Revelation 13 - Patient Endurance

Introduction

Earlier in our service, we prayed for one of our missionary families who are currently trying to return to their field, but who have been delayed by a combination of the coronavirus shutdown and rising tensions in their target country (which has grown increasingly hostile to Christianity over the past several years.) One of the constant challenges for missionaries who work in such places is how to effectively communicate with supporting churches about their ministry. If you’ve ever read this couple’s emails or prayer letters, you’ll notice that they use a lot of abbreviations (e.g., “pr.” for prayer, “Bl.vr” for believer, “Ch.” for church, and so on.) They have to communicate in a kind of “code” language, because they have to assume that their communications are being monitored by government officials (or that their letters may be handed over to the government), which could lead them to be denied re-entry into their country or even (in extreme cases) arrested or otherwise harmed.

Watching the way our missionary friends deal with their field’s hostility to Christianity reminds us that our nation’s history of acceptance and celebration of Christianity has been a 244-year anomaly in the history of the Church. The apostle John records Jesus’ warning to us (in John 16:33) that “in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” For a great deal of the history of the Church throughout the world, persecution and hostility are the norm. In the introductory verses of Revelation, John echoes what he wrote in his Gospel account as he writes to the seven churches of Asia Minor:

Revelation 1:9 ESV

I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

John was a partner with the churches in the tribulation and persecutions they were suffering—the province of Asia Minor during the reign of Emperor Nero (when Revelation was likely written) were coming under increasing pressure to worship the Emperor with a pinch of incense and the confession that “Caesar is Lord.” That emperor worship had begun under Caesar Augustus decades earlier, but Nero was famous for bringing it to new heights—in A.D. 66 Tiridates the King of Armenia famously made a 9-month trek to Rome to bow down to Nero and worship him as Mithras (Apollo)and archaeologists have found coins portraying him as the god Apollo. During the height of his gruesome persecution of Christians, when he had believers covered in pitch and lit on fire for his nighttime garden parties, historians say he would ride through the party in a chariot, dressed as Apollo. That was the atmosphere that the Asian churches were living in—the pressure to knuckle under and worship Caesar, to “go along to get along” in order to survive, was enormous.

John himself had been exiled to Patmos because of his standing as one of the last of the Apostles of Jesus Christ—the Empire wanted him out of the way and exiled him to keep him from making trouble by preaching Jesus as the reigning King over all creation (including Rome!) And this fact is particularly helpful for us to understand as we try to make sense of the book of Revelation—because John was very much in the same position as our missionary friends are today.

He has to find a way to encourage the churches in Asia Minor to hold on with “patient endurance” in the face of the persecutions they are facing. He has to find a way to communicate to them that Emperor Nero and Rome will not prevail, that they are doomed to be destroyed by the reigning Christ, and that Jesus Christ alone is worthy of worship as King.

But he has to do that knowing that every word he writes will be read by Imperial representatives! If he writes the straightforward truth: “Nero will soon die by the sword and his persecution of Christians will come to an end within months, and the Roman Empire’s Satanically-driven attempts to wipe out the Church will utterly fail!”, then not only will his letter never reach the churches, but if it did the churches will be destroyed by the Empire for circulating seditious material (and John himself would likely be executed as well!)

And so, John has to write in a way that Christians will understand exactly what he is talking about, while pagan Romans will have no clue about his meaning. And so this is why the Book of Revelation is the New Testament book that is absolutely the most jam-packed with Old Testament quotations, allusions, images and structure—the Roman censors would simply dismiss the book as harmless Jewish mysticism, but the churches John is writing to would understand that he was predicting the reigning Christ’s utter demolition of the Satanically-inspired persecution against them!

Revelation is thoroughly Hebrew in its style, imagery and structure—especially here in Chapter 13. As the fellow said, Revelation 13 is one hundred pounds of Old Testament in a fifty-pound sack! I believe that what John is trying to get across in this chapter (and so, what I want us to learn from it this morning) is that

Satanic persecution and apostasy are the arenas in which we glorify God through endurance and faith.

The reason I see this as the focus of the chapter is because we can recognize a very Hebrew-type literary structure here in this passage—a pattern we see in the Psalms in particular, called a chiasm.

A chiasm (named after the Greek word for the letter “X”), is a structure of a passage that has a set of ideas or thoughts laid out at the beginning, then a key thought or truth in the middle, and then finishes out with ideas that repeat or complement the ideas from the beginning. (If a “chiasm” is an “X”, then the center of the X “marks the spot” where the treasure is found.) It is a very common structure throughout the Psalms (Psalm 46 is a good example), and we see John using it here in Revelation 13: The first eight verses describe a beast coming out of the sea, and the last eight verses describe a beast coming out of the land, with verses 9-10 serving as the connection between the two:

Revelation 13:9–10 ESV

If anyone has an ear, let him hear: If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

The original Greek in verse 10 reads “this is the endurance and faith of the saints”—in other words, the threat of captivity and execution is the way that God’s people demonstrate their endurance and faith. This is the thought upon which the entire chapter centers; namely, that the persecutions and captivities and death that the churches are facing are the way that they glorify God. As he describes the two “beasts” that are persecuting them, he points them to the solid, unbreakable, unstoppable promises of God that will give them the patience and faith that will allow them to endure even through imprisonment and death. And we want that endurance and faith for ourselves in our day, don’t we?

So let’s look at what John writes about these two beasts in this chapter. The first eight verses describe

I. The beast out of the sea (Rev. 13:1-8)

We are told that this beast has “seven horns and ten heads” with “blasphemous names on its heads” (v. 1). It bears some of the characteristics of Daniel’s visions of the four beasts in the Old Testament (Daniel 7)—a lion’s head and leopard’s body and a bear’s paws (v. 2). The Dragon (Satan) gives its “power and throne and great authority” to the beast, and it utters blasphemies as it exercises its authority from Satan for “forty-two months” (v. 5). It uses its authority to “make war on the saints and to conquer them” (v. 7), and everyone who dwells in the Land will worship it (v. 8).

This is a remarkable passage because it represents a very rare moment of agreement among most Bible scholars! Most commentators agree that this beast out of the “sea” represents

The persecuting power of Rome

Some of the reasons for understanding this beast as the Roman Empire is that the “seven heads” of the beast are said in Revelation 17:9 to represent the “Seven hills” of the city—Rome was known as “the City of the Seven Hills”, much in the same way that we have nicknames for cities today—like “The Windy City” (Chicago), the “City By The Bay” (San Francisco) or “The Big Easy” (New Orleans). So John’s readers would have understood what he was talking about much the same way as if I were to tell you that I saw a vision of “A Big Apple”—you’d know I was talking about New York City.

We also read that this beast has seven heads with crowns on its ten horns—Revelation 17:10 tells us that the seven heads are seven kings:

Revelation 17:10 ESV

they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while.

There were seven emperors of Rome during this time: Julius Caesar, followed by Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, followed by Galba, who only reigned for a period of a few months. And as we noted earlier, the Imperial Cult of emperor worship was running particularly rampant during this time—the Beast of Rome uttering blasphemies against God by demanding worship of the Emperor instead. The "king” who “is” at the time of John’s writing is Nero, whose suicide in A.D. 68 threw the Empire into such turmoil that it looked like all of Rome would collapse. General Vespasian (who was overseeing the seige of Jerusalem when Nero killed himself) turned the operation over to his son Titus and went back to Rome and managed to save the Empire, but it was a very close call—the beast of Rome looked like it had a “mortal wound”, but did not die.

This, then, is the character of “the beast” in John’s writings: A governing authority that is Satanically inspired to war against believers. (A modern example of a “beast” would be the North Korean government under Kim Jung Un, that punishes Christianity with imprisonment and death.) And John says at least two things in these verses to encourage the churches to hold on with patient endurance during the Roman persecution. First, they are encouraged to

Endure because the beast’s power is defeated (Rev. 13:2)

In verse 2 we read that the “Dragon” gives his power and throne and authority to the Beast of Rome—but we have already seen that the Dragon is a defeated foe! Last week in Chapter 12, Satan’s first appearance on the stage of Revelation, and he is revealed as utterly powerless to thwart the plans and purposes of God! John says that Rome does have great power, but that power is already defeated under the power of the Lamb! There is no power that Rome (or North Korea, or Saudi Arabia, or China—or Washington, D.C, for that matter!) has that can do anything to the Church that God does not completely control! So John wants the Asian churches to know that they can endure, because the Dragon that gives the Beast of Rome its persecuting power has already been defeated by Christ!

In verse 5 we see the second reason that the churches can be patient—they can

Endure because the beast’s authority is limited (Rev. 13:5)

In verse 5 we are told that the Dragon gave its power to Rome, and Rome was “allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months”. It’s significant that Nero’s persecution of the Christians lasted from right after the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64 to his suicide in June 68 A.D.—three and one half years (42 months - Rev. 13:5). The Christians may have been tempted to believe that the persecutions they were suffering would last forever, that things would keep getting worse and worse and worse until they were completely eradicated—but John says that they can endure, they can be patient, they can hold on because their persecutions were limited and bounded by God, and would not go one single second over the time He had ordained! If you have to be taken captive, you will go into captivity—but hold on! Because this won’t last forever! If you are going to fall to the sword, you will fall to the sword—but that “light and momentary” suffering of death will immediately give way to glory in the presence of Christ in heaven!

John is careful to use this densely packed, rich Old Testament imagery to communicate to the Asian churches that Nero is doomed to die within months and the Satanic power behind Rome is already defeated and limited by the reigning Christ. They can endure.

In verses 1-8 John describes the persecuting power of Rome—the beast out of the sea. In verses 11-18 he goes on to describe

II. The beast out of the land (Rev. 13:11-18)

In verse 11 we read that John sees another beast, this one rising up out of the land—here as in other places, I think the best reading of the original language here is “land” rather than “earth”. Revelation uses the “sea” as a symbol for the Gentile nations—Rome was a Gentile nation that came out of the “sea”. And here we have a beast that comes out of “the Land”—the Old Testament shorthand for “The Land of Israel”, “The Promised Land”, “the Holy Land”. So just as Rome was a governing power from the Gentiles that was Satanically empowered to make war on believers, in these verses we have a governing power from the Land of Israel that makes war on believers.

And from other verses in Revelation we see that this beast out of the Land is specifically a religious entity—in Revelation 16:13, for instance, it is called the “False Prophet”:

Revelation 16:13 ESV

And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs.

So this Beast comes from the Land—from the Jewish people, and it is characterized by the false prophecies that it utters. It looks like a lamb, but speaks like the Dragon (v. 11), it has all the authority of Rome (the first beast), and performs counterfeit miracles to deceive people into worshipping Rome and its power (vv. 14-15). Now, just as there is a great deal of consensus regarding the identity of the first beast as Rome, there is very little consensus as to the identity of this second beast. But based on the clues here in Revelation and the historical context of the book, I think that this second beast out of the Land represents

The false prophets of the Jewish high priesthood

in the first century. The high priesthood in Jesus’ day right up to the destruction of the Temple, was completely controlled by the Roman governors—they would appoint the High Priest every year, and they even kept possession of the high priestly garments and loaned them out to the High Priest. The power and authority of the priesthood was completely Roman. And this arrangement was not forced on the priests—they were utterly loyal vassals of Rome. In John 11, when the Jewish High Council was debating what to do with Jesus, their overriding concern was that Rome would take away their power:

John 11:48 ESV

If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

And John records the reaction of the Jewish leaders when Jesus appeared before Pilate in John 19:

John 19:15 ESV

They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”

John records here in Revelation 13 that the beast out of the Land is utterly energized and motivated by Satan himself, and Jesus condemns the Jewish leadership for the very same thing when He was teaching in the Temple in John 8:

John 8:44 ESV

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

The Book of Acts records several instances of Jewish false prophets and sorcerers who “amazed the people” with false signs and wonders (such as Simon the Magician in Acts 8:9, the Jewish false prophet Bar-Jesus in Acts 13:6 and the Jewish exorcists trying to use Jesus’ name as an incantation in Acts 19:13).

In his letters to the churches at the beginning of Revelation, John encourages the churches who are being persecuted by the “synagogue of Satan” (Smyrna - Rev. 2:9; Philadelphia - Rev. 3:9)—those who are Jewish on the outside, but who have utterly renounced and despised Christ as Messiah, saying “we have no king but Nero!” And so here in Revelation 13 he encourages the churches that because they have been sealed by the sanctifying blood of Christ they have

Faith not to be deceived (Rev. 13:14)

The false miracles of the false Jewish prophets who drive people to worship the power of Rome will not cause believers to stumble—the intense pressure from the corrupt Jewish priesthood to “go along to get along”, to offer the pinch of incense and say “Caesar is Lord”, to worship the power of the Beast of Rome, will not overwhelm them. Captivity and death will not cause them to renounce their faith, but will be the arenas in which they will glorify God in their endurance and faith.

In verses 16-18 John goes on to promise the churches that by looking to Christ during this persecution they will also have

Faith in God to provide (Rev. 13:16-18)

Here we come to the passage that everyone has been waiting for—the only verses in the entire book that everyone wants to know about:

Revelation 13:16–18 ESV

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

The infamous “Mark of the Beast”—we could spend the next several weeks exploring all the different wild speculations people have offered about this mark: Social Security numbers, credit cards, UPC Bar codes, ultraviolet tattoos, subcutaneous RFID chips, vaccines, and so on. But let’s take a step back and understand our foundational assumptions about the Book of Revelation—it was meant to be read by the churches in A.D. 67—whatever this “mark” is, it is not some technology from two thousand years in their future!

Secondly, let’s remember that John has already talked about a mark on the right hand and forehead of God’s redeemed people in Revelation 7, showing that they belonged to God heart, soul, mind and strength. Remember also that John is absolutely cramming this book full of Old Testament references and imagery—the image of a mark on the right hand and forehead is a reference to the teffilin in Deuteronomy 6:8, the boxes containing the Shema prayer that they were to bind on their right hand and forehead to show that they belonged to YHWH.

And here in verse 16 you have a false prophet counterfeiting the command of God in Deuteronomy, causing people to bind the name of the first Beast (the beast of the Roman Empire) onto their right hand and forehead to show that they belonged to him. In verse 18 John gets as specific as he dares, explaining what the “number” of that name is. It is “the number of a man”, and the number is “six hundred sixty-six”. And to complicate matters further, you may have a footnote in your Bible at verse 18 that indicates an alternate reading that the number is “616”.

The concept of “the number of a name” was a common practice in the first century—archaeologists have uncovered graffiti in Pompeii, for example, that reads “I love her whose number is 545”. Since ancient writing systems did not use Arabic numerals the way we do, they would use letters to stand for numbers (like “Roman numerals”, which are also used as letters.) So you could take the letters in your name and add up the numbers they represent and get a “number” of your name. When Nero’s name is transliterated into Hebrew and then the corresponding numbers assigned to it, it equals six hundred sixty-six. (And interestingly, when you take Nero’s name in Latin and do the same thing, it comes out six hundred sixteen!) Again—John couldn’t come right out and say that the apostate Jewish priesthood was deceiving people into utter allegiance to Nero, the head of the Beast of Rome—so he used this “code” to say it without “saying” it!

So the “mark of the beast” is not a COVID-19 vaccination, it is not an ultraviolet tattoo, it is not a social security card. It is not something that you can “accidently” receive that will bar you from entering Heaven. The “mark of the beast” refers to a demonstration of utter allegiance to a ruling authority that threatens economic and physical ruin for those who will not submit to its false claims of ultimate authority.

As it happens, there is an actual example of this very thing taking place right now in China. According to multiple news sources, Christians in China are being required to destroy any and all Christian symbolism in their homes, and replace them with images of Chairman Mao. And they are being told that unless they recognize Mao as the only proper figure of worship, they will have their welfare benefits revoked. (https://www.dailywire.com/news/china-forces-christians-to-renounce-faith-destroy-christian-symbols-or-be-cut-off-from-welfare-reports-say - Accessed 07/24/2020)

And in order for any church to re-open after the COVID lockdown, they must first raise the Chinese flag over their building, formally praise the government, and sing the Communist national anthem, or they will be permanently closed. (https://disrn.com/news/china-require-churches-to-tell-stories-of-govt-fight-against-covid-sing-national-anthem-in-order-to-reopen - Accessed 7/24/20).

John writes this chapter to encourage the churches suffering this kind of persecution that Satanic persecution and apostasy are the arenas in which we glorify God through endurance and faith. Christian, when you see the State demanding more and more obedience, when you see Christians having their businesses taken away and their livelihoods destroyed because of their commitment to Christ, you can persevere when you remember that the Dragon who is giving them the authority to do these things is already defeated!

The authority that they have to come after you is not permanent! We always tend to think that the way things are now is the way they will always be--that all of this darkness will just keep getting worse and worse and worse until the end of time. But the Dragon cannot give permanent authority! You can persevere because there is an expiration date on all of this! The church will not be destroyed, Biblical faith will not go extinct, Satan cannot win this fight! Every day that goes by is one day closer to the end of his limited power!

Remember that you have been sealed with the sanctifying blood of Christ. The voices that accuse you of guilt because of the color of your skin or accuse you of hatred and bigotry and homophobia because of you love Jesus Christ and hold fast to His Word, and want you to “confess” some kind of guilt to them so that you can be “forgiven” by them—they have no authority to grant you any kind of “forgiveness!” ONLY the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from sin, and His blood cleanses you from ALL sin! There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! Do not be deceived--even if every celebrity pastor and Christian teacher kneels before the demands of “social justice” and urges you to do the same—do not be deceived by their falsehoods! You hold fast to the blood of Jesus Christ that seals you!

When you see all of our modern day “false prophets” (the influencers, the cultural voices, the Hollywood producers and TV talking heads and the spiritual advisors) all pushing you to abandon Christ or else you will be “cancelled”, and you are tempted to “go along to get along” remember that you have been sealed on the right hand--everything you do is to reflect your belonging to Christ. You have been sealed on the forehead--everything you see, and everyone who sees you SEES that you belong to Christ!

You may very well get “cancelled”—you may very well have a piece of paper slid across the desk to you for your signature that indicates your approval and acceptance of our culture’s depravities and wicked rebellion, and told that you either sign it or lose your job. Our church will very likely be threatened sometime in the next few years to have our tax exempt status taken away if we do not comply with State-mandated regulations on gay marriage and transgender affirmations—and they may very well retroactively require back taxes that go back to 1886 when we were founded. And we will have a choice to make—take the mark of allegiance? Burn the pinch of incense to keep our building and our assets? Or will we have “ears to hear” the central treasure at the heart of this passage?

Revelation 13:9–10 ESV

If anyone has an ear, let him hear: If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

Here is the arena in which you glorify God with endurance and faith, Christian—because you know that the Satanic power energizing the persecuting State has already been defeated, and the authority it has to chase us down is running out. You hold fast to the blood of Christ that has saved you and delivered you from all guilt before God, and that means that when the false prophets of our culture demand your “repentance” for the sins that they falsely accuse you of, you have nothing to apologize for because your faith is in the sealing blood of Jesus Christ!

The very next verses in Revelation in Chapter 14 that we will see next week begin with an explosion of worship and celebration and glory for those who have endured because they bear the mark of the Name of the Lamb—the ones who have endured with patience and faith, who have been faithful unto death and have received the crown of life, who have conquered and have been given the hidden manna, who have held fast and been given the glory of the Morning Star, who have been clothed in white garments of righteousness, who have been made pillars in the Temple of God, who have been seated on the Throne with Christ Himself! Christian, the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to you! (Rom. 8:18) And no Dragon out of the sky, no beast out of the sea, no beast out of the Land will ever separate you from the eternal, sanctifying love of Christ Jesus your King!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 ESV

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

How does the structure of this chapter help us focus on the main thought that John is expressing? Why does he use so much Old Testament symbolism in this book? How does understanding the historical context of Revelation help us understand its message?

Why is it important to understand that the power and authority of the beast out of the sea comes from the Dragon (Satan)? What do we learn in Revelation 12 that helps us properly understand the nature and limits of Satan’s power?

The persecutions that the churches of Asia Minor experienced under Nero lasted from A.D. 64 until his suicide by the sword in A.D. 68 (42 months). John may have written this letter around A.D. 65 or 66—how would his message have encouraged the churches’ “patient endurance?” What encouragement can you take from this passage for the persecutions you see taking place against Christians today?

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9. How does this Old Testament context help us understand John’s description of the “mark of the beast on the right hand and forehead” in Revelation 13? What does it look like to “take the mark” of allegiance and submission to a persecuting state? How do we see Christians being threatened with economic ruin today for their endurance and faith in Christ?