The mark of the beast is described in Revelation 13. It is associated with allegiance to the Antichrist and participation in his economic system. 

People speculate all the time about what it might be—microchips, barcodes, technology, and so forth. But Scripture emphasizes worship and allegiance more than technology. 

The key issue is loyalty. Those who take the mark are identifying themselves with the beast and rejecting God. 

So rather than trying to identify every new technology as the mark, we should focus on remaining faithful to Christ. 

I think Jesus’ first question in Matthew 16 is theoretical—“Who do people think the Messiah is?” Then the second question is, “Who do you think I am?” (Matt. 16:15). Peter answers that Jesus is the Messiah. I love it because Peter's great confession is a divine revelation. Jesus says, “Simon son of Jonah, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven” (v. 17).

I think this is amazing because after this great confession, Peter then tells the Lord that He’s not going to suffer and die. He goes right from his great confession to his great confusion. Peter, even when he’s good, ends up making a mistake. Nevertheless, that is the great confession that Jesus is the Messiah, and they understood it. They didn't understand all the ramifications of it, but they did understand that Jesus is the Messiah.

These verses are not talking about the Messiah. They’re talking about Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, a very important person. That is all it’s saying. What we tend to do is assume any person described in an honorific way, as Eliakim is, must be the Messiah. But we want to be careful not to take passages that sound like they are referencing the Messiah and declare them to be about the Messiah, when, in context, they are not.

Now there are certain times when there is an exception. For example, Hosea 3:5 says that in the last days, Israel will come back to the Lord and seek David, their king. David had been dead for a long time, and it says this will happen in the last days. It doesn’t mean that Israel will seek David himself. It means they will seek David’s son, the Messiah. This is one example where a person may be named, like David, yet the passage may be referencing the Messiah when it makes sense in context. This passage, though, is just talking about Eliakim.

I don’t know about the natural spring in Israel. There could very well be a natural spring someplace by the Dead Sea, because the natural Dead Sea is filled with fresh water. It is filled with fresh water because it comes from the Sea of Galilee, runs down in the Jordan River and makes its way to the lowest part of the earth, into the Dead Sea. This fresh water flowing into the Dead Sea is obviously not enough to turn it fresh.

In Ezekiel 47, in the future messianic kingdom when Jesus is reigning, there’s going to be a river that starts at the Temple Mount and will make its way through the Negev desert and through the wilderness of Judea, all the way to the sea of foul water—that’s how it’s described—and it’s going to make all that barren land beautiful and fertile, and it will produce many trees with fruit on it, and then it will also go into the sea, and it will be so. There will be such a rush of fresh water that it will turn that sea into a living sea with fish. They will actually fish from the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea will live once again. 

Whether they have found a natural spring there or not, it is not enough to make it fresh. What it will take to make the sea of foul water fresh again is the divine remaking of that area in the messianic kingdom. Ezekiel says that there will still be salt pools next to it with the life-giving minerals that we need. When this is all redone in the messianic kingdom, it’s going to be remarkable.

God gave humanity dominion, meaning human beings are supposed to rule the earth, or in other words, govern the earth. That’s what dominion means regarding other issues of preaching the kingdom. When Jesus sent His disciples out, they were supposed to be proclaiming that God’s rulership had come to earth with the coming of the King. They were preaching that God needed to rule in their lives, to become the Ruler over their lives. That’s preaching the good news of the kingdom—that God’s rulership is coming to the earth after Jesus’ resurrection. In Matthew 28:19, the Lord Jesus tells His disciples to make disciples of the nations. This is the gospel preaching that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, where he says, this is the gospel, that Christ died for our sins and rose again. That is the message there.

Today the message that we proclaim today is the Great Commission message of the gospel—the good news by which we are saved—that Jesus died for our sins and rose again. That’s what it is. Humanity’s dominion over the earth is what we’re given as God’s agents on earth, as His image bearers on earth. We’re supposed to rule the earth, govern the earth. It has to do with taking care of the earth. Then His rulership is what the disciples proclaimed. And today, as His disciples, we proclaim the good news that Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

Second Chronicles 32 talks about the fact that the Lord our God is with us. He helps us. He fights our battles. Isaiah 7:14 calls Jesus “Immanuel.” The idea of this child being born, which has a historical precedent in Isaiah 7, clearly relates to a coming birth of the Messiah, and His name means that He will be God with us. 

Immanuel is a compound word in Hebrew, and it means that God is going to be with us. Immanuel is the idea throughout Isaiah of the Messiah being the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The concept of God dwelling among us is a theme you can draw out from Old Testament prophecies. When the angel comes to Mary and talks about the fact that the Messiah is going to be born miraculously through her, the name that He is given there specifically is a proper name, Yeshua, or Jesus, which means that Yahweh saves. That’s the whole point. You tie the concept together from 2 Chronicles, that the Lord is with us and He helps us. He comes to be our Savior. 

Christ has many names that are given to Him in Scripture, just like God the Father in the Old Testament is described by so many names. The idea of Isaiah 7 talking about the coming Messiah reminds us that this isn’t just going to be a prophet, an interesting teacher, a rabbi, or someone who’s going to be a moral guide. It is actually God with us. Yet He has a name that is spoken of on the streets of Nazareth, and then later in Jerusalem—Jesus, which means Yahweh saves.  

The word “man” is used generically to mean humanity. Where it’s talking about distinctive features between men and women, the use of the word "man" refers to a male.

We have to read that from the context. For example, Genesis 1:27 says He made them male and female, and then in the second chapter goes into detail about the creation, how it is that God made man as male and female. The point of it is that men and women, in essence, who we are, are fully equal. We may have different functions, and that would be a mistake to deny, but we are both made in the image of God. We are equal in who we are before God. We are justified the same way. That’s what Galatians 3:28 means when it says there’s neither male nor female.  

What does it mean that the punishment of God is to the third and fourth generation? Some people think there’s a generational curse. I don’t think so. I think what it’s saying is that when people rebel against God, and there are consequences for God’s divine justice, the consequences for that sin go from generation to generation until it’s broken by the mercy of God. 

I would give the example of someone who becomes an alcoholic. As much as we may consider that a disease, it is a disease with moral factors involved, and it leads to homes in which people and families are destroyed. It’s so dangerous and so harmful.

One of the sad things that we see is that it seems God's justice very often allows the consequences of that behavior. For example, the addiction leads to problems with their kids, who in the next generation often repeat the very same behavior, leading to the same consequences. They then pass that onto their kids and onto their kids until someone turns to the Lord and that behavior is broken. Until then, the consequences continue from generation to generation.  

God chose Israel not because they were greater or more righteous than other nations but because of His covenant promises and His sovereign purpose. 

Deuteronomy says that the Lord set His love upon them because He loved them and because He would keep the oath He swore to their fathers. 

Israel was chosen to be a light to the nations and to bring forth the Messiah. Even today, according to Romans 11, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. God still has purposes for Israel in His prophetic plan.

In Jude 9, he’s referring to a book that was written between the Old Testament and the New Testament, what we often call the 400 silent years. They really weren’t so silent. There were books written, and they are the apocryphal books and also pseudepigraphal books. What that means is they are false writings, but they are false only in the sense that they say it was written by Enoch or Moses, and they really weren’t written by Enoch or Moses. 

They were written by somebody else to make it sound like they were written by Enoch or by Moses. Jude mentions a few of those, and these were very popular books. It’d be like someone today quoting from the Left Behind book series. 

This comes from the Assumption of Moses, where a story is told of a dispute about what to do with the body of Moses. In that story, Michael the archangel, when he was disputing with the devil about Moses’ body, did not dare bring an abusive condemnation against them but rebuked them in the Lord’s name. Jude is saying, if even the archangel Michael didn’t dispute with the devil in his own name, but used the Lord’s name, how should we deal with a satanic attack? We must use the name of God and not our own power. That’s the point Jude is making now. 

Did that really happen? Well, it could very well be that the Assumption of Moses had true things in it, and that’s what Jude is citing. I’m not saying that it didn’t happen. I’m just saying it didn’t happen in Scripture. It is possible that there are true things that are recorded in books that are outside of Scripture.

He’s really talking to the people who will be alive in the future Tribulation period. They are living in Israel, in particular. I think these events describe what takes place in Jerusalem. 

It’s saying that in the middle of the Tribulation, when the Antichrist takes his seat on the throne in the Temple and tries to demand worship, those who live in Judea, particularly Jerusalem, need to flee. He says, “Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days.” Why? Because those Jewish women who are pregnant and nursing will find it much harder to flee.

Jesus also said to pray that your escape may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. Why? Because in Israel, winter is the rainy season and there are flash floods. It is very difficult. Roads are closed. There are a lot of problems escaping during winter because of the frequent rain.

As for the Sabbath in the land of Israel, even today, everything’s closed. There’s no public transportation. There’s no way to get around except by car. And even then, some roads are closed on the Sabbath. It makes it very clear that when the abomination of desolation occurs, escaping will be much more difficult for pregnant women and nursing mothers, or for anyone fleeing during winter or on the Sabbath.

People object to the Old Testament since we’re not under the Law of Moses. But even though we’re not under that law, it still teaches us what constitutes sexual morality. 

In the New Testament, we have laws or commandments that say we should practice morality and reject immorality, and we get the definition of what constitutes sexual immorality through the Old Testament. That would include homosexuality. 

There’s the passage in Romans 1 that says, “This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The males, in the same way, also left natural relations with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error” (HCSB).  

So, in Romans 1:26–27, it clearly seems to say even in the new covenant that same-sex relationships are something that God rejects. He doesn’t reject the people. He loves them and wants them to come to Him. But instead, He rejects that kind of relationship.

Paul writes that everyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will undergo persecution. We’re going to suffer persecution if we want to live godly lives. We also live in bodies in which the outer man is decaying, Paul writes, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). Part of that outer man decaying has to do with illness and weakness and things like that, so we’re going to suffer physically.  

Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). There will be tribulation. It says in James 1, “Consider it all joy . . . whenever . . .”. In other words, trials are not only possible, they’re inevitable. We’re all going to experience them. 

All of these verses tell me that suffering is something we will all experience in this life. You don’t have to pursue it. You just have to pursue walking with God faithfully and even in the midst of suffering, and trust Him through it. 

And you know what? God gives us the grace, the enablement to do whatever it is that He gives us. Paul said three times he prayed to have that thorn in the flesh, whatever that was, taken from him. But God’s answer to him was grace. The word grace there means not undeserved favor, but “my [enablement] is sufficient for you.” God gives us what we need to endure suffering faithfully with Him. 

There are places in the King James Version that use the word “unicorn.” These are found in Numbers 23:22 and 24:8. 

The Hebrew word means a horned animal. It refers to a wild ox that was later domesticated and became the oxen we know today. So it is referring to the wild oxen. 

That’s what the word meant when it was translated into Latin in the Vulgate. The Vulgate translated it as a one-horned beast. The King James translators then used the word “unicorn,” which in 17th-century English didn't necessarily refer to the mythical creature we think of today. 

That’s how the “unicorn” came to be in the King James Version. If you were to read a modern version, it says, “God brought [Israel] out of Egypt; he is like the horns of a wild ox for them (Numbers 23:22, HCSB). 

The Hebrew word “Golgotha” means skull. It’s related to the Hebrew word gulgolet. It does seem like that there are a couple of things going on there. One is that it was a place where executions took place. Therefore, it was a place associated with death. 

Secondly, I think there may be a connection to Genesis 3:15, where the Messiah would crush the serpent’s head. Here at the place of the skull, Jesus defeats Satan through His death and resurrection. There may be symbolic significance there. Now, we don’t know exactly where Golgotha was. There are different views. Some people think it was at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Others think it was at Gordon’s Calvary. Either way, the emphasis in Scripture seems to be more theological than geographical. It was the place where death was defeated. 

Scripture teaches that everyone has some revelation of God through creation and conscience. Romans 1 says that what can be known about God is evident because God has shown it to them through what has been made. People are accountable for the light they have received through this general revelation. The problem is not that people are seeking God and can’t find Him. The problem is that people suppress the truth God has revealed because they don’t want to acknowledge Him or follow His ways.

At the same time, God is absolutely just. In Genesis 18:25, Abraham said, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The answer is yes, He will. We also know that salvation is through Jesus alone. “There is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Our responsibility is to proclaim the gospel to all nations and trust God with those things that are beyond our understanding.