Revelation Chapter 13 Verse 11

• Notice what John describes for us here is literally the unholy trinity!  All here in this one verse…John says he sees another “beast.”  That’s one because we already have been introduced to the first “beast” last week.  And we saw who precisely that “beast” is right?  The Anti-Christ!
• And notice John says that this beast had two horns like a “lamb.”  I want to come back to this word for “lamb” in the Greek however for now notice John says, “like a lamb” in other words “similar to” or “bringing to mind a lamb,” and two horns, not ten, he has no kingdom…two, the number of testimony.  And so we have another beast like the first but this one is like a lamb, brings to mind a lamb and there are two horns…speaking of testimony…
• So the first beast is the Anti-Christ, the second beast…sounds a lot to me like the Anti-Holy Spirit!  Jesus said in John 15:26, 26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me!”  
• And just like the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father to testify of the Christ, this beast proceeds from…well the third person of the unholy trinity, John says it here, “he spoke like the dragon,” or better said, “he spoke the words of the dragon.”  Literally in the Greek there that could also be translated “serpent.”  And so we see the counterfeit that Lucifer is…always promising love and life just like God the Father, but in the end, and we’ll see this as we continue in this chapter, in the end, the devil always delivers death!
• But how?  How is it that so many even today are following after one who hates them so much?  One whose heart is filled only with a desire for power and reign and love for himself?  Yet Jesus said of the wide path, many go by its way?  I believe, well actually I know, the answer to that question because for years I followed him myself. 
• I wasn’t malicious to the core, wanting everyone around me to be hurt and desiring to use people for my own gain…my heart’s desire was love, joy, peace, gentleness and life…always was.  Actually that’s God’s design in me.  Ecclesiasties 3:11 says that, “He has made all things beautiful even setting eternity in the hearts of His creation.”
• Folks mean well, desire well, seek…well, however because of the exceedingly deceitfulness of sin man…so many are lost.  Deceitfulness of sin?  What do you mean lost?  We think, we perceive, we hear the whisper of rationality, “no one will know, go ahead, it’s not that bad…just a little this, a little that…good will come of it” and we follow, and end up somewhere very unfamiliar…no good, somewhere we never planned to go…we’re lost…but we continue on…even deeper because the second time, we need not be lied to by the enemy, we’ve trained ourselves…sin cycles man become our days and our demeanors and we don’t even know it…we can’t even see it…we’ve lost it all when we wake up…we’re lost…
• Divorce papers are signed, kids without parents, jobs lost, families torn, bridges burned and we are left to devices that numb because if we’re about our wits long enough, the self disdain will usher in a depression and a hopelessness that leaves us praying for death…THAT is what the devil delivers!  THAT is where sin takes you man…promises peace, pleasure and prosperity, and delivers absolute regret.
• I believe that’s how this beast will do it.  That word in the Greek for lamb is more literally, “little lamb.”  Nothing about this account given by John is threatening.  This man, from the perspective of heaven, a “beast.”  Most likely not the perspective of earth.  This beast appears as harmless as a little lamb and speaks the words of the dragon.  That doesn’t mean he screams hate man…the dragon would get no followers or at least very few if that was his tactic…no he preaches the gospel of sin man…that’s what that means.  This beast is to the Anti-Christ as the Holy Spirit is to the real Christ.  Testifying of him, pointing people to him.   We’ll see him work wonders, miracles that will even incite worship of the Anti-Christ.
• And that brings up an interesting thought.  The Anti-Christ is the political leader, could this beast be the religious leader?  Unifying the entire earth under the authority of the one who has gone into the temple and claimed to be God?  I think the clues are there…

Revelation Chapter 13 verses 12 – 14

• It seems that his entire motivation is to bring about unity in worship to the Anti-Christ doesn’t it?  John says back in verse 12, when they’re together, the Anti-Christ and this beast, they speak for each other.  “He exercises all authority of the first beast…in his presence.”  He causes folks to worship the Anti-Christ.  He performs great signs to bring this about and he even leads them in practicing personal worship by instructing them to make an image, or build a statue, of the Anti-Christ for their front porches and dinner tables. 
• And so it all adds up.  This is the religious leader of the Great Tribulation and the new religion is on the scene today man just not unified and not named but it will be…all that serve self, all that travel the wide path, the church on easy street, they already are members of this church of the dragon and now, the world fully given over to the physical reign of the Anti-Christ, is united in the worship of the beast!
• And how is that unity kept thriving?  Same way it is today, through the constant barrage of inserted ideas of “get mine, have yours, indulge, kick back, all eyes on me.”  Turn the TV on, turn the radio on, open the newspaper, scan the magazines…how is it that folks go all day everyday without giving a thought to eternity, without a moment of perceiving the call of God upon their lives?  Because the noise of the temporal, the aroma of self-service…is constant.  So shall it be with these images…

Revelation Chapter 13 Verse 15

• Now we keep seeing the word, “granted.”  We see it here and we saw it in the last verse, “he was granted to do signs.”  Understand that word literally means “to grant what is due” or “to pay one’s wages.”  Look the wages of sin are death man…and those wages always get paid unless the sin is dealt with, confronted in courage man and overcome by the blood of the Lamb…cast upon the cross of Christ which is the only place an power there is to overcome sin and death in my life or in yours.  And so what the beast is able to do here, all the deception, all the death…these are the wages due upon those who have rejected the Way and taken their own tragic way.
• And so the beast is granted the ability to give life to these images…I believe there is some technology involved here myself…and these images not only speak and proliferate the message of the Anti-Christ but notice these images can perceive somehow if the folks aren’t worshipping the Anti-Christ and if not, these images have the power to kill.  Wow…
• And so total control at this point.  Absolute control of the people, of their praises, of their homes and families…even their resources…money and possessions as we’ll see in just a moment.  Precisely the mold the enemy is fashioning folks into even now through sin…

Revelation Chapter 13 Verses 16 – 18

• This verse set implies much more than just a mark, a tattoo or some sort of technology.  It implies world unity.  John says here everyone, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave…everyone is bought into this system…under the authority of this economic order in which now the currency of the entire world, the economy of the entire world, is unified into one…designated by a mark. 
• John wrote this book during a period in history when the highest form of technology was a mule and the world’s economy was based on bartering.  And so what makes this passage so absolutely intriguing is that John is not describing anything that he could have known or imagined but in contrast he describes precisely what is upon us today!
• For centuries past, this passage confused Bible scholars.  While they knew it to be true, exactly how was beyond their understanding.  But for us, this is no big deal at all…we are accustomed to buying and selling without trading, without currency…simply numerically.  This mark will introduce an answer to the world’s economical, social, demographical and political issues with cash and it will once and for all unify a world into one unit under the absolute authority of the Anti-Christ.
• What do you mean all those issues, Matt?  Remember, the second beast will appear as a little lamb man.  I believe people will have ah-ha moments regarding the mark and welcome it!  Think about it…every check written costs a bank around a dollar to process.  Bank tellers, cash transactions…deposits and withdraws…cost the banking industry billions across the globe each year!  If it’s all numbers and marks…banks can be totally online!  How about bank owners and business owners who lose millions each year from employees stealing from the til?  That goes away with a cashless currency!
• Think about taxing organization such as the IRS.  Across the globe governments lose trillions each year in the “underground” economy.  Folks being paid “under the table” in order to avoid a paper trail that would require them to be taxed.  That goes away with a cashless currency.
• Crime plummets.  Can’t pick pocket someone when their pockets are empty.  Mug them for what?  Their shoes?  They probably stink!  The drug game takes a substantial blow doesn’t it…when cash goes away…can’t get cocaine on a credit card!  HA.  The most effective way to curb drug traffic would be to get rid of cash! 
• And so why is cash still around then?  Not due to a lack of technology but rather cash is still around due to a phobia of technology.  Folks that were born before 1970ish I’d say, before ATMs, credit cards and Nintendos are rather reluctant to embrace technology…Pew Research Center released a report in 2012 that concluded that the user community of the internet is predominantly junior citizens man…why?  Because those born prior to the internet…don’t trust it…but even now that is changing…
• Check this out, this same research report found that in June of 1995, 14% of American people regularly used the internet…in January 2011…78%!  The phobia is subsiding…dying off folks.  The kids who grew up with gameboys are not intimidated by technology…most don’t ever carry cash already now!  The mentality is already in place…someone just needs to introduce the system and then preach the gospel according to man’s security…but just like sin and just like the enemy, the gospel of pleasure and peace will be preached but death and domination will be delivered.  Those who take the mark, are doomed as the bowls of the wrath of God are poured out on the earth…
• But the gospel of man’s security traps folks even today.  That false gospel has been trapping folks from the beginning man.  John says “here is wisdom.”  Some believe the number of the beast is a type of UPC code or a translation of letters to numbers and those numbers add to 666.  I think that’s possible, but I also see a very primary point John is making.  In Genesis we find a man who dominated another…the first murderer…the man who brought the works of his own hands to God as “good enough” and because of all this he was banished to outer wilderness and the Bible says a mark was placed on him…Genesis Chapter 4…that mark was so that no one would kill him.  Eeerily similar to this mark here in Revelation.
• What does this have to do with me?  Everything!  You see the number of the first beast, 6.  The number of the second beast, 6.  The number of the dragon, 6.  Triple 6…the number of man…6.  Throughout scripture, 6 is the number of the flesh.  The fleshly mentality that rules and reigns in our members because of sin which will rise up in you if you’re not deliberate in your relationship with God!  How?  By saying the same as Cain said….”the sweat I pour out, the good I do, the things I accomplish are going to be more impressive than just the killing of the lamb.  Through my energy, my initiative, my efforts, I will impress God!”
• “I don’t need to pray, I don’t need to spend time every day in the Word of God.  I don’t need to live my life for the Lord, to go to church to heed the Word of God…I can figure out my career on my own, I can figure out my marriage on my own…I know what’s best for me…”
• You see right now, each of us in this room are in one of two categories.  Here is wisdom.  We either have the spirit of Cain saying, “I’m a hard worker, I’m a creative thinker, I’m a good person”  Or of Abel who was humble, broken and dependent upon God.  Which are you?  You’re one or the other man…and the way of Cain is the way of the mark…and that mark is the mark of the beast comprised of the number of man…
• Here is wisdom, seek first, primarily in your life, in your thoughts, in your hearts the kingdom of God…and everything else will fall into place…especially your own heart…(Matt 6:33).