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Guest (Male): In a violent world, we all would like to see peace, but consider this from Pastor Bill Henry.

Bill Henry: Today we hear people crying out, "Peace, we want peace in the world." And to be honest, who doesn't want peace? I want peace. But sadly, we're even told in the end times many will come and they'll be crying out for peace and for safety. And it becomes a false god to a lot of people: peace at any cost and safety at any cost. Look at what happened during COVID.

Guest (Male): Welcome. Thanks for tuning our way. This is Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. We've been traveling through the book of Revelation, as you know, and today we find ourselves in chapter 13.

Now, this chapter introduces Satan's two evil accomplices: the beast out of the sea and the beast out of the earth. And together they form the person that is known as the Antichrist. Now, this is not a particularly fun section of scripture to study, but as a famous movie gangster once said, "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer." Let's learn more about the Antichrist now as we open our Bibles to Revelation 13 and join Pastor Bill Henry.

Bill Henry: Revelation chapter 13, starting in verse 1. It says, "Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.

And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, 'Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?'

And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months. Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation.

All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints."

So as we come here into chapter 13 in the book of Revelation, we remember that at the end of the last chapter, Satan has been cast out of heaven with all his fallen angels, and he is mad. He is angry. He knows his time is short, as we're told back in chapter 12. He's going to make war with any of the Christians that are upon the earth. These are those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

For a brief time, the world will be entirely handed over to Satan, and it's going to be a terrible time upon the earth. But what's interesting is even from here on out, we're going to see that Satan is gearing up for war. It's not just against Christians, although he's going to be given power to kill as many Christians as he can. He's actually gearing himself and the world up for war against God Himself.

As we see in Revelation 17:14, it says, "They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with Him are called and chosen and faithful." Amen? You see, no matter how bad it may look, God is always the victor. We need to remember this even as we're studying.

Now look at verse 1 in our text. It says, "Then I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name." As we come into this portion of scripture, I'm sure there are some here, and maybe some watching, who are so excited we're finally here in chapter 13. You finally get to learn about the kingdoms, the beast, the Antichrist, and things like that.

A lot of people get excited. To be honest with you, this is the most boring part of the book of Revelation to me. Whenever we take our eyes off of Jesus, it's like, "Eh, it's all right," but I just love to see what God's going to do. But God tells us these things before they happen so that we know we can trust His Word, and for other reasons.

It's an interesting thing. I came out of a church where we never talked about prophecy at all. We never talked about the Antichrist. We knew about the second coming of Jesus, but even that wasn't really celebrated; prophecy was never taught. On the other side of the coin, I know so many Christians today who are always seeming to be looking for the beast and the Antichrist. We had a gal teaching in the children's ministry years ago, and we found out that she was telling all the children in class that Barack Obama was the Antichrist.

We had to go to all the kids and say, "No, this isn't true." Sadly, so many Christians seem to look more for the Antichrist than they do for the return of Jesus Christ. We need to be looking for the return of Jesus and not worry so much about this stuff, even though it is interesting and it shows us that the Word of God is true.

When we come to this stuff, we have to show each other a lot of grace in our interpretations. Even as I was doing my studying, I had two stacks of books by guys that I love, respect, and agree with on 98% or 99% of everything. But hardly any of them agreed on what we're talking about today. Everyone has slightly different variations on what the beast is, what the sea is, and what the seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns are.

Let's just show each other love and grace. I'm going to do my best here to handle these scriptures. You may agree or disagree. As I always like to say, you're free to be wrong and I'm still going to love you. But we come now to the beast. As we notice, it says, "And I stood on the sea, and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea." Most commentators agree that this beast rising up is the Antichrist.

Towards the end of the verse, we see that this is a "he." Notice it says "his horns," so this will be a man. The word for "beast" in the Greek is *therion*, and it literally means a dangerous, venomous, wild beast. It kept coming back to something like a poisonous viper or a poisonous snake as the main way that word is used.

Remember that God sees the Antichrist at this point as a wild beast, a wild animal, a venomous creature. Most believe he will come as a man of peace. Today we hear people crying out for peace in the world, and to be honest, who doesn't want peace? I want peace. But sadly, we're told that in the end times many will come crying out for peace and for safety.

It becomes a false god to a lot of people: peace at any cost and safety at any cost. Look at what happened during COVID. So many people took their safety so seriously that all of a sudden they're calling the police saying, "My neighbor has a car in front of his house and I don't know who it is." I know people who got postcards from the state police here in Washington saying, "The vehicle with this license plate was seen in front of your house at this time."

We went from freedom to Gestapo in a day. Why? For safety. Because people were worried about their neighbor's air coming into their house and making them die of COVID. Crazy stuff! But people are willing to accept peace and safety at any cost. Even within the church, we have these interdenominational movements saying, "Let's join together at any cost."

No, we can come together just as Jesus prayed in John chapter 17. In His High Priestly Prayer, He said, "Father, may they be one as You and I are one." But how are we one? How do we come together? He goes on to say, "I've given them Your word. Thy word is truth." This is where we come together as Christians: under the Word of God.

It's not under Pastor Bill because I'm so wonderful and I'll show every denomination how it's supposed to be. And it's not by coming together at the cost of truth in the name of peace. No, we must always stand up for truth, the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

This guy is going to come, and the world's going to long for peace. I think that's part of what's happening today. As we see lawlessness increasing, I think it's very purposeful. I read an article at the prophecy update the other night that was talking about how murder, lawlessness, and crime have shot up the last few years. They say, "Oh, we know what it is. It's COVID."

One newspaper article after another blames COVID. Instead, this is when they all of a sudden started defunding and firing the police. They made laws saying if you don't get vaccinated, you can't be a police officer. All of a sudden, there's this vacuum of good men and women to serve in the police forces.

I think they're creating lawlessness on purpose. The DAs over the river in Portland are purposely not prosecuting crimes like they used to. They're unlawfully saying, "We're going to decide what we're going to prosecute," instead of following what the law says. It is setting the stage for a prince of peace to come in and bring peace and safety and promise all this stuff.

That's what this guy is going to do. He's going to come as the world is looking for peace and promise it as he comes on the scene. Now notice our text tells us four things specifically about him. Number one: he rises up out of the sea. Number two: he has seven heads. He has ten horns, and on each horn is a crown. And on his heads, there's a blasphemous name.

This is kind of weird. Seriously, what in the world is going on? Well, let's try to take our time, look at these things, and see what the Bible has to say about them. Honestly, when I am teaching these things, I try not to go too far afield. I don't really care what some dude said in 300 AD or 100 years ago. What does the Bible say?

First, he rises up out of the sea. Some think that this means the beast will rise up into power out of the Mediterranean Sea—not literally out of the water, but out of the countries that are surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Could be. Others say this means he will be a Gentile who comes out of the people of the world.

They get this from Revelation 17:15, which says, "The waters that you saw where the prostitute is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages." So this fellow comes up as a Gentile. Some say he'll put himself forth as a Jew, but we don't know for certain.

One other thing we don't know is when all this is going to happen. If you look back at chapter 12, we took some steps backwards all the way to the birth of Jesus and came through to the present time of the tribulation. I think here, it's going back to the beginning of the tribulation or at least after the rapture.

This guy of peace is going to come on the scene, and then he's going to rise up and bring peace to Israel. He's going to promise them seven years of peace and sign a peace treaty. At some time, the temple in Jerusalem's going to be rebuilt. And then we also know that after three and a half years, he's going to break that peace treaty.

The hard part here can be with the timeline. If you look at Hebrew writing, even though this is written in Koine Greek, these were Hebrew minds that the Lord is speaking through. When you go back to the book of Genesis, the first few chapters provide a great example. People ask, "How come there're two different accounts of creation?" It's not two different accounts. What it is is you have one smaller account as an overview, and then they go back and give a longer explanation with more depth.

That's what the Hebrew mindset does. You'll see it all throughout the Bible: they'll say one thing and then they'll take a step way back and go through it again in more detail. That's kind of what I believe is happening here. So, this guy rises up out of the sea. And I do believe the second view, that this means he comes out of the people of the earth, the Gentiles.

He has seven heads. Now, what does this mean? Flip over with me to chapter 17. It's not as complicated as we might think. Starting in verse 6, we see what these heads represent. Revelation 17:6 says, "And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly.

But the angel said to me, 'Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with the seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel whose names have not been written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.'"

Verse 9 is where we get to what it means. "This calls for a mind which has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition."

It's interesting because when you look in the New Testament, John, Matthew, Luke, or Mark will say, "This was done so that this prophecy was fulfilled." But a lot of times, they didn't know beforehand what that prophecy was going to look like fulfilled. We're not always going to be able to figure them all out.

A lot of them were written so that after they were fulfilled, we could look back and say, "Oh man, God's word is true." And so as we're looking at this, don't feel dumb. This is written purposely like this. God is purposely being a little vague on purpose too.

Now notice again in verse 9 that the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. They are also seven kings. These seven mountains or hills are representations of something. Number one, they're a representation of literal mountains. Number two, they're also representing seven kings.

Has anyone heard of the "City of the Seven Hills"? If you go to the internet and you do a search for the city of the seven hills, guess what city's going to come up? Rome. Interesting, isn't it? So again, Rome. There are many commentators who believe that this woman who is seated on these seven mountains is the Roman Catholic Church.

This represents the Roman Catholic Church, which will be the Roman Empire reborn with the Roman Papacy or the Pope over this. Now if you keep up at all with what's happening within the Catholic Church today, it is in shambles. You have the Pope that came out basically saying we're going now to bless same-sex unions and other unions. They're not going to perform them, but they're going to bless them.

Last week, you had all these bishops and priests and cardinals write a letter to the Pope basically saying, "You need to recant. We need to get away from this wickedness." There's this huge schism happening. Even think about the idea that they're going to bless same-sex marriage, and other unions too.

Why do I say that? Well, on the prophecy update, I played one video of a lady and she was very serious. She was venting on there and she was talking about how angry she was at her veterinarian because she brought her son in to get treatment from the vet.

Her son, she says, "identifies as a cat." And she was dead serious. This was not—you're thinking, "Oh, she was joking." No, she was serious as all get-out. She said, "If my son identifies as a cat, he is a cat. And I'm not going to sue them. I could because this is discrimination, but people need to know what's going on." I'm like, "Dude, you want to bring your son in and have him dipped for fleas?"

This is sincere. So her son grows up and says, "No, I'm not a man, I'm a cat." "Okay, does this cat marry this woman?" "I'm not a woman, I'm a tree." "Okay, so will you marry—" and now the Catholic Church will bless that union.

If you think that's an isolated incident, I saw another video of a lady who went purposely into a transgender bathroom, brought her own kitty litter box, and went to the bathroom in her kitty litter box. She wore a t-shirt saying exactly what she had done. Guys and gals, this world is going so far off. But here's the thing: even the Catholic Church is starting to wink and say these things are okay.

Could this be the Catholic Church? Could this be the Roman Empire reborn? It definitely could be. I don't know for certain. But now what's interesting, notice next that we have ten horns with ten crowns. What is that? What are the ten horns?

Guest (Male): Well, I hate to leave you with a cliffhanger like that, but we are out of time for today. Pastor Bill will explain the ten horns and many other things about Revelation 13 the next time we meet. This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we brought you a message from Pastor Bill's series in Revelation.

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