Why are people so
afraid of the number 666?
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There's a reason.
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And it's not just because
it's in the book of Revelation.
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You, know we've been tracing
in the book of Revelation,
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the revelation of
Jesus, this great controversy
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between Him and His arch
enemy, the great red dragon.
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And of course, as we
get toward the end of time,
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this great controversy
becomes more intense.
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And it's fought, not in
heaven where it originated,
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but it's being
finished right here on earth.
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And you and I, our families,
and the nations of the world,
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and the churches of the world,
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and all the religions
of the world are caught up
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in this great
conflict between good and evil,
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between righteousness
and unrighteousness.
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So we're going to continue this.
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You know, we've been talking
about the great red dragon
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out of Revelation 12.
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And just to review
that just a little bit
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and quickly before we
get into this subject of 666.
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But you remember
that two great signs:
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the woman who is the church,
and she's dressed with the
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beauty of the universe;
the sun, the moon, the stars;
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and then the great
red dragon shows up.
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She's expecting a child.
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All this is symbolic.
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This child, of
course, represents Jesus.
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And then she's left here,
and he persecutes the woman.
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And then we go to chapter 13.
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And in chapter 13 we find
the rise of two new beasts,
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as it were.
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Another one that
seven heads and ten horns,
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but he's dressed different.
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It's another
phase of the first one.
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He's a leopard-like beast.
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And we found that to
be the great papal system
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that inherited its
power, its seat, and authority
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from pagan Rome.
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Because both Jesus
and Satan work through
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earthly instrumentalities
to carry out their work.
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Jesus works through the
churches and Satan works through
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these pagan and
papal Rome powers.
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So we're going to continue
that, because in chapter 13
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it also tells us about
the beast from the earth.
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And we identified that as
the great Protestant America
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that started out
being lamb-like, but ends up
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speaking like a dragon.
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In other words, it becomes
a great persecuting power
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like the papacy was during
the 1260 years of the Dark Ages.
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Like pagan Rome was to
the early Christian church
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in the first four
or five hundred years
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of the Christian church, and
how it persecuted the church.
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Both tried to stamp out the true
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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But let's come back to this.
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And I want to say again that
we say this with sweet kindness.
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This is not against anyone.
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Because Jesus loves everyone.
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We're glad for the
great United States of America
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where we can all love each
other, whether you're Catholic,
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Protestant, or
pagan, or whatever you are.
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We can still be
kind and thoughtful.
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We may not agree with
each other, we may have...
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But Bible prophecy is true.
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It's never been wrong.
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And it predicts, breaks
my heart, that this great
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United States of America
is some day going to speak
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like a dragon.
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So we want to continue
this, because the Bible says now
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what happens when
this new power comes on,
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and we've just been reviewing
that just a little bit,
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but let's review again
that two horned beast that
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has horns like a lamb
but speaks like a dragon.
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This is Revelation 13, and
we're looking at verses 12-18.
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"And he," this new
beast from the earth,
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"exercises all the
authority of the first beast,"
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that's the leopard-like beast
with twelve heads and ten horns,
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"and he causes the earth
and those who dwell on it
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to worship the first beast..."
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How does he do that?
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Because the first beast
received a deadly wound.
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That happened, of course,
as we've already talked about
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in other sessions,
in 1798 when Napoleon
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took the pope captive.
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That was after he had been given
all of this power by Justinian,
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the Roman emperor, back in 538.
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And of course, all the
persecution that took place.
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But that brought an end...
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You have, of course,
the French Revolution,
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the rise of Napoleon, the rise
of the United States of America
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around in this time period.
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But now this power,
this lamb-like power,
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begins to do
something different.
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He begins to tell the world
that they're going to worship,
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and worship is
such a big deal here,
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to worship this leopard-like
beast from the Dark Ages.
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Bu how does he do that?
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And that's the real question.
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How does he do that?
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How does he make that happen?
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Well, let's go listen to the
Scripture on how that happens.
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"He performs great
signs, so that he even makes
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fire come down from heaven on
the earth in the sight of men."
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So with great miracles,
that becomes convincing.
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Miracles versus the
authority of Scripture.
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Now as a Christian,
I believe in miracles.
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I love miracles.
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I love to see the
power of God work.
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But all these kinds
of experiences must be
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measured by the Word of God.
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Miracles cannot trump
the teachings of Scripture.
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Because if they do,
then you're just depending on
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the miracles for truth and you
are not depending on Scripture.
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And the Bible teaches
that the devil will counterfeit
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the miracles of God.
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He'll counterfeit them.
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So you have to be
very careful with miracles.
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Do we love miracles?
Yes. Praise God for that.
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But everything must be
subject to the authority
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of the Word of God.
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But this power does that.
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"And he
deceives..." There's that word.
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Jesus said, in the end
of time if would be possible
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to deceive the very elect.
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And He said there
would be false christs.
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So that means that these
powers that are deceiving
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in the end of time are
actually going to be operating
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as though they belong to Him.
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In other words, they're
going to be invoking His name.
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They're going to be
saying, "We're Christian."
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But the Bible says that it's by
their fruits that you know them.
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So you may have a papal
power during the Dark Ages
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that slaughtered, I say
it kindly but it's the truth,
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slaughtered millions of people
and invented the Inquisition
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and all the horrors of it.
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They said they were the vicar
of the Son of God, as it were,
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but you know, Jesus said
you know them by their fruits.
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And that's certainly not the
fruit of the precious Savior.
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That's the fruit of pagan Rome.
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But this new power,
this Protestant America
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that comes on the scene, the
greatest most powerful nation
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that the world has ever seen.
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It's done so many wonderful
things you cannot help but
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love America.
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It's a wonderful
thing to have the privileges
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of being a citizen of America.
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But the Bible
prophecy doesn't lie.
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It says a change is coming.
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And it says, "He deceives
those that dwell on the earth
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by these signs
that he's granted to do
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in the sight of the beast..."
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And it goes on to tell
us how he accomplishes this.
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It says that he's
"telling those on the earth,"
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let me continue to read here,
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"to make an
image to the beast..."
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I talked about that last time.
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An image means
it's not the same thing,
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but it looks like it.
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It reflects it.
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It's like you see
Caesar's picture on a coin,
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but it's not Caesar, of course.
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And it says that he was granted
to make an image to the beast,
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who was wounded by the sword.
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It had the deadly wound.
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So he helps this deadly
wound, he helps the papacy,
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the papal power,
come back into popularity.
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The Bible says the whole
world wondered after this power.
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And it says, "Who can
make war with this power?"
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And certainly you can
see that happening today
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with the
popularity of the papacy.
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"And then he was granted power
to give breath to the image..."
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So he not only makes this image
that looks like this power,
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but this image
also comes to life.
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And this image is the
one that begins to enforce
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this mark of
the beast, this 666.
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This image that looks
like this papal power.
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But it's going to be
something a bit different.
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Well, let's go on.
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It says in verse
16, "He causes all,
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both small and great,
poor, and free and slave," all,
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"to receive a mark
on their right hand
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or in their forehead..."
00:09:07.18\00:09:08.51
Right hand meaning
how you earn your living.
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So when force comes to
play, we're going to see that
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economics plays
a big thing here.
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So if you want to make
a living, you are going to
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have to receive the mark.
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You may not believe
us, you may not believe
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what we're telling you,
you may not agree with us
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from a religious
standpoint, but I'm telling you,
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if you want to
earn a living in this,
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you're going to have to
receive the mark of the beast.
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That's going to be the pitch.
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They're going to try to control
the economies of the world.
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It's going to sound good.
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I'm telling you, it's going
to sound good when it comes.
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And then it says,
"...in their forehead..."
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So many people
buy it intellectually.
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And then it says that,
"no one may buy or sell
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except he who has the
mark or the name of the beast,
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or the number of his name."
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I'm going to focus today
on the number of his name,
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and the next session
we'll focus on what that mark is
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as we talk about this
very important subject.
00:10:01.33\00:10:04.73
So it says, "Here is wisdom."
00:10:05.20\00:10:07.87
The Bible is saying,
listen, think about this.
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We need the Holy
Spirit to help us.
00:10:10.37\00:10:12.07
But this is not rocket science.
00:10:12.11\00:10:14.24
God wouldn't give this to
us and make it so mysterious
00:10:14.28\00:10:17.08
that nobody can figure it out.
00:10:17.11\00:10:18.71
Now there's all kinds of things
about the mark of the beast.
00:10:18.75\00:10:21.68
But let's just watch and see
what Scripture has to say here.
00:10:21.85\00:10:24.79
"Let him who has
understanding calculate
00:10:25.95\00:10:28.06
the number of the beast,
for it is the number of a man.
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And his number is 666."
00:10:32.96\00:10:37.43
Now some people says 666.
00:10:37.47\00:10:39.33
But the Scripture really
says six hundred and sixty-six.
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That's what the Scripture says.
00:10:45.01\00:10:46.34
But it does look like 666.
00:10:46.37\00:10:49.44
I can remember going
through a store once,
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and when I got my
ticket or the receipt,
00:10:53.25\00:10:57.62
the receipt had, I
don't know if it was $6.66.
00:10:57.65\00:11:01.06
And when the clerk saw that,
she looked at me and she said,
00:11:01.39\00:11:05.06
"This says 666."
00:11:05.09\00:11:07.43
And then she said, "Wouldn't
you like to buy something else
00:11:07.76\00:11:12.77
so you don't have that?"
00:11:12.80\00:11:14.14
I said, "No, I'm
not superstitious.
00:11:14.64\00:11:17.37
I'm not worried about it."
00:11:17.41\00:11:18.77
But you cannot
but take this serious.
00:11:19.51\00:11:22.91
What is this six
hundred and sixty-six?
00:11:22.94\00:11:25.68
And why is this so important?
00:11:25.88\00:11:27.78
Well first of all, it
says you should have wisdom.
00:11:27.82\00:11:29.92
That means you
should do a little research.
00:11:29.95\00:11:31.59
Where did this 666 come from?
00:11:31.69\00:11:34.76
It just doesn't show up
in the book of Revelation.
00:11:34.86\00:11:37.79
Well interestingly
enough, it has its roots
00:11:37.93\00:11:41.26
in the religion
of ancient Babylon.
00:11:41.30\00:11:44.73
The Babylon of Daniel and
the three Hebrew worthies.
00:11:45.30\00:11:49.34
That Babylon.
00:11:49.44\00:11:50.77
And we're going
to take a look at it.
00:11:50.97\00:11:52.71
So where did it come from?
00:11:52.74\00:11:54.14
Well first of all, we want to
say that the old Roman Empire,
00:11:54.64\00:11:58.25
the Babylonian religion had
penetrated the Roman Empire.
00:11:58.51\00:12:02.68
I'm talking about
pagan Rome now at this point.
00:12:02.72\00:12:05.69
And as it penetrated pagan
Rome, it had a lot of influence.
00:12:05.79\00:12:12.16
Let's listen to
Cardinal Gibbons.
00:12:12.26\00:12:14.30
He was 44 years a
cardinal in Baltimore, Maryland.
00:12:14.46\00:12:19.37
He was their archbishop.
00:12:19.40\00:12:21.60
He was one of
the most well known
00:12:21.64\00:12:24.21
Catholic cardinals in America.
00:12:24.24\00:12:26.01
He wrote the book,
Faith of Our Fathers.
00:12:26.04\00:12:27.94
And this is what he says.
00:12:28.04\00:12:29.51
He says, "The penetration
of the religion of Babylon
00:12:29.84\00:12:33.18
became so general and well known
00:12:33.38\00:12:36.45
that Rome was
called, 'Babylon.'"
00:12:36.48\00:12:39.39
It's talking
about pagan Rome here.
00:12:39.42\00:12:41.32
It was called, "Babylon."
00:12:41.36\00:12:43.06
Now interesting enough,
remember the Bible says that
00:12:43.22\00:12:46.29
pagan Rome will give its
seat, its power, and authority
00:12:46.49\00:12:49.46
to this new leopard beast, which
we've identified as papal Rome.
00:12:49.50\00:12:54.07
But it's
interesting that papal Rome also
00:12:54.30\00:12:57.14
has a lot of the
trappings of Babylon.
00:12:57.17\00:13:00.54
And let's listen
a little bit here.
00:13:01.08\00:13:04.21
If you go to the Vatican museum
and you look at their paintings,
00:13:04.25\00:13:08.35
you'll find a very
fascinating painting there.
00:13:08.38\00:13:10.75
It's got a picture of the
pope enthroned under a canopy
00:13:10.85\00:13:15.16
displaying, believe
it or not, the Babylonian
00:13:15.36\00:13:20.16
astrological figures.
00:13:20.20\00:13:23.93
So there it is under the canopy
with the astrological figures
00:13:23.97\00:13:29.47
of the zodiac.
00:13:29.50\00:13:30.94
That's in the Vatican museum.
00:13:30.97\00:13:33.17
And then if you look at how
paganism not only infiltrated
00:13:33.81\00:13:39.68
pagan Rome, but
it also infiltrated
00:13:39.78\00:13:42.65
the Christian religion.
00:13:42.75\00:13:44.09
And we shouldn't
be surprised at this.
00:13:44.12\00:13:45.59
This has been a
challenge for years,
00:13:45.62\00:13:49.12
this compromise
between Christ and paganism.
00:13:49.52\00:13:54.33
And we're going to talk
more about it in just a moment.
00:13:54.53\00:13:56.97