SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/20/2015
10:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Third Look at Antichrist
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Rev. 13:1-10
Message of the
verses: “1 Then I saw a beast rising
up out of the sea. It had seven heads and ten horns, with ten crowns on its
horns. And written on each head were names that blasphemed God. 2 This beast
looked like a leopard, but it had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion!
And the dragon gave the beast his own power and throne and great authority. 3 I
saw that one of the heads of the beast seemed wounded beyond recovery-but the
fatal wound was healed! The whole world marveled at this miracle and gave
allegiance to the beast. 4 They worshiped the dragon for giving the beast such
power, and they also worshiped the beast. “Who is as great as the beast? ‘they
exclaimed. “Who is able to fight against him?’’
5 Then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God. And
he was given authority to do whatever he wanted for forty-two months. 6 And he
spoke terrible words of blasphemy against God, slandering his name and his
temple-that is, those who live in heaven. 7 And the beast was allowed to wage
war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority
to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation. 8 And all the
people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose
names were not written in the Book of Life before the world was made-the Book
that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered. 9 Anyone with ears to hear should
listen and understand. 10 Anyone who is destined for prison will be taken to
prison. Anyone destined to die by the sword will die by the sword. This means
that God’s holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful
(NLT).”
We will look at the last of three introductions to both
chapter 13:1-10 of Revelation and these introductions have shown us a preview
of who the Antichrist is by looking at, in the last two Spiritual Diaries
verses from the OT prophet Daniel, but in today’s SD we will look at verses
from the pen of both Paul and John and who also were describing the Antichrist
in their letters they wrote. We will
also look at what our Lord said in His Olivet Discourse from Matthew
24:15-16: “15 "Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION
OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the
holy place (let the reader understand), 16
then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.” Jesus is quoting the prophet Daniel in this
section, and what He is quoting happens when the Antichrist goes into the
temple and blasphemes God there by declaring himself as God, so Jesus is saying
when you see this to leave Jerusalem for this will be the beginning of great
trouble for the Jews.
We will now look at a rather long passage from the pen of
Paul to the Thessalonians from 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10. Just a bit of background on this section and
that is there were some false prophets who either sent letters to the
Thessalonians of spoke to them saying that “The Day of the Lord” was happening
at that moment. Paul’s refute of this is
that if this were the case then the Antichrist would be in power and then he
goes on to explain some things about the Antichrist to his readers. “ 3 Let
no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes
first, and the man of
lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 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. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with
you, I was telling you these things? 6 And you know what restrains him now, so
that in his time he will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is
already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of
the way. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth
and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose
coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and
false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who
perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” We see in this section of Scripture that Paul
describes his character “man of lawlessness” and the “son of destruction.” We also see his career described “takes his
seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” This means that he will break is covenant
with Israel, the covenant that put the seven year Tribulation into motion. We also see how he is destroyed by the Lord
at His second coming, something we will look at in chapter 19 of
Revelation.
We have said that this is the most detailed description
of Antichrist found in the Word of God in Revelation chapter thirteen we have
also seen glimpses of him in earlier chapters.
“When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of
the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them (Rev. 11:7).” In chapter twelve we saw recorded the beginnings
of Satan’s long war which is against God and also His people, and so chapter 13
logically follows which records that war’s culmination. Chapter 12 shows Satan thrown out of heaven
and chapter 13 he is described as beginning his massive effort on the earth to
try and defeat God and His purposes of caring for His people so that there will
be a millennial kingdom, for if Satan destroys all of God’s people then there
will be no millennial kingdom.
Sometimes we forget that Satan is a spirit and no a man
running around in a red suit with horns on his head and a pitchfork in his
hand. By being a spirit he depends on
man to work his dirty work on this earth.
All we have to do is look at some of the world leaders from the past and
we can see how Satan used them against God’s people by having many of them
killed. In the last century between
Hitler, Stalin and some of the other dictators they had around one hundred
million people killed and it does not take too great of an imagination to
understand that Satan was behind all of those killings. This information, at least part of it came
from a book that I am reading by Dr. David Jeremiah “I Never Thought I Would
See the Day.”
Not all of Satan’s people are possessed by demons, but
some are and for sure the Antichrist will be possessed by a very powerful demon
as we will learn later on in this chapter, but we have explained that there are
only two types of people on earth, those that belong to Satan and those who
belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, so Satan has many people to work with.
In Luke 22:3 we read these words “And Satan entered into
Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve.” Satan used Judas to betray our Lord as this
verse says that he entered into Judas to accomplish this. Satan is no match for our Lord Jesus Christ
as seen when He was on earth for we see in the gospels that Jesus cast on many
demons from people who were demon possessed and according to Mark 3:14-15 He
gave this power to His disciples “14 And He appointed twelve, so that they
would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, 15 and to have authority to cast
out the demons.
John MacArthur ends his introductory commentary with the
following paragraph: “Having been cast
permanently from heaven (12:9), Satan will know that the time remaining to him
is brief (12:12). To lead his last,
desperate onslaught against God, he will empower his final Antichrist. The opening verses of this chapter reveal
seven features of this ultimate dictator: his ancestry, authority, acclaim,
adoration, arrogance, activity, and admirers.”
This gives us an idea of what we will be looking at in our next
Spiritual Diaries.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I have mentioned
a book that I have read sometime back written by Warren Wiersbe entitled “The
Strategy of Satan,” and in that book we see ways that Satan works in the lives
of people. We see how Satan will work in
the lives of people during the Tribulation Period and we can learn from both
sources so that we can avoid those ways in our lives.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
I want to love the Lord with all of my
heart, soul, mind, and strength and to live in the love of Christ today.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Mesopotamia” (Acts 7:2-3).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who was told that he must
witness in Rome?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/20/2015 11:12 AM
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