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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Lewis Walton

Revelation 13: An Update

How blessed I have been this morning from the music.

And a few moments ago you sang a song, the words of which were authored by Uriah Smith.

Anybody here have an idea how old Uriah Smith was in 1844?

People sometimes say Adventism has to be restructured so it can appeal to the young mind.

Well I got news for you, a lot of the pioneers were teenagers in 1844.

Nothing wrong with the Advent message and young minds started it, they will help to finish it.

Toward the end of World War II, the young naval officer was on the bridge of a ship underway standing watch in Chesapeake Bay.

The captain had retired to his underway cabin, leaving the young man in command of the ship.

And everything seemed to be going reasonably well in the shallow water there until that unforgettable, heart-stopping, career-ending moment when the ship went whump and suddenly stopped.

Rocked a little from side to side as the bow dug in.

That young officer had run the ship aground.

And he was opening his mouth to think of something to say when the captain burst onto the bridge and took command.

Messenger, pipe damage control to the bridge on the double.

Quartermaster, get me a round of bearings, I mean right now.

And back came the answering orders, aye, sir, midships, engines back 1 DC to the bridge, round of bearings, sir.

And out on the bridge wings, Alladade swung around to line up with a lighthouse and the lights of a broadcast tower and some other item on shore that was illuminated in the shore lights.

And those lines of bearings were brought in and laid down on the chart, and bingo, there you had it, a perfect three-line cross.

Right over that telltale notation on the chart that said, Shoalwater.

The captain turned to the young officer and said, Mister, were you surprised?

And All of us in the last few months have felt that heart-stopping, career-ending, unmistakable whomp as the world runs aground.

And I got a question for you this morning.

Our topic this morning is Revelation 13 Revisited.

Revelation 13, chapter 11, or chapter 13, verse 11.

And I saw another beast rise up out of the earth.

Daniel and Revelation are filled with various beasts who represent geopolitical powers or major religious powers and most of them in 1 way or another come out of or are connected with water.

Let's do a little simple biblical interpretive review this morning.

This 1 comes out of the earth, which means what?

Well, all the other beasts have come out of water, have been associated with water.

You move on over to Revelation 17, 15 and John's angelic messenger that Sabbath day tells him the waters you saw are kingdoms, nations, and peoples.

So the Bible uses water to represent people and it never ceases to amaze me how the Bible in just a single word or a simple phrase can so brilliantly encapsulate so much.

Now you think about water and its similarity to people.

I've stood on the bridge of a ship, stood on the deck of my own sailboat many, many times at sea and seen sunrise come up over a calm ocean.

And if you're in good weather and the sun goes down and there's a red sky out to the west, the whole ocean turns orange, a magical moment.

Water coming or just a drop of water with light refracting through it becomes a diamond.

Water can be exquisitely beautiful just as people can, but water can also be very, very ugly.

I've been through 2 tropical storms, 1 in the Gulf of Formosa, 1 off the west coast of Mexico in the Gulf of Tawantipec.

I've been through hurricanes and typhoons.

I can tell you the ocean can get very, very ugly.

Like water, people can be very beautiful or very ugly.

And another point, like water, People can assume the shape of whatever vessel they're in.

It just assumes the contour of whatever it's in, an exquisite vase, or should we say vase.

It'll also take the shape of a simple jelly glass you're using as a drinking glass.

Water will assume the shape of whatever vessel it's in, as will people.

They will, for example, assume the shape of the magnificent US Constitution with its regard for the minority and its protection of the minority from the majority, they can assume that shape, or in a worst-case scenario, they can assume the shape of an Adolf Hitler.

So The Bible very descriptively uses water as an apt illustration of people.

All of these other beasts have come up out of human population, but this 1 in Revelation 13 comes up out of the earth, which tells us that near the end of time, There is this entire global hemisphere held in reserve, unknown, unexplored, and waiting for end time events and waiting for Bible prophecy.

And it's held in trust by a remarkable group of people whom I just personally happen very much to admire and respect called Native Americans who do a pretty good job of preserving this place.

So this new power comes up out of unpopulated earth, held in trust since the time of Noah.

All the other beasts that you see described in both Daniel and Revelation tend to project their authority through horns or teeth or claws or some combination thereof.

They're not the kind of thing you want to meet on your way home after dark from Granny's house.

This 1, moving on in Revelation 13, 11, has horns all right, but they're 2 horns like a what?

Now I posed the question to you this morning, what good are lambs horns?

Before I became a lawyer, I was in broadcasting here in the Inland Empire.

And I started in just as a garden variety disc jockey, you know Mighty 590 the sound of music for all of Southern, California.

You're listening to the Lou Walton show, okay?

I Then moved on finally into news now I put it to you this way when have you ever been listening or watching the news and the newscaster comes on and says sad news from Lytle Creek.

A troop of Boy Scouts camping at Lytle Creek was brutally attacked by a pack of killer lambs.

A lamb's horns are good for nothing in an offensive sense they're good only for biblical symbolism.

Out of this landmass, undiscovered landmass, comes a nation with respect for the defense of civil and religious liberty.

In just 12 to 14 verses, depending on the translation, we move from the emergence of America and its classic profile of a nation respecting individual rights to 1 which at the end speaks as a what?

Something happens, something goes wrong, toward the end of time, the world goes into a primitive herding instinct and it begins to coalesce into a very, very dangerous end time globalism driven in large part by the United States.

Now watch that globalism emerge, watch it happen.

And he caused the world and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.

He causes them to worship and causes that as many as would not worship would be killed.

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Revelation 13: An Update

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