EndTime Issues ...

[for PDF click here]

Identifying the Earth Beast
(Revelation 13)
 

• Chapter 13 shows how that war will be waged.
• There, the dragon uses two “agents” – a sea beast and an earth beast – to fight that remnant.
• Chapter 14:1-5 further identifies God’s victorious saints – that remnant.

• That “beast” comes center stage in 17:11 when it emerges as a geopolitical power with the collective support of ten horns:
• First without kingdoms (geopolitical regions) (17:12-13).
• Later – with identifiable crowns (13:1) – powers ruling geopolitical areas of the earth.

• The world becomes so enticed that it even worships this beast (13:2-3, 8). Thus, it has a religious image/influence.
• It blasphemes God – it is the antichrist (13:5-6).
• It is the key agent of Satan’s war against the remnant (13:7) – it is “Babylon” (Revelation 17:5).
• Its evil power is permitted for 42 months (13:5) – just like the dragon (12:14).

1. There is to be a new geopolitical order.
2. The papacy will be its head.
3. The world becomes enamored of its leadership and evil focus.
4. Satan has already appeared as an angel of light, affirming its abominable doctrine and sinister global power.

• The sea beast “ascends” (cf. Revelation 11:7, Daniel 7:17).
• Since this new “beast” has lamb-like horns, some see this as a parody of the Messianic Lamb or that it must be Christ-like.[11]
• It “arises out of the earth” (ges) – naturally a “settled” or “fixed” geographic area. John uses this word in a variety of ways. Since it contrasts with the sea (restless waters – Isaiah 57:20-21 – unsettled wicked state of world), many see this as arising from a more peaceful area.[12]
• Together, the earth and sea convey a “global” prophetic picture such as represented in 10:5.[13] (Such Christ and Satan end-time contrasts are frequent in Revelation.)

• Beast imagery symbolizes a world empire or a nation (Daniel 7:17, 23). Some geopolitical power is in sight. Since the prophetic context unfolds sequentially, a story is evolving in this chapter. After a global coalition is in evidence (sea beast with crowned horns), the activity of this earth beast emerges! It portrays a meek, lamb-like imagery, but it then speaks/directs/leads like Satan and acts viciously and terrifyingly.
• Its “speaking like a dragon” contrasts with its “lamb-like” horns.
• This is a “message by design,” given to John for us to understand.

This wild “savage” beast imagery (therion) means that we must identify which “nation” this represents! A prophetic change in its nature, that God wants us to anticipate, is in evidence in this end-time prophecy. Peaceful – then tyrannical.
 
“And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed” (Revelation 13:12).
 
John is revealing that a theo-political peaceful nation will wield tyrannical power on behalf of the papacy (within a 42-month setting). This immediately precedes Christ’s coming (another study).

• The prophecy relates to the time of the end (13:7; 12:17; 11:2, 7; 6:8-11) sometime during a three-and-a-half-year period.
• This nation is apparently established before the world is enamored by the sea beast (via the timing limitation).
• It must have worldwide influence and power.
• It must have an initial imagery of innocence and peace (that changes – but deceptively continues to “wear” those lamb-like horns. That introductory portrayal is a significant clue).
• It must be so unique that it can represent (though deceptively) the ideals of the “other Lamb,” elevated in John’s apocalyptic book as the “Lamb of God” and, later, called a prophet.

• This beast “speaks like Satan” – its nature has changed.
• Yet, it is called a “prophet” (16:13, 19:20, 20:10) – thus it continues to portray a religious aura.
• Albeit – a false prophet.
• A true prophet lead to the worship of God. This prophet leads to the worship of the antichrist.[14]

• False prophets appear within the church (i.e., 2:2, 14-15, 20-24).
• Also inside the “believing community” itself.[15]

• That occurred September 20, 1870, under General Giuseppe Garibaldi, on behalf of Italy’s king, Victor Emmanuel II.
• The state/country of Italy was finally unified.

• In 1929, under Pope Pius XI and Italy’s Benito Mussolini, the Lateran Accords were signed, giving the Church the Vatican City State.
• Ambassadors quickly began to be exchanged.
• The beast’s “deadly wound” was healed (not a head).
• It then enters end-time prophetic history as having a beast in 1929!
• In Revelation 13 it is in a world coalition with ten powers (crowned horns), during a 42-month period, when the support of the earth beast arises.
• Again, that occurs sometime during the 42 months (vs. 5).

That Earth Nation
 
Summation to this point:

 

What world power, prominent in today’s world, began as a peaceful nation but is changing?
 
We appeal to history that looks at the early United States of America – but is now becoming coercive.
 
American Exceptionalism – The Lamb-like Past
 
Five decades after America gained independence, French political writer and analyst Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) remarked on the exceptional character of the United States. “Unlike other nations that were defined by ethnicity, geography, common heritage, social class, or hierarchal structures, America was a nation of immigrants bond[ed] together by a shared commitment to the democratic principles of liberty, equality, individualism and free enterprise economics.”
 
It came from a sparsely populated area without political upheaval or conflict.
 
G. K. Chesterton said that the “American creed” “is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”[16]
 
Thomas Jefferson, the main author of that Declaration of Independence, and the least religious, wrote: “We are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and the power of a Superior Agent. Our efforts are in His hand, and directed by it; and He will give them their effect in His own time.”
 
Ben Franklin issued this stirring appeal during an arduous debate in the Constitutional Congress:
 
“In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for Divine protection…. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of Superintending Providence in our favor…. Have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? … God Governs in the affairs of men (Daniel 4:17). And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice (Matthew 10:29), is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
 
Centered on the back of the dollar bill are the words, “In God we trust.”
 
Expositor White keenly observed:
 
“The beast with horns like a lamb is seen ‘coming up out of the earth;’ [Revelation 13:11.] signifying that instead of overthrowing other powers to establish itself, the nation thus represented arose in territory previously unoccupied, and grew up gradually and peacefully.
“Here is a striking figure of the rise and growth of our own nation. And the lamb-like horns, emblems of innocence and gentleness, well represent the character of our government, as expressed in its two fundamental principles, Republicanism and Protestantism. The Christian exiles who first fled to America, sought an asylum from royal oppression and priestly intolerance, and they determined to establish a government upon the broad foundation of civil and religious liberty. These principles are the secret of our power and prosperity as a nation. Millions from other lands have sought our shores, and the United States has risen to a place among the most powerful nations of the earth.”[17]

• For those who love America and cherish her ideals and history, there seems to be a disconnect.
• John said that it is even exercising the same power as the sea beast (which came from Satan).
• Thus, it is in a coalition with “him.”

1. It is a nation so strong that it tries to force all of earth’s inhabitants to worship the papacy or something it stands for (Revelation 13:15, 12) – it is a global power, a dominant nation, which becomes coercive and tyrannical.
2. It uses its moral focus to deceive, as a tool to force the whole world to worship that sea beast.
3. Under its religious guise it will perform supernatural miracles (similar to what Elijah did on Mt. Carmel, representing “the” God above all gods – I Kings 18:36-39). A dramatic turn of events occurs when it functions as a “prophet.” Spiritualism is now a consideration. Since Satan will have already appeared as an angel of light, any supernatural possibility is present.
4. The papal sea beast looks to the earth beast to reach its geopolitical goals.
   
   “Though Pius [XI] has little liking for our wicked ways and our heresies, he sees in us the nation [United States] that counts for most in the world today – the nation of the future. We are rich, young, strong, and our life is before us as a nation. He would have us; he needs us; he means to have us. He believes that the destiny of the Church will be fulfilled in America and that with the spiritual conquest of America the world-dominion of the Church will be regained…. Meanwhile through his Press he reminds Americans that to the Church alone belongs the right of reforming the social and moral order. [Ref. 1: ‘To the Church and to the Church alone belongs the leadership of social forces for reform and human improvement,’ said Pius XI.]”[18]
5. It is a leader in an emerging geopolitical order (ten crowned horns).

• Their expressed objective was defined as wanting “control of the world,”[20] to be earth’s sovereign leader.[21]
• This goal was later set into a geopolitical agenda by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (1891). This was an ingenious encyclical which created “victims” of the poor and working class and using spiritual dogma to convey solutions.
• By this one document the Roman Catholic Church moved beyond its ecclesiastical realm into key issues of the secular world. Redistribution of wealth for the poor became a major part of their agenda.

• “The Church, under Pius XI’s superb leadership, has become a world power again.”
• “He [the pope] believes that the destiny of the Church will be fulfilled in America and that with the spiritual conquest of America the world-dominion of the Church will be regained.”[22]
• America must be religiously dominated by “Catholic power” at the end of time. And through the United States global power will be regained.

• Underlying all global objectives is the need to bring this country under its geopolitical “ideals.”
• In turn, their world dreams are being implemented by the New World Order agenda.[23]

• His former defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, told Senator Jeff Sessions (2011) and the Senate that the U.S. military answers to international bankers, the U.N. and NATO – not the Congress of the American people.[26]
• The Affordable Health Care Act would be a major means to redistribute wealth in America,[27] just as the Roman Catholic Church’s social doctrine envisions.

• Economic restructuring and the IMF
• Immigration – limiting enforcement
• Fomenting unrest on foreign soils – arming revolutionaries (e.g. Syria and Libya)
• Spying through NSA on other world leaders[30]
• Drone spying and killing

• “In time of ‘war,’ the law falls silent.”
• Then he said: Internment camps may be just around the corner here in America, as they were in World War II under Stalin.[36]
• The “earth beast” is quickly “claiming” its Greek name, therion.