The Incomparable Jesus

The Mark of the Beast

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

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Series Code: ICJ

Program Code: ICJ190014B


00:01 We shouldn't be surprised at this kind of compromise
00:03 because down through Christian history, down through the
00:07 Israelite history, they had the true religion from God,
00:11 there was always this pressure to make some kind of
00:14 peace between the paganistic world and the true religion
00:19 and the true gospel of the Lord Jesus.
00:21 So we shouldn't be so surprised at some of this.
00:24 So let's go back to again this pagan Babylonian religion.
00:28 What was it like, and how did all this get started,
00:31 and why does this have a relationship to 666?
00:35 Well the Babylonian religion had a seven-headed,
00:39 now this is fascinating,
00:41 seven-headed astrological dragon.
00:44 Does that sound familiar?
00:46 A seven-headed astrological dragon.
00:48 And he ruled over 36 sub-gods called decons.
00:52 And over all of them ruled the sun god.
00:57 And they considered the sun god to be the father of the gods.
01:01 Of course, that's a substitute for our heavenly father
01:04 and for our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ.
01:06 Well every one of their gods, and the Babylonian thing,
01:09 each one of them had their own sacred number.
01:12 And these numbers indicated the god's power and place
01:17 in this 36 setup of gods.
01:21 And the Babylonians divided this astrological house
01:24 into twelve different houses in the zodiac.
01:28 And each one of those were divided into
01:31 three rooms making 36.
01:33 Remember that number. 36.
01:35 36 gods, 36 rooms, and they're ruling, of course,
01:39 the universe, so to speak.
01:41 So the first god they counted got the number 1 assigned to it.
01:46 That was also the sun god's number,
01:47 but he also gets another number because he's considered to be
01:50 the father of all these gods.
01:52 And you'll see that in just a moment.
01:53 The second one was the moon god, and so forth.
01:55 Up to 36.
01:57 Well where did this 666 come from?
02:02 Well if you take their gods and each one of their numbers,
02:06 the first one, 1 + 2 + 3, all the way up to 36,
02:13 guess what that number comes out to be?
02:16 It's six hundred and sixty-six. Or 666.
02:20 So that number became a sacred mysterious number
02:25 for the Babylonian religion
02:27 because it was the sum total of their gods
02:30 and it was also the number that they gave to the sun god,
02:34 because the sun god ruled over this astrological set
02:38 of 36 sub-gods.
02:41 So people then would say, "Well, if that's the case,
02:46 I want to make a charm."
02:47 Because these ancients were fearful.
02:50 They were afraid.
02:51 They were afraid of these gods.
02:53 The Bible teaches in the New Testament
02:55 that these pagan gods are backed up by unseen demons.
02:59 Remember, Satan works through his agencies.
03:03 And he's working through the Babylonian religion.
03:06 People have a reason to be afraid.
03:09 There's a supernatural power behind these gods.
03:12 It's not the God of heaven, it's not His supernatural power,
03:15 but it is power unseen that is putting charms
03:21 and spells, and all these kinds of things.
03:23 So these people were rightly afraid of these gods.
03:28 And so they wanted to protect themselves from these gods.
03:31 And so they decided the way they could do that
03:33 is they would make a charm.
03:35 And the charm had on it this astrological table
03:40 with the 36, and each row added up to 111,
03:46 and then the subtotal of each side would be 666.
03:51 They put that on the charm.
03:53 And then on the other side of the charm
03:55 they would put the face of the sun god.
03:58 And they believed that if they could wear this,
04:00 that this would protect them from these demonic
04:03 evil powers that they were afraid of
04:08 and worried about.
04:09 They didn't want to get struck down by these powers.
04:13 So the design of these charms was to achieve
04:16 a magical purpose.
04:18 You know, our world today is just,
04:20 they're possessed with magic and witches,
04:23 and all of these pagan gods.
04:26 And all of these things have just come in like a flood.
04:31 And the entertainment world, the entertainment world makes
04:34 this something young people know more about witches
04:37 and they know more about this kind of stuff
04:40 than they know about the Bible today.
04:43 They don't read the Bible.
04:44 Because these evolutionists have taught them that,
04:47 you know, they came from some kind of monkey or amoeba,
04:50 or something, whatever.
04:52 But let's go back to this.
04:54 How does this get into Christianity?
04:56 In the early Christian church, the Christian church
05:00 refused to go along with this.
05:02 This is why the Romans put them to death.
05:05 The early church would not compromise.
05:08 They had one wonderful Jesus, and they were not going to
05:12 put Him in this pantheon of Roman gods.
05:16 Rome was happy if you just add your god to theirs,
05:19 and they're fine.
05:21 But you had to accept everybody's god.
05:23 And the Christians wouldn't do it.
05:25 And so that's why they hated them.
05:28 They wouldn't compromise.
05:29 They wouldn't amalgamate their religion.
05:31 But there was a group of Christians,
05:33 and you could just see it coming almost,
05:35 called the Gnostics.
05:36 And the Gnostics were this...
05:39 And we think, some of us think that they were probably
05:42 at least the forerunners or the descendants, if you please,
05:45 of the Nicolaitans.
05:47 But they basically compromised, just like in the Old Testament,
05:52 with these Babylonian kinds of concepts
05:56 and these pagan gods.
05:58 And they began to amalgamate early Christianity.
06:01 And they would see this parallel,
06:03 and they would see that parallel.
06:04 And they would say, "Oh, isn't that nice.
06:06 Maybe this isn't so bad after all."
06:07 And pretty soon it began to dilute true Christianity.
06:12 In fact, Edwin Goodnow, professor of religion
06:17 at Harvard University, he actually had this to say
06:20 about that very thing.
06:22 And he said, "The Gnostics combined elements
06:25 from Babylonian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Hebrew,
06:29 and Christian religions," listen at what he says,
06:32 "into the universal Catholic system
06:35 which embraced all others."
06:38 It's kind of like the old pagan Rome.
06:40 They wanted to control the world.
06:42 They wanted to have all the gods put together.
06:44 You hear a lot of that nowadays.
06:46 People saying, "Well, there are many ways to heaven."
06:48 That's not what the Bible says.
06:50 But that's what many people like to say.
06:52 They feel comfort in it.
06:54 But you know, by the way, never take refuge in lies.
06:57 They won't get you anywhere any good.
06:59 You want to know the truth.
07:00 The truth as it is in Jesus.
07:03 And so he goes on to say, "The summary number
07:07 includes the whole circuit of the heavens and all its gods,"
07:11 and then he goes on to say, this Harvard professor,
07:14 "the number 666, the secret and most sacred number,
07:18 we believe, in all of paganism."
07:22 So the Gnostics were part of bringing this into
07:25 the Christian church.
07:28 And as they began to do that,
07:29 and as Christianity went through time,
07:32 time that begins to change things,
07:35 and people came in that shouldn't have come in,
07:38 then they began to lose their distinctiveness.
07:41 Now we want to note something here.
07:44 That this number is not only the number of a man,
07:46 it's the number of a system.
07:49 So the beast or this symbol represents a systematic
07:54 power in the end of time.
07:58 Now, let's go to our friends the papacy and just look at
08:04 what has happened with the papacy.
08:06 Because basically what the papacy has done is embraced
08:09 all of this kind of thing.
08:11 Our Sunday Visitor, that's a Roman Catholic paper
08:15 that's still produced today November 15, 1914,
08:19 had this to say, "The title of the pope of Rome
08:22 is Vicarius Filii Dei.
08:23 And if you take the letters of his title,
08:26 which represent Latin numerals printed large,
08:28 and add them together, they come to 666."
08:32 Really? Wow!
08:34 Now there are some people that come along and say,
08:35 "Oh, you know, that Filii Dei,
08:37 that's not really the name of the pope."
08:39 Well he doesn't use that name as much today,
08:41 but it was a significant name in the papacy for many years.
08:45 A document called the, Donation of Constantine,
08:49 centuries ago was forged by the papacy to defend its power
08:55 on secular power as well as religious power.
08:58 They put this together.
08:59 And in there they use Filii Dei, Vicarius Filii Dei
09:04 as the title for the popes.
09:07 And then Dr. Johannes Quasten, he's a renowned Catholic
09:12 scholar who studies church fathers,
09:15 when we was questioned about Vicarius Filii Dei,
09:19 he affirmed it by saying that the title, Vicarius Filii Dei,
09:22 as well as the title, Vicarius Christi,
09:25 which is usually the one they use nowadays in modern times,
09:28 is a very common title for the pope.
09:32 And then the book, Summary, on the power of the church
09:37 has been described as one of the most influential
09:40 and important books written on the nature
09:44 of papal supremacy.
09:45 It was commissioned by Pope John XXII,
09:49 and it set forth both the ecclesiastical,
09:52 that's the church religious power,
09:55 and the temporal, meaning civil authority,
09:58 of the papacy.
10:00 And in it, it has at least 29 references
10:03 calling the pope, Vicarius Filii Dei.
10:07 And let me quote here from that.
10:10 It says, "Only the pope is said to be the
10:12 Vicar of the Son of God...
10:15 The decision of the pope and the decision of God
10:18 constitute one decision...
10:21 Therefore no one can appeal from the pope to God..."
10:24 This is quite a statement on the power of the papacy.
10:27 "...because there is one decision and one court of God,
10:31 and the pope."
10:32 So it's basically saying the pope and God
10:34 are one and the same.
10:37 And then here is another one.
10:39 It says that, "As seen here that the honor that is due to
10:44 Christ as God is due also to the pope."
10:48 It's an amazing statement from these authoritative sources.
10:52 "Because the honor is due to the power,
10:54 and the power of Christ as God and the power of the pope
10:57 are one, which is shown to be true."
11:02 Well, in the Greek, the early church fathers always thought
11:07 the Latin speaking man would be the antichrist,
11:10 if you please, or this power that's spoken of.
11:13 And when you look in the Greek language
11:15 and you use the Greek numerical counting,
11:17 then it also comes up to 666,
11:20 just like "Vicarius Filii Dei" comes up to 666
11:24 using the Latin approach to it.
11:30 So we see all of these things that have come into the church,
11:33 this amalgamation with paganism.
11:37 So let me just say this, that this number, 666,
11:44 is the number of a pagan religion for two reasons.
11:50 One, it brings the church and the state together.
11:53 It's the number of religion that does that.
11:56 And number two, it persecutes God's people,
11:59 just like ancient Babylon did.
12:02 It persecuted Daniel and his three friends.
12:04 It threw Daniel into the lion's den.
12:07 And they say, "We'll never find anything against this Daniel
12:10 except if we don't find it according
12:12 to 'the law of his God,'" quote unquote.
12:16 The law of his God.
12:18 The law of God always comes into play.
12:21 So this 666 is the number that stamps this opposing power
12:28 to Jesus, this persecuting power,
12:30 this power whether it's pagan Rome or papal Rome,
12:34 or this image to the beast that's going to be formed
12:38 in the end of time, it's the same power
12:42 and it works the same way.
12:45 And that's why Jesus is trying to help us to understand
12:48 that our only safety is not receiving
12:52 this mark of the beast,
12:54 and we'll talk about that mark, or the image of his name.
12:57 Listen, our only safety is clinging to this
13:00 incomparable Jesus,
13:01 clinging to His gospel and to His truth as it is in Scripture.
13:06 And as the Bible says, if you don't have the doctrine
13:08 of Christ, in 2 John, you don't have God.
13:11 The teaching of Jesus cannot be amalgamated with paganism.
13:16 So hold on to the incomparable Jesus.


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Revised 2019-09-10