Revelation 13:1-10

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads, the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard in his feet, whereas the feet of a bear, and his mouth is the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave him. him his power and his seat and great authority and I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed and all the world wandered after the beast and they worshiped the dragon which gave power under the beast and they worshiped the beast saying who is like unto the beast who is able to make with him. It was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and power was given unto him to continue 40 and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God that blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and then that dwell in heaven. It was given unto him to make war with the same. saints and overcome them, and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. And all that dwelt upon the earth or land shall worship him. His names are not written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth his name. into captivity shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Verse 18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. And his number is 600, three score, and six. God bless to us, his sacred and holy word. Now we have looked at the contemporary nature of the book of Revelation, and we have looked at the theme in chapter 1, verse 7 of the book of Revelation, which we said was a judgment coming of Christ upon the nation of Israel, apostate at this point. And then I said, I thought it would be useful for us to look at some of the main characters of the book. and here is one of the characters we want to consider, and that is the beast. And then we’ll look at also the false prophet, who is mentioned. He’s another beast that comes out of the land in this chapter. And then we’ll look at the Great Harlot, Babylon, in the later part here of Revelation. So I want to look at those three main characters. Once we have settled that, we can look at the book. in a more general way, chapter by chapter. Now last week we started talking about the identity of the beast. We see some kind of composite beast here. He has different animal features connected with him. We compared this, you recall, the Daniel chapter 7, where he sees four beasts comes out of the sea. One after the, the other. And we can tell from the book of Revelation, or from the book of Daniel, when it is read through, you’ll see that the eagle-winged lion is the Babylonian Empire. The hungry bear is the Medo-Persian Empire. The swift leopard is the Greek Empire. And the indescribable monster, which I take it’s indescribable, but because it has so many different composites to it, which he’s, more describes here in the book of Revelation is the Roman Empire. These are the same world empires that were, of course, were found in the metallic image of Daniel II. These are successive world powers. One comes up after the other. And as John relates, the beast is a combination of these previous kingdoms, and thus it’s kind of hard to describe. But it’s like unto a leopard, because it has Greece connected with them. It has the feet of a bear because it’s the Mito-Persian Empire that got gobbled up in the Roman Empire and has the mouth of a lion like Babylon. We said the sea here is symbolic of many waters as we read in Revelation 1715 and represents some mankind, particularly the heathen, Gentile world in an agitated state, and out of that comes this Roman Empire. We said that in John’s Day, the fourth beast out of the sea has risen to power. And so this is, as we can tell, the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire has the evil beast-like characteristics of all the other empires, but it’s much worse. And we see that it is a monstrous empire. This fits writing with the contemporary nature of the book. John sees this empire in being right now before him. This is not something for the future. Then we looked at the heads of the beast here. We again picked up from the book of Daniel this little horn that has eyes, it grows eyes in a mouth, and all of a sudden it speaks. and it speaks blasphemous words, just like we have here in the book of Revelation. We said that whatever this little horn is, has to be connected with the Roman history because it’s part of the Fourth Beast. The Roman history, we know, doesn’t, the Roman Empire doesn’t exist today, so we have to put it in the right frame here. So what we have is this little horn becoming ahead, assuming great power of authority. The ten horns here we said were probably either the Senate leaders or the ten provincial governors, and sometimes they were both the same. Some of the Senate leaders were also governors. And we said the divided rule of the Roman Empire was kind of unique. So that’s why we have ten. crowns upon these ten horns because each one of these provincial leaders they were like a little king for their area. It was a republic that Roman Rome had with a Senate and so forth. And the idea is this head arises, this little horn becomes a head, okay? It arises and then it grabs grabs great power and authority. This is exactly. what happened when Julius Caesar became the emperor of Rome. We had some quotes from, I thought Calvin was very good on this and his interpretation there of the book of Revelation. We said this head, this little horn, replaces three horns. Because it was Republic, there were different provincial leaders, and we find that there were three powerful leaders. that formed what was known as the first triumvirate. These were Pompeii, Cassius, and Caesar. Well, Pompeii and Cassius eventually died, leaving Caesar with really all the power in the first triumvirate. And after a time here, Caesar obtained supreme control of the empire. First is the Caesar and then as the emperor of Rome. In John’s time, he was the emperor of Rome. saying the beast is seen with seven heads, which, according to Revelation 17, were consecutive heads. One after another, five are already fallen. So we can count them off if we start with Julius Caesar, and we get, of course, to the sixth one, which is Nero. The seventh will be Galva, who will be only a short time on the throne. And we said there is sort of a dual imagery. here because sometimes the beast will represent the whole Roman Empire. Sometimes the beast will be more specific. It’ll be the head of the Roman Empire or the emperor himself. Just like we would say that Putin represents Russia or Trump represents United States. Sort of in a similar man. Now, we want to look at the blasphemous names, and that’s where this catches us up from last week. Let’s look at the blasphemous names, because on the heads, we read in verse 1, is the name of blasphemy. And then if you jump down to verse 6, you’ll notice that he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. The Caesar’s, beginning with Julius, all demanded worship and were considered to be gods. Each emperor was called Augustus or Sebastos, meaning one to be worshipped. They even took the name Devis, God, even deus and theos, if we take the Greek, God. Temples were around. directed to the worship of the emperor throughout the empire, especially in Asia Minor, where these seven churches are located, to whom John writes, we find that they received honors only due to the true and living God. Nero thought of himself as the god Apollo. There’s an inscription from Athens that speaks of him in this way. All powerful. Nero Caesar, Sebastos, a new Apollo. He had an image made of himself 120 feet high. And an emperor cult developed, it arose, where people were devoted to the worship of Caesar as their chief god. Of course, in these days, most of the nations were polytheistic and worshipped many gods, but they certainly gave due to the emperor, and he was worshipped as such. Any questions about that idea? And we’ll see that because Satan is behind the empire here, Satan is the one who is directing things, and he will turn against the saints. He will use the Roman Empire. He will use Nero to attack and harm the people of God. So he certainly is one who blasphemed God and blaspheme those in heaven and so forth as we read. Now verse three, we have an unusual statement here. He said, I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed and all the world wandered after the beast. Clearly the heads represent kings, according to revelations. 17, and we said emperors in particular, of the Roman Empire. One of them is wounded to death. One of the emperors of the Julian dynasty received a fatal blow which threatened the life of the empire. The word wound here in the Greek means to be smitten to death. It implies here the killing. or the taking of life. It’s the same word is used in chapter 13 and verse 8 with regard to Christ as the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. However, his deadly wound here is healed. And people took this as a miraculous sign and they were all amazed at the beast recovery. They wondered here. They marveled after the beast. The beast was, held in admiration. Given the information that we know about the time frame, given the persons that are under discussion here, and we only have six at this point that we could consider, which one of the emperors was put to death? Well, it was Julius Caesar, was it? Julius Caesar turned the Roman Republic into an empire over which he became the Caesar or the emperor. The Roman Senate didn’t like this development and therefore they plotted to kill him. He was the sovereign ruler of the empire. Now, he was wise enough that he did not get rid of the Senate. the Senate was there. It continued. But it was more of a figurehead situation. It was more of window dressing. Their power was greatly diminished because Julius Caesar ended up controlling everything. In fact, in February 44 BC, he was appointed dictator for life. You can see that on some of the coins that were issued at that time. So they brought him to the floor of the Senate and they assassinated him. The mercilessly murdered him, stabbed him to death in a public setting in order to save the Republic. They thought they had succeeded. But what happened was there was a tremendous civil war, a brutal one, between the East and the West and the Roman Empire. Octavian, who was known as a Augustus resurrected the emperorship. He beat down all the rivals against him, took over, punished those who would kill Julius Caesar, and took over for him and became the second emperor. He was Julius Caesar’s adopted son. And so the Julianine line will continue. And so the fatal wound that seemed like it was going to tear the empire apart, all of a sudden, it gets healed. When Augustus manages to pull the empire back together by defeating his opponents and settling things down and becoming the second emperor. Any questions about this matter? All right. Let’s go on to the number of the beast. Verse 18. Here is wisdom. Let him that have understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 600, three score, and six. Now, some of you perhaps know this. I think you should, most of us in America would know Roman numerals. But if you know something about it. ancient alphabets, they would use their letters to represent numbers. Both the Greek and the Hebrew letters have a number attached to them which is commonly known. For example, in the Roman numerals, I is one, V is 5, X is 10, L is 50, C is 100, M is 1,000, it’s not, you know, you probably see this. I use Roman numerals in my outlines. You’ll see this on sometimes when you people have outlines, you’ll see Roman numerals being used. You think of the word century, 100. Millennium, 1000. So it’s not, you know, if you have X, I, I, I, I, I, I, you’ve got 13. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not, not difficult, but it’s a little different. If you read some of the older commentators, like if you read Matthew Henry and you look at the chapter titles, they’ll be in Roman numerals. Randy, my algebra that used to drive him crazy. He hated that. Why can’t they put it in the number? But that’s the way they did it, and that’s typical. Now, due to the two-fold use of alphabets, riddles were some times devised with using numbers to conceal a person’s name. Architects or archaeologists, I should say, have discovered what we’ll call cryptograms in various cities on the walls and that you’ll have graffiti. For example, in Pompeii, we have, we have this. I love her whose number is 545. So her name is concealed, but someone who adds up the letters to her name will get 545 and therefore the name can be known. So when John gives us here a cryptogram of the number of the beast, he gives us 666, he conceals. some ways the name of the beast. However, he did expect those readers who had understanding, as he says here, that they could calculate the number of the beast and figure out who it was. So he’s saying saying, you’ll know who this is. You just have to calculate it up. Now here are some guidelines for deciphering this cryptogram. The number 666, we’re told here in verse 8, 18, excuse me, is the number of a man. In other words, we’re talking here about an individual. The name must be one of John’s contemporaries, or else they wouldn’t be able to calculate and figure out who it was. Right? So we’re not talking about centuries of time that we have to look at and consider. We’re dealing with a limited time element here. The name must be somewhat irrelevant to first century Christians, John’s readers, because they’ll be able to decipher the name and can’t be a present-day leader 2,000 years removed, because they couldn’t know that. The name must be a person of an evil and blasphemous character, because we’ve already read about the character. He must be a political leader because he exercises great authority in the Roman Empire. And I suggest to you, according to what we’ve already studied, he must be one of the emperors. Now, given those guidelines, the field is greatly narrowed, and only fits one particular individual. As many scholars have noted, a first century spelling of Nero, Caesar’s name, N-R-W-N-Q-S-R-R-N-Q-S-R, N-R-S-R, Kaisar, written in Hebrew characters here. That’s the secret. The person that has understanding must be able to put this into Hebrew, adds up to 666. You have seven. letters whose numerical value is 50, 206, and then 50, 160, and 200, respectively. And therefore, we’re adding all those consonants up, because in Hebrew, there’s no vowels. Remember, they have vowel points. They have consonants that are written, vial points go up above. You get 666. Most likely, this cryptogram used the Hebrew. Hebrew formed the name to avoid perhaps detection by the Romans. However, John was an apostle, you recall, to the circumcised, according to the book of Galatians. He was one who went to the Hebrews, and much of his work was with regard to them. And so many of his readers would have the ability to grasp this meaning. So we shouldn’t be surprised. that the most relevant emperor for John’s audience, who is presently reigning, fits all the requirements, and his name adds up to 666. They probably had a good idea who he was speaking about when he gave the information previously to this, but this sort of gives us the final confirmation. Any questions about this 666? Yes. It’s N-R-W-N-Q-S-R. Four letters and then three letters. Neeron, N-E-R-O-N, and then the second part is K-A-I-S-E-R. Written, you know, written out N-R-W-N-N-Q-S-R. Some of the common… The commentators actually have it written out in the Hebrew for you, and you can check that. Any other questions about that? Okay, so we looked at the identity of the beast. Now let’s look at the beast war with the saints. In verses 7 to 10, we read here, and it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and overcome them, and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. Of course, he’s ruling the whole Roman Empire. and all of them, or all that dwell upon the earth, shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear to hear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and faith of the saints. Here we have the war with the people of God. Again, if you read Daniel chapter 7, He had the same idea related to us in the war against the saints. It’s talked about there as well, and you should compare Daniel 7 with Revelation 13 here. The persecution which the early church underwent at the hands of the Roman Empire, especially under Nero Caesar, was extremely fierce. Christians were tortured in the most inhumane ways possible. Now, people describe how that, you know, not only do we have the lions and the wild beast tearing him that at the Coliseum, but he would take them and make candles out of them and burn them at his, encased them in wax and burned them at his various parties and so forth. I mean, it was just, it was terrible. He dressed up as a wild beast and would attack and kill people himself. This man was evil incarnate, really. He was a very wicked, evil man. So Christians were tortured in the most inhumane ways possible, and there was this all-out war to exterminate the saints from the earth. John Kelvin, in his commentary on Daniel Chapter 7, he said this, no war was ever carried on so continuously and professedly against the church. as those which occurred after the seasons arose and after Christ was made manifest to the world. For the devil was then more enraged, and God also relaxed the reins to prove the patience of his people. The Caesar’s and all who governed the provinces of the empire raged with such extreme violence against the church that it almost disappeared from the face of the earth. And thus it happened that the little horn prevailed in appearance, and in general opinion, as far, for a short time, the safety of the church was almost despaired of. Kenneth Gentry in his book before Jerusalem fell says this. For the Christians, Nero was especially a dreadful emperor. The Roman historian Tacitatis wrote of his persecution, which was not only the first, but one of the cruelest in Rome’s gory history. That Nero inflicted unheard-of punishments on those who detested for their abominable crimes were vulgarly called Christians. So those who first confessed were hurried to the trial, and then on their showing, an immense number were involved in the same fate. Clement of Rome, who lived in the first century, speaks of Nero’s persecutions as one that claimed a vast multitude of the elect through many indignities and tortures. And so we could go on and on, but these are the indications we have. Now, the beasts war with the saints were told, is limited by God to 42 months or three and a half years. I suggest you from November, AD 64 through June, AD 68, and can be classified as the Great Tribulation. It seems clear that the cruel imperial persecutions spoken of, had already begun as John writes the book, because we have already looked at chapter one in verse nine, where he says, I John, who also am your brother and companion, in the tribulation. That’s why he’s banished to the island of Patmas for preaching. All the might, all the power of the Roman Empire, was unleashed. to exterminate Christianity. And he was Satan, hero was certainly Satan’s agent here to do this. Jesus said, for then shall be great tribulation in his all of it discourse, Matthew 24. And except those days should be shortened. There should be no flesh be saved. But for the elects sake, those days shall be shortened. This is why. it’s only the 42-month period. God says if I had let it go on, they might have exterminated everybody, but I have limited them than what they can do. Now think about this. If you take the historicist viewpoint where one day equals a year, these 42 months are changed into 1, 260 years, if we take the days, that seems like an awful long time to be under persecution, doesn’t it? That’s not a short period. And it misses the point of God limiting the war on the saints. So the war with the people of God. And then he talks about the patience and faith of the saints in verse 10. The war against the Christians is going to test the patience and the faith of the saints in particular. Those two gracious graces are going to have to be exercised. Because all who worship the beast, according to verse 8, are doomed to eternal punishment. They have no hope. If you worship the beast, your soul is doomed. And everyone should be careful to note this. Any man have been here, let him here. do not worship the beast. Because if you do, your doom is certain. Then John alludes to Jeremiah 15 in verses 1 and 2, which describes God’s rejection of Israel and how it’s destined for destruction. And I’m going to read this passage from Jeremiah 15, 1, and 2. And it came to pass if they say unto thee, whether shall we go forth, then thou shall tell them, thus saith the Lord, such as for death to death, and such as for the sword to the sword, such as for famine to famine, such as for captivity to the captivity. This is in the past. Where we have the rejection of Israel, their destruction by the Babylonians, and so we find, here in a similar way, he’s saying those who kill by the sword are going to be killed by the sword. Those who lead into captivity are going to go. So he reiterates a similar type of thing. This prior judgment of Israel makes perfect sense here if all that dwell upon the land, verse 8, in refers to Israel. All the world wonders after the beast, but those who dwell upon the land shall also worship the beast. We’ll talk about this, but obviously, if you say, you would prefer to have only Caesar as your king over the Lord Jesus Christ before Pilate, isn’t that deciding who you’re going to follow? Isn’t that a statement with regard to who’s your true king? Despite the severity of the persecution, the people of God have to endure because ultimately God promises them victory. The writer of Daniel, who writes in his prophecy, Chapter 7, verse 18, The saints possess the kingdom. Despite what happens, he ends up by saying, possessed the kingdom. The kingdom of God is not going to be destroyed. They are going to continue. The kingdom will advance and we’ll see that the Roman Empire, Caesar, and so forth, were all collapse eventually. God will avenge his saints in due time. In fact, the book of Revelation is going to reveal how he’s going to do it. The key factor here is the Christians have to have faith. They have to have confidence in Christ’s rule over all that’s taking place and be patient and wait for Christ to meet out the judgment. He promises he’s going to send. Now, if we look at this, we would say the same is true today. We would say this, we can make applications here. We wouldn’t be, we’re not to trust in men. We’re not to put our trust in princes and so forth. But we look beyond it to the, to Christ, who sits on high, who rules over all the nations. That’s our confidence in this world in which we live. He rules the world for his own glory and for the good of his church. This is the consolation we have in any trouble that comes along. So the Beast War with the Saints is mentioned here. Now, since the Beast is a present reality for John’s readers, it seems best to understand it as the Roman Empire with Nero Caesar on the throne, the present head. A careful reading of Revelation shows that you will not find the word Antichrist throughout the whole book. Read the whole book through, you’ll never find the word Antichrist. I don’t know why people insist on talking about the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation when he’s not mentioned them. To make the beast a future end of human history antichrist does not make much sense because John says the beast is a present reality for his day. So we shouldn’t confuse the two. And if we talk about the man of sin in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 as being the Antichrist, if that’s what you want to call the Antichrist, and don’t confuse that with the beast. They’re not the same. They’re different because the Antichrist or the man of sin, as he’s called, arises right before Christ’s physical final return. This beast is a present reality for John’s Day. So when we come to the man of sin, we will fit him in in chapter 20 of the book of Revelation. After the thousand years go by. a long period of time, not something short, a long period of time, when Satan is loosed and he goes out to deceive the whole world for that little time that he’s loosed. All right, any comments, questions on this section of the scripture here? Well, it’s interesting what you say about the… Yeah, it’s interesting. Joseph Seuss, I think it’s Joseph Seiss. in his commentary, he’s a futurist. But in his commentary, he has all these calculations that are made by historicist trying to fit in 1260 years and when they begin it, when they end it. I mean, some of them begin it early, some of it begin late, and then, you know, sometimes it’s way, some of them get them into 1900s the way they calculate this all out. It leads to utter confusion. And he’s got like 15 different hysterists, and they’re all different, and their calculations. It’s just total confusion on this. I don’t think it makes much sense. I think what I’m trying to do, I’m looking at this, I’m saying, what makes sense? What makes sense? What makes common sense? We don’t have to twist things around. It just seems to fit right. And it fits the time frame. I’m trying to just put it all together. And it’s a puzzle. We put it together. We say, well, this makes the most sense. It just seems to flow right in this way. Any other questions about this?