Good evening,
We will be talking about some of the new technologies tonight.
Some of them have direct impact on the beasts of Revelation 13 and some have indirect impacts.
Let’s go over some background information.
Revelation 13: 1 – 8; the Beast from the Sea
13 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. 2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. 4 So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”
5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months. 6 Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven.
7 It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. 8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Ok so this is the first beast of Revelation 13. This beast comes out of the sea.
Verse 4 this beast gets its authority from the dragon of revelation 12.
Revelation 12:7-9 (NKJV); Satan Thrown Out of Heaven
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
So verse 7 says that the beast was given authority to make war with the saints
So remember a while back God gave Pastor Barbara a prophetic word regarding revelation 12.
The dragon was cast down to make war with the saints.
The next phase of this is the dragon giving the beast the same authority and ability that he has.
Now here is the uncool part, the world is accepting dragon of revelation 12 and the world will be accepting of the beast of revelation 13.
Why?
Verse 4 again, they are gonna worship the dragon and the 1st beast
Now we all know that there are worldly people who will worship satan.
The level of deception that is in the world will be to a level that is so bad and so dark that only those who know Christ will not worship them.
OK so is everyone still with me?
Revelation 13:11-16 (NKJV); the Beast from the Earth
11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.
15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads,
So now let's look at the 2nd beast of revelation 13
OK so now we have the 2nd beast of revelation 13
Dragon = yields authority => 1st beast = yields authority => 2nd beast
Dragon <= is worshipped by = 1st beast <= is worshipped by <= 2nd beast
So the 2nd beast spoke like the dragon
The 2nd Beast deceives everyone like the dragon into worshiping the 1st beast
He does it by performing miracles.
The world is looking for miracles and there will be those who will be performing miracles that are not of God.
You can’t just be excited about miracles for the sake of miracles.
If the miracles don't point you back to Christ there is something wrong with the miracle.
The world is looking for miracles but they are not looking for God.
The church is looking for miracles but they are not looking for God.
Everything we do should point to Christ.
If it doesn't something is wrong and you are a part of the world.
Verse 14 is very important to get in your spirit.
If you don't you could have an opening in yourself that will make you able to be deceived by the things in this world.
If you look at what the 2nd beast did, he performed miracles.
Unfortunately people are gullible. So those who performed these miracles told those people what to do…
Human nature is flesh is human nature; and because people want miracles and not God the 1st fool that produces a miracle for you, you immediately do whatever they tell you to do.
With no thought, no judgment, no healthy skepticism at all, you just run right after them and go to hell with them.
So now the 2nd beast has them hooked in a sense to the system and he makes an image to the 1st beast
Revelation 13:14 (NKJV)
14 And he deceives [a]those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.
Image is Greek word 1504 Eikon – Eikon sometimes may be used synonymously with homoioma and both may refer to the earthly copies and resemblances of archetypal things in the heavens. However there is a distinction Eikon always assumes a prototype from it resembles.
In other words it’s gonna be an exact copy of satan.
So people are gonna look at this image and they are gonna believe that they are talking and interacting directly with satan, the dragon or the beast.
What technology is being worked on and produced today that can accomplish this?
Virtual Agents/Virtual Reality.
A virtual agent is nothing more than a computer agent or program capable of interacting with humans.
The most common example of this kind of technology are chatbots.
Virtual agents are currently being used for customer service and support and as smart home managers.
Some of the companies that provide virtual agents include Amazon, Apple, Artificial Solutions, Assist AI, Creative Virtual, Google, IBM, IPsoft, Microsoft and Satisfi.
Virtual reality has been promised for decades, but in my conversations with the top developers in the field, it quickly became clear that never before have so much money and talent bet on its imminent arrival. Headsets will start going on sale this year, and competition will increase dramatically through 2016. At first they'll be bought by hardcore gamers and gadget geeks. They'll be expensive--as much as $1,500 with all the accoutrements. And just as with cell phones, everyone else will mock the early adopters for mindlessly embracing unnecessary technology with no useful purpose. At first.
A good place to start that mocking would have been AT&T Park. In April, a group of virtual-reality entrepreneurs are wearing huge bright red plastic sunglasses, walking on the field where the San Francisco Giants play. Venture capitalist Mike Rothenberg, 30, rented the stadium so the 360 guests he's invited can see the 20 virtual-reality companies that his firm, Rothenberg Ventures, has funded. They can also take batting practice, drink cocktails, pet adoptable dogs and build their own goody bags.
For each VR demo, I put on a clunky pair of goggles, most of which have a smartphone slipped into a slot in front of my eyes, which does most of the work.
These machines are not as complex as what Luckey developed, but they provide a cheap, effective rendition. The screen, when it's that close to your face, fills your field of vision--the first frameless visual medium. The sense of depth is far more realistic than 3-D, with everything stretching out to infinity, scaled perfectly. And I can look all around, whipping my head to see above, below and behind me, which gives me brief moments of what virtual-reality pioneers longingly call "presence"--when you really feel like you're inside a fake environment. It's an amazing technical achievement. I'm psyched I got to try it, but it's not something I'm going to choose over watching TV. The graphics are clunky, and I can see individual pixels, so I'm pretty far from fooled into thinking I'm not inside a ballpark. It's like the coolest version of the 1970s View-Master toy I could imagine.
It's also close enough to The Matrix to excite all these people. Xavier Palomer Ripoll has come from Spain to work for three months at Rothenberg Ventures' VR accelerator. He's created a bunch of animated situations that allow therapists to use immersion therapy with clients who have anxiety disorders, letting them virtually sit on a plane or ride in an elevator, for example. "They currently use imagination. They hold a picture of a plane, and they say, 'Imagine you're in a plane.' What the f---, man?" he asks.
Everyone here is equally aghast that we're stuck in a pre-virtual-reality world: Ryan Holmes paid $15,000 to put a camera on the International Space Station so he can one day charge people $10 a month to see space in virtual reality; Ashley Granata is creating Pendnt, which allows people to try on clothing virtually; Howard Rose had me use a joystick to shoot VR balls hanging from VR landscapes to distract me from the pain of having my free hand submerged in ice-cold water.
On the deck of the stadium, wearing a Founder Field Day baseball jersey and sunglasses, Rothenberg says his firm has already secured enough money to invest in a second round of virtual-reality companies this fall. "It's hard for people to write checks for virtual reality until they try it. Then, not that hard," he says. He likens this opportunity to the Internet in 1995. "No one calls a company an 'Internet company' anymore. In 10 years, everyone will have VR as part of their company."
It's already starting. Lately, I've been bombarded by virtual reality. At a party in Los Angeles in May, Patrón launched a virtual tour of the hacienda in Mexico where its agave is distilled. Birchbox announced that this month its men's subscription box will include a virtual-reality viewer and app allowing its subscribers to surf or fly a helicopter. And at North Face stores, you can see virtual video of dudes climbing a rock face in the company's gear. James Blaha, a game developer with severe lazy eye--a condition that affects about 2% to 3% of the world's population--has used virtual reality to basically cure the disease in 30-minute sessions over three to four weeks; he's sold 1,000 copies of the system to optometrists already. And Hollywood is putting nearly as much money as Silicon Valley into the concept.
Nearly every week, there's a virtual-reality convention. Standing in line with 1,500 other people for the sold-out Virtual Reality Los Angeles spring expo in March to visit the booths of more than 50 companies, I am asked to sign a contract. It is not, like other tech releases, about me not telling anyone about anything I saw or thought I might have seen here. Instead, it says, "I am aware that some people experience nausea, disorientation, motion sickness, general discomfort, headaches or other health issues when experiencing virtual reality." The final platform is not making a great first impression.
Luckily, I don't barf. The nausea caused by virtual reality is the inverse of car sickness: your eyes see motion but your middle ear feels nothing. This challenge has largely been solved by faster screen-refresh rates--the final version of Oculus will allow only 20 milliseconds between a head turn and visual change; an eyeblink takes about 300 milliseconds. VR companies are also shying away from putting viewers on virtual roller coasters and Formula One tracks. But they are creating everything else. In a speech in a packed auditorium, Jens Christensen, CEO of Jaunt, which makes high-end VR cameras, says building actual flying cars and jet packs is now irrelevant. The only question, he says, is how soon we can "simulate our own personal Tomorrowlands."
So, we are working on technologies that will place you in the scene with other people.
Some of the gaming systems that are out right now. Your children can be playing these games with someone across the world.