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The Antichrist Explained - The Wound, Death & Resurrection | Michael Rowntree · The Remnant Radio's Podcast

• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, welcome to the wonderful world of Remnant Radio.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, we're picking up our discussion on the Antichrist.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be an exciting program.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: You guys stay tuned.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, welcome back.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Joshua Lewis.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: In today's program, I've got Michael Roundtree here on the other line, and we're going to be talking about the book of Revelation, specifically as it relates to the Antichrist.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: As Michael has said in prior episodes, the Antichrist or the term the Antichrist does not show up in the book of Revelation.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: But Michael, maybe you can give us a quick recap of what we discussed yesterday or yesterday in the last podcast about the Antichrist and a quick little uh look forward to what we're talking about today.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So uh what we talked about was the word Antichrist appearing, uh, like for instance in the letters of John.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so you you see it there, you see another characterization of the man of lawlessness in first uh Thessalonians chapter 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, it's first.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, and then you see Daniel chapter seven has a little horn.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so some people will view something like there's a composite photograph where we look at all the images together and say, it looks like Revelation is communicating something like this.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I would not say that the beast of Revelation is the exact same as the Antichrist or man of lawlessness or whatever you want to call this last person.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I do believe there is going to be some final king or ruler or president or prime minister or something, a final ruler who will arise, uh, a new Hitler, if you will, or a new Nero who will arise and radically oppose Christian doctrine and set himself up against the church and its teachings, and he will persecute theocratically.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so the last episode more defends all of that biblically, but that was where we landed.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I do think there are some places in the book of Revelation that point toward a final ruler.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that uh one of them is that the little horn imagery of Daniel chapter 7, which definitely spoke of a persecuting ruler, appears in Revelation 13 on the beast.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: While it doesn't use the language of exactly of little horn, it's very clear in parallel verses that John's drawing on the same imagery.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then another one that we'll talk about is the eighth head of the beast, which I do take as correlating to this final ruler.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so I do believe there is a final antichrist, although I don't need you to necessarily call him that if you object to it, but uh, I think there is an actual human being who will rise up, rule with governmental power, and persecute the saints on a global scale.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that's going to happen.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you know, we talked about in our last episode, and this would be a good place maybe to pick up uh for this one.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I said my uh pop culture eschatology with that I was raised on with uh a mix of left behind doctrine and a little mix of uh, you know, uh doom and gloom preaching uh from time to time, uh, the Antichrist was a figure who uh was mortally wounded in the head, uh has this false resurrection moment, uh, and yeah, and kind of rules and reigns the nations.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we we talked a little bit about that last week, but let's maybe pick up on this conversation a little bit more.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is that an accurate telling of what is going to be happening in the last end of days?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is there going to be an actual figure uh who dies and is risen from the dead?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Where do we get that idea coming from the book of Revelation?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, the teaching that you're referencing, I did hear a long time ago in my own early forays into eschatology, and it was taught the teaching that I heard was that there would be a literal and physical death and resurrection of this final ruler, and that when he literally rises from the dead, that all the nations are gonna start worshiping him then.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so that's how I heard it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there is evidence of a death and resurrection of sorts in Revelation 13.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and so this is where they get that.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way I I would hear it would be um like the that one of the Caesars was actually so actually it could go a number of ways.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some will say, like, hey, there's this final persecuting ruler, he'll be killed, but then rise again.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Others will say, Well, it's actually going to be a former Caesar, like, oh dang, like Nero's back.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I guess let's worship him, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you have different versions of it, but the I the question is, where does this death and resurrection of some kind of anti-Christian ruler arise within Revelation?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So Revelation 13, it appears three times in verses 3, 12, and 14.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You see a death and resurrection.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it introduces this beast called the beast of the sea.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the early ver the earlier verses refer to this beast of the sea in ways that allude to Daniel chapter 7, uh, which characterizes all four of the kingdoms or empires of Daniel chapter 7.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're all rolled together in one.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of this beast's heads, it has it's it's a multi-headed beast, and heads often represent kings.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of these heads, it says this, verse three, one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So initially it's only one head that receives this wound, but as you keep reading in verses 12 and 14, it describes the whole beast as wounded uh and yet made alive.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have this parody of Christ's resurrection that's taking place uh in chapter 13.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the way you know that is that uh is that it uses the same Greek word uh for so sphazo for slain, like the lamb who was slain.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this uh same idea with this beat this beast and his wound that that he uh he was slain like the lamb that was slain, and Jesus really died.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was like a real death of the beast.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so his healing is really portrayed as more of a making alive and a resurrection.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So some people will look at that and say, well, heads often represent kings.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe Caesar is gonna rise again and people are gonna follow him and worship him, or maybe some anti-Christian tyrant arises uh and someone kills him, but then he rises again.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're seeing this as predictive of some kind of anti-Christian tyrant, an antichrist, if you will.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh anyway, so I'll stop there, Josh.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But that's where that's where the um the interpretation comes from, and it's definitely not the only interpretation, is, but it's from Revelation 13.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a return of the beast in set chapter 17, we can talk about here in a little bit.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but uh, you know, you've said in times past that revelation can be looking at with, I think, like a like a wooden literalism, and then you can also be drunk on symbols, right?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, like trying to find the middle ground here.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a literal death and resurrection?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is this figurative?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Why is Revelation using this sort of language using some of the hermeneutical keys that you gave us in how to read the book of Revelation?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like how are we to interpret it?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, uh, even in answering that, we have to look at uh some people there, there are even multiple versions of a literal interpretation, right?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So some will say that it's a literal human being who dies and rises again.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Others will say, well, hey, beast is the normal image in scripture, especially Daniel 7, of empire, the kingdom of man.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's going to be a literal kingdom that dies and rises again.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so for instance, the uh Islamic Antichrist, uh, the the uh the theory goes like this that uh that the Ottoman Empire died, and I think it was like the 1400s or something like that.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but now it's making a comeback and it will ultimately make a comeback.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's like this death and resurrection of empire, so so that it's not so much an individual king as it is the empire as a whole.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Jewel Richardson popularized this theory.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's a fascinating book.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, as uh he does a great job.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jewel's a friend, and uh, and he talks about how uh it's so it's like for him the death and rise of the Ottoman Empire, and uh and one of the things he points out is that the two villains uh or sorry, the two heroes of Islamic theology or eschatology, uh, the two villains are the two, sorry, I should put it like this, the two heroes of Islamic eschatology are the villains of Christianity.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so in Islam you have like the Mahdi, uh M-A-H-D-I, who's sort of like the political leader, the uh final caliph that's going to arise, and his sidekick is going to be Jesus.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Muslims are actually expecting a return of Jesus.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh that aligns quite well with the way the beast of the sea kind of aligns with this political, uh political leadership, political regime, empire as well as king.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can kind of see that in the beast of the sea, but then uh his sidekick is the false prophet, that's the beast of the earth, and uh and it says that he uh looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so there would be the like pure antichrist there and the false prophet, and that the two work together, and that the reason Jesus returns, according to Muslim eschatology, is Joel reads it, and and I have to admit, I haven't read nearly the level of uh Islamic eschatology that he has, but that uh but he would say Muslims believe that Jesus is returning basically to kill Christians, uh, to kill Christians in service of the Mahdi, to basically say, hey, you guys have got it all wrong.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Islam is actually right.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's uh it's it's so there there are some fascinating parallels there.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I do think that there could be an Ottoman expression in the in the final sum of things.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think that uh that there could be some kind of uh something like what he describes with these this inner this heroes versus villains kind of thing.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I don't think Revelation 13 requires us to believe that.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I think the image uh in in my view is bigger than any one empire, bigger than any one king.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um let me pull up a quote here.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is from Alan Johnson.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Everywhere in the book of uh everywhere in the book, that is the book of Revelation, the only sufficient conqueror of the beast and the dragon is the slain lamb, together with his faithful servants.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so the reason I I want to uh to quote that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the reason that I I quote that uh from Alan Johnson is that I don't believe Revelation is teaching about like an empire dying of natural causes, such as the Ottoman Empire dying several hundred years ago and coming back.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I so I I don't believe that it's trying to teach that form of literal uh interpretation or somewhat literal interpretation, uh, nor do I believe that it's speaking about an individual who's going to literally die and come back.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I read Revelation 12 and 13 together because there's this parallel structure.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 12, Jesus it's it's Jesus versus the dragon.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's also Michael the Archangel versus the dragon.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the dragon suffers two defeats.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's battling in two theaters.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's battling on earth and he's battling in heaven.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: On earth, Jesus defeats him and ascends to his heavenly throne.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so this speaks of his first coming and heavenly ascension.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the heavenly theater, as I'm calling it, is Michael and his archangels versus the devil and his archangels.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Satan is cast down to the earth.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: The dragon is cast down and he loses his power of accusation.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I view these as uh as two events talking about the same time period, the the first coming of Jesus.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are those who who say uh actually uh the second scene is Michael's Michael is playing heaven's bouncer uh at the very end of the age, right before a great tribulation, and Satan's being cast out.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I don't buy that.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, and here's why.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is all going to have relevance because it's gonna speak to timing, and that timing is gonna play out in my interpretation of Revelation 13.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, Revelation 12, after uh after he is cast out of heaven, it says, I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Verse 10, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of our Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers had been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before God.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: There are really only two moments in history where this could apply.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, where could it apply that the salvation, power, and kingdom of God and the authority of Christ have come?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And where could it apply that Satan is somehow cast down?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: We either have the first coming of Jesus or the second coming of Jesus.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it fits the narrative, and this is what um futurists, especially dispensationalists, would say is that uh the last seven years of history, right before the Great Tribulation, that's when this happened.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't think so.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think you could make a case for uh for either the first or second coming, but I think it has to be the second the first coming.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is as it proceeds, Satan, uh Satan goes down to the earth and it says he knows his time is short, and so he exhibits his great wrath on the earth and the sea.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be clear, Satan is not exhibiting wrath against landmarks in the Pacific Ocean, right?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: When it says land and sea, this is apocalyptic imagery.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it in Revelation 13, that's gonna be uh that's going to play out very uh importantly.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's gonna actually chapter 17 is gonna finish with Satan standing on the sand of the sea.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So he's right on the border of land and sea.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he comes down in wrath against land and sea.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's standing on the border of land and sea, and then in Revelation 13, he raises up the first two orcs of his army, so to speak, a beast of the sea and a beast of the earth.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is how Satan is exhibiting his wrath on the earth.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so the very fact that Satan is continuing to exhibit active wrath against those who keep the commandments of Jesus tells me that's not the second coming of Jesus.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, even if you're whether you're premillennialists, a millennialist, nobody believes that Satan is just like wrecking shop after the second coming of Jesus right away, right?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So like that's how the but that's how the scene plays out.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so Revelation 12 seems to picture the earthly scene and the heavenly scene, just like we often see in the book of Daniel, it'll show both.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's an earthly scene, Jesus wins, first advent.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's a heavenly scene, Michael the Archangel wins, first advent.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Satan loses in both theaters, and so what does he do?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: He takes his wrath out on God's people, and how does he do it?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Through a beast of the sea and a beast of the earth.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've got to read Revelation 12 and 13 in tandem.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what I see as a parallel is that in Revelation 12, Satan suffers a tremendous defeat, and then he continues to persecute.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then in Revelation 13, the beast suffers a tremendous defeat, and then he continues to persecute.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I don't think that we're supposed to read these as though they're just completely separate, independent stories that have literally nothing to do with each other, or very little to do with each other.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think they have everything to do with each other.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what I would say is that Jesus in his first coming, in defeating Satan, and and the New Testament, even outside of Revelation, will use this kind of language uh to describe like for like this level of defeat of Satan.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh John 12 um 31.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: It says Jesus about to go to the cross, says this.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So first advent, culminating in his the cross, and then the ultimately the ascension.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Now is the judgment of this world.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So already in the cross, Jesus is judging the world.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: He he's beginning that process.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now will the ruler of this world, that's Satan, be cast out.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I, when I'm lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you you see similar kind of language, the ruler of this world being cast out.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: First advent, Satan, the dragon, is cast out of heaven, loses his power of accusation, continues to persecute.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Parallel, likewise, the beast is conquered.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, at the first advent of Jesus.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus uh goes to the cross and he ascends to the right hand of God the Father, he actually defeats Rome.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's crowned above Caesar, his global monarch, is the Revelation 1:5, ruler of the kings of the earth.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's over Caesar.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now it doesn't look like that to Caesar.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Caesar thinks he's in charge, he thinks he rules the world, but Jesus is the Davidic king.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, God always ruled the world, he always ruled all as the most high God.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus comes as one from the line of Judah, is one from uh descending from David, a son of David, to sit upon his throne, and he reigns from that place, and in this sense, he actually uh he conquers the beast, but it's an initial, just like his casting out of Satan, to quote John chapter 12, casting out the ruler of this age, there's an initial sense and a culminating sense of that victory.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we learn to think this way theologically.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's an already and a not yet.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the cross, Jesus already judged the world.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: At his return, he'll really, really, ultimately judge the world.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in the cross, we experience salvation, but at Christ's return, we experience the full ramifications of that salvation.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we can also do this of the powers of evil.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, at the cross, Jesus judged Satan and his minions.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: At the cross, Jesus judged tyranny and the kingdom of man.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And at his return, he'll conquer them completely.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so, Josh, I see a parallel between Revelation 12 and 13.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it is actually through Christ's crucifixion and resurrection and ascension, but through Christ's crucifixion, through the wounding of the lamb, that he actually wounded the beast.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then his resurrection speaks of an ongoing feature of his persecuting powers.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: That it's like he defeated, he defeated the devil, but the devil still persecutes Revelation 12.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: He defeated the beast, but the beast still persecutes Revelation 13.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think John is just making it up.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, first of all, yes, he had real visions.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: His visions, though, were also intricately tied to the Old Testament and the visions that took place there.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Daniel chapter 7 is really pivotal understanding all of this.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Daniel chapter 7, it says, an interesting statement that I think a lot of people overlook.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um so this is after the fourth beast is judged in Daniel chapter 7.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, actually, no, it's gonna, I'll just read that verse.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 I looked, then because the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the little horn, that persecuting ruler that belonged to the fourth beast, which I believe to be Rome.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as I looked, the beast was killed and its body destroyed, and given over to be burned with fire.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: As for the rest of the beast, that's the prior three.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in Daniel's sequence, I believe, uh and this is the traditional interpretation, that was Babylon, Meadow Persia, Greece, those first three, subsequent was Rome.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is Daniel seven is going to play out?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: One like a son of man, Jesus, is gonna come before the ancient of days, God the Father, and receive eternal dominion and rulership over all the nations which will serve and worship him, as Daniel 7, 13.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh and so what Daniel is picturing is this succession of four empires that will culminate in the Roman Empire, at which time Jesus will conquer the Roman Empire, and the one like a son of man, and he will ascend before God the Father and receive his kingdom.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a culminating effect of that.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: He uh he'll also return on the clouds, just like he repeated before the Father on the clouds to uh in the clouds to receive a kingdom.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh here's the verse I want to get us to next.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So all this happened during the Roman Empire.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel predicts it with stunning accuracy.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 12 As for the rest of the beasts, those first three, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so by uh so Meadow Persia, Greece, this is Babylon, Meadow Persia, and Greece, by the time Rome is on the scene, their power is already gone.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, verse 12 pictures this prolonged ongoing reality for them.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so he's so Daniel's already predicting in concert with Christ's first coming, some kind of conquering of a beast, and yet beastly DNA continuing to live on.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what it seems like John is doing in Revelation 13 is whereas Daniel 712 says the first three beasts will continue to live on after the conquering, Daniel seems to say all four beasts will live on.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And what he seems to be doing in my reading is to say this beastly DNA, this devouring spirit of the kingdom of man, if you will, continues until Christ returns.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um but Jesus delivered a decisive death blow at his first coming.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's the parallel, Revelation 12 and 13.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the beast persists, it lives on, it experiences something of a resurrection.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus defeats Caesar, he becomes global monarch, he seizes Rome's dominion over the kingdom of man that now belongs to King Jesus.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so Caesar only thought he ruled the world.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Son of Man, Jesus, the Son of David, rules the world.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was stripped.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a real judgment that took place of Rome and ultimately the kingdom of man in its entirety.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that culmination will occur at Christ's return.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I would read it.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would read it, Josh, less about one specific person or one specific empire.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I would, and I would say the beast represents, according to John's own imagery, seems to represent the kingdom of man as a whole.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's why all four beasts are rolled into one.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: This beastly DNA that persists sometimes in an Ottoman empire, sometimes in a Roman Empire, sometimes in this empire or that one.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: But that beastly DNA will continue.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this best aligns with Revelation, where uh where you have King Jesus and his followers, but then you have the devil and these enemies that persist throughout the entirety of the book of Revelation.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not like, oh, well, now we don't have to deal with a beast anymore.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now we don't have to deal with Harlow Babylon anymore.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: All four enemies of Jesus seem to persist throughout this age.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that that would be my reading.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I would view the resurrection of the beast as occurring in concert with uh Jesus defeating the beast, killing the beast, if you will, in his own death, conquering it, and uh and then as as Jesus uh established his kingdom, those persecuting powers continue for a time.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I I look at the parallel between Revelation 12 and 13, especially for that, Josh.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now you've talked about though, like the fact that these could be themes that are playing out, but they could also culminate in persons.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: So is it possible that this is the case, that Jesus did in fact defeat Satan at the cross, which I think all Christians believe, whether they agree that this is describing the same kind of event or activity, could it not also be true that that replicates itself in a kind of crescendoing sort of way?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think you've said uh in in in your work that uh some folks even saw Nero as a potential figurehead here, um, as someone who was defeated but allowed to survive, kind of thing.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um is it possible that this could culminate in a Nero or it could culminate in a Nero-esque figure like a Mahdi, etc., etc.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I do think so.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think Daniel teaches us to look for patterns.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mentioned this on our last episode where the little horn of Daniel chapter eight, a persecuting ruler, uh, who pretty much all Jewish people around that time identified as Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Read first and second.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maccabees, you'll see that play out in history.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: But um anyway, Antiochus the Fourth Epiphanes, a Greek tyrant, actually came from one of the four kingdoms that descended from Alexander the Great.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: All that's predicted in Daniel chapter eight.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But he's called a little horn.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh in Daniel chapter seven, the little horn belongs to the fourth kingdom.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think Daniel's actually teaching us typology that, hey, this third kingdom, Greece, is gonna have an antichrist, antichrist tyrant.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then this fourth kingdom, I believe was Rome, is gonna have an antichrist tyrant.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some identify him as as Caesar, uh Caesar Nero, and you know, Caesar Nero can be made to mean like 666, and uh, and so there there are some correlations, and there was a big and and I believe John actually sort of riffs off this a little bit, and you'll see this in the Old Testament too.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they'll riff off like Babylonian mythology or things that are like very non-biblical, and they'll uh they'll tell a story but with a biblical spin and God's theological view of things, but they'll they'll riff off pagan stories.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when Nero died, he died under suspicious circumstances.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh some people didn't think he died at all.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of you know, it was one of those like uh, you know, like we have this modern kind of idea too.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did Tupac really die?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Did Elvis really die?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so people like, did Nero really die?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so some thought he didn't die.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as it turns out, um, uh the history, the best history I could find was that he stabbed his own throat, that he really did die, and and when he did, now Nero was crazy.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was crazy, absolutely antichrist.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so after he died, and and there's actually debate over this.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you read some works by preterists, uh, I guess it's Kenneth Gentry, uh, writes a book before Jerusalem fell.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: He makes a strong case that this myth was already around even before Nero died.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it seems like John riffs off of this uh and the way that he talks about it, this myth of Nero.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and the idea was that Nero, like, it's like he goes away but comes back, he dies but rises again, kind of thing.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so could it be that some of that's being played off of in Revelation 13?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Possibly, but John did have a real vision and it did play out exactly like this.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, and so I do think that Nero was a strong Antichrist candidate, but he he he clearly wasn't the final one because the final one, the man of lawlessness, 2 Thessalonians 2, for instance, uh, is destroyed with the breath of Jesus' mouth and the appearance of his coming.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the second coming of Jesus puts an end to the man of lawlessness.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't Nero.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then there have been others that that have arisen over the course of time.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, uh we talked about some of these in the in the last episode.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think that a lot of people, what they do though, is they confuse what John's doing between Revelation 13 and Revelation 17, as though they're the same.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh, in fact, maybe we should read Revelation 17.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: It says, the beast that you saw, this is verse 8, the beast that you saw, listen to this divine formula, was and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you see how uh like it's talking about a future rise and then ultimate going to destruction.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But this is why I would say we can't confuse the resurrection and return of the beast.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 13 is about the resurrection of the beast.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've already talked about that, but Revelation 17 seems to talk about something future, this future rise from this bottomless pit, uh, that there's this ultimate culmination.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh and so the divine formula, which is normally was and is and is to come, here is was and is not.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because Christ defeated the beast at its at his first coming and is to come or is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction, that speaks of a future return.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: But here's where it gets tricky, and apocalyptic literature can be really weird like this.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: It can uh be very confusing.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: If we if we move into verses nine through eleven, we're not gonna have time to like deeply unpack this.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I want you, I want to show you there's a sense in which the beast was not, is not, Christ defeated the beast in the first advent, uh, but another sense in which he is.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh verses 9 to 11 says the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: The woman is harlot Babylon.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're also seven kings.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this beast has seven heads, they represent seven kings.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some people think mountains represent empires, some people just say it's the same as kings.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have time for all that.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say it's the seven hills of Rome.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but five have fallen of these kings.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: One is, and the other is not yet come.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so it has seven heads, seven kings, and one of those kings is.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a very real sense in which the beast is and is not at the same time.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and what sense is it?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is it not?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Christ defeated as first coming.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: In what sense is it?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the sense that these persecuting powers live on.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in what sense is it to come, future?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, it is to come out of the abyss.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: There is a return of the beast.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And as it finishes here, it it says, the other is not yet come.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when he does come, uh he must remain only a little while.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: As for the beast that wasn't is not, it is an eighth, but it belongs to the seven and it goes to the destruction.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So now this is the weirdness of apocalyptic literature.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And why it's like, is that a is that one of the heads or is it the beast itself?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is yes, here, because the beast actually becomes the whole eighth head in verse 11.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: The beast that wasn't is not, it is an eighth.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is an eighth head or an eighth king that belongs to the seven and goes to destruction.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the fluidity of apocalyptic literature where the head of the beast can be the whole beast at the exact same time.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, or a beast can be both is and is not at the exact same time.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you see that fluidity, and I think we just have to uh just allow John's visions to play out as they did, and it's like dreams.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Dreams don't have to necessarily make total perfect logical sense.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think just if I could zoom out and give you a real big picture, chapter 13, very clearly, this there's a mortal wound, a deadly wound that kills the beast, but then it rises again.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's resurrection and uh death and resurrection right there.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Revelation 13, when it talks about is to come, seems to be talking about some kind of return.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh preterist, and when I say this, I'm talking about partial preterists.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even give preterist the time of day because it's heretical.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: They believe Jesus' second coming has already occurred.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: False.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: But partial preterists, uh, they'll look at it like this.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: When it talks about five, uh read the verse again, it says five of whom have fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: They read it like this five of whom have fallen, that's five Caesars.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Julius uh through Claudius, that's the first five.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: One is, they take that to mean Nero.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're right, uh that would mean that Revelation was written at an early date, which is central to uh their view of the book of Revelation.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: So one is, that's Nero, and then one is uh, and then uh one will be for a little while, it says that's Galba, uh, reign for a very short time.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says after that there will be an eighth head of the beast, but this belongs to the seven and goes to destruction.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and when it says what predators will say uh is they'll say, well, an eighth head, this eighth king, doesn't have to come right after Galba.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it could come in anytime later.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the sequence, if I remember right, Vespasian is like the tenth, tenth or eleventh.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's the tenth, uh, if you count from Julius, which is already its own difficulty because a lot of people want to count from Augustus, and there's debate even over that, but we don't need to get lost in that debate.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: But Pretorists will say uh the fact that he changes the article from the seven heads to an eighth head or an eighth king, uh, means that the eighth king breaks the sequence.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: So for a lot of preterists, they'll view Vespasian as the Antichrist figure, this climactic eighth head of the beast.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're looking back in Roman history and they're saying, oh yeah, well, this happened literally in Roman history, and Vespasian was the presiding Caesar when uh when the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where I stand on that.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not calling partial preterists dumb.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's uh actually a very formidable formulation that needs to be really considered.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if you read the writings of Josephus, he refers to Vespasian as uh a chaste ruler.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Chaste is the word I remember, but it it was also like basically he was a charitable person, he was a good guy.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: That could never be said of an antichrist figure, like a culminating this eighth head of the beast.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so predators will look back and they'll say, well, this is fulfilled in Vespasian, who presided over, even if it wasn't his hand that destroyed Jerusalem in the end, it was Titus, uh, and his especially his soldiers, but uh, but they'll point to Vespasian.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing I do think that there is something to the breaking of the sequence between the seven heads and an eighth head.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so I would at least agree with partial preterist in this.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think that an eighth head does speak of some kind of ruler who was to come, and that it was depicted as something of a returned ruler or returned uh head of the beast.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because the the other way they'll word this is they'll say, well, like after Nero, uh you had this like uh I think it was called like the year of three emperors or something like that.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a lot of tumult where one Caesar is like in and out, like month a few months at a time, and Vespasian comes in and he brings stability.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so they look at this as sort of like a death of Rome and resurrection of Rome, in my opinion, kind of conflating it with the return.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so what I would say is no, the the death and resurrection of the beast, that was uh that was a Christ's first advent.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was the death and resurrection.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 17 speaks of a return.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if we want to go with Anne 8 head of the beast, speaking of some horrible ruler who's gonna bring desolation and desecration, I could get on board for preterase with that.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think Vespasian fits the character profile.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's future.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a final antichrist.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a final man of lawlessness who will ultimately take charge.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, and so big picture.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know we get really lost, and what is is to come and is not, return and resurrection.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like all of this, what I would say is just big picture, big picture.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 13, the death and resurrection of the beast, Revelation 17, on my reading, it's the return of the beast, and especially this final culminating eighth head that's gonna be Nero 2.0.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be even worse.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be the man of lawlessness, he's gonna come with signs and wonders, and he's gonna deceive the whole world and lead him in Armageddon, and we'll talk about Armageddon in a future chapter as well.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so you know, and I get asked, well, could it be the Islamic Empire and and what Joel Richardson is talking about?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it could.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't read the texts the exact same way that Joel does, but uh, but I do see this eighth head as being a tyrannical ruler, which does align with what Joel's saying uh in Islamic Antichrist, if you will.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know what nation he could come from.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Could be Germany, could be America, could be wherever.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but Daniel gives us this pattern of tyranny to look for, and John seems to pick up on it, and his visions seem to imagine a final persecuting ruler.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, Josh, I think that's kind of how I uh I would word it there.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let's work through some of this because uh I'm I've got Revelation 13 pulled up, and we've read verse uh what we've been reading, verse 14.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is that or no, no, we're we need to read verse 14.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've been spending most of our time in verse 3, but verse 12 and 14 repeat it, but they say it a little different too.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the the the the difference that matters.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll read verse three, just as a recap.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but it was a mortal wound, its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you go down to verses 14, well, verse 11, 12, and 13 are like talking about this beast performing like signs uh and wonders, it appears.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but by verse 14, and by the signs that it was allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on the earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it suggests, and I don't think anybody's gonna take this as a literal sword, like who's walking around in the 21st century with a literal sword whacking people off.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it's definitely happening.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people are using uh blades to uh do damage.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be careful with the the YouTube uh speech rules.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um certainly um that that that is still happening to some degree, but it's hard to kind of fathom some of this.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: You you may mention in your book that the word for wound is like the word for plague, and that seems interesting.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, should we take that to be more of like like why why do even translators go with sword if that's the same word used for plague elsewhere in Revelation?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the same Greek word for wound and sword, but the two ideas are related.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: So no, I mean why is wounded the same word as a Greek word for yeah.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, so we can read of the beast being essentially slain or wounded in Revelation 13.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: So wounded is a is a different word, and it is the word uh in the rest of Revelation that can be translated as plague.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why I think that matters is that the death of the beast in Revelation 13 is divinely administered.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it seems something beyond, like I said earlier, an empire dying of natural causes or Nero stabbing his own throat.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a plague is something very, very obviously and clearly this divine uh uh execution, for lack of better word.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 14, when it mentions the sword, it's in associated with that wound.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because elsewhere in Revelation, Christ's sword is associated with his judgment.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 1, verse 16, 2, verse 12, verse 16, uh, chapter 19, verses 15 and 21, Christ's sword is associated with his judgment.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so Josh, I think, and I make this argument in the book, uh, probably more eloquently than I can say it with my words, but um, I think this bolsters the argument that Christ defeated the beast in his first advent.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was part of his judgment, a plague almost.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was his sword coming down on Caesar's Rome, but more than Rome, the kingdom of man.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was the inauguration of his judgment, just as he says in John 12, now is the judgment of the world.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: That judgment was inaugurated in the first coming of Jesus, portrayed here as a wound and as a sword and as a beast who is killed.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think a very strong argument can be made.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when you pair that with the parallel to Revelation chapter 12, we've already discussed, it really does look like Jesus destroyed the beast on the cross.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and yet he lives on with his persecuting powers, just as Satan, after his defeat at the first advent, lives on with his persecuting powers.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we still have to live with it for a while.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that judgment is consummated at Christ's return.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Josh, I think that's an important part of the argument.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got this um this account of the so we have this account of the beast.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the beast is going to be wounded, uh, some kind of resurrection, whether figurative or literal, you're you're open to both of those interpretation, it it appears.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but how what what's the the end for the beast?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: What's what's the expectation that believers should be having in the midst of this very little literal or figurative kind of uh persecution of the saints?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great question.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: So uh there's a great indicator here in Revelation 17.8.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we've already read it, but this bears repeating.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to rise from a bottomless pit and go to destruction.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we already talked about was and is and is to come.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: So so this counterfeit was and is not and is about to rise.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a very real sense in which the beast is not and is about to return.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the resurrection of chapter 13, the return of chapter 17 that's described as this rising from a bottomless pit, but notice it finishes with, and it will go to destruction.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was and is not and is about to rise, but only for a little while.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's gonna go to destruction.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so this final resurgence, this ultimate culmination is not something I think that we should expect to last for a really long time.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's gonna be short.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um and maybe, you know, Daniel's timeline, you'll talk about time, times, and a half time.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: You see um uh Antichus Epiphanes, his persecution uh uh the fourth Epiphanes, his persecution lasted a little over three years, three to three and a half.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh by some reckonings, Nero's like real, like major persecution lasted about that long.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, could there be a rolling fulfillment?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would love that.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Less just a few years there.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but either way, I I I wouldn't say anything on that definitively, but it seems like it's gonna be short term, it's going to end in destruction.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: We know why later, because Jesus is going to return and destroy it.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want to read you something else that I think is on a more hopeful note than you know, beast and rising from an abyss and all of this.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and by the way, we're gonna have to talk a lot about this beast and rising from the abyss when we talk about the millennium.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna have time for that today, though.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll have a whole Another episode talking about the millennium.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: But this formula was, is, is to come, or was, is not, is to come and be destroyed.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another version of it in Revelation chapter 11, the blowing of the seventh trumpet.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: It says this.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Real quick, you notice he says, Kingdom of the world.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've called it the kingdom of man.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so this agrees with, I think.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just like, hey, the kingdom of America, or the kingdom of China, or the kingdom of Russia.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: All of that together is a composite, the kingdom of the world.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it all gets absorbed by the kingdom of God and of his Christ Jesus.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, in the 24 elders who sit on their thrones, they fall down on their face and they're saying, We give thanks to you, God Almighty, who what who is and who was.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: For you have taken your great power and begun to rage, and the nations rage, but your wrath came.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: In the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding your servants, the prophets, the saints, those who fear your name, both small and great, and for for destroying the destroyers of the earth.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's destroying the destroyers, so there's no more destruction.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's perfect world.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it happens at the return of Jesus, the seventh trumpet.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: But did you catch the formula?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: It says the Lord Almighty, who is and who was.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say is to come, because there he's already come back.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so the scene concludes with the temple in heaven is open and the ark of the covenant is seen within within the temple.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so it's sort of like this culmination of what happened at Calvary where Jesus dies on the cross and the veil is torn open and we have access to go into the temple.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: But now it's almost like the culmination, and the uh it's not just like, hey, we can come, it's like, hey, Jesus and his whole temple, it's all coming to us.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's seeing the ark in heaven and the destroyers are destroyed.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it talks about people being judged, the kingdom of this world becoming the kingdom of our Lord and Christ.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all culminating in this moment right here.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can talk about the beast, and we can talk about the little horn and its symbolism, we can talk about the eighth head of the beast and this great culmination.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, the kingdom of this world is going to become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and the destructive effects of empires that devour and crush, that's why God portrays them as beasts.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's going to be done away with.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we will forever live, not with the beast, but with the lamb.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he rules his kingdom in a completely different way.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: He is meek, he is gentle, he is kind, he is loving, he is sacrificial.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Does he judge?
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: He vanquishes evil, he destroys the destroyers, but so that he can be gentle and kind toward us, us, we who believe.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: So uh there is a hopeful direction here.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this eighth head of the beast, this final culminating manifestation, is going to be short-lived, and Jesus is going to ultimately judge it.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: So he judged the beast in his first coming on my reading, and he will finish the beast at his second coming.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, just as it happens for Satan, he judged Satan at his first coming, he will finish him at his second on my reading.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh, but ultimately, whether you throw a thousand years in there somewhere in a millennium, we talk about that another day.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, we all have the same blessed hope.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is coming and he's going to make every wrong thing right.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why you should go pick up the world made right.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, see how I did that?
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, you should guys go check out that book.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've got a link of it in the description.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can pre-order it right now.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's fantastic work, highly recommend it.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're looking to kind of do a little bit more of a deep dive into the book of Revelation, uh, Michael's book is full of stories from his own personal life, uh, really simple applications, uh, and he makes the book of Revelation very simple.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: We we love doing videos like this where we can really get into some of the nitty-gritty uh stuff.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're kind of looking for a more linear chapter-by-chapter explanation, lots of stories, lots of really great illustrations, uh, I'd encourage you to go pick up his book.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like I said, link for it in the description.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Michael, thanks so much for uh jumping on this program and doing an Antichrist part two with us.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I hope uh listeners have been encouraged, built up by it.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was a great place to land the plane.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna see you next week.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when uh well, what are we discussing next week, Michael?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh next week, talking about the rapture.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's favorite get out of jail free card.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'll see you then, guys, uh, next Monday from 4 to 5 p.m.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: Central Standard Town.