Revelation 16:14 “For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”
These unclean spirits, these devils, they are also called the spirits of devils. It’s like they came from devils themselves. These demonic spirits work miracles.
We do not deny God the Healer, but what we deny the healers. If some person just touches and does the healing themselves, we don’t believe that.
Back then when a person is sick and the apostles touch them and they’re healed, that was when God was operating with the nation of Israel. That is no longer available today. If you’re trusting and believing in the religion and belief because you see somebody doing the miracle, that is a sign of the Antichrist.
When the Antichrist is working miracles, he’s not going to say ‘I’m the devil, I do miracles’ and fool you like that. He’s going to call himself Jesus Christ, it’s going to be something totally Christian in your eyes, you’re going to accept that Jesus and believe in him. You better watch out for that, that is what the Antichrist is doing, he’s trying to imitate Jesus Christ.
Some of you might say ‘I received this vision that I saw Jesus Christ and because of that I cast off my lost belief and I became a believer’. There are two things that you have to examine yourself on this, the Bible says that when we’re saved by faith, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by word of God. The word of God is what gives salvation, not visions, not what we experience.
- If the basis of your salvation was because of that vision, that experience, then you better examine your salvation because salvation is based on the word of God.
Some of you might say ‘I really think that I did believe, I know that it was not by works, it was just by faith in Jesus Christ’. If you really believe that, then the question is ‘If that vision never happened or if God never sent you that vision, would you still have gotten saved?’ or ‘If someone showed you from the word of God how to get saved, would you get saved or is it just because of that vision? If that vision never happened, you would not have become a Christian.’
So then is your salvation based on the word of God or is this something that you experienced, that’s something you got to examine yourself. - We’re not accusing those who saw Jesus in a vision that they’re lost, they’re burning in hell. No, it may be possible that you may have truly believed in Jesus by faith, not by the works of the law and you’re a saved person.
But that’s not an excuse where you justify your visions.
For example, a person got saved by a NIV pastor who didn’t believe in right doctrine. Does that justify their beliefs to be right? No. What matters is salvation, not this pastor here on whatever wrong doctrine that he teaches. This doesn’t legitimize NIV either. That’s the same thing with your vision. Just because you believed in Jesus Christ for salvation doesn’t legitimize your vision.
The Antichrist is using this to sway people because if that’s your excuse that it legitimizes your vision, then do you know Catholics talked about the apparitions and visions that they saw. Does that legitimize their visions? There are so many different religions out there that talks about the visions that they saw, how can we tell who’s right and who’s wrong?
If you really saw the right vision, then the easy question to ask is ‘What did Jesus look like?’ and you’re going to hear different accounts from different people of what Jesus looks like. Can you really believe that’s the true Jesus then?
Be careful of that ‘experience’ thing because that’s how the Antichrist will use it to deceive people. Experience is something very dangerous and something very powerful because there’s a lot of scientists who were atheists but the reason why they’re willing to open up to the religious realm is that some kind of existential moment or experience that they went through. So the experience is so strong and powerful that they allowed that. The Antichrist sees that and Satan’s going to use that same emotion that they’re sensing and feeling to suck them to his side.
2 Thessalonions 2:8-12 says that because they received not the love of the truth (like right now, you don’t like hearing this because it’s the truth) but had pleasure (that’s how you feel) in unrighteousness. The Antichrist uses those lying signs and wonders to appeal to people’s experience, their pleasure to suck them in. Guess what, he’s going to appear like what you saw in your vision of Jesus. You better watch out for that.
‘But it doesn’t explain how I got saved’ or ‘I even got led to your channel because of this vision’. But it still doesn’t legitimize it. God even used wicked people to accomplish His purpose, but it doesn’t justify those wicked things.
They are the spirits of devils working miracles, they are sent out and do miracles so they can deceive the whole world. They’re spreading all over the world, trying to gather up a bunch of people. This is just like the United Nations here.
They gather them to battle against God.
This phrase “day of the Lord” is very important, it occurs very often in the Bible, maybe even more than the word ‘saved’, ‘grace’ or ‘faith’. It’s all over the Bible in all dispensations. That’s why the theme of your Bible is not ‘salvation by faith’, it’s actually ‘the second coming of Christ’ where God gets back what rightfully belongs to Him and He conquers all evil. It comes in different ways, here it is called ‘battle of that great day of God Almighty’.
Let’s look at some passages here:
Isaiah 2:12 “For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:”
God is going to battle against the wicked people, God conquers them. This directly matches with Revelation 16.
Jeremiah 46:10 “For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.”
This matches with Revelation 16.
This is also called the day of vengeance. ‘avenge him of his adversaries’: the enemies who tried to conquer Him. ‘sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.’: remember Revelation 16 when they were gathering to the river of Euphrates.
When the Bible says ‘the day’ and when you look at the context of the passage, it’s like God’s talking about something in the future or the people are expecting something to happen in the future, there is a very good chance that is referring to the Armageddon or the second coming.
Ezekial 13:5 “Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.”
The day of the Lord is all referring to that battle, that warfare that involves Israel.
Zechariah 14:1-2 “Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.”
The Lord can use something evil to accomplish His purpose, here these devils are using miracles to gather up the nations but God says at Zechariah 14:2 that He’s doing that. God would use the devil to accomplish His purpose but that doesn’t make it not demonic.
All these verses say nations, nations, nations. This is undoubtedly talking about United Nations. The Antichrist is going to stomp out the east and get the people of the east to join his side, then they’re all going to cram against Israel and there’s no doubt Israel is going to be wiped out, they have a losing chance. That’s why they need the Messiah to save them later on.
These are the other verses that you can go through regarding the day of the Lord.
Isaiah 13:6, 9
Ezekiel 30:3
Joel 1:15, 2:1,11,31
Joel 3:14
Amos 5:18,20
Obadiah 15
Zephaniah 1:7,14
Zephaniah 2:2-3
Malachi 4:5