4-09-06 - “GOD’S TEST OF LOYALTY” Part 2 15L-FM
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Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

Today we will continue our series titled, “GOD’S TEST OF LOYALTY” and today’s segment will be Part 2. Before we begin, let us seek God’s guidance, “Heavenly Father, as we open your word today, we especially ask for your Holy Spirit as we continue this most important subject. We pray for wisdom, Lord we desire knowledge and Father increase our understanding so that we may live in the center of Your revealed will, for we ask in Jesus Name, Amen.”
Right now, I continue to keep my pledge, to cry aloud and spare not, to lift up my voice like a trumpet and to show God’s people where they are transgressing God’s law.
There are two beasts in Revelation 13. The first thing we need to do is let the Bible interpret itself. In a prophecy, God uses symbolism. Here a beast is not an animal; rather it is a king, kingdom or power. Daniel 7:17 tells us what beasts in prophecy are. “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.” Verse 23 says, “Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth.” So a beast in prophecy is a king, kingdom or nation. Alright now, armed with that information, the first beast of Revelation 13:1-10 is without a doubt the Papacy of Rome and I’m going to prove that conclusively in upcoming broadcasts. Right now I want to concentrate on the second beast in Revelation 13, verses 11-17, because that beast is the United States. Verse 11 reads, “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” Friends, verse 11 is loaded with much meaning. 
We will study this topic in detail in the weeks ahead; right now we are going to touch it lightly. This beast or nation is one that came up out of the earth. What does that mean? Well in Revelation 13, the first beast rises from the sea or waters. In Daniel 7, the four beasts or kingdoms, came up out of the sea or waters. Now those 4 beasts represent the only 4 kingdoms that ever ruled the world. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. But they came up out of the waters. What does that mean. Again we must let the Bible interpret itself.
Revelation 17:15 gives us the answer. “And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.”  In other words, these nations arise in populated areas. They come into power where countries already exist.
But this lamblike beast with two horns in Revelation 13:11 comes up out of the earth. That means it is a new nation coming up in a sparsely populated area. There aren’t many people. As I will prove to you in later broadcasts, this nation has to come into power around the time the first beast, the Papacy at Rome, is receiving a deadly wound. That happened in 1798. The United States declared its independence in 1776. And it is according to verse 11, to be lamblike. Who is the lamb of God? Jesus. That means it will be a Christian nation.
Also it says it has two horns. Those two horns are a symbol of the power that makes the United States so great and what this nation was founded on. Civil liberty and Religious liberty. Civil liberty means it would be run by the people, independent of the church. Religious liberty means there will be freedom of religion without government interference.
Now we look at the rest of verse 11. “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” This lamblike beast it says is going to evolve into a beast that speaks as a dragon. Revelation 12:9 says, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”  
So the dragon is Satan, which means that the United States is going to change from its Christ likeness, into a worldwide superpower that will try to force its beliefs on the world. That’s happening today. We want to turn all nations into democracies.
Now let’s look at what else the United States does. Revelation 13:12   “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” Who is the first beast before him? It’s the beast in the first 10 verses, the Papacy that received a deadly wound, right on schedule in 1798, exactly as God said he would, after 1260 years of tyranny. 
Revelation 13:3 says, “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” In 1798 Napoleon sent his General Berthier into Rome where he captured the pope and took him to France where he died in exile. The world thought that was the end of the Papacy, however in 1929, Mussolini restored the Papacy to power in Vatican City. Under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, the deadly wound was healed. And the whole world wondered after the beast. That is the way it is today. Even Billy Graham made the statement a few years ago, that the pope is the spiritual leader of the world. God help us.
So looking at verse 12 again, “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” How does the U.S. cause the earth to worship the first beast? The way a nation gets anyone to do anything is through its laws. The United States is going to pass a law that will cause the nation and eventually the world to worship the Papacy. What law did the Papacy make? It changed Saturday, God’s seventh day Sabbath of the fourth commandment, into Sunday, the first day of the week and the pagan day of worshipping the sun. The whole world is keeping Sunday today. But the United States is going to enforce it by law.
Verses 16 and 17 say, “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”  
How does a nation cause its people to obey them, by passing laws? Here it is saying that the US will pass a law that will require its people to receive the mark of the first beast, the Papacy, in their foreheads, which are the frontal lobes of their brain. The mark of the first beast is Sunday sacredness. It says no man might buy or sell, unless they have the mark, or obey the law. Violators of the National Sunday law will be persecuted.
That means if you want to obey God and keep His seventh day Sabbath according to the 4th commandment, you will be persecuted for breaking man’s law. In other words you must give your allegiance to the Rome, the Papacy, actually to Satan himself who hates God’s seventh day Sabbath.
Wake up friends. Time is running out. Shortly after this National Sunday law comes in, the United States of America is going into financial ruin. Already George Bush is spending this country into a hole it can’t climb out of. This year, 2006 may prove to be the last year we have to get our spiritual house in order. We live in the days of Noah, just before the flood. If I were to pinpoint where we are relative to those days, it would be where the animals are boarding the ark.
Listen, most of you listening today are going to reject what I’m saying. You’re going to continue to keep Sunday as your day of worship. You’re going to say, my parents kept it, my grandparents kept it, and I will die keeping it. Your parents and grandparents lived up to the light they had and the Bible says in times of ignorance God winked. But God’s not winking at this generation. Once you know the truth, you are responsible for it. And God’s word gives us the truth. Saturday is God’s seventh day Sabbath. It’s not a Jewish Sabbath, even thought the Jews have been keeping it since Moses time. The Sabbath was made for all mankind on the seventh day of creation, 2500 years before there was a Jew.
Friends and especially you pastors out there, we’re running out of time. God is giving this call to come out of confusion. I was raised a Methodist and believe me if the Methodist church was teaching the truth today, I would still be a Methodist. I don’t care if you are a Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian or Pentecostal, if you are disobeying one of God’s Ten Commandments, according to James, you are breaking all ten.
God never blessed Sunday, and there is nothing holy about it. God commanded us to work on Sunday in Exodus 20:9 and Ezekiel 46:1. You may say I choose to keep Sunday holy, but friends, you can’t keep a day holy, that’s not holy to begin with. God did not give us the option to pick a day. He made only one day holy of the seven, and it was not the first day Sunday. Jesus rose on Sunday because He was in the tomb resting from His work of Redemption, just as He rested that first Sabbath from His work of creation.
Noah preached the final warning message to the world for 120 years while the ark was being built. We have been living in the time of the end since 1844. For 160 years this message of warning found in the three angels messages of Revelation 14:6-11, that I preach today has been going out to the whole world. The year 2006 is the pivotal year where all of the warnings will soon end. Probation for mankind will soon be over and all cases will be decided for eternity.
On Sunday May 7, 2006, there will be a day celebrated around the world called Ten Commandments Day. There was a time when I would talk to clergy and laity alike about the 4th commandment regarding God’s Sabbath. They would always say that old law was nailed to the cross, we’re not under law, we are under grace. Now suddenly these same people are hailing the Ten Commandments with a special day. What happened? I believe that they were teaching grace without obedience too long, and this world has slid downward into a cesspool of immorality the likes of which had not been seen since the flood that destroyed the earth in Noah’s time. Now the religious world sees the importance of the law they once said was nailed to the cross.
There have been so many new versions of the Bible, and the King James Version is disappearing from store shelves. People are reading Bibles now that say to keep holy a day. And so they are putting Satan’s counterfeit pagan Sabbath into the 4th commandment. Friends it doesn’t fit. With the soon coming National Sunday Law, every person will be brought to a test. More about that in the coming weeks.  
Time is up today, friends you need to listen, as your eternal life will hinge on what you hear.   
	Next week “God’s Test of Loyalty” - part 3.
God bless you friends and study your Bibles daily,

Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me”. Even so, Come Lord Jesus.