The King Tolerates His Rival – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. At the appearing of Jesus, the world will be led by a ruler known as the Antichrist. Under Satan's control, this man will be the antithesis of Christ.

Just as matter and antimatter cannot coexist, the Antichrist will find himself vanquished by the Son of God. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, we're in the midst of your series on The King is Coming. Tell us what to expect in today's message, The King Tolerates His Rival.

Well Dave, of course the message is about Antichrist and God does put up with him for a while. But at the same time, we always want to give people hope. And it's how it ends that is very important. And even as we go through these messages, we're reminded of the fact that in the end, Jesus Christ wins and there is triumph. Much suffering now, but triumph in the future.

We're so glad for the many of you who have joined us for this series. I trust that even now as we go to the pulpit of Moody Church, it will be with great instruction, also great blessing, and above all, a message of hope. We gasp at the audacity of Satan. Think of it this way, God is a trinity. And now Satan has his trinity.

Let's clarify. Satan himself, the dragon, is the anti-God the Father. The beast that we've been talking about in the opening of the chapter is the Antichrist. This next beast corresponds to the Holy Spirit. He takes the work of what the Holy Spirit does and does the same thing for the beast. What does the Holy Spirit do? The Bible says that the Spirit is poured out.

Why? And he always glorifies Jesus. He causes people to look not at himself, but is always directing us toward Jesus, toward Jesus, toward Jesus.

That's what the New Testament teaches. And that's exactly what this beast does. This second beast is totally committed. He's not interested in his own fame necessarily as much as he is to cause others to worship the first beast.

That's what the text says. You'll notice that I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all of the authority of the first beast in his presence and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. Again, John, who wrote this, has to throw that in because that's critical. It's these miracles that really cause people to believe. Did you know that in 2 Thessalonians where it's speaking about Antichrist, it says that he does signs and wonders and miracles and three words are used to describe what he does. And those three words are also used of the signs and the wonders and the miracles of Jesus. I mean, think of what Satan can do.

And then we go down to verse 15. You'll notice that an image is put up that even this beast might speak. Again, it's probably not as if the beast can cause life, but maybe it is some trickery and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

You don't worship him, you're dead. And it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead. The idea here is a stamp, an indentation in the skin, some kind of a tattoo, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the one who is understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man and the number is 666. Now, it calls for wisdom for sure. Throughout history, all kinds of explanations have been given for 666. People have toyed around with various names.

If you assign numbers to letters and they make it come out to 666, I'm not going to speculate because if it calls for a real lot of wisdom at this point, my wisdom quotient is low and so I will not try to figure out 666, except that it's the number of a man. We know that from Scripture. Now, here's the point.

A mark on the forehead or on the hand. That's very easy to understand today. Just think, for example, of computer chips and think of how wonderful it would be to have a society without physical money. You see, because that's how drug deals are carried out. People give one another money under the table. Money is given to various people.

What if we had a world currency? Everyone had a computer chip. If you worked somewhere, your money was put into this computer bank and then, you know, it would be subtracted as you were a jewel or dominics or somewhere where you would buy or sell. And all transactions, of course, would be known.

They could just simply investigate what the computer says you bought or sold. And if you do not take this mark, you are defying the beast and you are put to death. That's what the text says. That all who do not have the mark of the beast are slain. And so what you have here is a radical, radical control. When we begin to think of what can be done today in terms of control, Hitler could have only dreamed about the kind of control he'd have wanted to have.

But of course, technology has increased and you can understand how this is so much more understandable today than it might have been even 30 or 40 years ago. Now we have to indicate how the beast ends before we wrap this up and talk about why our lives should be changed forever because we have been in this text. And that is, how does his career end? I'll tell you how it ends. Take your Bible now and I am asking you to turn to the 19th chapter. The 19th chapter, which indicates the return of Jesus, should come as no surprise to you that the next message is going to be on the glorious return of Jesus. We talked about the rapture, but now we're going to talk about Jesus Christ coming with his saints. We're going to talk about what it means when the lightning comes from one end of heaven to the other, what it means when Jesus comes on this white horse. But notice the way antichrist ends. I'm going to jump in in verse 19 of chapter 19. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on a horse and against his army.

I have to pause. When you get to the end of the tribulation period, that's really when the battle of Armageddon happens. We're going to find out that all of the forces of the world are gathered around Jerusalem and they're going to fight one another because opposition to antichrist is arising and the whole issue of Jerusalem has to be settled. And what happens at that time is Jesus appears on the Mount of Olives.

That's going to be one of our key passages next time. And suddenly they all say to themselves, look at him. We've been fighting one another, but let's stop fighting one another and let's take on Jesus. So all the armies of the earth are going to say he's the real rival.

That's what happens here. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. That's Jesus.

We can tell from the context. And the beast was captured and with it the false prophet who in his presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur and the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse. I warn you now it gets gory and the birds were gorged with their flesh.

Wow. Follow the beast and you end in hell, the lake that burns with sulfur. And by the way, as part of this series, I'm going to be speaking on the final judgment. It's one of the last messages in the series. And they actually beat Satan into the lake of fire because Satan in chapter 20 isn't in the lake of fire yet. He is in the lake of