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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Brian Hindman

The Dragon’s Voice

Dear Father in heaven, Lord, I thank you for the opportunity of sharing and speaking your words.

I pray Lord that you would forgive my sins and give me your strength, give me your Holy Spirit to speak clearly through me that I would be a channel of light to relate the truths that you have given to us in your word.

Lord, may we not just be informed, but may we be transformed by the renewing of our minds as we hear this truth from your word.

We live in a beautiful country, don't we?

We live in an amazing country, that country being the United States of America.

Fruited plains, beautiful mountains, valleys, hills, rivers, Yosemite National Park.

I know Tim will be familiar with this slide.

I don't see him at the moment, but he used to work there.

The waterfalls, the Grand Canyon, probably many of you have been there.

This is a beautiful country, And it was founded on reasons that were, among other things, religious.

1 of the main reasons why people came to this country is for religious liberty, the freedom to worship God based on their own conscience and the beliefs that they had themselves personally.

And so today we're looking at a subject called the Dragon's Voice and we're looking at a question about is the United States perhaps mentioned at all in Bible prophecy.

Now I'll say this from the beginning that the Bible doesn't mention every nation on earth.

But there's a particular focus that we can see in Bible prophecy that God is interested in nations that have an impact on his people.

And just 2 verses really quickly that highlight that, Zechariah chapter 2 and verse 8, 1 in the Old Testament, 1 in the New Testament.

The Old Testament says, Zechariah 2 verse 8, "'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, "'after the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you, and he's speaking about his people.

And it says, for he that toucheth you, toucheth is kind of a light word, it means really he that troubles or harms you, He that toucheth you toucheth the what?

And by the way, if you look at that verse carefully, the apple of his eye is really, the marginal reading says the pupil of his eye.

So God's eye, if we put that together, is on his people.

And whatever happens to them in any way, if they are harmed, God sees that as if someone hurts his people as if God himself is being poked in the eye because that's what he's looking at.

And so nations that have come on the scene of history and that have impacted God's people will draw particular attention in the word of God because of that impact on God's people and on God's word, God's truth.

So nations that have a particular bearing on God's people, And then I promised you a verse in the New Testament that just, we're looking at the principle that God is interested and has a particular focus on nations that are in some way affecting His people, both good or bad.

First Peter chapter 3, verse 12, the Bible says, For the eyes of the Lord are over who?

They're over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers.

Well, if the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, that tells us that He is looking at His people.

It's the same idea as Zechariah 2, verse 8.

And so the question we have then is the United States and any wise mentioned in the Bible in terms of having any kind of prophetic significance?

And the answer we're going to find today is yes.

But in the meantime, we have a little bit of history today, and I will do my best to scale down history class, because this is church, divine worship service, but noticing the Declaration of Independence written with these words, "'We hold these truths to be self-evident, "'to be obvious to all people that, ' what?

"'All men are created equal, "'that they are endowed by their, ' Now notice here in this document, the Declaration of Independence, it directly references the Creator.

That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these, chiefly among others, are life, liberty, and what?

I like the 1 particularly there in the middle.

The freedom to worship based on our own convictions that we have ourselves.

I believe this is a God-given right or privilege that He wants all people to have, the right to worship him based on their own convictions of what they believe God is teaching or is telling them.

Some of you probably have seen this before the Statue of Liberty and you might know there's a famous poem written by Emma Lazarus there at the base of this And it says, this poem says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.

I lift up my lamp beside the Golden Door.

And in fact Golden Door is a figure to describe particularly New York City for immigration.

During the time of the late 1800's early 1900's where there were large waves of immigrants coming to this country over 70% of those immigrants of all of them coming to the United States came through New York City, Ellis Island in particular, and entered this country there at that point of entry.

We welcomed people to come no matter what their background was politically, religiously, ethnically, there was a welcoming attitude.

And as a result, America has grown to be the most powerful nation today, 1 of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, on the earth in terms of financial power, cultural power, economic and influential power.

On a large scale, the United States has risen to prominence.

Well, let's take our Bibles, and we're going to really spend a lot of time today in Revelation chapter 13 as we look at what does the Bible say in this particular portion Revelation 13 about a power that comes on the scene of the earth and we're going to notice that the timing of that power happens to coincide perfectly with the emergence and arising of the United States.

But first of all beginning in verse 1 Revelation 13 verse 1 John writes and says, And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of where?

Rising up out of the sea, having 7 heads and 10 horns.

And upon his horns, 10 crowns, and upon his head, the name of blasphemy." This first beast, as we have noticed earlier in our presentations, is actually a representation and a picture.

Beasts in the Bible are symbols of kingdoms or powers, and we saw that in Daniel 7.

This beast arising out of the sea is a picture of the Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic papacy emerging in Europe.

And at the end of this description of this beast that is called the first beast in Revelation 13, often times also called the sea beast because this beast comes up out of the sea contrary to what the next beast will have in its emergence.

It says these words describing this power, if any man have an ear let him hear.

He that leadeth into captivity shall what?

Those who lead into captivity shall go into captivity.

The same policy they follow in treating other people will be given to them.

And then it says this, he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.

Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

This beast clearly represents the religio-political combination of religion and church with what is the Catholic Church, the papacy, the papal system, headquartered in Vatican City in Rome.

So, the next question, though, that we should have is what kingdom arises that's described right after this in the very next verse as the papacy goes into captivity in the year 1798 with the time of when it would exercise its dominance for the time, times, and dividing of times, the 1260 years of papal supremacy from 538 to 1798.

Notice the very next verse, and we'll begin our study in earnest with this verse today, Revelation 13 verse 11.

Another beast, beast representing kingdoms and powers, coming up out of where?

All the other beasts that we saw really before this in Daniel 7 and here in Revelation 13 in the first part emerged out of the sea.

And we'll notice and we'll just review what that refers to in just a second.

It says this beast came up out of the earth and he had 2 horns like a lamb.

Doesn't say it was a lamb, it says it was like a lamb and he spake how?

Hence the title of our sermon today, our message is entitled The Dragon's Voice.

So, we're gonna look at some characteristics.

In fact, there'll be 7 characteristics from the Bible that describe this beast that we're gonna just call a lamb-like beast.

It's like a lamb, doesn't say it is, but it's like a lamb.

And we notice, first of all, in the Bible it arises around 1798, which was the same time that the papacy received its deadly wound.

Next question, where does this new kingdom come to power?

The question is where, and as noted earlier, you can see in the italics, I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth.

Coming up out of the earth, And so what does that actually represent or symbolize?

Other beasts came up out of the sea, and we saw this description in Revelation 17, verse 15.

We'll take this, this is a Revelation 17, verse 15.

This is an angel speaking to John and telling him an interpretation of chapter 17, but we can also use that information and apply it to our study in chapter 13.

The angel tells John, he saith unto me, the waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth, we're going to talk about this in a later presentation this next week called The 2 Women of Revelation, where the Hor Siddith are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

Water is a symbol for people, a location where there would be a lot of people.

So by contrast, the earth and a beast that comes up out of the earth must represent, by contrast, a place where there is very few people, very sparse population.

And we see that in our description as we study this.

The earth would represent a sparsely populated land, and I'll have more to say about that.

As we compare all of these characteristics, we're gonna see how they actually are perfectly fulfilled by the United States, every single 1 of them, to the letter.

So number 2, it arises in a sparsely populated area.

Point number 3, or question 3, how does this new nation come to power?

It says, and I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth.

Now it's interesting, the other beast that we saw in Daniel 7, they emerged to power in a clash of warfare fighting against other nations.

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The Dragon’s Voice

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