"11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon. 12 He
exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he
makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast,
whose fatal wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. 14 And
he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it
was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who
dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who *had the wound of
the sword and has come to life. 15 And
it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that
the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not
worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 And
he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and
the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or
on their forehead, 17 and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. 18 Here
is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the
beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred
and sixty-six."
Good Morning my beloved,
We welcome you to worship in the name of the Lord. It is a privilege to have you here with us today. We are especially grateful for those of you who have been continuing to share the ministry website with all of your family and friends. Your faithfulness to share God's Word with others continues to bring about tremendous results. People are responding to God's Word! This is all so amazing. Pray that God will continue to give us boldness to speak the truth in ministry in the face of adversity in the coming days!Since the beginning of 2020, a lot has changed in our world. How we interact with one another, gatherings with those we love. Even how we gather together at church has changed, but allow me to remind you, that our calling has not. We are
still on mission, we are still commanded by Jesus to make disciples. We are
called to love our neighbor and give of our time, our talents and our resources. We are
still the body of Christ, called to be salt and light to the world, a city on a
hill which cannot be hidden. Our work on this earth is not completed, we are not done yet.
In Mark 16, Jesus said "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." Therefore, in the midst of fear of pandemics and persecution, let us stand
on the power of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ and answer our calling! Father, we thank You for Your Word for us. May we be faithful to proclaim the gospel of Christ, warning the lost of the wrath to come. Lord, we ask that You would touch their hearts, open their eyes and ears to the truth, that they might enter into the same joy that we ourselves have. We pray that You would make us faithful to that end.
In Christ's name we pray
Amen
Today's Message: The Beast From The Earth - Part II
Open with me your Bibles to the book of Revelation chapter 13. As we continue on our study of this marvelous chapter, we come to the final verses fifteen through eighteen. Today, we’ll finish up what we weren't able to cover in our last message.
I invite you to
follow along with me as I read to you these last eight verses, to set the text in our minds, though today, we will be looking only at verses fifteen through eighteen. Revelation 13:11-18. Listen for the voice of our Lord.
"Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon. He
exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he
makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast,
whose fatal wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And
he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it
was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who
dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who *had the wound of
the sword and has come to life. And
it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that
the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not
worship the image of the beast to be killed. And
he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and
the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or
on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here
is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the
beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred
and sixty-six."
Let's keep in mind, that while the Antichrist is building his world empire on military and political
power, the false prophet is building a worldwide
one religion at the same time. Then, the false prophet leads the world in affirming that the Antichrist is indeed God. All of this precedes the return of our Lord. With all of the terrible and terrifying events things that are going to go on across the world, people are going to look for some kind of deliverer from the worlds problems.
Jesus warned that it would begin with a false peace, then would come wars and rumors of wars, and earthquakes, and famines, and
pestilence, and death, and all of that is going to cause the inhabitants of world to be
searching for a deliverer. By now, the world is terrified of the wrath of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ. Hundreds of billions of people have been killed. They hate the God of the Bible. The earth, nearly inhabitable, it almost completely destroyed. Many will still reject Jesus Christ because of the hardness of their hearts.
Verse 15, "And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed." His power is always from Satan, but Satan always masquerades as God.
In II Thessalonians 2, the Apostle Paul wrote, "Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness."
With God's permission, he causes this image of the beast to appear to come to life and even be able to speak. They will not deceive the elect. They will deceive those who are perishing, those who have rejected the truth. The word breath, is the Greek word "pneúma," meaning wind or spirit, indicating that this is not life as we would normally understand it. God is not going to actually going to give life to this statue, this statue is not going to have a soul.
The world will have witnessed his death and resurrection and now they will see this statue come "to life and speak." I believe this is the abomination of desolations or connected to it. The temple will be ritually defiled. This will put an end to the sacrificial
system of worship that was allowed to occur in the first half of the
tribulation. The Antichrist is not claiming to be Jesus Christ the returning Messiah, but rather he will claim to be the true God.
At the end of verse 15, "so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed." The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, they have mouths, but they speak not.
Psalm 135 says "The idols of the nations are but silver and gold, the work of man’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; They have eyes, but they do not see; They have ears, but they do not hear, Nor is there any breath at all in their mouths."
In
chapter 2, Habakkuk affirmed "
Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake! To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, And there is no breath at all inside it."
The word image is the word eikṓn which is not a
mere copy but am image that exactly reflects its source. The image is designed not only to
portray a likeness to the beast, but the reality of his rule and
worship. As a footnote, it is the same word used to describe Christ as the supreme expression of God in II Corinthians 4. Satan cannot give life. With today's technology, they're already doing that with holograms. Literally making someone who is dead appear to come back to life.
In verses 16 and 17, "And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name."
This means without the mark, you can’t buy anything, and
you can’t sell anything. You won’t be able to get any food, you will
literally starve to death quite frankly. Any one who doesn’t have the mark is to be killed. Any one who does have the mark will not be able to buy or sell. We know this as the mark of the beast. Over the years, there has certainly been much speculation about what is the mark of the beast and what is the number. This is reminiscent of ancient Rome, when a citizen had to make some kind of an overt offer to Caesar to
demonstrate that he saw Caesar as deity, a token of his loyalty to Caesar.
The word mark is the word "xáragma," meaning a mark providing undeniable identification, or a symbol giving irrefutable connection between parties. The Antichrist wants a mark, identifying those who submits to his rule.and that mark signifies that this is a worshiper of the beast. In the ancient Roman Empire, slaves had to bear such a mark, they were literally branded just like animals.
In
Galatians 6, Paul said, "
From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus." I believe this it will come back again, all those belonging to the Antichrist will bear an unmistakable mark, perhaps a brand that is readily identifiable. God does not reveal to us the specific nature of this mark. It is also highly possible you will have to posses a digital currency, with flat currency becoming extinct. The basic essentials of life are unobtainable to those who refuse the mark.
A while back, I read about a man who was receiving a patent for the ability to tattoo a bar code, like we have
on products when we go to the store and you scan the bar
code, which will link people into a global database so that people would be able to electronically consummate any kind of a transaction. This would eliminate the need for cash or even credit cards, virtually rendering identity theft impossible.
Perhaps, God will use this, and that's how it will be marketed. But this mark will have some kind of numerical equivalent. I think you get the picture, it will be a mark which identifies you as a part of the worlds system.Some time ago, I received information on where barcoding is going. Without the capability to identify everybody such as we have today, the whole operation of Antichrist would be incomprehensible. Today, all of our data in the worlds computer. Systematically, we’ve already given them all they need.
Some time ago, I was reading an article about the president of Roberts College in Istanbul, who married a
Bulgarian, and who for the years of his life had lived in Bulgaria. He
said "You cannot understand and you cannot know, but the most
terrible instrument of persecution ever devised is an innocent ration
card. You cannot buy and you cannot sell except according to that
little innocent rationing card. And if they please, you can starve to
death. And if they please, you can lose everything that you have
because you cannot trade, you cannot buy, and you cannot sell." I believe that the story of the end of all human history, will end in that same manner of dictatorial tyranny and authority. However, we cannot know anymore about it than what the text says.
That takes us to verse 18, which says "Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six."
This parallels with Daniel chapter 12. Six hundred sixty-six is the number of man, representing the height of a man’s arrogance and the height of a man’s folly and the ultimate of a man’s self will, which is still falling short and we never get beyond it. God’s number is seven. The perfect number, man's number will always fall short. Those who are living during that time are going to have to be discerning in order to identify the mark of the Antichrist. I believe in the day, God will give believers some special insight and it will come to a clearer understanding.
Interestingly, if you were to add up all numbers from 1-36 it will result in 666. For example, 1 + 2 +3 + 32 + 33 + 34 and so on. The word calculate is the Greek verb "pséphizó," meaning to count, compute, or reckon the numerical value of a word or number. Man was created on the sixth day. Slaves were freed after six years of service
In Closing...
We are indeed spoiled in our country, in the over 240 years since it's founding, we have been a bastion of freedom, free speech and equality of peoples since it's inception. However, in recent months, there has been a dramatic shift. I do not believe that we've yet seen the full extent of what is going to occur.
