Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

End-Time Events & Religious Liberty Implications

Norman McNulty

The Three End-Time Antagonists of God’s People: Revelation 16

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we thank you for bringing us here today to this seminar on prophecy and the end time implications of things that are happening in the world today.

And I pray that as I share, that you would speak through me and guide my mind.

I pray that you would help the technology to work as well.

And I pray that we would gain the blessing that we need for this time, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so we're having a little bit of challenge with the slides, they should be up in a few minutes, but I'm just gonna get started and the slides will show up here in a few minutes, okay?

So the title for today's presentation is The 3 End Time Antagonists of God's People.

And, you know, Seventh-day Adventists, we have this understanding of how things are gonna play out at the end time.

We understand the role that the papacy has.

We understand the role that apostate Protestantism has.

And we also understand that spiritualism is going to have a part to play in what happens at the end of the world.

And so we're going to dig a little bit deeper into these issues to understand what do these powers do that cause the world to go against Christ?

And how can we be deceived by the philosophy of these powers?

You know, a lot of people say, oh, there's no way I would ever go along with Sunday worship.

But if you're not careful, you could be accepting philosophical ideas even now that are preparing you to receive the mark of the beast if you're not paying attention.

And so we want to be sure of truth and of Jesus and what he teaches and of how to make sure that we are not deceived by the various powers that are antagonizing God's people at the end of time.

So thankfully our slides are working, so we are going to move right along.

Just wanna give a little plug for those of you who are interested in my books, they are at the ABC.

We're gonna be covering some concepts that are in my book in these presentations.

If they run out, you can order from the ABC, or you can talk to me.

But I want to read to you a statement now from Testimonies to Ministers, page 114.

And this is a very powerful statement, which says, When the books of Daniel and Revelation are better understood, Believers will have an entirely different religious experience.

They will be given such glimpses of the open gates of heaven that heart and mind will be impressed with a character that all must develop in order to realize the blessedness, which is to be the reward of the pure in heart, you know, I grew up hearing people say I'm tired of Daniel and Revelation I'm tired of studying beasts and horns.

Let's just talk about Jesus now Let me tell you something right now.

We as a people have become prophetically illiterate.

We are I Mean there are some who study prophecy, but by and large, when you go through our churches, people hardly understand the basics of end time prophecy now.

People say, oh, I'm not worried about what's coming, I just need to know who's coming.

If you don't know what is coming, you will be deceived by the who, the false Christ that comes.

There's a reason why Jesus gives us prophecy to study.

And as God's people, we wanna understand these books so that we will have an entirely different Religious experience and then here's another powerful statement from page 116 of testimonies to ministers those who eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God will bring from the books of Daniel and Revelation truth that is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

They will start into action forces that cannot be repressed.

The lips of children will be opened to proclaim the mysteries that have been hidden from the minds of men.

So I want to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God.

I want to be part and parcel of Christ's life.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

And when we communicate with Christ and when we connect with him, we are led to the books of Daniel and Revelation and when God guides our minds through the study, he will allow truth to come forth that is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

And I am somebody who strongly believes in the historicist interpretation of Daniel and Revelation.

I'm not a preterist, I'm not a futurist, I'm not a sensationalist, I believe in historicism.

That's the end-time biblical method for interpreting the books of Daniel and Revelation.

You know, people will come along and say, I have new light from Daniel and Revelation, and my response is, that new light better be in harmony with the light that God has already given his people.

Because new light never contradicts old light.

So we're going to go through a study today and I want you to turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 16.

Revelation chapter 16 and we are picking it up in verse 12.

This is the chapter on the 7 last plagues and this passage that we are going to read here is the passage on the sixth plague of the 7 last plagues and a Revelation chapter 16 verse 12 it says, And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

And I saw 3 unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet for they are the spirits of devils working miracles which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty What we're going to be looking at over the next several minutes are these 3 unclean spirits that come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

And these are the 3 end-time antagonists to God's people.

Why are these powers the end-time antagonists and what do they do to try to deceive God's people?

Now if you like the pictures my wife did the design she used AI So I got to give her some props 3 unclean spirits like frogs out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

Now let's take a minute to consider what's happening here.

We are at the beginning of the sixth plague when we look at this particular verse.

Now, the river Euphrates represents the water that provides life to Babylon.

We remember the story of ancient Babylon where Cyrus diverted the river Euphrates and the Medo-Persians marched in and Babylon fell.

Water was the source of life for ancient Babylon.

The people at the end of the world who received the mark of the beast provide the fuel to Babylon so that it can do war against the Lamb in the Battle of Armageddon.

And the people of Babylon have received the mark of the beast and they've received the plagues, and they're saying this isn't going the way we thought it was going to go.

We thought that when we received the mark of the beast, we would be saving our lives.

But instead of saving their lives, they've been receiving plagues.

Water turned to blood, the sea and the rivers, and then there's great sores and there's scorching heat and then the seed of the beast has darkness and then we see intense cold because there's frostbite.

And so after these first 5 plagues now the people aren't turning to God they repent not to give God the glory and they turn against Babylon and they say this isn't what we thought was going to happen.

Now Satan knows that he needs the people.

He can't have his source of support dry up.

He cannot afford to lose the support of the people who have the mark of the beast.

So he has to work to regain their support that is drying up.

So he's losing support, he needs to regain that support.

He needs them for the Battle of Armageddon so he uses his last master deception to regain the support of the people who have received the mark of the beast.

Now when you look at this sixth plague we see that there are 3 unclean spirits so why do we see frogs at this point in the story in the sixth plague.

Well the frogs were the second of the 10 Egyptian plagues.

And in the Egyptians plagues this was the last plagues that the Egyptian magicians were supposedly able to reproduce through their magic.

Now we know that it wasn't true, but it was through magic.

So the 3 unclean spirits, like frogs, represent the very last and the greatest supernatural deception by Satan during the sixth plague.

So this is obviously going to be of great significance.

So here we see that out of the mouth these 3 unclean spirits come.

Now when we think about something that comes out of the mouth, you know the Bible says out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

You know when you think of the little horn of Daniel 7, he had a little horn, he had a mouth that had a mouth speaking great things, that's mentioned 4 times in Daniel 7.

And the same power in Revelation 13 had a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.

So when we look at these 3 unclean spirits like frogs, this is what we can say, They are 3 unclean spirits.

They come out of the mouth of a beast, out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

This is the spirit of the powers that are speaking.

And when they speak, they have unclean spirits that come out of their mouths and the spirits are like frogs so here's what we can say frogs were used in egypt they were worshipped as gods but they were unclean And this was the last plague that the magicians could reproduce.

And Satan makes this last desperate attempt in the sixth plague through his 3 powers.

And these 3 powers are satanic, the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

They are unclean spirits so the question is who are these 3 powers what do we know about the dragon the beast and the false prophet this is where we're gonna spend some time now because what we're going to do next, we understand now look what I'm going to share next is not something that Adventists have never heard before.

Adventists know that the dragon is spiritualism, that the beast is the papacy, and that the false prophet is apostate Protestant America.

That is not something that you've never heard before if you've paid attention at a prophecy series or studied Daniel and Revelation.

The False Prophet Speaks As a Dragon: Revelation 13

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

We thank you for the more sure word of prophecy that allows us to see light in the midst of darkness.

And I just pray that you would speak through me now, that the presentation that we go through today will be very clear and helpful and understandable so that we will know where we are at this time in earth's history.

All right, so I think the sound is good, so we're gonna move forward.

The title for today's message is The False Prophet Speaks as a Dragon.

Now, most of you, or how many of you were here yesterday when we identified the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet?

For those of you who were not, we'll see very quickly that the false prophet is apostate Protestant America.

So that's where we're headed with this presentation.

We talked about the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet yesterday.

So that's what we're going to look at today.

Now just briefly as we go through our presentation, I'm just going to mention again that I've written books on Daniel and Revelation.

Now I made an announcement yesterday that the ABC is carrying these books.

Now I checked this morning and I think there was 1 copy of the book of Daniel that was left at the ABC.

But don't worry I have extra copies with me if you want.

And also, you can order from the ABC directly and they can ship it to you, or you can order from Remnant Publications.

Now, what the ABC has and what I have our paperback But remnant has hardback copies if you want hardback copy, so that's an option as well All right, so we are going to get into the presentation on the false prophet speaking as a dragon.

You know, prophets are invested with authority from God, but as long as there's been true prophets, the devil has worked through false prophets.

And it's important for us to be able to distinguish the difference between that which is true and that which is false.

So the false prophet ends up speaking as a dragon, and of course the dragon is Satan, and it's Protestant America that is the false prophet.

Now let's turn in Scripture to Revelation chapter 13, and this is well known to most of us as Seventh-day Adventists, But I do find that going through these passages and perhaps looking at some new angles can be very helpful for us as we come to understand what is happening in end-time Bible prophecy.

So when we come to Revelation 13, verse 11, we read, and I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had 2 horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

This is the second beast of Revelation 13.

We've already seen the first beast, as you've studied Revelation 13.

It comes up out of the sea, but this beast comes up out of the earth.

Now we understand based on Revelation 17, verse 15, that seas represent, or waters represent multitudes, nations, tongues, and kingdoms.

So those are the populated areas of the earth.

But this beast comes up out of the earth, meaning it is relatively unpopulated.

Now it's interesting, the word for coming up here is the Greek word anabanon, which means to grow like a plant.

Now this is a distinction from the first beast, which comes up out of the sea, and you see the 4 beasts of Daniel 7 and the 4 winds strove upon the sea when they came up there was strife and bloodshed with the kingdoms that came out of the old world but in the new world yes there was the American Revolution but by and large America came up growing up like a plant in relative peace And we know that a beast represents a kingdom, so this is a kingdom in Bible prophecy.

We understand that based on the book of Daniel, that the terms kings, or beasts, kings, and kingdoms are used interchangeably.

Now there is something that's different about this beast that has 2 horns like a lamb.

You know, the first beast received its power, seat and authority from who?

So the dragon who is Satan gives his authority to the first beast, but the second beast has 2 horns like a lamb.

So there's this clear distinction between the first and the second beast the first beast is operating under the authority of Satan the second beast is Operating under the principles of the lamb who is Jesus now?

We know that Jesus is the lamb you see the verses on the screen.

And in Scripture, the horns of this beast, it has 2 horns like a lamb, horns in Scripture represent power.

So this kingdom has principles that give it power that are based on the principles that Christ operates by.

So what we can say about this kingdom, now this is also interesting, the horns do not have crowns like the first beast of Revelation 13.

The first beast of Revelation 13 had crowns on the horns because the kings of the earth united with the papacy and the church ruled over the state, but here the horns do not have crowns, and so this is a kingdom that has horns like a lamb.

It's a kingdom with Christian principles.

So This, as we go on here, the first beast, as we've talked about, the first beast of Revelation 13 received its power from the dragon, but the second beast has 2 horns like a lamb, and it came up out of the earth around the time that the first beast received its deadly wound in 1798.

Now there's only 1 nation on earth and through history and in prophecy that meets this criteria and it's clearly the United States of America.

A nation that is based on Christian principles.

And it's interesting the first beast of Revelation 13 had crowns on the horns indicating that the kings of the earth were united with corrupt Catholic Christianity but the second beast does not have crowns and it indicates that there's a separation between church and state.

There's not a union with the the kings or the the nation of America with the the church.

But we see that it has Christian principles, 2 horns like a lamb.

So around that time you have the Catholic papacy receiving a deadly wound and then you have America coming up out of the earth, and the principles that guided America were Christian principles that were founded on Protestantism.

Now, in America today, we have largely forgot what it means to be Protestant.

And I would venture to even add that there's a lot of Seventh-day Adventists that forget what it means to be Protestant.

But Protestantism represents true Christianity.

It was a protest against the abuses of the papacy that were unbiblical.

And so the Christian principles that America operates by when it came up out of the earth are that which gives power to the nation.

So the Christian principles that give power to the nation are civil and religious liberty or republicanism and Protestantism.

We heard about this in Sabbath School Sabbath morning and republicanism simply means that it's not the Republican Party republicanism means that there are constitutional rights that are guaranteed to every citizen and you can't take a majority vote to eliminate those constitutional rights.

That's a constitutional republic, which is different than a strict democracy.

A strict democracy would be, hey, let's take a vote in 2 weeks and let's decide what color of carpet everybody should have in their homes or you name it.

And in a strict democracy, the majority rules.

But in a constitutional republic, There are certain principles that are Protected from a majority vote of the of the entire nation does that make sense?

So right now we are protected from a majority vote that would force us to worship on a day that we don't agree with, because we have civil and religious liberty.

A constitutional republic with our Constitution protects the rights of the minority from how the majority may view things.

That's the genius of civil and religious liberty.

We should be so thankful that we live here in the United States of America where we have freedom to have the free exercise of our conscience and of our religion.

That is the principles of the United States of America.

Now, yes, there are obviously democratic principles so that when you have an election, the majority vote in a given state determines the winner of that state, and so on and so forth.

But there are principles that are protected by the Constitution, so it's a constitutional republic.

Now let me read this statement from Great Controversy, page 441.

Republicanism and Protestantism became the fundamental principles of the nation.

These principles are the secret of its power and prosperity.

The oppressed and downtrodden throughout Christendom have churned this land with interest and hope.

Millions have sought its shores, and the United States has risen to a place among the most powerful nations of the earth." So, republicanism and Protestantism are another way of saying civil and religious liberty.

Now, Uriah Smith had a very nice statement in his book Daniel and the Revelation on page 580.

He said those who came to America were looking for a country where there was a church without a pope and a state without a king.

Now, the further we get away from the ideals of our original founding fathers, the less we see these principles in operation.

But These were the founding principles of the United States of America.

They didn't want to have a church with a pope that told everybody how to worship.

They wanted freedom of religion, the free exercise of religion, and they weren't looking for a king who had autocratic authority over everything they did.

They wanted a representative form of government that's the United States of America and we see that in Bible prophecy Revelation chapter 13 and interestingly most of society today does not even realize that the United States of America is the second beast of Revelation 13.

We as Seventh-day Adventists are some of the few, we're not the only ones, but we're some of the few that recognize that Bible truth.

Now let me tell you this, civil and religious liberty is worth fighting for until Jesus comes.

You know, Protestant America, to this day, since its inception, is the greatest nation on earth.

From this territory, and this is probably the most important point, it is from this territory that the 3 angels' messages have spread around the globe.

We had the freedom in this territory for, it was the perfect environment for the 3 angels' messages to arise around the same time that America comes into existence.

Secularism’s Role in End-Time Prophecy: Revelation 11

Father in heaven, we thank you for bringing us back for our third session of this six-part series.

I pray that you would guide my mind as I speak, that what is shared would be clear and biblical, and just pray that you would continue to bless this camp meeting.

So thank you that we can be here, and I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

So our first presentation on Sunday, we looked at the 3 end time antagonists to God's people.

So we looked at the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

Yesterday we looked at the false prophet, specifically apostate prophets in America, and the role that it plays at the end time.

And today we're going to be looking at the end time power that especially connects to the dragon in a sense.

And it's also an end time power that is deceiving a lot of people right now.

Many people in the world are being deceived by secularism, and that's what we're going to look at today.

Now, as we go through here, I'm just going to mention again briefly, for those of you who are interested in my books.

And you know, people are asking, hey, the content that you're sharing in this seminar, is it in your book?

And there's a lot more in the books than what I can share in 6 hours.

But what we're going through here is in the books now the ABC had these books earlier this week They sold out, but I understand they have a shipment coming in later this week So keep your eye out for that if some of you happen to be leaving town before then I have some still as well, and you could meet me in the girls dorm lobby after this meeting, so keep that in mind.

You know, so secularism is a force to deal with, and people even in the Adventist church, are becoming confused as to what we should be speaking out about, who we should be supporting.

If the religious right is the power that's going to stretch its hand across the abyss to clasp the hands of the papacy and spiritualism, then maybe the left would be a safer option to be in alliance with.

It becomes a challenge though when we see just how unbiblical the secular left has become.

And the secular left isn't simply unbiblical, it is hostile to the Bible.

And as Seventh-day Adventists, we are not hostile to scripture.

We of all the people on earth Lift up the Bible and the Bible only as our standard of faith and practice.

Now when you look at the book of Romans for example, Romans chapter 1 talks about the detestable sins that had come into the city of Rome.

Many of those sins are things that we see in modern society today.

And I wanna say this at the outset of this presentation, it can be easy to say, God, I thank you that I'm not like the people in that picture.

But then, Paul turns it right around and says, therefore you are inexcusable, oh man.

You who judge those sinners, you do the same with the sins that you commit.

We've all sinned and come short of God's glory.

So this is what I'm gonna say next is not meant to attack any individuals.

Series

End-Time Events & Religious Liberty Implications

Making War with the Lamb: Revelation 17

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2023: Three Cosmic Messages

13 Ablaze With God’s Glory

30m

The Book of Revelation

03 And There are Seven Kings

1h

Studies in the Book of Revelation

Revelation 13, Part 1

46m

When Protestant America Speaks as a Dragon

1h 1m

Three Cosmic Messages: Earth's Final Conflict

01 Jesus vs Satan

53m

Unlocking Prophecy

22. Revelation’s First Beast

1h

The Three Angels' Message

02 The 144,000 & the Lamb

53m

The Destiny of the Remnant

1h

A Living Sacrifice

Two Mighty Angels of Revelation

44m

Survivors of the Great Controversy

02 Survivors of the Great Controversy

1h

The Book of Revelation

04 Ten Horns at War with the Lamb

1h 7m

02 Identifying the Seven-Headed Beast

52m

Sound Doctrine