The Mark of the Beast

I'm going to do something today that I generally don't do. When I do a sermon, I don't give the same sermon for about five years because I have found after five years none of you remember it anyways. But now I'll take a sermon on a subject and I'll go through and look at maybe the sermons I've given on that subject. And I literally will cut and paste different things from different sermons. So sometimes you'll hear me making the same points, you're going to the same Scripture, but you'll always hear something new in those because I'll always, okay, I've got to add something new to this or different than this. So it's just not the same sermon.

Today, I'm going to give a sermon that I gave less than two years ago. But let me explain why.

Less than two years ago, there was a, you know, the crisis of COVID was hitting really, really hard in our country. It was hitting hard in the church. And there was a lot of despair. There was a lot of fear. There were all kinds of things going on. And we knew there had been a fundamental shift in everything. I mean, a fundamental shift in the United States government, a fundamental shift in society, a fundamental shift to how people treat each other, a fundamental shift to how people in the church see certain things involved in this. And that fundamental shift isn't going away. In other words, there are certain things that have changed that are never going back to the way it was. There's even a lack of security in that, you know, I never thought about being sick. If you're young enough, you maybe never thought about being sick. And now you realize there's some bad stuff out here, right? And either it'll just mutate again, or there'll be another virus come along, or the resurrection of an old virus will come along. That's the way biology is.

Well, I gave that sermon because there were people asking, what is the mark of the beast? And there were all kinds of things. The Internet was flooded. So some of you will probably remember that sermon. It was just flooded with ideas about the mark of the beast. Very few of them were biblically based.

And so there was the mark of the beast is wearing a mask. The mark of the beast is there were just all kinds of ideas. You know, it's your credit card. It's your, and it's all these things, you know, nanobots. There were just all these things. These are the marks of the mark of the beast. Now, the mark of the beast may involve something physical at the time. But as I went through and showed, the mark of the beast involves the worship of the beast. It's an actual decision to worship the beast, and it tells exactly what it happens. In other words, what was happening then had nothing to do with the mark of the beast. Had nothing to do with that.

But it did fundamentally change our world and the whole world. And I said, that's what's important to understand. And that's what the sermon was about. Well, now we're going through another time where there is a... and if you're not keeping up with it, you don't realize how fundamental the war between Russia and Ukraine is. And the way it's disrupting society and the way it's changing relationships between nations is absolutely stunning. Because however this plays out, it'll never go back to what it was.

The world has not been this close to nuclear war since 1962.

And people don't realize how close it is because of Mr. Putin. I just... I don't want to get into all this too much. I just want you... If you want to understand Mr. Putin, you have to understand something. He's not a communist. His hero isn't Stalin or Lenin because he doesn't have a communist government. It's a dictatorship. His heroes are Peter the Great and Alexander the Third, tsars, the tsars of Russia, the old monarchy of Russia, who were absolute dictators by the right, given to them by God. He's a tsarist. Those are his heroes. And everything he does is actually remarkably predictable. If you understand, because he's always planning 20 years ahead, it's like I've said before, in the terms of this kind of geopolitics, Mr. Putin is playing chess, or the NATO has been playing checkers, and the United States for 20 years has been playing go fish. They don't even understand the game. And he has set this up, and, you know, Moldovia... Well, the people of Moldovia are already fleeing in huge amounts. The people from Ukraine are fleeing into Moldovia, and those people are leaving. Same way with Georgia. I mean, in Georgia, he's already established. He invaded Georgia a number of years ago, took two sections of the country and said, these are Russian-speaking people. You were oppressing them, and we had to come in and save them. Sound familiar? So now they built military bases inside those two areas.

I saw an interview with, I think it would be sort of a Secretary of State equivalent of Georgia, and she said, so you know what he's going to do now?

We know. There's no way we can stop it. They got 20 million people, probably less.

What are they going to do? Moldovia, and he has like two and a half million people. But then there's other countries that are scared, too, because he wants to re-establish the Russian Empire. All you have to do is figure out all the countries that used to be in the Russian Empire, and that's what he wants to re-establish, because he's not a globalist. One of the things he hates about the United States is that we're globalists. We created a global economy for our own good. So we have an economic viewpoint. The Communists have an economic viewpoint. That's why China has an economic viewpoint. Russia really doesn't have an economic viewpoint, at least their leader. He just wants to have his empire back that belongs to him because of Peter the Great and the others, who he sees as his heroes. So once you understand that, he's very predictable, except you don't know what he'll do with nuclear weapons because of his ego and because he's walking a fine line with being rational at times.

Sometimes he'll do something. People say, that's irrational. Actually, if you know a little bit about Russian history and about him, it's not. Like my son said, wow, they're really tearing up. Kiev, this was maybe five days ago with these surgical strikes and battles going on. I said, this is nothing. This isn't how the Russians fight. He's doing what we do, surgical strikes. But you notice, I don't know if you've been keeping up with it, that they miss their targets about half the time. That's why the Russians don't build 10 megaton hydrogen bombs.

They build 100 megaton hydrogen bombs because they know they might miss New York City by five miles, and they'll still take it out. There's a mindset. I said, behind this is a fist, and if they don't surrender right away, he'll do what Russians do. I mean, this is the way they have fought war for 150 years. You've got 10,000 men. We said 40,000. We bomb you for three days, so there's nothing left, and then we run you over. Not a lot of subtletied, but there's a real power behind it, and that's what you're seeing now. You're seeing cities being bombed. They don't care if there's civilians in it. They're going to bring down... They didn't want that. They want Ukraine. They want the resources, but now it's like, okay, well, it's just the way they do things. So people have been asking me. I just mentioned a little bit. People may ask me, oh, this must be the beginning of the tribulation. All this must be... I see the king of the north. You know, there's the king of the north and king of the south. We're not even going to talk about that today. There's all these things. Is this the beginning? And I thought, well, I'm going to talk about that. And I thought, you know what? I gave a sermon two years ago about don't panic, because as bad as whatever... We didn't know how bad it was going to get. As bad as COVID gets, this isn't the beginning of the tribulation. So enjoy it. No, I didn't actually say that. But calm down. Calm down, because we know what God's going to do, and you have a privilege. So what I want to do today is I want to go through part of what I covered two years ago. So let's get a recap of it. But I want to do it in terms of now looking at, once again, what's the timeline? Now, we don't know all the exact time. Where are we in history or in prophecy? I can give you a guess. Okay?

Sorry. That's as good as it gets.

I'm not important enough. God doesn't give me... He doesn't show up and give me that stuff. Okay? But I can give you a guess, coupled with a lot of things that have happened in the last 10 years. Let's start with 2 Thessalonians 2. It's going to seem like a strange place. Go to the next slide here. Like I said, this is from that old slides show. So I'm going to be skipping through some of the slides. I just was too lazy to create a whole new slide show. 2 Thessalonians 2.

This is going to seem like a strange place to start, but what it does, it gives us a context of something that has to happen. Okay? Something that has to happen. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ... So this is about the coming of Jesus Christ. 2 And our gathering together to him we asked 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, though the day of Christ had come. So there had come a teaching into the church of Thessalonica that Christ had already come. It was the day of the Lord had already happened. That may seem strange, but I've read where people say, well, the day of the Lord was fulfilled in Pentecost because the Holy Spirit was poured out and that's when Christ came. You know, just almost discounting his second coming entirely. So whatever it was, we don't know. But we know we have this problem.

He says, not to be soon shaken in mind. Okay. So let's look at what we know. Some people of Thessalonica have been deceived by clever arguments that Jesus had already returned. Okay. Next slide.

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 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. Okay. Now this is real important. What we have as a human being is going to come on the scene and there is going to be a temple in Jerusalem. No, I don't mean it has to be a big building. I don't know what's going to be there. It could be a tent. It doesn't matter.

It will be something that's considered a reestablishment of the temple that we see in the Bible. And he's going to sit there claiming that he is divine, that he himself is God. Now this isn't going to say he's going to say, I'm God the Father. He wouldn't have to say that. All he'd have to say is I'm the Messiah.

So he's going to take a messianic role that he is divine. Now remember all the Roman emperors after well, from probably Caligula, I know Nero did, they all claimed to be divine and they had to be worshiped. Even before that, you had to sacrifice in the name of the emperor, no matter what god you were going to, to get the divine favor of the gods because that emperor was actually a product of the gods. Do you not remember that when I was there, verse five, I told you these things. Well, I wish we knew what he told them. This letter would be a whole lot easier if we had all the notes of what he gave them. All he says, I told you all these things. You should know these things. And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time.

Okay, so that's being restrained because it's in the future. It's still being restrained, but not as much. This man is going to come on the scene sometime. And what's important is we understand what he does. Okay? Now, is that in my lifetime? I don't know. I tend to think so.

But as I've said before, if I'm on my deathbed and Christ hasn't come back yet, I'm going to gather all my kids and grandkids around me and say, he's coming back. You better get ready because it doesn't matter. He's coming at some time. He's coming sometime and I want to be ready when he comes. But we have this knowledge of what to look for. This is a powerful thing. This is going to be done in secret. This is something to be out in the open. Some kind of temple, some kind of man sitting in there claiming to be divine. He's a Messiah. He has come to save humanity. Verse 7, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who is now restrained will do so until he's taken out of the way. So God's restraining him. And then the lawless one will be revealed who the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming. So now we know when this person comes along. He's not talking about somebody that happened during that time period or somebody that happened in a thousand AD or somebody that happened a hundred years ago. This person is destroyed by Jesus Christ and his coming. So this has not happened yet. He says the coming of the lawless one, now this is important too, is according to the working of Satan and all power, signs, and line wonders.

This person is going to be able to use what appears and what is miracles to deceive people to follow him. This isn't going to be something like, oh yeah, okay. He does a few card tricks. Someone walks up on stage and he hits him in the head, they fall over backwards and say, I can walk. I mean, if you've ever seen it, I've seen that on television, Pentecostals. A guy walks up and he hits him and I can walk.

The old tension meetings, they used to do that in. If you went to very many of them, you find out, hey, it's the same guy. He was the guy healed at the next town last week. This is a whole lot greater than that. This is something that will deceive the world. 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 may, or that they should believe the lie, that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure and unrighteousness. So once again, here we have this person who's going to be center stage. The whole world's intentions are going to be drawn to this person, and he's going to be destroyed in Jesus Christ's return. Okay, let's look at the next slide here. Okay, he's called the man of sin. That's real important. This person has no scruples at all, and he's going to have a powerful political military system. It's going to have such control. It's different than anything that's happened in the world. And that doesn't mean that this person and his system is going to invade the whole world. There are going to be wars. We're going to see that said about it. But what's going to happen is there's going to come an economic collapse which the world can't come out of. You know, there's all kinds of things that just go from one thing to another to another. Who would have guessed that COVID would lead to the collapse of much of the… or not collapse, but the hindrance of so much of the supply chain in the United States? Yeah, when you think about it, it only makes sense. You know, when Russia finally takes Ukraine, which they probably will, Ukraine produces a huge amount of food. You know who's going to suffer from that? Nations in Africa because I guarantee you next year they're not going to be growing that much food. They're going to be a devastated country. And whatever they're growing will have to go to Russia. So you can have starvation in some place that we don't even know about. We'll see a little… you know, on YouTube there'll be a little two-minute thing about some starvation in some little place in Africa because they don't get any food from Ukraine. And we'll say, oh, look at that!

These things all have repercussions that continue to grow.

They continue to create their own series of sub-crisis. Remember when I said, well, that COVID thing came along, I said, that's okay because there'll simply be another crisis. I wasn't trying to be negative. That's just the way of the world. But the world you and I live in, each crisis affects so much.

There's not like local crises, right?

There's crises that go on and on and on. What we're watching in Europe right now is unbelievable. I mean, you know how many hundreds of years has been since Switzerland took a side on anything? Usually they're actually funding both sides of a war.

It's so bizarre, the world global economy that's been built that we primarily built because we like cheap stuff.

So we sacrificed real capitalism for Walmart, where they make their stuff in sweatshops in China, and we get cheap tennis shoes. That's us. It's a global market. We're the market that the globe produces. Putin is not a globalist. He doesn't want that. He wants his own country.

I don't want the United States or anybody telling me what to do. I got my own country. Russia first. That's why he's a czarist. He's not a communist. A whole different viewpoint.

So we get this man to sin. I didn't mean to get off into that again. But I've been watching. I probably spent about an hour a day. I watched a little bit in the morning, a little bit in the afternoon, a little bit in the evening, watching what's happening. And it's so predictable. But he's made huge mistakes this time.

Many of the tires on his trucks, he got cheap from China. And they've worn out already. And he has lots of trucks without tires.

He's had all kinds of mistakes he has never made before.

People say, where did you get that from, CNN? Actually, CNN, of all places, has some of the best information on this because they have lots of embedded people. They're on there there. Most news places, they're just talking to experts. They get people there talking to the people who are there. One airport that changed hands numerous times, they walked up and started talking to the person who was there, the soldiers. And they said, wow, this airport's changed hands a couple of times. They said, yeah. And they said, well, who holds it now? They looked at it and said, we do? Well, I mean, who holds it? Do the Russians or the Ukrainians? They said, well, we're Russians. And they realized they thought they were talking to Ukrainians. They were talking to Russians. And they said, okay. They left. I mean, they let them go. But that's how fluid this whole thing is. But anyways, let's get back to the Bible. Okay, so we have the prophecy about a man of sin. We're going to come back to that. Now let's go to Revelation 13.

So you understand this person comes along. He's worshiped. He has, there's miracles are done in his name, and he is destroyed by Jesus Christ. Okay. Revelation 13. And I stood on the sand of the sea. Here, John is getting a revelation, a vision. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. And on his horns ten crowns, and on his 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 the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him power, his throne, and great authority. Now I have seen these verses used to predict all kinds of predictions of who the beast is going to be, this beast. What is this going to be? Russia. For many, many years when communist Russia was so powerful, this was used to say, see it's a bear. Everybody knows Russia's called a bear, as if there was a Russia when they wrote this, which there wasn't. So anyways, you know, Russia's called the bear now, so that's what this means, the bear. I'm going to stop for a minute, because there's a couple things I just want to bring to your attention before we go on that gives us a context for this. So since I covered this a while back, I won't go through all the scriptures. Let me mention to you, though.

Who is this beast? If I have no templates to work off of, I have no idea who this is.

Some of the Adventists say it's the United States. They believe it's the United States is a beast. Others have picked all kinds of, throughout history, nations or groups of nations, oh, that's who this is. How would we know? I only know one way to know. If this is wrong, then I can only tell you I don't know. And that is, are there templates we can work out of in the Old Testament? And we have two of them. One is Daniel 2, the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, you know, the dream he had, and Daniel told him, what you saw was the history of four kingdoms. And the fourth kingdom exists when Christ returns. Oh, we're going to see here, this beast exists when Christ returns. So he had these four kingdoms. And, you know, he said, you are the first one. He says, Nebuchadnezzar. So Babylon was the first kingdom. We know that Persia conquered Babylon. Daniel actually saw that in his lifetime. And then Greece came along and conquered Persia, and Rome conquered the Greek empire. You know what's really interesting about that statue is the fourth kingdom splits in two. Rome, you know, we talk about the fall of the Roman empire around 410 AD. Rome, the Western empire fell then. The Eastern empire did not fall until the 1400s, not long just before Columbus showed up in this part of the world, not particular Tennessee.

Yeah, the Roman Empire lasted a long time. Its capital was Constantinople. Istanbul today. Turkey was part of the Roman empire. And I thought it was very interesting. I'm not making anything out of this. I'm just saying this shows you how strange the world's become. Russia took, you know, the only way to get into the Black Sea is through the Straits of the Bosporus. There's no other way to get through. And Istanbul sits there. They can sink any ship going through. And they sent their fleet in there, did an amphibious landing into southern Ukraine. And Turkey said, you know what? We have a treaty with you. In fact, we have a treaty with all of Europe that no warship can come through the Bosporus unless we give them permission.

So you can have your ships leave. You can't bring any more through. Russia said, yes, we can. They brought four warships up to the Bosporus. And the Turks said, we'll sink them. So they turned around and went home. The Russians now have a navy trapped inside the Black Sea. They can leave, but they can't get out. I mean, they can't get anybody in, which means they can't get takers in there to refuel them. I mean, they're like in jail. They put a whole Russian navy in jail. They're going to have to retreat sometime. Once they leave, Turkey can give anybody they want permission to go in there and tell Russia you can't. Turkey's got a big air force.

See how complicated this whole thing is? These kind of things haven't happened since World War II. There's no level of anything happening like this since World War II. Everybody's on this fridge, and everybody's trying not to push this into where 10 million, 20 million, 30 million people die. You know, between 50 and 80 million die in World War II. Everybody's trying not to go there because they know where this could go. So here we have the four beasts, in Daniel 2, or Daniel 2, and then Daniel 7. Daniel 7 talks about four animals. And when you look at the four animals, they all represent the same four kingdoms. So I want you to understand, Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 are the same four kingdoms. And one there is called an eagle or a lion with eagle's wings. If you ever go to the Bergamot Museum in Berlin, it's amazing. There's ancient walls of Babylon there, and guess what's on them? Lions with eagle's wings. That was their symbol of their country. And then you have a bear, a leopard with four wings and four heads, and a fourth beast that is dreadful and terrible and exceedingly strong, and has iron teeth. So they're the same four kingdoms. Unless he's changed, in fact, if you read through chapter 8, he hasn't changed. They're the same four kingdoms. So these four kingdoms all exist. But then he says in the first image that we have, the last kingdom is destroyed by the coming of Jesus Christ.

The coming of the Messiah, the kingdom of God destroys it. And it has 10 kings. Let's look at Daniel 7, and I just want to look at a couple verses here. So we got these four animals, same four kingdoms. We haven't changed subject at all. I mean, all this stuff after a while gets like, oh, that's why I probably shouldn't keep changing subjects here and talking about the present. But, you know, oh, well, we got all these different things, and they don't... I'm all messed up now. Well, same four kingdoms, and they're all Babylon, Persia, Greece, Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is somehow re-stored at the end time, and the kingdom of God destroys it, and it has 10 kings.

Here's what he says about this fourth beast. The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, but shall be different from all other kings, kingdoms. Shall devour the whole earth, trample it, and break it in pieces. The 10 horns are 10 kings. Does that sound familiar? Who shall rise from this kingdom, and another shall rise after them? Okay, so what we have is an 11th horn. He shall be different from the first ones. He shall subdue three kings. He shall speak pompous words against the Most High. It's a religious element here. Shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. And the saints shall be given to his hand for a time, times, and half a time. Then it goes on and says in verse 26 and 27 that this kingdom will fall and will be given to the saints of the Most High. In other words, this kingdom is going to be destroyed. So it's the same thing we learned in Daniel 2. Jesus Christ comes, resurrects the saints as we know from Revelation, and gives the kingdom to them.

But it says the saints are given to his hand for time, times, and half a time. One of the few things that you will find almost all biblical commentators agree on is at that time that meant three and a half years. They must all agree on that. So what we have is something a little different here. Same as the other kingdoms. Christ comes to destroy it. But for three and a half years, they are subject and persecuted by this king.

Let's go to the next slide here. Okay. Here's what we know. As I said before, I threw this one in for the kids. All my pictures scare the kids. This one they usually laugh at. At least my grandkids do, but they're sort of weird. Because it looks like a muppet. Okay, go ahead. Hit the next one. So, Danny has a vision of a terrifying beast with ten horns and iron teeth. No different than Daniel 2. The beast's ten horns are ten kings that would rise from the kingdom. The beast will be destroyed by the establishment of the kingdom of God or... I'm sorry... will be destroyed after three and a half years. So it'll exist for three and a half years, and then the beast will persecute the saints. Okay. Simple. If you're writing this down, this isn't that hard. It's pretty simple. Two prophecies for kingdoms. Last one destroyed by Jesus Christ. Last one is the Roman Empire, or end. That that one persecutes the saints for three and a half years.

So let's go back now to Revelation 13. Revelation 13.

And verse...

Verse 2.

Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear, his mouth like the mouth of a lion. Sounds like the other four, but we just read about three of the four of the empires were described this way. This is a compilation of those empires. They don't have part of Persia and part of Greece. They don't have part of the Greek empire.

The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. I saw one of his heads that had been mortally wounded, and so there's this miracle that happens. And so people, verse 6, 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 war with him. Now they're worshiping him. Remember what the man of sin, what happens to the man of sin? He sits in the temple of God and people worship him. Here we know why. There is a war that is fought that he actually brings peace through war.

Now someone asked me, is that Putin? No. No. We'll have to see what happens here, but we didn't answer that. I mean, I don't know who it is, but he doesn't fit the mold here on what it's talking about. He was able to get, was given a mouse, speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for 42 months. How long is 42 months? Oh, we have the same time period. The saints are persecuted for three and a half years. The beast power lasts for 42 months, three and a half years. They're all talking about the same time. And here we have someone blasphemed against God and worshiped as if God. Second Thessalonians. Paul said there would be a person to do that.

And it was granted, verse 7, to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. That authority was given over every tribe, tongue, and nation. And all who dwell in the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb's slave from the foundation of the earth. Now, interesting, he makes war on the saints. Remember the little horn?

You've got 10 kings, but you've got a little one. What we have here is a religious element in this. So what is the religious element? Well, let's continue here. Well, let's look at the next. I think I've summed up some things here. The great deception will evolve the spirit of lawlessness, the persecution of Christians who don't agree to follow the political religious system. Now, I say Christians, this just won't be Sabbath keepers. There will be other people who are Christians who will be persecuted by this. You know how many wars have been fought between Christians? You know how many persecution? One thing about the Romans in the second and third centuries, when they persecuted Christians, they didn't care what you believed.

If you are a Christian, we persecute you. They just lumped everybody together. There's going to be Christians. It's just not us that's going to be persecuted here. There's going to be lots of people who will say, no, this is wrong, and they will be persecuted. There's going to be a very strong religious element of what happens here. So what is the religious element? Well, let's look here in verse 11.

And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. We have a second beast. Well, wait a minute. There's only four beasts. But remember, there's the little horn. There's something else among the kings. What we have here is a religious leader. And notice, he looks like a lamb. In the Bible, who is the lamb? Jesus Christ. But it's Satan. So what we have is a satanic inspired person, but the system, and this just doesn't mean a person.

There's a person involved and there's a system involved. The system looks to be Christian. It'll be ecumenical. They'll probably have Hindus involved and all kinds of different people involved. You know, global religion has to accept all kinds of people. But you know, there'll be people who will not accept the global religion.

There's lots of Christians who wouldn't. There's lots of Muslims who wouldn't. So I'll be interested to see how this plays out, because there's going to be a massive persecution as a religious persecution by the state and this church that merged together. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.

And he deceived those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he has granted to him to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. Now you read the rest of this. It goes through the mark of the beast. And since I went through that before, I don't want to go through that again, because I'm going to talk about something a little different here in the time that we have left.

So what do we have? Next slide. The second beast represents a religious power that will support the political power. It appears like a lamb, a symbol of Christ, and a dragon, a symbol of Satan. Now let me stop for a minute.

And I know we usually don't do this at church, but it's okay. I went through a lot of material. I should have kept throwing in all the the current events, because I didn't mean to confuse it. But it's just fascinating to me that we're watching the world fall apart in certain ways and reform in different ways. Very important. Any questions? We got two prophecies, four kingdoms. Christ comes at the end of both of them.

There's 10 kings at the end of both of them. We understand that that last one has two parts to it, two components, political and religious. And they fight, they make war. They fight a war that seems to bring peace on the earth.

So any questions about that? Okay, good. You're ready for the test. Now, I want to go back to that 42 months, that three and a half years, because this power only lasts three and a half years. Now, they may take decades forming it, but when they actually come into power, so if Putin is it, well, we don't have too much longer, three and a half years, and it's all over. It can't be, we'll show you. Well, I mean, right now can't be that time period. I mean, there's been...

Every bad person that comes along, people claim that is the beast. But the beasts exert such power, not like anything we've ever seen. We think it's such small terms compared to what the Bible is saying in these passages. Now, there's a couple other things that last 42 months. One is, Jerusalem will be occupied, and the two witnesses will prophesy for 42 months.

Well, there isn't even a temple in Jerusalem yet. That alone is being occupied. It's not occupied. And there isn't a man of sin, this leader who is sitting there with another leader doing all these these miracles, sitting there saying, hey, I'm divine. I'm the Messiah. None of that's happened yet.

And that all has to happen at the beginning. And the saints are persecuted.

Soon as this power comes into power, what happens? The saints are persecuted. Because it all lasts for 42 months, all these events. And of course, the two witnesses aren't here yet. And they're going to be globally recognized because they're going to be doing miracles from God.

We also know, and this is a whole other sermon, Revelation 12, that when the saints are persecuted, some of them God has to go into persecution and tribulation, and some of them God put into a place on earth to protect them. They don't go to heaven. It's not a rapture, but they're put on earth in a place to protect them. Someone asked me in Murfreesboro, they raised their hand and built a sermon and said, how do we know who goes to a place to be protected and who has to be persecuted? I said, well, here's the hard part.

God will sometimes let people go through serious trials like persecution because they need to be perfected. They have some issues they're not dealing with. Other times, God takes the strongest and has them be persecuted as an example.

So I guess what you have to do is not be too weak and not be too strong, and then you're just a Laodicean. So I don't know what to do.

If we can all become Laodicean, we'll be okay. And God chooses. The one thing is we go through this. It is not the purpose to make everybody depressed or filled with fear because it isn't comfortable. But these things are happening whether we want them to or not. And I don't know, like I said, I'm not going to pretend to know how long these things take. I have studied. I love history. I've studied it since I was a child. The one thing I've learned is that trends can speed up and slow down with unpredictable things happening. But our world has fundamentally changed, and it's going to continue to fundamentally change.

And we have to deal with that. What if this is the time? Well, we'll know. We'll know because we'll see certain things happen. So that all shows we know that tribulation hasn't started. Okay, well, something has to happen before this beast power comes out of nowhere, right? That's right. Things have to happen before that. And that's the question we say, where are we in that process? That's a legitimate question. I can't tell you exactly. I can only explain to you what's going to be happening. Okay? So let's go to Matthew 24. Some of you probably remember the slides and everything from two years ago, but I was going to make a whole new slideshow and I thought, you know, sometimes you just go back through some old material to refresh it in your minds. Matthew 24.

Now, as he said on out of all of the disciples came to him, Jesus Christ, privately saying, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and deceive many. So there's going to be a lot of false Christianity going on out there, okay, using the name of Christ, but not actually following Christ. And you will hear wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For a nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against the kingdom. There will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places. And all these are the beginning of sorrows. Now, you know what? That list can describe almost any time in history. Many of you here have lived, this is going to sound remarkable, but you've lived in the most prosperous time, in the most prosperous place, and the most place that didn't have war on its own shores at any time in history. The last 50 years here has been like nothing in history. So most people are going to read this and say, oh, that's what's happened to me this week. So we've been very privileged to live in the way that we have.

He says these are the beginning of sorrows. So, okay, when are you going to return? Well, there's all these things are going to happen, but this is just the beginning.

And then he says, and they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. We've just looked at three places that talk about the saints being persecuted by the beast power, but the beast power has to come first, right? To persecute them, it has to come first. This has to be, unless he's just not telling us things, there's lots of things left out, it has to connect with all the other ones, which means that three and a half years before I return, the beast power is going to be persecuting you. Now, we know that Matthew 24 was partly fulfilled in 70 AD, but it wasn't completely fulfilled. So, anything it says here, we can say, oh yeah, that sort of happened in 70 AD, but it's not completely fulfilled the way we know that. He says, I come back, and he sure didn't come back in 70 AD. So, there's all these things, and then there's this persecution, persecution of the people of God. Then we go down to verse 15. He says, now there's something you have to look for. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken up by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, oh, there's a holy place, and there's something, an abomination of desolation. I gave a sermon on that. It's been almost five years, so another year or so. I'll do that one again. Then he let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Verse 20 says, and pray that your flight not be in the winter or the Sabbath, for then there will be great tribulations such as not been since the beginning of the world till this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh should be saved, but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. Then he talks about, through the next, well, clear up to verse 31, is about his return. I'm coming! So, okay, we look at the other passages. They all have the same thing. They add little different things. This beast comes along. It's the fourth empire. It is a restoration of the Roman empire. It only lasts three and a half years. In fact, it makes such a mess of things. It's crazy as if I don't come back, no one's going to survive. It'll be on the brink of a massive war that will destroy all of humanity. Okay? That's what three and a half years of the beast power will do. And they're going to be persecuting the church and anybody that opposes them. So that means, logically, the verse 4 through verse 8 happens before the beast fire. Right? These are the beginning of sorrows, and then there's this persecution on the people of God. Well, we've already looked. We know from Daniel 2, Daniel 7.

We know from Revelation 13. We know when this happened. We know from 2 Thessalonians. The man who sits in the temple. You have an abomination of desolation in the temple, in the holy place.

Okay? So when all these bad things reach a point that the whole world becomes, and you've heard me use it, I get, I know, I feel like you're probably tired of me hearing me say this, destabilization. Satan works in chaos. That's why the globalists don't win, the communists don't win, the individualists like Putin who went to the empire don't win. Democracy doesn't win. Nothing wins. Nothing wins because it always ends up in chaos. So what happens here? Let's go to the next slide. Okay. Okay. We went through that. So the next slide. Oh, I always throw this in here because we're going to go to Revelation 6, and I love this painting of the four horsemen. Okay. Oh, man, you should have left that up. There we go. This one's done clear back in 1887. It's in the public domain, so I can use it. That's why I use it because it's a public domain. I don't have to pay a license to show it to you. Okay. Next one. Thanks. When you look at the first seal, second seal, third seal, fourth seal of Revelation, you find the exact same things that are described in Matthew 24, which is the beginning of sorrows. Okay. It's all the prep work for the chaos for the beast power to come into power. It's the deterioration of society. We all want to figure out who's in charge, right? Well, it's the rich people world. Well, they're trying to be. It's this political group. They're trying to be. It's this person over here that is trying to control things, and it's this dictator, and it's that person, and it's this group of globalists. Oh, yeah, those things all exist. None of them work. None of this comes together. I'll just mention there's a place that talks about the 10 kings giving their power to the beast. It says they do so for a season. In other words, the beast power doesn't come together as some permanent thing. It comes together because the world is falling apart. It's a desperate measure to save the world. And for a short period of time, it seems like he saves the world. It appears that he saved the world. That's why it says if we have to be careful, we don't get deceived by this. The next slide.

Okay. So we have false religion, war, famine, and disease. That's exactly what the time of sorrows is that is described by Jesus Christ in Matthew 24. They're the same thing. You know what the fifth seal is? It's religious persecution on the people of God. We're back to that again. So, oh, okay. All this happens in Matthew 24 before the religious persecution. All this happens in Revelation before the persecution. And we know the persecution happens immediately when the beast power comes into power. So we're now to where the Great Tribulation begins. By the way, Great Tribulation is a term we use. All Jesus said is there will be Great Tribulation. It's not a title. We make it a title, as does the Protestants, Catholics, everybody makes that a title, the Great Tribulation. That's actually not what he says. He just calls it Great Tribulation. This is really bad. Okay. So Great Tribulation is a great way to say it, because this is the time worse than any other time in history. It only lasts three and a half years. Here's the thing. What happens with the false religion, war, famine, and disease? What happens in this time of sorrows? And how does it culminate in the rise of the beast?

He comes on the scene. They form this union to try to save the world. That's why people are going to follow them. They seem to save the world. Let's go to Revelation 6.

Revelation 6 verse 1 through 8 describe the first four seals. Verse 9 is the fifth seal, which is the persecution of the saints. But I want you to notice what is said here in verse 8. He says, Behold, I saw a pale horse, that the name on him was death, and the Hades followed him. So you got the four horsemen that are riding, you got pestilence and war and false religion.

Power was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and by the beast of the earth. You will know. Well, I don't know if we'll know, because we may not be aware of what's going on, because it may be breakdown of certain communications. But the four horsemen will have reached their peak when the entire earth has slid into chaos so that these ten kings go to the beast, goes to them and says, we got to fix this. And they all connect with him with this religious leader. And they start doing miracles. And the two witnesses come along and they start doing miracles. And all of us who support the two witnesses, we start getting persecuted. There will only be two sides now. How will we know 25% of the world's going to die and then the bad times start?

Then the tribulation starts. Then it's the great tribulation. Because we all know when the persecution starts. We know when the beast power comes into power, and it's always 42 months, three and a half, time times and half times. It's 1260 days. It's always three and a half years. Over and over and over again. And they think, oh, this is depressing. No, we know this because God cares enough for you to tell you. God loves you enough to say, this is going to happen, and it may not happen in our lives. I tend to think it's going to happen in my life, but like I said, I don't control events. I always use this example. Here's how much power I have. I can't give my grandkids to eat their peas.

But God knows what he's doing. He's given us enough information to know how it's going to play out.

And he also let us know, you watch this, watch it. You will see the beast power form. You will know it. You will have to worship him or you will be persecuted. That's why I said, it just won't be the church. If anybody refuses to worship the beast, it's going to be persecuted. There may be Jews who refuse to worship the beast. I can see where there might be Muslims who refuse to worship the beast. I doubt if most pagans, they will. They will be persecuted. We'll be in that group.

Because we're specifically mentioned here, because this book is written to us.

But there will be other people that this book isn't that important to. We'll be persecuted in that time period because they refuse to do that.

So when you get out of bed today, you know what I'm learning to do? Before I get out of bed, say thank you for this day. I get out of bed and try to do everything I can do that's good today. If I can help one person, that's great. And if I can enjoy it, I tell you, my wife's gone. I promise you I will really enjoy her cooking when she comes back.

I enjoy being with God's people. You all have productive work. That's important. The world's coming to an end. I should stop my productive work. Well, wait a minute. That's not what we're told. And besides, the world's not coming to an end tomorrow.

We're told to be lights in this world. We're told to be disciples of Jesus Christ in this world.

And we have a thing. We have something they don't. We know it gets fixed.

We know there's something good that happens from this. We know that whatever God's doing in your life now has purpose when Christ comes back. And it may have purpose in the tribulation. I don't know.

I don't know what God's plans are, but every one of you have something God's going to have you do. He may protect you. He may say, no, you're going to go preach.

He may have you do that. I mean, organized church is going to basically be gone.

Or he may have your children. But it's not going to go on forever. I can tell you that. The world's too destabilized, and there's too much possibility of damage.

Too much possibility of damage.

In the 1400s, 15th century, we were in the 1300s. Sometime in the 1300s and 1400s, Europe went through a terrible destruction of society. Famine, wars. Well, what happened was the bubonic plague came through, killed so many people, and they had climate change. They had serious climate change. It snowed in Paris one year in July. They couldn't grow food for a couple of years. So wars broke out as everybody fought everybody for food. You know, you got all this stuff. You know what they believed?

They believed the four horsemen of the apocalypse was running through Europe, and Jesus was coming back. And you look at that hundred-year period that they went through that, and you would think it too. But the only reason they say that is I think it. But I also know this. They had no concept of global military power. They had no idea. None.

The Russians are using a bomb. It could take a good block or more, a couple blocks, sucks all the air out, and then blows fire out. So everybody is incinerated.

You die quickly because your lungs, it just sucks the air. I don't mean to be gruesome, but understand, in the 13th century, who could have understood that? Who could understand a nuclear bomb? Who can understand what we're facing? Of course, seven and a half billion people was a concept that would even, that number doesn't mean anything. So we are in perilous times, but we're not in times without hope. We're not in times that we have to say today's a bad day. Today's a good day. God gave you this day. This is the day God gave you. And tomorrow, we'll be glad you get up and do it. He gives you another day. And thank God for it and get the most out of it. Enjoy the physical things you have because God gave them to you. But most of all, most of all, be dedicated to staying close to God. Most of all, enjoy God.

Enjoy the fact that He's in your life. That He gives you meaning. That He says, hey, times are going to get bad, but I fix it. And that's in the end of what we know. Christ is coming back. God's going to take care of us. We're all resurrected then, and we get to be His children forever. I can't imagine facing this without Him. So this is scary. Can you imagine facing these kinds of things without God?

That's scary. So I'm not trying to put fear in everybody. I just wanted to show, no, the tribulation hasn't started. I do wonder if we're in the beginning of the time of sorrows, because the destabilization is so great that over the next few years it can just continue to destabilize. And it's possible. I don't know. We'll see. I'm not a prophet, so I can't tell you.

But we'll see. But that doesn't mean that we don't have the gift of God every day.