Revelation 13 Identification of the First Beast Part 1/ Greg Bahnsen {51 of 63}

Our Father, we thank you for every opportunity that you afford us in your providence, to study your word and to discuss it together, to come to know it better and to have it applied to our hearts. We ask you that you would help us to capitalize on this opportunity and to redeem the time. We ask, Father, for a greater perception of the evil of our days and the great responsibility that lies upon us to be your witnesses, to advance your kingdom, and to be people who will stand for godliness and for the faith of Jesus Christ. We ask you, Lord, that you might bless our hour together, that we might be strengthened together, that we might be enabled to carry forth this witness with greater power and zeal and interest. We ask that you might give our efforts great success, that our Savior Jesus Christ might receive the glory. For it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Well, today we come to what is perhaps one of the more fascinating areas of the Book of Revelation and one of the more difficult to teach with any sense of order and consistency because there's just so much that really needs to be said. I'm going to be concentrating on just one single thing today, what I said we were going to do last week and didn't get around to because of all the preparation leading up to it. But I'd like to talk about the identification of the beast in the Book of Revelation. And as you can imagine, there's a great deal of controversy and many opinions that are given on that subject, and I want to at least sample a few of them. Let's read the Book of revelation at Chapter 13 by way of summary and introduction to this question of who is the beast? John begins at chapter 13, verse 1. And he stood upon the sand of the sea, that is Satan. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. And on his horns ten diadems. And upon his heads names of blasphemy. Please remember what we've said about that in the past. The beast comes up from the sea, that is, from across the Mediterranean Sea. Its ten horns symbolize that it has regal authority. Its seven heads that it's very difficult to kill this beast on its horns 10 diadems might makes right as the theme of its operation. And upon his heads names of blasphemy, that is, the beast arrogates to itself divine titles. And then verse two. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth is the mouth of a lion. All right. All the Beast of Daniel's prophecy in Daniel 7 summarized. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and his great authority. The beast operates in terms of Satanic inspiration or empowering. And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death. And his death stroke was healed, and the whole earth wondered after the beast. You kill one of the heads and lo and behold, the beast lives on. Verse 4. And they worshipped the dragon because he gave his authority unto the beast. And they worshiped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast and who is able to make war with him? The giving of this deference to the state is nothing less than Satan worship according to John, verse 5. And there was given him a mouth, speaking great things and blasphemies. And there was given to him authority to continue 40 and two months. So the reign of the particular beast that John has in mind is a 42 month reign. And this man is given a mouth, so that he continually is speaking blasphemies against God. And he opened his mouth for blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, even them that dwell in the heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And there was given to him authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him. That is, those who are earth dwellers shall worship him. It's a common designation in the book of Revelation for the unregenerate world. Those who dwell on the earth and all that dwell on the earth shall worship him. Every one whose name hath not been written from the foundation of the world. In the Lamb's book of life, the Lamb that has been slain. If any man has an ear, let him hear. And then this proverbial or axiomatic pronouncement, if any man is for captivity into captivity, he Goethe. There's the patience of the saints, that they realize that they live subject to the providence of God. And on the other hand, here's the faith of the saints. If any man shall kill with the sword, with the sword must he be killed. That is, God will bring retribution and history for the persecutors of the church. Verse 11. And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. And he had two horns like unto a lamb, but he spake as a dragon. And he exercised all the authority of the first beast in his sight. And he maketh the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast whose Death stroke was healed, and he doeth great signs that he should even make fire to come down out of heaven from earth in the sight of men. And he deceives them that dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword and lived. And it was given unto him to give breath to it, even to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause that as many as should not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he caused all the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free, and the bond, that there be given them a mark on their right hand and upon their forehead, or upon their forehead. Just as the law of God was to be written on the forehead and upon the hand in the Old Testament, so the beast has his mark put upon the forehead and upon the hand, replacing the law of God. Okay, verse 17. That no man should be able to buy or to sell, save he that hath the mark, even the name of the beast or the number, his name here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. All right. I think I've spent enough time in the three or four weeks that we've had already on this chapter talking about humanism and what the beast illustrates here in terms of the humanist, humanist faith. Now, we've talked about the language of revelation and the phraseology throughout, and I hope that has all, you know, had time to sink in. We need to get down today now to the concrete identification of the beast itself. And for two weeks I've been saying we're going to do that, and then I get all this introductory material, and we never get around to it. So I'm going to go right to the heart of the subject this morning. Just jump in right now pretty much on a thematic discussion of who is the Beast? And this is a very good weekend to do it, isn't it? Can anybody tell me what is it that's happening in the world that makes a discussion of the Beast so relevant in terms of at least American fundamentalism and its eschatological perspective? Yes, that's right. There's the peace agreement, the attempt of Egypt and Israel to come to some agreement on peace, and the Western power of the United States entering in there now, even more importantly, what happened over the weekend, that is only going to excite pre millennial interpreters all the more. I know because of the football games yesterday, nobody watched the news, right? Well, you may know, with the exception of one Arab power, all the Arab powers in the PLO have now decided to boycott Egypt. Okay? So now it's a division within the Arab forces. And of all things, they're talking about an alliance with Russia. And so the bearer of the north now, you see, is going to be involved in this. And so you can begin to see what we thought, you know, three or four years ago with such a plethora of books, you know, claiming that the last days were obviously upon us, the final seconds in God's countdown. And we're going to hear even more of that, I'm sure, in the coming weeks. And so this is a very appropriate week to take up the subject. Well, now, who is the beast and just what does he do? And I think a good place to begin is not in the book of Revelation, but in two other passages of Scripture, perhaps three other passages of Scripture that talk allegedly of the same person. In the Book of Revelation, the name Antichrist never appears. All right? Does that surprise anybody? The Book of Revelation has nothing to say about the Antichrist. The book of Revelation speaks of the beast. All right? Paul in 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 2, speaks of the man of sin and son of perdition, but does not speak of the Antichrist. In Daniel, the seventh chapter, we read of the prophecy of the little horn of Daniel's beast. All right, so now throughout the Bible, we have all these different designations, and it's important to see that each writer has his own designation. It's humorous to me in one sense to be reading. I read quite often in books on eschatology and commentaries on Revelation. It's humorous to see how writers will so often just go from one designation to the other without any sense of jumping from one ballpark of imagery and language and one writer's style and situation and all that to the other without any justification for that at all. Daniel has the little horn, Paul has the man of sin, John speaks of the beast, and then where do we read of Antichrist? Only two books of the Bible speak of Antichrist. That's right. First and Second John are the only books of the Bible that speak of Antichrist. So what I want to do, just as a beginning here for a few minutes, is to talk about the little horn of Daniel, the man of sin in Paul, and the antichrist of the epistles of John. And then we'll come to the beast and talk more about that. But first of all, the little horn of Daniel's prophecy. Look at Daniel the seventh chapter, and I'm going to look at two verses in particular. Then Daniel 11:36. First of all, Daniel 7:8, 25, Daniel 7:8 says, I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, almost identical to the phraseology of Revelation 13 that speaks of the beast being given a mouth speaking great things. Okay, and he speak that blasphemies against God. Then Daniel 7, verse 25, And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High. And he shall think to change the times and the law, and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time. Now, in many interpretations of the time and times and half a time, what you have there is 42 months. And I'm not going to spend a great deal of time explaining that or even trying to justify it, but it's at least likely that that corresponds to Revelation as. But notice that what we read at the beginning of verse 25 is that he speaks great words against the Most High, paralleling words of Revelation 13, and he shall wear out the saints of the Most High. Revelation says that power shall be given or authority given over the Saints for 42 months. All right, then Daniel 11:36, And the king shall do according to his will, and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods. And he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished, for that which is determined shall be done. Another cryptic, I think, indication of the self deification and exaltation of this little horn that in many senses I think is perhaps foreshadowing, if not actually being a prophecy of the beast of Revelation 13. In Ludwigson's survey of Bible prophecy, which is written from a premillennial perspective, we nevertheless have a very nice summary of some points of view. And in one of his charts he points out six areas of a parallel between the little horn of Daniel 7 and the beast of Revelation 13. And it's about the best little summary I could find. So let me just give it to you point by point. First of all, in Daniel 7, verse 7, the beast whose power is absorbed into the little horn has 10 horns. Okay, there's. In Daniel 7 a beast arises having 10 horns. And then its power is finally then distilled into the power of the one little horn that rises up in their midst. But the beast in Revelation 13, according to verse one of that chapter, has ten horns as well. Second point, the beast in Daniel 7, or the little horn rises from the sea. Okay, in Revelation 13 you already know that the beast rises from the sea. Number three, he has a mouth speaking great things, which is what I've been stressing here. And Revelation 13:5 is a quote of that. The fourth point is that he will make war with the saints and prevail against them. That is the little horn in Daniel 7, verse 21. In Revelation 13, he makes war with the saints and overcomes them. There's a slight difference of word in terms of how he overcomes prevails against them or overcomes them. But it's the same point. The fifth point, he speaks great words against the Most High. And then Revelation 13 tells us that he opens his mouth in blasphemy against God. Then the sixth point is, according to Daniel 7:25, he will wear out the saints of the Most High. And then Revelation 17:6 is then quoted by Ludwigson. The woman who rides on the beast and directs the beast is drunken with the blood of the saints. Well, that's a pretty fair summary of the parallels that can be drawn from the Old Testament prophecy of the little horn. And that's all I'm going to say about the little horn, because obviously what I'm implying here is that however you interpret the beast of Revelation, that's the way you should read Daniel's prophecy as well, because I think they're the same figure, the little horn and the beast. Well, let's come into the New Testament now and take up a couple of other figures and spend a little bit more time. How about the figure of the Antichrist? This is perhaps the most popular phraseology for this one person that is designated in many ways the Antichrist. And a great deal has been written on the identification of the Antichrist. Alias man of sin, alias beast, alias little horn. My wife and I were enjoying on the way over this morning bits and pieces out of Arthur Bloomfield's book. Now here we have an entire book written. Not terribly big print, but Entire book, some 150 pages with maps and all. And the title of the book is how to Recognize the Antichrist. This is the sort of thing I expect is in every one of your libraries at home. Right? Everybody wants to know the answer to that question, how do you identify the Antichrist? And he goes through what he considers every passage of the Bible dealing with the Antichrist. And I think later on, if my wife has marked the right pages, I'll be reading a little bit from Bloomfield. I'm sure she did mark the right pages. We'll get to that later. But I want to take up that phraseology of Antichrist. First of all, when all is said and done, I'm going to claim that the little horn, the ant, not there, is no Antichrist, as I'm going to argue in a minute. Whores, the man of sin, the little horn and the beast are one figure or one basic syndrome in terms of Bible prophecy. The Antichrist is something different altogether. We'll look at in just a second. And so after that, we'll start looking at works and reading works like Bloomfield's that tell us how to identify the Antichrist. But since he merges all of these things, what we'll take by that is how to identify the beast. Okay, have I lost anybody yet? Let me start again. Certain people speak of the Antichrist as though it was the beast, the man of sin, and all that. Later on, I'm going to read from their works and they may use all these phrases, you know, in combination or one or the other. And we'll just forget the fact that you can draw certain linguistic distinctions. And in the case of Antichrist, you have to draw a denotative distinction as well. That is, you have to distinguish between what is considered the referent of the language of Antichrist and what is the referent of the beast and the man of sin and all that. If I had a blackboard, I could explain it very easily. Okay, well, let's just jump into this in terms of the Antichrist. After I explain the Antichrist figure in scripture, I think you'll understand the rest. Let's turn to the epistles of John, 1st and 2nd John, John's epistles while you're turning, there, let me say, are the only source of our information about Antichrist, since John alone uses the word Antichrist in all of the Bible. And let's look at 2 John 7. 2 John 7. Speaking of the many heretical teachers who departed from the Christian assembly, this is what John says in Second John 7. For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Now, what's very important is to note the language. This is The Antichrist. What is the Antichrist? This. What has he just described? And many deceivers have gone forth into the world. Those that confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. There are many heretical teachers who have departed from the Christian church and gone into the world. Those you see who have been ostracized according to the instruction of the apostles. Remember First John, chapter four. Any spirit that confesses not that Jesus has come in the flesh is what is Antichrist. Okay, so John says in second John 7 that the antichrist is this departure of heretical teachers from the Christian assembly. And so those who had heard the dire prediction that Antichrist is coming to these people, John writes to correct their understanding. Look at First John, chapter 2. 1822. First John 2:18. Little children, it is the last hour. And as ye heard that Antichrist comes, even now have there arisen many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour. Verse 22. Who is the liar? But he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ, this is the Antichrist. Even he that denieth the Father and the Son. All right, so obviously the churches or church to which John writes verse. John had heard the prediction that Antichrist is coming. That has a very contemporary ring for us. I mean, if you read some of the books that are now in my briefcase, there are many predictions that Antichrist is coming. And John writes to those who had heard that antichrist is coming. And he corrects their understanding. And he says, don't you see that Antichrist is that movement of denial of Jesus Christ, or denial that Jesus is the Christ, the denial of the Father and the Son. John sees the Antichrist then as the personification of heretical apostasy in the church of Jesus Christ. He does not see the Antichrist. There is no evidence whatsoever in first or Second John. The only place we read of Antichrist. There is no evidence in those books that John sees a final Antichrist who will be a definite person living at the end of history. Instead, he says, there are many antichrists. And from that fact we learn that John feels that he lives already in the last hour of human history. First John 2:18. Again, let's read that, little children, it is the last hour. And as ye heard that Antichrist comes, even now have there arisen many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour. How does John know that he's living in the last age? He's living in the last period, the last, if you will, dispensation of human history. He says because the Antichrist is here. The Antichrist is what? The fact that many Antichrists have come. So he uses this phraseology, the Antichrist as stand for a personification of the many Antichrists troubling the Christian assembly and those that depart from it, the personification of heretical apostasy. Now, have you any questions about that before I go on to the man of sin? I expect that you probably might. I'm talking now of how John uses the language, the vocabulary of Antichrist. And what I'm saying is that John does not give us warrant for believing that there is one single individual who will be called the Antichrist. He speaks rather of many Antichrist. And who are the many antichrists but those who teach contrary to the apostolic doctrine of Christ? Do we live in the age of the Antichrist today? Well, let me let you in on a little bit that's happening in the Presbyterian Church, hopefully not the denomination of which you're a member, but in the Presbyterian Church, in many places in this land, there are people who are ordained to the Gospel ministry who do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that he was born of a virgin or that he was in fact God of God and that he was an eternal with the Father. You have people who believe that Christ is but one more religious figure on the human scene of human history. And so I think we have many Antichrists today and we live in the last hour, even as John lived in the last hour, the hour in which there is going to be heretical apostasy from the Christian assembly. Now, I'm just speaking of the one figure of Antichrist. And I'm saying with respect to that, I do not identify Antichrist with the beast or the man of sin or the little horn. That's just because I don't see that John uses his language in that way at all.

Yes, John, my understanding of premal OSM is that they don't identify Antichrist with the other three. I've always understood that Antichrist was one and the beast was one. You know, I don't know if you get that the way they taught us.

The world in school. Let me just say, John, that's not an adverse reflection on your portrayal of what you've learned or what you've come in contact with. The fact of the matter is, if one man were to write a book just on the various treatments of Antichrist, beasts and so forth, I mean, it would just take volumes, literally volumes. And there are so many different premillennial interpretations. It's highly conceivable to me that you would have somebody saying there is the Antichrist and the beast separate. But that is not from the main line reading that I have in premillennial or dispensational thought what they say. For instance, in Bloomfield's book How to Recognize the Antichrist, he uses antichrist as another designation for beast. Yes, That's right. And we will separate the beast from the second beast of Revelation. Next week's lesson, Lord willing, will be upon the false prophet and what significance that has. Yes, star. No, no, it's not unbelief per se. It's heretical apostasy. In particular, it's those who deny that Jesus is the Christ or that Christ has come in the flesh. There are various ways the New Testament puts it, but apparently those that do not have a proper and biblical or apostolic Christology and have attempted to teach the Christian church in that wayward direction that is away from a proper view of Christ are deemed the Antichrist. In John's day, we already read that they're being disciplined. They've had to go forth into the world because John has said that you are to separate yourself from anybody who denies that Jesus has come in the flesh. In fact, in Third John we'll read that you're not even to entertain, you're not allowed to come into your Christian assembly, those traveling preachers that deny that Jesus has come in the flesh. And so it's already a day of discipline in the church and John identifies those heretical teachers and now those who have gone forth from the Christian assembly into the world as the Antichrist. I wish, you know, you have delusions of grandeur sometimes, but I just Wish in the 20th century somebody would stand up in one of these Presbyterian assemblies with these heretical teachers and say what John said and point the finger and said, and that is the Antichrist, if you want to know. You know, all these fantastic prophecies and all this interest in Bible charts and so forth, and the simple matter is those who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior, but pretend to be ministers of the Gospel, they are the Antichrist. Well, enough personal speculation. Anything else on John's I heard that Antichrist was any form of idolatry that took the place of Christ in your life.

Is that true?

Well, there's no doubt that a form of idolatry taking the place of Christ in your life is sinful. The issue is whether the language of Antichrist is specifically applied to it. And as I see it, it pertains more to false teachers who have in fact an unbiblical or non apostolic Christology. Those who don't, who do not teach the nature and the work of Jesus Christ as the apostles did, are the Antichrist. John has very severe language for them, obviously. All right, how about the man of sin? Now, we're going to get to the beast in just a minute. We've looked at the little horn and I've said that I think that he probably is to be identified with the beast. Antichrist is a different whole ball game, if you will. The Antichrist has to do with heresy in the Christian church, particularly heretical Christology. And then the man of sin is dealt with in Second Thessalonians chapter two. You might want to turn there for a moment or two. Second Thessalonians 2. It is also claimed by many writers that the man of sin also, to be translated from the Greek, the man of lawlessness, that this man of lawlessness will appear at the end of human history. But I think that's an unsatisfactory opinion. Look at Second Thessalonians 2, 7, for the mystery of lawlessness doth already work. What have we said? The man of sin's name is the man of lawlessness. And now Paul tells us very. It seems to me directly in verse seven that the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. That is, this power or this movement, this. The principle of lawlessness that is exemplified by this man is already operative in Paul's own day. He's already operating in Paul's day. And verse four tells us that the man of lawlessness will oppose and exalt himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. Now, there are two things to be noted here. Well, three things really. The man of lawlessness is not going to be a religious figure. There's no way you can identify this man with a religious movement because he opposes all that is religious. He opposes all that is called God. He has nothing to do with religion. He's just an utter atheistic humanist, if you want to use the philosophical jargon. He has nothing to do with the church. So away with all those speculations. Secondly, this man of lawlessness sets himself up as God, that is, he exalts himself in the place of God. Now, what do we read in Revelation 13? But that's precisely what the beast does. The beast expects to be worshipped in the place of God. And then thirdly, we note that the man of Lawlessness will set himself up and will presume to sit in the very temple of God. Now what does that tell you about the dating of the man of lawlessness? Paul says in verse seven, his mystery of iniquity, his mystery of lawlessness is already operative and he will set himself up in the temple of God. Well, obviously this must be before the fall of the Temple, or else you've got to presume that the temple will be rebuilt and that there will be a call for a man of lawlessness in a future time. Now I'm going to maintain that given the dating of this book and the standing of The Jewish Temple, that is this book, Second Thessalonians, was written prior to A.D. 70. And so the Jewish temple was still standing. And so we know that the man of lawlessness will set himself up in the temple, which is to say, he will presume to set himself up in the Jewish Temple, the well known Jewish Temple, presuming to take the place of God. And his mystery of iniquity, his mystery of lawlessness is already operative in Paul's day at the writing of this book. Well, all that combines to say that the man of lawlessness was a figure in Paul's own day. The man of lawlessness, I think is in fact the beast of John's prophecy. And as I will I think prove later, the beast is definitely in John's own day. But the man of lawlessness, we have evidence, is operative in Paul's day as well. Alright, so he's operative before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. And he sets himself up against everything that is called God. Therefore, sitting in the Temple is not metaphorical. That is, it's not that he presumes in some metaphorical way to be God, but he very crassly and literally sets himself up in the temple as God. Now, those who know your Roman history, what happened when Titus overran the city of Jerusalem and what happened before he destroyed the Temple? The ensigns of the Emperor were set up in the Temple. And the people demanded, it was demanded the people worship the ensign of the Emperor as God. And so what I'm saying is history tells us specifically and literally that the prophecy was fulfilled. This man of lawlessness, operative in Paul's own day, set himself up in the temple as God in the place of God. Moreover, Second Thessalonians 2 parallels the discussion of the abomination of desolation in Matthew the 24th chapter. Okay, now I'm going to try to tie this down with one more peg in terms of a preterist interpretation. Second Thessalonians 2, by all schools of thought, parallels the discussion of the Olivet discourse by our lord in Matthew 24, also Mark 13, and particularly the abomination of desolation. Now, if you read Matthew, the 24th chapter, you'll notice that Jesus goes through what's going to happen in terms of the Jerusalem Temple and all these things, these terrible things happening to the Jewish nation. And we come down and, well, maybe I can turn to it for you. Jim Jordan went through this for a number of weeks last year with you, and I trust you'll remember that as well. But in Matthew 24, after you read all these things happening, Jesus says in verse 34, truly, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished. Now, when you have a different eschatological scheme and you have your charts written out in advance, then you come to this verse. Obviously, you've got to do some fancy exegetical gymnastics in order to, you know, to maintain your preconceived opinion. The fact is, Jesus says, quite literally and straightforwardly, all the things I've said, all these things preceding will happen within one generation's time. My hearers will not pass away before these things happen. All right, so the abomination of desolation, which is parallel to the man of lawlessness setting up himself in the temple of God, takes place within the generation of Jesus hearers. Let's take it one step further. Those of us who are not Jewish, who don't know the Old Testament, who didn't know the Sitzen Leben, if you will, the setting and time there, and have a feel for that culture, those of us who have a gentile mentality often have to go to Luke to get our help. You see, in understanding the Gospel, Luke writes a parallel account of what Matthew as a Jew and Mark as a Jewish right, in terms of Jesus teaching in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in the parallel account in Luke's Gospel where you read of the abomination of desolation, Luke is the only writer who does not use the phrase abomination of desolation. Luke goes along paralleling exactly what Matthew says until you get to the phrase abomination of desolation, and Luke says something else and then he continues paralleling what Matthew says. What I'm suggesting is that Luke, for his gentile readers, that is us, makes it very clear what that Jewish designation from Daniel, abomination of desolation, was to mean. And what does Luke substitute in the place of the phraseology abomination of desolation. When you see Jerusalem surrounded with armies, know that her desolation is nigh. And then he goes on with Matthew, I mean, virtually parallel to what Matthew has been saying. And so Luke interprets for us the abomination of desolation as the surrounding of Jerusalem with the Roman armies. All right, so let's go through this, and there's been a lot of steps in this, and we really are just doing this to finally get up to Revelation again and talk about the beast. The man of lawlessness is not the Antichrist, because the Antichrist is the personification of, of heresy in the Christian Church. The man of lawlessness, however, was operative in Paul's day, and he would set himself up in the Temple in some form, and so therefore it was operative before AD 70. His setting himself up in the Temple is parallel to the abomination of desolation in the Olivet discourse. And Jesus says that all those things would take place in his own generation. Moreover, Luke interprets the phrase abomination desolation for us so that we see that he was referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Okay, did I. Is that clear enough then? In terms of the progression of how you demonstrate this from the Bible, I'm saying is that the man of lawlessness was a past historical figure. In fact, the man of lawlessness I'm going to maintain now, if you read second Thessalonians 2 is parallel precisely to the beast of Revelation 13. And so we have the little horn and the man of lawlessness and the beast being parallel figures in the Bible. And we already know that this one figure, this one person called the beast, the man of lawlessness and the little horn, lived in Paul's day within the generation of Jesus hearers and before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. One of these footage was that he was often before 87. Well, the significance of that is that we're not talking about a future person. I mean, if it's, if it's prior to the fall of the Jerusalem Temple, that means that it's a historical past tense figure. And I mean, what does that. I mean, you go into a customary Christian bookstore somewhere and what. That wipes out about an eighth of their stock in terms of what is discussed eschatologically, the man of sin is a future figure according to premillennial thought. The beast is a future figure according to. In fact, it is so pervasive that I would suggest that for all of the sympathy and friendliness of this Sunday school class that there are some of you sitting here thinking that maybe I've lost my mind. Can anybody not think that the beast is a future figure? I mean, that is so pervasive in American fundamentalism with the rise of the Scofield reference Bible and dispensationalism in this country, that it is almost heretical sounding to suggest that in fact it's a past figure. But I want to suggest that the Bible interpreting itself makes it very clear it was prior to the fall of Jerusalem, in Paul's day, in the generation of Jesus hearers. That's the significance of it being before the. The temple falling. Greg, why is Paul call it a mystery? Well, the word there, mysterion in the Latin form of course, is the Roman Catholic Church does a lot with that. But we should understand the actual word that he's using. The mystery there can mean the principle of lawlessness as well. That is that operative agency of lawlessness in this man and his mystery might also be tied up with the mystery of the ages. You see how God is unfolding his plan for the ages also. I don't believe that that that affects one way or another. Your interpretation. It wouldn't make you an all mill, post mill or pre mill or preterist or futurist on the basis of that one word. Yes.

Without calling the question to many of the commentators too much, what do you see that would preclude an understanding of the passage of the Thessalonians? It says here that lawless one takes his seat in the temple of God thinking of a passage in First Corinthians chapter 3, when the church is referred to as the building of the temple of God? What would preclude an understanding of man of wallop? Is it being a personification of the Spirit that the church has to combat with actually labor, disobedience too much of what God is commanded?

Yes. Well, in verse four, what Paul says is he opposes and exalts himself against, against all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he sits in the temple of God claiming to be God himself. All right. I don't think you can take temple of God here to be an image of the Christian church, a man coming into the Christian church as a leader and opposing, you know, all that is that is worshipped and so forth. I mean, if the, if the temple of God is metaphorical for the church, obviously the man is not opposing all that is worshipped. That is he is a religious figure. But what Paul is saying is this is a man who is not a religious figure at all. In fact, he's nothing less than a person who claims to be God. Alright, so I don't believe that you can take this as somebody within the Christian church. You mean a movement or an ideology? Well, I think Paul's language is more concrete than that. He does speak of the man of lawlessness, and for that reason it's difficult. And I would be very sympathetic to that interpretation if you were applying it to First John, because I think that is true. It's an attitude or an ideology or a teaching, a heretical movement denying orthodox Christology. But in terms of this, Paul speaking of a particular individual who's going to be destroyed in the Lord's judgment, a man who's going to do certain things, a man who's iniquity is already operative, so forth. And I'd really like to go into 2 Thessalonians in more detail and talk about the apostasy of the Jews and their cup of iniquity being full and how this ties in with the Olivet discourse and all that, because it's a fascinating study of how the Bible interprets itself throughout. But we need to get onto the Beast. Are there any other questions about the man of lawlessness in particular? Basically, you see how I'm understanding that then, as a contemporary figure in Paul's day identified with the Beast of Revelation. Okay, well, now who is the Beast of Revelation? I can't believe it. We're never going to find out who the Beast of Revelation is. Time so easily gets away. I would like to read a few commentaries to give you some ideas as to what different people have done with the Beast of Revelation, chapter 13. And I'm going to be reading at length in some of them instead of doing it in this order, because we're going to run out of time and I'll have to finish next week. I would like to read for you what is perhaps the most popular commentary in the Book of Revelation today, which isn't to say the one that I would endorse or that you'll get the most meat out of. But in Hal Lindsey's Prophetic Odyssey, he has a book, There's a New World Coming. The Prophetic Odyssey is the subtitle of the book There's a New World Coming. And it's his commentary on the Book of Revelation. And I'd like to read what he says about the beast of Revelation 13. First of all, he says there's a lesson to be learned from the Caesars. Lindsay knows that the language of John is rooted in his own day. And so he begins by talking about how bad the Caesars were. But what he says about that is not that John was talking about the Caesars of his own day, but that Caesars are just an object lesson for the real beast to come. And then he goes on to speak of Nazi Germany, replaying the drama of dictatorship in the 1930s and 40s. Okay, so here we have object lessons in history, examples, foreshadowings, a foretaste of the real beast to come. You have the Caesars of John's day, Nazi Germany. And then he comes to a subsection of his commentary entitled Mankind Never Learns. What a tragic way to relearn world history. The sad truth is, as Hegel said, history teaches us that man learns nothing from history. Adolf Hitler was but a choir boy when compared with the dictator that will take over the world during the Tribulation. I believe that this very man lives right now somewhere in Europe, inflaming his soul with visions of what he will be able to do for mankind with all his grand schemes and revolutionary ideas. A biographical sketch of this man appears in this chapter that is Revelation 13. He's called by various names throughout the Bible. Here are just a few. King of Babylon, Isaiah 14. I don't think that has anything to do with this Little Horn, Daniel 7, which we've mentioned. Man of Sin, Son of Perdition, 2nd Thessalonians 2, Antichrist, 2nd 1 John 2, and Beast, Revelation 13. He will be a supreme humanist, believing passionately that man can solve his own dilemmas. He will not accept the Bible's evaluation that man is on the verge of chaos because of sin. In fact, he'll no doubt react violently to groups and individuals who analyze man's problem as sin. He'll feel that he is doing a good thing by bringing repressive measures against believers, whom he will consider non progressives. This Antichrist will be against every solution the Bible presents for the world's problems. And because he'll be so persuasive, he'll turn the whole world against Christ and the believers and convince everyone that he has the answers to the human dilemma. And then a subsection is antichrist near chapter 13 of Revelation hints at the answer to this intriguing question. Is the time ripe for the appearance of the Antichrist? I just want to hasten to remind you as we go through here that he keeps referring to the Antichrist as though the Antichrist in the Bible is one figure that isn't the case. But now what he's talking about is Is the beast? Is the time for the peace coming? Right? Even though Jesus said, you know, it would be within his generation, Paul said it was during his day and so forth, Is the time ripe for the appearance of Antichrist? I believe that the present worldwide economic, political and social disturbances will boil over into an unmanageable mess which will culminate during the rapidly approaching tribulation period. Then the frantic populace will race to proclaim this powerful, smooth talking peacemaker as the savior of the world. Let me skip over a little bit. In this case the beast's 10 horns. Picture 10 nations that will form a confederacy which the beasts will rule during the tribulation. Daniel elaborates on this in Daniel 7 and 8. The symbolism in Daniel's prophecies is rather elaborate, but the point he makes is that four successive world empires would rise and fall. Babylon, Medo, Persia, Greece and Rome. Then, when God is about to climax world history on this planet, 10 nations will emerge from the ancient people and culture of the fourth empire, Rome, and will form a tight confederation that will become a sovereign political entity. At this point, a scintillating personality will rise to world prominence and be proclaimed the head of this nation. Of the 10 nations that confederate, seven will acquiesce willingly, but three will have to be brought into the Union unwillingly. This will be accomplished by the Roman leader who thereafter becomes a virtual dictator. Subsection titled Keep your eye on Europe. One of the reasons I'm convinced we're living in the closing days of the world's history is because of the emergence of the European Common Market, also known as the European Economic Community. There is no doubt in my mind that it's the forerunner of the revived Roman Empire, which the prophet Daniel spoke about with such certainty. He predicted that the number of nations in it would be limited to 10. This is the very number which the Common Market has set as its goal for inter membership. Inter membership. Daniel also said that this confederacy would be the greatest Gentile power to ever gain control of the whole world and that it would acquire this worldwide control through its economic strength and its great leader. As of now, Europe has become the largest trading block in the world, and this is beginning to cause some alarm in the United States. President Nixon expressed this concern in his February 1971 State of the World message. Quote, for years it was believed uncritically that a unified Western Europe would automatically lift British burdens from the shoulders of the United States. The truth is not so simple. European unity will also pose problems for American policy which it would be idle to ignore, end of quote. In order for there to be an emergence of the superpower in Europe, which the apostle John and Daniel the prophet predicted, there must be a decline in American economic status in the world. I don't for the life of me, even within his frame of thought, understand why he says that. But many worlds economists believe this is already happening, as evidenced by the devaluation of the American dollar and the growing prominence of Europe and Japan in world markets. What's happening in Europe today is not simply a cooperation of nations for economic relief. The European Economic Community is destined for full political union in the not too far future. An article in the December 1972 European Community magazine stated, the statesmen who proposed and negotiated the European Economic Community saw a politically united Europe as the ultimate goal of their endeavors. The nine heads of government or state of the nations, which will make up the enlarged community in 1973 have reinforced that aim. In a communique following their summit meeting in Paris, the member states of the Community affirmed their intention to transform before the end of the present decade, the whole complex of their relations into a European Union. You'll notice that nine countries are already members of the Community. Six nations, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands originally joined together to adopt policies which would greatly affect the economic and social destinies of their 190 million people. Four more nations were later invited to join. And on January 1, 1973, England, Ireland and Denmark tied their futures to the continuing process of the European unification. Only Norway failed to gain the support of her people for admission to the Community. The European Union has therefore been temporarily halted at nine members instead of ten. My personal belief is that God himself stopped the rapid unification because the revived Roman Empire was coming together too fast. I want to know too fast for what? For God's plans. Once the Confederacy includes the ten nations of God's choosing. Obviously, Norway is not in God's choosing. According to Lindsay, the group will begin to look for a leader powerful enough to make this new nation the nucleus of a one world government. I believe the roman antichrist, Revelation 13 is going to be that leader. I'm going to finish reading this next week, but to this point, two things must be said. How much biblical exegesis have you heard? You've heard a lot about this beast, but it came in at the very end. I believe all this that I've been talking about is that beast. And it seems to me the method should be the opposite. I think you should begin in the text and work out of the text and all the details of the text, what this figure is going to be, and let the text speak for itself. But Lindsay's method is somewhat. I mean, his commentary, contrary to all the others that I have, spends a great deal of time in quoting communiques and Time magazine and all this sort of thing. And then he goes and says, I believe this is who the beast is. And the second thing I want to say is he's talking about a superpower, the European Common Market, unification of nations in Europe, which he is sure is a sign that the end times are here. He believes the Antichrist is now alive in Europe somewhere. I don't know why he's in Europe, but nevertheless, that's the opinion of Mr. Lindsay. And if I were to read for you Philip Morrow's commentary of things which soon must come to pass, time prevents it now. But if we were to read from this commentary, which was Originally published in 1925 and then reissued after the First World War, you'll notice that at the very end of his chapter of discussion of Revelation 13, he says that he believes that world events are now culminating in the fulfillment of this prophecy. Why? Two things convince him that the Antichrist and the beast is about to appear. The first is the League of Nations, and the second is the growing power of the papacy, which is the false prophet. He believes the second beast of Revelation 13. Okay, so what we have is a world crisis today that Lindsay is convinced shows us that the tribulation and the Antichrist, that is to say, the beast, is about to appear. If you go back before World War II and right after World War I, the same kind of prophetic interpretation and biblical interpretation was being fostered by Philip Morrow and a number of others. And we could go back and back and back and back and continue to illustrate the same thing. In fact, the whole path of church history is strewn with faulted prophecies of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. I want to say that again, faulted prophecies of the interpretation of biblical prophecy, that is to say, men making their own prophetic gestures. I believe that the Antichrist is somewhere in Europe right now, and church history is strewn with these faulted predictions. Maybe before the last bell rings. I'll just have time to read a little bit from Arthur Bloomfield, who is in the same basic school of thought as he discusses the man of sin or the beast. It says the falling away will immediately precede the revelation of the man of sin. Paul talked about two the coming of Antichrist and the revelation of Antichrist. They are not the same Antichrist will come and operate for a number of years before the Rapture. He will not be revealed as Satan until after the Rapture. At the Rapture, Antichrist will be killed and Satan will take over his body and reign in person on the earth. It will seem like a resurrection. Okay, now we were reading this on the way in. We said, well, now where does he get all that? You know? Now can somebody suggest an answer? I know the second bell's rung and I'll stop here. Where does he get that idea? Yes, that's right, exactly. The head that was wounded and yet the beast lived on. Well, that's obviously an indication that Satan is going to take over the body of the Antichrist. And it will appear to be a resurrection. It will seem like a resurrection. From that time on, the world will know that he is Antichrist. That is his revelation. Paul speaks of him whose coming is after the working of Satan. He must come before he is revealed. Okay, well, there are other schools of interpretation. And the purpose of the Sunday school class, I don't want you to get the wrong idea, is not so much that to ridicule other schools, but I trust we'll learn a lesson about how we use the Bible and how we interpret the Bible. And of course, I think we do have to have some knowledge of what our culture, our evangelical culture, our fundamentalist culture today in America says so that we know how to deal with fellow Christians and hopefully to show a little bit saner way of interpreting the Bible. Last week I said that if you'll interpret the 666 of Revelation according to the standard way of reading names, according to numerical equivalents, we have justification for seeing the beast as Nero, that is to say, the Caesar that was living in John's own day. And I'm going to try to substantiate that further when we come together next week and finish the lesson on the Beast. But remember this much, that the beast is the man of lawlessness who was operative in Paul's day, who was going to do his dastardly work in the generation of Jesus hearers and before the fall of the Jerusalem temple, and that this is the same person spoken of as the little horn in Daniel 7. However, that one person called the Beast, called the man of lawlessness and called the little horn is different from the Antichrist of John's epistles. And we'll continue and finish next week. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you will clear whatever confusion there might be in our minds that we might be able to perceive truly what the Scriptures teach us. We ask you that you would enable us to understand these things. Not for the sake of mere curiosity. Rather we'd understand them. That we might be edified as Christian believers and know how to operate and conduct ourselves in this world. We ask you, Lord, that you might strengthen us with the assurance that you do in fact bring judgment upon those whom you deem to judge, that you do vindicate your saints and that you do defend the kingdom of Jesus Christ of which we are members. We ask you, Lord, that your protective hand would be upon us this week and that you would give us victory. That we might be able to overcome in all of our endeavors the Christian life. That we'd overcome the effects of Satan and sin in our lives. That we'd overcome in the Christian assembly in terms of the purity of our worship and doctrine, and that we would overcome in the world. Because the gospel of Jesus Christ is being believed due to our testimony. We ask these things. That our Savior, Jesus Christ, would be exalted and that his kingly reign over the nations would be acknowledged by all men. For it's in his name we pray. Amen.