Pharaoh was working with them to try to replicate Moses' the miracles of God was working through Moses.

God can allow that. God can sign off on that.

And God apparently is going to do just that.

Now, we talked to some degree. We'll get back to this subject. But I want to switch gears here a little bit and look at the power behind all of this, which is Satan. Let's look at Revelation 12.

The vast power is here because of Satan the Devil.

The vast power to energize the false prophet. The vast power to energize the beast power, the political entity. It's here because of the workings of Satan.

Revelation 12.13.

Now, when a dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

We're talking about here that the woman is the church.

The male child, obviously, is Jesus Christ.

So Satan, the dragon, is going to persecute God's church. What's new? That's always been the case.

But it's going to be an intensified situation at the end of the age.

Satan's already been cast to the earth one time. He's going to be cast to the earth a second time.

When Satan is cast to the earth a second time, as the scriptures say, he knows he only has a short time. He is going to have a bull's eye on every one of our backs.

You think you've got it hard right now?

You think you've got difficulties right now? Wait until Satan comes here and thrashes about, realizing his time is coming to an end, and he likes pain and misery.

Verse 14, Revelation 12, But the woman, the church, was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the presence of the serpent.

Now, we've used this verse and times gone by, especially that section where it talks about that she might fly into the wilderness to her place.

Some have thought this is a description about the church going to a place of safety. Maybe it is. We don't know. You know, some things in prophecy, we look into the rear view mirror and say, oh, so that's how that worked.

We'll just have to kind of wait and see as time goes along. Maybe there's a place of safety. Maybe there isn't. We don't have enough to go on.

This verse would lend itself to that sort of thinking, but who knows?

Some people thought, well, we're all going to get on planes. We're going to all fly off the peaches. Well, because of this phrase here, two wings of a great eagle.

The only problem with that thought is that same phrase is used when Israel's leaving Egypt.

Israel didn't fly anywhere.

You know, El Al wasn't around.

They're not flying.

This concept here, two wings of a great eagle is poetic language that God is going to speed you and help you on your way. That's all it's talking about.

But what is interesting here is this discussion about a time, times, and half a time. That God will be there and protect his people.

We're not saying that God can protect every one of his people.

When you think about the apostles, all but John died a horrible death.

Jesus Christ certainly died a horrible death. Paul died a horrible death.

Stephen, those were very faithful, prominent men in the Scriptures.

You look at the people there in Hebrews 11. They were very faithful people, and they were hounded hither and yon.

But God will protect in general his church.

But none of us in this room has a thus saith the Lord, Randy Del Santo, you got a free ticket. You got a free ride in. None of us can say that.

We all have to be prepared for the worst.

But it says here that in general, the church will be protected for a time, times, and half a time.

Now, that's three and a half times in prophetic language.

Using the day-for-a-year principle, in the Middle Ages, the church went into hiding for 1,260 years.

That can be demonstrated historically.

At the end of the age, you have 1,260 days, or using the Hebrew calendar, using that measure of time.

We've got a three and a half year period.

We also refer to that last three and a half year period as the times of the Gentiles. That's the last three and a half years prior to the return of Jesus Christ.

Three and a half year period.

At the beginning of that three and a half year period, you've got the beginning of the Great Tribulation.

The Great Tribulation is also called the time of Jacob's trouble.

That's also the time where we as a nation go kaput.

Three and a half years before the return of Christ.

People say Christ can come anytime, anything, and... Oh, really? We still have a country here.

We still have a country here.

We're not, you know, the ships aren't coming, we're not exporting our people around the world as slave labor. That's not happened yet. It's going to happen.

Three and a half years, you've got the time of the wrath of Satan upon all of mankind.

And then that last year before Christ returns is the wrath that God has upon unrepentant sinners.

And if you were an unrepentant sinner, that last year is a tough one. Because you've got Satan teeing off on you and you've got God angry with you. There's nowhere to turn that last year before Christ returns.

So that's what you have here. Continuing on, verse 15. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that it might cause her to be carried away by the flood.

This is poetic. This is prophetic language.

The water represents, this flood represents an army.

Just as Satan used an army of Pharaoh to attack Israel as they were leaving Egypt, God is going to, or Satan is going to use an army to come after the people of God.

Verse 16. But the earth helped the woman. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon and, which the dragon had spewed out of its mouth.

So here we see God intervening.

Perhaps a great earthquake or something of that nature.

Just as God used the Red Sea against Pharaoh, God is going to use the earth in a special way against this army.

But now notice verse 17. In the dragon, Satan was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

At the end of the age, Satan definitely has a bullseye on everyone who calls himself a Christian.

Satan is waging war with us now.

But it's going to be absolutely no-holes-barred, much rougher. The temperature, the heat is going to be turned up a great deal at the end of the age, when he knows his time is short.

Here in verse 13 of Revelation 4.

So they worshiped the dragon, who gave authority to the beast.

Again, this is talking about the political entity. They worshiped the dragon, worshiping Satan, who gave authority to the beast. And they worshiped the beast, saying, who is like the beast?

So this verse shows that the religious power is doing its job.

The false prophet, this person who's going to be calling himself God, is having people worship the political system and himself. There's a whole lot of false worship going on here at the end of the age. Now, all that has been said, let's go back to 2 Thessalonians, and let's wade through this section of prophecy.

2 Thessalonians 2.

We want to start in verse 1 in this case. 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 1.

Now, brethren, concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So notice the timing here.

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the gathering together to Him, you know, the second coming, the first resurrection, the gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter, as if from us, though the day of Christ has already come.

So Paul here is saying, look, you may hear of prophetic messages. You may hear people say things orally. You may hear or even see messages that are written.

But Paul says, I want you to know specifically what's going to happen before Christ returns.

And then Paul now begins to delineate the things, the clues we need to be looking for. Verse 3.

Let no one deceive you by any means. And who's he talking to?

He's talking to Christians.

He's saying, don't let anybody deceive you. It is possible for we as Christians to be deceived.

Don't, you know, don't poo-poo that. Don't just say, well, that's never going to happen, you know.

Well, it won't happen to you if you remain having the love of the truth, and you remain strong spiritually.

But if you and I don't, and it could happen to any one of us, if we don't, then we will be deceived. Let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first.

And it's falling away as a falling away from biblical truth.

That's why, you know, we're going to read a little bit later on about the love of the truth in verse 10.

We have to have a love of the truth.

When people walk away, and what is the truth? John 17, 17. Your word is truth. When people walk away from the Bible, then they're susceptible to all sorts of things.

That day, when Christ returns, will not come unless there be a falling away first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.

There's coming a time when God is going to say, Here he is. I'm going to pull back the veil that's on your eyes, and you're going to know who this guy is.

Verse 4, we've talked about, he's going to say that he's God himself.

Verse 4, verse 5, Paul says, you know, I've tried to tell you about this in the past. Verse 6, let's look at verse 6 and verse 7, because of the translation there's a little on the muddy side.

And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. That he is talking about the false prophet.

Basically, what verse 6 is saying is there is a restraining influence right now.

God has a restraining influence. God has put the blinders on us right now. He's not allowing us to see certain things.

Just as God told Daniel to write certain things and to seal them up, because, Daniel, you're just not going to know.

These things won't be known until the time of the end.

Those of us who live in the time of the end are being told, well, you know, you can't know certain things until God says it's time for you to know.

It's like a military thing, a need-to-know basis. Right now we don't need to know.

But there's going to come a time when God is going to let us know.

Verse 7, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.

So God is going to restrain until God steps out of the way. It's basically what that verse is saying.

I commented earlier on about this idea of the mystery of lawlessness.

In Greek, the word lawless is anomia, anomia, which means a willful opposition to the law or a sinful person.

In this case, it's both. In this case, you're going to have an individual who has an opposition to anything that is God's, and they are going to be a sinful person.

They're going to be somebody calling themselves God. Talk about an idolater.

Verse 8, and then the lawless one will be revealed. This is the man of sin. This is the false prophet. 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.

Now, I know what we're going through today is very heavy medicine. It's very strong medicine. It's not easy to listen to. I understand that.

But let me tell you something. You'd rather have me go through this now in terms of the times of relative peace as opposed to when our world comes crashing down around our ears.

And it will come crashing down. I don't care how much money we think we've got in the bank, what kind of health we think we've got.

You know, when the time comes, it's our individual relationship with God.

And if we don't have that, we don't have anything.

But the bottom line is, at the end, Jesus Christ wins out.

The bottom line is, there is the resurrection of the saints. The bottom line, when Christ returns, those who have been faithful are changed into a beautiful, immortal spirit beings. We're no longer physical flesh. We are now composed totally of spirit. We will live for all time.

We will live in a garden of Eden-type atmosphere for all time.

But prior to that, there are some really tough times coming.

Verse 9, The coming of the lawless one will be according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.

I talked about that a little bit earlier.

For somebody to really pull this off, there's got to be some tremendous power, some tremendous signs. What is a sign, by the way?

The sign is something that has deep significance. We're not just talking about, you know, this guy can, he can remember a lot of stuff.

We're talking about something that is deeply significant, that really stands out in people's minds as being, that is truly miraculous. I've never seen or even considered something like that happening.

A wonder is something that leaves people in a state of awe and shock.

You heard the phrase shock and awe, but we'll have that with this individual.

And you know, over the years, brethren, we have looked into scriptures and we have seen the men of God, Old Testament and New, with power, signs, and wonders.

We're used to seeing the good guys with the power, sign, and wonders. We're not used to the bad guy having a counterfeit to these things, but that's going to take place.

We've got to be prepared for that in our minds.

In your notes, you might want to write down Revelation 12 and verse 9, where it talks about Satan who deceives the whole world.

Any one of us in this room can fall victim to that. Don't think you can. I can, you can, we all can.

Christ warns us about that. You might also write down 2 Corinthians 11.

2 Corinthians 11, verses 13 through 15.

Let me read that for you so you don't have to turn there.

2 Corinthians 11, verses 13 through 15. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ, no wonder. For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.

Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness.

So, you know, this idea, people will buy it, that this false prophet is a man of God, or that he is God.

We move on here. We've already read verse 9, verse 10 of 2 Thessalonians 2.

And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, people are being deceived. It's not just the people of the world. The people of the world are already deceived.

And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they may be saved.

Brethren, it's incumbent upon you and I to make sure that we have the love of the truth. I can't give that to you, and you can't give that to me.

Verse 11.

And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie.

God's going to allow it to happen, because the individuals were allowing it to happen to themselves.

Verse 11 centers on a message to the believers in unmistakable terms.

Unless the believer holds on to the truth, they will be deceived.

Put a marker here for a moment. I've talked about this a number of times, and I think it's good here to interject this for your notes, or at least have it on the CD here so you can think about it later on. But here in Matthew 24, the Olivet Prophecy, you have a discussion about the end of the age, and we also have a discussion about the church.

The church, us, true believers, is not a very pretty picture.

For I said, when he comes, will he find faith on the earth?

You've got the story of the Laodicean church in Revelation, chapter 3.

Notice here in Matthew 24, verse 9, And then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

Now, when this begins happening to us, remember Revelation 12-17, Satan's at war with us. Satan's coming after us.

Verse 9 relates to this point.

We'll be hated by all the nations, there's no place for us to go.

That's going to wear on every one of our nerves.

Right? And then many will be offended because of all this hardship we're going through.

And we'll betray one another. Notice the progression.

Satan comes after us, wears us down.

Many will be offended because many are offended.

Let's talk about us. We begin to betray one another, hate one another.

Verse 12, And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

Persecution, offense, betrayal, hatred, love growing cold.

And that's a description of the Church of God at the end of the age.

We don't want that for us. And yet, that's a picture of what the Church is going to have.

We've got to fight very much to make sure that doesn't happen to us.

That's why it's so important we understand these things. And you know, brethren, when you think about that, when you think about, especially in our age today, and who we are, and we wonder why it is we go through the trials, we need to be tough.

We need to go through the trials to toughen us up for the difficulty that we will face down the road.

This is our boot camp.

Let's take a look at now Daniel chapter 7.

Time is moving along here, so I'm going to cut some of my notes out here and just hit some highlights.

I know I'm covering an awful lot.

This will be on a tape or a CD, and you'll be able to get this later on.

We also have literature available on our website that covers this whole subject, so you can go and look at that if you'd like to review it. But here in Daniel chapter 7, starting in verse 1, in the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed, and he wrote down the dream telling the main facts.

Now this king, Belshazzar, we believe this is probably 553 BC. We can actually date this according to his first year of rule.

Verse 2, Daniel spoke, saying, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.

What is the great sea?

In your notes, you might want to jot down Revelation chapter 17 verse 15. The great sea are peoples. Revelation chapter 17 verse 15 shows that. The Bible must interpret the Bible. We don't just slap on any old interpretation because we think it sounds nice. We've got to have one part of the Bible interpret another part of the Bible. That's the key to understanding the Bible.

The Bible is not of any private interpretation.

So here we see the peoples of the world are being stirred up. Something's happening to the whole of the world, and Daniel's about to go now and discuss the rest of his dream. Verse 3, And the four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from another.

The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings.

I washed till its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

Now, when you look at history, and we're about to take a look at four major world-ruling empires, what empire do you see in history that has as a symbol a winged lion?

Well, you're thinking about Babylon. You're thinking about the Caledean empire. And so that's what you see here in verse 4. Verse 5, And suddenly another beast, now here's another world-ruling empire that comes after Babylon, and suddenly another beast, the second like a bear, who is raised up on one side, and they had three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth.

And they said thus, to it arise, to bower much flesh.

Now, when we look at world history, and we see who came after the Babylonians, we see that there was an empire who, in order for them to become the empire they became, they had to overcome three other empires, lesser empires.

They overcame Egypt, they overcame Babylon, and they overcame the Lydians.

And that empire was the Persian empire.

Those are the three ribs we see there in verse 5.

This bird has gobbled them right down.

Verse 6, After this I looked, and there was another beast, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird.

So four wings is significant. The fact that it was fast, like a bird, is significant.

The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it.

Of course, very famously, after the Persian empire, you've got the Greek empire.

Alexander the Great was known as a very fast working general. I mean, he conquered the known world in a very quick period of time.

But then he died. He was a very young man in his 30s when he died, and he left the kingdom to his four generals.

And we see that right there. The beast had four heads.

Verse 7, After this I saw on the night visions, behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth, and it was devouring, breaking into pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. Now, the reason this beast is different is because of those ten horns.

The reason this beast is different, and we're talking now about the Holy Roman Empire, is because this empire would last with various successions, ten of them, from this time all the way to the time of the return of Jesus Christ.

Now, verse 8 is where we see the star of today's show, the man of sin. Verse 8, I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one.

Now, this is the son of perdition. This is the papacy. This is the false prophet. This is the man of sin, this little horn, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots.

And when you look at history, you see that the Pope, at his behest, took care of the first of these three successions of the Roman Empire, the Vandals, the Heruli, and the Ostrogoths, those three groups of peoples.

We drop down to verse 20.

And about the ten horns that were on its head, and about the other horn which came up, that other horn here in verse 20, is again talking about this man of sin, before whom the three fell, namely that horn which had eyes and a mouth which spoke pompous words, whose appearance was greater than his fellows. I washed, and the same horn was making war against the saints. This is again talking about the Holy Roman Church, making war against the saints, and notice something, and prevailing against them. In some cases, that simply means some of the saints were martyred. They died. They died in the faith. And perhaps it may also mean to prevail, it means to prevail against them spiritually. Some fell by the wayside. Some simply couldn't stand the trial. Verse 22, until the ancient days came, that judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom. So that's going to happen that last three and a half years until the return of Jesus Christ.

We drop down to verse 24.

The ten orans are ten kings who shall arise from this kingdom, and another shall arise after them, and he shall be different from the first ones. Now that again is talking about our man of sin, and shall subdue three kings, the vandals, the h ostogroths. So here we see in Daniel 7 the tracings of this man of sin. We see it here. We see it in the second Thessalonians. We see it in Romans, I mean Revelation chapter 13. Verse 25, and he shall speak pompous words against the Most High. Why we speak pompous words? Well, because he says he is God. Talk about being deluded. And he shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. You know, there has been underway for some time. It never gets enough steam, but there has been underway for some time. It tends to be over in Europe, probably properly so. But over in Europe, this idea that we're going to change the calendar so that the seventh day of the week is Sunday. And people say, well, I keep the seventh day of the week. Well, that's because they would like to change the calendar around, so the seventh day of the week falls on Sunday. Of course, you know, that would certainly not be what God would have to be done, but that would be what man would want to be done. And then verses 26 and 27 talk about the kingdom of God coming where we are victorious. Just a couple more scriptures, brethren, will be done for today. In Matthew 12, I'm not going to turn here. You might want to put it in your notes. Matthew 12, verses 25 and 26, Christ said that a house divided against itself can't stand. A house divided against itself can't stand. Satan, for a short period of time, is going to be a house divided. He's going to have part of his power with the political entity, part of his power with the religious entity. But there's going to come a time when that's all going to come to nothing, where they're going to turn on one another and they're going to hurt one another. Just briefly, we turn back to Revelation. Go back to Revelation, chapter 17, and we can see that. Revelation, chapter 17, and verse 16. And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot.

So the political entity will come to hate the religious entity. These will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

One is going to turn on the other. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill God's purpose, to be of one mind. There's going to be a time when these two entities will work side by side. They'll do their unholy mess or do their unholy mess, fulfill prophecy. Then they're going to go after each other. The divided house will fall. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. Brother, in the last scripture I want you to turn to is over here in 2 Thessalonians. We started here. Let's go back here, and this is where we're going to finish. One last scripture.

Having said all that we've said, all that we've looked at, all the various clues that we've seen, you now have a better idea of what to be looking for. Next Sabbath we'll give you even more information. But what must we be doing now? Where is the application? 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 15. Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold through the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by our epistle. Stand fast.

Hold on to what is good. It says that in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 21. Hold fast to that which is good. The traditions would be the oral precepts that go and explain the laws of God.

These are not, we're not talking about traditions of men here, we're talking about traditions that come from the Bible. Oral precepts, you know, for a long period of time, there was no written word of God. People simply worked and lived by what came down word of mouth. Of course, we base everything on the word of God. So we've got to just love the truth as it says up there in verse 10, as it says in verse 15. Stand fast and hold the faith. Have a relationship with God.

So, brethren, hopefully this will be a little helpful in terms of us understanding some of the end time events, how things are going to work, what we need to be looking for. And as I said, this stuff's important and we need to know it. So next Sabbath, God willing, health permitting, we'll conclude this two-part series.