Daily Devotion

 

During the tribulation, people will have to choose whether to follow the new political leader and his authorized religion or devote themselves to Jesus and remain faithful to Him.  (1) those who remain faithful to God and His Word will be persecuted and quite possibly killed.  (2) the devil will “conquer them” not is the sense that their faith is destroyed, but in the sense that many will be required to give their lives for Jesus.  For “forty-two months” the antichrist will make war against God’s people.

 

V. 8 By this time, the authority, and control of the beast is extended beyond the first ten nations he controlled to include control over the entire world.  This will be evident at or near the beginning of the last 3 ½ years of the tribulation (Daniel 7:3-8, 19-25; 11:45; 12:16). The Antichrist then declares himself to be deity (I.e., of God as a “god”) and possesses supernatural power of the demonic world (2 Thessalonians 2:4,9).  Those deceived by his works will worship the beast (4,8,12; 14:9; 16:2).

 

The religion of the antichrist basically teaches the divinity (i.e., the god-like status, capacity or destiny) of humanity.  Instead of the truth that is in Jesus.  God became human (John1:14), he speaks the lie that in himself humanity has and can become God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).  Humanistic philosophies and New Age teaching today emphasize this same concept and may be preparing the masses for the ultimate acceptance of the antichrist’s false religion. God’s plan to save and restore people to a right relationship with Himself through Jesus’ death for sins was decreed and laid out even before creation or human history began (17:8, Genesis 3:15; 1 Peter 1:18-20).

 

Jesus often used language like this in His exhortations and warnings.  What is being said here in the Book of Revelation is not something intended to satisfy curiosity.  Neither was it written just for the benefit of those in the end times.  It was intended as a warning to everyone in the entire Church Age, and as an encouragement to all going through troublesome times.  (V9)

PRAISE GOD! MY REDEEMER LIVES AND I SHALL LIVE!  HALLELUJAH! Thank You, Father, for sending Jesus to redeem a lost world. I know that the future is in Your hands.  My heart cries for those whom the devil has deceived.  They only thought they were getting a good time and Father all they got was hell on earth and hell for their future.  O’ God, what can I do to bring them back to You?  Holy Spirit Only You can convict them and wake them up.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen!