Revelation 13:15-17 - The second beast was given power

13:15

Psalm 115 mocks idols and in 115:5 says “they have mouths but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see”. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast so it could speak! And those who refused to worship the image were to be put to death. 2 Thess 2:11 speaks of God sending “a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie”. In Matt 24 Jesus warns that there will be many false prophets, and “the love of most will grow cold”. We should appreciate the seriousness and gravity of the Bible’s teaching on these matters.

13:16,17

We now come to three verses which have produced a significant amount of silliness and little light. I will try and avoid introducing any further silliness, but you can be the judge of the whether or not I succeed! The first item is the receiving of a mark without which one could not buy anything. There are various theories about chips being inserted inside us, and no doubt about the covid vaccine. The first thing to note about the mark is that there are two earlier positive references to a mark. The first is in Ezekiel 9:4-6 where the mark was put on the foreheads of the faithful and was a mark of protection. And Rev 7:3 refers to putting a seal on those who are faithful. So marks in themselves are not wrong. The significance of the forehead and hands was probably that the mark was visible, this could count against an embedded chip. What seems a more likely meaning is that people had to offer sacrifices to Caesar in order to function fully in society. Today in increasing parts of society you have to pay homage to the LGBTQ or BLM agenda in order to be fully accepted (or even accepted at all). This seems a more likely meaning of these verses. The issue is whether or not we bow down to the beast, to the ways of the world.

Daniel 7:15-18 - I was troubled in spirit

7:15,16

Daniel was “troubled in spirit” by the vision he had seen. Earlier Nebuchadnezzar had been troubled by his own dreams, now Daniel is troubled by his own vision. Nebuchadnezzar had asked his wise men, and then Daniel to give him the meaning. Here Daniel asks one of those there for the meaning. Daniel was then given the meaning.

7:17,18

These two verse sum up the situation of the whole of history! The four great beasts are four earthly kings. Note the word “great”. The Bible does not minimise the power of evil kings and kingdoms. We cannot understand all the reasoning behind all of God’s decrees, but we need to accept the reality, and that is that evil kingdoms are allowed to flourish for a time. But that is not the end. It is the “holy people” of God will “receive the kingdom” and will possess it “for ever and ever”. In Luke 12:32 Jesus tells us “do not be afraid little flock, the Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom”. We here very little preached on this concept, and some of what is preached is nonsense, but we need to take these words seriously, and need to understand that God is giving the kingdom to us.

Revelation 13:12-14 - It deceived the inhabitants of the earth

13:12,13

The primary purpose of the second beast was to make the “earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast”. There is mention again that that first beast’s fatal wound had been healed. The second beast had all the authority of the first one, but was in no way a rival to it. The power of the beast was demonstrated in vivid terms by it calling down fire from heaven to earth “in full view of the people”. So what we have is a terrifying picture of the beast and its demonstration of power, but the beast will ultimately be destroyed. We may be confronted by seemingly powerful forces, but none of them are all powerful.

13:14

The signs that the beast performed deluded the world into honouring the beast who was wounded yet lived. So we should notice the twofold deception here. First, there are the signs themselves which deluded people into thinking they should listen to the beast. Secondly, he directed worship towards the first beast. So people would think that if the second beast was truly evil it would demand worship for itself, rather than someone else.  We need to be very careful. Deut 13:1-4 is also very apt here. Two signs for spotting false prophets are given in the Old Testament. One is simply that if what they say will happen doesn’t happen then clearly they are not quite as prophetic as they claimed! In Deut 13 we are told that even if the signs do take place, but the “prophet” is urging them to follow other gods, then the prophet is a false prophet and must not be followed. Deut 13:4 sums up how we should act, we must follow and revere the Lord, keep His commands and serve Him.

Daniel 7:11-14 - One like a son of man

7:11,12

Having seen the glory of God Daniel then turns his attention back to the horn and its boastful words. He continued to do this until the beast was slain and thrown into the blazing fire. The horn is destroyed forever. We need to appreciate that ungodly kingdoms will make boasts. These boasts are completely empty and we should not be intimidated by them. The other beasts had been allowed to continue for a time, though they had been stripped of their authority.  We do see kingdoms continuing to exist, but not longer having the power and influence that they once did.

7:13,14

Daniel now sees “one like a son of man”. This immediately reminds us of the term that Jesus often used to refer to Himself. No doubt this was part of what Jesus intended, but the reference to the “son of man” of Daniel is not the whole story of the term Son of Man as Jesus used it. The term “son of man” can simply mean “like a man”. This son of man was led into the presence of the Ancient of Days.  And he was given “authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped Him”.  It is His kingdom that will never end. There are obvious parallels here with Matt 28:18-20. So we have seen the pretenders with their pretensions of greatness, we have seen the holiness and greatness of God, and we have now seen the One who truly has all power and authority.  We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Revelation 13:9-11 - This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness

13:9,10

“Whoever has ears, let them hear” reminds us of words that Jesus often used. We need to listen to the word of God and to understand it, and to understand the world in the light of God’s word.

Verse 10 can be interpreted in two ways, it can be taken as applying to persecutors, or it can be taken as referring to Christians. Similar words can be found in Jer 15:2 where it applies to the enemies of God (which was actually God’s people in those days!). In the context of Rev 13 it seems better to take it as applying to the saints, especially when we consider the end of the verse. The chapter has been telling us about extremely tough times,and sometimes this is the way things will be. If we find ourselves living in such times then we need “patient endurance and faithfulness”.

13:11

A second beast now appears, who will work in tandem with the first beast. In terms of the Roman Empire, the first beast represents the power of the Roman Empire, while the second represents the imperial priesthood. More generally, there is a picture of power and priesthood, the priesthood enforces worship of the power. The second beast is not as powerful as the first, and the “two horns like a lamb” indicate that this beast may have had the appearance of something quite “nice”, pretending to be “godly” in some fashion. However, he spoke like a dragon, he was utterly evil.

Daniel 7:9,10 - The court was seated

7:9

We have seen the description of the beasts, the terrifying kingdoms in their different ways. But now we see something different, we now see heaven and what is going on there. The Bible does not comfort us by minimising the enemy, but by emphasing the greatness of our God. Having seen the kingdoms of the world, Daniel now sees the thrones being set in place in heaven. The “Ancient of Days” took His place. The whiteness emphasises the purity of God (that should upset critical race theorists!). The throne was flaming with fire, and, like in Ezekiel’s vision, the throne had wheels.

7:10

A river was flowing out from the throne, In Ezekiel and Revelation we see the river of life flowing from the temple or the throne. There thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand attending Him and standing before Him. This is like Elisha’s vision where he told his servant that those who are for us are more than those who are against us (1 Chron 22:13). The forces of evil are bound to lose. “And the books were opened”. This is again reminiscent of Revelation (Rev 20:12), and we have a picture of a courtroom about to pronounce judgement. It is God who decides the final outcome, not any human power, and certainly not the devil.

Revelation 13:6-8 - Power to wage war against God's holy people

13:6,7

The beast blasphemed God, and this blasphemy was total. He slandered “His Name, His dwelling place and those who live in heaven”. Today we see something of this happening in Western Society, we also see it happening to a much greater extent in China with the Communist Party.  The beast was also given power to “wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them”, then it talks about “authority over every tribe, people, language and nation”. There is a clear parallel with Rev 7:9. So the power of the beast seems to be total. Now we know that this will prove to not be the case, what is happening here is that we are getting a dramatic picture of how things must have seemed to the Christians.

13:8

We should not be surprised when “all inhabitants of the earth” seem to go nuts and worship something that is manifestly evil. Many of them will be ignorant of what they are doing, but nonetheless they are doing it. Many of them will seem to be quite normal likeable people. In Nazi Germany much of the nation went along with the Nazis. They were not inherently more evil than you or I, but support, or at least allow, the Nazis to rule they did. This is all people except “those whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life”. When we come to Christ we become a new creation. The scales are taken off our eyes and we start to see things as God sees them. We should not be surprised when the world seems to be blind to the truth, for it is indeed blind.

“who was slain from the creation of the world”. How can this be? Christ was crucified in about 30 AD. This is the eternal plan of God. Christ was not Plan B, there was always only one plan. We have eternal purposes worked out in time.