Lesson 28 - Revelation 13

[Music] [Music] we had just begun revelation chapter 13 last week when we round a time so we're gonna continue with it today now as a just a brief review the events foretold by chapter 13 were not just future for John they are future also for us this chapter is dominated by three characters the dragon the sea beast and the land beast now references to these characters continues well after church chapter 13 so we need to sort them out we need to kind of get him firmly in mind where they're placed who they are who they symbolize the dragon symbolizes Satan and he was unequivocally identified as such one chapter back in verse 9 of chapter 12 we read the Great Dragon was thrown out that ancient serpent also known as the devil and Satan the deceiver of the whole world he was hurled down to the earth and his angels were hurled down with him the sea beast is the first of two so-called beasts to arise in chapter 13 he emerges from the ocean while the dragon Satan stands on the seashore either waiting for him to appear or more likely summoning him the sea beast and the dragon have very similar appearances they each have seven heads and ten horns which indicates their intimate connection now one of the main ways to tell which is which is that back in Chapter 12 for three we were told that the dragon was red in color no doubt this is why most illustrations paintings and cartoons of the devil are that he's red on the other hand the sea beasts main feature is he was colored like a leopard presumably with spots the next feature difference is that the dragon had seven Crown's adorning his seven heads while the sea beast had ten crowns adorning his ten horns so we must not overlook the use of the numbers here 7 and 10 7 is the ideal number it indicates completeness wholeness at times finality 10 is a number that also indicates a kind of completeness but more in the sense of all-inclusiveness universality now I mentioned last week that we should notice that Satan is mimicking God and he does so because his chief weapon remember this Satan's chief weapon is deception so it's no wonder that the devil incorporates the numbers 7 and 10 in his physical appearance because 7 and 10 are usually associated with godly actions and since one of the primary characteristics of God is that he manifests himself in multiple ways that we tend to call persons which Christianity long ago transformed into the Trinity doctrine so we find Satan attempting the same thing is Satan appears to us in Revelation is a kind of Trinity the dragon the sea beast and the land beast and we're gonna see a bit later Satan will even try to mimic Christ and that special prophet that announced his Advent now another important characteristic of the evil triumvirate is that like God the Father who is the ultimate holder of universal power and authority which he assigns in part to the Son and to the Holy Spirit Satan is preeminent over the realm of evil and is the source of the power and authority that he gives in part to the sea beast and to the land beast now we have so much to discuss today and it is difficult it's complex but it's enlightening so let's reread all of chapter 13 to get our foundation good and set for today's discussion turn your Bibles if you have a complete Jewish Bible to page 15 44 this is Revelation chapter 13 and remember I'm gonna start reading from from 1218 because that short little section actually belongs as the beginning of chapter 13 not the ending of chapter 12 then the dragon stood on the seashore and I saw a beast come up out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads and on its horns were ten royal crowns on its heads blasphemous names the Beast which I saw was like a leopard but with feet like those of a bear and a mouth like the mouth of a lion now to it the dragon gave its power its throne in great authority and one of the heads of the beast appeared to have received a fatal wound but its fatal wound was healed and the whole earth followed after the beast in amazement and they worshiped the dragon because he had given his authority to the Beast and they worshipped the Beast saying who was like the Beast who can fight against it it was given a mouth speaking arrogant blasphemies it was given authority to act for forty-two months so it opened its mouth and blasphemies against God to insult his name and his Shekinah and those living in heaven and it was allowed to make war on God's holy people and to defeat them and it was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation everyone living on earth will worship it except those whose names are written in the book of life belonging to the lamb slaughtered before the world was founded those who have ears let them hear if anyone is meant for captivity into captivity he goes he wants to be killed with the sword with the sword he is to be killed this is when God's holy people must persevere and trust then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth and it had two horns like those of a lamb but it spoke like a dragon it exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast the one whose fatal head wound had been healed it performs great miracles even causing fire to come down from heaven onto the earth as people watch it deceives the people living on earth by the miracles it is allowed to perform in the presence of the Beast tells them to make an image honoring the Beast that was struck by the sword but he came alive again it was allowed to put breath into the image of the Beast so that the image of the Beast could even speak and it was allowed to cause anyone who would not worship the image of the Beast to be put to death it also forces everyone great and small rich and poor free and slave to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead preventing anyone from buying or selling unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of its name this is where wisdom is needed those who understand should count the number of the beast or is the number of a person and it's number is six six six now since we've thoroughly discussed already the first couple of verses let's move right on to verse three and I ask that you keep those Bibles open do they keep your finger right there and that you follow along your the scripture verses closely as I speak to you about them today verse three says the one of the seven heads the Beast meaning the sea beast since we yet to be introduced to the second beast the lion beast it seems to have been fatally wounded but was miraculously healed and it so impressed the citizens of the world that they gave their allegiance to the sea beast now just to be clear the figures of the dragon and of the sea beast are symbolic and not literal so that means that when they will appear it will be as human beings or perhaps in some cases human institutions the world will not see a literal seven headed monster and an actual red dragon like creature and then weirdly follow them any more than we would today at least I hope in fact says verse four the world will more than give their undying allegiance to the sea beast they will worship Him in other words the sea beast will be seen as divine or at least the level of public all will be so great that they put all their trust in him even if that trust might be more fear-based than adoring from any who is like the Beast who can fight against it you know perhaps the best most recent analogy would be that the Beast will be like Hitler only on a worldwide scale you know while some in Germany Germany willingly and with great hope gave Hitler glory and even love more were simply in fear of him and they believed that because of his unmatchable power and cunning they had a little choice but to follow wannabe I want to pause here for a moment this passage does not actually say that the world will give its allegiance to the sea beast it says the world will give its allegiance to the dragon the world will give its allegiance to Satan think about that but like God Satan's an invisible spirit so how is the world going to give its allegiance to something that's invisible it will be via giving their allegiance to the visible tangible human being that that sea beast symbolizes the one who operates under the power and authority that was given to him by Satan so in the in its the same as the world giving its allegiance to Satan see it works the same way with God when we give our allegiance to Christ who was certainly not an invisible divine spirit when he roamed the Holy Land 2,000 years ago but rather was a visible tangible human being who operated under the power and authority given to him by God in heaven then it's the same of giving our allegiance to God the Father in heaven I mean remember what Yeshua once said in John 49 and yushua replied to him have I been with you so long without your knowing me Philip whoever has seen me has seen the father so how can you say show us the father so just as Christ was a heaven-sent agent of God the Father so very representative of every marvelous attribute of God the Father but still Yeshua was not God the Father so will the sea beast be a hell sent agent of Satan displaying every evil attribute of Satan but still will not be sane and as with Christ saying if you've seen me you've seen the father so it will be that when people see the sea beast wherever that human being is they will have seen Satan you with me on that see this by the way is the same sense that we're supposed to be taking john 14:9 and it's this also the sense we were to take this than this passage in Revelation now who or what exactly is the Seabee as we discussed last week depending on the theological source he's either the Antichrist who is a great world political leader or he is the false prophet a great world religious leader there is no consensus on this now I personally believe that the weight of scriptural evidence favors that the sea beast represents the Antichrist as well as remember this thing has multiple heads okay as well as the nations and the leaders from whence he comes and there's at first given his earthly political authority but why is it that this beast emerges from the sea I find there are two reasons for this first we have a sea beast and in separately a land beast because Satan has for eons been given authority by God to be the Prince of the earth thus a satanic leader from the sea and another one from the land are Satan fraudulently mimicking that mighty angel back from revelation 10 the one with one foot on the land and the other foot on the sea in my opinion that mighty angel was the angel of the Lord a manifestation of God back in Revelation 10 5 through 7 just to help remind you then then the angel I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand towards heaven and swore by the one who lives forever and ever who created heaven and what's in it created earth and what's in it and the sea and what's in it there will be no more delay on the contrary in the days of the sound from the seventh angel when he sounds his shofar the hidden plan of God will be brought to completion the good news as he proclaimed it to his servants the prophets so the mighty angel is declaring God's sovereignty over the entire earth by having one foot on the land the other foot on the sea and then pronouncing an oath swearing by a holy so now Satan he brings forth an evil angel so to speak from the land another one from the sea to show that he intends on hanging on to his rulership over the entire earth a rulership that the Lord says has already been removed from him and turned over to Christ which by the way is a relatively new development that was announced only in Revelation chapter 11 but it's it's something which Satan intends to continue to battle to keep that status quo where he's Prince of the earth revelation 11 this reminds you again 15 through 17 the seventh angel sounded his shofar and there were loud voices in heaven saying the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord in his Messiah and he will rule forever and ever the twenty-four elders sitting on their Thrones of God's presence fell on their faces and worshipped God saying we thank you Adonai god of heavens armies the one who is and who was that you have taken your power and begun to rule so the transfer occurred in Revelation chapter 11 from Satan as the prince of the war to Yeshua as king of the world now the second reason that we have a beast emerging from the sea is that biblically speaking nearly without exception the imagery of a sea monster or a sea dragon is symbolic of wicked kings and nation's that oppresses God's chosen people Israel nearly always very often the evil Kingdom is Egypt even the great Pharaoh in the days of Moses was spoken of as a sea dragon in Ezekiel 29 3 speak and say thus saith the Lord God behold I am against the Pharaoh king of Egypt the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers which has said my River is mine own I've made it for myself now by the way I want to tell you I just quoted from the King James Version because here it agrees with other scholarly translations while the complete Jewish Bible frankly took pretty great liberties with the same passage assigning the word crocodile instead of dragon or monster to the Hebrew word team which means monsters a monster of sorts so the symbolic meaning of the sea from which comes the sea beast is that the Beast is emerging from an ocean of wicked nations and wicked peoples that Egypt is the emblem throughout the Bible for a wicked nation that oppresses God's people makes this meaning even more informative because Egypt is a remnant not only of the Roman Empire but also of the Greek Empire and the Greek Empire was symbolized in Daniel the Book of Daniel by a leopard and the leopard is the primary physical characteristic of the sea beast hope you see the connection with all this so let's talk a bit about this fatal wound given to the sea beasts first of all the wound would only have been fatal to about one of the seven heads and the verse clearly says that so only one of the seven heads of this beast would have potentially died not the entirety of the sea beasts so the seven heads have to represent seven seven seven separate people or institutions or entities of some sort but somehow that particular person likely or entity survived and because of their miraculous recovery the world believed that what was probably a person probably a great national leader was either superhuman or supernatural now note how this fatal head wound and a recovery from it mimics the death and supernatural resurrection of Christ however many modern commentators believe that what John was alluding to was the hated Roman Emperor Nero late in his reign perhaps twenty years before John wrote revelation Nero had his throat cut on the authority of the Roman Senate and he died however a rumor spread that he had miraculously survived and had escaped to Parthia many people including his enemies expect him to return alive and with an army to help him regain power playing upon that expectation a few months later an impostor appeared who claimed to be a resurrected Nero and he gathered a following who wanted to put him back in charge because they thought he was Nero back in charge of the Empire he was quickly hunted down and killed now of course the bulk of Bible commentators who accept this bit of history as to what John was alluding to are not believers but rather are merely Bible experts and few of them believe in the spiritual the miraculous or the prophetic nevertheless from John's perspective what he's speaking about for him was the future it's not something from the past and Nero was about 20 years passed from John so it couldn't been Nero all right now back to the sea beast with the ten crowns on his ten horns horns biblically are usually symbols of great political powers governments nations and the Crown's indicate kings of those nations the belief among evangelical Christian writers and theologians has since not very long after World War two been that the prophesied ten nations are a confederation of ten European States because Winston Churchill recommended and predicted such a political organization that was designed to stop this endless series of devastating injury European Wars so the European Union was created in 1993 and it began with ten nations so for some this was proof positive that the sea beast is the European Union out of which will come the Antichrist but I find that to be highly unlikely for one reason the EU today consists not of 10 but of 28 member states and part of the reason for the belief that this passage in Revelation is prophetic of the European Union is because the belief is that the overall event that over all the sea beast represents a revived Roman Empire based on the unnamed fourth beast of Daniel chapter 7 and that the sea beast is a composite of four nations represented by Daniels four of nation empires represented by Daniels four Beast thus Daniels four beasts were Babylon media Persia Greece and then Rome now while I fully identify with the identification of those four empires as being represented by Daniels four Beast I'm very doubtful about the ten nations represented by the sea beast tens horns as being the EU Rome the capital of the Roman Empire being in Italy at least today only has any real power or any future prospect of any power from the religious sphere not from the political or economic spheres and that sphere that I empower that I speak of is the Vatican which is the capital of the Catholic Church and I cannot see the Catholic Church as a future world political power or anything that could resemble a future world empire rather how I completely acknowledge the world conditions can turn on a dime if we were to look today to find a 10 nation Confederacy that hates Israel and its people out of which an antichrist could arise we would be better to look at Middle Eastern Muslim nations one reason that we should at least be open to the possibility is that Egypt the long-standing biddable biblical epitome of a nation that hates Israel and oppresses Israel could easily be in some way involved in a 10 Muslim nation Confederacy Confederacy that represents the sea beast for another reason while Westerners and Christians see Islam as purely a religion in fact Islam is a government system with the goal of governing the globe thus Islam is as much political as it is religious now with that thought in mind let's take a small detour here since one of the enduring topics among Christians is who this predicted all-important 10 nation Confederacy of anti-semite Nations might be because out of them comes the Antichrist and to address this I'm gonna borrow heavily from a lecture I gave on one of the tours I led to Israel several years ago so if you were on that tour this might sound familiar the international borders of today's nations in the Middle East are on the verge of being redefined according to a biblical pattern and they're going to be redefined into ten national divisions along with an 11th division called a area which will arise out of Iraq sometime after the USA completely leaves it the world is not going to allow Israel even as the result of a war they might not start to assume occupation or control over the present national areas called Lebanon Jordan Syria and those regions governed under the present Palestinian Authority that itself is currently fractured in two separate governments one in Gaza under Hamas the other in the so-called West Bank under Fatah the scripture seemed to indicate that these various territories will actually be divided into smaller States now when this political division of ten national States is realized you know kind of the ultimate land for peace deal a period of peace and prosperity will develop for that entire region that will make it the envy of the world this will occur when those ten small political divisions also unite together in a way that the European Union has always envisioned for itself but it's never come close to achieving it all of this that I'm telling you is shown in several prophecies in the Holy Scriptures but it's pinpointed in detail in Psalm 83 a psalm describing a political Confederacy of ten small nations around Israel on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean and when this new political arrangement becomes evident peace and prosperity will come to the Middle East it will only last for a divinely ordained period of time open your Bibles to Psalm 83 Psalm 83 if you have a complete Jewish Bible its page 87487 4 follow along with me a song a psalm of ass off god don't remain silent don't stay quiet God or still because here are your enemies causing an uproar those who hate you are raising their heads craftily conspiring against your people consulting together against those you treasure they say come on let's wipe them out as a nation let the name of Israel be remembered no more with one mind they plot their schemes the Covenant they have made is against you the tents of Edom and the Ishmael team Ishmaelites Arabs Moab on the hog dream give all a moan in amalek caleche step that's Phyllis Philistia with those living in Zoar Asher too is allied with them to reinforce the descendants of load due to them as you did to Midian to cease Rania being at the wadi key shown they were destroyed a dying door and became manure for the ground make their leaders like or Avandia of all their princes like zavok and salman ah who said let's take possession of God's Meadows for ourselves my God make them like whirling dust like chaff driven by the wind like fire burning up the forest like a flame that sits the mountains ablaze drive them away with your storm terrify them with your tempest fill their faces with shame so that they will seek your name Aden I let them be ashamed in fearful for yes let them perish in disgrace let them know that you alone whose name is Otto and I are the most high over all the earth now while we need to take seriously what these prophecies state will actually happen we first need to recognize an essential point the Philistines are mentioned prominently in prophetic context dealing with the day of the Lord now this is a period yet future to us much is written about the Philistines in prophecies that have not yet taken place find them Zephaniah to 4 through 7 if you want to go there Zephaniah to 4 through 7 Zechariah 9 5 through 7 and especially now in Psalm 83 that was Zechariah 9 5 through 7 now in Psalm 83 in particular the Pella Schnepp the Philistines are reckoned as one of ten nations that design an attack on the Land of Israel to destroy the people of Israel and so bringing in that's their goal it says to the nation of Israel that prophecy what we just read in Psalm 83 has not yet occurred in history and the Philistines are going to be very much involved in helping to fulfill it that's right there are prophesied to be 10 count'em 10 nations in the Middle East that Confederate Confederate together in an effort to send the nation of Israel into oblivion now besides Psalm 83 there is another section of scripture that speaks of a confederacy of peoples that will be evident at the end of the age just before the second advent of Christ this Confederacy is mentioned in the book of Daniel chapters 2 and 7 it is entirely possible that the 10 specifically named nations of psalm 83 are the same as those implied by daniel as opposed to what many think today is a European based Union of Nations called the EU now since the Philistines are front and center and these end times predictions then a proper recognition of who the philistines are today is necessary for the identification of all the peoples mentioned in the biblical prophecies the first reference we have to Philistines is in the table of Nations recorded in Genesis chapter 10 it's repeated again by the way in 1st chronicles chapter 1 and it states something really important it is that the Philistines had their origin from the same ancestor as the early Egyptians same ancestor for the Egyptians as the Philistines this was by the way in the Bible Hebrew Egypt is mitzraim all right and you'll find about this you find what I'm talking about here in Genesis 10 13 and 14 now the fact is that not only is the word Palestine Greek for Philistine but a great deal of the modern Palestinians are as their very name suggests descendants of the ancient Philistines who themselves are descendants of the founder of Egypt God recognizes that some of the people are of mixed ethnic characteristics you'll note that especially in Zechariah 9 6 but this biblical indication does not mean that the main people are disqualified from being Philistines just because they have some mixed ethnic back what does this all mean in Psalm 83 we have a graphic description of ten separate nations or peoples surrounding the nation of Israel and our time those nations would be all Muslim nations the account in this Psalm I repeat has never occurred in history the end of the Psalm relates how the events described are going to lead up to Jehovah God of Israel being declared the most high over all the earth the time setting of Psalm 83 is shown by its position in the Book of Psalms the song describes a time just before the kingdom of God is established over all the earth just before and since this is true we may indeed have a prime prophecy revealing more or less who the ten nations are of Daniel and revelation this reference in Psalm 83 is a significant key I believe to end times events that all prophetic interpreters ought to recognize and not just remain fixated on frankly what's proving to be a dead end and that that end is the EU as the ten nation Confederacy from which comes the Antichrist so wow what I presented to you can in no way be thought of as ironclad proof or is it going to settle the debate it has to be considered at least from the worldview of 2019 as reasonable plausible as a biblically sound candidate to identify the makeup of the ten nation Confederation symbolized by the sea beast and at the present time is more much more likely that than the year in European Union so with that to ponder let's move on it's always wise to look back at what the earliest church fathers had to say about biblical matters and especially about the book of Revelation because they were unencumbered by today's political correctness and they were far closer to the time that the Bible was written sassari us of our lay a church father who lived in the late for hundreds ad and was a bishop in what today is called France had this to say about the identification of the sea beast he said and the dragon gave him his power for we see how the heretics who have the power of the devil are powerful in this world for just as formerly it was the pagans that devastated the church now it's the heretics so for sis arias the sea beast our church heretics now victorious of pataw veeam who lived in the to hundreds ad closer yet to the time of john had this to say about the subject in his commentary on the apocalypse god will send a king worthy of those who are worthy of him namely the Jews and those who persecute Christ and he will send him as a Christ such as the persecutors and the Jews deserve to be sure he would not be able to seduce the people of the circumcision were he not to pose as a defender of the law so victorious seeing the sea beast as primarily the Anti Christ says the Antichrist is going to pose as a defender of the law Moses he does not claim that the Antichrist will actually be a Jew but only that he might pose as a Jew or at least as a person who convinces the Jewish people that he believes that the law of Moses remains valid Kaiko Gnaeus who lived in the 300s ad in between the first two I talked about gives us his view on the sea beast one of its heads refers to the Antichrist because there are seven heads not in regard to number but as a sign of universality of that earthly Kingdom that is hostile to the Lamb so tai-kun EEOC's the seven heads of the sea beast as symbolic of all the nations that Satan will deceive of course implying that the number will be much greater than seven because then seven is only symbolic of a much greater number for you now I've given you just a very small sampling of what the early church fathers thought about the Antichrist and the sea beast and those views remain as among the most popular views still being held in the 21st century the fact that so many views exist even from the earliest beginnings of the church will again prove as a caution for us your view and my view of what the actual fulfillment of currently unfulfilled prophecies may look like has to be held lightly lightly because all we can see is from our very narrow slice of time in the history of the world world conditions can change rapidly especially in the modern era we could easily be in correct about what we think the many symbols of Revelation reveal when their time for revealing arrives now I'm going to repeat something but I said at the outset of today's discussion because it's so central to understanding the Dragon the sea beast and the lion beast it is that Satan is out to mimic and to mock God so when in verse 4 for example those who worship the sea beast chant who's like the Beast it is mimicking it is mock mocking the Archangel Michael who fought the battle against Satan in heaven and prevailed this kicking Satan out of heaven this is because Michaels Hebrew name is Michael and his name means who is like God see what's happening here who is like the Beast who is like God so when in verses 5 and 6 we're told that the sea beast was given a mouth to speak blasphemies against the Lord then we can see that these blasphemies are in the form of mimicking and mocking God we've already seen in examples of them but surprisingly were also informed in verse 7 that the sea beast has been allowed by God to make war against God's followers and I'm sorry to say to defeat us this defeat will be nearly universal because this is going to affect we're told every tribe every people language every nation everyone on planet earth but with one notable exception and we're told about that in verse 8 only those whose names are written in the book of life belonging to the lamb will be exempt true believers even so the ominous words of verses 9 and 10 make it clear that what it means to not be defeated by Satan and sea beasts is that our faith and so our place in heaven will remain intact while others who may profess some level of belief in Christ will lose even that our Savior warned us about that day that's ahead in Matthew 7:21 through 27 he says not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven only those who do what my father in heaven ones on that day many will come to me and say Lord Lord didn't we prophesy in your name didn't we expel demons in your name didn't we perform miracles in your name then I'll kill them to their faces I never knew you get away from me you workers of lawlessness so everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on bedrock the rain fell the rivers flooded the winds blew beat against the house but it didn't collapse because his foundation was on the rock but everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them will be like a stupid man who builds his house on sand the rain fell the rivers flooded the winds blew it beat against that house and it collapsed and it's collapse it was horrendous so check your faith check your faith Yeshua says the measure he will use isn't in merely saying you believe in him it isn't in how many church events you attend it isn't it isn't how pious you outwardly seem it is in the doing he says of what the father says to do it is in obedience even so staying absolutely true to the Lord by no means says that we're going to be spared suffering or imprisonment or death by the actions of the Antichrist and those who are subordinate to him in fact we ought to expect it we're gonna continue chapter 13 next time [Music] yes you [Music] you you

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Keywords: New Jerusalem, Son, Holy Spirit, Father, New Testament, John, Armageddon, Coming quickly, Millennium Reign, Seven Churches, Second Death, Tom Bradford, Jerusalem, Bible Study, Streets of Gold, Torah Class, Revelation

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Length: 53min 59sec (3239 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019