4/23/06 - “GOD’S TEST OF LOYALTY” Part 4 17L-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 4. Before we begin, let us seek God’s guidance, “Heavenly Father, we ask once again for the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we open your word today and continue with this most important subject. Lord 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 these things 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.
Recapping the messages of the last 4 weeks. I have stated that the first beast of Revelation 13 is the antichrist beast power and the same as the little horn power in Daniel 7. I also stated that the Papacy changed God’s 7th Day Sabbath from Saturday to the pagan day of worshipping the sun god, the first day of the week, Sunday and that Sunday keeping is going to be the mark of the beast, after the National Sunday Law is passed.
Now we are ready to prove all this with the Bible. In fact the Bible is going to identify the Papacy as the beast of Revelation with at lease 12 points of identification. You don’t need a man’s ideas or any idle speculation or conjecture. You need only the truth from God’s word. 
As I read last week, God’s most fearful warning in the entire Bible, found in Revelation 14:9,10, is a warning against receiving the mark of the beast, as those who do will be lost and have to endure the plagues.
All right, turn in your Bibles to Revelation. By the way, when you listen to these broadcasts, either write down the scriptures given for study later, or follow along in your Bible if you can turn to the references quickly. Revelation chapter 13. We are going to start with verses 1-3. 13:1   And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.  
13:2   And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as [the feet] of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.  
13:3   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.    
This friends is a prophecy of the first beast of Revelation 13, which will upon close examination, be the religious-political organization of the Papacy as I have previously identified. It can be no one else. Now since this is a prophecy, it has many symbols. The Bible alone must interpret the symbols presented. Let’s deal with the beast that rises out of the sea in verse 1. What is a beast and what is the sea?
Friends, God had a major prophet in John, in the New Testament. He also had a major prophet in Daniel in the Old Testament. To understand Revelation, we need to understand Daniel, as the two go together as a hand in a glove. 
First we turn to Daniel 7:17 where it reads, “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings.” Then verse 23, “Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth.”
All right, the Bible has told us that a beast in prophecy is a kingdom with a ruler. 
So Revelation 13:1 said “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea.” So now we need the Bible definition of sea. Literally we know the sea to be an ocean. But in prophecy the sea and waters mean something else. Revelation 17:15, “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, populated areas. So now we understand what is being said. John saw a beast rise up out of the sea. He saw a powerful kingdom arise in a populated area. Existing nations with different languages.
Continuing in Rev. 13:1 John says about this beast, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 
What are the seven heads and what are the ten horns? Revelation 17:9 says, “The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.”  Now a woman in prophecy represents a church. Either God’s church or a corrupt church. This church being described can be found by the Seven Hills of Rome.
Now the ten horns, Revelation 17:12 says, “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings.” 
Back to Rev. 13:1 John says about this beast, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. So we have ten kingdoms with kings that were crowns. But the corrupt church is hidden in this verse and it is guilty of blasphemy. We will see this come out vividly as we continue to study. 
Now Revelation 13:2   “And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. Now what we have here of course can’t be a literal animal, since it has a body like a leopard, feet like a bear, and a mouth like a lion. It’s a composite symbol of the beasts Daniel saw in his visions. This means it’s a kingdom made up of remnants of the other three kingdoms, which preceded it. 
Now notice, the dragon gave this kingdom its power, and his seat, and great authority. Who does the Bible say is the 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:”  
So Satan himself gave this composite beast his power. We will find out that it is Pagan Rome and it becomes dragon like. Also we will see that this beast splits into ten kingdoms, and the primary beast, the little horn power, this blasphemous antichrist power, the Papacy, comes after the fall of Rome.
Now 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.”
I’m going to tell you what this means now, and I will expand on it in future broadcasts. It says that John saw one of its heads as it were, wounded to death. What he is describing and you will see clearly later, is the Papacy, after 1,260 years of prophesied persecuting rule, would lose its power. It rose to power in 538 AD. It persecuted God’s people over the next 1,260 years, during the middle or dark ages, and conservative estimates are that more than 50 million Christians called heretics, were killed by Papal decree for their faith and refusal to bow to the Pope. During the French Revolution, the French people had enough of Papal rule and Napoleon sent General Berthier into Rome where he captured the Pope and the Pope died in exile. The Christian world thought that was the end of the Papacy, but 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 1929, Mussolini restored the Papacy back to power and gave them back their confiscated property with large financial restitution. The San Francisco Chronicle in 1929 said the deadly wound was healed. Now we have seen the prophecy fulfilled as verse 3 goes on to say “…all the world wondered after the beast.”  Pope John Paul II has the whole world in adoration of the Papacy. 
Now let’s leave Revelation for a little while and go back to Daniel the prophet. Daniel Chapter 7. We are going to look at the 4 beasts Daniel saw in vision. Time will run out on this study, so it will continue in part 5. Starting in verses Dan. 7:1-3. “In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon” (this is about 541BC when Daniel was about 81 years old) continuing, “Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.  
  7:2   “Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.”  All right we have a new symbol, winds. The Bible interprets itself. Winds, according to Isa. 21:1,2 & Jer. 25: 32,33 represents war and strife, usually resulting in large loss of life. So what Daniel was seeing was war and strife amongst the nations. Now verse 3.
  7:3   And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.  From what we all ready studied, the Bible interpretation of verse 3 would be four ruling kingdoms would arise from the existing nations, each coming to power after winning wars. All right, now verse 4.
7:4   “The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.”
So this first world ruling empire was like a lion with eagle’s wings. History tells us that Babylon was the first world kingdom and this coordinates with the head of gold kingdom identified in the Daniel 2 vision. Archeologists have dug in the remains of Babylon and found many gold lion statues with eagle’s wings. Now the verse goes on to say that “and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.” This would indicate the power would weaken and become impotent. That would leave the door open for the second beast in verse 5.
7:5   “And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.”
So this second world ruling empire was like a bear raised up on one side with three ribs in his mouth. We know from history and the prophecy of the silver chest and arms kingdom in Daniel 2, that it was Medo-Persia that ruled the world next. Represented by a bear, raised on one side meant one side was more powerful then the other and that was true as the Persians were more powerful then the Medes. The three ribs in its mouth were the three nations it defeated to rise to power. That would be Lydia, Egypt and Babylon.
The clock says it’s time to stop. 
 
Next week “God’s Test of Loyalty” - part 5.
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.