In the previous series we studied the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord by reading what Jesus foretold (Mat. 24) would take place in the latter days of this era.  Sixty-five years later He revealed the terror, destruction and death that would characterize those days by way of a vision viewed and recorded by the Apostle John in Revelation 6.  The symbolism Jesus used to describe that future time included a “Beast” which John writes about in chapters 13 and 17.  This Beast is the subject of this series.  The questions that MUST be answered in order to avoid being absorbed by this Beast when it reappears on the world scene are: WHAT OR WHO IS THE BEAST? WHAT IS ITS IMAGE? AND WHAT IS ITS MARK?  It is imperative that God seekers know the answers to those questions, for it is those of this present generation who will worship the Beast and its image.  It is they who, having received its mark, will suffer the unspeakable terror and torture of the seven last plagues which God will pour out on sinning mankind, including the Institutional Church who, like the world she identifies with, is in a state of rebellion against the God she professes to worship and serve.

When I try to tell people about the Word of God and warn them about being ignorant of His Holy Bible, they turn a deaf ear to me in the belief that ignorance will save them from His wrath.  But listen to what He says in Hosea 4:6: “MY PEOPLE PERISH FOR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE.”  Note it: HIS PEOPLE are spiritually dying because they do not know His Word, and therefore do not obey it.  Ezekiel’s watchman illustration speaks to me and a few others relative to the self-inflicted Biblical ignorance of those who are called by God’s name.  He warns that those who do not know His Word because they were not taught It will suffer the same fate as those who are warned (3:18; 33:6).  God commands His spiritual leaders to be His “watchmen” whose job it is to warn the people about the results of not obeying His Word (33:7).  I take my watchman responsibilities seriously.  Therefore, let us begin with me warning and you learning about the Beast.  Jesus warned that Satan’s people will be so convincing that even some of the Very Elect could fall for their deceptions (Mat. 24:12).

Time is of the essence.  You learned in the previous series and others that for 2000 years the Lord has been sending warnings to sinning mankind in the form of wars, famines, diseases, sickness, financial problems, floods, droughts, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, mental problems, etc.  These, Jesus warned that these would be only the “beginnings of sorrows.”  What was to come in the future will make them pale by comparison.  The prophesied end-time plagues of God’s wrath will soon be poured out upon this God-defying world, including the worldly, two-headed religious entity that calls itself “Christianity.”

During the time of the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord the Beast of Revelation 13 and 17 will be in absolute, dictatorial control of the people on earth, with the exception of God’s true saints who will be safety ensconced in “her place.”  All others will live according to the dictates of the Beast and one called the “False Prophet,” a spiritual dictator who will focus the peoples’ worship toward the Beast and will perform miracles to prove that He has been sent by God.  Let us now zero in on this all-powerful world-ruling entity, its mark and its image which are revealed primarily in chapter 13.  The information was given to John to preserve for God’s people living at the end of the end times, or as the Apostle Paul put it, those “upon whom the ends of the world have come” (1 Cor. 10:11).  He was referring to this present generation.

The Beast of Revelation 13:1,2 is described by John thusly: “I saw a Beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns were ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.  And the Beast which I saw was like a leopard, and its feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat and his great authority.”  John saw one beast whose body, feet and mouth were like three other animals.  This puts to rest the belief that the Beast is a human being.  It tells us what it is not, but not what it is.  The characteristics of this thing are presented in symbols which man has never been able to relate to actual entities.  Bible students know that the Bible historically takes us only to about 100 A.D.  From that point we must look to secular history to explain the future truths about what was written centuries earlier.  Let us do that concerning the animal John saw rising out of the sea.  A common rule Biblically speaking is that, unless the word “sea” refers to a specifically named body of water, like the Sea of Galilee, it refers to a large number of people, for example a nation or the people of a large land mass.

Before turning to secular recorded history we will return to the Book of Daniel where, thousands of years earlier, the prophet has written about four animals he had seen in a dream and a vision.  Those animals were a lion, a bear, a leopard having four heads and an animal having 10 horns that was so dreadful that Daniel could not compare it to any beast known to inhabit the earth.  He described it as “dreadful and terrible” (Dan. 7).

Nebuchadnezzer, the Babylonian king, had experienced a dream which entailed a huge, frightful statue of a huge, fearsome soldier with different colored body areas (Dan. 2).  The head was gold, the chest was silver, belly area was brass and the legs were of iron with feet and toes made of a mixture of iron and clay.  In his dream a huge stone appeared and smashed the feet and toes into pieces which were blown away.  The Stone then became a mountain that covered the entire earth.  The interpretation of the stone smashing the image’s feet and toes is found in the 44th verse: “And in the days of these kings (10 toes) the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.  And the kingdom shall not be left to other (Gentile) people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”  The Stone is Jesus Christ and the kingdom is the Kingdom of God that He will establish upon His return.  This kingdom will rule over all of earth’s kingdoms forever.  The Stone is interpreted in Acts 4:10,11 thusly: “Jesus of Nazareth … is the Stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner.”

God, through Daniel, interpreted the dream which revealed that his Babylonian Empire would be followed by three more empires.  The Lord revealed through Daniel that these were four Gentile empires, depicted as animals in Daniel’s dream and vision (1:17) and as a soldier in the king’s dream, which would rule the world in succession.  The first empire–gold–was pictured as a lion, the second–silver–as a bear, the third–brass–as a leopard having four heads and the fourth–iron–as an indescribable animal much greater and more powerful than the other three.  The animals collectively had seven heads.  Recall that the third empire had four heads.  At this point we turn to secular history to determine who these empires were and the time periods in which they ruled the known world.  L.J.