Tag: dragon

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Revelation

A need for wisdom and insight

Revelation

We now hit the second beast.

This one comes out from the earth. He has two horns like a lamb, but spoke like a dragon. In short, he looked innocent, like the Lamb of God, himself. But his words were that of Satan.

And while the first beast tries to use brute force to get people to follow him, the second beast uses deception. Not just in the things he says, but in performing miraculous signs. The end result, however, is the same: persecution of the saints.

And the thing is, there is no middle ground. You either have the mark of the beast or you have the mark of God.

If you have the mark of the beast, you’ll be just fine in this world, able to live life, buying and selling the things you need to live.

But if you have the mark of God on you, you will be persecuted.

For this reason, I’m not so certain the mark of the beast is a literal one or not.

If the mark of God is not a literal one we can see, (Revelation 7:3-4), why should the beast’s mark be? Still, I suppose we won’t find out for sure until that time comes.

What do we get from this? You may be ready for persecution. But are you ready for deception?

Jesus told us that “false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” (Matthew 24:24)

And this second beast will be the final one of these false prophets.

How will we recognize him and the first beast he represents? John tells us to discern them, we will need wisdom and insight. (Revelation 13:18)

He gives us the number 666 as the number of the first beast.

There’s a lot of speculation on what it means and the truth is, it’s hard to be sure what it means. Which of course means we really will need wisdom and insight when the beast comes. 🙂

Perhaps the meaning is simply this: 7 is the number of perfection, and so 777 reflects God in trinity.

6, on the other hand, is something less. It’s incomplete. And so 666 reflects that whatever the dragon, the first, and the second beast are, they will only be an incomplete image of the one true God.

And so to be truly wise and discerning, we need to know the true God so we can identify the counterfeit.

Some of you may say, “I understand what you’re saying, but what’s the point? I don’t believe we will face the antichrist and his prophet. We’ll be raptured away by then.”

But again, even if you believe we won’t face them, remember there are other antichrists and false prophets, even if they’re on a smaller scale.

And like the second beast, they come into our churches looking like lambs. They look like us and sound like us. But the truth is, they are savage wolves. And if we are to keep from being deceived by them, we will need God’s wisdom and discernment.

How much do you have?

How well do you know your Lord, and his Word? Are you able to discern the true from the counterfeit?

Categories
Revelation

A need for endurance and faithfulness

Revelation

There’s a lot going on in this passage, and as usual, there’s a lot of debate over what it all means. There are two beasts that appear with the dragon (Satan). And to keep this short(er), I’ll take on these two beasts in two blogs.

The first beast comes out of the sea. It’s a strange beast that mixes the characteristics of the four beasts we read about in Daniel 7. It has all the power of the dragon, but receives a fatal wound to one of its seven heads.

To the astonishment of the world, however, it is healed and restored. The result? The people fall down and worship the beast and the dragon it represents.

What does it all mean?

To some degree, this one beast could be symbolic of  all the empires that were represented by the four beasts in Daniel: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. They rose up, received a fatal wound, but came back in the form of a different empire.

The end result, however, is the same: empires that worship the dragon and persecute God’s people. And in the same way, the people who follow this new beast and is part of its regime worship the dragon and persecute God’s people.

It’s interesting to note in chapter 17, that when the beast is further explained, he is described as one who once was, now is not, but will come again. (Revelation 17:8, 11)

So John seems to say that this beast had appeared before this time period John was writing in, but was not currently in the world as John was living. It’s possible he was referring to one of the former Roman emperors, perhaps Nero.

Whoever he was, this emperor received a fatal wound, but will come back again as another ruler who will blaspheme God and persecute God’s people.

And this gives some credence to the idea that this beast represents not just one man, but many throughout history. As John says, there have been many antichrists from his time to the present age. (1 John 2:18).

They keep appearing, dying off, and coming back again.

But in that same verse, John also says that there is one final antichrist who will appear. And as we see in this passage, like all the antichrists of the past, he leads people to worship the dragon.

Oh it probably won’t be so blatant. He probably won’t be saying, “Let’s all worship Satan.”

But like the Roman emperors of the past, he will have them worshiping him as their savior. As the one who brings peace and prosperity to the world. But what the people won’t know is that they are really following Satan’s representative.

More, in this time, he will blaspheme the true God, and there will be mass persecution of Christians. (7)

And from verses 7-8, it seems that everyone who is not a Christian will fall right in line with the beast.  It will become politically correct to persecute and kill all Christians.

What do we get from all this? When we face the first beast, he will come with brute force against God’s people. And so John warns,

If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed.

This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints. (Revelation 13:10)

It’s very similar to what Jesus told the church in Smyrna, and I would guess it really resonated with them as they heard it.

Here, though, all of us are told: Be ready. Persecution is coming. But endure, and be faithful. And you will receive the crown of life. For you will not be hurt at all by the second death if you do so. (Revelation 2:10-11)

I know. I’m beating the same drum I’ve been beating since we started Revelation.

But again, even if we don’t face the antichrist, it’s very possible we will face persecution before then. From our family, from our friends, from our neighbors, from our coworkers, and very possibly from our own nations.

People in North America are already seeing signs of this. It has become politically correct to slam Christians in the States even as I write this.

Are we really that far from out and out persecution?

So brace yourself. Be faithful. Endure. God may call you to go through persecution.

But if you do, remember, Jesus went through it first.

So as the writer of Hebrews said,

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:2-3)

Categories
Revelation

A beaten foe, a wrathful foe

Revelation

“But why must we suffer? Why must we go through persecution? Why wouldn’t God just take us out from it all?”

If you’ve been reading through Revelation with me, especially if you believe we will be raptured before all the trouble with antichrist begins, you may be wondering why I hold so fast to this idea.

To be honest, I wish very much that God would just pluck us out. But I just don’t see it from anything I see in Revelation, and particularly in this passage.

Here we get a bird’s eye view of all that’s been happening since the time Mary was pregnant with Jesus.

John tells us of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. And she was in labor, on the verge of giving birth.

Although I just mentioned Mary and it would seem that this is talking about her, it probably isn’t.

When you see the symbolism of the sun, the moon, and the 12 stars, the very first thing that should come to mind is Joseph’s dream, which showed Joseph’s father Jacob (or Israel, as God renamed him), mother, and 11 brothers all bowing down to him. (Genesis 37:9-10)

So this pregnant woman seems to symbolize the nation of Israel. For it was Israel that gave birth to Jesus, the Messiah, the King.

But Satan, symbolized by the dragon (Revelation 12:9), tried to destroy Jesus while he was on earth. We see this in Herod’s murder of all the babies (Matthew 2:16-18), and in Christ’s crucifixion.

But of course, after Christ’s crucifixion, Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven.

John then sees a flashback in which he sees a war in heaven in which Satan is cast out along with his angels. And when he was thrust down to earth, he chased after the woman Israel to destroy her.

I’m not sure, but I tend to think this was particularly seen in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

In this attack, Satan was trying to destroy Israel. But not all Jews were destroyed. The Christians, in particular, took Jesus’ warning to heart (Matthew 24:15-21), and fled Jerusalem before it was destroyed.

With Satan unable to destroy Israel completely, he then set his eyes on destroying her other “children.” Not the Jews by blood, but “those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” (Revelation 12:17)

That is, the church. For we are the true children of Israel now, all we Jews and non-Jews who have put our faith in Jesus. (Galatians 3:29)

Why is he so full of wrath against us? Why is he so persistent in trying to destroy us?

John tells us,

He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short. (Revelation 12:12b)

And so John tells us that while those in heaven rejoice over his being cast out of there,

Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! (12a)

What do we get from all this? First, we are facing a beaten foe. He has already lost. And he knows it. His time is short, and he will be judged.

But second, until that time comes, he will take out his wrath against us. And as we have seen and will see in Revelation, that means some of us will be “conquered”, that is killed by him.

Yet the ultimate victory is ours. He may kill our bodies, but he can’t take our souls. When Satan was cast out of heaven, a loud voice cried out,

Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.

For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. (10)

In other words, because of Jesus’ death on the cross, Satan has lost all right to accuse us. When he tries, God overrules all of Satan’s objections against us.

More, John tells us that though Satan may overcome the saints for a time, ultimately,

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (11)

So though Satan may attack us, though he may kill us, in the end, we win. Why?

Because Jesus won the victory for us on the cross. And by our lives and death, we testify to the change that God has brought in our hearts, proving that all of Satan’s accusations no longer have any basis.

Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them. (12a)

We already have won.