Satan’s Everlasting Hatred

WOLFL-2024-14

Transcript

I’m going to read chapter 11 of Revelation. Remember the chapters were put in by who? The Archbishop of Canterbury. They’re not inspired. He just drew lines. Remember I told you that? The verse numbers were by a printer, Robert Estienne from Geneva. All of these things are just additives, but the message we’re going to just look at this little 19 verse message this morning. But let me read verse 1.

And I was given a reed, like a measuring rod. So, think of a ruler. And the angel stood saying, rise and measure the Temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there, but leave the court which is outside the temple. Don’t measure it. For it has been given to the Gentiles and they will tread the holy city under foot for 42 months. Now that, that verse, just… if you’re a student of the Bible, you should realize that Jesus had John see a temple in Jerusalem, in the future, in the time of the Anti-christ. Is there any temple in Jerusalem today? If you built one, it would cause World War IV, you’d have everybody against you. But there’s going to be one, and the big question is, how’s it going to get there? And that’s what we’re going to look at today, because there’s an event God said is coming that’s going to open the door for the Jewish people to finally get what they want. They want a temple back on the temple mount. So, let’s pray.

Father, I pray You’d open our hearts to Your Word. I pray that You quicken our understandings. It’s early in the morning. But I pray that, like in Luke 24, that our hearts would be stirred as You open to us Your truth, in Jesus name. Amen.

Here we go. Satan has an everlasting hatred against God and the Gospel. That’s Revelation chapters 11 to 13. We’re going to cover that.

Basically, lost humanity wants to rule themselves. Isaiah 53. All we like sheep have gone astray, we’ve turned, everyone, to our own way. And so, everybody is like we were born, and we want to rule ourselves. And so, you reject God’s Messiah. So, God sends the fake Jesus. Now see, Satan has always had his Anti-christ in the wings. His first one was Cain. That’s what it says in 1 John. Cain was an original Anti-christ. He was the first convert into Satan’s church, if you could call it that. But this one is the final Anti-christ, the fake Jesus.

He’s called the beast. In fact, he’s called by over 30 different titles in the Bible, the man of sin and the ungodly one and the beast and the Anti-christ. But who he is, is the worst human who ever lives. He is totally empowered by Satan. At times, he’s actually indwelt by Satan, like Judas was. Remember Judas, that went up and kissed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? Do you remember? It says Satan entered him. That means Judas, the age old question is, was Judas saved and did he lose his salvation? Satan can’t enter believers who are sealed by the Holy Spirit. And all believers are regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Everybody’s saved the same way. And a new heart, a new spirit, and all that of salvation is in Ezekiel in the Old Testament. So, God always saves everybody the same way. Judas was not saved. Satan entered him and left. But boy, Satan enters the Anti-christ and doesn’t leave very much. And he leads humanity to destruction by becoming their God.

So, where we are, if you remember in the whole flow, we’re in that red block, the Tribulation. The original recipients getting this are living through a time they think is the Tribulation. Did you catch that? The Early Church thought they were in the Tribulation. Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians to assure them they weren’t. He said, you guys, you think you’re in the Tribulation. You’re not in the Tribulation. The Tribulation is going to be so bad. You’re not in it yet, but why did they think they were in it? Because the emperors were starting to act like the Anti-christ.

For example, Domitian, the one that was exiling John? Domitian made them, do you remember way back last week and when we were in Smyrna, how they all had to line up. I showed you the archways and they’d walk through, and they’d take their incense, and they’d sprinkle it on the fire and they would get their free pass to be a good citizen for another year and not be martyred or persecuted or anything. Domitian said, you call me Lord and God. That’s called emperor worship. That’s what’s going on in the Roman Empire, that’s what is the heart of the Tribulation.

Okay, let’s go back to what we just read, verse 1. There is an End of Days third temple that stands in Jerusalem. Third temple. I want you to think about that. John said he was given a reed like a measuring rod, and the angel stood and told him. The first temple is Solomon’s temple. You can see, that’s a Sunday school illustration out of a children’s storybook of Solomon’s temple. Then you’ve got Herod’s temple, which is only an enlargement of Zerubbabel’s, but it is called the second temple. In archeology, the current archeological climate, they call that thing, Herod’s temple, the second temple period. It starts with the return of the exiles. Zerubbabel, you read about that. And Haggai and all the…, Ezra and Nehemiah’s building the wall around it. That’s the second temple that is destroyed by Titus, Vespasian’s son, and Domitian’s, his brother. Titus’ brother. So, it’s a three member family that’s against the Jewish people.

Here’s what the Bible says. There’s a future Jewish temple, future to us right now, future to when it was written in AD 95. It’s in Jerusalem and Daniel saw it. Daniel? Daniel appears to be Jesus’ favorite Old Testament prophetic prophet because he’s the only one Jesus quotes by name. And he says Daniel sees this temple and he sees the Abomination that brings desolation that’s another name for the Anti-christ. The abomination that brings desolation. But in Daniel 9:27 Daniel adds this insight, they’re offering sacrifices and offerings.

Did you know this is Passover week? Do all of you know that for the Jewish people this is Passover week, right? You all know that if you look at the calendar. Did you know this week they arrested 20 Jews that were bringing animals, and they were trying to do a sacrifice up on the temple mount? The Israeli police arrested 20 zealous Orthodox Jews, the ones that wear all those different things they wear, and they have the blocks down here, and they wear those prayer shawls with the little fringes, all the things that mark them, and they have on their yarmulke and all that.

Those 20 of them, young your age, were bringing sheep and goats, and they were going to kill them and make a little offering to God. That’s how zealous they are. They’re called the temple mount Faithful. They’ve rebuilt all the equipment that’s talked about in Exodus. They’re not Christians. They’re not Messianic Jews either. They just want to go back to the Old Testament thing. Guess what? Daniel sees them in the future doing that in Daniel 9:27. And what he says is that the same people that destroyed the temple the first time, the Romans, that the leader of them is going to allow the coming…, there’s a future Roman emperor coming. That’s what…, have you ever heard in prophecy a revived Roman Empire? That’s who he is. That’s Daniel 9. You guys have covered Daniel, right? It’s near the end of the year. Daniel 9 is maybe the single most powerful prophetic passage in the whole Bible because it lays out everything, all the way to the end.

But Daniel saw it, Jesus sees it. In Matthew 24:15, where we started yesterday, Jesus said that you’re going to see in the Holy Place the Anti-christ standing. What’s the Holy Place? Naon. It’s the holy of holies. It’s talking about in the very temple, not the outer courtyards, inside. So see, what Anti-christ does is, he lets the Jews rebuild their temple and then he goes in and stands and said and I’m God, worship me. That’s very interesting, his plan.

Paul saw it. He calls it the temple in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 and now John is actually walking around it and measuring it and everything else here.

So, the first temple of Solomon, 970-950 BC. The second temple, Herod’s enlarging Zerubbabel’s, 20 BC to 26 AD. Do you remember when Jesus said, destroy this temple, I’ll rebuild it in three days? And the people responded, 40 and 6 years this temple was built? Right there it is. 40 and 6 years. 20 BC. to 26 AD is 46 years, just like Jesus said. The third temple is in Revelation 11, it’s during the Tribulation. That one gets reconstituted and rebuilt during the Millennium into the one we’re going to see on Friday.

How might the Anti-christ solve the global Israel problem? Because today you couldn’t build any temple there. I mean you can’t even get an Israeli official to walk on the temple mount without there being a riot. The only way that… I mean, Netanyahu and others will go up there and walk around and they have to have literally an army with them wearing flak jackets with not just rifles, they have those M 60 things that shoot grenades and they’re like totally in this capsule, this bubble of protection. Why the Muslims don’t want a Jew to even to walk on that surface, let alone build a temple.

Look at the architecture of the temple mount on the left there. That’s the Al Aqsa Mosque. So, it’s the second most holy spot next to Mecca for all of Islam. So that’s the Al Aqsa Mosque. What is that built over? It’s built over the southern steps. It’s built over the area where the Church was born. The Moslems have built all of their major structures all over what we call the old Roman Empire over famous Christian sites because they want to supersede, they want to be above Christianity. That’s the goal of Islam. And so, Muhammad carefully, strategically and his successors [built] over all these sites. This is where, on the left there, that Al Aqsa Mosque is where the 3,000 people came to Christ on the day of Pentecost. It’s the only place big enough for 3,000 anybody’s outside the temple courts to do anything. It’s the grand staircase where Jesus was brought up by Joseph and Mary, and Simeon and Anna interrupted them. It’s where Paul and everybody else goes up to the temple. It’s where Jesus taught all the time on the temple steps. That’s the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Then to the right of it, it’s just trees. And then look right in the middle. Do you see that gold dome? Everyone knows what that is. That’s the dome of the rock. That’s the third holy spot. And then look, there’s a big white area. It looks like a big football field there, paved over. And then look to the right of that, there’s more trees. So actually, this area is 40 acres. That’s huge. A 40 acre area that Herod paved and built and it’s got underground structures. And above it was his, the temple. But today, it has the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa, and a lot more room.

Probably, by the way, we know where the temple probably was, because Josephus, remember Josephus, the renegade Jewish commander that was captured by the Romans, they didn’t kill him, they hired him, he became the historian for Titus who wrote down the destruction of Jerusalem, he wrote down the murder of his own people. Josephus Ben Gurion was an amazing guy. He said, he was standing on the Mount of Olives, during the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 and he was standing on the Mount of Olives. And he said he moved and he looked through the Eastern Gate, so if you’re back right door there is the Eastern Gate, and he went like this as the Roman soldiers were working and he said he could see the temple through the Eastern Gate. On this map, do you see on the right it says temple must be lined up with the Golden or the Eastern Gate? That arrow is pointing toward where Josephus looked. So, the temple is probably in that kind of turquoise block that says the only area for the future Jewish temple. The only place they’d wanted is where it used to be. And by the way, the Dome of the Rock isn’t where it used to be. It’s interesting. It was really to the right there in that, that blank space. So, the existing Dome of the Rock, look what else there’s room for. The Anti-christ probably allows two structures for the Muslims, two structures for the Christians, and one structure for the Jews. Very interesting. So, there is room, but what could cause him to get everybody to buy into this? We’ll see that in about 10, 15 minutes.

First thing verse 2 says is, leave the court, which is outside the temple. Don’t measure it. It’s been given to the Gentiles. Here’s a little timestamp. They tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months. So, the chronology of the Tribulation, Daniel tells us…, in Daniel 9, that it is a heptad. That’s the term he uses in the Septuagint. A heptad, it means a group of seven. Seven years. That’s the only place we get the seven year Tribulation from Daniel. Nowhere else, it never says seven year Tribulation. It doesn’t say Rapture, doesn’t say Millennium. It’s derived by Bible study. So, there is a 7 year period, which God talks about as 42 months, 42 months. That’s one way of getting 7 years. 7 times 12 is 84, if you remember your times tables. It’s also 1,260 days, 1,260 days. It’s also 3 and a half years, 3 and a half years. So, the Bible is always talking about it in two pieces. Why?

Because the midpoint is what we’re talking about right here. Before the Anti-christ rises to complete power, he becomes a peacemaker. He’s the one on the white horse that’s conquering with his bow, but no arrows. He doesn’t win militarily, he’s the, we’ll see him in about ten minutes in chapter 13, what he does. But in three and a half years, the Jews get this temple going, they’re having sacrifices, they’re happy as clams, and in the middle he breaks his covenant, Daniel says, with the Jews, clears out the temple and moves in himself. And puts an image, an idol of himself, in the temple. Unbelievable.

Number three, God deploys the two witnesses. Now see, every time Satan ups the darkness and deceives people, God ups the light. Right now, we’re supposed to be holding forth the Word of Life. All that, that we sing about and everything. All Christians are supposed to be doing that, but when the Church isn’t here, God keeps bringing up these people. We’ve already met the 144,000. Now look at this, number three, I will give power to My two witnesses. They will prophesy, here’s another code, 1,260 days. What is that? Look above, that’s 42 months. What is that? That’s three and a half years. So, we’re talking about half of the tribulation time.

Look what verse 4 says. These are, what is that? The two olive trees and the two lampstands? Are these talking trees? Are these walking lampstands? What are these? If you look there, do you see how I wrote an allusion to Zechariah 3 and 4’s revival? The 404 verses that are in the book of Revelation tie back to the Old Testament 800 times. Here’s one of them. This term, two olive trees and the two lampstands standing for the God of Earth talks about the massive revival that took place In Zechariah 3 and 4, that you can read about.

Who are the two witnesses? That’s a question everybody asks. They are the ones that, look what they do. They call down fire from Heaven. Who could do that? Elijah. Remember, Elijah on Mount Carmel. They can shut the heaven and it won’t rain. Who did that? Elijah again, all those three plus years of the drought in Israel. Turn water into blood, who did that? Moses. Who smites the Earth with plagues? Moses. So that’s why the traditional view of the two witnesses [are], Moses and Elijah. Moses didn’t have a normal death, he died and God buried him and Satan wound his body and so there’s something about his death that’s mysterious. Elijah was swept away in the chariot of fire. And then of course the beast from the abyssos kills them and the Earth dwellers rejoice, and they celebrate. And then after three and a half days they rise.

So, the two witnesses could be Moses and Elijah. More likely it’s Moses and whom? Who didn’t die in the Old Testament in chapter 5 of Genesis? Yeah, Enoch. And the Bible says everyone has to die or be changed in a moment. And everybody in the Rapture doesn’t die, they’ve changed in a moment, but everybody else has to die, because flesh and blood can’t inherit the Kingdom of God. You can’t go there in this body unless you’re changed, either by death or by the Rapture. And Elijah didn’t die, Enoch didn’t die. It doesn’t matter, God hasn’t picked… What is interesting is that Moses and Elijah show up where? On the Mount of Transfiguration, Matthew 17. And what were they talking about? They were talking about Christ’s coming death and His plan. So, it could be Moses and Elijah, it might be Moses and Enoch, or it could be anybody else, but we think about these things. The two witnesses serve God for half the Tribulation. Look at this they’re flamethrowers. Fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies if anyone wants to harm them. They have the power to shut heaven. They have the power over the waters. They have all plagues whenever they want.

But now, look at verse 7, when they finish their testimony. These are called the two witnesses. The word witness, you shall be my witnesses, is the Greek word martyrion. When they finish their martyrion they become martyrs. Sounds like it, doesn’t it? Martyr comes from the Greek word for witness, because most people that witnessed for Christ in the early days got killed. And so, that’s where we get this idea of a martyr in English comes from a Greek word. It’s actually a transliteration of that word. When they finished their testifying of Christ, the beast that is sends out of the bottomless pit. That’s another description of the Anti-christ. He is a human that is so tied to demons and Satan that everything about him arises out of that bottomless pit, but they’re overcome, and they’re killed.

So, look what happens, we covered this yesterday. Their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, the spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord was crucified. That means it’s Jerusalem. Verse 9, those from all the people and nations see their dead bodies for three and a half days. They don’t allow them to be buried. And verse 10, all who dwell on the Earth rejoice. And they’re using prime, they’re sending in FedEx, they’re sending gifts to one another. Because the two prophets tormented everyone, but then, while everybody, I can just see this.

People are tuning in. There’s a, remember there was a camera on the eagle couple that had eggs that were up in the Canadian forest somewhere, and they put a camera, a cam on them, and you could dial in and watch the cam and watch the mother turning the eggs and ruffling their feathers and it snowed on them. If we watch eagles in the wilderness of Canada, if enough people are interested, can you imagine everyone’s watching this? Those two dead bodies, and there’s this cam on them all the time, and people in the world are watching and rejoicing that they’re not going to cause any more problems, and all of a sudden someone’s watching, and look what happens. Now after three and a half days, verse 11, the breath of life from God entered them. And while millions of people are watching, they stand to their feet, and great fear fell on all who saw them. Wow.

And they heard a loud voice from Heaven saying, come up here, and they ascended to Heaven in a cloud. And when the enemy saw them, in the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city of Jerusalem falls in the earthquake. 7,000 people are killed. And the rest are afraid and give glory to the God of Heaven. What an event, what an evangelistic event.

Now it ends, verse 18, The nations were angry, Your wrath has come. That’s a comment from Heaven. And then the Temple of God is opened in Heaven. Remember there is a temple in Heaven right now. Moses saw it when he was up on the mountain. When he got the plans for the tabernacle. But it goes away after the Tribulation and it moves down to Earth. We’ll see that on Friday, and then it goes away permanently. And it says in Revelation 21:22, God becomes the temple. There’s no need of any more temple, but the temple is here now.

The Ark of the Covenant is there. Indiana Jones, remember, was looking for it. He didn’t know where to look. There it is. We know where the real Ark is. It’s in the temple in Heaven and there’s lightning noises, thunderings, and earthquakes.

Let’s pause and talk about worship. I’ve met many of you that are going to be involved in worship. Worship ministries, writing music, singing, playing, serving, and worship music. Let’s talk about what Revelation says about worship. Look at verse 16, the 24 elders, this is chapter 11, verse 16, who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshipped God. Isn’t that interesting? The word for worship is proskyneō. That’s a very interesting word. Pros is toward, kyneō is to… it actually means to kiss toward. It’s like someone that they come up and they go, you’re so great and they blow you a kiss or something. That’s what worship is. It’s an acknowledgement by me bowing that I am nothing and You’re everything. That’s what worship is. What has worship often lowered itself into in Christendom? The worship of the worship leaders Have you ever listened when some of these people who are gifted in playing and singing come out on the stage? There’s very little difference between Taylor Swift coming out and one of the super Christian stars coming out. The adoration of them? And you know what a lot of them do? What are they saying? You shouldn’t be doing that for me. It’s all about the Lord, it’s You and they’re pointing to Christ.

But what is worship to God? As we worship, God quickens our conscience by His holiness. So real biblical worship, if you read in Revelation, God’s holiness affects us, our conscience, so that we want to be holy. Worship lyrics, worship activities, all of them; music, the Word, communion, prayer, the teaching of the Bible, all of those are elements of worship. Giving money. All of them cause us to be moved by the holiness of God. As we worship, God nourishes our minds by His truth. What does it say? If you know the truth, the truth sets you free. As you worship, you’re nourishing yourself on the truth of God, and it sets us free, and it cleanses us, and it focuses us. God purifies our imaginations by His beauty. Did you know that’s one of the attributes of God? Beauty. God is the summation of all that’s beautiful.

Satan is the summation of all that is evil. In fact, Satan is embodied as all of sin, and God is embodied as all that is not sin. And there’s the contrast. God purifies our imagination. Do you know where a lot of sin takes place? In our imaginations. And if I was teaching through Ezekiel, I’d take you to Ezekiel where Ezekiel is allowed by God to dig through a wall. He said, why do you want me to dig through this wall, God? He said, God says to him, I’m going to show you what people think about when you’re ministering. It’s a really, chapter 8, it’s really interesting. So, he digs through the wall, and he’s repelled. Inside, it says, they’re all kinds of horrible creatures and filthy things. He said, that’s what’s in the minds of My people. Do you know what? God wants to purify our imaginations by His beauty. That we say You, I want You to cleanse me. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to fantasize that or imagine that. And God opens our hearts to His love. And then what’s the result in us? True worship causes us to submit to His purpose. And you can see that when you look at verses 17 and 18, and they’re talking about your servants and that we…, and that’s what a servant is, someone that submits to someone else’s purpose.

That takes us to chapter 12. Chapter 12 is one of the most fascinating chapters in the Bible. This is about what none of us really think about ever, the war that’s going on between God, and God’s two thirds of the angels, and Satan and his third. And it’s all across the universe right now. These creatures are just all over, but they’re going to be confined to the Earth in chapter 12. It’s fascinating. Demonic warfare raging. So, let’s see what happens.

Chapter 12. Now a great sign appeared in Heaven. What is a sign? A sign is something that stands for something else. So, you don’t, focus on all the elements of the sign. It’s what it’s talking about. So, this dragon, that we see, a great sign appeared in Heaven a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and under her head a garland or on her head she had a garland of 12 stars. She’s expecting, she’s with child She cries out in labor and pain to give birth, and another sign. Here’s the second one in rapid order, appeared in Heaven. Behold a great fiery red dragon having 7 heads, 10 horns, and 7 diadems on his head. What is that? It’s a sign. Of what? Satan and Israel.

Now there is what’s going on throughout the universe. There, Satan has figured out that when God, it was Jesus the Creator, was talking to Adam and Eve after they fell, there’s a promise made to Eve that she would have seed. That’s Genesis 3:15. Your seed, Eve, will crush the serpent, and the serpent will bruise your seed’s heel. It’s a weird verse, but it’s powerful. It’s called the Proto First Evangelium Gospel. So, if you’re studying the Gospel, there’s the very first one and it goes all the way through the Bible. What’s it talking about?

On the cross while Satan was bruising Christ’s heel. You know how they crossed over their heel, put a spike through it and they’re nailed to the cross or one depends on which way they crucified. They’d have one foot on each side of the cross which often was an olive tree. The Romans were so smart. Don’t think of a 4×4 or a 6×6 post on a hill somewhere, made of lumber that’s been milled and that the Romans would waste all that lumber. They crucified 30,000 people at a time. Do you think they brought in boatloads of lumber? No, they just took and hacked up trees. What’s the most plentiful tree of Israel? Olive trees. They just took the branches off of them. All they had to do is have one piece of wood, a crossbar, and the rest of it was there, and nothing would move it. It was a tree in the ground. Most people were crucified and as they were dying, you were looking right into their eyes. They were not on a green hill far away. Jesus was probably crucified right alongside the road to Damascus, just out the Damascus Gate. And they dumped the bodies, they wouldn’t let them bury them. They just tore them off the cross, often with the spike still in them when it bent and threw them in a pit and let them rot. And that’s why you know that Joseph went, of Arimathea, went and got the body of Jesus because he didn’t want Him thrown in the pit, he wanted to bury Him.

Satan heard the first Gospel in Genesis, so what did he do? He got Cain to kill Abel. He heard that Eve was going to have a child that’s going to be the Messiah. He killed the only one he didn’t have control of. He had control of Cain, and Cain killed Abel. That’s why 1 John says Cain was the first murderer, the first disciple of Satan. So, Satan’s been tracking all along. He wants to get rid of God’s plan. So, he got Cain, killing Abel. Then Seth was born. So, he’s going to mess the thing up. And he messed it up so much that God had to kill everybody on Earth except for eight people, Noah and his family. Satan’s really good at messing up. And so that’s what we’re talking about here. This woman with child is Israel, the promised vehicle through whom the Messiah would come, and the fiery red dragon is Satan.

So, watch what Satan does in verse 4. His tail, this is still the dragon in verse 3, drew a third of the stars of Heaven. That’s how we get that of all the angels, one third goes with Satan and two thirds stay with God. And the dragon, this is gross, stood before the woman who was ready to give birth. And he’s like the obstetrician waiting to help her deliver the child, but he’s not really, he’s really the dragon. Yeah. Because he wants to devour her child as soon as it was born. What is that? That’s gross. No, that’s the conflict of the ages. Satan wants to destroy the child of the woman. He wants to destroy Israel, the vehicle of the Messiah coming, and he wants to destroy the Messiah. Satan’s goal is to promote global hatred for God’s chosen people of promise, Israel.

Zechariah tells us, At the end, not the Second Coming, before the Second Coming, on that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all people. All people. All who lift it will hurt themselves. All the nations of the Earth will gather against it.

I already showed you this but look at that. That’s Washington, DC. Those are people protesting Israel. In Washington, DC. Jesus said in Matthew 24:9, they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you’ll be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. He’s talking to Jews that would become the first members of the Church. And there’s an amazing merging between the Jewish people and the Christians in those early days. Because the Church was primarily Jewish. And he said, you’re going to be hated by everybody.

So basically, chapter 12 says the dragon versus Israel is Satan’s constant plan. So, let’s look at that plan. He corrupted Adam’s line, that’s why the flood came in Genesis 6. Then Satan tried to corrupt Adam’s seed by getting Hagar involved. Then in Egypt, that didn’t work. The son of promise came. The 12 tribes came. By the way, how many sons did Ishmael have? 12. Satan has mirrored the whole thing and made his false plan all along. But Egypt tried to destroy Israel as a nation, killing all the firstborn males, and blot out this line the Messiah was going to come through. Then Assyria came, do you remember? They parked 185,000 troops outside the Damascus Gate. And Hezekiah looked out, and there was, like, a square mile of army, bigger than the city. The city’s only a square mile, and the army was a square mile, and he had no hope, and he just wrote his prayer request down, and it says he spread it before the Lord. He unrolled the scroll like this. He couldn’t, he was so scared he couldn’t even talk. He just spread it out. And that night the Lord let the destroyer out of the pit for one night and he killed the soldiers. He didn’t kill all the other people. Did you notice that Sennacherib’s rest of his army, all the people that had the food and the tents and the carts and the horses, went home to Assyria and told them what happened? The destroyer only killed the soldiers, 185,000 soldiers. There were probably 60,000 helpers. He left them alone. He only killed the soldiers. So, it’s amazing.

So, Assyria gets involved and then Babylon gets involved. They go beyond Assyria. They destroyed the temple. They carried away all the heirs, all the heirs that were going to be the line through which Christ would come and kept them as slaves in Babylon. And then Haman, when Persia took over, tried to kill all the Jews. Do you remember? That’s the whole thing with Haman and Esther and Mordecai and all that. Then Satan didn’t succeed in that.

So, Jesus is still coming in that line of Abraham. You read Matthew, that whole genealogies, Satan’s seeing this. So he tries to get Joseph to cut out. And declare Mary is illegitimate, that she’s an unwed mother and Joseph was going to have her stoned. That’s what they did back then. That didn’t work. So, Satan gets Herod to kill all the newborns and that didn’t work. So, Satan gets into Nazareth in Luke 4 and tries to get Jesus. They came and pushed Him. They brought Him right up to the edge of the brow of the hill and tried to push Him off the cliff of Nazareth. And it says Jesus just walked through the middle of them. He was protected by God. So, Satan sent two storms while Jesus was sleeping in the boat. And when the disciples describe them, they said they’ve never seen a storm like that. Remember he’s the Prince of Power of the Air he was trying to kill Christ in the boat. And then that didn’t work, so he gets Rome to come, and they crucify Him. And Paul said, if the god of this world had known what he was doing, he wouldn’t have crucified Christ. Paul told that to the Corinthians. He said, Satan didn’t understand that was God’s plan. Rome comes in AD 70, destroys the temple, kills a million Jews, and things have been quiet, till now. There’s something else coming. It’s in Ezekiel 38 and 39. There’s an attack of Gog, that’s the ruler, Magog, the people that follow him, and Iran. It’s very interesting. And then there’s the final one you know about, Anti-christ and Armageddon.

Have you been reading the news? Watch this, I have a clip. Now that’s something you’ve never seen before. That’s Israel’s Iron Dome intercepting Iranian rockets that are coming over the temple mount. Unbelievable. Some newscaster took that picture, and that’s the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest spot. And if you read the news report, they’re calling it the Gates of Hell have opened, because Iraq has joined in as a part of this Axis of Evil with Iran, with Lebanon, with Syria, with all the Palestinians, with Gaza, with Yemen, and Hezbollah up there in Lebanon. They want to get Israel. And that was just a test by the way. I mean, they’ve analyzed it now. And Iran timed their drones and their rockets to all come at the same time to overwhelm Israel’s system and if it hadn’t been for the British, the French, the Jordanian and the American planes that were expending $5 million dollar missiles, for a $10,000 drone, do the math, the Western powers were using $5.000,000 a pop, bullets, to shoot down a $10,000 lawnmower engine. Do you know the Iranian drones are run by lawnmower motors? They go really slow. And here comes this $100,000,000 fighter jet, shoots its $5,000,000 missile, kills a lawnmower engine. They did that to test the system and they’re going to keep sending them till they get their plan.

What’s going on? This is a chart. You see it. This is Daniel’s 70 weeks. 69 weeks, cross of Christ, destruction of Jerusalem, the Rapture of the Church. Do you notice that Magog invasion? It’s either somewhere around the Rapture or it’s the same thing as Armageddon. The problem with it being Armageddon is the Anti-christ isn’t leading it, Iran and Russia are, or Gog and Magog and Iran are leading it. It’s not the whole world, it’s not the global south, it’s not everybody, it’s just certain nations that are named.

This is what Ezekiel talks about. It talks about Gog and Magog coming, it talks about Iran coming, it talks about Northern Africa coming, and it talks about the global south group coming up. So, what is that? It could be what is coming with this Iranian attack. And it could be, if Ezekiel 38 and 39 happens, it’s not America that saves Israel. Israel is sorely, almost defeated, and at the last minute, God keeps them from being defeated. Destroys two thirds, Ezekiel says, of the…, actually it says seven eighths. So, 84% of all the attackers are destroyed, but Israel is weakened, and they’re helpless. And somebody has to come help them, and most likely the Anti-christ. That’s when he rises, and he proposes this; we’ll build a Jewish temple on the mountain. If you guys will surrender your atomic bombs and all your technology. Moslems? Let them do it and Israel won’t be a menace to you anymore and Christians, you’ve always wanted to reach Israel, you can put a church up there, too. Can you imagine what kind of a person could accomplish that? That’s probably what’s coming.

So, the conflict of the ages is Satan opposing God’s plan. He is the dragon, but during this period another event happens. In verse 7, Michael and his angels, that’s one of the archangels, fights with the dragon, that’s Satan. And the dragon and his angels fight, but they don’t prevail, and the dragon is cast out. Cast out of where? Heaven. What does Satan do? He appears before God. Do you remember the book of Job? He comes up and accuses Job. Satan gets to come in front of the throne of God and accuse Christians. His ministry is accusation. He’s not allowed in Heaven anymore to accuse us. And so, it says that he is cast to the Earth and his angels are cast out with him. So, Earth, Satan and his demons are confined to Earth. That’s when the really bad part of the Tribulation starts.

God displays saints that overcome, verse 11, People are actually getting saved through the 144,000, through the two witnesses. And they get saved, they overcome the Anti-christ by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. And they don’t love their lives to the death. Overcoming doesn’t mean you don’t get hurt. It means you’re triumphant to the end and so they’re martyred.

That takes us to chapter 13. And we only have five minutes. But it’s amazing because this is just the Anti-christ you’ve heard so much about. He’s described in Daniel 7 and Daniel 9 and Daniel 11 and a lot of other places. He’s super intelligent. He’ll be one of the smartest humans ever. He’s quite the communicator. He’s really a politician. Anybody that can solve the Arab Israeli conflict, Islam and Israel conflict is amazing. He’s a businessman. He’s a super general and he’s very proud.

That’s the 12th of the picture. Remember I told you that chapter 24 talks about a drone view. The 12th trend is the rise of the dragon. This is the ultimate event in chapter 13. The dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

Once Satan takes over and desecrates the temple and all that, look what happens. Another beast comes out of the Earth. He has two horns like a lamb, speaks like a dragon. Verse 12, he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, so he’s the front man. He causes the Earth and those who dwell it to worship the Anti-christ, whose deadly wound was healed. Someone tries to assassinate the Anti-christ. And the whole world, remember, is watching on Facebook Live, or Snapchat, or whatever they’re watching, Twitter, or whatever. And he comes back, his deadly wound is healed.

And the false prophet, look at verse 13, performs great signs. He can make fire come down from Heaven on the Earth in the sight of men. That means, he’ll say, get your cameras ready, watch. He calls down fire from Heaven, but he doesn’t stop there.

This is the interesting one. Look at verse 14. He deceives those who dwell in the Earth by the signs, which he’s granted to do in the sight of the beast. He tells those on Earth. Now comes the mark of the beast. The whole thing that we’ve been talking about. He tells those on Earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lives. So, this is in the mid-point of the Tribulation, this event takes place. He’s granted power. He gives breath to the image of the beast. So they make a robot, an idol, and some kind of a robot image thing that the false prophet gives breath to the image of the beast, so the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image to be killed. This is the ultimate terminator.

Now I clipped out of Bloomberg. It says technology…, technological singularity by 2045. Futurists predict a point where humans and machines become one. Do you see the brain on the microchip? Just wait. Satan has one up on that. Satan has all demonic power and he’s the king over all the demons, indwells a man and allows the men to make a robot, and the robot has all the artificial intelligence, and it’s given demonic life that it can speak, but it has a singular purpose, it kills anyone who comes to Christ and won’t follow the Anti-christ.

He causes, through this terminator, everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark. No one has the mark of the beast now. No one has it. It’s not a Social Security number. You understand what I mean? There are all these people that have resisted everything because they don’t want to get the mark of the beast. There’s only one way to not get the mark of the beast, and we’ll finish with that. But verse 17, no one can buy or sell except one who has the mark of the beast.

And so, deception is the greatest danger facing – salvation is when you receive a love of the truth. Now think about it this morning. You’re saved if God has implanted in you a love of the truth. Because the people that don’t have a love of the truth, that do not believe, verse 12, but have pleasure in unrighteousness, are the ones that are deceived and get the mark of the beast.

So, the Bible says Satan’s going to invade, most people will be led astray, and the only way to escape the mark of the beast is to be saved.

That little card is what I keep in my Bible. It’s the seven things that happen when someone gets saved. And you can see it. We’re forgiven, justified, regenerated, reconciled, adopted, redeemed, and sanctified. And that’s Satan’s everlasting hatred.