Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190014A
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00:01 Why are people so afraid of the number 666?
00:05 There's a reason. 00:07 And it's not just because it's in the book of Revelation. 00:32 You, know we've been tracing in the book of Revelation, 00:35 the revelation of Jesus, this great controversy 00:39 between Him and His arch enemy, the great red dragon. 00:42 And of course, as we get toward the end of time, 00:45 this great controversy becomes more intense. 00:48 And it's fought, not in heaven where it originated, 00:51 but it's being finished right here on earth. 00:54 And you and I, our families, and the nations of the world, 00:57 and the churches of the world, 00:59 and all the religions of the world are caught up 01:02 in this great conflict between good and evil, 01:05 between righteousness and unrighteousness. 01:09 So we're going to continue this. 01:11 You know, we've been talking about the great red dragon 01:14 out of Revelation 12. 01:16 And just to review that just a little bit 01:18 and quickly before we get into this subject of 666. 01:23 But you remember that two great signs: 01:25 the woman who is the church, and she's dressed with the 01:29 beauty of the universe; the sun, the moon, the stars; 01:34 and then the great red dragon shows up. 01:37 She's expecting a child. 01:38 All this is symbolic. 01:40 This child, of course, represents Jesus. 01:43 And then she's left here, and he persecutes the woman. 01:47 And then we go to chapter 13. 01:50 And in chapter 13 we find the rise of two new beasts, 01:56 as it were. 01:57 Another one that seven heads and ten horns, 02:00 but he's dressed different. 02:02 It's another phase of the first one. 02:05 He's a leopard-like beast. 02:07 And we found that to be the great papal system 02:11 that inherited its power, its seat, and authority 02:14 from pagan Rome. 02:16 Because both Jesus and Satan work through 02:20 earthly instrumentalities to carry out their work. 02:25 Jesus works through the churches and Satan works through 02:29 these pagan and papal Rome powers. 02:33 So we're going to continue that, because in chapter 13 02:37 it also tells us about the beast from the earth. 02:39 And we identified that as the great Protestant America 02:42 that started out being lamb-like, but ends up 02:46 speaking like a dragon. 02:49 In other words, it becomes a great persecuting power 02:51 like the papacy was during the 1260 years of the Dark Ages. 02:56 Like pagan Rome was to the early Christian church 02:59 in the first four or five hundred years 03:01 of the Christian church, and how it persecuted the church. 03:04 Both tried to stamp out the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 03:11 But let's come back to this. 03:13 And I want to say again that we say this with sweet kindness. 03:16 This is not against anyone. 03:19 Because Jesus loves everyone. 03:21 We're glad for the great United States of America 03:23 where we can all love each other, whether you're Catholic, 03:25 Protestant, or pagan, or whatever you are. 03:29 We can still be kind and thoughtful. 03:31 We may not agree with each other, we may have... 03:33 But Bible prophecy is true. 03:36 It's never been wrong. 03:37 And it predicts, breaks my heart, that this great 03:41 United States of America is some day going to speak 03:45 like a dragon. 03:48 So we want to continue this, because the Bible says now 03:53 what happens when this new power comes on, 03:56 and we've just been reviewing that just a little bit, 03:59 but let's review again that two horned beast that 04:03 has horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon. 04:08 This is Revelation 13, and we're looking at verses 12-18. 04:12 "And he," this new beast from the earth, 04:16 "exercises all the authority of the first beast," 04:18 that's the leopard-like beast with twelve heads and ten horns, 04:22 "and he causes the earth and those who dwell on it 04:26 to worship the first beast..." 04:28 How does he do that? 04:29 Because the first beast received a deadly wound. 04:32 That happened, of course, as we've already talked about 04:34 in other sessions, in 1798 when Napoleon 04:39 took the pope captive. 04:40 That was after he had been given all of this power by Justinian, 04:45 the Roman emperor, back in 538. 04:48 And of course, all the persecution that took place. 04:50 But that brought an end... 04:52 You have, of course, the French Revolution, 04:54 the rise of Napoleon, the rise of the United States of America 04:57 around in this time period. 05:00 But now this power, this lamb-like power, 05:04 begins to do something different. 05:06 He begins to tell the world that they're going to worship, 05:10 and worship is such a big deal here, 05:13 to worship this leopard-like beast from the Dark Ages. 05:19 Bu how does he do that? 05:20 And that's the real question. 05:22 How does he do that? 05:24 How does he make that happen? 05:27 Well, let's go listen to the Scripture on how that happens. 05:31 "He performs great signs, so that he even makes 05:33 fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men." 05:37 So with great miracles, that becomes convincing. 05:40 Miracles versus the authority of Scripture. 05:44 Now as a Christian, I believe in miracles. 05:46 I love miracles. 05:47 I love to see the power of God work. 05:50 But all these kinds of experiences must be 05:53 measured by the Word of God. 05:54 Miracles cannot trump the teachings of Scripture. 05:58 Because if they do, then you're just depending on 06:01 the miracles for truth and you are not depending on Scripture. 06:03 And the Bible teaches that the devil will counterfeit 06:07 the miracles of God. 06:09 He'll counterfeit them. 06:10 So you have to be very careful with miracles. 06:12 Do we love miracles? Yes. Praise God for that. 06:14 But everything must be subject to the authority 06:17 of the Word of God. 06:20 But this power does that. 06:22 "And he deceives..." There's that word. 06:24 Jesus said, in the end of time if would be possible 06:26 to deceive the very elect. 06:28 And He said there would be false christs. 06:29 So that means that these powers that are deceiving 06:33 in the end of time are actually going to be operating 06:35 as though they belong to Him. 06:37 In other words, they're going to be invoking His name. 06:40 They're going to be saying, "We're Christian." 06:42 But the Bible says that it's by their fruits that you know them. 06:46 So you may have a papal power during the Dark Ages 06:50 that slaughtered, I say it kindly but it's the truth, 06:53 slaughtered millions of people and invented the Inquisition 06:56 and all the horrors of it. 06:59 They said they were the vicar of the Son of God, as it were, 07:03 but you know, Jesus said you know them by their fruits. 07:07 And that's certainly not the fruit of the precious Savior. 07:11 That's the fruit of pagan Rome. 07:14 But this new power, this Protestant America 07:18 that comes on the scene, the greatest most powerful nation 07:21 that the world has ever seen. 07:23 It's done so many wonderful things you cannot help but 07:25 love America. 07:26 It's a wonderful thing to have the privileges 07:28 of being a citizen of America. 07:30 But the Bible prophecy doesn't lie. 07:32 It says a change is coming. 07:35 And it says, "He deceives those that dwell on the earth 07:38 by these signs that he's granted to do 07:40 in the sight of the beast..." 07:42 And it goes on to tell us how he accomplishes this. 07:45 It says that he's "telling those on the earth," 07:49 let me continue to read here, 07:50 "to make an image to the beast..." 07:52 I talked about that last time. 07:54 An image means it's not the same thing, 07:57 but it looks like it. 07:59 It reflects it. 08:01 It's like you see Caesar's picture on a coin, 08:04 but it's not Caesar, of course. 08:07 And it says that he was granted to make an image to the beast, 08:10 who was wounded by the sword. 08:12 It had the deadly wound. 08:13 So he helps this deadly wound, he helps the papacy, 08:16 the papal power, come back into popularity. 08:19 The Bible says the whole world wondered after this power. 08:23 And it says, "Who can make war with this power?" 08:26 And certainly you can see that happening today 08:29 with the popularity of the papacy. 08:31 "And then he was granted power to give breath to the image..." 08:34 So he not only makes this image that looks like this power, 08:38 but this image also comes to life. 08:42 And this image is the one that begins to enforce 08:45 this mark of the beast, this 666. 08:49 This image that looks like this papal power. 08:53 But it's going to be something a bit different. 08:56 Well, let's go on. 08:58 It says in verse 16, "He causes all, 09:00 both small and great, poor, and free and slave," all, 09:04 "to receive a mark on their right hand 09:07 or in their forehead..." 09:08 Right hand meaning how you earn your living. 09:11 So when force comes to play, we're going to see that 09:13 economics plays a big thing here. 09:15 So if you want to make a living, you are going to 09:18 have to receive the mark. 09:19 You may not believe us, you may not believe 09:21 what we're telling you, you may not agree with us 09:23 from a religious standpoint, but I'm telling you, 09:26 if you want to earn a living in this, 09:28 you're going to have to receive the mark of the beast. 09:29 That's going to be the pitch. 09:31 They're going to try to control the economies of the world. 09:35 It's going to sound good. 09:37 I'm telling you, it's going to sound good when it comes. 09:40 And then it says, "...in their forehead..." 09:41 So many people buy it intellectually. 09:44 And then it says that, "no one may buy or sell 09:47 except he who has the mark or the name of the beast, 09:52 or the number of his name." 09:55 I'm going to focus today on the number of his name, 09:58 and the next session we'll focus on what that mark is 10:01 as we talk about this very important subject. 10:05 So it says, "Here is wisdom." 10:08 The Bible is saying, listen, think about this. 10:10 We need the Holy Spirit to help us. 10:12 But this is not rocket science. 10:14 God wouldn't give this to us and make it so mysterious 10:17 that nobody can figure it out. 10:18 Now there's all kinds of things about the mark of the beast. 10:21 But let's just watch and see what Scripture has to say here. 10:25 "Let him who has understanding calculate 10:28 the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. 10:32 And his number is 666." 10:37 Now some people says 666. 10:39 But the Scripture really says six hundred and sixty-six. 10:45 That's what the Scripture says. 10:46 But it does look like 666. 10:50 I can remember going through a store once, 10:53 and when I got my ticket or the receipt, 10:57 the receipt had, I don't know if it was $6.66. 11:01 And when the clerk saw that, she looked at me and she said, 11:05 "This says 666." 11:07 And then she said, "Wouldn't you like to buy something else 11:12 so you don't have that?" 11:14 I said, "No, I'm not superstitious. 11:17 I'm not worried about it." 11:19 But you cannot but take this serious. 11:22 What is this six hundred and sixty-six? 11:25 And why is this so important? 11:27 Well first of all, it says you should have wisdom. 11:29 That means you should do a little research. 11:31 Where did this 666 come from? 11:34 It just doesn't show up in the book of Revelation. 11:37 Well interestingly enough, it has its roots 11:41 in the religion of ancient Babylon. 11:45 The Babylon of Daniel and the three Hebrew worthies. 11:49 That Babylon. 11:50 And we're going to take a look at it. 11:52 So where did it come from? 11:54 Well first of all, we want to say that the old Roman Empire, 11:58 the Babylonian religion had penetrated the Roman Empire. 12:02 I'm talking about pagan Rome now at this point. 12:05 And as it penetrated pagan Rome, it had a lot of influence. 12:12 Let's listen to Cardinal Gibbons. 12:14 He was 44 years a cardinal in Baltimore, Maryland. 12:19 He was their archbishop. 12:21 He was one of the most well known 12:24 Catholic cardinals in America. 12:26 He wrote the book, Faith of Our Fathers. 12:28 And this is what he says. 12:29 He says, "The penetration of the religion of Babylon 12:33 became so general and well known 12:36 that Rome was called, 'Babylon.'" 12:39 It's talking about pagan Rome here. 12:41 It was called, "Babylon." 12:43 Now interesting enough, remember the Bible says that 12:46 pagan Rome will give its seat, its power, and authority 12:49 to this new leopard beast, which we've identified as papal Rome. 12:54 But it's interesting that papal Rome also 12:57 has a lot of the trappings of Babylon. 13:01 And let's listen a little bit here. 13:04 If you go to the Vatican museum and you look at their paintings, 13:08 you'll find a very fascinating painting there. 13:10 It's got a picture of the pope enthroned under a canopy 13:15 displaying, believe it or not, the Babylonian 13:20 astrological figures. 13:23 So there it is under the canopy with the astrological figures 13:29 of the zodiac. 13:30 That's in the Vatican museum. 13:33 And then if you look at how paganism not only infiltrated 13:39 pagan Rome, but it also infiltrated 13:42 the Christian religion. 13:44 And we shouldn't be surprised at this. 13:45 This has been a challenge for years, 13:49 this compromise between Christ and paganism. 13:54 And we're going to talk more about it in just a moment. |
Revised 2019-09-10