Very quickly, Revelation chapter 13. I'll not be able to have time to preach all of the message tonight. We'll probably finish it next week, but I want to take a few moments and at least give you an introduction. We want to get back to our study in the book of Revelation, and we completed the first 12 chapters. We've kind of been away from it a little bit, and we want to come back to that. So if you will read with me, we'll begin in chapter 13 and verse number 1. Revelation chapter 13. Verse one, and I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns and upon his horn, ten crowns and upon his head the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was likened to a leper and his feet were as the feet of a bear and his mouth is the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him power, gave his power and his seat and great authority. And I saw one of his heads, as it were, wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world wondered after the beast. 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 there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth and blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power was given him over the kindreds, over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. 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. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon, and he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 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. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. 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. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that hath the mark of the name, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 600, threescore and six." Let's pray together. Father, would You bless these few moments together now as we look at Your Word. Give us wisdom and understanding, comprehension of what You have for us tonight. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. In this 13th chapter of Revelation, you have the biography of the beast. Now, let me say this by way of introduction. People do not know the future. Amen. God alone knows the future. When you have people that want to tell you the future and they want to read your palms and tell you the horoscopes and all those kinds of things, you mark it down. That's not God. And people do not know the future. Only God knows the future. In Isaiah 46, verse 9 and 10, the Bible says, Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is none like me. declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. You see, man for years has tried to predict the future and man has failed. In 1870, Milton Wright, a bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, was outraged when a college president suggested that within 50 years men would learn to fly through the air like birds. The bishop was shocked by these words, and he responded by saying, flying is reserved for angels. I beg you not to mention that again, lest you be guilty of blasphemy. 33 years ago, or 33 years later, after the bishop said those words, his two sons, Wilbur and Orville Wright, launched their powered aircraft at Kitty Hawk. You see, men do not know the future, do they? In 1943, Thomas Watson, who was chairman of IBM, said this. He said, I think there may be a market, a world market, for maybe five computers. In 1977, Ken Olson, founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Company, said there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. CEO of Digital Equipment Company. In 1876, a Western Union internal memo said this. The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. Now, let me ask you a question. Did these men rightly prophesy the future? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But that didn't stop them from trying, did it? They tried, but they were wrong. Do you know who else does not know the future? The devil doesn't know the future. Now. Standing in the shadows of history is the Antichrist. And the Antichrist doesn't know everything about the future either. And this chapter. There are five things that we will learn about the beast or see about the beast. And we won't have time to look at them all tonight, but I want us just to begin to look at them this evening. First of all, I want you to notice the social agitation that delivers the beast. In this chapter, he talks about this beast and he says in verse one, I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea. Now, sea and water in the Bible are symbolic of multitudes of wicked people from every tongue and every nation in the world. Let me give you an example. Isaiah chapter 57 and verse 20 says, But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. If you'll turn a couple of pages over from where we're at in Revelation 13, and look at Revelation 17 and verse 15. Revelation 17, verse 15 says, And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. So the stage is set here for a social agitation that will deliver the beast. There is troubled, growling, seething sea of disturbed and evil people in our world today. You look around our world. The Soviet Union, for instance, even though it is dissolved, the former Soviet republics that were part of that Soviet Union, which was once considered a formidable power, are still, and all of us would agree, very dangerous as far as world peace is concerned. Many of them are bastions for Islamic fundamentalism and launching posts for religious jihads. The Russian bear that Revelation talks about may be wounded and may be hungry, but she is looking for morsels to devour. And you can mark it down. We'll hear more about the Russian bear. What about the People's Republic of China? When you think about China in Revelation chapter 9, we learned about an army of 200 million people along the Euphrates River. And China has boasted for years that she could fill an army of 200 million people. Could that be the army that Revelation chapter 7 is talking about? This red dragon may be getting ready to breathe out her fiery breath and to scorch the earth. No matter what you may read or what you may hear in the news about China, we better understand that China is not a friend of the United States of America, nor is China a friend of world peace. Think about what's going to happen in the spiritual vacuum that exists right now in Europe. And the nations there, this Europe is filled with new ageism and with a cultism, and this group of nations is being unified in an awesome power, and I believe is fulfilling some of the Bible prophecy that predicts the old Roman Empire that is going to be reunited. and then think about all the other worldwide terrorism that is going on today. Because of the Islamic fundamentalism and its religious jihads, we are now faced with, as you well know, horrendous prospects of biological warfare and chemical warfare and suitcase bombs and hijackings and who knows what else. and put all that together in the pot and stir it up with the nation of Israel that is being threatened tremendously. And you can mark it down that the Lion of Judah is not going to sit back. She is sharpening her claws. And Israel has a nuclear bomb. And I believe if pushed to the edge, will use it to defend herself. We have yet to mention the famines and the natural disasters and the political struggles that are a part of our world today. All of these things tell us, as the Bible says, that perilous times are here. We are living in perilous times, and we are living in a world in which nations of the world are seething like a sea. And out of that sea, Revelation 13 says, will rise this beast that the Bible talks about. Historian and author Arnold Toynbee said this, he said, by forcing on mankind more and more lethal weapons and at the same time making the world more and more interdependent economically, technology has brought mankind to such a degree of distress that we are right for the deifying of any new Caesar who might succeed in giving the world unity and peace. He went on to say, in effect, that we are in such a mess, technologically and economically, that when a man comes on the scene, we will deify him, or in other words, we will make a god out of him. That sounds like something that would come right out of the book of Revelation. One European statesman made this statement. He said, if the devil could offer a panacea for the problems of the world today, I would gladly follow the devil. And I want to tell you something, that is going to happen. It's going to happen. There's a second thing that we see in this chapter about the beast, and that is the satanic attributes that describe this beast. This beast has satanic attributes. First of all, notice his father. In verse 1, it says, I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea having seven hens and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the names of blasphemy. Now, does that remind you of anything that we studied earlier in the book of Revelation? If you'll go back to the chapter just before this, to chapter 12, look at verse 3. Revelation chapter 12, verse 3 says, And there appeared another wonder in heaven. And behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his head. And verse 9 says, And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." There's a dragon in Revelation chapter 12 of which this beast of Revelation chapter 13 is the offspring. Like father, like son. The beast has the attributes of his father, and his father is the devil. The Bible teaches us that when the beast comes, he will possess the powers of Satan. In fact, 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 9 says, Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. When Jesus was here on this earth, He said in John chapter 14 and verse 9, He said, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. When the devil enters into the Antichrist, The Antichrist will be able to say the same thing. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. All the attributes of Satan will be seen in this man of sin. He will be a liar like his father, and he will perform the works of his father. So we see his father. Secondly, notice his family in verse number 2. It says, And the beast which I saw was likened to 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 his power and his seat and great authority. His family is the lion and the bear and the leopard. And those are described for us back in Daniel chapter 7, which deals with the four world empires that are beasts that are described that come upon this world. The first empire the world has ever known was the Babylonian Empire. Daniel described it in Daniel chapter seven in verse four. He speaks of it as being the lion. The lion is the royal beast of the of the jungle, so to speak. And it is the it is the royal beast that has a ravenous appetite, incredible strength. He's able to terrify every other animal in the kingdom. And then he gives us the second beast. He says the second kingdom, the next world empire is the Medo-Persian and Daniel describes it as the bear in Daniel chapter 7 and verse number 5. The bear has massive strength, powerful claws to crush its victims, a fitting symbol to describe the way the Medo-Persian kings ruled the world at that time. And then Daniel characterizes the Greek empire as the leper. In Daniel 7, in verse 6, because of its rapid movement to conquer the world, Alexander the Great led the charge and, as you well know, wept when there were no more worlds for him to conquer. Daniel saw one more kingdom over which the Antichrist would rule, and that's what we find in chapter 13. In Daniel 7, in verse 7, he said this, After this 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 had ten horns. Daniel talks about that beast and it is a picture of the kingdom of the Antichrist. When the Antichrist comes, he will come from the lineage of empires. He'll have the royalty of Babylon and the strength of Medo-Persia. He'll have the sophistication and the wisdom of Greece. He'll be a combination of Alexander the Great, of Napoleon, of Caesar, of Charlemagne, of Hitler and more. That is his family legacy. Then also, not only do we see his father and his family, you see his fortune in the end of verse two. For the end of verse two says, And the dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority. The dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority. This man will receive his authority from Satan. Satan, who the Bible says rules the world. Does Satan have the authority to give that power? Absolutely. If you remember in the Gospels, when Satan came and tempted the Lord Jesus, what did Satan offer to Jesus? He offered him the kingdoms of the world. And you know what? You study those verses carefully in Matthew, chapter four and verses eight and nine and 10, and you'll find that Jesus never rebuked Satan and said, they're not yours to give. He didn't do that because Satan had taken that dominion from Adam back in the garden. And he does have those kingdoms to give in that dominion. And the devil offered the kingdoms to Jesus, but Jesus would not take them. But there is coming a man of sin, the Bible says, who is diabolically wicked and will give his heart and his mind and his soul and everything to the devil. And Satan will enter into him and give him power and authority. And this man is the man that Jesus described in John chapter 5 and verse 43. He said, I am come in my father's name and you receive me not. If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. You see, Jesus prophesied that one of these days, those that would not receive Jesus Christ would receive the Antichrist. They'll receive the devil's counterfeit. And the devil is a master counterfeiter. And he, everything that God does, Satan counterfeits it. And Satan wants to bring in that counterfeit. And the day will come, and with all the problems that we have going on in the world right now, what is our world looking for? Somebody who has the answer to all those problems. And that person will be the Antichrist. And when he steps on the scene, you can mark it down. We will be out of here. Amen? And we'll be with the Lord. And the world will follow the Antichrist. Now, they won't call him the Antichrist. They'll call him the Christ, the Messiah. He'll set himself up as God and they'll follow after him for about three and a half years until he breaks his treaty with the Jewish people in the temple. And there'll be a lot of things that will happen we'll talk about later on, but then he will break that treaty and they'll begin to understand this is not the true Messiah. And by the way, that's much of what God is doing in the tribulation period. He's working with the nation of Israel to bring them to the point to know that Jesus Christ is the true and the living Messiah. They'll follow that antichrist for a while, but then they'll recognize he is not the true Christ. And unfortunately, many of them will be destroyed because they will not follow the false Christ. There's a third thing, and I'll just mention it and we'll finish for tonight, but that is the seductive appeal that disguises the beast, the seductive appeal that disguises him. Look at verse number three. And I saw one of his heads, as it were, wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the dragon which gave power into the beast. And they worshiped the beast saying, who is like unto the beast who is able to make war with him? When the Bible describes him as a beast, You need to understand that God is not describing his appearance, okay? He is describing his character. This beast, the Antichrist, will be a very appealing, attractive person that the world will follow after. He will be handsome and charming and clever and intelligent, and the whole world will literally follow after him. Flip over just a couple of chapters to chapter 17 again and look at verse number 8. Chapter 17 and verse 8. And it says, "...the beast that thou sawest was and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world." Notice this, "...when they behold the beast that was and is not and yet is." God says they will wonder. They'll wonder after Him. They will have followed after this false beast. You say, who is likened to the beast? Who is able to make war with him? You know, one of the ways that this beast and Satan will win affection for this beast is through a counterfeit resurrection. What is it that unites us as Christians? It's the fact that we serve a risen Savior. Amen? Christ died and was buried and He rose again and we serve a risen Savior. And verse number three says of chapter 13, I saw one of his heads as it was wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed and the world wondered after the beast and worshiped the dragon which gave power to the beast and they worshiped the beast saying who is like unto the beast who is able to make war with him. At some time during the world rule of this Antichrist, he will be fatally wounded on the head and the whole world will mourn his death. But then dramatically, he will come back to life again and his propaganda machine will go into work and will churn out the news of his resuscitation. And it will be the master stroke of Satan that will cause the whole world to follow after him as never before. The devil has always wanted to imitate God. For everything that God has, Satan has a counterfeit. There are Christians, and there are counterfeit Christians. We call them hypocrites. There's a counterfeit church. The Bible calls it in Revelation, the synagogue of Satan. There is a counterfeit trinity. We believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Satan has the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, which is the antifather, the antichrist, and the antiholy spirit. The devil is a counterfeit, and people will be seduced by the devil. In fact, 1 Timothy 4, verse 1, speaks of seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. In Matthew 24, verse 24, it says, For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Now let me just finish up with saying this tonight. God says, There'll be false Christs and false prophets. They'll show great what? Signs and wonders. We see the counterfeit resurrection. People today, sad to say, are still looking for miracles. But I want to say to you that just because somebody can perform a miracle does not mean they are empowered by Almighty God. They may be empowered by Satan who can also work miracles. You know, it's sad to say in our in our world today, the charismatic movement, people are still looking for miracles. And, you know, the Lord can perform miracles today, I have no doubt in that whatsoever. He's God. He can do anything he wants. And I'm glad that he's performed some miracles in my life along the way. But be very careful. You and I do not need a miracle because we have God's word and we can take him at his word. We don't have to have a miracle to prove that he's God. We don't have to have a miracle to prove that he's real. All we have to do is just have faith in his word and take him at his word. So watch out. They're going to be people. Brother Richard gave me a paper. I think it was last week of a man that is actually started out with a group out of Miami and has hundreds and thousands of followers, and he began by claiming that he was some sort of a prophet, and then he took the next step and said that actually Jesus Christ had come to inhabit him and had metamorphosized into his body and that he was Jesus Christ. And hundreds and thousands of people have followed him, and now he's taken the next step of his Promotion, if you want to call it that. And you know what he says now? The same man now says he is the Antichrist. The Antichrist. Be careful. The closer we get to the Lord, the more we're going to see of demonology and occultism. And the more we're going to see people looking for two things. They're going to be looking for miracles. You know why? Because they won't take God at His word. And secondly, they're going to be looking for a leader who has an answer to all the problems of this world. The worse all this stuff goes with terrorism in our world today, the more the world is going to be looking for somebody who can solve the problem. Somebody who can solve the conflict between the Islamic jihadists and the rest of the world. And you know, isn't it interesting that the terrorists are not just attacking America, Look at all the other countries where things are going on around the world. And I believe you're going to see that intensified to the point where the world is literally standing in awe for somebody, and the Antichrist will be the one who will step on the scene and have the answer to it, and the world will stand in awe at him and will deify him and follow and worship him as God. You and I have the true God. And we understand that the next time we hear from Him, there'll be the sound of the trumpet and the voice of the archangel, and we're going to be told to come up hither. Amen? And we'll be caught up together to be with the Lord. But when that takes place, the Antichrist is going to step on this scene of the world, and the world is going to follow after Him. And they will believe and worship Him as God. See, all the way back, Satan has always wanted people to worship him. When he was thrown out of heaven in Isaiah, he said, I will be like the Most High God. I will be lifted up and so forth. He wanted the worship that is given to God. Even to Jesus, he said, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world. And Satan is still trying to get people to worship him. And by the way, in our world today, there's some people that are doing that. There are people that worship Satan. There are people who have their occult and their satanic Bible and all the things that go along with it. But in our day, most of the people, the people who are the most involved in occultism and demonology and the worship of Satan and demons are not the ones who go around dressed in black and have all of that dark demonic look on them. Most of them are deceivers just like this beast who will be charming and handsome. There are people who run businesses. There are people who are well respected in the community. And Satan has deceived them and they are deceiving people into believing that they're somebody that they aren't. Thank God Jesus is coming again and we serve the risen Savior and not a counterfeit. Amen. Keep your eyes on the Lord. We're not looking for sounds or for signs. We are listening for the sound of the trumpet. You see, I don't think there's anything in the Bible that has to be, any prophecy that has to be fulfilled before Jesus will come back. The next thing will be the trumpet and we'll be gone to be with Him. We can see the sea that is seething, can't we? And getting ready to belch out, if you please, the Antichrist. And I believe we're closer than what we think. The question for us tonight is, are you ready for Jesus? to come back again. It could be tonight. Make sure you're ready. Let's pray together. Father, thank You for Your Word. Would You help us to keep our eyes on You and on Your Word and understand that Satan is a master counterfeiter and he tries to counterfeit everything that You have done. I pray that You'll help us to be in tune with You and not to follow the counterfeits, but to follow the true and the living God. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.