Shabbat Shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome to Part 50 of this course on the Book of Revelation series. This is Part B of chapter 13, verses 11 to 18 that covers the material in which we are looking at the (first) Beast's or Antichrist's assistant, the second Beast or False Prophet (Rev.16:13; 19:20; 20:10), who is represented symbolically as a lamb with two horns. And behind both lies the (to humanity) invisible Dragon, whose is a picture of Heylel, Satan, the Adversary or the Devil.

The second Beast or 'Dark Lamb' as I like to call him, is the Anti-Messiah's (Antichrist's) coadjutor, helper or assistant. He possesses superhuman powers even though he is himself a human being like you and me. He is obsessed and energised by satanic power. His rôle is to assist or aid the Antichrist's political agenda by deceiving mankind in the spiritual and psychic realms. As a false navi (prophet) his job description is to deliberately tell lies.

Last week we were reminded of the 'spirit of antichrist' which makes anyone who comes under the influence of this controlling dark spirit, to whatever degree, an 'antichrist' with a lower-case 'a' as dictinct from the Antichrist with an upper-case 'A' as the lamb with two horns is here in today's text. So in the Enemy's camp we find the following:

• 1. The end-time Anti-Messiah or Antichrist (First Beast);
• 2. Potentially millions of little 'antichrists' (with some more powerful figures with leading rôles like the Hitlers, Stalins, Maos and globalist élites being especially distinguished);
• 3. The end-time False Prophet (Second Beast);
• 4. Potentially millions of little 'false prophets' (with some more influential figures like the Mormons' Joseph Smith, theb Jehovah's Witness' Charles Taze Russel, the Adventists' Ellen White, the Theoosophists' Helena Petrovna Blavetsky, New Age Christianity's Elizabeth Claire Prophet, Maitrea's henchman Benjamin Creme, the charismatics' Kenneth Copeland, teh Catholics' Pope Francis, the Anglicans' Archbishop Justin Wellby, and many, many more too numerous to list); and last but not least
• 5. The spirit from Satan, the Dragon, which animates all of these people to one degree or another.

As far as the many false prophets I have mentioned are concerned, not all set out to maliciously do evil but were, and are, themselves deceived. Many are sincerely deceived, and then not all the time. All of us, in our unredeemed states, and when we choose to operate in the flesh instead of the Ruach (Spirit), especially when speaking on the subject of religion and spirituality, may be regarded as 'false prophets' too, sad to say. The apostle Peter was very briefly, you will remember, when he tried to prevent Yah'shua (Jesus) from going to Jerusalem to die, whom his Master rebuked speaking to him as though he were speaking to Satan himself for Peter had momentarily given voice to the devil. So we should none of us be so smug as to consider ourselves immune from prophesying falsely.

Some of these false prophets repent and become true nevi'im (prophets), or otherwise mostly speak truly, so we must pray for them and not paint them all with the same thickness of brush. As with the woman caught in adultery and given a last chance by Christ in John 8, even though this was a capital offense in the Law of Moses, so too in the New Covenant, at least, do those falsely prophesying have the opportunity to repent, make such restitution as they are able to, and then thereafter live as they ought to. There is mercy but there are strict limits. I can think of many Continuationists, especially in the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, who need to do some very serious soul-searching who have falsely prophesied but never publically confessed or ceased speaking their own words in the Name of the Most High. They are playing with the very thing they love to talk about and call upon, as they suppose, namely fire.

Now I am speaking here as one who was once guilty of this sin two decades ago when I got ahead of Yahweh and falsely predicted when the current collapse was going to happen. If I am to be brutally honest, I wanted to be heard and to vainly make a name for myself. Oh, I made a name for myself alright and was publically humiliated on national television. I had to eat humble pie for many years. I did what was right and made a public retraction and apology, not for the prophecy itself (which is coming true as I speak) but for trying to 'force' Yahweh to give me a date and ended up getting a word from the dark side for my presumption. That's one major reason I never give prtophetuc dates, especially when people ask me for one, unless I have clearly been given it by Yahweh with no fleshy motivations on my part to cloud my judgment. So I know what I am talking about here. I cringe whenever I hear a false prophet speak false prophesy for I remember only too well my own presumptuousness, as when Kenneth Copeland stood in his pulpit and on television pronounced 'in Jesus' name' that Covid was dead from that moment. It's still here with us and that fraud never apologised or made a public retraction because he was afraid, no doubt, to destroy his reputation and ministry. Likewise very few who prophesied beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump would win a second consecutive presidency, never made a public retraction and apology but rather made excuses. Evangelical Christianity suffered a major setback in credibility as a result of that failure. So if you have falsely prophesied, do what's right, 'eat crow' as the Americans say, and step back until Yahweh gives you permission to resume. Don't just continue and prestend as though noting ever happened.

Starting a couple of years ago we had a course on the Prophets and Prophecy (which, incidentally, I haven't properly finished yet and hope to resume sometime) called The Return of the Elijah Prophets which, if you didn't attend this or aren't familiar with the content which is on our website, you might find helpful background material to a full understanding as to who the Second Beast is and how he works. When Yah'shua (Jesus) discoursed on the great end-time tribulation, He warned most forcibly against false nevi'im (prophets) as well as against false messiahs (christs), and spoke of their great work and power to deceive and destroy (Mt.24:5,11,24). One of the important rôles of messianic (christian) nevi'im (prophets) is to expose false prophets and prophecy, lifting up a warning voice to the world, telling people not to heed them, for they are the forerunners of the False Prophet (Second Beast) and are, whether willingly or unwillingly, whether consciously or unconsciously, acting in the employment of the Antichrist who is the agent of the Devil himself. Countering them is therefore extremely important, a reason no doubt why two of our five commissions - the 3rd and 4th, 'Planting Keys of Truth' and 'Lifting up a Warning Voice' respectively - figure prominently alongside 'Making Disciples' and 'Gathering'. To neglect actively exposing false prophets and prophesy is to run numerous risks both to oneself and to millions of souls who need deliverance. We cannot afford to wander off to destruction listening to the pied pipers of Babylon and participating unawares in the Dragon's end-time Agenda!

The Second Beast's or False Prophet's portrayal as a 'dark lamb' then makes perfect sense. All he stands for, and promotes, is the opposite of the true Lamb of Elohim (God). So why does he have two horns and not ten as the First Beast does? The number '10' denotes dominion or rulership where as '2' speaks of testimony, in this case, false testimony. The False Prophet speaks as a Dragon - subtlely, craftily and deceitfully:

"Now the serpent (Satan) was more crafty (cunning, artful, wily) than any other wild animal..." (Gen.3:1, NRSV).

Unfortunately, we all of us, if we aren't very careful, have similar carnal dispositions, for as the apostle Paul warned:

"But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ" (2 Cor.11:3, NRSV).

The alliance between the First and Second Beasts is an alliance of Politics and Religion, a dangerous and often deadly combination that was the ruination of ancient Israel. That's why many of the Christian Trump pundits got it wrong. This is a reason to beware of 'state churches' and 'state religion' because the institutional church is always subordinate to political power, a reason we aren't registered anymore. It rarely calls political power out when it pursues evil though sometimes it has been known to courageously do so only to later be 'brought in line' when it has served its usefulness. Hitler created the Reichs Church to be an agent of his political agenda. Mein Kampf replaced the Bible on its altars. When the going got bad during the Second World War, even though the Soviet Union was officially an atheistic state that persecuted Christians, Stalin recruited Eastern Orthodox Priests to inspire his soldiers to fight on, when the Soviet state was on the very brink of destruction, by blessing them before they went into battle. Do I need to even talk about the 'state churches' in the modern West? The Anglican Church in the UK has completely sold its soul out to the woke agenda of the neo-Marxist political establishment as did the Lutheran Church in Norway and Sweden (to name but two examples) who became little more than social clubs parroting the socialist, egalitarian politics of the modernist and postmodernist establishment before being unceremoniously discarded as state churches. They had outlived their political usefulness as religion declined.

If you have a traditional, conservative Evangelical Protestant background then you will know that when it comes to the Book of Revelation everything is usually interpreted as a contest between 'the true Church' on the one hand and 'Popery' on the other...or Protestantism vs. Catholicism. Until the rise of modern Zionism at the end of the 19th century, Jews were rarely mentioned in Protestant circles in connection with either the Book of Revelation or biblical prophecy in general because before then they were not much in view. Every generation, as I keep on reminding you, tends to use a lens for the interpretation of prophetic Scripture based on what's going on at the time. This is a huge mistake precisely because, as I have been pointing out again and again, all the end of the end-time prophecies are global in scope.

The vision of those who are not authentic nevi'im (prophets) is usually so narrow that his prophetic conception resembles more a village club and its local interests than the mighty crisis for universal Sovereignty. Even 'global' is too narrow-a-view of the scope of Revelation because the vista is truly cosmic in scale. It's about the whole of Creation. And so between the time of the Great Schism in Roman Catholiciam at the beginning of the 11th century and the Reformation of the 16th, all that Bible readers could see in the Book of Revelation was the Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church as the cause of all religious trouble! Then the all the Protestants could see was the Roman Catholic Church. Then it was the revolutionary French Republic, then Nazi Germany, then (in combination with Zionism) the Soviet Union who was the big bad wolf, people like Hal Lindsey said, who would invade the Holy Land, and so on and so on. As we shall see when we arrive at chapter 17, believers feel a compulsive need to identify the Great Whore (Rev.17:1,15-16; 19:2) because she more often than not provides a scapegoat and a distraction for the one falsely claiming to be 'the true Church'. And now there are Messianics, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, who claim that the Whore is the whole 'church system', lumping Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, and all the other groups together.

But let's put the 'Whore' ('Prostitute', 'Harlot') to one side, interesting and important though she is, until we arrive at chapter 17 and instead focus on the two Beasts today. Now we can't possibly examine all the various interpretations as there isn't time but I think it would be true to say that for the longest time the two Beasts have been viewed by scholars as two aspects of the same thing, and not two individual persons as anyone with common sense can plainly see that they are. All scriptures that speak of these Beasts regard them as individuals - two men endowed with super-human, demonic powers. And at some point we are going to have to ask ourselves a similar question about the 'Whore' - is this an actual woman - a human being like the Antichrist and False Prophet - or the female personification of something else? Or both?

So as we are given no grounds anywhere in Scripture for concluding these two Beasts are anything other than flesh-and-blood men - a 'Mr.Antichrist' and a 'Mr.False' prophet if you will - then clearly they are yet-to-come. There are those who have tried to make Judas Iscariot fit their description! And though his sin was surely terrible, his evilness did not have the scope of the two Beasts. We need not suppose, either, that the second Beast or False Prophet is a mere 'spirit' - equivalent to the 'spirit of Antichrist' - who happens to take possession of a particular man. Certainly, there is a 'spirit of false prophecy', as I have already been arguing for, but that does not mean there isn't a man who, through demon-possessed with dark spirits whose speciality is in the issuing of false prophecies, who is literally the 'false Prophet'. Both propositions are biblically true. No doubt the second Beast is possessed like no other false prophet before him by demonic powers, whom we might rightly conclude is fully possessed by the spirit of the Dragon...by satan himself, as is the first Beast or Anti-Messiah.

Whoever he is, and whatever spirit he is energised by, it is abundantly clear that the second Beast will be a most efficient agent of evil. I recently read an article that explored why the worst President of the United States (prior on the present one, that is) was also the most loved. He was one of the worst liars ever and caused more damage to his nation than any other before him, and yet he charmed a majority into trusting him and voting him into office twice. If you have ever met a charming man who was a rogue of the deepest dye you'll understand what I am talking about. Well, both the first and second Beasts take the ability to charm further than any world leader has hitherto accomplished. And when you have two of them working together, you have a potent combination. The second Beast 'causes' things to happen because of his ability to mesmerise and sway the population into following him. As the late New Ager Benjamin Creme was to Maitrea, the latter of whom supernaturally travelled from India and transmaterialised in Kenya a few years ago converting whole congregations of duped Protestant Christians, so the False Prophet will be to the Antichrist, only orders of magnitude more so.

My wife and I have been watching a gripping science fiction series called Manifest. I watch science fiction not just because I enjoy that kind of genre of movie but because I have learned that the Enemy both anounces his intentions in advance through this medium as well as revealing what he is up to. Though it has never entirely been explained to me why, it seems that the Enemy is either compelled to announce all he is going to do in advance in some way, however crytpically, or he gets some sort of perverse pleasure in doing so for its own sake because he wants to convince himself, and his devotees, that he truly has god-like powers. So as a 'Watchman in Zion' I like to keep my eyes open everywhere I can, just as the Enemy watches Yahweh's people for clues as to what the Creator is up to so as to get a hoped-for advantage through an authentic prophetic word. We watch each other as combattants at war do.

What's interesting about Manifest is that it breaks new ground in science fiction, mixing science and religion in a new way. As I mentioned last week, we have moved out of the purely scientific 'humanist' paradigm of the last century in particular and into the new globalist 'New World Order' one - the Antichrist System - which combines science, politics and a religion appropriate for the kind of 'New Age' the devil is now actively crafting in which the events of the Book of Revelation come to life visibly:

In Manifest an airliner disappears for 5½ years and then mysterious reappears out of nowhere. The passengers haven't aged a day yet all around them everyone is 5½ years older. As you can imagine, their reappearance causes chaos, not only in relationships but in the implications of what has actually happened, for not only does the original plane return (to subsequently mysteriously blow up on US soil) but they later find the wreckage in the sea as well. So there are two aircraft out of the original one and it soon becomes clear that the passengers have all mysteriously been 'resurrected'. I mention this to you only to sensitise you to what the movie industry is doing in preparing the world - or at least some of those of us interested in SciFi - to a wholly new and rescripted concept of 'resurrection'.

As ever, we have to be very careful with words to ensure that when two people use the same word we are talking about the same thing. Satan has a deliberately nasty habit of dressing up something counterfeit and false with the same vocabulary Christians/Messianics use, thus 'stealing' the word and robbing it of its original meaning. You see, chapter 14 speaks of a 'resurrection' too, though it doesn't use the word, but it isn't what it seems to be. Let's read today's segment one last time, Revelation 13:11-18, so that we can get more context:

"11 Then I saw another ('second' - JB) beast ('monster', KNT; 'animal' - JPB; 'strange animal' - LB) (also called the 'false prophet' - Rev.16:13; 19:20; 20:10) coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb (Dan.8:3) and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast (Rev.13:4) in his presence ('on its behalf', NIV) (Rev.13:14), and causes the earth and those who dwell in it (Rev.13:8) to worship the first beast ['on its behalf' - NRSV] (Rev.13:15; 14:9,11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4), whose deadly wound was healed (Rev.13:13). 13 He performs great signs (Mt.24:24; Rev.16:14; 19:20), so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men ('while people watched' - JB, JNT; Aram. 'before the sons of men' - HRV; 'all' - NRSV; 'in front of people' - ESV) (1 Ki.18:38; 2 Ki.1:10; Lk.9:54; Rev.11:5; 20.9). 14 And he deceives ('will seduce' - HRV; 'led astray' - Barclay) (Rev.12:9) those who dwell on the earth (Rev.13:8; 3:10) by those signs (2 Thess.2:9-10) which he was granted ('allowed' - ESV) to do in the sight ('presence' - ESV; 'on behalf' - ESValt, NASB, NIV) of the beast (Rev.12:9; 13:12; 19:20) [1], telling those who dwell on the earth to [that they should] make an image ('statue' - JB) to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived (Rev.13:3). 15 He was granted power to give breath ('spirit' - ISRV) to ('breathe life into' - JB; 'impart the breath of life to' - Moff.; 'give the breath of life to' - JBP) the image ('statue' - JB, LB) of the beast, that the image ('statue' - JB) of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed ('condemn to death...' - JBP) (Dan.3:3-7,15). 16 He causes all, both small and great (Rev.19:5), rich and poor, free and slave ('bondservant' - ESV; Aram. 'masters and servants' - HRV), to receive ('be tattooed' - LB) a ['certain' - LB] mark ('branded' - JB, Barclay) on their right hand or on their foreheads (Rev.7:3; 14:9; 20:4), 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark (Rev.14:9) or the name of the beast, or the ['code' - LB] number ('cipher' - Moff.) of his name (Rev.14:11; 15:2. 18 Here is ['a puzzle that calls for' - LB] ('This calls for' - KNT) wisdom ('shrewdness' - JB; 'careful thought to solve it' - LB) (Rev.19:9). Let him who has understanding ('Let the discerning' - Moff.; 'those who are able' - LB) calculate ('count' - JNT/CJB; 'work out' - KNT) the number ('cipher' - Moff.) of the beast, for it is the number ('numerical value' - LB) of a man ('a man's number' - NIV) (Rev.15:2; 21:17): His number is 666 ('Six hundred and Sixty-Six' - KNT, HRV, Moff., RSV, JBP, Barclay) ('six hundred and sixteen' or '616' in some MSS)" (Rev. 13:11-18, NKJV).

First of all let me draw your attention to a phrase in verse 12, "the earth and those who dwell in it". This is a particular kind of redundant or superfluous figure of speech known as a pleonasm and is a peculiarly Hebrew charactistic of this book, aagain evidence that the original was in either Hebrew or Aramaic. A 'pleonasm' is the use of more words than are needed to underline what it is the text is talking about. In other words, what's being discussed is global and covers every person alive and everything that's going on at every level of society - it's not just about 'the church' and 'the Vatican'. The text is therefore talking about the political, the social, the psychic, the religious, the scientific, entertainment...everything that makes up mankind on planet earth. The sphere of activity of the first Beast (the Antichrist) is political (i.e. it's all about power and dominion) and the sphere of the second Beast (the false Prophet) is religious (social, psychological, etc.). Between them they will address all political systems, merging them into one, and all religious, social and philosophical systems, again merging them into one too. And the basis of the worship which the first Beast receives, with the aid of the second Beast, will be the former's miraculous resurrection.

Now, whilst this won't be an actual 'resurrection' in the sense that the Bible otherwise speaks of - it wont't be the making of an immortal being as Yah'shua (Jesus) was when He was raised from the dead - it will be so staged as to make it seem to be so. This will be the devil's 'next-best-thing'...his own counterfeit version of the true resurrection...and it will be so convincing that it will form the basis of the world's worship if the first Beast in the same way as it is the basis of the Christian/Messianic worship of the true Son of Elohim (God). As I keep re-emphasising, the core of the Besorah - the Gospel or Good News - is the physical resurrection of the mortal Messiah to the immortal Messiah. Satan knows this which is why Satan must duplicate its physical aspect it in some way because this is the only phenomenon which will generate the kind of faith and worship which he craves. People soon lose interest in concepts of purely 'spiritual' resurrection which they can't physically handle like secular Thomas's. One of the things that convinced me the Book of Mormon was fake (and not just because of its internal contradictions and lack of any actual geographical and historical context in the real world) is the original 'plates' never had any sort of objective physical existence because those witnesses who testified to 'seeing' them were actually in some sort of psychic trance, as one of the witnesses later revealed. They only 'saw' them 'in vision'.

So what gets the world to worship the first Beast is this miraculous pseudo-'resurreection'? Oh, he will literally come back from the dead to be sure, but he won't be immortal and he won't be divine! But he will possess the supernatural powers of the Devil to make him look immortal and divine, sufficient to convince carnal, lawless souls who have rejected the true Christ. But because this is all a fake, it cannot generate the same kind of quality faith that we as true believers have toward the Divine Son of Heaven, and therefore people will need some 'prodding' or inducement to pay the Antichrist divine homage, just as the Caesars did in ancient Rome 2,000 years ago. The 'prodding' comes in the form of the usual totalitarian 'death threats'. Importantly for us, as believers, there is nothing in all this satanic showmanship that isn't beyond our faith to resist and reject, even upon pain of a death-threat. And believe me, the blood will flow, just as it did in the Roman arenas when Christians were thrown to the lions and handed over to gladiators for execution. No one is going to be 'raptured' away from all of this.

This satanic resurrection is an illusion. It's a thaumaturgy - a resuscitation - which devil worshippers are quite able to do because I have encountered this as a deliverance minister. The devil can physically heal (again, I know of devil worshippers invoking Satan's power to instantly restore broken bones and heal diseases) and he can bring back corpses to life (if you know anything about Voodoo you know this is a reality at a certain level) but he cannot bring about actual resurrection. I mention this precisely to warn about demon-inspired healings taking place in so-called christian churches where false doctrine and paganism freely mingle...as they do in the charismatic movement. Most large churches are infiltrated by devil-worshippers to one degree or another - the more liberal, the more infiltrated. I think I recently related the account of how N.T.Wright was the instrument of delieverance of an ultra-feminist Anglican priest from the spirit of Lilith and how her character transformation was instantaneous and she saw that what she was steered by was a lust for power (the spirit of Antichrist) and not a desire to be the vessel of the true love-bearing Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit)!

Satan wants to be worshipped and so do his followers, like the Roman Caesars and many a human ruler since, so there's nothing 'new' in all of this. Indeed we're given a perfect example in King Herod who was more than happy to receive divine homage but consider what happened to him when he did:

"On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, 'This is the voice of a god, not of a man.' Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to Elohim (God), a malak (angel) of Yahweh struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died" (Acts 12:21-23, NIV).

The 'New Age' religious paradigm of the New World Order is based on the teaching that we are all gods and as gods we have our 'own truth'...only some in that system, like the Anti-Messiah, are 'more divine than others' (compare that with George Orwell's satire of communism, Animal Farm, where the ruling pigs claim that 'all animals are equal but some are more equal than others'). You see, the self-appointed godlets, encouraged to claim divinity by the false religious system, will be expected to worship the 'god of godlets', the Antichrist, in the same way they woprship their current gurus, the Copelands and Hinns, and the basis of his claim to final, absolute and total worship will be his fake resurrection.

History is full of similar examples of humans claiming divinity and it can easily repeat itself, though to be global, as the Two Beast System is, requires a performance on a much larger scale involving considerably more satanic power. Every new [Beast] religion of the last two centuries contains elements of this false system, from Blavatsky, Steiner, Freud, Marx and Ouspensky to Joseph Smith, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and the 'progressives' like Brian McLaren, Jon Pavlovitz, Reba Riley and Nadia Bolz-Weber (there are thousands of them, too many to name). They all belong to the same system and though the language has changed, the occult message is essentially the same. Yah'shua (Jesus) said that "whoever wants to be My talmid (disciple) must take up their cross and follow Me" (Mt.16:24, NIV) but these teachers from the pit, ancient and modern, are saying instead, "whoever wants to be my disciple must cicumcise themselves and follow me" or "must find the divine spark within herself and follow my hidden wisdom" or "must reject ideas like hell and judgment and simply follow my life of love and compassion"...you get the idea. There are a thousand-and-one mutations of this lie, none of which can save you. They're all designed to flatter the flesh.

In the new religion that's coming, Elohim (God) - Yahweh, the true Creator and His Son Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) - will be entirely left out because they're the only competition and a threat to the Antichrist system in which man is exalted and the Antichrist is worshipped. It will be - and already is - a combination of Luciferian 'wisdom', scientism, psychology and self-truthism, combined with all that panders to the lowest instincts of fallen humanity - every perversion you can think of, including forced euthanasia of the old and infirm, and state-approved pedophilia. This is not some mere speculation of the writer of the Book of Revelation but a prophetic certainty from Almighty Elohim (God). The Antichrist system is pure satanism and devil-worship...and out in the open for the last 3½ years to the horror of those who covenanted to be a part of it without understanding what it truly was. And there are plenty of movies that depict aspects of these things by way of announcement by the élites of what they intend to do, and in some cases have already done.

A fake resurrection isn't the only thing that Satan engineers to fool the people. We read:

"[The second Beast] performs great signs, so that [he] even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of people, and it deceives the people who live on earth by the signs which [he] has been allowed to perform in front of the [first Beast], instructing the earth's inhabitants to make an image of the [first Beast] who had the sword-wound but was alive" (Rev.13:13-14, KNT).

What people sometimes forget is that this is the second, not the first, witness of Scripture concerning these things for the apostle Paul, some 40 or so years before, had already prophesied to the Thessalonians:

"The coming of the Torahless (Lawless) one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason Elohim (God) sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness" (2 Thess.2:9-12, NIV).

The spirit of this second Beast - this monster, this false prophet - is already here, and has been here for a very long time but hasn't come to full fruition yet, though it is far advanced now in the second decade of the 21st century. The dechristianisation of the West, with its mixture of many false traditions blended with the truth, has opened the floodgates to this evil spirit haunting the nations. Again, I repeat, none of this is new but its rise and take-over of society went unnoticed because it was accomplished in such small increments, pizza slice fashion, a little bit at a time. Every minister - indeed, every believer - must be sensitised to these things and constantly lift up a warning voice, as Paul counselled the young evangelist Timothy:

"In the presence of Elohim (God) and of Messiah Yah'shua (Christ Jesus), who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Davar (Word); be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear" (2 Tim.4:1-4, NIV).

You know this passage only too well as it is preached over and over again in every generation. Wrong and evil teachings have been taught and received, every false 'revival' causes these false teachings to be further propagated on the wave of a false spirit that brings as its validating card a counterfeit 'love' in the form of a not easily testable feelings. One such counterfeit 'revival' is going on in a place called Asbury in the United States right now. How can we know it is counterfeit? Because it is validating lawlessness - Torahlessness by - by proclaiming it's god's acceptance of that which Yahweh calls an abomination. Its 'god' is the Dragon, its 'messiah' or 'christ' one the First Beast's many, many precursors, and its 'prophet' one of the Second Beast's many, many teachers. And Rome is in its midst too. What you are seeing is but the continuation of a long line of abominations building up in strength over the centuries, a chain of apostacies leading to the last great one which the Book of Revelation warns about. And if you are being fooled by the current 'revival' you're going to miss the authentic one when it comes; or if you do recognise it, it will be as an aggrieved sinner bewailing the confiscation of his stolen toys.

If there is one lesson I want you to take away from today's text it is that miracles in themselves are no evidence whatsoever of any divine mission from Yahweh. Doesn't the False Prophet - the second Beast - do many miracles in the sight of men in order to authenticate the Antichrist - the first Beast? If you believe, or teach, that miracles authenticate a mission or a revival then you either do not know your Scriptures or you do but choose to ignore them. Now hear this carefully and try not to interrupt me in the passion of the moment: Christ's miracles, as miracles, were no evidence of His Divine mission. The real evidence was that the miracles which He did were the very miracles which the Prophetic Word declared He should work, and which were on that account the sign and seal of His ministry. They were His credentials from Yahweh on high. Miracles validate the true message of Yahweh OR miracles invalidate the message by promoting a false message. The first is of Yahweh, the second is of the Dragon. You can only know who is bringing forth the miracle by the message that accompanies it. This is very clear from Matthew 11:1-6 which reads:

"After Yah'shua (Jesus) had finished instructing His twelve talmidim (disciples), He went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. When John [the Baptist] heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his talmidim (disciples) to ask Him, 'Are you the One who was to come, or should we expect someone else?' Yah'shua (Jesus) replied, 'Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the Besorah (Gospel, Good News) is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me'" (Matt.11:1-6, NIV).

Listen carefully now, don't miss this, because it is the difference between staying on the right track and going off on a false one. It was not that what Yah'shua (Jesus) did were miraculous acts that's the main thing, but that they were what Yahweh foretold, and the essence of their testimony was always to the truth of the Davar Elohim (Word of God). Miracles are given to confirm the authenticity of the Message, which in turn confirms the authenticity of the Messenger and the One (Yahweh) who sent the Messenger along with all the Word given before the sending of the Messenger (in the Tanakh or Old Testament). There are lots of things going on here and there is a hierarchy of value. The miracles are not unimportant but they are not the main thing! Have you per chance noticed that in Scripture that Christ's miracles are called 'signs' whereas the Antichrist's are called 'wonders'? There's a huge difference between the two kinds of miracles because they point to different things and persons. Christ's miracles are not for the crowd to gape at in wonderment but unfailingly point back to Christ and to His Word, and thence to the Word of the Father, the Torah - Yahweh's Instruction Manual and Law. Christ's miracles lead to repentance, reception of salvation and obedience to the mitzvot (commandments) as a single package. Salvation leads to proper discipling in the Davar (Word) - always. Christ is the Word, and the Word is Christ. Read the prologue to John's Gospel if you are in any doubt (Jn.1:1). One thing leads to another until the circle is completed and a complete separation from the world is accomplished and the one thus saved becomes dedicated to King and Kingdom and the restoration of fellowship with Yahweh the Father is accomplished.

Unlike the Anti-Messiah, the true Messiah Yah'shua (Jesus) never sends miracles to 'wow' the crowd. Never! And the ultimate miracle of the resurrection proves that. Miracles, as I have said so many times, never in and of themselves convert souls, as the First Exodus proves. Moses performed plenty of them but rebellions still followed. The miracles were not the end game - they had a purpose...to get the children out of Egypt and slavery and to Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the lifestyle of newly delivered Israel, to meet the King who gave the Torah and to get to the Promised Land. And they did. They heard His voice booming across the desert, causing the ground to shake. They were offered a direct relationship with Yahweh but they were too scared, their faith was too weak, and they deferred to Moses as an intermediary...or said they would. You know how all that went.

You must not miss this important lesson because it is the framework of all lessons that follow in the Bible. Yah'shua's (Jesus) own mission was a kind of Exodus too, but a spiritual one. The parallels are to be found and seen in every aspect of His work and ministry. All the miracles of the First Exodus pointed to the One who visibly led them out of Egypt with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and who wrought miracles when obstacles blocked their way to escape and survival. All those miracles were given them to bring them to the place where they could receive Yahweh's Davar (Word) - Mount Sinai - and be saved in their souls. The miracles were a means, not an end. The end was, is, and always shall be, a right relationship with Yahweh through personal one-to-one and congregational communion, through personal prophecy and revelation (which they rejected and decided to defer to Moses as an intermediary instead) and through implementing the written instructions of Torah.

Did the miracles convert Israel in the wilderness? No, not really, which is why they decided to commit idolatry and have an orgy in the desert at the very time Moses was collecting the Davar (Word) for them. That's what happens when you set miracles ahead of the Davar (Word). When you neglect the Word, you start beliving lies outside the Davar (Word) and your communion with Yahweh gets interrupted, spoiled and oftentimes aborted. You apostacise. You go into the desert of sin and do unspeakable thing, rationalising your faithlessness by claiming you are doing wickedness in the Name of Yahweh. You say that the Golden Calf is just a substitute, a symbol, or whatever excuse it is you make up. Whatever you set up to worship that contradicts the Davar (Word) is a Golden Calf. Asbury [1] has its Golden Calf. Pensacola had its Golden Calf. Toronto had its Golden Calf. They are, and were, all lawless, never mind that it made the participants feel good! Did Yah'shua (Jesus) ever ask the crowds He preached to if they felt good? The truth is what sets you free, not the fickle and unreliable feelings of your heart or the untethered random thoughts in your head. The Davar (Word) brings structure to the mind, order to the heart and permanent, Torah-compliant change to your lifestyle. It does not affirm the lifestyles of the fallen world!

Israel would not wait for Moses to return just as lawless Christians won't patiently wait to be properly grounded in Scripture before they start chasing after their feelings and showy miracles for self-authentication and personal stimulation. The right feelings - beautiful feelings, the Ruach (Spirit)-driven feelings - are a fruit of faithfulness, not the other way round. Today the Body of Christ faces all sorts of challenges and problems caused by disobedience and lawlessness. Disobedience opens up the soul to deception. Why is it that most Christians think that Yahweh has changed the tavnith or pattern of the way He does things in the New Covenant? He's still the same Elohim (God) as He was, and will remain the same throughout the æons of time. He does not 'change with the times'. He is "the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb.13:8, NIV).

He hasn't discontinued using His messengers the nevi'im (prophets) either, as cessationists claim, any more than the First Exodus was the last of its kind - just because someone says they're a prophet or does miracles doesn't necessarily make him a true one. A Second or Last Exodus is underway in its earliest stages (more of which I shall have to say in the New Year) and the tavnith (pattern) is not different from the first one; which means if you ignore the way Yahweh did things before, you're going to miss how He's doing things today. If you're into Toronto, Pensalcola, Asbury or anything remotely resembling that, you're missing what He's doing for sure. And if you're uncertain, and are hedging your bets by neither affirming nor rejecting what's going on in these places, then you're still not pointed in the right direction. Revivals don't occur sitting on fences either. And I can state categorically that none of the aforementioned were genuine revivals, their legacies have all added to the current chaos in the Body of Christ. They were, and are, all compromised even if one of two individuals may have found initial salvation during them.

How's the final manifestation of Yahweh's presence going to be in the end time? Read Isaiah chapter 4 - He tells you plainly. There's going to be an actual physical exodus to the Promised Land - again, a second time, with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide those making the long journey home. That means Moses-like nevi'im (prophets) are going to have to be around, true apostles - 12 of them, one for each of the Tribes - operating in the Ruach Eliyah or Spirit of Elijah as prophesied by Micah at the end of the Tanakh (Old Testament)...a reason, incidentally, we have to return to our course on the same as recently mentioned. But I can tell you that most Christians won't be able to get past verse 1 of Isaiah 4, or they will try to explain it away as an allegory (as some authors have done) because of a millennium of Western prejudice, and because of that they are going to miss the boat, stick with their traditions and continue to be deceived by false spirits. Yahweh's ways are radical. They upset the status quo as the first Christians did throughout the Roman world.

Miracles and wonders have always been wrought side by side but more often than not they have tended to be confused with each other. What you see in the charismatic movement and elsewhere are mostly 'wonders', not 'signs', because wonders never bring anyone to the Davar (Word) in its fullness, only to cherry-picked parts of it in order to justify false miracles. And false miracles can look a lot like true ones, as Moses' encounter with the magicians of Egypt proved. Both turned rods into snakes; but only Moses' snake gobbled up the magicians' snakes because there was an entirely different spirit behind the two. And miracles, as we see clearly into today's Book of Revelation segment, will be (and already are being) wrought by the Dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet. Moreover, these counterfeit miracles will be used to bolster their false claims; to those who will keep the faith in those days, the evidence will always be to the truth of the Davar (Word) which will likewise authenticate true end-time nevi'im (prophets) and true miracles. The miracles of Satan, the Antichrist and the False Prophet will simply establish their infernal origin and satanic power, their mission being to get the world to worship the Devil, which most of it is already doing anyhow. But Satan wants everyone to worship him, even if he has to compel them to do so upon pain of death by enacting a law compelling them to do so. A similar scene was witnessed on the plain of Dura in Daniel 2 and a similar law was enacted.

Last week we discussed at length the significance of the number 666 so there is no need for me to go into the mark of the Beast again today. 6 is the number of man who was created on the 6th day. 6 is to man what the hallmark is to silver - it is the hallmark of man. Those who have defied Yahweh in the past have been stamped with this number; Goliath was 6 cubits in height, his spear's head weighed 6 shekels, and he had 6 pieces of armour. Nebuchadnezzar's image was 60 cubits in height and 6 cubits wide, and 6 instruments of music summonsed its worshippers. Coincidence? I'll let you be the judge.

Well, it seems I have run out of time and I haven't even got around to the triple-helix DNA I promised to speak to you about last week so I am going to have to postpone that again to next week which will be our last session before taking a break for the new year and spring festivals which this year are of historical significance. We will have to return to many of the points raised today in the future and add more flesh to their bones because of their importance in the end-time restoration. MAy I urge you, please, if you have lapsed from doing so, to prayerfully get into the routine of regular, daily, systematic Scripture study because it is only by means of the Davar Elohim (Word of God) that you are going to be able to properly discern all the deceptions around you which are going to keep multiplying.

Someone once asked a well-known French general this question: 'In a war, which army wins?' The general replied, 'The one that advances'. Armies that stand still or retreat do not win. It is not enough to hold your ground - you must advance or you stand to be defeated and overthrown eventually. To win you must 'build and battle' for that is how Yah'shua (Jesus) envisioned the Messianic Community (Church). We are called to build the Kingdom and that means battling against spiritual opposition, inertia and stagnation. That means commitment, as the psalmist testified:

"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in Yahweh and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to Yahweh; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun" (Ps.37:3-6, NIV).

As an African brother said to me yeterday: 'I admire your commitment in all your doings. I can feel it, I see it, even when I am 1,000 kilometers away'. Let us all dedicate ourselves to the tasks ahead, and they will be many, and rise up to do battle and advance the Kingdom of our Messiah as the Enemy attempts to advance his. Yah'shua (Jesus) is with the faithful. Let us be men and women of faith, in Yah'shua (Jesus) our Messiah. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] A student revival at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky in the United States that was sparked by students spontaneously staying in Hughes Auditorium following a regularly scheduled chapel service on 8 February 2023 that lasted 16 days. It is sometimes called the 'Asbury Outpouring' or the 'Asbury Awakening'

Acknowledgements

[1] Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone - The New Testament for Everyone Commentary Series, Vol.19 (SPCK, London: 2011)
[2] E.W.Bullinger*, Commentary on Revelation (Kregel Classics, Grand Rapids, Michihan: 1984)
[3] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (JNT Publications, Clarksville, Maryland: 1992)
[4] ESV Study Bible (Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois: 2011)
[5] The NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995)
[6] Ed. J.R.Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (MacMillan, London: 1909)
[7] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007)

*E.W.Bullinger was a brilliant Anglican clergyman and scholar whose works merit careful study by serious students of the Bible. He was, however, seriously in error in at least three main areas, namely, (1) he believed the 'Church' has been raptured before the Book of Revelation opens, (2) he believed that the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 are 7, literal Jewish churches or assemblies yet to come, and (3) he believed in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture.

• 1. White horse - military aggression
• 2. Red horse - bloodshed
• 3. Black horse - famine
• 4. Pale Green/Blanched/Pallid/Sickly-looking horse - disease, epidemics

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• 5. Persecution & prayer
• 6. Tremour & terror

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  INTERLUDE I (Ch.7)
  (The 144,000 Redeemed)

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• 7. Silence in heaven, listening to prayers which are then answered in a final catastrophe: a severe earthquake I

• 1. Scorched earth
• 2. Polluted sea
• 3. Contaminated water
• 4. Reduced sunlight

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• 5. Insects and plague (for five months) (1st Woe)
• 6. Oriental invasion (200 million army) (2nd Woe)

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  INTERLUDE II (Ch.10-11)
  (The Malak with the Little Scroll)
  (The Two Witnesses)

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• 7. The Kingdom comes, the world is taken over by Yahweh & Yah'shua (Jesus) after a severe earthquake II (3rd Woe)

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  INTERLUDE III (Ch.13-14)
  (The First & Second Beasts)
  (The Lamb & the 144,000)
  (The Messages of the Three Malakim)

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• 1. Boils on the skin
• 2. Blood in the sea
• 3. Blood from the springs
• 4. Burning by the sun

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• 5. Darkness
• 6. Armageddon

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• 7. Hailstorm (OB 368:11-12) and severe earthquake III, leading to international collapse