reading chapter 13 of Revelation, and then we'll pray, and maybe by then most of the class will be here. Let's hear God's word. Revelation chapter 13, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blast from its name upon its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bears, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And two at the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth followed the beast with wonder. Men worshiped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying who was like the beast, and who can fight against it? Verse 5, and the beast was given a mouth, uttering hottie and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them, and authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life, of the Lamb that was slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is to be taken captive to captivity, he goes. If anyone slays with the sword with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and the faith of the saints. Then I saw another beast, which rose out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the power, all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. It works great signs. Even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of men, and by the signs which it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on the earth. Bitting them make an image for the beast, which was wounded by the sword and yet lived, and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast should even speak, and to cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. Also, it causes all both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave. To be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is the name of the beast, or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let him who has understanding, reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number. Its number is 666. Let's pray. Father Almighty, how we thank you that you are indeed the Almighty. Now there is no power that compares to yours, and that unlike the blasphemous words uttered about the beast, these words are true when applied to you. Who is like God? Who is like Him? There is none, O Lord, that compares to you. And we pray that you would grant your people insight in these days to recognize every false Christ, every deceiver, and every power or authority that sets itself up against you. O Lord, we are people need discernment. We need wisdom. We need that wisdom that comes from above. O Lord, we come to you and praise you for both your power and your goodness. Be with us this morning, O Lord, we pray. Give our sins, and that our words and our thoughts and our actions will be pleasing to you this morning in Christ's name we pray. Amen. We have, first of all, do we have any visitors that you'd like to introduce to the rest of the class? I know, in fact, that there are some here. These are the witnesses and the friends. Great, welcome. And are they from Dallas, Texas? Okay, great, welcome. Great to have you, John. Amarillo and Dallas, same corner. Welcome. Great to have you guys here. Good. Anyone else? Okay. I don't usually do this, but I thought this might be a good exercise for us as we begin, particularly this chapter, that has to do with a very serious subject, the beast or the beasts, because there are after all, too. I brought along a couple of show and tells, sort of. Here is a book that's entitled Beyond End Times, and here is some of the advertisement for it, and I would like you to see if you can tell me which perspective that we've talked about over the last many weeks. This one, this book is written from. Which perspective? It goes this way. Do we really need another End Times book? As long as the others fail to recognize that the end, the Bible proclaims, is behind us, and not ahead of us, is past and not future. The answer is a resounding yes. No consideration of the End Times is complete without a look at the past fulfillment of prophecy. In this book you will discover why the perennial prophets of doom have been and always will be dead wrong, why the world will never, ever end, how the end of the world came right on time, the time and nature of Christ passed return, and so on and so forth. The basis for the next reformation of Christianity, and there is an endorsement here, so-and-so's book just could be the spark that ignites the next reformation of Christianity. It's all you who are interested in reformation. Here it is. Now, what perspective is this written from? Okay, the one that says it happened before 70 A.D., and not necessarily, it's not really the pre-millennial though. Any other input on this one, Larry? The preterist view, right. Everybody catch that? Who's been here for a while? The preterist meaning, once again, simple definition, already passed, right? Think of your English grammar, speaking of grammarians, my lips are sealed. See, I held it up far enough away. You can't see the author's name. Actually, no, it is not RC. In fact, I would, to be fair, I would say that I don't believe RC would agree with this person. I think this person. Well, when he says why the world will never, ever end, that's a giveaway that he's a type of preterist. Remember, we've said there are different types. Type of preterist, that would say everything has come to pass. I mean, the resurrection, the last judgment, we're in the New Heavens and Newer. And that is what I would call a non-orthodox preterist. RC, as far as I know, has only, well, I think he would call his position partial preterism, which simply means that he's willing to see a lot of New Testament prophecy as having been fulfilled by 80-70, but not all of it. So he definitely believes that Christ will come again, and there will be a last judgment, so forth. So there are various kinds of preterism, but preterism mainly means past. Think of your past preterate tense in English. It's past. Andy? No, definitely not. Is that a small splinter? It's hard for me to say, really, Andy. You would not see this view, I hope not, in PCA circles. I mean, this really puts you outside the bounds of historic Christianity. So in terms of folks in our orbits, it would be, I hope, non-existent, but so more of the reformed preterists, the reformed preterists would not be in this camp. Overall, it's a growing movement, this brand, but not so popular yet, probably. Okay, exhibit B. Bible prophecies, the government doesn't want you to know. I was actually very, I couldn't look at the person behind me when I bought there. My wife limits me to one a week. Okay, the Antichrist is alive and living in the US. Who is it? You have to pay $1.90 to find out. Six signs that prove the world is coming to an end. The only way to protect your family from the apocalypse. Where the Battle of Armageddon will start and how it will end. Why China will be the most hated country on Earth? The moon will turn to blood on Christmas day. And finally, you wouldn't want to miss this one. The five words you must say to survive the end of the world. Okay, can you give me a perspective and a name for this approach? Coazy. It's going to the highest bidder after class, but Larry? Barham and Bailey, okay, that's not bad, that's not bad. In terms of the major approaches that we talked about early on, remember we mentioned Preterism, we mentioned Historicism, John? Futureism. Futureism. Okay, you notice that everything there is in the future, right? Everything there is in the future. Nothing is in the past. Could we be any more specific? That's the broad approach, futurist approach. That's represented there. Well, it's hard, maybe, to be too specific. Probably most people will tend to... Oh, I missed one here, by the way. Every American will wear the number 666, the mark of the beast. That's what really caught my eye because we're talking about the beast 666 today. Many people might identify this with dispensationalism, but I guess I have to say because of, to be fair to dispensationalists, I think this would be a sort of off brand of dispensationalism because he actually says, the author of this article says that the world would come to an end on May 13th, which is great because it's two days before my next birthday and I really wasn't looking forward to that. But that would mean, of course, that there's no like rapture and then seven-year tribulation period that is associated with dispensationalism proper. So it may be sort of just an off brand of that approach, or it may be that it's, well, whatever you call the approach that helps you sell newspaper, I don't know, that's dispensationalism or something. So I wouldn't want to lay this at the feet of, you know, serious, they're serious dispensational interpreters of the Bible that are indeed, you know, our brothers and sisters who believe in scripture just as we do. But I did want to see if this, if you could identify an approach like this. Okay, one more. I don't have any show until for this, just to tell. Did any of you happen to see Frontline on PBS? Yeah, last Monday night, there was a Frontline, maybe about a year ago, there was a Frontline on PBS, they did a series on Jesus and early Christianity. This time they did one on the book of Revelation, which was very interesting in many respects. These were mostly mainline or critical scholars that were being interviewed for this. And one of the scholars said that the beast of Revelation 13, in John's mind, was the Emperor Domitian, the Emperor Domitian, and that John expected that the Emperor Domitian would be defeated by Christ within three and a half years of when he wrote, when John wrote. Any ideas? How would you characterize that view? Historicism? Kind of sounds like it because it has a lot to do with the actual events of history. I would actually call that another form of preterism. It's a different category because this approach that I just mentioned is not really taken from a believing standpoint that submits itself to Scripture. It looks at things purely historically and I would say with a skeptical eye. And so this approach would be glad to identify what John was talking about with John's own day and would be happy to say John was wrong. John expected something to happen and it didn't happen. If you, well, scholars have to deal with that kind of thing. But that is just another form, you might say it's a liberal view, but it's a different form of preterism. But I mention that because you might have turned on your TV and seen this as an interesting program and that's what you would have faced. Big name scholars telling you that John was wrong. He expected something to happen and it didn't and just wanted you to be able to serve. They see the whole thing as a sociological phenomenon and they're easy to relate it to what's going on today with a lot of Christians expecting the end right away. And to them is all one big, you know, one, there's all the same thing. Right. Right. Handy? The preters that we're talking about in most of the time, yes. That's why I'd want to make a careful distinction between that kind of critical or liberal view which you'd have to call it preterism in one sense. But it wouldn't be fair to say to lump that together with believing preterists. But it is a view that's out there. It's a view that's taught at universities and so forth. Okay, well, let's go back to the text which we read at the beginning. Revelation 13. We'll come back to various views about the identity of the beast. But just to remind ourselves, first of all, of what is said in chapter 13. You remember at the end of chapter 12 the dragon has been frustrated in his plans to eliminate the church under the represented by the woman who flees into the wilderness. And he is standing on the sand of the sea at the end of chapter 12. Then John sees a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads. If you look back at the beginning of chapter 12, you see the description of the dragon. You see the dragon also has, we'll see it here, the dragon with seven heads and ten horns. So this beast looks like the dragon. It might even remind you of all the way back in Genesis 1. Where you have the spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep. And here we have the dragon in a sense hovering over the face of the deep, over the sea. And instead of creating, as God did, man in his own image. The beast, excuse me, the dragon creates a beast in his own image. This beast also recalls another famous Old Testament passage by its description here. It said they have a body like a leopard's feet like a bear's mouth like a lion's. Right, Daniel, Daniel chapter 7. You remember in one of Daniel's visions there were four beasts that rose up out of the sea in succession. And those beasts represented Babylon, the Meadow Persian kingdom, Greece, and then Rome. Four. And they were in succession historically. What John sees seems to be either a culmination or a combination of those four beasts here. Because it combines the elements from these four. In Daniel's vision, again, the fourth beast was Rome. And so in some sense, I think we have to say that this beast, the John sees, in some sense, should be related to Rome, the fourth of Daniel's beast. In some way, maybe incorporating all the evil of the previous beast. That doesn't necessarily mean it's exhausted by first century Rome. But I think it must have something to do with first century Rome. The dragon gives its authority and its throne to the beast. I might ponder what that might mean for a while. Verse 5 says, the first beast, say first because there's another one's going to come from the earth. This one comes out of the sea. The first beast has authority for how long? 42 months. Now where have we seen that figure before? Have we run into that before? Yes. The woman right has a place prepared in the wilderness for 42 months. Where she's protected. She's pursued by the dragon, but she's protected. Anything else? Three and a half years, the time times and half a time, the 1,260 days, back at the beginning of chapter 11. We're told that the two witnesses witness for this period. Now if this is the same period, the period in which the beast has his power, what would we say about that period? Based on past classes, if you haven't been here before, you're not expected to answer. What would we say about that period if it's the same period as we've talked about before? This could be another description, another angle on what's going on in this period. Now how have we identified this period, this 3 and a half year period? We've gone through several different approaches. Right. The time between the Advent, thanks, Sir Jane. The time between the 1 and the 2nd Advent. That's what we've suggested here is the symbolism, the symbolic import of the 3 and a half year period. Remember that some see it as the last 3 and a half years or part of the last seven years of history. Some would identify it with something that's going on in the 1st century. We've suggested here that it is a figure that would encompass the entire time between Christ 1 and 2nd Cummings. If that is the case, then what does it say about the beast today? The beast is around. Right. The beast is raining. The beast is around throughout the whole period. You start to see how the various views, various interpretations really do give you quite different outcomes, you might say. Instead of only looking for the beast to come at some future time, and maybe the church probably won't even be here when that happens. Or instead of seeing it all in the past as having been fulfilled, this view that I'm suggesting would make us wary to find the beast whenever we live in history. Now, when we get to chapter 17, we're going to see, I think, that the beast does not always exist in its most malevolent form. At some times it's not particularly virulent, malevolent, but at other times it will be, and there will be a final manifestation of the beast that will be utterly malevolent. But tracking with me here, that's the way that I would suggest we look at the beast. Now, we'll see some of the implications of that in a moment. Right, for 13? Yeah, I was thinking away from it. Exactly, I think that's again the paradox that we've been seeing all the way through. Is that in one sense he is limited, but in another sense, you go back to verse 12 of chapter 12, because he's been cast out of heaven, we have this voice in heaven. I would rejoice then, O heaven, and you that dwell therein, but woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows his time is short. So there is on the one hand rejoicing, and because the salvation of our God has come, Satan has been thrown down out of heaven, his accusations are thrown out of court, and yet it's a time of woe for earth and sea. He pursues the woman and looks like he's about to overtake her with lies from his mouth, but she's protected. So again, I would suggest that's the paradoxical situation of the church all the way through. He pursued beaten down, but not defeated, and the gates of hell do not triumph against him. In desperation, in a way, yeah, right, and in a way his power is obviously curtailed. Look how many Christians there are throughout the world now as opposed to 80-30. There are ways in which we see his power is obviously curtailed from when it was then, but in other ways he's a desperate villain. John, did you?
Yeah, we could think that, and yet I think that other people would say the world is so much better, and such that how can you say that Satan is bound because it looks, or that's the one line that it looks worse today than it's ever been, but in other ways as you're pointing out, we're more aware of persecution elsewhere, and maybe it's no worse than it has been at many points in history. Yeah, that's a good point. But notice the blasphemies that he utters in verses five and six. These blasphemies have to do with claiming divine prerogatives, I think, if we relate them to other similar passages in Scripture. And I think that in this we are, we see the ultimate tendency of ungodly human power, human authority is always towards self-deification, taking over the prerogatives of God. We've seen this in many ways in past history. We see it probably in our own day in many places in the world, and we may even at times see it in our own culture in various ways. But this beast is given ability to war against the saints and to conquer them, and even to kill them. This same thing was said, if you recall, of the two witnesses in chapter 11, that the beast that rises from the pit is able to conquer them and even kill them. We suggest that the two witnesses stand for the church there and the apparent victory that the beast gains over the church in the form of the two witnesses. The beast is given power over all the earth, and all on earth worship it, except those whose names have been written before the foundation of the world in the Lamb's book of life. Starting with verse 11, we have the introduction of the second beast, the beast that rises from the earth. This beast seems like it is in service of the first and is an agent enforcing people to worship the first beast. That seems to be its overall identity, and then at the end of the chapter we have the famous, the introduction of the famous mark of 666 that is put on the right hand or the forehead of those who dwell on the earth. This second beast, elsewhere, is called the false prophet in chapter 16, verse 13. This beast looks like a lamb, right? Verse 11, it had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon. There seems to be with this beast, like with the first, some imitation aspect that is imitating God or it is imitating Christ in particular. That is why both of them have been called Antichrist from time to time. When you think about the Antichrist, most people identify with maybe the first beast in Revelation, but both of these beasts have anti-Christian tendencies that as they imitate, they are like false Christ. This one has horns like a lamb, but speaks like the dragon. There is something very deeply and essentially religious about this second beast. With the first beast too, something religious in that he blasphemes God and sets himself up as God, but the second beast in a sense gets people to worship the first. That seems to be the gist of the character of the two beasts. Now what would we say as to the identity of these beasts? What is John talking about? Well again, just to remind us, we could look at different approaches to the beast, the identity of the beast. One approach would be to identify them, or at least the first beast, with some Roman emperor in the first century in John's time. That is very often done by some interpreters. I mentioned the scholars on that frontline, PBS Special, and the one of them, at least, identified the beast as Emperor Domitian. Emperor Domitian reign, I believe his dates, were 81 to 96. Is that the beast that John is talking about happening in his own day? Other preterists, the ones that we might be familiar with, would identify him with another Emperor, Nero, and it would say this was written before 8070 and it's Nero earlier in the first century. Nero is the beast, he is the Antichrist that is defeated in the book of Revelation. Okay, that's one approach. There is the futurist approach, which would say that the beast is of course the Antichrist, the beast from the seas, the Antichrist, and the Antichrist has not been manifested yet, and will be in the future, probably very near future. They might say that ancient Rome foreshadowed the future Antichrist, but it has to do with the future Antichrist. But then there is an approach, one that I would identify more with, that would see the circumstances as transcending whatever was happening in the first century Rome, and applying throughout the whole of the Christian age. The commentator named Hendrickson says, the sea beast is, quote, every form of secular power that tries to destroy believers. Philip Hughes says, the first beast is the spirit of Antichristianity manifested through human agencies during the whole course of the Christian era. Here's a case where I think that probably there's something to learn from all these approaches. That is, I think that the immediate context for John's statements for the vision was what was going on with the Roman government at the time, what was going on, and what was just about to break on the sea. The problem with the preterist approach is that you wouldn't want to limit it, I don't think, to what happened in the first or the second century. But rather to see that this is the tendency of secular Antichristian government throughout the age. It's the tendency, it doesn't always reach that point, but the tendency is always there, and Antichristian governments have always persecuted the saints and continue to do so today. But even that doesn't necessarily exhaust it, because there may well be, and I think there will be, a final outbreak of this beastly power just before the coming of Christ. So in a way, I think that all three of these perspectives have something to contribute, and they're not mutually exclusive. It would only be critical if they tried to exclude the other points of view. Let's go back just for a moment to the first and second century to give an example or two. In AD 111 or 112, a man named Pliny the Younger, and yes, there was a Pliny the Elder, but this is Pliny the Younger, was serving as governor of Bethinia. Now Bethinia is a region just to the north of Asia, it's in Asia Minor, just to the north of the cities that we're talking about in Revelation. He was sent there to be governor, the emperor at that time was, anybody? Extra points. The Roman Emperor at that time was Trajan. And Pliny had a problem because at this time he comes into this province, he's a foreign, he's from the outside, he's not used to being there, and he finds all these accusations against people, accusations that they're Christians. And he doesn't know quite what to do with these accusations, so he writes to Trajan at the emperor, and we actually have this letter. Here is how he describes his procedures. He says to Trajan, now I have begun to deal with this problem, as I, now that I've begun to deal with this problem, as so often happens, the charges are becoming more widespread and increasing in variety. More and more people are being accused of being Christians. And an anonymous pamphlet has been circulated which contains the names of a number of accused persons. You see what's happening, your name might be on a list, that's been passed around, got made its way to the governor, that you're a Christian. Now, I just think this is wonderfully and bitterly ironic because in the book of Revelation there is a book with the name of Christians on it. Do you remember that? What is it? It's the Lamb's book of life, right? How ironic, you know, now within a few years, 15 or 20 years, they're circulating in the part of those regions, a book of pamphlet with the names of Christians on it. You might call the beast's book of death or something, but there's one with our names written on it, which is the Lamb's book of life. Well, anyway, plenty continues. Amongst these, I consider that I should dismiss, as what does he do when he finds these people, rounds them up. He says, I consider I should dismiss any who denied that they were or ever had been Christians when they had repeated after me a formula of invocation to the gods and had made offerings of wine and incense to your statue. So they would bring in the statue of the emperor, the statue which I had ordered to be brought into court for this purpose along with the images of the gods. And furthermore, had reviled, talking about the Christians now, or the accused, when they had reviled the name of Christ, none of which things I understand any genuine Christian can be induced to do. That's kind of interesting. Others whose names were given to me by an informer first admitted the charge and then denied it, the charge of being a Christian. They said that they had ceased to be Christians two or more years previously, and some of them even 20 years ago would put them just before the book of Revelation was written. They all did reverence to your statue and the images of the gods in the same way as the others and reviled the name of Christ. What about those who maintained their confession of Christ and did not offer sacrifice? I ordered them to be executed. About 45 years after that incident, a man named Polycarp, who was Bishop of Smyrna, also stood before the pro-consul in the amphitheater of Smyrna. After a bit of wrangling back and forth between Polycarp and the pro-consul, the pro-consul or governor charged Polycarp. Take the oath and I let you go. Revile Christ. Polycarp said, for eighty and six years have I been his servant and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me? But when he persisted again and said, swear by the genius of Caesar, he answered him, if you vainly suppose that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as you say, and pretend that you are ignorant of who I am, listen plainly. I am a Christian. This I think is what's happening when John says that the second beast is able to give breath to the image of the beast and to cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. In other words, it was really happening within a few years of when John wrote. Now, the records of Pliny and the story of Polycarp illustrate, I think, the backdrop, the immediate situation in which these things began to find their fulfillment. But I think that the complete fulfillment of this prophecy goes way beyond that and would apply to any state-sponsored persecution of the church down to this day. And if you look at historical precedent and certainly in John's day, you'll find that often there is a religious element supporting that persecution of the church, a religious establishment that is itself anti-Christian. In John's day, it was probably the local priesthood of all the pagan temples, maybe the local aristocracy that one of these Christians caught and punished. Also, in that day, probably also a lot of the Jewish population in Asia Minor. I said that not to be in any way anti-Semitic today. It's not saying anything about Jews today. But we know from second century records that that often happened. Jewish population was often eager to see the Christians persecuted. As Jews calls it an unholy alliance of the anti-Christian state and the apostate church. I'm not sure I'd go quite so far as to say that the second beast is the apostate Christian church or not. But I do think that there is a religious element, always seems to be a religious element supporting giving aid to the state when it persecutes believers. Any questions on that before we go to the 666 itself, Carolyn, that we're supposed to ask why we're not being persecuted, is that what you're getting at? That's true. When you look at the letters of the churches, the ones that are most criticized are the ones that seem much like they've conformed to the local culture. And materialism and wealth and so forth with Sardis and the lukewarmness with Leo Decia. I think you're right. That's always, that always stands a warning to us. Is the reason for our lack of persecution because we've conformed too much to the surrounding culture. Right. And that's why it's not a clear case, I think, even in our culture that, yes, we're not being persecuted like polycarp and the smerny and Christians were, but there are elements of the church that are. And there are more subtle ways that we are. I think Stuart was just telling me about an instance in the news, and I've noticed this before. Maybe you have to where in various media reports, Christians are becoming stereotypes as hate mongers and bigots. Now in some cases, some cases that might be accurate, but what's happening is that this is becoming, I think, a stereotype that you see out there. It may be somewhat harmless, but things like that have the potential to become more serious under the right circumstances. If that becomes the common way that society looks at Christians as hate mongers and bigots and so forth, that makes it right for the picking for somebody who would come along and want to press that. Yes. Sure. I know I just wanted to talk about antichrides or disease. There's something interesting because there's two things, right. What is related to Daniel that he's going to offer antichrides to an offer of prosperity and peace? I just found to a lady who went to part by a sign of it. I don't know who likes Clinton, who doesn't, but there's something that I like about him that. You know, that's what he's offering is. He's been, yeah, we are maybe possibly, you know, as far as fun and all. We're really not when you come right now to it in another year so the money is not going to work nothing for what I hear. So he's going to offer prosperity and there isn't going to be any. And the other thing is my dad was in the army in the military. He said whoever the guy is that Clinton, right, he closed all of the military days. He's disarmed in this country. So what they're going to do that makes it easy for anybody to take over the antichrides. Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think it's, yeah. A lot of the bases are closed and a lot of their weapons are not very gone. Peace and air force facing the antichrides. They use that weapon there. They don't have them. So what are they going to do to get bomb? Well, it is. It is. And there are things in our culture that, you know, they've been going on that certainly only bowed for the worst. Now, you know, whether we can say this means the end is right around the corner is a completely different question, but it's still. He shared one time that the bees straight talks about the ten nations is the crown talks about the breastplate, the legs and the feet. So he talked about the feet. We're in the Thailand where the clan iron don't mix, right? For the feed are the world's trying to make peace and they can't do it. The thing that I was talking about my dad, that nation, the ones that controlling Clinton, the ones that he's going with or deciding to do these things in our nation. And that's part of the beast. I don't know. It makes sense to me. Well, you know, I think we have to see that the beast is always with us. And it may or may not be right now in a very malevolent form. And I think we'd have to say in our culture today, the beast is not in a particularly malevolent form as compared with past persecutions. But I think that it also makes sense to us that we've got to be, we've always got to be wary because we don't know just when the beast might become more malevolent. Amen. Yeah. Amen. And it means that we can't just look, I think, just look off to the future at a time when that we may not even be here because we might be taken from the world. I think we've got to recognize evil in our midst where it is and where the potential is for that evil to spring up. But in all cases, don't receive the mark of the beast. Now, what is the mark of the beast? We are just about out of time. So, come back next week. That's a great idea. Okay. We can come back to this, but just so you won't be hanging all week, you never know what might happen in that week. I would encourage you to compare the mark of the beast with another mark or seal that we've already read about in the book of Revelation. Remember any mark or seal we've come across in chapter 7, the 144,000 are sealed with the seal of God. And then in chapter 14, which we haven't got too quite yet, verse 1, John looks and on Mount Zion stood the Lamb and with him 144,000 who had his name and his father's name written on their foreheads. Sounds like the mark of the beast only in the Word, only the opposite, doesn't it? I mean, it sounds as though the mark of the beast is like an imitation of the mark that's put upon Christians. The mark that's put upon Christians identifies Christians as belonging to God through Christ. The mark of the beast would identify those who belong to the beast. Now, the mark on Christians and the sealing of Christians with the seal of God stamped on them, is that a literal outward mark that you can see? No, unless it's something completely different from what we've been talking about. Paul says we've been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. John says that we have been anointed with that anointing and that anointing teaches us all things. In other words, all Christians, if you have the Spirit, you've been sealed with the Holy Spirit. You have God's mark on you. You may not be able to see it. No one else is able to see it, but it's there. If there's an analogy with the mark of the beast, it may well be that the mark is not a visible mark. Or maybe it could be at some point, at some times in history and not at other times in history. There may be something, I think this is the sort of question we'd have to ask ourselves today, what is it in our culture that identifies people with the beast? What is it that would mark our sell-out to the beast? Is there anything? I don't know, I would like to get your input on that. I don't know what exactly that might be in our day, but I think that's a sort of question that we ought to ask. What is it that sells people out or that is sort of a mark of ownership of belonging to the beast? In John's day, maybe it was sacrificing to the emperor, and we know that in just a number of decades after that there was a little certificate that the officials would give you to say that you sacrificed to the emperor, and that would be proof for anybody who wanted to check on you. So it could have taken a sort of outward form like that at certain times, but I don't think it always does. But I'll just sort of leave it there, I think, today for you to think about that, and we'll come back and finish that thought next week. Any final comments? Okay, Andy. Right, I tend to agree with that. It's hard to say there's one thing. Well, that's true. Amen. Okay, let's close the prayer. Lord, we rejoice that we have indeed been sealed with the seal of God that you have touched our lives with your Holy Spirit and have marked us for eternity. We thank you that you have set your protection over us that we no longer need to fear what Satan might throw at us or need to fear his accusations against us. Once and for all, Jesus has paid the penalty for our sins, and we belong to him. We thank you for that assurance, and we pray that you would be with us the rest of this day. Make that assurance fruitful in our lives as we serve you this towards day in Christ's name. Amen.