Bible In A Year - Revelation (part 3)

Revelation chapter 7, and after these things,

I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying,

Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our

God in their foreheads. I also thought about entitling this particular section,

The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, because we're going to discuss chapter 7, and then chapters 11, 12, and 13, and we are going to look at groups of people, first of all, who survive the tribulation.

The question does come up, are there believers on earth during the tribulation period? And the answer to that is, yes, there are.

But that raises the question, who are they, and where did they come from?

Because, you remember, that the tribulation is triggered off by the rapture of the church, at which point

Jesus Christ appears in the air, and His church is caught up to meet

Him in the air. Yes, Daniel? That's a good question, and yeah, we're going to address that a little bit.

Basically, the question was, can people who heard the gospel before the rapture, but didn't get saved, can they get saved after the rapture?

And so, we'll hit that just a little bit, because the question is asked in chapter 7, who is able to stand with all of this that's going to get poured out upon the earth, and all the disasters that are going to be poured out upon the earth, plus the fact that Satan is given an even freer reign than he has now, and all of the demon hordes that have been leashed up to this point are suddenly unleashed, and who can stand against all of that?

And so, there are two groups of people that are talked about. Now, the rapture occurs, the church is taken out.

Now, in case you missed it, at that point, there is not a single believer, not a single saved person on earth, because if they were saved, they were raptured, and they're all gone.

So, what happens? Well, chapter 7 talks about two groups of people.

First are the 144 ,000. Now, who are the 144 ,000? Well, first of all, they are not the people that belong to the

Jehovah's Witnesses, all right? You probably knew that already, but I thought I'd throw that out there anyway.

Chapter 7 speaks of 144 ,000 Jewish evangelists. Now, in some way,

God is going to work in the lives of 144 ,000, very specific number, of Jewish men who are going to be

His evangelists. And at least one speculation for how is this going to be done,

I mean, God is perfectly capable of presenting His gospel to individuals and working in their hearts and bringing them to salvation.

One pastor friend of ours speculated that perhaps we're going to have 144 ,000

Damascus Road experiences. Who knows? However, it's accomplished, this is done, and these individuals are sealed.

And so, the contrast that is presented in chapter 7 is the contrast for those who survive the wrath of God, that is the believers, and those who don't survive, unbelievers, which are also referred to as those that dwell upon the earth, that's an expression used to mean unbelievers, but that God can preserve

His people. God always has His remnant. God always has

His remnant. Even when Elijah was so down and he said, you know, this is rational thinking for you, right?

He said, God, they're all gone, everyone's gone, you know, and only

I'm left and I think you should kill me. And you can imagine God saying, yes,

Elijah, that's a great plan, we can really get behind that. But no, God says, no,

Elijah, you're not the last one, I still have my thousands that haven't bowed the knee to Baal yet, and God always has

His remnant. God always is in control. God can always preserve His saints in times of trouble, all through the

Psalms, all through the Old Testament, all through the New Testament. That's a recurring theme. And so, what's happening here?

Well, first of all, there's a period of time, chapter 7 is sort of a parenthesis in the narrative that John is relating, and wrath is restrained.

It says these four angels that it refers to are holding back the winds, and in this case, wind is often symbolic of God's wrath.

And so, they're basically being told, hold up a minute, wait a minute, because we're going to have these 144 ,000 evangelists, 144 ,000 evangelists, and we're going to seal them.

We're going to put a seal. A fifth angel comes carrying the seal of the king, if you will, the royal seal, and he seals these individuals, it says, in their foreheads.

And there's been a lot of speculation, probably to not a lot of use, about what form that seal takes.

Is it visible? Is it only visible to each other? It's on and on. Now, that's really irrelevant.

The point is that God seals and preserves these individuals, and their job is to go out through the entire world, it says, through the entire world, evangelizing, preaching the gospel.

And so, there's 12 ,000 from every tribe, so that's 144 ,000 from the tribes of Israel.

And as we pointed out before, right now, no Israelite, no Jew really knows what tribe they're from, because those records were all destroyed in 70

AD. But God knows. God knows his people. God knows who they belong to.

And God is not through with Israel by any means. Now, the question is, can people who heard the gospel before the rapture get saved after the rapture?

All right, at this point, we cannot be dogmatic at this point.

There's lots of discussion that goes on, because a lot of these things are not spelled out.

But I will say this, God's elect are God's elect throughout all of human history.

And it is God who determines in his sovereignty who is elect, and when an individual person is going to be saved, and under what circumstances, and at what time.

Because, yes, we are saved from the foundation of the world. Our names are written in the

Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, or in eternity past. Nevertheless, our lives intersect the plan of God in time.

And so there is a specific point at which God works a work of grace in our lives.

We are regenerated. We believe and repent, or repent and believe, if you want to reverse the order.

And we are saved. And that has to occur. And so God determines all of this.

Now, and this is where we start to get a little dangerous.

I almost have you shut the recording off at this point, because when we start speculating. But to me personally, it stands to reason that there will be some individuals who've heard the gospel, they have rejected up to this point, then the rapture occurs.

And they're going to say, whoa, old what's -his -name that I was talking to, he was right.

He was right. You know, all of a sudden, all of my Christian friends that I've been mocking are suddenly gone.

They all disappeared at the same time. And again, to me personally, it stands to reason that some of them will cry out to God for mercy at that point.

Now, if they're saved at that point, are they members of the church? No, they're tribulation saints. And again,

I cannot be dogmatic about this. I can't pound on the pulpits, which is why I'm standing down here.

But that's my personal viewpoint on that. And it's not shared by every biblical scholar out there.

And I'll say that. I haven't got more time to go on that, because we have to talk about the tribulation saints segueing into that.

That's the second group of people that are referred to, tribulation saints. And we see them largely in heaven, because there's these 144 ,000 evangelists go out.

And the Bible says there's going to be a great response worldwide from every tribe and nation.

It will be global in scope. It will be very rapid, because as we've commented before, after the rapture, there's going to be a large number of very scared people out there wondering what's happened.

Some of them will realize what's happened. The majority of them won't realize what's happened, except they know some great event has taken place, something very unusual has taken place.

And here come these evangelists. And of course, now in the modern age, we have the tools at hand to do worldwide evangelism on a very short notice.

There's no point at which now the coverage of the satellites in orbit doesn't reach.

On more than one occasion, I had the experience of driving out on some totally desolate, totally forgotten highway in Iraq, and you come upon some tent.

And outside the tent is a camel, two donkeys, and a satellite dish, right?

And so the means are available now for worldwide evangelism, and that's going to take place.

And Israel is going to be the witness nation, as they were supposed to be in the first place.

Israel was supposed to be the witness nation, and they didn't do it, but now they will.

They've got this 144 ,000 evangelists, and the gospel will be preached to the whole world.

That's Matthew 24, 14. But John sees a great multitude in heaven, very large, beyond numbering is what he's referring to.

And these are distinct from the 144 ,000. And who are these people? They're from every tribe and tongue.

It transcends all national barriers, all cultures, and they're in white robes.

And who are these people? They are identified as martyrs, people who were martyred during the tribulation period, because most of these saints, most of these people who believed during the tribulation will be killed for their faith.

Not every last one of them, but the majority of them. And yet, they too escape the wrath of the

Lamb, if you will. You say, how can you say they escape? They're dead. No.

True, their physical bodies have died, but they're in heaven. They were taken.

They get to stand before the Lamb, praising Him. They are not part of the ones that were subjected to the wrath on the eternal basis.

And so, we see them. They're before the throne, and they're praising the Lamb with a loud voice. And they're praising for vengeance.

They're praying for vengeance. And vengeance has certainly started on earth. And they're associated with the angelic hosts.

And they're associated with the elders who represent the church. They are also associated with the four living creatures, the four cherubim.

And everybody is doing the same thing. They're all worshiping the Lamb. That's where they are.

And so, during the Great Tribulation, large numbers will indeed be saved, because God works when

He will and where He will. And they're washed in the blood. They have a spiritual cleansing that goes on.

And what is their function? Their function is service. They're to praise. They're to serve.

They are fit to stand in God's presence. And so, they are provided for.

They don't hunger anymore. They don't thirst anymore. They were hungry on earth. They were thirsty on earth.

They are free of the scorching heat that's been afflicting the earth. Jesus leads them.

And there's no more pain and suffering for those people. There's no more tears for those people. So, there they are.

And they're worshiping the Lamb. Now, we have to rush along here.

I'm sorry, but if you do have questions, stick your hands up. The two witnesses are the next thing.

We skip ahead, skipping ahead to Chapter 11. Again, God always preserves a remnant.

And these are two witnesses that are referred to specifically. Yes, Daniel. Yes. The only way you can get saved is to be born again.

That applies. Because what happens? Every person that's ever been born is born how? In sin, fallen nature.

You must be regenerate. You must be regenerated before you will repent and believe.

The Bible says you repent and believe. If you come to Jesus, you will be accepted. You will be saved. But you won't come unless you are first regenerated.

A work of grace must be worked in your life. So, yes, they are born again. Now, they're not members of the church.

The church goes from Pentecost to the rapture.

All of you are members of the church, the body of Christ. Saints that existed before Pentecost, let's rephrase that.

Saints that died before Pentecost are not members of the church. Saints that are saved during the tribulation are not members of the church.

We're a special group. We're a special group. Just like we're not part of Israel either. You know,

Israel is God's earthly people and they're separate. Yes, Peggy. It's equal in what sense?

We're all saved by grace. We're all sinners saved by grace. Yes. Well, I see what you're asking.

There are differences in our relationships. There are special relationships. The church is referred to as the bride of Christ.

Old Testament saints, tribulation saints are not referred to as the bride of Christ. So there are unique relationships.

Not that one is superior to the other, but there are differences.

OK, plowing ahead here. Two witnesses. These are special individuals.

They have been granted special power and authority and they are to also preach the message primarily of judgment and salvation.

The 144 ,000 are preaching a message of salvation. These guys are preaching a message of judgment.

Salvation too, but largely judgment. And why are there two of them? Well, that's what's required under the

Old Testament law to establish anything. You have to have at least two witnesses, two or three witnesses. And so they're going to preach for 3 and 1⁄2 years, 1 ,260 days, which is 3 and 1⁄2 years or 360 days apiece.

Keep that in mind. The Bible, when it uses the term year, he's talking

Jewish years. And the Jewish years were 360 days long. So they start preaching just prior to the midpoint of the tribulation and they preach to just before the seventh trumpet sounds.

Remember, we went through all the judgments. Well, they preach basically in the second half of the tribulation.

And their identity is uncertain. There's been a lot of speculation about who they are. It is certainly possible, it is defensible, that they are

Moses and Elijah. They are like Moses and Elijah. They have some of the same characteristics that Moses and Elijah had.

And certainly, under the Jewish culture,

Jews are looking for Moses and Elijah to reappear before Messiah comes. And so you remember that Jesus actually said of John, if you will accept it, this was the prophet.

This was Elijah who's supposed to come. So anyway, it could be

Moses and Elijah. It might not be. Whoever these men are, they are protected. They're set aside.

And they prophesy. They preach. They proclaim. And they have great power. They have great powers that they can use for self -defense.

They can work miracles of their own. And all of this is designed to attract attention to their message.

But the world ruler, the Antichrist, the beast arises.

He is empowered by Satan himself. And he is capable. He manages to overcome and kill the two witnesses, at least temporarily.

And as the Bible goes on about this, their bodies are left unburied.

That's a mark of contempt. Their bodies are to lie in the streets. And there's this worldwide celebration.

Because isn't it a characteristic of human beings that when someone comes along telling us something we don't want to hear, our first reaction is to kill the messenger?

That happens in business all the time, doesn't it, guys? If you have to tell the boss bad news, find somebody else to go tell him.

You don't go tell him yourself. Whatever. So there's a worldwide celebration. Because the

Antichrist has managed to overcome these two people that were telling us things we didn't want to hear.

So obviously, they must be false or they must be wrong. And happy times are here again.

Let the good times roll. Even though more and more disaster has been befalling the earth at every turn.

And so what happens? A few days later, they come to life.

While the cameras are still focused on them. They're laying in the streets of Jerusalem. And they come to life.

And they ascend into heaven. Because there's this big voice that comes down out of the sky and calls them up.

And if people were not nervous before, they certainly are after that. It says great fear comes upon the whole world.

And there's another great earthquake. And those believers, which are still trying to survive on the earth, to them, this is an occasion for great glory.

Because God has again intervened in the lives of his people. And so what else is happening as this goes on?

Who else are the principal characters? We're actually doing pretty well on the time thing.

Revelation chapter 12, as we're going at a great pace here, the principal characters that you see in the book of Revelation, other than Jesus Christ, who is the principal character, of course.

First of all, there's a woman spoken of in chapter 12.

This woman is symbolic of Israel. And like all symbols, it points to a literal reality.

Now, just to comment in general, the book of Revelation is full of symbolic things.

In some cases, it's simply John doing the best he can to describe what is essentially indescribable.

He describes this great army. He describes this great army that assembles.

And I personally see that as a first century individual doing the best he can to describe a modern mechanized army.

So there's a lot of symbology. But those symbols all point to something literal, to a literal reality.

We use the same hermeneutic in the book of Revelation as we've used through the rest of the Bible. And we do make allowance for the use of symbolic language.

We make allowance for the use of allegory. Essentially, John is using language the way people use language all the time.

But we have to be careful and not dismiss the entire book of Revelation as, oh, it's just some great allegory, because the book of Revelation is not an allegory.

It's a recording of actual events that will take place. But here he describes

Israel. He uses Israel. And he describes this woman who is Israel.

Now, there are four symbolic women in the Bible. In the

Old Testament, we have Jezebel, who is both a real person, an actual person, and a symbol.

The name Jezebel evokes all kinds of things in your mind, doesn't it? Basically, anything to do with paganism, to do with evil, to do with idol worship, all of those things are evoked by the name

Jezebel. There are also the three women that are described in the book of Revelation.

First, there is the harlot, which is described in Revelation chapter 17, which is a symbol of the apostate church.

There's the Israel the woman that we are referring to right now. And there is also the bride of Christ, which is described in Revelation chapter 19, which is us.

So anyway, Israel, literal reality.

Now, this woman has an exalted status. She is clothed with the sun. She has the moon under her feet.

And she is described as being with child, because Messiah is supposed to come forth from Israel, right?

And Israel, she's described as being in pain, that birth pangs are upon her.

And Israel was certainly in pain at Messiah's first advent. They did not recognize

Messiah when he came the first time. They did not accept Messiah when he came the first time. But he's going to come again.

He's going to come again. And this woman is attacked by the second great character that we see in Revelation, the dragon.

And anytime you see the reference to a dragon, that's referring to Satan himself. Now, Satan is not a dragon.

But we all know what dragons are. We've read about them when we were children in the stories that we read.

Dragons are fierce beasts, right? And they can breathe fire and do all of these things, except for Barney, right?

We'll skip that one. But if you see a purple dragon, whatever. But anyway, dragons are supposed to be terrifying.

They are objects of great fear. And so this one is also symbolic.

It's referred to as having, first of all, seven heads and seven crowns. And there have been seven consecutive world empires,

Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo -Persia, Greece, Rome, and the final 10 -nation confederacy that is spoken of in Revelation.

The, excuse me, his empire extends into the angelic realm as well because when

Lucifer, son of the morning, rebelled, he took one third of the angelic host with him.

And if you ever wondered, how do we know that he took one third of the angels?

This is where it comes from. It's from Revelation, right here, where it said it took a third of the stars.

It's a third of the angelic host he took into his rebellion. And throughout history, he has expended all of his efforts to thwart

God's plans. First, he tried to corrupt the human race to the point that God sent the flood in the days of Noah so that he wipes out the human race, every last person in it except for eight people, and rebuilds from there.

He did everything he could to prevent Jesus' first advent. And then when he couldn't prevent

Jesus' first advent, he has him killed.

Now, don't go too far with that because we all know that the death of Christ on the cross was to achieve our salvation, and it was by the plan of God that it took place.

But nonetheless, from Satan's point of view, he thinks, aha, I've got him, and he discovers he doesn't.

And so he's still at it. He's still trying to corrupt people.

He's still trying to kill the male child, as we see, again, further in this chapter.

Israel is in birth pangs, and the dragon is standing by to slay the male child.

And yet, the male child will rule. He will be unsuccessful. We are told that he will rule with a rod of iron, with absolute justice, with absolute equity.

There will be justice on earth and equity on earth. He will rule as king of kings and lord of lords because a place of safety has been prepared for believing

Israel, somewhere in the wilderness, it's referred to. And again, going back to Matthew chapter 24, what did

Jesus say when he's answering the question, what will happen at the end, and when will these things be? And he says, when you see the abomination of desolation, and I'll mention that further in a minute, when you see that, get out of town and don't wait.

Don't wait to pack. Get out of Dodge right then and head for this place of safety wherever it is.

It has been speculated that perhaps what we now know of as Petra would be one of the places.

I personally question that because, for one thing, everybody knows where Petra is. It's in Jordan, fascinating place where a city's basically been carved out of the rocks.

Fascinating place to be if you ever get a chance to see it. But at any rate, Israel is protected.

She's nourished, she's protected, and she's preserved alive so that she can enter the millennial kingdom.

There have to be people alive on earth at the time when Jesus Christ comes back to populate.

And I mean believers alive on earth. When Jesus comes back to populate the millennial kingdom.

And so Israel will be preserved. No doubt Gentiles will be preserved too, but the focus here is upon Israel.

What else is happening in Revelation chapter 12? There is a supernatural war that is described.

Now, there has been warfare in heaven from the beginning of human history.

It's gone on continuously, but it's intensifying and there's a special battle that's about to be fought.

And the players or the participants in this last battle, if you will, are

Michael and the holy angels against the dragon or Satan and the fallen angels. And this is chapter 12, verses 7 and 8.

Now, Michael is identified... Michael is one of only two angels that are identified by name in the scripture.

The other one's Gabriel. Michael has always been associated with the armies of heaven, and he's always been associated with the defense of Israel and the defense of Israelites.

If you recall back in the book of Daniel, Daniel prays and finally deliverance comes.

And the angel that comes to minister to Daniel, what's he say? He says,

I left heaven at the very hour that you started praying, but I was resisted. I was resisted.

And in Daniel, it says the prince of Persia, but basically it means Satan. And Michael had to come and help me.

And Michael is also referred to as the one that wrestled over the body of Moses.

And so Michael is the four -star general who's in charge of heaven's armies, and he's battling.

And Satan starts this battle. And like I said, there's been war in heaven since the fall, but this battle is a culmination.

And perhaps the rapture is what triggers this final battle. Because when the rapture occurs,

I mean, Satan is not dumb. Satan knows his history. Satan knows his

Bible. I would speculate he knows his Bible far better than we do. And he knows that when the rapture occurs, he doesn't have much time.

And so all sorts of things are starting to occur as the rapture triggers this off.

But the result, the result is total defeat. Satan and his angels are cast out of heaven.

Now, up to now, Satan, under certain circumstances and with restrictions, is allowed to come before God's presence.

His name means accuser, right? And one of the things he does is to appear before God and accuse us and accuse the saints.

You remember from the book of Job, it was Satan that came into God's presence and accused

Job. He says, oh, yeah, Job is loyal to you, but that's because you've given him all this.

Take it away and he'll curse you. And he really thought that.

God was the only one in that entire drama that knew what was going on. And God was the only one in that entire drama that knew how it was going to come out before it started.

Job and his three friends didn't have a clue. And Satan didn't understand either. And so Satan has been able to come into God's presence.

He's allowed into God's presence. And he accuses us.

And our defender, if you will, our advocate, our lawyer is

Jesus Christ, who stands also before the Father saying, no, that individual, that's my child.

I died for their sins. They're righteous. You've declared them righteous because of what

I did. But now at the culmination of this battle, Satan and all of his minions are cast out of heaven.

They can no longer accuse the saints. They are no longer permitted to come before God's throne.

And where are they cast to? They're cast to the earth. As one commentator put it, heaven's cleansing is earth's pollution.

And so the demonic forces now gather on earth. And if they were wrathful before, they're super wrathful now.

Because again, they arrive at the tribulation in the midpoint. And no later than the midpoint anyway, perhaps even before that.

And they're going to vent their wrath upon those believers that still exist on the earth in those days.

Now, the first great expulsion, if you want to read about it, is in Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 14.

Lo, art thou fallen, Lucifer, son of the morning, where it describes the angelic rebellion.

But there he is. But victory has taken place. And a great victory celebration takes place in heaven and upon that time, where all of creation celebrates, if you will.

Because what's happening here is not just deliverance of individuals, but the deliverance of God's creation as well.

Because creation is also under the curse and has been since the fall.

And so victory in heaven will extend to victory on earth. There's going to be a last battle on earth that we're going to talk about in two weeks.

But the basis for victory, again, in verses 10 to 12 in chapter 12, the basis for victory is the blood of the

Lamb. He is the focus of the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And the purpose of the book of Revelation is not that we can speculate about bowls and trumpets and seals and dragons and on and on.

The purpose of Revelation is to reveal Jesus Christ in glory to us, to show us a preview of coming attractions, if you will, of the conquering

Christ, not the conquered Christ, not the Christ hanging on the cross, but the

Christ riding the white horse with his armies spread out behind him who is coming to conquer.

And we should gather great, great comfort and strength from that. That no matter how chaotic it appears to us now, and no matter how much it appears that the bad guys are winning, they aren't.

This is the last chapter in the novel. Get to the last chapter and see how it all comes out. You know, we win.

It's kind of like, you know, Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. We win, they lose.

Well, Jesus could say the same thing. What's your policy,

Jesus? I win, he loses. And that's what's happening. And so at the end of this celebration, there's also a final warning.

Woe to the earth and sea. Why? Because Satan has now come down to earth.

He's been cast down to earth. His sphere of activity is now shrunk. And so within that sphere, it's gonna get much, much worse than it has been.

And he has great wrath and he knows his time is short. Now, we finish up in chapter 13 here with the two principal bad guys besides Satan that we see on the earth.

That's why I thought about calling this the good guys versus the bad guys, but decided not to. This refers also to events that are recorded in Daniel 7 and 8.

But there are two individuals that arise during the tribulation period.

The first is referred to as the beast. It's also referred to as antichrist. Now, the

New Testament uses the term antichrist in several places, and we are warned about antichrist.

And in one way of speaking, anyone who opposes Jesus Christ and his program and his message is an antichrist, against Christ.

And we might call them antichrist with a small A, but this is antichrist with a capital A. And this is an individual.

He exceeds all the previous leaders of history. He is very appealing, at least at first.

He is very charismatic, and I'm referring to personal appeal here, not that he speaks in tongues, although he does do that.

He's a very charismatic speaker. He speaks very authoritatively.

He's just what the world has been looking for. Because remember that the rapture took place and all these people disappeared, and it's total chaos because all kinds of natural disasters have been occurring and man -made disasters have been occurring and wars are going on everywhere, and it's getting worse and worse and worse by the minute.

And so what are we looking for? We're looking for somebody that can unify the earth and make everything right and settle everything down.

And here comes this individual who will be extremely attractive.

He will be extremely attractive. I assume that includes physical attraction as well as being able to speak.

We have examples in our history of individuals like this.

Adolf Hitler is an example of someone who could just mesmerize audiences. You ever have a chance sometime, watch some of the films of the old rallies and take a look at the people.

Watch the expressions on the people's faces. You want to see adoration. There it is.

And yet Hitler will be a drop in the bucket compared to this guy. Other men of the past.

Alexander the Great, the Caesars of Rome, the more modern tyrants that have arisen,

Joseph Stalin. None of those people will hold a candle to this individual. And he will be able, he's an imposter, but he will be able to collect the world's population and appeal to everybody.

And groups of people that have spent their entire histories hating each other will suddenly come together following this individual.

He's going to be the end of a long line of antichrists. 1st and 2nd John, in particular, and Matthew warn about antichrists.

And he's going to rule the entire world. Everybody's going to follow him. He's going to rule the entire world and he's going to persecute

God's people. Anyone who names the name of Christ is going to be persecuted. In particular,

Israel is going to be persecuted. Now he's going to start out when he first comes to power,

Israel's going to follow him too. Because one of the things that's going to happen is the temple's going to get rebuilt in Jerusalem.

And it's going to get rebuilt on the

Mount Moriah, which is today occupied by the

Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock. And that's going to be interesting, just finding out how we get rid of that so that we can rebuild the temple.

But it's going to happen. And the temple worship is going to restart. And everything is going to be just hunky -dory for a short period of time.

Until the antichrist sets himself up as the only object of worship.

And he's going to desecrate the temple. He's going to put a statue of himself, an image of himself in the temple.

And that's what the desolation, the abomination of desolation refers to.

This has happened once before in history when Antiochus did exactly the same thing back during the

Greek empire. And that's what Jesus warns about. When you see that go up, get out of town.

And so he's persecuting God's people. And he possesses satanic power, absolute power.

He is at least demon possessed and very possibly possessed by Satan himself.

All unbelievers are under Satan's influence, certainly. But some are under his direct control.

And that is what we have here. He comes up out of the nations of the world, out of the sands of the seashore, the imagery is.

And he seeks world domination and he gets it. And he comes up, it also says he comes up out of the sea, which is a, and Revelation 11, seven and 17, eight specifically state that the beast comes up out of the abyss or out of the pit.

He's a satanic individual, but he is a human being. He is a human being.

And he has power and authority. It talks about horns and horns talk about kingly power and kingly authority.

And there's a confederacy of Western nations that he heads up. And again,

John uses the imagery of animals so that these animals display the characteristics of certain nations that have existed in the past.

And he said, he's going to be like Babylon, that's a lion. And he's going to be like Persia. And he's going to be like Greece, the great empires of the past and no human force can withstand him.

And he is acclaimed universally. He is apparently, we judge from chapter 13, verse three, he is apparently able to fake his own death and resurrection.

This guy is going to be able to actually do a lot of miraculous things.

He's going to be able to do signs and wonders. And that's why we warn so much is do not be misled.

Signs and wonders are not necessarily indications of divine approval.

Not every supernatural event started from God, which is why we rely upon the scripture.

We rely upon the word of God, the written word for everything. That is our standard of reference.

Not some sign and wonder. Signs and wonders cannot be trusted because here's a guy that can do signs and wonders.

You know, a lot of the things that, if you look back at the Old Testament, a lot of the things that God's prophets had done, call down fire from heaven and things like that, he can do.

He can do all of that. And his principal activity is war against the saints.

He overpowers the saints physically. And what's he win for this? He wins the universal admiration of the world.

Right now, to a very small extent, we're starting to see, you know, basically you cannot offend or say anything offensive against any religion at all except Christianity, right?

You know, heaven forbid you should say, you know, you should say anything derogatory about the first church of the inner spring or whatever it is.

You know, but Christians, okay, they're fair game. Well, multiply that by a thousand fold and that's what you've got in the tribulation period where Antichrist is winning universal worldwide admiration.

Why? Because he's putting those nasty Christians down. Everything must be the fault of the Christians, right?

All of this stuff that's happening must be their fault. Now, the second individual that comes up is called the false prophet.

He is also a human being and he leads the false religious system of the world.

The Antichrist leads the false government system of the world, while the false prophet leads the false religious system of the world.

Again, the New Testament has many warnings against false prophets, both the Old Testament and the

New Testament. And in the Old Testament, what was the penalty for being a false prophet? Stoning.

God took it very seriously when someone came in and said, thus sayeth the Lord, when the

Lord hadn't sent him. And so, you know, in the Old Testament, prophets gave long range prophecies certainly, but they also gave short range prophecies and they only got one chance to be wrong.

They were ever wrong once, God says, take him out and stone him. Takes this very seriously.

So here we have this false prophet and he sort of appears to be a kinder, gentler, less harmful

Antichrist, you know. He's a companion to the Antichrist and he's kind of a nice, the good cop side of things.

But he promotes the worship of the Antichrist and he also performs great signs and wonders.

And one of the things that they're able to do, apparently there's this image of the beast that's set up and it's animated.

It's animated. One of the things that the Bible says in the Old Testament about false gods, you know, is that they can't move, they can't speak, they're, you know, they can't hear.

Well, apparently this image can do all of those things. And you want a preview of coming attractions, you can just go to Disneyland and look at the automatic, the animated figures that they have.

And some of them are absolutely amazing if you've been there at any time recently. The things that we can do with technology.

And aside from technology, the Antichrist and the false prophet have all of the resources of the demonic forces behind them as well.

And so he also directs, besides worldwide religion, he directs the worldwide economic system.

And let me make one comment very briefly on the number of the beast. Great controversy and great speculation has arisen about the number of the beast.

You know, 666. What does it mean? And you read about people that won't have the number 666 on their license plate and things like that.

People get all bent out of shape about that. And there have been a lot of really weird things that have happened.

Every time some great tyrant arises or someone who is thought to be tyrannical arises in the world, somebody is gonna label him the

Antichrist. And a little bit of ancient history here all the way back to the 1930s, we had the

National Recovery Act under Roosevelt and it had a blue eagle as their symbol.

And people were running around saying, that's the mark of the beast. I mean, you can find references to that in literature and what have you.

The beast hasn't been here yet, folks. We'll just lay that out. But anyway, back to number 666.

The one thing we know about it is that it's the number of the man. The Bible specifically says that six is the number of a man as opposed to seven, which is

God's number and the number of perfection. Man's number is six. Man is imperfect.

And what does it mean that we have 666? Same number repeated three times?

Emphasizing the imperfection of man. It's not associated with any specific historical figure and a precise significance is unclear except that it's the number of a man.

And what is clear, we are told about, that you have to have this mark, whatever this mark is and however it is done, you have to have this mark if you're going to buy or sell or do any kind of commerce.

Now, don't worry. The rapture hasn't occurred yet, okay? We are not in the tribulation period.

Antichrist is not here. It's okay to use the pin number that's associated with your ATM card.

Don't worry about it. I mentioned that we chuckle a little bit, but there are people running around that refuse to have anything to do with an

ATM because, you know, oh, that's the mark of the whatever. But anyway, don't worry about that.

Don't get ahead of God, in other words. And so this entire passage, we can take this entire passage and all of these chapters, basically, they're a warning.

They're a warning. We have to wrap up. First of all, it's a challenge to unbelievers.

The world is headed for destruction. The world is headed for destruction. Now, Jesus Christ is going to come.

And when He comes the second time, He is coming to judge. The first time

He came, He came to seek and to save the lost. He came to call sinners to repentance.

The second time He comes, He's coming as a judge. And so that's the first challenge.

And it's also a challenge to believers. We are to lead a godly life.

We are to be alert. We are to be watchful. Because even if the world goes on for another few hundred years or even a thousand years or so, the time is still short.

We are still in the last days. And we are to conduct ourselves as if we expect

Jesus Christ to return before this day is out. So think about that.

And let's close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we take great comfort,

Lord, that you have laid out for us the closing chapters and that we are assured that Jesus Christ will come, that Jesus Christ will conquer, that Jesus Christ will set everything right.

And so until He does appear, Lord, may we so conduct ourselves that we will be ready, that we will be like the wise virgins that kept their oil and kept their lamps trimmed and were constantly on the alert for the return of the

Bridegroom. We pray this morning, Father, also for our pastor, as he will open the word to us.

We ask that you prepare our hearts to receive the message you have for us. In Jesus' name, amen.