Marks of the Beast Part I: Revelation 13 - Revelation: The Apocalypse

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

But here's the key point.

The key point is this emerging leader is really a puppet of Satan.

And he's like a leopard.

He's got feet like a bear and the mouth of a lion.

So this is a devastating figure, and he won't be at first.

But in his heart and in his motivation will be this drive as a beast of prey.

A leopard is a beast of prey.

He comes to devour.

Today, Pastor Steve continues his series on the Book of Revelation.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We are in Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

We're looking at the seven marks of the beast.

And I don't know how far we're going to get on this.

There's so much information.

And so I may not even get through all my notes today.

If you download the app, you have the notes, I hope, I trust.

And they're there.

If not, you can take notes.

They are there?

Okay, I see a lot of people nodding their heads, so that's great.

This chapter is really interesting.

The first part of Revelation 13 speaks of the beast, which can also be spoken of as the Antichrist.

The second half, which we're going to get more into next week, deals with the false prophet, this prophetic figure, almost like a mini beast, who will be an advocate for the beast in the last days on an all-world dominion order.

And so you're going to see that in Revelation 13.

So what you have is kind of a satanic trinity.

So we speak of the trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but in the last days there's going to be this satanic trinity of Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet.

And you're now being introduced to that really for the first time.

There's been allusions to it, intimations in the first 12 chapters of Revelation.

But now, 13 on, as we come to the end, as we kind of the climax of the book of Revelation, things are going to speed up.

And it's really going to speed up from 13 to 17 about this one world leader.

So what I thought as I read it and studied it, that when I've taught it before is a little bit different, is I thought, as I saw this, five marks.

So we're going to look at five marks of the beast.

Because I was thinking to myself, if I wasn't familiar with the book of Revelation, or I'm not reading any books on the last days or anything like that, I'd like to know what are some marks?

What are some key indicators?

Oh, we should be careful with that, because that's a mark described in Scripture of the beast.

And so that's the way I'm going to approach it is these marks of the beast, part one this week, and then in the next time we come together, a part two as it relates to this Antichrist figure in this satanic trinity.

Let's start with this, though.

The word anti.

The word anti tends in English to mean against something.

But actually in the Greek, the word Antichrist, which is used in the first epistle of John, for the Antichrist, does not mean against.

It means instead of.

And so it's really important that we understand that really the literal meaning of the Antichrist does not mean against Christ.

It means in the place of Christ.

Instead of Christ.

So what's going to happen in those latter days, church, is there's going to be a leader, a worldwide leader that will be likened unto a Messiah.

He will be, and I believe it's a he, he will be raised up as kind of a last days Messiah and Christ figure.

And with the growing unrest in our world, with the growing unrest in Europe, with the growing unrest in Korea, with the growing unrest in other parts of the world that we're all aware of, there is constantly this clamor for some kind of a charismatic leader who can lead us out of this mess, that can feed the world, that can figure out a vaccine for cancer, or someone who will look at the Middle East and be able to broker some kind of a peace treaty in the Middle East in that mess, that cauldron of issues and problems, this guy will be able to do it.

He will be satanically empowered to be able to answer problems and give solutions that nobody else has been able to do.

And it's uh and it's gonna be it's gonna be amazing.

So here's what, as I look at this, the the figure that reminds me the most of what a type of Antichrist might be could be someone like Adolf Hitler.

Now we're looking back in retrospect at Adolf and we go, no, I mean the little that guy with you know the little arm that goes up and a little funny mustache and all that.

We have a different view of him than they did at the time.

Because of the treaty at Versailles after the end of World War I, there was a vacuum created.

Germany was in poverty because of paying back the reparations that came from the Treaty of Versailles that France and others in Europe had brokered against Germany, and it created a vacuum.

And Hitler came about in the 1930s because of that.

And so think of that on a worldwide scale, think of that on a universal scale, a set of wars or a set of circumstances that occur that create a huge vacuum where a leader rises up, and then, in the case of Hitler, he turned Germany around.

Do you guys realize that?

I mean, if Hitler had died in 1936, he would have been considered the greatest leader Germany ever had.

And many in the United States were positive on Hitler in the early 30s and the mid-30s.

All Europe was.

If you want to read an interesting study on Hitler, the book on Hitler, called Hitler, is fantastic.

But another great book is William Manchester's book on Winston Churchill.

And the second volume of a three-volume set, which is the Alone, which is the title, the rubric over all of them is The Last Lion.

The Last Lion by William Manchester.

But in the second, you see how enamored and how excited all of England and France and other Western European nations were about Adolf Hitler.

Because he was leading them out.

He was leading them out of their poverty, and they were starting to reproduce and export goods again, and they were becoming a power.

But Hitler and others looked at that and said, Yeah, yeah, I mean, they're turning it around because of the military arsenal that they're rebuilding, and he was a lone voice.

He was a lone voice at that time in the 30s, and was uh and was kind of persecuted for that.

Well, this Antichrist figure in the book of Daniel, if you want another interesting sideline, is to look at Daniel chapter 7 later in your own times of the Lord, but he is called in Daniel the little horn, the king of fierce countenance, end quote, the willful king.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Paul in 2 Thessalonians calls him the man of sin, the son of perdition, and that wicked one.

John in 1 John, his first epistle, he is called the Antichrist.

That's the only place where he's called the Antichrist.

That's where we get that term.

Revelation gives his most often used name, which is quote unquote the beast.

That's what you're going to look at today, the beast.

And between chapters 13 and 17 of Revelation, the beast is used 26 times.

And according to which version of the Bible you use, it's either 12 times or 13 times that the beast is used in Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

So this is our big introduction, gang.

This is the lights go up, the stage is set, here's the beast.

Revelation 13.

And then we move out from there all the way into chapter 17.

So the next few couple months are going to be pretty exciting as we look at probably the most storied and the most controversial and the most described figure of human history who hasn't possibly even lived yet, or maybe he is alive on the earth today, but we get to know.

We get to know.

That's a pretty good deal.

We get to see who this figure is.

Can you imagine?

You're in, it's 1925, and you're alive on the earth, you're you're in America, or maybe you're in Germany.

Maybe that's even better to say you're in Germany.

And somewhere, somehow, someone describes what this leader who will become Adolf Hitler will look like.

And you can start to see that.

Oh, he's going to do this and he's going to do that.

And it's really specific.

You're going to see that in just a moment.

What would you have done?

And I know that guys like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and uh Niemueller and others within the German Lutheran church did start to notice things early on, especially as he came against the Jews and began to take away freedoms.

But really, the majority of Germany did not notice what was happening and they were taken off God.

Well, we're going to know.

You got intelligence.

You got divine intelligence.

And so let's look at the divine intelligence report right now.

Revelation 13.

Then I stood on the sand of the sea.

I remember these words we're going to have a lot of metaphors.

We're going to have a lot of kind of parabolic prophecies here.

And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his head a blasphemous name.

Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard.

His feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion, and this is the key verse here.

The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and his great authority.

Here's first mark.

Mark one, first mark of the Antichrist, is satanic power through a one world leader.

So satanic, don't miss this, supernatural power through a one world leader.

I mean, when you read this, don't you feel like you're kind of like a Japanese B movie, Godzilla, kind of coming out of the China Sea with all these horns and heads and crowns, right?

Well, it's metaphorical.

It's metaphorical.

The sea is symbolic.

In Revelation 17, it would indicate nations.

Nations.

And it says the sea with a definite article.

So many theologians and and commentators believe the sea is the Mediterranean Sea, and the sea itself are the nations around the Mediterranean area.

So many believe that this world leader will rise up out of that kind of Middle East area around the Mediterranean Sea from the nations in that area.

But here's the key point.

The key point is this emerging leader is really a puppet of Satan.

And he's like a leopard.

He's got feet like a bear and the mouth of a lion.

So this is a devastating figure, and he won't be at first.

But in his heart and in his motivation will be this drive as a beast of prey.

A leopard is a beast of prey.

He comes to devour.

Seven heads, ten horns, ten crowns.

Slightly different than chapter 12, where it was different.

And I am not going to break all this down like I'm some big revelation expert.

There's so many different perspectives on this, but I'm just going to say to you that we do know this.

We do know this.

That I believe, and I think if you if you if you put this in juxtaposition to Daniel chapter 7, it's seven empires.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Seven empires that have come, six empires that have come before, and this will be the seventh empire, satanically empowered.

Satanically empowered.

So do you realize, church, that there have been other empires in history that also Satan was behind?

Out especially to slaughter the Jews, out to slaughter believers.

And so here's who they are.

We have world empire satanically controlled Egypt, Assyria, the Babylonians, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Now, if we look at Revelation 17, which we're not going to, but we're going to get there, it appears that there is a re-emergence of Rome.

There's this re-emergence of Rome.

We'll cover that when we get there.

But what are the ten horns?

What are the ten horns?

Horns represent authority.

Here's what it is.

I'll tell you what it is.

I don't know.

I have no idea about the ten horns.

And if you read this author, I mean, seriously, they know.

They know.

And I read it and I go, I'm not going to get up in front of the road and say that.

I don't know.

Here's what we do know.

I think horns always represent authority in Scripture.

We do know that.

And I believe it has something to do with nations, okay?

Some kind of a confederation.

Is it the European Union?

I don't know.

Is it ten prominent nations that will be raised up in the last days coming together?

I don't know.

But I do know that if we're consistent with the symbols of Scripture, it's ten nations or it's ten regions or it's ten powers.

And so these world empires will come forth.

Here's another example of this.

Daniel chapter 7 gives us four beasts that rise up.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And almost every commentator that you read, as they look at those four beasts, speak of four world empires.

Nebuchadnezzar is represented as the gold.

Medo Persia is the silver.

Greece is bronze, and iron is Rome.

So in chapter 7, Daniel is also speaking.

And the reason I go back to that is because the indication in Daniel is speaking of the last days also, chapter 7, and he uses very similar apocalyptic symbols.

And so these four beasts emerge in Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And it seems like that the Antichrist is sort of this amalgamation into this kind of one beastly kingdom that will come forth.

The question everybody always has that's thoughtful about this is where is the United States of America?

We are definitely still the one world power.

We are the world power economically.

We are the world power politically.

We are the world power, quite frankly, we're the world power in the sense of the church.

Even though the center of gravity of the number of believers has shifted more toward China.

China actually has a much larger, twice to three times larger church as far as people coming to know the Lord in China than we do in the United States, still, the main leadership of the church still comes from the United States of America, and we're also the military power in the world.

Where's the U.S.?

We are not to be found anywhere in the book of Revelation.

There's no indications, there's no symbols of the United States of America anywhere in the book of Revelation.

So where is America?

Well, I'll just give you my opinion because that's all it is.

But I believe, as we talked about in 2 Thessalonians about the restrainer, remember how many times at the beginning of Revelation I spoke of the restrainer being taken out of the way.

I said the restrainer of evil, I believe, is probably two and maybe even three things, because it's never defined in Scripture.

I believe the first is the church itself is a restrainer of evil.

Second, the Holy Spirit over a nation is a restrainer.

And third is government.

Government is a restrainer.

If we put that again in juxtaposition to Romans 13 and Romans 11, if we look at those two passages, it would appear that government is a restrainer.

Well, I believe in the last days, but all three of those will be taken out of the way.

Now I don't know where all of you stand on the rapture, whether the rapture is going to be before the tribulation, mid-tribulation, or after the tribulation.

I tend to be more of a mid to early tribulation that will be raptured out.

And imagine, just imagine for what we know of leaders in Congress right now, if all the believers in the United States were taken out.

We're raptured out of here.

Which I believe always pray for an early rapture.

But prepare for a late one.

So that is not a defining issue in this church, by the way.

You can have any view you want on that as long as you believe that Jesus is the one coming back.

Okay.

So if all the believers, we got the National Day of Prayer coming every year, coming on May the 4th, Thursday, May the 4th.

And the road has two tables at the National Day of Prayer banquet that we've booked for our church.

Ten people at each table.

We have a National Day of Prayer initiated by the President of the United States.

And we'll have a president of the United States.

It will probably be at some kind of a prayer vigil.

Well, imagine all of the Christians taken out.

All of Congress and mayors and pastors and leaders talk about the restrainer being taken out of the way.

Our nation will instantly go into chaos.

Instantly destroy itself.

It will eat itself alive.

And the two major areas, the two major idols in America, in my opinion, are sex and greed.

Sex and greed.

Sex will just, it will just proliferate.

Everything will be, there'll be no more prohibitions on anything.

Marijuana is just the beginning, gang.

Marijuana is going to eat us alive.

It's eating us for lunch in our city right now.

Cuban cartels and Puerto Rican cartels are pouring into this area where they can grow pot legally and then export it to be sold illegally.

And we voted it in.

And we now have a city council.

Four out of five that are pro-marijuana.

You think it's bad now?

You're gonna have pothouses all over our neighborhoods.

It's a coming.

And largely it's because we've been asleep at the wheel.

And I propose that in the next two to four years, we need to raise up men and women from this church to run for political office and take it back.

And some of you are uniquely gifted to be in that arena.

Most of us are not.

But some of you are uniquely gifted with your persuasive skills, you've got a tenacity about you, and you've got a burning heart for righteousness, you should be in that arena.

We should be filling that place with Christians.

And not just sitting back and letting evil overrun us.

So imagine that.

On steroids.

That's what's going to be happening in the last days.

The believers will be out of the way, or will be in prison, or we'll be getting beheaded.

I mean, according to your perspective.

By the way, it's a really good idea to give your heart to Christ today because if you could because later that you're going to be giving your head.

And I'd rather get saved before I lose my head.

How about you?

I just, I'm not real smart.

I'm from Georgia, but I figured it out.

Heaven's way better than hell.

I don't know.

I just figured that out.

And you say, well, what if there is no heaven?

So I lived a great life because I thought there was one.

It's a win-win.

But if there's a hell, that's really bad for you.

I mean, to me, the irreducible minimum of a lot of things is what is truth.

And sometimes we don't know exactly everything that's going to happen.

So you kind of bet your stars on the best information you got.

And last week we talked about 500 eyewitnesses saw Jesus risen from the grave.

I don't know any court anywhere in the world that wouldn't say, eh, that's pretty good evidence.

He won.

Because he won, we win.

And I just like being on winning sides.

So I went to the University of Georgia.

What can I say?

You know?

Sorry.

I know.

I know.

I'm not an Alabama fan, and I never will be.

I just want you to know that, okay?

So there you go.

All right.

Interesting.

Look at the next verse.

And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded.

And his deadly wound was healed.

And all the world marveled and followed the beast.

So second mark.

A mortal head wound supernaturally healed.

A mortal head wound supernaturally healed.

This idea of the Antichrist being wounded is mentioned three times in this chapter.

So for some reason, God wants us to know about that.

Some reason God wants to know.

That's going to be maybe one of those marked things about.

And guys, don't get weird about this, okay?

I mean, let everybody else get weird on it.

We don't have to be weird on it.

The reason I say that is I remember I was in the room watching the news when it came on that Ronald Reagan had been shot and rushed to the hospital.

I was raising support to be a missionary at the time.

And then I remember all these believers saying, Ronald Reagan is the Antichrist.

What?

What are you talking about?

Ronald?

Six letters.

Wilson, six letters.

Reagan, six letters.

Six, six, six.

And he was mortally wounded and he lived.

And I wasn't into Revelation at the time, so I'm like, whoa, man.

They said there's this part in Revelation.

I'm like, well, that's a head wound, man.

He got shot everywhere.

I mean, it was it's a head wound.

It's pretty close.

Head, I mean, it's like, that's not even close, man.

What are you talking about?

So, there you go.

So don't get weird on me.

If you start coming up to me and giving names and stuff like that and dates, um, I will turn my back on you and walk away.

We don't do that here.

Okay.

But it seems like there's some kind of a wound, head wound, that it appears like he died and almost like he had a resurrection.

Doesn't that that's the impression?

If you read all the revelations, it's kind of like some kind of a resurrection.

Again, remember, antichrist does not mean against Christ, it means in the place of Christ.

So there's going to be some things that he does that are supernatural satanically.

Do you guys realize that Satan can do miracles?

He can do miracles, he can't do all the miracles that Jesus can do, but he can do miracles, and we see it with Pharaoh and Moses in Egypt.

Zechariah chapter 11 has this really cryptic verse.

Zechariah 11 · chapter mention

Zechariah 11, 17.

Let me read it to you.

Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock.

And that's interesting.

Who leaves the flock?

There's actually a couple other passages that may indicate that the Antichrist is actually Jewish.

Who leaves the flock, a sword shall be against his arm, and against his right eye, his arm shall completely wither, and his right eye shall be totally blinded.

Seems to be possibly a cryptic prophetic word of the beast or the Antichrist.

He'll be struck on the right side and it involves his head.

But he will rise again.

It'll appear that he rises again.

And I don't know if it'll be a newscast or whatever, but everybody in the world's going to see it.

And folks, for us that have, I mean, hopefully we're out of here.

When all this starts to brew, we're gone.

We're in heaven.

We're celebrating with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

We're on the beaches of heaven.

We're hunting elk in heaven, you know.

Seven by sevens every time.

You know.

And like, woo.

Yeah, so are there gonna be guns in heaven?

Of course there are.

But then I guess the elk will rise again.

I don't know.

I don't know about that.

But so they worship the dragon who gave authority to the beast.

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

Who is able to make war with him?

Third mark.

And I'm gonna end here.

Third mark.

We'll get to the rest of it later.

The world will worship this leader.

So the world's gonna begin to worship this leader, and Satan's gonna love it because they're really worshiping him.

You know, in Corinthians, when Paul's struggling with this idea of idols, you know, can you eat meat that's been dedicated to idols?

And then he makes this interesting statement.

He says, every time you worship an idol, you worship a demon.

He says there's a demon behind every idol.

That's only it's only made out of wood.

It doesn't mean anything.

That's what they said in Germany.

That's what they've said in other world empires where they call Christians.

In Japan, for example, where they called the early Christians to step on a picture of Jesus.

To step on a picture of Jesus, and the samurais slaughtered them, beheaded them if they wouldn't do it.

You see, there's demons behind what's going on.

It really does matter that we don't give ourselves to idols.

It's not just a piece of gold.

It's not just a piece of wood.

Demons are behind it.

And he's saying here that he has raised up this beast because Satan loves worship because he's full of pride, and that's the reason he was kicked out of heaven.

It is the biggest struggle of your life, men and women.

Pride will be our biggest struggle.

Pride is our biggest issue.

It's the greatest temptation of the enemy.

So the world will worship the Antichrist, but they're really worshiping Satan.

And I believe the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem.

We'll get to that later.

But the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem.

And uh and probably the two witnesses that we studied a few weeks ago will be dead.

They would have been killed.

Remember?

And they rise up and then they're taken to heaven in an ascension type of thing, and CNN will be there, and Fox News will be there, and all the everybody will see it, and then this world leader will rise up.

And right now in Iran, and I'm just gonna give you the tip of the iceberg, we'll get to it the next time about what Shia Islam believes.

When I first read this, I went, no way! This has got to be an embellishment by some conservative evangelical commentator.

And then I went and read it and studied it for what it was, and it's very accurate.

Iran is deeply devoted to the hidden Imam, a messiah-like figure of Shia Islam that will be manifested in the latter days.

All streams of Islam believe in a divine Savior, known as Mahdi, who will appear in the latter days.

But in Shia Islam, there's a dominant sect called the 12er sect in Iran that believes that Muhammad in Hassan, regarded as the 12th Imam, will be the Savior who will return to this earth.

They believe that the world will increasingly move into chaos and cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, and this world leader will arise and bring universal peace.

At the UN speech several years ago, the Iranian president ended the speech with this messianic appeal to God, and here's the quote: quote, to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one.

That perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.

What's interesting is that even in Shia Islam, the belief is that he will reign for seven years.

Same as we're going to read about in the book of Revelation for the Antichrist.

And that he will rise up in the midst of chaos and cataclysmic turmoil on the earth as a man of peace.

And many believe, and I believe there's lots of evidence to support it, that Iran, the reason they're thumbing their nose at America, at China, at even quite frankly, Russia, and what they're doing with the nuclear program is they want to create the cataclysm.

They want to create the chaos so that the 12th Imam can rise up as a man of peace.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

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