The Doctrine of the Pivot. Part 11.
Four powerful manifestations of the Second Beast.
Scripture References, Word & Phrase descriptions: the “Logos Reftagger” scripture links are hover pop-up active, meaning the scripture reference will just pop-up if you hover your cursor over it (don’t click on the link, just hover your cursor over it), when finished reading, hover your cursor off the scripture reference link. If the Reftagger pop-up doesn’t show all the verses, left click on the “More” button in the Reftagger pop-up window and it will take you to the online bible. If RefTagger pop-ups don’t work on your computer, that’s OK, try right clicking the link then open in new tab or window; or if that doesn’t work, you can always use your Bible to look up the verses. Word or Phrase definition links may not have a website that opens.
Prepare yourself for learning the Word of God!
Before we begin, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (that is; you have believed [trusted] in Him for His promised gift of eternal life), it is important to prepare yourself to learn God's Word so take a moment to name, cite or acknowledge (confess) your known unconfessed sins privately to God (i.e.; with your thoughts directed only to God the Father).
1 John 1:9 says: "If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (known sins) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [unknown or forgotten sins]." NKJV (New King James Version) [italics added]; we call this REBOUND, read the full doctrine as to “why” we need to use 1 John 1:9 to grow spiritually. REBOUND
If you have never personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, as your Savior (that is, believed in Him for eternal life), the issue for you is not to name your sins; the issue for you is to simply exercise faith alone in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life; when you do, you will instantly receive Eternal Life: John 3:16, 5:24, 6:47, 20:30, 31.
John 6:47 says: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me [Jesus Christ] has everlasting life." NKJV [italics added]
Notice again what Jesus said in John 6:47: "…he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." It doesn't say, "will have"; it says, "has." Therefore, the very moment you believe in Jesus Christ for His promise of everlasting life, you have it (it's really just that simple; nothing more and nothing less), and it can never be taken away from you (John 10:28-29). Furthermore, the gift (Ephesians 2:8c) of everlasting life (also called eternal life in scripture) is available to every human being; there are absolutely no exceptions.
John 3:14-15, 16, 17, 18, says: "14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." NKJV
Let us now bow our hearts and take a moment to prepare for worship and learning God's Word. If there is any known sin in your life, this is the time to just cite it privately to God the Father with your thoughts directed towards Him. With your head bowed and your eyes closed, you have total privacy in your mind and soul:
Study to show yourself approved to God!
Grace Bible Church
Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The Tree of Life is a weekly teaching summary:
God’s Word is taught Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday
God’s Word is taught Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday
STUDY TITLE:
The Doctrine of the Pivot. Part 11.
Four powerful manifestations of the Second Beast.
We are considering whether or not the U.S.A. has any role in Biblical prophecy, and if so, what would be the role of the pivot during the Church-age before the Lord comes back!
My third principle of consideration or question for you to consider: What does it mean when the prophecy in Rev 13:11 says that this new nation, even if it is America, will speak “as a dragon”?
Rev 13:11, And I saw another beast [different from the first one] coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon.
Now, first of all, as we have already learned the dragon is Satan, who works through various governments and different religions of the earth to establish his evil kingdom and to try and crush God’s church by persecuting and destroying His people.
For Satan’s aim always has been to usurp God’s power and throne and to force people to worship and obey him. And how will he do this or what can we expect from him? How will he act during that time when he tries to force others to deny the Lord Jesus Christ and worship the anti-Christ.
First of all, we needed to know some principles concerning how he thinks and what his true motivation is in these last days. I believe that we are so close to this happening that I said on Wednesday evening that we are not living in the last days but what the apostle John calls the last hour.
1Jo 2:18, Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.
Remember that Satan’s motivation and ambition is to be like the Most High, which title signifies the “possessor of heaven and earth.”
The essential evil character of his sin is an un-willingness on the part of the creature to abide in the precise position in which he has been placed by the Creator. And this is why in pursuing this goal to be like God, Satan recommended to Adam and the woman, who was later called Eve, that they, too, could “be as gods.”
In Gen 3:1-5, we read, Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.’” And the serpent said to the woman, “You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
This simply reflected Satan’s own supreme ambition! And in the future during the Tribulation period, Satan’s ideal man, the man of sin, the anti-Christ, the pseudo-Christ will declare himself to be God, as he sits in the temple of God in 2Th 2:4, who opposes and exalts himself above every so called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
So, all of those “I wills of Satan” reveal that Satan’s ambition is to take over the functions of God. And this is his desire to displace God as the sovereign one of the universe and to run it himself. Of course, Satan can’t even run the world himself, much less the universe. Even some of his very own angels who followed him have rebelled against him in Rev 9. Satan does not have the character nor the power to control all types of creation.
Satan is smart and powerful, but he doesn’t have the character, he doesn’t have God’s consistency. He’s not immutable and therefore, he can never be faithful to those he desires to rule over, and anyone who’s going to run the universe has to be faithful and loyal to the creatures of the universe, to those who belong to him. And God is all of that, Satan is not!
Why Satan would speak of loyalty in your ear in one minute, and then turn around and kick you in the pants so hard the next minute, that you wouldn’t even know you had just been hit. He’d make your head spin. He doesn’t know what loyalty is! He doesn’t know what love is! He only knows what it is to love self, he really loves himself! He has no sense of loyalty or love or faithfulness to any member of the human race and more than likely, the angelic race as well.
So here is our third principle of consideration or question: What does it mean when the prophecy in Rev 13:11 says that this new nation, even if it is America, will speak “as a dragon”?
So “speaking as a dragon” means that this new nation, even if it is the United States of America, will eventually be under the influence of Satan in the end time, and force people to worship contrary to the conscience and their personal convictions. Apostate religion and civil government will unite in the end time to force itself upon the people’s conscience. This will be done through force, manipulation, deception, and out-right lies, according to Rev 12:9; John 8:44; 1Jo 5:19. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
Now, if this speaks of America, What specifically will America do that will cause it to speak as a dragon?
Answer: Notice the four crucial points and how they also can apply to us even today in some way:
Rev 13:12, And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence.
“Exercises all the authority of the First Beast.”
Could America become a persecuting power that will force people to go against their conscience, as did Papal Rome which is portrayed in the first half of Rev 13?
Rev 13:12, And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast,
The United States could lead the nations of the world in forcing the worship of, and the allegiance to, the anti-Christ, the apostate church, of both pseudo Catholics and Protestants in the religious realm, and the revived Roman Empire in the political realm which could also include the Muslim religion.
You see, I believe that the Bible, God’s word to man reveals that the Second Beast will be somewhat like the first beast, it will be the church mixed with the state and apostate religion working with the political power of the day. Don’t forget, one of the most elevated and be a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 2003 was a woman from Albania that they gave the name Mother Theresa. She made the following statements that I even heard her make myself, here’s what she said:
“I love all religions. If people become better Hindus, better Muslims, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there.” Or in another place, “All is God…Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, etc., all have access to the same God.”
Mother Teresa held beliefs that contradict Biblical principles. Chief among these biblical principles is that Christ is the only means of salvation. In John 14:6 Jesus states, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” By teaching that all religion could bridge the gap between man and God, Mother Teresa taught principles completely opposed to the Bible. At the same time she taught a bizarre “pseudo-pantheism” in which she believed Jesus was present in everyone. She said, “When we destroy an unborn child, we destroy God.”
With such a statement we can only be left believing that she was more than a Catholic, but was a Universalist, believing essentially that all religion leads to the same God. Time and time again we see her expounding such universalist beliefs. In an interview with Christian News a nun who worked with Mother Teresa was asked the following in regards to the Hindus they worked with,
The nun said “These people are waiting to die. What are you telling them to prepare them for death and eternity?” She replied candidly, “We tell them to pray to their Bhagwan or Guru, to their gods.”
She did a lot of good as a part of her humanitarianism and altruism, performing good deeds, but what is the use of helping people in time to live while you ignore their eternal destiny. This is the type of thinking that will take place when apostate religion tries to rule the world, trying to clean up the Devil’s world and try to make it a better place to lie.
But even, worse than that, it is helping Satan, as the god of this world to bring in his view of Millennialism and counterfeit God’s Millennium. And so again, The second beast makes or causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the First Beast, whose deadly wound was healed.”
How?
He will bring in another Jesus, Spirit, Gospel, and doctrine, but all lies mixed in with a little bit, and in some cases, a lot of, the truth. The issue when it comes to God is always true worship. (John 4:23-24) Who will you worship and obey?
John 4:23-24, “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Will it be Christ your Creator and Redeemer, or the anti-Christ with his false teachings? Every soul on earth will eventually worship one or the other. The entire approach will appear to be deeply spiritual. Incredible miracles will be wrought forth, according to Rev 13:13-14. There we read, And he performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.
This is why we read in Rev 13:3b, And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; which means he will deceive billions. And, those who refuse to join his movement will be considered godless radicals not just Jihadist radicals but godless radicals. This movement will appear spiritual and trustworthy but instead will be satanic at its core and in its conduct. All this may seem impossible, but Jesus’ words are always totally reliable and true, Tit 1:2, and He said these things will happen. In fact, to Him they have already happened because He sees things from the eternal perspective.
Ecc 3:14-15, I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. That which is has been already, and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by. Or He brings back that which is past meaning He deals with those things in time even though they have already happened in the Divine decree.
However, it can also refer to what the RSV, the Rotherham translation, Kiel and Delitzsch, Leupold and Colonel Thieme hold to which says in effect “God seeks for the one who has been driven or fallen away.”
So, in effect Solomon is saying in Ecc 3:15, That which is [the present] has been already [the past], and that which will be [the future] has already been [has already taken place in the mind of God and executed through the divine decrees], for God seeks what has been driven away.
Whether something has happened in the past to drive people away from the plan of God or whether it is something that is presently happening, God seeks the one who has been driven away! And this is true throughout the scriptures!
The point is our Lord is always totally reliable and true, Tit 1:2, and He said these things will happen. In fact, to Him they have already happened because He sees things from the eternal perspective. He foretold the rise and fall of the four world empires and the Antichrist (Daniel chapters 2 and 7) at a time when such predictions seemed outlandish and incredible. Just like some of the things I’m teaching now, seem to be. It seemed outlandish and incredible that Noah would build an ark to save those believers from the flood, but he did. It seemed outlandish and incredible that man would try and build a city to God and tower of Babel when nations would become divided and different languages would emerge, but it happened.
It seemed outlandish and incredible that God would bring in the ten plagues and part the Red Sea for the Jews to leave Egypt and go to the promise land but He did.
It seemed outlandish and incredible that Jesus would walk on water but it happened! It seemed outlandish and incredible that Balaam would have a talking as or donkey who would correct him but he did.
All these things and many more to came to pass precisely as predicted. So much so that the apostle John wrote, John 21:25, And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written.
His warning to us today regarding prophecy is, “I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.”
John 14:29 “And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you may believe.”
Rev 13:12-13, And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. And he performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men.
The third thing this passage mentions for us to consider is what does the Bible mean when it says, “The Beast will say to them who dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the first beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.”
Rev 13:14, And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.
The United States could promote others to make an image to the beast by legislating religious practice. It will pass laws requiring worship and force people to either obey them or face death. This action is a copy or image of the church-state combination that the papacy utilized at the height of her power during the Middle Ages, when millions were slain for their faith.
America will combine civil government and apostate Protestantism in a marriage that will support the new religion and the papacy, but most of all, the anti-Christ. It will then influence all the nations of the world to follow her example. Thus, the revived Roman empire will gain worldwide support, politically and religiously.
The fourth and final thing mentioned is found in the phrase “And cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”
Rev 13:15, And there was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast might even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.
The United States, as head of this international movement, will next influence the nations of the world to impose a universal death sentence upon all who refuse to worship the beast or his image. This worldwide alliance will, in the name of Christ, substitute the policeman’s power for the Holy Spirit’s persuasion and will force worship.
The following link is to a good news message describing how one can receive eternal life: Ticket to Heaven, it was written for anyone not absolutely certain about their eternal future.
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