[Originally preached 19 October, 2003]
Revelation 13.1-10
Today, we begin to look at some of the agents that Satan uses in his rebellion against God and his vigorous attacks against the Church. Our text may seem confusing, as if John has made a puzzle and dares us to figure it out. But that isn’t the case. John is communicating truth by his writings but he is doing it by means of word pictures. We might prefer matter-of-fact statements. They would be much more easily understood. But John uses striking pictures to touch the hearts of the Christians in those seven churches to which he writes. The images that he uses did communicate to them because they were more familiar with the situation of the day as well as with their Old Testament. So, we’ll just have to work a bit to understand John in the hope that the Spirit will impress upon our hearts as well the point of the images of our text.
As you look at how the beast of the text is described you can see an interesting pattern. Consider how the beast stands in relation to the dragon and compare that to how Jesus relates to the Father. The beast is the image of the dragon. You can see from chapter twelve that the dragon has horns and heads and crowns. The beast, likewise, has horns and heads and crowns. In Hebrews 1, among other places, we are taught how Jesus is the image of the Father. Then, in verse two we see that the beast receives power, a throne and authority from the dragon. Likewise, Jesus has received all authority on heaven and in earth from the Father. Both the dragon and the beast are worshipped. Jesus and the Father are both worshipped. Now compare the beast to Christ. Along with the crowns the beast bears blasphemous names. In Revelation 19 we’ll see Jesus depicted as bearing crowns and a holy name. The beast received a mortal wound and recovered from it. The nations marvel at this. Jesus received a mortal wound and was resurrected. The Church marvels at this. And then finally, the song of praise to the beast in verse four, ‘Who is like the beast and who can fight against it?’ is a mimic of the song of Moses in Exodus 15 which starts, ‘Who is like the Lord…?’ Add to the relationship of the dragon and the beast the role of the second beast, called the false prophet, at the end of this chapter, and what do you have? You have a false trinity, a counterfeit trinity of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. The dragon strives to replace the Father. The beast is a false messiah. The false prophet points the world to the beast just as the Spirit points to Jesus as the true Christ. We have a counterfeit trinity that strives to deceive the world and also the Church. And this fits with what we know of Satan and his ways from other texts. John is warning those churches. Satan has fooled the world by the beast, that counterfeit messiah with a counterfeit gospel. The saints need to be careful. And, if you remember, some of them weren’t being careful.
Now, let’s move on to another thought. Who or what is the beast? Consider John’s pictures in verse two.
And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. Revelation 13:2
It’s at this point that a good knowledge of the Old Testament is helpful. These images are drawn from the book of Daniel. Listen.
Daniel declared, "I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles' wings. … And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. … After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard…" Daniel 7:2-6
Now, according to what Daniel explains elsewhere these three images represent three different kingdoms. In Revelation, however, the three images come together in one beast, one kingdom. What we have in our text are aspects of three kingdoms that are joined together in one kingdom. And which kingdom is that? Well, how would the Christians in the seven churches answer that? Their answer would be obvious. The beast of Revelation 13 represents the kingdom of Rome, their oppressor. But we can’t stop there. Does the beast represent only Rome? Did you notice what verse 5 says.
And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. Revelation 13:5
We’ve encountered this same forty-two month period elsewhere. We read it in 11:2. The equivalent time period shows up in 12:6, the 1260 days. In 12:14 it’s a time and times and half a time, three and a half years which is the same as forty-two months. Each time that we encountered this we saw that this represented the whole time between Jesus’ first and second comings. The beast is Rome in the first century but only by application. The beast is more than just Rome. The beast is the state, the government when it turns on the Church. Now, be careful. This does not mean that human government is inherently evil or that any government is necessarily filling the role of the beast. Remember that government is something established by God. But a government fills the role of the beast when that government persecutes the Church. And here we all know of several examples. The governments of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia filled the role of the beast over their respective people. And there have been lots of other examples over the centuries. But I think that you can see the point that John is making to those seven churches and to churches down through the history of the Church. When your government begins to persecute you because of your faithfulness to Jesus and His Gospel understand that the issue is not a political one. The issue is a spiritual one. At that point the state has become an agent of Satan. It has become another incarnation of the beast called from the sea by the dragon.
Seeing the situation in this way fits from the other side of the coin as well. The state has often offered itself to its people as a kind of messiah, a counterfeit messiah. The state often makes great promises of prosperity and protection to its population. And its people respond by looking to the state as their hope and source of salvation from many of the difficulties of this life. In this way they worship the state, just as John pictured. You can see this in our own day.
In all of this, the hope of those first-century Christians was not to be that there would be a change of the emperor of Rome, a change in who led the government. John is trying to make clear to them that the root of the issues confronting them was not political. The problem was a spiritual one.
Now, John informs us that ‘those who dwell on the earth’ worshipped the beast. But what was the attitude of the beast to the saints who did not look to it as their messianic hope? What did the beast do with these? John tells us that the beast was allowed to conquer the saints. Remember from chapter twelve how the dragon could not destroy the Church as a whole. Being thwarted in that he went after individual believers. In chapter thirteen we see that through the beast he attacks and is able to conquer some of the saints. Verse ten explains what that means.
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. Revelation 13:10
John is telling us about the fate of some of the saints. Some of them will be taken captive. They will be carted off to prison. Others are to feel the sword. They are to die at the hand of the state. This matches what we read in some of the letters to the churches at the beginning. There was the prospect of prison and death for some of them. The beast would conquer some.
Now, do you see the point of the passage? The beastly government is an agent of Satan, the dragon. And how does this beast go about his task of attacking the saints? First, there is the theme of being a counterfeit. The beast lures by deception. The government calls to its people. ‘Trust me. I will take care of you. I will provide for your needs.’ In response, the people of that nation look to their government as a kind of messiah that will rescue them from troubles. In this way they worship the state. This will be seen in the praise that is offered to the state. ‘Who is like the beast and who can fight against it?’ This is where the seven churches fit in. Some of the Christians there are being deceived. They are at the beginning stages of compromising their loyalty to Christ. The book of Revelation is a warning to them. John is trying to get them to see the reality behind what they see. He wants them to see the beast that stands behind the symbols of the state so that they might repent. Then there are those Christians who are striving to be faithful to Jesus and are having a hard time of it. Part of the difficulties that they face is the state-sponsored persecution – or maybe I should say beast-sponsored persecution. What we have here is a two pronged attack against the saints. The beast will try to deceive which leads to compromise or, failing in that, it will try to destroy.
Now, what is John’s counsel to the Christians in the face of this onslaught? How should the Christians respond? Listen to the end of verse ten. ‘Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.’ This is fascinating advice. The assumption behind the advice is that the situation that the saints face is not just some passing phase in the history of the world. A major point of the book of Revelation is that, one way or another, Satan is making life hard. If it isn’t by means of the beast’s violent attacks then wait a bit and John will tell you about Babylon, the prostitute, and her seductive schemes. This is what life here is all about. It’s spiritual warfare against Satan and his agents. And so, what are we to do? What does John say? We are to endure. We are to patiently suffer through the situation as we continue to work hard at being faithful to Jesus. This was to be the normal Christian life for those saints in Asia Minor. And it is to be normal for us as well. And what is the opposite of enduring? It is capitulating, giving in to the worship of the beast or, as we’ll see, to the alluring pleasures of the prostitute. This has been the situation of the Church since day one. Thus the ongoing call to patiently endure the hardships of life.
But did you notice that John’s advice is not just that we are to endure. Along with the call for endurance there is the call to faith. It is Jesus, the ruler of all things, who makes this call. Jesus is calling His saints to trust Him. Through John, Jesus tells His saints, ‘I know that life is hard. But you need to believe me that I know what I am doing. You also need to believe that my love for you is sure. I know that it’s hard, but trust Me. Trust My wisdom. Trust My love.’ It is as we trust Him that we will be able to endure. Without this kind of faith in Jesus there will be no endurance. And what does such a trust look like? We trust Him by telling ourselves that life in the wilderness, though hard, is worth it. Jesus is bringing good out of our struggles. We tell ourselves that He will hold us up, giving our weary hearts the strength that we need to continue. We tell ourselves that He will get us through this. We have all His promises. And then we remind ourselves that after the wilderness we’ll enter the Promised Land. After the toiling of this life there will be the pleasures of the life to come. Heaven awaits. We remind ourselves and each other of these things and we pray for the grace to believe them.
Our situation is not the same as that of those seven churches. Our government has not turned against the Church. Our situation is more in keeping with the seductive devices of Babylon. But that doesn’t mean that our government will never turn against the Church. If that should happen in our lifetimes we need to remember what is really going on. The issue is not political. The issue is spiritual. The state has become an agent of Satan. We need to prepared for that possibility and make sure that our children are prepared for that possibility. In any event, the call to heed is the same. Patient endurance and a trust in Jesus. That is something we all can work on now.
Revelation 13.1-10
Today, we begin to look at some of the agents that Satan uses in his rebellion against God and his vigorous attacks against the Church. Our text may seem confusing, as if John has made a puzzle and dares us to figure it out. But that isn’t the case. John is communicating truth by his writings but he is doing it by means of word pictures. We might prefer matter-of-fact statements. They would be much more easily understood. But John uses striking pictures to touch the hearts of the Christians in those seven churches to which he writes. The images that he uses did communicate to them because they were more familiar with the situation of the day as well as with their Old Testament. So, we’ll just have to work a bit to understand John in the hope that the Spirit will impress upon our hearts as well the point of the images of our text.
As you look at how the beast of the text is described you can see an interesting pattern. Consider how the beast stands in relation to the dragon and compare that to how Jesus relates to the Father. The beast is the image of the dragon. You can see from chapter twelve that the dragon has horns and heads and crowns. The beast, likewise, has horns and heads and crowns. In Hebrews 1, among other places, we are taught how Jesus is the image of the Father. Then, in verse two we see that the beast receives power, a throne and authority from the dragon. Likewise, Jesus has received all authority on heaven and in earth from the Father. Both the dragon and the beast are worshipped. Jesus and the Father are both worshipped. Now compare the beast to Christ. Along with the crowns the beast bears blasphemous names. In Revelation 19 we’ll see Jesus depicted as bearing crowns and a holy name. The beast received a mortal wound and recovered from it. The nations marvel at this. Jesus received a mortal wound and was resurrected. The Church marvels at this. And then finally, the song of praise to the beast in verse four, ‘Who is like the beast and who can fight against it?’ is a mimic of the song of Moses in Exodus 15 which starts, ‘Who is like the Lord…?’ Add to the relationship of the dragon and the beast the role of the second beast, called the false prophet, at the end of this chapter, and what do you have? You have a false trinity, a counterfeit trinity of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. The dragon strives to replace the Father. The beast is a false messiah. The false prophet points the world to the beast just as the Spirit points to Jesus as the true Christ. We have a counterfeit trinity that strives to deceive the world and also the Church. And this fits with what we know of Satan and his ways from other texts. John is warning those churches. Satan has fooled the world by the beast, that counterfeit messiah with a counterfeit gospel. The saints need to be careful. And, if you remember, some of them weren’t being careful.
Now, let’s move on to another thought. Who or what is the beast? Consider John’s pictures in verse two.
And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. Revelation 13:2
It’s at this point that a good knowledge of the Old Testament is helpful. These images are drawn from the book of Daniel. Listen.
Daniel declared, "I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles' wings. … And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. … After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard…" Daniel 7:2-6
Now, according to what Daniel explains elsewhere these three images represent three different kingdoms. In Revelation, however, the three images come together in one beast, one kingdom. What we have in our text are aspects of three kingdoms that are joined together in one kingdom. And which kingdom is that? Well, how would the Christians in the seven churches answer that? Their answer would be obvious. The beast of Revelation 13 represents the kingdom of Rome, their oppressor. But we can’t stop there. Does the beast represent only Rome? Did you notice what verse 5 says.
And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. Revelation 13:5
We’ve encountered this same forty-two month period elsewhere. We read it in 11:2. The equivalent time period shows up in 12:6, the 1260 days. In 12:14 it’s a time and times and half a time, three and a half years which is the same as forty-two months. Each time that we encountered this we saw that this represented the whole time between Jesus’ first and second comings. The beast is Rome in the first century but only by application. The beast is more than just Rome. The beast is the state, the government when it turns on the Church. Now, be careful. This does not mean that human government is inherently evil or that any government is necessarily filling the role of the beast. Remember that government is something established by God. But a government fills the role of the beast when that government persecutes the Church. And here we all know of several examples. The governments of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia filled the role of the beast over their respective people. And there have been lots of other examples over the centuries. But I think that you can see the point that John is making to those seven churches and to churches down through the history of the Church. When your government begins to persecute you because of your faithfulness to Jesus and His Gospel understand that the issue is not a political one. The issue is a spiritual one. At that point the state has become an agent of Satan. It has become another incarnation of the beast called from the sea by the dragon.
Seeing the situation in this way fits from the other side of the coin as well. The state has often offered itself to its people as a kind of messiah, a counterfeit messiah. The state often makes great promises of prosperity and protection to its population. And its people respond by looking to the state as their hope and source of salvation from many of the difficulties of this life. In this way they worship the state, just as John pictured. You can see this in our own day.
In all of this, the hope of those first-century Christians was not to be that there would be a change of the emperor of Rome, a change in who led the government. John is trying to make clear to them that the root of the issues confronting them was not political. The problem was a spiritual one.
Now, John informs us that ‘those who dwell on the earth’ worshipped the beast. But what was the attitude of the beast to the saints who did not look to it as their messianic hope? What did the beast do with these? John tells us that the beast was allowed to conquer the saints. Remember from chapter twelve how the dragon could not destroy the Church as a whole. Being thwarted in that he went after individual believers. In chapter thirteen we see that through the beast he attacks and is able to conquer some of the saints. Verse ten explains what that means.
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. Revelation 13:10
John is telling us about the fate of some of the saints. Some of them will be taken captive. They will be carted off to prison. Others are to feel the sword. They are to die at the hand of the state. This matches what we read in some of the letters to the churches at the beginning. There was the prospect of prison and death for some of them. The beast would conquer some.
Now, do you see the point of the passage? The beastly government is an agent of Satan, the dragon. And how does this beast go about his task of attacking the saints? First, there is the theme of being a counterfeit. The beast lures by deception. The government calls to its people. ‘Trust me. I will take care of you. I will provide for your needs.’ In response, the people of that nation look to their government as a kind of messiah that will rescue them from troubles. In this way they worship the state. This will be seen in the praise that is offered to the state. ‘Who is like the beast and who can fight against it?’ This is where the seven churches fit in. Some of the Christians there are being deceived. They are at the beginning stages of compromising their loyalty to Christ. The book of Revelation is a warning to them. John is trying to get them to see the reality behind what they see. He wants them to see the beast that stands behind the symbols of the state so that they might repent. Then there are those Christians who are striving to be faithful to Jesus and are having a hard time of it. Part of the difficulties that they face is the state-sponsored persecution – or maybe I should say beast-sponsored persecution. What we have here is a two pronged attack against the saints. The beast will try to deceive which leads to compromise or, failing in that, it will try to destroy.
Now, what is John’s counsel to the Christians in the face of this onslaught? How should the Christians respond? Listen to the end of verse ten. ‘Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.’ This is fascinating advice. The assumption behind the advice is that the situation that the saints face is not just some passing phase in the history of the world. A major point of the book of Revelation is that, one way or another, Satan is making life hard. If it isn’t by means of the beast’s violent attacks then wait a bit and John will tell you about Babylon, the prostitute, and her seductive schemes. This is what life here is all about. It’s spiritual warfare against Satan and his agents. And so, what are we to do? What does John say? We are to endure. We are to patiently suffer through the situation as we continue to work hard at being faithful to Jesus. This was to be the normal Christian life for those saints in Asia Minor. And it is to be normal for us as well. And what is the opposite of enduring? It is capitulating, giving in to the worship of the beast or, as we’ll see, to the alluring pleasures of the prostitute. This has been the situation of the Church since day one. Thus the ongoing call to patiently endure the hardships of life.
But did you notice that John’s advice is not just that we are to endure. Along with the call for endurance there is the call to faith. It is Jesus, the ruler of all things, who makes this call. Jesus is calling His saints to trust Him. Through John, Jesus tells His saints, ‘I know that life is hard. But you need to believe me that I know what I am doing. You also need to believe that my love for you is sure. I know that it’s hard, but trust Me. Trust My wisdom. Trust My love.’ It is as we trust Him that we will be able to endure. Without this kind of faith in Jesus there will be no endurance. And what does such a trust look like? We trust Him by telling ourselves that life in the wilderness, though hard, is worth it. Jesus is bringing good out of our struggles. We tell ourselves that He will hold us up, giving our weary hearts the strength that we need to continue. We tell ourselves that He will get us through this. We have all His promises. And then we remind ourselves that after the wilderness we’ll enter the Promised Land. After the toiling of this life there will be the pleasures of the life to come. Heaven awaits. We remind ourselves and each other of these things and we pray for the grace to believe them.
Our situation is not the same as that of those seven churches. Our government has not turned against the Church. Our situation is more in keeping with the seductive devices of Babylon. But that doesn’t mean that our government will never turn against the Church. If that should happen in our lifetimes we need to remember what is really going on. The issue is not political. The issue is spiritual. The state has become an agent of Satan. We need to prepared for that possibility and make sure that our children are prepared for that possibility. In any event, the call to heed is the same. Patient endurance and a trust in Jesus. That is something we all can work on now.
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