SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/18/2015
8:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Introduction
to Revelation Chapter Thirteen
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Message of the verses: We will
begin to look at the introduction to the 13th chapter of the book of
Revelation, remembering what we stated earlier about chapters 12-14 that they
go back and look at the Tribulation Period through the moving of the Antichrist
as the first eleven chapters were seen from the prospective of God.
I want to copy and paste the first
ten verses of chapter thirteen: “1 And
the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of
the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems,
and on his heads were blasphemous names. 2 And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and
his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And
the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. 3 I saw one
of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the
whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; 4 they worshiped the dragon because he gave
his authority to the beast;
and they worshiped the beast,
saying, "Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?" 5 There was given to him a mouth speaking
arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was
given to him. 6 And
he opened his mouth
in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is,
those who dwell in heaven. 7 It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome
them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given
to him. 8 All who
dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the
foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. 9
If anyone has an ear, let him hear. 10 If anyone is destined for captivity, to
captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be
killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.”
As we look at the world today we see
that the darkness is growing ever so much darker. When the things begin to happen that we have
learned about in the Tribulation Period people will want to find a leader to
led them through those terrible times and a leader will emerge, a leader that
we know as the antichrist. The Bible has
much to say about the antichrist from the writings of Daniel in the Old
Testament to the writings of Paul and John in the New Testament, but in chapter
13 we see the most information given about this man that is given in one place
in all of the Bible. They say that you
had better make sure what you wish for
is what you truly want for there are times when you get what you wish
for and then you wish you hadn’t gotten it and that will be the case with the antichrist
a man that we saw who was riding the white horse that represented peace in the
first seal judgment, but will change his spots when we look at him in this
chapter and other chapters we will go over too.
John MacArthur writes “This man, often called the Antichrist, will be
the culmination of a long line of would-be world conquerors. What men like Alexander the Great and the
Roman emperors in ancient times and Hitler and Stalin in modern times only
dreamed of doing, the Antichrist actually will do—he will rule the entire world
and receive its worship”
What is an antichrist? Well in the broadest sense anyone who opposes
God can be called an antichrist. “Who is
the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the
antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22).” When you think about that along with what is
written in John 3:36, “"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but
he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on
him,’” you can say that the world is divided up between two types of people,
those who obey the Son by accepting Him as their Savior and Lord, and those who
do not accept Him. Believers are for
Christ and non-believers are against Christ.
Jesus told the Pharisees that they were like their father the devil and
we can also divide the world up by saying that those who have accepted Jesus
Christ as their Savior and Lord are children of God the Father, while those who
don’t have Satan as their father. Now I
am not saying that all non believers are possessed by demons or Satan, but that
they belong to him. His kingdom is
darkness as Eph 5:8 says “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light
in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”
John MacArthur writes that “The
astounding description of the Antichrist presented in the opening verses of
this chapter is the most gripping, thorough, and dramatic one in all of
Scripture. However, it was not new
teaching to John’s readers. John wrote
in the first epistle that his readers had ‘heard that antichrist is coming’ (1
John 2:18). After describing Antichrist
and his activity, the apostle Paul reminded the Thessalonians, ‘Do you not
remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?’ (2
Thess. 2:5). Those passages indicate
that the truth about Antichrist was common knowledge in the New Testament
times.” Now if they were known in the
New Testament times we can be sure that the writes of the New Testament who
wrote about Antichrist got their information from Daniel, a book that we have
already studied a few years back.
We will not begin to look back at
some of the verses from the book of Daniel to help us better understand who the
Antichrist is. We begin with Daniel 7:8
which reads “"While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a
little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by
the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a
man and a mouth uttering great boasts.”
I wrote the following from my Spiritual Diary on September 7, 2014 “Now
back to the subject of the “little horn.”
Dr. Wiersbe explains that this little horn is none other than antichrist
and then goes on to say: “The Greek
prefix anti can mean ‘against’ and
‘instead of.’ The final world ruler will
be both a counterfeit Christ and an enemy who is against Christ. John described the appearance of this ‘man of
sin’ (2Thess. 2:3) in Revelation 13:1-10.”
“John
MacArthur describes the antichrist in five ways: 1. He is a political genius as seen in Daniel
7:8. 2. He is an intellectual genius, he
is brilliant. Look again at verse eight
and in verse twenty where we see Daniel speaks about his eyes and MacArthur
says that “his eyes refers to insight.
They refer to intelligence, mental ability.” 3. He will be an oratorical genius. As we look back at Hitler we know that people
would just sit around and listen to him speak for he had this type of
oratorical genius, but antichrist will have even more of it. We have been fooled in this country by a man
who reads a good speech on a teleprompter.
4. Antichrist will be a military genius as seen in verse
twenty-three. He will end up devouring
the entire earth, and we can think of what Jesus said about what profit a man
would have if he inherited the whole earth, but lost his soul. This will surely be true of antichrist. 5.
Antichrist is a commercial genius. In
Revelation chapter eighteen we can see the kind of economic system he set up
from Babylon as all the peoples of the earth are crying at its
destruction. 6. The last thing MacArthur
has to say about antichrist is that he is a religious genius. Remember we have been reading about him as
having a mouth that speaks boastfully, well he will eventually destroy the
religious system that is on the earth and has been on the earth since Cain
brought his wrong offering to the Lord, (a man centered religion), and will
make himself out to be god and all of the people of the earth will believe that
he is god, except those who do not receive the mark of the beast, for they will
have the mark of God.” This has given us
a bit more insight into who the Antichrist is.
We know that the Antichrist will persecute the people of God as we have
seen in chapter 12 of Revelation, but there is more to him than that as he will
also be a religious genius, that he will make up his own religion so that all
the world will worship him. Of course
this religion will be a false one, but we will learn that Satan, who is behind
this world ruler has always wanted to be worshiped and so he will have his day
in the sun when all the world worships the Antichrist. Daniel 11:36-37 says “36 "Then the king will do as he pleases,
and he will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will speak monstrous
things against the God of gods; and he will prosper until the indignation is
finished, for that which is decreed will be done. 37 “He will show no regard
for the gods of his fathers or for the desire of women, nor will he show regard
for any other god; for he will magnify himself above them all.” 2 Thessalonians 2:4 says “who opposes and
exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes
his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” Antichrist will not be alone in doing all of
these things, but when we look at Revelation 13:11-18 we will see that he will
have a partner in crime one who is called the false prophet.
We
will continue looking at the Antichrist in our introduction to chapter thirteen
of Revelation in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: When I first
became a believer and began to go to a Bible believing church my pastor said
that he was not looking for the Antichrist, but he was looking for Jesus
Christ. I have to agree with that
statement, but nevertheless we need to know about the Antichrist which is what
we will be doing as we study this 13th chapter of Revelation.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and to live in the love of Christ by showing mercy and love
to those who are in need of it.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “At the receipt of custom or
toll” or at the tax payer’s booth. (Matthew
9:9).
Today’s Bible question: “Who said ‘Cursed be the man before the Lord,
that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho’?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/18/2015 9:48 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment