GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Last Day Events, The Remnant, and Church Organization

Mark Finley

01 Revelation’s Remnant

02 The Holy Spirit, Laodicea, and Revival

03 The Rise of a Prophetic Movement

04 The Shaking, the Sifting, and the Remnant Church

05 The Triumph of God’s End Time Church

We're going to take a look at this whole idea of the coming crisis, the National Sunday Law, etc.

Look at it from the Word of God, look at it from Scripture.

And you know some people say to me, Pastor Mark, isn't this whole thing about a coming crisis, seal of God, mark of the beast, isn't that so negative?

There's a little village, true story, little village in the mountains.

Beneath that village there is a pretty good-sized city.

At the village there's a beautiful lake that has a dam that allows the water to run gently through a stream and river in through the village.

There was a villager who 1 early 1 evening was coming through and he noticed that there was a small hole in that dam or small place where there was a leak and water was running through.

He looked at it and he said, you know what, if I start shouting it's going to disturb that village, those people eating their supper.

I'm going to come back and check in an hour or 2.

He came back and checked in a couple of hours, and the water was flowing much, much faster.

People are putting their kids to sleep, it's going to be OK.

Came back a little later, it was a large hole in the dam, and the water was running so fast there was nothing he could do.

The dam eventually broke, and hundreds of people lost their lives in the city.

Would this man have been wiser to say something ahead of time?

The purpose of Bible prophecy is not to frighten or scare us, it is rather to prepare us.

The whole function of prophecy is to get a people ready for the coming of Jesus.

So let's go back to Revelation the 14th chapter and we compare 2 passages of Scripture, Revelation 14 and Daniel chapter 3.

We looked at this briefly this morning and we're going to come back and pick it up again.

Revelation 14 gives us an urgent message for end time, and in verse 9 it talks about the third angel.

1 of the angels that has flown has the everlasting gospel, leading people back to obedience to God in the light of the judgment hour, leading them to know Christ in deep ways, leading them back to worship the Creator on the Sabbath.

Babylon falls because it has rejected that message.

And then you have in verse 9, then a third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast in his image and receives his mark on his forehead or in his hand.

So you have this idea of worshipping the creator in the seventh verse, worshipping the beast in the ninth verse, and keeping the commandments of God in the twelfth verse.

So keeping God's commandments is in contradistinction or opposition to the worshiping the beast.

Is there any place else in the Bible that we might have a model of what was going on or a type of what is going on in Revelation 14.

So go back to Daniel 3 and we're looking at Daniel the third chapter.

Now who can tell me the theme of Daniel chapter 2?

Image has a head of gold, Breasts and arms of silver, thighs of brass, legs of iron, feet of iron and clay, the great nations of the world, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, the breakup of the Roman Empire, and the coming of Christ.

So in Daniel 2, you have the genuine outline of history revealed by God.

Incidentally, Daniel chapter 2 is 1 of the great chapters in the Bible that helps us to understand the authenticity, the accuracy of Bible prophecy.

Nebuchadnezzar does not like that at all.

He doesn't like the idea that there's a head of gold that's Babylon but Babylon's gonna fall and another nation will come, Medo-Persia, and another nation Greece.

He doesn't like that idea of gold, silver, bronze, iron, he wants the whole image to be gold.

So Nebuchadnezzar in defiance of God, in opposition to the true God, Nebuchadnezzar builds his own image.

We go there at Daniel chapter 3, we're looking at verse 1.

Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits.

A cubit is from the elbow here to the end of your finger, which is about 18 inches.

So a good measure, a good rule of thumb, we would say, is about 18 inches.

So if this image is 60 cubits high, it's about 90 feet high, 6 cubits wide, 60 and 6, wait a minute, did I read anything about 60 and 6 in Revelation 13?

6 in the Bible of course is the number of imperfection and 7 is the number of course of completeness.

He sets it up in the plain of Dora in the province of Babylon.

So here's this image 90 feet high all of gold set on the plains of Dora like you know plains Dora got saucer and this image is high the Sun is dancing off it verse 2 King Nebuchadnezzar sends word to gather the satraps the administrators the governors the counselors the treasurers the judges the magistrates and all officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the king which King Nebuchadnezzar set up.

Anybody that was anybody, everybody that was somebody came there.

All the wise men, they came as representatives of the entire nation.

It's an image, it's not real but it's an image.

In the last days verse history, will a mighty powerful world leader unite church and state and set up another image and will there also be false worship?

See Daniel 3 is a revelation of what's coming in the future.

It says here that verse 4, then a herald cries aloud to you it is commanded.

So here's a command by a leading ruler who unites church and state to bow down and worship a counterfeit image.

It's commanded, O people, nations, and languages, it's a universal decree that at the same time you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the harp, the lyre, the psaltery, the symphony, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar set up.

Whoever doesn't fall down will immediately be cast into the burning fiery furnace.

So here you have a universal world leader who passes a universal decree, who compels universal worship, who condemns to death those who do not bow down to worship.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego choose not to bow down.

They eventually go into the fiery furnace, they're not raptured before the fire.

King Nebuchadnezzar looks in the furnace and he sees the form of the fourth like the Son of God.

Jesus is there in that furnace with them.

Whatever fiery trial you go through in your life, whatever difficulty you go through, Jesus is there with you.

And in the time of trouble Jesus is not going to leave you when you need him most.

We may not see his presence, we may not feel his presence, but by faith we claim the promise of God, Matthew 28 verse 20, lo I'm with you always even to the end of the world.

We claim Hebrews chapter 13 5 and 6, I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you.

We know that Jesus is there, but here's the point.

In Daniel 3 and in Revelation 13, you both have a universal world ruler.

You both have a universal decree to worship.

You both have the contrast between false and true worship.

The other thing that's quite fascinating in Daniel 3 and Revelation 13 is this.

In Daniel 3 the test question is the second commandment.

In Revelation 13 the test question is the fourth commandment.

Why could Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego not bow down because the first commandment says thou shalt not remember it what is it completed first command what is it nor the gods was the image another God second commandment thou shalt not what's that 1 not down to any image they would have been bowing down third commandment what's that 1 name of the word they got in vain If they profess to be Christian or followers of God and they bow down, what are they doing?

Fourth commandment is, remember the what?

The Sabbath, but your Creator is supreme and they would have made that image supreme.

So they would have in a sense broken all 4 commandments if they would have bowed down to that image.

In the last days of earth's history, the question again will be over worship.

The question again will have to do with the Creator.

If you knock out the idea of creation, you knock out the very basis for all worship, and as the result of that, the change of the Sabbath in the early centuries, from Saturday, the seventh day, to Sunday, the first day, by the papacy, becomes now a mark of papal authority.

Remember in the convert's catechism, by Gehrman's Catechism, Imprimata the Pope, it says, which day is the Sabbath day?

Question, You know, catechism is set up by question and answer period.

Answer, because the Catholic Church changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.

And then you take a look, for example, at the faith of our fathers by Cardinal Gibbons.

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Last Day Events, The Remnant, and Church Organization

04 The Shaking, the Sifting, and the Remnant Church

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