Please open up your Bibles to Revelation chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13, one of the most compelling chapters in the Bible, a chapter that draws people's attention for better or for worse. But God gives us this information about the future in Revelation chapter 13 for a reason. And we began to look into this with Satan's beast in Revelation chapter 13 verses one through eight. I'll remind you where we are in our study of the book of Revelation. As Christ has unfolded the judgments that are decreed by God upon the unbelieving world at the end of this age, we looked at the unsealing of the seven-sealed scroll. And as each one of those seals was broken, a judgment of God was brought upon those who dwell upon the earth. The seventh seal, being the most important of the seals, issued forth in a manifold judgment of seven trumpets. We've also been able to study and read about those seven trumpet judgments that are yet future to our time. The seventh trumpet being the most important of the trumpets, which also will unfold into a seven-fold judgment that we have not yet gotten to in our study of the book of Revelation. We did read about the blowing of the seventh trumpet at the end of chapter 11. And then the apocalypse takes a break from that action of the seals and the trumpets and the bowls to give us more information about some of the key players during these final years of the history of this age before God brings in his everlasting kingdom. And so in chapter 12, we learned about the dragon, Satan. the devil who is the deceiver of the whole world, and about his long war against Israel and against God's people. But Satan carries out his plans and his attacks against God and against God's people through instruments, through human beings who are under his influence, under his control. And that's where we came into the study of the beast in Revelation 13, verses 1 through 8. God reveals himself through history. Genesis is a book of history. Revelation is a book of history. It has not happened yet, but it will happen exactly how God has written it and foretold it. And as God reveals himself through history, this book of revelation reveals the most dramatic revelation of God and his character and his attributes because it contains the final showdown between Satan and God. between Antichrist, the beast, and Christ, who will come and destroy him. And as we read through Revelation chapter 13, the purpose of this chapter is not to promote speculations in our current time to try to figure out who is the Antichrist. who is the false prophet, to be able to identify them before they are revealed, as they will obviously be revealed in their time. Now, the purpose of this chapter is not to promote speculation, but it is to promote a courage and confidence in the sovereignty of God. God reveals what is going to happen at the end of this age so that we can be sure that even when the world comes to its darkest hour, underneath the rule of the beast, that God has planned it, that God is allowing it, that God will bring it to a quick end after 42 months. The control of God over Satan and his antichrist and the victory of God over these terrible foes is to inspire within us a courage and confidence in the present hour. If we can look forward to the future and see God's power over his enemies, how much more can we stand in the current hour and not be intimidated by Satan? Not be intimidated by the world that is underneath his control? To not be deceived by the false teachers, the false prophets who are in the world today? If God is going to have the ultimate victory and he will preserve and protect his people during that time, we can stand confident and assured in all of the tests and all of the trials that we face in our life in this time. That's why God has revealed this history before it happens. Now, as we look into this history that is yet to happen, it reminds me of a verse in Daniel chapter four, as we had our scripture reading from Daniel chapter three. So this same theme of God's power, God's protection, the courage of God's people to be able to stand up against the intimidation of the world, is this recording All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing before God, before his greatness, before his power. He does whatever he wants. He does according to his will among the host of heaven, the angels, the demons, and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? No one calls God to account for what God does, for what God decrees, for God's actions in the world, and God is active in the world. Not as overt, not as obvious as the actions of the enemy, and yet behind it all, God is in control. That's the message of the book of Daniel. It's also the message of the book of Revelation. And then I showed you this proverb last week, and I think it's good to remind ourselves as we're looking at the Antichrist, the beast, Satan's masterpiece, that the Lord, as it says in Proverbs 16, 4, The Lord is not responsible morally for the wickedness of the wicked, and yet God is able to appoint those who are wicked by their own choice, by their own devices, for God's purposes. And the day of trouble is exactly what the book of Revelation is about. It's the day of Jacob's trouble, as the prophets called it in the Old Testament. It's the time of great testing and tribulation. It's the time that Jesus Christ talked about that is such great trouble that there's been nothing like it in the history of the world up until that time. And that's what we've been discovering as we read about the terrible judgments and the seals and the trumpets. And the worst is yet to come in the bold judgments. But we're learning a little bit about some of the key players during this final period. And the beast is one of those key players. And today we'll learn about another one of the key players during this time who is called the false prophet. The second beast is introduced to us here in Revelation 13, 11 through 18, and he is known as the false prophet. Let's read Revelation chapter 13. Since it's been a week or two since we were there at the beginning of this chapter, let's read the whole chapter to get the context because the first and the second beast really do go together. Revelation 13, verse one. And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with 10 horns and seven heads, with 10 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 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? And the beast was given a mouth, uttering haughty and blasphemous words. And it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 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 he must be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints. Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon. 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. It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. And by the signs that 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 for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 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. 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. 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. Fascinating. And you see why this chapter draws so much attention. The mark of the beast. The image of the beast. This image of the beast that is brought to life so that it can speak. And that most infamous of numbers, 666, there at the end of the chapter. As we delve into the details on this second beast, I want you to understand that God allows Satan to finally accomplish his will, to finally have what he wants for 42 months. At the end of the age, Satan gets what he wants, he fortifies his power, he consolidates its strength, and he brings the whole world underneath one rule. One religion, one political leader, and he has a very short time to be able to do this. Why? Why does God allow Satan to do this for this three and a half years? It's always a good question to ask when you're studying scripture. You know, your study of scripture is not done until you've meditated upon what you've learned. You start with trying to figure out, what does it mean? What is this detail? What is that detail? How does this comport with the rest of scripture? And you're doing your cross-references, and you're mapping it all out, and you're trying to understand. But once you've studied it and gained understanding, your job is not done. Now you have to stop and ask, why? What does this mean? What is God trying to tell me? How does God want this to affect how I view the world, how I view myself, how I live my life, how I think, how I speak? And God has allowed, as I meditate on this passage, compare it with scripture, God has allowed Satan to be at his strongest, to be most fortified in his position and his control over all the inhabitants of the earth before Christ comes to destroy him. Christ is glorified by destroying Satan when he is at his strongest. You know, it's one thing to win a victory over another football team if they got their secondhand quarterback in the game. Their first quarterback's injured, he's not in there, and you go on and you win the victory, and it's like, yeah, you won, but you didn't defeat them at their strongest. And so God loves Christ and he wants Christ to have the ultimate victory and so he allows Satan to be at his ultimate power, at his ultimate height of his strength when Christ comes to destroy him and have the victory once and for all. I think that's what is the significance, the meaning of this passage and this text in its context. As we now break it down into pieces and seek to understand all the details, let's examine whether or not that thesis, whether or not that hypothesis about why this passage is given to us is in fact true. Let's take a look there at the second beast starting in Revelation 13 verse 11. this other beast, he rises not out of the sea like the first beast, but he rises out of the earth. And so the question you ask is, is there any significance that this beast doesn't come from the sea like the former one, but he comes from the earth? Well, I think the significance of that fact is that it gives a global perspective on what is going on. That this whole book has been about this universal perspective that it involves all languages, all tongues, all peoples. And so if you've got one beast coming out of the sea and you've got another beast coming up out of the earth, well that encompasses pretty much the whole earth, the sea and the earth. So I think symbolically it just produces more of that sense of universality, global nature of the book. But I think it could also be a significant fact that this man is a religious leader. And while the sea represents the wars and the conflicts and the tumultuousness of the first leader, the Antichrist, the coming out of the earth represents that this man, as a religious leader, is promoting a earthly religion. A religion that does not come down from heaven, like the Holy Spirit. A religion that is not spiritual wisdom that comes from above, like James talks about, but that his wisdom is earthly. His wisdom is demonic. His wisdom is from this time and place. So he's an earthy beast. He comes up out of the earth. Now, he is also described as having two horns, like a lamb, even though he speaks like a dragon. I wanted to find a picture of a lamb with horns. I think this is a lamb. I'm no expert on goats and sheep, but I was told this is a lamb, and you see the horns there, and some lambs have horns and some lambs don't, but this one does. This lamb has two horns, and you see that, you know, this is a very gentle, peaceful creature. You look at that and you think, well, what harm could come from such a creature? And here, you see again that Satan has a tremendous lack of creativity and originality. and that he does not come up with his own ideas, but instead he takes God's ideas and God's plan, then he twists it and distorts it and corrupts it into something ugly. You see this in art, that those artists who are in the world that don't have creativity, but they just take over other things and corrupt it and distort it because they don't have God at work in them to be able to create the way that God is creative. So Satan is not creative. Satan is a distorter and a twister. He's got his Antichrist and he's got his False Prophet and he's really just trying to create this false trinity with himself in God's place instead of God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. We have Satan and the Beast and the False Prophet. And this False Prophet, he tries to take on the religious aspect of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. He's been called the lamb throughout the book, and he will be pointed out as a lamb once again, that is his main title in the book of Revelation, in chapter 14, verse one, when we see the lamb standing on Mount Zion with the 144,000. But the beast, he looks like a lamb, but he speaks like a dragon. He imitates Christ in his mannerisms, and yet his message is satanic. That's what I think this description of him as the lamb and the dragon teaches us. And you see what he does, his primary role is to exercise the authority of the first beast So the first beast rises to power. This man comes alongside of him, exercising his political and military power now and transferring that to the religious realm. And he is the religious leader who makes the earth, as it says there in the second half of verse 12, and its inhabitants to worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. A religious leader doesn't draw attention to himself, but he directs worship to God. And remember that the first beast is this mighty blasphemer who does not regard any religion, does not regard any so-called God, but instead declares himself to be God, even going so far as to take his seat in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and declaring himself to be God. And so this false God needs a prophet. This false God needs a religious leader who is going to point people to worship him. And that is this second beast, this earthly beast, this demonic beast, who looks like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. Mankind has a worship problem. We talked about this two weeks ago. It's the key theme here throughout this chapter, the blasphemies of the beast, the false worship that the false prophet brings in. Mankind has a worship problem and it will never be more evident than during the final 42 months before Christ returns. God will allow the blasphemy, the idolatry, the false religion to reach its pinnacle and its full power and its full ugliness. before Christ comes to destroy Satan and his beasts. That's the idea. Satan has two methods by which he promotes his rule in the world. He has deception and he has intimidation. Satan has two major tools in his tool belt in order to put himself up as the god of this world and to direct the hearts of mankind away from God into his false religious systems. He has deception, lies, and he has intimidation, threats of violence. And he uses those tools to unite the world under his rule, and he will be doing it in a way that is more extreme during this final time period than any time period in history. Look at verses 13 through 15 to see how he uses deception and lies. It, or he, speaking of the false prophet, performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. And by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image of the beast, okay? So here is the signs that the false prophet is able to perform. Think about, again, how Satan is imitating God. He's not coming up with anything original. God had his prophets who were directing people to worship God, who would do amazing signs in order to direct people to the truth that this is the true God who needs to be worshiped. We read about it in the book of Daniel in chapter three. No one was able to deliver out of the furnace of fire like God is able to deliver, and therefore, that mighty sign was proof to Nebuchadnezzar, which led to his decree to all the nations, that you don't speak against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, because by his mighty signs, he's proven that there is no God like him. And now Satan, he gets his chance. He gets his opportunity to have his profits. Elijah was able to call down fire from heaven, Well, I've got to have a prophet who can call down fire from heaven. And now God allows him to do it. God has not allowed him to do this type of thing in the past, but God will allow him to do this at some point in the future. As the false prophet deceives the world, I want to show you here in Revelation chapter 19, verse 20, Revelation 19-20 that he is called the false prophet. You see him with the beast. That's how he's called throughout the rest of the book of Revelation. The first beast, the Antichrist, he's just referred to as the beast. The second beast is called the false prophet. And notice that he is the one who has done in the presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and who worshiped its image. We're gonna talk about the mark of the beast, we're gonna talk about its image, but notice that he is the false prophet. He's called that three times later in the book, Revelation 16, Revelation 19, Revelation 20, so that's why we call him the false prophet, because the book of Revelation does, and also because he does these signs by which he deceives those who dwell on the earth. The Book of Thessalonians calls these lying, deceptive signs. Notice what it says, that the Antichrist, when he comes, he's going to come with all power and false signs and wonders and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish. Because they did not accept the love of the truth so as to be saved, for this reason, God will, future, send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. Satan's gonna get his chance. He's gonna get his false signs and wonders. He's gonna get all the deception of wickedness. He's gonna get the diluting influence. And it's all gonna cause the whole world to worship the beast. The false signs and wonders are done by this false prophet. Now, the beast himself is seemingly miraculously healed from a mortal wound, that's his miracle, but then the second beast points out that miracle and does other signs and wonders, other miracles to direct people to worship the beast. We are just told two of the signs and wonders that the second beast does in order to direct people's worship to the Antichrist. Now, think about this. This is a parallel to what happened in the first great confrontation in the Bible between God and Satan's evil king who was attacking God's people. When was that? Who was the first great king in the Bible who had oppressed and attacked God's people, destroying their male infants? Egypt and Pharaoh. And when God sent his prophet to tell Pharaoh, let my people go, Pharaoh said, I don't have to listen to God, who is he? And so God proved himself with the signs and the wonders that Moses was given to do, but Remember what Pharaoh had at that time. He had his magicians who were able to imitate many of the signs, many of the miracles that God gave Moses to do. These magicians, these false prophets, were also able to do them. In Matthew 24, 24, we are warned by Jesus Christ that before his coming, there's going to be an increase in false Christs and false prophets who will arise and perform great signs so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. When we say that they're doing these false wonders and signs here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, that doesn't mean that these are just magic tricks. It doesn't mean that they're just not real miracles. These are real miracles that the false prophet is doing. They're false because they are pointing to a false religious system. They are pointing to idolatry and satanic worship of his beast. That's the falseness in them, but they are so powerful, they are so amazing, that if it was possible for the elect to be deceived, they would. Because Satan gets his chance to really do the miracles that point to the lie and cause the whole world to line up and follow his beast. Now, in Exodus 7, verse 22, I just wanted you to see this verse about how the magicians of Egypt, by their secret arts, did the same miracles that Moses was doing. Not just here in Exodus 7, verse 22, but it also mentions it in Exodus 7, verse 11. And notice what it says after that. So Pharaoh's heart remained hardened. So as at the beginning, the first great conflict between God and the world system under Satan's power, it has a parallel with the final conflict. Egypt was the most powerful nation on the earth during the time of the Exodus. And so God demonstrated his power by destroying the power of Pharaoh and by doing miracles that could not be duplicated by the magicians. And yet, it was still local. It was still just one part of the world. But as we come to the end of the Bible, now we have a global scale. It's not just in Egypt, localized there, but the whole world is now the battleground between the dragon and his servants and God and his Christ. So that is the setup here between what happened at the beginning and what happened at the end. And the two great signs that are revealed here, the examples of what kinds of great signs and miracles the false prophet is able to do, the first one in verse 13, making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. Now, this is an imitation, like I said, of Elijah calling down fire from heaven. However, I think that when we think about fire coming down from heaven, this is probably a reference to lightning. In Job chapter one, verse 16, and Exodus chapter nine, you've got several references to the fire of God, and in those contexts, it seems to be when you've got fire coming down from the sky, that's lightning, because lightning is something that causes fires. There's a lot of forest fires that are caused by lightning, brush fires that are caused by lightning strikes, and so the fire from heaven is probably lightning. Now, if it's actually some kind of other fire that's coming down from heaven, that's a possibility. But I think the right way to interpret this is that you're going to have the false prophet acting like Thor, the God of thunder. And just like the God of thunder is able to bring down lightning on command, so this false prophet is actually going to have that power to call down lightning on command in front of people. That's a pretty awesome sign and wonder. You can see why people will be deceived, why people will think, well, this must be true. He's got the power. He's got power over nature. We better follow in line and go along with what this man says and people will give up their religion. People will give up their parents' religion and their nation's religion in order to join in this new religion of the worship of the Antichrist because of signs like this. and because of the resuscitation of the beast after his mortal wound. But not only do we have that, but notice the second sign is also quite startling and amazing. And these are just two. He probably does more. He's just giving some examples. Number two in verse 15, it was allowed, the beast, the lamb-like beast who speaks like a dragon, he was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast. So he commands them all to build this image of the beast, to worship, and then after they build it, he somehow gives 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. That's pretty remarkable. Some people have thought, well, perhaps the image of the beast is some kind of android, some kind of robot using modern technology, and AI will be programmed to be able to speak like the beast and talk like the beast, and this is an image that could be multiplied around the world, and you could have this android image of the beast with AI everywhere, and everyone has to go and worship. Maybe. You know, I'm not saying that's out of the question. But I think the language of the text doesn't point us in that direction. I think the language of the text would point us in the direction that this is a supernatural sign. This is a miracle that is being done to take something that is lifeless and to give it the ability to speak. There's actually mythological stories about this in the ancient world where statues, idols of certain gods would come to life and speak. I don't think that ever happened in history, I think it's just stories. But it seems like here it's actually going to happen. Probably in one place, probably not everywhere around the world, but probably one particular image of the beast. that through some demonic power is given the ability to speak. That's pretty weird, pretty remarkable. That is quite a sign that he is allowed to perform, he is given to perform. Now, when we talk about the image of the beast there in verse 14, how the false prophet deceives those who dwell on the earth through these amazing miracles, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded with the sword and yet lived. And so there's a lot of interest in the image of the beast. It brings up to my mind a story from three years ago when the United Nations erected a statue outside of their meeting place here in the United States of a beast. This statue is standing outside the United Nations, and it is commissioned as a protector of international peace and security. That's what it says. It's said to be a guardian of international peace and security. It looks a lot like a leopard. What does the beast look like in Revelation 13? Well, he's a leopard with bear's feet. Don't we look like bear's feet on there? A lion's mouth. Maybe that's a lion-like mouth. And the wings are interesting because in Daniel's visions, the leopard beast had wings back in Daniel's vision. And so it's just interesting. This is not the image of the beast, but it is a image of a beast that is very similar, conceptually, to what the Bible is talking about. What's going to happen at the end of the age? What's going to happen in the future? And when you see things happening that are like what the Bible says is going to happen in the future, then that gives you relative confidence and assurance that what the Bible says is going to happen in the future is going to happen. The Bible talks about how the Antichrist is going to take his seat in the temple of God and proclaim himself to be God. And yet there is no temple of God in Jerusalem. And so people think, well, that's impossible. That can't happen. But it will happen. People thought it was impossible that Israel would regain control of Jerusalem, that the Jews would be able to have a nation that speaks Hebrew in modern times after almost 20 centuries of being exiled from their land. And yet, the impossible happened. And so when you see things happening that seem to have some relevance and some bearing, it's not wrong to notice. And it's not wrong to talk about it. But this is not the image of the beast, and the mark of the beast is not anywhere in the world right now. But there are things that seem like they could be setting up for the mark of the beast as well. So, just wanted you to see, December 2021, this statue was placed outside of the United Nations in New York City as a guardian of international peace and security. Very interesting. Now, the second means that the servants of Satan and Satan himself have for bringing the world underneath his control, his leadership, and his influence, is not just deception, lies, false miracles, and all that goes along with that, but also intimidation and threats. Interesting passage here in Luke chapter nine verse 54. Remember how the false prophet is going to have the power to call down fire from heaven in front of people. So I couldn't help but think of Luke chapter nine when the disciples, James and John, saw that the Samaritan people were not welcoming Jesus as he was traveling through their area. They were not believing in him. They were not worshiping him. And so they thought, well, here we are, you know, apostles of the Lord Jesus. Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? And Jesus rebuked them. He said, you don't know what kind of spirit you are of, because the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. How ironic that James and John wanted to use a threat of violence in order to make people worship the Lord Jesus, which is exactly what Satan is going to do to make people worship the Antichrist. Use a threat of violence. Show mighty power from heaven. Bring down fire. The sign and the threat That's not how Christianity advances. We don't advance through intimidation. We don't advance through force. That's how the Antichrist does it. That's not how we do it. We do it through service. We do it through sacrifice. We do it through suffering, just like our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So, interesting contrast here between fleshly disciples And there's still plenty of fleshly disciples in the world today who don't know how the Lord is accomplishing his work in the world, but so easily become conformed to the world around us that is underneath Satan's control. And that's why Jesus not only had to rebuke James and John here, but he had to rebuke Peter and say, get behind me. We advance through suffering. We advance through suffering in the will of God. That is what Jesus taught us. Let's talk about the intimidation and force that is here in the text. Two examples of this as well. The first one is in chapter 15, the second half of the verse. So after he gives the image of the beast this ability to speak, he does so in order that the image of the beast might cause those who would not worship the image to be slain. So, death penalty for failing to worship the beast by worshiping the image of the beast. That's threat, violence, force, number one. The second one is economic in verse 17. He makes it that everyone has to have a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, the mark of the beast, 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. So this is economic exile for those who won't take the mark of the beast. If you don't worship the image of the beast, death. If you don't have the mark of the beast, you can't buy or sell, you can't participate in the economy. Now this is fascinating, the mark of the beast and the consequences for it. So I'm going to move on from the threat of violence and force and economic exile to talk about the image of the beast. Let's take a closer look at that because that's where John goes in verses 16 to 18. He talks about the mark there in verse 16, the consequence for not taking it in verse 17, and then he goes on at the end of verse 17 to say you're supposed to get marked with the name of the beast or the number of its name. And then verse 18 is the fascinating passage about the call for wisdom. If you have understanding, you can calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. What is the mark of the beast on the right hand or the forehead? Is this like a branding? In the ancient world, slaves would be branded and they would have that mark somewhere visible on their hand or their forehead so that people would know who they belonged to. Some people have thought that that's what John is drawing from, that's the imagery that the beast has in mind, is that you're marked as his slave with this mark. Others have thought, no, it's probably more of a religious nature, and that they were tattoos that people would get in the ancient world that would show that they belonged to a certain god, belonged to a certain religion. Perhaps that imagery is being drawn from. We don't know. for sure. It could be one of those, it could be neither of those, it could be something else. But what we do now is that this is one of the ways that the false prophet enforces obedience to the beast, submission to his government, and worship of him according to his claims of divinity. we know that the mark is going to consist of a number, and we know that number is 666. Now, interestingly, you'll take a note in the ESV that there is a footnote attached to the number 666. If you're using the ESV, you can see right after the number there's a footnote, and the footnote says, some manuscripts read 616. Ah, how interesting is that? 666 is the most well-known number, but there's this chance that the number is not 666, but the number is actually 616. Well, I'm going to set your mind at ease. You don't really have to worry about the footnote. The manuscripts that say 616 are not reliable. They're not ones that are accurate. I can say that with a large degree of confidence. Early on in church history, there was a man who wrote a book that I greatly value. He was living at the end of the second century. His name was Irenaeus. He wrote a book against heresy, and it was a long book. And in that book, he does talk about the number of the beast. And he makes it clear that he was aware that some manuscripts, even in his time, early on in church history, 180s, 190s, already by that time some manuscripts had a different number here, 616. But he says that the oldest and best manuscripts, say 666, and that they should get rid of all the manuscripts that say 616. And Irenaeus is a good authority on this because he was orthodox, he was connected to the school that had learned from the apostle John himself who wrote this book, And so he's got great insight into the book of Revelation that is very valuable to us in the 21st century to be able to go back to someone who lived within a hundred years, he died almost within a hundred years of the writing of the book. and was able to say, no, the correct number here is 666, not 616. And the number of manuscripts that have 616 is very small in comparison to the vast majority of early and good manuscripts that say 666. So just want to set your mind at ease. Don't get fooled by any attention-getting post online that says, oh, you've all been fooled about the number of the beast because it's actually 616. Now that's someone just seeking attention. trying to get clicks, okay? There's a lot of people online trying to get clicks. Now, the number of the man that we see there in verse 18, the number of the man is 666. What does this refer to? How is the number of a man 666? Well, In ancient languages, particularly in Hebrew and in Greek, which is exactly the languages of the Bible, Old Testament in Hebrew, New Testament in Greek, in those two languages, the letters of the alphabet were used to represent numbers. And so people, when they wanted to talk in code, they would often add up the numbers of the letters in a person's name and then make that their identifier, their number. We have an amazing example of this, actually two examples, in the ruins of Pompeii. Pompeii is an archaeological gold mine because it was buried by a volcanic explosion, and so it didn't suffer the normal deterioration of time, but it was basically frozen in time when the volcano buried it in ash. And as we've been able to excavate it, we've been able to discover things that you wouldn't have been able to discover any other way, such as ancient graffiti. Graffiti's not usually something that lasts, it's something that gets destroyed, but we've got ancient graffiti in the city of Pompeii, And one of the instances, actually two of the instances, of graffiti that have been preserved is very relevant here. We already knew about this before it. We knew that this practice of using letters to represent numbers and adding them up to represent names was something that happened in ancient Greek and Hebrew. But it's fun to look at the graffiti in Pompeii which says, I love her whose number is 545. So he didn't want to write on the wall who he actually loved, but he wanted to write that he loved her, and so he put the number there instead of her actual name that everyone would have known. And so this is what John is doing here. He's not going to give us the name, he's going to give us the number, so that when he is revealed, it will be obvious. There'll be no way to mistake. We will know, oh, this is the guy that John was talking about. That's why he says, let him who has understanding calculate. the number of the beast. That word calculated means to add up numbers. And so we are adding up the letters of his name to get to 666. Now, sadly, this has caused a lot of speculation throughout church history. So that any time an evil king or a powerful ruler comes on the scene, everyone wants to add up the letters of his name to find out, ooh, is this the Antichrist? And a lot of mistakes have been made this way. One of the earliest ones was to identify Nero as the Antichrist. And this is actually a very popular view among Bible teachers today, who I think are taking the wrong approach to the book of Revelation and seeing it as talking about things in the past instead of talking about what's going to happen at the end of the age. And so some people will try to make Nero fit with this number of 666. But in order to make Nero fit, you've got to do funny things. You've got to add letters, you've got to transliterate it into other languages. And to make it work, it's pretty roundabout, and I don't think it works. This is not talking about Nero, this is talking about a future man. And I want to warn you against making guesses about who the Antichrist is based upon his number. You will know who the Antichrist is when he stands in the temple and declares himself to be God. You will know who the Antichrist is when his false prophet is calling down lightning in the presence of men. It will be obvious. And you'll know not to take his number because he will have been clearly identified. Alright? Now, Irenaeus, he was the man I was talking about earlier, 130 to 202, so he was born just 40 years after the book of Revelation was written. Less than 40 years. And concerning the identification of the Antichrist based upon the number 666, this was his warning. And it's a good warning that too often has gone unheeded. He says, it is therefore more certain and less hazardous to await the fulfillment of the prophecy than to be making surmises and casting about for any names that may present themselves. So here's a wise man, very early on he recognized that people were making mistakes, casting about guesses, surmises, as to a name that might fit the number 666. And he says, don't do that. Just wait until the prophecies are fulfilled and then you'll be able to identify him by his number without making a fool of yourself. And all of us Christians who you're making a fool of together with yourself. Tonight, we can discuss some of the speculation, we can discuss some of the theories as to how the one world government of the United Nations, or how the rise of the European Union, or how the great reset of the World Economic Forum might be setting things up for the reign of the Antichrist. We can talk about developments in society that are leading to more economic controls that would lead to the kind of society where people would be forbidden from buying or selling without some mark. We can talk about RFID chips and all those types of things, but I'm not gonna go into any of that this morning because that's not the point. The point is not to identify things that are happening and say, oh look, that seems to be setting up for what's going on here. No, the point is God has given us these things. so that we, in our time, will learn the lesson of that future generation to come out from the world and to be separate. That we will not be intimidated by Satan. That we will not be led astray by his lies. His tactics now are the same that they are then. They're gonna be more intense then. But we have to stand now. And as we recognize his tactics, as we see them in the future, as we see them in the past, Going from the book of Genesis to Exodus, all the way into the New Testament, he hasn't changed his tactics, he hasn't changed his methods, and we have responsibility to not engage in speculation, but to engage in application of the truth that God is giving to us. Beware of speculation. There's nothing wrong with speculation, but when that becomes your focus, you've lost the point. The point is application, so let's do some of that. Let's talk a little bit about application. Philippians 128, I showed you this two weeks ago. We're not frightened in anything by our opponents. The opponents are strong. Power is on the side of those who are in the wrong. But we're not frightened. Their threats, their intimidations have no effect upon us. But we march on as Christian soldiers proclaiming the truth, standing in the truth, not being deceived, not being intimidated. We know that when they oppose the truth of God's word, This is no trouble for us. When they threaten God's servants, this is no trouble for us. It is a clear sign to them of their destruction and of our salvation and that from God. That's the application that we see in the book of Revelation for those who overcome the beast, for those who overcome the false prophet, for those who do not worship his image, for those who do not take his mark. I'm not probably gonna be here when the beast is making everybody take his mark, but I'm here now. and I have to be courageous and brave to do what's right and to say what's right and to teach the truth and to walk in the truth, that's what their example inspires me to do in the present. Not frightened by anything. That's God's command. Are you frightened? Does the FBI, the CIA, the deep state frighten you? Don't let them frighten you. Don't let them frighten you. Do not be deceived, do not be intimidated, do not be afraid. And also I want us to think about what is our stance towards the world system of false worship that we live in today? Our citizenship is in heaven. We are waiting for our Savior to come from heaven. Just like Paul was waiting, just like all the saints throughout the centuries have waited, we have a short time here on this earth to do the work that God has accomplished us to do, and then we are going to be with Christ. And only what is done for Christ will last. Don't go along with the world in their false worship and the false system and their desire for power, their desire for influence, their desire for acceptance, their desire for the love of people. The church is to be different with no compromise with the world. Jesus said whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for life eternal. The Bible says to come out from among them and be separate. The Bible says friendship with the world is hostility towards God. The world has not yet shown its true colors. God is still restraining the satanic evil that is in the hearts of mankind. But when God removes the restraints, you will see, you will see they will run to worship the beast and worship Satan. So don't be a part of the system now. Don't engage in false worship. Don't compromise the truth of Christianity. Galatians says Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age. You know that the present age is evil. Christ gave himself for your sins to deliver you from it. He who tries to be friends with the world will find himself at enmity with God. Throughout this passage, what have we seen? We've seen Satan's lies and Satan's intimidation. And you put that into the context of the whole Bible, and it stands in such stark contrast to Christ's truth and his self-sacrifice. We Christians are not those who lie and intimidate. We are those who speak the truth and sacrifice ourselves. Two ways, only two ways. Walk clearly in the way of Christ. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your son Jesus Christ who came into this world and is the light in human history. Without the light of Jesus Christ, there would have been no Moses. Without the light of Jesus Christ, there would have been no Elijah. Without the light of Jesus Christ, Peter, James, and John would have been fishermen, forgotten. But it is the word of God who came and who transformed Moses from a shepherd to a prophet, who empowered Elijah to stand up to kings and queens, who transformed Peter, and made him an apostle. And it is the light of the world who has come into our lives and has made them count, who has separated us from the world, and who has given us a holy calling. We thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. Apart from him, we would dwell in darkness. We'd be led astray and deceived, just like all the nations. But we thank you that he has come and has given us understanding and that we are in him who is true. And so, Lord God, guard us from idols. And may we take responsibility for ourselves with the power and the grace and the strength that you've given to us to guard ourselves from idols. That we come out from among the idolatry of this evil age and live lives that are sanctified live lives that are pure, live lives that are true, live lives that make you proud, and accomplish your purpose for why you have called us into fellowship with your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.