1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,760
the second half of Revelation 13, we're starting in verse 11 in just a minute,

2
00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:13,840
but we're continuing with this Revelation series. And last week in the first part of Revelation 13,

3
00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:21,200
we were looking at the first beast who arises from the sea, that place of chaos and evil.

4
00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:27,200
And this week, we're going to talk about the second beast who comes from the earth. So the first

5
00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:33,280
beast comes from the sea, the second beast comes from the earth. And this is one of the most famous

6
00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:41,120
passages in all of Revelation because it mentions some of the most familiar images from Revelation

7
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:47,200
that we are accustomed to, like the mark of the beast and the number 666. These are things that

8
00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:53,120
most people know about or have heard at some point in their life. And I just want to start by

9
00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:59,120
looking at verse 11 in this description of the second beast. Notice what it says there in verse

10
00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:06,880
11. It says, then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb,

11
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:13,120
and it spoke like a dragon. Now, I want to ask you this question. What's distinctive about that

12
00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:20,640
description? Anybody know? What do you notice about that description? Like, what's distinctive about

13
00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:30,480
it? What's the point it's making here with this description? Okay. Okay, yeah, yeah. You're kind

14
00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:38,960
of on the right track. So it's deceptive because if you were to look at this, it looks like a lamb,

15
00:01:38,960 --> 00:01:45,200
right? You see this second beast, and it looks like a lamb just as Jesus is called the Lamb of God,

16
00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:52,640
but it speaks like a dragon. So it looks like a lamb speaks like a dragon, and this really plays on

17
00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:58,000
one of Jesus' favorite things to do when he was talking about the false teachers in Israel.

18
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:07,840
He often said they were like wolves in sheep's clothing, right? So they appeared to be sheep,

19
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:14,160
but they were actually wolves. They talked like wolves. They would lead people astray. And so

20
00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:21,680
Jesus was warning people that these false teachers were especially deceptive and especially dangerous

21
00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:27,760
for true believers because they appeared to be one thing, but they led many people astray because

22
00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:32,640
they were, in fact, false teachers. And it seems like the same thing is true here of the second

23
00:02:32,640 --> 00:02:38,720
beast. He seems innocent. He seems somewhat harmless. He appears to be a sheep, but God warns us,

24
00:02:38,720 --> 00:02:46,320
do not trust him because if you listen to him, he talks like the dragon. His words are like that of

25
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:52,080
Satan and will lead people away from the true God towards false worship. And I want you to notice

26
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:59,280
this next description in verse 12. It says, it exercises all the authority of the first beast

27
00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:06,560
in its presence and makes the earth and in its inhabitants worship the beast whose mortal wound

28
00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:12,560
was healed. So notice there's a bit of a difference here, right? It has the same authority as the

29
00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:17,600
first beast, but their goal is slightly different because if you remember last week, when we were

30
00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:24,320
talking about the first beast, his whole goal was waging war on God and God's kingdom and God's

31
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:32,320
people. He was a war tyrant who was just out to wage war on God's kingdom. The second beast

32
00:03:32,320 --> 00:03:38,960
is far more subtle than that. He's not a beast who goes and wages war in the traditional sense,

33
00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:46,400
but rather he is someone who is trying to get people in the world to worship the dragon and the

34
00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:54,160
first beast. So you can think about this beast. He is basically the propaganda arm of Satan's kingdom.

35
00:03:56,160 --> 00:04:01,520
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So the first beast, he's the war general who comes and wages war.

36
00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:08,400
And the second beast is the propaganda arm of Satan's kingdom who tries to get people to worship

37
00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:13,680
the dragon. And you can think about these beasts with a few examples throughout history. For instance,

38
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:19,040
you could say that the Soviet Union was like the first beast and the fact that it was wreaking

39
00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:26,320
havoc on the world, but communism is like the second beast with its endless marches through

40
00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:34,080
the the red square. The whole goal behind that was to get people to praise the Soviet Union. So

41
00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:41,920
the Soviet Union itself, waging war on people, destroying nations, but the communism of the

42
00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:47,760
Soviet Union was like the second beast trying to get people to align with their evil ideals. You

43
00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:52,400
think about it like this. Hitler was like the first beast. And I think we all can just nod our

44
00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:57,920
heads on that one. No description needed, right? Like he was waging war on people doing horrible

45
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:04,320
things. But but think about it like this. Nazism itself was like the second beast,

46
00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:10,320
because Nazism with the Hitler youth and with all their rallies that they had, they were trying to

47
00:05:10,320 --> 00:05:17,600
woo people to the side of who? Hitler, right? They're trying to gain allegiance and worship

48
00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:24,240
for the first beast. And in this case, someone like Hitler. The same thing is true of the posters

49
00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:29,440
of Chairman Mao. The whole goal, if you think about the posters of Chairman Mao that were plastered

50
00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:37,680
everywhere was to get people to align with Mao and join him in his evil regime. I mean, I think

51
00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:43,360
North Korea right now, I mean, yeah, I don't know if y'all have ever seen any videos that come out

52
00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:50,160
in North Korea, but like Kim Jong-un, he will walk into a room and people go crazy. Like they don't

53
00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:54,000
even look like real people and where they're just jumping up and down and flapping their arms like

54
00:05:54,000 --> 00:06:00,000
penguins. Absolutely insane. They put up posters everywhere about this guy. And the whole goal

55
00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:08,640
is to get praise for Kim. It's the second beast at work. And I think, you know, I don't really

56
00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:12,640
think y'all would disagree with this, but I think we could add our own country into the mix as much

57
00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:18,000
as we might not like to do that. Sounds super weird since tomorrow is 4th of July. So let me just

58
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:23,680
say I love our country, but I think we could add our country into the mix here, especially when you

59
00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:27,680
think about the mainstream media. No one's going to argue with me on that one, right? Yeah. There's

60
00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:33,200
a lot of things to argue about later. So just hold still. But like mainstream media, can we not agree

61
00:06:33,920 --> 00:06:38,400
that they kind of act like the second beast? I mean, if you think about their goal, what is the

62
00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:45,840
mainstream media doing? They're seeking to distort the truth, to hide the truth, and the things that

63
00:06:45,840 --> 00:06:52,080
they are putting out before the American people are meant to align the American people with the

64
00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:58,480
side of the beast, right? Think about all that you see about abortion in this country. Oh, it's not

65
00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:05,040
a sin. It's something to be rejoiced. It's something to be praised. You should gladly get behind this

66
00:07:05,040 --> 00:07:11,440
thing. Think about the LGBT agenda, right? It's not enough to just say, oh, you should be accepting.

67
00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:17,120
You have to join in with this. You have to participate in this because the goal is to gain

68
00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:24,720
our allegiance. They want to align us with the objectives of the beast, the objectives of the

69
00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:28,960
dragon. They want us to be part of Satan's dark kingdom. And to...

70
00:07:28,960 --> 00:07:40,000
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you're seeing that in our country right now in just all sorts of

71
00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:46,400
ways. But this is how the beasts work together throughout history. You have this military arm

72
00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:53,280
and you have this propaganda arm. It's the false kingdom of the devil, the dragon, and it's the

73
00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:59,360
false religion that the beast is promoting to try to get people to join the side of Satan.

74
00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:04,480
But I want you to notice that the beast doesn't just utilize propaganda techniques. The Bible says

75
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:08,960
here that he also employs a bunch of false signs and miracles. Look at verses 13 through 15.

76
00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:16,640
It says of the beast, it performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth

77
00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:21,600
in front of people. And by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast,

78
00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:26,480
it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was

79
00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:32,320
wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast

80
00:08:32,320 --> 00:08:38,400
so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the beast,

81
00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:42,720
the image of the beast, to be slain. Now, I want you to notice what he's trying to do here. He's

82
00:08:42,720 --> 00:08:48,960
trying to win people to the side of the dragon. And this time specifically through signs and wonders.

83
00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:54,400
And here's our problem today. One of the problems that we have today as Christians reading Revelation

84
00:08:55,040 --> 00:09:02,240
is we like to imagine that this can only apply to some person at some point in the far-off future

85
00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:08,160
who's going to come and do all these signs and wonders when in reality what you actually see

86
00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:15,760
throughout history is the spirit of the beast at work in the world doing signs and wonders to

87
00:09:15,760 --> 00:09:23,200
lead people away from Jesus. I mean, that's exactly what the purpose behind these signs and wonders

88
00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:29,120
actually is. The whole purpose is to say you don't need God because look what we can do.

89
00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:35,920
You have no need of a God who can do these things because we can explain them all away and they do

90
00:09:35,920 --> 00:09:43,360
some pretty miraculous things to try to get us to abandon faith in God. I mean, for instance,

91
00:09:43,360 --> 00:09:46,960
you can think about a couple of these that you might not have thought about before as signs and

92
00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:53,760
wonders. We've had a lot of breakthroughs in the realms of science and medicine, right?

93
00:09:54,560 --> 00:09:58,320
And those are good things, right? So a lot of the things I'm about to say, you might think,

94
00:09:58,320 --> 00:10:03,120
oh, he's a crazy person, right? So again, don't clip me out of context. Here's what I'm saying.

95
00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:10,720
I support science because God created science. I support medicine because God created medicine.

96
00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:17,440
What I'm saying is that the beast have a way of taking a good thing that God has created

97
00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:22,560
and trying to use them for deceptive purposes, right? Does that make sense? Can we all agree on

98
00:10:22,560 --> 00:10:29,600
that? Right? So for instance, the Bible says that God created everything from nothing, right?

99
00:10:30,640 --> 00:10:34,640
But scientists have come along and said, well, you don't actually need God for that.

100
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:40,400
How do you not need God for that? Yeah, who else can create something from nothing?

101
00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:45,840
And scientists have proposed all these theories saying, well, actually, here's this great sign

102
00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:52,640
and wonder that science did. And so you don't need God. So for instance, Stephen Hawking,

103
00:10:53,280 --> 00:11:00,880
the late Stephen Hawking, his big theory was that it is entirely possible to get a world from nothing

104
00:11:00,880 --> 00:11:10,480
using pure science, right? His big theory was because we have gravity and a law of gravity,

105
00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:19,360
a universe can and will create itself. Now, I know he has doctor in front of his name.

106
00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:23,920
And I know this might be like, well, that's too easy to explain away. There must be something

107
00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:30,880
I'm missing here. No, no. He actually said, because there is a law such as the law of gravity,

108
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:36,400
a universe can and will create itself. What's the problem there? I think we're all logical enough

109
00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:41,760
to figure this out. Does anyone see a problem? Who produced gravity? That's on track. Anybody

110
00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:51,680
else got an answer for this? Right. So you basically end up with this endless loop where it's like,

111
00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:58,640
okay, because there's a law of gravity, a universe can and will create itself. You're assuming that

112
00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:04,880
the existence of the agent of creation that is necessary for that thing to be existing in the

113
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:10,640
first place. Does that make sense? Like you have to first have gravity and a law of gravity

114
00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:16,480
before you have anything else, but you don't get gravity or a law of gravity if there is nothing.

115
00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:22,240
Right. Does that make sense? So you're assuming the agent of creation before the thing is actually

116
00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:27,120
created that's needed to create. It just doesn't work. And so Lawrence Krauss and other scientists,

117
00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:33,040
he proposed this theory about dark matter. He basically said the way you can get a universe

118
00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:38,480
from nothing is all about dark matter. And there's a whole big scientific explanation for this about

119
00:12:38,480 --> 00:12:44,160
how things add up and subtract and basically having an equilibrium in the existing universe.

120
00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:51,360
But again, dark matter is not technically nothing. It's just invisible. It's a non-visible thing,

121
00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:59,120
but it's not actually nothing. And so dark matter would have to exist first in order to get a universe,

122
00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:03,440
but it can't exist unless there is something there in which it can exist. Does that make sense

123
00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:07,920
to everybody? And so basically, here's my point in saying all this is that you have all these

124
00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:13,440
scientific theories that people are putting out saying, here's this great sign. Here's this great

125
00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:19,440
wonder that took place. You don't need God. That's the whole goal of the beast. Here's this amazing

126
00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:25,840
thing that we can explain without God so you don't actually need God. The Bible tells us God created

127
00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:32,560
man in his image, but then Charles Darwin came along and he said, actually fish and monkeys.

128
00:13:33,280 --> 00:13:38,080
That's where you come from. We all evolved from single cell organisms that slowly and

129
00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:44,720
progressively evolved over time and that's how we got to where we are today. Now that is completely

130
00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:50,240
false and I mean there are very good reasons to prove that it is false, but suffice it to say.

131
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:55,520
That's another example of saying, here's this great wonder that took place. We can't prove it. There

132
00:13:55,520 --> 00:14:00,640
is no evidence of it whatsoever, but isn't it amazing if a fish can become a monkey and a monkey

133
00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:06,160
can become a person? That's a great sign. That's a great wonder. So you don't need a God who creates

134
00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:12,640
everything. You have this other explanation. It's the beast working using good things that God has

135
00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:19,440
created and corrupting them for his purposes. I mean even advances in medicine does this and again

136
00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:27,040
I'm not anti-medicine. I'm a big proponent of medicine, but I also think that people can become

137
00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:35,040
so reliant on medicine that they no longer see a need for God. They don't see a need for a God who

138
00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:41,840
can heal when they've got aspirin who can do that. They don't see any need to believe in a God who can

139
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:46,320
raise people from the dead when they've got electrical devices that can shock people back to life

140
00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:51,840
moments after their death. I mean people laugh at us when we have a whole list of people who are

141
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:56,880
hurting and infirmed and we pray for them and they say, why are you praying? Just take them to the

142
00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:00,960
doctor and we're like, well we are going to do that, but we're also going to pray. We don't put all of

143
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:05,440
our trust in man and we don't put all of our trust in medicine. They're like, well we've got this new

144
00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:12,240
wonder drug. It's this miracle. It's this wonder and it'll cure anything instantly. You don't need

145
00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:18,400
God. That's exactly what the beast is doing here. He's using these things that God has created and

146
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:25,040
corrupting them for his own purposes. The beast does this to lead people astray. I want you to

147
00:15:25,040 --> 00:15:32,160
notice verses 16 through 17. It says also, it calls his all both small and great, both rich and

148
00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:39,680
poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy

149
00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:46,960
or sell unless he has the mark. That is the name of the beast or the number of its name. Now this is

150
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:53,760
the infamous mark of the beast, right? And some people have said that this is predicting a future

151
00:15:53,760 --> 00:16:03,040
in which all people are going to have like a tattoo of a barcode or possibly a microchip implanted in

152
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:10,080
them and that you will not be able to buy or sell anything unless you have that barcode or microchip

153
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:16,160
or whatever the other possibility might be. And listen, that's entirely possible, but the problem

154
00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:21,440
is that's not actually how the original readers would have understood this. We've discussed this

155
00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:27,440
before back in Revelation chapter 7 when we were talking about the mark of God or the seal of God

156
00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:31,280
on his people. Do you all remember that one? Probably not because I don't remember the last

157
00:16:31,280 --> 00:16:36,080
time we were in Revelation chapter 7. But when it talked about the seal of God, do you remember

158
00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:43,200
where he puts the seal? Forehead, yeah? Yeah, it was on the forehead, right? And I don't know if you

159
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:48,320
remember this, but we said the reason that the Bible says the seal of God is on the forehead and

160
00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:53,280
the same reason that the mark of the beast is on the forehead is because in the first century,

161
00:16:53,280 --> 00:17:01,280
the way that slave owners would brand their slaves was on the forehead or on their hand. It was a

162
00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:08,240
way to show who that slave belonged to. It was a sign of ownership. And so if you saw a slave and

163
00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:13,600
he had this branding on his hand or forehead, you'd be like, oh, he belongs to so-and-so. And so the

164
00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:18,400
reason the Bible says that the seal of God is on the forehead is because it's a way of declaring to

165
00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:24,400
the world we belong to God in the same way that the mark of the beast is placed on the forehead

166
00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:30,320
or on the hand is a way of saying that person belongs to the beast. It's a way of saying that

167
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:36,640
a person's life is going to be marked by ownership to the beast. Basically, people are going to see

168
00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:41,920
how a person lives, and it is going to be very evident to this person, to everyone watching,

169
00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:47,200
if this person belongs to the Lord or belongs to the beast, everything in their life is going to

170
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:54,160
tell you who owns them. And what about all this stuff about buying and selling? Well, I think it

171
00:17:54,160 --> 00:18:01,280
has to do with the difficulty that Christians have faced historically and continue to face

172
00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:06,880
in the world today simply by being Christians. For instance, in the first century, when this was

173
00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:14,800
written, Christians were virtually banned from being able to buy and sell goods. They would go

174
00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:19,040
into the marketplace, everyone knew they were Christians, and they would try to participate

175
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:25,280
in buying and selling, and they weren't allowed to, simply because they were Christ followers,

176
00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:31,040
and they refused to participate in emperor worship. They said, hey, you don't worship the emperor,

177
00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:35,680
you're not part of the imperial cult, therefore, we don't want anything to do with you, right? You

178
00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:41,040
can't buy, you can't sell, it's going to be incredibly difficult. And listen, we're starting to see

179
00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:45,520
some of that even in our own country today. I think it was like a couple years ago now,

180
00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:50,800
California specifically, I know this isn't going to shock you, but California specifically

181
00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:59,040
started trying to pass a ban where Christian books that opposed the LGBT agenda or Christian

182
00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:05,040
books that openly opposed abortion were going to be restricted in their state and not able to be

183
00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:10,000
published. The booksellers would not be able to sell them and people would not be able to buy them,

184
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:16,720
why? Because they were explicitly Christian and went against the cultural agenda. Also, let's just

185
00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:23,120
say, if you have a Christian business, let's say it's a bakery, for instance, right? A Christian

186
00:19:23,120 --> 00:19:31,600
bakery. As a business owner, you have the right to sell or restrict services from whoever you want

187
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:38,080
to, right? Can we agree like, thank the Lord for capitalism, we appreciate it, it's a good thing,

188
00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:44,320
you have the right to determine who you do business with. But let's say a Christian bakery, if one

189
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:51,120
existed, decided that they did not want to sell their goods or services to someone who was a part

190
00:19:51,120 --> 00:19:56,480
of an agenda that they did not agree with. Well, do you think the world would respond and say,

191
00:19:56,480 --> 00:20:01,920
that's fine, we get it, you're allowed to do that? Or do you think the world would do absolutely

192
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:07,280
everything they can to get that business shut down and make it impossible for that Christian

193
00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:12,480
business to be able to sell their goods or buy goods from other people in order to be able to

194
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:17,760
do business as everyone else is able to? Which one do you think is most likely? Probably the last

195
00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:22,400
one, right? And that's exactly what we're saying. The Bible is saying here, as long as the spirit

196
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:29,040
of the beast is at work in the world, Christians are going to have difficulty living in this world.

197
00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:37,280
But who is the beast? It's kind of what's happening with Kenya and our Bibles right now.

198
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:43,840
There is a general tax increase, but basically as soon as the post office in Kenya found out,

199
00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:50,560
we shipped 120 Swahili Bibles, they decided that the tax all of a sudden went up a good bit. So,

200
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:57,120
yeah, good spot, Doug. All right, so the question is then, who is the beast? Look at verse 18 with me.

201
00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:05,040
This calls for wisdom. What is this referring to? Back in verse 17, when it's talking about the name

202
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:10,720
of the beast or his number. So this calls for wisdom, let the one who has understanding

203
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:20,560
calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man and his number is 666.

204
00:21:21,360 --> 00:21:28,720
It's good to have my whiteboard back. All right, so let's dive in. 666. This is a very infamous

205
00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:37,520
number. And the main thing that you will hear about 666 from pretty much anyone is they'll say

206
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:46,560
that 666 equals Nero, the emperor of Rome. Anybody know why?

207
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:58,640
Okay, something to do with the addition of the alphabet. Yeah, we'll get there in just a second.

208
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:08,160
Right, so basically this view that 666 equals Nero, it's held by mostly post-millennials or

209
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:17,600
they view that 666, when you add up the letters, the numerical values of Nero, it equals 666. But

210
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:22,720
this is unconvincing for a number of reasons, which I'll get into in just a moment. But just so

211
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:29,280
you know how this works and what Cayley is talking about, there's a phrase for a system that's called

212
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:34,480
Hebrew-Gematria. I don't know if you want to write that down and google it later, feel free to.

213
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:41,920
Hebrew-Gematria. And basically what it is is in Hebrew, every single letter of the Hebrew alphabet

214
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:47,440
has a numerical value. And it's not just the letters themselves, but in Hebrew you have

215
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:52,640
final forms of letters and those forms of letters actually have a different value than the regular

216
00:22:52,640 --> 00:23:00,080
form of the letters. Very complicated. So basically when you add up the Hebrew letters of Nero, they

217
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:12,240
say it equals 666. Now I've got six reasons why this is not accurate or convincing. I don't have

218
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:21,600
666, I was hoping I could get there, but I just I got six. So first this only works with a very

219
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:30,160
specific configuration of Nero's name and title. So you can't use Nero Caesar. What you have to do

220
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:43,200
is you use Nero Caesar. So Nero Caesar and this was only one of Nero's many titles and it wasn't

221
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:48,800
even his most common one. So the Emperor of Rome had a bunch of different titles and this was one

222
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:55,600
of his titles, but it was not his main one, but you just had to pick which one you thought was

223
00:23:55,600 --> 00:24:01,200
going to be right in order to get this to work. The second problem with this view is you have to

224
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:07,520
transliterate. Anybody know what Nero Nero Caesar, what language this would have been? Latin? Yes,

225
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:16,320
all right. So you have to transliterate Latin to Hebrew. Now maybe you're thinking that doesn't

226
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:22,320
seem that hard, but just remember the historical context. Who is John writing to? Do you remember

227
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:29,840
the first couple chapters? Who is he saying he's sending this letter to? The churches, yeah, the

228
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:36,400
seven churches in Asia Minor. Fun fact about the seven churches in Asia Minor, they were all pretty

229
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:42,400
much Gentile churches. There were some Jewish Christians in there, but the overwhelming majority

230
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:48,080
of these churches would have been Gentile churches filled with Gentile believers and

231
00:24:49,120 --> 00:24:55,040
most Gentile believers, if not all of them, they did not know Hebrew. And again, you might be like,

232
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,880
okay, well no big deal because there were some Jewish Christians in the churches. Well, here's

233
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:05,360
the problem. Even the Jewish Christians didn't know Hebrew. Hebrew had basically died out at this

234
00:25:05,360 --> 00:25:10,960
time. It was a dead language. It had been replaced by Aramaic. Really the only people who knew or

235
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:16,640
spoke Hebrew at this time were the religious elites. Think about the Pharisees, the scribes,

236
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:21,680
things like that, but your average Joe in one of these churches did not know Hebrew. All right,

237
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:31,680
so third, in order to equal 666, you actually have to misspell Caesar. So in Hebrew, there's this little

238
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:46,080
letter. It looks like this. It's called a yod. So that's a yod. It's the smallest letter in Hebrew.

239
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:55,760
And it's required to spell Caesar properly, but if you add that letter, it no longer equals 666.

240
00:25:55,760 --> 00:26:05,280
So that letter conveniently disappears in order to get this to equal 666. Also,

241
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:14,880
I knew that didn't look right. The H is on the end because Hebrew. Fourth, none of the early

242
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:23,840
church fathers at all ever identified Nero with 666, which seems pretty telling, does it not? If

243
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:28,240
you're one of the early church fathers, if this was a main idea going around at the time, you would

244
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:33,360
think one of them would have associated 666 with Nero, but there's no evidence that any of them

245
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:42,560
ever did. Also, fifth, the proposal given the context seems so unlikely as to be virtually

246
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:47,520
impossible. So just I want you to think about this for a second. Let's say that you're one of

247
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:53,440
the Christians in one of these Gentile churches, and you have just heard John say, hey, the number

248
00:26:53,440 --> 00:27:01,280
of the beast is 666. Let me ask you this. Is your first thought as a Gentile Christian, I need to go

249
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:10,240
and pick one of Nero's titles. Hope I get the right one. I didn't need to transliterate that Latin

250
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:16,560
into a language that no one knows at the time and hope that someone can tell me how to use

251
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:23,760
that language. And then I need to intentionally misspell the transliteration of that title

252
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:31,200
into Hebrew. Then I have to use a Hebrew numerical system, Gamatria, that is completely foreign to

253
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:38,880
me that I've never even heard of in order to get Nero to equal 666. Do you think that would have

254
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:45,840
crossed your mind as one of John's readers? Again, I don't want to dismiss this entirely because it

255
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:54,800
is technically possible given a wide range of conditions being met. It is technically possible,

256
00:27:54,800 --> 00:28:03,200
but it is most likely and highly unlikely. This is really important. John has this habit

257
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:10,960
throughout the book of Revelation where anytime he wants you to think in Hebrew or Greek, he tells

258
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:18,640
you. So for instance, Revelation 9.11, John writes and says, they have a king over them, the angel

259
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:28,720
of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek he is Apollyon. Also in

260
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:36,000
Revelation 16.16, he writes and said, and they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is

261
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:42,880
called Armageddon. If John is wanting to communicate his readers, hey, you need to think in terms of

262
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:52,320
Hebrew right now, he helps us out and says it's in Hebrew or it's in Greek. He doesn't specify here

263
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:58,640
and you have to understand he's not calling on people to think mathematically here. That was not

264
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:05,200
his intention. He's calling people to think ethically. The reason I want to make this point

265
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:12,480
is because people have this bad habit where they'll see 666 and they want to make it equal

266
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:18,080
a person of their choosing. And this has been demonstrated by scholars for a long time now.

267
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:25,760
You can pretty much get any name to equal 666. They've done it with pretty much every pope

268
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:30,320
who's ever existed. All power to him. Go for it. I'm all for that. That's fine with me.

269
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:36,800
They said Ronald Reagan. When you added up the letters of his name, it equaled 666. This has also

270
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:42,320
been done for Hitler as well as a couple other people. I think they tried it with Richard Nixon

271
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:49,600
as well. So if you work hard enough at this and I could show you what the letters in Hebrew equal

272
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:56,000
and I can show you the numbers, you could probably make your own name equal 666 if you tried hard

273
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:01,840
enough and worked with a certain configuration. So you could do this with anyone and I don't think

274
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:07,040
that's the point that John is making here. I don't think he's saying, hey, for every person who ever

275
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:13,600
lives, check them by this number to make sure they're not the beast because many names equal 666.

276
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:20,480
So what is the point? Well, I think a symbolic interpretation is called for here because numbers

277
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:27,440
are incredibly important in the Bible and especially in the book of Revelation. For instance, the number

278
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:34,640
7 is the number of perfection. We know this. Everybody knows 7 is the number of perfection.

279
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:42,320
What number comes before 7? Oh, come on. That's the easy one. It's not a trick question. Ha,

280
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:50,560
actually in Hebrew it says no. It's actually just 6. It's 6. So if 7 is the number of perfection,

281
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:59,360
then 6 doesn't quite reach perfection. In fact, throughout the Bible, 6 is the number of imperfection.

282
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:04,960
It is imperfect, incomplete, and defective. And it's interesting because in the book of Revelation,

283
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:11,040
you see this number 6 is repeated three times here. Can you think of anything else that's

284
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:19,200
repeated three times in the book of Revelation? Yes, exactly. Holy, holy, holy, right? That's

285
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:27,760
what the angels say about God. God is holy, holy, holy. Well, the beast is 666. He is completely

286
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:35,520
and totally imperfect and lacking. And I really think this has more to do with mankind in general

287
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:42,240
than it does for a particular person specifically. For instance, I want you to look at your Bibles

288
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:48,720
there in verse 18. Here's something really interesting for you. I think unless I'm wrong,

289
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:56,800
pretty much all of your translations are going to say this is the number of a man, right?

290
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,440
Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?

291
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:10,640
Which one? And the NIV? Okay. Anybody else have anything different?

292
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:19,520
Kudos to the NIV. I'm very impressed with them. I didn't know that, so I'm very impressed with

293
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:26,400
them. Actually, so yeah, a lot of other translations will say it's the number of a man. Well, here's

294
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:31,920
what's really interesting. And the reason I think that's a poor translation is because in Greek,

295
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:38,560
they use the article very intentionally, right? They'll use the or a or an very intentionally,

296
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:45,040
but interestingly enough, in the Greek of this verse, there is no article. So in Greek, it does not

297
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:53,040
say the number of a man. In fact, the proper translation should be this is the number of man

298
00:32:53,040 --> 00:33:00,560
or as the NIV has rightly rendered, this is man's number. It's in the genitive sense,

299
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:07,600
meaning possessive in Greek, and there is no article. This is man's mankind's number.

300
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:15,680
It means that the beast is going to empower and embody many people throughout history

301
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:22,880
who oppose Christ and his kingdom and seek to lead people away from the one true God. So in that

302
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:29,520
sense, it's not actually technically wrong to say that Nero is associated with the beast. Now,

303
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:37,600
666 with Nero, that is wrong, but to associate Nero with the beast, that's not wrong, because Nero

304
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:42,960
was certainly empowered by the beast. Was he not? You look at what he did, what he tried to do,

305
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:47,760
he was leading people astray, but this is also true for many people throughout history. You could

306
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:53,760
add Hitler to this list, you could add Stalin, Mao, Putin, the Kim dynasty in North Korea, as

307
00:33:53,760 --> 00:34:00,080
we've already mentioned. Whenever humanity perverts God's order in this world, it's a depiction of

308
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:08,960
the beast at work in the world. Mankind in our sin, we are imperfect and the devil loves nothing

309
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:16,080
more than to work in sinful man to accomplish his purposes. And this makes sense of John's statement

310
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:22,240
there in verse 18 that this calls for wisdom. He's not saying that you need scholarship to

311
00:34:22,240 --> 00:34:27,280
figure this out. He's not saying that you need intelligence. He's not saying you need to be

312
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:35,120
able to read Latin, read Greek, transliterate Latin to Hebrew and then use a Hebrew numerical system.

313
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:42,640
No, he's saying this requires wisdom. As Christ followers, you need wisdom from the Lord to be

314
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:48,480
able to recognize the beast's activity in the world, identify the spirit of the beast at work in

315
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:55,680
the world and resist his attempts to lead you astray. This is why we need wisdom. And so for us today,

316
00:34:55,680 --> 00:35:01,760
as Christians reading this, we should pray to the Lord to give us wisdom. We should ask God to help

317
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:09,520
us recognize the beast and his activity at work in the world today. We need to ask God to give

318
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:15,120
us the wisdom to identify the spirit of the beast at work in the world today. And we need to pray

319
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:22,400
for strength and wisdom to resist the beast and his deceits and his temptations that would lead

320
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:28,880
us away from Christ. More than anything, we need to pray for wisdom and ask for the spirit's guidance

321
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:36,080
to help us walk in step with him rather than in step with the beast. So this is the second beast

322
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:43,200
and he is already at work in the world today. He will continue to be at work in the world until

323
00:35:43,200 --> 00:36:07,200
Jesus returns, but Jesus will have the victory. All right, Michael Stevenson, you're up.