The Beast out of the Sea (Things to Come Part 1)

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

The Beast from the Sea in Revelation 13

Revelations chapter 13, starting in verse 1. 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 the beast which I saw was like a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed.

And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?

And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue forty-two months. And he opened his mouth and blasphemed against God, to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, 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 him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.

If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. He who kills with a sword must be killed with a sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.". The Word of Almighty God.

Thank you.

Loyalty to God Versus Loyalty to the Beast System

All right, you are there in Revelation chapter 13, so stay right there in your Bibles. But the title of this morning's message is, The Mark of the Beast. I was visiting someone in the hospital yesterday, and before I left, of course, I'll pray with them and share some scripture.

And he said, well, read me some scripture to encourage me. I said, well, maybe I won't read to you what I'm going to read tomorrow in church. But you know, loyalty is a very important thing. Loyalty to God.

And that really plays into the Mark of the Beast, because ultimately we either need to be loyal to God, or you're going to be loyal to this world, this world system. And the Mark of the Beast, what is it?

It's basically a sign of ownership. You belong to God, or you don't. You belong to God, or you belong to the devil. So stay right there in Revelation chapter 13, and we'll read in a moment. But the day is coming when the people of this earth will be required to take a mark, either on their right hand or on their forehead.

Without this mark, without this act of submission, people will not be allowed to buy or sell. In other words, they will not be allowed to be active members of society. And, of course, it will be worse than that.

But we will also see in this message that for those who do take the mark, it will be far worse for them. So this message, in this message, we're going to try to stick to what we know, because there's a lot of speculation about the Mark of the Beast.

Well, it's a tattoo. It's a microchip. You know, some people, I'm not even going to repeat some of the things that people are saying about the Mark of the Beast, because it'll trigger a algorithm on YouTube, and we'll probably get this sermon censored or taken down.

So we want to try to stick to what we know. And I'll address some of the common theories, but I think too much speculation on this subject is dangerous. So we want to be careful about that. What specifically will the Mark of the Beast be?

What does this even mean about 666? Everyone has heard of this. The Mark of the Beast, 666. What does that mean? Well, one thing we do know, as Mark read the scripture reading, we see that from Revelation 13, that in the end times, there will be a one world government, a beast system, if you will, led by a man or perhaps two individuals, the beast and the false prophet.

And this empire, this beast system will demand your full submission and obedience. So if you think of it this way, Christ requires us to obey. He said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Christ wants our obedience.

Well, the Antichrist, he will want obedience as well.

The Beast, the False Prophet, and the Mark on Hand or Forehead

All right.

Look at Revelation 13, starting in verse 11. John writes, then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. And 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 all those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.

He, that is the second beast, will perform great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth and sight 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 to the beast who is wounded by the sword and lived.

And he was granted both 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. And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or 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 it is the number of a man. His number is six, six, six. Now I know, especially in the day and age we live in, there's bound to be somebody who hears this or somebody who reads this and they think to themselves this whole idea of a one world government or an empire imposing a mark of the beast so you can't buy or sell.

Someone's going to think to themselves this sounds like some sort of conspiracy theory. I won't ask for a raise of hand in case somebody thought that. But to the person who would say this, yeah, this sounds like a conspiracy theory, bless their hearts, okay.

I guess we have to give them this much. When this does happen, the rulers in the end times, the rulers of this world, they will conspire. You know what a conspiracy is. You know what the definition is.

They will join together and make secret plans that are unlawful, certainly in God's eyes. And their deeds will be harmful to the population. So sure, fine, hey, call it whatever you want. But it's the Bible.

It's the scripture.

And you just need to understand that Christians have believed this long before this label conspiracy theory has been thrown around. That really only came about in the 20th century and most of our lifetimes.

So Revelation chapter 13 clearly teaches a one world government. The whole world will follow after this man, the beast. All will be caused to worship him. There's the one world religion and then you can't buy or sell unless you have the mark.

So they're going to have to make a one world economic system. If you look around, this is already in the works. They're already trying to do it. So again, let me remind you, this is the scripture. This is the Bible, okay.

I'm reading from Revelation 13. Words that were written down almost 2 ,000 years ago. As the apostle John is on the isle of Patmos and he receives a vision from Jesus Christ himself. So this is the holy scripture we are reading, not some conspiracy on some website somewhere.

We don't do that.

And again, we want to avoid speculating too much about this. But as Bible believing Christians, we do take the scripture at face value, amen. If the Bible says something, we say amen. That's the word of God.

We believe it. So we take the Bible at face value. We believe this will indeed happen. There will be a mark and there will be consequences for those who receive it and for those who do not receive it.

So point number one, if you do take notes, point number one is how do we interpret this text? Because that is a question. How do you interpret these things? The book of Revelation, ask most people, most Bible teachers.

The book of Revelation is one of the more difficult books in the Bible to interpret. We will grant that much. Now I want to tell you there are some Christians who do not take the book of Revelation literally.

And while I would not question their sincerity or their salvation, we do think they are dead wrong on this issue. Because to them the mark of the beast, they say, well this isn't real, it's symbolic. Your right hand, so that's symbolic of what you do.

Your forehead, this is symbolic of what you think. So if you believe the right things and do the right things, that's the mark you belong to God. And if you believe the wrong things and do the wrong things, that's the sign or the mark that you belong to the devil.

Well I mean that's true maybe, but that's not what John is talking about. That's not stated in the text anywhere. So let me be clear as far as that interpretation, we believe that is false. Once you depart from a literal interpretation of scripture and say, well I know the Bible says that, but that's not what it means.

There's no end to that. How do you know what it means? So I just want to encourage everyone here and everyone listening, you can understand the Bible. If you open it and you read it and pay attention and ask God to show you his truth, you can understand the scripture.

The Bible is unlike any other book.

That's true.

But in a way we read it like any other book. What do I mean by that? Listen, when there's a metaphor, you open up the newspaper and read allegory and symbolism and metaphors. It's obvious, right? Well when we read the Bible, we come across an allegory, a metaphor, it's going to be obvious.

So there is much symbolism in the book of Revelation that is true. But what is John saying? Well the Greek word, look at the text in the Mark of the Beast. If you dig into it, the Greek word pharyon, translated beast, that word primarily, take a wild guess.

What do you think that word usually refers to? This really isn't that hard.

Beast.

What does it refer to?

An animal.

Yeah, a wild beast, right? That's usually what it refers to. Many times in the Bible it talks about the beasts of the field. But when it's applied to a person, if you refer to a person as a beast, what are you saying about that person?

He's ferocious, right? He's dangerous. He's violent. Well, we're going to go to the book of Daniel. So go ahead and turn there. Old Testament book of Daniel chapter 7. A lot of connections between Daniel and Revelation.

We need to establish this as to rightly interpret what's happening here. So in the book of Daniel, there's this mentioning of beasts. And basically, we're going to see that a beast can refer to a man.

That's true.

The leader of an empire. But it refers to a government system, an empire. And in Daniel, we're going to see the governments of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. These government systems are portrayed as beasts.

All right?

This is a well-attested fact of history. These are successive world empires. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.