5-22-05 - “THE MARK OF THE BEAST” Part 4
Victory Ministries International presents:
Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts  
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Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

My brothers and sisters in Jesus, we are continuing our study on the mark of the beast, and this is part 4. 

Before we start today, shall we seek God’s guidance? “Heavenly Father, as your people, the matter regarding the mark of the beast is so important for your people to understand, therefore we ask for You to give us Your Holy Spirit to guide us in to all wisdom, knowledge and understanding, in Jesus name, AMEN.”

I am going to repeat 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.

Continuing where we left off last week, Sunday-keeping is only a tradition and Jesus said in Matthew 15:8,9 “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

Do you want to be lost? Then listen to Jesus. Sunday is a tradition of men and Jesus said, “…in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

In Isaiah 58:13 God says, “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day;”  Friends God is telling us to stop trampling His Sabbath and honor Him by keeping it. It is one of His Ten Commandments, and if we are not keeping His Sabbath Holy, we are commandment breakers. Look what it says in Proverbs 28:9 “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” And friends what God calls an abomination is something that is so grotesque and detestable, that God abhors it, therefore if we are to please God, we should have nothing to do with anything God calls an abomination. That includes not listening to the truth about his law. I repeat Proverbs 28:9 “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.”

There are some religious teachers that teach Jesus did away with the law of God, the Ten Commandments, and nailed it to the cross. That is a lie of Satan. The law that was nailed to the cross was the Law of Moses that dealt with religious ceremony, feast days and animal sacrifices.

Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:17-19. Verse 17, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Jesus did not destroy the law of God and the prophecies concerning Himself, no He says He came to fulfill them. He kept the Ten Commandments and He is our example. He fulfilled all the prophecies concerning Himself.  Now verse 18, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” There in the words of Jesus, the Ten Commandments, right down to the dotting of an “i” and the crossing of a “t” will stand until the heavens pass, and that hasn’t happened yet. That means God’s 4th commandment to keep His seventh day Sabbath holy is still in effect. Now listen to verse 19. “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven:” To be called least in the kingdom of heaven means you won’t be there. Neither will the teachers and pastors who teach you that it doesn’t matter which day you keep holy. That’s Satan’s lie. Verse 19 finishes by saying “but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Recapping the messages of the last 3 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. And we all watched on television as the whole world paused to honor this man at his funeral. We saw prophecy fulfilled as all the world wondered after the beast

Time is up for this week, so be listening to Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts next Sunday at 8:45 am. Tell your friends to listen in.

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.