Revelation: Part 40

When anyone anywhere, responds to this knowledge, by having a desire to know this God, God will move heaven and earth to get the message to them.

Two of the most important personalities that will be in that seven-year period just before Jesus Christ returns to the earth. And remember, in these parenthetical chapters, they’re parenthetical to the chapters in the book of Revelation that carry the chronology forward. The chronology of action. These are explanatory parenthetical chapters that explain movements and personalities that are the most important during this terrible period that’s called the Tribulation.

So, two of them are here. And we saw last week, I gave you some Scripture to read from the Old Testament. You got kind of a biographical sketch of this person that we call the Antichrist, didn’t you? You see the kind of person he would be.

A person of great cunning. A great speaker because several times Daniel talks of him being a man with a great mouth. And it talks about how, through his cunning, he would cause deceit to prosper. And so he will be a great deceiver.

But one who appears to be just the best thing that humanity has ever produced. The greatest leader that the world has ever seen. A leader that we can depend upon to bring us out of chaos. And remember, dictators never come in and say, hi, I’m your new leader.

Dictators are always brought in in a time of chaos, when people are desperate for security. They’re desperate for order. They’re desperate for, you know, to have a chance to have prosperity. And so a dictator will come at those times and take over.

It’s happened time after time after time. That’s how hitler got in. And they come in as a passionate person, who loves the people. Only this one will be greater than all of them put together.

Now reading from Revelation 13, it says that literally and I stood on the sand of the seashore. This is the apostle John on the island of Patmos, and God led him to come to the seashore and stand by the sea. And apparently it was a time when the sea was very rough. I’ve been to Patmos many times.

And I know when the wind comes in, that water can become very turbulent and rough in a very short while. So he comes to the seashore, and God shows him this vision of a beast coming up out of the turbulent waters. And, remember, we saw how that God often uses the turbulent sea to be a symbol of the nations. And when the nations are in turmoil, it’s the constant, like the constant roaring of the waves and the instability of the water with the wind.

And so that is the condition under which this beast appears out of the sea. So what this is saying, and the symbols that are used very carefully in the Bible, so it’s not guesswork to understand what they mean. What this means is that the nations are in a great chaos. And that’s when this beast arises from the nations.

He has, it says, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems. And on his heads were blasphemous names. Well, we saw last week how Daniel predicted all of this, he predicted that the last stage of Gentile world power would be a revived form of four great empires of the past. The first was Babylon.

The second was media Persia. The third was Greece. The fourth was Rome. Rome officially ceased to be politically in A.D.

476. They collapsed from the rottenness of their morality from within. But the Bible predicted that out of that fourth kingdom would rise ten nations. And those are symbolized here by ten horns with ten crowns.

Horns in the Bible are often used as a symbol of political power, or of the power that’s generated by a nation. And so this fits right in with what Daniel predicted and said that the final form of Rome would be in the form of ten nations that emerge out of the culture and people of the ancient Roman Empire. In Daniel 2, it’s the ten toes of that. In Daniel 7, it’s the ten horns that are on this beast.

So it’s clear that this is talking about the final stage of the fourth empire. Now, so this beast comes up, and he has those -on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard. What was the leopard a symbol of in Daniel?

Absolutely. And his feet were like those of a bear. Who was that? Persia.

Media Persia. And his mouth like the mouth of a lion. Who was that? Babylon.

Okay. So he’s saying that there are elements of the great power of all of these former kingdoms that will be in this final form of Gentile power. And it says and the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. Now notice, the singular pronoun is used here about the beast.

Because in Scripture, the kingdom and the king are often looked at almost as the same. But the context will tell you whether it’s talking about the king or the kingdom you rule. The context here is very clear. This is talking about the kingdom this beast will rule.

Now why is the symbol, a beast, used here? We call him, you know -I call him the Antichrist from Rome, but why does the Word of God call him the beast? Because God sees that’s his true nature. This is looking at him from God’s view.

He is a beast. Now, it goes on to say that the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. Who’s the dragon? Satan.

Revelation 12:9 clearly says that the dragon is that old serpent of old, Satan and the devil. So the devil gives this man three things. Three things. I wanted to see the words that were used, for each one of the things that Satan used, the Greek words.

Well, the first word that’s used, Satan gave this beast, the Antichrist, gave him his power. In other words, Satan’s own power he gives to this man. The Greek word is dunamis. That’s the word from which we got dynamite.

Which means great innate power. They used the word dynamite too soon. They should have waited for the atomic bomb. But dunamis means great innate power.

It’s personal power. And Satan gives this man his own personal power. And we can see from the things he does that this is awesome. The world has never had to face a malignant, deceptive character like this, who has such power.

He will have miraculous power. And it’s not gonna be fake. It’s not gonna be some magician. He will be given Satan’s own innate power, and it will become his innate power.

His personal power. And then it says he gives him his thronos. Throne. Remember, I’ve referenced this, I believe last week, remember when Jesus was taken by Satan up on a high mountain during the temptations, the three temptations he went through?

He got many more, but God made a special mention of these. When Satan took him up and showed him all of the kingdoms of the world and their glory, not only what had passed, but what was coming, I mean he got a movie like no hollywood producer could ever produce. That shows you just a little inkling of Satan’s power. And he says all of this I will give you if you will fall down and worship me, for it has been given over to me and I can give it to whomever I will.

He was rubbing Jesus’ nose in it that Adam had betrayed God’s trust and gave the title deed of the earth to him when he chose to follow Satan instead of God. So Satan says, okay, I’m gonna give him. Jesus turned it down. This man won’t.

He will sell his soul. And he gives him -it’s going to be Satan who establishes this man as ruler. He will first be ruler over ten nations, out of the ruins of the old Roman culture and people, and then from that power base politically, he will take control of the world quickly. And you say how could that happen so quickly?

Well, if it were just human power, it couldn’t. But this man is given his throne by Satan himself. And remember, this is at a time when God’s restraint of evil has been removed. Because the restrainer of evil dwells in every believer in Jesus Christ today.

But when we are removed, the restrainer goes with us. Now, the next is really interesting, because it says the third place, and his throne and great authority. This is exousia. Megala exousia in Greek.

Great means beyond anything else. And when it says exousia, this means delegation of power. Now, I still remember a great theologian that I had the privilege to spend much time with in mexico city. My goodness, this must have been about 1964, when I was with campus crusade, and every year I would go down to teach in their Bible school for campus crusade in mexico city.

His name was fritz, dr. Fritz heigel. And we were talking about the authority of the believer and our throne rights. And we were walking along the reforma in mexico city, and I said, you know, I don’t understand this.

What do you mean throne rights and authority and all that? And about that time there’s this big, one of the big glorietas that they have on the reforma in mexico city. And it was a place where there’s the big archer. The woman, I think it’s helena, they have a statue of her in the middle.

It’s a big circle and these cars come in, I think from five different angles. And they all circle around there. And it is absolute chaos. It’s always -if you’ve been there, you’ve seen it.

It’s always chaos. But they have a policeman out there standing on a podium, and he has white gloves on. And so dr. Heigel said, now watch this.

Just watch this for a minute. I’m gonna illustrate something. All of a sudden this policeman blew his whistle and raised his hand. I mean all of that chaos stopped and every car stopped, boom, right there.

He says, that’s authority. The man by himself couldn’t stop all those cars. But all of the citizens of mexico know that all the power of the mexican government is wrapped up in that right hand with a glove on when he raises it. Because he has the authority to put you in jail.

And you don’t want to go to jail in mexico. Well, that’s the difference between power and authority. And it says that this man is going to have the authority of Satan himself. In other words, Satan is going to back up with his awesome power everything he delegates; everything he calls upon.

And that’s even greater than dunamis. Because he’s able to release that power. And by the way, for the christian, most christians never learn it, but we have the authority of God himself. If you learn to walk with God, to trust him, then you can raise your hand in the name of Jesus Christ, and stop all the power of hell.

Just as long as you are doing it in the will of God. Now, a lot of pentecostals leave that part off, because they just want to get out there and showboat, which is very dangerous play to play with Satan. Even the angel michael respected Satan. I respect him.

I don’t get out there and bring a bunch of railing accusations against him, but I will come at him with Jesus’ name. Well, we have that authority, the Bible tells us. Those are part of our throne rights out of Ephesians 2, where he has raised us to sit at the right hand of God in him. Every believer at the instant of salvation is baptized, this is not water baptism, this is the baptism by the spirit.

We are baptized into union with Jesus himself so that we become bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. And we are seated in him at the right hand of God on his throne. And that throne we have the right of authority to draw upon as long as it’s by faith in his name and it’s in God’s will. Now, in verse 3, I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain and his fatal wound was healed.

And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast. You know, I was gonna make a movie with hollywood people. They came to me after I wrote “Satan’s alive and well,” and they wanted me to do a movie on the Antichrist with them. And, you know, there was a hundreds of thousands of dollars’ check that was laid down in front of me as the offer to — the retainer to do the movie.

And we sat and talked and this guy was one of the shakers and movers in hollywood. He was no minor producer and director. And we started talking and I began to ask him questions about what he wanted to do. And I saw that he wasn’t gonna follow the Bible.

So I said take your check, I’ll see you later. They made a movie. The same guy, he took bits and pieces of what he learned from “Satan’s alive and well,” and from “there’s a new world coming.” And they made a movie.

You know what the name was? “The omen.” Had that guy followed a screenplay that I wanted to do, he would have made a smash hit. Because what the Bible talks about is much more spooky than what they come up with.

With all of the catholic symbols and stuff like that. I mean, man, I wanted to -I can still see this scene. I wanted to do a scene about this verse where it says he has a mortal wound. And he is healed from the wound.

I wanted to have this guy in intensive care, you know, you’ve got all the monitors up, there’s a heartbeat and all of that, the brainwaves. And have him, you know, flatline. And he flatlines for a few hours. He’s dead.

And his religious friend is there mourning over him. While he’s mourning you see this dark, sinister shadowy figure come into the room and disappear into this dead man. And you turn the camera on his eye, and it opens up.

And you see this evil glint in his eye. Because that’s when Satan takes possession. I believe that’s the way it’s gonna happen. Would you go to a movie like that?

And that’s only the beginning of spookiness that I can bring into it. ’cause this man is going to have all of the personal power of Satan, all of the delegated authority of Satan and his throne is gotten and secured by Satan, who’s the ruler of this earth and the ruler of this world, until Jesus takes it back. So what we’re talking about here, is the whole world was amazed and followed after the beast. It is the miraculous being brought back from the dead, that is going to make the world first take note that this is a man that we’ve waited for. And with all of the deception of Satan, and all of his demons, they will mesmerize the world through this man.

Aren’t you glad you’re not gonna be here? Man, when I go through this, I thank God every time. Thank you, Jesus, you’re gonna take us out before that. Because he’s gonna deceive most of the world.

Let’s go down and see how this goes. Verse 4. And they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast saying, who is like the beast? Who is able to wage war with him?

Now, what does that statement tell you about the condition of the world? What are they afraid of? War. So why do they so quickly run to him?

Because he is so powerful, no one can make war with him. So that’s what the world is afraid of. That’s the chaos. You see it all developing now, don’t you?

So the world is going to worship who? The dragon. So what do we got? A world full of Satan worshipers.

And they’re gonna worship this man because that’s the manifestation in which Satan launches forth. He will just suit up with this man. And so the world is not just gonna be facing a human being, they’re gonna be facing a human being possessed totally by Satan. That’s why I say when people say, who do you think the Antichrist is?

I say I don’t have a prayer as to who he is. Because how would you ever know who this man is now and what he will become when Satan suits him up? Because that is when he becomes this super human person that just mesmerizes people. And, remember, the biggest mistake that people make is thinking of Satan as something ugly and frightening.

He’s not gonna come that way. Satan was the most beautiful creature that God ever created. It says so in Ezekiel 28:11-19. He has a certain aura and beauty to him that can mesmerize the unbeliever.

And can even dazzle believers out of fellowship. So it says in verse 5, and there was given to him what? A mouth. Now it doesn’t take a whole seminary course in symbology to figure out what that means, does it?

A mouth. He will be the greatest speaker human beings have ever heard. That’s discounting Jesus, but we’re talking about what is exposed to the whole world. He is going to be, in fact, I suspect that is what the Bible is telling us, it is through his oratory that he will gain such control and power.

If you have the guts to be a real revolutionary, come forward right now and accept Jesus Christ as your real revolutionary and he’ll make a revolutionary that will change lives. Thank you so much for standing with me as a watchman on the wall. I pray daily that he will reward your faithfulness and protect and prosper you in these difficult times. Thank you again for being a vital part of my team.