If you'll take your Bibles up with me again this afternoon and turn to the book of Revelation, chapter 13. We've come to this very famous and central passage of the book of Revelation where we get the two beasts, the one coming up out of the sea and another one coming up out of the earth. But we're dealing with the beast from the sea still this afternoon. Last week we looked at verses 1 and 2, and this week we're going to look at verses 3 through 8. But I'm going to go ahead and start again in verse 1 and read verses 1 through 8 so we feel that whole context again. So would you stand to your feet with me and we'll show respect for the reading of God's Word in that way. 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 horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 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 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 in 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 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." Let's pray. Father, we thank You again for Your Word. Help us to understand it. Thank You for giving us this incredible, picturesque language here, and illustrating for us, not merely in word, but in picture, the ferocity and danger of those who would seek to stand against you and use the devil's power to do so. Help us to be alert, to be on guard, that we would be circumspect in every way, aware of the fact that we have an enemy who, like a roaring lion, seeks whom he may devour. And let us be wary of his wiles. Thank you for the victory that we have through Jesus Christ. Thank you that the strong man has been bound, that Jesus has gained victory over all of his enemies. So help us to keep all of these things in mind as we study your Word. Help anything that I would say here this afternoon that is not true to just quickly fall away and be forgotten. But let the Word of Christ stand forever as we know it will. It's for Jesus' sake we ask these things. Amen. Thank you for standing. You can be seated. So last week I explained to you the way I understand this first beast of the sea. I believe that this is speaking of the Roman Empire, big picture, Roman Emperor being the figurehead of that empire, and the demonic force that was behind that emperor heading up that empire. So all three of those aspects are included in this idea of a beast here in Revelation. It's not merely one of those three, but it's those three in consort together that are working, ultimately, the will of God in the earth, as God has decreed all things that are, but he's given space here for the dragon to give power. to animate this evil empire, this Roman Empire. We saw that the sea, throughout the book of Revelation, often figures the Roman Empire, and certainly this beast is coming up out of the sea. We saw the similarity of this beast with the fourth beast in Daniel chapter 7. And that he not only figured the fourth beast, but he had little pieces of the previous three beasts. that the first empire of Babylon was like the lion with the great iron teeth, and the next one was like the bear with the crushing and ripping paws, and the third one was like a leopard in its ferocity and speed and bloodthirstiness, and Rome was all of these put together. Rome was incredible in its tyranny and its statism. And many times when we see statism, at least in the modern age in which we live, we think of it as some neutral entity. We think of statism as, well, that's just secularism as opposed to false religion. But statism in its fullest sense is idolatry. It's the state and the representatives of that tyrannical state seeking to be God themselves. Seeking to be opposed to the Lord and His anointed as Psalm chapter 2 explains them to us. I told you that the way I understood the seven heads was seven emperors successively, not all existing at once, but one right after the other, starting with Julius Caesar, who was the first Roman emperor to really be a Roman emperor, to take powers from the Senate that hadn't originally been given. And then you have seven in a row that are easily counted. But one of these seven heads we see here in our text this afternoon that we didn't get to last week, one of those seven were wounded to death. Now, the interesting thing about this is that it doesn't say his head was wounded and people thought it was going to be to death, but it was a mortal wound. It was a deathly wound, as it were, wounded to death. And his deadly... So twice here we see that this is a death, a deadly, a killing wound, but it's healed. One of these heads is healed, and that causes all the world to wonder after the beast. So if we understand these seven heads to be seven successive Roman emperors, then which one was wounded unto death and then healed? When we ask it that way, We're merely looking at one of the three aspects of the beast. We're looking at this one emperor, because these seven heads are seven successive emperors. But this death was not merely to that one head, but was to the beast itself, which this head represented. I believe this one mortally wounded head is the sixth head, which would have been Nero. Nero was the emperor during this period of time between 66 and 68. And many of you are probably familiar with the story of Nero's demise, how eventually he became so hated by his own senate and people and the Praetorian Guard around him that he committed suicide. And I believe this is the deadly wound that is spoken of, of this one head. Because when Nero died, Rome almost died with him. In fact, many people believe that that was, in fact, the end of the empire. Many people living as contemporary to Nero himself. When he died, it began that period of time, which I've already referenced several times, that's called the Year of the Four Emperors. 69 AD, where there were four different men who claimed the emperorship of Rome during that one calendar year. But that title in and of itself is a little bit misleading, because it's called the Year of the Four Emperors, but none of those four, well the fourth one, none of the previous three until the fourth one ever really became emperor. He was never fully recognized by the Senate, the people, and the armies of Rome as the emperor. Rather, there was a civil war going on with four different men vying for the emperorship. So let me give you a little bit of history here. And for those of you who don't like history, just try to bear with me for the sake of explanation of what I believe the text is teaching us. And for those of you like me who really enjoy history, perhaps this will be interesting to you. Galba was the first. So when Nero died, Galba was the first man to claim to be the Emperor of Rome. He was put into power immediately upon Nero's death by the Senate and the Praetorian Guard. But he instantly angered the people by adopting an unpopular heir. So everybody thought, we'll put Galba into place. And Galba was an old man at this point already. They thought, we'll put Galba into place. Galba will anoint Otho as his heir. And then when Galba dies, Otho will become emperor and we'll have a stable empire once again. Well, Galba didn't do that. Instead, he appointed some very unpopular man to be his heir for when he died, and that angered the people, it angered the Senate, and he was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. Now, if you don't know who the Praetorian Guard were, they were like the Secret Service. They were the elite fighting group of the Roman army, particularly tasked with protecting the emperor. That was their whole goal. And they assassinated the emperor. Now, I don't know that you could ever imagine that something like that could happen. The people tasked with guarding the ruler of the country would actually be the one to assassinate him. It's pretty amazing. But it happened here in Rome. And so this is what happened. Galba was actually assassinated by the Praetorian Guard, who had helped put him into place. And they put Otho in his place, who they wanted him to appoint as his heir. So they put Otho on the throne as part of the coup against Galba. But at the same time that the Senate was appointing Otho to the throne, there was a general named Vitellius who was fighting in Germania. And he declared that he was the emperor. He said, no, I'm going to be the emperor of Rome. I am the rightful emperor of Rome. And all of his fighting men there around him agreed. And they said, yes, you're the emperor. You're the real emperor. And so they began to march on Rome. Well, Otho saw what was happening. He saw that he had the Senate on his side, but Vitellius had the army on his side, so guess who's going to win that argument? It's going to be the guy with the swords and the spears and the bows and arrows and the chariots and the horses. So, Otho sent out some people to ask for peace and truce between him and Vitellius, and Vitellius ignored them all, continued to march on Rome, and Otho saw the writing on the wall and he killed himself before Vitellius even got to Rome. So Vitellius took the throne, and he's now claiming to be the emperor of Rome. And he immediately began draining the imperial treasury through lavish banquets. He just took whatever money was left in Rome, and he had a hundred-day banqueting and feasting that he began to do, celebrating him as the new emperor. Well, this began to anger the people, and they saw, you're spending all our money on these lavish feasts for yourself. And in fact, some people whom the empire owed money to, some bankers and debt collectors, began to come and ask Vitellius to repay them. And anyone who came and asked for repayment, he had executed. And so that didn't increase his popularity in the empire at all. So while this is all going on in Rome and Vitellius is throwing these lavish banquets, there was another general who was currently on a campaign down in Judea who was named Vespasian. And Vespasian's troops said that he was the emperor, the true emperor, during all this time. And so Vespasian takes all the troops, or half of the troops, from Judea, northern Africa, Egypt, and he begins to march on Rome. Once again, Vespasian saw the writing on the wall, or Vitellius, rather, saw the writing on the wall. He was eventually captured in the palace when Vespasian and his troops arrived, and he was executed. And the next day, the Senate appointed Vespasian. as emperor on the throne. So there were four men who claimed to be emperor, but none of them had universal acclaim from the three important sectors of society, the Senate, the citizens, and the armies, until Vespasian came on the throne. And once Vespasian came on the throne, Rome stabilized once again. And I believe this is the head which shows the healing of the beast, that people who imagined that this beast was about to die because Nero as its figurehead had died, sees that Rome is still alive and well and as powerful and potent as ever. And Vespasian was, in fact, the figurehead emperor until his death, but he did what the people had initially wanted Galba to do. He appointed immediately, he appointed Titus, his son, as his heir. He said, when I die, Titus is going to be the emperor. And Titus was young and was a successful general at this point, and so the people were accepting of that. But it wasn't merely that he was the heir-in-waiting. Titus wasn't merely sitting in the wings waiting to become emperor, but from Vespasian's inauguration as emperor, Titus, the Roman historian Suetonius says, Titus was recognized as the sharer and even protector of the empire. So it was Vespasian and Titus really ruling together. as one joint force, even though Vespasian was recognized at that point as the rightful emperor, it was Vespasian and Titus. And in fact, each emperor, when they died, was given their own temple. So they were deified, they were made gods, even while they were here on the earth. But then once they died, a temple was built to their honor. for worshipping them. But Vespasian and Titus were not given two separate temples, but one temple. You can actually go to Rome today and visit the ruins of the temple to Vespasian and Titus. And that's what it's called, because they were seen as co-rulers there together in such a unique way. So from Nero, when Nero died, not only did Nero die, but the Julio-Claudian line of emperors died. Before him, from Julius Caesar to Nero, it was always family members, whether it was a nephew or a son or an adopted son or a grandson. It was that Julio-Claudian line. It died with Nero, and Rome itself nearly died in the upheaval in the civil war that followed. But Vespasian revived the empire. by once again gaining the recognition of the Senate, the citizens, and the United Army of Rome as the rightful emperor. And he began the new dynasty, which was the Flavian dynasty, by appointing his son Titus as heir. There's a website called dailyhistory.org. I don't really know much about it, but they had this interesting quote on there that I thought kind of summed up this whole period of history. It said, Nero was the last of the Julian-Claudian dynasty, and his death led to a series of bloody civil wars. This period of instability led to the army determining who should be emperor. This was one of the most important legacies of Nero, the reemergence of the legions as a political force, something that Augustus and his heirs had prevented for several decades. So this is what happened when Nero died. Now the army is in charge of basically whoever controls the most troops becomes the next emperor. And I think it's very interesting that that is what the world says about the beast after this head is revived back to life, who is able to make war with him. He controls the armies now. The emperor is also the general. Like our president is also the commander-in-chief. But even on a greater scale than that, when Vespasian and Titus took control, these were accomplished generals. These were men who had made war in Germania, and in Judea, and in Egypt, and had conquered their enemies. And they were hailed as, in fact, conquering heroes. So the next thing the text tells us is that all the world wondered at and worshipped the dragon and the beast. It says, "...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, and who is able to make war with him?" This wondering at the beast in verse 3, all the world wondered after the beast after he had been healed. I think this is in large part speaking of Israel, because this is who we know the whole scriptures are kind of focused on what was going on there in Israel much more so than what was going on in Germania or Egypt or anything like that. When Rome began to implode and fracture following the death of Nero, Vespasian and Titus had been sent by Nero to march on Israel. It looked like the writing was on the wall. Israel was about to be conquered. These two great generals were descending on them. And then Nero died, somewhat unexpectedly, committed suicide, and Rome began to fracture. The general from Germania begins marching back on Rome. The general from Judea begins marching back on Rome. Emperors are raising up and being cast down. And Israel saw this as an answer to their prayers for the salvation of Israel. They had been praying that God would rescue them from this seemingly impossible plight that they were in, as these great armies, these beasts were coming down on them in unbelievable numbers. And of course, they were praying that God would rescue them, as He had done so many times before. So many times before they had seemed to be in a helpless position and God had miraculously delivered them. Whether it was the angel who killed the entire army that was encamped against them at one point, or the armies in the mountains that Elijah could see, or was it Elisha, could see and his servant couldn't see. But time and time again throughout their history, God had come in at the eleventh hour and had rescued Israel from what seemed like certain destruction. And when Rome began to implode and fracture at the death of Nero, Israel thought, well, no surprise. This is exactly what we've been praying for. We're going to have all attention lifted off of us. Rome is going to be distracted. Rome is going to be weakened. They're no longer going to be interested in this Jewish revolt that's going off in one corner of their empire. And when the civil war ended relatively quickly, within one calendar year, and Vespasian and Titus took control, the very two generals who had been engaged in the war against Israel, now they're the emperors. There was great consternation in Israel. What in the world is going on? We thought God was rescuing us, now it seems like we're in twice the trouble we were in before. We don't merely have two generals against us, we have two emperors against us. As I mentioned, that reference to making war with the beast is probably an insight to the fact that these emperors are now accomplished generals. This beast is now at the head of the army in a very real, physical way. The text then tells us, that there were 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 in 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 all kindreds and tongues and nations. This beast is a great blasphemer and a victor. Speaking temporally, speaking in the physical world, he was a great blasphemer and he was a victor. The blasphemy that Titus engaged in when he conquered Israel, I didn't realize until studying for this sermon just how far it went. He was not merely opposed to Israel, opposed to Israel's God. Listen to some of the things he did, and I've tried to write this in such a way that it'll be safe for all ages. When Titus breached the temple, once the temple was taken and they got through the outer courts, he immediately went into the Holy of Holies, took a great scroll of the Scriptures and laid it out on the altar, and brought two prostitutes in and defiled the altar with them. He took his sword and he cut down the curtain, which by a miracle caused blood to spurt out, and Titus proclaimed, I have killed the Jews' God. He then took that curtain, which he had cut down, and he put all the vessels of the temple in it and used it as a sack to carry them back to Rome, a scene that is still today on the Arch of Titus. If you go and see the Arch of Titus, which shows them carrying the menorah and the vessels of the temple back into Rome after he had destroyed it. gathered all those temple vessels to carry them back to Rome. On his ship ride back to home, he was caught in a giant storm and a great wave was about to crash down on his ship and sink it. And Titus again blasphemed, it seems that the God of the Jews has power only on the water. Let him come onto the land and fight me. And so he was engaged in the worst, vilest kinds of blasphemies against God, against his tabernacle, and against those who dwell in heaven for sure. As I mentioned, he had a temple built to him, Vespasian and Titus both, that began during their life and was finished after their death by Titus' brother, who was the next emperor, Domitian. Truly, he spoke great blasphemies against God and against his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven. And then, fourthly, we see that all the world worshipped him. Or, that is, all the world whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life. So, certainly, it wasn't the Christians who were willing to worship this beast, but it was everyone else. And this is probably a very famous aspect of this period of the first century Rome, that there was an imperial cult religion built around the worship of the emperors. This is what everyone who lived in the Roman Empire had to do. You had to proclaim Caesar is Lord. You could worship any other god you wanted to, so long as you proclaimed Caesar is Lord. In fact, after Titus' death, this became very commonplace during Titus' Vespasians and Titus' rule, but after Titus' death and Domitian took over, he made it an annual renewal by compulsion. Every year you had to come to the temple, throw a pinch of incense on the temple, and proclaim Caesar is Lord, and receive your certificate for that year that you had done the deed. And if you would not go when it was your turn, and throw incense on the altar, and proclaim Jesus is Lord, you were executed. You were brought and cast to the lions. You were burned at the stake. Whatever the case may be, you were crucified. Let me read what one... website said about that period of emperor worship. The imperial cult was a religion built around the worship of the Roman emperor, the cement that held together the loyalty of the citizens of the far-flung empire. The various religions of the numerous peoples of the empire were tolerated as long as the worship of the emperor was observed. So you could have your Germanic gods, you could have your Egyptian gods, you could have your Greek gods, they didn't care, just so long as you gave worship to the emperor. This observance consisted primarily of offering in prayers to the genius, this was the word they used, you had to give a prayer to the genius or the divine spirit that indwelt and empowered the emperor to rule with the God's favor. So you had to say, and when we think genius, we think Albert Einstein, right? We think someone who's really smart. But in Latin, in the idea of their mind, when they talked about the emperor's genius, Listen to what he says here. For Christians, although they were willing to obey the emperor in civil matters, such religious devotion was impossible. To further complicate the situation, the Latin concept of genius was expressed by the Greek word daemon, which is what we get our word demon from. And that's what he said earlier. It was that divine spirit that indwelt and empowered the emperor. That's what the Christians had to give obeisance to. We worship the demon of the emperor. He's empowered by the gods to have that position and we recognize that divinity within him. Certainly this was devil worship. This was worship that was inspired and given by the dragon. This was that old serpent, the devil. This was demonic forces that were behind these emperors and every citizen of the empire was required to worship that spirit, that divine spirit in the emperor. And if you would not, you were put to death. There are many stories, and you can go back and read some of the first and second century martyrs, of men, women, and even young children who were executed, and many of them faced it bravely and silently or while singing praises to Christ while they were executed because they were brought to the altar of Caesar, said, you must throw this pinch of incense on there, you must claim that you understand the divine spirit that animates the emperor, gives him divine status, and the Christians would not do it. So they were killed, they were executed, they were martyred. It was only those, though, he was given that power to make war with the saints and to overcome them. All those who were not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, they would not give worship to the dragon and to the beast, but all the rest of the world did. They were forced to at the point of a sword. So that's what I think verses 3 through 8 are expressing. That's the prophecy that John is seeing and is telling that first century church to be ready for, to be aware of, to be looking toward. But I do believe that there's some current applications that we can continue to take from this history and this prophecy from God. One is that we ought to be careful not to presume to know the mind of God. We've already seen this a couple of previous times in Revelation. You remember that one time when I told you there was really only one major victory that the Jews won against the Roman army in pushing them back out of Israel for a short period of time, which really ended up being the nail in their coffin. And Israel imagined, that's it, that's God's answer, we've won the victory, hooray, we're winners. And then it was redoubled as Titus and Vespasian were sent against them. The same kind of thing happened here when Nero died, and Israel imagined immediately, well, this is God answering our prayers. We're winners. This is it. They imagined that a single victory in a single battle was proof of winning the war. That the war was over. That there was no more battles to be fought. And we need to be very careful that we don't fall into the same kind of a trap. We want to be optimistic. I don't know about you. I don't want to be a pessimist. I want to be optimistic. I want to see great victories won for the kingdom of God. I want to see the cause of Jesus Christ further and the deception of Satan defeated. I want to see Jesus Christ more and more recognized as what he is, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. I want to see the powers of darkness pushed to further and further corners. of the earth. But we must not lose sight of the fact that God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And His ways are not our ways as we heard in this morning's message. God's work stretches out so much further than our short little life spans. And His purposes are so much more expansive than our little geographical area where we live. that we need to be careful that we don't imagine that the 80 years and 100 square miles that we inhabit is a good indicator of what God's doing in the world. That's very often not the case. Robert E. Lee has a quote that I have leaned on more than once. He said, the march of providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient. The work of progress is so immense, and our means of aiding it so feeble. The life of humanity is so long, and that of the individual is so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave, and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope." So he said, God's works are so big, and our individual view is so small, that we imagine that, oh no, here's this defeat, we're really defeated. Or, oh look, here's this victory, the battle's over. But it's not like that. God gives us a small circle of jurisdiction in a small period of time, and He calls us to stand our ground, and to do our duty, and to oversee our jurisdiction faithfully in that little area for that little period of time that He puts us there. We're one soldier in a big army. So we need to keep our eyes on our duty in the light of Scripture. Not, am I going to conquer the gates of hell for all eternity with my battle that I'm fighting here? But am I going to stand my ground, and do my duty, and love my wife, and teach my children, and pastor my church, and conduct my business honestly, and whatever duties God puts before me, am I going to exercise them rightly day in and day out, and trust God to take care of the big picture things? We have this false sense of omniscience because of the internet and the television. And we're worried about things that are going on in Israel and Ukraine and Russia and Taiwan and China. And we're not even taking care of our families correctly. But we're worried about what the foreign policy of the next president's going to be. We ought to be keeping our eye on the prize, fighting where God has put us, and keeping the long view of God's work in the world. Secondly, we can learn from this passage of our text, again, not a new lesson, but one that is central to the theme of Revelation as a whole. Rulers, civil rulers, either see themselves as servants or as gods. That's the dichotomy. They're either servants or they're gods. Romans 13 tells us that civil rulers are the diakonos of God. The ministers of God for good. That's the word we get our word in the church deacons for. They wait tables. They're errand runners. That's the idea of diakonos. So that's what civil rulers are appointed by God to do. To run his errands for him. To do what he tells them to do and to go where he tells them to go. When they, like Satan did, forget what they were created for, Remember, Satan was created to be a minister of fire, to be one of God's angels, to do his doings. And instead, Satan imagined that he could ascend to God's position. When civil rulers like Satan forget the place that they've been put by God for God's purposes, they imagine to seek God's throne for themselves. The scary part is that human nature has a need to worship, and therefore many times large sections of the population will encourage them in that demonic ambition. They'll worship them in their desire for power. This is exactly what Rome did. They wanted to worship their emperors. Those who were not committed to the Lamb, those who were not sealed by the blood of the Lamb, they weren't fighting the emperor worship. They loved the emperor worship. He's our emperor. He's our protector. He's the one who's going to give us everything we need and care for all of our needs. We will worship Him as a God. We'll build a temple to His honor. And those who do not worship King Jesus will be like Old Testament Israel looking for the man that they can worship as king just like all the other nations do. Remember, that's what Israel said when Samuel was their judge. We want a king like all the other nations. Everybody else has a mini-god-king. That's what we want. Samuel said, you have a real god-king. No, we want a man-god-king. And this is human nature. When they refuse to bow the knee to Jesus, when they refuse to kiss the Son, they instead look for a Messiah in the flesh. to be their figurehead. And of course, we see it all around us every day. Everyone's looking for a politician, a celebrity, a military general, someone that they can look to and idolize. This is the great one. This is the one that we all need to be like. And certainly, they are not that. They are either a servant or they are seeking to be God. Lastly, we need to remember from our text, and maybe this sounds kind of abstract in the current political climate in which we find ourselves, but it certainly was not abstract in the first century, and I don't know that it will always be abstract for us. Christians would sooner die than worship anyone else but Christ. Literally. They would rather die. They're given the choice. Say, Caesar is Lord, or watch your children thrown to the lions. Say, Caesar is Lord, or we take your wife and crucify her. Say, Caesar is Lord, or we tie you to this stake and burn your flesh off your bones. And again, and again, and again, the Christians said, do what you must, Christ is Lord. Many of those Christians were famously martyred in the Colosseum that Titus built. Did you realize that? The Roman Colosseum was finished, and Rome was finished and inaugurated by Emperor Titus. I got a chance to go to Rome several years ago, and as I walked through those underground tunnels to the opening I couldn't help but think of how many Christians walked their final deaths. It's viewed as this incredible piece of history and architecture, but it was used as a satanic tool for the martyrdom of God's people in the first, second, third centuries. Because men, women, and children said, Caesar is the emperor, but he's not Lord. He's not divine. Only Jesus is that. Now I hope you and I certainly would be willing to profess that with our lips if called upon and if brought to it. But it ought to also be a check on our passions and whom we idolize and what we idolize. Is there anything else in our life that we are willing to compromise Christ's lordship for? But I mean, I do believe Christ is Lord, but I'm also submitted to this. Because that's what disobedience to Christ's command says every time. Christ is Lord, but I also will serve my lusts which are opposed to Christ. Christ is Lord, but I'm also going to idolize this pleasure, or this person, or this activity, or this entity, whatever it is, I'm going to compromise my Christian submission to Jesus as Lord in order to also submit myself to that. And we don't see that dichotomy very clearly written many times. But every time we choose to forego Our Christian duty, in order to do something that is not a Christian duty, we're ceding our submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And as Christians, it ought to never be named among us. We ought to, as we sing, have the faith of our fathers. How blessed would be their children's fate, if we like them could die for thee. But let us die daily. Let us mortify the deeds of the flesh to that end. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. Certainly we recognize the flesh that we battle with, the old man within us that wants to idolize something other than Jesus Christ. So help us to put that to death. Help us to mortify it. Help us to truly, with all of our words and our actions, declare to the watching world, there is none like our Christ. He is King over all other kings and Lord over all other lords. Help us be faithful to Him even unto death. Thank you for that great cloud of witnesses which surrounds us and gives us that impetus and inspiration to continue the good fight that is put before us for this short period of time in this small area of land where you've placed us that we would hold the line where you've put us. For Christ's sake we ask these things.