apoc:13:1-6

he Beast Out of the Sea, Part 2

Revelation 13:1-4            Code: 66-45

Tonight we go back to our study of the book of Revelation and again to chapter 13. The beast out of the sea occupies the first half of this chapter, verses 1 through 10. This is the second in our series as we look at this very, very interesting text.

The world certainly is looking for a leader. We have such high hopes that maybe the next President, maybe the next Prime Minister, maybe the next authority, monarch, ruler somewhere in the world is going to rise to solve our problems, massive as they are. The world is hoping that somebody might come along and unite all nations, somebody who could give hope in the midst of hopelessness, somebody who could provide a sense of security in the midst of a time of fear.

The world is looking for just such a man. And the fact is, such a man is coming. Satan is going to design him. Satan is going to possess him. And he's going to be everything the world thinks its looking for, he's going to rise to authority like no one has ever had in the history of humanity. He's going to be all that people could have hoped and imagined a man could be. He will even bring worldwide peace and prosperity. But he will be satanic to the very heart.

Actually this man who is to come will not be a solitary figure, that is he is not alone. There will be, there have been and there are others quite like him. The fact of the matter is, Jesus said and Mark recorded it in chapter 13 verse 6, "Many will come in My name saying, `I am He,' and will mislead many." John said, "Already the spirit of Antichrist is in the world." And Jesus said, "In the future time as you move closer to My return, many are going to come and say I am the Messiah, I am the one you've been looking for." Later in that same thirteenth chapter of Mark, Jesus is recorded to have said, "If anyone says to you, `Behold, here is the Christ,' or, `Behold He is there,' do not believe him for false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show signs and wonders in order if possible to lead the elect astray."

As we get closer and closer to the end, I believe there will be a proliferation of satanic leaders, satanic impostors, pseudochrists and antichrists. But one of them will be the culmination of all the others. And so I say again, he is not a solitary figure in the sense that he alone plays this role, he is simply the consummate Antichrist. He is the embodiment of all the satanic power in one incredible display, one final man just prior to Christ's return to set up His kingdom on earth. We've been learning that this man will arrive in a period of time known as the Tribulation, the final seven-year period just prior to the return of Christ. In fact, he really begins his reign of terror at the midpoint of that seven years and for the final three and a half years he takes over the world and pours out the very anger of Satan against the Jews and all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The resulting horror, the resulting devastation and destruction is indescribable.

And so it is in the time of the Tribulation that Satan selects his leader and empowers him from the abyss with some demon spirit to take over the world for Satan. And the effort, of course, is to prevent Christ from reigning. The effort is to destroy all the Jews so they can't come to Christ and have a kingdom. The effort is to massacre all who believe and therefore there will be none remaining in the world to have as subjects in the kingdom He brings. We like to think and hope and rejoice in the coming of Christ, but before He comes Antichrist is coming and with him the most frightening reign of terror the world has ever known.

Now I reminded you last week that this is not new to believers. This is not something God's people are just finding out. Even when the book of Revelation was written in about 96 A.D. at the end of the first century, thirty years or so after most of the rest of the epistles were written, though it was so much later and though here you have this explicit portrayal of Antichrist in chapter 13, this is not new. Already Daniel wrote very much about the Antichrist in chapter 2, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 11 of his Old Testament prophecy. Jesus certainly commented on Antichrist as He affirmed Daniel's description of the abomination of desolation which the Antichrist will perpetrate. Paul then gave us further insight in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 which was one of the earliest of the New Testament epistles. And John himself writing in 1 John chapter 2 discusses the reality of the Antichrist's spirit which is in the world.

Even in the book of Revelation, chapter 13 is not the first mention of the Antichrist. We find him first mentioned in chapter 6 as the rider on a white horse who comes to conquer. We find him again mentioned in chapter 11 and verse 7 and there he is called the beast which comes out of the abyss which is how he is described here also in chapter 13. So the Antichrist's spirit, the satanic efforts to destroy Christ have always been at work. In fact, chapter 12 of Revelation described that whole Antichrist movement from its very beginnings, but now in chapter 13 we come to the final expression of the Antichrist's attitude in Satan's superman, this amazing intellectual genius, this outstanding orator, this master politician, this commercial wizard, this military mastermind this power unequalled, this great religious leader who himself claims to be God, the most incredible leader ever. We find him detailed for us in an amazing portrait that is very consistent with the words of Daniel, the words of Paul and the earlier description of John in the very same book of Revelation.

Without begging the point, just to remind you and for those who weren't here, he is Satan's supreme human instrument to destroy Israel, to prevent her salvation and kingdom, to kill believers, to conquer the world and to defeat Christ so that Satan can get what he wants, and that is to rule as God.

Now as we look at chapter 13 we meet the last evil world dictator. First of all, we look at his ancestry in verse 1. Let's just review it briefly. "He stood on the sand of the seashore and I saw a beast coming out of the sea having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems and on his heads were blasphemous names."

Just to note, some of your Bibles, if you have a King James, an Authorized Version may say, "And I stood on the sand of the seashore." Some of the ancient manuscripts do have the word "I" there. The better, the older manuscripts have "he" and so the newer translations have chosen to go with the older manuscripts which are closer to the originals and choose to use the word "he" and therefore that pronoun harks back to the dragon in chapter 12 verse 17. So you have the dragon who is standing on the sand of the seashore. So as you embark on chapter 13 and introduce yourself to the coming Antichrist, you immediately see that his association is with the dragon who is none other than Satan, the great red dragon who is called the devil and Satan back in chapter 12 verse 9. This then introduces us to the ancestry of the Antichrist. He is the child of Satan. He is the devil's child. And we will note also that while Satan is firmly planted on the sand of the seashore, that is as he takes his place on the earth, he calls forth out of the sea which represents the abyss, this beast. A description of him, by the way, that I just read parallels the description of Satan himself back in chapter 12 verse 3. And I pointed out last time that therein is the family likeness that chose the ancestry of Antichrist as none other than Satan himself.

Now we noted also that it is important to mention that what you have described here in the beast is both a king and a kingdom. It is an individual and he is called "he" and Daniel refers to him as a man, and Paul refers to him as a man, the book of Revelation refers to him as a man. And yet he is a man who also rules over a conglomerate world kingdom that is described as ten horns and seven heads. And those, as we pointed out last time, simply designate the breadth and the strength of that kingdom. The horns represent kings. Horns are symbols of strength and power. And the horns are representative of kings. Ten of them simply represent all of the world of human power that will assist him.

I heard this week and I'm going to follow up on it, we'll discuss it more when we get to chapter 17 in Revelation, that there is an effort going on right now in the world to divide the world into ten regions. And, in fact, to illustrate what the article intends to say, the Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada and the United States and Mexico, causing free trade in this one part of the world will create one of those zones, or one of those regions. And so it is a possibility that as the world is divided into ten regions, those ten regions will constitute the symbolism of these ten horns, ten kings.

It is also possible, as I noted for you last time, that it's simply a symbolic number representing all the world of human power pulled together. It's not necessary to tie it only to the ten nations of the revived Roman Empire. There were more than then since Rome, in effect, ruled the world. And we know that this kingdom will also be a worldwide kingdom.