The Great Deception

Okay, what I want to do today, in fact, I had actually prepared a slide presentation to try to go through the two scriptures I want to go through, but then I realized I was making it so detailed we were going to miss the point. It would be better to look at these two passages, and then we have some discussion or questions, because I want to look at the overview of these two passages. So I saved the slide presentation some day in the future. I'll take it and make it bigger and do a whole sermon on this. I want to talk about the deception that is to come that we're warned about in the scripture. And let's start with 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2. What's sort of difficult here is what we have a lot of Paul, especially Paul's writings. He's writing to very specific people about specific things, and sometimes there are questions he were asked, as you'll see, especially 1 Corinthians. Well, you asked me this, here's the answer. But what was the question? If he would have told us the question, it would be so much easier. And in the same way here, there's something that is being discussed, not only probably in Thessalonikah, that's probably being discussed throughout the church.

They're looking ahead, they're putting scriptures together, and they're starting to realize more and more the prophecies of the Old Testament and how they're going to be fulfilled. And so it's part of a big discussion. We get these little snapshots of what's going on in the churches. And so let's look at what he says here, because he's dealing with a specific issue that had come up in the Thessalonican church. He says, verse 1, Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if it came from us.

Now, let me stop there for a minute. As if it came from us. What's interesting about not only the first century, but especially in the second and third centuries, are the amount of letters that are out there that are purported to be written by Peter or Paul or James. There are dozens. A Thomas. There are dozens of letters that start floating around. A Judas. The epistle of Judas became a major writing for the Gnostics. And according to the epistle of Judas, Judas was the only one who got it.

The rest of them were so stupid that Jesus finally went to him and said, look, they don't understand I have to be crucified, so you're going to have to go turn me in so that we can get God's plan carried out. According to the epistle of Judas, he is the absolute hero of the story. The epistle of Barnabas probably had more influence and development of Christian theology in the second century than anything else that was written. And it wasn't written by Barnabas. They didn't know it.

Now today, everybody knows it wasn't written by Barnabas because it necessarily even appeared to 130 AD long after the eponymous of the Bible was dead. But the people didn't know it. And it became a major way of interpreting the Scriptures. When we go through the history of the early church, we'll go through the epistle of Barnabas.

It's just amazing. So Paul says, if you get a letter that's from us, you know, from me or Timothy, and it's not from us, you'll be able to know because of what it says. It'll be different than what we've taught you. So the idea of someone signing a letter that they didn't write and somebody else's name was actually very common at that time.

There's no copyright laws, okay? It was the easiest way to get people to read your work. It's deceptive. That's right, very simple. So that's what he's dealing with here. So as we go into this, we're dealing with a deception that had taken place inside the church. They were getting letters, even, that were supposed to be from Paul or probably from Timothy or one of the apostles, and it was teaching them something different than they had taught them. And he said, remember, if it's different than what we taught you, it's not coming from us.

So that's not good what he says now. This has to do with the prophecy of the return of Jesus Christ. He just said it about the Lord's coming. He says, don't be shaken or troubled as though the day of Christ has come. So some people were teaching the day of Christ has already come. Now you think, well, that doesn't make sense. But if you, this must have been the, I'm guessing you hear what the issue is because we don't know. Remember I talked about amiletialism? I think this is the beginning of amiletialism. Christ's first coming was the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, and the church is the kingdom.

So the fact that there is a thousand year millennium is actually not, is an allegory, it's not true. Which is still the majority of what the majority of Christians believe today. The majority of Catholics, the majority of Lutherans, that's the Anglicans, that's what's taught. That the thousand year period is an allegory. I think that's what's happening here.

I think it's the beginning of the amiletialism. But that's my idea. Okay, that's not my essay. That's what it's saying. But you think, what does it mean that the day of the Lord has already come? In other words, the kingdom of God is already on earth. So, you know, 50 years, 60 years after this is written, that's what many Christians believe. It's not the majority yet, but it will be. By the time of Augustine, it's the majority of Christians don't believe in the millennium.

So I think that's probably what you have here, is the beginning of those teachings. Let no one deceive you by verse 3, by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin, now once again I was starting to get into the falling away, I was going to go on, I said, no, no, no, I want to zero in on the deception here and how the deception happens. The man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.

So he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. So he says, before Christ returns, there's going to be an individual that is seen as, probably as the son of God, or as the direct representative of God, and worshiped as a divine being. And he will sit at the temple of God. There's a lot of discussion, is that temple of God the church, or is that the temple that's going to be built in Jerusalem before Christ returns?

I personally believe it's the sin in the church of God, that the church of God, I mean, all the people, if you take all throughout the world, who believe like we do, in some form or another, and add them all together, because, let's face it, we know that the Catholic church, I'm not putting down every Catholic here, but the Catholic church is not the church of God, okay? So, or so we look at situations like that. We're not important enough for this to be fulfilled in us.

So, I believe this is that temple. There's going to be some edifice built, because it's prophesied in Jerusalem, because there's daily sacrifices. So, he said, I know I'm speculating some, but you can't yet speculate a little and go through this. So, I try to tell you what I'm speculating when I'm not.

There's daily sacrifices established. We know that from the book of Daniel. So, if there's daily sacrifices, there has to be some place for the daily sacrifices that take place. I'm not saying this has to be a huge temple, although John Hagee and some others are actually trying to build the temple. And there are Jews in Jerusalem, they're trying to build the temple. The entire priesthood is being gathered. They have all the utensils. They're prepared to start doing sacrifices.

It can be a tent. I mean, the original temple is a tent, right? It can be a tent. I don't know what it's going to be. But there's some edifice in Jerusalem where they're doing sacrifices.

My speculation is that's what this is. This man stands in that edifice and is worshiped as God.

As I know, the temple. We are the temple. It talks about the people and God being the temple. But that doesn't make sense that this man of sin is in the church, because this man has power over the world. But it does make sense that he's in an edifice in Jerusalem where the whole world is looking at this place. So he sits in the temple and he's worshiped as a divine being. It's very important to understand how this deception is going to take place. So look at verse 5. Do you not remember? Well, no, I don't, Paul. You never talked to me, so I don't remember this. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things?

See, there's another problem. These personal letters, God didn't seem fit. It was a good letter. He went this way. This was inspired. He wasn't. But the little personal comments sometimes leave us, so I don't remember what you told. I wasn't there. So we don't know details.

And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. In other words, this isn't happening yet. They were still expecting Jesus Christ probably to come back in their lifetime. And he says, it's not happening yet. This being out, what's interesting here, by the way, when he writes this, the temple in Jerusalem still exists. This is written before the fall of the Jerusalem temple. So I don't know. He may have thought it was going to be in that temple.

He would not have said the Church of God. Now, if you look at the context of the way Paul was thinking of the world he's writing in, there is a temple. And this individual is going to be in that temple, and he's going to be worshipped. 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, in other words, God is holding this back, and then he's going to stop holding it 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 who sits in the temple is worshipped as a divine being, will be destroyed by Jesus Christ that is coming. This hasn't happened yet. We're still waiting for this to happen because he hasn't come back yet.

So we know this event takes place, or this man does this, just before Christ returns.

The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, of all power, signs, and lying wonders. So there are great miracles that take place here. This is why people buy into this. This isn't just some guy that stands up and says, hey, I'm the son of God, or I'm divine, or God has sent me, or God's in me, or however he's going to do it. He's doing wonders, which with modern technology means the whole world will see. Everybody's going to see this. And with all unrighteous deception. So this is Satan's way of deceiving the world at the end time. Among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

So they don't love the truth. They want. There's a will. People want this person.

And we're going to have to know why they want this person. If this person came on the scene right now, it would be hard to get humanity to come together to follow this person.

Something's going to happen for humanity to be willing to give up self-will, if you want to give themselves over to this person. It says, and for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure and unrighteousness. So something's going to happen.

So what we have here is a person who comes along and has such power that everybody sees his power.

And he sits in the temple, but he's absolutely just, I mean, he's an unrighteous person. He's a person who is lawless with the law of God. He's absolutely lawless towards the law of God. But he has such charisma, such power, and he does such miracles, because Satan's with him, that he will stand in the temple and claim he has the divine right to be there.

Because that's interesting. Something stops those sacrifices.

He may be claimed to be Christ himself. He may be claimed to be Christ himself, which would make sense. You don't need sacrifices anymore.

Jesus is here. I can only try to guess what will happen. But you understand now, in a general sense, what Paul's saying here. And we know this hasn't taken place, because it happens just before Christ comes.

So any questions or comments on 2 Thessalonians?

I get you stumped. This group usually has lots of comments and questions.

Well, that's okay. You can...well, come back. You don't have to...tell me Jason. I can yell at him. Good. I won't yell at you. I'll yell at him. I have to think about it.

Or another thing that's going on. You all called him.

He covered his hair.

That could happen. I think they expected this to happen.

Something's going to happen, yeah, to draw different peoples together. Now, as we go to the next passage, we'll see that...okay. When this happens, it's very important.

Because...you understand the question. Is this something that Christians and Muslims and Hindus are all going to flock together because, you know, Jews, they're all expecting some kind of... all religions have some kind of somebody who comes from the God or from the Gods to save humanity.

And I think there's an element in it, but it breaks down.

When we get to the next one, it breaks down eventually. In other words, the unity here doesn't last very long. So whatever unifies people with this doesn't last very long.

So we can speculate about that. But I...there are obviously...to bring people together, there's going to have to be some kind of common thread in the whole thing. So I think that's a good point. I can't...I don't know beyond that, you know. I don't know beyond that. Yeah, Joe.

I think it's been a very wrangling run. It's so much like getting...trying and shutting down and letting people's moments get even done. And we got started by a group of the number folks who came by today. They didn't like the way they did, you know, with all of them. And that was animal cruelty. So they...they were really elven. The elvens were the mother elvens and the mother elvens were actually, you know, the animals. So we got something started and they're going out of business. So it may be that the sacrifices will stop because that same common idea will say, you know, we shouldn't be sacrificing animals. That's truly the animal. Why are we sacrificing animals today? Why don't you stop doing this, whoever you are? And then he said, well, you know, the truth is we don't need to offer any more sacrifices. I am living for that man. We don't need any more sacrifices. We'll stop him, you know, something like this.

Yeah, I don't know. The thing is the sacrifices will be being done by the Jews. And in their society, that will seem, at least among the Orthodox, will seem quite normal. The ability to re-establish sacrifices is part of their whole religious beliefs. It's part of the problem they face today. They're not...they're not carrying out all the commands of Torah because they are not doing sacrifices. And they have to have a temple for the covenant to be complete. You know, they've got to be brought back to the land, which they were, and they have to have a temple, and they don't have it. So they...they will see that as a good thing. Whether people in other countries will see that as a good thing is an...you know, they may see it as a cruel thing. Well, we don't really know why the sermon stopped, do we?

I can discuss that in a minute, but then we'll take a whole other Bible study. But I'll bring that up in just a minute. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think that's what...so you're saying that the temple, the Jews, are going to start to sacrifice. Yes. I think that's why it's so hard to discuss how well we know what the Jews, and it's the kind of thing that can use their temple, being the Church of God, it just seems... It's not the Church of God, it's the temple.

Well, well, what's your saying here that he's in the Church of God? No, it says he's in a temple. What I'm saying is that's why I don't believe it's the Church of God. Okay. But you are saying that the Jews, freedom of fact, right back, and the men coming into...

We only have two explanations of this. One is he comes into the Church, which is called the temple. The other is he actually comes into a temple.

So, not the Church of God, but it's a church. No, it's a temple. It's a place where sacrifices are being in Jerusalem.

Okay. I'm connecting different prophecies together, because we have to connect something here. We either have to come up with... It's the Church, because we're called the Temple of God, or it's a literal temple. Now, we know that there's a temple Jesus builds after he comes back, according to Ezekiel. This is a good Bible study. You should do a series of Bible studies.

It's all about the temples. Okay. Now, we do know that, according to Daniel, there's sacrifices that are set up and done for those sacrifices to be done in Jerusalem. There has to be some kind of building or tent or something, because those sacrifices have to be done in the quote-unquote temple. So, there has to be something there called the temple for them to do the sacrifices. So, he... Okay, so you go one direction, you come in, you put this person in the Church, which I don't know, it breaks down to me, doctrine. If you put it in an actual building, now it makes sense. You know, you say... I think it's confusing when you're talking about the Church. I'm not exactly making it... Yeah. What I'm saying is, what I'm saying is it's not the Church, but a physical building. Yes. That makes sense to you. Right. That's why I'm coming to that conclusion. Okay. Because if you use... if you go the other direction, they're very confusing. You're talking about, I mean, I can go to all kinds of scriptures now I have problems with. If I take Daniel, and I know there has to be sacrifices, I put this guy in an actual temple. A physical place. Okay. Now, now you start to look at the fact that there's something that happens when those physical sacrifices are stopped. When the physical sacrifices are stopped, basically you've got three and a half years before Christ comes back. So that puts this man in that locale at the beginning of the three and a half years.

So if you see them start sacrifices in Jerusalem, you know, that is the fulfillment of prophecy.

When you see them stop, bad times are just beginning. It's the stop at the sacrifices that really is scary. Be deceived because of him.

He seems to be divine because he steps into the temple that's in Jerusalem, and he has all this power. Yeah. Right.

Right. Well, yeah. Yeah, Daniel ties it down to a physical place. I'm just telling Daniel when to hear, but you have to show where you tie things together or we're just all over the place. Yeah. Okay.

Right. Miracles. When we get into the next passage we want to go through, you'll start to see even some of the miracles he does. Yeah. There's actual miracles that take place that are just not magic tricks. There's a power of Satan's behind it, and that's what makes this so deceptive to people.

So that's why we have to be careful because this will appear so real because it's going to be a reality to it. They're going to be doing things that we've never seen before.

When people cry out to God, the God of the Bible, he responds at times—you see in the Bible, he was—huh? Yes. Well, even the people sometimes that hardly believe in him.

You cry out to God, he responds sometimes. But when you look at Hinduism or some of these pagan religions where they do have miracles, that's not from God. Because if you study Hinduism, it's pure satanic. Yeah. Yeah. So you look at that. There is a power there. That's why Paul says that those who sacrifice to idols sacrifice to demons.

There was a power in paganism because Satan was involved in it.

Yes. Right to make miracles. Right to make people believe. Now, let's just say, when Jesus walked around healing people, that was a different kind of miracle. Everything God does is good. You know, bless, he's punishing somebody. But that's, you know, but there's a goodness of the miracles God does. Jesus walked around healing people.

You don't find that in Hinduism. You find very—almost evil things, but there's miracles that take place. You get a lot of demonism where people—I mean, where people actually possessed the different things that you'll find in those religions. So, there's a power there. But it's not for good. You know, that's why we have to be discerning. You know, John said that we are to discern the spirits. Now, that means the spirit of—like there's a spirit of envy, a spirit of hatred. I mean, that level of just human spirit. But he also means the spirits of—whether it's really of God or of its sake, too. We have to be able to know the difference.

How are we going to be able to know what is the difference between the end and the end of the life? I understand. First of all, that's why we have to know the two passages we're going to.

This man will be in the temple, and he will claim a divinity. Okay? You'll never see anybody but Jesus claim divinity in the Bible. Paul never claimed divinity. John and even the angels say, don't worship me. You worship God. You know, many people stand up. This person claims a divinity.

So if they're claiming a divinity, that's not of God. Okay? We know that.

And he's lawless. He's going to promote something, an ecumenicalism, that really downplace the laws of God, the principles of God. It'll look good, because probably we're based on love. Okay? Because that's usually what binds all religions together, is the word love. Well, whatever that means. See? So it's going to look really good, but we have to look in a minute at the atmosphere, the environment this comes out of. Because this just doesn't come out of nowhere. Okay? It comes out of a certain environment. Well, if you do that, Paul is saying things you have to know and understand what they taught us. You'll know the word, you'll know the truth, you stay close to God, so when he's doing this, you're going to know where it's coming from. Right. So if we don't know these passages, this deception is going to be so easy for us to fall into. As we, Jesus said it was impossible, the very elect would be deceived. But the very elect will know these things. So then answer your question. Okay.

Yes and no. Okay, what I mean is, yes, we're watching it happen. Yes.

Right. Yes, and that we're always watching that happen now.

I mean, the pope is already, and I don't mean to be picking on the pope, but he just opens himself up for this. He just claimed that, you know, he's reached out to the orthodox, and he's reached out to the Hindus, and he's reached out to, you know, because he sees God in everything. He sees God in all religions. We don't see God in all religions. So now the Hindus believe that there's God in all religions. The Buddhists believe that there's God in all religions. So there's a common ground that is being slowly met. You'll find more and more Protestants say God is in all religions. Forty years ago, there wasn't a Protestant you could find that would say that. None of them would say that. Now they're all, not all, but there's one saying it. God is in all religions. So yes, Charlotte, what you're seeing is the beginning of this attitude. You're seeing the beginning of the mindset. We've got to figure out what triggers it. That's why I said yes and no. Something has to trigger for this trend just to move forward.

You see what I mean? So yes, you're watching it, but the trigger hasn't happened yet.

You know, and that's what Paul was saying. He has to... God's standing in the way.

When God steps back, this happens very quickly. So there will be a trigger that causes this, and we have to know this trend that we're watching. It's just going to get worse and worse and worse until we're on the outside of society. I hate to say that. Nobody likes to be on the outside of society, but we will be the only ones. There'll be conservative Baptists. There'll be lots of people on the outside of society before this is over.

The very next thing you see... My grandson was raised in this church. When we went to church last Sunday, and there was a lame preacher, and he said, I can't keep him because we have a place. So to me, there is something in us that kind of lets us know that we've been laid apart.

That's why it says they didn't have the love of the truth. There's lots of people out there that are hanging on the fringe of the truth, but they're going to have to decide whether they love the truth or not. This is going to be a decision time. This is going to be a decision time for a lot of people. And that people who like to sit there living on the fringe of it, they're going to have to say, wait a minute, I have to go all the way, or not at all, because this is going to be forced on them. This is going to be forced. This isn't just going to be some guy on television broadcasting from Jerusalem, sitting in the temple. This is going to be forced because of what's going to happen. Okay, so we got 2nd Thessalonians down?

I think so. Okay. Oh no, you all go home and I'll get 18 emails this week. Hey, I've been thinking about this, and I had a question about this. Couldn't this mean that? Sometimes I answer back, I don't know, I never thought of that before. Okay, let's go to Revelation 13.

We have to tie in some other scriptures here.

Revelation 13 is part of—remember when I gave the sermon, where I gave the slides on the timeline of Revelation? There are certain things that happened first in that timeline.

Remember, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse happened before the Great Tribulation starts.

Right? When I'm talking about the Great Tribulation, it's that three and a half years.

Okay? The four horsemen of the Apocalypse happened before that, because we know the fifth seal is the persecution of the Church. Revelation 13 is going to tell us how the persecution starts.

And this is after the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Remember at the end of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, it says 25% of the world dies.

Right? So we have to be thinking now, the environment in which this is happening.

25%, what, for the seven and a half million people today? How many people would that be? 1.5 billion? No, more than that. 1.8, something like that? That's a lot of people. It's not going to be like we wake up one day and say, huh, I wonder what happened today in the world.

This is going to be obvious. The world will be collapsing, economically collapsing.

This is where Jesus talks about wars and rumors of wars and right, pestilences and all. Remember, he said, but this is just the beginning of sorrows.

Now, these, the bad times haven't even started yet. So we have to look at the world and what's happening. Economic systems have collapsed, alliances have collapsed, societies have collapsed, there are academics wiping out whole populations, there's wars that are wiping out entire populations.

This is chaos that the world has not seen since the Black Plague, when over half of Europe and much of Asia died, in parts of Africa died, between the Black Plague and the barbarian invasions and all the things, you know, 200 years or whatever, one-fourth of the world died, and up to half of Europe. So this is going to be like that, the collapse of civilization.

And so, in that environment, we think, well, it's bad. No, the church isn't being persecuted yet.

In that environment, this is what happens. Verse 1, Then I stood on the sand of the sea, John says, and I saw a beast rising about of the sea, with seven heads and ten horns, on its horns ten crowns, on its heads a blasphemous name.

Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like that of a lion. Now, I want to stop there. Well, we did the Bible study on Daniel. Do those animals seem familiar at all?

I know that was a year ago now, so I guess I'm asking a lot here.

Okay, we have the leopard and a bear and a lion. Babylon, Persia, and Greece.

Now, what was the fourth one? Rome. Just a beast, right? It's not even called an animal. It's just a beast of iron. So if I take Daniel 2 and 7 as my template, and I end up here, what must I be talking about? A Roman ripper, a revised Roman ripper.

I don't know how else to put it together. I've read dozens of the way people put this together, but I don't know how you do it. If you want consistency throughout the Scripture, you have to put it together. So what we have now is something happening in Europe.

It might include more than Europe, but it would be centered in Europe.

The dragon, once again, we have Satan, right? The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. So this isn't just a political system. There's a person involved here. And I saw one of his hands that had been morally wounded, his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast saying, who is like the beast, who is able to make more against it? So this person, or this power, this political power, will have enormous military might. Okay? So the first thing we learn here is political power, and the Mediterranean is the sea here, okay? Because the sea, the only sea the Bible talks about is the Mediterranean. So it comes about a Mediterranean, so it's going to be that part of the world, and it has enormous military power, so that the world says, that's the greatest military power on earth. Nobody can defeat them. Nobody can fight against them.

Verse 5. He was given a mouth speaking great things, a blasphemy, and he was given authority to continue for 42 months. How long is 42 months? Okay, now we're back to a time period we recognize.

So in the 42 months, so you didn't have a year, 1260 days, all the same time period.

So this is that last three and a half years. So four horsemen have happened, and now we have a rise of a political power amidst all this chaos. How are people going to follow this person? I don't know, if you have no food on the table, your children are starving, there's no water running, and there's no electricity. See how easy it will be to be deceived? This guy has solutions. This political system has solutions. They're fixing things because the world's going to be in that kind of chaos.

This isn't, you know, this isn't Nazi Germany invading Poland and then subjugating them. This is everybody saying, oh, let's go join. There's something different. Now he makes more.

That's a whole other subject, but you know, there's more that take place here. But the world is looking towards this political system and the leader of it and saying, we got to be part of this.

Because we're headed, we're going to destroy our country, I mean, our planet. We're even destroying us. Parts of the planet are probably uninhabitable at the time.

We've got to stop this. He was given a Mount speaking of great blasphemies for 42 months. Then he opened his mouth and blasted me against God. He blasted his name, his tabernacle, those who dwell in heaven. And it was grounded with him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.

That's the fifth seal. First four seals are the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Fifth seal is persecution of the saints.

And so here we have, this is where the fifth seal comes from. It comes from this political power.

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

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. In other words, God's going to judge this. It's a hard time to be a saint. Hard time to be a saint. So we read through this.

Okay, we see this power that comes on the scene, and he's worshiped with a man of sin who is worshiped. But Revelation 13 then takes us another step. Verse 11, I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. What does that mean? Two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.

Who is the lamb of God Christ? And who is the dragon?

He appears to be Christian, meaning he is from Satan. Now, you see how the deception becomes so easy. He appears to be the lamb, but he's actually from Satan.

That's why he says if his falcon very alike would get deceived by this.

He goes on, he says, he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell on it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He reforms great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth and 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 of the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. Now, as you see, you have a question about, a couple of questions about these powers, these signs. Now, the political system and this religious system is going to work together, and the religious leader is going to create this ecumenical movement that gives power to this political leader, and then will actually perform miracles in the name of this person, so that people worship the political leader. Religious leader says he should be worshipped. He's from God. I disagree. Fire comes down and burns you up. I agree now.

Everybody else standing around says, I agree. No one disagrees now.

When you see some guy get burned up with fire, I agree.

He says, 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 who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. I have no idea what it means to give breath to the image of the beast, so don't ask me, because I don't know. Okay. I mean, there's lots of ideas what that means, but I never worked that one out. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and 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. Then it says the number of his name is 666. We have an economic power now in a world that's in chaos, that says we must control the economic systems. You know, everybody thinks, well, what's going to happen is that there's a group of men who are going to control the world and control it through the banks. Well, I don't know, that may happen, but that's not what's happening right in here. What's happening here is chaos, and this political system, religious system, pulls the banks and pulls everything together and says we've got to find a way to control this. Okay, we're going to die. The whole world's going to destroy itself here. So people will always say, well, this group is controlling what's going on. I don't care who's controlling what's on, what's going on right now. It doesn't work, because we know what happens. You know, by the time anybody gets controlled, 25% of the world has died. So all the conspiracy theories collapse. I don't mean it. I think there's people trying to do it, but it doesn't work. It doesn't work. What forces us to come together is the collapse of the world. And people are willing to worship because they put food on the table. People are willing to go along because, hey, the electricity came back on. There's gas for the cars again.

Because it's going to be such gas. Yeah.

The number on the main. And the number is 600.

Yeah, 666. Yeah, I will tell you what makes most sense to me. Okay. You'll find even in our literature, we'll say it could be this or this or this. Because we can't pin it down exactly.

If you go back to the second century, you get a writer, Polycarpe, which we quote some of his stuff. He kept the pass over. There are certain things he did that we find very familiar.

You know, numbers, especially then, letters and numbers were interchangeable. In other words, the number of your name, every letter had a numerical value to it.

Okay. And 666 was the Latin word for Roman.

So what Polycarpe said was, what this means is that it's Rome.

That this is centered in Rome. Now, there's other, you know, there's other things in here like, you know, he tells us, those who really, what I understand is, understand it's the city of Seven Hills. I know Count Staninoble has Seven Hills. There's a couple other cities that have Seven Hills. But when John wrote, there's one city in the world that was known as the city of Seven Hills. There's Rome. Right.

There's not the loss of the translation. That's what leaves us with a little problem here.

Some have said that his, the miracle number of that particular man will add up to 666.

Yeah, but there's no way to prove that. But I mean, it could be. I don't know.

It would tie it all together. If it's Rome, then the ape hope would make sense.

You know, it's interesting, even in the Roman Catholic Church, according to their own prophecies, the last pope is a bad guy.

Yeah, that's their prophecies, though. You know, it's not biblical. But the last pope doesn't turn out so good. So, you know, before Christ returned.

It could be. I'm not saying it's not the pope.

But, I like the idea of Roman. Because, wait a minute, this is Rome.

They're talking about here. So that would make sense. But I can't say, I can't put a name in there.

You see what I mean? I don't have a name to put in there. I've read where you can actually add up the numerical value of the word gyro, the name gyro, and it comes out 666. But I don't know what that means.

Let's see. Okay.

You know, in like a period, higher 14, like, in fact, this before isominium, The two that probably make the most sense. One is actually something happens to this person. Because the beast is both a system and a person. So which is it talking about here? That actually the person is mortally wounded and this religious man comes along and is healed. That's one viewpoint. The other is that the beast here references to the system, which means that it appears that the Roman system has been destroyed. The fact that it's revised and just shocking to everybody. Either of those make sense. If it's the system beast, then hey yeah, the fact that this comes out of nowhere, I mean no one would expect Europe. I mean Europe's falling apart right now. The EU's falling apart. It's just collapsing. So no one would expect that to be a center of world power again. And especially with that concept that they would have. So that very well could be it. Or it could be a reference to the medium as a human being. And I can't tell you which. I understand that the Church, we had different explanations over the years at times based on a current understanding. I think we're very safe in saying, let's narrow down all the things that can't mean.

And it looks like it could be this or this or this and be honest about it. And then we have to be aware and watching what happens. Where's the United States going to be? Either destroyed or absorbed into the beast power. One or the other. We either be destroyed or just the vast state of the beast power. One or the two. In other words, I'll just drain all the resources out of here and use it. So either way, we're not a major player here. Our civilization as we know it doesn't exist anymore. So either we've been destroyed through all these wars and things or were absorbed. It's interesting. Well, we don't have to worry about that because God knows that we're not worrying about it. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Mr. Prince said, well, think about it. We don't have to worry about it because God said he'll take care of us. Yeah. Well, some of us can persecute. But he'll still be with us. That's the important thing. He'll still be with us. If we're persecuted, he will give us the strength. We have to have that faith. Right. Always be with you. A boy. Charlotte, you're next. Then Mr. Pyramid.

Oh, that makes me feel better. You'll be dead. You won't care. You always look at the bright side. I think it's interesting though that any of you can say that you should get it all. And when you were studying at the Royal Academy, you said you had the power and the value of being a master. And they do get it back. Was it me? Yeah. And you want they do get it back. If you look at, for the next two years, the world seems to do pretty good. They've did it all in rattles.

Yeah. We're going to look like we're stupid. We're a problem in getting the world right. I mean, things are getting fixed. You people are out. You want us to go back to what it was, you know, for that time period of the Four Horsemen? You want us to go back to that?

What's wrong with you people? We'll be looked as bad guys.

Yeah.

Well, the two witnesses are, and since we'll be supporting them, yeah, they blame the two witnesses for the mess. What you almost have here is a counterfeit two witnesses.

You have a beast power and a false prophet. There's two individuals involved in these powers. And what you have is... So I'm sure people look at the book of Revelation and say that the two witnesses are the beasts of the false prophet. They'll reverse the... Yeah. So... Larry?

My prayer is, God, please don't let me have to be martyred. But if I do, make it like 12 men who shoot real straight. And just let it be gone. Quick! And then, okay, now wake up the resurrection. Just get it over with. I don't want to be burned at the stake, or disemboweled, or anything like that. Please, you know, please let this be simple and quick. But I keep praying. I think we're supposed to pray that God will keep us from that day. But, you know, I have no people that have died that have told me, basically, God's keeping me from that day. I'm going to sleep, and I won't have to face any of that. And that's faith.

The faith is, He's going to be with us no matter what. And if He says, do this... I was mentioning about polycarbon. Yeah, we don't know what's totally true about Him or not, because He wasn't a Bible, but... That's right. We don't know. That's right. But in polycarbon, just before He went out to be martyred with 50,000 people in an arena in Ephesus, they heard a voice that said, you're going to have to be a man today. Can you imagine being here in God saying, you're going to be a man today? No, I don't want to be a man today. Okay, I don't want to be a man today.

I don't want this. Yeah. So we got to face that. Did Joe have one more question or comment?

I'm going to say that it's going to make everybody hurt you so bad.

I mean, there's nothing to keep in the south without a new book. So how... what's the prosecution on? Because we...

We will not receive the mark.

Oh, that's no money.

They will know. We do not support. You do not support. It is interesting that on Roman coins from Augustus on, the back of the... the coin called them the Son of God.

But one of the reasons why the Roman Empire persecuted Christians, not because they believed in Yahweh, but because they believed in the Son of God, the Roman Emperors were the sons of God. We're going to have somebody standing in that temple claiming to be divine. Probably saying, I'm the Son of God. And we're going to say, no, you're not.

That's all it's going to take. We will not support the system.

Okay. Why do you mean this to be such... everybody looks at the movie now.

So I probably created more answers than we got questions...

I mean, core questions that we got answered. But that's okay. That's what we're supposed to do. But you could see just by taking those two passages and looking at the over view of them, how this deception is going to take place. I'd speculate a little bit, but you put these together. I think the chance of it... You did this for us, but for your strength, and it is probably... my intention is that, you know, I've had this timeline of robots, everybody put together, and stuff like that. You put it so that this is a period that this thing can happen. I mean, it hasn't happened. The core questions have not happened. We are living pretty good right now. A lot of people think, oh, these are horrible. That's a good chance. The core problems haven't even happened yet. And yet, then it may all make sense what's going to happen We keep thinking we're there, we're not there yet, but it could happen real fast. And what we're watching, like Charlotte said, what we're watching is the whole attitude form that we're, this is exactly this ecumenical, I'm okay, you're okay thing is what the... I said, pick up.

The massive destruction doesn't end to the end of the three and a half years. So the destruction that happens at the beginning of the three and a half years may kill a fourth of the world, but they're able to repair things and build things back up, and so the beast power is able to bring sort of order out of this. Yeah, when you have control. So, you know, things can be fixed. You can't reestablish communication, you can't reestablish electricity, but it takes a lot of money and power and people and things. That makes why people look to you with the beast power and the competitors have that only whom you're going to have. If you were living in a, where you had no electricity, and you went, troops came in and fixed everything. And let's say the U.N. is the beast power, it's not, you know, but it may be part of it, because all this gets sort of absorbed.

And they showed up and did that and brought you boxes of food, and your government was gone. And he said, how did this happen? He said, well, you know, the President so-and-so has created a new government in Europe. There's ten nations all formed together, we're helping the world. He said, oh, that's good.

And we're not going to have any more wars, because all religions are working together.

But like I said, remember, they only work together a short period of time, but it's in the end of the World War. At the end, at the very end of the three and a half years, if Christ doesn't come back, nobody survives. They're in a world war that's just at the, so it does last, this beast power does last very long.

Okay. Well, thanks for coming out. We got some stuff done.