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Alright, we continue now our sermon series.

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Hail to the victor, our journey through the book of revelations.

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We've hit really, we've gone through the preamble, we've gone through a lot thus far.

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But now we're going to get into an area of revelation that is often interpreted many different ways.

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Is often, that's not even a word, that's why you're laughing Nikki, yeah. What am I trying to say?

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Interpreted, thank you. People try to interpretate it too, but that's done wrong.

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We can get lost in these next four chapters. There's a lot of symbolism and we're going to talk through

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what I believe a good exegesis is of the book of revelation.

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We're going to see symbols, we're going to see characters that people, they throw at real life people.

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We're going to see the word antichrist. We're going to see this, kind of not only this cosmic battle,

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we're going to see these beasts. And that the, much like everything in revelation, if it's not a,

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like the famine or the earthquake or the stars falling or the earth, a third of people dying,

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that there's apocalyptic pictures that do mean things. So it's not maybe a beast for a beast's sake,

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but this dream that is coming from the Holy Spirit through the apostle John means certain things.

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If we go back to the very beginning of revelation, we know that there are those four different ways

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that you can read and interpret the book of revelation. And understand, here's where the rubber meets the road.

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Because there are widely accepted, through scholars much smarter than me, that have dove into the Greek

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and gone back to the Hebrew of what these are. But then there is a lot of other thought that is given some scholarship

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to trying to determine who these people are. Right? And so again, you know me, I don't really preach politics

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too much, and I know for some of you that makes you mad, for some of you you're glad. Either way, a lot of these,

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and again, when we threw this sermon series in a couple years ago, at no time did I think we were going to be,

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it was going to be the election year, I didn't think about it, nor did I think at the time that we were hitting these

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that we would be two weeks prior to the presidential election. And the tendency here for this week and next week

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is going to try to bind everything that these chapters in Revelation say to what that Tuesday will look like in November.

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And so as your pastor, as your shepherd, as your leader, I'm going to tell you two things. First, calm down.

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Read the scriptures the way they are meant to be read, because understand a couple things that God in His sovereignty

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and in His wisdom did not put the fate of the kingdom of God on the United States political system.

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That the kingdom of God is not going to come through the political system. If God needed the USA and the political system

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in the United States to be the key catalyst to the kingdom of God, then He wouldn't be sovereign.

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And a lot of us, we probably wouldn't be smart. So understand that we want to tie a bunch of these chapters

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into what's happening right now over the next three weeks. And I think if we do that too much, I think we miss

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what the message actually is. Okay, so I'm going to ask for an umbrella of grace for you and for me

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and for people that we know in the sanctuary don't see things the same way. And for all of you that are sending me

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text messages and emails, some funny, some not, you keep doing it, that's fine, but they make me feel that way sometimes.

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Sometimes I just want to cry. Because we just get it wrong then. Because what you're doing is you're taking an instance

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and trying to paint Bible on it that I don't know what it was meant to do. But let's dive in, because first we have this

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cosmic battle. Okay, and the introduction quick to the cosmic battle, why we're reading this, and we're going to read

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chapter 12, the first six verses. It introduces a battle between the forces of evil and the church.

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That should set the scene. That this is the forces of evil and the church. And we are promised by Christ himself

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that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. That the church will stand. It is the bride of Christ.

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Christ not only cares about it, but he died for it. He put it together, he set it on a path, and now he's coming back

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to redeem it. So it's the forces of evil and the church. So represented by the woman, right? We're going to see this woman.

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And that's symbolizing the people of God and the dragon that we're going to see is Satan. Okay, that is the forces of evil.

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These chapters depict spiritual realities that span from the birth of Christ till the end of time. Okay, this is when

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everything will culminate. So the birth of Christ to where revelation will take place. That is what we're talking about.

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The imagery of the dragon chasing the woman in the wilderness reminds us of God's ongoing protection of his people.

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Even in the face of fierce persecution. We see this throughout history. The church has always faced opposition from worldly powers,

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political powers, spiritual forces. Yet it is never without God's provision. So church, take a moment, rest in that for a minute.

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The church, when it was established, Jesus said, the forces of hell will not go against or will not overtake it,

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will not defeat it, and that has still been to this day. For those of you that want to look at different things and go,

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we are in the end times now, pull the right thing out of that urgency and share the gospel. If we're going to try to pinpoint

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something that God, Christ said, you're not going to know. You have no idea when it's going to come. It's kind of a fool's errand

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to try to be a conspiracy theorist and pinpoint when exactly it's going to happen, but understand that God has his provision

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over us. The woman represents both Mary as the mother of Christ and the church. The dragon, identified as Satan,

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seeks to devour the child, Christ, but ultimately is defeated, reminding us that Satan's opposition will always be against

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God's sovereign plan, but God and Satan are never on the same level. A lot of times we get that mixed up.

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They're like, oh man, yeah, God is God and Satan, he's, no. That has never been the case. That God is ultimate creator,

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sustainer, sovereign God, Satan is not. And what is the significance before we dive in that Revelation 12 is a spiritual

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picture of the victory Christ achieved through his birth, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. The dragon's

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failure to destroy Christ at his birth shows that Satan's plans are continually frustrated by God's power.

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This passage sets the stage for the ongoing struggle between Satan and the church throughout the ages. It was then,

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it is now, and it will be until completion. So let's dive in. Chapter 12, the first six verses.

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And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and her head a crown of

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twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and agony in giving birth. And another sign

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appeared in the heaven. Behold a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.

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His tail swept down a third of the angels of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman

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who was about to give birth, so that when she bore the child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child,

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one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to God and to his throne,

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and the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God in which she was to be nourished

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for 12, 1260 days. So it's quite the opening. Quite the opening to where we are now. Now we see these signs,

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we see these visions, and now we see these new characters where we already talked about what they were.

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But the thing I want you to understand, if you can go back two slides, go to the middle slide I think it is.

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Nope, next slide, sorry, the last one. But the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by

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God. That's what I want you to pull right now. As we see this kind of narrative, how we see this drama unfold,

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it's very graphic. It's an understanding, just the graphic nature of good versus evil. Holiness versus evil.

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Light versus dark. If we're really honest, that's the battle that we have every day. That every day we have the battle

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of the light versus the dark. Every day, and it's nothing that we should be surprised by, all of the Scriptures talk

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about this, that every day we believe in what's called total depravity. That that is, all of us are bad, right?

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That we all are bent against God, and it's by God's compassion, His love, His mercy, His grace, His covenant to us

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that we live, we work, we breathe, we have families, we do our jobs in that grace. That we understand that we are

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living in that light. What about the darkness? The darkness can be very, very powerful. And for some of us right now,

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we are struggling with the darkness. We may have a pinky into the darkness. There might be an aspect of our life

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that we actually worship in the dark. That we, some act of sin, something going on in us, that that darkness is eating away

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at us. That darkness is telling you that you're no good. Because you are doing said thing, or thinking said thing,

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or living in a way, whatever in that darkness, that the light has no use for you, the light cannot use you, that the light

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has forgotten about you. But one of the things I want you to see, that none of this, none of this that we're reading

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is a surprise to God. God isn't looking at this going, who's the woman? Oh, there's a dragon. No. Understand that word

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prepared is so powerful that this has been thought out, this has been premeditated in God's sovereignty and foreknowledge.

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Why? Out of love for you. For where you are in that moment. Now that doesn't mean, okay, great, then we just keep on sinning.

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I'm just going to keep living in the dark. If the light's ultimately going to get, that's not the way to go about it.

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Because we also have to register and we have to work in these, the scriptures that say you can't have a foot in both.

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John says in another book, if you have a foot in the light and a foot in the dark, what? The light doesn't know you.

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That every day there's this struggle, but God has this all prepared. For some of you, that should be a breath of fresh air.

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For some of you, that is an eternal frustration because you can't get out of your own way. You can't get out of that

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your own sin. You can't get out of falling in this time and time again. Here is my pastoral encouragement for you.

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Stop trying to do it alone. Bring someone else to hold you accountable when light is shared with more than one person.

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Guess what? There's more light. And there are times that light can be shined into the darkness that you're too afraid to shine.

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God has given me a spouse in Kerry that shines light on all of that for me. And hopefully, vice versa.

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Hopefully you have people in your life that can shine the light into your darkness when you don't want to.

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Because that's all been prepared by God. Why? Because Christ is going to have the victory.

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We know this. This isn't a shock. Verse 7.

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Now war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.

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And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated. And there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

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And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

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He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him.

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And I heard a voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come.

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For the accuser of our brothers have been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

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And they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.

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For they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them.

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But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath.

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Because he knows that his time is short. Leave that up. Powerful words here.

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So understand after failing, excuse me, to destroy the child, the dragon what? He engages in a cosmic battle against the angels led by Michael the archangel.

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So I find that interesting. And this actually had me think of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.

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So after he's baptized, the spirit led him to the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.

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And I've always found that interesting and we're going to get to that during Lent next year.

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Is that Satan, knowing what his fate's going to be, still gives it the old college try.

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To the savior of the world, he tempts him. He tempts him with sustenance, with food.

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He tempts him with prestige and honor and wealth and treasures.

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The only thing that probably, I would have probably thrown in there, because then that would capitalize our society as a whole,

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is something to do with adultery or more of that kind of sexual nature of our culture.

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It's funny he didn't tempt Jesus with that because maybe, just maybe, there's an assumption of power and authority just leads to that anyway.

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And we see that in scripture. But understand that Satan himself goes to Jesus himself for temptation, to tempt him.

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And who are we to think that maybe we don't get tempted?

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And who are we to think that we're strong enough to battle Satan on our own?

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That is a foolish understanding because understand something in this, what we just read.

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So he's defeated. He's still trying. He doesn't give up.

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Satan never says, uncle, your sin in your life. Never says, oh, they're just too strong. We're just going to stop.

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No. It is going to be continual until we are there seeing him face to face.

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That every day you will struggle with something. Every day you will struggle with a certain sin.

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You will struggle with a series of sins. You will struggle because the darkness wants to devour you.

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How do we know? Because he was thrown down with wrath in his heart.

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Satan doesn't play fair. Satan doesn't tempt fairly.

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Satan doesn't go, okay, they've had enough. Give them a day.

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No. Satan will kick you when you're down.

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So how we feel in the fact that God has all this prepared?

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I don't know about you, but it gets a little uncomfortable.

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Kind of like, really? We have to go through all of this?

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Like you can't just decimate him and he's done?

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Because what Revelation is teaching us right now in the here and now, October 20th, 2024, is that the battle is real.

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Those temptations you're feeling, the failures you may be falling to, the successes in faith that you are having,

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that is part of the everyday life. That is the life of the believer. That is the church.

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But understand that Satan is defeated, cast down to earth, showing whose authority, God's authority, in heaven,

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and Satan's authority has now been stripped, but Satan's power is limited.

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Some of you need to hear that this morning.

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Satan is cast down, Satan continues to pursue, but she, the church, us, is protected by God in the wilderness,

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symbolizing God's ongoing protection of his people.

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Obviously you can go back to the time in the wilderness with the Israelites,

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but I want to go back to your wildernesses, my wildernesses, when I have been in a wilderness place

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that I feel like God isn't there, or I feel like I'm failing,

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or I'm just a schmuck of a human being or a believer, and I don't deserve it.

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Friend, that is never the voice of God saying that in your life.

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That is the beast. That is the evil one.

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That is the darkness trying to get you to understand that you are nothing, and that is not true.

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The casting down of Satan to earth mirrors Jesus' declaration in Luke 10, 18,

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where he says, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

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This fall signifies Satan's loss and ultimate defeat because of Christ's victory.

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So remember this on this point.

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We must remember that Satan's power is limited.

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Though he continues to fight, he is a defeated enemy.

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This truth gives us confidence as we face spiritual battles in our lives today.

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Here's the rub.

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Some of us just like to fight to fight.

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Some of us think we can fight better than God in these situations.

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But we're just going to poke the bait.

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We're going to make sure that Satan knows he is defeated, and that is a fantastic thing.

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Just making sure, getting that spiritual warfare, fighting against Satan every day, that is fantastic.

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Go, Christian, go.

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But what happens when you put that Satan character, that person, that feeling, that darkness on another person?

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How does that fighting work?

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How does that fighting work when when you look at somebody,

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all you see is the darkness that you believe that they hold within themselves?

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How can we do that as a church?

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Because in some ways, and I better get out my darkness and put it on me,

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because I feel like that's how we should always start, the plank in our own eye first.

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And here we're going to get to these beasts, and we have to get to these beasts,

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because these beasts, this is really awkward to say, but these beasts bring out the worst in Christians.

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The beasts bring out the worst in the church.

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So not only is Satan defeated, he's still fighting.

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Now these beasts show up.

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This is chapter 13, 1 through 10.

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And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads,

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with ten diadems on the horns, and blasphemous names on the heads.

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And the beast that I saw was like a leopard.

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His feet were like a bear's mouth, and his mouth was like a lion's mouth.

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And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.

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One of his heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed.

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And the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.

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And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast,

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and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast?

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Who can fight against it?

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And the beast was given a mouth, uttering haughty and blasphemous words.

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And it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months.

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It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God,

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blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.

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Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.

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And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation,

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and all who dwell on the earth will worship it.

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Everyone whose name was not written before the foundation of the world

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in the book of life of the lamb who was slain.

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If anyone has ear, let him hear.

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If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes.

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If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword he must be slain.

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Here is the call for endurance and faith of the saints.

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Whew.

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All right.

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Let's talk about the two beasts.

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The first beast symbolizes something that meant a lot in the first century.

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This is a widely accepted kind of understanding of those that studied the Greek

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a lot more than I have, that the first beast symbolizes a corrupt political power,

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embodying the Roman Empire in John's time, as we all know,

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and does represent worldly government that opposes God.

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Right then and there, I know 35% of you are now thinking certain things.

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Stop it.

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Understand that any worldly power will ultimately be corrupt.

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If you look at society today in whatever group you want to look at it in,

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you have to also go through the centuries of worldly powers that have been corrupt,

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that have come to an end, that started, boomed, and died.

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Started, boomed, and died.

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Understand this is a history lesson of political corruptness.

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It is not just for 2024.

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Because if you're looking, friend, if you're looking for redemption and salvation

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to come out of any political system, then you're not reading the book right.

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That the kingdom of God is coming as God wants it to come.

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The kingdom will come as He has declared it.

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The reason why we see this as a political power, its blasphemous names,

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the dragon's authority behind it.

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Notice the passing off of authority.

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The beast, Satan, now kind of passes his authority to these two other,

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the dragon to these two other beasts.

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All of this is happening for one reason, to bring chaos.

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One of the greatest characters, in my opinion, in all of movies,

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is Heath Ledger's character Joker.

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And I know I'm going to get, which one is it, Colin?

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The Dark Knight.

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You knew I was going to say the wrong, I've already done it, right.

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Thank you for reminding me of my sins.

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The Dark Knight, if you've not seen it, his understanding of chaos,

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his understanding of just wanting to see the world burn,

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is exactly what we're seeing here.

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Friends, these are defeated enemies that are still trying to fight.

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And the reason why they're doing it is because they just want to see

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the whole world burn.

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You see the beast's death blow that has healed.

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This may refer to apparent resurrection of the persecuted empires,

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of the governments that may come back at the end,

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constantly re-emerging and re-opposing God's name.

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That all political throughout history, go back to the Greeks,

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go back to the Babylonians, go back to the Romans, which this was written.

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You had people saying they were God.

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And you have that on all sides of every aisle.

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So understand some things, that this blasphemy, that this work,

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this darkness that is being done, ultimately will be defeated.

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And unless Jesus decides to come back before that first Tuesday in November,

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then we're all going to be there the Sunday after worshipping His name.

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That we need to understand that these beasts, this political power,

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this structure is being defeated.

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And then you have this beast from the earth, this false prophet,

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representing deceptive religious systems.

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Because one of the ways that Satan can completely divide and dismantle anything,

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is divide and conquer.

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How do we do that?

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Well, let's get them divided and let's get them believing things

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that are not in this book.

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Because friends, let's call a spade a spade.

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We're sheep.

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There's a reason why we're called sheep, myself included.

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And there are times we will put our trust in whoever's shouting the loudest.

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We will put our trust in whoever's posts have the most engagement,

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the most likes, whatever.

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That we can be a fickle people when it comes to our faith.

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But what we have to see here is that this is all happening to the church.

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The church is being persecuted.

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The church is being tested.

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The church is being attacked.

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Friends, I feel it every day.

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I'm sure you do too.

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That there is persecution.

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There is attack.

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But what we have to understand from this is Satan is getting into the political system

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and Satan is getting into false religions.

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So why do we put so much stock in defining ourselves that way?

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That doesn't make any sense to me.

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That as we see the mark of the beast, we see this allegiance to false systems.

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It's the same things that we like to define ourselves by.

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I don't know about you, but I want people to know me as Jim the believer

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before anything else.

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I want people to know Jim as a loving husband, as a decent father,

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adequate baseball coach.

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I don't care what it is.

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But don't you want to be known for the things that mean the most to you?

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I don't want anybody to ever go, yeah, that's Pastor Jim.

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He's a Republican.

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Or, hell, that's Pastor Jim.

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He's a Democrat.

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Or that's Pastor Jim and he doesn't know how to spell politics.

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That one probably is right.

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So what are we defining ourselves as?

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The beasts want us to be defined by our political allegiance

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and our false religions.

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No.

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Why give yourself to that?

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Well, you know what?

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I love politics, right?

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I really want to get all of my energy in finding and supporting the right

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candidate.

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Guess what?

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Christ died for both of them.

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Guess what?

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Both of them are sinners.

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Guess what?

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God's redemption isn't coming through either of them because God's

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redemption is already here through the person of Christ.

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One of the things that we can take heart in is the rise and falls of

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religious systems, the rise and falls of political systems.

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We're not special in 2024.

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Go back to history.

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It happens all day.

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It happened every year, every century, every thousands of years.

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Systems come and systems fall.

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So why in the world do we want to align ourselves with those?

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Why do we want to define ourselves that way?

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And in a couple days when you want to send me emails and text messages,

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that's fine.

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But I'm going to ask you what are you being defined by?

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Are you being defined by the things of God?

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Are you being defined by the things of the world?

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Because guess what?

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When we get up there, none of those definitions matter.

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I don't care if the definition is Republican, Democrat, independent,

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Green Party.

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There's not going to be, that's not how it's going to be defined.

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It's not going to be defined as CRC, RCA, URC.

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The joke is that you've got to be careful with the PRs because they

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think they're the only ones there.

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But understand that there's this understanding that when we get up there,

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what is Christ going to be looking for?

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What is God, creator, going to be looking for?

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Christ in you, the hope of glory.

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If we're going to define ourselves in the midst of all of this as who we

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are, I believe we're missing the point.

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So where do we go from there as we land the plane?

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As Christians, we must be discerning about the powers and the systems we

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align ourselves with.

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Political and religious systems that contradict God's word are empowered by

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Satan and will ultimately fall.

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Our allegiance should be always to Christ first.

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A lot of you, your body just tensed up with that.

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Because one of the things that we have going on in our culture today is

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what we do with two words, God's word.

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Friends, that is what we should be defined by.

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That the words of scripture should be what people can read in your life.

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I don't know who said it.

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I want to say it's R.C.

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Sproul, but I don't think that's right.

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But in a room of 100 people, one person may read the Bible.

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The other 99 are going to read that person.

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That if we're going to say in the Lord's prayer, right, if we're going to say

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the kingdom of God, may the kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in

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heaven, what we are invoking is that the kingdom may come through us.

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So what kind of kingdom are people getting in your life?

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When they are friends with you, when they're related to you, when you work

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with them.

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If I were to sit down and ask them and say, what does the kingdom of God look

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like in Sam's life?

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What does the kingdom of God look like in Carrie's life to your coworkers?

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What if they say, what do you mean?

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Well, they're Christian.

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So how do you see their Christianity?

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I have no idea.

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That's hard.

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That's a tough one.

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But understand, that's exactly where the beasts want you to be.

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That's exactly what the beasts want to pull out of you.

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But there is hope and there is perseverance.

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We do believe in that too in Revelation 13, 9, and 10.

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If anyone has an ear, let him hear.

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If anyone is to be captive to captivity, he goes.

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If anyone is to be slain with the sword, the sword must be slain.

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Here is the call for endurance and faith in the saints.

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Here is where the rubber meets the road.

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If God calls you to perish for your faith, you will perish for your faith.

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And that's hard.

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The saints are called to endure patiently even when faced with persecution

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and deception and even death.

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This endurance is based on the assurances that Christ has already won

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the ultimate victory and his kingdom will prevail.

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If you are defined by Christ on November 1, my hope is you will be defined

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by Christ on December 1, no matter what the month of November looks like.

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Because what we see, the hope that we have, and this will bleed on

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into next week is the same thing that Jesus said to his disciples in

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Matthew 49.

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He called them to endure persecution with the promise of salvation.

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And it wasn't an if, it was a when.

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He never said, Jim, if you're persecuted, right?

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No, it's a when that we will in various different forms.

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During the Protestant Reformation, many reformers, such as our beloved

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John Calvin, emphasized the importance of perseverance in the face of

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persecution, encouraging believers to trust in God's sovereignty and the

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final victory in Christ.

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So in a world where the church still faces opposition from various powers

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and ideologies, friends, hold fast to the faith.

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We can endure, and it's a lot easier to endure together, knowing that our

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trials are temporary and Christ's victory is eternal.

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So the bridge from this little mini-series within a series to next week,

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it's about evangelism.

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It's not about political winning.

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It's not about ideology winning.

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It's not about any of that.

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Because we have to understand a couple things over the next couple weeks.

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That if we stand confidently in Christ's victory, then we need to understand

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something about the political process.

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While it's necessary in the United States, it has very little to do with

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how God is saving the world.

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The fate of the kingdom of God does not depend on political contest.

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This is taken from Brian's hand.

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And here's one that hit me square in the face, and this will lead us to next

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week.

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While in pursuit for the ring of power, we are not permitted to abandon the

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sermon on the mount.

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So if we stand confidently in Christ's victory, then we also must discern the

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false powers and religions in the world.

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Be mindful, friends, of the systems that demand allegiance that contradict

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God's word.

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Speak truth into these contexts, pointing people to the one true king,

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Jesus Christ.

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And finally, we persevere with hope.

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In the face of trials and persecutions, we remain faithful to Christ.

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Let our endurance serve as a testimony to others, showing that our hope is in a

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kingdom that cannot be shaken.

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Let's pray.