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Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190013A
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00:01 Two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon?
00:05 What's this? 00:29 The Christian life is a battle and a march, 00:32 as some people say. 00:33 And Jesus made it very clear that the Christian life 00:37 would be difficult, it wouldn't be easy. 00:40 In fact, His life was not easy. 00:42 His time on earth and His ministry here 00:44 was one of great conflict. 00:46 He was opposed by the authorities of His religion, 00:50 and He was opposed by Herod and the secular powers. 00:54 But the people loved Him because He loved them 00:58 and He did so many wonderful things for them. 01:00 Sometimes Jesus spoke wonderful soothing words 01:04 like the beatitudes, "Blessed are the meek, 01:07 for they shall inherit the earth." 01:08 Other times He spoke very strong difficult words. 01:11 And I want to share some of that with you 01:13 because we need to make sure that we have both pictures 01:16 of this incomparable Jesus, this wonderful Jesus 01:20 who loves the truth. 01:22 In Matthew 23 Jesus said this, He said the scribes 01:26 and the Pharisees have seated themselves in Moses' chair. 01:30 In other words, the scribes and Pharisees, 01:32 they were an authority; they had the authority, 01:34 religious authority of that day. 01:36 And then He goes on to say this, He says, 01:39 "They tie heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders." 01:42 In other words, in the name of religion they invented 01:45 a lot of stuff that God never invented 01:48 for people to have to bear. 01:50 And then He goes on to say, "They love places of honor 01:52 at the banquets." 01:54 But then He says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, 01:58 hypocrites; you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people." 02:03 Oh, that's quite a charge. 02:05 "For you do not enter yourself, and you don't allow those 02:10 who are entering to go in." 02:12 He says, "In the name of religion 02:14 you've done all these things. 02:16 But when it comes to actually going into the kingdom of heaven 02:20 you don't even go in yourselves, 02:22 and you don't let other people go in. 02:24 Because they're using man's laws to restrict people. 02:28 And then He goes on to say, 02:29 "For you're like white washed tombs..." 02:31 Ouch! 02:32 "...white washed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, 02:36 inside they're full of dead men's bones." 02:41 And then He says... 02:42 And I think He said all this with tears in His eyes. 02:46 Because Jesus really cared about people. 02:49 But He also spoke the truth. 02:52 "You serpents, you brood of vipers, 02:56 how will you escape the sentence of hell?" 03:00 "How often I wanted to gather your children together 03:04 as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings, 03:08 but you were unwilling." 03:13 This struggle, this struggle between good and evil, 03:17 between right and wrong, carries on not just in the world 03:23 but also under the umbrella, big umbrella, 03:27 of Christianity. 03:30 Now that term that I just used earlier at the introduction, 03:35 that he has horns like a lamb and speaks like a dragon, 03:40 that shows the conflict that's going on here. 03:45 And the Bible is going to lay that out for us. 03:48 Now I want to say this, 03:50 that even though Jesus spoke straight things to people 03:54 and called their sins, John the Baptist did, 03:57 doesn't mean He didn't love them. 03:59 And I want to share, anybody that's listening to this, 04:02 it doesn't matter to me whether you're a Protestant, 04:04 or a Catholic, or whoever, it doesn't matter to me. 04:08 What matters to me is that Jesus loves you. 04:11 And I want you to know that I love you too and care about you. 04:16 And by the way, the book of Revelation 04:19 doesn't show partiality. 04:21 It gets on to everybody. 04:23 It gets on to the papacy, it gets on to Protestants, 04:28 it gets on to the atheists and the secular people. 04:32 It gets on to all of us. 04:33 All of us will be reproved, in love, if we listen to this Book. 04:39 So never use this as an excuse to hate anybody. 04:45 Jesus loves everyone. 04:48 And I just want to remind us of that 04:50 as we get into this next part. 04:53 We're looking at the two beasts of Revelation 13, 04:57 and we've already talked about the leopard beast. 04:59 We've identified the leopard beast in our last session, 05:02 but I want to review that just for a few moments here. 05:06 Here's how we identified this leopard beast, 05:08 or this beast from the sea. 05:11 Because the leopard best gets his seat, 05:13 according to the Scripture, he gets his seat, his power, 05:16 and authority from the great red dragon. 05:18 Which means he's going to appear in connection with it, 05:21 but he's going to come up after it, so to speak. 05:24 The great red dragon was clearly identified in Scripture 05:27 as Satan. 05:29 But Satan also uses human agents, 05:32 just like Jesus uses human agents. 05:33 He uses the church. 05:35 And the church is in contest, of course, with the devil's agents. 05:39 And the devil used pagan Rome to try to destroy 05:43 the early Christian church, or the Christian church. 05:46 But pagan Rome was unable to destroy the church. 05:50 Unable to destroy the woman, even though he 05:52 persecuted her terribly. 05:55 And that church, once again, is Christ's earthly agent. 05:58 So this contest, this struggle between right and wrong, 06:02 this great controversy that was going on in heaven 06:06 between Christ and Satan is now continuing to be carried on 06:09 in this world. 06:11 And pagan Rome then gave the leopard beast 06:15 its seat, its power, and its authority 06:19 when it abandoned the city of Rome and established a new 06:23 capital in Constantinople. 06:25 And papal Rome then is the successor of pagan Rome. 06:31 And papal Rome is the leopard beast of Revelation 13. 06:38 So as we look at this, we see now these two beasts coming up. 06:42 In chapter 12 we have the great red dragon 06:46 who is Satan, who is opposing the woman 06:49 who is operated by Christ. 06:51 And the great red dragon is operating pagan Rome. 06:54 Now pagan Rome gives its seat and power to this leopard beast, 06:58 which is papal Rome. 07:00 And the historians tell us that. That's not a secret. 07:04 You can read that in history very easily. 07:08 And so we want to go now to who this other beast is. 07:11 Because there's two beasts now in Revelation 13. 07:15 Two beasts show up. 07:17 First of all is the leopard beast, 07:19 which we've already talked about. 07:21 It's papal Rome. 07:22 But now there is a beast from the earth. 07:25 Now let me say this, that this leopard beast come up 07:28 out of the sea. 07:30 It comes up out of the water. 07:32 Now the book of Revelation tells us that water also is a symbol. 07:37 And in Revelation 17 you'll find that it's a symbol of 07:40 multitudes, nations, tongues, and people. 07:44 So it's a populated area. 07:46 Water represents a populated area. 07:49 And that's where this leopard beast comes up out of. 07:52 The papal Rome was established in Europe, 07:55 in western Europe. 07:56 And out of the populated areas of western Europe. 07:59 But now this next beast is interesting because 08:03 it comes up out of the earth. 08:07 And so we want to ask ourselves, who is this beast 08:11 that comes up from the earth with two horns, 08:16 but it also has a mouth? 08:19 Two horns like a lamb, but it has a mouth that 08:24 speaks words like a dragon. 08:27 That is just very fascinating. 08:30 It's a picture of contrast. 08:33 Convoluted, we might say. 08:34 Well let's go to the Scripture in chapter 13 verses 11-12. 08:40 "Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, 08:44 and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 08:50 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast..." 08:54 Now that first beast is the leopard beast. 08:57 "He exercises all the authority of the first beast 09:00 in his presence, and he causes the earth 09:04 and those who dwell in it..." 09:06 And there's that word. 09:07 "...to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed." 09:13 So this beast that comes up from the earth, this new symbol, 09:18 brings a great deal of power to the earth. 09:22 And in the process, he causes the earth 09:25 to worship the leopard-like beast, or the papacy. 09:30 Papal Rome, if you please. 09:33 So in contrast, coming back to those contrasts again, 09:37 this beast comes up from the earth. 09:41 And as I said before, it's convoluted 09:44 or unique, we might say. 09:46 It has the horns of a lamb, but it speaks like a dragon. 09:53 Speaks like the great red dragon. 09:55 But it has the horns of the slain Lamb 09:59 that's in the midst of the throne of God. 10:03 It's a very interesting one. 10:07 Not only does it cause papal Rome, 10:11 the world to worship papal Rome, but it also aids in the healing 10:17 of this deadly wound that papal Rome received 10:22 in 1798 when Napoleon took the pope captive 10:25 at the end of the 1260 year/day prophecy. 10:31 So the question is, how does the beast from the earth do this? 10:36 How does he bring this about? 10:38 Now in our next subject we're going to talk about 10:40 the mark of the beast. 10:41 And the next time we're going to talk about 777. 10:44 As I sometimes call it, the antidote for 666. 10:48 But before we can get into 666 and the mark of the beast, 10:52 we need to understand who the powers are on the earth. 10:57 So how does he do this? 10:58 Revelation 13:13-15 tells us this. 11:01 "He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down 11:07 from heaven on the earth in the sight of men." 11:12 Now making fire come down is a reflection on Elijah 11:17 on Mount Carmel when fire came down 11:20 and lit the sacrifice and showed who the true God is. 11:23 So this power has great powers of deception. 11:26 Even Jesus said that in the end of time 11:30 if it were possible would deceive the very elect. 11:32 These signs have a great power to deceive. 11:37 "And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those 11:41 signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast," 11:45 that's the first beast, the leopard beast, 11:47 or papal Rome, "telling those who dwell on the earth..." 11:51 Now this gets interesting. 11:53 "...to make an image to the beast who was wounded 11:56 by the sword and lived. 11:58 He was granted power to give breath to the image 12:02 of the beast, that it should both speak and cause 12:06 as many as would not," there's that word again, 12:08 "worship the image of the beast should be killed." 12:13 It sounds like the dark ages all over again. 12:16 It sounds like a resurrection of the Inquisition. 12:19 "If you don't worship us, if you don't worship what we say 12:23 and the way we say, then your life is on the line." 12:26 What happened to religious freedom here? 12:28 So this is predicting a day when religious freedom 12:31 is going to go away. 12:34 It breaks my heart to even think about it. 12:36 We've enjoyed such wonderful privileges 12:39 in this great nation. 12:42 But let's go on. 12:43 Performs great signs and wonders. 12:46 And it leads the world, it leads the world 12:50 to make an image. 12:52 What is this image? 12:54 An image is a resemblance to the beast. 12:57 It's not the beast, but it's a resemblance. 13:00 An image means it's a likeness, a profile, 13:04 a representation. 13:06 For instance, Caesar on the coin was an image of Caesar, 13:11 but it wasn't Caesar. 13:13 Christians are transformed into the moral likeness of Christ 13:18 by the Holy Spirit's power, but they are not Christ. 13:23 The image is something new. 13:25 And it reflects something that is very much 13:29 like the papal power. 13:31 And to worship this image in principle is the same 13:36 as worshiping the beast from the sea. 13:39 So this beast from the earth has power 13:43 to make an image of the beast, 13:46 and he has power to make that image come alive 13:50 and force people to worship it. |
Revised 2019-09-26