Revelation Chapter 13 Part 1

Today, Dr J discusses the first part of Revelation 13.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to Dr. J in the Bible. Hope everyone is doing well. Had a great Fourth of July and 250 years. And so today we're going into Revelation chapter 13 in our study of the book of Revelation. And this is a very, very scintillating chapter which will keep you on your toes and applicable to we can see the formation of patterns even today for the system that is coming about to fulfill Revelation 13 during the tribulation period. You know, we look at this and Revelation 13 is being prepared right now. We see a global uh end time empire, uh according to Revelation 13, the Ten Kingdoms, Ten Kings, as described in Revelation, already forming. It's pretty interesting. And we see the global governance, economic system, technology, all prerequisites to the system, the institutional structural prerequisites for the beast system. And we also see the highlights of digital currency, biometric ID systems, attempts to centralize control over buying, selling, and identity. And we see that in air, we see that everywhere. Some places don't take cash anymore. Many airports are just, you know, um credit card or we, you know, even uh certain ID systems already. Um, global institutions, organizations, international governance bodies, uh, supranational alliances, the unions, and all this coming together, which is quite interesting for when we look at uh Revelation 13 that we're studying. So we look at John, we look what John says here in the vision of a beast rising from the sea. John says here in Revelation, then I stood and on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having seven heads, ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads blasphemous names. Then I stood on the sand of the sea. Uh in Revelation 12, John's vision mainly had heaven in view. Now the scene of his vision shifted to earth, and in his vision he stood on the sand of the sea. Many people today love the sea, but and I love the sea. But as a whole, when you look at the Jewish people in biblical times and regarding the sea, the sea was wild, it was untamed, it was a frightening place. And while ancient Israel under Solomon had a naval navy, we also know Hiram, the king of Tyre, supplied sailors and first kings. And because ancient Israel was weary, wary of the sea, it was a figure of evil, of chaos. And so a lot of times the writers, especially 2,000 years ago, would use the sea as representative of evil, of chaos and uh or resistance to God. And so for God, in Psalm 74, 1213, for God is my king from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by your strength, you broke the heads of the sea serpents in the water. In Psalm 89, 8 through 9, the Lord God of hosts, who is mighty like you, O Lord, your faithfulness also surrounds, you rule the raging of the sea, when its waves rise, you steal them. And so we see that even though the sea, the evil, the chaos in the world is scary. It's you know, it can be scary. And this world is very scary if you really look at it. Jesus is sovereign over all, and evil has a limit, and evil will not succeed because we know that Jesus conquered it. So we as Christians, once again, can rest in God, knowing that we don't need to fear because Jesus is near. He will never leave or forsake us, and we're not going to be here. We'll be raptured prior to this, as I mentioned in chapter 4 and 5. And then John says, I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, and from the place identified with evil and chaos and the resistance of God, this beast arises. And the ancient Greek here, the beast here, is the idea of a wild, dangerous animal. And uh, you know, it's also interesting to note, uh, the seas also represent Gentiles, interesting enough. So this is this beast is evil and wicked and scary. That's why it's called a beast, and he's coming out of the sea, he's a gentile. Because John calls him that a beast, not a dragon. The creature represents someone distinct from Satan, who was represented uh by the dragon in Revelation 12, 9, as we mentioned last time. And he has seven heads and ten horns. You know, uh it's amazing, you know, we're living in times where a lot of times this looks just like today. The formation of the uh UN, the new commission, the peace that that uh President Trump got in order. And uh man, if this is amazing stuff that we're living, we're living in amazing times. And so any creature with seven heads would be hard to kill. Because if you're wounded, one head, six still remain, right? So in biblical imagery here, horns express strength, express power. A bull with two horns is a powerful creature, but a beast with ten horns has that much more. Similar to a dragon. And the similarity to Satan is just one thing that identifies this beast with one popularly known Antichrist. And Antichrist is not necessarily against Christ, it's instead of Christ. And it only appears, the word Antichrist only appears in the Bible five times in four verses. 1 John 2.18, uh 2.22, 4.3, and 2 John 1.7. 1 John 2.18 is another good example. It says, Little children, it's the last hour, and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming. So when with this, the Antichrist, there are many Antichrists, by the way, uh, millions. We have a spirit of Antichrist in the world right now and has been here uh from the beginning. And uh, but see, Satan also, we look at Satan's strategy, Satan does not know exactly when the right Antichrist is coming. So uh many times, I believe, from scripture, you just can inference that Satan has to guess to some degree. So you look at people like Hitler, uh Nimrod, all these people from history. I think there are types of Antichrist with a small A that Satan tries to guess. But uh but in the end times this will happen to where he will get it right. Of course, it's under God's providence, under God's permissive will, so to speak. And so Antichrist, John here, first John, is saying that he's coming. And he is uh the Antichrist. He could even be alive today. I really believe that. I'm not just saying that facetiously. So really you know, anti really means the opposite of or instead of, and it's it it's um so first John 2 18, John spoke of the Antichrist and many Antichrist and the spirit of Antichrist. But in this context, he's talking about capital A in Revelation. And though we commonly call him this world leader, the Antichrist, the Bible gives him many different names, titles. Um, he's called the Little Horn in Daniel 7.8. In Daniel 8, 23, he's called the king of fierce countenance. Daniel 9, 26, he's called the prince that shall come. In Daniel 11, 36 through 45, he's called the willful king. And the one who comes in his own name, John 5.43, who Israel will receive as the Messiah. And also 2 Thessalonians 2.3, he's the son of perdition, the man of sin, the lawless one. And it's amazing because Jesus is often called different names. God is El Shaddai, um, Adonai. You can go on and on. Satan tries to be a counterfeit to Christ. We know that Satan is an angel of light, Jesus is the true light. We know that Jesus is the lion of the of Judah, Satan is a roaring lion. We know that Satan often tries to counterfeit what who Jesus is. And that's really what Antichrist does. Antichrist tries to be God on his own, he tries to do things on his own. So he has ten horns, ten crowns, on his horns, ten crowns. And this is something entirely different about this beast compared to the dragon of Revelation 12. It has seven diadems on his head, seven crowns of dragon, you know, of the dragon expressed in strength and power. Seven is often a number, you know, we can we associate with strength or fulfillment. And the ten crowns of this beast expresses his rule over ten nations. Um and many many commentators and theologians think that these ten horns are distributed among seven heads. In Daniel 7, it represents the final empire, the Antichrist, the beast, which the Messiah will ultimately conquer. It says in Daniel 7, 7, After this I saw the night vision, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong, it had huge iron teeth, it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. So in Daniel's vision, the ten horns specifically represent ten kingdoms that this final world dictator has total authority over. And in John's vision, the ten crowns on the ten horns emphasize the idea that he is the uh leader of a totalitarian alliance. So the visions of Daniel 7 and Daniel 2 connect governments represented by the Ten Crowns and the ancient Roman Empire. And in those visions, we see Daniel saw three successive world empires, each succeeded by a fourth, which in context of the visions is plainly the Roman Empire. And in the day of the fourth empire, the Messiah will come and destroy all the earth and will reign over all the earth. And since we do not see the reign of Jesus on earth in this way, and Daniel prophesied, we can only conclude the Roman Empire will resume in some way. And when we look at Europe now, it's still break, it's still compartments or connected to the Roman Empire. We're even seeing now European Union, uh, the oneness of Europe. So, in all contexts, the Roman Empire was not totally destroyed. It's broken apart. And so, in the end times, it will come together, which we're actually seeing uh right now. And on his head, a blasphemous name. So he had the seven heads of the beast, each advertised blasphemy against God. And it speaks more about the beast's message, speaks of his character, that he's a blasphemer, he speaks against the God of heaven. In verse 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, and the dragon gave him power, his throne, and great authority. So, like a leopard, a bear, and a lion. And in this vision, God used images from Daniel's vision, Daniel 7, to communicate the nature of this beast to John. And Daniel 7 used these four animals, these four beasts, to describe the course of human government, Gentiles surrounding the nation of Israel from Daniel's time until ultimately the reign of Jesus on earth. And we know this that the first animal, the lion, uh in Daniel is a picture of the Babylonian Empire. The bear is the picture of the Medo-Persian Empire. And the leopard, not leper, but leopard, is a picture of the Greek Empire. All these were totally fulfilled. And the fourth animal was dreadful, indescribable beast, which shared the most terrifying characteristics of the previous, and yet represents the final word of empire under the satanic dictator of Daniel 7. And so John presents this beast as the revived Roman Empire, the leader of all of it, and he combines all the former dictators and empires into under him. So he's connecting the empire with characteristics of a great empire of the past. You know, cat-like vigilance of a leopard, slow and crushing power of a bear, and the authority and the ferociousness of a lion. And so this guy is going to be very, very powerful. And since the beast of Daniel 7 represented the empires more than specific men, some have thought the beast of Revelation 13 is not a person, but a government, a cultural system. Many believe the beast is a broad picture of a totalitarian government, especially totalitarian states similar to the 20th century. But I think it's very clear here, the beast is talking about a person. There's no uh indication that this is some sort of symbolism here. Only the beast's characteristics. But it's a specific man. It says, now the beast which I saw. So all indications here is exactly that: that this beast is a man, not a system. He's not symbolic. Um, you know, God, we have, you know, like I said before, Satan tries to counterfeit God. You have the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and in Revelation, you have Satan, the Antichrist, and the false religious leader kind of counterfeiting in a blasphemous way the true God, made up of three persons, one God. So the beast is worshipped as a God. People never worshiped an empire. But this man would declare himself to be God. An image will be set up by the beast, and the whole world is commanded to worship this beast, this image. You know, he goes into perdition, into the lake of fire in Revelation 17, 11 and 2010. And really, that just puts the seal on it that no, this isn't a system, this is a man. So this man is going to come out of nowhere. Verse 3. And uh I saw one of his heads as it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world marveled and followed the beast. One of his heads was like it had been mortally wounded. So this is a head wound, uh, not a superficial injury per se. It's a mortal wound. Perhaps the result of God's judgment against him, who knows? Miraculously, and once again it's a counterfeit, right? He's going to rise. Is this going to be some sort of AI deception, or who knows? But I kind of take it for what it says. He's going to rise, and he's going to be more popular than ever. Uh, he's going to recover, and the whole world will willfully worship the beast. Um, and he's wounded and healed. So this true, this truly is the Antichrist. And like I said, he imitates Jesus in his death and resurrection, and the world will believe him. They didn't believe Jesus in his first coming, but they will believe him. Remember? John 5 says that. And Jesus says they'll they'll accept him who's coming. Verse 4 so they worship the dragon who gave authority to the beast, and they worship the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him? So they worship the dragon. Gave authority to the beast. As people worship this beast, they bow down before his government. And it may be that they do not know they're bowing down as Satan himself, but it is worship of Satan nonetheless. And they're worshiping him, both the beast and the dragon. Yeah. Um interesting. So they're worshiping Satan. Even if you don't know it, you're still guilty of it. That's the truth. And though Satan worship becomes more and more popular each year, um, it's still only a tiny fraction of people who openly worship him. But in this case, many people will do it willingly. You know, a lot of people, uh, Roman Catholics, Mormons, others, you know, will say that uh they're the truth, you know, their scriptures, their beliefs. Um, but we have to judge things by the word of God, including because it says in 2 Corinthians 11, 14 through 15, um, that Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. And therefore it is no great thing if his ministers transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to the works. So just because something seems good does not mean it is. We have to be Bereans, we have to test things with Scripture and with the Holy Spirit, and not just accept things because they look good, because it sounds right, or because of tradition. Yeah. Verses 5 through 6, and he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for 42 months, then he opened his mouth and blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. So he speaks great things and blasphemy. He's a blasphemer, he's a narcissist. Let's just be straight. The blasphemer, he he may be more of a, this may be more of an accurate title than Antichrist in the end. Uh blasphemer. He speaks against God, he speaks for what God stands for, and he speaks to those that are, you know, against those that are in heaven. He was given authority to continue for 42 months. The beast continues without any, without restraint by God for a period of 42 months. That's three and a half years. And during the duration of this period, he shows that the beast was full reign for the first half, and then the final seven years. Um the first three and a half were more less apparent that he he was who he was. And the last three and a half, it's all out ugly. It's going to be ugly with a full seven years. But during this whole time, we must understand God is totally sovereign. It's an act of judgment on those. He's trying to also get Israel to repent, the Jews to repent, uh, and give others opportunity to repent and come to him, really. And he's also purifying the earth, preparing it for getting rid of all the sin and the evil for when he returns, setting up his millennial kingdom. So he's purifying evil. I mean, not purifying it, he's getting rid of it, right? He's judging it. So why does this beast blaspheme those who dwell in heaven? Uh, I think this is a very interesting thing. Um, I think he's blaspheming those who dwell in heaven, and this indicates something very interesting: that those were taken in the rapture, and therefore out of his reach, out of his denim. So I think this is another small short clip of the rapture right here. He's speaking to them in heaven because they're at that he can't get them. Thanks be to God. And the beast makes war against the saints. It was granted to him to make war with the saints and overcome them, and authority was given to him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names were not written in the book of life, slain from the foundation of the world. So it describes this that he has given authority, and he is having a satanic persecution during the tribulation of killing, persecuting those who do not bow down to worship the beast. And to overcome them, overcome does not mean that the beast can overcome the faith of the saints, but he can destroy their physical lives and cause fear and appearant appear to be defeating the saints on earth. And who are the saints who are overcome who uh are overcome by the beast? Uh I believe these are the saints that are during the tribulation that get saved. Yeah. Uh, we know that the church, the gates of hell, will not prevail. And so after this, you know, the Holy Spirit will not be indwelling believers or those that accept Christ during the tribulation. So, in a really real sense, yeah, I mean, they could lose their salvation in that sense. They're not, they could turn because they're not going to be sealed by the Holy Spirit, right? Some that God will give extraordinary, he will protect, but others will have to, they will lose their head and die for Christ so that they won't take the beast, the number of the beast. How will all dwell on the earth and worship him? You know, I think this is kind of this is not something different. Okay, I think with our system, with AI, with one world, the strive for a one-world government, uh, we saw how the world came together during COVID, how quickly laws can be passed where people, you know, persecution can occur. Um but if you look back in history, the Roman Empire did this, that during the early church, when all the residents in the empire were required to burn a pinch of incense before a statue of Caesar and say uh Caesar is Lord. And if they refused, they were persecuted because of it. We saw this as well with Lenin and Stalin and Hitler and Mao. So this is nothing new in that sense. The book of life contains the names of all God's redeemed. You know, um, and so we know that those in the book of life before the foundation of the world and the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. God has his people, his elect, that we don't know who they are, but we're going to go preach the gospel and be faithful to all people because we want to glorify our Savior. Um, but he's the one that does salvation, he's the one that snatches us from uh this life of sin, he's the one who gives us eternal life. Otherwise, we could take credit for it. And so those in the book of life will not worship the beast. And the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Very simple. God knew from the very beginning that we would sin. God didn't make us sin. We sin because we sin. We're slaves to sin until Jesus saves us and sets us free. Um, we're really not free until we come to Christ. That's the only time we're free. And he's slain before the foundation of the world. We would never know God's love if there was not this, if there was not evil, it was not pain. And he demonstrated his love by sending his son to die on a cross. And we will glorify him for eternity, because eye has not seen, ear has not heard what has in print what is in store for those that love him. So it wasn't a surprise to God that Adam fell, and it isn't a surprise today when we do. Um, yeah, the names written in the book of life before the foundation of the world. 9 through 10, if anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads in captivity shall go into captivity. He who kills with a sword must be killed with a sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. So this is a very solemn word of warning meant to really get our attention to all who are listening. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. This means that the functions of the beast are not without guilt, though these things that he's doing prophesied are part of God's predetermined plan. That's right. It doesn't lessen in the slightest way man's personal responsibility. Sometimes God judges by letting by letting evil happen. Right? For the believer, we know all things work together for the good to those who love God called according to his purpose. But for the unbeliever, it's judgment. It's judgment on evil. And it's also, you know, God has a perfect plan. He has a uh permissive will. Perfect will, permissive will, um, a decorative decreed, a moral will, that we share the gospel with all people, every tongue, every group. And he has a decorative where he decrees that some will come to know, some won't. And so when we look at this, God's sovereign of all, that does not mean he loves sin or that he loves evil because he hates it. That's why he died for it. But he's sovereign over it, or he wouldn't be God. Sometimes he lets evil take place as a form of judgment against evil. Does that make sense? So as we look at this, this is uh, I'm gonna stop here and do a part two because this is very good. And uh I'm getting into it myself. I'm getting excited. So this I'll do a part two, and I hope you guys have a good uh rest of the week and have a blessed one, and I'll I'll talk with you on part two. Take care.