SPEAKER_00: Good morning, afternoon, or evening, brothers and sisters at Village Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: Now you can't see what I can see, but right now I'm looking right over my iPhone 11 Pro at the Gulf of Mexico, and the water is azure blue.
SPEAKER_00: It's a yellow flag out there.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very calm day down here in Destin.
SPEAKER_00: And it's context appropriate to our text today.
SPEAKER_00: We are moving into that incredible chapter 13 of the book of Revelation, where one of the central features is the sea.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a rich theology of sea that runs through the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: We've already encountered one of those glorious manifestations.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 4, when there's a sea of glass before the throne of our God, everything is calm.
SPEAKER_00: It is absolutely perfection.
SPEAKER_00: It is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And that is always the position for which we live the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the book of Revelation, John will describe the sealess state of life in the new heaven and new earth, which, again, as we'll discover, is not the absence of great bodies of water, but the absence of what we're going to consider today in Revelation chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: So I've got my notes close at hand because there's so much stuff in this magnificent chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Here's where we're going to encounter the Antichrist, the mark of the B666.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to stay close to my notes so that at least in these next 35-37 minutes, we can cover the important ground.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm so excited about this text as I am the whole book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those chapters that got hijacked and sabotaged by ambassadors of fear.
SPEAKER_00: But like the whole book, it is a chronicling of the worship service that's going on perpetually in eternity, and that which is meant to capture our hearts as we live out our calling as followers of the Lamb, as the bride of Jesus, as those who are a part of the only unshakable and lasting kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we dare not study Revelation 13 apart from staying alive to what we've already been learning and luxuriating in, lingering in, especially the last two chapters in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 11, we looked at the impetus, the beauty, the declaration of what led Handel to write the hallelujah chorus.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 11, this magnificent viewing of the finished work of Jesus and the perspective of real conflict that we'll understand more about today.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, chapter 12, same kind of thing, this outburst of exuberance, both declaring the tensions and the conflict that will remain between the resurrection and return of Jesus, but also this bold affirmation: Satan, the enemy, is defeated but not eradicated.
SPEAKER_00: D-Day has taken place.
SPEAKER_00: We await V-Day, but because of D-Day, the cross of Jesus, victory day is certain.
SPEAKER_00: And so that affirmation last week that Satan is filled with fury because he knows his time is short is actually encouragement to us, right?
SPEAKER_00: We want to remember what Satan knows to be true.
SPEAKER_00: His time is short because Jesus' work is certain.
SPEAKER_00: We live on this side of the great promise of the crushing of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: We live with a view towards his eradication.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to walk through this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: We will be introduced to the main characters in this tension and this ongoing drama, this certain drama with clear resolution.
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 13 of Revelation, John introduces us to the counterfeit trinity, counterfeit Father, counterfeit Son, counterfeit Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But we move now into this character presentation with this assurance of our God reigns.
SPEAKER_00: The unfolding of this story runs throughout this season between the advents of Jesus, his birth and his return.
SPEAKER_00: So it's important to us, it's important for us to understand the opposition, right?
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians that we are not unaware of the schemes of the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: So to understand chapter 13 of Revelation is to get a better understanding about how messy the conflict gets on this side of the cross, but with a certain view towards beginning to smell the aroma of our coming life in the new heaven and new earth.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to look at the great dragon, Satan himself, who is the counterfeit father, the beast from the sea, who is the counterfeit son of God or Antichrist.
SPEAKER_00: And then thirdly, the third character in this drama in Revelation 13 is the beast from the earth or the counterfeit Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So let's jump right into the text beginning at verse 1 of chapter 13 of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray briefly for us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, true Trinity, how thankful we are for how you've been meeting us in this study of Revelation, how you have charmed, crippled, expelled many of our fears as you've increased our faith.
SPEAKER_00: You are showing us a clearer and more sure understanding of the centrality of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Delight, not doubt, defines life before the throne of grace.
SPEAKER_00: And it should increasingly capture our hearts, Lord, not being naive about the conflict.
SPEAKER_00: Even as we're here today, some of us could very well lose our earthly life in service to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But evil has an expiration date.
SPEAKER_00: We do not.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Lead us in the study, we pray, in Jesus' name and for his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 this emergence of this pseudo-or counterfeit Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And I saw, John writes, a beast coming out of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: He had ten horns and seven heads with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.
SPEAKER_00: The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 2 there should remind us pretty quickly of a vision of an incredible statement in Daniel chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, all these animals that John describes relative to this beast, they represent successive world powers that Daniel wrote about, successive world powers, all which would try futilely to overthrow, overthrow the true reign of our God.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this this beast in the book of Daniel, this composite of all these different elements, it was Daniel's vision towards, here's where history is going to unfold, towards the coming of the true king.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a clue for us, right?
SPEAKER_00: That John is not frightened.
SPEAKER_00: He's remembering the promise of our God.
SPEAKER_00: He's remembering his place in the story of redemption that Daniel spoke of so clearly, and Daniel modeled the life of faith along with his friends in full view of incredible evil and opposition through the empire of Nebuchadnezzar.
SPEAKER_00: So this beasts, of course, that are described, the horns, remember with me, as you've learned earlier in the study of this study of Revelation, that a horn represents a kingdom of power.
SPEAKER_00: It represents the attempt of fallen men to exercise authority over the true and lasting authority, that, of course, centering in Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: But beast is emerging out of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: Second part of the second verse.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, one of the heads of the beasts seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, most commentators I've studied through the years agree that this particular head on the beast, who we will further see as the Antichrist, is a way of reflecting upon the first promise God made in the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: First Proto-Yuangelion, first gospel promise, Genesis 3.15, when God promised in response to the nefarious work of the evil one in the Garden of Eden, that a day would come through the family that God had created, Adam and Eve, through the seed of the woman, a seed would emerge that would crush the head of the seed of the serpent.
SPEAKER_00: Well, most commentators would say this wounding on this beast is a reminder that Satan himself, his entire minions of darkness, have been wounded, but this apparent healing is just a unique literary device that would remind us that Satan has been defeated, but has yet to be eradicated.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's important language that we'll revisit again as we look at Revelation 13.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know, as the Bible said, the reason that Jesus came into the world was to destroy the works of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: He defeated the devil, and he put in place the sure eradication of the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: But that tension, that season between the advents, birth of Jesus, and his return, it's one we must understand.
SPEAKER_00: It's one that should be increasingly a call to worship for us, a call to wisdom, but always a call to hope, no matter what following Jesus costs us.
SPEAKER_00: So this particular picture of a wounding that seems to have been healed reminds us that God has been faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Satan has been crushed, and therefore we are cherished.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go on.
SPEAKER_00: Second part of verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.
SPEAKER_00: Men worship the dragon because he had been given authority to the beast.
SPEAKER_00: And they also worship the beast and asked, Who is like the beast?
SPEAKER_00: Who can make war against him?
SPEAKER_00: Now, in these two words, John begins to further remind us that all of life is a worship war.
SPEAKER_00: That whatever else you have come to cherish about the book of Revelation, I pray that you were seeing this central theme over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: The biggest theme in life is who has our worship?
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts, our minds, our affection.
SPEAKER_00: Man, mankind, fueled by the powers of darkness, or God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: The dragon and the beast seek worship.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be the earth beast, the counterfeit Holy Spirit, that tries to make that happen in so many outlandish ways.
SPEAKER_00: But this language, who is like the beast?
SPEAKER_00: Who can make war against him?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's echoing some of the great songs in the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Who is like the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is none.
SPEAKER_00: But many would try.
SPEAKER_00: Paul captures, helps us understand this view of all of history as a worship war when he writes in Romans chapter 1, beginning at verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: For although they, speaking of mankind, for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
SPEAKER_00: Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and listen to this, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal men, and birds and animals and reptiles.
SPEAKER_00: They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator who is forever praised.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there in Romans 1, 21 through 25, Paul is capturing what John is describing for us in apocalyptic imagery.
SPEAKER_00: Satan wants to supplant the worship that alone is due, the living God.
SPEAKER_00: And the worship that is filling the courts of eternity now and one day will cover this earth.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, continuing in this unfolding of the different characters and the schemes of the enemy and what he's really after, and how he goes after even the people of God before the return of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Now, once again, this language of 42 months comes to us from various places in scripture, primarily the book of Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: And it's best to understand these 42 months as not 42 literal 30-day months before the end of the world or Jesus returns, but these 42 months cover the entire period of what the Bible calls the last days.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I think when I preached from Revelation 4, uh reminded us that whenever the Bible, especially the New Testament, uses the language of the last days, it does so looking at the first coming of Jesus for the inauguration of the last days.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the book of Hebrews says in chapter 1, in the previous days, in former times, God our Father spoke to us through the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things, all the nations, the entire earth.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise on the day of Pentecost, when Peter stands up in Acts chapter 2 and he quotes from the prophet Joel, describing, defining what's Pentecost all about, he writes, quoting Joel, In these last days, says the Lord, I will pour out my spirit on all mankind.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, the last days of the beginning of these 42 months happen with the first coming of Jesus, as life, death, and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: So this 42-month period in which we should anticipate the manifest powers of darkness, the work of Antichrist, it goes on between the entire period.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just before the return of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Life between the two advents of Jesus is marked by the work of this counterfeit trinity.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: He, the Antichrist, opened his mouth to blaspheme God and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And he was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them.
SPEAKER_00: And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation.
SPEAKER_00: All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast.
SPEAKER_00: Now, really important we understand what's going on there.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, the mimicking, the parroting of language we find relative to the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what John says our lying enemy does.
SPEAKER_00: We have more than once already met this language, every race, tribe, tongue, and people, group, and whole earth, right?
SPEAKER_00: We've already encountered the language of fullness.
SPEAKER_00: And it's God speaking about his work, his promises in the world through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Satan's work is must be understood, as John would use this imagery, as being pervasive.
SPEAKER_00: This is what John means.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that literally there'll be a time or has been a time when everybody on the earth worshiped the false God Himself, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's saying you cannot go anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot go in any place of history.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot travel to any place in the world where the pervasive work of darkness is not pronounced.
SPEAKER_00: It may be through the seductions of prosperity, it may be through the fear-fueling reality of persecution.
SPEAKER_00: But Satan is at work as counterfeit trinity all the time, everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: His presence is pervasive, but his work is limited.
SPEAKER_00: Again, hear what you heard last week.
SPEAKER_00: He, Satan, is filled with fury because he knows his time is short.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not forget what Satan knows to be true.
SPEAKER_00: His time is short.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I love the last part of verse 8 because it's this gigantic redemptive qualifier, just when we're reading words about the whole earth, you know, seemingly falling down to worship the Antichrist and this incredible picture of every tribe, people, and language and nation uh bowing down.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, look at the second part of verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: And if this does not put chili bumps on your arms or cause you to want to stand up and worship and shout, hallelujah, I'm not sure what it would take.
SPEAKER_00: Here's this great redemptive qualifier about the pervasiveness of Satan's work.
SPEAKER_00: Look at uh Revelation 13, 8b.
SPEAKER_00: So the entire world worships except all those whose names have, uh except for all those whose names who have been written in the Lamb's book of life according to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world, probably uh uh slaughtered that reading there, but John's making a contrast between those who worship the Antichrist and those who do not.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's beautiful to see he speaks of us, of you and me, of the entire body of Christ, of this massive family that have already been described in the book of Revelation and chapter 7 as a number that no one could count from every single race, tribe, tongue, and people group, streaming through the 12 tribes of Israel into the New Jerusalem, streaming through the work of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: This great number, who are they?
SPEAKER_00: They are those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life, who was slain before the creation of the world, or slain from the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's just John's way of saying that the work of Jesus was never an afterthought.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that Jesus was crucified in eternity, he's just saying it is so certain in eternity that the Son of God would come to suffer for us, for you, for me, that his work is seen in its fullness now as we even wait for its completion.
SPEAKER_00: But just think about that for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you all love that language?
SPEAKER_00: Your name being written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a simple follower of Jesus, a brand new follower of Jesus, someone that has known Jesus, and you helped plant Belmont Church with Don Finto, no matter how long you have known Jesus, your name has been written with the indelible ink of God's grace on the book of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: And there is no eraser that can eradicate it.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, you see, this young church, these churches in Asia Minor receiving these words, they're so small, they're so frail, that their Jesus is so big and glorious.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the one that wrote their names in his own book.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't write their names in the book of the Lamb through their works, through their do more try harder, through their piety.
SPEAKER_00: No, by the blood of Jesus, by the ink of grace, we are written, dear friends, nothing's gonna separate us from the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is who we are, even when life in this world seems to contradict it, even when it seems like evil is winning, this is what's more true than anything else.
SPEAKER_00: That's why John goes on to say in verse 9, he who has an ear, let him hear.
SPEAKER_00: Now we've seen that language earlier in Revelation 2 and 3, the letters to the seven churches.
SPEAKER_00: We all have ears, but there's a there's a hearing, there's a taking to heart the good news.
SPEAKER_00: There's an understanding both of the, we dare not minimize the conflict, but we understand the conflict.
SPEAKER_00: Our suffering is purposeful.
SPEAKER_00: There is an expiration date to every tear, to all evil, to all terror.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when Jesus comes back.
SPEAKER_00: But it's already been saddled by his finished work.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, speaking of suffering, he writes, Hear this.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone, verse 10, if anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is to be killed with a sword, with a sword he will be killed.
SPEAKER_00: This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's odd language, but what's going on there is this duh, but of course, God would say to us, in the unfolding of my story, there will be martyrs.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there are martyrs in heaven now that we have already encountered in chapter six who are crying out, Lord, how how long, O Lord?
SPEAKER_00: When are you going to come and validate and vindicate your name?
SPEAKER_00: We're glad to be here, but we are so stoked about the completion of your story.
SPEAKER_00: We're not looking to be vindicated as martyrs.
SPEAKER_00: We're so glad for the day that's coming when the knowledge of your glory will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.
SPEAKER_00: But, brothers and sisters, uh, we do need, we do need patient endurance and faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is our calling.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the gospel itself, the power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's this good news that we're studying.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's story as it runs throughout the scripture, brought together in summary fashion for us in the book of Revelation, that needs to be indeed our life narrative.
SPEAKER_00: John is indeed saying to us, don't be shocked or fearful when serving Jesus costs you a lot, even a whole lot, even to the point of martyrdom.
SPEAKER_00: Your life or the lives of your brothers and sisters in Christ may be required of us.
SPEAKER_00: But evil has that expiration date.
SPEAKER_00: Our life does not.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we move on now to an important question.
SPEAKER_00: So Antichrist is being described here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of us came from a tradition and background that thought he would just emerge one day and we had all kind of fun trying to decide who he is.
SPEAKER_00: But it's appropriate now for us to pause and to say, so according to the Bible, if the sea beast is the Antichrist, when is Antichrist present?
SPEAKER_00: Well, John, who wrote the book of Revelation and Osmo the Gospel of John, just a few years before he had the visions that became the book of Revelation, wrote these words.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 John chapter 2, and then we'll look at 1 John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Same author, maybe three to five years before he in Exile would write the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John 2.18, John writes, Dear children, this is the last hour.
SPEAKER_00: See, John knew himself to be living in the last days because those days started with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Dear children, this is the last hour.
SPEAKER_00: And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now, many Antichrists have come.
SPEAKER_00: This is how we know it's the last hour.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's huge, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible never says there's just one Antichrist.
SPEAKER_00: John says that is a type that has gone on throughout history, but especially since the resurrection of Jesus and the defeat of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Many Antichrists have gone out into the world.
SPEAKER_00: It says the same thing in 1 John 4, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
SPEAKER_00: So many Antichrists, John says, have already come, more are coming.
SPEAKER_00: Spirit of Antichrist has been here, it will continue.
SPEAKER_00: Now, duh, but of course, the sheer nature of calendar and trajectory and chronology, there will be a last Antichrist.
SPEAKER_00: Will he or she be more nefarious than any predecessors?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe not.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the point.
SPEAKER_00: But we need to know that Satan has tried ever since Eden to replace God.
SPEAKER_00: And his work has ramped up, especially after his crushing at the cross of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to be aware of not wasting any time with trying to say who is the Antichrist.
SPEAKER_00: And I wish we had time to some of us remember who were just about as old as me, some of the games we played, trying to put numbers together and figure out who was the Antichrist.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you can appreciate this as you have to ask your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Eternity magazine years ago, which was a great Christian magazine that's no longer publication, actually showed how you could use the name How Lindsay and get 666 from it.
SPEAKER_00: But that's later in the study.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, kerfuffle among yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go on to the text, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Again, chapter 13, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: So now the the beast from the earth or the description of the counterfeit Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The beast from the sea, Antichrist, beast from the earth, counterfeit Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Then I saw another beast coming out of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He had two horns like a lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Trying to counterfeit the true Lamb of God.
SPEAKER_00: He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, because he's a liar.
SPEAKER_00: And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to fill the earth in full view of men.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not hear in that language how this description of this beast of the earth just is a parody of God the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: What does the Spirit of God do in your life and my life?
SPEAKER_00: He makes much of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that empowers us to see more of the gospel, more of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who enables us to be free from false idols of the heart and worshiping things that are not true and lasting.
SPEAKER_00: For a deeper worship of God, the Spirit of God works in our heart, in our midst as a congregation, among the whole bride of Jesus throughout the world.
SPEAKER_00: I think that Paul's words once again in another of his letters helps us understand how this false Holy Spirit, this beast from the earth, operates as we think about your heart and my heart, the heart of village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11, beginning at verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes, I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: But you are already doing that.
SPEAKER_00: I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: I promised you to one husband to Christ, so that I might present you to him as a pure virgin to him.
SPEAKER_00: But I am afraid, listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: Even in the Garden of Eden, Satan was seducing a heart, worship all away from the one true living God.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says to us in the body of Christ, here's your truest identity.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of God, the King of glory, the promised one, lived in your place, died in your place to make a whore his queen and wife.
SPEAKER_00: That is you.
SPEAKER_00: And he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And you are legally married to Jesus, church.
SPEAKER_00: You are betrothed, and the consummation, that not greater certainty, but the consummation of this relationship will happen when he returns, which of course John writes about in chapter 19.
SPEAKER_00: But capture this focus.
SPEAKER_00: Satan, the entire false trinity, all of evil is trying to win your heart and my heart away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus, which is an incredible descriptor of hard worship.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, there is only one worthy of your affection, your life, your last breath, and it is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the enemy who knows he has lost you for eternity will do anything he can through fear, through seduction, through terror, to rob your heart of resting in the finished work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I must hasten on here because we get into this number 666 that we are somewhat familiar with.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.
SPEAKER_00: He also forced everyone small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, last verse of our text today.
SPEAKER_00: This calls for wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast.
SPEAKER_00: That's the number of the Antichrist, for it is man's number.
SPEAKER_00: That's so important, for it is man's number.
SPEAKER_00: His number is 666.
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the mark of the beast.
SPEAKER_00: What does this trifecta of three sixes actually mean?
SPEAKER_00: Again, my generation feared getting credit cards or one day getting branded with literally on our wrists or on our foreheads with some kind of computer-generated or otherwise threefold number six.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, this marking has been going on ever since the fall.
SPEAKER_00: This is man's number.
SPEAKER_00: See, the number six, historically in biblical numerology, has always been the number of man, one short of perfection.
SPEAKER_00: We're made in the image of God, but through our fallenness tragically, we try to be self-sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: We try to put ourselves in the place of God.
SPEAKER_00: We worship anything but God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: So 666 is kind of like Francis Schaefer.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know that name.
SPEAKER_00: Francis Schaefer talked about the mannishness of man or mannishness on steroids.
SPEAKER_00: And in a lot of ways, that's how we should think about the mark of the beast.
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, it is man at his worst.
SPEAKER_00: It is to be marked.
SPEAKER_00: It's to be marked in such a fashion that if I have the mark of the beast, I willingly give my allegiance to a false God and a false kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in John's day, as you saw in the letters to the seven churches, there were some people already that if they did not have the mark of Caesar, they could not buy or sell.
SPEAKER_00: This is not simply something in the distant future.
SPEAKER_00: It shows up in so many different ways.
SPEAKER_00: But what are really more practical ways we can understand from generation to generation how the mark of the beast has already shown up and how we should be sobered.
SPEAKER_00: How should we be humbled by understanding that there's just one of two marks today that really define us by which we are to live.
SPEAKER_00: Philip Hughes, who was one of my professors at Westminster Seminary, wrote one of my favorite books on the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he said about the mark of the beast.
SPEAKER_00: This marking is a marking at the heart of a person's being rather than something external.
SPEAKER_00: The imagery, no doubt, comes from the practice of branding slaves with the mark of their master.
SPEAKER_00: That's something that used to happen all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Forehead on the wrist.
SPEAKER_00: If you even remember the movie Les Mes, the tragic branding that Jean Valjean had, really by the hand of evil.
SPEAKER_00: You think of Javert.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Hughes goes on.
SPEAKER_00: Just really either wanting to use God to selfish ends or replacing God altogether.
SPEAKER_00: We are either living with the mark of the beast written on us or with our names written in the Lamb's book of life.
SPEAKER_00: Which writing, which hand, which branding, which mark possesses us?
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, is there little doubt why Jesus said to those 72 disciples he sent out when they came back conquering in the name of Jesus, even early before his pre-crucifixion wonder, when they said to Jesus, Jesus, we saw demons cast out.
SPEAKER_00: We saw the lame healed.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Listen, this is good stuff, and that's Scotty's paraphrase.
SPEAKER_00: But in all of you rejoicing, rejoice in the fact that your names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
SPEAKER_00: This is the marking that defines us.
unknown: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Hughes went on relative to the number 666.
SPEAKER_00: The one clue that John gives us is that the number is the number of the beast, 666 is the number of man, is by his very text.
SPEAKER_00: The number six has understandably been regarded as a symbol of man.
SPEAKER_00: It falls short of seven.
SPEAKER_00: The pseudo-trinity is united in one diabolical objective, namely to dethrone the creator and enthrone the creature, and to substitute the image of the beast for the image of God in man.
SPEAKER_00: So that brings us, in my last couple of minutes before I pray, to this final understanding, really principally expressly seen in chapter 13 of Revelation, but really in the whole Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The biggest issue in life is who or what captures our worship.
SPEAKER_00: Today, Darrell Johnson, again one of my favorite commentaries, commentators on Revelation, said this: fish swim in the water, birds fly in the sky, and human beings worship.
SPEAKER_00: John is telling us that the issue for the test of the journey is worship.
SPEAKER_00: Who will I worship?
SPEAKER_00: Who will I adore?
SPEAKER_00: Who will get my attention?
SPEAKER_00: Who will have my undivided allegiance?
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, I promise and I pray.
SPEAKER_00: Bruce Metzger, who used to teach at Princeton Seminary, solid biblical man, wonderful gospel man that served so many decades at Princeton.
SPEAKER_00: About this number, once again, he said this, and this final concluding thought.
SPEAKER_00: The profound religious insight that lies behind these kaleidoscopic pictures in chapter 13 of Revelation is that men and women are so constituted as to worship some absolute power.
SPEAKER_00: And if they do not worship the true and real power behind the universe, who we know to be the living God, the triune God, they will construct a God for themselves and give allegiance to that.
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: In the last analysis, it is always a choice between the power that operates through inflicting suffering, which is the power of the beast, and the power that operates through accepting suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Namely the power of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, the Lamb of God Jesus, laid down his life for you and for me.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't inflict suffering, he took our suffering.
SPEAKER_00: It's why the entire book of Revelation is filled with men and women who see this most clearly, falling down in worship and standing up to serve the living God and having faith, not fear, dominate their days in this world.
SPEAKER_00: The true and lasting kingdom, not a very shakeable kingdom, capture imagination and passion.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I pray as we continue to even lean into this crazy making season of our own election year, that our true and lasting citizenship will define us more than any party, any candidate, anything.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, brothers and sisters, let's worship Jesus together.