and that again tells us that that Antichrist is a word that applies to
things that are subtle things that are tricky deceivers seducers tricksters
there's a lot of them they've gone out into the world and they are trying to
lead subtly away from the truth of Jesus Christ that's what we've read in first
John and second John we've looked up all five references to the word Antichrist
and what have we found this is what we learned just from studying our Bibles
not from listening to any speculation but just reading the Good Book ourselves
which I've done in which now you have seen we have learned that there are many
antichrists we've learned that they are deceptive and tricky and subtle we've
learned that they come from within the church and try to lead people astray
we've learned that they are here now and we've learned that Christians true
Christians must do battle with them and overcome them through the power of God
isn't that right that's what we've learned that's the foundation that we
have learned from first and check second John now there are other passages in the
books of Daniel and revelation although they don't use the word specifically
Antichrist Daniel talks about a little horn that is definitely Antichrist that
we're going to be looking at very shortly Paul and second Thessalonians 2
talked about something called the mystery of lawlessness and that wicked
witch is definitely Antichrist and then in the book of Revelation there's
something called the beast this beast that rises up out of the sea which is
not david hasselhoff but something else but anyway revelation talks about this
Paul talks about this Daniel talks about this and most scholars are pretty clear
on the fact that these references in the prophecies are definitely referring to
something that is Antichrist even though the word specifically is not used now
here's my question if the only times in the Bible when the word is used is in
first John and second John and we've learned that there's many they come from
within their subtle and they're deceptive and that they it applies to
something that Christians have to overcome would it make any sense when
when you go to Dan revelation that talks about the horn and
the Beast and this mystery of iniquity which is definitely Antichrist that the
prophecies which shift gears away from the foundation that's been laid in the
Bible and then talk about something that is from the outside of the church and
something that Christians have nothing to do with and don't have to do battle
with would that make any sense would it make sense for the prophecies to
completely move in a different direction from the direction that has been laid in
first and second John I don't think so and as we keep on going I think it's
going to be very very clear what this is talking about let's go to the Book of
Daniel Daniel chapter 7 Daniel is the the parallel to the book of Revelation
it's basically the revelation of the Old Testament Daniel chapter 7 let's take a
look at this and we don't have time to go into all the details and if you want
to do a lot more study on this I want to recommend this book n time delusions n
time delusions deals with all of this history there's a whole section on
Antichrist all these issues everything I'm saying to you today is inside this
book plus a whole lot more a whole lot more so we're gonna look at Daniel 7
then we're going to talk about some history and then we're going to continue
and talk about the big battle that is actually going on right in front of our
eyes if we have eyes to see it and to understand spiritual discernment of
really what's going on around us so Daniel chapter 7 let's do a little bit
of study here as we build up to what daniel says about the little horn Daniel
7 verse 1 Daniel was in in Babylon he had a dream the Bible says in the first
year of Belshazzar the king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his
head while upon his bed he wrote down the dream telling the main facts in
verse 3 in his dream he saw for great what four great beasts and they rose up
they rose up from the sea four of them each different from the other verse 4
says the first was like what kind of an animal
like a lion right and it had eagle's wings and then in verse 5 suddenly
another beast a second one like what kind of an animal like a bear right and
the bear rose up and it had three ribs in its mouth and a word was given to it
to arise and devour much flesh in verse 6 daniel said after this I looked in my
dream and he said there was another beast and what did it what kind of an
animal was it like it was like a leopard right a leopard that had four heads and
four wings verse 7 after this I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth
beast dreadful and terrible and exceedingly strong it had huge iron
teeth it was devouring breaking in pieces and trampling the residue with
its feet it was different from all the beasts that were before it and it had
ten horns so here we have four beasts we have a lion we have a bear we have a
leopard we have a dragon or a dragon like these some beasts that really
Daniel didn't exactly know what to call it he'd probably seen some lions in his
day he might have seen some bears he might have seen some leopards but he had
never seen anything like this fourth beast so here we have in in prophecy I
often call this God's prophetic zoo God zoo now obviously these beasts are
symbols of something we can't expect real beast like this to be rising up out
of the pacific ocean or the atlantic ocean of the or the mediterranean sea
now the next question is in order to understand this we have to know what a
beast represents in prophecy what is a be some people think the beast is a the
beast is a big computer in Belgium you ever heard that idea big computer other
people of course most people think the beast in the book of Revelation is this
super bad guy it's this half man half devil like Nicolae Carpathia in the Left
Behind series but what does the Bible say just like we read first and second
John and we learn some new things what does the Bible say a beast represents
the fourth be shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth so if the fourth
beast is the fourth Kingdom then the third beast would be wet the third
kingdom and the second beast would be the second Kingdom and the first beast
would be the first Kingdom and so we know according to the angel not
according to Steve Wahlberg not according to any church but according to
the angel of God in Daniels dream the angel said that these different beasts
represent represent kingdoms and i would say ninety-eight percent of all Bible
scholars throughout Christian history and even before that who have studied
this particular chapter just about all of them are in agreement about who these
four beasts are what nation was Daniel in when he had the dream he was in
Babylon right and if you go to Germany there is a museum they're called the
Pergamum museum and I've been there and what is there is a reconstruction of
some of the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon somebody went to Babylon to the
ruins they brought some of the rooms ruins back to the Pergamon Museum and
they reconstructed them and you can go there and you can see the procession way
that went right through the ishtar gate into Babylon and you can see all kinds
of images of winged lions that a winged lion was a symbol of ancient Babylon
it's a historical fact and just about all scholars have recognized that that
winged lion represented Babylon and what was the nation that conquered babylon it
was Persia medo-persia and what was the nation that conquered Greece or conquer
death there you go that conquered the leopard it was Greece right Alexander
the Great and he was very fast he conquered the world in eight years for
in the name of Greece that the Macedonian Prince this is basic history
and I think that's why God represented Greece as a leopard because it was very
fast and then what nation what fourth nation conquered Greece it was Rome
that's right they that the Roman Empire which was the greatest and most powerful
of all the nations that were that were before it and again just about all
scholars recognize Babylon Persia Greece and Rome it
perfectly fits this prophecy and there you see on the screen there now let's go
back to Daniel let's take a look again at the seventh verse at the end of verse
7 when it talks about that fourth beast that terrible strong beast which
represents the Roman Empire no question about it it says at the end it had how
many horns it had ten horns right ten horns and what happened when the Roman
Empire fell it was divided among various nations ten nations in Western Europe
now then if you keep going in verse 8 daniel says i was considering the horns
i was looking at those ten horns that came out of the fourth beast the roman
empire and behold there came up and what came up he said there came up another
horn another horn a little one coming up among them before whom there were three
of the first horns plucked up by the roots and they're in this horn there
were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things