Sermon Transcript

 

0:00:14.0

“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.  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.  And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.  One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.  And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’  And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.  It opened its mouth to utter 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 earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.  If anyone has an ear, let him hear:  If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain.  Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.”  Well, most of you know that the Bible is made up of two testaments, the Old and the New Testament.  And the Bible contains 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament.  What you may not know is that the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is one continuous story.  One continuous story written over 1600 years by 40 different authors.  The only way that can happen as one continuous story is by the miracle we call the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, where God breathed His Word supernaturally into the hearts and minds of those who penned it.  And God wrote us a book we have in our hands called the Bible.  With an understanding we have of that, it shouldn’t surprise us that the first book of the Bible and the last book of the Bible have a connection between the two.  For example, you remember the story of Noh and the flood in Genesis, in the early chapters of Genesis?  After that great flood destroyed the earth and Noah and his family were saved, they emerged from the ark and they repopulated the earth.  It took some time to do so, but over time the earth was repopulated.  And a group of people, the Bible says, from the east, who spoke with a single language, came to a place called Shinar.  And they built a tower there known as the Tower of Babel.  And that was humanity’s first attempt, we might say, at a new world order.  And that’s when the God of heaven looked down on this group of people who had built this tower.  And He saw the potential for evil.  And He scattered those people by confusing their languages.  And they scattered to the four corners of the world, and humanity repopulated from there.

 

0:03:48.2

We might say, again, that that was their first attempt at a new world order, but since then evil despots and leaders have come and gone on planet earth.  And many of them have tried to unite the peoples of the world, some with good intent, many with evil intent.  And they have tried to create what we might call a new world order.  Well, fast-forward from the first book of the Bible to the last book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.  And now John—as he gives us the apocalypse, the revelation of Jesus Christ—we come to chapter 13.  And he envisions a time when the world’s effort to, kind of, incrementally and progressively get back to Babylon, get back to that forming of a new world order, reaches a tipping point.  A tipping point that makes it easy and almost seamless and natural for a world leader to rise up on the world stage and seize control of the world and speak into it and develop this new world order.  John describes it this way.  He says, “I saw a beast rising up from the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, and with ten diadems on its horns and a blasphemous name on its head.”

 

0:05:05.1

What do we mean by a new world order?  We hear that term, that phraseology kicked around a lot.  A new world order.  What do we mean by that, or what do people who use that phraseology mean by it?  Well, generally speaking, it’s a term used to describe the uniting of the world’s military, industrial, and monetary resources to secure ad maintain global peace, safety, and security.  And those who talk of a new world order use globalist language.  They talk about a world without border.  Countries and divisions between countries being erased.  They envision uniting peoples and cultures and faiths.  And in one sense, there’s nothing wrong with that.  I mean, who could be against the uniting of the world population and the uniting of humanity.  Until you come to realize that in order to do that, you need the strong arm of a centralized government that will tell people what to do, what to think, what to say, and when to do it all.  And that’s when there are some people who warn against a new world order while others are pushing us towards that.  Now, some people say that all this discussion about a new world order is just a lot of conspiracy talk.  You know, that crazy people on the right and the left get all frothed up and they dream about the conspiracies of a new world order.  Until you begin to realize that almost every world leader from the beginning of the 20th century—let’s go back there—has used this language and rhetoric in their political dialogue and in their leadership, starting with a madman named Adolf Hitler who said, “National socialism will use its own revolution for establishing a new world order.”  This was Adolf Hitler.  And he was a spell-binding communicator.  People who are old enough to remember his voice said that he would start off very slow.  And he would build up and build up until he just had the crowds spellbound by what he said.  He had this new world order in mind.  Well, you fast-forward in the 20th century to the late 20th century.  And the former soviet leader Mikael Gorbachev spoke of a new world order in his historic address to the United Nations on December 7th, 1988.  The soviet prime ministry almost spoke prophetically when he said these words.  “Further global progress is now possible only through a quest for universal consensus in the movement towards a new world order.”  And this kind of language has even seeped into American politics.  It wasn’t long after that and before a summit meeting with Gorbachev in Finland in September of 1990 that President George H. W. Bush expressed hope that “the foundation for the new world order would be laid in Helsinki” and that that would happen through the United Nations.  And if you think about it, every president since then—Clinton, George W. Bush, and,  yes, even Barak Obama—has used globalist language to move our thinking closer and closer to this new world order.  Not always with the evil intent of Adolf Hitler.  But like the frog in the kettle, we’re becoming more and more accepting and accustomed of the globalism of our time.

 

0:08:33.9

John said in one of his epistles that he wrote—you know, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, those little postcards—he said, “The spirit of antichrist is in the world today.”  And he was talking about his time.  Remember, we are in the last days.  The last days that began when Jesus Christ came to this earth.  Whether we are in the final days of the last days is a whole other expression.  But John, as he saw the beginning of the last days, he says, “The spirit of antichrist is here.”  Yes, that incremental movement, that slow progression towards the unification of the world until it reaches a tipping point where it seems very normal, very natural, very seamless for some leader to step onto the world stage with evil intent like the world has never seen and seize control.  John sees it in his vision as a beast rising up out of the sea, he says.  And he describes him with ten horns and seven heads and ten crowns on his horns and blasphemous names on its head.  This is famous or infamously known as the Antichrist in the Bible.  The spirit of antichrist is in the world today, little A.  There’s coming a day when the Antichrist, capital A, a political figure, will rise.  And it will just be normal and natural for him to seize control of the world.

 

0:10:07.6

Now, it’s interesting in the flow of our study of Revelation, Revelation talks about three different beasts, one which is the devil himself.  And then when we come to Revelation 13, there are two beasts mentioned.  One that rises up out of the sea, and another one that rises up out of the earth.  Verse 1 and verse 11.  You can compare those two.  This represents the unholy trinity, we call it, where the devil, the Antichrist, and this third figure rising up from the earth known as the false prophet form what we call the unholy trinity.  They mimic the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  And this one known as the Antichrist—remember, “anti-” means “opposed to” or “instead of”.  This figure known as the Antichrist, this one rising up out of the sea, he’s opposed to everything related to Jesus Christ.  But he also tries to mimic him.  He’s opposed to and instead of.  And so it shouldn’t surprise us that the devil’s activities in the book of Revelation during the Tribulation period even try to mimic the holy trinity, but in a very unholy kind of way.  Now, John calls this figure a beast, a beast.  And there is a very good reason for that.  When humans try to rule themselves apart from God, we act like beasts, don’t we?  It happens every time.  But that’s not the only name given to this figure known as the Antichrist in the Bible or this world dictator, this world ruler.  He is also called the man of lawlessness.  He is called the abomination.  Daniel refers to him as the little horn that pops up amid the ten horns.  He’s the bold-faced king.  He’s the prince who is to come.  All of these figures are referencing the same one, this one called the Antichrist, but none more, you know, poignant than the fact that he is a beast.  He is a beast because he seeks to rule apart from God, opposed to Jesus Christ, and instead of Him.  And he seeks to lead the world in that direction.

 

0:12:13.4

Now, in the verses that I read, verses 1-10…and we’ll focus there, and we’ll go to Daniel 7 and also Revelation 17 a little bit.  But I find six, kind of, descriptive, phraseologies or words that we can build our understanding of this Antichrist, this beast around.  The first thing I would say is that the beast is worldly.  What do I mean by that?  He rises up as a world leader.  He is very well-connected to the world scene, we might say.  John says he rises up out of the sea.  Now, the sea in the book of Revelation is always a reference to the gentile nations.  And this has given many Bible scholars and prophecy experts some understanding that the Antichrist, the future world dictator, will be a gentile.  The sea could also refer to the one closest to John and the people to whom he was writing.  Remember, John was on the island of Patmos in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.  And so some people believe that the Antichrist will be a gentile.  And he might even rise up from that part of the world, from the Mediterranean part of the world.  Other people believe that the Antichrist is a Jew.  And they base this in part on Daniel 11:37 where it makes a reference to the gods of his fathers.  That he will “not pay attention to the gods of his fathers”.  Well, if “gods of his fathers” refer to the Hebrew people, then, yeah, maybe you could you say that he was a Jew.  But that’s tough to connect that to the Jewish people because the Jewish people were not polytheistic people.  They didn’t worship many gods plural.  They worshipped one god.  They were monotheistic people.  “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one,” said the Shema.  And so the fact that he does not pay attention to the gods of his fathers, it’s a stretch to suggest that that might refer to the Jewish people.  Also, it’s hard to see how a Jewish Antichrist would broker treaty and peace relationships on behalf of Jews.  It seems more likely to come through a gentile leader who would do this on behalf of the Jewish people.  So I’m more favorable to the idea that the Antichrist who rises up from the sea, from the gentile nations, perhaps from that part of the Mediterranean world, is in fact a gentile leader.

 

0:14:29.2

John goes on to say in verse 2 that “the beast I saw,” listen to this, “was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth.”  Now, he’s pulling this from Daniel’s prophecy as well, because if you go back to Daniel 7…and to understand Revelation 13, again, you need Daniel 7 and Revelation 17 in mind.  I won’t have to turn to Daniel 7, but Daniel, in his prophecy, saw four beasts rising up in the future.  A beast that looked like a lion, one that looked like a bear, another one that looked like a leopard, and fourth beast that was different from the others.  But he had ten horns.  And most Bible scholars see in these four beasts four mighty world empires that started in Daniel’s time and went forward.  Like the ferocious lion that the Babylonian Empire was.  Remember, Daniel was among the Jewish youth who were taken captive by the Babylonians.  Into Babylonian captivity the Jews went for 70 years.  And in the midst of that captivity as Daniel rose to power in the Babylonian government, he receives this vision.  And he sees the first mighty empire or beast, which is the Babylonian Empire.  But as all empires do, they come and they go.  And what followed the ferocious lion was a strong, crushing, bear-like empire known as the Medes and the Persians.  Read your history books.  Everyone knows the Babylonians were followed by the Medes and the Persians.  And when the Medes and the Persian Empire fell by the wayside, what followed was a Grecian Empire that was as swift as a leopard.  And so both Daniel and John see the lion, the bear, the leopard…John sees it as the leopard, the bear, and the lion, in reverse order because he’s living it this time.  Daniel was living it this time in the Babylonian Empire looking forward.  John is living it this time, during the time of the fourth beast that Daniel saw, which many scholars believe was the Roman Empire following the Grecian Empire.  Are you with me so far?  Can you take a deep breath?  All right?  That’s a lot to digest.  But that’s Daniel.

 

0:16:40.2

Now, John says he saw all of this.  The beast like a leopard.  Its feet were like the bears.  Its mouth was like a lion.  The fourth beast that John sees was sort of a combined combination of the three previous ones into a fourth beast that rises up.  This fourth beast, which may scholars believe is the revival of the Roman Empire during the Tribulation period, has the ferocity of the lion that came out of the Babylonian Empire, the bear-cruising abilities of the Medes and the Persians that crushed their enemies, the swiftness of the Grecian Empire, all rolled into one into a revival of the Roman Empire in the end times.  Now, why do we say that?  Well, this is where Revelation 17 comes into play.  Turn with me over there.

 

0:17:32.6

I said earlier in the series that the Bible is often its best own interpreter.  Let the scripture interpret the scripture.  And here we have some interpretative statements that John gives us in Revelation 17 that helps clarify Revelation 13.  In Revelation 17 John sees a mysterious woman.  We’ll identify her later in the series when we get to Revelation 17.  But I just want to take a quick glimpse right now.  He sees a mysterious woman sitting on a beast.  And in verse 8 he says, “The beast that you saw,” listen to this, “was and is not and is about to rise from the bottomless pit.”  Now, this beast many scholars believe is a description of the mighty, mighty Roman Empire that was and then is not.  And the rise and fall of the Roman Empire is well-documented in history.  It was and is not and is about to rise during these end times from the bottomless pit.  Scroll down now to verse 9, where John goes on to say something about the seven heads.  Remember, this beast had seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns on his horns.  He says, “This calls for a mind with wisdom.  The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated.”  You say, “Well, that doesn’t clarify anything, (0:19:00.1)pastor, because now we have to know what seven mountains are in addition to seven heads.”  Well, anybody in John’s day, and John included, would understand the reference to the seven mountains.  Rome was the city built on seven hills or seven mountains.  And so what John envisions here is that the seven heads…remember, the beast has seven heads, ten horns and ten crowns on the ten horns.  The seven heads are the seven mountains, representation of the city of Rome, leading many Bible scholars to believe that the Antichrist will base his operations in the city of Rome.  Now, some have run with that and made a connection between the Antichrist’s operations and the Roman Catholic Church and the false prophet and all of that.  I won’t get into that today, but there is some discussion about that out there.

 

0:19:51.8

Let’s read on in verse 12.  “And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal (0:20:00.10) power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast.”  The ten horns are ten kings, ten nations, we might say.  Again, the reviving, the coalescing, the coalition of the revived Roman Empire led by the beast who places himself in Rome as his base of operations, the seven heads, the seven hills or mountains.  You following me so far?  It’s a lot of imagery to try to make sense of and to connect Bible prophecy passages here.  The reference here to the ten horns and to the ten kings.  Let’s go back to that discussion last week we had about the European Common Market, because a lot of modern day Bible prophecy experts about 30 or 40 years ago were looking at the rise of the European Common Market, this United States of Europe that later became the European Union.  And they were seeing that as a possible fulfillment of Bible prophecy here.  And, in fact, the European Common Market started with two or three nations.  It quickly rose to ten, and there were ten nations in the Common Market for many, many years.  Then it went to 12 and 13.  Then it changed to the EU.  And today the EU…well, it was 28 nations.  Now, with Britain exiting, it’s 27 nations.  I don’t know whether the EU is the vehicle through which the Antichrist seizes power.  There is some uniting of former Roman Empire nations in the last days through which he seizes power.  If it is through the European Union, then maybe the exit of Britain is the first in the process of winnowing those numbered nations down to 10.  I don’t know exactly.  It could be formed through something other than the EU.  I just know this.  The Bible says 10.  It says 10. And you can count on it.  Whatever you see in the day’s headlines, whatever you see happening in Europe, just know it’s not 12 or 13.  It’s not 28 or 27.  It’s 10 nations that form.  And Daniel says that Antichrist is that little horn that rises up in the midst of them.  He takes down three.  Seizes power of three immediately.  And the rest give him authority.  So this Antichrist, he’s worldly.  He is a world leader.  He’s playing on the world platform.  He is well-connected in the world community.  And the world has reached this tipping point.  This tipping point where it just seems normal and natural and seamless to develop a new world order, only he does so with great evil intent.

 

0:22:45.2

Now, secondly…and we’ll move on a little bit quicker through the rest of these.  Secondly, the beast is wounded and the healed.  Do you see this in verse 3?  “One of its heads,”…remember, he had seven heads.  This was the revival of the Roman Empire.  “One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.”  Now, some people see in this the “anti” part of Antichrist as the Antichrist who is instead of Christ, who mimics Christ.  And they see in this the death and resurrection of the Antichrist.  Remember, he is…if he is not the devil himself, he is possessed with great power and authority and the ability to do signs and wonders and all of that.  And is it possible that he dies, he suffers a mortal wound.  But his mortal wound was healed.  Again, some see a death and a resurrection here.  That’s possible.  But I actually see in here perhaps a further description of what happened to the Roman Empire.  If you turn again over to Revelation 17:10-11.  “They are also seven kings,”…now, again, the seven kings are the seven mountains, which is the Roman Empire.  “They are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while.  As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.”  Now, that’s about as clear as mud, isn’t it?  So I went to one of my scholarly friends, Dr. Ray Stedman, who made some sense of all this.  If in fact that mortal wound is reference to the iterations in government expressions with the Roman Empire, Stedman says, “The Roman historian Livy wrote that there had been five forms of Roman government up to his time.  Rome originally began as a loosely-connected series of regional city-states, each one governed by a king.  And this soon fell apart, and instead of kings they elected consuls.  And the consuls fell upon difficult times they were succeeded by dictators, leaders from the people who would rise up and take over the government.  These in turn were overthrown and replaced by a council of 10 rulers.  Eventually that form, too, failed and tribunes were elected by the people to rule the land.  Those were the first five forms of government that had fallen as the Roman Empire was developing.”  Stedman goes on to say, “But John is told ‘one is’.  That would be the imperial form, the emperors of Rome, beginning with Julius Caesar, before Christ, and continuing in a long series that history records as stretching well into the Fourth Century.  Now, says the angel, a seventh is yet to appear.  And ‘he must remain for a little while.’  That’s when the beast will appear,” this Antichrist.  “He will be one of the seven, revived, and thus constitute an eighth.”  I know that’s a lot of mileage around the block and a lot of symbols to try to put together.  But that’s how I best understand this woundedness of the beast.  Maybe a death and resurrection, but perhaps a further description of what has happened to the Roman Empire and how its mortal wound it healed.  And the whole earth marvels as this comes together.  And they marvel and follow the beast.

 

0:26:38.0

Thirdly, the beast is worshipped.  Verse 4, “And they worshiped the dragon,”—that is the devil himself—“for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’”  When this world leader comes onto the scene, Satan begins to receive what he has always desired, which is the fawning affection and worship of human beings.  Some people believe that in verse 12, when we talked about the fall of Satan from heaven, perhaps a second fall that John describes there.  A fall…this time when Satan loses his all-access pass to the throne room of God, that is he so mad, he is so furious he falls to this earth and either possesses the Antichrist or just takes him over completely and the Antichrist is the devil.  There is some discussion about that.  But Satan begins to receive the worship that he…you can probably insert here Daniel’s discussion and Jesus’ affirmation in Matthew 24 about the abomination that causes desolation.  This is when the Antichrist, remember, who rides into this world on a white horse like a good guy and he negotiates peace in the Middle East and peace on behalf of Israel and brokers a deal for Israel to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem, that’s the first 3 ½ years of the Tribulation period.  The starting of the second 3 ½ years, boy, that white hat turns to a black hat.  And he disassociates himself from Israel.  And he steps into the temple.  This is the abomination that causes desolation.  He desecrates the temple.  The false prophet, which we’ll talk about next week, helps to amalgamate the world’s spirituality and point everybody to the dragon and to the beast.  And he is worshipped.  He is worshipped in that temple from Jerusalem.  You say, “How could that happen?  How could that possibly happen?”

 

0:28:41.7

Well, let’s go on.  Number four, the beast wars against the saints.  Verse 7, “Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.”  Chapter 17 verses 13 and 14, “These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast,”—speaking of the ten nations or the ten horns—“They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”  He makes war against God’s people because the devil, the Antichrist and even the false prophet hate God’s people.  They hate the Jewish people and anyone who is spawned in belief in their Messiah.  Number five, it goes without saying that the beast is powerful.  Verse 2, “And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.”  Just one little note here.  Any power, any authority that the devil has it a delegated authority.  He has no power in and of himself.  And we know this from the book of Job where, when the devil had his all-access pass to the throne of God, when he still has possession of that, he steps into the Lord’s presence, starts accusing Job.  And the Lord says, “Okay, you can do this, this and this to Job, but not this.”  He put the devil on a leash but gave him some delegated authority and power.  Just always remember, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.”  John reminds us of that in his little postcard that he writes, and that’s an encouragement for us.

 

0:30:18.4

And then, finally, the beast is profane.  Verse 5 says, “And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words.”  You know that every evil despot and dictator that has ever come upon this planet has always used words, powerful, swaying, compelling rhetoric and language to sway the masses of people.  Adolf Hitler was a master at this and was probably possessed by the devil.  But can you imagine a world leader possessed by the devil like that, and even more so, perhaps even the devil himself?  A brilliant communicator.  A brilliant wordsmither.  I mean, people will be spellbound at his ability to communicate and his charismatic personality.  He will use his words to sway people, but out of his mouth come haughtiness and pride and blasphemous names.  You say, “Well, what is blasphemy?”  Blasphemy is not cursing.  Blasphemy is when you claim to be God or to having the powers of God.  When you assume authority that only God has.  And this is what the devil has been wanting to do ever since the beginning of time when he rebelled against the throne of God.  And in the last day he will have his man in place to assume the authority that only God can have.  And out of his mouth will come great blasphemies.

 

0:31:50.1

Do you ever scratch you head and wonder how would all of this happen?  Maybe 30 or 40 years ago that was more perplexing than it is today.  You wonder, how would the world be so gullible as to follow a leader like this? Remember, go back to Shinar.  And since Shinar, world leaders have come and they have gone—some with good intent, a lot of them with bad and evil intent—trying to pull together, unite the world into some new world order.  Oh, they’ve come.  They’ve gone.  They’ve come.  They’ve gone.  Even in our American political system you have that rhetoric seeping into the conversation.  There will come a day when, as we incrementally, slowly, progressively, move toward this, that it will just seem normal and natural for the world to slide under the Antichrist’s authority, not knowing the evil intent and the satanic intent behind it.

 

0:32:58.4

So what are we as Christians to do today?  How do we respond to a message like this?  Well, back to Revelation 13.  I’m glad that John inserts some encouragement for believers who are living during that time.  And if you're a believer in Jesus Christ and a member of the body of Christ, you won’t be because you’ll be raptured out of this world beforehand.  But we can take this heart.  Verse 9, John says, “If anyone has an ear, let him hear.”  Something Jesus often said to His followers during the time that He was on this earth.  He wasn’t telling you to go get your ears checked, you know, to make sure that you had the ability to hear.  Because you can have perfect hearing and still not hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the Churches.  You can have no deficiency in your auditory abilities and still not hear what God is saying through His Word.  So John begins there.  “If anyone has an ear, let him hear.”  And then he says, “If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain.”  Honestly, a little bit of a clunky translation here.  What its’ really meant to say is that those who take others captive and those who slay with the sword, one day they too will be taken captive.  They too will be slain with the sword.  It’s an encouragement to believers to do what John says.  And that is to endure and have faith during this time.  Certainly, an encouragement that those living on planet earth during the Tribulation period, those who come to faith in Christ will need to hear.  We refer to it as theologians as the perseverance of the saints.  Can you persevere during hard times?  Well, it’ll be really difficult to do that as the Antichrist reigns.  We haven’t even gotten into his economic control of the world through his famous number 666.  We’ll talk about that next week.  But he makes it difficult for anybody to do anything, even transact business on planet earth, if you don’t worship the beast.  But this little encouragement from John is it’s gonna be okay eventually.  It reminds me of what John said in one of his postcards.  “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.”  Oh, the devil is given power, a delegated power and authority, for a time.  The Bible says 42 months, 3 ½ years.  That’s the second half of the Tribulation, what Jesus called the Great Tribulation.  A time of trouble the world has never seen before.  And what it calls for are believers in Jesus Christ to endure.

 

0:35:39.3

James talks about this in his first and only New Testament epistle, where he uses the Greek word hupomone.  It means “to bear up under great stress and difficulty”.  What we need as believers in Jesus Christ, even as we look around our world today and it seems to be unraveling at the seams, is perseverance and faith.  The kind of faith that says, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”  We know that our Savior is here.  We read about all of this.  We study about all of this with the end in view.  We know that the glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is coming.  And He will defeat the enemy.  He will defeat the devil.  He will throw the devil and Hades and all of the unbelievers into the lake of fire.  He will establish His government on this earth.  By the way, the only time I’m for big government is when the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and the Prince of Peace establishes His rule and reign on this earth.  And knowing the end, we persevere.  We endure.  We walk by faith.  That’s the encouragement that John gives to the inhabitants of the earth at that time and to us, well, almost at the midpoint of our study of the book of Revelation.  Let’s pray together.

 

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Father, we thank You so much for Your Word this morning.  Thank You for pulling back the veil, as it were, to give us a glimpse.  A glimpse into the end of the age.  And it’s daunting.  It can be a bit fearful at times or stoke fear in our hearts.  But, Father, we don’t want to walk away fearful of the future.  But we want to walk away as people of faith.  People of faith who, even during difficult times, during hard times, we endure.  We know that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world, the devil and any of his chosen emissaries.  Father, I pray for anybody who is here under the sound of my voice today that has never trusted Jesus Christ as his or her savior, never come to the cross as a sinner who needs a savior.  I pray that you would give them ears to hear what the Spirit of God is saying and the faith to respond so that today is a day of salvation.  To seek You will You may be found.  To call upon You while You are near in this place.  Father, thank You for securing the victory for us, for making us overcomers in Christ and victors in Him.  And pray this in Jesus’s name and for His sake, amen.

 

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“Every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

Romans 8:28 MSG