Oh, ask of me and I'll give the nations as your own. What great words those are. And I'm gonna ask you to please remain standing out of honor for God's word and take your Bibles and turn to Revelation chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13. I'll begin reading in verse 1 and I'll read through verse 6. So the first six verses of Revelation chapter 13 and this is that chapter that so many people have been waiting for. This is that chapter that that the modern evangelical church seems to be enthralled with, with this whole idea of the beast, the number of the beast, and all of that. Well, we begin that chapter today. And we begin in verse one, where God's word says this, And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. And then I saw a beast. coming up out of the sea, having 10 horns and seven heads, and on his horns were 10 diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion, and a dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. And 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. Then they worshipped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast. And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him? There was given to him a mouth, speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And He opened His mouth in blasphemies against God to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are indeed grateful for Your Word. And Lord, we are grateful for the book that is before us, the book of Revelation. And yet, Lord, we know how difficult this book is. We know how much trouble this has caused people over the years to interpret this rightly. And so, Lord, we pray for mercy today. I ask that you'd be merciful to me, the preacher. And I pray, Lord, that what I say to these people today is true. And Lord, as we have prayed in the past, if it is not true, then we ask that certainly your Holy Spirit would make that known to us. However, if what I say is true and is in keeping with your word, we ask the Lord that you would convict us of this truth. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may please be seated. And I want us to go back to the second century for a moment, actually to 156 A.D. to be precise, because in Smyrna, which is in Asia Minor, in Smyrna in 156 A.D., there was a very famous bishop named Polycarp. Many of you have heard of Polycarp. Well, he had such a forceful ministry against paganism in the second century, that he was denounced all through Asia Minor, and he was referred to as the atheist. And you think, well, atheist, he's a bishop, why would they call him an atheist? Well, because Polycarp, of course, denied all the gods and goddesses of the Roman Empire, plus he denied that the emperor was a god. And because of that, he was referred to as, quote, the atheist, the teacher of Asia, the destroyer of our gods. Well, what happened was, as many of you know, is that Polycarp's ministry as Bishop of Smyrna went on for 50 years. And then, 156 AD, a new persecution arose against the Christians and that persecution broke out and Polycarp, they decided to make an example of him. And so he was captured, and actually the authorities didn't want to kill him. What they wanted him to do was to renounce Christ. And they didn't want to kill him because, I mean, he's 86 years old, and it's kind of what's the point of killing an 86-year-old man? That's not going to endear us with the people. But if they could get him to deny Christ, well then what a victory that would be for the Roman Empire and what a blow that would be to Christianity. And so they captured him and as they prepared to execute him they said to him this, what harm is there in saying Caesar is Lord and offering just a pinch of incense to the emperor as Lord and saving yourself. All you have to do is do a little pinch into the fire of incense and confessing that Caesar indeed is Lord. And so they pleaded with him. In fact, the procouncil said this, have respect for your age, swear by the divinity of Caesar, repent and say away with the atheists, take the oath and I will let you live. but he refused to renounce Christ. And the ancient church historian Eusebius says this, says, with his face set, he looked at the crowd in the stadium and he waved toward them and sighed and looked up to heaven and cried away with the godless, referring to all the people in the stadium. And the governor pressed him further. These are still the words of Eusebius. Swear, and I will set you free. Renounce Christ. And Polycarp replied, for 86 years I have been his servant, and he has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me? And he was killed. He was killed by burning at the stake. Now I mentioned Polycarp. Because for the first half of this book, we have seen that this great persecution that takes place against the church, but the great persecutor of the church, the first one was the Jews. And then we've seen in the first half of this book how God has come upon first century Jews in judgment upon them, destroying the temple. But remember, there were two great persecutors of the early church. The first, as we have seen, were the Jews. But don't forget, the second one after that was Rome. And we saw in chapter 12, it served as kind of an interlude between the first half and the second half. It served as an interlude, and what we saw, what was really behind all of this hatred for the church. And what that is, is we saw a flashback in time to when Satan was cast out of heaven and cast out of heaven with his angels. And as we saw last week, he failed to stop the Messiah. And so now he takes out his anger on the church. He takes his anger out on Christians. Well, now here in the 13th chapter, the emphasis is now on the other great persecutor of the church, and that is imperial Rome. And what you're going to see here is Satan seeking to find really help with his attacks on the church. And that help is going to come from Rome. But as we look at this, I hope you will see what should be a great red flag to all of you. And so the way we'll divide this up, it divides up real easily. We have the dragon, then we have the beast, and then we have the lesson. or the application, however you wanna say it. So just the dragon, the beast, and then the application. But we begin with the dragon. I want you to look at verse one of chapter 13, the very beginning of the verse. It says, and the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Now immediately, many of you recognize we have a problem. We have a problem here that needs to be addressed. Because if you have an NIV translation, well, verse 17 of chapter 12 ends with those words that I just read. Verse 17 of chapter 12 ends, and the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. Same thing with the ESV. By the way, the ESV is our pew Bibles. Verse 17 of chapter 12 ends, and he stood on the sand of the seashore. And if you have a New Living Bible, as I learned at the Q&A last week, it makes these words, or those words at the end of verse 12, I'm sorry, those words at the end of chapter 12, and he stood on the shore of the sea, well, they make that its own verse, verse 18. But if you have my translation, the New American Standard Bible, chapter 13, verse one begins. with those words. And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. But remember, and we've said this before, the chapter and verse divisions, that's not inspired. The chapter and verse divisions didn't come about till centuries after God gave us the New Testament. And so since they're not inspired, there is really nothing wrong with putting the end of chapter 12 and the beginning of chapter 13. What it was is clearly those words, and the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore, should be part of chapter 13, verse one. Because John says, then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. And so the New American Standard Bible puts it there. But again, chapter and verse divisions are not inspired. but the words are inspired. Remember, we believe in what is called verbal plenary inspiration. All the words of scripture are inspired. And so the real problem is this. If you have a King James version or a new King James version, you've already noticed this. Chapter 13, verse one begins, and I stood on the sand of the sea. We're referring to John, not the beast, or not the dragon. But all the newer translations, like mine, say the dragon stood on the beach. Well, which is it? Did the dragon stand on the beach, or was it John? Well, once again, here's the problem. Some well-meaning scribe is copying this, And he's looking at the copy that it is, he's making his copy. He reads and he, that's the dragon, stood in the sand of the seashore. And he thought, well, the very next thing John says is, then I saw a beast coming out of the sea. So he concludes, well, clearly it was John who was standing on the seashore and he saw this. So he figures the guy before me made a mistake. and I need to fix it, and I need to change it from he, that is, the dragon was standing on the seashore, to I, John was standing on the seashore. And by the way, in Greek, it's just one letter difference. And he's just clearly thinking, well, the guy just missed a letter, just made a little mistake. And so he changes it. And then from that point on, people who then copy that guy's copy are including that little mistake. Well, at this point, I'm sure you're all thinking, Wade, who cares? I mean, really, what? Don't make such a big deal about it. Who really cares? Well, people, it is a big deal. In fact, you're going to be disappointed to hear, it's going to be the whole point of my sermon today is this. J. Stuart Russell says this, this is not unimportant. The dragon failed in his attempt to destroy the woman and her seed, stations himself on the sands of the sea, looking out for a potent auxiliary enlisted in his service." In other words, the dragon, not John, the dragon is standing there looking for some help. He's looking for who can I get to assist me in my attack upon the church. And that takes us now to our second point, which is the beast. Second part of verse one says this, then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea having 10 horns and seven heads and on his horns were 10 diadems and on his heads were blasphemous names. And so who or what is this beast? Well, the beast is both a who and a what. The beast is the Roman Empire in general, and Nero in particular. Now, why do we say that? I think I remember preaching this once before. I think I even remember we looked at it in a Q&A, not too long ago. But go ahead and turn to chapter 17. This might look familiar to you, but go to Chapter 17, and I should say, as you're turning there to chapter 17, I should say to you that it is Ken Gentry that has helped me immensely with this. I told you when we began Revelation, this whole topic, that, well, now 31 years ago, when I first came to this church, I was preaching through Mark's gospel, came to the Olivet Discourse, and I couldn't quite make it make sense. I had lots of questions and fortunately in the providence of God I was a student at Westminster at the time and so I had other fellow students to talk to, I had professors to talk to, and they directed me to the things you're gonna see today, and specifically directed me to the writings of Ken Gentry. And so these are his words and not mine. But look at chapter 17, look at verse seven. Verse seven says this, and the angel said to me, why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the 10 horns. I mean, we're fortunate, aren't we? Because the angel is gonna interpret this for us, not me, but the angel, he's gonna tell us what this means. And so you go down in chapter 17 to verse nine, and it says, here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. The seven heads are seven mountains. That might not mean much to you, but that meant a lot to first century people. They knew that the city on Seven Hills is Rome. They knew that's a reference to Rome, just as if I said to you today, well, my son, boy, I'm pretty upset, my son is moving far away, he's going to the Big Apple. If I say that, you know that I'm talking about New York, that's the Big Apple. Well, more so, they knew with the city on Seven Hills, that's a reference to Rome. And then the angel says this, verse 10, and they are seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must remain a little while. Men and women, I think this is compelling. It was compelling for me 31 years ago, and it is still compelling now. He says these seven heads, the seven-headed monster, the seven-headed beast, well, those seven heads are seven kings. Five have fallen. The first five emperors, Roman Empire, Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, and Claudius. They are fallen. In other words, they're dead. The sixth one is. The sixth one is alive. Who's the sixth one? That's Nero. Nero was the sixth one. And then it says, and the seventh, when he comes, he's gonna come for just a short while. After Nero came Galba. Galba was there for just a short time, for just seven months. Nero is alive. when John writes this. Nero is the beast specifically. Nero persecuted Christians. And by the way, Nero was even nicknamed the beast. Now some of you already know what I'm gonna say next. So go to the end of chapter 13. Go back to the chapter that we are in right now, chapter 13, but jump ahead to verse 18. Chapter 13, verse 18, last verse of the chapter says this, here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man and his number is 666. You know, I remember teaching this several years ago at the church in Upland. the church I was ordained at. And I remember teaching this in just a small Bible study, and of course, back then I was teaching it from a typical futuristic point of view, that this is all in our future, that this is referring to some future Antichrist that is gonna come, some future world leader who is gonna rise out of a revived Roman Empire. And I remember saying to the group, that 666 is sort of an unholy trinity. You know, seven is the number of perfection, seven is the number for God, you know, six is the number for man. And so 666 is just kind of this unholy trinity. The problem though is this, it doesn't say 666, it says 660 and six. Now we've said it before, The Jews didn't have a separate numbering system. The Jews used their letters and each letter had a numerical value. We're familiar with that with Roman letters. You know, an X equals 10, and a V equals 5, and an I equals 1, and an L equals 50. And so we're familiar with this. Well, it was the same way with the Hebrew letters. The first five, you know, Aleph, Bath, Gimel, Doleph, so forth, those 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth, all the way down, 10, 20, 30, 40, and so forth. They each have numerical value. Well, John tells his readers about this beast, and he says, calculate the number, for the number is that of a man, and his, excuse me, his number is 666. And if you take Nero and Caesar, Nero, Caesar, in Hebrew letters, it adds up to 666. Now here is what is most compelling to me. And by the way, I didn't get this from Ken Gentry. So don't blame Ken Gentry on what I'm about to tell you. But my Bible has a little footnote at 666. Yours probably does also. And if you follow the footnote down, it says one early manuscript reads 616. Well, why? Why would there be a manuscript that is 616? Well, we just went through this in the beginning of the message. The scribes would oftentimes fix what they think is a mistake, or sometimes they would change things or add things to make it clearer for the audience that they were translating for, or that they were copying for. And it seems that some well-meaning scribe was copying Revelation 13 for a Greek audience. And he knew my Greek audience doesn't know the Hebrew numbering system. They know the Roman numbering system. And so changes it because Nero and Kaiser in Roman numbers comes out to 616. Men and women, the seven headed beast that comes out of the sea is Rome in general. the city on seven hills, it's Rome in general, and it's Nero in particular. Chapter 17, the angel tells us that Nero is, in other words, he is alive. And here in chapter 13, we're told to calculate the number and that number adds up to Nero. Nero, who by the way, violently persecuted the church, didn't he? And Nero, who blamed the Christians, remember, for just about every problem Rome ever had, he blamed the Christians. And so now look at verse two. Chapter 13, verse two says, The beast, which I saw, was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority." In other words, this beast has great power and great authority. And you go down to verse four and following, and it says, they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast. And they worshiped the beast saying, who is like the beast and who was able to wage war with him? And there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies and authority to act for 42 months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven." In other words, this beast, John says, has a blasphemous character about him. And remember, we said it in the beginning with the killing of Polycarp. And why was he killed? Because he wouldn't put a pinch of incense for Caesar. He wouldn't say that Caesar was Lord, that Caesar was divine. The beast has a blasphemous character and he demands worship. And the Romans considered many of their emperors as gods. In fact, Nero thought of himself as the god Apollo. There's an inscription in Athens that says this, all powerful Nero Caesar, a new Apollo. Well, what about verse three? We skipped verse three, but look at verse three. It says this, 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. Well, what is this? Well, remember, Nero killed himself. Killed himself in June of 68 AD, just as the Roman Empire was entering into this civil war. And in fact, there was what was called the Year of Four Emperors, because it was one right after another. You had Galba, who was right after Nero, then Otto, then Vitellius, and then each one for roughly six months. And it looked like the Roman Empire was through. It looked like, oh, it's done with. Ever since Nero killed himself, and now it's over. It's in its death throes. But then comes Vespasian. And the ancient historian Tacitus writes this, this was the condition of the Roman state when Galba entered upon the year. You know, Galba right after Nero. It was to be for Galba his last and for the state almost the end. In other words, it looks like it's dying. This beast is dying. But what happened? Well, the nation revived from the wound that all thought was bringing it to its end. In fact, Suetonius says this, quote, the empire which for a long time had been unsettled and drifting through usurpation and the violent death of three emperors was at last taken in hand and given stability by the Flavian family. And as Gentry says, the beast was staggering to its death. It had suffered a mortal head wound, but then comes Vespasian. And so Josephus says this, so upon this confirmation of Vespasian's entire government, which was now settled, and upon the unexpected deliverance of the public affairs of the Romans. This was unexpected. And so, that in a civil war, Rome, the beast, is struck with a mortal blow that takes out one of its heads, Nero, one of its emperors. And the beast, by all appearances, is dying. It's on its last leg. But then comes Vespasian. And as we see at the end of verse three, and the whole world was amazed. Men and women, the beast that comes out of the sea is Rome in general and Nero in particular. The beast is not in the future of the beast, is back in the first century. And many people say, well, if we're talking about something back in the first century, not something in our day, not something in our near future, then what's the point? This doesn't speak to me. Oh, yes, it does. That takes us to our third point, and that is the lesson, the application of this text. Actually, we should call it the warning because we have two warnings right here. And the first is this, in the beginning of this chapter, and this is why I made such a big deal about it. In the beginning of this chapter, we see the dragon standing on the seashore, looking for someone to help him. Someone he can use to carry out his attacks on the church. Years ago, Derek Brover was preaching for me, and his text was 1 Corinthians 3, where Paul says this, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. Remember, people, Christ builds his church. Christ loves his church. And John MacArthur says about this text that Derek preached on, says, here is a severe warning. You know, if anybody harms the temple of God, you know, I'm gonna deal with that person. He says, here's a severe warning to who would try to interfere or destroy the building of the church. Severe warning to anybody who would come against the church. Men and women, the application of Revelation 13 is very scary and it's actually very sobering. As we see in verse 1, Satan looks for those to help him to carry out his attack on the church. And he will even look amongst the church members. Who can I use to attack the church? He will even look amongst the elders. He'll look for the pastors. Who can I get? What pastor can I get to change the message, to carve off this part of the message, to do, to soften the message? He looks for those he can use to damage the church. And that's why Titus warns the church Quote, reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned. You know, I've seen that in every church that I've been in. Every single church I have served at. And by the way, nobody here. I'm not speaking to anybody here. But every church that I have been at, at at least one point in that church, There's one man or group of men causing all kinds of problems in the church, wreaking great havoc against the church, not realizing that they are actually tools being used for Satan's purposes. We all need to be on guard against that, that we don't become that person. And second, we began with Polycarp, killed because of his faith in Christ. And why did Imperial Rome hate Christians? Well, I told you, because they were considered atheists. and they were atheists because they didn't believe any of the gods and goddesses of the Roman Empire, and nor would they say that Caesar is Lord. But people, that is the offense of the gospel yet today, that we say Christ is the only way. I am on a group chat, or whatever you would call it, a group website or something, for the Kern River Valley. Kern River Valley is about an hour east of Bakersfield. And just this week, I think it was Monday, someone posted that she wanted to start a universal Unitarian society there in the Kern River Valley. I mean, there's a couple Baptist churches, I know there's a Lutheran church that I can think of, a few other churches, well, she wants to start this, what is it, Universal Unitarian Society, and so she's putting the post out there, looking, hey, who's in? Who wants to come along with this? Let's, you know, who wants to do this? And there are a bunch of people who said, I'm in, count me in, and so forth. But what caught my eye was this. She said, Universal Unitarians ask questions, we don't give answers. and why would I go? If you don't give any answers, why would I waste my time gathering with a whole bunch of people just asking questions and leaving? And I wonder if she noticed that the very name of the group is in fact giving an answer, Universal Unitarians. What she is saying, and I think you all know this, what she is saying is we don't give that offensive answer that those Christians Oh, we don't give that offensive answer, we just kind of, everything else is fair game. People, you need to know that not much has changed since Polycarp was killed. John MacArthur once said this, I love this quote, he said, this is the most offensive claim that can be made in the realm of religion, here it is. There is only one God, one Savior, one true religion, one holy book, one gospel, one way of salvation. All other religious claims are lies, deceptions, doctrines of Satan and demons that lead people to eternal hell along with all the immoral, irreligious, atheistic, hedonistic, naturalistic unbelievers. That is the most offensive statement I could come up with, and it just happens to be the truth. And people, it is that truth that Satan seeks to destroy. And it is that truth that Satan is looking for those to help him in his quest to destroy that truth. And it is that truth that for 2,000 years, people have suffered and died for. And that's why when they tried to threaten Polycarp with death, he said this, the fire you threaten burns for a time and is soon extinguished. There is a fire you know nothing about, the fire of the judgment to come and of eternal punishment, the fire reserved for the ungodly. But why do you hesitate? Do what you want. And they did. They burned him at the stake. this 86-year-old man. Polycarp, though, was pretty confident, wasn't he? Pretty confident in what the future held for him. Pretty confident in those things that he had been declaring. But remember, people, he was a disciple of John. He was a disciple of John, the apostle John who wrote the book that is before us. This is John's disciple, and he is confident knowing what the future is for him. And so he stood firm. Satan is looking for those he can use against the church. May we be like those who have gone before us and be willing to stand strong in this truth. Let's pray. Father in heaven, how grateful we are for this text before us today. And Lord, what a, what a warning it serves to all of us. of this fact that our enemy, the devil, this dragon, is seeking people that he can use against your church, the church Christ died for, the church Christ built, and the church Christ loves. Lord, may we have discernment. May we not be counted among those but instead may we be counted among those like Polycarp who stood strong for the truth. We pray in Jesus Christ's name, amen.