Someone who has envy in his or her heart that will breed maliciousness and a malicious intent
against the righteous.
Go to Isaiah 14 if you would, Isaiah chapter 14.
This I think is a major theme with respect to Bible prophecy.
And I think it all starts here in Isaiah chapter 14.
Let's look at verse 12 when you get there.
Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 12 will get some insight into how the devil thinks.
Says in verse 12,
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?
How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations?
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides
of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.
Listen to this, I will be like the Most High.
The devil wants divinity.
He wants to be like the Most High.
He wants to be like God rather than worship God.
That's the heart of someone who has this way of thinking.
Instead of wanting to follow the leader, the individual wants to usurp the leader or be
the leader.
And the devil has this same way of thinking.
I want to be like the Most High, he says.
And what does this lead to?
Go to Daniel chapter 8.
We're going to go a few places here just to make this point.
Daniel chapter number 8.
This leads to a time in which Christian persecution reaches a fever pitch.
The Bible says in Matthew 24 when Jesus Christ is preaching a sermon that the theological
scholars call the Olivet Discourse, he says,
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world
to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.
But for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
So that's the good news.
The rapture will come and shorten that great tribulation to 75 days.
But we know the great tribulation is coming and why?
Why is it that the devil has it in his heart to slay Christians?
It's because of the envy that we've been talking about so far here this morning.
Look at verse number 25.
Daniel 8 verse 25, it says,
And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand, and he shall
magnify himself in his heart.
And by peace shall destroy many.
He shall also stand up against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without
hand.
Now obviously if you want to look at the near future application of this verse, you could
look toward Antiochus Epiphanes who was the king of the Seleucid Empire which came out
of the Greek Empire.
But I do think there's also an end times application to be made here in Daniel chapter
8 and Daniel chapter 9, Daniel chapter 11 as well.
Which is that the Antichrist will come on the scene in the end times and his goal will
be to magnify who?
Himself.
It's all about himself.
It's all about self-exaltation.
It's all about how he can persecute Christianity as a whole.
Which then entails persecuting Christians.
Those who are saved.
Those who have the Holy Spirit inside you.
He knows he can't take your salvation away, so what's the next best thing?
Killing you.
And the devil wants to kill you right now, let alone later on through the Antichrist.
Now go to Revelation chapter 13.
This will provide some more detail.
Revelation chapter 13.
It started with envy.
It started with a mentality that says, I want to be like the Most High.
And it culminates in the devil literally inhabiting the Antichrist.
He comes on the scene first as a political figure.
The Bible says in Revelation 13 and verse number 3, and I saw one of his heads as it
were wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed and all the world wondered after
the beast.
What does that mean?
It's talking about a deadly wound to the head.
Well this political figure, the Antichrist, as he rises to the top of a New World Order
power structure, this deadly wound to the head is a reference to the fact that he's
going to die.
Now I'm not exactly sure how.
I can only offer conjecture, perhaps he's going to get shot in the face somehow.
I don't know.
But he's going to die.
He's going to receive a deadly wound to the head and then he's going to come back.
It's going to be a mock death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is how the devil will counterfeit Jesus because the devil is a great counterfeiter.
The New World Order itself, you could look at as a counterfeit of the millennial reign
of Christ.
Jesus will rule the world one day, but the devil wants to through his own satanic government.
So when this Antichrist receives the deadly wound to his head, he will literally be inhabited
by the devil himself and resurrect, not just as a political figure, but this time as a
Messiah figure.
He's going to say, worship me, receive the mark of the beast, bow down to the abomination
of desolation.
And then verse number five, let's look at verse number five here.
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and power was
given unto him to continue forty and two months.
And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle
and them that dwell in heaven.
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.
And power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations and all that dwell
upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life, of the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
What's this saying?
This Antichrist, he will brand himself as a false Messiah and he's going to say, worship
me.
And you know what?
The entire world will be engulfed with this deception and bowing down to the abomination
of desolation to receive that mark.
Look how many people want to go out and get vaccinated today, courtesy of COVID-19.
If you think this is unbelievable, you can't conceptualize how this would come to pass.
We're seeing right now shades of what this era might look like.
But my point is this.
He makes war with the saints.
He overcomes them, the Bible says.
The persecution will reach its climax at this point.
And how does it start?
Why is this even happening?
What's the devil trying to accomplish?
Remember what we read in Isaiah 14?
I'll be like the Most High.
And this is what it eventually leads to.
You say, well I'm never going to be the Antichrist, why are you talking about this?
I understand that.
What I want to show you is the danger of envy.
I want to show you the consequence of envy.
Look what happens when it's unchecked.
Look at the chaos it's going to create in the end times.
It is, in many ways, the impetus for evil.
And we see also that it's the modus operandi of the devil, the devil himself.