The Beast (Revelation 13)

Revelation 13:1–18 NLT

1 Then I saw a beast rising up out of the sea. It had seven heads and ten horns, with ten crowns on its horns. And written on each head were names that blasphemed God. 2 This beast looked like a leopard, but it had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion! And the dragon gave the beast his own power and throne and great authority. 3 I saw that one of the heads of the beast seemed wounded beyond recovery—but the fatal wound was healed! The whole world marveled at this miracle and gave allegiance to the beast. 4 They worshiped the dragon for giving the beast such power, and they also worshiped the beast. “Who is as great as the beast?” they exclaimed. “Who is able to fight against him?” 5 Then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God. And he was given authority to do whatever he wanted for forty-two months. 6 And he spoke terrible words of blasphemy against God, slandering his name and his dwelling—that is, those who dwell in heaven. 7 And the beast was allowed to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation. 8 And all the people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the Book of Life that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made. 9 Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. 10 Anyone who is destined for prison will be taken to prison. Anyone destined to die by the sword will die by the sword. This means that God’s holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful. 11 Then I saw another beast come up out of the earth. He had two horns like those of a lamb, but he spoke with the voice of a dragon. 12 He exercised all the authority of the first beast. And he required all the earth and its people to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 He did astounding miracles, even making fire flash down to earth from the sky while everyone was watching. 14 And with all the miracles he was allowed to perform on behalf of the first beast, he deceived all the people who belong to this world. He ordered the people to make a great statue of the first beast, who was fatally wounded and then came back to life. 15 He was then permitted to give life to this statue so that it could speak. Then the statue of the beast commanded that anyone refusing to worship it must die. 16 He required everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. 17 And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name. 18 Wisdom is needed here. Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666.

Video

Playing with our imagination and bringing out the stuff that terrifies us.

That is what John is doing to explain how Satan (the Dragon) uses people/things/governments to suppress and oppress; like beasts.

Beasts in history

Daniel's 4 beasts combined into 1

Daniel 7:2-7 “2 In my vision that night, I, Daniel, saw a great storm churning the surface of a great sea, with strong winds blowing from every direction. 3 Then four huge beasts came up out of the water, each different from the others. 4 The first beast was like a lion with eagles’ wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off, and it was left standing with its two hind feet on the ground, like a human being. And it was given a human mind. 5 Then I saw a second beast, and it looked like a bear. It was rearing up on one side, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And I heard a voice saying to it, “Get up! Devour the flesh of many people!” 6 Then the third of these strange beasts appeared, and it looked like a leopard. It had four bird’s wings on its back, and it had four heads. Great authority was given to this beast. 7 Then in my vision that night, I saw a fourth beast—terrifying, dreadful, and very strong. It devoured and crushed its victims with huge iron teeth and trampled their…”

It is as if John is emphasizing the seriousness, and horror, of this beast. It is ALL THE THREATS (kingdoms that threaten) combined into 1 giant humongous threat!

The beast/s are frauds.

Frauds in history

Elvis impersonators

Powder puff

Jewelry / watch fraud etc…

They might look exactly alike, but to the trained jeweler, they will be seen as a fraud

So it is with the beasts, they might look worthy of being followed and worshipped, but John wishes to train the eye of the church to see them as frauds.

Examples

Satan, the dragon, is kicked out of heaven, so he sends his beasts to make others suffer and die

The Lamb was willing to suffer and die for his followers

The Lamb shares the power and authority and throne of God (Rev. 5:6, 12, 13. 12:5, 10)

The beast shares the power and authority of the dragon (13:2)

In ch. 5 the Lamb is slain, but alive.

Here, the beast is living, but his head has a wound that has been healed. Christ always has the marks of the slaughter, even though he is alive and resurrected. It wasn’t divine healing but resurrection.

The Lamb’s work causes the world to worship God (5:10, 13) but the work of the beast causes the world to worship Satan, the one who destroys God’s work (13:4)

The Lamb conquered by faithfully enduring death for the sake of others.

The beast conquers by inflicting war and death upon others (13:7-8)

The Lamb suffered so that people from every tribe, language, and nation could be free and worship God as a kingdom of priests.

The beast works to oppress people of every tribe and language and kingdom so that they bow down before the beast/dragon as their master.

Hitler's evil -to the extent that we judge character of evil people to how much it equates to Hitler

6 million Jews killed

And people didn’t take his threat to the world seriously

Hitler, sometimes reference Christianity, but he also oppressed the church and worked to decrease the influence of Christianity on society.

The beast from the sea is Rome which came across the sea to conquer.

More specifically, the beast is “…the dark power of pagan empire, straddling the earth, crushing everything in its path, blaspheming other gods who get in the way so that it alone (and the dragon who has given its power) may be properly worshipped.” (N.T. Wright New Testament for Everyone: Revelation pg 116)

The beast from the land is the governors, class/political elite/priests of the emperor cult who maintained the system that the beast from the sea established.

It can also be the false Christian prophets who did not warn or encourage the church to remain faithful (think Nicolatians [2:6] and Jezebel [2:20], Balaam [2:14] who are mentioned in the 7 churches).

This beast is a false prophet

It does many of the things the true prophets could do, but it’s results are that people worshipped the beast and dragon, not the Lamb and God.

Fire from heaven

Miracles

Acts of ventriloquism to animate and make statues of the 1st beast come “alive”

This actually happened!!

Nero and his cronies sat for this portrait

His actions

Rome caught fire (July of 64 ad)

(many state Nero started the fire)

Nero blamed the Christians for the fire

Nero drastically persecuted the followers of Christ

Burned at the stake

Used as torches to light his evening garden parties

Put in the skins of animals and fed to other wild animals

Crucified

His suicide

He slit his own throat

He gave himself a fatal head wound

The thought he would come again

There was a belief that Nero would come again

They said he is, was, and is to come.

He might not have come again, but his ideology remained

It remained because of the 2nd beast that keeps the ideas going

The local government officials

The priests of the false idea of emperor worship

The Beast is to be feared - not entertained

No middle ground

John wishes for his churches to realize that there are only 2 choices. Either for the Lamb or for the Beasts. Even though it might not seem so bad, the beast is still a beast and must be dealt with.

Marked for the Lamb or for the Beast/Dragon

Not to be taken literally!

We have been in a chapter that we take metaphorically, figuratively, and take the pictures as symbols. But, often we get to v. 16 and automatically take it literally. Why?

We have read in chs. 7, 9, 11 of the seal, mark on the people of God. Do we expect to actually be given a seal on our foreheads or hands? Not likely!

It’s a statement about the people who are sealed.

So it is in ch. 13

Economics of the Roman world

Yes, standing for Christ has an economic/financial consequence

If you weren’t productive to society, you didn’t get the job

You had to offer sacrifices, or at least be at the “worship services” for your trade guild to get a job/raise/bonus etc…

It literally was a pay to play system!

Gematria (it's Nero all over again)

The practice of assigning a numerical value to a letter...

666

Not perfect-always falling short

777 denotes perfection

7 has denoted God’s number and God’s perfect rule/reign

The seventh seal/trumpet/bowl shows God’s perfect reign coming to earth and being established.

7 as a sign of completeness

7 churches, etc…

6 Represents the judgment of God

At the sixth seal/Trumpet/bowl God judges the world

"Neron Caesar" HEBREW SPELLING (some translations 615 for Nero Caesar)

N = 50

R = 200

W = 6

N = 50

Qof = 100

S = 60

R = 200

John doesn't intend that we use this number to prove someone is a false prophet

Anyone can do the math and make someone’s name fit 666

Even Barney, the dinosaur, has been shown to fit this

CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR

CVVLDIV

100, 5, 5, 50, 500, 1, 5

The number is intended to show the tragedy of someone already in mind - in other words, watch out for Nero and people like him!

Application! Now what?

Some thoughts from Eugene Boring

“The whole passage call responsible interpreters of the Bible not to ‘decoding’ a ‘puzzle’ but to alertness in discerning the nature and consequences of one’s commitments”

Boring, Revelation, 164

“Since John is not communicating in code-language or steno symbols, it is useless to try to decide whether the beast from the land ‘represents’ the Roman governors, the commune, the Roman priesthood, or false Christian prophets and teachers. The beast has characteristics of all of these. All who support and promote the cultural religion, in or out of the church, however Lamb-like they may appear, are agents of the beast. All propaganda that entices humanity to idolize human empire is an expression of this beastly power that wants to appear lamb-like”

Boring, Revelation, 157

And, N.T. Wright

We can understand the dilemma face by those Christians back then. We like to think that we would always chose the reality and reject the parody. But would we? When we ask ourselves where similar key issues emerge and challenge us today, it may not be as clear-cut as we like to think - and it’s quite possible that many Christian in the first century felt like that too.

... For us, does it matter if we buy a newspaper witch openly mocks the Christian faith and promotes every other way of life imaginable except the Christian one - even if all I’m going to read is the sports news? Does it matter if I work for a company that, through one of its other offshoots, is cheerfully polluting lakes and rivers and destroying their wildlife? Should I be worried that my bank is a major investor in companies that work in parts of Latin America where labour laws are practically non-existent, allowing them to get away with virtual enslavement of local populations?”

N.T. Wright, New Testament for Everyone: Revelation, 121-2

What about where you shop, the clothes you buy, etc…

Do your actions promote the actions of the Beast?

What about human suffering?

Thoughts from Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner. In short, The Beast seems to reign…

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim…

Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe

There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention: victims of hunger, of racism and political persecution

Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to their plight? Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.

Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.

We bow to the beast when we put ideologies, patriotism, national pride, self worship, economic prosperity and the like above God who is and was and is to come.

We become agents of the beast, and beasts ourselves, when we entice others to do the same.

Do we live for Christ, or do we honor the parody and fraud?