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Revelation 12 & 13 The Dragon, The Beast and The Mark
With broad brush strokes, John has been painting an overview of what it will look like when God pours out His wrath on an unrepentant world. In chapter 11 we saw that when the final trumpet blows there will be no more mystery about God and Jesus Christ will rule. But from chapter 12 John starts to give us insight into some of the spiritual battles that will take place in last days, the characters and places that will be involved.
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. (Revelation 12:1-6)
The child that this woman gives birth to who will rule all nations with a rod of iron is Jesus Christ. So we know that the woman is symbolic of the Jews. John is talking about signs in heaven now so this part of the prophesy is not a literal woman coming down from heaven but represents the Jewish people. Likewise the dragon as well is but a symbol of Satan who did everything possible to destroy Jesus when He was but a child. But Satan was not able to destroy Jesus and as we know He was raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God. However there will be a day when the Jews will need to flee into the wilderness from the persecution of Satan. Jesus described it to His disciples, "When you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." (Matthew 24:15-16) Satan will try his best to destroy the Jews and the persecution will be the worst that the Jews have ever known, but God will not allow them to be destroyed. At the same time there is a spiritual battle raging in the heavenlies.
And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 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. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time." Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of its mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (Revelation 12:7-17)
The Bible teaches us some very clear things about Satan. One thing is that he exists. He is not a dragon, that is just a symbol of his wickedness and power, he is definitely not a red goat-man with horns and a pointy tail. He is described in the Bible as an angel fallen from heaven. "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: `I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; (Isaiah 14:12-13) We also know that he is not alone. Rather when he fell, he took a third of the angels with him. However, until now the fall of Satan has not been an exile from heaven. Instead we see that Satan and his angels are still allowed to visit until this time of the tribulation when Michael will kick him out for good. What does Satan do in heaven? The word tells us that he accuses the brethren day and night before God. In fact the name Devil, means the "False Accuser" This is why I am very careful not to make accusations against Christians. It is very easy to be tricked into doing the Devil’s work for him. Before you make an accusation against someone, think twice. Are you an eye-witness to what they have done, or are you just repeating the accusation that somebody else made?
The next thing that we can learn about Satan is that he
is the adversary, the enemy of God. That is what "Satan" means.
When we say that something is "satanic" it means that it is
inspired by the enemy of God. The world that we live in is full of things
that are inspired by the enemy. Things that are opposite of the character
of God. 1 John 4 tells us that "God is love" So anything that
is inspired by hate is satanic and should have no place in our lives.
1 John 1:5 tells us that "God is light" So anything inspired
by darkness, anything that spreads ignorance, fear or confusion is satanic
and we should separate ourselves from it. Many other passages tell us
that God is faithful and true and so we see that lies are inspired by
Satan and we should have no part in them. "God is one" (Galatians
3:20) so it should be obvious that all idols and attempts to make new
gods are inspired by Satan. I would encourage you to make an inventory
of the books and music that you have and throw away anything that is
inspired by the enemy. But nowadays it is simply not enough to clean
out your house, because there is a torrent of new things coming into
our homes daily through the television, the radio, the newspapers and
the internet. A large percentage of what you get in these media are
inspired by the enemy. I encourage you to be selective in what you allow
yourself to take in. What you do watch, watch wisely discerning what
has Satan as its source.
After Satan is cast out of heaven for good, he will be confined to this
earth and he won’t be very happy about it. His attention will
be focussed on destroying the Jewish people and his wrath will be great
because he knows that his time is short. But even then Satan will be
frustrated in his plans and will not be able to defeat the Jews.
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. 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. 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. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months. Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. 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. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. (Revelation 13:1-10)
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 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, who was wounded by the sword and lived. 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. 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, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666." (Revelation 13:11-18)
The next thing that is introduced is the Antichrist, called the Beast and another beast who is his prophet. We have already talked about the Antichrist, the prince who will make a treaty with the Jews to allow them to build their temple in exchange for giving the Arabs the rest of Jerusalem. This prince will break the treaty after 3 and a half years and set himself up as god, in the holy of holies and warring against the servants of God. In this chapter we find a few more things about this figure. First we see that he rises out of the sea, which is figurative of the nations. In fact it would seem from the number of heads and crowns that he will be the leader of a consortium of nations. Second we see that this man will be totally inspired by Satan. He will get his power, throne and authority from the Devil. Do you remember how Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness showing Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and saying, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me." Rest assured that whoever comes into control of all the nations of the world will have had that same conversation with the Devil. The Antichrist will be a worshiper of Satan. Third, he will suffer a mortal wound and yet survive and this will cause the whole world to marvel and follow him. In the eyes of the world he will be a war hero, he will have medals of honor pinned to his chest. He will be the bringer of peace, peace in the middle east and peace to the whole world because there will be no one who will dare to fight against him. And Fourth, the ultimate goal of this prince will be to proclaim himself god and make all the earth bow down and worship him. Now this will not be as difficult as it might seem, because the Antichrist has some dirty tricks.
The dirty tricks will be administered by the second beast. This man will look like a lamb but will really be bloodthirsty. I can imagine that this person will be the Antichrist's religious arm. The Bishop who spreads the Antichrists religion of hate. How will he spread this new religion? First he will set up an image of the Antichrist that will have the power to speak. It will seem to the world that this bishop has the power of life itself. Imagine if by satanic inspiration the technologies of genetic manipulation and cloning that we have in infancy today were used without any moral restraint. The Antichrist could have himself cloned and modified in such a way that a "representative" of the Antichrist could be sent to every city and town on the earth. Not only this but that same representative would enforce worship by killing anyone who would not bow down to it. Considering that the only people left on the earth at that time besides the Jews will be those who reject God anyway, there will be little resistance to the scheme.
The next phase will be for each person to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads. The purpose of this mark will be to twofold. It will be the ultimate mark of loyalty to the Antichrist and with that loyalty will come privileges, the right to buy and sell. All through this period the Antichrist will be battling with the Jews and with the two witnesses that we read about in the last chapter. These servants of God will be considered a terrible threat and so it will justify constant loyalty checks on the rest of the population. At first loyalty will be established by forcing them to line up in front of the image of the Antichrist and bow down. But later this will become inconvenient and too easy for the Jews to avoid, so the easiest solution will be to make the Jews total outcasts from society, unable to buy or sell anything and instantly recognizable if they enter a city or town because they lack the mark.
Let us finish today with the mark itself. The Bible tells
us that it is the number of a man, 666. It also says that he who has
understanding should calculate the number. Don't be afraid of everything
that happens to have that number. My brother and I once made a rule
when playing the game Risk. If you threw the dice and 666 came up all
the armies on both sides were destroyed and the country was declared
a wasteland. A lot of people have made things up about this number that
are just as arbitrary. People accuse this person or that person of being
the antichrist because the have six letters in each of their names or
the letters in their names add up to six. But don’t worry about
inadvertantly receiving this mark. You will know that it is a mark of
total allegiance to the one who calls himself a god and that if you
refuse it you are as good as dead. But remember that if you believe
in Jesus Christ today, then you will have no need to fear this mark
or any of these beasts that we have studied today. Just as Jesus casts
Satan out of heaven, by His power, He will also save you by that same
power.
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