REVELATIONS 13 – (Tuesday 21/9/04)
This message was really deep and at the same time sobering and full of warnings (especially of the second beast)
This passage is about the dragon giving authority to the beast of the sea.
The second beast is from the earth and serves the first beast.
The sea in ancient times symbolizes evil – confusion and chaos.
The dragon, the beast of the sea and beast of the earth is like an evil Trinity to take the place of God.
The first beast – beast of the sea
Vs 1:
“The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion”: All the animals refers to previous kingdoms that is evil. This beast is a combination of all.
Vs 3:
“One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed”. – this means that the beast dies again and again but comes out again and again in Anti-Christ. Each time one dies, another one will rise.
Vs 3b:
“The whole world was astonished and followed the beast” – because the evil is so great as the authority is given by the dragon, people will give up and say in resignation “there will always be evil”.
The second beast – beast of the earth
Vs 11:
“He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon” – this beast is full of deception. The “two horns like a lamb” means that it looks harmless but his words were of the dragon. In ancient Israel, the earth was something stable and therefore safe.
Vs 12:
“He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed”. The second beast clearly serves the first beast.
Vs 13 – 15
‘And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.” This beast has great power and is a great deceiver.
This second beast = false prophets and their teachings. We have to remember it is so subtle and it is a great deceiver!
Carson told the story of how he was preaching and naming the rebirthing technique as a deception.
Rebirthing technique is adopted by psychologists and some Christian counselors to help people who have been abused/sodomised when they were young. They were to close their eyes and picture themselves as babies. And they had to picture themselves coming out of their mother’s womb and that Jesus received them when they came out and wiped the ‘muck’ out. And Jesus would cuddle and love them. Many of them would realize that Jesus was there from their birth and would cry and receive healing.
A missionary couple invited Carson for dinner and refuted the statement as they were healed through the rebirthing technique. Carson asked them two questions.
1. “If someone were to explain to the missionary the passage in Ephesians about how wide and deep the love of Christ, could the missionary be healed too?” To which the missionary replied after thinking deeply, “Yes, but it doesn’t refute the rebirthing technique.”
2. Carson’s second question was “If someone went through the same abuse, would you tell them about the imaginary Jesus of the rebirthing technique OR about the true Jesus of the bible?”. That was the subtlety of the second beast. You may go about 5 degrees off from the truth.. But as you tell more and more about it, your 5 degrees will leave you a VERY big gap from the path of truth.
Vs 16-18:
“He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.” There are many interpretation of the mark of the beast. Carson admits that he does not know who is the beast but also suggests that perhaps we are better off not knowing. The point of this part is this : we will receive either the mark of the beast or the mark of the lamb and will face the wrath of the other! Remember that if we receive the mark of the beast- we will face the wrath of the Lamb.
AM therefore very excited to find out tonight more about the seal of the Lamb.
