Participants: Ivor Myers, Atonte Myers
Series Code: BOF
Program Code: BOF000015
|
00:14 Welcome to Battles of Faith, we're your hosts,
00:17 Ivor and Atonte Myers. Today we're continuing 00:20 our discussion about the forgotten beast 00:22 of Revelation 11, the French Revolution, and also how sexual 00:26 perversion is affecting our world today. 00:29 We're very excited about this program and we're excited 00:32 to see what the Bible has to teach us about these topics. 00:34 That's right, we have been looking at the subject of 00:37 the French Revolution, and we want to bring our audience 00:42 up to speed with what we have discussed in our previous 00:45 program. We looked at Revelation 11 00:48 and Revelation 13, and we saw there at in the last days 00:51 Satan would use 2 beasts in particular, Revelation 13 00:56 speaking of the beast from the earth, and Revelation 11 01:00 which we have entitled "The Forgotten Beast" because 01:02 a lot of people don't focus on that particular beast. 01:07 From our study we saw that this beast was to rise 01:10 up at the end of a particular time period, that time period 01:14 being around the 1970s, we saw that this beast, according 01:17 to Revelation 11 would against the 2 witnesses, and we learned 01:22 in our previous program that the 2 witnesses represented 01:25 the Old and New Testament, the Word of God, and we saw 01:30 that this beast, his war upon the 2 witnesses would be 01:35 a worldwide type of war, we saw this beast was not 01:40 described like the other beasts of Bible prophecy, 01:43 which let's us know that this beast would be something 01:46 very hard to pinpoint, and yet, it would be doing its work 01:51 of trying to get people away from the word of God, 01:55 not studying the Word of God. We saw this culminate in 01:58 - the French Revolution. - Almost like a very chaotic 02:01 - beast, no rhyme or rhythm. - That's right. 02:04 Just whatever it can do to get us from studying the word 02:07 - of God. - That's right. 02:10 Chaos, in fact, this beast is described as rising out 02:13 of the abyss, and that word can also be translated "chaos"; 02:16 the earth in a state of chaos. So as we look at this French 02:23 Revolution, this historical event, in some places 02:26 called The Reign of Terror because when that society in 02:29 1789 rose up and rejected God and rejected the Bible, 02:35 there was a reign of terror that ensued and many people 02:39 were slaughtered, this is what happens when the word of God 02:42 is put aside in a society, you get chaos, you get lawlessness. 02:48 We saw in our last program that one of the principles 02:52 that rose out of that revolution, that event, 02:56 was the principle, or the teaching rather, of evolution 03:01 from a scientist by the name of J.B. Lamarck, and we came 03:05 to the conclusion that evolution is actually a teaching that 03:09 comes from the abyss. The teaching of evolution 03:15 takes us back to creation when the world was without form 03:18 and void, and says: "Look, what the 2 witnesses said" 03:22 "about creation, it being created in 7 days, this world" 03:26 "being created in 7 days is not valid, this is how we" 03:29 "came about: through random circumstances." 03:32 Again, we see that this is totally unbiblical, but this is 03:35 what this beast does, it's war is against the word of God. 03:39 We also learned that this beast, or this teaching of evolution 03:44 also has a spiritual application because evolution teaches 03:49 that as the environment changes the creation, the species, 03:54 changes with it in order to adapt, and in our last program 03:58 we saw that the enemy of souls is attempting to manipulate 04:03 the environment around us in hopes that we will change 04:08 - to adapt to that environment. - So just slowly evolving, 04:13 so that he's trying to get us to be more like him 04:15 and the things that he wants us to do, especially for Christians 04:18 because Christians are not going to fall for the typical 04:22 evolution belief system because they believe in God, 04:25 but if he can try to get us to evolve spiritually into that 04:30 type of a person, then he has accomplished his goal. 04:32 Yeah, a slow changing of the atmosphere, and what we're 04:35 going to do in this program is we're going to see 04:37 another way in which he has done this through 04:40 the French Revolution. Now, I'm going to read a quote, 04:43 and this is actually taken from the book "Education". 04:46 we're going to put our slide up and it says in the book 04:49 "Education", page 228: [text on screen] 05:06 Speaking in a prophetic sense, we're being told that 05:11 the principles that led up to the French Revolution, 05:14 the principles that sprung out of the French Revolution 05:18 are leading people on a worldwide scale into the same 05:25 kind of event that we saw happen in the French Revolution, 05:29 which was a prophetic event. In light of this, we're now 05:33 going to jump into our study of the sexual perversion 05:37 that we see in our society today, and actually show 05:40 that yes, the beast from the abyss also plays into this 05:47 lawlessness that we see in our society. 05:51 It seems that Satan is happy that this beast of Revelation 11 05:54 is forgotten about so much, that way, as we focus 05:59 on these other beasts, the beast of Revelation 11 06:01 is going around and doing his destructive work around 06:04 - the world. - That's right, 06:06 and they have 2 different jobs that they are doing, 06:08 the beast from the earth is attacking God's people, 06:11 the remnant people, doctrinally, but this beast from the abyss, 06:17 his job is totally different, this beast power, 06:20 his work is totally different. So we're going to take a look 06:23 at Revelation 11:8. Let me just clarify this, 06:27 when we talk about manipulation of the environment we're 06:30 speaking in a spiritual context in terms of manipulation 06:37 through music, and manipulation through the fads and the styles, 06:40 those things that the Devil will use to change the atmosphere 06:46 around us, and in so doing, we, without an anchor, 06:50 without being founded in Jesus Christ, change according 06:53 to how the environment has changed, and this is what 06:56 we mean by spiritual evolution. Even though Christians 07:00 reject the teaching of evolution, many of our young 07:03 people are falling for this spiritual evolution. 07:07 Now we're going to take a look at Revelation 11:8, 07:11 Atonte, I'm going to ask if you would read that. 07:13 [text on screen] 07:21 Again, this verse is speaking of the beast from the abyss, 07:25 and it gives this description in terms of location. 07:29 This beast is described as being in the same place as spiritual 07:33 Egypt and spiritual Sodom. We looked in our last program, 07:37 we saw that Egypt represented a form of atheism, 07:40 and now we have seen evolution is really a teaching of atheism. 07:45 Now we want to notice Sodom. Why does the Bible use 07:50 the term "Sodom"? As we know, Sodom was a place 07:53 in the Old Testament where there was sexual perversion, 07:58 sexual lawlessness, sexual chaos if you will. 08:02 Remember, this beast rises up out of the abyss, 08:05 which represents chaos and it is described as Sodom, 08:10 in context meaning that we would be looking for a place 08:14 where sexual perversion would spring forth upon the planet. 08:20 That is exactly what we find in the French Revolution. 08:23 In fact, in 1791 France became known as the first modern, 08:29 western, civilized nation to decriminalize unnatural acts, 08:36 or what was called pederasty, and pederasty was simply 08:39 known as the act of 2 of the same sex getting together 08:44 for sexual activity. France becomes the first modern 08:47 nation to decriminalize this activity, or rather, 08:50 to declare that there was nothing morally wrong with it, 08:54 and lo and behold, the prophecy calls this beast Sodom, 08:58 and here you have this decree, first modern national decree 09:02 saying there's nothing wrong with this particular act. 09:06 Again, this is why Sodom itself was destroyed because of these 09:11 unlawful, chaotic acts. This beast rises up out of 09:15 the abyss, and now we see this beast power, the Devil 09:19 through this beast power would attempt to manipulate 09:23 the environment in terms of sexuality, to cause people 09:29 to change the image of God into the image of the Devil. 09:36 Right around that same time there was a gentleman 09:39 by the name of Marquis de Sade who came on the scene, 09:42 and he was really into public sexual acts, which can also 09:47 be called pornography now, and he was very into that. 09:50 He was not just into pornography, but sexual, 09:54 very violent sexual acts. He would write about it in 09:57 books, and talk about it all the time. 10:00 Right, the history of pornography actually, is that 10:04 just leading up to the French Revolution there were people 10:07 who began to use what was called political pornography. 10:10 This was actually a tool of the Devil, but what people 10:14 would do is they would take pornography and they would 10:18 portray the king, the queen, clergy men, renowned men 10:21 that were supposed spiritual, and portray them in these 10:26 little cartoons called political pornography. 10:29 That was to demoralize them in the eyes of the public. 10:33 What happened was as people began to lose respect 10:36 for the clergy, lose respect for king and queen, and all 10:40 authority, these are some of the principles that led to 10:44 the French Revolution. Well, during the French 10:47 Revolution Marquis de Sade, some people call him 10:52 the prophet of pornography, how interesting in light 10:56 of the prophecy we're looking at, they call him the prophet 10:59 of pornography, he began to write out all his fantasies. 11:05 In fact, the word "sadism" is actually taken from 11:09 Marquis de Sade, his last name because he was into 11:14 all kinds of unlawful sexual activity. 11:20 What Marquis de Sade did is that he was the spring board 11:26 that converted political pornography, once the French 11:30 Revolution was finished, something had to be done 11:33 with the pornography, and Marquis de Sade is kind of 11:36 like that switchboard, as it were, that turned it from 11:38 a political to a public thing. Now we have pornography moving 11:43 its way through the public, and from the prophecy 11:46 we understand that this is one of the ways that Satan 11:48 would manipulate the environment so as to cause 11:53 people to turn away from God. We can look at statistics, 12:00 so many studies out there that are showing the effect 12:02 that pornography is having upon people, and in fact, 12:05 it is indeed turning them away from the Bible, away from 12:09 wanting to read the Bible, away from God. 12:13 This is one of the ways in which the enemy is manipulating 12:16 - the environment. - That's right, 12:19 we have some stats here because we know that pornography 12:21 is affecting the world and many people may think 12:23 it's not really affecting Christians. 12:27 According to the statistics that's not true. 12:29 In December of 2000 the National Coalition to Protect Children 12:33 and Families surveyed Christian campuses to see how the next 12:37 generation of believers was doing with sexual purity. 12:40 48% of males admitted to current porn use, 12:44 68% of males said they intentionally viewed a sexually 12:47 explicit site at the school. Roger Charman of "Focus" 12:52 "on the Family's" Pastoral Ministries reports 12:55 that approximately 20% of the calls received on their 12:58 pastoral care line are for help with issues such as 13:01 pornography and compulsive sexual behavior. 13:05 In 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their 13:08 stadium events revealed that over 50% of the men 13:11 in attendance were involved with pornography within 13:14 1 week of attending the event; and there's so much more here, 13:20 but that's just a little bit to let you know that it is 13:22 a problem even in the Christian word, with Christian men, 13:25 - who are trying to stay pure. - That's right, it is definitely 13:29 an issue, and what we see is that there is an attempt 13:32 to recreate the atmosphere, or the environment 13:34 of Sodom. In fact, Jesus says: 13:37 "As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it also be in" 13:41 "the coming of the Son of man". 13:44 Well, how in the world are we going to get back in the days 13:47 of Lot? Well, if you look back to 13:50 the French Revolution and see what sprung out of it 13:53 we can understand that pornography springs out 13:55 of that abyss of lawlessness, of confusion, of chaos. 13:59 Really today, as we look at the environment out there 14:03 and we see what's happening on the internet, through video 14:07 games, and through the media in general, we are seeing 14:11 that there is this promotion of chaos in the sexual life. 14:16 Again, this is exactly how the Devil would want it. 14:19 In fact, he is even now, creating a spirit of rejoicing 14:24 in such wicked acts that the Bible describes. 14:29 When we look in Revelation 11 of this same beast power, 14:33 the Bible says in verse 10, speaking of the French 14:37 Revolution it says: [text on screen] 14:42 This is speaking about the death of the 2 witnesses, 14:45 which we've already described as the Old and New Testament. 14:48 When the word of God was put away there was a spirit 14:50 of rejoicing, some Bibles actually translate it as 14:54 celebration, there was a celebration that the word of God 14:59 was done away with. As I think about this 15:01 celebration of sin, the celebration of iniquity, 15:04 the celebration of chaos, of sexual freedom, 15:10 one holiday that comes to my mind is called 15:13 Southern Decadence, which is takes place in New Orleans. 15:16 What is it? It's a celebration of these acts 15:19 that the Bible describes as anti-God, anti-Scripture, 15:24 and we see not only that, but Hollywood celebrating 15:28 so called sexual freedom. People are talking about 15:31 coming out of the closet. 15:33 "They're hiding not their sin" as the Bible says, 15:36 and it's amazing to see that all this sprung up out of 15:40 the French Revolution according to the prophecy, 15:43 and we see it right now in our own very own day 15:46 - affecting our very own people. - That's right, because when 15:49 you turn on the TV, and when young people turn on the TV, 15:52 they see that TV celebrates sexual immorality. 15:58 It does not celebrate pure sex, which is between a husband 16:00 and a wife, but the sin of sexual immorality with someone 16:04 - that you're not married to. - That's right. 16:06 Another principle that we need to be aware of, 16:09 speaking about the manipulation of the environment: 16:12 is the Devil just using pornography? 16:13 No he's not, as we've said, he's using other means 16:16 to spread this principle of Sodom throughout the world. 16:22 Some of the things I think of right off top are music 16:25 and as we said, TV. A very important principle, 16:29 1 Samuel 15:23, the Bible says: "A rebellion is as the sin" 16:34 "of witchcraft", and the word "witchcraft" there literally 16:37 means "to whisper a spell". So in witchcraft the act 16:42 of whispering spells is prominent; well, believe it 16:45 or not, as people are listening to their music, especially young 16:50 kids, young kids, older people, it doesn't matter what age, 16:54 but they're listening to this music and the begin to hear 16:58 these words where the singer himself, or herself, 17:02 are speaking in terms of wanting to do this, or wanting 17:05 to do that. Just uplifting sexual immorality 17:11 and as these young kids repeat these words, what's happening 17:16 is it's as though they're actually putting this spell 17:20 upon themselves, speaking these words into their own thoughts, 17:23 and own feelings, and saying: "Yeah, that's what I want" 17:26 "to do", and they begin to act out. 17:29 This is another way in which Satan is reaching out 17:32 to create an atmosphere through the music, people hear it 17:35 and they say: "Yeah, that's what I want to do," 17:38 "that's the cool thing, that's the in thing," and they 17:41 - adapt to what they hear. - It's not only the actual 17:44 words, but the actual music itself is made to move 17:48 the lower passion, and that's what that music, 17:51 - with that beat does. - That's right, we're going 17:54 to be talking about that in one of our programs coming up, 17:57 and again, tying it into the French Revolution. 18:00 But we see here this principle moving out in the world, 18:03 and one of the questions I would think someone would ask is: 18:06 "Okay, why would Satan want to create an environment" 18:10 "like this? Why would he want to recreate" 18:13 "a Sodom-like environment?" I think the answer we can find 18:16 in Genesis 18:26. We're going to go ahead 18:22 and read that, Genesis 18:26, and the Bible tells us there, 18:28 you maybe familiar with the story, God has come down 18:31 to speak to Abraham and He is about to explain to Abraham 18:35 what He is about to do; Sodom and Gomorrah are about 18:38 to be destroyed because of their sexual lawlessness, 18:42 sexual chaos. God and Abraham are in dialogue 18:47 and what happens is Abraham says "Well God, would you destroy" 18:52 "Sodom if let's say there are 50 righteous found there?" 18:57 And God says "No." Genesis 18:26, [text on screen] 19:10 As the story goes on, Abraham is really nervous, 19:14 he's wondering: "I don't know if there's 50 righteous in" 19:17 "Sodom", why didn't he know if there were 50 righteous 19:19 in Sodom? Because where the Devil 19:22 was able to manipulate the environment in this small 19:25 location, he was able to eliminate righteousness also. 19:31 God and Abraham are going and forth, 45, 40, 35, 30, 19:35 he gets all the way down to 10, "if You find 10 Lord," 19:38 "will You save it." And God says: "If I find 10,' 19:41 "I will save it." Well guess what, 19:44 He didn't find 10, why? Because the effect of sexual 19:49 chaos, sexual immorality, it destroys righteousness... 19:54 ...And that's why Satan is trying to do it again. 19:58 Exactly, because as we look at our society, just permeated 20:01 with sexual innuendos and all kinds of sexual permissiveness 20:06 and suggestions, what the Devil is hoping is that God's 20:10 people will not be strong enough to stand in the midst 20:14 of this changing environment, that they will eventually adapt 20:20 to those principles. As we look at the statistics 20:23 we see pastors, we see clergymen who are falling to this 20:27 very thing, scandal after scandal breaks and what we find 20:31 is that this beast from the abyss is forgotten. 20:35 Most people will not equate pornography with something 20:38 that happened during the French Revolution. 20:41 But now we begin to see: "Oh, this is part of Satan's" 20:44 "organized confusion." The abyss represents confusion, 20:47 it's as though he has sprung confusion upon the world, 20:50 but it's an organized kind of confusion, it's a deeply 20:54 laid scheme, plan, plot, to remove righteousness 21:02 - from the earth. - Pornography can become 21:05 a sexual addiction, and it keeps elevating and elevating 21:10 to the point where now there's something called, 21:12 and the young people will know what I'm talking about, 21:15 they call it "the down low", where heterosexual men 21:18 actually are having homosexual encounters with other men 21:22 and they're not really homosexual, but they do these 21:25 things because their appetite for sexual things can only 21:29 be fed so much from your normal pornography, so they have 21:33 to go even deeper, so it just gets worse and worse. 21:37 That's right. It's lawlessness, in other words 21:40 once the Devil can make you get involved in a sexual 21:45 relationship that is outside the permitters which God 21:48 has set, that thing will begin to evolve and evolve 21:52 until it becomes something completely different than what 21:55 it started with. What happens is these men 21:58 who are participating in "the down low", you look at them, 22:01 you're saying there's no appearance whatsoever, 22:07 you would never think, and that's why they call it 22:10 "the down low", and it's amazing to see even our young, 22:15 the kids in high school and junior high school, 22:18 all you need to do is listen to the news and you will 22:21 hear what is just absolutely amazing, that these young kids 22:26 are now getting involved in activities, and it seems like 22:29 the age is getting younger and younger and younger, 22:32 because that way Satan has more time to work on the character 22:37 through this evolutionary principle of manipulating 22:41 the environment, and thus changing the character, 22:44 and really sealing the character for himself. 22:47 That's right, Satan is after our young children, he wants 22:50 to get them early. Because of the internet 22:53 and how much you can get access to all kinds of information, 22:56 it has made the pornography problem even worse. 23:01 We had an experience in our home with our son 23:04 who was actually looking up a Christian website 23:07 and those who go after young children in the child porn 23:12 world know that young kids would go to this Christian 23:15 website, so what they did is the made another website 23:19 that's very close to the Christian website in name, 23:23 but what they did is made it into a child porn site. 23:26 So by accident our young child went to that site 23:29 and these are the things that they are doing. 23:32 So it's very dangerous to even allow your children to be on 23:36 the internet without supervision. 23:38 That's right, but again, in making these activities 23:41 seem normal, even in high school and junior high school kids, 23:46 in making this seem just like a natural thing, 23:49 what's happening is that this world is slowly moving 23:52 to that "as it was in the days of Lot" stage. 23:58 As we move there it's just like: "Oh, there's nothing wrong" 24:00 "with that", it's not shocking to the senses anymore 24:03 because we have been desensitized by what we see. 24:09 But nonetheless, I know that there are people who are saying 24:12 "I want to escape from this, I don't want to be sucked" 24:15 "down into that abyss through pornography", 24:18 there are people struggling with pornography, struggling with 24:21 sexual immorality, with homosexuality, 24:23 all these different things, and God says in 2 Corinthians 5:17: 24:26 "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature," 24:29 "old things are passed away, behold, all things are" 24:32 "become new." The greatest challenge 24:34 that we face as Christians is to realize that Nr.1: pornography 24:41 is something that is the power of the Devil, it is sorcerous, 24:45 it is witchcraft, and it is a supernatural thing, 24:51 the reason why people are so addicted to it, why it's so 24:55 difficult to break is because the Bible tells us 24:57 we "wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against" 24:59 "spiritual wickedness, principalities, and powers", 25:03 "spiritual wickedness in high places." 25:05 Once we understand "wait a minute, this confusion" 25:08 "is organized", this confusion is not just, 25:11 "Oh, I'm going to try pornography, and try this here", 25:14 it's a planned attack against remnant of God's people 25:21 in the last days. It makes us go 25:23 "Okay, if I'm looking at that I'm being drawn into" 25:25 "the abyss, Lord, help me to become a new creation," 25:29 "help me not to be involved in this evolutionary process" 25:32 "that is taking the world by surprise" 25:35 because the world doesn't know it, 25:37 they just think that things are the way they have been, 25:40 and that we're just becoming free; but no, 25:43 there is an attack, and there is a God in heaven 25:46 who can save us from that attack if we will simply say 25:49 "Lord, I'm going to give my life to You, and I'm" 25:52 "going to burn the magic books", that's a good place to start. 25:54 In Acts 19 it talks about those who, when they had come 25:57 out of error, they burned the magic books. 26:01 We ought to burn those things that are sexually suggestive, 26:06 like the music, and the movies, and the magazines, 26:10 and everything that touches that, we ought to say: 26:14 "you know what, we're going to stay away from that", 26:17 "I'm going to remove myself from that environment" 26:19 "so that I'm not manipulated by it." 26:21 Sometimes you don't have any choice because you'll be 26:24 in the supermarket and you'll check out your groceries 26:27 and there's half naked women on the magazines. 26:32 So that's the time when you have to be so supernaturally 26:36 connected to God to give you the victory at that time 26:40 because you can't always avoid it. 26:42 That's right, you know, the word "Sodom", if you were to take 26:47 a concordance and look up that word "Sodom", the word 26:50 actually means "burning", and that's very interesting 26:53 because you know what happened to Sodom, 26:55 but I think that Sodom is actually as counterfeit 26:58 for another kind of burning that Jesus wants to take place 27:02 in our hearts, it's not the burning of true and pure love, 27:08 and the 2 can't be equated; one does not last, 27:11 one is sorcerous, the other is true, it is eternal 27:15 and you receive it from God. It is pure love, and God 27:19 describes His love as a fire. Sodom, on the other hand, 27:22 represents that burning lust that is chaos, it is 27:26 anti-God, it is anti-law, it is "I will do whatever I want" 27:30 "to do", and it will lead into very lawless acts. 27:35 We want that burning in our heart that is from God, 27:39 not this, what we see here as being portrayed as Sodom. 27:43 That's right, we can only get that from God, so we have 27:46 to begin to spend time with Him in His word, which this beast 27:49 from Revelation 11 does not want us to do, and in prayer, 27:53 and to get to know Him on a very personal level. 27:59 Well, we're almost out of time, but we do thank you 28:02 for joining us today, until next time, God bless. |
Revised 2014-12-17