Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190012A
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00:01 The apostle Paul says in his love chapter
00:03 that love never fails. 00:06 That love does not rejoice in iniquity, 00:11 but rejoices in the truth. 00:14 And the book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus. 00:17 And He always tells the truth. 00:43 You know, it's not easy to tell the truth, 00:45 but the truth is part of love. 00:47 Some people have the idea that, you know, 00:49 love never hurts anybody's feelings, 00:51 and Jesus is so nice He would never hurt anybody's feelings. 00:54 Well Jesus is nice, but He does tell the truth. 00:58 And I'd rather know the truth than to be led astray. 01:03 You remember John the Baptist as he was preaching, 01:06 and Scripture tells about how he called people to repentance; 01:11 preparing the way for Jesus. 01:13 And the leaders of Israel came out to him, 01:16 and he said some pretty tough things. 01:19 He actually called them at one time a brood of vipers, 01:23 a brood of snakes. 01:25 Do you think that John the Baptist loved them? 01:29 I think he loved them. 01:30 I think he was just telling them the truth. 01:33 He told Herod the truth. 01:35 You know, love never fails. 01:37 Herod needed to hear the truth, 01:39 but it cost John the Baptist his life. 01:44 But love never fails. 01:46 Because love loves the truth, 01:49 and it despises iniquity. 01:52 Today's subject is, The Beast From the Sea. 01:57 It's not an easy subject, 02:00 because sometimes it can be so misunderstood. 02:02 But we really want to say this, that this isn't about 02:06 any one person, per se. 02:10 It's about the truth as it is in Jesus. 02:15 And so we want to go to the subject in Revelation 13 02:20 and we're going to look at this beast that rises from the sea. 02:25 To give a little background here before we get started there, 02:30 Revelation 1:1-3 says, "The revelation of Jesus Christ, 02:35 which He gave to show His servants, 02:38 things which must shortly take place." 02:41 In other words, these things are going to start 02:43 in John's day and they were going to go all the way 02:46 to the coming of Jesus as pictured in the last chapter 02:50 of the book of Revelation. 02:51 It's going to cover Christian history. 02:53 So this isn't just one point in time, 02:56 it's covering all of Christian history. 02:59 And he goes on to say, "And He sent and 03:03 signified it by His angel..." 03:05 Now that word, "signified," is very important. 03:07 It means, a mark, a sign, a token. 03:11 For instance, the same word is used when Jesus said 03:15 this about Jonah, Luke 11:30, "For as Jonah became a sign 03:20 to the Ninevites..." 03:21 In other words, he became a symbol to the 03:24 Ninevites of a reality. 03:26 In Luke 21:11, Jesus said in the end of time there will be 03:30 fearful sights and great signs from heaven. 03:34 In other words, a mark, token, sign, symbols. 03:40 John also tells us right there in the first book of 03:42 Revelation, "Blessed is he who reads and hears 03:46 the words of this prophecy, and keep those things 03:49 that are in it, for the time is near." 03:55 These visions of John were signs and symbols 03:57 to help us to understand the realities of what was happening 04:01 through Christian history and what will happen 04:03 in the end of time. 04:06 Now going to Revelation 13:1, we hear these words, 04:11 "Now the beast which I saw was like a Leopard, 04:15 and his feet were like the feet of a bear, 04:18 and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. 04:21 And the dragon gave him his power, his throne, 04:25 and great authority." 04:27 So you cannot understand this leopard beast 04:30 unless you first of all understand who the dragon is. 04:34 Now this is not rocket science again. 04:35 You don't have to be ten PhD's to get this. 04:40 Most anybody can get it. 04:42 And the information is right there in the text itself. 04:46 So we have to take another look at this great red dragon 04:49 that we found in Revelation chapter 12. 04:52 It was in Revelation chapter 12 that we get the picture of 04:54 the woman, the wonderful woman that's clothed with 04:58 the lights of heaven. 04:59 And the Scripture says this in verses 1-3, 05:02 chapter 12 verses 1-3, "Now a great sign..." 05:06 There's that word gain. A symbol, token. 05:09 "...sign appeared in heaven: 05:12 a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, 05:15 and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 05:19 And then being with child, she cried out in labor 05:21 with pain to give birth. 05:24 And another sign appeared..." 05:26 There's that word again. 05:27 "...another sign appeared in heaven: 05:31 behold, a great, fiery red dragon with seven heads 05:36 and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads." 05:39 Now the question is, who is this woman? 05:42 And we've already talked about that in an earlier talk. 05:46 This is God's church. 05:48 It's His faithful church. 05:50 And this great red dragon really hates her. 05:54 Really hates her. 05:56 He really hates that child because 05:57 he's threatened by that child. 06:00 That child, of course, is Jesus. 06:01 The church gave birth to Jesus, in a sense. 06:04 And He's taken up to heaven and He escapes, if you please, 06:08 the great red dragon who wanted to kill Him. 06:12 So the dragon becomes then enraged with the woman, 06:15 who is the church. 06:17 God's church, the church of Christ, of you please. 06:20 Revelation 12 goes on in verse 7-9 to tell us 06:25 who this great red dragon is. 06:27 "And war broken out in heaven." 06:29 We talked about this war between Christ and Satan. 06:32 "Michael and His angels fought with the dragon, 06:34 and the dragon and his angels fought, 06:36 but they did not prevail..." 06:38 And then it says, "So the great dragon was cast out, 06:41 that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, 06:46 who deceives the whole world. 06:48 He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him." 06:51 So there's no doubt about who this great red dragon is. 06:54 This great red dragon is none other than Satan. 06:58 And he has, of course, these seven heads and ten horns 07:02 representing his journey through Christian era, 07:06 and opposing Christ and continuing this battle. 07:10 But this battle, this controversy between 07:12 Christ and Satan, is no longer being fought in heaven. 07:16 It's being fought on the earth. 07:18 And that's what the book of Revelation is telling us. 07:21 And Jesus is saying, as He reveals Himself, 07:23 "I want you to know what's going on between 07:26 Me and My great adversary, and your adversary. 07:31 I want to tell you what's going on." 07:34 So the book of Revelation, using these symbols, 07:37 helps us to understand what the real issues are here. 07:41 So let's talk about this for just a moment. 07:44 Jesus is in the heavenly Sanctuary, and He's unseen. 07:49 But Jesus does operate on the earth. 07:53 Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, of course. 07:55 But He also operates through His human agent. 07:59 Who is His human agent on the earth? 08:02 It's the woman. 08:04 It's the church. 08:06 It's His church. 08:08 So even though Jesus is unseen, He does operate 08:12 through His visible agency. 08:15 Satan also, who operates here on the earth, 08:19 he is also unseen to us. 08:22 But he also operates through a visible agency. 08:27 So the question is, who is the visible agency for Satan? 08:32 Who is his agency? 08:34 Well, let's just ask the question. 08:36 Who crucified Jesus? 08:39 Well it was pagan Rome. 08:42 Pontius Pilate was a pagan governor of the Roman Empire. 08:47 And so Satan works through, at least his agency 08:51 here in the New Testament, is Rome, 08:55 this great pagan empire. 08:58 And he has persecuted the church through pagan Rome. 09:01 Everybody knows how pagan Rome took Christians, 09:07 burned them in the arenas, threw them to lions. 09:11 It's horrible, you don't even think about it. 09:13 They were so cruel and so horrible 09:16 in their treatment of Christians. 09:18 Even in the seven churches Jesus predicted they would have 09:21 ten years of terrible persecution. 09:24 And they tried everything they could to destroy 09:28 the Christian church. 09:30 Well who was behind that? 09:31 That was Satan. 09:33 That was the great red dragon. 09:34 But Rome was the visible agency that was trying 09:39 to destroy the church. 09:41 So the question is, was Rome able to destroy the church? 09:46 The persecutor of the church. 09:48 Did it win in its efforts to destroy the woman? 09:51 And the answer to that is no. It lost. 09:55 Rome, pagan Rome, lost. 09:58 But the devil is still alive even though he lost 10:02 the first round. 10:04 There's a lot of human history and Christian history 10:07 yet to go through. 10:09 The devil is still alive, the church is still alive, 10:13 and he, the Bible is very clear that he persecutes the church 10:16 all the way to the end of time. 10:21 All the way to the end of time. 10:27 And this book of Revelation is telling us the truth 10:29 about this persecuting power of the great red dragon. 10:34 Now the leopard beast appears also with seven heads 10:38 and ten horns. 10:39 So the great red dragon has seven heads and ten horns, 10:42 the leopard beast has seven heads and ten horns, 10:45 and the scarlet beast of Revelation chapter 17 10:48 has seven heads and ten horns. 10:51 This is basically the same power, but it comes in 10:54 three different phases. 10:57 And we'll talk about Revelation 17 at another time, 11:00 and that scarlet beast. 11:02 We've already talked about the great red dragon 11:05 with seven heads and ten horns. 11:07 And now we're going to talk about the leopard beast 11:09 with seven heads and ten horns, 11:11 because this is a new phase of great pagan Rome. 11:17 So let's take a look at this. 11:19 Even though they come in three different colors, 11:21 it's three phases of the same persecuting power. 11:26 Now the text is clear. 11:29 The text says that the great red dragon, 11:32 or pagan Rome, does several things for this leopard 11:36 seven headed beast. 11:40 And it gives him his seat, his power, and great authority. 11:48 So since pagan Rome gives the leopard beast its throne, 11:53 it means that the leopard beast comes after pagan Rome. 12:00 So this next phase of the leopard beast 12:04 comes after pagan Rome. 12:07 And since pagan Rome is found in history, 12:11 then the leopard beast must also be found in history. 12:19 And we are going to find that this next phase, 12:22 this leopard beast comes on the heels 12:26 of pagan Rome that begins to disappear 12:30 under the attack of the barbarians as they move in. 12:35 You know, God has a way of punishing those 12:38 who hurt His people. 12:41 We don't have time to get into the seven trumpets, 12:43 but the seven trumpets show God's judgments 12:46 against those forces that hurt His people. 12:50 So since pagan Rome is found in history, 12:53 then the leopard beast is going to be found in history 12:56 coming on the heels of great pagan Rome. 13:01 Whatever this next phase is, it's going to receive its seat, 13:06 its power, and authority from the ancient Roman Empire. 13:11 So in this transfer, there is a close connection 13:16 between pagan Rome and this new leopard power 13:22 that comes up. 13:24 And this leopard power does the same thing, 13:28 the same kind of things that the great red dragon, 13:32 pagan Rome, did to the Christians. 13:34 But it's a different phase. It's a different picture. 13:39 And in the next few minutes we're going to show you 13:42 how this great leopard beast fulfills this next phase 13:49 of persecuting God's people. |
Revised 2019-08-26