"The Second Beast" Sermon: Revelation 13:11-18 (manuscript)

 

“The Second Beast”

Revelation 13:11-18

August 18, 2024 YouTube

          We’ve seen that the dragon is Satan, and the first beast is the governments and leaders who have the power to persecute the Church – believers. He is the Anti-Christ.  The second beast – the beast of the land – is the “minister of propaganda.”  He is a false prophet that supports the first beast by lying to the world to get people to worship the first beast. He is the religious institutions fostering the worship of the first beast – religion in the broadest possible sense. The land beast is a religious figure who gives a blessing to those who worship the sea beast. The false preachers and teachers we see in churches today have followed the second beast and followed him in worshipping the first beast and working to draw others into the worship of the first beast.

          The first beast is deified human political power.  The second beast is false worship.

          “Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.”

          As we have seen before, Satan creates a blasphemous parallel of the True God and His salvation. The dragon, the first beast, and the second beast are a foul parallel to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The dragon, the first beast, and the second beast are a foul parallel of the Trinity.

          And the second beast has two horns like a lamb.  He is the wicked parallel of the Lamb of God.  And he speaks with the voice of the dragon.  Whereas the Lamb of God speaks with the Triune Voice of God.

          Daniel has a vision of the second beast, “I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great” (Daniel 8:3-4, ESV).

          The second beast gives a false message of a false salvation.  “All you need to do is be good and, God is satisfied.” “If you give beyond your means, God will let you into His heaven.” “If you just believe, God will give you anything you want.”

          We must be solidly grounded in the Gospel to stand against the second beast. We must know the Gospel.  The Gospel is Who Jesus is and what He did.  There is no other Gospel.  Anything else is a lie of the second beast.

          Jesus said, “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.” (Matthew 24:23-26, ESV).

          John writes. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (I John 4:1-6, ESV).

          “It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.”

          The second beast – the lying prophet – the heretical churches and their ministers who seek to lead their people into sin – is given the authority of the first beast.  He has the power to persecute the true believers – to have the false churches and religions bear down on the believers and seek to have them punished – or even killed.

          As the author of Hebrews writes, “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11:36-38, ESV).

This is the work of the second beast even as he seeks to have the world worship the first beast – or else. The work of the second beast is to unite the world through religion – false religion, so the people who believe his lies will be turned to the worship of the first beast.

This is what the Caesars did.  They sought to unite the empire through religion.  It didn’t matter what religion or religions, so long as the empire was at peace and worshipped the Caesars.

In the context of religion, we read of the second beast:              

“It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.”

The second beast – the false religions and their promoters – did satanic versions of the works and miracles of the prophets and the apostles.  They brought fire down before the people and did other signs, and the second beast told the people who followed him to build an idol of the first beast “who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.”

Blasphemous copies!

The prophet Elijah challenged the 450 priests of Baal to see whether their god or the Living God would accept their sacrifice.  And we read: “And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, ‘O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (I Kings 18:36-38, ESV).

And we read of a miracle God performed through Paul: “And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted” (Acts 20:9-12, ESV).

The second beast – with the authority of the first beast – imitates the miracles of the prophets and the apostles.  We have seen some of these religious leaders and their churches on the T.V.

 “And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.”

We have seen Isaiah and other prophets condemning the people for worshipping idols that cannot speak or hear or do anything.  Here, the idol that was made of the first beast – the wicked leaders of government – like the Caesars – is given the ability to speak and to command his worshippers to slaughter all those who do not worship the first beast.

We will remember: “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Revelation 6:9, ESV). Those who bear witness to the Word of God and Salvation in Jesus Alone may be slain for it.  You and I might be slain for it.  The false religious teachers may be given the authority to put us to death as they have in the past and as they are in other parts of the world now.

Now, we come to what is likely the most well-known section of Revelation – the mark and the number of the second beast:

“Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.”

First, the mark.

The second beast – the false religions and their leaders will require everyone who follows them – believes in the second beast who worship the first beast – to have a mark on their forehead or their right hand.

What is the mark?

The people in the day that John is writing would know that the word “mark” used here refers to the emperor’s seal on an official document. 

It is a seal of ownership – of allegiance to the first beast – to the power of the government.  Slaves and soldiers were required to get the mark of the one they served placed on them to show who they belonged to – who their allegiance was to.

As John writes, it is a seal of those who are totally committed to allegiance to the government and its rulers – the first beast – the Anti-Christ.

The believing Jews who read Revelation would understand that this is another parallel perversion of what God said. You may have seen Jews who wear a small box tied around their forehead or around their arm called, “Phylacteries.”  The box contains a scroll with the Law of God written on it.  This is done based on an interpretation of Exodus 13:9-10 (ESV), “And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the LORD may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.”

So, we see the perversion of this understanding by the second beast’s requiring of a mark on the forehead or arm.

We remember that Christians have a mark that identifies Who our Owner is and Who we give all of our allegiance to:

Jesus tells the angel “saying, ‘Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads’” (Revelation 7:3, ESV).

And we saw that the seal of our ownership and allegiance is the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

So, the mark is a choice between the world befouled by Satan and his beasts or Christ.

And we are told that those who do not have the mark of the beast – those who do not prove their ownership and allegiance to the first beast will not be allowed to buy or sell.

We have already seen this when we looked at the church in Pergamum.  The Christians in Pergamum were not able to buy or sell because they did not belong to a guild – and to belong to a guild, required that they worship idols and have sexual relations with prostitutes.

Second, the number.

“This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

The name for the code that uses numbers to represent letters is called “gematria.”

Using this code, the number 666 has been “translated” to be Nero, Napolean, Hitler, Henry Kissinger, and others.  However, the only name on the list that we have that would have meant something to the first century Christians – and all of this had to mean something to them because the book of Revelation is first a book of comfort and hope for the Christians of the first century suffering persecution.  The only name would be Nero.  However, you can only come up with the name Nero if you spell it incorrectly.  So, Nero is not the one being signified by 666.

Let’s consider for a moment what we are told: “let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

First, this does not say it is anyone’s name. John says it is the number of the beast – the second beast – the false religions and their leaders.

Second, we don’t have to read this as being the number of a single man.  It can be ready as being a man’s number – a number belonging to a man – or a number belonging to man – or a number of men – humans.

So, let’s turn from gematria and look at biblical symbolism.

The number six is the symbol of fallen, sinful man.  Six symbolizes the character of being imperfect, incomplete, and defective.

We will remember that the Jews symbolized emphasis by repetition – from first to third degree.  So, we can read 666 as six hundred sixty-six, or, probably more accurately, six, six, six – or the greatest of what six symbolizes.  (I hope that makes sense.  If not, you might want to look at the manuscript after you finish watching the video, and maybe that will help.)

When we put these things together, what John is telling the first century Christians, is that the false religions and their teachers, the governments and politicians, and Satan who inspires them all, are the ultimate, sinful completeness.  There is nothing more sinful and damnable that Satan and the first and second beasts. And that is good news.

What?

The good news about the false, Satanic trinity is – no matter what God allows them to do for a time – they are doomed to the lake of fire – to Hell.  There will come a day when these evil people and beings are put away to suffer eternally, and the Creation will be restored and all those who believe in Jesus Alone for salvation will be forever welcomed into His kingdom.

Satan and the first and second beasts are powerful and will cause much suffering and death, but their power and the time they have before they are thrown into the lake of fire is limited by God, so we do not have to live in fear of them.  No matter what they may do, we are received into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and they are damned to Hell.

The commentator, Joel Beeke, says that this text should make us respond in three ways:

First, we out to pray for the grace to be able to recognize the first and second beasts.

Second, we ought to repent of all of our sins.

And third, we ought to trust in Jesus, the Lamb of God. (Joel Beeke, Revelation, 371).

Let us pray:

Almighty God, we thank You for showing us that there are governments and leaders and religions and religious leaders who serve Satan and not You.  Help us to see them and proclaim the Gospel, nonetheless.  Keep us hoping and filled with comfort knowing that we will be received into the fulness of Your Son’s kingdom to live forever with great joy. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.