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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

The Issachar Factor

Has anybody ever given you a warning or a citation?

I had a friend just this week, well it actually happened maybe 2 weeks ago, but I heard the rest of the story this week.

He was driving with his little pop-up camper, and as they were traveling through the mountains, the transmission started not working, to not work properly.

There was some grinding, there was all kinds of noise, and then it got stuck in various gears, and so really, I was thinking probably the thing to do in that situation would be to do what?

And so, in lieu of that sense, this individual continued to keep driving.

And they kept that engine whining and making noise, and they were redlining the engine.

I can do a few simple basic things, but I know the RPM gauge, and I know the color red.

So anyway, over the course of everything, you finally took it into the shop.

Sure enough, this 2009 vehicle needed a new transmission.

Went through all of that, got the phone call.

You can come in and make that payment, and then we'll talk to you about the other issues with your car.

Well, in taking out for the test drive, we discovered that basically your entire engine is shot, and you're going to need a new engine.

Now, I'm not here to debate with you whether that's ethical for this guy to charge them for that without knowing that the engine was bad, maybe he didn't know.

The whole thing has kind of turned into a little bit of a mess.

But I use that this morning to illustrate this idea of warnings.

They're there for a purpose, aren't they?

To help us to be aware of what's happening.

1 Chronicles 12, 32 says, and of the sons of Issachar, he who has an understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do.

Uncertain times when good is called evil and evil is called good.

We live in times of war and rebellion and uprising.

We live in times of strange weather and calamity.

We live in times of biblical ignorance and unprecedented selfishness and self-centeredness.

If ever we needed the Issachar factor to have an understanding of the times and know what to do, I would think it would be today.

Now we're going to have to go through a quick review.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Revelation 13.

I'm not a fan of PowerPoint, I'll just say it.

But as I was looking at this message this week, I said, man, I'm really going to need it.

And so, yes, I needed a title screen or something else.

And I spent probably an hour and a half this morning going over Revelation 13 with slides and to try and show you how the first part, the beast from the sea, who that represents, and the beast from the earth and who that represents.

But I have so much on the other end of that to present, I thought, they don't want to be here until 4.30.

But I need you to understand that I realize there's a lot of Bible study that goes into the first several verses of chapter 13 and the remainder, but we're going to do a quick review.

But if you don't understand, that's fine.

If you haven't heard this before, that's fine.

Talk to me, talk to somebody else, let's have a Bible study this week so you can have that full understanding.

But the beast from the sea has these 6 characteristics.

It really has more than that if we start delving into Daniel and start putting the 2 together.

But the beast from the sea in Revelation 13 has these characteristics.

It claims equality with God and it persecutes, it's a persecuting power.

It reigns for 1260 years and that's this little thing that you already saw from 538 and we can pinpoint that time we can pinpoint 1798 and that all comes together very nicely and then lastly the number of his name is 666.

Who do we as a church and a fair bit of Protestants out there, who do we understand this sea beast to be?

But then as we continue on in our review, we get to this beast from the earth, and we'll review very quickly.

This beast rises after that date of 1798.

Arises in a relatively unpopulated area, the earth, not the sea.

Thirdly, there's no crowns on its horns, and that is also significant.

It would rise to a position of worldwide power and influence.

And so I ask you, what's the only nation that fits this description?

But now I want to unpack a little bit more this beast from the earth.

So if you have your Bibles, I want to read it from the text if we can.

Revelation chapter 13 beginning verse 11.

And it says, Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth.

And he had 2 horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.

And then notice this, and he exercised how much authority?

Now go back to the first beast in verse 2.

He was given authority, it says, in verse 2, from the dragon, it says, the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.

And that power became a persecuting power.

And so here in verse 12 the United States exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence and causes or forces the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed." Everyone is going to be caused to go back and to worship Rome, who was wounded and will be healed.

And it has the same power that Rome once did to enforce it.

As I move my arm around like this, does my arm look healthy and in pretty good shape?

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The Issachar Factor

Transcript

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