SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
1/11/2013 2:53 PM
As I was posting some posts from the book of
Revelations onto my blog I noticed that there was no Spiritual Diary to cover
Revelations 13:3-4 and so I thought that I had better do one so that the book
of Revelations would be complete. I did
these Spiritual Diaries in the year 2005, beginning in January and ending
sometime in December.
I suppose that a good title for these two verses would be
“The Death & Resurrection of the Beast.”
The beast was resurrected in the same way that people were brought back
to life in both the Old and New Testaments.
“3 I saw one of
his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the
whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; 4 they worshiped the dragon because he gave his
authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like
the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?’” (Revelations 13:3-4)
We will have to go back to the first two verses in
chapter thirteen to understand that what is being spoken about in verse three
is a beast that comes up out of the sea.
This does not mean that this beast was in the ocean, but the sea is a
picture of humanity as seen in Revelations 17:15, “And he *said to me,
"The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and
tongues.” Isaiah 57:20 says, “But
the wicked are like the tossing sea, For it cannot be quiet, And its waters
toss up refuse and mud.”
Now we will look at the horns, heads and crowns to see
what they represent. Horns in the Bible
mean political power. We see in verse
one that this beast had ten horns and these represent the ten nations that will
be a part of the end times government.
Many people believe that this will be from the rebuilt Roman Empire that
actually surrounded the Mediterranean Sea.
Look at the seventh and eight chapters of the book of Daniel so see more
about this. In the book of Daniel he saw
the great kingdoms of the world that will come about starting with the Babylonian
kingdom, then the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, then the Greeks and
finally the Roman Empire. However Daniel
explains that there will be two phases of the Roman Empire and in the end
times, the last seven years of history as we know in on earth the world will be
ruled by this Rome Phase II. The beast
described here is the antichrist and he gets his power from the dragon who is
none other than Satan. It is believed
that the seven heads represent the seven major empires that have ruled the
entire world start with Egypt, then Assyria and then moving to the four
mentioned earlier in this paragraph.
John MacArthur states “Daniel shows that the human Antichrist will rise
up from these t 10 kings (Da. 7:16-24).
John picks up the numerical imagery of Daniel 2:41, 42, which refers to
the ten toes on the statue’s clay and iron feet. The apostle sees the beast as the final world
government—the anti-Christ, and anti-God coalition—headed by a revived Roman
Empire, having the strengths of various world powers, yet mixed with weakness
and ultimately crushed (cf. Da. 2:32-45); 7:7, 8 19-25). The crowns show the regal dominion of this
confederate kingdom.”
Now we will look at the head wound of one of the
heads. Most commentators that I have
read on this say that this is the Antichrist who is either truly killed or
fakes his death to help bring about his power.
I believe that he actually dies and that Satan raises him from the dead,
but of course this would have to be permitted by the Lord to have this happen. We then see that because of the resurrection
of antichrist that Satan will receive worship, something he has always desired
since he fell which is described in Isaiah 14 starting at verse twelve and also
in Ezekiel 28 beginning at verse eleven through nineteen.
1/11/2013 3:33 PM
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