The physical appearing of the devil is an event that Christians know nothing about. It’s a topic you never hear a sermon about, and yet, it's the greatest deception that will ever take place on earth. Why is nothing being said about it?

I'd like to take you to 2nd Thessalonians 2, and I’ll start by pointing out a few things. I know most of you are acquainted with what I teach already, but in an effort to try to make this make sense to everyone, let me just pick up a few details. Paul is writing to the believers in Thessalonica, and he says,

“Now regarding the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to be with him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to be easily shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God. Surely you recall that I used to tell you these things while I was still with you. And so you know what holds him back, so that he will be revealed in his own time. For the hidden power of lawlessness is already at work. However, the one who holds him back will do so until he is taken out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the breath of his mouth and wipe out by the manifestation of his arrival. The arrival of the lawless one will be by Satan’s working with all kinds of miracles and signs and false wonders, and with every kind of evil deception directed against those who are perishing because they found no place in their hearts for the truth so as to be saved. Consequently, God sends them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. And so all of them who have not believed the truth but have delighted in evil will be condemned.” (2 Thess. 2:1-12, NET)

So, Jesus can't come today, Jesus can't come tomorrow, and he won't come next week because Paul says, and Bible prophecy backs it up thoroughly, it will not happen until the rebellion occurs and the man of sin is revealed. Now, I might die on the highway tomorrow and so my end could be tomorrow, but in terms of the Lord coming and ending the world, that won't happen tomorrow. Is everyone clear on that? God has a sequence of events that must happen and will happen, in their order before he comes.

Right now, our government is buried in a mountain of debt. We're in a financial crisis from which there is no possibility of recovery – a situation that can never be repaired or fixed. We’re rushing head first into a brick wall and we're going to crash into it right when the sensor comes down. That's why I know we're close. We're just being suspended by God's great mercy. He's holding things together until the right time arrives: the appointed time of the end.

Extreme situations require desperate solutions, and that’s exactly what is coming. The Earth's population has never seen a global crisis like the first four trumpets will bring. The crisis will be so huge that political leaders in every nation will be set free of their constitutional obligations, almost immediately. And this freedom from the constitutional obligations will permit them to enact and enforce laws that they would have been strongly opposed to during ordinary times. The declaration of martial law will make it easy for lawmakers to comply with the demands of Babylon’s clergy, and given the fact that something must be done to appease God, very few citizens will complain.

Everything being presented about the trumpets and about the outcome of the judgments of God are consistent with the facts that are stated in Revelation’s story.

Many people have wondered over the centuries, what could happen that would cause the story in Revelation 13 to play out the same in Europe as in South America, in Asia as well as China and Russia. Do you understand that question?

What could happen? How could it take place that you have the same thing happening around the world at the same time in all nations, and because all nations are so religiously and politically diverse, what can bring the worship of God in every nation to the forefront of people's thinking?

This has been a great predicament in the study of Revelation for about 2,000 years. And this has led many commentators and prophecy expositors to believe that, well, maybe Revelation’s story is more of a local thing; or maybe it's just a symbolic thing, or maybe it's just an allegory of some kind, or maybe it's this or that; and pretty soon the book of Revelation means nothing.

I believe Mark Twain made the following statement: A great number of scholars have brought a lot of darkness to this topic, and if they should keep on talking, we will soon know nothing at all about it. Yet, when you follow valid rules of interpretation, opinions mean nothing, the rules produce the results!

I don't believe today things I believed 20 years ago. My thinking has had to change. I’ve had to let go of things that I thought were true, but when the facts came along they said: not true.

I made a change about six years ago. I came to the understanding that the two witnesses were not the Bible and the Holy Spirit, which I had thought was the case for 30 years. I had to change my mind as I began studying and researching, studying and evaluating this topic with a whole new set of eyes. I've learned a lot of things over the years, and as I get a new set of eyes I go back and look at what I knew or once thought I knew, and I find that something’s not right and so I need to make a correction and go forward because, like sergeant Joe Friday in the old show Dragnet used to say, I want just the facts ma’am.

The Book of Daniel was sealed up, and what God sealed up were the rules of interpretation. Rules are impartial. Rules do not favor any religion. They do not favor any religious bias. In fact, they're generally opposed to everything we previously believed to be correct.

See, if we line up five people here and each one of them gives an opinion about what 2+2 equals, you can listen, and then based on the charisma of the man who has the best explanation, you can follow him, but that's the case of the blind leading the blind. If you're just following a man who has charisma, has a gift of words and speech, you’re left stupid.

You want the facts, not the charisma. Facts stand alone; facts are unimpeachable. You want the guy that says, let me demonstrate the answer, I don't have an opinion, I'll just show you the rules and you can reach the conclusion on your own. Now, honestly, which guy would you more likely believe when spending your own hard-earned money?