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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

Bowing to the Beast

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

Known as a brood parasite, the common cuckoo bird lays her eggs in the nest of smaller bird species like a reed warbler.

Once a cuckoo's egg has been laid, which tends to match the host egg in pattern and color, the unsuspecting little mothers incubate, feed, and raise the young imposter, typically at the expense of their own offspring.

1 of the tragedies of nature is to watch a little reed warbler and its mate nearly work themselves to death to satisfy the voracious hunger of a fat little cuckoo chick while their own starving young are Crowded out of the nest many don't realize that the devil has laid a deceptive egg in the church that's been hatched, adopted and fed until it's grown bigger than life.

But what exactly is this counterfeit and how does it affect you?

So join me now as we unravel this mystery.

Very important presentation today dealing with the subject of bowing to the beast.

I thought that it might be fun to start with an amazing fact.

In 2018, Prime Minister Modi of India dedicated the world's tallest statue.

Including its base, it's over 790 feet high.

To complete the massive project, it took 3, 400 laborers, 250 engineers working virtually around the clock for 42 months.

It's twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

And the cost for the colossal statue is $430 million.

Well, in the Bible, there's a story where the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, he builds this image.

Now, the inspiration for his building the image is because if you read in Daniel chapter 2, you remember he dreams about this great image and it's made of all these different metals.

The head of the image was gold, then it was silver, and then it was bronze, and then it was iron and iron and clay.

And Daniel told the king, you are the head of gold.

That made him feel pretty good, but then Daniel said, but after you will not come another kingdom, that silver kingdom.

He didn't like the idea that Babylon would not last forever.

He said, well, if that statue represented the kingdoms of the world and gold was the kingdom of Babylon, maybe I can overthrow this prophecy by making what I saw in my dream, but make it all gold.

And it was 60 cubits high by 6 cubits wide.

Very important point I want you to know that in a lot of the Hebrew writings, if it does not give the depth, the depth will be the same as the width.

So you get 60 cubits high by 6 cubits wide by 6 cubits deep.

So here you've got this statue that's 60 by 6 by 6.

All nations, all people are supposed to fall down and worship the image.

And whoever does not fall down and worship it shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

And not too far away was the furnace where they probably had forged the gold for the image.

So the king, he gives this signal and tells everybody that they need to bow down and worship it.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they would not bow down and worship the image.

And the king said, what's the matter you didn't hear the music play?

The king says, when you hear the music play, everybody's to bow down and worship, and those that do not bow down, you're not only gonna die, you're gonna die in this fiery furnace.

Are they gonna compromise with everyone around them and break the commandment of God that says you shall not bow down and worship graven images.

And so when the music played, they stood strong.

You'd think, well, that would have been a good time to tie your sandals, right?

Or maybe you could bow down and pray to God.

But they would not even look like they were compromising.

They stood for the commandments of God, even at the potential cost of their life.

And the king said, maybe you didn't hear.

And they said, we don't need another chance.

Daniel 3, verse 18, they said, our God who we serve can deliver us, but even if he doesn't, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image that you have set up.

And so these men were cast into the midst of the burning furnace.

Now if you're wondering if that furnace was hot or not, it tells us that the king commanded his soldiers to just tie them up as they were with their clothes and everything.

The king had said, get that furnace 7 times hotter than it's supposed to be heated.

And the heat was waffing out with such intensity that the soldiers that went to throw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire were killed by the heat.

And so this was not that the fire just was not hot enough.

He rose in haste and he spoke and said, did we not cast 3 men bound into the midst of the fire?

He said, I see 4 men loose in the fire, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

And so this is telling us that Jesus came to them during their time of trial and the Lord will come to us as well.

So we're going to go to our lesson for today.

This experience there in Daniel chapter 3 is an echo of Revelation 13.

It talks about those who do not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

It says there's a commandment that all people's nations and tongues, Nebuchadnezzar said all people's nations and tongues.

Revelation 13 talks about 666, and here you've got this image that was, and it measures it in cubits in the Bible, 60 by 6, presumably by 6.

That would have been 90 feet tall gold statue.

May have cost more than $430 million like the Statue of Unity in India.

So, first question, what does a beast represent in Bible prophecies?

You can read right here in Daniel chapter 7 when you've got that prophecy that talks about the lion, and the leopard, and the bear, it says, those great, what?

Those great beasts, which are 4, are 4, what?

Again, you can read in Daniel chapter 7 verse 23, the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth.

So when we are getting ready to study the beast, do not think monster.

These were different animals that represented kingdoms or kings, okay?

They were powers that ruled over God's people in some way.

So how does the Bible identify the beast?

I stood on the sand of the sea and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, 7 heads and 10 horns, and on his 10 horns 10 crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.

And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth was like the mouth of a lion." Who is this first beast?

It says it receives its power, seat, and authority from the dragon.

It is a religious power that compels worship.

And it has a mysterious number 666, and it's led by 1 supreme man.

It says there at the end, it is the number of a man.

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Bowing to the Beast

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