Uh huh. Welcome to a Bible message for today, teaching the Bible verse by verse, word by word. Coming to you from the Pentwater Bible Church, a non-denominational Christian church. It is our desire that these messages from the word of God will draw you closer to God and that you might experience true freedom in the truth of his word. Here is Dr. Daniel Woodhead, pastor of the Pentwater Bible Church with today's Bible message. Well, good morning. Welcome back. This is Daniel Woodhead. I'm the pastor of the Pentwater Bible Church, and we're glad that you could join us again for this wonderful grand tour of the book of Revelation, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. And as we've been moving through this book in the past several months, we've gotten to the point in the 13th chapter, which is the middle of the Great Tribulation, And I have digressed here to do an extensive study of the Antichrist, the coming world leader that is going to appear on earth someday, and he's going to take control of the entire government of the world. And if you've been with us, you know what the sequence of the stages are, if you will, of him coming to the dominating office of the entire world. And if not, please call 1-877 706-2479 1-877-706-2479 and I can provide you with audios of previous radio shows or at no cost I could send you a copy of the notes for you to get some of the background information here in the earlier lessons. Today I want to continue our discussion with this Antichrist and in our last session we talked about him being a type of, if you will, of Adolf Hitler. Or should I say that Adolf Hitler is a type of the Antichrist. He is going to have the ability to sway the masses with, as the Bible speaks, great swelling words, if you will. Now Hitler had the same ability. He could just capture, captivate, if you will, the imaginations of people because he could speak with incredibly powerful emotion. One writer said that when Hitler was elated, his normal, halting, awkward style of speaking was transformed into a magical flow of words. And they had a spellbinding effect on the population of Nazi Germany. And on these occasions, this writer says, it was as though Hitler himself was listening to the extraneous intelligence which had temporarily taken over his soul. Now this strange transformation would later be described by others as Luciferic possession, where Hitler was completely given over to some sort of another world power. Now, one man, Gregor Strasser, he was a defective Nazi. He defected from the party. And he recounted 20 years later, in the 1960s, you know, a light appears in a dark window. A gentleman with a comic mustache turns into an archangel. Then the archangel flies away and there's Hitler sitting down, bathed in sweat with glassy eyes. So he was talking about him becoming possessed, if you will. In his book, Satan and the Swastika, Francis King writes, Hitler's public appearances, particularly those associated with the Nazi party's Nuremberg rallies, were excellent examples of this sort of a magical ceremony. The fanfares, the military marches, the Wagnerian music. all emphasize the idea of a German military glory. The mass swastika banners in black, white, and red filled the consciousness of the participants in the rally with a national socialist ideology. The ballet-like precision of the movement of the uniformed party members, all acting in unison evoked from the unconscious principles of war and violence. These were used by the ancients and symbolized as Mars, which is an occultic symbol. and the prime ritual of the rallies, Hitler clasping to other banners the blood banner, which is carried at the Munich Putsch of 1923, which is a quasi-magical ceremony designed to link up with the minds of living Nazis with the archetypal images symbolized by the dead national socialist heroes of the past. Now, the religio-magical aspects of the rallies were emphasized by the fact that their high points were reached after dusk and took place in a cathedral of light, an open space surrounded by pillars of light coming from electric searchlights that pointed upward in the sky. If a modern ritual magician of the utmost expertise had designed a ritual intended to invoke Mars, he could not have come up with anything more effective than the ceremonies used at Nuremberg. Now here's another writer, Dusty Sclar. He pointed out that Hitler's suicide happened on the night of April the 3rd, May the 1st, 1945, when it's called Walpurgis Night. It's a pagan spring festival, and the narrator continued, with Hitler gone, it was as if a spell had been broken. Then Jochum von Ribbentrop's infamous statement of his continued subservience to Hitler at the Nuremberg trials, Look what he says. Look what he says here. Even with all I know, if in his cell Hitler should come to me and say, do this, I would still do it. Now, this is what has been given to us as the final evidence of Hitler's occult power. Well, so will the Antichrist be controlled and Satan energized. He's going to honor, as the Bible tells us, the god of fortresses, which is Satan. His policy is going to be might makes right. Now, this is going to help with this foreign god, Satan. Because He's going to take over the strongest defenses in the world and He's going to appear invulnerable. And those who give themselves over to this authority are going to be given status and authority in His kingdom. Now His kingdom. Satan's kingdom. We see this in Revelation 13, verses 17 to 18. Description of the 666, which we've discussed in previous messages. He's going to divide territory he's conquered amongst those that are going to be loyal to him and they're going to confess him as a God or as God, not a God, but the God. You know, the nation Israel has been recognized as a country since May the 15th, 1948. And that was after 2,533 years without a country. No nation on this earth has ever come back from the dead. And just as the Bible predicted in Ezekiel 20, and 22, 36, and Isaiah 11, and other places, they came back. Now, and at this future time, they have no recognition nationally of Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah. As we noted earlier, the reasons of this have been manifold because it has caused them to be persecuted since he was here, and it's going to cause them to go through the Great Tribulation. While those who believe in Jesus, a historic figure who claimed to be God, who died and rose again from the dead, and all those who believe in that gospel, that good news, will be with him in heaven when you leave these bodies. And you will not have to go through the tribulation. You will be taken out in the rapture and resurrection. You have that blessed assurance. Now, Israel is going to make a treaty with the Antichrist. The Bible doesn't disclose the exact nature of this pact, but that will be the beginning of the Great Tribulation. You see that in Daniel 9.27. And at the midpoint of the tribulation, the Antichrist is going to commit what is called the abomination of desolation. First thing he's going to do, he's going to go into the Holy of the Holies in the rebuilt temple and He is going to commit the abomination of desolation. Now, Daniel and Matthew, the book of Matthew, both imply that an image or an idol is going to be erected in the temple. See that in Matthew 24, our Lord speaking there, Daniel 9, 27, and 12, 11. This is what gives rise to the comparison between what is going to happen yet future to us and what happened around 164 to 167 BC. One of the successors to Alexander the Great was Antiochus Epiphanes. And he went into the Jewish temple and desecrated the temple by slaughtering a sow, a pig, a female pig, on the altar in the Holy of Holies. And it gave rise to the Maccabean Revolt because they were so upset that this had happened and they pushed the Greeks out. They took control of Jerusalem for a short while before the Romans came in. In the second event though, the abomination of desolation, the one that Christ spoke of and the one that Daniel was given in his vision, this individual, the Antichrist, and there's another individual that we call the false prophet. The 13th chapter of the book of Revelation refers to him as the second beast. Now, the Antichrist has been given authority by Satan to perform many signs and many wonders, many miracles, deceiving mankind. And the second beast is going to be given the same sort of magical wonder capability because he wants, being led by Satan, to cause the populations of the world to worship the Antichrist. Now this great deception is going to reach a peak when the Antichrist, when an image, I should say, of the Antichrist that is made up is put into the Holy of Holies. Now try and think of this like a Pinocchio, if you will, a puppet that looks like the Antichrist, and men are called to worship this image, which goes into the Holy of Holies, and this image will be made alive. Boy, that just sounds scary, doesn't it? This image will be made alive. Satan is going to make that image come alive. furthers the deification, if you will, the Antichrist. It's important to remember that genuine believers are gone. Genuine believers are not going to accept this. They're not going to believe it. They're gone. They're gone. There were plenty of people that left Nazi Germany, plenty of people that understood that Adolf Hitler was not the person that he was saying he was. They saw how sick he was. They saw where this country was going. And they saw Jewish people being persecuted and just suddenly disappearing from society. So we are gone. We are gone. If you are a real, genuine believer in Christ, you're not going to be here for this. One of the reasons I go through this book periodically is to let you know what it is that's coming on this earth. And if you're not a believer, I beg you to believe that Jesus of Nazareth died, went into the ground for three days, and rose again from the dead. These are historic facts. Historic facts. This is not my presupposition or my religion or something that I hold to because it's kind of interesting and comforting. It's a fact. These things are factual. They actually happened. I don't care what anybody tells you. The evidence for these things happening are overwhelming. And most people won't look at the evidence. They'll listen to somebody that tells them, oh, that couldn't be true. People just don't rise from the dead. Jesus did. Jesus did. So the believers, you and I, are gone from this earth. are gone from this earth and there's not going to be anybody left here to push back on the sick doctrine of the Antichrist and his minions. This image was going to be set up in the Holy of Holies to carry on what Christ and Daniel called the abomination of desolation. Jerusalem is going to become the religious capital of the Antichrist and the temple is going to be a center of the worship of the Antichrist. Because that little living image is going to be sitting in the holy of holies, the most holy place, so to speak, on this earth. So to speak, on this earth. It's one of the reasons why I think that one of the reasons that the Jewish nation is going to fall for the Antichrist message is because one, He's going to promise to rebuild the temple for them, and they want that temple built very, very badly. There are groups now that I have visited in Jerusalem that are planning to rebuild the temple as soon as they get control of the temple mount. Matter of fact, they tell me that they can have services up and running within one day in a temporary structure, probably something similar to the old tabernacle. But as soon as they get control, they want to start building the temple. And he will allow them to do that because we know that he's going to be in control of the entire earth. And we know that at the midpoint of the tribulation, he will go into it, declare himself God and have this image in there that has been made alive, made alive Now the Antichrist is going to be deposed after 1260 days. That's the end of the Great Tribulation. But the image is going to remain in the temple for another 30 days. Another 30 days according to the Book of Daniel. And we're not 100% sure why that is, but maybe as a symbol to the world of how bad it was before Jesus came back. So in two stages, anyway, the Antichrist declares himself as God, he goes into the Holy Holies, the image is set up of himself, and so on. But after that, he's going to break the covenant with the Jewish people, he's going to bring about the greatest persecution that this world has ever seen. This is affirmed in Isaiah 28, verses 14 to 22, Matthew 24, and verse 21. Jesus gave the Jews a warning, who will be living at that time, that when the persecution breaks out, flee the region. Now there will be people coming to be believers during the Great Tribulation. And Jesus addressed part of his Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24 and 25, in Luke 21 primarily. It is also in the book of Mark, but it doesn't have the same amount of text as Matthew. He's telling these people, flee. Flee. Get out of there. Get out of there. These are obviously the believers that come to faith in Christ during the tribulation. Non-believers during Jesus' life now or at the end of the tribulation don't pay any attention to anything that Christ said. People just ignore it. Their ears are plugged. Their ears are blocked. But you are hearing this. You know these things. Can you feel your heart beating harder as I speak of these things? Can you feel God in your chest pushing you towards something? That's his Holy Spirit encouraging you to confess the name of Christ. Jesus laws are not hard. Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. These are the fruits of the Spirit. That's what God wants to place in you. He doesn't want to place in you adultery and envy and hatred and strife. He wants to take those things out of you. He wants you to be with Him. And He is a God of justice and peace and love. So non-believers are never going to accept these things. They're not going to pay attention then either. And he's going to warn them that the persecution is coming. It's going to start in earnest. And Revelation 12 provides us with an illustration of the persecution of Jews on a worldwide basis by Satan. And he uses the Antichrist and the world religious leader. It's called, kind of interestingly, beast number two. So beast one and beast two. And this guy's going to enjoy more success than Adolf Hitler did in his attempt to eliminate the Jewish nation. Did you know that Adolf Hitler killed, in his ovens, one-third of the world's Jews? Two-thirds are going to die. Two-thirds are going to die under the Antichrist. Now, this means that almost 8.6 million Jewish folks will die unless they ask Christ to return and stop the Great Tribulation, which is what they do. Look what Zechariah 13 verses 8 to 9 say, And it shall come to pass in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die, but the third shall be left therein, and I will bring the third part through the fire, is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name, and I will hear them, and I will say, It is my people, and they shall say, The Lord is my God. And this is what they say. And this is what Jesus told them they would say. Matthew 23, 39, For I say unto you, You shall not see me henceforth till you say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, When we get to the battle of Armageddon, we're going to see the timing of the Jews crying out to the Messiah to return and save them. And where they go exactly in the stages of Armageddon. There's eight stages to that battle. It's not simply one little battle. And what the stages are that Christ employs during his return and championing that battle. So Revelation is a book that is meant to be understood. It is a book that is meant to be understood. God didn't write these scriptures to be confused, I mean to give us confusion. He's not the author of confusion. 1 Corinthians 14.33 said God is not the author of confusion. So the key to understanding the book of Revelation is to understand the Old Testament. There are many unfulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament and the book of Revelation is a picture of Jesus, their Messiah and our Christ as he is now. God the Father gave the book to the Lord Jesus. He in turn signified it by his angel who gave it to the Apostle John. John was banished by the Emperor Domitian to the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. He received this book about 96 AD. Christ tells John that he is to write the things which he has seen. That's the glorified Christ. He's told to write the things which are. That's the history of the church as it was espoused in the seven letters. to the seven churches of Asia, which are modern-day Turkey. Finally, we're admitted to the throne room of God, where we see the God the Father in the throne, Jesus the Messiah fully glorified, the 24 elders of the raptured church, and the cherubim and the seraphim. Now, Jesus has been given the seven-sealed scroll, which represents a title deep to the earth, and only he is found worthy. to open the scroll. He begins to break the first seal which begins the tribulation and it's conducted from the throne room of God the Father Almighty. Now I just want to very, very quickly go over some of the events in bullet form of the first half of the tribulation and what we've covered so far in the midpoint of the tribulation. The Antichrist is going to sign a seven-year covenant of some sort with the nation Israel. My speculation is that it allows them to rebuild their temple. Now bear in mind, if we go back to Revelation 6.1, all peace is being taken from the earth. All peace. The Antichrist has brought with him plagues and economic chaos and lots and lots and lots of wars and disruption, personal disruption of economies and just markets and everything you can imagine. So when he makes this deal, in all probability, the Jews think that they are going to have some sort of peace. that the Antichrist is not going to harm them. He's going to protect them, and they believe it. They buy into some kind of a lie there. The second seal starts the first worldwide war of the Tribulation. The third seal that Jesus opens starts the first worldwide causes a quarter of the earth to be destroyed by sword, that's war, famine, starvation, and wild animals. Wild animals. The animal kingdom, which is now primarily afraid of the human being, and then what they do is they turn against human beings and they become another force to start harming the human population. The fifth seal then starts a persecution and martyrdom of the post-rapture saints. In other words, the rapture happens sometime before this covenant is made between the Antichrist and the nation Israel. And real believers are gone. Real believers are gone. But there will be people coming to Christ during that time. They are then, there is a huge persecution, martyrdom has stepped up on them. Because they will be hunted down. Just like Hitler hunted down the Jews through his Gestapo and Schutzstaffel, the SS. Same thing is going to happen with the Antichrist armies. The sixth seal is going to cause general convulsions of nature in the world as well as a second blackout. The seventh seal opens and it contains the seven trumpet judgment. First trumpet causes one-third of the dry earth to be destroyed. Second trumpet causes one-third of all salt water to be destroyed. The third trumpet causes one-third of the fresh water to be destroyed. The fourth trumpet causes one-third of the heavenly bodies to be destroyed. The fifth trumpet causes the third blackout and the first invasions of demons to torment. It's also called the first woe judgment. The sixth trumpet sounds and the second invasion of demons come upon the earth. One third of all humanity is destroyed. That's also called the second woe judgment. Now, the seventh trumpet sounds and the third woe judgment comes upon the earth as well as initiation of the thirteen events of the middle of the tribulation and what we're going to see yet future to us the seven bull judgments. Yet future to us means next week. So I'm blessed that you could join us. Again, my name is Daniel Woodhead and I'm pastor of the Pentwater Bible Church and your Bible teacher in these series. I would ask you to please call us if you appreciate these messages. 1-877-706-2479. We really need to hear from you. because we want to make sure that we're using God's resources as he would have us use them to reach people that are interested and love him and want to know more about him. God bless you and I look forward to seeing you in our next session. To you listening, it is our prayer that this Bible study has been edifying and a blessing to you. Completely underwritten by the Pentwater Bible Church, we do not solicit your financial support, but would appreciate your call to the radio station you are listening, and let them know if you'd like these messages to continue. Or, you may call us at our toll-free number, 877-706-2479. That's 877-706-2479. We would be pleased to send you a complete set of notes of today's message at no cost. Simply call us with your request, leaving your name and address, and they'll be mailed to you. If you prefer, you may write us at P.O. Box 384, Pentwater, Michigan, 49449. That address again is P.O. Box 384, Pentwater, Michigan 49449. You're invited to join us as we study the Bible in our service each Sunday morning at 11 a.m. at our temporary location in the Pentwater room of the Comfort Inn located at the intersection of Highway 31 at the Oceania exit. Be sure to listen next week as Dr. Woodhead presents another teaching message from the Bible, the Word of God. The End