Attempting to Demystify Revelation: Week 7

Well, good morning. Did any of you have a hard time sleeping last

night? I did. I went to bed a little early because I think

I was exhausted from watching news and watching clips, and I was like,

all right, I'm done with this, and I see to go and rest

and be rested well for church tomorrow morning. And then I woke up at

one and then started the whole process over again to see, you know,

what's the updates? You know how we do whenever it feels like things are

just crazy. And I prayed a lot about what to share with us today.

And it's in those moments where I feel very confused, like I have

so many emotions, and the emotions aren't just about yesterday, but the emotions

are more built up over the last few years of watching our nation just just

become so divided and hatred to be an earmark of our name. And we've

talked about that a lot here, that we are a country of rage,

a country of hate, and this is not God's will, And so I

just kept praying and saying, God, what do I say? What do

I say? What do I say? What do I say? And I

just just felt like, you know, I don't have all the information yet,

and when I get to those spots, and I hope this helps you

spiritually, When I get to those spots where I'm still confused with my emotions,

I'm still confused with my thoughts. What I do is I just simply

do this. I pray and then I ask Jesus some questions. And I

asked Jesus questions this morning, like how do you feel about this? And

I felt in my spirit him saying, I'm heartbroken. I'm grieved, angry

that an innocent person lost their life. And then I ask questions like are

you worried? No? Are you still on the throne yes? Do you

still hold the future? Yes? And then after I get to that point

where I say, Lord, I have these emotional feelings as a human,

but I got to put my eyes back on you. And then after I

put my eyes back on him and I'm reminded that he is in control,

that he is on the throne. Nothing surprises him. Then I ask the

question, what shall we do? What shall we do God? Should we

get more angry? Should we fill our Facebook and Instagram post up with clips

of hatred today? Should we jump to conspiracy theories and analyze everything? Today?

Should we go over to friends and families houses and further divide our families?

You know, because over the last few years what's been going on.

We've almost alienated those who don't believe exactly like we believe. And so our

culture today, what do we do? We almost dehumanize those who don't agree

with us. And so I'm like, God, should we hate more?

Is hating more and being angry more at those who don't have the same ideology

as us, the same political thoughts that we have? What should we do?

God? And I felt in my spirit today just a reminder to go

back to that famous old scripture says, you know, seek the Lord,

humble ourselves. We humble ourselves, we seek the Lord, and we ask

them to heal our nation. And so as I was praying this morning,

it was very I thought, you know, part of being a preacher is

like, God, do you got a soapbox for me today? God,

You've got to elevator speech for me today? And it was no, humble

ourselves love more. Do you think that if we bring hate to meet hate,

it's going to equal healing hate? Bringing hate together? Does that bring

unity? Humility with love? That's all we can do on our end.

The Bible says, as far as it is on our part, live to

bring peace. And so today I charge you, as our congregation, as

we look to I want to become like Jesus. And so in order to

become like Jesus in this moment, then I need to grieve. I need

to be a little upset. I need to be a little angry because you

know, some evil things happened yesterday. At the same time, I have

to sit there and remind myself he's on the throne and he holds the future.

And as a result of him holding the future, what do I do

next? As my outlet to that is I gotta love more. I gotta

love more and not add to the hate. And I gotta love people that

my brain can't even wrap around they believe certain things because we all have our

own belief systems. But I got to love more and bring more unity and

kindness. And so, Church, I believe that's the best way for us

to respond in this moment. How about us become more like Jesus in this

moment without compromising our faith, without compromising what we believe in the Word of

God and what we believe the Word of God teaches or stands for. We

have those, but yet at the same time, Jesus says love one another.

And so today as I prayed, I thought, that's not only a

message for me, but that's a message for us. Can we as a

congregation walk out of this place today with that attitude? I hope you can.

That's my goal this week. I want to become more like Jesus through

this, not less like Jesus, because he is on the throne and he

will make all things right someday. Well, it's interesting, we're in the

middle of revelation, and revelation would teach you this happens. Things like this

happen, evil triumph someday. But in the end, Jesus wins. So

let's pray and prepare our hearts. Now. Today's passage is a tough,

tough passage. We're gonna talk about hell, which I know that excites some

of you. We're gonna talk about the mark of the Beast, and I

know some of you are like creat I got a bunch of pictures in the

back of my Bible. I've been drawing for months, So we're gonna dive

into some interesting things today. But We're gonna try to be faithful to God's

word. Let's pray. God, we just love you so much, and

God, we want to respond with a heart like years, a love like

yours. And Father, Today, God, as we jump into your scripture,

challenge us. Speak to us in Jesus name. Amen. While I

was on a mission trip to Mexico, we were on our day off.

We were crossing this little walkway that went above a dry river bed. And

on this walkway there was on both sides of the walkway was this fencing that

covered all the way from our head all the way down to the sides.

And I thought it was so drunk tourist coming back from the other side of

the market wouldn't fall off into the river bed. But it only took me

a moment to realize that it was actually put there because there was a huge

group of young children ages maybe three to eight to nine, and each of

them had about a ten foot stick, and on the end of that ten

foot stick they had an upside down Coca Cola bottle, a two liter cutting

half, or a Coorox bottle upside down cutting half, so that they would

smack the fence as you walk by and they would scream and yell and asking

you just to give them some coins. And as I walk through that,

I remember thinking, I don't care who you are, if you have the

hardest heart on this earth, this affects you. This will make you sick

to your stummach. And it was one of those things that it's just hard

to look at when you see these kids. And the words that come to

my mind when I think about that day are horrific, appalling, shocking,

nightmare, sickening, ghastly, or any other words that you think that you

can just use to describe words of desperation. And I remember as I was

journeying across I had this distinct thought, Man, I think this is what

hell on Earth looks like. Now I want to use that phrase for a

few moments, please, the phrase hell on Earth. We don't mind using

that phrase, do we. It's a phrase that we used to describe situations

are scenes that are ghastly to us, and when we don't know what to

say, but we're like, oh this looks horrible, we say, man,

this is like hell on Earth. And we don't mind using that phrase

because there are situations that conjured that image in our mind of Hell on Earth.

Just last week, I was in the middle of Florida. I'm gonna

give you a scene of Hell on Earth for a redhead. It was eleven

thirty at night. I went out on my balcony to cool off, and

soon I found myself asking my wife to put my hair in a bun.

This is not something I do. And then I took my shirt off.

I'm sorry, don't think about that. And then when that wasn't enough,

I went into the bathroom and took a towel and soaked it and just kept

laying it on different parts of my body and then pulling it off and hoping

that something would happen. They pulled me off, and then I kept thinking,

this is Hell on Earth. I had no idea that I was studying

Hell on Earth last week. A redhead in the middle of Florida, in

the middle of June. Pretty close people, pretty close. Yeah, we

could joke around, we can laugh at that. But there are some people

in the church, and there's a lot of people outside the church that if

I were to come to them and I were to say to them, yeah,

yeah, yeah, this is like Hell on Earth, and then if

five said but you do know that I actually a bee that there is an

actual hell, a hell where people will spend eternity separated from Christ because they've

decided to live a life outside of God's will, unsaved, not age child

of God. Now, if I said that, there's a lot of people,

a lot of people, especially outside of the church and some inside the

church that would find that laughable. They would immediately check me on as someone

who is not to be, uh, you know, credible. They would

also say, I'm sure you also believe in fairy tales dragons and unicorns and

stuff like that. And a lot of people believe that the belief in actual

hell belongs in olden days and and and yeah, and there might be places

that feel like Helen Earth felt hell a real hell. A few years ago,

one of America's most famous pastors, he's no longer a pastor, he

wrote a book and the book's thesis was simply this. He said that hell

was something that we experienced on Earth through war, poverty, rain, molestation,

slavery, starvation, and so on. But he said, but ultimately,

God is so gracious that he could not possibly send people to an eternal

hell. Now that's a beautiful, comforting positions, isn't it. It sells

books, It's sold a lot of books. But is this what Jesus teaches?

Is this what the Bible teaches? And so today we're gonna be looking

at a passage and we're gonna actually look at what does the Bible teach,

and we're actually gonna be looking at a scene of judgment day and so it's

people of God, here's what I think. It's a wise decision for us

to allow God's word to be the authority, not modern day theologians who have

a different take on the authority of God's work. And so as we look

at this scene of judgment, which is from a vision to John about the

end of time, I want you to understand something. This passage is what

we would call a lighthouse passage. People are in the dark, they're heading

towards a major crash, and God is shining alike, hopes that day will

take another pathway that does not lead to destruction. But my friends, here's

what I want to tell you, Christians and non Christians, here's a problem.

Today. We live in a world that simply does not believe in eternal

consequences. We don't actually believe eternal consequences. There's like, how can a

God who loves us do this? We just don't believe in consequences. And

I believe that the reason we don't believe in consequences is for one thing.

I think we learn not to believe in real consequences from a young age.

See, parents, we will often tell our children, if you do that

one more time, I'm gonna right, yeah, at all. Let me

tell you, if you touch that one more time, I'm gonna and then

love the kid. Do they do it? Whatever we tell them not to

do, they do. And then it comes time for punishment. And so

often they give us a look and that look. I had a daughter.

It was horrible. This mama had to do the punishment. I couldn't and

they give us a look. But let me tell you something. What we

think is graceful by not punishing our children after we've warned them that if they

do something, here's the consequence. What that teaches him and doesn't teach them

apotment. Dad's graceful. It teaches him that there's no real consequences. I

can always get out of this consequence. Fortunately I had a dad who my

dad loved me very much. He worked in the factory every single day,

went to ak Still coke playing for many years. Was there for our family

and never doubted my dad's love. And I never doubted my dad's word when

it came to consequences. And there's a couple of times my dad taught me

some big lessons, and let me tell you something, they have been very

impactful in my life. My dad went out and bought me a new baseball

bat one night and he said, listen, I'm working midnights, so he

usually slept until about two or three, and he says, but do your

chores before you play at that baseball bat. Well, I woke up new

Dad wasn't waking up for a few hours. So I went outside and I

started playing my baseball bat. Have you ever felt someone looking at you?

Man, Dad's looking at me, and I turn around and he took that

baseball. Never saw it again. I learned he means business. One time

we were sitting in the living room and I had a little toy gun and

I kept clicking it. You can imagine a little redheaded you know, this

was me when I was little, just kind of shaking around. Had all

this energy, and I'm just clicking it. My dad says, if you

clicked that one more time, you'll never see that gun again. Okay,

it couldn't help it. I never saw the gun again ever. But here's

what I learned. My dad taught me something that's been very helpful for me.

Theologically, consequences are real. And here's a problem. We believe as

a culture that consequences are not real. And let me tell you something repeatedly.

You know, in our lives we think that God is just gonna let

us get away if our God doesn't really mean this. And I think some

of our generation have bought into the notion that the Bible is simply a book

that's been put in place to make us behave in society. But it's really

not a book of truth. Like I said the author I mentioned earlier,

there's this false assumptions of God word that it's gonna lead many astray and ultimately

one day they'll realize real judgment. So here's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna go to this chapter, chapter fourteen in Revelation, and in this

scene, John is given a vision God pulls back the curtain on Judgment day,

and the sequence of what's gonna happen leading up to judgment day. And

here's what we have. We have three angels bringing these messages. Each one

brings a different message. So let's go ahead and look at the first angel's

message. And the first angel's message is simply this God offers his love to

everyone. That's where he starts before judgment. There's an author of love and

grace and heaven. Let's look at this. It says. Then I saw

another angel flying in mid air, and he had the eternal Gospel, in

other words, the good news of Jesus Christ, to proclaim to those who

live on earth, to every now pay attention to this, every nation,

tribe, language, and people. And then he said, in a loud

voice, fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment

has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, and the

sea, and the spring and sea, now that springs of water, or

excuse me. And here's what we see. This first angel brings the amazing

heart of God. The very first thing the angel does is he brings the

message of the gospel that Jesus died for us, that Jesus loved us,

that Jesus took upon our punishment, took upon the things that we deserve,

die for us, resurrected, and because of that we can be reconciled with

God. So the very first message is an offer of grace, an offer

of mercy, an offer of reconciliation. So the first thing we see is

this offer, and this offer is expanded to everyone, he says, and

he had the Eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth,

to every nation and tribe, language and people. God's still doing this.

Did you know that two thousand years this angel is still flying. I saw

it two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, this angel flew into our haver

stick as close to three hundred people from thirteen different nations gathered for our Spanish

speaking service launch. And let me tell you something. I've heard so many

stories. I've met. So many of these people I'm talking about, their

lives have been saved. A lot of these people that we're reaching, we

not only got to help them, you know, find Jesus, but we

got to we're helping them find apartments, find jobs because they're coming to this

country and they're like, hey, I'm coming here, but It's more than

just they need a gospel. They need they need the whole life. And

so they've been brought to these communities. Their lives have been changed, and

they have experienced the dramatic love of community, manic love of Jesus Christ.

And Jose was telling me just this past week, Jose said, Pastor,

we have thirty five people ready to be baptized. I think that's worth of

praising the Lord. Don't you this scripture that was written two thousand years ago

that says that he is seeking after every tribe, every nation. Let me

tell you something. He's also seeking after every man, every woman, every

child, and his grace knows no bounds. He loves them, he died

for them. And here's the amazing thing. He offers his grace to everyone.

But the sad truth is some people don't want the Lord. They want

to lead their own life. And this brings us to the next thing that

God teaches us from this passage. It is simply this hell is a place

of everlasting punishment for those who reject the grace and lordship of Christ. All

right, let's look at this. We go from an offer of grace and

then we see God first deal with sin. A second angel following and said

fall and falling is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the

madden and wine of her adulteres. And here's what you need to know that

someday, even though today we see sin rain this weekend all over television,

we saw sin rain, sin rains on this sort of today. It's just

like the empires of Rome, the Empires of Greece, the Empires of Babylon.

These great empires are built up, and there's been a great empire of

sin that has been built up in our world. And it rules, it

influences, it has power, it has control. But God says, one

day, I'm gonna deal with this sin, and just says the empires of

Rome and Greece and Babylon fell. Someday I will overcome sin. And God

will deal with sin and overcomes sin. So first he will deal sin,

and he's already dealt with the big part of sin where Jesus Christ died on

the cross. But the sin that continues on even after Jesus Christ, who

has erected, he will deal with that as well come judgment day. And

now we see the third angel, and it says a third angel follow them,

and said in a loud voice, if anyone worships so now here we

get into the mark of the Beast, and all that anyone who worships the

beast and its image and receives this mark on their forehead or on their hand,

they too will drink the wine of what God's fury, God's judgment,

which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. And then

it goes on to say that they will be tormented with burning sulfur in the

presence of the Holy angels and of the Lamb. This is a description of

hell. It says, those who follow the beast, those who who are

marked by the Beast, they will someday experience hell. And then it goes

on to say, and the smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever.

Simply is stating here that this is not a temporary punishment, but this

is an eternal punishment. And then it goes on to say this that there

will be no rest day and nine for those who worship the beasts in its

image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name. In other

words, there's God's wrath and then there's punishment. All right, we got

two big things going on in this passage. We're gonna break them down really

quick. Number one, the first thing we see is there's a clear teaching

that those who don't belong to God, who belong to the enemy, they're

gonna receive eternal punishment. Now, this is a passage of calls and effect

the calls is they are marked by the enemy or they decide to live a

life their own way, and the effect of that is eternal punishment. Now,

many people will say, now, come on, James, do you

think people really understand what they're doing. Isn't sin accidental? Isn't sin just

a product of society? And what type of God? Really? What type

of God would punish people? But if we were to be wholeheartily honest,

I think we all know this, any of us who lived long enough,

we know this. We make our own choices, and we do what we

want to do. I either every day do what I want to do because

it's what I want to do, or I want to do what God wants

to do because I have submitted to His lordship. That's where my life falls.

And just recently I came across an article a couple of weeks ago.

It came into my feet from Huffington Post and it was about a large church

pastor from our area. And this large church pastor had been on this staff

for many years and it got to the point where he had a big decision

to make. And his decision was to either leave his family, leave his

ministry, prick a ton of hearts, and follow an alternative lifestyle. And

this Huffington Post article really to you through the whole journey of him trying to

make that decision. And finally it comes to the climax of this whole article

the day that he made his decision. And here's what he said about this

big decision he made. Leave his family, crush the church, leave his

ministry, follow his own desires. And here's what he said. I choose

me. I choose me, brothers and sisters. That is the quintessential definition

of sin and rejection of God. And now I can't throw any stones.

Before I came to Christ. That would have been my logo on a T

shirt. I choose me. And I still remember one night when how's that

can? Because my parents made me go to camp and they thought that the

Holy Spirit worked better at ninety five degrees in the middle of woods had a

campground. Maybe it does, I don't know. But all the kids went

to the altar and I stood in the back and I said, there's no

way I'm going on. I don't want to get saved. I love my

life. I love what I'm doing. And even after this service, I

was the only kid who didn't go to the altar. My senior pastor came

up to me, presented the gospel to me in a very loving way,

and I looked at him and said, listen to Andy, I love my

life. I'm not gonna follow Christ. And I says, someday, when

I get older, I will follow Christ. I'll go to your church and

I'll even tie. I was a little smart e look and I just wanted

him to know that I loved my life. I chose me God. Thank

God for God's grace in his mercy, he didn't give up on me.

See. See, come judgment day, we're gonna be left with all excuses.

See, people know what they're doing. We're fully aware of the decisions

we're making. And let me just ask you permission to speak from my heart

because I please, I don't want you to be fool. Yes, God

is a god of grace, He's in a God of mercy. But when

it comes to this whole eternity thing, is not something just to scare you.

No, no, no, see, because he's understand. God is

a god of dignity. He's a God of dignity, and he's a god

who honors you and your own dignity. And if you choose to live a

life following your own will and your own ways, He's not after you living

a whole life of wanting to be separated from God. He's not all of

a sudden one day when you die say hey, even though you didn't want

anything to do with me during your life, I'm gonna force you to live

with me in heaven. No, he's gonna honor your choice. Because God

is a God of dignity. He won't force heaven upon you. He will

honor your decision to be separated. Now, here's the thing that really concerns

me the most today because my life is spent in the circle of Christians.

And here's what concerns me most about taken the consequences of the Lord for real.

I grew up in church who in here group in church. Raise your

hand. Yeah, we grew up in church, and we have a hard

time taking sins seriously because we've experienced so much of His grace and so much

of his mercy, and so much of his love in the community of God

that we sometimes have a hard time taking his h his holiness seriously. And

that's why I see so many Christians say it's okay to have sex outside of

marriage, or or it's okay to hate people or to hoole grudges. Really,

oh are we live a life of materialism and greed, and we fall

into this great lie, this great lie that says, you know what,

you know, long as I don't do something really really bad, as long

as I come to church, you know, just enough to check it off

and be like, Okay, okay, I did my service this month,

or I did my service twice a month. Okay, I'm good to go.

I checked mark this off. Now I'm gonna go live. However,

I want let me tell you something again. You're deceiving yourself if you believe

that is true, because we look that God takes sin seriously. What does

he say fallen? Fallen is babel on the grate which made all the nations

drink the mad and wine of herdul trees. In other words, someday God

is going to judge all the sin on this earth. Now, let's get

to the second thing we saw in this passage, Okay, as we kind

of wind down today, the second thing we saw is the beast with the

mark of the beast? Who and here has heard of the mark of the

beast? All right? All right? Who in here have seen some you

know, some crazy explanations of the mark of the beast. I've heard a

lot over the years. I've seen pictures drawn pretty scary. Okay, So

let's just dig in a little deeper and let's try to understand what the mark

of the beast is. First, before we do this, we need to

define a couple things so that we're on the same page. Okay, So

in the previous chapters of this we see the enemies of God and man emerge.

So what they are is they are the false Trinity. So we actually

see a false trinity coming for us. And what's the false trinity? Number

one? It's the dragon, which represents Satan. And then we have the

first beast that we saw a couple of weeks ago, and the beast comes

out. Now, this first beast, it's a demonic pool for us to

put our trust in kingdoms, governments are politics, instead of putting our hope

in Jesus to make things right. Now, they did this back then,

big time. This was a way of life. People trusted in Caesar.

Caesar was their god. The Egyptians, they believe that the Pharaohs were their

god. They intertwined government and religion deeply. And so they put their trust

in governments, They put their trust in politics. They put their trust in

power of men. And let me tell you. And so they did this,

and we are even seeing this. And in a modern day we saw

this with Hitler. Hitler got the whole nation to believe in one man,

and one man would unite a nation in this nation, if you put your

trust in that nation, this nation will be great, and that will be

our salvation. And so we see this. So that first beast is simply

this, try to get the people of the world to put their trust in

something else besides Jesus. And then we see the second beast. Now,

the second beast is the one that has the mark of the beast on it.

Now, the second beast all right, this is what's you have then

seen that it's a demonic pool for us the church to join the ranks of

the world and to put our trust in the government to do what only God

can do, save lives and change lives. And we've seen this throughout history.

King Henry multiple times changed up the religion. He was the king,

so he changed the religion to fit the culture. They put their trust in

the government. They put their trust in the king. And nowadays we see

a thing that's rising up heavily in America. It's called Christian nationalism. And

Christian nationalism is where we are as in nations. In certain groups, they're

hoping, they're hoping that we can legislate righteousness. Now, as a follower

of Christ, of course, I would love to live in a land that

followed all of my biblical beliefs in every single law in the land. But

what I can't do is believe that that's what will bring change to our society,

because you can't legislate a heart. You can change a law, but

only the Holy Spirit can change a heart. We can change the law,

but only Jesus Christ can bring conviction. We can change a law, but

only God can save us. And so there's this demonic pool to say,

Church, let's team up with this greater entity and let's work together. And

so what will happen? People will put half their trust in the Lord and

half their trust is something else. And this isn't good. And we've been

seen as happen all throughout the last two thousand years. Okay, so here's

you got the basic definition of the false trinity. Okay, now you need

to understand. Here's a couple of numbers. Here as we close today,

seven is a number that represents God and then we see seven seven seven.

When we see that scripture, it represents a true trinity, the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Six represents man. So six six

six represents following the false Trinity. So seven means complete, six means incomplete,

seven seven seven means completely complete. In other words, it's trinity is

it's perfect, it's holy, it has everything, it's omnipotent, all powerful,

omniscient. But six sixty six means completely incomplete. It's ruled and broken

by sin. So now if you look at the mark of the beast,

who has this mark of sixty sixty six see in the movies Heavy metal album

covers and scary stories. This number six sixth sense has always caused a sense

of darkness and evil, and it's the second Beast that gives us this mark.

Let's look at Revelation thirteen. It says also it the beast causes all,

both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave,

to be marked on their right hand or on the forehead, so that

no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark. That is the

name of the beasts, are the number of its name. Then it turns

to us followers. This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding

calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man,

and a number is six sixty six. In other words, this is

not from God, this is from man. The question is, you know

in the Christian community, what is the mark of the beast? I remember

a couple of years ago a lot of people thought the mark of the beast

was the COVID nineteen vaccine. That's not the mark of the beast. Some

people say it's in our phones, that's not the mark of the beast.

Some people say it's a chip that we're gonna put in. So we can

buy and sell. I don't know, maybe, but I don't think.

So let me explain to you something. For us to be good Bible people,

we have to understand a couple of things about revelation. One that it

has to mean something to them. In other words, that original audience had

to understand what was going on, okay, And it can't mean something to

them that it means something different to us today. Okay. And we need

to interpret scripture by scripture. Okay. So now here's a question. The

mark of the beast is talking about a mark on the right hand or on

the forehead. Where else do we see this in the Bible. Let's go

all the way back to Deuteronomy. Okay. Now I want to say this

real quick before we jump to that text. See the hand and the forehead,

and they're significant how God molds informs his people. Okay, So here's

what we're gonna do. We go all the way back to the Shema and

Deuteronomy six, and the Sheima says this, love the Lord your God for

all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. So love

the Lord your God for all your heart, all your mind, soul.

And then they would say hey, put this on the door post, Put

this everywhere. Put this on your wrist, put this on your forehead.

In other words, in your life, be talking about it, be teaching

it, and everywhere you go always be remembering love the Lord your God,

if all your heart, and all your mind, and all your soul.

And by putting it on your hand was saying, not only know this,

not only let this be your ideology and your theology, but by putting it

on your hand, it's a reminder that in everything you do, you're honoring

the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. All right,

it's very simple. So we have this Old Testament example of where people

did this. Well, the mark of the Beast is simply doing the opposite

of that. It's having the six sixty six. It says the Shama on

you. It's saying instead of love the Lord your God, all your heart,

all your mind, it's saying love yourself, love your government, love

you know. Put anything. It could be another person, it could be

another thing, it could be a job, whatever is put in anything else

in place of where God is and living for that. See GK. Bill

says this. He says the forehead represents ideological commitment of the hand and practical

outworking of the commitment. So this is the mark of the beast. Okay,

and let me give you this other quote. Those who reject the true

creator God and align themselves with the Mimican dragon and the beast bear the mark

of the beast through their ideological beliefs and action. So again, instead of

living a life for I love the Lord, my God for on my heart,

on my mind, and my soul, and then I live it out

with my actions, it is simply this. I am gonna love myself with

all my heart, my mind, and my soul, and then all of

my actions are going to back that up. That's simple. So now that

explains judgment day. Right. There's an offer for you to be saved,

and so then he's gonna take care of sin. And those who are gonna

be judged, they have the market the peace. Those who will be judged

and will would be sent to eternal damnation or eternal hell. They're the people

who in their mind love themselves above God and all their actions were about them

and their own desires. They choose hell by their ideology. And now working

now as we close out today, it tells us to do a couple of

things as followers of Christ. As a result is number one, do all

that you can to endure until the end. So this says in verse twelve,

It says, this calls for patient endurance on the part of the people

of God to keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. In other words,

no matter what's going on in the midst of all this judgment, crazy

times, trust in Jesus verse thirteen and says, then I heard a voice

from heaven say right this, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.

From now on, Yes, says the spirit. They will rest from

their labor for their deeds. We'll follow them. And God says, listen,

in the midst of this crazy world, in the midst of all this

temptation, in the midst of all this pulling and fighting over your soul,

if you stay faithful, if you keep your eyes on Christ, you follow

your Lord, you follow your Savior. It says this, He sees your

deeds, and when he sees your deeds, he will reward your deeds and

you will live with Him in eternity. So as a result of all of

this, we do one last thing. Today as we close up because of

the faithfulness of Jesus, we live counterculturally. We can live like the world,

or we can live like we actually take the consequences of the Bible's warnings

for real. I get a smile on my face when I think about a

friend of mine who was living with a woman, and this is before he

came to Christ, and they were having premarital relations, and then he was

dramatically saved, and he didn't have resources. A lot of us if we

got saved and we're living with somebody and we're having sex with him and we

wanted to get out of that situation, what will we do. We could

just go get in another apartment, move back in with mom, or whatever.

He didn't have any of these resources. The resources he had was a

tent and some camping gear. A lot of people laughed at him. A

lot of people thought he was silly, but he set up camp in that

backyard for about two months until their wedding day, and a lot of people

thought he was silly. But let me tell you something, I was inspired

because he decided he was gonna do anything he could to honor Jesus with whatever

resources he had why because when he came to Christ, he took the word

of God to be true. A couple of things we're gonna do to day.

We didn't know that our country would have us upheaval this weekend, but

ahead of time we plan an anointing time. So I'm gonna have those who

are gonna be praying and anointing. If you're gonna go ahead, come up,

and here's what I want to do. Andrew. I'm gonna have Andrew

right over here. He doesn't know he's gonna do this, but he hoped.

He's fine. Don't worry about him. But I know there's a lot

of us who need prayer for healing. We need prayer for just those in

our families that are struggling. We have all of these needs, maybe our

marriage or whatever. And this is our time and our service where we just

take time to go before the Lord and receive prayer. I know at the

same time there are those of you who would just your heart is broken over

our country and over the hatred and the division. And I would say for

those of you who just want to take some time to be let into prayer,

a little per prayer for our nation, just go ahead and come to

Andrew together as a group, and we'll pray for them and pray for our

country. So if you can go ahead and stand and here's what we're gonna

do. If you would like to come and receive prayer, just walk outside

of that. I'll come down to the middle row. We do have someone

who will be dismissing you and let you know where to go. So let

us go ahead and respond, and let's just take some time today to seek

our Lord. This morning