Study of End Times week 32

The Beast from the Earth

Last week we looked at the Beast from the sea, and seen the Anti-Christ and that the Anti-Christ will come out of the sea, with ten horns, seven heads and on its horns will have ten crowns and on its heads will be blasphemous names. The beast will be like a leopard, with feet like a bear, a mouth like a lion’s, and the dragon/Satan will give this beast/ the Anti-Christ power and authority.

We seen that the horns, heads, crowns and the animals were symbolic, but the Antichrist will have power, will also be deceptive, and lead many astray to follow after Satan.

Tonight we are going to look at a second beast, this beast comes from the earth, the first half of chapter 13, covers the first beast which as we seen last week was the Antichrist, and then the second half of chapter 13, which is what we will look at tonight looks at the beast from the earth which is the false prophet.

John tells us four things about this false prophet (the anti-Holy Spirit) who will cause the world to worship the Antichrist in the last days.

I. He Will be a Servant of Satan

Revelation 13:11–12 CSB

11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf and compels the earth and those who live on it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.

The beast is not a harmless lamb. His lamb disguise is just a camouflage of deception because his horns are sticking out and his dragon breath gives him away.

He is a devilish, diabolical, powerful individual who will receive his power from Satan - the master deceiver.

Jesus Christ said of the Pharisees: in John 8:44

John 8:44 CSB

44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

The devil is a liar. So, if this lamb speaks as the dragon and the dragon is the devil, then you can be certain this anti-Holy Spirit will be a liar.

And do not think you will be clever or wise enough to see through his lies.

Mark 13:22 CSB

22 For false messiahs and false prophets will arise and will perform signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

Unless you have the protection of Almighty God, he will deceive you. The best lies sound the most like the truth. And every good lie has some truth in it.

Not only will he be a liar, but he will also be a great communicator and have commanding executive ability. He will be sensible and persuasively articulate.

He will tell people what wicked hearts want to hear and what depraved minds will believe.

He will be the CEO of Satan and Sons, Inc. He will be to the Antichrist what the Holy Spirit is to the true Christ.

II. He will be a Worker of Worship

Satan’s unholy desire is to be like God. God’s Word tells us that Satan said:

Isaiah 14:14 CSB

14 I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”

Do not get the idea that the devil is against worship. Satan’s burning ambition is to be worshipped. He wants to divert your worship from God to himself.

Revelation 13:12 CSB

12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf and compels the earth and those who live on it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.

Satan will seek worldwide worship by trying to establish a one-world religion, economy, and government. We are already on our way towards this with one world health organization WH, and other forms.

I believe he will seek to accomplish this by cutting off those people who are not willing to compromise the fundamentals of their beliefs.

Satan’s team of public relations people will spin their lie: “We want to invite everyone to come together and agree in the middle - sort of like a big uniformity of all religions. And everything will be peaches and cream because we will be one big happy family.” You have all ready heard this and seen it, people are driving around with it on the back of their cars - COEXIST.

Picture Slide

If you do not believe it is true just look at the news, look at magazines, look at the world around you. It is happening journalist, politicians and many different ones are taking digs at Bible-believing Christians.

We are being compared to extremist organizations - those terrorists that have done the unthinkable, the ugly fundamentalist.

Video Slide of President

If you played sports, you had to learn the fundamentals of the game, like in football, you have to learn blocking, passing, and kicking.

Now the term fundamentalist is being applied to someone who is a Christian, who believes the Bible is the Word of God; Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world; He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross, was buried, and literally walked out of the tomb; He ascended the high hills of glory and is coming again in power and glory.

We believe that. We make no apology for that. Those are the fundamentals of the faith. If you take those things out of Christianity, it is like taking the water out of a well, like taking the keys out of a piano, like taking the blue out of the sky.

But now notice what they do with the truth. They call Bible-believing Christians fundamentalists, and then they tell the world that we are in the same gene pool as every extremist organization.

They say, “We must get rid of all these extremists groups, and those of us who are left will come together into one great big cozy religion.”

The false prophet will be a unifier of the world’s religion.

The people of this world, are told different phrases that lead them astray, the one that we will look at here is religious tolerance, there are many we could look at but this is the one that deals with our study tonight, religious tolerance.

Who would be against such a phrase, especially worldly people, those that are not grounded in their faith, those that do not take the time to truly understand what the developers of the phrase are actually meaning by religious tolerance.

I mean why should we be against tolerating other religions right? We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, right?

Now I am not in any way saying to not love anyone, but what they mean by religious tolerance is more than likely not what you and I would think of right off the bat.

It is not just what this bumper sticker portrays from the very first look.

COEXIST pic

Religious tolerance means you need to tolerate every religion but the one that says the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ. You are labeled a hate monger if you tell others about the exclusiveness of Jesus Christ.

If you do not believe me, as some of these kids in public school, all three of my daughters had trouble in school with teachers pushing the worldly agenda’s down their throats, but would not accept their discussions on Christianity, or anything that remotely even came close to Christianity.

The world is moving closer and closer to accepting and tolerating every religion that is not Jesus Christ, because those other religions are false religions and lead people away from Jesus Christ, and ultimately will lead people to worship Satan.

III. He will be a Master of Miracles.

Revelation 13:13–15 CSB

13 It also performs great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in front of people. 14 It deceives those who live on the earth because of the signs that it is permitted to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who live on the earth to make an image of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 It was permitted to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast could both speak and cause whoever would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

We have learned in the Bible that Satan has the power to do miracles.

2 Thessalonians 2:9 CSB

9 The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan’s working, with every kind of miracle, both signs and wonders serving the lie,

These miracles will be deceitful, some translations call them lying wonders, and the miracles will have a deceptive purpose to them. The devil has a number of tricks in his bag, and they are devilish and diabolical.

One of the wonders will be a celestial fire out of heaven.

2 Kings 1:10 CSB

10 Elijah responded to the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.

Since the Bible teaches the Jewish tradition that Elijah will precede the Messiah, this fire could be Satan’s counterfeit to tempt our Jewish friends to worship the false messiah.

Another wonder will be that he will give an image the ability to speak. All of us watch images speak every day on TV and computers.

If the devil has the power to work miracles, then how can we tell whether a miracle is of God or from Satan.

We are given three ways to know where the miracles come from:

1. Does the miracle worker confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?

2 John 7 CSB

7 Many deceivers have gone out into the world; they do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.

Anybody who does not believe Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of the devil.

2. Does the miracle worker glorify the Lord Jesus Christ?

What is the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God?

John 16:13–14 CSB

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

Any miracle worker who does not glorify the Lord Jesus Christ is of the devil.

3. Does the miracle worker say or do anything that contradicts the clear teaching of God’s Word?

Deuteronomy 13:1–5 CSB

1 “If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, 2 and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let’s follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let’s worship them,’ 3 do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. 4 You must follow the Lord your God and fear him. You must keep his commands and listen to him; you must worship him and remain faithful to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has urged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the place of slavery, to turn you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. You must purge the evil from you.

If you see a miracle with you own eyes, it is an undisputable miracle, but if that teacher leads you away from God, do not go. The devil has the power to do miracles.

IV. He will be a Controller of Commerce.

When you control religion, miracles, and money, you have a grip on this world.

Revelation 13:16–18 CSB

16 And it makes everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17 so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark: the beast’s name or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom: Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, because it is the number of a person. Its number is 666.

What is the mark? In the recent years I have heard so many people say that such and such will be the mark of the beast, or that this certain thing will be, but we are told here in Scripture about the mark of the beast.

So then what is the mark? The number 666. As you may recall, six is the number of a man (Adam was created on the sixth day).

The number cannot be 777 because seven is the number of perfection and man is a sinner.

There are three numbers of man in 666. What is the divine number? Three. This number is man showing himself that he is God, for that is exactly what the Antichrist will do.

How is the Antichrist going to control the world? With the help of his agent, the anti-Holy Spirit.

He will take this world and turn it into a vast concentration camp with all of the inmates numbered. Everybody will be encoded.

The reason to do this is simple - increased control of commerce. It will be perfect control. No mark, no merchandise. No seal, no sale.

It is just that simple. It will be the most ironclad form of control you can possible imagine.

We are already headed toward a cashless society. We have had times when we were told we had a change shortage, and places would not take cash or change.

When people are required to receive the mark, they will be able to walk out of any store and simply wave their hand to debit their account.

At that moment the store will receive the funds automatically, there will not be checks, or need to show identification. There will not be any cheating.

And there will not be books to balance.

Here is what one newspaper report said:

“Big brother is scanning you. Photo IDs may become a thing of the past, replaced by biometric identifiers - things like fingerprints and scans of the eyes. Privacy experts fear access to such personal information invites abuse by scam artists or over-zealous civil servants. Nonetheless, the following advances are likely to gain wider use. There is no more punching the time clock at some companies, including a New York City supermarket. Instead, a hand reader scans the image and logs the time. The system eliminates buddy punching, when one employee punches the card for another who is late or absent, and streamlines payroll and accounting. Forget your credit card. Some Seattle supermarkets and a McDonald’s in Fresno, California, are testing a system in which a participant’s fingerprints is scanned, retrieving his or her credit card information.

These are all things that have already taken place, like putting chips in our pets. These little microchips that are the size of the grain of rice, can store information of them to tell people who owns the pet, in case the pet has gone missing.

A lot of people believe that this will be the mark of the beast, and it very may could be one day. We do know that in the great tribulation, without the mark of the beast, you will not be able to purchase anything.

The second beast, the false prophet, the anti-Holy Spirit, will help draw attention to the first beast, the Antichrist, as he rules during the second half of the tribulation.