The End-Time Beast

This is the 8th sermon or Sabbath Bible study I've done in this year so far on an overview of prophecy. At the beginning of the year, I said throughout this year we would be maybe once a month or so doing a sermon, then sometimes a Bible study, and just trying to give an overview of biblical prophecy. And here we are at number eight, and we still have a few to go to get through the rest of the year. So far, just to give up, we have to go back and look a little bit at what we've covered.

In fact, today we'll be going back and forth between some things we've covered and some things we haven't covered. I say haven't covered. Most of the material I've covered today I covered about a year and a half ago in a sermon, but I wanted to put it together now in the context of what we've been talking about.

The first sermon I gave was just about how the work of God through Jesus Christ and bringing about salvation is the basis of all prophecy. All prophecy is based on that. Adam and Eve sinned, they were removed from the Garden of Eden, and God put in a plan to bring humanity back to Him as we all got to experience life as a mixture of good and evil. And so that's the basis. And then we went through two sermons on some of the basic core covenants that God has made with people and how those set up everything He's doing.

We went through the Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, the New Covenant, the Davidic covenant, and showed how those covenants are all a prophetic timeline of what God is doing. It shows what He's done through history. We can look back through thousands of years of history and see where He's carried out those covenants. And they culminate in the return of Jesus Christ, the millennium, and then the great white throne judgment.

Then we talked about a number of other things as we began to go to Daniel 2 and talk about the image of Daniel 2. So let's just take a few minutes to restate what we've covered so far, because remember, as I've said, these are templates. We look at the plan of salvation. On top of that, we put the covenants, which are carrying out the plan of salvation. Then we put Daniel 2 on top of that and said, this is what God says is going to be Satan's main work throughout humanity's time to try to thwart God's plan.

Now, the whole earth is under the sway of Satan as the temporary God of this world, but He's doing very specific things to try to keep from God's plan from happening.

And of course, at the core of that is Jesus as Messiah. He tried to destroy Him the first time. He did He tried to destroy Israel. He tried to destroy Judah, destroy Judah. He just step by step tried to destroy everything, including killing all the babies of of Judea at the time when Jesus was born. And yet Jesus lived. God took care of Him. The prophecies were completed. He is going to try as we get closer and closer to the end to keep humanity from being here for Christ's return.

He doesn't want humanity to survive. He doesn't want Him to come back and save humanity. So this began the outline of what Satan's doing. That's why, first of all, I gave three sermons of what God is doing. And now we've been talking about the last five sermons of what Satan's doing. And so we looked at how this sets the stage for what Satan's going to do to try to stop the Messiah. Now there's all kinds of other kingdoms, other peoples all over the world that say influences all the time. But this is his specific work. And we know from this story, we won't go through it because we spent an entire sermon doing it.

But in doing it, we have this statue, head of gold, chest of silver, belly and thighs were bronze, the legs were made of iron. And God inspires Daniel to tell him, these are four great empires, and the Son of God comes to destroy the last empire. So this is the outline of Satan's plan.

So God's going to interact. His plan keeps his plan from Satan's plan from happening. God's plan keeps his from happening. So a lot of times what we're looking at, we're looking at Satan's plan and how God's keeping it from happening. So you have these four kingdoms. We know the first one, as was shown right in the book of Daniel. First one is Babylon. The second one is Persia. And of course, he interacted with both of those. He lived at a time of Babylon and as an old man, Persia destroyed Babylon. And then it talks about Greece. And we went through Daniel 7 and 8 and showed where Greece comes along and is mentioned by name. The fourth one was never mentioned in the book of Daniel, but we do know from history that each of these empires succeeded each other until Rome comes along. And this is considered the foundation of Western civilization, as these four empires. So Rome comes along and is the fourth. And we showed in that statue how it would split in two. It would become weaker over time. And yet, before Christ returned, that empire is going to somehow revive and be there and it's going to fight him at his return. And we looked at this statue. There was the stone that came, destroyed the statue, and Daniel said, this is God who's going to send somebody to do this. So we looked at Daniel 2. We also looked at Daniel 7 and Daniel 8. So we did a whole sermon, a Bible study on Daniel 7 and chapter 8, and showed how there's four beasts in Daniel 7 and they are the exact same empires of Daniel 2. So what we have is a further explanation. And Daniel 7 is going to be important when we get into the book of Revelation as we are today. Remember their templates. Each one lays on top. As we go through more and more of these sermons, we have to go back through other templates to show, oh, they're all stacking on top of each other. He's always showing us the next step and what's going to happen. Now we don't know, by the way, as I've said before, all the details. Every sermon, there's a few details I've said, I have ideas for what that means, or that's so detailed, it would be a whole sermon to cover it. So I'm going to skip that part. We're just looking at the bigger picture, the bigger picture, so we can see God's plan, Satan's plan, why one works and one will not. And you and I live in a world where Satan is trying to carry out his plan.

And it can be a precedent to us. So we went through that. Then we went through the Olivet Prophecy and where Jesus says, this is what's going to happen before I come back. So we went through the Olivet Prophecy and we showed, and this is very important, that what He says at the beginning of the Olivet Prophecy and the four horsemen of the apocalypse, or the first four seals of Revelation, are explaining the exact same events. And He calls, Jesus says, this is the beginning of sorrows. This is the beginning of the collapse of the world and Satan setting up his last great empire. And when we looked at how they correspond with the first four seals, we realized we will know when this is completed. And the thing is, what this describes is nothing but world confusion. Disease epidemics, starvation, wars. Not like one war, like a world war, just between two countries or two groups of countries, but war all over the place. Constant war. And we know this is completed because when we got to the fourth seal, it says, this is given power, these four horsemen, to slay one-fourth of the world.

So one-fourth of the world dies. When that happens, you won't be able to hide that, we know that the tribulation is about to begin. What we know is the time of sorrows is over.

So we've covered this so far. Now we're going to go into what happens at the end of the time of sorrows. One-fourth of the world is dead. The entire earth will be in chaos. The entire economic system, globalism will have collapsed, new types of globalism will have tried to form, and nothing works. Nothing's working. And we have the beginning of the rise of that fourth beast again. So let's go to 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2. Paul says this, you know, Paul gives a number of prophecies, but they tend to come out of nowhere. He's writing to people he's talked to.

So boom, he gives a prophecy and we're like, where did that come from? Where's all the information before it? Where's all the information after it? We don't know.

I mean, there's lots of times that I'm reading Paul's writings and he'll say something like in 1 Corinthians, as I told you, or as, you know, what do you mean? We weren't there. We don't know what you told them, right? Because these are personal letters. But here comes a prophecy out of nowhere for us. If we're reading Thessalonians, it's very important to them because it's an issue they were dealing with as a church. So verse one. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, so what was taught in the early church, Christ is coming back and there is a resurrection of the dead who are the people of God, and there is a changing of the people of God who were on the earth at the time. So that's a consistent teaching we find throughout the New Testament. And it's mentioned in the Old Testament, but never in detail like it is in the New Testament.

He says, "...not to be soon shaken, and mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if it came from us, as though the day of Christ had come." So there was some new doctrine that come along and said, you know, Christ came and it's happened. It's still, it's happened here on earth. Now, I remember years ago, listening to a minister say, the day of Christ is now, because God's Spirit's been poured out, and therefore Christ is living at people, therefore now is the day of Christ. It could have been something like that.

We don't know exactly what was being taught, but obviously people were saying Christ has come.

He says, let no one deceive you by any means. And this next two verses begins his prophecy.

He says, let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself. Here's a man, and Christ won't return until this man is revealed for everybody to see. This isn't going to be in secret. Now, I say it's secret. This man will be working in secret for a long time, but this is when you know it happens. You will know it happens because everybody's going to know it. Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worship, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

This is real important here. This is a person who claims to be divine.

There's a man who claims to be divine. He may just claim to be Jesus Christ.

We think this is rather strange, but you know, in the day that he wrote this, it wouldn't have been strange. The reason it would have been strange, in the day in which they lived, all Roman emperors said that they were gods.

Well, they could be killed. They were sort of demigods, part-god.

That's one of the reasons Christians were persecuted. They wouldn't call Caesar Lord. There was a specific word that all through the New Testament, in Greek, that word, Lord Churios, is used for Jesus Christ, and they wouldn't use it for him.

Can't you just do a sacrifice in a temple to Lord Caesar? You don't have to do anything else. You don't even have to believe it. There were judges who actually told the man, you don't have to believe it. Just do it! And they wouldn't do it.

And so they were killed for it. So for someone to say, I speak as a God because I am divine, is not weird to them. It is to us.

Because they lived in a world of Caesars who did that.

So he says, do you not remember that when I was with you, I told you these things? Paul, there you go again. No, we weren't there. I wish you would have told us now more than, obviously he told them a lot of things, right? But once again, it shows how personal these letters were. And now you know that what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time.

For the mystery of lawlessness, I just want you to understand the evilness of this man is at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he's taken out of the way. And then, so God's going to withdraw what's holding him back. 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 person will exist right before the second coming of Jesus Christ, and he will be destroyed by Jesus Christ. I've actually seen this passage used to apply to a certain human being over time. It can't be. This man sits in the temple claiming to be divine, and he is destroyed by Jesus Christ. So he hasn't been revealed yet. Now we can speculate. I mean, I believe he's alive today. That's my speculation, right? Paul, in his lifetime, believed Christ was coming back in his lifetime until later. I still believe Christ is coming back in my lifetime, or at least in our lifetime of us here.

So I'm not saying the man doesn't exist. I'm saying he hasn't been revealed yet. We don't know who he is. I know my YouTube feed almost every day when I go on, something pops up.

Man of sin revealed. Yeah, Antichrist revealed. And they all have a different answer to what's happening. He'll be revealed so that everybody knows when the time comes. When the time comes. See, he's going to promote lawlessness. But remember, this will be a massive thing that will happen that the whole world will see. He will sit in the temple and he will be destroyed by Jesus Christ. Now let's look at verse 9. The coming of the lawless one. Now, lawless here, he's against the laws of God. He's against basically all law. When you're divine, you make up the laws. But he's dead set against the laws of God. He is a law unto himself because he's evil. And here's why. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. And this is going to be important. We're going to see this quite a bit as we go through this today. This person will deceive not just with his message.

He will deceive because he will do miracles.

There will be signs. There will be things that nobody can explain. So much so that Jesus says, if it were possible, even the very elect would be deceived by it. In other words, if we don't know it's going to come, what would you see by it? The miracles would be that great.

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 strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure and unrighteousness. In other words, God says these people choose this. The truth was there for them. The temple here, we're going to talk about this next month when I do my sermon on prophecy. The temple here, there's actually going to be some kind of temple in Jerusalem in the future. And they're planning for it all the plans for being built. I mean, this isn't that secret. The Israeli government's involved in it. The U.S. is involved in it. I mean, John Hagee, when we lived down in San Antonio, and he's still a pastor and his son down there in this huge megachurch, they send millions of dollars every year to Israel for the building of the temple. Now, that's, it has to be a great big edifice, but there will be something there in which they do sacrifices. Next month, when we get into the abomination of desolation, we'll talk about that. So, an anaphysm will deceive many because of satanic powers, and people will lose the love of the truth, and they are self-willed. They reject them, God. So, God sends them a strong delusion. God lets them go into insanity. What the world is going to do, and I think we've already started to see it, the world is going to slip farther and farther into madness. That's what's going to happen. We can hope that doesn't happen, but it's happening. And if we are in the time of sorrows, or at the beginning of it, it will continue to slip into madness to the point that God Himself says, I'm going to let you just go into madness. You're going to believe every lie and every delusion that comes along. You will not be able to tell what's right and what's wrong. You will not even be able to tell what's good and evil. And that madness will be worldwide. But then if 25% of the earth has died, that's going to create just a destabilized world that's hard to even imagine.

So, we have this prophecy of this man that comes along, sits in the temple, does all kinds of amazing things that he does, signs and wonders, and God, he deceives the world and God sends them a strong delusion.

Now, let's go to—I don't want to jump too far ahead here. I get so much material I can't cover it, so I'm thinking where I want to go next as we take this a piece at a time. But when I have to skip it, I don't want to skip it. Revelation 13. Now, we've gone through the four successive empires in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. So, we've already shown twice now there's these four empires.

Let's go to Revelation 13. And in Daniel 4, they're actually called beasts.

But now we have another beast. John has this vision. The Apostle John. Verse 1, Then he stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowds, and on his heads a blasphemous name.

Okay. How do we compare this to the four beasts? Well, here's what's very interesting, the next verse. Now, the beast which I saw, okay, this strange looking beast that has all these multiple heads and hideous looking thing. He was like a leopard. His feet was like the feet of a bear. His mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon, Satan, gave him power, his throne, and great authority. So what we have is a strange looking beast, a terrifying beast, which is how the fourth beast is described in Daniel 7.

What were the beasts that we saw in Daniel 7? He says this one, you know, looks like a leopard, like a bear, like a lion, and then just like a strange, terrifying animal. Well, when we go back, we look at this, you know, Trena, what this? This is just an artist rendition. We don't know. It's hard to even describe what this must look like. So what do we make of this? Unless we have a template to put it on, I don't know. I mean, there's lots of people will tell you what this means, because they just look at it and they come up with what seems like a logical conclusion. But we've already looked at two templates that we build off of that all have to do with beasts and these different nations and these different empires that come along. Okay.

What were the beasts of Daniel 7? Remember here, we have a leopard, a bear, and a lion.

Well, the first one was Babylon, which was described as a lion in Daniel 7. The second one was Persia, which was described as a bear. The third one was Greece, which was described as a leopard. And the fourth one, and once again, it's my Muppet version, the terrifying beast. Sorry. The terrifying beast. In other words, this beast is a composite of all four. This is the fourth beast. Because each one of these empires led to the next. Each one, as it was absorbed by the one before it, some of those traits carried on through it.

So the Persia adapted things from Babylon and Greece adapted things from Persia and Babylon. And Rome adapted from all three of them. And so what we have here gives us the clue. This is what we're looking at. We're looking at the fourth beast, a composite of all four of the beasts. So let's go back now and look at, let's skip down to verse 7.

I'm skipping a few things here just because of time. Verse 7. So 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. So this beast has more power, more authority, more reach than any of the other ones. And once again, I skipped a few things because the details, I'd be caught in those details and can't get the overview here to everyone. So I want to get that. It's granted to him to make war with the saints, to overcome them, with authority was given to him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. And all who dwell on the earth will worship him whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb, slave from the foundation of the earth. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and faith of the saints. Now that's a little concerning there if you're a person following God.

This beast is given power to persecute the saints.

Now, Daniel 27. I'm sorry, Daniel 7. We're going to go to verse 27. Let's go to Daniel 7 and let's start in verse 7. Daniel 7. Let's go back to a template we've already laid.

So I'm jumping around and not giving all the connecting information because we've already covered this.

I know when you go a month or five weeks between sermons, it's hard to remember some of the connections. Daniel 7 is about those four beasts we just looked at.

And he says in verse 7, and 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 the pieces and traveling the residue of its feet. And it was different from all the beasts that were before it. And it had 10 horns. Okay. 10 horns. We're going to see that over and over again. We're going to see that this one is different. This one has a cruelty and a power, just sheer, violent power beyond what Babylon and Persia and Greece had.

Then let's go down to verse 23. Because it says, And this fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms. And it shall devour the whole earth, trample it, and break it in pieces.

And the 10 horns are 10 kings who shall rise out of this kingdom.

So here is Daniel's prophecy about a future empire which he says will be destroyed by the coming of the Son of Man. So we're finding all these templates. Say the same thing. They're talking about the same events. And then look at verse 25, the last sentence.

Then the saint shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time. Now this prophecies have all kinds of different ideas, what they mean. Time and times and half a time. It's almost universally accepted as three and a half years. Because it's three and a half years later in the Bible mentioned, but it's because it's an idiom from the time.

So, you know, a year, a couple years, half a year. That the saints will be persecuted.

And then it says, over 26 and 27, then God will come and destroy the fourth beast. But you know, this isn't the only place in which the tribulation as it begins, and this power comes together after all this chaos, that we have mention of a persecution on the people of God. Now, back here in verses 7 through 10, there's a persecution mentioned. We read that.

Fourth piece of Daniel, we just put all this together now.

He had this vision of the fourth beast, which was terrifying and different than the other beast.

It had 10 horns, which would be 10 kings. The beast will be destroyed at the end of three and a half years, but it will persecute the saints. It will be against God. It will persecute anybody who follows the God of the Bible. Now, last time when we went through the beginning of sorrows, I ended at a certain point. I ended at the end of what he said. This is the beginning of sorrows. I just stopped. So let's go to Matthew 24.

We're putting together a puzzle here, and we're now into the place instead of looking at whole sections. We're taking the pieces from different sections, but it's consistent. Everything we're looking at is consistent with something else we're looking at. So if we go to Matthew 24, when we read it here during that sermon, we stopped at verse 8. All these are the beginning of sorrows. And then in verse 9, Jesus suddenly talks to his disciples. He talks to his people. So he's talking about what's going to be happening in the world, and then he switches. He does this throughout the Olivet Prophecy. In fact, chapter 25, which is part of the Olivet Prophecy, is nothing but instructions to the church. Sometimes when we go through the Olivet Prophecy, we miss half of it. Half of it are instructions to the church, the whole second chapter. But here he says, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my namesake. And then many will be offended and kill and betray one another, and will hate one another. And many false prophets will rise and deceive many, because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who adores to the end shall be saved. So this is to his followers. You adore to the end, but there's persecution. When does this start? In this massive way. But we've looked at it begins when the fourth beast comes along. Revelation 13 tells us that beast carries it out. So that is the fourth beast.

Here it's at the end of the beginning of sorrows.

We went through then, we went through the beginning of sorrows, we went through the four horsemen of the apocalypse and showed how these events all coincide with each other. The same things. But I ended someplace there. Let's go look at that.

Let's go look at...

Oh, let's see. Revelation 6.

Revelation 6. I'm trying to remember where it was, and I thought, oh yeah, put it up there for all of you. Revelation 6.

And we read all the way through from verse 1 to verse 8.

And how one fourth of the world would die at the end of the ride of the four horsemen, the first four seals, and showed that the beginning of sorrows and this are connected. What happens in Revelation the moment after, not the moment, but right after that those events lead to this massive death toll and this confusion and collapse of the world. What's going to happen? The fifth seal, verse 9. Then he opened the fifth seal, and I saw under the altar to the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried 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? Then a white robe was given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both a number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

After the four horsemen ride, the next thing that happens is Christ opened the seal, and of course this is an allegory. They're dead, right? That's why He tells them to stay resting. They're really not talking to Him. But God remembers them. He says He remembers the dead.

And they're still waiting for that resurrection to come.

And what the message is, and the message written for us, is the dead will stay where they are. They will not be resurrected until there is a martyrdom on the people of God. Now, we have stacked up these over and over and over, and they all come to the same conclusions at the same time. Now, this isn't totally bad news. Part of the Church is protected.

It talks about that. When we go through the abomination of desolation, we'll talk about that.

But the issue is, this is what happens when the beast power comes together.

When it comes together, they begin to heal the world, heal it. They begin to fix the economy. They stop wars. That's one of the things that's said about them. Who can fight against the beast? They stop the wars through violence. They start to fix the economy, the whole economy of the world's collapse. And you know what you need? You need people to blame. Right? Guess who gets blamed?

Any people who really follow God, they won't be blamed.

I mean, if this is where we stop, this is really, really depressing, right? But this isn't the whole story. But it's where we're going today, because this is where we are in the puzzle.

But notice how each template says the same thing. They all come to the same conclusion as we find out what God is doing. So let's go back to Revelation 13 now.

I know, have I lost all of you? If you remember the last ones, you're okay. But that was over a month ago when we had the last ones we did.

Revelation 13. Because actually, when you put away the details that get us all bogged down, and you lay these templates on top of each other, they all tell the story. And it's all the same story. Just different elements of the same story.

So we have this man of sin who sits in the temple of God, who is the leader of this beast power that comes along. In Revelation 13, which is just as we've already read, it's a compilation of all the other three powers, plus Rome. So it's just a resurrection of the Roman Empire, brought about in a way that's even a lot more terrifying than they were then. The sheer power that a nation can have today through the weapons of war is unthinkable. But to come into a world that's collapsed into chaos and constant warfare and the collapse of the global economy, and there's millions of people dying, hundreds of millions. In fact, a fourth of the world is what? Close to 2 billion today. The death toll is immense. You can't even bury those people fast enough. What's going to be happening is horrifying. And this beast power comes in. It makes sense. They're fixing it. It's getting better. Anybody who's really to blame here? Really the blame are the fundamentalists. They won't be against all Christians, by the way, because Christianity, a form of Christianity, will be part of what they're doing.

Fundamentalists. What they mean by fundamentalist Christians anymore, even that term has changed. Anyone who tries to take the Bible literally and says that other doctrines are wrong. So you have to take, you can't take the Bible literally. God never really caused the flood because He loves people too much. And all religions lead you to the same God. They're not anti-Christian. They're all loving. That's what's going to happen here. So Christianity is going to be okay as long as it fits certain parameters. Those who do not fit those parameters will be part of the problem.

And we know the political power, which we just read about, will be helped by a different power.

Because there's something that happens here in Revelation that's not in Daniel 2 or Daniel 7. It's not in all of it. Prophecy. Verse 11 of Daniel 13.

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. Now this is real important. He looks Christian. Christ is always called a lamb. This looks Christian. Dragon is always a term for Satan. So what we have here is another beast. Now this doesn't mean it's a fifth beast in terms of a different empire. It means there's two forces at work here. Although if you study the history of Babylon and Persia and Greece and Rome, these two elements have always been there as part of it. You have here something that seems to be Christ following and is actually being motivated, driven, and has the teachings of Satan.

And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth of those who dwell on it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.

Now I won't go into the deadly wound. There's even a number of different explanations of that, but what's important is there's a miracle that takes place. Something that happens that nobody expects. And he performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on earth in the sight of men. Now think about this. We just read the man of sin is sitting in the temple, but he has somebody motivating this. We have someone who's actually leading people to worship him. Remember, he sits in the temple. Someone's leading people to worship him as divine.

He may not say, I am the God, but he may say, I am Jesus on earth. Or I am...

He could come up with some new explanation and some scriptures to say, I'm here to lead all religions to God. I don't know what he'll say, but he'll do it in the midst of this chaos that people will buy into it. They don't care what the cost is because their world would have fallen apart. This is why I don't go through Revelation too much. We'd all be depressed all the time. But the truth is, it's here for a reason. Because these things come.

These things happen. And the people of God, if they know this, they see it happening, and God is with them. You can't stop the future. You can only live the future with God or without God. That's our choice.

Our choice is either with God or without God, because we can't stop the future. We can't pretend it won't happen. I don't know when this is going to happen. I know it's not going to happen tomorrow, because we've already gone through dozens of things that haven't happened yet. But when this happens, this man, who is called a beast, he leaves a system called the beast, and this other man who's called a beast, and whose system is called a beast, this is a religious system. And he tells people to literally worship this man, that he's from God. In fact, he's divine. He has divine powers from God. Verse 14 says, Verse 14 says, 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 with the sword and lived. And he was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. I don't know what the image of the beast is.

There's all kinds of ideas. Some of them are pretty interesting, you know, involving the shout of Turin, AI. I mean, there's all kinds of ideas. I don't know what it is. I know people will be willing to worship an image of a man.

And you think, whoa, wow, why? You know, if you have a divine Caesar and he has a statue, you don't go spit on that statue. You'll be hauled off to prison, right?

So this isn't far from what ancient Rome used to be.

He says he causes all both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave to receive a mark on their foreheads.

So now you have this mark of the beast. But before I want to go there, I want to set a stage for how long this will last. How long this will last.

Revelation 11. I'm going to run out of time, so I'm not going to go there. But I'll tell you, Revelation 11, 1 and 3.

Okay, so I'll read this. You can write down the scriptures. Daniel 7, the fourth beast persecutes the saints of the Most High for time, time is the appetite, three and a half years.

And Revelation 13, the beast from the sea has power for 42 months. So if you go back and you read Revelation 13, like we've been going through it, he has this power for 42 months. That's three and a half years. And Revelation 11, 1 through 3, we have something very important. And we'll cover this next time when we talk about the abomination of desolation. Jerusalem is invaded.

And the sacrifices stop and the temple itself, whatever that temple is that's going to be there, is invaded. And there are two witnesses inspired by God to stand up and speak against the beast. They try to kill them and they can't. How long Jerusalem is occupied and how long the two witnesses speak against the beast is 42 months. And then in Revelation 12, let's go back here, Revelation 12, there's a woman or the church, we'll have to go through Revelation 12 here in the course of what we do. It's persecuted by Satan for times, times, or time, times, and half a time. All these keep adding up to the same thing. We're all over the place. Daniel 7, Revelation 13, Revelation 11, Revelation 12, every place we go, we have the same time period. All these events are happening simultaneously. They're all happening simultaneously. So the beast of Revelation 13 doesn't rule for 20 years. It doesn't even last 12 years. That's how long Nazi Germany lasted, 12 years. It lasts 42 months. And as we'll see in the Bible study, it isn't the fact that Christ comes and destroys it. Before the end, the beast power eats itself.

It turns on itself, which is what Satan's character is. It's how he is. It begins to destroy itself.

So we have the mark of the beast. So let's do that. Then I'll let you have a break and we'll do the Bible study because at this point you're probably thinking, I can't even think anymore.

But once again, it's just putting one on top, and they all are telling the same thing with different details. He says, verse 16, he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark of his name. And here's the wisdom, let him who is understanding calculate the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

Okay.

I only wanted to do 45 minutes today because I thought I'd do 45 minutes now and a half hour in the Bible study, and then we can ask some questions if we want. Although I know if you ask questions, there'll be a number of times I'll say, I have no idea because there's just things we don't know about this. What we do have is important. The mark of the beast is on people's hands and foreheads. Now this could be a physical mark. It's definitely a definitely something that they decide to do. There's a spiritual mark here, and maybe a physical mark. It's interesting it says you have to have the mark of his name or the number of his name. We know that, let's go to Deuteronomy 6.

Verse 4. Well, this is quoted all the time in sermons. One of the most famous passages in Judaism in the entire Bible. Let's start in verse 4. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. Hero Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as front lengths between your eyes. So now this was okay. Your actions, your thoughts. The law of God had to be in everything. Your hands and your head. So when we look at the 666 number here, I mean it could be some kind of physical thing. I mean people may receive a chip. People wonder, will people receive a chip?

I don't know. It may be a physical thing. We do know it's a spiritual thing, is the most important thing. You will decide, not you, but people will decide that their actions and their thoughts will be given to follow the beast power, to follow Satan. Because they'll do anything to survive what's happening around them. I will say this. I've had people say, well do you think, you know, I gave up my credit card because there's a chip in it and that may have been the mark of the beast.

No. If the world collapses and a new world empire begins and they come to you and say, you have to have this credit card or we're throwing you in jail, now that may be the mark of the beast.

Understand, those things haven't happened yet. They haven't happened yet.

I've had people ask me if they take certain medicines or immunization. Is that the mark of the beast?

No. Now whether you should take an immunization or certain medicine, whether that's good for you or not, you have to do a lot of research to figure that out. But that's not the mark of the beast. How do I know that? Because the beast isn't here yet.

This comes at a time when everybody sees it. This doesn't happen by accident. Now, it's planned in the darkness and there may be people planning it now, but it comes on the scene where everybody sees it. And that's why we're told. We're told what to look for when it happens. So have I received the mark of the beast? Occasionally if somebody asks me that over all kinds of things. No, you haven't. Now, it may not have been a wise to do that. Okay, you have your credit card with the chip in it.

No, that's not from the beast, but the fact that you bought that new car you can't afford was a really bad use of that. I'd suggest you go cut that card out, but that has nothing to do with the beast. These things with God's help, everybody's going to see it. The pressure to do it will be overwhelming. The pressure to participate because of how bad things have gotten and how the world is crazy. Remember I said, I gave a sermon recently about the epidemic of madness, which is actually something that psychologists are using for our country today. There's an epidemic of madness happening. That's just going to get worse until the world's in an epidemic of madness. That's why, no, the tribulation hasn't started. Take a big breath, say in your mind, the tribulation hasn't started. We're all going to die tomorrow. No, take a big breath. We're all not going to die tomorrow. They're going to come haul us off and put us in jail. No, they're not. Not tomorrow, and not for a while. But someday this is going to happen.

And whether it's like I've told you before, I tell my children, I think Christ is coming back in my lifetime. And if I'm dying, probably the last thing I'll say to them is, come here, no, no, nothing. He's coming back in your lifetime. Because it's going to happen.

So this is going to happen. And we have to understand it. There's been a lot of attempts to calculate what that number means. 666 has been used to mean just the number of man, because man was created on the sixth day. But I don't know why it's repeated three times. So, I don't know. It's been used... This is always interesting, because years and years ago, in Greek, the word Latin, in many languages, each letter has a number applied to it.

And if you add up the Greek letters for Latin, it's 666. And so, almost 2,000 years ago, a bunch of Greeks said, it's those Italians! 666! They're the Latins.

Of course, the point they made was the Catholic Church was forming, and that's not right. So the Catholic Church is 666. That's an interesting way to look. I'm not saying it's not true. I can't prove it, though. See, there's the problem. What can you prove and what you can't prove? I can't prove exactly what 666 is, but I can just give you numerous ideas. Sunday worship is 666, because it's the... I forget how they come to that, because it's the first day of the week. But they figured that out that way. They put numbers together and come up with Sunday worship is 666. People come up with all kinds of things.

We'll know what the number is when it happens. One day you're not going to wake up and say, oh, there's some Latin name, Nero, by the way, in Latin numbers comes up. I think it's Nero. It's one of the emperors comes up to 666. So Nero was the the beast in people's minds for years. You know, you're going to wake up one day with 666 on your forehand, on your finger hand.

You will be demanded to go do this, and you will be required to do it, or you can't buy food.

That's what's going to be happening. So, let's again, is it a chip? Could be. I'm more concerned with the thoughts and actions involved in it, because that's what God says to do with His law.

Put it in here and in here. So, if we ever come up to that time in our lifetime, then we need to be in here and here, prepared for it. And then, whenever it happens, we'll know what it is. Or you could go crazy reading the Internet and finding out the 15 different ways is explained, and just wait two weeks and someone will come up with a different one.

And probably, one of them may be absolutely right, but we won't know till it happens.

Remember, the reason for a lot of prophecy isn't for us to know ahead of time exact events. It's us to know ahead of time the overview so that we'll see the events when they happen. We'll have a way to interpret them, because if we misinterpret the future, and I'll just give you an example.

Most of you aren't old enough to have lived through this. But when I was a child in the Radio Church of God, most of you, of course, how many were in the Radio Church of God? Oh, there's a few of us here. It was taught by most ministers that Jesus Christ was coming back in 1975. There were people who didn't get their teeth fixed or didn't go to college, or people made all kinds of strange decisions. Because, well, it's 1970. Why worry about it? And, of course, it was a total misunderstanding of some scriptures. I never even could figure out how they came to that conclusion. I mean, I was a young teenager, and I'm thinking, I don't understand that, so I didn't worry about it. Because when you're a kid, you can put that under your mind, right? I don't know. I don't know what that means. But there were lots of people who made decisions on the specific.

If you know the overview, you're looking for certain things, and you see them when they happen.

And in 1970, we were not in a state of the world collapsing until we were about to have 25% of the world die. We weren't even close to that in 1970. And believe me, if we want to speculate, we're a whole lot closer to that now than we were in 1970, on how the world could collapse very quickly. But see, that's why we have to be careful about specifics.

And that's why I'm taking a whole year, once a month, to go through some basic prophecy. What I'm really hoping as we go through this, as we lay these things on top of each other, there's certain things that'll start to... Because I know afterwards, I always have people say, I didn't understand a word you said. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in very many sermons, except prophecy sermons. I'm glad of that. But I didn't understand.

And yet, what we've been going through is, as complex as it is, it's the basics of what God gives us. So that gets us through Revelation 13. What I want to do in the Bible study is, I want to go through a little bit of Revelation... Just go through Revelation 17. We will spend more than a half hour on it. Revelation 17. And show you... In Revelation 17, and then we'll just briefly talk about 18, and just a couple verses in 19. What happens to the B-Spar? Okay, it only lasts three and a half years. What happens to it?

And we'll be able to look at what happens to it, and then the great hope beyond that.

And so next month, we'll go through the abomination of desolation. And I'll probably go through also, what happens to the church? Does everybody get killed in the great tribulation? No. That's not what it says. So we'll go through that and look at that there's some good things for the church during that time, and understand what God's going to be doing.