Transcription

Chris
Hey, Jeff.

Jeff
What? What? Oh.

Chris
I left a mark.

Jeff
You left a mark? You beast! That was shameless.

Chris
Today we’re going to be covering the mark of the beast.

Jeff
Okay, he’s Chris, and I’m Jeff, and we’re the Bible guys.

Chris
I was shameless. I wonder if any other preacher out there introduces the mark of the beast in that fashion.

Jeff
Probably not.

Chris
Probably not.

Jeff
It just. It happens. I didn’t even know what you were gonna do in that moment. I know, I know, right? You just hit me

Chris
You never do. No, we never do. No, we don’t, we just. We go off to see, you know, fly by the seat of our pants. Yeah. So, hey, uh,

Jeff
And our listeners can tell.

Chris
For sure, they can for sure. Um, so, uh, Desiree has given us a show sheet and this segment for today. Uh she’s asking the question. She said we switched things up last time. Yeah. So now we’re back to normal. So, Jeff, here’s the question. What made Jeff happy this week?

Jeff
Oh, wow. So last week they asked what did Chris made what made Chris mad happy.

Chris
Yeah. And that made me happy.

Jeff
What I was gonna say the answer was the fact that they asked you. Yes.

Chris
Because Chris is not always angry. Contrary to popular belief. Yeah.

Jeff
That’s right. So, uh, this week, uh, man alive, we I grilled one of the best ribeye steaks I’ve had in five years.

Chris
Yeah, well, that would definitely make you happy. Yeah, I was wonderful because those who don’t know you, you are a grill master.

Jeff
I love grilling, man. And so, uh. And I did it over some, uh, hardwood So it was smoky, and I had some, uh, I had, uh, black pepper, kosher salt and granulated garlic on it. That was it. And man alive, it was just perfect. It was charred just right when you get a ribeye. Right. You know. Oh, it’s so good. So we had that and some, um, potato salad and some really, really good baked beans. And it was just one of those perfect little meals that, you know, we had the family gathered around and yeah, it was great. Yeah, yeah.

Chris
You’re so happy, kids. Your kids, when they grow up and get all move out of the house, they’re going to realize that, uh, you know, that’s a pretty good privilege to have dad say

Chris
here you go. I made this for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s a ribeye.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, two of my sons are out of out of the house now. And every time they do come back to visit, it’s like, hey, dad, fire up the grill, right? Yeah, it’s they put in their orders before they arrive. They do.

Chris
That’s great.

Jeff
Yeah. My son would be like, hey, dad, uh, when are we gonna have that salmon again or whatever? So that’s really funny. So. Yeah, that made me happy. It was fun. Anytime you can grill, it’s good. Good day. Well, good.

Chris
I’m glad it made you happy.

Jeff
Yeah. So, hey, we are in the, uh, now into the people in the events. Right? And again, we’re not doing a ton of order, and we’re certainly not going verse by verse through the book of revelation. We’re going big idea by big idea throughout what the Bible teaching on the prophetic things, particularly with regard to the New Testament teachings. But, uh, here we are. We just finished up with talking about the woman and the dragon and the the baby, the woman being Israel. Uh, Jesus being the child, the dragon, obviously being Satan, this huge spiritual battle that was happening, the fact that God protected Israel, the fact that God protected the son and then threw down Satan, right. That all those things happened. Well, now Satan’s angry and hateful. He hates this. And so he’s always been working against Christ and so there are many times in the New Testament the Bible talks about antichrists. And that’s anybody who works against Jesus, right? He’s anti Jesus. But now in the book of revelation, there’s this guy that we call the Antichrist. The Bible often calls the beast. He’s just the beast, right? Um, or also Paul will call him the man of lawlessness. Um, and it’s the same person, this Antichrist. So let’s just read in revelation chapter 13, it says, then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God, and he was given authority to do whatever he wanted to for 42 months. That’s the other three and a half years. And he spoke terrible words of blasphemy against God, slandering his name and his temple, that is, those who live in heaven. And the beast was allowed to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation. So this beast rises up, this, this antichrist in the last three and a half years becomes evident that he is the ruler of the world. He takes over Israel, and then he dominates every group of people, every language on the entire planet. Yeah.

Chris
And these are the three and a half years that aren’t very fun, right? These are rough. Yeah, these are really rough. And here’s the thing about it, uh, even though that there’s a reason why it’s called tribulation, uh, again, the words in in this passage are still comforting, even in the midst of the worst tribulation. Right. Because it says he was allowed, which means that God’s in control. Yeah. That that only what happens is what God allows. And so even though it may not be good and it may not be fun, and it’s actually quite terrible, the bottom line is, is God wins in the end. God conquers in the end. Uh, we know that the beast is going to get chained up and thrown into the lake of fire. That’s right. We know that God wins. And so even through the trying times, God’s in control. And so even though that this is a crazy, crazy thought about humanity and end times, it still does apply to today. Because even in the most trying times in our lives, God is still in control. That’s right. So God is not on the throne right now. Whatever it is that you’re going through, whatever it is that you’re dealing with, circumstances that you cannot control that seem to be thrust upon you, and you are just worried and stressed and wondering what’s going to happen. Just know that God is in control of everything. There is nothing beyond his power. So if we continue to serve him, trust him, pray to him. It may not end up like we want to, but just know that God’s always the one that we should run to.

Jeff
That’s right. So in second Thessalonians chapter two, Paul says, for that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the one who brings destruction, and he will exalt himself and defy everything that people call God and every object of worship. And he will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that He Himself is God. This is he’s just. He sets himself up as the God of the planet and the people are following him, by the way. Right. Um, so, uh, everything that people call God, he’s pretending like he’s God he’s set himself up as worship, but the world is following after him. It says there’s a great rebellion against God. It’s not just this guy, it’s the whole world. It’s following after this guy. And we’ve seen in the past politicians who’ve had such massive, excited, almost rabid fan base that that those, those politicians get away with almost anything and the fan base still follows them. Right. So in this situation, he sets himself up as God and goes and sits in the temple and declares He’s God and the whole world goes, yay! Right? Yeah, because they’re defying God. And then in second Thessalonians uh, two, you move down to seven through ten. It says, for this lawlessness is already at work secretly, and it will remain secret until the one who is holding it back steps out of the way. Uh, many people believe that’s the Holy Spirit is holding back this evil. But after revelation chapter three, there’s no mention of the Holy Spirit, no mention of the church, no mention anything else after that point. And this is when the world gets starts to come off the hinges. So that’s one of the references why people believe that it’s a pre-tribulation rapture. Um, we’re not dying on that hill. I’m just telling you. That’s why people would say that. Then the man of lawlessness will be revealed. But the Lord Jesus will kill him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the splendor of his coming. This man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and even miracles, and he’ll use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. Right. Um, we’re going to talk in just a moment about the Mark of the beast and six, six, six, which is because of him. What he uses his power But he also brings up, um, another supporting character that comes in and reinforces him called the false prophet. Right. And these two guys together, it’s kind of like the president and vice president doing some pretty crazy stuff.

Chris
Yeah. And, uh, and again, this is the last three and a half years of the tribulation. And during this time, uh, you know, again, it’s just one of those things where if you’re a Christian and you, uh, believe in Jesus Christ, then it is it is okay to tell people that if as long as God is on your side, there is no reason to still be afraid, right? But for those who are not prepared, uh, I would just say, oh, man. Yeah. Good luck to you. In these three and a half years can be rough.

Jeff
You know, it’s that that phrase until the one who is holding it back steps out of the way.

Chris
Um, that thought is just crazy.

Jeff
The power of the Holy Spirit, right And the fact, you know, we read about this spiritual war happening between the dragon and the king, right? Um hum. Um, and it this war that’s happening around us all the time, we’re oblivious to we’re busy trying to race from here to there and get make a little bit of money and pay for a vacation and get our kids through school right. Navigate the doctor’s appointments all that kind of. So that’s what we do. We spend our time with that, with a little bit of awareness that we need God’s help. So we pray sometimes, but there’s this non-stop spiritual war happening in the spiritual realm that becomes more and more evident on this planet in the, in, in, in the physical realm, once the Holy Spirit steps out of the way. So you think the world’s bad today? The Holy Spirit’s still here, but the Holy Spirit is works in and through God’s people, right? So it’s us. We’re the ones that are standing along with the Holy Spirit. He uses us to speak up. He uses us to speak out. He uses us to to, um, uh, to lean in and to bring light in the darkness. That’s that’s what he wants us to do, to walk in the light as he is in the light, and we bring light to the darkness. You are the light of the world. Jesus said, right, so don’t hide it under a bushel. Instead, let it shine. He said, you’re the salt of the earth. And the Holy Spirit uses God’s people because the Bible says we’re his temple, right? But then at this time the Holy Spirit goes, fine, you’re on your own. The Christians are gone, and so the world is on their own. And from that point on, Satan just goes wild. And he raises up this politician that the whole world follows this leader, this world dictator, that the whole world follows not just as a good leader, but as a god. Yeah. And dude, how how defiant are you of your of the creator when you choose a living man in front of you to be your God, right, Nikolai?

Chris
Remember him? Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. From the books. Yeah. Uh huh. Um. Hey. So, uh, when I lived in Atlanta for ten years, most of the time that I was there, I was a pastor of high school students. And in the South, they they thought that Halloween was, you know, evil, you know, so all the Christians down there, they just didn’t embrace any kind of Halloween. So if you were a part of a church, especially a conservative church, you know, you weren’t necessarily allowed to embrace anything that came with trick or treating or anything like this. And so consequently, there was a church down the street called Metro Heights Baptist Church, and they had a thing that they had called Tribulation Trail. Have you seen these?

Jeff
Yeah, I’ve seen things like them. Yeah, yeah.

Chris
So they basically had a bunch of woods in the back and they decided to go crazy and like, you know, put like wrecked planes and wrecked buses and they carved out this massive part of the woods and, you know, with horses and, you know, seals and trumpets and all this kind of things, uh, and all this technology. And basically what they did was they had buses of people come, and I bet you they, uh, every Halloween ish time, they probably had, I don’t know, 20,000 people, uh, from all around go through tribulation trail. But basically, you join this crowd of people and it started with, uh, you know, uh, the beginning and it went all the way, you know, through from the rapture all the way to the end. And somewhere along the way, you were, uh, pressured to take the mark of the beast. And as we’re about to get into this, I’m telling you that the the scariest part of the tribulation trail was they would walk up and they had this, um, stamp that they put on your hand, and then you had to go under a neon light and it said six, six, six on your hand. And people are just screaming, take it, take the mark. And then you’re like, no, no, I won’t take it. I’m telling you, it was unbelievable. Yeah. And it was just crazy. Well, so there’s two things that happened under the authority of the beast.

Jeff
One, there’s this guy called the False Prophet, who he sets up to take over all the global religions. And the whole world comes to one global religion. And then he also takes over all the economics of the planet. There’s one global economy, and that’s through the mark. So let me let me read these two passages in revelation chapter 13, uh, verses 12 through 15. It says he, uh, the false prophet exercised all the authority of the first beast, and he required all the earth and its people to worship the first beast. But then the first beast gets assassinated and then rises from the dead. Um hum. Right. Um, uh, whose fatal wound had been healed? He he did astounding miracles, even making the fire flash down to earth from the sky while everyone was watching. And with all the miracles he was allowed to perform on behalf of the first beast, he deceived all the people who belonged to this world. He ordered the people to make a great statue of the first beast, who was fatally wounded, and then came back to life and he was then permitted to give life to this statue so that it could speak. Then the statue of the beast commanded that anyone refusing to worship it must die. So he sets up. This sounds great, this global, uh, religion. And then, you know, it’s he he was permitted to give life to the statue so it could speak. Well, we can make things speak through all kinds of technology now, right? You know what I mean? So. So it might have been, you know, you take a very simple person like John who could not fathom the things he was seeing. You know, it could be just that he was able to make I could have made this robot speak. Right. That’s what it could be, uh, and that it would have some form of intelligence. That’s It’s pretty astounding. Right. Then, um, then you go on to the mark of the beast in revelation chapter 13, verse uh, 16 through 18. So it’s the false prophet working for the beast and or the Antichrist. And then the mark of the beast says he required everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead, and no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name. Wisdom is needed here. Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is six, six, six.

Chris
There it is. That’s where we get it.

Jeff
So, dude, uh, that number is six, six, six. So numbers really matter in the book of revelation. We’re not going to spend a ton of time on this throughout the whole Bible, actually, throughout the whole Bible, but particularly, I mean, it just comes up over and over again. The idea of, um, uh, the number seven usually represents God, right? Uh, the number six usually represents man in, um, the in a little while, we’re going to talk about the 144,000, uh, 12 is the number of completeness and 12 times 12 or 12,000 times 12,000 144,000. Complete all of the followers of Christ. You just go on down the line. All these things, numbers really, really matter. And so this one, the number six, six, six represents the person of the beast. And somehow you’re only going to be able to do business transactions with a mark in your hand or in your forehead. Um, um, and you know, in old days when you only could do business with coins and dollar bills, that was kind of confusing. But now, you know, I use my phone, double push the button on the side and pay for everything with my phone. You know what? If we just embedded it and we were able to swipe our hands and scan it? Whatever. You know, somebody scan your head and there you go. Right? Uh, right now Elon Musk is working on, uh, the neuralink’s to be able to connect computers to our brains even now. Right. We have tracking chips. There’s all those kinds of things today This makes way more sense to us even than when John was writing it. What John was writing about was not possible in his day, right? Apart from a miracle, but is completely possible in our day. How did a guy 2000 years ago write about a global religion with some kind of statue that could speak well, the whole and the whole world sees one event? Yeah, the whole world sees an event, uh, on on a phone or on something on a screen. The whole world, uh, has a god or is worshiping one religion with some kind of statue that can speak. And the whole world can only do business with a technology that requires something embedded in your body. Well, we can see we can imagine all those things being true just a few years down the road. Right? It’s pretty amazing. But people get really excited because they read that verse that says, you know, um, wisdom is required.

Chris
You must figure it out, solve the meaning of the number of the beast.

Jeff
Right? So, so many people get super excited. And if you watch too long on religious television, there’s going to be somebody who’s going to tell you they know the beast.

Chris
Hey, by the way, uh, the Mark of the beast. I’m 30. I’m 31 years in and being a pastor, and I’ve heard no less than at least 100 different versions, wouldn’t you say? Oh, yeah.

Jeff
Yeah, of proof of what? The Mark of the beast is. Yes. Who the Antichrist is.

Chris
Yes. So people. Yeah. I’m referring just to the Mark of the beast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Me too. I would guess you’re probably right. Yeah, 100 probably.

Chris
Yeah, maybe not that high, but if it’s not 100, it’s really close I would guess.

Jeff
Yeah. I’ve heard so many people try to tell or prove what the Mark of the beast is.

Chris
So, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with trying to figure it out because the Scripture says use wisdom.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, sure. So people spend way more time trying to figure out the mark of the beast than trying to lead their friends to Jesus. And that’s what makes me nervous, right? Right, right. So Jesus says, none of your business. Go get filled with the Holy Spirit. Tell all your friends. Right. That’s that’s what he says. But this passage says, hey, you know, use some wisdom. Maybe if you’re if you’re wise, you understand what six, six, six means. Well, we do know. We know that seven represents God. We know 12 represents completeness. We know six represents man. So this is the king of men that that that’s what this is talking about. But people will get really slick with numbers. So, uh, a while back I got up and I got really funny with numbers and proved the Urban Meyer, the former coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, was, uh, the Antichrist, right. Using fancy math. Uh, but let me do this one. I’ll prove to you that the Disney corporation is the Antichrist. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So here you go. There’s ten letters in Walt Disney. Walt Disney. Uh, that equals ten. And then if you add to that the ten letters of Donald Duck down called duck, that equals 20. But then you add to that the 101 Dalmatians. That’s 121. But subtract the seven dwarfs and the three ugly stepsisters and then multiply it times m-i-c-k-e-y. And that equals six, six, six.

Chris
There it is.

Jeff
There you go. Dude, I proved it.

Chris
That is hilarious.

Jeff
But isn’t that what they do, right? Isn’t that what they do? They talk fast. They grab all these obscure facts and weird, loosely connected things. Sure, the three ugly stepsisters and the seven dwarfs and the 101 Dalmatians, they’re all connected. Sure. I guess it just doesn’t mean anything. And a lot of times people will grab at straws, um, to try to piece together these little proofs. And then there’s the fancy math, and then it comes up. So all I would say is, don’t get caught up playing with words.

Chris
Yeah. And here’s here’s another thing that I would say, uh, I’ve always appreciated over the years, somebody saying like, hey, it could be this. Yeah. As opposed to is definitely this.

Jeff
Don’t fight me on this. The Holy Spirit told me, right? I feel like the Holy Spirit has impressed upon my heart. Yeah.

Chris
See, I’ve enjoyed conversations where people come up and say, you know what? There’s a theory and it’s an interesting theory. It’s something to think about, something to be aware about, you know, aware of. Yeah, yeah. Or you know, hey, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s be on guard even. Right. Yeah. Like like those are, like, those are great discussions. But somebody again, who comes up and says I want to prove to you, you know, and by the way, there are probably people who heard that. And because they hate the Disney corporation so much, they’re like, that’s true, right?

Jeff
Well, that’s why I did Disney, right? True. Right. People hate Disney right now because yeah, that’s so so I referenced people. I referenced, uh, QR codes, I referenced um, cashless society. I don’t ever use cash. I just, I use I reference it, I reference Neuralink’s the Neuralink research I referenced, I write, hey, it’s fun to look at all the things that could possibly we referenced cell phones and screens being everywhere and global news happening and TikTok and all those things to make. We can imagine how most of the things that happen in the book of Revelation could happen, and that’s fun to look at. But when you get somebody who’s going to tell you the Holy Spirit spoke to them and gave them the secret enlightenment that nobody else has, well, then I’m just telling you probably they’re making it up and they’re obsessing about the wrong thing. So, you know joking around with all these things, you can prove just about anything with math, magic and obscure facts and piecing together these loose straws and these loose pieces. But don’t get so caught up playing with words that you lose focus on the ultimate fact that Jesus is coming again, that he wins, and that everybody who’s on his side and with him will have eternal life. But those who are not, and they align themselves with the things of of the world, uh, will face ultimate defeat. And so we’ve got a job to do while we’re here on Earth. And it’s not just to spend all of our time trying to figure out six, six, six. It’s telling everybody about Jesus.

Chris
Yeah, well that’s great. Well, that’s a good place to wrap up. And we’re going to pick it up on Monday uh, as we continue to walk through the events of revelation. Yeah.

Jeff
On Monday, we’re going to talk about the visible return of Christ. This is when it all goes down. This is the beginning of battle of Armageddon. All those things begin to happen here.

Chris
So next week, hopefully we’ll see you then on The Bible Guys.