Revelation 13:1-10

In these verses, John sees the first of two “beasts”. The first comes up from the sea at the dragon’s call and is given power by the dragon to persecute the followers of Jesus Christ. Notice that the dragon, who has been frustrated time and again has sought allies to do his bidding. Also, let’s remind ourselves once again that this is a vision, not to be taken literally, thus this terrific beast rising up from the sea is a symbol of something.

The sea represents nations and governments of this world, an image we find in Isaiah 17:12:

Woe to the many nations that rage—    

 they rage like the raging sea! Woe to the peoples who roar—     

they roar like the roaring of great waters!

This is further borne out in Rev. 17:15:

Then the angel said to me, “The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.

Thus, this monster emerges from the nations…

Back to our text, we see something quite telling in verse 2: “The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.” The beast emerging from the nations of this world gets its power and authority from the dragon which is Satan. John sees the monster’s horns rise up, there are ten horns, each covered with a crown. You might recall from earlier discussions that horns represent power, crowns represent authority, in this case illegitimate authority from Satan. There are seven heads, each of which has a blasphemy written on it. Remember that seven is the number of completeness. The beast has a body like a leopard, feet like a bear and a mouth like a lion (cf. Dan. 7:6; Hos. 13:7; Hab. 1:8; 2Sam. 17:8; Prov. 17:12; Hos. 13:8; Ps. 17:12; Hos. 5:14; 1Pet. 5:8). It utters great boasts and blasphemies against God, heaven and God’s people. The world is transfixed at the power of the beast, and all who are not followers of Christ “worship” him. The monster has been called up to make war on the Church.

The question we must ask is this: Does this beast represent one ruler or empire, or does it represent more than one?

We have two clues in our text: First, it exercises its authority for 42 months, and as we have already seen multiple times, 42 months is 3 ½ years, and that represents this entire age. Thus, we can easily see that the beast is exercising its Satan-given authority for this entire age. In John’s day, Rome was the greatest power on earth, and it was a persecutor of the Church. Yet in the many centuries that have come and gone since then, there has been one earthly power after another that has persecuted the church, and been feared by the world… and this trend is still under way; just pick up a newspaper….

The second clue comes in the animal imagery of the beast: leopard, bear, lion: Remind you of anything? In Daniel 7, the prophet saw four beasts three of which used the same or very similar animal imagery. These were four separate empires. In Revelation 13, we have a composite of all four in one, and when we consider that our beast operates for the entire present age, and that it is a composite of several empire images, we must conclude that we are dealing with a succession of anti-Christian empires that persecute the church and blaspheme God… and history certainly bears this out, for such governments have always been in play during this age, from John’s day to our own.

Our beast also has seven heads, and one of them appears to have a mortal wound that has been healed. As I mentioned above, seven is the number of completeness. John is telling us that this succession of persecuting governments has many guises and form, but they are all against God, they are all powered and inspired by Satan, and they are all terrible.

That injured but healed head is interesting, and much ink has been spilled about it as many differing opinions have been asserted over the centuries. As is my usual custom, I’m perfectly happy to let others do the speculating and debating, but I would suggest a thought: Over the centuries there have been many great world powers that could fit this bill, and as time went on, they faded away into history, while others have risen in their place. Isn’t it just possible than a new power could rise up from the ashes of an old one? You might recall that a few decades ago, Saddam Hussein declared that Iraq would be a new Babylonian empire. That didn’t come to pass, and nor did Fascist Italy become the new Roman empire as Mussolini claimed, but that doesn’t mean that such a thing couldn’t happen. The old Soviet Union was a mighty persecutor of the Church, and it is no longer with us. Yet Russia is on the rise today, and there are voices there calling for the old Soviet Union to be revived. I’m not predicting anything here of course, but it isn’t so far out of the realm of possibility.

OK, so what do we have in our text? We have a beast that symbolizes the anti-Christian governments of this age, those that persecute and try to destroy God’s Church. They may dazzle the world with their might and glory; many will “worship” them (“worship” means to adore or give adoration), but God’s people remain on the earth, because in spite of all of Satan’s power, God’s power is greater, and Satan’s ultimate downfall is only a matter of time… he is desperate and his warring is futility itself.

Next time, we’ll continue with the next beast; see you then!