The apostle Paul
says in his love chapter
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that love never fails.
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That love does not
rejoice in iniquity,
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but rejoices in the truth.
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And the book of Revelation
is the revelation of Jesus.
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And He always tells the truth.
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You know, it's not
easy to tell the truth,
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but the truth is part of love.
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Some people have
the idea that, you know,
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love never hurts
anybody's feelings,
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and Jesus is so nice He would
never hurt anybody's feelings.
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Well Jesus is nice,
but He does tell the truth.
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And I'd rather know the
truth than to be led astray.
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You remember John the
Baptist as he was preaching,
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and Scripture tells about how
he called people to repentance;
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preparing the way for Jesus.
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And the leaders of
Israel came out to him,
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and he said some
pretty tough things.
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He actually called them at
one time a brood of vipers,
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a brood of snakes.
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Do you think that John
the Baptist loved them?
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I think he loved them.
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I think he was just
telling them the truth.
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He told Herod the truth.
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You know, love never fails.
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Herod needed to hear the truth,
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but it cost John
the Baptist his life.
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But love never fails.
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Because love loves the truth,
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and it despises iniquity.
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Today's subject is,
The Beast From the Sea.
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It's not an easy subject,
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because sometimes it
can be so misunderstood.
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But we really want to say
this, that this isn't about
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any one person, per se.
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It's about the
truth as it is in Jesus.
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And so we want to go to
the subject in Revelation 13
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and we're going to look at this
beast that rises from the sea.
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To give a little background here
before we get started there,
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Revelation 1:1-3 says,
"The revelation of Jesus Christ,
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which He gave to
show His servants,
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things which must
shortly take place."
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In other words, these
things are going to start
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in John's day and they
were going to go all the way
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to the coming of Jesus as
pictured in the last chapter
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of the book of Revelation.
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It's going to
cover Christian history.
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So this isn't
just one point in time,
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it's covering all
of Christian history.
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And he goes on to
say, "And He sent and
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signified it by His angel..."
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Now that word,
"signified," is very important.
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It means, a
mark, a sign, a token.
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For instance, the same
word is used when Jesus said
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this about Jonah, Luke 11:30,
"For as Jonah became a sign
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to the Ninevites..."
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In other words, he
became a symbol to the
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Ninevites of a reality.
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In Luke 21:11, Jesus said in
the end of time there will be
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fearful sights and
great signs from heaven.
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In other words, a
mark, token, sign, symbols.
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John also tells us right
there in the first book of
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Revelation, "Blessed
is he who reads and hears
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the words of this
prophecy, and keep those things
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that are in it,
for the time is near."
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These visions of John
were signs and symbols
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to help us to understand the
realities of what was happening
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through Christian
history and what will happen
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in the end of time.
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Now going to Revelation
13:1, we hear these words,
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"Now the beast which I
saw was like a Leopard,
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and his feet were
like the feet of a bear,
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and his mouth like
the mouth of a lion.
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And the dragon gave
him his power, his throne,
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and great authority."
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So you cannot
understand this leopard beast
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unless you first of all
understand who the dragon is.
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Now this is not
rocket science again.
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You don't have to be
ten PhD's to get this.
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Most anybody can get it.
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And the information is
right there in the text itself.
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So we have to take another
look at this great red dragon
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that we found in
Revelation chapter 12.
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It was in Revelation chapter
12 that we get the picture of
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the woman, the wonderful
woman that's clothed with
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the lights of heaven.
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And the Scripture
says this in verses 1-3,
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chapter 12 verses
1-3, "Now a great sign..."
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There's that word
gain. A symbol, token.
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"...sign appeared in heaven:
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a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet,
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and on her head a
garland of twelve stars.
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And then being with
child, she cried out in labor
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with pain to give birth.
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And another sign appeared..."
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There's that word again.
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"...another sign
appeared in heaven:
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behold, a great, fiery
red dragon with seven heads
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and ten horns, and
seven diadems on his heads."
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Now the question
is, who is this woman?
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And we've already talked
about that in an earlier talk.
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This is God's church.
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It's His faithful church.
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And this great red
dragon really hates her.
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Really hates her.
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He really hates
that child because
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he's threatened by that child.
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That child, of course, is Jesus.
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The church gave
birth to Jesus, in a sense.
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And He's taken up to heaven
and He escapes, if you please,
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the great red dragon
who wanted to kill Him.
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So the dragon becomes
then enraged with the woman,
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who is the church.
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God's church, the church
of Christ, of you please.
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Revelation 12 goes on
in verse 7-9 to tell us
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who this great red dragon is.
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"And war broken out in heaven."
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We talked about this war
between Christ and Satan.
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"Michael and His
angels fought with the dragon,
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and the dragon
and his angels fought,
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but they did not prevail..."
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And then it says, "So the
great dragon was cast out,
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that old serpent
called the Devil and Satan,
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who deceives the whole world.
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He was cast to the earth and his
angels were cast out with him."
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So there's no doubt about
who this great red dragon is.
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This great red dragon
is none other than Satan.
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And he has, of course,
these seven heads and ten horns
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representing his
journey through Christian era,
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and opposing Christ
and continuing this battle.
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But this battle,
this controversy between
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Christ and Satan, is no
longer being fought in heaven.
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It's being fought on the earth.
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And that's what the book
of Revelation is telling us.
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And Jesus is saying,
as He reveals Himself,
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"I want you to know
what's going on between
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Me and My great
adversary, and your adversary.
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I want to tell
you what's going on."
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So the book of
Revelation, using these symbols,
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helps us to understand
what the real issues are here.
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So let's talk about
this for just a moment.
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Jesus is in the heavenly
Sanctuary, and He's unseen.
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But Jesus does
operate on the earth.
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Through the agency of
the Holy Spirit, of course.
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But He also operates
through His human agent.
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Who is His human
agent on the earth?
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It's the woman.
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It's the church.
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It's His church.
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So even though Jesus
is unseen, He does operate
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through His visible agency.
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Satan also, who
operates here on the earth,
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he is also unseen to us.
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But he also operates
through a visible agency.
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So the question is, who is
the visible agency for Satan?
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Who is his agency?
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Well, let's just
ask the question.
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Who crucified Jesus?
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Well it was pagan Rome.
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Pontius Pilate was a pagan
governor of the Roman Empire.
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And so Satan works
through, at least his agency
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here in the New
Testament, is Rome,
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this great pagan empire.
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And he has persecuted the
church through pagan Rome.
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Everybody knows how
pagan Rome took Christians,
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burned them in the
arenas, threw them to lions.
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It's horrible, you
don't even think about it.
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They were so
cruel and so horrible
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in their
treatment of Christians.
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Even in the seven churches
Jesus predicted they would have
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ten years of
terrible persecution.
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And they tried
everything they could to destroy
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the Christian church.
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Well who was behind that?
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That was Satan.
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That was the great red dragon.
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But Rome was the
visible agency that was trying
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to destroy the church.
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So the question is, was
Rome able to destroy the church?
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The persecutor of the church.
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Did it win in its
efforts to destroy the woman?
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And the answer to
that is no. It lost.
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Rome, pagan Rome, lost.
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But the devil is still
alive even though he lost
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the first round.
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There's a lot of human
history and Christian history
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yet to go through.
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The devil is still alive,
the church is still alive,
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and he, the Bible is very clear
that he persecutes the church
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all the way to the end of time.
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All the way to the end of time.
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And this book of Revelation
is telling us the truth
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about this persecuting
power of the great red dragon.
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Now the leopard beast
appears also with seven heads
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and ten horns.
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So the great red dragon
has seven heads and ten horns,
00:10:39.63\00:10:42.87
the leopard beast has
seven heads and ten horns,
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and the scarlet beast
of Revelation chapter 17
00:10:45.71\00:10:48.58
has seven heads and ten horns.
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This is basically the
same power, but it comes in
00:10:51.11\00:10:54.35
three different phases.
00:10:54.38\00:10:57.02
And we'll talk about
Revelation 17 at another time,
00:10:57.12\00:11:00.42
and that scarlet beast.
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We've already talked
about the great red dragon
00:11:02.12\00:11:05.53
with seven heads and ten horns.
00:11:05.56\00:11:07.00
And now we're going to
talk about the leopard beast
00:11:07.03\00:11:09.80
with seven heads and ten horns,
00:11:09.83\00:11:11.80
because this is a new
phase of great pagan Rome.
00:11:11.90\00:11:17.27
So let's take a look at this.
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Even though they come
in three different colors,
00:11:19.11\00:11:21.21
it's three phases of
the same persecuting power.
00:11:21.38\00:11:25.71
Now the text is clear.
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The text says that
the great red dragon,
00:11:29.48\00:11:32.39
or pagan Rome, does
several things for this leopard
00:11:32.42\00:11:36.56
seven headed beast.
00:11:36.89\00:11:40.03
And it gives him his seat,
his power, and great authority.
00:11:40.30\00:11:47.77
So since pagan Rome gives
the leopard beast its throne,
00:11:48.44\00:11:53.64
it means that the leopard
beast comes after pagan Rome.
00:11:53.78\00:11:59.88
So this next phase
of the leopard beast
00:12:00.02\00:12:04.65
comes after pagan Rome.
00:12:04.89\00:12:07.12
And since pagan
Rome is found in history,
00:12:07.32\00:12:10.83
then the leopard beast
must also be found in history.
00:12:11.49\00:12:16.46
And we are going to
find that this next phase,
00:12:19.20\00:12:22.87
this leopard
beast comes on the heels
00:12:22.90\00:12:25.54
of pagan Rome that
begins to disappear
00:12:26.04\00:12:30.45
under the attack of the
barbarians as they move in.
00:12:30.55\00:12:34.98
You know, God has a
way of punishing those
00:12:35.42\00:12:38.29
who hurt His people.
00:12:38.72\00:12:41.06
We don't have time to
get into the seven trumpets,
00:12:41.22\00:12:43.32
but the seven
trumpets show God's judgments
00:12:43.36\00:12:45.89
against those forces
that hurt His people.
00:12:46.16\00:12:49.60
So since pagan Rome
is found in history,
00:12:50.50\00:12:53.44
then the leopard beast is
going to be found in history
00:12:53.47\00:12:56.40
coming on the heels
of great pagan Rome.
00:12:56.64\00:13:01.41
Whatever this next phase is,
it's going to receive its seat,
00:13:01.44\00:13:05.71
its power, and authority
from the ancient Roman Empire.
00:13:06.05\00:13:11.79
So in this transfer,
there is a close connection
00:13:11.82\00:13:16.32
between pagan Rome
and this new leopard power
00:13:16.66\00:13:22.90
that comes up.
00:13:22.93\00:13:24.33
And this leopard
power does the same thing,
00:13:24.53\00:13:28.40
the same kind of things
that the great red dragon,
00:13:28.44\00:13:32.07
pagan Rome, did
to the Christians.
00:13:32.11\00:13:34.34
But it's a different
phase. It's a different picture.
00:13:34.54\00:13:39.21
And in the next few
minutes we're going to show you
00:13:39.45\00:13:42.45
how this great leopard
beast fulfills this next phase
00:13:42.48\00:13:49.06
of persecuting God's people.
00:13:49.09\00:13:51.83