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Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1.0. toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Revelation. I want to share a few things with you that I hope will be a little interesting for you. We would love to have everything done decently and in order, but when you come to prophecy sometimes it seems like everything is out of order. We know some generalities, you know, are what’s going to take place in the tribulation period, that period of time that’s right ahead of us. We’ve taught in the college class on Daniel in Revelation at different times in church.

And I tried to give you the image of the beast that Nebuchadnezzar had, know that he had this nightmare. And he was going to kill everybody that couldn’t tell him what he dreamed. They said, well, you tell us what you dreamed and we’ll tell you what it means. He says, oh, I know you know. He says, if you can tell me what I dreamed, then I don’t know you can tell me what it means. Well, anyway, all these wise guys were going to be killed.

And that included Daniel and Meshach Chadrach and Abednego. And they didn’t want to go yet. So Daniel said, I’ll just pray the Lord. So he prays to the Lord and the revealer of secrets. Told him what the dream was and told him the interpretation thereof. So he went to see the king and he says, you wise men couldn’t tell you? Hah ha ha. Good job. He says, but understand this. It’s not because of any great thing that I am or have done.

It’s because God the revealer of secrets, it’s in his hands. And God can let you know what it is. But anyway, He says, Thou art the head of gold. You’re the head of gold. And then after you is going to come another kingdom, the Medes and the Persians. And after them, they’ll come to the Alexandian Empire. And then after that will be the Roman Empire. And then last of all, they’re going to be these tin toes on the image, the feet of the image, tin toes.

And he says, there’s a stone cut out of a mountain without hands and his stone comes down and smites these tin toes and crumbles this whole beast, destroys them all. So whenever that beast is kind of like laying down to the, you know, survey of time, you have the head, the arms, you know, and the nagl’s and the empire, the legs and so forth of the Roman Empire, and then you got those ten toes down there. Well those ten toes down there, those represent the ten nations in the last days, and they’re going to be given power to an individual that will roll the world.

And so we’re living at some very interesting times. We’re not supposed to look for the blessed tribulation, we’re supposed look for the blessed hope and I believe Christ is going to come down and take us out of this world. So the Bible tells us that this beast that’s going to come is going to be a terrible terrible beast and so in the book of Daniel in chapter seven he talks about four beasts that shall arise so we believe that Babylon is already off the same because he has the dream in the years of Bell Shazar It’s a grandson.

And so you have the next four beasts that’s mentioned there, and they were all future at that time. And so one was like a bear, one was like a lion, and one was like a leopard. And it says that the last one that he mentions, the fourth one, will be different from all the other ones. And it’s going to be terrible, terrible, terrible. But it’s describing. The kingdom that’s going to be ruling when Christ comes back again. And I’m not telling that when he comes in the air for us, but when he comes to the end of the tribulation period.

And so you have this last world power. And I guess most people would like to try to figure out who is this Antichrist. Well, the Bible says in the book of Thessalonians that he will be revealed in his time, and that he will, when he goes into the temple and claims himself that he is God. Now we may see some things running up toward this time, but I believe that you get into trouble when you set dates and you pick a person.

So any one of those can get you into heap of trouble. In other words, if I had told you that last year on December the 1st, Christ was coming back and he didn’t come back, you would maybe question my judgment because Yankee you said and it didn’t happen that way. Well over the years a lot of people have picked the Antichrist. Well he didn’t come and it wasn’t them and a lot of people have set dates and those dates have come and gone.

So your credibility is on the line. So maybe the best thing to do is not to sedate and not to pick a person. Though in my mind I have somebody that sure looks like a forerunner, but we’re not going there at this moment. So I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Revelation chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13 and you’ll notice that it talks about it and I saw beast come up out of the sea.

Now this is going to need to be the nations that are around the Mediterranean sea or the sea of humanity itself. People have different opinion on it. I really don’t care. All I know is somebody’s coming. And he makes the statement, he has seven heads. these seven heads, I mean I’ve seen drawings of this lion-like creature coming up out of the Mediterranean and he’s got seven heads on it and ten crowns and that’ll blow your mind. I mean if you really saw a beast that looked like that but I believe that it might be symbolic of something else.

So kind of hold your place right here and you’ll notice there in chapter 12 you’ll notice in verse verse 3, where he says, and there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon313. So it’s a good possibility that the devil has his man on the scene ready to do his bidding because the Bible says that the beast gets his power from the devil. So the devil is, as Jesus says, the God of this world.

And so this God thinks he has the world by the tail, and by the way he did have a tail, and that’s mentioned up there in verse 3 and 4 where He talks about His tail to do the third part of the stars of heaven. But who is this red dragon? Look down there in verse 9. And the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and Satan. So we know who the red dragon is. It’s the devil.

And the devil as it says here has seven heads. So hold your place in chapter 13 and just take a quick gander over there in chapter 17 of the book of Revelation. And you’ll notice that when he talks about these beast and kingdoms and mountains and all that, it can get a little on the confusing side. And I’ve been very confused sometime when I study all of this. Revelation 17, you’ll notice in verse 8, the beast that thou saw us was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, go into perdition.

And they shall, that dwell on the earth, shall wonder whose names were not written in the book of life, from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was and is not and yet is.” And that’s confusion. Now this beast with these seven heads, so he kind of says, here’s the mind that hath wisdom and evidently I know that This wasn’t including me in that verse because he also makes a statement in another place in chapter 13, the mind that hath wisdom.

Okay then, why don’t I understand it then? Because I consider myself to be fairly wise, don’t you? And then you want to locate, well, who is this wise man that gets all the clues? I had a few clues, but sometimes I’d come into a dead end. But he makes a statement there, the seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman said it. Now we know another scripture that the mountains could refer to kingdoms. And because when he talks about Christ, the stone cut out of the mountain, because Christ is the king coming to set up his mountain upon the earth, his kingdom upon the earth.

So he comes back at the end of these other nations after they have ruled. So all of these other nations that God had promised would come has come, except the last one. And the last one the Bible says is the one that will make war with God, Make war with the Lamb. See down there in verse 14, These shall make war with the Lamb, but the Lamb shall overcome them. So we know there’s going to be a battle at the end of the tribulation period.

You already know the name of that battle. What is it? The Battle of Armageddon. So that day is coming. When the Lord will declare the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of Christ. So Christ is going to come back to the earth and set up his kingdom. But before he does, the Antichrist, the head of the last world government, is going to establish his throne in Jerusalem. Because the Bible says he will enter into the city, and in chapter 11 of the book of Revelation it says that he will have his throne there for 42 months, which is three and one-half years.

This is when the Antichrist goes into Jerusalem, goes into the temple and claims himself that he is God. And that’s when the greatest persecution against the nation of Israel begins because it’s to wipe out, to totally annihilate the Jewish nation, the people, and all of them. So you’ll notice here in verse 9 when he says, the seven heads, which are seven mountains on which the woman said it. Now a lot of people try to have fun trying to figure out, well, who is this woman?

Now, chapter 12, we know the woman is Israel, but the woman mentioned here seems like it’s a little bit different, but it may not be. It might be a lot of symbolism in here because it talks about this woman that rides the beast. Now remember this, there’s this one-world government that’s going to come on the scene. And it’s supposed to make a peace treaty with Israel. So Israel is going to ride upon the beast. Maybe this is a little yankiology in here so that I’m telling you up front.

So Israel could be the woman that rides upon the beast. Now some people think, well that woman could be, it could be Rome because of the seven heels. Then it could be, Well, it might be America because a little horn means a young nation. So it could be a young nation. So maybe that’s where it comes from. So there’s a lot of people who have a lot of different ideas about who in the world is the woman. But whoever the woman is, she rides the beast.

It means they’re getting along. also means that the beast hates theThumbnailImage woman and the beast wants to destroy the woman and the beast wants to gobble up the woman. You say, how do you know that? I don’t know. Now let me show you. You’ll notice what he says here in verse 16, and the tin horns which thou sauced upon the beast, thee shall hate the whore, shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

Whatever it is, this beast in the tribulation period, the head of the last world government that’s made a peace treaty turns upon whoever the woman is in Gavolos and Gavol are up. Now is there a connection here? Well there might be. If you’ll notice, when you look there in verse 10, and there are seven kings, five are fallen, one is and the other is not yet come, and when he cometh he must continue a short space. And the beast that was and is not even is of the eight and is of the seventh…

And go into tradition. Isn’t that clear? We talk about Israel and the Gentile powers. You refer to when these nations conquer Israel or have Israel subdued or when Israel is mainly without a king. And so there’s persecution that has come. So we know that Israel was down in Egypt and Egypt was over. Then you had the Assyrians that took the 10 northern tribes. because of Solomon’s missteps. Okay, sins with all those women. He was going to have his kingdom split divided after his death.

And so you had ten tribes that formed Israel and their capital of Samaria. And then you had the seven two tribes, Judah, Benjamin and the capital of Jerusalem. So Assyria came and took the northern two tribes, ten tribes. And then afterwards, then here comes Nebuchadnezzar and there and takes the seven to tribes. So you got, you know, the Egyptian and you’ve got, that’s one, you got the Assyrians, that’s two, and you got Babylon, three, and major depersions, four, and then you got Alexander Empire, five.

Now by the time this was being written, John was there during the Roman Empire, so it’s not fail yet. So there’s a possibility. Five, fallen, one is, one is yet to come. The one that’s yet to come is the seventh one. And the seventh one is going to have these ten kings and they shall give their power to the eighth. So the eighth is of the seventh. Now is that the way it really is? I don’t know but it sounds good, don’t it?

Didn’t that sound intellectual? Now it may be. All you and I need to know, something bad’s going to happen in the future, and we ain’t going to be here. But we can see the world choosing sides, and it’s interesting every night to listen to the news. I don’t get to listen to it too much. But maybe sometime I get an hour of it, I can watch it and find out a little bit about what’s going on. what’s going on.

And I do try to read the paper once in a while. But I have already read the Bible, and so I’m just waiting for things and pieces of the puzzle to come together because I think it’s just so exciting to see all of these things. And so when he makes the statement there, then these ten kings, remember now that beast that Nebuchadnezzar saw in the Old Testament, there were ten toes. Now those ten toes and the 10 horns and the 10 kings, they’re all the same thing.

And they all have something similar. And I’ll show you that. Now, Lotus in verse 12, and the 10 horns which thou sought are 10 kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but received power as kings one hour with the base. These have one mine and get this, shall give their power and strength under the beast. These people are going to give their power to this last world power. You ever heard of the United Nations? Well, the United Nations at this point, they have no teeth.

They got a loud bark, but no teeth. They can’t enforce anything. They have no armies. They can’t do nothing. And they try to get different nations coming together and try to have peace. They’re the problem, but they can’t solve anything because there’s no wisdom there. So one of these days some superman is going to come on the scene. I had somebody mention the other night. I was listening to this woman now, the Greta Van Suster, and she’s talking about, it’s a shame what ISIS is doing.

And that’s just true. It’s a shame. Somebody ought to do something about that. She says, all the nations need to come together and fight this. All the, got to have some common denominator that draws people together. See, that would solve the problem if you only had a one-world government. No, it’s going to make sense. It’s going to be reasonable because then you can solve all these world problems on this globe that we live on. Well, that’ll be interesting to see see how that all comes about.

But it says they will give their power to them. What makes these nations do what they do? I explain a little bit this way. Now you know that when John was caught up into heaven, in heaven he got a chance to see both sides of the issue. You see, he got to see the angelic world. And then he also got to see the human world. He saw it from a human perspective and a divine perspective. In heaven, he got to see the angels working behind the scenes.

So as you go through the book of Revelation, you’ll notice his talking about in the angels, the angels, the angels, the angels. That’s all the way through. Every chapter is about angels. He is seeing how God uses his angels to accomplish his will. But the people upon the earth, they only see the consequences of things. They can’t see what’s causing it. And that’s the same way it is today. God has angels that are working, but you can’t see it, and you just think that was just a coincidence.

That’s a strange coincidence. You’re right. Maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe there’s somebody doing something. A God working behind the scenes. And you’ll get to heaven one of these days and you’ll find out how God has protected you in a miraculous way and Things that God allowed and things God did not allow for your benefit and you don’t have a clue about it Anyway, I do believe in the providence of God and So he says that this is going to happen But now why do they do this because oh you see God also has a plan God can use the wickedness of man to accomplish his purpose.

People that rebel against God, God is free to use them to whatever way he wants to. He could beat the tar out of him and he can use them to accomplish things for him. But look what he says here down in verse 17, for God had put in their hearts to fulfill His will and to agree and give their kingdom unto the beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled. Now God is able because of the wickedness of man and the rebellion of man because they would not believe the truth.

God shall send them strong delusions that they would believe the lie so that they would believe what the Antichrist said because they would not believe the truth. So God is free to cause them to believe a lie. So they bring it upon themselves so God gets his purpose accomplished. And so he goes through here and makes a mighty strong statement about the wisdom of God who knows and understand everything in advance. Just because we don’t see God working in people’s lives, you know, like with angels behind the scene, we don’t see that.

We don’t see how God may be working in your own personal life, but He may be working in your life in ways that’s, you’d say, boy, that was a miracle, that was a miracle, that was a miracle. And God may be doing miraculous things in your life every day and you’re not even aware of it. Now go back to chapter 13. Back to chapter 13. Now remember this, when you read Daniel in chapter 7 it mentions these three beasts and those three beasts he mentions the bear and the lion and the leopard.

Well when he starts describing this last world power and we know it’s coming from the devil because it’s the devil that’s mentioned in chapter 12 that has the seven heads and the ten horns and you’ll notice what he says here in verse 2 and the beast which I saw was like a leopard, amazing, and his feet, well the feet of the bear, that’s interesting, his mouth as the mouth of a lion, that’s interesting. These are the same three things that were descriptive of three beasts in the Old Testament but the fourth beast was one that was from all the beast.

In other words, is it possible that in the end time all of these nations, these kingdoms can become all revived. You hear about the revival of the Roman Empire. Well maybe the other kingdoms are also revived. We just don’t know. But it appears that the Bible makes his statement in Daniel chapter 2 in verse 43 and 44. It says that the stone cut out of a mountain without hands is going to hit upon the feet, these ten toes, and destroy all of these kingdoms together.

So maybe there’s more than meets the eye. Isn’t it something that one of the worst places where happened today is over there in Iran and Iraq? Iren and Iren, did you happen to know where Babylon was located? La-di-da, and the major in the Persian came from Persia, which was Iren. So here you have these same nations coming to power again today, and it ain’t over yet. And so there’s a problem that we have sometime when we know the scripture says in the book of Isaiah, trying to put it all together, that Babylon, when it’s destroyed, that nobody will go there.

Nobody will be there. But the problem is, we just had a word with Iraq and there’s people there. And there’s even a Babylon over there. They were trying to rebuild Babylon again. But it’s not totally wiped away like it appears that it should be. So maybe it’s a future fulfillment that’s going to happen in the future. And what we’re seeing is the rebuilding of something that’s supposed to be taking place in the tribulation period and maybe it’ll all come together.

You know what I’ve learned? I’m sure God is gonna figure it out. I don’t believe he has a doubt in his mind what’s really gonna take place. Because man, I can come up with so many different scenarios. Time to figure all the stuff out. But what we do know is this. There’s gonna be this beast come on the scene, right? And he’s gonna have a political agenda to roll the world, right? And he’s gonna have the nations turn against the believers and try to wipe them out.

It’s a move to wipe out all believers because Christ is coming back. And the Bible says that they prevail against the saints back there in the book of Daniel. So they prevail against the saints and they are the ones that will be ruling And the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. So that means that Christ is coming back, that stone that’s cut out of the mountain without hands, he’s coming back. And this is not the rapture.

This is at the revelation of Christ when he comes back in power and great glory and he’s going to set up his kingdom. But first of all, he has to destroy these nations. And that’s why they’re being drawn together into this great big old bowl. And so the battle of Armageddon, and the plates placed there in the plains of Jezreel, which is, I’ve been there, I’ve walked there. I mean, it’s huge, it’s just like the Bible says. I mean, it’s got it all.

It’s like a great big old bowl. And God says he’s gonna send forth his angels, and they’re gonna go out, and they’re gonna, with sickles in their hands, and they’re gonna cut these grape vines. They’re gonna pull these grape vines from all over the world, and pull them into this big old bowl. And then God’s going to jump in there in this wine press and just stomp them with his feet until the blood is as high as a horse is bridal.

Can you imagine what this is going to be like? You’ll find that in chapter 19 of Revelation also and part of chapter 18. But this is incredible. But now look at something about this B.C. in verse 2 of chapter 13. He says, and his mouth as a mouth of a lion and the dragon. Now who is the dragon? That’s the devil. Gave him his power and his seat and great authority. Now the devil is not the beast. So how do you know that?

I made it up. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The gospel-driven man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel-Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy.

There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the Gospel Driven Mailing. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address and God bless you and thank you for listening to Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.

And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. Taught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Leaving that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.