Coming Soon: Two Beasts. (Revelation 13)
Intro / Review:
The Coming of the Two Beasts. (Revelation 13)
The Beast from the Sea: The ANTICHRIST (Rev 13:1-10)
The Beast from the Earth: The FALSE PROPHET (Rev 13:11-18)
God is in control:
So I Will Not FEAR
So I am SECURE
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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01:04-01:08
All right, you have your Bibles? Open them up to Revelation chapter 13.
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Revelation chapter 13. While you're turning there, quick review.
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We're at a servant series called "Coming Soon." And we've been looking at the judgment of God that is coming upon the earth.
01:20-01:23
When we got to chapter 12, it began a flashback.
01:24-01:28
We saw that Satan has always waged war on Israel and on Christ.
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And at some point in the future, Satan and his angels are going to battle Michael, the archangel, and his angels, and the result is Satan is thrown down to the earth during the tribulation, and he's going to wage war on God's people, especially Israel, like never before. These days are coming.
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Today we're going to look at chapter 13, which describes the two men that Satan is going to use to lead the assault on the earth.
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But before we talk about two men, I want to talk about one cow.
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This is a really serious one, actually.
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August 28, 2018.
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In Israel was born a spotless red heifer.
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What's the significance?
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Well, a spotless red heifer is needed to sacrifice for the purification of the temple.
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You know, Israel has been waiting for 2000 years for a spotless red heifer.
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Did you know that?
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They thought they had one in the mid 90s, that they checked and checked and checked.
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Oh, and there was a little flaw, disqualified.
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Then around 2005, I think there was another one.
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We have our spotless red heifer.
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They found a blemish on that one, disqualified.
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August 28th last year, one was born that they have checked and rechecked and rechecked and rechecked and it is spotless.
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And that is huge.
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Waiting 2,000 years.
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Now the groundwork is laid for the temple to be rebuilt.
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500 Levites have been trained for service.
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Temple furnishings have been prepared.
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They were just waiting on the cow.
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And it looks like it's here.
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That was August 28th, 2018, people.
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This was reported.
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This was reported December 4th of 2018, at least a particular article that I read, but it looks like the Ark of the Covenant may have been found.
03:06-03:14
I know right now, right now, somebody's like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff's gonna wear a tinfoil hat." You got a computer, you got a smartphone, Google this stuff, okay?
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You're gonna find there are lots of things happening in the world right now that line up with what this says.
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But December 4th, 2018, that was the report that I read, it looks like the Ark of the Covenant has been found.
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Like, well, where is it?
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St. Mary's of Zion Church in Axum, Ethiopia.
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It's guarded 24/7 by guards who work until death.
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Nobody's allowed to see it because they say it's too holy for impure eyes to gaze upon it.
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So it's shut in the room, it's guarded 24/7, and again, these guards guard it until death.
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There have been two witnesses actually that have seen it.
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One was an administrator for the church And he saw it because one of the guards had died and they were training a new guard.
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So in this process of training, he was able to look at the Ark.
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And the report is, either it's the Ark of the Covenant, or it is a crazy good facsimile.
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But regardless, here's what you have to understand.
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They think it's the Ark of the Covenant, because they are guarding it 24/7.
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And if they thought it was a fake, nobody's going to sign up for that job, right?
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I think there's obvious significance there, but here's where it really blows your mind.
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in a church in Ethiopia today looks like.
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Isaiah chapter 18 prophesies that the day is coming that the Ethiopians are going to bring a present to the place of the name of the Lord on Mount Zion.
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What do you think that present might be?
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Could it be, once the temple is rebuilt, which we have the heifer, could it be that the present the Ethiopians bring is the most important piece of furniture that goes in the temple?
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For all of these revelation events to happen that we've been covering these past few months, the temple has to be rebuilt and the signs are everywhere.
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Chapter 13 gives us more signs that "coming soon" isn't just a name of a sermon series.
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"Coming soon" is reality. Jesus Christ is coming back.
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Are you ready for that? Are you ready for that? He's coming back!
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Okay, this isn't fairy tale stuff. We're watching it happen in front of us.
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He's coming back.
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These passages we're looking at today describe the beast.
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He was intro'd in chapter 11, verse 7.
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Remember, he killed the two witnesses.
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The beast is also called the Antichrist.
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Now, this beast we're going to see in Revelation chapter 13, there's actually two.
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But the Antichrist is a man that represents an empire in the same way that Hitler represented the Nazis, the Third Reich.
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And the Antichrist is going to be demonically empowered.
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And as soon as you hear the word Antichrist, you think, "Bad guy, super villain type stuff, right?" He's going to come on the scene as a popular world leader.
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People are going to love this guy.
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He's going to be a celebrity.
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The Bible says he's going to make a peace treaty with Israel.
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People are going to be saying, "He's not bad.
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Look at him. He's bringing peace.
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Look, he's great." But halfway through the tribulation, he's going to show his true colors.
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He's going to rule the world and he's going to demand worship.
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We're going to see that so clearly in this passage today.
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He's going to break the treaty with Israel And that is going to launch Satan's assault that results in Israel fleeing into the wilderness that we talked about last week in chapter 12.
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To the Antichrist, he's described, this isn't the only place in the Bible, do some more reading.
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Daniel chapter seven, chapter nine, chapter 11, Jesus talked about the Antichrist in Matthew chapter 24, Paul talked about the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians chapter two, okay?
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This is a major deal.
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And there's a lot of stuff in this passage, So I just want to encourage you to ask the Lord right now to help your heart and mind tune into His Word.
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Can we do that? Can we just stop for a second?
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And Father, all of Your Word is important in some passages, Father, for me are much harder to read and understand and interpret and teach than others.
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And this is a tough passage, because there's a lot of stuff going on.
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There's a lot of prophecies fulfilled. There's just so much happening, God.
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So I pray for myself and I pray for my brothers and sisters here, for our hearts and our minds right now, distraction free, let us regard your word for what you said it is, the Word of the Lord.
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Let us regard it with the same seriousness that you call us to.
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Let us be edified, let us tremble before it, let it transform us.
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In Jesus' name.
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And all of God's people said, Amen.
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The Antichrist is going to have a right-hand man, the false prophet, we're going to talk about him, he shows up in this passage.
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and before we look at the text I want to remind you one more thing we've been saying over and over and over I got to remind you but in Revelation John is describing what he's seeing more than he's explaining what he's seeing and if you've been with us in this series you've seen that a lot of these images come from the Old Testament but it's okay to go to Revelation kind of scratching your head a little bit and saying he's just sort of describing what he's seeing. It's okay. We want to read the Bible, what's our word? Straightforwardly, right? Straightforwardly. And in this passage, John said this was a sign. And this sign is that he started in chapter 12, verse 1. It's continuing here in chapter 13. This is a sign.
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So in your outline, if you want to take notes, the coming of the two beasts. First of all, we're going to talk about the beast from the sea, the Antichrist. Let's look at verses John says, "And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
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And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth.
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And to it the dragon," that's Satan, "gave his power and his throne and great authority." It says the beast comes from the sea.
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Well, chapter 11, verse 7, chapter 17, verse 8, says the beast comes from the abyss.
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Does C here represent the abyss?
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Is that part of the sign?
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His description is familiar, very familiar to Satan's description in chapter 12, verse 3.
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Difference being, the beast is said to have 10 diadems, which represents 10 nations that are going to be united under the Antichrist.
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Which by the way, do a Google search on that.
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the president of France, recently has started a 10-nation military conglomerate.
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Interesting, isn't it?
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Maybe I don't need a tinfoil hat.
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Maybe God's word is actually coming true right under our noses.
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But here, this is absolutely fascinating to me.
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John gives a description here.
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Did you see the animals?
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I'm sure you caught that.
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He says, "The beast also was like a leopard.
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Its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's." So the description of these animals, the leopard, the bear, the lion, those are the same images of world empires that Daniel describes in Daniel chapter 7.
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But here's where it gets really wild.
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As Daniel's describing these coming empires, Daniel's looking forward in time.
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So he sees a lion, a bear, and a leopard.
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And as John is describing them, he describes the leopard, the bear, and the lion.
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He describes them in reverse order because he's looking back in time.
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The point here is Antichrist's empire is going to be a composite of all of the preceding empires.
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It's the fourth beast in Daniel, the most horrible one of all.
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That's Daniel chapter 7, verse 7.
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God likes to work through people, and you know Satan does too.
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The Bible says that in these days Satan's going to give his power and authority to this man, the Antichrist.
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Let's continue.
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Look at verse 3.
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its head seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast. And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" We're going to see this come up again a few more times. But the Antichrist is going to commit the ultimate blasphemy, because he's He's going to try to imitate the ultimate work of Jesus Christ, which is his death and resurrection.
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The Antichrist is going to emulate that.
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So that raises a whole bunch of questions.
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Is the Antichrist literally going to die and resurrect, or is it just going to be fake?
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Personally, I lean towards the fake side because 2 Thessalonians 2.9 talks about false signs and wonders.
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I don't believe that Satan has the power over life and death the way Jesus Christ does.
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I believe, this is me personally, I believe it's a big act, but it's a big act that the entire world buys.
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He's going to get a huge following because the world is going to be mesmerized by this man who died and resurrected from the dead.
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Can you see the blasphemy?
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And he's going to use that to set himself up to be God, according to 2 Thessalonians 2.4.
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Do you see the blasphemy?
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Here's a man who died and resurrected and said he was God, imitating Jesus Christ.
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Oh, and the blasphemy continues. That's what verse 4 is all about.
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Do you see the world in worshiping the beast says, look at these last two phrases, "Who is like the beast and who can fight against it?" Does that sound familiar? Those are Old Testament concepts reserved only for God.
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Who is like God? Who is like the Lord of Heaven?
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And that's what the world's going to say about the beast.
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Who is like him? Nothing is like him. He's awesome.
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It's blasphemy, but that's what's coming.
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Look at verse 5. It says, "And the beast was given a mouth, blasphemies against God, blaspheming His name and His dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them, and authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on the earth will worship it. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation So again, the Antichrist is going to viciously attack those who come to faith in Christ during the Tribulation while the rest of the world worships him and cheers him on.
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But notice it says, "It was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them." Just to remind you that this conquer is obviously physically, not spiritually, because we see right in this passage, we get the reminder that true believers are secure in Jesus Christ.
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If you belong to Jesus Christ, He wrote you down in His book, and nothing can take you out of that.
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We're going to talk more about that in a second, so just hang on.
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But look at verse 9. It says, "If anyone has an ear, let him hear." Now hang on a second.
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Here's another reason I believe that the church has been raptured before the Tribulation.
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Do you remember when the church was being addressed in chapters 2 and 3?
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Do you remember what the repeating phrase was?
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"If anyone has an ear to hear." What the Spirit says to the church is, and you notice here, the Spirit and church isn't in the phrase.
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It just says, "If anyone has an ear, let him hear." It says, "If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes.
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If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain." Here's a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.
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So during these days, and the reason these verses are in here, you know how people typically think.
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Government oppression, and it's going to get worse, you're going to see here.
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Things getting chaotic, anarchy, like we're going to fight back.
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We're going to assault the White House." No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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Christians are never called to be violent revolutionaries.
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I believe that's what verse 10 is talking about.
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Say, "Look, we don't retaliate.
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We don't stage an assault against a wicked government.
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We have to commit ourselves to God even in the worst times of persecution, like Jesus Christ who continued to trust himself to him who judges justly." We trust God. We trust God.
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That's the first beast, the beast from the sea, the antichrist.
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Let's talk about the second beast here, the beast from the earth, the false prophet.
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Verse 11 says, "Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth, and it had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon." The Bible says there's many, many antichrists, which ultimately leads to the big one.
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So it is with false prophets.
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There are millions of false prophets out there, and it ultimately leads to the big one.
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But just as, and here's where the blasphemy continues, just as God has revealed himself as Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Here again Satan is going to try to emulate that, with Satan himself being the Father, the Antichrist as his Son, resurrection from the dead and all. The ultimate false prophet here completes the Satanic Trinity. So the Antichrist is going to be more of a political leader and the false prophet is going to be the religious leader. And he's the one that's going to convince people to worship the beast. And like the Antichrist, the false prophet, is going to be loved, he's going to be popular, he's going to be a celebrity, and he's going to appear gentle and meek. He has little horns like a lamb, like a precious little lamb. Like how harmless is a lamb, right? And that's how he's going to appear. He's just harmless. He's nothing scary about that guy. That's what he looks like, but did you catch what his voice is like? His voice is the voice of the dragon, meaning he's speaking for the devil, right? He's just speaking Satan's words. Verse 12, "It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.
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It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. And by the signs it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast. It deceives those who dwell on the earth, telling them to make an image of the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived." There it is again. "And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain." Again, the false prophet's mission is directing the world to worship the Antichrist. Did you see that in the text?
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Worship him. He is awesome. He resurrected from the dead. He is awesome. And he's going to deceive people. And at this point in Revelation, think of the horrors that people have seen.
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All the quote-unquote ecological disasters that they'll just call natural disasters.
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Think of the demonic assault that they have seen at this point. Those horrific images of those demons. What was that? Revelation 9, right? Think of everything that they've seen and now the Antichrist comes along and says, "Look, we've had a rough couple of years here, but everything is going to be fine if you just worship Him. We have a Savior that is going to take care of, and this false prophet's favorite sermon is the resurrection of the Antichrist. Again, real or fake, the world's going to buy it. Can we wrap our brains around how blasphemous this is? That the world is going to fawn over this message, "Here's a man who was dead and rose from the dead, and he deserves your worship!" You realize that same message is being preached about Jesus Christ in churches today and the world thinks you're an idiot for sitting here. But in these days, the same message is going to be given about somebody else and everybody's gonna be like, "Bravo! Who is like him? He is awesome!" And it's just Satan's way of thinking, "Look, you couldn't pull this off God, but I could. My resurrected one has a worldwide following." Wow. He imitates the witnesses, the false prophets. You saw You saw the miracles, the signs and wonders he's permitted to perform just like the two witnesses with the fire.
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All of these signs and wonders misleading people.
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And the blasphemy continues.
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You saw the false prophet is going to order the construction of an idol or an image probably in Jerusalem near the temple.
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This is probably the abomination of desolation that the Bible talks about.
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But a giant idol is going to be constructed.
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And somehow, according to this vision that John is describing for us, the false prophet is going to put breath or life into this idol.
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How does that happen?
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I don't know.
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Some people say, "Oh, I know how it happens.
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It's like robotics and animatronic, right?
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Like, you ever been to Disney World?
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You go on those rides and you see the dancing puppets.
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It's like, "Yeah, it's a small world after all!" And some people think that's what they're going to do with this statue.
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Do you think people are going to buy that?
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Do you think the world's going to be like, "Yeah, let's worship that"?
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I think there's something demonic happening here that is more convincing than just animatronics, no matter how good animatronics are today.
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There's something demonic happening here because this statue, this idol speaks and somehow destroys those who won't worship it.
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Like how? The text doesn't say.
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But John's just describing what he's seeing in this sign.
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Look at verse 16.
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Verse 16 says, "And it causes all, also, excuse me, also, "It causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast, or the number of its name.
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This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666." Back in Revelation 7, God marked His people to protect them.
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Revelation 7, verses 2 and 3.
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More blasphemy. The Antichrist is going to mark his people.
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The false prophet is going to mark the Antichrist's people.
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And unbelievers are going to receive this mark, seemingly, for their protection and security.
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And again, think of everything that the earth endured at this point.
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The drought, three and a half years, ecological disasters, water to blood, all of these things that have happened, supplies are already in high demand.
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But now, even the act of purchasing, just the act of purchasing itself has a price.
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Because at this point, the mark of the beast is the only thing that's going to enable someone to buy or sell.
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There's not going to be cash or checks.
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Irrelevant.
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They will be irrelevant.
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And I don't know if there's a portion of Revelation that has more discussion or more ideas, right Mike, than these few verses right here.
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What is the mark of the beast?
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Is it a barcode that's put on the hand or the head?
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Is it a computer chip that is implanted in the hand?
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Is it a computer chip that maybe is tied into the worldwide computer system?
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It's sort of like having Apple Pay built into your person somehow.
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Another thought was, as John is watching this and describing, is it somehow tied into the technology that we have in our day for facial recognition and fingerprint verification?
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Think about that.
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If I want to buy something on my iPhone, how does it ask me to verify payment?
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Fingerprint.
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Is that the mark that John saw on the hand?
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Another thing that is in development right now, again, tinfoil hat, Google this, facial recognition.
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If you want to verify a purchase, just put your face in front of the computer and it'll recognize your face and that'll verify your purchase.
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Is that the mark that John saw with head and hand?
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Regardless, and we can talk about this all day, but let's not miss the forest for the trees here.
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This is about control. It's about control.
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It's another way that people are going to be forced to worship the Antichrist.
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And again, church, in these days, it's going to look so good and convenient, isn't it?
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Like, how convenient would that be?
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I don't have to worry about a checkbook. I don't have to worry about cash.
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I don't have to worry about fraud.
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I can verify my payments with my fingerprint in my face.
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Nobody can take my money.
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It looks good and convenient, but the price in these days is going to be total alignment with the Antichrist.
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You know, a generation or two ago, this stuff seemed pretty inconceivable, didn't it?
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What I mean is, if you were to ask your great-grandparents to describe how they think this was going to happen, what would they have said?
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They'd go, "I don't know how that's going to happen." But in our day, can't you imagine dozens of different scenarios that would make this happen?
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Things that are happening right now, technology-wise?
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We see it's not only possible, but the mechanisms that allow these things to happen are being developed right this minute.
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And Church, again, Google this stuff, because this stuff I'm sharing with you today is not some fringe conspiracy theory, chicken little fairy tale stuff.
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Drop these things down.
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I want you to Google some things, like this one, for example.
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Do you know right now, Facebook is working on creating the world's largest currency.
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Did you know that?
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Google this, not right now by the way.
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If your neighbor is Googling this, knock their phone out of their hand, you have my permission.
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I said write it down, you can Google this later.
24:12-24:23
But Facebook has, they've merged WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, and currently it reaches somewhere between 2.7 and 2.9 billion people.
24:24-24:37
And they are working on developing this digital coin that's pegged into the value of government currencies that will give you the ability to send payment to anyone in the world without having to do a money exchange.
24:38-24:45
Meaning if I want to send money to somebody in Japan, we don't have to worry about yen and dollars. We have the common currency.
24:46-24:50
Now do you see how this technology is a mechanism that's going to allow this?
24:50-24:53
Do you see it? Again, it's going to be convenient. It's going to eliminate fraud.
24:54-24:58
Maybe your transactions can be verified by facial recognition or fingerprint.
24:58-25:01
As we've said, we're already there people.
25:01-25:05
Meanwhile in China, do you know about China's social credit system?
25:05-25:06
Do you know about that?
25:06-25:09
How many people have heard of the social credit system?
25:09-25:09
A few of you?
25:10-25:15
If you haven't, I'm gonna give you the elementary version, elementary school version, and you can look this up through some reading.
25:15-25:19
But this social credit system is sort of like a credit score.
25:19-25:22
You know, in our culture, we have a credit score.
25:22-25:28
And if your credit score is too low, you don't qualify for a loan, or purchasing a house, or whatever, whatever.
25:28-25:35
Well, in China they have a social credit system, but it's based on behavioral criteria.
25:35-25:37
And it's captured through surveillance.
25:38-25:39
Cameras everywhere, right?
25:39-25:45
Well, with this social credit system, negative activity lowers your social credit score.
25:46-25:47
It's behavioral criteria.
25:47-25:49
And it can be whatever they want it to be.
25:49-25:51
J walking, boom, your credit score lowers.
25:52-25:57
Monitoring how much time you play video games, that can lower your social credit score.
25:58-26:04
Who you hang out with online, if they have a low social credit score, that lowers your social credit score.
26:04-26:07
And it can be whatever criteria the government decides to use.
26:08-26:09
You're like, well, what happens with social credit score?
26:10-26:18
Well, if your social credit score gets low enough, you can't buy a plane or a train ticket, you can't land certain jobs, and you can't shop at certain stores.
26:19-26:25
Right now in China, last that I had read, there are 17 million people blacklisted because they have low social credit.
26:26-26:27
17 million people!
26:28-26:28
You're like, so what?
26:29-26:33
There's a huge push right now to bring the social credit system to the United States.
26:33-26:36
I knew it, Pastor Jeff needs a tinfoil hat.
26:36-26:37
Google it, Google it.
26:37-26:46
And by the way, the websites that are going to come up aren't some weird fringe things, you know, like UncleSamsMusket.com or whatever.
26:46-26:53
We're talking like CNN, entrepreneur, like these are mainstream news sites that are recording this.
26:54-26:56
That Uncle Sam's thing, is that really a site?
26:56-27:00
Like, all right, I got a lot of Googling to do, Pastor Jeff, right, you do.
27:00-27:02
So, what is 666?
27:03-27:03
What is that?
27:04-27:06
You know, it's almost like John's giving us a puzzle, right?
27:06-27:15
Like John's giving us this puzzle, okay, it's the number of a man, and it's 666, and you know, you have 60 seconds to figure it out, and, well, here's the common answer.
27:16-27:20
You know, the English language, we have our own characters for numbers, right?
27:20-27:25
But in a lot of languages like the Greek, in which this is written, the characters for numbers are also letters.
27:26-27:30
So the common answer is, if you, I mean, we're familiar with this because of football, right?
27:31-27:34
Super Bowl, you know, with the Roman numerals, right?
27:34-27:36
And those letters mean numbers, right?
27:36-27:43
So what you do is you take the letters and you find out their numerical equivalent and you add those up.
27:44-27:47
If the Antichrist, you'll get 666. That's the common interpretation of that.
27:48-27:51
The only danger with that is a lot of people fit that criteria, right?
27:51-27:54
Like, I think LBJ was 666, right?
27:54-27:56
And I don't think he was the Antichrist.
27:56-28:03
But the Antichrist hasn't been revealed yet, so really, guessing is just speculation.
28:03-28:05
But notice he says this calls for wisdom.
28:05-28:14
And I believe that when these days come that are described in this passage, When these days come, the 666 is going to make sense to those with wisdom.
28:14-28:18
So the signs are right in front of us, increasingly so.
28:18-28:30
And there are so many more signs of world events, things that have happened, Church, within the past few weeks that are fulfilling things that the Bible has prophesied centuries ago.
28:30-28:33
I just don't have time to cover them all today.
28:33-28:36
You know, a message like this, a message like this could send us into a panic.
28:37-28:42
So I'm going to close just for a minute by sort of talking us all off of the ledge, collectively.
28:43-28:45
With a reminder, I want you to jot a couple things down.
28:45-28:48
We're not going to panic because God is in control.
28:48-28:50
God is in control.
28:50-28:54
So jot this down, first of all, letter A, God is in control, so I will not fear.
28:55-28:56
So I will not fear.
28:56-29:01
I could say so much about that, but I spent a whole year, didn't we, going through the book of Acts.
29:02-29:07
You don't need to leave here today and go, you know, lock yourself in the closet with the lights out.
29:08-29:17
I just want to remind you that all of these things that we're talking about here, all of these things were already talked about in God's Word even before Revelation chapter 13.
29:17-29:22
Isaiah, Daniel, Jesus talked about them in the Gospels, Paul, it's all been predicted.
29:23-29:27
Okay, so we get to Revelation 13, it's not like this brand new information.
29:27-29:50
John's just seeing a sign that's showing how all of these prophecies are sort of coming together. So we don't need to worry, we don't need to fear, we don't need to panic, because everything is going down exactly as God said it would. So instead of panic, Church, I would suggest to you that that should bring us comfort. I want you to look, you might want to circle these, draw a line on them, whatever. See if you can find the common phrase here.
29:50-30:29
Verse 5, "Beast was given a mouth, uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed." to exercise authority. Okay, verse 7. "Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints." Okay, verse 14. "By the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast." Okay, jump down to verse 15. "And it was allowed." Okay, what's the common phrase you saw in all those verses? "It was allowed." Isn't that awesome? Like, what's awesome about that? Well, Who allowed it? Who? Satan? Yeah, Satan allowed the Antichrist to do these. No, no, no, no.
30:29-30:33
I don't... Nah. It's obvious that Satan isn't the one granting permission here.
30:33-30:36
Okay, I'm going to count to three and you're going to shout out who granted permission.
30:36-30:44
You ready? One, two, three. God! God granted permission, right? Everything in this chapter.
30:45-30:50
And John reminds us again, at least four times that I found here, God's allowing all of this.
30:51-30:53
He's like, "Yeah, exactly how I laid it out.
30:53-30:55
The church isn't going to be here for the worst of it.
30:55-30:57
The evil days are here already.
30:57-31:05
It's only going to get more and more dark." So when you see these signs, you can panic, or you can look at these signs and say, "Yep, God's in control.
31:06-31:11
He's in control. He's doing it exactly as He said He would." So I will not fear, secondly, so I am secure.
31:12-31:12
I am secure.
31:13-31:18
Again, if you are in Christ, if you are in Christ, you are written down in His book.
31:18-31:33
So for those of you sitting here today that have received Christ as Lord and Savior, who have received His gift of salvation, His gift of eternal life, for you and for those who are going to come to Christ during the tribulation, you are secure. Nothing can take your salvation from you.
31:33-31:38
And all we saw last week, the devil is powerful, but he isn't powerful enough to take your salvation.
31:38-31:40
So I would encourage you, church, let the signs drive you.
31:41-31:44
Get into His Word. Worship Him. Pray passionately.
31:44-31:48
and let this drive you to share the good news with those who don't know it.
31:48-31:48
Let's pray.
31:49-32:12
Father in heaven, we thank you, especially for the phrase over and over in your passage here today, "It is allowed." "It was allowed." Because God, once again, we can come to this passage and look at this and say, "Wow, everything is out of control." But here we see again and again and again, "You're sovereign." And everything that's happening is happening only because you permit it.
32:13-32:19
Father, I pray that a passage like this and a message like this wouldn't drive us to fear, but I pray the opposite. I pray it would drive us to trust.
32:20-32:28
I pray it would drive us to a thankfulness to You for Your salvation, but also at the same time an urgency, because we all know people that don't know You.
32:28-32:32
And they're going to be forced with someday facing this decision.
32:32-32:36
Am I going to receive the mark of the beast and be able to buy food, or am I going to go hungry?
32:36-32:43
Father, reignite in us a passion to reach the lost, especially the loss that surrounds us in our homes and in our workplaces.
32:44-32:47
Because the time is near, we know that Jesus Christ is coming soon.
32:48-32:50
It's in His name that we pray, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 13
GROUP
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
What do you think about the “mark of the beast”, and how buying and selling will be controlled? How do you think that will play out? Why do you think so many people will “buy in”?
How do you understand the meaning of 666? Why do you think John presented it in such a mysterious way?
BREAKOUT
Pray specifically for our nation and leaders as a group.