The Strategy For Satan’s Finest Hour-1

The STRATEGY For SATAN’s FINEST HOUR--A-I—Revelation 13:1-18

Attention:

Allstate Insurance commercial—the ‘Mayhem’ guy(personification of mayhem).

‘Mayhem’ walks up to the front door video camera of a house.

The owner is at a ball game. The owner’s phone warns him that someone is at his house. His phone connects him to the live video feed of his front porch, lawn, & driveway, where he sees Mayhem.

Via the video, Mayhem delightedly looks into the camera, introduces himself to the home owner as a car thief. He tells the owner that he’s going to steal his car because ‘that’s his job.’

Mayhem then takes the owner’s sports flagpole from his porch & uses it to break into the owner’s car. Mayhem hot wires the car, & drives off maniacally taking out the owner’s mailbox & running over his motorcycle in the process.

Mayhem states, “Without Allstate it’s like you’re getting robbed twice!”

Then Mayhem states the Allstate tag line—“Choose Allstate, & be better protected from mayhem like me!”

The purpose of our looking into ‘earth’s future history’ is so you will be ‘better protected from true mayhem like Satan & his ways’!

God furnished, to the apostle John, a picture of Satan’s finest hour.

Those who trust Scripture are furnished a clear picture of Satan’s end time strategy.

What strategies will mark Satan’s last days?

2 major strategies for Satan’s finest hour are...

A--Satan’s Counterfeit CHRIST(:1-10)

&

B--Satan’s Counterfeit PROPHET(:11-18)

By examining ‘Satan’s Finest Hour’, then we are better able to see our own shortcomings, & God’s commendations, so that we may avoid Satan’s deceptions, & lead others on a straight path.

Eph. 6:11-13—“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh & blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, & having done all, to stand.”

A--SATAN’s COUNTERFEIT CHRIST(:1-10)

8 Satanic strategies wielded thru the counterfeit Christ.

1—Satan’s strategy for his finest hour Turns...

POLITICS/Rule His Way(:1-2a)

Explanation/Argumentation:(1-2a) Beastly

:1—“Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads & ten horns, & on his horns ten crowns, & on his heads a blasphemous name.”

“And he stood on the sand of the seashore.”

The dragon himself is superintending the arrival/rise of the beast thru whom he will wield such power over earth.

“Then I stood on the sand of the sea.”

The sand, thruout Scripture, pictures a vast innumerable/incalculable number.(Gen. 32:12; Job 6:3).

Genesis 32:12—“For You said, ‘I will surely treat you well, & make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

Job 6:2-3—“Oh, that my grief were fully weighed, And my calamity laid with it on the scales! For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea--Therefore my words have been rash.”

“A textual variant reads estayhn[“I stood”] rather than estayh[“he stood”]. This takes John as the subject, as the one standing on the sands of the sea.” “If this reading were correct, it would be the only time in the book when John changes position without being told to do so.”(cf.-4:1-2; 6:1, 3, 5, 7; 10:4, 8-10; 11:1-2; 14:13; 17:1-3; 19:9; 21:9-11; 22:10). “The first person reading apparently arose when copyists accommodated estayh to the first person of the following eidon[“I saw”] in 13:1.”—R.L. Thomas

“Stood”—estayhn(“I stood”) OR--estayh(“he stood”)—isthmi—1Aorist Passive Indicative 1st Sing. OR--1Aorist Passive Indicative 3rd Sing.—1) To cause or make to stand, to place, put, set—1a) To bid to stand by, [set up]—1a1) in the presence of others, in the midst, before judges, before members of the Sanhedrin;, 1a2) To place, 1b) To make firm, fix establish—1b1) To cause a person or a thing to keep his or its place, 1b2) To stand, be kept intact(of family, a kingdom), to escape in safety, 1b3) To establish a thing, cause it to stand 1b31) To uphold or sustain the authority or force of anything, 1c) To set or place in a balance—1c1) To weigh: money to one(because in very early times before the introduction of coinage, the metals used to be weighed); 2) To stand—2a) To stand by or near—2a1) To stop, stand still, to stand immovable, stand firm—2a1a) of the foundation of a building, 2b) To stand—2b1) Continue safe & sound, stand unharmed, to stand ready or prepared, 2b2) To be of a steadfast mind, 2b3) of quality--One who does not hesitate, does not waiver. Strong—a prolonged form of a primary staw(of the same meaning, used for it in certain tenses); To stand(transitively or intransitively), used in various applications(literally or figuratively).