Collision With Prophecy

Collision With Prophecy #1

Introducing the Series

Welcome to Collision With Prophecy! I hope that you're ready to explore the holy Scriptures and the prophecies God has there placed for us to understand. I want to assure you tonight that we can understand them, and it that won't be too hard. In fact, it's going to be a lot of fun. These meetings won't be like any you've ever experienced.

Here's what we're going to do tonight:

briefly consider testimony from the Bible, made thousands of years ago, helping us to know what we should expect to see happening in the last-days.
consider some present developments and how they might fit into our day.
briefly preview some of what we'll be covering in this series.
close with a study starting in Revelation 13, the chapter dealing with the mark of the beast.

In vast ages past, through His prophets, our God subtly previewed for us what the world of the end-times would be like. Turn with me to the pages of this Book--forgotten, disrespected, and hated by so many who either haven't read it, or don't like what they read in it. Consider now what was written 6000 years ago. Consider now what God said the human race would do, were it given enough time . . ."

A story in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, tells what fallen and rebellious humankind so soon began to do. Turn with me to Genesis 11:4-6. After they disobeyed God's express command, and were thrown out of the garden of Eden, and after the flood washed away the wicked population of the planet, some of Noah's descendents set out to journey. And when they had come to the plain of Shinar--location of present day Iraq--they began to build a tower. And they said,

Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

But God saw what they were doing (of course), and He acted . . .

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Mind you, the fact that they began to build their own city and their own civilization wouldn't have bothered Him if they had been as before the fall--pure, unfallen, connected to Him. But these were rebels. The name of their city, "Babel," not only means "confusion," (in the Hebrew, babel, but in Akkadian, the Babylonian's own language, its meaning (bab-ilanu) translates to "gateway of the gods." They wanted to make the top reach to heaven--high enough to escape another flood, to get out of the reach of God's moral control. They wanted other gods than God. And so they built.

God knew that the human race, in its own strength--fallen, powerless to do good--would simply increase its own misery and ultimately destroy itself. The capacity of humanity is awesome; virtually nothing that it imagines to do, in the long run, is beyond its reach. So God confounded their language, scattered them across the earth. But what's interesting is that, as we'll see in a moment, humankind have been rebinding themselves, reconnecting themselves. And we're still a fallen race. But today, to a people who are recovering their oneness, and are still just as rebellious and self-centered as back then, our future looks very troubling. A new Babylon is rearing its tower again, in more ways than one . . .

Great Changes Happening in Our World

How convenient it would be for me tonight to come here and to present to you the smooth things. You know, just enough to give you a "fix" on how badly "things are really going downhill;" but not too scarey, so that we plainly demonstrate that change is necessary or at last you'll be deceived by Satan. How convenient it would be to simply bring you glad tidings of great joy and peace, shake everyone's hand, pat everyone on the back, and send you all home to normalcy.

Ain't going to happen.

Great changes are taking place in our world, touching every city, every town, and every life; even in East Carbon.

Even to the person who does not claim to live within the norms of a Christian belief system, there are some troubling times, not yet merely to come, but present among us. If all we see with the naked eye is all that is, the future is a dark one indeed. From the standpoint of even an unbelieving world, never has the planet faced so grave a future. Sure; they tell us the economy is going well. But I want to tell you tonight, the economy isn't the only thing that is ticking. A lot of things are ticking all around us. And some of them look to me a lot like bombs. The witness of the time in which we live is much darker than we'd like to think.

The good news today, supposedly is, that the economy is expanding as never before. Communism has fallen and the cold war has been over for 15 years. And tonight, when you lay down your head to go to sleep, it will continue to be true that the United States of America is the world's last remaining global superpower. A rosy picture, eh? I mean yes, there are always various annoyances large and small, but all these things sound good.

But let me share some reality-check stuff too.

In some ways the economy has been going well. But this is not the whole story. In fact, the world economy and banking system is rapidly and inextricably (you know what "inextricably" means? It means you can't get it back out) being wired into one unified, interdependent network. Michael Mandel in Business Week, writes, "The increased interconnectedness of the global economy means that economic disturbances in Asia or Russia can be transmitted much faster and more powerfully to the rest of the world" (Michael J. Mandel, "The New Economy: For Better or Worse," Business Week, (October 19, 1998): 42.). Commenting on what this means, Tom Sine writes, "It is as though we have signed up for a joint checking account with six billion other people and everybody makes up their own rules" (McWorld, p. 56). In some ways the deepening interdependency of all the economies of the nations of the world has spurred a boom. But in consequence, we now live in a world where all the dots are connected; a trip-wire now connects all the dominoes. Welcome to the year 2000.

Here's another thought on our economy. Mega-merger mania has meant that countless businesses have been gobbled up by ever larger corporate fish. One example is that today, the western United States is served by two mega-railroads (Union Pacific and Burlington Northern). It may be convenient to shop at one location for everything you want. But is it wise? I'm not against Wal-Mart, but would it be good for our local economy if we just shut down every store and built a giant Wal-Mart?

Of the one hundred largest economies in the world today, fifty-one are corporations. General Motors is bigger than Denmark, Ford is bigger than South Africa, and Toyota is bigger than Norway. Wal-Mart by itself is larger than 161 countries. Tom Sine, Mustard Seed versus McWorld, p. 80, quoting to John Cavanagh, "Global Economic Apartheid," (Presentation at Takoma Park, Maryland, September 19, 1996), 1.

Whether it is a merchant corporation or a bank, every company seems to be swallowing or being swallowed by another one. Is this the way capitalism really is supposed to work? Less choices for you and for me are the result. Less choices mean more monopolies, and higher prices. Anyone bought gasoline lately?

Large swaggering strides are being made in virtual reality simulation in computer and video games. Great news for our kids? Don't count on it. The same people who are trying to make money by putting pornography on the internet now are going to be trying to make money by bringing virtual sexual experiences to the web.

Technological advance is leaping forward at unprecedented speed. But have you ever heard of Murphy's law? Murphy's law says that if something can go wrong, then it will--that it's inevitable. We are getting some good stuff out of science, but I want to tell you tonight that history's report to us, ungarnished with platitudes and pleasantries, is that new technology has always and will always be used for evil. We are already seeing this. While the internet has opened up ways for singles to get connected, it has also opened up a world where the grass can always seem greener on the other side. In many cases, it hasn't been a boon for marriage, but rather a curse. There have been dissatisifed men who began an affair on the net with another individual, only to discover that the other woman was another man. I guess it serves em' right.

Technology is making great advances in human genetics and computer-mind interfaces. Here's a picture of a fellow who now has limited vision because scientists have been able to figure out how to wire a camera together with his brain. Great news here, if you are blind. But I wonder: does Bill Gates own the rights to this software? If we could have instant access direct to our minds to all kinds of information, but the price we paid was to have somebody able to run their software in our minds, would we let them?

And of course, you are aware of the cloning we've been hearing about--now a common thing. In fact, there is no time day or night when cloning research is not underway on every continent. We could spend a lot of time on another item here too: bio-genetic engineering. We are already consuming, every one of us, every day, genetically reengineered foods sold in our supermarkets. Are there up sides? Sure. But we may not know what all the down sides are. Another interesting move are genetically-programmed expiring use seed-crops--you buy the seeds, they can only be used this year. Next year they are programmed to be infertile. Keep you coming back for more, I guess.

For those of us concerned about morality, just a few weeks ago the abortion pill was approved. Now people will think they can have sexual intercourse without the consequences. If you do manage to become pregnant, you can just take a pill and kill the fetus. But in my mind and perhaps on yours, a fetus is not just a fetus; it is a living human-being, made in the image of God. Technology can open the way for us to make immoral decisions that we will always regret making.

Maybe you've seen this one: the engineered baby. A United States family named Nash has used a new technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to create a baby to act as a donor to save his sister from a life-threatening disease. Consider these lines from a BBC News article:

Dr Paul Vey, consultant in stem cell transplants at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London said: "It raises questions about where the cut off line should be in genetic screening. It is a start towards being able to choose the right coloured eyes and the right intelligence."

The view was echoed by Jeffrey Kahn, director of the University of Minnesota's centre for bioethics, who said "It's quickly becoming like buying a new car, where you decide which package of accessories you want.

"I suspect it's only because we don't yet have the tests that we're not having parents asking for embryos without a predisposition to haemophilia or for kids who will grow to more than six foot tall." From BBC News, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2000, "'Designer Baby' Ethics Fear."

In fact do you know where this is going? Its simple: eugenics. But just think, if you were the Nash family, and you had the option to try this to save your other child, what would you do? I'm not here to pass any judgment on the Nashs, but I am here to say that as time has gone farther and farther on, the door on Pandora's box has been opened wider and wider and wider. Friends, we are walking right off the map. What we read in Genesis has now, after 6000 years, come full circle: "Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do" (Genesis 11:6).

Our brave new world may be brave, it may seem new, but we ought not forget that it is being built as an overlapping intruder over God's original world. Tonight we are not safe. We just think we are. But a time is coming when God will rise and shake the earth in fury. Nor will a click of the remote turn Him off.

But I've saved the one especially cogent thought that scares me the most until now. Consider this line: "Material possessions not only focus people toward private and away from communal life but also encourage docility. The more possessions one has, the more compromises one will make to protect them" Robert D. Kaplan, "Was Democracy Just a Moment," Atlantic monthly, December 1997): 76.

Why do I find this to be the most chilling of all? Because our newly interconnected world economy not only makes everyone more vulnerable, but allows the isolation of people. Ever heard of divide and conquer? As we all get so wound up into ourselves, we make smaller and smaller, more easily managed, more easily domesticated packages. As people shift their interest to the passing things of the world and drop away from interest in spiritual realities--as having stuff becomes more important because that is all anyone has anymore-- people will make great compromises to keep their stuff. Have you ever noticed that in Revelation, the people who get the mark are those who can continue to buy and sell, those who compromise in order to be able to keep on getting "stuff?" Those who cannot buy or sell (Revelation 13:16) are faithful to God, but those who can buy or sell are faithful only to their own idols. They sell their souls for a moment of soup from the devil's table.

Yes friends; the world you and I live in is getting more complicated. In many ways it is making each of us more vulnerable to exploitation of many kinds. It is becoming sharkier and harder, not softer and gentler. The burst of technological innovation looks good on the surface, but carries with it many asterisks. We may not like the fine print as we come to understand more fully what's in buried it. The glow of tomorrow may be the headlight of an oncoming train.

I have been studying, and thinking, and praying about all this. And over these 18 meetings, I'll be sharing some of the things that the Bible says to us now in this troubling time. Let's quickly preview where we'll be going . . .

Our study will cover 18 presentations between tonight and November 18. Tomorrow night we'll discover God's own system of prophetic interpretation built into the Scriptures. We'll also locate our present day within the prophetic timeline. In Axe of the Ages, we'll discover a grand deception prophesied to reach its maturity in our day--a deception that in particular opens the door for a misunderstanding of the mark of the beast. Our fourth presentation, Behold the Lamb of God compares a true and biblical picture of our Savior with the false kind of "Savior" we look for in the antichrist religion of the end-times.

Yom Kippur and End-Time Prophesy illuminates an ignored biblical theme that we must understand in order to grasp the mark of the beast. The following meeting, The Longest Time Prophesy in the Bible, provides evidence showing us what this period is about, when it began, and what it means to us now. Our sixth presentation, a Mark for God's People? takes us through a study of Ezekiel chapter nine that gives us much help in understanding the mark of the beast. Big Words, Little Horn is a very important presentation. Having laid much of the groundwork in the previous messages, we will here walk you through a clear identification of the "little horn" of Daniel seven and the beast of Revelation 13:1-10. We need to know who the beast is, if we would have an opportunity to avoid his mark. Our next message will take us through the journey of God's people down the ages of apostasy to our own day.

Those friends, are just the meetings from the first half of this series. But in the last half, I will only say this: we'll go deeper into the prophesies, uncover a vast deception regarding the interpretation of prophesy, fully explain the mark of the beast, and more. Of course, for the claims we make in this series, we'll give solid, Bible evidence, and we'll ask you to check up on us. My plea is that we will study the Word of God together.

But now, for the last part of tonight's meeting, I want us to shift our attention to something in the Bible's book of Revelation. Would you turn your pages to that last book of Scripture, and its thirteenth chapter?

Rightly Dividing the Word

Scientists today have discovered that if they make an exact duplicate of the genetic material, they can clone a creature--make a copy of it. The Bible is given to us that we might know God's will. If we all use the same method of interpreting Scripture, if we all grant it the same authority, we will interpret it the same way. And after all, we don't want the pastor's opinion, or the presenters opinion, or any human opinion; we want God's opinion. We would like to clone it.

But its not enough that we develop a uniform way of understanding the Bible. What we must have is the right method of interpreting inspired writings--the same method that God has in mind. Just a set of clever propositions pulled out of thin air, won't do. This is very serious stuff. What we need to do is to reverently and attentively seek out the principles of interpretation that God, as their ultimate Author, has built into the Scriptures. If we will grant the same authority to the same set of materials--if we will carefully derive our methods of interpretation from those same materials--then we can know what God is saying to us through them.

What people often fail to consider, are the presuppositions that stand behind a teaching. That is, what is the starting point behind the ideas? Somebody said to me once that they thought the purpose of the Bible was to prove that God exists. The purpose of the Bible is not to prove that God exists. The Bible begins with the presupposition that God exists. Its very first words are not "O.K., this book is going to prove to you that God exists," but "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). "In the beginning, God . . ." See? It starts with God. The purpose of the Bible is to tell man what God says; what God says about God, what God says about humankind, what God says about what's right, what God says about what's wrong. And, what God says about what the sin problem is, and what He says He's going to do about it.

This Seminar is my attempt to present to you the biblical facts about the mark of the beast. That is, what God says He's going to do in the end-time. It won't be an exercise in clever thinking or creativity on my part. I am going to share with you, to the best of my ability, what God says in the prophetic Scriptures of the Bible. I will derive the evidence for what I say from the Bible. We will give you the references. We will give you the Bibles. We will help you look them up, study them out, do whatever we can to help you answer your questions according to the Bible.

If you came here with predetermined notions that, if they are mistaken, you'll still be unwilling to give up, then you are in the wrong place, both physically and attitudinally. This set of presentations is not for you. But if your ideas remain subject to the Word of God, then you are in the right place. I want to tell you today that that is where I want to be. If I am in error on anything that I believe, then I want to be open to my God, and be willing to let Him straighten me out according to what His Word really teaches. We need to have an open mind and a closed mind: opened enough to hear what God has to say, closed enough to assure that we let God tell us how He is saying what He wants to say, and that the devils do not sneak in ideas parasitically riding along with the true.

Somebody said that the Bible is the book "with the answers in the back." They were referring to the book of Revelation. That's not exactly right, but it does point out that there are easily comprehensible answers for our day located there. Actually though, the book of Revelation points us to other texts throughout the whole of the Bible that show us the answers. In fact, we might say that the Bible is the book with the answers in the front. The figures and symbols found in the book of Revelation are derived from the richness and marrow of all the Bible's 65 preceding books. It's just because we prefer instant answers that so many teachers take short-cuts from which are derived interpretations of prophecy short on truth.

If we want to understand end-time events, then we must guard against using the Scriptures merely as a diving-board into creative but overly simplified solutions. So let's begin tonight with an example of how we can get the right answers from the book of Revelation. Turn to the last book of the Bible. Let's look together at Revelation, chapter 13, verses 11-18:

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. 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. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. 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. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

In the time that we have left tonight, we can't do very much towards making an exposition of this text. But we can learn an important principle. If we wish to understand the prophecies of the book of Revelation, we must watch for allusions--references to other parts of the Bible. To understand verse 13, we want to see what Scripture says about lambs and dragons. We'll do that. What does the Bible say about images? We'll have to look into that to understand the 12th verse. What about verses 13 and 14? Can anyone think of a passage of Scripture that this is referring back to?

[Voice from the congregation: "Elijah at Mount Carmel"]

That's right. Let's go there. Turn now to 1 Kings, chapter 18. If you turn about a fourth of the way into your Bible, you should come up with it right away. Good.

Revelation 13 and Mt. Carmel

Now the story is this. Revelation 13:13 states that in the end-time, the image beast of Revelation 13 will do great wonders, making fire come down from heaven onto the earth and deceiving people by means of them. But the passage in Revelation plainly traces back to the story of Elijah's Mt. Carmel showdown. So if we really want to understand Revelation 13, we need to understand what happened at Mt. Carmel.

What people tend to remember about Mt. Carmel is the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal in which, after the Baal prophets had failed, God sends fire down from heaven in response to the prayer of Elijah. If we just think about the final deception apart from the source-event God impresses John to use as he is writing the book of Revelation, we simply have a final demonic deception through miracles at the end. But consider for a moment the Carmel showdown in its broader sense . . .

The whole reason for the showdown between the true prophet and the false prophets of Baal was the apostasy of Israel. She had been thoroughly disobedient to her Lord, refusing to keep His commandments (1 Kings 18:18). In response to their unfaithfulness, God sent Elijah to pronounce His removal of rain (1 Kings 17:1), a condition that continued for three years (1 Kings 18:1). Finally, after this period granted for Israel to reflect upon and repent of her ways, Elijah reappears (1 Kings 18: 1-16), commanding Ahab to summon all Israel and the false prophets to the Mt. Carmel showdown (1 Kings 18:17-19). In the showdown, God prevails (1 Kings 18:20-39), the prophets of Baal are slain, and Israel is turned back to God (1 Kings 18:40). Finally, God again sends the rain (1 Kings 18:41-46).

Mt. Carmel was a showdown between God and Satan, between His true prophet Elijah, and Satan's false prophets, the prophets of Baal. When the fire fell, it was evidence showing which God truly was God. In this original showdown, heaven sanctioned the use of a miracle to demonstrate who the true God really was. But in Revelation 13, the image beast deceives by bringing fire down from the sky. The issue in Elijah's time was obedience and disobedience, and while in the original event a miracle validates the true prophet, in the end-times version from Revelation 13, the apparent miracle will be used to deceive. Here friends, is Bible evidence that false miracles will be presented in our day to validate or verify that a work is of God. But while God at the end will not prevent Satan from miraculously deceiving people by his wonders, the issue still will be obedience to God. False miracles plus disobedience will mean a work from Satan and an attempt to deceive! How much greater understanding this gives us of Revelation 13:13! Far from just a random special effect of interest, the fire that comes down from heaven is full of meaning and insight.

Revelation 13 and the Fiery Furnace

The 14^th and 15^th verses of Revelation 13 trace back to the awesome story of Daniel chapter three. In Revelation, the image beast says to the people that they should make an image to the beast, and that those who refuse to bow down, or worship, it should be killed. But what happens in the original source-event?

After God shows Nebuchadnezzar that his golden kingdom of Babylon will eventually be replaced by an inferior one (in the dream represented by silver, etc.), and that all earthly kingdoms will be replaced by God's kingdom (Daniel 2), he proceeds to build a statue like the one he had seen in his dream (tomorrow night we'll deal exclusively with this illuminating prophecy!), but made entirely of gold (Daniel 3:1). Next, everyone is gathered to the dedication of the image and commanded to bow down before it (Daniel 3:2-7). Daniel's three Hebrew friends refuse to bow to the false image (Daniel 3:8-12). The king gives the Hebrews another opportunity to bow down, but they refuse to and are thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:13-23). There in the fire, they are preserved, and a fourth Being is seen present with them in the furnace. When called out of the fire, they emerge unharmed (Daniel 3:24-27). The story closes with the king promoting them and issuing a decree (Daniel 3:28-30).

What do we notice in this story? Here we have the state enforcing a false worship. We have a bold refusal by God's people to enter into false worship, and we see their faithfulness in obeying God. The event culminates, not merely in a miraculous deliverance, but in one focused directly on the issues of obedience and on church-state blending.

Knowing that these matters were the primary features of the original events gives us precious perspective with which to look at Revelation chapter 13. And all that we had to do was simply let the Bible itself fill us in. Now we can look at Revelation 13 knowing that both Mt. Carmel and the fiery furnace events involved (1) true prophets/prophecy versus false prophets/prophecy, (2) the showdown was between obedience to God and disobedience, (3) miracles will be used to deceive those in the end-time who will base their beliefs upon them, (4) the final showdown centers squarely on issues of true versus false worship, and (5) will showcase a faulty blend of church and state.

These five points, you'll see as we proceed night by night, are very important, and we didn't have any trouble getting them at all!

Conclusion and Preview

Now friends, how does Revelation 13 look to you? By letting Scripture interpret Scripture, we have greatly increased the background knowledge that we bring to the passage. As we use this method of letting God shine His light on one part of the Bible from the pages of another part of the Bible, some of the more creative interpretations you've heard through the years are going to start looking as if they were thought up while someone was on crack! But we, in these meetings, will, if we come here faithfully with our Bibles, get something many of us have always wanted: a clear, unambiguous, sense-making, faith-building understanding of the end-time prophecies.

You'll want to be here tomorrow night. Bring your Bible. We will explore a major end-time prophecy in the book of Daniel, and we'll look at some of the big, current ideas about God and see if they measure up. We'll follow the nations through history and find out where we presently stand in the prophetic stream of time. Come over tomorrow night, and bring a friend with you. We're just getting started. We'll be going into Bible prophecy in depth 17 more times over the next month. You won't want to miss it!

For now, stand with me, and let us pray in closing this meeting . . .