apoc:13:1-6

It is from this group, this ten kings that the Antichrist will arise. If you read Daniel 7 verses 7 and 8 and then down in to verses 19 to 25 of Daniel 7 and I'll just briefly show it to you because I don't want to get caught up in Daniel, as I told you last week, it's easy to do that. But in Daniel chapter 7 you see how this Antichrist rises from this...this confederacy of all these monarchs. There is a description of a beast in verse 7, the fourth beast in an image that Daniel sees there and this beast also has ten horns. And verse 8 says, Daniel 7, "While I was contemplating those ten horns, behold another horn, a little horn came up among them, three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man uttering great boasts." Here comes the Antichrist and somehow he rises out of this world confederacy of kings and in so doing disrupts three of them.

Down in verse 19 and following you have a further description of Antichrist. If go down to verse 24, we won't read all of it, you see, "As the for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will arise and another will arise after them and he will be different from the previous ones and subdue three kings." So somehow he comes out of this world conglomerate represented by the ten kinds. He rises out and somehow displaces three of them. He begins to speak out against the Most High, wear down the saints and he does this for a time, times and half a time, that's three and a half years. So there Daniel is describing for us that out of this confederacy comes this individual.

Also as we noted last time, in Revelation 13 and you can turn back to it, this beast is described as having seven heads and those refer, probably to the seven different world governments of the past...Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome and then the final kingdom. And I'll say much more about that when we get to chapter 17 where that very description of the seven heads is further described.

Suffice it to say that John comments about them by saying this, they are seven kings, five have fallen one is, the other has not yet come. And what he means in chapter 17 verses 9 and 10 by that is that when John is writing five of these have already come...Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece...one of them is, that would be Rome which was in power at the time of John, and one of them is yet to come, that would be the revived Roman Empire, the world empire under the Antichrist.

The point is then here for us in chapter 13 that this kingdom which this individual is synonymous with because he is the ruler of it, this kingdom embodies all of the satanic power and all of the demonic influence of all the evil empires of the day in which it comes, and all of the strength and power of all the Antigod and Antichrist powers of the past. All of the worst of Antigod, Antichrist power and influence from all of human history clear to that very moment is summed up in this accumulated wickedness and force and power of this kingdom, consummated in this one great individual. It is the consummate wicked world empire, carrying the accumulated evil of all the empires of the past and of that very time itself and led by the consummate satanic king, the Antichrist.

Now I just say by way of a footnote, and I did mention some of this last time, there are many movements in the world today toward a single world. We talk about globalism all the time. That's very common, it's in the newspapers, the global village, the move toward unification of the world. It's a very difficult thing to pull off. There are people who are striving very hard to do it but there is that human depravity that even fights against, if you will, the purposes of Satan. And I don't know if you think of it that way, but it works that way. Satan would like to orchestrate a one-world government over which he has perfect and complete control, but he can't even get fallen humanity to cooperate. But extensive efforts are going on to create one-world globalism. Consequently we may expect increasing and less subtle promotion of one-worldism throughout our society from the highest levels of government to the classrooms of our youngest children. As the National Education Association has said, it is with...quoting..."It is with sobering awareness that we set about to change the course of American education for the twenty-first century by embracing the ideals of global community, the equality and interdependence of all peoples and nations and education as a tool to bring about world peace."

Now even forgetting for a moment the Antichrist, there are obvious moral consequences to finding one world. An integral part of the new global education is as Alan Bloome warns in The Closing of the American Mind, and I quote, "To force students to recognize that there are other ways of thinking," in other words, that's essential to globalism, "In order to establish a world community and train its members to be persons devoid of prejudice," end quote. Bloome's use of "prejudice," by the way, is tongue and cheek, for in the new community there can be no moral absolutes. It must, however, be labeled prejudice to suggest that one point of view might be right and another wrong, particularly with regard to religion. In other words, nothing is really right so nobody should have any opinion that is negative toward anything anybody believes.

The way to create globalism is to eliminate absolutes. Linda Falkenstein(?), for example, of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory says, quote: "Black and white answers probably never really existed, but the time is long past when even the myth can endure. Competent world citizens must act int he large zones of grays where absolutes are absent," end quote.

The most dangerous part of global education then will fall in the area of religion. It is especially in this area that the planners realize they must eliminate prejudice and they must introduce tolerance for all beliefs. By the way, the new curriculum in American public schools calls for teaching not religion which is forbidden, but teaching comparative religion which is a way of teaching tolerance of all viewpoints. Teachers, of course, can't even suggest that one religion might be wrong and another right, that would be against all the rules. One's choice of religion, after all, doesn't really matter since nothing is right and nothing is wrong. The concept that is now being called values clarification. It's going to be necessary to create globalism to eliminate dogmatism to eliminate truth. It's going to come as it's coming right now through every means possible in the secular world.

And so, John sees this image of a one-world government to be embodied in this one individual. You remember also there are ten crowns, ten diadems on these horns, which again indicate the regal dominion and earthly sovereignty of this confederacy. And then also on the heads were blasphemous names. World emperors have often usurped divine titles as if they were God, majesty, you hear them ....His majesty, the King...High and mighty this and that...Holy and sovereign this fellow and that fellow. They even demand that they be worshiped as God, such as the Caesars, such as Nebuchadnezzar and many others. And so this will embody all the blasphemy, all the false claims to deity and all of the temporal sovereignty of all of the monarchs and rulers of the past. Antichrist and his kingdom will be characterized by blasphemy.

So enough of his ancestry. Let's go to point two, his authority, verse 2...his authority. "And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority."

Now as John is looking at this vision he looks a bit more closely and he sees that this particular beast, this monster that comes up out of the abyss with these ten horns and seven heads and ten crowns and blasphemous names, also bears the likeness of a leopard and a bear and a lion. It's a very complex beast. Through the years of studying prophecy, it's been kind of humorous to look at all of the attempts to draw this beast and there have many, many of them. But each of them in its most simplest form is an effort to sort of defy what could be drawn reasonably because of the complexity of it.

But what is this point of these animals? Well let me just show you what it is. And again we have to remind ourselves of Daniel chapter 7. In Daniel 7, I'm just going to point out to you verses 3 to 7 because this is where the same image is given. When Daniel had his vision and God showed him the four great world empires to come, which would be Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, God then in Daniel 7 made those four world empires bear the image of animals, certainly the first three, anyway, as we shall see, that were common in the land of Palestine. And verse 3, "The four great beasts coming up from the sea, the first was like a lion, it had the wings of an eagle." The second in verse 5 resembled a bear. And the third in verse 6 was like a leopard. And then there are some other elements to each description.

But that is precisely the same three animals that are described