Mike Bickle emphasizes the escalating spiritual war between Satan and God as depicted in Revelation 12-14, focusing on the Antichrist's rise and his intent to exterminate Israel to thwart Christ's return. He explains that the Antichrist will possess unprecedented power and resources, supported by a false prophet, to establish a worldwide worship movement while intimidating those who resist. Bickle reassures believers of God's promise to protect a remnant of Israel and the body of Christ, encouraging them to remain steadfast in faith and patience amidst the coming trials. He highlights the importance of understanding these prophetic scriptures to prepare for the challenges ahead and to recognize the ultimate victory that awaits the faithful.

Come to you in the name of Jesus. We ask you for a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of revelation. Lord, we want to be fascinated with your beauty. We want to be filled with confidence in victory for the hour of which we're going. We want revelation about what's going on so we can proclaim it clearly and boldly. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, I've spent several sessions in the last month or so talking on Revelation 12, 13, and 14 because that's a unit. Chapter 12, 13, and 14 go together. Well, really, chapter 10 to 14. It's an important unit in the book of Revelation. Now, what's going on without getting caught into the whole picture because it's so exciting to me that I can really easily go there? But I want to stay focused. Mike, stay focused. Okay, Revelation 12 is the war in the spirit of Satan against God. That's the point of Revelation 12, to inform us that behind the scenes in the realm of the spirit, Satan has been actively in a state of war against God and God's people. And you read Revelation 12, the message of this is that the war began in heaven when Lucifer rose up and said no to God. Then it was cast out of heaven. Then the war continued on the earth, and it really picked up when God chose the nation of Israel, when God chose the covenant nation from which the Messiah would come out of that covenant nation. The war went up in a far, far greater intensity. But the point of Revelation 12 is that the war is going to reach the highest escalation in history in the final hours before the Lord returns. Revelation 12 gives the historic overview of the war from before Adam and Eve to when they fell to the birthing of the nation of Israel, right to the time of Christ at the first coming. But the point of Revelation 12 is to give a context so that we understand from verse 13 to 17 of Revelation 12 that Satan is going to try, now listen, this is very serious to the body of Christ, to totally exterminate the nation of Israel. Because by doing this, his hope is to cut off the second coming of Christ. Because Jesus promised, he gave his word, he would only come back if the nation of Israel invited him, saying, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. He would not come back except the covenant nation invited him voluntarily to be the messianic leader over the nation, king over the nation. And I have no doubt that when he uttered that promise, Satan rejoiced and says, now I have a loophole. I can find a way to stop it. And Revelation 12 talks about the war. But the point of the Revelation 12 broader picture is to let us know it's going to escalate in verse 13 to 17. And God's and Satan's going to go after the complete devouring of the nation of Israel, the remnant of Israel in order to stop the second coming. That's his point. He doesn't have a particular hatred against Jewish people. He hates humans. He's filled with hatred. What he's against is the people that Jesus is coming by their invitation. Now, what we find in chapter 12 is that verse 13 to 17, that's going on. God is going to raise up supernatural protection for part of the nation of Israel. And part of that supernatural protection is going to be through the body of Christ. So in verse 17, the dragon, chapter two, 12 or 17, which is Satan, he, what he does, he's enraged now with the woman. He's enraged with Israel. And, but there's a supernatural protection by God, direct in the spirit and through the body of Christ. There are several dimensions of how that supernatural protection happens and Satan cannot entirely devour Israel. So now he goes off to make war against the people God is using to help the nation of Israel, the body of Christ. He goes off to make war with the offspring of the remnant of Israel, of Messianic Israel, which is the body of Christ. Revelation 13 is the famous chapter. It's the most descriptive chapter on the antichrist. But in context, revelation 13 is telling us Satan's method of going to war to try to destroy and devour the body of Christ. So revelation 13, it's a good chapter all by itself. It's very informative, very helpful. But revelation 13 is the same subject as revelation 12. Satan is raging against the offspring of the woman. That's clearly the body of Christ. And so if we began chapter 13, verse one, we're going to miss a little bit of the urgency and the overall context. Satan is the dragon behind this whole plan. Satan has his main resource, his main strategy is to raise up this evil leader with more natural resources than any other leader in human history. He's going to have this incredible, I mean, this unprecedented scope of resource in the natural. That's what revelation 13 is telling us. There is an evil leader who is being motivated and empowered out of Satan's rage against the church. And he's going to have a larger resource as an empire, a military, political, economic, and religious. All four of those are coming together, or spiritual instead of religious, or you can use the word religious because it's going to be dead religion, false religion. And he's coming after the people of God with this tremendous resource, and then to complicate it, to make it, to compound it, Satan is going to raise up a helper called the false prophet that is going to give this world leader greater credibility. It's a one-two punch. Satan's plan is this, I'm going to raise up this man with incredible resource, but I'm going to cause a witness, a man with power on him, with great presentation of sincerity to tell the world, you see how much power I have? Well, I'm using it all to help this great world leader because he's so right and so true. I can have my own little kingdom. Look, I have a ton of power and a ton of wisdom and a ton, a great following, but I am so committed to this phenomenal leader. I'm going to use all of it, and I'm going to spend it all on him, and that's going to give great credibility to this false leader called the Antichrist. Then Revelation 14 comes along and tells us, God says, I promise, I promise the body of Christ certain amount of things. I'm going to release the great harvest. I'm going to remember everything, every movement of your heart towards me in obedience. I'm going to remember it and reward you forever. And he says, and I promise those who resist my son, they will have defeat on the earth and eternal destruction. So Revelation 14 is like you really got to read, have Revelation 14 if you're going to read Revelation 13. If you read Revelation 13 by itself, you're left with a little bit of despair. Well, number one, you don't even have the context. You read Revelation 13, there's this evil leader called the Antichrist with a false prophet, a helper, whose message and his power is in, or his effectiveness is in the fact that he has so much power, but he just spends it all on this wonderful, this so-called wonderful leader. That's the power of the saying, you know, if you only read chapter 13, you go, what, what is happening? There's no context. Where did this guy come from and why? Well, we know why he's coming to express the war of chapter 12. Well, we may end up in despair if we, if that's all we read is chapter 13. Even if we realize there's a war going on, it's been going on, I mean, from before Adam and Eve, it's a long-term war in the spirit. We say, well, it makes sense there's a war, but we could still have despair, but chapter 14 really is key. God says, I promise you the harvest is going to be effective. I promise you Israel is going to survive with a remnant in the power of God. I promise you that everything you do, I will remember and reward you. And I promise that all of those that come against you will have defeat on the earth. They'll have, there'll be an earthly defeat. Jesus says, I will come back personally and see to it. They will be completely overthrown, the evil empire, and they will have eternal judgment and destruction after that. So it's quite a really intense passage of scripture, revelation 12, 13, and 14. So we're jumping right into chapter 13, but I had to give you the context. Okay. Roman numeral two on the, on the, for those that are taking the course here, I mean, Roman numeral one, the two main goals in this war, Satan has two main goals that you find in revelation 12 and 13, two main goals. Number one goal to establish a worldwide worship movement. Satan wants to be worshiped more than anything else. When he was tempting Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew chapter four, verse nine, he told Jesus, I'll give you everything without you having to go to the cross. Everything. All I want is you to worship me because he knew that if Jesus would worship him, he could get the whole world to worship him. And Jesus obviously said no, but what he was after, he goes, I'll give you all of the rule of all the kingdoms of the earth without you dying on the cross. I'll give you all the benefits with none of the price at all. You just have to worship me. And that's what Satan's been about from, from the beginning. He wants to be worshiped. Number two goal Satan has is two main goals. He wants to exterminate the Jewish people and his hatred of the body of Christ undoubtedly is because of our, he has a hatred of the body of Christ. No question because of the, the, the coveted position that God has given us as the bride of Christ near the heart of God. That's of course the position he wanted, but that's not his number one thing. That's a very important thing. His number one thing is to get worship on the earth and stop the second coming. And, and the nation of Israel is the way to stop the second coming and his perverted thinking and the body of Christ is stepping up to the plate. We're for such a time as this, we're answering the call to take a stand, to be God's vehicle of redemption to the nation of Israel. So now he hates us. Yes, because of our coveted position near the heart of God, but also because we are the vehicles of supernatural grace and deliverance for the nation of Israel. God will do some of a direct, but he will do a lot of this deliverance through the body of Christ. And then he's going to join together Jews and Gentiles as one new man through this tremendous plight called the tribulation of Jacob's trouble in the last days, in the end times. So I'm going to say it again. Satan wants a worship movement and Satan, not only he's going to get a worship movement, but he wants it number two to last forever. So he wants to stop the Jesus from coming. So he wants to exterminate the Jewish people. And again, because Jesus said, if the Jewish people do not say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, I won't come until they in Jerusalem, invite me back. And Satan was really having quite a kind of a false sense of victory for the last 2000 years, because how can the Jewish nation invite him back in Jerusalem if they're not even in the land, let alone if they don't occupy Jerusalem? Well, 1948, 2000 years later, now they're in the land. 1967, now they have government over Jerusalem. You can be sure Satan is feeling the noose around his neck. It's like, oh, intense, but he goes, I'll kill them anyway. The body of Christ won't take a stand, but we will take a stand. Then he's going to vent his rage after the body of Christ in order to get to Israel in order to try to stop Jesus from returning so that he can have his worship movement without it being interrupted. That's really what's going on in the most simple terms. Okay. Roman numeral two, Satan's main weapons of this war and in the end times is a man called the Antichrist. He's going to give one man more military power, more political power, more spiritual power, and more money than any other man in history. One man is going to have more armies, more nations in unity, more money, and more false anointing, but real power than any other man in history. And God the Father is going to let this happen to bring Israel and the church to purity. He's going to let the whole human race be tested in this time. But this man, the richest, most powerful man in history up to that time is going to emerge. And of course we know he's the false Christ. He's the Antichrist because the really truly most rich and powerful man is taking is after he is judged, this man will rule from Jerusalem, all the earth and great wealth and power. And Satan's number two weapon of war again is this false prophet who's, again I'm just going to say so we get it really clear, his argument is listen, look how much power I have. I mean this false prophet will have a bigger ministry than anybody today in the world. Far bigger influence than the Pope has. The Pope has the largest religious following anyone in the world. The false prophet will have a far larger following than any man in history. And he's going to say, listen, this leader is so awesome and so good. I gladly lose my place and make it all about him. And the people of the earth are going to say, they have such a great friendship. You can just see the love. Look at it. It will be, it will appear so awesome and it will be so evil. And of course, Satan, the false prophet and the Antichrist intentionally, intentionally are set forth as a counterfeit Trinity. They mean to counterfeit the Trinity. It's not kind of a nice little accident of scripture that the three of them are, hey, I almost like the Trinity. No, they are intentionally a counterfeit Trinity. And, uh, the false prophet is in the picture and is in the place of the Holy Spirit doing miracles to glorify the son and to gladly taking a backseat to the worldwide rule of the one that would be counterfeiting the son, which is the Antichrist. Okay. Roman numeral three, and give you just a little overview of revelation 13. So you have a feel for it. Verse one and two and verse one and two, it seems like kind of real confusing. It's really not, there's a two or three symbols that are most, uh, commentators agree on the, on the meaning of the, most of them are those that take a Bible prophecy. Literally it's, it's, it's really pretty simple. And I'm going to kind of give it to you in a minute, but it's pretty simple. But you read verse one and two and you go, Oh my goodness, that's so confusing. How will you ever understand it? Well, just so you know, to encourage it, millions of people understand it. It's really not that confusing. So I just want to get rid of the, I can't understand it thing. Just get rid of that because you can't, it's not, it's really pretty simple. But verse one and two, the point of it is, is this, this world leader, it's, it's showcasing his natural, no, his strength, his strength, and it's four things. He has more military, political, economic, and spiritual power than any other man. I mean, the combination of the four of me has more resource than any man in history who's lived on the earth. So verse one and two tells you big army, big alliance of governments. That's political, lots of money and lots of spiritual power. That's what it's supposed to leave us. Verse one and two, his strength. We read it and we go, wow. Now I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. Why, why is God revealed this to us? Because he's giving us the broad strokes of Satan's power base and his goals and his strategies. He's giving us the broad strokes in revelation 13 and it's a chapter we just really need to know. We really, really need to know and we really need to teach it to our children. And I'm proud to say we teach this in our children's, uh, in our time with our children, we teach this to them. We teach them how to pray and fast. We teach them about the end times. We don't believe it's scary. We believe it's called preparation and wisdom. I mean, book of revelation right here, chapter 13, it says, if you go, if you really have wisdom, then understand these things when we went, our young people would have wisdom. But anyway, revelation 13, you don't want to draw back from it because it's the broad strokes to equip the church because what we're going to do, what's going to happen when you read revelation 13 and understand it even a little bit, we, uh, it causes us to gird ourself to get ready for a great war. When we read it, we go, this is serious. You know what? Let's get ready now. Let's not wait till the, till the day before let's go deep. Now it, it let, it gives us the sense of a great battle ahead of us. And it's, it's meant to awaken us to urgency. So we gird ourself and get ready and we go deep and we get understanding. And so it's supposed to be a bit terrifying, but with the spirit of faith and revelation, we know, especially chapter 14, we, we totally are victorious in the harvest and we're victorious in eternity. And, and we see many, many great things happen with the power of God on the earth, even before eternity. Okay. So the angel that's visiting John really wants John to be jolted. He wants him to be sobered. He wants them to be alerted by the strength of this evil man. Verse one and two is his strength, political, military, spiritual, economic past and present are all going to be joined together. We'll look at that in a few minutes. Okay. So John, so as we read it, we go, wow, most powerful, wealthiest, really smart guy with spiritual miracles, spiritual power, huh? This isn't going to be a pushover. I hear people say it all the time and I appreciate a little bit. I like this. I like the something about it, but something is wrong, but it's the idea is like, ah, the devil, he's nothing. We're just going to rise up and dah, dah, dah, dah. And it's going to be no problem. No, I mean, millions and millions of believers are going to die and millions and millions are going to fall away. We are going to win. And so I like the confidence of that approach, but we don't want to minimize this. Revelation 13 is so we do not minimize this. So we have urgency, urgency, and we're not going to be afraid, but neither are we going to take it lightly. And normally there's two camps. Those that are just so afraid or those that really kind of gear up and say, well, bless God, we're going to win. We don't care. Everybody claps and shouts. They blow the trumpet. And I think a little bit more intense than that right here in good old fashion, you know, Midwest, you know, with the air conditioning, the coffee working good in the sound system, it's just, yeah, glory to God. We're just going to try up and go glory to glory. A multitude, a multitude will fall away from Jesus, who named the name of Jesus and end up in the lake of fire. Multitudes in the, that are in churches right now in America will not end up in heaven. Multitudes will be martyred. It is not, we're not afraid, but we're not trivializing it either. And that's the point. The point of verse one or two is he is really strong and it's for real. So when you read it and you understand it, you go, okay, okay. We know who's stronger, but Hey, this is, this is the real deal here. Okay. Okay. Verse three tells us this is to Satan's advantage. There's going to be a catalytic event. There's going to be this dramatic wounding and healing, and the whole earth is going to be amazed. So there's going to be drama that really gives him credibility. It's like, Oh, not only does he have more power, more armies, more nations in unity, more money, and more false anointing. He's going to have some, some spiritually orchestrated drama that the whole earth will get swept into. And I mean, the horror, I mean, obviously there'll be a lot that say no, but the majority of the earth and this catalytic event, I mean, in the natural, I don't like it because it gives him incredible, tremendous credibility. So the catalytic event that's this dramatic credibility gaining event is going to happen. And when it happens, our hearts will be alive in God, but we'll say, Ooh, because some of our friends and neighbors, and even people who are in the church are going to go, wait a second. You guys, we're going to take this guy serious. No, that's exactly the opposite. What you're supposed to say, but just know there's a dramatic catalytic event. That's going to give him tremendous surge of credibility in the earth overnight. Okay. Revelation 13 verse four tells us what he's after real clear. It says just so we know no confusion, why he's doing it. He wants worship and he wants to, he wants to, he wants worship, but he's also going to seek to remove the entire resistance movement in the nations. He's going to have worship with intimidation. He's going to show his power. So one group is awestruck, but the group that may is maybe a little tentative. He wants to intimidate them so that all the resistance is gone. And he'll just say something like this. If you don't get along with the program, you and all your children will go to prison, be beaten, and you'll starve to death and you'll be tortured. And we'll, and if you find somebody not going along with the program and don't turn them in, we'll beat you and torture you and your children along with them. It's called intimidation. He's really serious about it. He will appear invincible. In verse four, it says, who can war against them? Who can stand against them? I can, I can just hear the little conversations around the coffee pot, you know, at the workplace. Well, why resist anyway? I mean, who can make war with him? So one group will be awestruck and the other group will be intimidated. And so we realize that there's going to be an emotional momentum for him for a short season. Then verse five to eight, I call it his administration. It's how he administrates his plan through the false prophet and the Antichrist. And his two, his administration, the way he's going to work this strategy, he's going to accuse God and kill Christians. It's real simple. He's going to blaspheme God. He's going to tell lies about God. He's going to tell lies, all kinds of lies about God. And God's answer to these lies. Yes, it's the word of God, but it's, it's, it's, uh, it's the word of God, but it's, it's not enough for the word of God to be written. It's got to be opened red. It's got to be received by people and proclaimed. So it's the word of God proclaimed God's raising up forerunners right now, messengers that with such clarity, they will be proclaiming this. So, uh, that the lies about God, when it says accused, God put the idea lies about God, blasphemed. He will blaspheme God. He will say, number one, I've already defeated this Christian God who has orchestrated all the pain of the human race anyway. And he's going to have some little facts and figures or some little presentation, not a little one. Uh, that's going to be very compelling. He's going to blaspheme God and make God responsible for the murder and the pain of the human race and the eyes of multitudes. He's going to blaspheme the name of God, his character. He's going to say God's personality. Number one, uh, God doesn't care about you. God's a unrighteous in his judgments. It says he's going to, they're going to blaspheme the theme, the tabernacle where all the judgments come from. Uh, they're going to blaspheme everything related to the tabernacle of God, which in the book of revelation, the, the temple and the altar is all about the place where the judgments come in there. And, and this evil man is going to blaspheme all the judgments that come from the tabernacle. And God says, I'm not worried. I'm going to have my faithful messengers all over the earth, anointed in power, and they're going to be walking in the truth and in revelation of what they proclaim. So his administration, Satan's administration, the antichrist administration rather, which is under Satan. He's going to accuse God, tell lies about God that we will counter boldly unto death and he will kill Christians. Those are, I mean, his action plan is manual. Cause just right there, the Holy spirit just tipped us off on all the main stuff. Boom, boom, boom, boom. There it is. Obviously there's a bunch of fine print that's not there, but we got the broad strokes. God's going to raise up against these lies and these killing of Christians. Uh, antichrist is going to have a resistance against him. He's going to face resistance. You know, the resistance is going to be the body of Christ with spiritual weapons. You know, those spiritual weapons are patience and faith. Instead of the word faith, put the confident love. That's the same thing as faith. We will be unmoved, confident, trusting, filled with love. Our weapons will not be to figure out some plot to break in and blow up the building he's in. Our resistance will be the one issue he cannot deal with. He can deal with us trying to organize a bunch of people to go blow up his building because he has way more power. He cannot deal with lovesick martyrs persevering to the end with joy. He cannot deal with this. It's absolutely runs contrary to everything he's about and everything he proclaims. So there's a resistance movement and their weapons are, I'm talking about the real resistance movement, not the redneck one. Cause there'll be a redneck resistance movement against him too. There'll be people that aren't born again that are saying, there's no way, no way. I'm not going to worship that guy. There will be unbelievers who will resist. Just like there were unbelievers who resisted Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. They, they, they didn't resist because of, uh, of Jesus. They didn't even, weren't not even born again. They just resisted because they hated him. There'll be plenty of resistors. I just picture this, you know, the, the curse, the word picture I get is the guy down in Texas with a shotgun. He goes, I ain't worshiping some guy in Europe. I don't care who tells me to I don't know much about the Bible, but I'm not worshiping. Nobody. I can just see him got his dog and a shotgun and no one's messing with him. Anyway, I I'm off the subject. I'm talking about the real resistance movement here. Beloved, what we're going to develop is patience and faith, which is confident love. We're going to develop the only thing he can not overcome. It's not just love. It's patience and love says in Hebrews chapter six, verse 12, it puts those two together. Hebrews 6, 12. It says we inherit the promise by what faith and patience. Oh, faith would be, hey, I can do faith patience. It's faith over the months and years. It is not just patience. I mean, the, the strength of it is the patience at the end. Undoubtedly the strength is the patience at the end, but there's a patience today. There's an endurance today that is going to prepare people for tomorrow. There's a patience and faith that operates today. Some folks would be thinking about this in verse nine and 10 and they go, Hey, I'll get into patience and faith when the hour comes. No, if we get into patience and faith now, whatever, here's the rule, whatever we do now will be easier to do then good and bad. If compromise is easy, now compromise will be easy. Then obviously there's exceptions because it's going to be a breaking into the power of God. But for those of us in the body of Christ, if it's easy to compromise now, it will be easy because there's going to be sin abounding and there's going to be supernatural power and a cold activity. And if we can say yes, now it will be easier to say yes. Then whatever we do today will be easier tomorrow. So, so faith and patience is something we care about tomorrow and the next day, Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. But I love the verse in Hebrew six, 12, you will inherit everything God promised you through faith, through this confident love, but also through leaning into sovereignty, trusting God's sovereignty, trusting who he says about himself. That's faith trusting that he is a bridegroom God with all power and all wisdom, but it's not enough. We're going to add to faith. We're going to add to this trusting in the bridegroom, God confidence in his sovereignty. We're going to add to it this thing called patience, perseverance. We're going to another word is endurance. We are going to stay steady. We're going to stay steady, right? We're going to be on a marathon pace. We're going hard after this. So what I mean by marathon pace, I don't mean kind of like, well, kind of like do God just a little bit because I'm on a long run. No, that's not what I mean by marathon pace. I mean, we're going hard after God, but we're just a 25 mile run. We're in it a 25, a 35, a 50 year vision. We're in this thing. You know, we're going to, you know, it's a 25 mile run, 26 mile run. We're in it for a long race is the idea. We're going hard after it. Well, in our patience and love, we're resisting the blaspheming of God with our patience and faith. We're, people will be so angry at the people who stand in faith because when this God's being blasphemed, we're going to be speaking the truth and our pain, our faith and patience will be tested and not just tested. They, it will be strengthened and found to be gold at the revelation of Christ Jesus. I mean, isn't it amazing you and I, we can stay steady. All the lies are coming down. We say, no, he's a good God and we love him and we'll, you know, get in trouble for it. But the fact we say, no, the Lord says that perseverance will be found to result in gold at the second coming of Christ. Jesus said, when I meet you that no, I'll capture it that no, I'm not yielding. I'll capture it, put it in a bottle. And when I visit you, I will, it will be all gold. The next time I see you. Cool. Awesome. It's true though. It's true. First Peter one seven, it will be found to result in gold at the appearing of Christ. Well, then we think it's bad that this, this man has the biggest army and this catalytic event and he's, and he's after intimidation and worship or is kind of his main goals and he's killing and accusing. We're resisting with faith and patience. We're more than resisting. We're overcoming in our resistance. But then when we think, you know, wow, we got ahold of this thing. There's this, there's a, well, it's not the timing. I mean, the false prophets happens the same time, but we understand that there's this man who's helping him, this false prophet, this counterfeit Holy Spirit ministry. This man has a threefold strategy to help bolster the credibility of this evil leader across the world. He's going to have demonic miracles. I mean, phenomenal beyond anything we're imagining. Demonic miracles. It says in second Thessalonians two, nine. I don't know if I have the verse there. Do I? No, I don't. I might have it somewhere. Second Thessalonians two, nine. It talks about, uh, uh, great miracles according to the working of Satan. Great miracles. Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 24, 24. He said great miracles and many will follow them. This man will use demonic miracles. Then he's going to use legislation. He's going to have the right, the legal right to kill people. He's going to be at the top of the legal system and he can make laws to where we get killed and it's legal. And then he's going to oppress with economics. He is going to have miracles. He's going to have legislation and he's going to have oppressive economics. I mean, this is going to get intense, but the harvest is going to break forth. Israel is going to get saved. We're going to be purified and our lives will bear forth their fruit forever and ever and ever. It's the grandest time in history where the power of God is going to be in the midst of the church. Okay. Let's just look at a kind of the overview. Now let's look at a couple of points. Obviously we can't go through it in depth, but hopefully you're a little bit alerted to it. Let's read about the political, military, spiritual, and economic strength in verse one or two. John is speaking and he said, chapter 13 verse one, I saw a beast. Now it's interesting in chapter 13, there's two beasts. There's the beast of verse one, he's called the beast from the sea, that's the antichrist. And then there's the beast from the land, that's verse 11, that's the false prophet. Now, 36 times in the book of revelation, the false, the antichrist, 36 times antichrist is called the beast. Only once is the false prophet called the beast. So every time besides 1311, every time besides one time, the beast is always the antichrist. Why, why the confusion? Because I mean, we may say, why the confusion? Why not just call him something else besides a beast? Because the Lord wants us to know they have the exact same wild, ferocious, cruel, unreasoning nature. Now the false prophet will appear charming and powerful. He will appear as a lamb. He will appear meek. He will be as evil and have a beast nature. We are not to be deceived by his religious, gentle demeanor. He is as evil at the heart level as the antichrist is. He is an unreasoning beast. Anyway, I saw the beast, that's the antichrist rising up out of the sea. Now the sea speaks of the nations of the world, but it's more, and all through the Bible, the sea is the nations of the earth. And it says it in revelation several times, it's talking about the nations of the world. So there's no guesswork. The sea means, in other words, this leader is emerging out of the process of the nations. The Bible is very clear that he comes forth, he emerges slowly and progressively. It's not like one day you never heard of him, and the next day he's like the king of the whole world. No, he comes up through a process. Matter of fact, he's a regional political leader for a while, so we kind of dismiss him because we get lost, kind of, he gets lost in the, you know, it's kind of in the background. It's very, very similar to Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was just kind of a regional political force that just kind of didn't, nobody took serious. I mean, Germany did not take him serious. Germany, they led him into the position of president because they were convinced he could be controlled. That's why they made him president, because there was a crisis in the land. They said, let's make him president to make this and that happen, because we could control him. I mean, he's not very smart. His guys are a bunch of thugs. He's easy to control. This man almost controlled the world. They had no idea how evil and how unreasoning and strong this man was. So he comes up out of the sea, and the sea means more than just the nations. Think of being thrown out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a raging storm. It's in the turmoil of the nations, in the darkness of the vast sea and the cold, powerful, intimidating, terrifying forces. The earth will be in turmoil. He will come out of the sea, out of the nation in turmoil. The reason you know that is because it's declared in so many other places. If that's the only verse you had, then you could say, boy, you're taking a lot of poetic license on the term the sea. But when you read all through Daniel, the book of Revelation, and everywhere else, it's very, very clear that the nations are in the turmoil. The nations are in a dangerous place. You know, right before, I mean, when there's crisis in the earth, things are dangerous, and the state of the nations will be dangerous. And that's the platform for he will emerge. He will have seven heads. Clearly, these seven heads speak of seven Gentile anti-Semitic empires in history. And again, the vast majority of all commentators agree with that. Those who take, again, anti-prophecy literal, the vast majority. The seven heads, what it's saying to us is that he is going to be the continuity of seven different nations, the nation of Babylon, the Persians, Alexander the Great. I don't want to go through the seven nations because we'll go through it all time and time again. But he will be the fountainhead, the culmination of those seven Gentile nations that were hostile towards God and anti-Semitic. He will be like them. Each one of those seven nations have their own unique characteristics, and he will embody every one of those characteristics in his one government. That's what it's saying. He will have ten horns. Ten horns, the seven heads talks about his past tense. Again, he will be the culmination of the wickedness, the bad characteristics of all those seven nations. But he'll have ten horns, which speaks of the ten nations, he will have the largest confederation of nations in unity than of any leader in history. He'll have ten horns. Now this language is used over and over through Daniel and Revelation that there's really not much guesswork on it at all. It's really standard interpretation that the seven heads talk about the seven Gentile nations, and the ten through history, which is Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Greek Empire, then the nation of Rome, then a mysterious seventh empire that's not named, and then the final one at the end, the great worldwide empire. Those are the seven nations talked about, and then his nation is yet the eighth. It's the culmination of those seven. I didn't expect you to remember those, but those of you that have the notes have it, but if you didn't get that, it's an ending commentary. It's a seven, they all agree, so it's easy to know and understand. Okay, and on his head are going to be ten crowns. These ten nations are going to have real authority. They're going to be nations that have clout and power, and the ten horns are the ten nations that he's going to be in unity with in the future. In the 70s, we all thought it was the ten nations of the European common market, and now that it's pretty clear, quite clear, Europe's going to be unified. Europe's one of those ten nations. The Europe isn't the ten. Europe's one of them, but the ten nations, they have crowns. They're going to be nations that are going to have weight and power and authority, and they're all in Europe in the Middle East and North Africa. They're all in that Middle East European Mesopotamia area, and on his head, he's going to have blasphemous names. Now, the name of blasphemy, which means he's going to be wicked to the core. Everything, all of his values, if understood, although he won't present his values on the front end, at the very core, all of his values are absolutely anti-God to the full degree, even though they will have a presentation that will be different than that. Now, he said, this beast which I saw was like a leopard. He's going to have the speed of the Alexander the Great's kingdom, because Alexander the Great was the leopard in Daniel chapter 8. He was the leopard. It's a picture of very, very clear, and John, through the angels, quoting Daniel chapter 8 on purpose. This is not again like, oh, isn't that neat? It's kind of coincidental. No, he's quoting the passage of Alexander the Great, having the speed and the brilliance, the swiftness of the leopard. This kingdom will grow fast. Once the hour begins, it will be as fast and as lightning fast as Alexander the Great. His feet were like the feet of a bear, the strength, the brutality, the tenacity of purpose of the bear, which was the Persian, the Medo-Persian empire. They were likened by the angel in the book of Daniel as a bear. He says they will, not only will this kingdom, this end-time kingdom have the speed of a leopard, it will have the brutality, the strength, the tenacity of the bear. Ooh, what do you want, a leopard or a bear? Both of them are coming. See, these other kingdoms are one or the other, but this one's going to be all of them, and then he's going to have the mouth like a lion. He'll be terrifying and majestic like Nebuchadnezzar. He was the lion in the book of Daniel, and it's all the same terminology. The point of it is, whatever power for evil and to impress the world Alexander the Great had, the Persians had, or Nebuchadnezzar, or the Roman empire, he will have all of those to the full degree in the synergism of the strengths of all of those to impress the world and in wickedness. So now it's going to get worse because he has all that natural strength. This is to tell us his natural political, economic, and military power. It's going to be the strength of all those nations added up. It's worse than that. Now the dragon, Satan, the dragon is Satan clearly. Each time in the book of Revelation, the dragon is defined as Satan. Satan says, now not only is he going to have the natural power of the historical of those seven Gentile kingdoms, I may give him all of my power, my throne, and my authority. He's going to have supernatural power, not just natural power. This guy will look invincible. He won't be, but he will look that way. Okay, Roman numeral five, the two expressions of the beast. If you read Revelation 13 and Revelation 17, at first it's a bit confusing because you can't figure out if the beast, because one of his heads is fatally wounded. One of his heads is fatally wounded. And we find that, what is that verse? Where is that? Verse three? Oh yeah, there it is, verse three. That's where it should be right after verse one and two. Okay, one of his heads was fatally wounded. I should have had the verses on the notes. And so the bit of a debate about that is, and there's, I don't think it's either or, I think it's both and, but it's a bit confusing. Is the beast an empire that falls and is revived, or is the beast a man who appears to die and then revives? And my opinion is, not trying to be politically correct, I'm trying to have a right revelation, I believe it's both. Because the case is clear for both of them. And I don't think it's one or the other, it's both. One of those seven empires are going to suddenly be revived. It's going to shock everybody, shock the whole world. No, one thing we know for sure is that whatever this death and healing is, whatever it is, it will be of such an impact, the whole earth will be shocked by it. The whole earth will be taken back by it and go, wow. So it won't be something kind of business as usual. It will be very, very dramatic. Like, something like the Soviet Union regathering in power and taking a place of prominence in the world. People would go, oh. Or Nazi Germany rising up again in power with the same values. Like, whoa, nobody could think that could happen. Or something like that. There's several different theories. My point isn't to do the theories. My point is, I mean, the theories are fun. We do that over coffee. But the point of it is one of the empires are going to come back, going to suddenly be restored, and it will just absolutely blow everybody's mind. And then the man himself will have a fatal head wound. Now, it doesn't really say he dies. There's a little, if you read it carefully, and he might die and he might not die. I can't quite tell because the language is not clear enough and that's on purpose, obviously. But he at least appears to die. There's nothing in the Bible that gives any thought that Satan has the power to raise the dead. So I don't know if he really dies or everybody thinks he dies or he appears to be dead. I don't know. I don't really care because when that fatal head wound hits, we'll all know it and we'll all be going, oh my goodness. And then all of a sudden it'll be different and we'll say, oh, okay, there it is. Nobody will miss it. It will absolutely be unmissable. It will not be, no ability to miss it as a believer. Now, the point isn't that we know exactly the details. Those details are fun and a little bit curious. The real point is that we know that God is going to let something dramatic happen that causes his clout not to quadruple, to be a hundred times in one day. That's the point. The point is he'll be a regional leader. It's building. It's building. I believe that probably the body, the prophetic church will say, there's not a question. The Lord will confirm it as they get closer and closer to it. But it won't be one little group over here that has it. It will be a universal witness throughout the body of Christ. But then it will be unmistakable that when this dramatic event happens and the point we're supposed to understand, there's a dramatic event. Now unbelievers, we're going to tell them about the event beforehand. So when it happens, it gives them a chance. But to us right now, we're not going to be deceived by the dramatic event. We're supposed to know there's a moment where it escalates real fast and that he seems to be getting all the help from everybody. He's got all the money. He's got the power. Then he has a dramatic event that everybody's wowed by. Like, Lord. The Lord says, no, I'm in control. I want the world to be wowed because I want the fullness of their heart to come to the surface. Okay. Page three, we've already looked at the seven heads. Those are the seven kingdoms and the 10 horns. So we can skip that. Now let's go down to see at the bottom of the page. It's this phrase. I just want to look at it. Satan's going to give him his power, his throne, and his authority. Revelation 13, verse two, he gave him his power, his throne, and his authority. D, Satan will give the antichrist his power. He'll give him the ability to do miracles. That's what I believe it means by power. The dunamis of Satan, the power dimension of Satan, miracles. But it's more than that. Satan is going to give his throne to him. This man is going to have command over the demonic hierarchies. You know, Ephesians 6 tells us powers and principalities. There's a hierarchy in the kingdom of darkness that only Satan can command the very top. He's going to give this man authority to move powers and principalities according to his strategy. Like we will be moving angels according to the prayer movement. God's throne has been made available to the intercessory movement, to the body of Christ. Satan's throne, and when you read in Daniel chapter 10, the principality of Persia comes, and then the principality of Greece comes, and Daniel's warring against these demonic principalities and powers, and archangels are appearing, and Daniel's in the balance, and the demons are moving around and shifting their resources, and this man is going to be able to operate on the negative side of this drama. He's going to be able to have access to that's not all. He's going to have Satan's authority, meaning he's going to have authority over the legislation and the money and the direction of nations. His authority means the ability to steer the nations. He's going to have power for miracles. He's going to be able to move the principalities around. He's going to be able to manipulate nations and all their resource. He's going to have power, the throne, and authority at his disposal. Okay, let's go through just another point or two, then we're going to wrap it up here. Okay, page four. I guess I got ahead of myself there, didn't I? There's the catalytic event. Number eight, his goal, worship from the awestruck nations, and he's going to bring intimidation so people will fear to resist him. He's going to appear invincible in verse four. Who is able? They're going to worship him. Oh, he's awesome, but then they're going to be terrified, intimidated by him. So it's worship and intimidation. That's what's going on here. You can read the notes on that on your own, page five. His administration, verse five to eight, he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. He was given authority to continue for 42 months, three and a half years. It says it seven times in the book of Daniel and Revelation. He gets three and a half years to do the most intense part. He'll be around a lot longer on the front end, but he gets three and a half years to have this incredible amount of power. Now when he opens his mouth, this is a challenge to the, we talked about this the other day, the Revelation 10 messengers. Because God's raising up messengers with the seven fenders in Revelation 10. And those that are just new here tonight say, whatever. But those that have been here for a few weeks, but on the other side and the darkness, he is opening his mouth and his people and his priests and his government officials and his communication system will be opening their mouth on the other side. And they're going to blaspheme God. They're going to claim God's defeated, that God's a liar. They're going to blaspheme his name. They're going to mock his character, that God is wrong and all that he's doing, God's responsible for the pain of the earth. So when it says blaspheme his name, put mock his character. They're going to blaspheme his tabernacle. I guess we already went through this too, didn't I? I just get excited and get ahead of time. Blaspheme his tabernacle. That's the place in the book of Revelations where the judgments of God are loosed from the tabernacle. He will blaspheme and he'll say, you know why there's chaos in the world that I'm fixing? Because that God, that those Christians, he is real. He is not almighty. He's under my authority. He knows he's defeated. He's the one wrecking havoc in the nations. And then this antichrist and the false prophet are going to do miracles and people are going to say, you know what? Maybe that Christian God is the false God. Maybe he is the little guy. Maybe he is the imposter the whole time through. Maybe he's the one that led the whole of history the wrong direction through the church. And then he's going to mock those who dwell in heaven. He's going to mock the martyrs. He's going to get up and say, you know those guys we killed a month ago? They think they gave their lives for something noble. Their children are suffering now. They're dead. Their lives are wasted with a defeated God. He will mock those who are now living in heaven. He's going to mock the martyrs. And the living are going to go, you know what? I'm not going to let that happen to my family. It was granted to him to make war with the saints and overcome them. To overcome the saints, to make war and overcome, it means martyrdom. It means to overcome them in physical death. That's what it's talking about very, very specifically. Authority was given to him over every tribe, nation and tongue and all the earth will worship him. Now the all isn't the literal all. It means from every nation of the earth there will be a vast, vast representation of those that worship. The body of Christ will be worshiping Jesus. And there will be a resistance movement that is not neither side yet. But they will be being moved. I mean they'll be in the part of the drama. But authority will be given to him. Now let me tell you this. This is important to understand. The authority will be given to him by God. God will give him authority to test the nations and to bring the harvest. He will be given authority by Satan, verse 2. And he will be given authority by humans. Humans will say, we want him. We want him. This is our king. This is who he's got the values. We love his immorality. We love his murder because when murder goes forth, we get more stuff for free and we know we can escape the batting because we're just going to be good for him. And he won't murder us. They will love his values and they will give him authority. God, Satan and the human race will give him authority. Then it goes on. We'll end with this. Have the worship team come up. The resistance, verse 9 and 10. If anyone who has an ear, let him hear. Beloved, this is the hour to cultivate wisdom. He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity. Who kills with the sword must be killed. Our spiritual weapons will not be political and military resistance against his regime. We are not going to go bomb his places to defeat him because God gave him the authority. We will defeat him through patience and faith. Trusting love in the place of intercession, in the place of proclamation, in the place of embracing physical death, in the place of sacrifice, in the place of serving. We have a little, we give it away freely. Our faith and patience is how we will defeat him. Not by raising up some military kind of strike force to go get him. I've heard more guys say that, you know, I'm going to get my guns and my food ready. I said, well, if you're a believer, you can't, you're not going to use your guns. You got to give all your food away. I mean, how on earth are you going to stockpile food and have one person next door to you and a total unbeliever who hates you, but he's hungry. You have to give him your bread. It's not about just your best friend or your kids. I'm talking about a human is next to you. Well, if he's not my family, oh no, if he's human, if he's got a human spirit, we give him our bread. Amen. No point in getting a bunch of guns and bread. I mean, we're, we're in this thing. We're in the hands of the, of the King of Kings. Let's stand. I'm going to invite anybody to come forward that would like prayer for anything, sickness in your body, for revelation, to be a messenger, to be one of those messengers in this day, to be rededicated to the Lord right now.