Counterfeit | Rev 13:11-18

AI is changing the world in numerous ways. I know all of you have either used AI, viewed something created by AI, or are otherwise aware of it’s abilities.

AI continues to be developed and improved, and it was just a few months ago that I was watching videos created by AI and I was absolutely blown away at the realistic presentation. Here was the appearance of a person who was moving and talking with audio that sounded real. If you didn’t know it was AI from the beginning, it’s possible one might be fooled into thinking it was real.

As AI continues to be improved, the potential for great things is amazing. The potential for harm and deception is as high as ever.

I personally don’t believe that AI developing genuine consciousness is ontologically possible. But I do think it’s possible that the programming could become so sophisticated that it might be hard to tell the difference.

As time moves on, having a healthy skepticism of what we read and watch online is only going to serve us well.

It’s like Abe Lincoln once said, the problem with quote on the internet is that they are often not true.

This is going to challenge us all as we continue to live in world where AI exists and is being used for more and more content creation.

Despite being fake, AI created content will look real and will have real-world effects on people who fail to discern the difference.

The need for discernment is only going to increase. But there is a day coming when the need for discernment will rise to an all-time high.

Jesus said in Matt 24:24

Matthew 24:24 LSB

“For false christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

And in our text today we find the greatest false prophet who has ever or will ever live. The beast from the earth.

Revelation 13:11–18 LSB

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and he was speaking as a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. And he does great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which were given to him to do in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, that they be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either 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 man; and his number is 666.

Our text begins with the rise of yet another beast. We have seen a dragon, a beast from the sea. Now a beast from the earth.

This beast is described as having two horns like a lamb, yet was speaking as a dragon. The description and behavior of this beast make it clear that it is functioning like a priest or a prophet.

In fact, chapter 16, 19, and 20 are going to refer to this beast as “the false prophet”

This is the great false prophet of the tribulation period whose goal is to accomplish the will of the antichrist.

Jim covered the first beast two weeks ago. That was The Antichrist. he speaks blasphemies. He sets himself up to receive worship. He suffers a fatal wound and yet is healed. He makes war against the saints and greatly succeeds.

The Saints are called to persevere.

In today’s text we find one of the means though which the antichrist accomplished his work. It is through the deception of the false prophet.

It’s amazing that the best that the devil can do is create cheap imitations of the genuine works of God. This has long been Satan’s play. He makes something that looks good, but it is poison.

I’ve identified six counterfeits in this text.

Counterfeit Prophet. vs 11 Horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. Might appear lowly like Christ, but his words are words of death.

Counterfeit Authority. vs 12a. He relies on the authority of the antichrist, which is no real authority, but contrived. No one gets to command worship but the one true God and Him alone! Speaking of,

Counterfeit Worship. vs 12b. He makes the whole world worship the beast. 2 Thess 2 speaks of the man of lawlessness who will set himself up as God. The false prophet will be the one who will work to deceive the world so they offer their worship to the antichrist.

Counterfeit Miracles. vs 13-14. Great signs! Fire coming down from heaven. Fire from heaven is associated with Elijah. The false prophet will work similarly to the magicians in Egypt. They were able to mimic some of Moses’ miracles. Here the false prophet is able to mimic the miracles of genuine men of God. Vs 14 says he deceives because of the signs which were given to him to do. He doesn’t have this power in himself. Allowed in God’s providence and fueled through Satanic power, these miracles will be the cause of worldwide deception. And as a result, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, the Antichrist has the people make images of himself for worship.

Counterfeit Breath of Life vs 15. When God created man, he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, Gen 2. Here, the false prophet has some kind of power to give breath to the image of the beast such that it is able to speak. I’m confident that is some kind of demonic animation. But it will deceive many, and through this somehow there are means to kill those who refuse worship.

Counterfeit Seal. vs 16-17. We know that the Holy Spirit Seals those who come to faith in Christ. Ephesian speaks of this. Back in chapter 7 we saw that God seals 144k Jews to preserve and protect them through the tribulation that they would be his witnesses. There is a sense in which Christian baptism is a sign and seal of our faith in Christ. It marks us off from the world and declares to a watching world that we belong to Christ! Here there is a sign and seal that marks off those who have bowed the knee to worship the Antichrist.

These counterfeits cause the world to fall into deception and they will worship the false Christ. They will worship the antichrist.

Two weeks ago Jim reminded us to be discerning in an age of deception. I likewise encourage us to discern the counterfeits.

Discern the Counterfeits

There are already many counterfeits in the world. It is not as though Satan and his demons are waiting until the tribulation to bring about deception. That much is already here.

There are false prophets like Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Or William Branham, founder of the Message cults and it offshoots. I cannot list every false prophet because there are too many. But they have far reaching influence.

They all appeal to a false authority. Their authority is not the Word of God, though they make use of the Bible. This is why we must be Bereans. We must compare everything that is said with the Scripture to see if the things being taught are so.

They direct people in false worship. Anyone directing you to worship anyone or anything other than the one true and living God is a false teacher!

Many will make use of false miracles. We see this rampant in the Word of Faith movement, the so-called health and wealth prosperity Gospel. Leg lengthening, healings, etc. We do not deny that God can work miracles, but we do deny that those who claim to be working miracles today are doing so by the power of God because the have a false message and live a lifestyle not consistent with the Scriptures.

These are things we must all be on the alert for and be discerning of even now!

But we know that in the Great tribulation, deception will be at it’s peak as the false prophet directs the world in the worship of the antichrist.

In the year 250 AD, a decree went out from Emperor Decius. Everyone in the Roman Empire was now required to offer sacrifices to the Romans gods, and to the emperor himself. When you did so, you received a certificate that indicated that you had fulfilled your obligation. This act of worship was viewed as a sign of loyalty to the empire.

Obviously, many Christian refused and declared that only Jesus is Lord. All those who refused this worship were hunted, arrested, tortured, executed as enemies of the state.

The pressure to conform was immense.

I imagine that this is similar to what it will be like during this period of time when the false prophet brings pressure on the world to take the mark of the beast.

We are reminded of the necessity to withstand the pressures of the world.

Withstand the Pressures

Without the mark, there was no buying food, no commerce, no trade. There will be many who might disagree with the worship of the beast but will undoubtably conclude that taking the mark and eating is preferred over certain death that comes from refusal, be that by starvation or execution. So they will bow the knee and take the mark.

What will be the mark of the beast? Many suggestions have been offered in history. Social Security numbers. Tattoo’d barcodes. Microchip implants.

I don’t find any value in these speculations. The mark will have three clear characteristics

It will be visible and is identifiable. Location: hand or forehead.

It will allow free and open trade.

It will be directly associated with the Antichrist. Name of number of his name.

We don’t need to speculate further. To do so is unhelpful and only sets us up to be wrong. Everyone will know what the mark is when it comes. No one will take it by mistake. Everyone will know what it means.

Today we don’t face the mark of beast. But there are social pressures to bow to the zeitgeist of our time.

People have had to choose between displaying pride flags in their office or losing their careers. So-called “cancel culture” has put pressure on those with platforms to conform to social expectations about sexuality, gender, politics, and even things like support of Israel.

Some schools will bring disciplinary measures against students who express a biblical worldview in relation to a variety of social and moral issues.

We’ve seen high profile cases of bakers, photographers, web designers, and government officials lose their jobs, be forced to resign, or have faced lawsuits over refusals to honor same-sex marriages.

Some business require you to sign off on diversity training.

The list could go on. These don’t carry the same weight and consequence of the Mark of the Beast, but they are pressures nonetheless to get you and me to conform to a certain standard that is contrary to what the Scriptures give us.

We must withstand the pressures and live according to God’s word, not whatever the shifting sands of our present age present to us as the necessary things to do. We must remain resolute like the three men in Dan 3:16-18

Daniel 3:16–18 LSB

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to respond to you with an answer concerning this matter. “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to save us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will save us out of your hand, O king. “But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden image that you have set up.”

I suppose I ought to say a few things about the mark of the beast and the number 666.

Most scholars agree that John is making use of a linguistic and mathematical tool called Gematria. In Gematria, the letters of someone’s name represent a number, and those numbers added together are the number of your name.

So A = 1, B =2, C=3, etc.

The number of my name is 894, using English Gematria. Using Hebrew, it’s 395. I can confirm, I am not beast.

The theory is that whoever the antichrist is, their name in Gematria will add up to 666.

Those who say that the book of Revelation is already history will argue that Nero is the name referred to here. They take the Hebrew name of Nero Caesar and his letters do indeed add up to 666.

One problem. Robert Thomas points out that this method relies on a misspelled Hebrew transliteration of the Greek version of a Latin name. Seems unlikely.

Things are further complicated by textual variants. There is an early manuscript that reads 616 instead of 666, and the Latin name of Nero totals up to 616, so some people prefer that. However, John was writing to his audience in Greek, so this also seems unlikely.

How do we discern the answer? I think the best we can say is that for those who live to see it, it will be very plain and obvious.

Daniel 12:10 LSB

“Many will be purged, purified, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand.

There will be those who see clearly at that time. They will be able to calculate the mark.

Bottom line for us:

The speculation about the mark of the beast is not necessary. It will be visible and functional. We won’t be here, but those who are will know. It’s clearly a mark that identifies you as someone who worships the beast.

If you are asked to worship a man and if you don’t you won’t be able to buy and sell. That should tip it off.

I have a few concluding thoughts for us this morning as we think about how we apply texts like this.

I was in an interaction on X recently discussing the timing of the rapture of the church. Here at Pillar, we believe in the pre-tribulation rapture, and we do so on exegetical grounds. One person responded to me saying that our position teaches us to say that the events prophesied here are “someone else’s problem” and the concept of the pre-trib rapture “prepares people to be offended or deceived when they face what they believed they wouldn’t, rather than preparing them to endure through it”

So I’d like us to think about that for a moment. What if we are wrong about the timing of the rapture? Does us declaring that we will not be here mean that we will not be sufficiently prepared to endure? If we are right, does that mean these texts have no relevance to us? These are someone else’s problems?

There are several things to say about this.

Interpreting Scripture rightly will mean we embrace the principles even if we understand that we are not the immediate audience in view. Just like we find application in the OT texts that were written to Israel and found fulfillment during the intertestamental period. That was a past event. We won’t face historical Antiochus. Does that mean it doesn’t teach us to endure hardship? No! We saw the principles and embraced the reality of suffering and that God’s people are called to endure and persevere through whatever hardships have been allotted to them in whatever age they are in.

All saints from all ages have been given strong encouragements to endure significant hardships! If you understand the doctrine of the pre-trib rapture to mean that you will not face any tribulation in this life, you are not understanding the totality of Scripture. All who seek to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. While the worst of the worst is reserved for God’s wrath being poured out on a global scale, things can be incredible awful before that occurs. I often refer to the black death in Europe and Asia in the mid 1300s. Nearly 50% of the population died! We’ve seen two world wars that have claimed millions of lives and left country sides littered with corpses and artillery shells that still have not been cleaned up. And yet, the end is not yet. If you think we will not suffer you are wrong! Nothing in Scripture says we will not. Nothing in Scripture says we will have it easy. Nothing in Scripture says we will not have to persevere and withstand immense pressure. We find the opposite! What it does say is that the Church will be spared the wrath of God as it is poured out on an unbelieving world. Yet the principles for those living during that time apply to us today, even though the degree of hardship we face is much different.

Finally, Jesus said that false prophets will come and will seek to deceive, if possible even the elect. But the false prophets will not succeed in this. The Elect will not take the mark, even if they were wrong on the timing of the rapture! They will be martyred and killed, but will not bow. They will heed the call of Christ to endure.

Likewise today we are called to endure. We are called to withstand. We are called to discern.

Satan loves his counterfeits. But there is always a tell. Let’s be people of a book. Let’s be a people who discern. Let’s be a people who withstand.