This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
If we can eliminate the Holy Trinity and replace it with the
Unholy Trinity, then the powers that be on the earth at that
particular time will be able to bring astounding deceptions and
confusion to everyone who's on the face of the earth.
This particular beast speaks like a dragon, and basically
he's speaking the same messages of the first beast who
blasphemes. Got the whole idea and it won't
be in your face initially, it'll be more subtle.
My wife loves to watch dramas on TVI find it funny that something
like that is appealing but nonetheless what I find even
crazier is how 1 little lie can cause someone to believe
something that isn't true. These people go around spreading
gossip to try to win people over to believe their story.
In today's message, Pastor Clark warns you of the lies that the
enemy will spread. He wants to make sin not seem
that bad. So what he does is he'll slowly
drip it into everything that you consume.
Now here's Pastor Clark in the Book of Revelation chapter 13
with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Revelation chapter 13, verse 11. Then I saw another beast coming
up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and spoke
like a dragon. And he exercises all the
authority of the first beasts in his presence, and causes the
earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast.
Beast whose deadly wound was healed.
He performs great signs, so that he even makes the fire come down
from heaven on the earth and the sight of men.
And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs,
which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling
those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who
was wounded by the sword and lived.
He was granted power to give breath to the image of the
beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and
'cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast
to be killed. He causes all, both small and
great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on
their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may
buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the
beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding
calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a
man. His number is 666.
Today we're going to examine the issues of what's going to happen
in this world in these days ahead, what's happening in our
culture today. There's a dumbing down of
America and it starts, unfortunately, in many of the
churches in our country where there's a movement away from the
teaching of the Bible and more of a movement into what's hip or
what's cool or what people seem to be interested in.
And what happens as people move away from the Scriptures in the
Bible, they move more into this philosophy of what we call
humanism. And humanism is you would say
today, hey, Clark, this is my opinion or this is what I think
about life and this is who I think God is, if there's even a
God that exists. And this is my truth.
And and then I would tell you, well, this is my truth.
And we would shake hands and say, well, that's cool.
You know, your truth is your truth.
My truth is my truth. So we can all get along with
each other, right? This agree to disagree and and
just move on. And that's unfortunately what's
happening in churches nowadays. There's a movement away from
historical perspective regarding the second coming of Christ, end
times, final judgment. I mean, there's churches today
that are teaching that there's other ways to heaven than Jesus
Christ. Churches that teach that there
is no literal hell, there is no punishment for those who die
without Christ. And so what's happening as you
see the culture changing, it's becoming more fashionable to not
be spiritual in regard to knowing Jesus Christ, being
spiritual in regard to like whatever you want to believe,
Buddha, Krishna, a new age, whatever, that's okay.
But in regard to bringing up the name of Jesus Christ, that
that's verbatim, that's almost getting to the point of being
culturally unacceptable, right? Or politically incorrect.
That's sort of where things are right now.
And so as a result of that, there's this dumbing down.
Now, if you as a student of the Scriptures aren't astute
yourself to study these things yourself, you're going to be
swept down the same path that the majority of people out there
today are on. Just do is your own survey with
people you work with or people you go to school with or your
neighbors, just that, you know, like curiosity.
Hey, what do you think about the Bible?
And they'll they'll give you some pretty bizarre thoughts.
Who do you think Jesus Christ is?
What do you think about the end of the world?
What do you think about you think Christ is going to come
back again and it'll stand you at where people's thoughts and
minds are regarding this subject.
And so you can see when Jesus speaks to the apostle Paul and
says he's going to send God will send a strong of delusion to
people that they'll believe a lie rather than the truth.
The culture is already being set up, right to understand this
concept of whatever you want to believe is OK.
Relativism is also called truth is relative.
Your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth.
But we can't go by people's opinions.
We have to go by this book. This is the truth.
Jesus is the truth. He said I am the way, I am the
truth. I am the light.
No man comes to the Father but through me.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and
instruction and righteousness that the people of God may be
thoroughly furnished. In other words, being equipped
and prepared to know the difference between a lie,
deception, and the truth. So we look at verse 11 here.
It's speaking about this beast coming up out of the earth.
There's two beasts, one in this section of Scripture today that
comes up out of the earth and one that comes up out of the
sea. This particular beast is
different than the first beast that came out of the sea.
This second beast is coming up out of the earth and he has a
lamb like appearance. Here it says he has horns like a
lamb and spoke like a dragon. The first beast was described as
looking like a leopard. This beast is described as being
some similar to the likeness of a lamb.
This particular beast is subordinate to the first beast.
If you look in verse 12, it says this beast exercises all the
authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the
earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose
deadly wound was healed. So the focus of this individual
is to pay homage to the Antichrist.
This particular beast we're reading about here is referred
to also as the false prophet, and he'll be the person that
does all the PR work for the the Antichrist.
Now we see in verse 11 it talks about this beast having two
horns and we believe that these horns represent power in two
different realms, political power and religious power.
The last days will represent A1 world church and a one world
government. It's amazing right now the
negotiations that are going on around the world with world
powers and G20 summits and that kind of stuff.
There's an issue right now, as I talked last week about the
problem with the euro and the dollar and the 1:00 and all
these different currencies. And until there's really one
currency, we're going to have chaos economically.
Now the most pragmatic thing to do from a financial perspective
logically would be to have a world currency so that the
markets can be balanced. But the intention of that isn't
to cause prosperity in the sense of long term Kingdom of Earth
type mentality, but it's to give someone the ability to
politically roll the financial markets from one location and
that we'll all be in submission to that new particular financial
setup. Also the one world church,
there's this movement today to integrate all spirituality
together. You know, it doesn't matter if
you're Hindu or Islam or Buddhist or, you know, a
Christian. There's this mindset now that if
we could just have one church and everybody would sort of get
along together and we decide like, what are the main things
we should all agree on? Well, we should love one another
and we shouldn't hate and we shouldn't steal and we shouldn't
kill. Those are pretty obvious in in
most world religions. But the idea of eliminating the
concept or the truth of a real God and a real Savior and a real
Holy Spirit, if we can eliminate the Holy Trinity and replace it
with the unholy Trinity, then the powers that be on the earth
at that particular time will be able to bring astounding
deceptions and confusion to everyone who's on the face of
the earth. This particular beast speaks
like a dragon, and basically he's speaking the same messages
of the first beast who blasphemes God.
The whole idea, and it won't be in your face initially, it'll be
more subtle. We have to give equal time to
other world religions. We have to allow the Dalai Lama
to have his ability to speak to the United Nations.
We have to have the Enman, the Islamic leader, have the ability
to communicate his vision for World Peace in these last days.
And so all these different entities will be rising up to
have a a vocal word and they'll basically by their character and
their demeanor and by their denial of who Jesus Christ is be
blaspheming the truth of who who God is in Christ.
The name of Christ will become more and more commonly used just
in swear words and not worship jokes movies.
I'm astounded if you go to a secular movie nowadays.
And I don't go to too many of them unless I really screen what
they're about and and what the verbiage is.
And most of them unfortunately aren't worth a whole lot, but
it's astounding. You can be going to a good movie
and say, well, this movie has some depth and some meaning and
it's interesting. And they have to use the Lord's
name in vain. It's so out of context at this.
Like it's like, you know, people, they take their
fingernails on a chalkboard. You know how that makes you feel
like weird? You know, it's like it does hit
you that way. If you love Christ, you can't
stand hearing his name used in vain.
It's just so inappropriate. And and you'll say, well, why
would they have to have that word in the midst of the movie?
Well, the media in the fallen world has an agenda and every in
the music and the movies and the literature is to defame the
person of Jesus Christ and to blasphemy him.
The second beast is also called the false prophet in Revelation
1613 chapter 19 verse 20 and chapter 20 verse 10.
He's distinct from the first beast, the Antichrist and the
dragon, who is Satan himself. Now with the dragon, we see the
beasts rising from the sea, who is referred to as the
Antichrist. And then we see as we're
studying here in this section of scripture, the false prophet.
This beast comes up out of the earth again, the unholy Trinity,
the dragon is the anti father Satan, the beast.
Coming up out of the sea is the Antichrist.
And the beast here we're reading about today coming up out of the
land is the anti spirit, the false prophet.
So we look in verse 12 through 15 now and we see the job
description of this second beast.
And this is what his responsibility is.
It says he exercises the authority of the first beast.
He's the spokesperson for this Antichrist.
He causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the
Antichrist, the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.
Now, we talked last week, there's some kind of issue that
occurs with this first beast that is world known, some kind
of perhaps attack on his life to kill him or to destroy him and
he somehow miraculously comes back to life.
It's so amazing that CNN and Fox and every major news network
will be talking about this all over the world.
You know, we'll all be talking, of course, we won't be here, but
people on the face of the earth at that time will be all talking
about the excitement of what has just happened.
It says this false prophet will perform great signs so that he
even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth and then the
sight of men. He will deceive those who dwell
on the earth by the signs which he was granted to do in the
sight of the beast. He'll tell those who dwell on
the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the
sword and lived. He was granted power to give
breath to the image of the beast, and the image of the
beast should both speak and cause as many as would not
worship the image of the beast to be killed.
This is his job description. He exercises all the authority
of the first beast, the Antichrist, and the second beast
is truly the false prophet. And his goal is to lead the
whole world to worship the Antichrist.
Satan, you might sit here and you you read this and and I have
the same concept of times. How in the world can anybody be
so stupid or so uninformed to worship something like this?
I mean, is that your first thought when you you hear this
stuff? Who in the world this is?
This is insane. Well, when Stalin and Hitler
were risen up to power, who would have ever Like when you
look back historically now, how could you be so blind to pay
homage to these world leaders? I remember as growing up as a
kid and they would show you pictures of China, right?
Mao Zedong, his poster was everywhere, right?
Thousands of people will be in the square paying homage and
worshipping him is like their God Hitler.
They they gave him worship by raising their hand and saluting
him, saying hi, Hitler. And and so we can look back in
history to see how people can be deceived.
And today we look at these different religions that are out
there, humanism, there's no God, but you are your God.
You are your own God. That's what the humanists will
say. Complete denouncing of the
authority of a creator. The public schools have pushed
out right the concept of a creator God.
Our kids are being indoctrinated in the public school systems by
a system of religion called humanism, right?
It's so clear there is no prayer anymore in the public schools.
You know, even to the point that they don't want to pledge the
allegiance because you have to say 1 nation under God.
Well, you might offend someone because we think of that God in
this country is based upon a Christian God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. But now what about the Muslim
that's going to school or the Hindu or the atheist?
And now you have these cults and these occult movements and it's
a big deal. Spirituality without the Holy
Spirit. Go into Barnes and Noble or
borders and this look in the New Age philosophical section, it's
huge. It's growing month after month.
The titles are very alluring. Find the God in you.
Become a God yourself. Find total freedom, freedom
without the creator God. They don't tell you that, but
they want you to not even acknowledge him.
So it's a spirituality without this, the Holy Spirit, it's a
counterfeit spirituality. Now it's interesting to me if
you bring up Jesus Christ and any kind of discussion with
anybody that doesn't know him, do you get a good response?
Usually it's like a down or if you're to party and you're
talking to people or to work event, you know, and you're
asking how your life's going. Oh, I got to tell you this cool
thing that the Lord did for me. They're like, excuse me, let's
change the subject. I remember years ago, I'm
interested in world religion. So I've hung out with different
people. And one time I went to this
Buddhist sitting group and they knew I was a Christian.
And then at first they were thinking like, why is this guy
here? Is he going to like start like
evangelizing us or whatever, you know?
And so I watched what they were doing and then paid attention.
And then they're trying to get you to sit down and be this like
real still and empty your mind, which is not a biblical concept.
You empty your mind, you're going to allow it to be open up
to other spirits, right? But anyway, at the end of this
discussion, I was talking to the leader.
This is this so-called guru and he's acting real loving and real
calm and everybody's in unity and there's World Peace and man,
like, you know, this is just like awesome.
We're in Nirvana here. And so I'm sitting down with
him. I said, you know, whenever I sit
down and I want to be still, I like to think about Jesus.
Oh, you can't do that. Well, why not?
Well, you know, if you do that, then your mind's real closed and
you can't be free. And, and I said, well, Jesus
said that you know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
And he became this loving, peaceful, gentle when his big
robe and real calm. He became so like in my face, It
was like he turned into a demon and he's worshipping demons.
He doesn't even know about it. And so it's it's fascinating
that you bring up this name, Jesus Christ, and you'll see the
hostility in the world today. Now in verse 13, we see what
this person does. He performs great signs and
wonders. There's a big movement today,
these modern evangelists on TV, some of them, not all of them,
but some of them have one agenda, right?
Come to our meeting in Pittsburgh, Signs and wonders
and people like get their ears up.
Wow, that sounds cool signs and wonders.
I like miracles and I want to see signs and I want to see
proof. And so all this kind of stuff.
Well, this this false prophet is going to have the ability to do
signs and wonders that people on the earth at that time are going
to think that have to be from God.
And these signs and wonders will support his false teachings.
Now one of the signs that it says he does is that fire comes
down and he makes this event occur like Elijah did.
Now think about Elijah. He's dealing with the prophets
of Baal, the New Agers at that particular time that didn't
believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob fighting against
the ungodly influence of idolatry and immorality and and
this disgustful things that the nation was experiencing at that
time. And he's got a responsibility
called by God to do some amazing things.
And this is in first Kings chapter 1836 and seven it says,
and it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening
sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Israel, let it be known this
day that you are God in Israel and I am your servant, and that
I have done all these things at your word.
Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that you
are the Lord God and that you have turned their hearts back to
you again. So what happened was it was an
amazing situation. The fire came down from heaven.
It consumed the evening sacrifice and the wood on the
altar and the stones and the dust, and it even licked up all
the water that was in the trench.
Not one drop of water was left. Now the deception of the
Antichrist, if you turn to 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2, you're
going to see that it's very interesting in what he's going
to do. Second Thessalonians chapter 2
verse 9, it says the coming of the lawless 1 is according to
the working of Satan all with all power signs and lying
wonders and with all unrighteousness deception among
those who perish because they didn't receive the love of the
truth that they might be saved. So all the people that are on
earth at the time are going to be set up to believe this lie
and this deception. If you don't have any background
in the Scriptures, you don't know the truth about God and his
Kingdom. If you're a human being at the
time, who wouldn't at that time say, wow, did you see what
happened? This has got to be like God and
this is wonderful and look at the miracles he's doing and it
says they will be deceived by these lying signs and wonders
because they're perishing, meaning they're on their way to
hell. Why?
Because they didn't receive the love of the truth that they
might be saved. Now, if you're here today and
you don't know who Jesus Christ is, I implore you to receive Him
as your Savior so you don't have to be left here to deal with
these things in the last days or they're going to be horrendous.
Come to Christ so you can be saved.
He's the only one who can save you.
And it says for this reason, God will send them a strong delusion
that they should believe a lie, that they all may be condemned
who did not believe the truth but had pleasure and
unrighteousness. So there's this movement of
supernaturalism today, the counter and copy the movements
of God in the Scriptures. The Lord warns us in Exodus
Chapter 7 through 9. Aaron, remember when he was
working with Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt,
he performed miracles by God. It was very clear and up to a
point. These miracles were matched by
the magicians in Egypt, weren't they?
Didn't that amazed you that they were able to copy and do some of
the same miracles up to a point until they just became too
staggering and too miraculous that truly only God could do?
So we also see there's a warning from God regarding false
prophets. Turn to Deuteronomy.
And I think it's very important that we get on the same page
regarding what is a true prophet versus a counterfeit false
prophet. And these days that we live,
there's a lot of people that are claiming that they're prophets
and the Bible tells us the prophet has to be 100% accurate
and correct. If they're not correct and you
stone them. Some of us unfortunately, have
been involved in church movements who've had false
prophets come in and we've been told to accept everything they
say. And if they make a mistake,
well, they only got a couple things wrong.
They got a couple things right. The Bible is clear.
A false prophet is a false prophet.
A true prophet is a true prophet.
And this is what Deuteronomy, this is what it says in
Deuteronomy chapter 13 verse one.
If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams,
and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the
wonder comes to pass at which he spoke to you, saying, let us go
after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve
them. And that's the goal of the
Antichrist and the false prophet, to get the people to
move away from the true God. It says you shall not listen to
the words of that prophet or that dreamer or dreams of
dreams. For the Lord your God is testing
you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord
your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey His
voice. You shall serve him and hold
fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer
of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order
to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of
the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the House of bondage.
Thanks for being with us today here on Living Waters of Grace.
We're in the Book of Revelation, and we find it fascinating how
influential and involved the angels are in this book.
They bring about whatever it is that God has instructed them to
do, but it's through their actions that much of the
judgements come on the earth. The angels are in submission to
God as their authority, but He utilizes them in unique ways
throughout this book. Like angels have a specific
purpose from God, you have a unique purpose and plan too.
God wants to use you in your life as a testimony to others
and to bring others who are currently lost into the fold of
God. God would love more than
anything for all who are willing to come to Him for salvation,
but He wants it to be their choice, not a forced situation.
This is the way God works, not forcing himself on anyone, but
giving each person free will. If you're interested in learning
about this choice that's free and that it's a gift, go to
calvarychapelonline.com and click on the About Us tab and
then find the link for what we believe.
We'd love to be a help and a resource for you as you walk
through what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
If you find the contact tab on our website, you can get in
touch with us or submit a prayer request.
We'd love to hear from you. That's all for today's edition
and Revelation, but there's much more that Pastor Clark plans to
share with us from this culminating book of the Bible.
Stay tuned for that and make sure to mention this radio
program to others. Invite them to tune into Grace
FM 91.7 FM. They can stream worldwide at
Grace Radio dot FM. This has been Living Waters of
Grace.