Satan Incarnate

0:00Little country church on the edge of town. Do, do, do, do, do, do. People come on every day from miles around For meetings and for Sunday's school. And it's very plain to see. It's not the way it used to be. Welcome to the word for today, featuring the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel Movement. This radio program is a chapter by chapter verse by verse study through the entire Bible. And on today's edition of the word for today, Pastor Chuck continues his message, Satan incarnate as we pick up in Revelation chapter 13 verse 1. And now with today's study, here's Pastor Chuck. Shall we turn to the book of Revelation chapter 13? John said, I stood upon the sand of the sea,

1:04probably the Mediterranean Sea, and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea. Having seven heads, ten horns. Upon his horns, the ten crowns, on his, on his heads, the name of blasphemy. The sea represents, of course, the multitudes of people, the Mediterranean Sea, the multitudes of people that live around the Mediterranean Sea. And out of it, he sees this hydra-headed beast, seven heads, ten horns. We're told in the book of Revelation, the seven heads are the seven mountains on which the beast sets. This ten horns are ten kings. Daniel, as he also describes, the beast that he cannot really described, a nondescript type of a beast, it had ten horns.

2:05And again, the Lord told Daniel that the ten horns were the ten kings that were going to give power to the beast. So there is going to arise upon the earth a ten nation federation, ten kingdoms federating together. Daniel, chapter two, the vision of, or dream of Nebuchadnezzar in the interpretation by Daniel. And there shall arise Daniel, said the eleventh, which shall destroy three. Speaking blasphemous things, he'll take control, take power. And so the rise of the beast, the anti-Christ, the one who is going to rise to take over the control of the earth. Speaking, as Paul said, blasphemous things against God, Daniel makes reference of his blasphemies.

3:07He shall speak great words, he said, against the most high, shall wear out the saints in the most high. The beast which I saw was likened to a leopard. His feet were like a bear. His mouth was the mouth of a lion. And the dragon, who of course is Satan, gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. Now, where is Satan's throne? It's on the cert. We say the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and all they that dwell therein, that's prophetic. The earth right now is under Satan's control. This is his place of dominion. He rules. Jesus came to redeem the world back to God. Satan took him into a high mountain, showed him all of the kingdoms of the world.

4:08And he said, all of these, will I give unto you, and the glory of them, if you will bow down and worship me, for they are mine, and I can give them to whom ever I will. Now, the fact that they are still Satan's is demonstrated by the fact that the Antichrist which is yet future receives from him, his authority, his power, and his throne. And so Satan is going to invest in a man, all of his power, all of his authority. It will be Satan incarnate. And I saw one of the heads as it were wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast. Now we are told a little further down, verse 14,

5:11that the false prophet that comes, says to the people who dwell upon the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword and did live. This man will be a world leader. There will be an assassination attempt, apparently successful. But he miraculously survives the deadly wounds, though according to Zachariate, will probably leave him blinded in his right eye and without the use of his right arm. Yet the very fact that he survives this assassination attempt causes the world to marvel, and it brings him immediately into a prominent position in the minds of so many people, because it is by a definite miracle that this man survives.

6:14One of his heads is a were wounded to death, but the deadly wound was healed. And they worshiped the dragon, which gave power to the beast. Satan worshiped all people, wouldn't worship Satan. That's ridiculous. We used to think that, didn't we? And now they have the satanic church, and people are consciously, knowingly, worshiping Satan. And here they worshiped the dragon through his incarnated person, the Antichrist. And they say, who is likened to the beast? And who is able to make war with him? He will have tremendous power, tremendous authority.

7:15He will subdue three probably of the most powerful kingdoms to take over the rule. He will put to death the two witnesses who have up to this point been invincible. We remember last week in chapter 11, the two witnesses, whoever would try to hurt them, they would call fire down from heaven and consume them. And they have been invincible up until this point, and the beast destroys them, puts them to death. And so the world will marvel at this man's power. And they'll say, who can make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth, speaking great things and blasphemies. Again, this is mentioned by Daniel, both in chapter 7 and chapter 11, I believe it is. And power was given unto him to continue for three and a half years, 42 months.

8:21And he opened his mouth and blasphemed me against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle. That is his dwelling place and them that dwell in heaven. Now, this man is a man of open blasphemy. Again, Paul makes mention of that in 2nd Thessalonians 2, as Paul talks about the man of sins, son of tradition. So he opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, or that is worshiped so that he has God since in the temple of God declaring himself to be God. Speaking blasphemies against God, and it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power was given him over all the family's tongues and nations. Now,

9:26this war with the saints and overcomes them is also predicted in Daniel. He makes war with the saints. Daniel said him prevails against them. These saints could not be the church of Jesus Christ. When Jesus announced to Peter his church, he said, upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. There's no way that Satan can prevail against the church of Jesus Christ. But these are the people who have received Christ during this final seven-year period after the church has been taken out. As the result of the witnesses of those two witnesses or the witness of the 144,000, these people have received Jesus Christ as Lord, as they acknowledge Jesus as

10:33their Lord. But he will make war against them and prevail to me as power to put to death. And he will put to death those that believe in Jesus Christ. But being martyred is preferable to submitting to his authority or worshiping him. Because we will find out in the next chapter that if anybody worships him, they lose any chance of salvation forever. And so John tells us here of the reign, over all of the families of the earth, the tongues and nations, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb's slain from the foundation of the world. So there is interestingly enough a book of life. And Moses made mention of this when he was praying to God in interceding for the

11:34nation of Israel. God forgives. And if not then, he said, I pray, you will block my name out of your book of remembrances. The book of life is mentioned, again here in the book of Revelation. Paul makes mention of it. And Paul tells us that our names were written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. Now here is the book of life of the Lamb, the Lamb who was slain in the foundation of the world. Now there is a teaching that I feel borders on blasphemy. Of the character of God that declares the limited knowledge of God. In other words, it would deny that God is omniscient, that He knows all things. And this teaching basically declares that Adam

12:42disappointed God and took him by surprise when Adam sinned. That then the plan of redemption was inaugurated. Now that Adam blew it, what are we going to do? And the redemption plan was then devised. But here the plan of redemption we are told existed before the foundation of the world. If a man was ever created, God knew why would God create man if he knew he was going to blow it? Because God desired fellowship. God desired meaningful fellowship with man. It's a big universe. You could get awfully lonely in the universe. But to have true friends, to have meaningful relationship with them, there's got to be this freedom. God could create robots.

13:43The worship of a robot would be meaningless. The robot says, I love you, but how do you know? That's all programmed into his computer. You could also program into the computer, I hate you. Again, it wouldn't do too much to you and go all- all devastated because the robot said, I hate you. You know, it's just a robot that doesn't have any will of its own. It's only spitting out what's been programmed in. God could have made us that way, little robots spitting out what's programmed in. But you really wouldn't have a meaningful relationship. You'll never develop a meaningful relationship with a robot. You'll have a more meaningful relationship with your dog than you will robot. Because your dog can disobey your times too, you know. He has the will. You usually

14:47make him submit to your will, but he has a will of his own. And so you can develop a relationship of sorts with a dog, but you'll never be able to develop a relationship with a robot. So God made us with our free wills in order that my relationship with him might be meaningful, because I don't have to relate to God. I can blaspheme God of Him and I can turn my back on God and say, don't want it. And because there is that capacity and because my relationship with God is something that is volitional, on my part I want to relate to Him. I desire and long for this relationship. I love Him. And my declaration of such is meaningful then, because it's the expression of my will. You see, I don't have to. I'm not forced to. So from the foundation of the world, God knew that man was going to sin. God was ready to redeem man using really a strong

16:00incentive for man to come to God, declaring God's love to man. I mean, how can God show you that He loves you more than by sending His Son to die in your place? Greater love, Jesus said, is no man than this and a mammal lay down his life for his friends. The supreme sacrifice showing supreme love. No man can ever doubt God's love who looks at the cross. And it is interesting that God never seeks to prove His love for you apart from the cross. There is not one scripture where God tries to prove His love for you except those that relate to the cross. God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. Here in His love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and gave

17:01His Son as the propitiation for our sins. For God demonstrated His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the young Godly. And God giving His Son to you is the only way by which God has ever sought to prove that He loves you. Sometimes in our relationships as as pure as they often are, we say, prove that you love me. Well, what do you want? See His candy. Or Calvary, Helen, Grace, candy. Prove that you love me. Well, if you would say to God, prove that you love me, He had just pointed the cross. There's the proof. It's the only proof you'll ever name. Jesus died for your sins. And that was a part of God's plan from the foundation of the world.

18:06Now, because God knows all things, that's when He wrote your name in that book. Knowing my response to His loving grace, my name was written in the book of Life from the foundations of the world. Now, someone has suggested that God wrote everybody's name in. But then those who refuse to receive the grace of God, their names are blotted out. I don't know. But here we are told that those that dwell upon the earth whose names were not written. So it sort of contradicts that concept. Everybody's name was written whose names were not written in the book of Life or are not written in the book of Life, slamed from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. Whenever the Lord has had something quite important to say,

19:07He usually throws in that little he that hath an ear to hear, let him hear. He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity. Now, the Antichrist is making more against the saints, taking the captive, destroying them. But they that live by the sword will die by the sword. Those that take those believers into captivity will themselves soon be taken into captivity. He that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. And here is the patience and the faith of the saints. And so it's a word of encouragement to the saints who are going to be experiencing this horrible persecution from the Antichrist. And I beheld another beast, false prophet, coming up out of the earth. He had two horrors like a lamb. In other words, he looked like a lamb, but he spoke like the dragon. Jesus said, beware of false prophets who will come to you in sheep's clothing. The one thing about the false prophet, and he never

20:14looks like a false prophet. Satan never looks like the character, good tours of Satan. He does not have horns, a forked tail, and a pitchfork in his hand. And he doesn't wear a red leotard. He would like you to think that he did. He would like you to think that he is some grotesque looking character that would scare the wits out of you if you saw him. He would like you to think that because that way he can go around cleverly disguised as an angel of light. Beautiful. Speaking such soothing words to the flesh, why don't you just go ahead and enjoy yourself. Drink of pleasure to its fall. Oh, that can't be Satan. You know, it's so charming.

21:18It's so enticing. Satan's ugly. I don't see any pitchfork. And that's why he's able to see. So the false prophet, he has horns like a lamb. But listen to what he says. Words out of hell. He exercises all of the power of the first beast, which was before him. And he causes the earth and them which dwell there into worship the first beast whose deadly womb was healed. So several times there's the mention of this deadly womb being healed. And it is really sort of the rallying point by which the false prophet draws the people to worship the beast. Life can hit hard and sometimes you just need answers, real answers. The kind that doesn't fade when circumstances change. That's why the Biblical counseling book is a powerful

22:20resource covering over 200 real life topics we all face. Whether you're a long time believer or just searching for truth, this book meets you right where you are. Pastor Chek's myth takes you through life's toughest questions with clear, compassionate insight. Each topic is organized alphabetically easy to find, easy to understand and includes Pastor Chek's personal commentary. Plus practical illustrations to help you discover what God says about your situation. When you're confused, discouraged, or when man's advice just isn't enough, turn to the one who already knows your heart. Turn to God's word because the counsel you need has already been given. Order Biblical counseling today at TWFT.com or call 1-800-272-9673. Biblical counseling, real answers, real hope, right from God's word. Now here's Pastor Chek. May the Lord enrich you in all good things in Christ Jesus. May He fill you with the knowledge of His love and His grace.

23:23And may you walk in fellowship with Him through the week. And may the Lord continue His work in your life as He draws you unto Himself. As He cleanses you through His word, as He fits you and prepares you for that work that He would have you to do in touching the needy world around you. God bless you, God strengthen you, and keep you ever in His love and in His will in Jesus' name. We'll return with more of our Verse By Verse Bible study in the book of Revelation on our next broadcast. As Pastor Chek continues to teach through the Bible, and we do hope you'll make plans to join us. This message has been provided to you by the generous supporters of the word for today. For additional information about how you can support this ministry, please visit us online at

24:26thewordfortoday.org. There you'll find free message downloads from Pastor Chek, as well as links to our podcast and other resources to help you grow in your Christian walk. You can also call us at 1-800-272-9673, or you can order a physical copy of today's message by mentioning today's date. Again, that phone number is 1-800-272-9673. Our office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time. If you prefer to write, our mailing address is PO Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California 92628. Join us again next time. As Pastor Chek continues his Verse By Verse study through the Bible, that's right here on the next edition of the word for today. Do, do, do, do, do. People come on every day from miles around for meetings and for Sunday school. And it's very plain to see.

25:32It's not the way it used to be. This program is sponsored by Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, California.