The Counterfeit Christ

Let's go ahead and open up to Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

It's hard to believe that.

We're already in the 13th chapter.

It feels like we just started, huh?

Check, check.

Oh, that is on.

Okay, sweet.

Sorry for everybody watching online.

All right, Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

As we start this chapter,

it's really important for us to remember

how the last chapter ended.

So if you have your Bibles there,

make sure you look at the end of Revelation chapter 12

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

and just pay attention to specifically verse 16,

where it says that the earth came to the help of the woman

and the earth opened its mouth

and swallowed up the river

that the dragon had poured from his mouth, verse 17.

Then the dragon became furious with the woman

and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring

and on those who keep the commandments of God

and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

And then here's the important part.

And he stood on the sand of the sea.

Now, we said that he's standing on the edge of the sea

because he's anticipating calling an ally from the sea.

So it makes sense.

He's standing there on the edge of the sea

and he is about to call forth an ally from the sea

to help him as he wars against God and his people.

It's a really dramatic scene.

It seems almost like something out of

like a Marvel movie these days.

You know, you've got this dramatic bad guy

rising up out of the sand.

I mean, it was actually in a Marvel movie recently.

There was, I think it was Black Panther II.

The big bad guy was Namor.

If you don't know who Namor is,

he's just Marvel's version of Aquaman, right?

So he's got all Aquaman's powers.

And there's one scene where all the Atlanteans

are charging Wakanda, they're waging war.

And in the height of the battle,

you just have this really slow dramatic scene

of Namor rising out of the sea.

And it's like, oh no, here's the big bad.

He's about to put an end to all this stuff

going on right now.

And that's what you get here in Revelation 13.

You have this dramatic scene.

There's this war going on that we're reading about

that's ongoing here on earth.

And then very slowly and dramatically,

here comes this big bad guy rising out of the sea

to come and help wage war against God and His people.

And I want you to notice what it says,

beginning in verse one of chapter 13.

It says, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea

with 10 horns and seven heads,

with 10 diadems on its horns and blasphemous names

on its heads.

Now, there's some people who we've said before,

they like to interpret the book of Revelation

literally the entire way through, right?

So they've been trained that you just read the Bible

the same way, no matter which book of the Bible you're in,

which doesn't always work, because I tell you all the time,

you should always interpret the Bible literally

when it's meant to be interpreted literally.

So for instance, when the Bible says God has wings,

do we need to interpret that literally?

No, that's poetic language, we get that, right?

And so when you come to a passage like this,

it's not necessary to interpret it literally.

And for those who would, I would just say,

maybe stop going to the beach

and taking vacations to the beach,

because at any point a beast could come from the sea

and start waging war on you.

So it doesn't need to be interpreted literally.

And in fact, the first readers of Revelation,

they would not have interpreted this literally.

You have to remember that these were people who were steeped

in the writings of the Old Testament.

And in Hebrew thought, as we've said last time

we were together, in Hebrew thought,

the sea was the place of chaos and evil.

In other words, the sea was the place that gave birth

to all forms of chaos and evil here on earth.

So when John told them about a beast rising from the sea,

they naturally would have understood that

to mean that something evil and menacing

was coming into this world.

And they would be right, right?

Yeah, absolutely they'd be right.

Notice this, the beast is connected to the dragon

that we read about in chapter 12.

Y'all remember the dragon?

He is Satan, that ancient serpent.

And he's connected to him by their similarities.

Notice this, you look at the description of the dragon

in Revelation 12, 3, and then the description of the beast

in Revelation 13, 1.

And you'll notice that both of them have 10 horns,

they both have seven heads, and they both wear diadems.

However, whereas the dragon wears the diadems on its head,

the beast wears them on his horns.

So there's a difference there.

The dragon has the crown on his head,

the beast has the crowns on his horns,

and some have understood this rightly, I think,

to mean that the dragon is the king of the evil empire,

and the beast is the military arm of the evil empire.

In other words, it's through the beast

that the dragon wages war against God and his people.

And I want you to notice how John is describing the beast

as he rises out of the water.

We're gonna pay attention to this very closely

because you'll notice he starts with the heads, right?

He's got all these heads and horns and things like that.

And that's exactly what you would see first

if something was rising out of the water, right?

You would first see its head, or in this case, many heads.

So he's literally depicting this thing coming out of water

and he's describing it as he sees it, first as the head,

and then he goes on to describe the rest of the beast

as it continues to rise.

And it's interesting that the beast is also similar

to the four beasts that we read about in the book of.

We're gonna make me do the whole, come on now.

Daniel, there we go.

I was thinking, how am I gonna do that stall though?

Anyways, the book of Daniel, good job guys.

I just wanted to see me try to spell out all the letters,

right?

So Daniel, and Daniel chapter seven

talks about four different beasts,

and ultimately it's representing four kingdoms

that are gonna rise to power,

but ultimately they are supplanted by the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God will triumph over all.

And you look at this and you have to notice

that the heads, the horns, and the diadems of the beast

symbolize that he is coming with power and rule and authority.

But here's an important distinction.

Whereas Daniel's four beasts that he mentioned

refer to four literal kingdoms to come,

the beast of Revelation chapter 13

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

represents the persecuting power of Satan

embodied in all nations and governments

throughout human history.

In other words, Satan's power becomes visible in the beast.

And I want you to notice what it says here about him.

In the end of verse one it says that he has

blasphemous names on its head.

It's a reference to the false claims of nations and rulers

throughout all of human history

who have tried to claim for themselves

what is meant only for Christ.

That's what it means when it says that he has

blasphemous names on his head.

For instance, in the first century,

and even beyond then, the Roman emperors had titles

such as Lord, Savior, Son of God, and Lord God.

And the Roman emperors made people worship them as gods

and offer sacrifices to them as gods.

Those are blasphemous names.

Do what?

Yeah, he was a crazy guy.

He was absolutely loony.

Yeah, he went into the temple and he did a whole bunch

of stuff that he should not have done

in the temple.

I believe it was a Caligula who put the shields

with the emperor's face, yeah, put shields

with the emperor's face in the temple,

and that was a big no-no.

And he thought, oh man, Caesar's gonna be really happy

with me because I did all this.

And turns out that was not the right move at all

because that made the Jews angry,

and so that caused all sorts of problems for him as well.

But notice that these emperors had placed upon themselves

names that led people away from the one true God

and tried to get them to worship and submit to a false God.

Now you might think, well, okay, that was first century Rome.

Good thing we don't see that anymore today, right?

I feel like we mentioned these guys a lot

in our study of Revelation, but it's just

because it's so fitting.

Think about North Korea.

Think about the Kim dynasty.

The Kim dynasty in North Korea,

they are literally deified.

They portray themselves as being gods,

and you are supposed to worship them as gods

and believe that they are deity.

So there's a human ruler who has placed

blasphemous names upon himself.

What is that except the spirit of the beast?

So yeah, the beast was present and active

in first century Rome, but you have to understand,

the beast is still present and active today.

The spirit of the beast is at work in the world today.

Now again, the people of God, when they read this,

they would have said, well, the beast is Rome.

Would they have been right?

Yeah, absolutely, the beast was Rome.

The beast was, the spirit of the beast was at work in Rome,

but the spirit of the beast continues

throughout all of human history.

Every nation and ruler and king and authority

who seeks to take the place of God

has the spirit of the beast at work in him and his country.

But I want you to notice how the description continues.

Look at verse two.

The Bible says, and the beast that I saw was like a leopard,

its feet were like a bear's,

and its mouth was like a lion's mouth.

And to it, the dragon gave his power

and his throne and great authority.

Now, the important thing for you to just make a note of here

and write down for later study

is that the three animals mentioned here

are the exact three that Daniel mentions

in Daniel chapter seven when he sees the four beasts.

And so the point is to connect them,

but also to show that it is the dragon

who is imparted to these beasts, power and authority,

and the ability to rule.

But then something very interesting happens.

Look at verse three, this is the really interesting thing.

It says, one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound,

but its mortal wound was healed

and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.

Now, I posted about this earlier,

so at least Edith has seen it,

but it might be a surprise for the rest of you,

but there's a lot of fun word play going on here

in this verse that is hidden in English.

And this is why you should all learn Greek

and I'd be happy to teach you.

But really important to focus on a few words here,

because the whole point of this verse

is the Bible is portraying the beast as a counterfeit Christ.

That's the whole point.

The beast is being portrayed as a counterfeit Christ.

You might be thinking, well,

how is that possible here in this verse?

Well, if you circle words in your Bible,

you could circle the word wound in that verse in particular.

It's a really interesting word.

Basically what this is trying to do in this verse

is the beast is going to seek to mimic and imitate Jesus

so as to lead people away from Jesus.

And I want you to notice a few things.

The Bible says in Revelation 1912

that Jesus has a royal diadem that he wears.

What's the beast wearing here?

Royal diadem.

So he's imitating Christ.

The Bible also says in Revelation 1912

that Jesus has a name, a worthy name, written on him.

And what does it say about the beast here?

He's got blasphemous names written on him.

So he's, again, imitating Jesus.

The Bible tells us in Revelation chapter seven

that Jesus saves people from every tribe, tongue, nation

and language.

And chapter 13, verse seven is gonna go on to say

that the beast has authority over people

from every tribe, tongue, nation and language.

Jesus is worshiped as God.

And the Bible tells us here in Revelation 13.4

that the beast gets people to worship him

as though he was God.

And so you see every single place so far is saying,

here is Jesus and here's this counterfeit.

Which one are you going to follow?

Which one are you going to give your worship to?

But then as I said, what really is interesting here

that you don't get to see in English

is this idea of the mortal wound on the head.

It says that the beast has this mortal wound on his head

and is ultimately healed and people marvel at the beast.

And what this is, is actually he is seeking to imitate

the death and resurrection of Jesus

so that people will worship him as God.

As I told you to do, circle that word wound

because the word used there for wound

is the Greek word sphozo.

And it's already been used in Revelation.

Except the first time it was used in Revelation,

it was used for Jesus.

In Revelation 5.6, the Bible says,

in between the throne and the four living creatures

and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing

as though it had been sphozo, slain.

The word used for slain there is the exact same word used

to describe the beast's mortal wound that is upon his head.

Just as Jesus was slain, so too the beast was slain.

Furthermore, Revelation 13.14 says this about the beast.

And by the signs that it is allowed to work

in the presence of the beast,

it deceives those who dwell on the earth,

telling them to make an image for the beast

that was wounded sphozo by the sword and yet lived.

Now, if you circle words in your Bible, go to verse 14

and circle the word wounded

and also circle the phrase, yet lived.

That's a really important phrase there,

that the phrase, yet lived, it's a xio in Greek.

And this is virtually identical

to what is said of Jesus in Revelation 2.8.

The Bible says, into the angel of the church in Smyrna, right,

the words of the first and the last,

who died and xio came to life.

The exact same phrase is used in the Greek.

It's the same word for saying the beast, yet lived,

is the exact same word as saying Jesus came to life.

In the Greek, they are identical.

So do you see what it's doing here?

Everything that has already been said about Jesus,

they're now saying about the beast,

because the beast is seeking to imitate Jesus.

He is portraying himself as though he were Christ,

because he wants to lead people to him rather than Christ.

He is a counterfeit Christ.

And just to really bring this full circle,

I don't know if you paid attention to this

or thought about this.

It says that the beast has this mortal wound.

Where's the mortal wound on its head?

Why is the mortal wound on its head?

Anybody think about that?

Yes, absolutely.

Genesis 3.15, the Bible says,

I will put enmity between you and the woman

and between your offspring and her offspring,

and he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.

And so at the cross, Jesus crushed the head of Satan.

And so Satan's empire was crushed,

but God allows Satan to continue here on earth

until the appointed time,

where he will be thrown into the lake of fire

for all of eternity.

Where he will not rule, by the way,

contrary to movies and TV shows,

Satan will suffer just as everyone else suffers in hell.

And so the Bible is saying here,

it looked as though he had this mortal wound

that was sure to kill him and put it into him,

but yet Satan continues on in the world today.

He's still active in the world today.

The beast is still active in the world today.

You still see evil all over the place today.

And so this is enough to make people look at Satan

and the beast in their evil kingdom

and go, well, hey, he deserves my worship.

Not even God can defeat him.

And this is exactly what's led to satanism in our world

and satanic cults.

I mean, as a Christian, that never made sense to me.

I'm like, why on earth would people worship Satan?

He was created by God.

He was defeated by God,

but the reason is because they say,

well, he's clearly still active today.

They say, I've talked to demons.

I've communicated with them.

We know that Satan is real.

We know that he's active and he is still alive today.

And so if God himself could not even kill Satan,

then maybe Satan deserves my worship rather than God.

And so they've turned to satanism and satanic cults.

And you see, that's exactly what happens in verse four.

It says that the people behold that this wound was healed

and they worship the dragon,

for he had given his authority to the beast

and they worship the beast saying, who is like the beast?

And who can fight against it?

That's exactly the satanist's response today.

Who can defeat this guy?

He's awesome.

Let's worship him.

And listen, it's not even just satanists.

You might think this is something you'll never come across

because you're like, I don't know anybody

in a satanic cult.

I've encountered this personally

when I was working at Lowes.

I was working with a guy

and we were having a conversation one day.

I still remember, it used to be aisle 39 back then,

the rug aisle, I don't know what it is today,

but we were putting away rugs

and he just out of the blue said to me,

evil is stronger than love

because you see more evil in the world than love.

I was like, well, that doesn't mean it's more powerful

or stronger, it just means it spreads quicker like a disease.

And he said, well, your Bible tells us

that Satan is the reason there's so much evil in this world.

And I see more evidence of his work than God's work.

And so it seems to me that he's more powerful than your God.

He's not a satanist.

He's just an onlooker seeing what's going on in the world

today and he's saying the exact same thing

that the people are saying here.

Look at the beast.

Who can fight against him?

How wonderful he is.

You see, this is why this passage matters.

You have to remember the whole purpose

of the book of Revelation is to get us to see,

to open our eyes to the unfolding of Revelation all around us.

In other words, this isn't just stuff

that all happened in AD 70.

If you think that Revelation is just all about

what happened in AD 70, you're mistaken.

If you think it's all about something

that's gonna happen in the far all future,

you're mistaken.

Some of this happened in AD 70.

Some of it's gonna happen in the future.

But let me tell you something, folks.

It's happening all around us right now.

You see the unfolding of the book of Revelation

in our midst today.

People today are being swayed by the deceptions

of the counterfeit Christ.

They are being drawn to him.

They're worshiping him.

They're following him.

They're marveling at his power.

They're submitting to his authority.

And they are seeking to live their lives

in accordance with his will rather than the will of God.

And this beast, he demands total allegiance.

I want you to look at verses five through eight.

It says,

And the beast was given a mouth uttering

haughty and blasphemous words.

And it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months.

It opened his 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 in language and nation.

And all who dwell on earth will worship it.

Everyone whose name has not been written

before the foundation of the world

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

You see, the beast is not satisfied with appalls

or admiration.

He demands worship and total allegiance from all people

in every corner of the earth.

And understanding this really helps us to identify

the spirit of the beast in our world today.

Anytime people begin to look to something other than Jesus

as the solution for everything in life,

they are being drawn by the spirit of the beast today.

Many people do this with governments.

There are even some in our own country

who look to the government as the solution

for everything in life.

If you've got a problem, the state is the answer.

A guy I really respect, a theologian and philosopher,

Vern Poitras said this.

He said that Satan wants people to look to the state

as if it were the Messiah.

When the government is set forth as the remedy

for all ills, economic, social, medical, moral,

and even spiritual, then the idolatry of the state

usurps the place reserved for God alone.

And you don't need me to say this to you,

but I will anyways.

The state is not the answer for the problems we face in life.

No matter what issue we face,

we need to understand that the underlying cause

of all our problems in the world is sin.

And sin is a heart issue.

And again, you don't need me to tell you this,

but I'm going to.

The government can do nothing to fix a heart issue.

They can put a bandaid on the problem of sin,

but they cannot heal the problem of sin.

I mean, for instance, the state, they may condemn racism

and they may say racism's wrong

and they may even try to offer a few solutions

about how to solve racism,

but the problem is racism is a sin problem.

And it comes from a heart issue

and the state cannot fix a heart.

Only Jesus can.

And so if you want to solve racism in the United States,

you do not turn to a president or a government,

you turn to Jesus.

That's the only way racism's getting solved in this country,

which is why people need the gospel,

not another social program.

That's another sermon for another day.

The state may think the best way

to make people feel included and accepted

is by approving and promoting the LGBT agenda,

which they do, by the way.

But let me remind you that sin needs to be confronted,

not accepted.

That's the problem.

Our world doesn't want to call sin sin.

They want to accept every form of sin.

And so they say, if we can just get everybody to accept it,

we'll be on the same page and we'll all get along.

Sin must be confronted, not accepted.

It was sin that sent Jesus to the cross

and nailed him there.

How dare we as a people accept and approve of something

that killed our savior?

This is why we're not lax on sin.

People may say, well, you're a bigot.

You're too hard on sin.

It's not popular.

I understand that.

You're not going to be popular taking a stand for God.

But how dare we as God's people be cowardly and refuse

to condemn the very sin that nailed Jesus to the cross?

God help us all if we do that.

Many people today, they do this also with candidates

for presidents.

Many people think, if my God got elected,

all the problems would be solved.

We have this bad habit today of thinking

that the next presidential candidate

is going to be a messiah who saves our country.

And I'll just say this to you now.

I don't know who you're voting for.

You vote however you want to.

Your guy is not going to save this country.

He is not worthy of that level of submission.

And he is not worthy of that expectation.

You cannot put something on a human candidate that

is only meant for Jesus.

So if you find yourself given allegiance to a candidate

in such a way that he is the solution to all the problems,

my friends, that's being drawn away

by the spirit of the beast.

That's turning away from the true Jesus.

I was incredibly disheartened by this

when we went to Indianapolis.

I kid you not, we went outside on lunch

during the second day we were there.

And we were on our way to a lunch at one of the hotels.

And there are some protesters outside,

which you get used to because at every annual meeting,

there's protesters.

And it was mostly women this time saying,

silencing women is silencing God and things like that.

And they had their bull horns and TikTok videos and stuff.

But there was one guy who was there on the corner,

and he had this huge, I mean, huge banner.

And it said, Trump is the Messiah.

He is the second coming.

Go watch this YouTube video that proves it.

I wish I was making that up.

That'd be a great preacher story to make up.

You can ask Jordan, it's 100% true.

And he wasn't doing it as a joke.

That guy was out there and he legitimately believed

that Donald Trump was the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Folks, again, you vote for whoever you want to.

I can't tell you otherwise.

I'm telling you, no matter if your guy is Trump

or Biden or anyone else, they aren't Jesus.

And they do not deserve your submission and your worship

that should be only reserved for Christ.

Presidential candidates cannot save you.

Christ alone is the answer.

He is the solution for all the problems we face in life.

He is our hope.

We cannot be drawn away by the beast

or fall for his deceptions.

We need to keep our knees down and our eyes on Jesus.

Don't be distracted.

The Bible is telling us here

that we must persevere in the faith

through all of the beast's deceptions.

That's what the Bible tells us in verses eight through 10.

It says, and all who dwell on the earth

will worship the beast.

Everyone whose name has not been written

before the foundation of the world

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

If anyone has an ear, let him hear.

You have ears?

You should listen, okay?

This is what he says.

This one's a hard one.

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

If anyone is to be slain with the sword,

with the sword, he must be slain.

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

So notice what the Bible's doing here.

It's depicting a pretty horrible world.

Can we all agree on that?

It says, here's this counterfeit Christ.

And guess what?

He's got authority and power and rule

in every corner of the world,

over every tribe, tongue, nation, language and people.

And every single person on earth

whose name has not been written

in the lamb's book of life

is going to follow him and worship him.

And he's gonna persecute the world.

He's gonna persecute the saints.

And he says, many people are gonna die.

And it says, even so.

Persevere in the faith.

Even so.

So the question then is, well, how can we do that?

How can we persevere in our faith

in that kind of a world?

And I want you to just, a couple of things here.

The first way is by knowing that our salvation

is eternally secure.

It's pretty easy to be willing to go to war

when you know the war has already been won.

And the Bible is saying here, hey, listen.

Before God ever laid the foundations of the world,

he wrote your name in blood in the lamb's book of life.

And that blood cannot be erased.

When God wrote your name in that book, it's there forever.

Nothing can be done.

Neither the dragon nor the beast

is able to take your salvation away from you.

No amount of persecution, no amount of temptation

can rob you of that which Christ has secured for you.

Jesus has secured it.

And let me tell you something, folks.

He is going to preserve it all the way to the end.

That's the perseverance of the saints.

Those who have faith in Jesus

will never lose their faith in Jesus,

not because of how hard and how strongly

you are holding on to God,

but it's because of how tightly God is holding on to you.

Isn't that encouraging?

I mean, I remember when Judah was small enough

to let me hold him, we used to do this game all the time

where I would just act like I was going to drop him

and I'd catch him, you know, it was a lot of fun.

And if I ever did it too fast

or he dropped a little too quickly,

he would just grab on and he was so scared

that he was gonna fall.

And I told him, buddy, I was like, hey, listen,

the reason you're not gonna fall

is not because you've got a hold of me.

The reason you're not gonna fall

is because I've got a hold of you.

That's our faith in God.

That's encouraging because I know

that I've got weak faith sometimes.

Anybody else, just me?

I know that I'm tempted to walk away.

I know that I battle doubts and discouragement

and I've got pretty weak faith sometimes.

And if my salvation was dependent

upon the strength of my faith,

I'd be in a whole world of hurt.

I'd have reason to worry,

but I know that my salvation is secure

because my father will never let go of me.

And so the Bible is saying here,

hey, you can persevere even in a world like this

because your salvation is secure,

no matter what happens to you, you cannot lose it.

And God has a hold of you through everything.

The other thing I want you to notice here

is that we persevere by trusting

in the sovereignty of God.

Now, listen, that doesn't mean

that things are always gonna go well for us.

I think we can agree that life is pretty hard sometimes.

Tragedy happens in things that we hoped and prayed

that we would never have to experience.

But the Bible says here that you are called to trust

that God knows what he's doing.

I know we like to complain sometimes and say like,

hey, my way would have been better, right?

Like I had this idea for my life

and I think it would have been better.

God, you know how arrogant that is to tell the God

who is always and eternally existed,

who is infinitely wise that you somehow,

you speck of dust from the earth,

somehow know better than the Almighty.

We are called to trust that God knows what he's doing

and his will will be done.

And not only that, you're called to trust and know

that everything God does is for your good and his glory.

Even the hard things, as hard as that is to hear,

even the tragedies, even the persecution

and the opposition, even those difficult times

when you don't know how you're gonna make it,

the Bible says God is doing all things for your good

and for his glory, which is why it's hard here

where the Bible says, hey, if you must go to captivity,

you go to captivity trusting in God's sovereign plan

for your life.

If you were to be slain by the sword,

you must be slain, trusting that your death is not in vain,

that even your death was according to the counsel

of God's will for your good and his glory.

Might not make sense this side of eternity,

but in eternity, when we see Jesus face to face,

it's all gonna make sense then.

It'll all be worth it.

You can't control your destiny,

but you can trust in the one who does control your destiny,

even through the difficult times.

And then lastly here, very quickly,

we persevere by knowing that the victory

has been won already.

And that's encouraging, is it not?

No matter how out of control this world gets,

no matter how much it looks like the enemy

is winning in this world,

we must remember that Christ has already won

the victory for us.

The enemy's gonna deal some blows.

We might lose some battles from time to time,

but the Bible says the war is over.

He's just a defeated enemy who's kicking and screaming

and throwing blows left and right,

trying to hurt someone, but the victory has been won.

And as a Christian, you get to live every single day

of your life in the victory of Jesus.

And let me tell you something.

We will spend every single day for all of eternity

living in the victory of Jesus,

getting to celebrate that victory forever,

which is why the Bible calls us here.

It even ends verse 10 by saying,

here's the whole point of this passage.

It's a call for perseverance,

for endurance and faith of the saints.

Keep your knees down, keep your eyes on Jesus

and trust that God knows what he's doing.

All right, Don Cruz,

how about hitting us with a word of wisdom as we close?

Thank you.