What Is the Mark of the Beast?

I've had a number of questions that have come up, and so I decided to put all the questions into one sermon. I don't know how I'm going to do it in 55 minutes. What is the mark of the beast? I've had people asking questions, is the beast power now in place? Of course, the internet is just filled with all kinds of ideas of what is the mark of the beast. And I've heard in my lifetime all kinds of things. Some of you might remember when people years ago started to get rid of their social security numbers because that was the mark of the beast. Or when they first did the little chips in your credit cards and debit cards, that was the mark of the beast. So there's always been this fascination, what is the mark of the beast? Well, we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about what we do know and what we don't know. Now today, is it a tattoo? I can remember that years ago. They figured out it was a tattoo. Of course, then it was settled. It was a barcode. You're going to have a barcode that's going to be put inside your skin and that barcode, you know, now it's nanotechnology. You're going to get filled with nanobots and Bill Gates is the beast. There's a preacher saying that and other people saying that.

So what is it? What is it? How do we know when it comes? How do you know you haven't inadvertently received the mark of the beast?

The big thing right now is if they come up with a vaccine for COVID-19, that's the mark of the beast. If you take that, that's the mark of the beast. Is that what it is?

So you could take it and not even know it and now you're doomed to the lake of fire because you took a vaccine. What is it? We're going to talk about it. So we've got to first start with, and by the way, some of the things I'm going to cover here, I've covered in sermons in the last couple of years. Prophecy sermons, you know, on Revelation, the abomination of desolation, I've covered some. So I'm going to show some slides. A few of these slides you'll probably recognize, although I tried to change the color. Some of them are new. Some of them you're going to recognize that these are things you've seen in the last couple of years.

Because I want to give you an overview and put this all together into a package so that we can say, okay, what is the mark of the beast? And the first thing we have to ask, because there's a number of questions we'll go through, is what is the beast? What is the beast? I'm going to start in a place that a lot of times people don't think about when they think of the beast because the beast isn't mentioned.

Let's go to 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2, unless we have some other place to go to, we have no reference point to what Paul's talking about. In fact, when Paul writes this, he tells these people, you know, I told you this in the past. Well, it'd be nice if we had heard everything he said because he's not telling them everything he told them.

He's only telling them a little bit of what he told them because he's just filling in some things. He's reminding them of some things. So let's look here, and this is where we'll start. And there'll be a few points I make here that I'll mention. I'll say, remember this because it has something to do with what we'll cover later. Chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians, verse 1. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken and mind-or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if it had come from us, as though the day of Christ had come.

Now, so here we have the point he makes. Once again, I'm using the PowerPoint because I can zip through things quicker this way because you're reading it with me. Okay, the point he's making here is that he's writing to them because people say, wait a minute, Jesus has already come. He's already come. And, you know, we have to understand He's already on earth or whatever, whatever they thought. Or the coming of the Holy Spirit was Jesus coming back. There's people who actually believe that today. So this is why he's writing this. And he says, let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin.

So remember that the man of sin is revealed. The son of perdition, this evil person is revealed 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. So this man of sin literally claims some kind of divinity. He claims to be the spokesman for God, that he has a divine origin. We'll talk about later how this seems strange to us, but actually in the time where Paul wrote this, it did not.

Because every Roman emperor claimed to have divine origin. Every Roman emperor claimed that when they died, they went to be with the gods. Of course, they got assassinated so often, I guess they really wanted to go be with the gods because they were dying left and right at times. Then he says, do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things?

Well, unfortunately we don't, Paul. I wish you would have filled in some more details. And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken away out of the way.

And then the lawlessness lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. Now we have a time period. We have a reference. We can know that this is a human being. This human being will sit in the temple of God, and this is one of the scriptures that we use to say that there is going to be a temple built in Jerusalem before the end time. Daniel talks about it. And the removal of the sacrifices. So there has to be something there that they can call a temple. I don't know if it's a big building, but there has to be something, a tabernacle, a tent.

But there's going to be someplace, according to Daniel, once again I'm skipping through things I've covered before, but there's going to be, in Jerusalem, Jewish sacrifices happen again. Something that they can call the temple. And this man is going to sit in the temple and claim that he speaks for God, that he has some divine origin. But we know that he is destroyed by Jesus Christ at his return. So this person has a lot of power. This person will claim to have some kind of divine attribute.

And this person will be destroyed by Jesus Christ when he returns. That gives us a framework. But, you know, once again, if this is all we had, I wouldn't have no idea how to interpret it. Now let's look at what Paul says the rest of this passage. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan.

So Satan himself is evolved in this. We're going to see this over and over again with what we talk about today. Satan himself is evolved. And all power, signs, and lying wonders. There's going to be great miracles done. Great miracles that people will see. Along with all unrighteous deception among those who perish. Because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure and unrighteousness.

Now this is real important. He's going to deceive many people because of the satanic power. But there are going to be people that follow him that aren't deceived. They're going to have self-will rejection of the truth. That's what he says here. So there will be people who know this is wrong, but will collaborate with it, go along with it because of self-will rejection. And God says, I'm going to send them a delusion. In other words, God himself is going to say, if that's what you want to believe, I'm not going to give you any truth.

I'm not going to give you any help. And you can go wherever your mind wants to go. And without any help from God, we live in a delusionary world. Now, this is a prophecy that leaves us sort of hanging. Well, who is this man? What kind of power does he have? He's being used by Satan. There's this delusion upon masses of people, and he's actually being looked at and worshipped. Okay. Once again, I'm going to be moving along here today. Afterwards, I'll stay up here or come up here in case you have questions.

Anybody who wants to come up, we'll talk about it. So now let's go to Revelation 13. Now, remember when Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians, Revelation wasn't written yet. Revelation wasn't written to the end of the century, close to the end of the century. He did not know this, or at least he wouldn't know it in detail. Now, he might have known more than we think, because he's giving a prophecy that he said, you know I told you this, and we don't know all the details he told. We don't know what was revealed to him in completion. All we know is what he wrote to those people.

About this man at the end, inspired by Satan, there's great wonders, great works, and many people are deceived. Okay. Verse 1 of Revelation 13. John has a vision. That I stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. Okay, now we have a beast.

In his dream, in his vision, it's literally a beast. It's like an animal. In fact, he even gives some description to it. 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 the mouth of a lion.

And the dragon, who we know is Satan, it's a symbol for Satan, the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. And he sees how one of them is, one of the heads is wounded. In other words, it looks like this beast, this power, this, in this case, he's talking about an empire. You can see where animals are used to describe empires in the Bible. It seems like it's not going to survive, but verse 4.

So they worshiped the dragon, who gave great authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast, who is able to make war with him? So they're inadvertently, it doesn't mean they're worshiping Satan directly. They don't know they're worshiping Satan. What they have is this political and military powers.

It's important to understand that this just isn't a political power. It's not just an economic power. It's a massive military power. And it says, you know, all across the earth, everybody's saying, we can't defeat that. So they're actually influencing the world economically and politically because of this power. Verse 5, and he was given a mouth, speaking great things, and blasphemies.

In other words, against God, against the true God. And he was given authority to continue for 42 months. And I want you to remember that. This beast power comes on the scene very quickly and only lasts 42 months. That's it. It only lasts 42 months. Now that doesn't mean that, you know, there's people involved in this beforehand, maybe trying to work things out or, you know, I'm just saying, as a power, it exists for 42 months, and that's it.

And he opened his mouth and blasted him against God. This is verse 6. His name, his tabernacle, that's interesting, we've got the temple again. And those who dwell in heaven. So, this beast represents the most powerful military system the world has ever seen, political military system that the world has ever seen. And Satan's behind the system. So this is what's going to happen. These verses actually correspond with a prophecy in Daniel 7. So I want to stop here a minute before we continue on in Revelation 13 and go back and say why.

Now, when we go through this, we will see it only lasts for 42 months because Christ destroys it when He comes. So now you're starting to see some things. This man of sin sits in the temple, blasphemes God, is actually worshiped.

Now we have a system called the beast that has something to do with the tabernacle, this beast blaspheming against God and is worshiped. We begin to see that there's a system called the beast and there's an actual human being called the beast. You have two things here. The human being called the beast is the leader of the system called the beast.

Because what we have in Revelation 13 is a system, right? What we have in 2 Thessalonians is a person. That doesn't mean they're, you know, you have to say, what does that mean? Are they related?

Yes. They're related because the system is referred to as a beast. And we're going to see that the person in charge of this is called the beast. Later in Revelation, he's called the beast. And we'll see that word used to mean the system and the person in charge. Now, how strange is this? Well, let's go back, and I'm not going to read too much of it. Daniel 7, though. Daniel is given a vision of strange beasts, and I did go through this, but this was probably four years ago.

I forget how... I probably should give some of these things more often, but I went through and showed how you have these four beasts of Daniel, and he is told that they represent four empires. And when you see what he's told, you realize this is the same thing that happened in Daniel 2 with Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Remember Nebuchadnezzar's dream? In Nebuchadnezzar's dream, there's four empires, and the fourth empire is destroyed by the Messiah when he comes. Now we have another time frame. We know the fourth empire is destroyed by the Messiah when he comes, just like the man of sin is, just like this beast is.

So now we have a time frame for the fourth empire. We find these four beasts correspond with Daniel 2. They're the same thing. And Daniel knows it, because what's very interesting is he's told in Daniel 2, the Babylonian empire is the first empire in this list. During Daniel's lifetime, he actually watched the Babylonian empire be destroyed and taken over by the Persian empire. Ah, number two! Then he's actually given a prophecy that says, by the way, the Persian empire is going to be taken over in the future, long after you're dead, by the Greek empire.

So the first three empires, he actually knows what they are, but he doesn't know what the fourth one is. He doesn't understand what the fourth one is. Now we know that the Greek empire was taken over by the Roman empire. That's the fourth one. The Roman empire was at its peak of power when Jesus was born, when He came the first time.

But remember, that system, that Roman system, must exist clear down to the time where it's destroyed by the Messiah. And this is why we've always said that the beast of Revelation 13 is going to be some kind of restored Roman empire. The Roman empire has never totally died out. It's been around for 2,500 years. It collapses and comes back and collapses and comes back. But that's what this is going to be, some revived Roman empire. So, let's just read a little bit here in Daniel 7, starting in verse 23, about this fourth empire, or fourth beast.

I say, okay, I'm going to show you how this ties in with Revelation 13. Okay, I know you have to have some background to get this together, because I'm going through it. It should take three sermons to do. So, but if you bear with me, I think you could start to see where the correlations are. Chapter 7. Because Daniel says, I want to know about the fourth empire. He's figured out about the first three.

He's actually lived in two of them. What is this fourth empire? And here's what he's told. The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms. It shall devour the whole earth, which is actually what we see the beast of Revelation 13. Devour the whole earth, trample it, and break it in pieces. The ten horns are ten kings who shall rise from this kingdom, and another shall rise after them, and he shall be different from the first ones, and he shall subdue three kings.

Okay, so here's somebody else. He's not one of the kings. Who's this person? We're going to have to find that out. And Revelation 13 tells us. He shall speak pompous words against the Most High. He shall persecute the saints of the Most High. He shall intend to change times and law, and the saints shall be given to his hand for a time, times, and half a time.

So during the time of this fourth kingdom, by the way, I'm not going to read the rest of the verses. Guess how this fourth kingdom, this fourth beast is destroyed by the coming of the Messiah? Ah, okay, we keep putting all this together. We always keep ending up at the same end point.

We keep ending at the same end point. The fourth beast of Daniel 7, the fourth kingdom of Daniel 2, the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians and the beast of Revelation 13, all are destroyed by the coming of Christ, the second coming of Christ. They're all the same thing. We begin to see that these are all the same thing. And notice how long does this power persecute the saints?

Time, times, and half a time. Now this is one of the few things you'll get the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars to agree on because they argue over everything. The time, times, and half a time in the Aramaic of the time, and even in the Greek, in the New Testament, means three and a half years.

Time, times, and half a time. How many months are in time, times, in three and a half years? Ah, see, you all know that. Actually, most of what I'm telling you today isn't new. But you have to see the whole picture to understand where we are in terms of the beast, okay? We have to understand this, or we're going to come up with all kinds of things. You know, let's not have cell phones because that's how the beast is tracking us right now.

Is that what's happening? There's people who believe that. And they get it from the Bible, they think. So we need to clear our minds because we're under stress right now because the world's going through a crisis that's one of the greatest crises it's gone through in 30 years. And it's affecting all of us because why?

Our lives have changed. And what happens when our lives change? We automatically say, it's the end time. Now, we may be getting closer to the end time, but I've had numerous people call me on the phone, send me emails, people from this congregation, from Jackson and Murfreesboro, say, is this the tribulation? And my answer says, oh, I hope so.

I hope so. This is so much better than I thought.

So where are we? Where are we? So, we know then that we have all these and they all start to fit together. And the system lasts for 42 months.

And in 42 months, they almost destroy the world. In fact, if Christ says, if he doesn't come back right then, the world will be absolutley. All human beings will die. Every biological weapon, every nuclear weapon is going to go off. As the world doesn't end up in peace, it ends up on the brink of actual total destruction. So that's not going to happen. He's going to come before that happens.

So let's go back now to Revelation 13. Now, those beasts, those four beasts, in Daniel 7, those four beasts, the first one is a lion with eagle's wings, the second was a bear, and the third one is a leopard with four wings, and four heads, and then the fourth one, he just says, it's dreadful, it's terrible. It has teeth of iron. Now, what's interesting here, now that we're back in Revelation 13, let's go reread verse 2. Now, the beast which I saw was like a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear. His mouth was like that of a lion. And then he goes on to describe something terrible. We're right back in Daniel 7 and Daniel 2, how all these empires built upon each other until you end up with the Roman Empire. And the Roman Empire is the major influence on the development of culture in the Western world. You know, the Greek, well, all of them, Babylon, Persia, Greek, Rome, all helped develop the whole culture of the Western world.

And still to this day. And so what we have is this empire, because it's an empire, has the elements of the other three empires in it.

Okay, let's go to verse, skip down to verse 7, because this is very important also. What does this power with this man of sin, this beast, the beast with the beast, okay, the man and the system working together, what did they do?

The saints are going to be persecuted for how long? Well, according to the fourth beast of Daniel 7, three and a half years. According to this passage, 42 months. You see? It's all the same thing. So if we go on now to verse, well, that's through verse 10. We see that the great deception will involve a spirit of lawlessness and persecution of Christians who don't agree to follow the political and religious system. It's the same prophecy of Daniel 7. Now, this picture is a good one because it shows a strange beast with iron teeth. But you also see the other elements, the lion, which was Babylon. You see the bear, which was Persia. And you see the leopards, which was grace, according to Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. I know I'm ripping through this quick, but it would take me an hour to go through Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. And I think most of you have enough background that you understand that. Now, if we go back, once again, we're still back here in Revelation 13. Something else happens here. Something else unexpected. Okay, we have a man called the beast, also called the man of sin. He is worshiped. We have this system that is sort of a restoration of some form of the Roman Empire that has an influence over the whole world. But now there's another element here. Another element. Because look at verse 11.

And I saw another beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon. A lamb. It looks like Christianity. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. But it speaks with the words of Satan. This is a great, false religion. It'll appear to be Christianity. From what you look at, what the Scripture says, is probably going to be very ecumenical. Sort of what we talked about last week in the new worldview, that all religions lead to the same God. All religions lead to the same God. So last week I talked about that worldview. We have to be very aware of how our society is changing. Not that the worldview of the United States 50 years ago was godly. It just had more truth than it does now, that's all.

So here we have a religious system. This is something different in the story here. A religious system.

And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell on it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. So how do people come about worshiping and thinking this political leader? How do they think that that is divine? Because there's a religious system that tells people he's divine.

Once again, this would be strange if you lived at the time that John wrote or Paul wrote, because the entire known world, as far as they knew, everyone outside of the Roman Empire were just barbarians. That's...barbarians just means people who speak bar, bar, bar, bar. They stutter and you can't understand the word they say. Everybody in the Roman Empire, those were civilized people. And they all worshiped the emperor. It didn't matter which god you worshiped. When you went to sacrifice to the gods, you were supposed to also do a sacrifice for the emperor as Lord. He was the Lord. And so you sacrificed it. And one of the reasons Christians were persecuted wasn't because of their religion, per se. They were persecuted because they wouldn't sacrifice to the emperor. We don't care if you believe in this Jesus guy, or we don't care if you believe in the Yahweh of the Jews. We actually believe these gods exist, too. But you have to accept the emperor as a representative of the gods. He's divine. Nope. They wouldn't accept that they were killed for it. So this isn't odd to these people. It just seems odd to us. Now, verse 13, he performs great signs so that he even 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 them who dwell on the earth to make an image of the beast, who was wounded by the sword and lived. And he was granted power to give breath to that image of the beast, and the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship to be killed. I'm going to stop there. I'm not going to go into what the image is. There's all kinds of ideas. But obviously, there's some form of idolatry going on here. I'm going to stop here because this is what leads up to the mark of the beast. And I want you to notice here that the power to worship the political leader comes from a religious system that's uniting religions together in love and unity. And we all just got to get along because we're all headed to the same place anyways. But it will appear to be Christian. It will accept the Bibles that probably is a Christian book, although, you know, have reinterpreted everything in it.

Because it looks like a lamb, but it doesn't. Its teachings are from Satan. This is the factor we sometimes don't put in here when we begin to look at the mark of the beast, is that it's not only a political system, it's a religious system. And just like the beast, power, and the leader is called the beast, this beast, the religious beast, the leader of this in Revelation 17, 18, and 19 is called the false prophet.

So the leader of this is the false prophet. That's why you'll see the beast and the false prophet put together in a sentence in Revelation that literally means two people. Because they represent these two systems. They're the ones in charge of these two systems. And the man of sin does all these great wonders in 2 Thessalonians. We find out here, where does he get this from? From a religious source.

So we have to understand where this is coming from. This is not quite like anything that the world has seen in what's going to happen on this grand of a scale. It doesn't work. 42 months is a long time when you've finally brought the whole world into peace and harmony and goodness, right?

It falls apart rather quickly. Now we'll talk about that 42 months for a minute, because it only lasts 42 months.

What does that mean? Why? And how do we put that in a timeframe? Well, the timeframe is it's destroyed by the return of Jesus Christ, so you move back 42 months from there, right? We don't have the beginning timeframe, we have the end timeframe. So you work back through there, and you find a number of things happen at the same time.

At the 42-month point, where you're going to move towards the destruction of the beast, a number of things happen. Look at Revelation 11, verse 1.

Revelation 11, verse 1.

I hope you're with me so far.

John says that I was given a read, once again, he's having another vision here from God. I was given a read like a measuring rod, and the angel stood, saying, Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar of those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread, in other words, these people, these armies, and this ties right into the abomination of desolation. If you remember, when I gave the sermon on the abomination of desolation, I said, the abomination of desolation actually has been fulfilled three times, or twice before in history. This third time, we'll involve what the other two did. The other two, abomination of desolation, the one mentioned in Daniel, the one Jesus mentions, that have partial fulfillments, all have to do with armies taking Jerusalem, and the setting up of idols in the temple. Same thing here. Armies are going to trample underfoot Jerusalem, and it says, And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days clothed in sackcloth. How many months is one thousand two hundred and sixty days? Forty-two months.

So, when the beast suddenly comes to power, and we're going to have to figure out why it's so sudden, when the beast suddenly comes to power, and this religious, this political system, and this religious system, literally are able to enforce their will on the world. Now, it's obviously not very good, because they start rebelling right away. But how do they do that? Where do they come from? How does that happen so fast? But at the same time, the two witnesses are going to come on the scene. And at the same time, you're going to see the abomination of desolation set up in Jerusalem. See, it's the same time period. Everything we've gone through so far is the same time period.

So now we have this context in which we can see these things.

So when someone says, is Bill Gates the beast? You can say, I don't think so. If he is, he's not right now, because the beast hasn't come on the scene yet. And I don't think Bill Gates is the beast. There is the beast, okay? But you see what I mean? He's the beast, and this is it, right? No. He's not.

Well, how do you know? Because we know when the beast's power comes on the scene. Where's the two witnesses? Where's the army surrounding Jerusalem? Where are they? Now, since I believe this might... Okay, I'm going to give a personal belief. I believe we're at the end time, so I believe the man who's going to be the beast lives someplace. I think he's alive today. He's probably doing something bad. You know? He's probably trying to manipulate things. But he's not the beast yet. The beast comes on the scene. Now, there's not going to be some work done for that to happen, right?

But it's not there yet. You can't receive the mark of the beast until the beast is there to give it. Understand? You can't receive the mark of the beast until the beast is there to give it. We'll talk about that in a minute when we go through the mark. He's going a long ways around Robin Hood's barn here. I never knew what that meant. We're going a long ways all over the place to do what? Just tell us what the mark of the beast is. Now, let's start with who the beast is, when he comes on the scene, what he does. Because then we'll know when the mark is going to become real important. Because why? Because we're going to see all these things happen. Okay. So now we have this.

The second beast represents a political power that supports the political power. I'm sorry, religious power that supports the political power. Notice it appears like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon.

Of course, which is Satan. So, here's what we know so far. The first beast of Revelation 13 is a political system whose leader is also called the beast. He is also known as the man of sin, and the system of the man are destroyed at Christ's return. Okay? We know that much. The beast is the same as the fourth beast of Daniel 7, which is destroyed at Christ's return. The second beast of Revelation 13 is a religious system, also known as the harlot in Revelation 17, who is led by the false prophet, who is destroyed at Christ's return. Now, these two beasts have power for 42 months in Revelation, three and a half years in Daniel. And they both persecute the church because they're the same thing. It's the persecution of the church that becomes very important in this discussion then. Because now we have to move to, okay, how will we know what events will take place that when the beast comes on the scene, we'll know it? And when it comes on the scene, and that power comes on the scene, if you know the Scriptures at all, you will know it. Now, the building of that behind the scenes, I don't know what's going on. All I know is it comes on very quickly.

And no, President Obama was not the beast. And no, President Trump is not the beast. And no, Nancy Pelosi is not the beast. I've seen websites. Sorry. Compared to him, they're all really good people. So what happens before? Before the beast? Before the 42 months? Well, let's go to Matthew 24, the Olivet Prophecy. I don't want to go through too much of this because I've covered it before, but maybe we should cover it again and again. Because it will keep us from panicking. Our world's a mess right now. And you know what? It's only going to get worse. I'm not being, you know, trying to be pessimistic or negative.

You know, it's just not going to be the same.

And, you know, you either decide to live life, enjoy life, or not enjoy life, because it's not going to be the same. So they come to… Jesus takes His disciples from out of Olives, verse 3, And they come to Him privately and asking Him, tell us what will these things be? What will be the sign of Your coming and the end of the age? Tell us what's going to happen and we'll know You're coming back. He says, okay. First of all, in verse 4, The first thing is, religion is going to be a mess. There's going to be lots of people claiming to believe in Jesus Christ, but they won't be teaching what He taught. And He will hear of wars, rumors of wars, see that you're not troubled, for all these things must come to pass. But the end is not yet, for nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom, though we famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places, and these are the beginning of sorrows. I want to stop here and think about this. This isn't the tribulation, by the way. It's later that He says, now there's great tribulation. And you know when He mentions great tribulation? All you have to do is read the rest of Matthew 24. It's when the abomination of desolation happens. When the armies surround Jerusalem, and the men of sin... What happens when the armies surround Jerusalem? Because they surround it for 42 months. What happens for 42 months? Whose armies are there? Well, they're the beast armies. Who sets in the temple? The man of sin, the beast. All this happens very quickly. He says, so I'm just telling you what's going to happen before then.

Wars and rumors of wars and bad things.

Then, verse 9, He speaks directly to the church. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation. Oh, well, it really is bad. Famines, earthquakes, devastation, war... Oh, then it really gets bad. For the church, they're going to deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you'll be hated by all nations for My name's sake. Now think about that. What did Daniel 7 say? The fourth beast? For three and a half years, He's going to persecute the saints. What does Revelation 13 say?

That this great political military power is going to be motivated by this religious power to what? Persecute and kill people who don't take the mark of the beast.

He says here, there's going to be all these problems, and then you're going to be persecuted. Now there's been terrible persecutions through history. I guarantee you any persecution we're having right now, because we'll probably have to all wear masks. If you feel that's persecution, I don't. I don't really care. I mean, it's uncomfortable. But if you feel like you have to wear a mask when we go to the feast, you feel like you're being persecuted, oh, enjoy it!

They haven't fed your children to the lions yet. Well, you had to watch it. Okay. They haven't nailed you to a cross yet where you hang there for three days before you die.

There's been people go through horrible things to be Christians throughout history. And there's going to be horrible things happen to Christians. Now, I'm not going to go there. This is a whole other sermon, but part of the Church is protected during this time, not through the rapture, but being taken to a place in the wilderness, as it says in Revelation 12. But let's look at what happens here. All these problems, all these terrible things happen, and then you're being persecuted. At that persecution, the beast power will have come on the scene. Because who does the persecuting? Well, according to Revelation 7, I mean Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, it's the beast power who does that. So we will know who's doing it because they've come on the scene and they'll be doing it. Now, between now and then, you may receive some persecution. But this is something greater than anything. I mean, this is massive, wholesale killing of, of course, anyone who remotely follows the true God.

Happened in the Roman Empire over and over again, so much so that some of the governors, they have letters, wrote to the emperor and said, these aren't bad people. Why are we doing this? This isn't the Roman way just to kill people because of their religion. You know, they prided themselves on their freedom of religion in the Roman Empire. As long as you sacrificed to the emperor. So, you know, the emperor would just go, well, okay, if they won't sacrifice to me, let him go. That was the answer. If they'll sacrifice to me, let him go. Because we really don't care what gods they worship. This is a similar situation that's going to happen. And it's being not just led by the beast, but by the false prophet. The religious element is what we also have to understand. Okay, it's the religious element. So, terrible persecution.

Oh, I just love this. That's why every time I talk about the Four Horsemen, I have to show this painting. It's from 1887. So, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, also known as the first four seals, right? Revelation talks about four seals. So, let's, well, for lack of time, if you go to Revelation 6, there's four seals. What's interesting is, if you take Revelation 6 and the five seals, the first five seals, remember there's seven seals that culminate in the return of Jesus Christ. The first five seals are an explanation of the time of sorrows.

Remember, I just said Jesus said there's going to be a time of sorrows. When do the time of sorrows end? When the beast power comes on the scene and launches the persecution, because that's the first thing it says he does, right? He comes on the scene and he starts persecuting saints. The time of sorrows is before that. So, here's what happens when we begin to take Matthew and Revelation 6 and put them together. The first seal in Matthew 24, what we just read, perfectly fit together, which is the first horseman of the... horseman of the apocalypse, four horsemen of the apocalypse. The second seal, Matthew 24, what we just read, they're describing the same thing, it's obvious. The third seal, Matthew 24, 7. The fourth seal, Matthew 24, 7. We have wars, rumors of wars, we have a great false religion. Remember, the first thing he said was, many people will come around telling that they're following me, the Christ, but they're not. Well, first seal is false religion. So all these things are culminating, they're building up, they're growing. Well, let's go to Revelation 6 and read a verse here. Revelation 6. You have the first seal, which is false religion. The second seal was wars and rumors of wars. The third seal has to do with famine and just lack of food, all these things that Jesus talked about. The fourth seal, verse 7. He opened the fourth seal, and heard the voice of the fourth living creature, come and see. So I looked and behold a pale horse. Actually, the color here is like a sickly pale green in Greek. So this pale green horse. And the name of Him who said him was death, and Hades followed with him. Okay, so what we have is a problem, and this is a reference to disease epidemics. No, COVID-19 is minor compared to this. And the power given to these first four seals. Here's what the time of sorrows Jesus talked about. Here's what happens. And the power was given to them over a fourth of the earth. The kill was soared, and with hunger, and with death, and by the beast of the earth. Why and how does the beast come on the scene? Because the earth has collapsed into chaos. Economies have collapsed. Governmental systems have collapsed. Could you imagine a fourth of the world dying?

See, what we're looking at here could happen at a very... I don't know how long this will take, but it's not a long, long period of time. Let's put this in perspective. I mean, think about how difficult our life is now. If you were young in 1914, you might went off to World War II, where somewhere between around 15 million people died. You would have come home to...

The Spanish flu, where 50 million people died worldwide. Some say lower, but that's the number that seems to be the most common now. Then, you would have the 1920s, which was okay here, except of course you had crime all over the place. Gangsters, right? It was a pretty violent time in the United States, but it was a good time. Everybody was breaking the law because everybody was drinking, and drug abuse was actually very high in the United States in the 1920s. You have 20 million people dying in Russia in the 20s and 30s because they were killing their own people, and they were starving. In the 30s, you have the Great Depression, which was the worst global economic disaster on record. You had famines, you had diseases, you had governments collapsing.

They weren't even sure the United States was going to survive. You have a drought in the United States. The Dust Bowl was the worst ecological disaster the country's ever suffered. And then you have the good times, you know, like World War II, where another 50 million people die. And that 30-year period, it's absolutely... The live on this earth is a hard time.

But 25% of the earth did not die. It didn't even get close to it in that 30-year period.

That's what? 1.7 billion people die? Can you imagine one out of every four people in your town dying, or in Nashville dying? It's globally this happens.

See, let's not panic, folks. We may be entering the very beginning stages of the time of sorrows, because this could change the world and set up the time of sorrows. But we're not even close to the tribulation. Now, we could be three years from now. I don't know how long it takes for this to happen. You see what I mean? I'm just saying we have to have perspective here. We have to have perspective. 25% of the world. Now, what happens after that? After 25% of the world dies.

Verse 9, And then he opened the fifth seal, and I saw under the altar the souls of them who had been slain. In other words, martyrs who had died. And this is an allegory, you know, God's remembering all the martyrs that had died. And here's what it says in verse 11. White robe was given to each of them. It was said that they should rest a little longer. In other words, they had already been, they received salvation. They were still asleep. He's remembering them. Because they woke up when? At the resurrection when Christ returns. He said that they should rest a little longer, stay asleep. Until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. So what happens after 25% of the world dies? Wars, pestilences, diseases. I mean, it's like a B-rated disaster film, right?

What happens? Immediately the saints are being persecuted. How did they get persecuted? We already read. Daniel 7, the fourth beast comes on the scene. Revelation 13, the great beast power comes on the scene. It's the fourth beast. And what happens immediately? They begin persecuting the saints. That's why we know that the first four seals has to do with the time of troubles, the time of sorrow, that Jesus talks about, because Jesus says there's this time of sorrow, and then you get persecuted. And that's what these five seals are. The time of sorrow, and then there's a persecution. The beast isn't even on the scene as far as a power until after 25% of the world dies. Now, once again, I'm not saying there's something out there forming, but there's a huge difference between something forming and something coming into power. Understand? The mark of the beast is given once they come into power. So, no, nobody today has yet the mark of the beast. It's not immunizations. I'm not saying you should get immunized, but, you know, the idea that immunization for COVID-19 is the mark of the beast, which is another thing that's out there, is just not true. Biblically, you can't make the Bible say that. You can't.

So, we have this time frame now that we've been looking at, where we can see these things are all talking about the same events. And so, we see the four horsemen, false religion, war, famine, and disease, exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 24. The fifth seal is religious persecution, which happens after the first four. You know, this is in chronological order. Matthew 24 says it's in chronological order. And then you have the great tribulation. Then it gets really bad. Now, you say, oh, this makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, it does. But also, it gives us a chance to take a deep breath and say, okay, right now God is with me. Right now, it's not that bad.

Right now, God's still with me. It's not that bad. God's going to be with us in all this. And God is going to protect people. But I'm just trying to give us a perspective.

So what do we know now? The rise of the beast in Revelation 13 is preceded by the time of sorrows predicted by Jesus Christ in the Olivet Prophecy. The first first seals of Revelation, also called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, correlates with the time of sorrows, the results in the death of 25% of the entire world's population. The fifth seal is persecution of the church, the same prophecy of Matthew 24, and Daniel 7. And then Revelation 13 shows that the beasts of false prophet are the satanic instruments of persecution of the church, and this persecution is the beginning of the tribulation. How long does the tribulation last? Time, times and a half of time, 42 months, right? 1260 days. It all lasts three and a half years. So this puts it all in perspective. Now let's go look at the mark of the beast. We're finally there. It's been almost 50 minutes. We're going to go a little long. Just a little.

Revelation 13. Because I think it's important because I've just seen so many things, and I've talked to so many people in the church all over the country that are in turmoil over this.

So let's put it in perspective. Verse 11. Revelation 13. Now we're dealing with the religious power, right?

We already read verse, let's see. Let's skip down to verse 16.

No, let's go to verse 15. Yeah, I'm going to put that. I'm trying to hurry through this, but he was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. So what we have here is people being killed because they will not worship the emperor.

Who's passing their sentence? The religious beast. Remember, it's the religious beast that's doing this. You must support the emperor or you will be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the name of the beast or the number of the beast. So you have to have the mark of the beast, the number of the beast, or the name of the beast. You have to have one of those three things, or you can't participate in the economic system.

But notice it's directly involved with the worship of the beast.

The mark of the beast is directly involved with those who will not worship the emperor.

This is what the original Christians were persecuted for. And who is instituting this? The religious beast, the false prophet.

So this just isn't an economic issue. You know, oh, you can't buy or sell. It's all an economic issue. It's more than that. It's an economic issue. But the original reason is you're not the right religion. So when we worry about, oh, it's the chips in my, you know, in my debit card, nah, it's a little more complicated than that. Now, it may involve chips, right? You can't buy or sell unless you have a chip. I don't know. It may involve a tattoo. It may involve barcodes. I don't know, but it's not what we have now because this is talking about a very specific timeframe and very specific events. A refusal to worship the emperor and miracles are taking place. And the whole world is being united. And there are just some people so filled with hate speech, they just won't go along with it.

Their minds are so messed up, they have to be killed.

So it may involve things like that. It may involve implants. I don't know. We won't know till it happens. So there's no use guessing about it too much. There's no use guessing about it too much. It'll happen when it happens. After all these other things happen, it's not going to come out of nowhere. It's not going to be, oh, I didn't know that man. I'm carrying around the mark of the beast in my pocket. Or when I got my social security number, I became marked by the beast. I know people who have worried about that. No, no, no, no, no. You'll know it. You don't hide from this. It's brought to you.

And you have to decide. I don't mean you personally, but whoever's involved has to decide to receive it or not receive it. And it's all based on emperor worship and participating in this system. That is not, by the way, the Republic of the United States. This is a whole different government.

This is a whole different government that's come out of world chaos. It's very interesting that in Deuteronomy, God told ancient Israel to love him with all their heart, mind, and soul. And he also tells them that they were to take his law and write it in their foreheads and on their hands. See, there's a spiritual thing here. There's something very spiritual here. I don't know what the physical marks are, but I can tell you what will make the difference in whether a person follows the beast or not. The person who does not follow the beast will, as it says in Deuteronomy, love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and have the ways and laws and teachings of God and of Jesus Christ in your hands, which meant your actions, and in your forehead, which means not only your thoughts, but where the Holy Spirit is.

That's how you'll make your decision, whether you have the mark of God upon you or not. So it really doesn't matter eventually what the mark of the beast is in terms of its physical aspects, because the decision to take the mark or not take the mark will be based on whether you have God's mark. Look just in Revelation itself. Revelation 7. Revelation 7. Revelation 7. In verse 3. It's talking about God's taking some, in this case, it's descendants of Abraham that he's pulling out to protect. He's got the church he's protecting. And there's people that he's working with that are descendants of Abraham, people that aren't descendants of Abraham. But he says, in verse 3, saying, Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees. He's telling these angels this. Till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.

So once again spiritually, God's Spirit is poured out upon us, and God's Spirit is inside of us, and we are sealed by God. That's God's mark. God looks at his people and says, that's my person. That's mine, because either they have received my Spirit or I'm working with them with my Spirit. Either we've already received it or we're being worked with by God's Spirit. So we're, I know, on your hand and in your head is God's mark. The mark of God is what we should be concerned with. The mark of the beast is going to come, and it's going to come hard and ugly, and it's not going to be hidden.

Do we have God's mark? That's what we should be concerned about. That's what we should be concerned about.

We will know when you are going through a really bad time, and you hear on the news that now they estimate 1.7 million people have died in the last six months or whatever it is. That's the time to get nervous, because governments have collapsed, economic systems have collapsed, and that's when this beast power rises up to try to reunite the world. So the mark of the beast in Revelation 13 is on people's hands and foreheads. And then comes the part that everybody, you know, I mean this becomes just debated, debated, and abated. The number 666. So we have the religious leader who causes people to receive the mark of the beast. It's not a political leader that the political leader isn't doing this. The religious leader is doing it. Because they're working together. Who has the military power to back him up? The mark of the beast is directly related to the worship of the beast. Those who worship the beast will receive the mark, or the name, or the number. I mean there's three different things mentioned there. Those who refuse are killed.

The mark of the beast on people's hands and foreheads, I'm sure there's some physical mark or something that's done. I don't know, tattoo, or I don't know. But it has to do with their thoughts and their actions. Just like God's mark has to do with our thoughts and our actions.

So spiritually, whatever the physical manifestation of that is, it's what's happening spiritually. And this number 666. What does that number mean? There's been all kinds of explanations of that.

I've even seen different explanations in the church over the years I've been around since the early 1960s. Some of the most, I think, some of the explanations that make the most sense is that in many languages, numbers and letters correspond with each other. You look at Roman numerals, right? And X means 10. So they correspond with each other. And in ancient Greek, and we know this from the second century, because there's writers in the second century who say, we know who this is. Because they would take the Greek numbering system of the time, and it's probably not the same today, so you have to go back to the second century to find this. But they would take the Greek numbering system of the time, and they added up what letters could equal 666. And one of the words that came out was Latinos, which is the Greek word for Roman, right? They're the Latins. They're the people who speak Latin. So it was the Romans. And so for a long, long time, Christians taught, it was the Romans.

Until the Roman Catholic emperors came along, and then, well, that's sort of, you know, oh, we're the beast, so you can't do that, right? So they changed it. Other concepts have been that six is the number of man, seven is the number of God. So this just has to do with 666 means this is the depravity of human beings. Others have tied it into the six day. 666 refers to the six day, the number of man. They've even tried to, some have tied it into, and there's some of the Adventists do this, with the, it's a comparing the number of man and the day of worship to seventh day, which is the day of God and the number of God. Therefore, the Sabbath is part of the mark. Remember, because in ancient Israel, he said one of the signs that you are my people is the Sabbath. So the enforcing, if they enforce on Christians a sixth day of worship or bring all religions together to say, look, we'll all be unified by worshiping on the sixth day. That's the number of man and destruction of the seventh day. I can remember that being taught when I was a child. That this has to do with really the number of man and the number of God, and eventually will come down to number of man is going to be, we're going to do it on Sunday. Not that Sunday's the sixth day, but it's the number of man that's being forced on here. So, once again, I don't know. Latinos has always made sense to me.

Because remember I gave a sermon less than three months ago where I showed that Rome is mentioned specifically in the book of Revelation as the center of the religious power, which today, of course, has the Vatican. So, once again, you can tie some of that together, but I can't say it's exact. So, we have bits and pieces. So, what does... how do we prepare? How do we prepare?

Once again, it's the number of a man. How do we calculate that? There's different ideas. And how about I stand here and say I know the exact way to calculate? I just know it's not good. And it has to do with the rejection of God. It has to do with human beings and Satan. So, here's what we need to do. First of all, we need to stay real close to God.

Watch for the time of sorrows as things get worse and worse and worse. And right now, the world is not as bad as it was from 1914 through 1945. It's not that bad yet.

Watch for the time of sorrows, which will kill 25% of the Earth's population, that cause global economic and governmental collapse. You know how fast that could happen? Wouldn't take much. I could think of four or five events that would cause global collapse within six months, because we're all tied together. Watch for the sudden rise of a new Roman Empire that is comprised of a political-military system and a religious system that will attempt to control the world. Watch for the setting up of the abomination of desolation in Jerusalem that will have the man of sin sitting in a temple, which has yet to be built. Watch for the violent, worldwide persecution of Christians. You won't be able to hide from that one. And then reject the worship of the beast and the mark of the beast.

That's what we have to do. And once again, part of the Church has promised to be protected during that time. That was 42 months. Part of the Church has not promised to be protected. You know why? Someone's got to go teach everybody. A great multitude comes out of the 42-month tribulation. They come out and worship Him God. Now, part of that is somebody of the two witnesses. There must be others involved in that, too. Let's conclude. Before we all go home and say, oh, I'm even too depressed. You know, I'll just all go home all depressed now. No. God tells us this so that we can be aware of it when it happens and that we can trust in His involvement in our lives. You and I have purpose. We were called by God. We have a purpose in Christ's return. We are being prepared for that return. When He brings the Kingdom of God to this earth and He solves all these problems, which human beings can't do, and especially with Satan's influence, we can't solve anything. We can't solve anything. Hebrews 13. We'll end here.

So next time I speak, I'll try to do something more positive, okay? But we have to know this. So don't panic right now.

Hebrews 13 verse 5.

Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things that you have. Be content to live in this strange world that's not as good as the world we lived in six months ago. At least my life isn't. My contentment in this, with God, with each other. For He Himself has said, this is what we're promised, I will never leave you or forsake you. That's a promise from the Almighty God. And you can go say to Him, God, Father, You promised. So we may boldly say, we're allowed to go before God and say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me.