“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’ And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear: If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints. Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.”

Our goal from the onset of studying verse by verse in Revelation has been to not miss the forest for the trees. Our aim is Christ, this is His revelation, this book is ultimately about Him. But, there are a lot of trees, there’s a lot of sensation placed on certain parts. I doubt that pop culture has ever given the time of day to the seven churches, but the subject of the antichrist, the beast, this wicked, end-times figure with his infamous mark is something that’s been sensationalized to death. While there’s been plenty of legitimate, scholarly work around the matter, there seems to be an almost endless amount of attention given to the matter outside of the church. It’s a part of Scripture that gets treated like a legend, used as a horror story, twisted and blasphemously used by artists who are either satanists, or don’t believe at all and are simply using demonic imagery for the shock value. Unfortunately, a great degree of this hyperbolic energy has crept into the church. If there are two things in Revelation that believers will fight over (though there’s certainly more than two), it’s the matter of the timing of the rapture, and the identity of the antichrist – incidentally, two words that never appear in Revelation, “rapture,” and “antichrist.” The fact of the matter is that Jesus is coming back, and no one knows the day or the hour. John writes in 1 John 2:18,

“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.”

If you’re scanning through world leaders and celebrities trying to put your finger on just who the antichrist might be, I have news for you, you don’t have to wait. His spirit is active, right now. That Satanic influence that opposes the Christ, that persecutes and blasphemes against the saints is active in the world at this very moment, and when the one called the man of lawlessness, that single figure who is the very instrument of the Devil rises up, he will just be the fulfilment of what it already building in our world. Don’t worry about studying him, analyzing and knowing him for who he is, that you might spot him in the day he rises up. Rather know Christ, and you will know what is not Christ – if you are filled with the Light, then what is dark becomes obvious. As we read today’s passage and we learn more about the plans and schemes of Satan, don’t miss the forest for the trees, don’t forget who is our cornerstone in this and every other book of the Bible. Look at the beast and those who worship him, and rather than understanding him, understand all the ways in which he is not Christ, in which he is insufficient, understand that we serve a Master who is whole, and we oppose an enemy who is cunning and dangerous, but ultimately broken and doomed for eternal damnation.

The Broken Enemy – Knowing Light From Darkness

1. The Broken Form of the Beast

“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.”

We ended chapter 12 looking at a furious and repeatedly unsuccessful Satan. He tried to devour Christ and failed, he tried to make war against heaven and was cast out of the spiritual realm altogether, he tried to destroy God’s people and again was thwarted. Our last image of him has him warring against the saints and standing on the sand of the sea, this unstable, eroding foundation that sits right on the edge of chaos. Immediately after this, starting chapter 13 John records seeing a beast rising from the chaotic and deadly depths of the sea. When we read of the locusts I made the case for these being literal, demonic forces, and not something in the natural world being given a metaphorical description. When we read of the horses breathing fire, smoke, and sulfur, I made the same case that, despite the physical descriptions having symbolic meaning, these were still literal descriptions. The beast we address in chapter 13, however, is commonly viewed in an opposite light, not a literal creature rising from the ocean, but a symbolic description. This fits with what we see in Daniel 7:19–22,

“Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet, and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.”

You may note that the physical descriptions are somewhat different between Daniel and today’s passage, though the function of the beasts is quite similar. We have to remember that as we’re reading this in Revelation we’re coming fresh from a description of Satan, the seven headed, ten horned dragon, and the description of the beast mirrors that. The notable differences being this head with the mortal wound, which we’ll address later, and that the beast wears ten diadems instead of seven, which may imply an even greater degree of visible, worldly authority than Satan has held. It also could show that this beast is a culmination of evil powers, wearing the seven crowns of the Devil, a crown of his own, the crown of the false prophet, and the crown of his own image would add up to a tenfold symbol of authority. It all continues to make sense, Old Testament to New as we continue reading Daniel 7:23–27, and Gabriel’s explanation of the vision to Daniel,

“Thus he said: ‘As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it to pieces. As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end. And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.’”

What does this mean, what can we take away from it, and most importantly of all, what does it tell us about Christ? Firstly, the beast doesn’t arrive as a surprise. True, this is something that humanity would never have seen coming, but humanity is blind and in the dark by our very nature. But God is not surprised by the arrival of the beast, there is no scrambling to formulate a battle plan as Satan’s minion rises from the mysterious and deadly deep. In Job 38:16–18 God rhetorically asks,

“Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.”

God knows exactly where the beast came from, He knows exactly what he will do, and He knows exactly where he will end up. The arm of the Lord is not short, His eye is not dim, and He is not taken by surprise – you can’t jump scare God. The next thing we can see is that the beast is a monster – I don’t mean that in the literal sense, or in the frightening or impressive sense, I mean it in the disgusting, abhorrent, dysfunctional sense. He is a man living entirely in the spirit of Satan, a figure propped up on violence, lies, and blasphemy, wielding worldly power to a degree that it has never been seen before, supported by the nations. What can we see about Jesus in this contrast? Jesus is one, He is whole, uncorrupted, incorruptible, righteous, holy, and almighty. He is not propped up or dependent on the nations or any worldly power, but rules the nations with a rod of iron, His dominion perfect and complete. The Light is bright and glorious entirely on its own, but when the darkness thrusts itself in our face it only stands to allow us to see how perfect and radiant the Light is, and how wretched and broken the darkness is in its cursed and wicked condition.

“One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’”

They worship the dragon through their worship of the beast – this is a perverse inversion of 1 John 2:23,

“No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.”

The Son and the Father are One, so in confessing the Son who is God made flesh, God the Father is honored and worshiped. Because the beast operates entirely in the spirit and under the authority of Satan, when the beast is worshiped then the dragon is worshiped as well. This matter of the head with the mortal wound, which is significant later when we look at the image of the beast, is strange and interesting. On the surface it points again to the beast’s brokenness, as well as emphasizing his attempt to impersonate Christ, the One who was truly pierced for our transgressions, died and raised again. But we see that the mortal wound is a key part of what makes the world marvel and follow the beast, what brings them to worship, and again is a central element later when the image of the beast is formed, and this all points to something more. When the angel explains the beast to John in Revelation 17:8 he says,

“The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.”

This description, “was, is not, and is to come,” is again a strange and broken inverse of God, the Holy One who was, and is, and is to come. But consider that if the beast is something that was, and is not, and is to come, he is something that should not work, should not live, should not be adopted and celebrated by the masses – he’s a bridge with the middle chopped out, an ornate well with no water, a lavish table set with cup and plate, but no food – and yet, he’s embraced, bowed down before, and worshiped as a god. This again is something where we need be cautious and make sure that we’re viewing the world through the lens of Scripture and not Scripture through the lens of the world, but consider the practices that go on in our world today, and understand how those who do not know God can and will absolutely bow down before an ideology with a clearly observable fatal flaw that is somehow denied by the masses. Abortion is clearly a destructive practice – even a secularist can explain that for a species to continue to exist, that species has to reproduce, and killing of massive numbers of their young is going to eventually ruin that species. Yet we are faced by a crisis where killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of babies each year in the US alone, is somehow, through the Satanic twisting of speech, branded and widely accepted as an empowering liberating act. This ideology tells women to bow down and worship their own body, to revere their autonomy in snuffing out another life, and men are told to support them in their right to do this. You worship self by completely denying the creative work that God has done and the words of Psalm 139:13–14,

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”

The breaking and blurring of how society defines marriage, of what a union between one man and one woman by and through God is supposed to look like, and how it’s supposed to endure is seen as progressive and a process of bucking old, closed mindedness. Matthew 19:3–6 says,

“And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’”

There are legitimate, Biblically supported reasons that a person could have the option of divorce, but this is not the design. A family can’t grow and prosper if the marriage is fractured and unenduring. And yet society will completely undermine the core function and necessity of marriage, celebrating divorce for the most trivial of reasons. We’ve also taken homosexual relationships, called them “marriages,” and not only tried to make them equal to true marriage, but in many cases exalted them above true marriage. We took something that was fringe, something counter to design, something that does not serve us biologically and harms us psychologically and spiritually, and we put it in the center, and the world bows to it. The entire trans movement, the parts of the world where medically assisted suicide is gaining traction, the repeated insistence since the twentieth century that communism is somehow going to create this God-defying, self-deifying, governmental paradise on earth – these are all insane ideas. There’s no sense to them, they fall apart with even the smallest amount of genuine scrutiny, and yet the world worships these things, placing them at the core of their identities. This is how they can worship the beast, how they can marvel at its brokenness, at its dysfunction. They will take the thing that should not be, and they will listen to its lies and blasphemies and make it the center of their world.

“And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear: If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints”

This is a reminder of our hope – in the midst of a broken world, that is following a broken idol, warring against the saints, and conquering our people, there is a clear message of comfort. The beast utters blasphemous words, it deceives the masses, and this wording concerning, “every tribe and people and language and nation,” calls back to Revelation 11:8–10,

“… and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.”

This seems to indicate that the beast will pervert and take dominion over Jerusalem itself. It is prideful and wicked and speaks boldly against the Lord. But this doesn’t do anything to God, He’s not harmed by the enemy’s blasphemy, He is still and will remain to be all powerful, righteous, and holy – and He is our hope. John 14:22–23 says,

“Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?’ Jesus answered him, ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.’”

And Jesus offers this promise in Revelation 3:20–21,

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.”

The enemy will rage, the beast will blaspheme, and persecute, and make war – but as he speaks and acts against the saints, see that those who dwell in heaven are the dwelling place of God. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20,

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

The beast is a broken thing, God is whole and perfect, and God has made His home in us.

2 Thessalonians 2:3–4, 8 says,

“Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” …  “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”

Those who are left on the earth, both wicked and redeemed will suffer in the tribulation, the saints will know unparalleled persecution, and yet we’re kept, and the works of the broken beast will ultimately come to nothing before the might of Holy God. Romans 8:35–37 again underpins this comfort, with Paul writing,

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

So as we look at the first beast, the man of lawlessness, the antichrist, understand that he is broken, fatally flawed, and doomed to fail, despite the suffering he may bring against God’s people. And conversely, know the fullness of Christ, the complete provision and eternal sovereignty of the Living God, and know that He is our hope and our strength.

2. The Broken Wonders of the False Prophet

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

As with the first beast, the second beast, thought to be the one who is later referred to as the false prophet, clearly has something wrong through its physical description. It’s described as being like a lamb, but when we see Jesus described in Revelation 5:6 it says,

“And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.”

This second beast doesn’t really look like a lamb, certainly not the Lamb, but he does reflect some authority in his two horns. He doesn’t look like Christ, he also clearly, with the voice like that of the dragon doesn’t sound like Christ, and yet the world is completely deceived. They don’t know what Jesus looks like, they don’t know the sound of His voice because they’re not of His flock. They’ve been entirely bent on denying and hating Him, so when the false prophet comes and props up the antichrist the world has no issue marveling at him and worshiping him as god because they have no idea what God is supposed to look like – they know nothing of His Spirit or of His nature and so they’re deceived. The hateful words of the second beast appeal to the hatred that lives in the heart of man, and so his words take deep root.

“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. 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 beast and the false prophet have a strange, again, perverse similarity to Moses and Aaron, who between them showed a kind of balance between order and chaos. The thing that tipped my mind in this direction is that we see the first beast rise from the chaotic ocean, and the second beast rise from the stable, ordered land, but the two serve the same end. We see Moses consistently associated with water –the basket he was placed in as a baby, floating down the Nile, the Nile turned to blood in the first plague God brought forth through him, the parting of the Red Sea, the water from the rock – there’s a water theme present with Moses. This doesn’t associate him with chaos in a dark or deadly way, but rather in a mysterious way. He was the prophet who was blessed by God to lead the Jews out of Egypt, he was given the Law, and he spoke with God in a face to face manner, leaving his face glowing, which frightened the people. Moses was certainly a guide and an advocate for the people, but Aaron, their high priest served in a different way. It was he and his sons who offered the sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people, and it can be seen through certain interactions (the golden calf chief among them), that Aaron seemed to be a more approachable figure from the perspective of the people. The roles of both men, flawed in their execution, are perfected in Christ – He is the Prophet who Moses promised would come in Deuteronomy 18, He is the Great High Priest who fully atoned for sin and finished His work. The beast and the false prophet on the other hand are a mockery of all this. Moses served as prophet, but his ultimate aim was that God be glorified. Aaron served as high priest, with the sole purpose of glorifying God and bringing the people closer to Him through the sacrificial system. Jesus, despite being One with God, counted divinity, not as something to grasped at, but acted out the ultimate example of humility and service before the Father, saying in John 12:49–50,

“For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”

And just before His crucifixion we see in Matthew 26:39, 42,

“And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’” … “Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.’”

With all the authority of God, and suffering all the temptations of man, Jesus remained committed to the highest aim, that the will of God be done, and that the Father be glorified. What do the false prophet and the beast do by comparison? The beast gives glory to no one and nothing but itself, it is the human embodiment of the spirit of Satan, his minion, his emissary. We also see that in this the people are specifically told to make an image, not focusing on the whole beast, but drawing specific attention to glorifying the mortally wounded head – the most crippled, the most unnatural, the most wrong part of the beast is what captivates the people and draws them above all else. The false prophet works as Aaron or Moses might have in relation to the people, but in a wicked and blasphemous way, deceiving the people and pointing their worship to the beast. This goes back to a point that I’ve made numerous times before – what you do matters, why you do it matters more. The false prophet brings forth great signs through demonic means, surpassing everything we’ve seen the enemy produce previously in the form of Pharaoh’s magicians or (the complete lack of anything from) the prophets of Baal – but it’s all to serve the beast, all to enthrall the masses to worship the one who has called himself god. Jesus says to the Pharisees in John 10:37–38,

“If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

The ruling Jews could not receive this message, but Jesus repeated something similar to the disciples in John 14:10–11,

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:9–10,

“The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”

Jesus’ teachings validated His works, and His works validated His teachings – there was no contradiction or incongruency, everything was entirely about honoring the will of the Father. But the fullness of Jesus’ ministry just again sheds light on the profound brokenness of the enemy – wickedness that is propped up by sinful self-glorification and blasphemy that can only lead to death and ruin.

“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.”

I tend to buck naturalistic explanations that try to rationalize what we see in Revelation through a human lens. The locusts aren’t helicopters, the falling sky and shaking earth aren’t products of missiles and bombs, the mark of the beast isn’t the barcodes on your groceries – we can’t water down what God has given us to make it more palatable to the human mind. But if there’s a part of this story where I’ve been tempted to see a worldly explanation for what John writes of, it’s here, where the image of the beast is given breath. My mind can immediately imagine an application for AI, a thinking machine that gives life and voice to the object that is the image of the beast – and as with essentially all of these theories, that swings too low. The problem with naturalistic explanations, or readymade answers that we can pull from our current world is that they’re too familiar, too comprehensible, and it undercuts the gravity of what is happening. I could be considered the barest dabbler when it comes to Greek, but sometimes seeing the word that was originally used allows us to understand connections between passages, and grasp the greater relevance of what we’re reading. The word used here for “breath” is “pneuma.” This is the word used at times for the Holy Spirit, for the spirit or soul of a man, for angelic and demonic spirits, for the Spirit of Christ, and for “the disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul.” In the Greek translation of the Old Testament “pneuma” is the word used for “breath” in Ezekiel 37:4–6, 9,

“Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.’” … “Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’”

It is also the word used for “wind” and “spirit” when Jesus speaks to Nicodemus in John 3:5–8,

“Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.” The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’”

If we read these passages, if we understand the spiritual implications of this word, we can understand how what the false prophet does in giving breath to the image of the beast is far, far greater and more terrible than something we can explain away through the use of AI, and it again emphasizes his brokenness. Pneuma is a word of life, it’s a word of movement, and in many ways, mystery, and the false prophet takes that and lays that on something that is static. He takes the wicked and perverse spirit of the beast, of rebellion against God, of tyranny and rampant sin upon the earth, and he condenses that into something that is inanimate – a symbol, an image that somehow conveys this message as though it were alive. It in and of itself is a blasphemy, a mockery of all the life that God has created – and we have to again look to who God is and see the sin and corruption of the false prophet in this light. When God creates life it’s true life, when He breathes His Spirit upon His children it is to new life in Him, and when the Spirit of God moves against His enemies it is to their utter destruction. What the false prophet does is just another of his broken works, mesmerizing to the eyes of fallen man, but empty, wicked, and doomed to come to nothing just as all the rest.

3. The Broken Eternity of Fallen Man

“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.”

2 Thessalonians 2:10–12,

“… and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Understand that God is not a genie – When Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you,” in Matthew 7, this doesn’t mean that your prayers are to be treated as wishes – but also understand that God will give you what you ask for – not with your mouth, but with your heart and with your actions. The world was given over to Satan after the fall – why? Because man asked for it – we had a choice, God’s way or our way, and we chose our way, we rejected righteousness in favor of sin, we opened our hearts to the deceptive words of the serpent and worshiped the enemy with our actions. We have watched as the beast arose from the depths of death and chaos, how the world worshiped him, and through him, the dragon, how the false prophet served to validate the beast’s wicked work, and to further ensnare the bodies and souls of those who follow the beast. We read back in Revelation 6:15–17,

“Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’”

In what they saw as their greatest day of calamity, as the world was shaken and moved, and the institutions of man were torn down, the people collectively called for the world to save them, or to destroy them, to protect them from the wrath of God. Now we watch as this same spectrum – small to great, beggar to king, submits themselves before the beast, takes the symbol of his nature and his spirit upon themselves so that they may remain part of the world, that they might cement their citizenship in that which is destined to be destroyed, eternally marking themselves as rejecting Christ. Returning to the passage we touched on earlier, 1 John 2:18–21 says,

“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.”

We read before that the saints are to endure – endure while we are captured, endure while we are killed – we will suffer, and we will die, but we will only die a death of the flesh. We will live on in Christ, and in eternity we will have new, unstained bodies. But to those who die without Christ – those who revel as the saints are persecuted, who bow down and worship the beast, who take his mark upon their hearts and minds – those who are not written in the book of the Lamb will suffer the same fate as their master, a fate worse than what the human mind can imagine as death.

“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.”

As we discussed from the onset, if there’s one thing in Revelation that holds an unbalanced degree of attention, it’s the matter of the antichrist and the mark of the beast. It makes sense that, in a book that is ultimately about Christ, the world would take the part about Satan and sensationalize it to death. The mark of the beast is commonly thought to be a literal, physical mark, and there’s an almost endless amount of speculation as to what exactly it will be. It’s a brand, or a tattoo, it’s a barcode, it’s an injected microchip, it’s the chip on your credit card, it’s the COVID vaccine – stop, just… stop. “But it says for the one who understands to calculate the number, and I want to understand!” you say. “It says that doing this calls for wisdom, and I want to be wise!” Then stop looking at the wrong thing – stop picking and poking, and manipulating the lens of the text, stop trying to lean on your own understanding and remember what is said in Proverbs 1:2–7,

“To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth—Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

There are plenty of theories that can be entertaining and even spiritually beneficial to contemplate around the beast and his mark, but it can’t start there. You can’t start with human empires, you can’t start with the plotting, and scheming, and greed of a fallen world, you can’t take technological advancements, modern instruments of war, or current geopolitical activity and just force it on the text and cry out, “Yes, I’ve done it, I’ve cracked this code, I understand!” You have to start with God, you must begin with Christ, and with Him as your foundation, then you look upon the broken world and the chaotic, thrashing empire of the enemy, and it makes much more sense. It’s very likely that the mark will have some physical representation, it makes sense in a “buy and sell” context that there would be a physical element to it, but it would be beyond foolish to imagine that the mark of the beast is something that’s just skin deep. The mark is a declaration of allegiance to the world, of rebellion against God, it blasphemes against the very nature of the Holy Spirit, and it reaches down to the very soul, damning and final. Deuteronomy 6:4–9 says,

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

What resides at your core? Do you have a dark and wicked heart of stone, deaf to the Truth of the Lord, delighting in the pleasures of the world, or do you have a new heart, broken and tender, redeemed and changed by the blood of the Lamb? Are the commandments of God something you delight in? Is His will not something that you simply act out, but that embodies you? Is it the sign upon your hand that governs all your actions? Does it rest upon your brow governing your mind and acting as the filter through which you see the world? Or do you embrace the world’s culture, its ideologies, the will and whim of society that hates God, loves self, and requires that you form yourself in its image in order to be a part of it? 666, or, in some of the oldest manuscripts, 616 – I may not be able to calculate it, I can’t tell you the name of the one who will be the ultimate servant of Satan – but I can tell you what this number means, because it’s the number of a man. This means it’s finite, it’s limited, it is a number in that it is numbered. It has a visible, quantifiable end, it is not made to, it cannot by design, endure, but must come to an end. You want to know the identity of the antichrist? I’ll tell you who he is – he’s the greatest servant that Satan will ever have, he’s the most destructive tyrant the world will ever know – where the rest of fallen man dabbles in the darkness and sips upon the poison of the Devil, this man will embody the enemy’s will fully and terribly, and he will come to… Nothing. Nothing. He will be the human embodiment of flourishing, wicked rebellion, and all his power and all his lies, the blasphemies and the demonic wonders, this fascinating brokenness that the world will stare at and marvel will be undone in an instant, destroyed by the Truth, undone by the breath of Christ, slain by the sword that comes from the mouth of the Lamb of God. There can be so much fear and anxiety in the church about identifying the antichrist, about not being deceived, and to some extent I understand. There’s a reason for what John writes in 2 John 7–8, saying,

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.”

But here’s the thing, the antichrist, this beast that rises from the sea will come in the form and function of Satan. Blasphemous names are written on the forehead of each of its heads, and it will speak forth blasphemous words. If you know what is good and righteous through Christ, then you will immediately know what is wicked and blasphemous. If you know what the voice of the Good Shepherd sounds like, the voice that is Truth, then you will immediately know what the voice of the thief, the liar sounds like the moment it touches your ears. Just as no one walks into a dark room and mistakes it for being fully lit, so those who are of Christ know what is of their Lord and Master, and what is of the enemy. Stop focusing on the wrong thing, stop marveling at the dark, when you’re reading a book that’s about the Light. Read it, see it, know that the enemy is there, that he desperately wants to destroy you, and turn your eye upon Jesus – because it’s His book, it’s His victory, and it’s His Life that has been given through His sacrifice, that all who come to Him may live – and that, is the complete opposite of brokenness. Please, don’t walk away from this afraid or confused – know who the enemy is through knowing who Christ is. Recognize what is broken by knowing the One who is whole. Seek first the kingdom of God, and allow His wisdom to provide understanding to these other matters.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gzGoTryJnU