Understanding Prophetic Templates

The Old Testament is filled with prophecies concerning the Messiah. If you study first-century history in the Jewish religion and community at the time, especially for the people who lived in Judea, there was an anticipation that the Messiah was coming. There was a belief that the Messiah was going to come soon during their lifetimes. I mean, they put all these Scriptures together. They looked at Daniel 2 and said, well, there are four great empires and this must be the fourth one. It's Rome. They took all the prophecies from Isaiah, Jeremiah, the prophecies of the mighty prophets, and they said it must be time. And they anticipated the Messiah coming. And He came. And the great majority of them didn't even notice He came. They didn't understand that He had come. It's interesting what Jesus tells of it, Matthew 16.

He says this to some of the Pharisees and Sadducees, verse 1 of Matthew 16. Then the Pharisees and the Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven.

Show us that you're the Messiah. Show us a sign. The answer to said to them, When it is evening you say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning it will be foul weather, for the sky is red and threatening. He says, Now wait a minute. You look at what's actually happening around you, and you're able to determine the weather. He says, hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. Then He went on to say, You know, the only sign I'm going to give you is that I'm the Messiah, as I'm going to be in the grave three days and three nights, and I'm going to be resurrected. But He told them, You can't discern. All these prophecies speak of Me. He even said that in a couple other places. All these prophecies speak of Me. He says, You can't see that. You can't discern the signs of the times. Now there's another place in Luke 12. We have another statement made by Jesus Christ. To His disciples, this comes down to us. Now it's easy for us to look back and say, Why couldn't those people see that, you know, here the Christ was right there with them. Why couldn't they see that? All the prophecies told it, and here He was, and He was fulfilling some of those prophecies, but they couldn't see it. He says here, and this was to His disciples then, and it's to us now. Verse 35, Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning. In other words, be prepared. Spiritually prepared. This has to do with your lamps burning is that you are interacting with God, that His Spirit is filling your life, and God's light is in you. But, you know, you're dressed, you're prepared, you're spiritually prepared. And you yourselves be like men who wait for their Master when He will return for the wedding, and when He comes and knocks, they may open to Him immediately. Blessed are those servants who the Master, when He comes finds watching. Assuredly I say to you that He will gird Himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. That's a remarkable statement, because we know the Master hears Jesus Christ. He says, I will come and actually welcome you in. I will perform service for you. And if He should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, of course this would be the different time periods during the night when they would have watches. You know, soldiers would stand on watch, and that watch would be replaced by other soldiers repeatedly through the night. Or He comes in the third watch and finds them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, that if the Master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, He would have watched and not allowed His house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect.

So this statement is made to His disciples when He comes the second time. And what He is saying here is, just like people could not discern the signs of the times the first time, it would be difficult to discern the signs of the times the second time, so that people would not know that He is coming. Now, we look at the Scriptures, we look at the prophecies, and we think, how in the world can you miss what is going on in the world before Christ's return? How could anybody miss that? Well, how could anybody, looking back and thinking, how could anybody miss that Jesus was the Messiah? The problem is that we live in a time of information explosion. Even though we are bombarded with information, I mean the Internet, television, radio, magazines, billboards, conversations. We are just constantly being bombarded with information, and it is not always possible to discern what is true and what is not. When I read the Internet anymore, I don't trust anything until I verify it. As I have found more things that got me excited, some story I read on the Internet, only to find out it had no basis in truth at all. I remember a few years ago, it was going around that Mr. Rogers, remember Mr. Rogers? Mr. Rogers' neighborhood was a Navy SEAL trained killer. Then it came out that no, really, he was a marine sniper. He wore sweaters because he had all these tattoos all over him. Of course, it wasn't true. Sorry, it's not true. But, you know, that was read on the radio. I heard people talk about it. It was just, wow, this is amazing! And I have to admit, there was a period that I believed it.

And then I found out it had no basis in truth at all.

Also, it was very difficult to figure out which fact relates to another fact. It doesn't always have to do with something that's not true. Which fact relates to another fact?

Remember when Y2K was going to be the beginning of the Tribulation? And it wasn't. There was a time period where millions of Protestants believed Saddam Hussein was the beast. There were books written about it, there were sermons on it, there were radio and television programs done on it. Saddam Hussein is the beast. He's now dead. Now, they logically put together facts, by the way. It wasn't like they just made up things. They took biblical information, but it wasn't true.

How do we even take the facts and put them together?

You and I have to have some kind of framework that we put facts into. We have to have a template. The facts come along and we put them into that template. The Bible does not give us all the details. We're always looking for all the details. The truth is, prophetically, the Bible doesn't give us all the details. It gives us frameworks.

Now, multiple times in my experience of my life, I have lived through time periods where I have misinterpreted prophecy in detail. But I always figured out very quickly I was disinterpreting it. You know why? The framework. I could always go back to the framework. This event wasn't leading to the next event. Now, there are multiple frameworks. We could spend multiple sermons talking about these prophetic templates. But I just want to talk about a couple today. Some people say, oh, good prophecy. He hasn't given a prophecy sermon in a long time. And I realize I haven't. Last one I gave was in April. But I said some things in April. Remember I gave a sermon on Babylon. Babylon in history and prophecy. And then I said, now there are some things I'm going to explain in another sermon. And I realized I never did. So I thought, I better at least ... so I'm not a liar. I better pick up where I left off about many months ago and at least supply an understanding of that framework. Because we went through how Babylon and Daniel chapter 2 set a template for understanding prophecy through thousands of years leading to the return of Jesus Christ. So let me talk about three frameworks we can work within here. And like I said, there are a lot more than this. But we only have a certain amount of time. So let's start with these. First of all, when studying prophecy, look for continuity of themes and symbols.

When studying prophecy, look for continuity of themes and symbols. And I'll give you a prime example. The dragon. At one point, the dragon is called Satan. So when you go through and you see this person or this being that's referred to as the dragon, throughout all these prophetic scriptures, there are not too many, but there are a few, it's Satan. It's consistent. You look for the continuity. If you can't find something that connects with other themes, that connects with other symbols, set it aside. Don't use the... eventually it'll make sense. But don't let that be your primary means of interpretation. You should have said it's the continuity that gives you your primary means of interpretation. So like I said, some of you right now are saying, oh, another prophecy sermon. I'm glad he hasn't done it since April. Others are saying, wow, finally. Because, you know, doing prophecy sermons doesn't have the same emotional impact as when we're talking about other things in the Scripture. But we need to, on a regular basis, go back and review these templates, because you are going to suffer more and more information overload. And as it happens, it's going to be easy to become distressed, because the world has become less and less coherent, and it's going to make less and less sense. And so people will come to all kinds of conclusions. Like I said, Saddam Hussein was supposed to be, in many people's estimation, the beast. He was not. Others will say, well, September 11th, when the Twin Towers fell, that was the beginning of the tribulation. No, it was not.

I saw the Internet the other day, proof, quote-unquote, that President Obama is the beast. No, he is not. So what we have to do is look at these templates. What we do... and once again, none of those theories were crazy.

But what are your beginning premises? So we start with studying prophecy, look for continuity of themes and symbols. If there seems to be something that's not a common theme or a common symbol, set it aside. Once you study the common themes and symbols, those other things will fit in. The second thing is that biblical prophecy, all biblical prophecy, all roads eventually lead to Jerusalem. In biblical prophecy, all roads eventually lead to Jerusalem.

So people will say, well, how do we even make sense of world news? Much of what you see and hear on television, on radio, on print media, is so U.S.-centric that really what it is is politics. Now, you need to know some of that to know what's happening in the world. But we need to be looking and watching what's happening in the Middle East, because all prophetic roads eventually, no matter where they start, they eventually end up at Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center of the Bible. It's where Jesus Christ is coming back to. Let me show you a couple of scriptures and I'll show you what I mean. Look at Zechariah, and this is a well-known scripture, Zechariah 12.

Zechariah 12. I'm sorry, Zechariah 14. I'm going to go to 14 first, then I'll go back to 12. Zechariah 14, most quoted section in Zechariah. Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst, and I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, the house is rifled, the women ravished, half of the cities shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. And the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as he fights in the day of battle. And in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall split in two. Now we know from Revelation, which we'll get to here in a minute, that this is Jesus Christ. This is about the second coming of the Messiah. When he comes, he comes to Jerusalem. All prophetic roads eventually lead there, because this is the center point of the next great step in God's plan. Remember, all these prophecies that deal with human governments and all these different beasts and false prophets and all these things all lead to God's plan. All these things fail. All the things that human beings do fail. That's the reason for prophecy, is to show us that Satan and human beings fail, and God always succeeds.

It'll be hard for the people of God at times to remember that, especially as times get more difficult. If we begin to head into those end-time events, it's going to be hard to remember that at times, because it's going to get very difficult. I fear that. I have anxiety. I don't know when all this is going to begin, but the world we live in is becoming destabilized very quickly. What the Scripture says, watch, be prepared. It doesn't say be anxious, be fearful. It says watch and be prepared with God. That lamp, as we just read, Jesus talked about that lamp, has to be lit. Now let's look at Zechariah 12, because Zechariah 12 and 13 and 14 are all prophecies concerning this coming of the Messiah to Jerusalem. Now, I won't go through all of chapter 12. You can read it. I just want to show you a couple places to give a context. Look at verse 9, because this gives us the context of what we call chapter 12. Remember, Zechariah did not write verses and chapters into his writings. It was added later. But in this case, it makes it nice and clean. Chapter 12 makes a real little compact prophecy. Verse 9 says, God will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. What we have in chapter 14, we just read those few verses, and all of chapter 14 is about this event. What we read was that this happens, that the Messiah comes, and when He comes to the Mount of all of these armies are gathered, and He destroys these armies. Verse 10, Yes, they were mourned for Him as one mourns for His only Son, and grieved for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.

So the people of Jerusalem will see the one whom they pierced. Now, we know it was Jesus Christ who was pierced. It is the Messiah. And all through 12, 13, and 14, the emphasis is what's going to be happening in Jerusalem when Christ returns. So we see here that chapter 12 is about this time when all the nations come against Jerusalem. We see that God's going to be pouring out His Spirit on the people of Jerusalem, and that they will see the Messiah coming. The resurrected Jesus Christ. Now, notice verse 1.

Now, I want you to notice something. It doesn't just say Jerusalem. It says against Judah. And it shall happen in that day, verse 3, that that will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples. All who would heave it away will surely be kept in pieces, though all the nations of the earth are gathered against it. All roads eventually leave the world. And that's what we see here. That the people of Jerusalem who would heave it away will surely be kept in pieces, though all the nations of the earth are gathered against it. All roads eventually lead. All prophecies of the end time eventually lead here, where all the nations are gathered together against Jerusalem. And what's very important is that Judah is there.

Judah is there. In 70 AD, the Jews were expelled for the most part. There was still a lot there, but a lot they were expelled from Jerusalem. There were still many that still lived in Judea. Then at 130 to 135, the second of the Jewish wars, they literally made it, the Romans made it illegal for a Jew to even come in to Jerusalem. And the people were scattered. And there was no Judah anymore. It didn't exist. This was in 1948, when the nation of Israel was reestablished and the Jews came back to that land. Important, this prophecy could never have been fulfilled until after 1948.

All roads lead there. All roads lead there because that's where Christ is coming back to us, where He left from, and it's where He's coming back. So that's a template to look at, which is actually very positive. The great positive truth is that all prophetic roads lead to Christ fixing this. But what happens is we get so caught up in the details that the details overwhelm us. And we become depressed by it. We become fearful. We become filled with anxiety. And sometimes I have to admit, when I look at and know what the prophecies predict, it is a little bit frightening.

So our first point, look for prophetic themes. Consistency. Look for consistency of symbols. Don't just make up what a symbol means. Look for how the Bible interprets that symbol. And secondly, remember, whenever you're studying through the Scripture, all end-time prophetic roads lead to a singular place. So we need to watch what's going on in the Middle East. And then the third point, the last point I want to bring out today, and I must spend a little time on this. I only have three hours' worth of notes written here, so we won't go through everything. And I want to tie this back in, because the sermon I gave back in April, I talked about Babylon. And I talked about the prophetic importance of Babylon, not just the historical, but we went through the history of the empire of Babylon, and why the empire of Babylon, the Babylonian empire was a prophet to many people, just like the Greek and Persian empires, just like the Roman Empire. You know, lots of people liked living under the Roman Empire. But that Babylonian empire has a prophetic importance. And we started with Daniel 2. Let's show the slide of Daniel 2.

Many of you remember this, because this is from that sermon I gave. Well, maybe we'll have a slide of Daniel 2. It'll come up. It's coming. Oh, there it is. I don't know if you all can see that, with the lights on it's all fuzzy, but if you can see it, we will turn the lights out so you can continue to read your Bibles. Or maybe turn some lights down. I don't want everybody not to be able to read their Bibles.

Do you see that better? Okay, good. This is a template. Now, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, because we went through this back in April. I expect all of you to remember, everything that we covered in April, there will be a test afterwards.

But what we have here is one of our templates. If all roads lead to Jerusalem, that's a template, I'm going to be studying the Bible, not from a U.S. century viewpoint, but from a Middle Eastern-century viewpoint, in terms of the prophecies. That doesn't mean that it doesn't include other countries. But if we use this as a template, we begin to see a framework of prophecy that goes clear back to the time of Daniel. And if we remember, you know, Dabakan Ezra has the dream. He wants people to interpret the dream, and God uses Daniel to come along and interpret the dream. This is an important framework.

Because of this, I knew Saddam Hussein wasn't the beast, even though Bible bookstores had all kinds of books, you know, ten years ago claiming he was the beast. I understood their viewpoint. I read it. It was logical, but it didn't fit this framework. We know that Babylon was the first of a great series of great empires. Babylon was followed by Persia, and even Daniel, if you read the whole book of Daniel, you see that happen. And then it was followed by Greece, and if you read the book of Daniel, you get two prophecies concerning when he says Persia will be destroyed by Greece. He actually tells them that in the book. Now, he doesn't name the fourth empire. But looking back through history, there was only one great ruling empire that took over the other three. And also, this is important, interacted with Jerusalem. He said, why aren't the Chinese empires, they're great Chinese empires, the Mongolian empire, the Zulu empire. Why aren't they mentioned specifically in the Bible? Because they didn't interact with Jerusalem. It's a Jerusalem centric prophetic message. That's why they're not mentioned.

These four empires had great impact on Jerusalem, had great impact on Israel, and had great impact on Judah. Because remember, Judah and Israel ended up separated from each other. So, this gives us our framework. Now, there's something very important about Rome.

In understanding, we look at this statue, and it says that fourth empire is made of iron. It's different than the other two in its sheer strength. The Roman empire was ruled longer than any of the rest of them. It ruled through the strength of the legions. It was the fact that their army was so well trained, so well equipped, and at times, there were large numbers of them, that they were able to create this empire.

But it says it divides into two legs. Historically, we look back and see that the Roman empire divided into two parts, the east and west. The western empire fell in the 400s AD. The eastern empire literally lasted up until about 1400 in one form or another, before it finally collapsed. The two empires went on. But what's interesting is that the prophecy in Daniel 2 says that at the time of this empire, there will be a time when the feet, the two legs come out in the two feet, and the two feet are partly weak, partly strong, it says it's armed mixed with clay, and it has ten toes, which it says are ten kings.

And these ten kings at this time, during this time, is when the Messiah comes. Remember, a rock comes, strikes the image on the feet, the image falls over, and the mountain of the Lord, the kingdom of God, falls to the earth. This template now helps me understand why the Muslims will not be the beast power. And that is becoming a very popular idea. Now, I understand why people would come up with that idea. It's not stupid. It's logical. I could pull a few scriptures and sort of build that argument. Except, it doesn't fit this template.

And if it, this, you can say, well, the Muslims, okay, that fits the template that all prophecy is Jerusalem-centric, but it doesn't fit this one.

Ah, okay. So it can't be a Muslim. Now, there is a Middle Eastern Muslim influence on the Great Tribulation, but it's not a Muslim. It's a Muslim. It's a Muslim. It's a Muslim. It's a Muslim. It's a Muslim. It's a Muslim. It's a Muslim. And, here, we have this template. So, now, I have to go to the conclusion that when Christ returns, there'll be some form of what used to be the Roman Empire that will have great impact on the earth, because this template leads me to believe that. Since this is my template, this is how I'm going to interpret other Scriptures. You understand? If I don't have a template, I will take every other Scripture and come up with an interpretation that I may actually have Scriptures now battling each other instead of in a continuity. Let me show you what I mean. Daniel 7. Let's put up the next slide. Now, I don't think we went to Daniel 7. We mentioned it in that sermon back in. Daniel 7 is very interesting, because what we have here is another vision with four beasts.

Now, I have read all kinds of commentaries trying to explain who these four beasts are. I remember one. The bear was Russia. I remember before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was common for people to talk about the Russian bear. It became a symbol for Russia. So, if you go back into the 60s and 70s, you will find Christian commentaries that made this bear to be Russia. Because why? They didn't have a template to work off of, and their viewpoint was egocentric to their time.

And they had a very logical argument. But it doesn't fit my Daniel 2 template. Does this fit it? Well, he talks about these four different beasts.

And then he gives the definition. He gives the interpretation. We won't read all of it. The interpretation is very detailed. If you want to get into the details, Daniel 7 is filled with details. But let's look at verse 15. Because, by the way, at the end of this vision, guess what happens? The Ancient of Days sets up the Kingdom of the Earth. Okay, four beasts, and then the Ancient of Days comes and sets up the Kingdom. That alone has remarkable similarities to Daniel 2. Right? So let's look at interpretation. Verse 15, And I came to one of those who stood by. Now, this is in another vision now. There were angels that appeared. And asked him the truth of all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things. He says, Well, who are these four kings?

Now, we can either now begin to construct a new Biblical interpretation. And I suppose we can make one England and one Russia and one the United States and one China. I mean, you could do all kinds of things with this. Or I could go back to my original framework. If I go back to my original framework, this is a prophecy about the same events. I'm now finding continuity through the Scripture. The Scripture is now giving me continuity. God's telling me the same things over and over, only He's giving more details every time.

And I know in the doctrine classes that we've been having, we're going through Biblical interpretation in the next class. And one of the things we'll be stressing is, we believe in continuity of the Scripture. That's why, you know, if you get to very liberal or very extreme Protestantism, they throw out everything in the Old Testament as having any meaning at all. They have extreme discontinuity between Scripture. We're always looking for continuity of Scripture. So, if Daniel 2...now Daniel 7 fits on top of that. Okay. We have a prophecy in Daniel that we have these four kingdoms, Christ comes back. Great. Now I can even look at Zechariah and say, He comes back to Jerusalem and the Jews are there. Great. We even have consistency of symbols now. Oh, good. We've taken Daniel and Zechariah and put them together using these principles, and we have an idea what's going to happen. And then we jump to Revelation. Like, oh my. There's all these beasts and... I mean, these beasts are different than the beasts of Daniel, and there's two of them, and there's not. Four of them. And now what do we do?

We're looking for continuity of symbols. We're looking for continuity of themes, and we're using Daniel 2 as our template. Revelation 13.

So let's show the next slide here. Revelation 13.

Now John receives a vision. Oh, this will be easy for us to figure out, right? He'll receive a vision of four beasts, and he'll receive a vision of a golden, silver, and bronze, and we'll have all the same information. Well, actually we do, but you have to really look at it to figure it out.

John writes in Revelation 13, Then I stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his head a blasphemous name. Now everybody says, oh, explain that. Remember, we're working on templates today, so we're not going to go through what all that means, okay? We're just working on templates. We're looking at continuity that begins to give us the framework. Then you fill in the details. Well, we wanted the details without the framework, and we end up in trouble.

Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear, and the mouth like the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave him power and his throne and great authority. Now, dragon is a consistent symbol. So this beast gets his authority directly from Satan. Satan's power is in this beast. You say, oh no, what in the world beast is this? When John lived, the Babylonian, Persian, Greek empires were all history. He lived in the Roman Empire. But remember, Revelation was given to him as a series of visions of Christ's return. So what we have in Revelation is the time period in Daniel 2 in which the rock strikes the feet of the statue. Right? So it's the time period, if he's telling about Christ's return, we say, okay, how does that relate to Daniel 2? Daniel 2 talks directly about Christ's return to set up God's kingdom on earth because the rock comes down, strikes the feet, and destroys the beast. And if at the time, the latter days of the Roman Empire, John did not live in the latter days of the Roman Empire, he's talking of a vision in the future. He lived in the day of the fourth, you know, of the iron part of the Daniel statue, of the fourth beast of Daniel 7. And if you notice what we just read, he does mention the other ones. This fourth beast has components that's like, verse 2, a leopard, a bear, and a lion. What were the three symbols in Daniel 7? Lion, bear, leopard. Which would have been Babylon, Persia, Greece. The Roman Empire not only absorbed much of those empires, but took on certain of the traits of those empires. It was Rome that continued a Babylonian system of economics, a Babylonian system, even some of the religion. It was Greek culture they spread all over the world. It was Persia had a remarkable way of trying to make their empire work by building roads and postal systems. Rome did that. The Greeks never did it, but Rome did. They took components of all three of those empires and they put them together to create this unique empire, different than the others, and yet there were elements like the others. Verse 2 has elements directly related to Daniel 7. It says, this beast has elements of those other three beasts. He goes on and talks about how this beast looks to be destroyed, it looks to have died, and it comes back to life as resurrected. Verse 4 says, so they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast. In other words, Satan is the power behind this. They always say, this should be easy to figure out. The beast will come along and be a Satan worshipper. The beast will come along and be a Hindu. I've seen all these ideas of what this person, because now we have a beast which is a power, but there is a person that leaves this. He's also called the beast. So this beast tower is led by this person called the beast. Oh, we'll just find this pagan, right? The Satan worshipper. Well, this tells us, the rest of this chapter tells us something very important. He was given a mouth to speak of great things and blasphemies. He was given authority to continue for 42 months. There's another consistent theme. We won't go through it, but that's the tribulation. Three and a half years, time and time and half a time, 42 months. And you can put all those together, 1,260 days from Daniel. You can put all these together, and now you start to have a description of this time period. Then he opened his mouth and blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, his tabernacles, and those who dwell in heaven. And it was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given to him over every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Now it goes on and gives a warning of the saints not to be deceived by this. See, here we have a beast that has this great power. It's going to be a revival, some kind of revival of what was the Roman Empire, which tells us something. It may include other parts of the world, but we now know where it will originate. The Roman Empire did not originate in South Africa.

The Roman Empire did not originate in Baghdad.

The Roman Empire did not originate in Canada. And I was hoping those Canadians would be the beast.

We have numerous Australians here. I'm sure that that was the center of the beast power.

I have to tell you, we have three or four Australians here.

We were on Beyond Today, you know, every once in a while we do these people in the street interviews. We asked people who they thought the next great superpower on the earth was going to be. And one person said, I'm really hoping it will be something different like Australia. I hope Australia is the next great superpower.

And they were really serious about it and quite happy about it. And we smiled.

So if it has to be, if Daniel 2 is my template, Daniel 7 sits on top of that, Revelation 13 sits on top of that, we're now in the fourth empire, elements of all the first three, but it's talking about the end time of that empire and its great beast and its impact on the world. It must be centered in Europe.

It must be.

Because the Roman Empire was centered in Europe.

So I'm not going to guess exactly where. There's now a theory that the beast is some, it's a computer, I guess they have in Brussels. It's not a computer, it's a person. It's a person.

Say, okay, he has all this power. There's something added here in Revelation 13 that's very, very important that we're going to see in Revelation. So now we have it stacking on top of each other, and each one of these only makes sense because I built the basis of Daniel 2. Take Daniel 2 out of this and try to make sense of all this.

It gets real harsh. You just make up whatever you want. So, okay, I have my template. I'm building off the template. And I'm to Revelation 13. But now there's something else added. And it's only through Revelation now that this gets added on, and we will see that it now becomes consistent through Revelation. Let's look at verse 11.

Then I saw another beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 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. We're into some form of emperor worship. He said, well, that will be easy. You know, I could not be deceived by that. Then why are all these warnings in the Bible for the saints to beware that they are not deceived? Well, man, I couldn't be deceived by that, right? I satanic power, emperor worship. I could not be deceived by that. Two things. Verse 13. He performs great signs so that even he makes fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs, which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image of the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. First of all, this person is going to be supporting the beast and doing great signs, religious signs, miraculous signs. It's interesting. The two witnesses call down fire from heaven. This false prophet, as he's called in other places, who is with the beast calls down fire from heaven. He will do signs that will probably good signs. He may heal people. He may bring about all kinds of good things. He will do miracles that will deceive the world. So, yeah, but I couldn't be deceived by that. Remember what it says in verse 11. That this beast comes out of the earth as two horns like a lamb that spoke like a dragon. And we have to go back to the very first thing we talked about in our three principles we're dealing with today on biblical interpretation. Look for themes, continuity of themes and symbols. We already know the dragon is Satan. Who is the lamb? You all know who the lamb is, right? The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. This person will appear to be Christian.

That's the great deception in this.

But speak and be controlled by Satan.

That's why there's all these warnings. He's not going to be... Now, it may be an ecumenical movement. I really would expect at some point, probably, it's including pagans, including other people into it. But the leader will appear to be Christian. And there's the danger.

A Christian who's bringing about miracles, who's bringing peace on earth. Who, as we know from Daniel 11 once again... I don't want to get into that, because it's another template. Who actually fights Islam.

So how many people would stand up and join a religious leader who got up and said, We have to stand up and fight against Islam? How many terrorist acts would it take, or shutting off the oil to the world, before some religious leader said that and billions of Christians would rally behind them? He appears to be Christian. And there, there's the great danger. It goes on and talks about, we will go through it the rest of chapter 13, how they create these two beasts. A political leader and a religious leader create an economic system that the world loves. It brings some kind of stability to a world that has come apart. But it won't last. You know, this revival of the Roman Empire, remember, it's partly clay and partly iron. It can't last. It will be divided among itself. It can't get the world organized together. You know how I know that? Because the armies from all over the world meet in Jerusalem to fight each other. Christ just happens to show up. It's not like there's one world army that shows up in Jerusalem. They're coming together to fight each other. And Christ shows up and they band together to fight Him.

So in this attempt to create this world economy, it helps some people. There's other places in Revelation that the whole world rejoices. Because it helps and starts to bring some stability to a world that's collapsing. If you had time to go through the tribulation and the pre-tribulation of the four horsemen, you would see where the world goes and it collapses. And this is an attempt to bring order out of this mess and it can't work. And it doesn't work. The tribulation is nothing but war and desolation and troubles. And who's ruling during that time period? The beast.

It just doesn't work. They can't stabilize it. They seem to bring stability, but it really doesn't work.

And so in the end, even the entire economy of the world is just collapsing.

So, wow, this is depressing. Now remember, we are Jerusalem-centric prophetically.

That's where we're headed. That's where God's taking us. So let's go. It talks about the mark of the beast, different things. We won't go there. But one last beast here is in Revelation 17. So let's show the last one here. Revelation 17. What we have here now is a reiteration of Revelation 13. Just a different way of saying Revelation 13. One of the seven angels, who had the seven bowls, this is John writing here in verse 1, came and talked to me and said to me, Come, and I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters. But through the kings of the earth, committed fordication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fordication. So they carried me away in the spirits of the wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. Oh, a beast with seven heads and ten horns! We just read about that in Revelation 13. But this is different, in that there is a woman riding the beast. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, and having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fordication. And on her forehead a name was written, Mystery Babylon, the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and of the abominations of the earth.

Ah! The very first part of Daniel 2 carries all the way through to the end.

These four great ruling empires, which were all Jerusalem-centric. Why? Because that's where Christ is coming to. That's where His capital is going to be. Verse 6 says that she has persecuted the saints, which we just read in Revelation 13, which we also read in Daniel 7. And if you go back and read, it's in Daniel 2.

All four prophecies talk about the persecution of the saints before the coming of the Messiah. They have to be talking about the same time period. So we don't have to be looking for different beasts. They are explaining the same thing in different ways. And here we have the second beast of Revelation 13, simply called a woman. But that's consistent with Biblical themes and Biblical symbols. In the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, people of false religions were called prostitutes.

Jesus, or God said to ancient Israel, you have committed parlour trees against me. I married you. We see the parable, the virgins, in the New Testament, referring to the church. The bride of Christ. The church is called the bride of Christ. So what we have here, consistency of symbols. This is, this harlot represents this great false religion appearing to be Christian, probably ecumenical in many ways, bringing people, pagans, and so forth together. And it is writing the beast. It is controlling. Remember, it gives power.

This person gives power to the other one, through its miracles. So now we have a pretty clear picture. It has to be come out of Europe, and it has to have a configuration of ten kings, ten rulers. There is this beast who rules over them, and there is a religious system that gives him power.

One last scripture, 2 Thessalonians 2. Also, Paul is not known as a prophet, right? But here is a very profound prophecy given by the Apostle Paul. 2 Thessalonians 2. Verse 1. I suppose you could take the... Probably all the parents don't want their kids to see that any longer anyway, so you can take that now.

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, as though the day of Christ had come. There are people saying, well, that Second Coming has already happened. Or Christ's First Coming was the fulfillment of all the prophecies. That's probably what they were saying. In His First Coming He fulfilled all the prophecies. 3 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 that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. And it goes on through the rest of this up to verse 12, describing this man of sin, this lawless man. And he says that Christ will not come until this person is revealed. You say, well, when does this person come along? Verse 9. Well, no, verse 8.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, who the Lord will consume with the breath in his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. You see the consistency.

The consistency is that the false prophet gives power to the political leader so that he is worshiped. And they are destroyed. We don't have time to go there, but if you go to Revelation 19, Revelation 19 describes the return of Jesus Christ. And it says when he returns, he takes the beast and the false prophet and throws them in a lake of art. He destroys them. This says they'll be destroyed. The emphasis here is on the one who is being worshiped. We know he's being worshiped because there's another person causing him to be worshiped. What I want to zero in on, just briefly, is that he sits in the temple of God.

He sits as God in the temple of God. Now, I've seen a lot of interpretations of that over the years. What does that mean? It means he will take over the church and he will become the leader of the church. There's just all kinds of ideas of what that means. We know that the false prophet is the leader of the church, of any church, not the church of God, but it pretends to be. He sits in the temple. Now, I have another Scripture I could go to.

This is outside of our box, what we're going to talk about today. I'm going to show you how this consistency works. In Daniel, it talks about how the sacrifices will be reinstated before the coming of the Messiah. It's in Daniel 12. The sacrifices, the daily sacrifices will be reinstated. The daily sacrifices can only be legally carried out in conjunction with the Old Testament if they're done inside the temple.

We're back to being Jerusalem-centric here. What is the definition of the temple? There is going to be some kind of temple in Jerusalem. Now, when you see them start building a temple, I would get a little... I will be a little nervous. Nobody's done that yet. People ask me, is the tribulation going to start tomorrow? You think it will start this year? No. Why? Well, we're going to get six weeks till the end of the year and there's no temple yet. There's other things that haven't happened yet, but there's no temple yet.

Because of our Jerusalem-centric viewpoint, we see all prophetic roads leading there. We see that there has to be a reinstitution of... There has to be a reinstitution of the sacrifices.

There has to be a temple. I don't know if it's a big building, small building. It may be a tent. I don't know what it's going to be because the first temple was a tabernacle. But there will be some edifice and there will be... I don't know if it's going to be huge like Solomon's Temple. It may not be. I don't know. But there will be some temple there. And this person will sit in that temple and claim to speak for God.

I can show you other Scriptures. Of course, we can go through Revelation. We can go to Daniel to talk about this final beast power invading the Middle East and taking Jerusalem. But remember, they don't get total control of it because when Jesus Christ comes back, who's fighting? The Jews are still there fighting. And He came back and He fights for them so that they are not totally annihilated. And then they see Him who they pierced and they mourn and they repent.

We're right back where we started. But that's because if you go through any end-time prophecy, really study it to its end, guess where you end up? You always end up in Jerusalem. You always end up right there. You always end up with Christ being there, with the saints being resurrected.

Christ admonishes us to watch for His return so that we will be spiritually prepared. Because we have to be spiritually prepared for this because there's no way to physically prepare for the Great Tribulation. You can prepare for things before. You can't prepare for that. It's too big. It's too great. He will have to take care of us. But it means we also can watch without anxiety. We can watch the world around us. We can look at and study the Scripture and study the prophecies and look at these templates and don't get too caught up with every kind of detail comes along trying to explain it. Watch things.

Look at it. If it doesn't fit the template, then say, okay, it doesn't fit there. I can take that out of what I think is happening here. I don't have to think that the Canadians are going to be the beast power. I just use that because nobody has ever come up with the Canadians as the beast power.

I shouldn't write something on the Internet. I'd probably get three or four hundred people at least to agree with me and make the Canadians the beast power. Christ is coming back to fix this. That's our hope. We're part of that. Through His grace of God, we are part of that. We are promised to be changed at that return. We're promised to be resurrected. We're promised then to help Him rule with Him in changing the world. There's no more beasts after that.

There's no more beast powers. It's just the Kingdom of God until Satan's loosed at the end of the millennium, a very short period. Remember, in all this, when you and I can feel overwhelmed and try to figure out what's happening and distressed, remember all roads lead to Jerusalem to tell us one thing. One thing. God wins!