The Horsemen of Revelation:( Continues) Yet even for these few, there is danger from a coming deception—Satan’s end-time effort to defeat and enslave humankind. Christ’s Olivet prophecy progresses, in concert with the book of Revelation, toward the final events before His return. He said, “For false Christ and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew24:24). Even the elect, the people of God who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17), will be susceptible to this great deception.The apostle Paul spoke of this time of deception in 2 Thessalonians 2. This prophecy of a “man of sin” to arise before Christ’s return stands out within Paul’s writings. This end-time deception is led by a figure “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped” and who will even sit “in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” In Paul’s day, this opposition to the law and doctrine of God was already at work. But before the coming of Christ it will expand “according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders” (verses 3-9). This “son of perdition” matches the description of the figure described in Revelation 13 as a “beast,” one of two beasts in this section, this one with two horns like a lamb and speaking like a dragon (verse 11). This person acts in tandem with the first beast (verse 1), actually causing people to worship the first beast with great adulation (verse 12). “He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived” (verses 13-14). Amen
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 03:38:23 +0000
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