Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, I want to ask you, the beast of Revelation and our world, is there a connection? I want to entice you with the book of Revelation today, the book of Revelation, one of the greatest and most blessed of the books of the Bible, yet also one of the most mysterious and enigmatic books. But it can be comprehended. It can be understood.

But I find that today, so many Christians fail to ask this question, the beast of Revelation and our world, is there a connection? And there are related ones too. That is, if there is a connection between the beast of Revelation and our world, then how does it manifest itself? How does the United States of America, for that matter, an ostensible free republic fit in to the beast of Revelation? And so many people fail to ask these questions because they have a prior commitment to what I would submit to you as an error-ridden brand of eschatology.

So many Christians today think, with the system of eschatology that is predominant in the churches, they think that the beast, which all agree at a basic level is a satanic-inspired world system of some kind, they think that the beast will not appear until after a supposed rapture of the church from the earth and then an onset of the great tribulation begins, which is another false presupposition I want to challenge you with today.

I want to challenge these presuppositions with you because if indeed the beast of Revelation is already here in our world today and has been for some time and growing, metastasizing like a demonic cancer, well then Christians are being deceived and delayed in how they should be responding to it. Doing politics as usual today is a dog chasing its tail, a cat leaping after a shiny bauble.

Now, those who do understand biblical prophecy and the apocalyptic literature of the Bible, of which Revelation is one, they are far ahead of anyone else in the world, I submit, bearing wisdom and insight and salvation that those of any other religion, including those of atheistic materialism, cannot possibly obtain. The God of the Bible, the alone creator of the universe, he has revealed to his servants not only what has happened in the past and what it means for us, things like redemptive history, the creation of the world, the universe, the fall, a redemption through Jesus Christ.

These are all historical realities, but this same God has also revealed, that is what Revelation means, to reveal the general outlines of what will be as well until Christ returns to complete the salvation already begun at his life, death, burial, and resurrection from the dead. Revelation is derived from the Greek word apakalupto, which means to reveal. And John says it was given to show his servants what must soon take place, that is, within the lifetime of his readers. John clearly indicates its purpose in verse 3 of chapter 1, for example.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, that is, the reading of the letter, the revelation, in congregation in worship. And then he also says, blessed are those who hear, that is, the people in the congregation who hear it read, and who keeps what is written in it, for the time is near, John says, the time is near. By definition, the book of Revelation finds fulfillment in some sense during the period of John's audience. We'll be covering this with you.

We will have more to say in days to come, but what I want to emphasize here is that those who put all of Revelation into the future, as many of you listening do, I know, that is a pre-tribulational rapture, a literal seven-year great tribulation, a rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, a personal antichrist, these kinds of things, you must rethink your position. It is called a futurist position, because all of the revelation of what is to come are thrown into the future. When John pointedly says in multiple places in Revelation, he says in chapter 22, for example, surely I am coming soon.

He has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place. And to say that the nearness of which John speaks is that which begins when the signs begin to appear, well, that's a cheap shift. That the context in which John speaks will not allow. John is speaking to his own generation. If I tell my son, go pick up your room now, a spanking is near.

And he says to himself, oh, dad means next week when my room is messy then. Well, then that son is playing word games with the context of my speech. And he's in for an awfully painful surprise because the spanking is near. So too, those who try to shift the now and the nearness of Revelation to a supposed future time when conditions are ripe, and I submit to you they were ripe in John's day, they play these same kinds of semantic games. A basic interpretive rule of the Bible is that a text cannot mean something other than what it means to its first audience.

This is an ironclad rule. A text cannot mean something other than what it means to its first audience. The time is near. What must soon take place is for John's generation, first and foremost, not for some far off people 2,000 years later, although it can be applied to us 2,000 years later.

If we are to understand our present world and exactly how and why a Christian constitutional republic can sink into a demonic world tyranny as it is, then we must understand how the apocalyptic literature of the Bible, books like Revelation, and there's other apocalyptic literature throughout the Bible too, books like Daniel and Zechariah, parts of Ezekiel, and of course the Olivet Discourse of Jesus. They speak to not only the generation of John the Apostle who wrote Revelation and the generation in which Christ returns, but also to our own generation.

Revelation speaks to our generation, dear listener, but not in the way that futurists say it does. Futurists are so busy looking for red heifers, marks of the beast, signs of the Antichrist, the rapture, and a supposed great tribulation that they're missing the beast from the sea, the satanic-inspired system that brings old chaos and disorder to God's creation, and the beast from the earth who is the demonic world religious system that deceives humanity, and they're operating right now. Revelation is a book that speaks to us right now, dear listener. Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you.

The letters to the seven churches, for example, of Asia in Revelation chapters 2 through 3, are seven in number, because seven is the number of perfection and completeness, symbolic of the whole church of this age. The seven letters to the seven churches are, they speak to the church of this entire age, this entire eon, until Christ comes again, not merely churches of John's time or churches in the future tribulation. Revelation is, in fact, structured as seven groups of seven, indicating completeness, the completeness of this age and eon.

These seven groups of seven recapitulate the entire period of the church through which we are living now, not sometime in the future, a mere seven-year great tribulation, no. Can you see how we miss the blessing promised by John if we stand around tapping our feet, waiting for those days to come when we are living through them right now? The worship that we see also pictured for us in Revelation chapters 4 through 5, for example. Revelation applies now. Revelation 4 through 5, the worship in heaven is for us right now, not some future heavenly host.

As one scholar, Stephen Hahn, has so aptly observed, Revelation provides us with a church liturgy for worship too. That is patterned after all that has come before in the Old Testament temple worship and that of the synagogue. As in heaven, so on earth is our model. And Revelation gives us that heavenly model for worship, which we follow personally at New Geneva, which all churches should follow in some sense. The book of Revelation, like the first chapter of Genesis, oscillates between heaven and earth as what is declared in heaven then transpires upon the earth.

The seven seals are broken in heaven, the seven trumpets are blown in heaven, the seven bowls of judgment are poured from heaven, and their effects are all felt upon the earth below. And what few believers realize is that all of the judgments that comprise the seals and the trumpets and the bowls can be found throughout the Old Testament in prophetic judgments. There is famine and drought in the days of Elijah, pestilence and the waters turned to blood in the ten plagues of Egypt. There is war and bloodshed during the captivities of Israel and Judah. On and on we go.

What the seven series of sevens do in Revelation is each of the sevens go back to the beginning of the church age to highlight a particular aspect of the period between Christ's first advent and his second advent. That is his second coming in great power and glory as illustrated for us in Revelation chapter 12 verses 1 through 6. Let me read that portion of scripture for you. This is Revelation chapter 12 verses 1 through 6. And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with a moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven, behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

But her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God in which she will be nourished for 1,260 days. Unquote. That is Revelation chapter 12 verses 1 through 6. And here in this text, we see the first promise of the gospel in Genesis fulfilled in Christ. That first promise is called the proto-evangelicum.

That is that the first mention of the gospel, and it occurs in as early as Genesis 3.15, where God promises the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. That is the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman. He shall bruise your head, God goes on to say, and you shall bruise his heel. Unquote. Genesis 3.15.

This verse is the first mention of the gospel, where one of the offspring of the woman will destroy the serpent, that is defeat him and his works. Even the apostle John said in his letter, the reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Though he will wound that child, that is the serpent will wound that child. He will bruise his heel, which is a reference to the crucifixion. Now in the meantime, there will be perpetual warfare as well between the seed of the woman, that is the elect of God, the church, and the seed of the serpent, which is the rest of lost humanity who descend now from this Adam in Genesis.

And John here in Revelation retells that story as the seed of the woman, Jesus that is, and he telescopes his life, death, and burial, and resurrection, John does, by jumping directly to his ascension to the right hand of the Father, that is he is caught up to God in his throne, while the woman flees to the wilderness, protected by God, that is the seed, the offspring of the woman, the people of God, the church. Now the rest of chapter 12, Revelation chapter 12, vividly recounts the impact of Christ's victory at the cross.

It begins by saying, now war arose in heaven, and here Michael and his angels defeat the dragon and cast him down to the earth, and a voice from heaven declares a truth that is extensive throughout this church age, not just during a supposed great tribulation, and that truth is, now the salvation, and power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God, and they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. This is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

This is characteristic of the entire church age in the book of Revelation, not just some supposed great tribulation, dear listener. Revelation 12 is the opening vision of seven visions that extend through chapter 15 and verse 4, right up to the judgment of the seven bulls. These judgments take us back, once again, to the beginning of the church age to highlight other aspects of what we're going through right now. Revelation is for us, for us now, as well as for the generation of John and subsequent generations to come who follow us.

You rob us of all of this if you throw everything into the future, a future which cannot be supported by the text. So, dear listener, awake, O sleeper, as Paul says. Arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. Revelation is for today. The book of Revelation can help us understand our world now if we let it speak to us in the way that John intended.

For example, in the very next chapter, following 12, of course, is chapter 13. John says, I saw a beast arising out of the sea. Now, of course, futurists project this into the future of some seven-year great tribulation after the church has been raptured, for which rapture John says not a word, by the way, and they identify it with the personal figure of an antichrist, for which and about which John says not a word as well. He doesn't use the word antichrist anywhere in Revelation. It must be read into the text.

It must be superimposed from the outside into the context of Revelation. What we do know, however, what we do know from the rest of the Bible, and this is a prerequisite for understanding Revelation, you must know the whole of the rest of the Bible to understand the book of Revelation, is that the beast from the sea has always been with us. Yes, the beast from the sea has always been with us and is with us now. Daniel, for example, employs the beast from the sea to describe the demonic scourge to Israel. That is the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes.

He says, in chapter 7 of Daniel, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another, unquote. He then goes on to describe those beasts in the same manner as John does in the book of Revelation. And the psalmist exalts in the beast's defeat in the great flood of Genesis, too, remembering it, where that beast is a symbol for the wicked Nephilim of Genesis. The psalmist says in Psalm 74, you divided the sea by your might. You broke the heads of the sea monsters, that is the beast, on the waters.

You crushed the heads of Leviathan. You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness, unquote. The beast from the sea goes all the way back, I submit you to creation. When the earth was empty and void and dark, that is in complete chaos. And this is what the serpent from the sea always brings.

And God brought order to the sea by destroying the beast. Job, in chapter 26, says it this way, by his power, that is, God stilled the sea. By his understanding, he shattered Rahab, that is, the sea serpent, the beast. By his spirit, the heavens were made fair. His hand pierced the fleeing serpent, unquote, from Job 26.

So this is but a sampling of the role played by the beast from the sea throughout Scripture. What most modern evangelical Christians do not know is the beast from the sea long preceded John and his apocalypse. In fact, he was drawing upon a rich heritage of interpretation for his own composition. And it was current during the writing of his apocalypse and is alive and well even as we speak the beast from the sea. If you go about your life waiting for the rapture and some imaginary seven-year great tribulation to occur before the beast from the sea appears, he will eat your lunch.

He will devour you. He will get the best of you now because he is here and working now, dear listener. Since the days of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, Satan has been striving after a unified one-world government in opposition to the government of God. The dragon and the beasts of land and sea have consistently throughout the biblical record symbolized this satanic aspiration. The thing is, Satan has not stopped.

He is continuing to build his kingdom of his own in opposition to God's. And John has forewarned us of this in Revelation if we are prepared to interpret Revelation as he intended. If we continue then to the next few words of Revelation chapter 13, we see this reflected. John says, I saw a beast rising out of the sea.

This is significant because the sea has always been a symbol of Satan's effects of chaos and disorder and death while God's work upon the land, especially his chosen places like the Garden of Eden or the Promised Land, has always epitomized harmony and order and life, while the beast from the sea always symbolizes chaos, disorder, and death. As we observed, the sea, the waters of creation in Genesis chapter 1, before God imposed his creative powers, they were tohu vabohu in the Hebrew. I love that phrase, tohu vabohu. It is in the Hebrew. It means empty and void, and darkness was over the waters.

The sea, the waters were empty, void, and dark, a place of chaos, disorder, and death. The seas of Noah's great flood were tohu vabohu, empty, void, and dark, a place of chaos, disorder, and death. The tempestuous sea into which Jonah was cast was tohu vabohu, that is, empty, void, and dark, a place of chaos, disorder, and death, where in fact Jonah was swallowed by a beast from the sea, wasn't he? Therefore, we should expect Satan's kingdom to be characterized by chaos, disorder, and death. And so, when we look out upon our world today, we are not surprised, are we?

Because Satan first creates precisely this state of affairs before he imposes his iron tyranny. That is, amongst the human race, he fosters and incites chaos, disorder, and death. And we see this happening with increasing frequency and intensity in our own formerly ordered prosperous land. And I make direct application of this disorder, chaos, and death of Satan, of the beast, to the United States of America. I direct application.

The United States of America is being deliberately seeded, I submit to you, with chaos, disorder, and death. We used to be a model of what a harmonious, ordered, and life-giving free republic could be, didn't we? Despite our admitted flaws and weaknesses, and there were many of those weaknesses and flaws. But all in all, we were a model of what a harmonious, ordered, and life-giving free republic could be. But all of that is being quite self-consciously destroyed in order to make way for another regional order, a larger regional world order, if you will.

And, for example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership being negotiated now in secret in Congress as we speak as an example of that, of an overarching authority that supersedes our own constitution. And to anyone with eyes in his head and a brain unfogged by the propaganda and the brainwashing and the media distractions incessantly churned out by the beast. Parenthetically, men, put down your fantasy football scorecard for a few hours. Will you read a book? Find a news source other than CNN or Fox News even.

One of the prime directives of the beast is to, as Revelation says, deceive those who dwell upon the earth. And he's doing a mighty good job of it. We see this transpiring, this seeding of disorder and death and chaos in the open borders policy of our administration and those who, as well, stand to benefit from such a policy. We are told, in fact, that we are racist and uncompassionate for insisting upon the restoration of the integrity of our borders. The poor immigrant who comes here only wants a better life, they say, for he and his children, and we are unchristian for wanting to deprive him of this opportunity.

Others go so far as to openly and brazenly admit that their goal is to transition to a borderless continent and eventually to a borderless world. George Soros, for example, who has financially backed many of these advocacy groups for immigration and no borders, George Soros himself said in a recent interview that borders were no longer needed in the world of today and that borders were, in fact, a hindrance to true human progress. This is an all but open admission, dear listener, that we no longer need a constitution and a free republic is actually a hindrance to true human progress.

Because this is the goal of those who wish to bring us into a greater world community, our constitution and the free republic of America stands in the way of that goal. The destruction of borders and the infusion of masses who are ignorant of the nature of liberty and who seek in many cases to destroy what they find here, and I think of the reconquista of La Mecha or La Raza, and in other cases also have ulterior and sinister motives like ISIS fighters that are infiltrating our borders as well. All of these facilitate the destruction of our constitutional republic.

Now, it is a basic foundational premise of human government that territorial integrity defines a nation. Territorial integrity defines a nation. No borders, no nation. Rome understood this as her empire began to crumble under the barbarian invasion, and indeed, Rome eventually fell as a direct consequence of her inability to defend her borders. China understood this as barbarians from the interior swept into the provinces, and she built a wall.

China built a wall to keep them out. And it worked for centuries, by the way, a wall. It is a truth of statecraft, dear listener, a truth of statecraft. A piece of land without the integrity of borders defined, defended, and demarcated by the people of that land is not a country. A land without borders is and always has been viewed by the world as open territory, ready to be taken by those willing to define, defend, and demarcate that land for themselves.

Part of our problem is that we are no longer willing to define, defend, and clearly demarcate our borders. Make no mistake, dear sentimental fool whose heart bleeds for these poor immigrants who are flooding our borders by the millions. And who wishes, then, you do to extend compassion to them by letting any and all come in unchecked. If they have their way, they will define, defend, and demarcate for themselves a greater Hispania what you virtually have surrendered as free territory.

If the religion of peace and its advocates have their way, they will define, defend, and demarcate quite clearly the land that you, O progressive, have surrendered as free territory. That is the United States of America. No borders, no nation. By indicating this to the world, you invite conquest, and conquest is what you will get. So, what the beast realizes with great clarity, and thus seeks to cloak with deception, is that nowhere are borders more important than in a free republic.

Our founders understood that a constitutional republic like the one they gave us required a moral and religious people, that is a largely Christian population, who were schooled in the art of government, who were educated concerning the constitution that had been given them as a heritage. George Washington says, and I quote him, a primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, Washington says, what species of knowledge can be equally important? What duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

George Washington, in 1796, he said this, and irreligious and ignorant people are slaves waiting for their change. They're not free men in a constitutional republic. Our forebearers knew this, and thus they required registered aliens to serve a period of probation. Registered aliens, they were called. How politically incorrect is that title today?

But these registered aliens were required to serve a period of probation upon entering the country at places like Ellis Island, where they were carefully screened, in which they demonstrated their willingness in this time of probation to participate in a constitutional republic by working hard to support themselves and their family, to spend years learning the English language, and to spend years laboring to learn our constitution and system of government, that they might participate in an intelligent and informed manner. And by doing so, the legal immigrant became a guardian of the liberties of the country, as George Washington might put it.

Well, the beast is well aware of this, and so he develops things like speech codes, which shy away from these truths, diverts thought that might go down this trail by shutting it off with cries of racist, racist, or uncompassionate, uncompassionate. Thus, the open borders creates the perfect climate for the chaos, and the disorder and death that we see boiling around us, and will only grow with increasing measure in the near future.

So, what I have done for you today is give you one clear application of precisely how the beast from the sea, if you will, is actively at work in our world today, and how John, in the book of Revelation, intended us to make application to the church. All of that, which he includes, has application to the entire book of Revelation, I'll be unfolding this for you, has application today, not some distant seven-year great tribulation following a supposed rapture of the church. Dear listener, New Geneva not only has this radio broadcast, but we have a worship service on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. I invite you to join us.

Give me some feedback on this message. Give me some feedback on our church. We meet for holy worship at 10 a.m. on Sundays at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and you can call us at 523-0196.