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Bill Henry: If you look around today, a lot of people worship, I like to say they're kind of the gods of this world. I talk about Taylor Swift, worshiped by much of the world today. Barack Obama, some other political leaders, worshiped by many within the world today. You speak any evil against those people and man, you're just hit hard. I've said things about I think all those people. You even have Christians, professing Christians come up to me and say, "Hey, you can't say that stuff." Well, if it's the truth, we can say this.

Guest (Male): This is Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, presented by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel. We're studying an important and controversial section of Revelation today as we look at chapter 13. It's here that we get a glimpse of the coming global leader, also known as the Antichrist. Now if you're expecting Pastor Bill to take a guess at the identity of this man, you'll be disappointed. He doesn't know who it is and neither does anyone else.

This person who will commandeer the reins of world power will have a very distinct set of characteristics, though, and it certainly can't hurt us to know what they are. Here now is Pastor Bill Henry in Revelation 13, verses 3 through 10.

Bill Henry: Revelation chapter 13, starting in verse 3. It says, "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 42 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.

As we come once again here to chapter 13, I said this last week and I'll probably be saying it as we continue through this chapter and then even on into chapter 14. For a lot of people, this is the exciting part of Revelation. We've come, we're going to be talking about the mark of the beast. We're going to be talking about the beast, the false prophet, the one world order, one world government, a one world monetary system, all these things.

People get so excited over this. So many books written about it, even today. People will travel miles upon miles just to come and hear things about this stuff. Now don't get me wrong. If you know me, if you listen to me at all, I love prophecy. I do a prophecy update once a month. But I also want to warn us to be careful not to get too caught up into this stuff as far as like this is all we look at.

I'll be honest, as I said last week, chapter 13 and 14 are two of the most boring chapters to me in the Book of Revelation. Why? Because it's more about the Antichrist, it's about what he's going to be doing, what's going to be happening. I want to know more about Jesus. I want to keep my eyes on Him. Even though this is the word of God, we will study it and we'll do our best to go through it and say, "Lord, what are You saying here?"

But just be careful. Don't become those Christians who just study Revelation, then they go back to Daniel, then they go back to Revelation, maybe a little bit of Ezekiel, then they'll go back to Daniel. No, let's be men and women just as Paul told the Ephesian elders there in the book of Acts. He said, "Look, I have not ceased to give to you the whole counsel of the word of God." So be men and women of the book. When you say that, it means the 66 books that we call the Bible.

Anyways, let's look again to get this in context where we are. Look at verse 1. It says, "Then I," John's writing, "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 if you weren't here last week, this could kind of be almost overwhelming or daunting.

But what's beautiful is as we go, last week again, if you want to know what's really being talked about here, I recommend you go listen to last week's study. It's all explained in the word of God. You go back to the book of Daniel, it tells us what these horns are, what the seven heads are, what the crowns. Even as we continue in the Book of Revelation, it explains what they are, so we don't have to sit here and guess.

It goes on in verse 2, "Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard and 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." Notice the very beginning of verse 1, "I saw a beast rising up out of the sea." Remember last week, this is the Antichrist that is to come on the scene, the beast. The dragon that we read of is Satan. It represents Satan.

So the beast is the Antichrist and the dragon is Satan. The beast or the Antichrist will come out of the sea, which means the sea of the people of this world. He'll be most likely a political leader, someone who comes and again we saw that the ten horns had ten crowns. We were told that these are ten kings, ten leaders that will be on the scene but they will be under the beast.

So the beast will come, he will bring false peace as a political leader, the Antichrist, to the world but also to Israel. Remember, this is focusing on Israel. This is Daniel's 70th week. The focus of the tribulation is the nation of Israel from the beginning to the last. The church is taken out at the beginning because of this. Again, this guy's going to come as Daniel tells us, he's going to make a false peace for seven years with the nation of Israel and he will break that three and a half years in.

That's kind of where we are in the midst of the tribulation here as we're looking at our text this morning. The beast, the Antichrist, will be given great power by the dragon. He will be what you've ever heard of, the one world government, one world leader. This is he will be over the one world government, so he will be the one world leader for about three and a half years.

Let's come into our text in verse 3. It says, "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." Now, one of these world leaders will be mortally wounded. The commentators differ. Will he actually die or is it just a wound that is mortal but it doesn't lead to his death? But it's a pretty wicked wound.

The Amplified says "seems to have a deadly wound." The NIV said "seemed to have a fatal wound." NASB says "as if it had been slain." Notice NLT says "seemed wounded beyond recovery." Wuest in his expanded New Testament says "appeared to have been mortally wounded, the throat having been slashed." That's kind of what's going on in the Greek. There's going to be this, a lot of people say probably an assassination attempt on this fellow.

But notice it says "as if it had been mortally wounded and his deadly wound was healed and all the world marveled." Again, the beast will be healed or the beast will heal this guy or gal, whatever whoever it is. It must be done, if you'll notice, in such a way that the whole world sees because we see here that they marveled after this healing. But notice so radical will this miracle be, though, that it's not just a healing. Notice it says that they will follow the beast. It says they followed the beast.

"Follow" here in the Greek is "opisō" and it literally means this: to come after, to follow after, or to back. So the whole world will follow after now. They'll see this miracle, could be a false miracle, could be a real miracle because again he's been given this power. How much power we don't exactly know. But the whole world will now be following him. But not only do they follow him, look at verse 4.

"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?'" What's interesting here, remember the dragon is Satan. So they're going to be worshiping Satan. That's the first one they worship. So this means that the beast must somehow be saying, "Hey look, look at Satan, look at the dragon who's given me this authority and worship him."

Because they first worshiped the dragon. It's interesting when you look around today and Satan worship is continuing to explode around the world. It's already prominent in a lot of your third world countries. You go to talk to any missionaries, you go to any third world country and there's a lot of just wickedness that's happening, spiritual wickedness, spiritual darkness. On the other hand, you talk to some of these missionaries and those are the places God's doing the most radical works most of the times.

It's such a beautiful thing to see those people being the lights. But as we see today, even leading up to all this stuff as people are going to embrace Satan. It's hard to imagine that the world will embrace worshiping Satan. But again, not so much as we look around today. You see all these huge stars, especially musicians who are in their concerts, they're having pentagrams and other things that it's just so wicked, pointing to Satan.

Upside down crosses on their necklaces or other things. But the world doesn't matter. Even talk to a Satanist today, a lot of your Satanists they'll even say, "Well we don't really worship Satan. We're humanists. We're into humanism." Remember, Satan is the father of what? Lies. It's all deception. Again, the world to me is being primed for this. It's not happening today. This again will not happen till the middle of the tribulation.

And it goes on to say, notice they didn't just worship the dragon but and they worshiped the beast saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" Notice this, they're worshiping the beast even before the mark of the beast is on the scene. So they'll come, they're going to worship Satan, they're going to worship the beast, the Antichrist, this political leader who is on the scene.

And again if you look around today, a lot of people worship, I like to say they're kind of the gods of this world. Greta Thunberg or whatever her name is, she's worshiped by much of the world today as a leader. You talk about Taylor Swift, worshiped by much of the world today. Barack Obama, some other political leaders, worshiped by many within the world today. You speak any evil against those people and man, you're just hit hard.

I've said things about I think all three of those people. You even have Christians, professing Christians come up to me and say, "Hey, you can't say that stuff." Well, if it's the truth, we can say this. But here's the thing. Notice it's interesting what they say about the beast. Notice it says they cry out and say, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" So they're worshiping the beast.

"Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" I really believe that this is they're pointing this towards God. Because remember for the last three and a half years they have been under the wrath of God and even in the midst of it, even the kings are crying out, "Hey, this is the wrath of the Lamb. Hide us, rocks. Hide us, mountains. Fall down upon us." They see that it's the wrath of the Lamb of God.

So the world is hating God and so all of a sudden they have this beast comes on and says, "Whoa, he did this miracle. This is awesome." And so who is like the beast, God? And again this is what I think that they're talking about. "Who is able to make war with him?" And this is kind of the champion that they're rallying around because we'll see in verses 5 and 6 that this beast goes on to speak blasphemous rumors or blasphemous things about God.

So he hates God. He attacks God first and foremost. Why would they believe this by the way? Why would they believe all these things and why would they worship him? Because remember I believe Satan is setting up a false godhood here. We're seeing the setting up of what's called, I believe, the false trinity. Another reason we know Satan is a created being is because he's always copying God.

He's always taking God and even what he's said, "Hath God really said?" And he twists things and he turns things. And it's the same here. Instead of just coming up with his own idea, no, he has to come up with his own false trinity. So basically the dragon, Satan being God the Father. The beast they would say would be like Jesus Christ the Son, who rose somebody from the dead.

And then there's the second beast that is coming that we'll read about in verses 11 and 12 who basically would be like the Holy Spirit, if you will, and points people back to worship the beast and to worship Satan. The second beast will be the false prophet who comes up out of the earth as we'll see, out of the land. And so again, just continuing just to mock the Lord trying to copy Him and be worshiped.

Now look at verse 5. "And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies." Now it's interesting we know he already has a mouth. The thought here is more that he's given some kind of platform. He's given some kind of platform and again if the whole world is worshiping him, you can imagine it would be on everybody's phones, everybody's televisions, everybody's computers, everybody's iPads or whatever.

But what does he do with this power? What does he do with this great platform? Maybe he becomes number one on TikTok or something, right? What does he do? He blasphemes. He speaks great things or pompous things. He's given authority, notice, to continue for 42 months. Three and a half years. Again this is at the three and a half year mark, the halfway mark of the tribulation.

Then verse 6. "Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven." Let me read this out of the Amplified, verses 5 and 6. It says this, "And the beast was given the power of speech uttering boastful and blasphemous words. And he was given freedom to exert his authority and to exercise his will during 42 months, three and a half years.

And he opened his mouth to speak slanders against God, blaspheming His name and His abode, even vilifying those who live in heaven." Now what's interesting is Daniel the prophet foretold of this in Daniel chapter 7 and verse 8. We read this: "I was considering the horns and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking pompous words, prideful words."

So he's been given this power of speech. The beast will use this power to blaspheme and notice who he blasphemes. He blasphemes first against God. So again, these won't be he won't be yelling out blasphemes against Buddha, "Oh Buddha," or against Krishna or Muhammad or Allah. These will be blasphemes against God, His Son Jesus Christ, to blaspheme His name and notice His tabernacle, where He's to be worshiped, and those who even dwell in heaven. They'll all be being blasphemed by this loud mouth.

Now look at verse 7. "And 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." So again, we hear Daniel is being prophesied this as well in Daniel 7, verse 21. It says, "I was watching and the same horn was making war against the saints and prevailing against them."

And then in verse 25 of Daniel chapter 7: "He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High and shall intend to change times and law. And then the saints will be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time." And you remember last week we talked about a time is one like year. Times is two of that, so two plus the one is three and half, three and a half years again.

Now notice again back in our text, verse 7 the beginning, "It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them." Now these are what I would say, these are the tribulation saints. These are not the Jews and this is not the church. These are those who come to faith during that seven years of tribulation. We can actually say with biblical certainty that this is not the church.

How do we know this? Well first of all because the word church is not used here. No, it's not saying that. As a matter of fact, we don't read of the church after we get through Revelation chapter 3 and then we see after these things. And I believe meta tauta that that's when the church will be raptured. And then after that in chapter 4, as it goes on, the church is not mentioned until the end of the book of Revelation again.

So the church is gone. The church is absent. Now it mentions the church plenty of times before that but not during this time, not during the tribulation ever. So that's the first reason. But here's the second, because basically the words of what Jesus said. He said in Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, "I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Or in the NIV it says it this way, "And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Wait a minute. Let's go back to our text. Look at verse 7 here in Revelation 13, "It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them." So this can't be the church because Jesus promised us that the gates of hell would never prevail, would never overcome.

So again, we know this plainly that this is not the church. But notice again verse 7 continues in our text, "And the authority was given him over every tribe." So again, not just to overcome the saints that come to faith during that time but every tribe, tongue, and nation. So here we see basically the one world order. We see a one world leader. He is going to have the authority over everything.

And today, again remember this is the beast, the Antichrist, again who according to Thessalonians will not be revealed until the church has been raptured. So we're not going to know who the Antichrist is until after that. It might be somebody we know of right now but we don't know for certain. But we do know that he's going to have authority over every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. He is going to be in complete control.

It's interesting because I remember George Bush Sr., anybody remember back in the early '90s and he talked for the first time I think in public we heard the words one world order, a new world order? Do you remember that? A lot of us older folks might remember this. But even today we see these foreshadows of this one world government, even as we see so many things happening.

You might have heard of the World Economic Forum, most of us here have. Basically it's the world economic leaders who I believe really are running the entire world right now under Satan the false god, if you will. But they had a get-together just over a month ago, several weeks ago, the World Economic Forum and a guy named Klaus Schwab who basically kind of leads the whole deal. This is what he said. I want to tell you what he was saying there.

He said, quote, "The transition of humankind into a new era, an intelligent age, in which humankind will enjoy many more opportunities and possibilities," unquote. He went on to say later, he said, "Envisioning a future propelled by the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, we see a new dawn of human civilization."

And then lastly he said, "We have to be prepared for a world where we see a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological dimensions so it will be a new world." And guess who they're going to have control of the new world? You and I? No. Is it going to be our Constitution? No. Is it going to even be the UN? No. You have these ten kings that I believe are being set up that will rule over the world but you still have the beast, the Antichrist, who will be over all of them.

Guest (Male): 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. It's our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you heard from Pastor Bill today. If you'd like to share today's message with someone, it's available at our website to either watch or listen and you can actually download an audio MP3.

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