We're going to continue with biblical prophecy and postmillennialism. This is the 35th week. We're at part 34 of historical expectations according to the Bible. Part 13, the eschatology of the Book of Revelation, because we are at chapter 13. So I want to point out this week, Weston's Confession 25, section 6. There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense behead thereof. But is that antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, exalts himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God. I put that there because in chapter 13 we're now going to begin to look at what happened in the Western Church. In chapters 11 and 12, we had a sense of both the inner and outer turmoil during this period of apostasy, this 1260 year period. And so we saw both characters, the two witnesses, the witnessing church at this time, and we saw the persecution, the external persecution, the struggle in the church. Chapter 13 is, in fact, serving several purposes. First of all, it is a commentary, of sorts, on the previous two chapters. It's giving a sense of what it was that arose in the church that caused there to be a need for the division that led to the witnessing church. Chapter 12 talked about the woman First of all, the wonder in heaven, the woman clothed with the sun, the church, and she's travailing in birth, trying to bring forth this man-child, which ultimately is, in fact, not simply individual believers, but the man-child, if we consider it in terms of Isaiah, the passage I referred to last time in terms of Isaiah, the man-child is really talking about the church's birthing nations. And so each nation, like Israel, Israel you can consider as a corporate identity, he is a man, but he's also a composite of tens of thousands, maybe millions of men. In the case of this, the travailing of the woman, as the woman now is travailing to give birth to the man-child to bring about this national confessing church and a series of nationally confessing churches, there is an interruption. The interruption is, there's a controversy. It's a satanically inspired rebellion, a controversy. And the church ends up having to expel a lot of people. Well, that does not go over well. Because in fact, the people who are expelled very often exceed the number of people who are the true church by substantial measures. And so it leads to persecution. The true church trying to define itself and separate itself from all of that satanic diversion is forced to flee the persecution that arises once the true church begins to define herself. Now, what we don't really get to see in detail in either of those chapters is the character of the persecuting power. What is it that happened? Who are these people that are cast out of the true Church? Who are these people? What is the character of that against which the two witnesses are bearing testimony? Chapter 13 in Revelation is going to tell us that. And it's going to tell us that with the backdrop of Daniel 7 as well. Daniel 7 was a chapter that talked about the fourth kingdom and the rising of ten horns and three horns falling before one horn, a little horn, and that that little horn Would make war against the Saints and so on We'll reference a couple of places in Daniel 7 as we go What is important to remember is Daniel 7 it was about the Western Antichrist And as our confession tells us we're really going to be looking at the character of Romanism so we do want to look at this and we're really picking up to a certain extent if you remember we left off the the state of the western church really prior to the year 500 we traced out a number of things in the eastern church and then we sort of have been backing into the state of the church in the west we're backing into it because And frankly, during this apostasy, in East and West, there's a Witnessing Church. So that Witnessing Church really forms the center. It's almost as if there's a chiasm around the Witnessing Church, where we first are brought to face a face-to-face with the Eastern Antichrist, Islam, Mohammedanism, and now we're going to look at the Western Antichrist, which is Romanism and the papacy. So we're going to look at this chapter as, in part, a commentary on Daniel 7, and in part, commenting on various aspects that arose particularly in the previous two chapters. Daniel 7 does give us a clear view of continuity. in the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire divides into 10 toes. And then three of these toes, or three of these horns, fall. And this horn that is before us here in this chapter, that's when it arises. So if we look again at how far we really managed to go in the West, in the history of the Western Church, really didn't get much beyond the end of heathen Rome and into the period of time of imperial Rome. A Rome Christian, but not the Holy Roman Empire. We're not up to that point. That didn't really figure largely in this prophecy because from the point of view of the Witnessing Church, the contest of the Witnessing Church, and the Western Antichrist, the transitioning from Imperial Rome to Holy Roman Empire is much less important. And we have hints of that elsewhere in various prophecies. So I want to begin now looking at Revelation 13. We're going to begin with verse 1. So again, what do we have here? We have the beast of the sea. And that corresponds with what we find in Daniel 7-7. Daniel 7-7, after I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth beast dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly and it had great iron teeth it devoured and break in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it and it had ten horns. So this beast rising out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, ten crowns upon his head, hence the name of blasphemy, is corresponding to the fourth beast of Daniel. We know that the seven heads are talking about seven mountains. We know that if we just look over at Revelation 17.9. Revelation 17 verse 9. And here's the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth. The seven heads are seven mountains and mountains are in fact also government. So there's seven forms of government that we're going to be looking for here as well. In addition, we have ten horns, and by the ten horns are meant the ten kingdoms. The Roman Empire, the Imperial Roman Empire, is divided in its latter days into ten kingdoms. And they're wearing crowns. Reason is that at this point, when this happens, they're now reigning. We know that if they're wearing crowns, that means they're all in power. And they have on them the name of blasphemy, which really, as we'll see, is telling us that they're Romish. They're all heading in this anti-Christian direction. So we're getting a very broad picture here of the Great Western Antichrist. Now, we want to look at verse 2. Revelation 13, verse 2. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him power, and his seat, and great authority." So what are we looking... what is it that's appearing here? What are we looking at here? We see that this beast is really like the first three beasts that we read of in Daniel, in Daniel 7 verses 4 to 6. Daniel 7 verses 4 through 6. The first looked like a lion and had eagle's wings. I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth. And they stand upon the feet of the man, and a man below another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl. The beast had also four heads, and dominion was given to it. So the first three beasts are, in fact, all represented in this fourth beast. The beast that's rising out of the sea here is that beast. represents the people. Just as the earth or the land represents the church, the sea represents the nations. So this beast, this fourth empire, which is rising out of the nations, is not unlike the first three. And yet in some sense, as Daniel told us, it's diverse. It's not that either. There's something more monstrous about it. Now here in verse 2, we find out that its source of authority is the dragon, by which we should understand Satan. So this is a beast, this is an empire, and we're told it's getting its great power, its seat, and authority from Satan. Now, before I go much beyond this, I just would like to point out that if we are to take Romans 13 to be a blanket command to submit ourselves to the powers that be providentially, then we're being told here that this is a power, this is the fourth kingdom, is a power, and it's a power which we're told very clearly gets its authority from the devil. That means the Christians if it's a power, it's ultimately of God, if you take that view of Romans 13 and try to apply that, it's a power that's of God and of the devil, and we must submit to it without saying anything contrary. The problem with that is how do you then fulfill verses like, resist the devil and he shall flee? The idea that Paul is calling for a universal submission to whatever powers exist providentially falls to the ground when we begin to look at the book of Revelation. Clearly, those people who compose the witnessing church in chapter 11 are not in submission to powers simply because they're providential. they wouldn't be persecuted if they were. If they just went along with everything, if they did what they were told, they complied, then they wouldn't have this problem. There is this principle in the Bible that we ought to obey God rather than man. And that means that ultimately we're going to come into some sort of conflict because this fourth kingdom this Roman Empire, and the 10 kingdoms that come out of it, and the governments that develop in it, these are all there by the providence of God. If the providence of God is a call to obedience, then we're being asked to submit to the devil. Because there's no question here as to the identity of the source of authority. Alright, we want to move on to verse 3 of Revelation 13. Revelation 13 3, And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world wandered after the beast. What we have here is the wounding of the sixth head. Look at Revelation 17, 6. Revelation 17, verse 6. So the head that we're talking about, is quite interesting. It's the sixth head that's wounded. And if we go back to what we noted before, the seven mountains, or the seven heads or seven mountains, or seven forms of government, The sixth head, if we were to count, the Roman Empire began with kings and then councils and dictators and there were deceivers and military tribunes. All of those were gone. Then we're up to the emperor. The deadly wound is the end of the emperors. And the last emperor would have been around 476 AD, Augustulus, and He was brought to an end by Odessa. He was brought down and that brought an end to this period of time where the emperors are ruling. Now, there was from that period of time, in fact, a very unstable character to the Empire. A lot of contests, a lot of problems. There were some dynasties in there. But this does not get fixed. The deadly wound is not healed until 800 A.D. with the crowning of Charlemagne and the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire. So the Roman Empire was just about at an end. In fact, in 800, the Roman Empire had been, for the most part, out of commission for a good century. It was really at the end of the 600s that the last of the rulers that could try to trace themselves back to Constantine. He was deposed for a bit and then came back. But in the first decade or so of the 700s, he is deposed the second time he killed. And that brings that all to an end. And so everything is sort of in a state of turmoil. There's no clear way out. But when the Pope crowned Charlemagne in 800, All of that reverses. So what looked to be the disintegration of the Roman Empire really is thrown into reverse. There's a consolidation. Now we want to look at Revelation 13, verse 4. Revelation 13, verse 4. And they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast. And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? And here, of course, 800 is a very interesting year. Between 700 and 800 is really the period of time we are looking to, if you remember, for the rise of Antichrist, the establishing of anti-Christian power. And so it's happening somewhere between 756, probably, and 800. Now with Charlemagne, the reaction of everyone is blind obedience to despotic power. The fact is that they're going to obey this. The duration of the beast is given us in Revelation 13, verse 5. Revelation 13, verse 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies, and power was given unto him, taking any of forty and two months. So, the change when the deadly wound is healed is not a change from paganism to Christianity and the Empire. In fact, the change when the deadly wound is healed really has a lot to do with the rise of this period of apostasy, the 42 months, the 1260 years of apostasy. So again, if you wonder why on the outside maybe we're looking at Constantine there from the beginning of that period of time because here in Revelation 13 it seems to be tied in some way to that. Now remember in 756 Charlemagne's father Pepin gives the donation of Constantine to the papacy. He's the one who at least is the public agent for what turns out to be a great historical fiction, that the papacy had been given the deed to the Roman Empire. That was proven to be a literary fake. But at the time, no one really knew. and it was readily believed, and that was the basis for crowning Charlemagne in 800. The Pope crowning Charlemagne, that was him telling Charlemagne that you're my emperor. You're going to do what I want you to do. I've got the authority here in this deed that's known as the Nation of Constantine. Revelation 13 verse 6. Revelation 13 6, And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. So here's what we can gather from this. First of all, the first beast is a blasphemer. He blasphemes God, his worship, and his people. comports very well with identifying with the Roman Empire. The character of the first beast is that he is a civil beast. He's going after those that dwell in heaven. So that's really what we're looking for here now is a combination of a state, as we'll see, with that which was booted out of the true church, the false church. So we're looking at, in this complex, we're looking at a pseudo-political religious organization. It's assumed a political status, and that's what Rome does for the first time officially in 800, crowning Charlemagne. Revelation 13, verse 7. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. And power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. We're told here that, first of all, this is given to him, and it's power given only for a time. This time has been defined. 42 months. 1260 days. It's a time of great apostasy. It's a time during which this beast, this pseudo-political beast that, again, we'll see in a moment, takes on and has a religious character as well, is given to rule over the nations. Just like the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire is over a bunch of nations. That's what an empire does, is it sits on top of nations, kingdoms. It's not really a nation or a kingdom in and of itself, an empire. There's no cohesiveness to an empire. Nations are ethnic bodies. Kingdoms are geographic ruling entities, but they're able to be ruled generally reasonably well by a single ruler. But an empire has to be administered. There may be a central ruler, But that ruler is going to need a lot of people administering, like the president has 50 governors sitting over the empire of the United States, plus all of the other client states that have been adopted. Empires are different in that respect than kingdoms or nations. They're sprawling in their administrative bureaucratic nightmares. They all have been that way. From Egypt, to Babylon, to Medo-Persia, to the Greek, to the Roman. And in the end, it seems to get the best of them all. Well, this fourth beast, excuse me, yeah, the civil beast of which we're reading here, the Roman Empire, rising, and all out of which we're going to see Romanism, that has power for a time, has its season in the sun. Revelation 13, 8-10. Revelation 13, 8-10, And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. So those who are going to resist this are the elect, those whose names are written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. But those who do not resist ultimately are warned here that they're going to be destroyed. So it may seem like the easy course to go along and get along with the powers that be. But the elect are not going to. It's one of the characteristics of the elect that they're going to be contrarian. The other is a warning that those who do go along with it are going to be destroyed. John, Revelation 13, verse 11. So what do we have now? John sees here the beast of the earth. Now if we recall, this is in fact the beast that's coming up The dragon in Revelation 12 stands before the true church and when the true church resists, the dragon casts a third of the part of the stars of heaven to the earth. So there's a war in heaven, and the dragon is cast into the earth. That is, he is cast down from heaven, and he finds himself here now seeing, in Revelation 13.11, the beast of the earth. And this beast is the ecclesiastical beast. If the first beast of the sea is the civil beast, this is the ecclesiastical beast. It has two horns. Two horns like a lamb. That's very odd imagery. The idea is that it has this appearance of a lamb, that it is going to have the appearance of Christ. It's going to be Christ-like, or it's going to put itself out that way. Remember, we just read in verse 8 about those who dwell on the earth whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And yet, this beast is going to have two horns like a lamb. What lamb are we talking about? The horns represent power, and The Roman church actually has two points of power. They have what they call regular orders and secular orders. Religious orders and orders that have to do with the administration of the ecclesiastical empire, if you will. So regular orders would be things like a priest would be regular order in the Roman church. But monks and nuns are secular orders. Jesuits are actually secular, or they're part of a secular order. They're doing something else there. Priests and bishops and all of that their regular orders Now the source of the words of this beast again, this is very telling We're told that he spake as a dragon so again The source is the dragon it's Satan So what do we have now we have if we put this together an ecclesiastical beast the result of this contest in the true church, where there's a split between true church and false church. And this false church takes on the character, the appearance of a lamb, looks like a lamb, but it talks like a dragon. So on the outside, it looks like a lamb. But it's the words of the dragon that are coming out of it. That's a characteristic of a false church. It looks like a church. But when you start to listen to what it's saying, it's devilish. And that's what Rome is, that's what they do. Revelation 13, verse 12. What is he doing here? Whose deadly wound was healed? Now that's referring, again, that's referring back to Charlemagne. What has Rome done since the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire? When governments are under Romish control, They cause the people, they exercise the power of the beast of the sea and cause the world to worship that beast. So they're causing people to reverence a civil power whose seat and authority are the devil. So you have a devilish church that is, in fact, encouraging a blind submission to a devilish civil government. Rome has a long history of controlling politicians, manipulating political affairs in nations, They started in the United States from the very beginning. The reason Washington, D.C. is where it is is because the one Romish colony, Maryland, said, we'll give you the land, and they put Georgetown University, a Jesuit institution, right there on the border. They wanted direct influence, direct impact in the federal capital of the United States. Now we're to a point where we seem to be switching out various papists for the position of Speaker of the House. That was a no-no for a long, long time. It would not have been possible. But Rome does this everywhere. They're noted for this kind of control in Europe. They exercise covert control. They have their hands in everything. They're involved in banking. They're involved, Rome is so corrupt that they actually were, at one time, I don't know if they still are, but they were the largest stockholders in, it was Italiano Formenico. the big Italian pharmacy, the largest producer of birth control pills in Italy. And yet, if you were a good Romanist and you used birth control pills, it was a sin and they would get you on both ends of that. So the hypocrisy of it all is incredible. They control the civil and the religious aspects of everything whenever and wherever they can. And they've exercised this power in Europe now for centuries. Revelation 13.13. so that he may get fire coming down from heaven on the earth from the sight of men. So the beast, we're told that he does lying wonders and this corresponds, if we look at 2 Thessalonians 2.9 2 Thessalonians 2.9 2 Thessalonians 2.9 Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. Lying wonders. The man of sin, son of perdition, is noted for working lying wonders. Now, again, quite possibly one of the best books on this particular aspect of Romish practice is Warfield's Counterfeit Miracles. He chronicles a lot of that. It may be a wrong-headed book in some respects, but with respect to Romish counterfeit miracles, he's just dead on target. They have all kinds of phony miracles that they do all the time. The apparitions of Mary and saints. They have, in one place in Italy, Once a year, I believe it is, this blood that is coagulated becomes liquefied. And people bow down and they worship this. They admire this. These are the kinds of things that Rome engenders. Not only do they worship bones and relics of saints but they perform all of these counterfeit miracles and they have for a long time. Lourdes is one of these places noted for healing and yet there's really very little evidence of anyone being healed there. Medjugorje is another one of these places now. I recently read a story about a a journalist in Central America who helped perpetuate a lie about an apparition of Mary that brought a bunch of, I forget whether it was, I think it was Nicaraguans, to a place in the middle of nowhere and they end up building a big cathedral there. They spent a lot of money, built a big cathedral to Mary And at the end of it all, this journalist admitted that he had lied, in essence, to bolster the claims of the Roman church. And they have people flocking to these places, hoping for a miracle, hoping to see Mary, hoping for this and hoping for that. That's what Rome does. It's lying wonders. Revelation 13, 14. Revelation 13, 14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live. So what is he doing? What is the ecclesiastical beast doing? We read he's enjoining the people to make an image of the first beast. an image of the civil beast. And what is signified by that image is the Pope. If you look at the Pope, the Pope is a reflection in the Roman Church of the Roman Empire, excuse me, the Roman Emperor. Rome reflects in itself this not only hierarchy, but at the top of the hierarchy, this emperor worship. It enshrines emperor worship and it encourages passive obedience to governments that are in submission to Rome and it trains people up in this passive obedience by means of having the Pope. The Pope is teaching all of these people from a religious point of view, to submit unthinkingly, passively, to the government of a dictator. They don't ask why. They don't ask what they're being told to do. They just do it. Romanism has been one of the most effective means of convincing people to obey unreasonable and even ungodly demands simply because someone told you to do it by reason of an authority that you don't even understand. That's what the Pope is. He's an image of the Roman Emperor. And the Romans worshiped their Emperor. So you can think of the Roman church as sort of a religious catechizing to get you to the point where you too will worship the emperor. You'll do what the government tells you to do, the civil government. Now this, as we'll see, this is not only the stock and trade of Rome at this point. Now Rome is the mother of harlots, as we'll see in upcoming chapters, because The fact is most Protestant churches have become like Rome in this respect. They've become little minor reflections of Rome. Watch how many of these churches develop... It's not a hierarchy of reasoned authority even. They just simply have somebody sort of at the top of the heap who's calling all the shots and people under them don't know why. The Free Presbyterian Church of Ireland in Paisley, same thing. You just weren't gonna talk bad. So-called Protestant churches mirror the same thing and will enjoin a certain amount of civil compliance to the degree that they believe that the civil governments are in compliance with themselves. So the bigger the group, the more they try to mirror this. But Rome is at the top of this heap of iniquity. We'll come back to that in a later chapter. Revelation 13, verse 15. Revelation 13, verse 15. He had power to give life under the image of the beast. that the image of the beast should speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. So we know now the second beast gives life to the image of the beast. That is, the ecclesiastical beast is giving life to the papacy. And it enforces this by declaring that heretics are worthy of death. If you won't submit to the papacy, if you won't worship the image of the beast, you don't share their admiration for the papacy, you're a heretic. And by definition, even though since Vatican II they try to hide this from you, since Vatican II nothing really has changed except for their language. They couch it in terms that are hard to catch. But essentially what they're saying is, if you're a heretic, you are deserving of death. They may not be able to carry it out, but it doesn't mean they don't deep down inside think this is what you deserve. And ultimately the resentment and the source of the persecution is, your failure to recognize the image of the beast, the papacy. This is why our Confession says that the Pope is that Antichrist seated in the Church. He's there causing trouble. Can you explain again what the second beast did? I got the terms confused. The second beast is giving life to the image. The second beast, we're told, is the one that gave that. In other words, the Roman Church is what is propping up the papacy and enforcing that. And the papacy being the ecclesiastical power? The Roman Church is the ecclesiastical power? The Roman Church is the ecclesiastical beast. And then where the civil beast is? The civil beast is the Roman Empire. And its derivatives. Okay, gotcha. Now they're okay, right. So the papacy is the image of that civil beast within the ecclesiastical beast. But the ecclesiastical beast is giving power, life to that ecclesiastical, or that image of the civil beast, the Pope. And they enforce it by declaring the heretics are worthy of death. All right, Revelation 13, 16. Revelation 13 verse 16. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads. So what is enjoined upon the people by this beast is that they receive a mark. And a mark, well, a mark is signifying subjection or property. The fact is that those who are the property of the Roman Church receive that mark. They receive it in their right hand or in their foreheads. You see it sometimes, on Ash Wednesday, you'll see them, it's actually visible at that time of year. They're marking themselves, so you can see it. They receive a mark, they're in subjection to the papacy. It's noted, they're following the rules. They're following this civil, the image of the civil beast, this image of the Roman Emperor within the Roman Church. They're followers. He has property in them. He's marking them because they're his property, just like cattle farmers mark their cows with a brand. The mark in the forehead and the right hand, those marks have to do with both what you think and what you do. They represent the fact that your thoughts are being controlled by them and your deeds are being controlled by them. You're going to do what they tell you to do because you think what they tell you to think. So it's no coincidence, I don't think, that in time, once a year they come out on Ash Wednesday and they have that smear on their foreheads a little cross smeared on their foreheads, you know who they are. You know the ones who are most subject to this. They've been deceived. They're being taught to worship this, and they've received this mark. They've owned their subjection. Now, the one who imposes the mark is, in fact, the second beast, the ecclesiastical beast. It's the Roman Church. that is imposing the mark. But the mark is the mark of that empire, that ecclesiastical empire claiming you for property and marking you out as one who is worshiping the image of the beast. You're in submission to the papacy. You're doing what they tell you to do. You think the way they tell you to think. What are some of the consequences endured by those who refuse the mark? Look at Revelation 13, verse 17. Revelation 13, verse 17. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. So, the consequences to be endured by those who refuse the mark are various civil disabilities, disenfranchisement. Why do Covenanters refuse to participate in the political system? Why do Protestants identify the Roman Pontiff as that Antichrist? They're both very closely related. If you don't confess that the Papacy is the Antichrist in the Church, you're simply not a Protestant. I want to repeat that. If you do not confess that the Roman pontiff, in his succession, is the embodiment of Antichrist in the church, you're not even a Protestant. But if you, even professing that, are willing to compartmentalize these principles and allow yourself to bear the mark, even in the civil realm, even in the civil realm, you're certainly not a Covenanter. You're certainly not in fact, understanding what it means to be part of the witnessing church. When the world is at war with the witnessing church, there is inherently a disenfranchisement. We can't vote, we can't hold office, we can't serve on juries, we can't serve in their military. We can't help the civil beast. Because if you understand what's going on, the civil beast, even if they don't admit it, if they're not enfranchising the true religion, they're advancing the cause of Antichrist. And the United States of America, by refusing to advance the cause of true religion from its inception, set upon a course that enabled Antichrist to prevail in the last two centuries. It allowed the apostasy to continue unchecked, and there is simply no way that you can hold office under such a constitution that refuses to recognize the true religion and enfranchise the true religion, that grants a universal boundless toleration to not only no religion, but to every religion, particularly to Romanism. There is no neutrality in this war that we see in the Bible. part of the witnessing church during the apostasy, or you're everyone else. And if you're everyone else, at some point, in the West in particular, at some point, you're being manipulated by the papacy, by Romanism. Now why do I keep calling it Romanism? Let's look at Revelation 13, 18. Revelation 13, 18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of man. And his number is six hundred three-score and six. Right. Well, verse 18 tells us some very interesting things. first of all tells us the number of the beast and that number the number is of interest because it is in fact it is in fact the number of a beast which is a kingdom we're also told however that it is the number of a man And we're told that it has a numeric value. And the numeric value is 666. Now I know there are people who are going to get squeamish when I say this, but look. The fact is that the early church suspected that the answer to this was Latinas. that is in Greek and in Latin, as a matter of fact, that these languages assign numeric value to certain letters. Latinas The identity of Latinus, which is lambda, alpha, tau, epsilon, iota, nu, omicron, and a final sigma. That identity relates to the beast because it is, in fact, identifying the beast as the kingdom of Latins. It relates to the man because the man the man who founded the Latin Empire was named Latinos. So, got that name. It's numeric value 666 because the lambda is numerically valued at 30, the alpha at 1, the tau at 300, The epsilon is five, the iota 10, the nu 50, the omicron is 70, and that sigma is 200. If you add that together, you get 666. In addition to that, and in confirmation of that, the triple crown that the pope wears, reads on the front, Vicare Filede, Vicar of the Son of God. And in Latin, those letters, if we were to use the Roman numerals in there, they add up to 666 as well. So he's wearing it right on his forehead in his official garment. Now what this symbolizes, the 666, is that we're dealing with sinful man, or as Paul characterizes him in 2 Thessalonians 2, the man of sin. He is a man who epitomizes sin, because he is a man who embodies the principle of sin as an individual, as a kingdom, and as a church. He characterizes the apostasy of man from God. It's not simply the Pope, nor is it the Church of Rome, nor is it both combined, but it's this whole thing that we're talking about that is Antichrist. That's why our Confession says that the Pope is that Antichrist seated in the church. But there's an Antichristian church and there's an Antichristian state, or nation, or empire. And all of these are component parts of the great Western Antichrist. We need to understand, and this is why, if you wondered why all the world stopped to wonder after the beast a few weeks ago, when his most satanic majesty, the Pope, was defiling American soil in Philadelphia. The reason why they were wondering after the beast is because they're in the grip of Antichrist. And even if they don't attend his church, they're under his political control. That's why they stopped everything. They did more for him than when that pagan in the White House, Obama, comes in. That's how far down the satanic path the Pope is. They stop everything for him wherever he goes. People who don't even profess to be worshiping and wondering after the beast, they all stop to look, because they really are in his grip. If you're not serving Christ, if you're not in the witnessing church, you're going to serve somebody. And you're serving the devil. And the only way you effectively serve the devil in this world, during the apostasy, is through the papacy, at least in the West. And that's what we do here. We serve the devil in our nation and through our government. And you want to tell me that we're going to change things politically? You want to tell me that... It's just a matter of changing this or tweaking that. When we have a Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, which absolutely disavows any allegiance to the true God in Jesus Christ, you want to tell me that that's going to come to a good end? Of course not. That's exactly the kind of Jesuitical intrigue that they've tried to perpetrate, and they have perpetrated, throughout the Western world. Romanism will continue to manipulate and degradate the Western world until this apostasy comes to an end. So when will this come to an end? Well, we still have to look at more about the great Western apostasy in the next few chapters, and we'll begin to see some answers as to the end of this apostasy and what happens to the Witnessing Church next time when we look at Chapter 14. Still Waters Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads.com. It's your worldwide online Reformation home for the very best in free and discounted classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, mp3s, and videos. 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