The Beast Program No SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW

Transcription

1 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 1 The Beast Program No SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW When Adolph Hitler rose to power, he had the ability to captivate huge crowds of people with just the sound of his voice and as his global ambitions became more and more apparent, Bible-believing Christians all over the world started wondering: could this man be the beast of Revelation chapter 13? After all, the beast has a mouth speaking great things, it goes to war against God s people, and it demands the admiration of the whole world. So was Hitler the beast? Today, you don t find too many people who think so, because Hitler s been dead for a long time but that doesn t mean that Christianity s search for the beast has come to an end. According to Christian history, Roman Emperor Domitian, in an attempt to get rid of the last remaining disciple, had him boiled alive in a cauldron of oil. Miraculously, the Apostle John survived, so the emperor had him banished to the Island of Patmos, a small rocky prison colony located miles from the coast of Asia Minor. It was there that, as a prisoner, John had a vision, which became the last book of the Bible: the book of Revelation. And of all the books ever written, I can t think of one that has caused as much speculation or fear-mongering as that one especially when it comes to Revelation chapter 13. Right after John gives an account (in chapter 12) of an incredible war that actually takes place in Heaven, he goes on to describe how the conquered dragon (who s been cast out of Heaven) moves his operations to planet Earth. And then in chapter 13, the dragon gives power to a fearful creature that emerges from the sea. Here s how John describes it in Revelation 13:1-5: Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? Who is able to

2 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 2 make war with him? And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months. Now, you can imagine the impact those words must have had on the Christians who first read them. It describes a worldwide movement of false worship created specifically to counteract the work of the Christian church. At the end of chapter 12, it says the dragon was angry with the woman which is a symbol of the Christian church and the dragon does his best to wage war against them. This beast who comes up out of the sea is the dragon s aggressive attack on the church. To the early Christians, that kind of a scenario wasn t mere speculation: they were starting to experience some of the worst persecution Christians would ever face. In the year 64 AD, a fire suddenly broke out in the city of Rome, and by the time the flames were extinguished a week later, 10 of the 14 districts in Rome were either damaged or completely destroyed. Emperor Nero saw to it that the brand new sect of Christians that had recently been established in the city got the blame for what had taken place. The Roman historian Tacitus put it this way:...to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace... Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car... Roman Historian Tacitus, Annals 15:44 It s hard for Western Christians to imagine today, but there was a time when you literally risked your life by professing Christianity. By the time John s letter was first circulated among the churches of Asia Minor, they knew a thing or two about living their faith in the face of persecution. Even though the Roman Empire was tolerant of various religious ideas, the Christians became the exception to the rule. They became the most hated group on earth. So you can imagine what kind of impact the 13th chapter of Revelation would have on them. Here s a beast coming up out of the sea who manages to captivate the world, and who kills off anybody who stands in its way. If Nero was bad, this was going to be a lot worse. For the last 2,000 years, Christians have pored over the last book of the Bible, trying to establish who or what the beast of Revelation 13 represents. In the earliest days, there were people who pointed to Emperor Nero, but as Nero died and Christianity continued, other candidates starting coming to light. For example, the early church father Irenaeus continued to look to the city of Rome for his candidate, as did Tertullian, Victorinus, Jerome, and a host of other

3 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 3 significant early Christians. Today, however, the search for the beast of Revelation is decidedly less focused, with Christians choosing candidates from just about every imaginable walk of life. When Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, some people were certain that he was the antichrist. You can imagine why they might have thought that. He may have spoken great words, like the beast, and he may have waged war against half the planet, but nobody outside of a tiny group of Nazis actually worshiped Adolph Hitler, and his global ambitions came to an abrupt end in the Führerbunker in Other popular suggestions have included Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and even American Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. But instead of sorting through the mass of suggested candidates, we re going to look at the original description the way John wrote it. In just a moment, we re going to start unpacking Revelation 13 itself. BIBLE QUESTION: It s time for today s Bible question. I heard a preacher who predicted the end of the world on a certain day, but that day came and went. How will we know when the Second Coming will really happen? You know what? You re probably going to hear that sort of prediction again before too long. It seems that people never learn. One of the really sad things about failed predictions about the return of Jesus is that they cause a lot of people to consider the whole idea to be nonsensical. But here s what we know: We know that the Bible says Jesus is going to return to this earth. Now your question is, How do we know when the Second Coming will really happen? I ll tell you exactly when the Second Coming is going to happen. In Matthew 24, Jesus gives us a lot of signs harbingers of his Second Coming. He mentions war and rumors of wars; he mentions famines; pestilences; earthquakes... And if you take a look at all the signs listed and then look at the world around you, you might get the idea that Jesus return is near. Jesus said in Matthew 24:33, When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Jesus spoke of these things in response to a question about the end of the world. He lists the signs and then says, When you see them happening, you can know that My return is near.

4 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 4 Of course, these are subjective to a degree. Haven t there always been earthquakes and famines? The answer is yes. But in Matthew 24:8, Jesus spoke of these things as being like birth pains. The closer to the arrival of the baby, the more frequent and the more intense they become. Maybe with what seems to be an increasing amount of tsunamis and floods and fires and earthquakes, we re at that place where Jesus coming is even at the doors. I said a moment ago I would tell you when Jesus is going to return. Here s the answer: soon. Jesus is coming back soon. That s what the signs seem to be indicating. RETURN TO PROGRAM: So what kind of information does John provide about the beast of Revelation 13? In trying to understand this, it s important to gather as much Biblical information as we can so we don t start speculating and taking things out of context. Really, what we want to know is what John would have understood by the symbols being used. That way you end up with the big picture instead of with prophetic theories that have to change every time there s a new headline in the news. It s such a detailed chapter that we re not going to have enough time to look at everything in one program, but let s start collecting the data and see what kind of picture begins to emerge. To begin with, John sees this beast coming up out of the sea. In Revelation 17 a passage that closely parallels Revelation 13 you find a very explicit description of what John understood by the symbol of water (Revelation 17:15): Then he said to me, The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. Over the years, I ve seen all sorts of speculation when it comes to Bible prophecy. I want to tell you about one guy who approached me after I had presented a study on the subject. He said to me John, I think you ve got it all wrong. This beast of Revelation is actually Procter & Gamble you know, the large company that produces all kinds of products. I was terrified. I mean, I like Pringles, and if eating Pringles was going to give me the mark of the beast, then I was in big trouble! I said, OK, tell me why Procter & Gamble is the antichrist Evidently, so his explanation went, Procter & Gamble used to have some funky little logo that if you looked at it just right at a certain angle, it looked like 3 sixes or something like that.

5 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 5 He was convinced the antichrist was Procter & Gamble. I said, Tell me, how can you be so certain the antichrist is Procter & Gamble? And he said to me, John, do you know where Procter & Gamble s head corporate offices are? I knew where he was going with this, so I said Come on, man, you re not serious. He said, I m serious. They re in SINcinnati, and the antichrist the Bible says is the man of sin. I said, I know it s the man of sin, but I don t read where the Bible says it s the man of Cincinnati! That idea was popular about 20 years ago, but it s so far out there that if you believe that, you ll believe anything. Here s what I ve discovered. If you simply let the Bible speak for itself instead of taking a shot in the dark, you re usually going to find that it does a pretty good job of explaining itself. In Revelation 13, you ve got an animal coming up out of the sea, and in Revelation 17, you ve got a prostitute sitting on the waters. They re parallel chapters, and one of them describes what the symbol of water means it s peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues. The beast that comes from the sea is something that comes from Gentile nations. And of course, when John uses this symbol, he isn t using something new. Hundreds of years before John saw this beast in Revelation 13, the prophet Daniel saw something remarkably similar also coming out of the water. Here, let me show you. It s in Daniel Chapter 7, and we will read in verses 2 and 3 (Daniel 7:2, 3): Daniel spoke, saying, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. Notice again that Daniel is standing by the sea, but now he adds a new detail: the four winds of heaven are whipping up the sea, and then four different animals come out of the water. Wind, in the ancient Biblical world, was a symbol for warfare and strife so when Daniel describes the winds stirring up the sea, he s telling us that the Gentile nations are fighting with each other. And those fights produce four different animals which happen to be the same four animals mentioned in the book of Revelation: a lion, a

6 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 6 bear, a leopard, and then a strange looking animal that defies zoological classification. The parallels between Daniel s vision and John s vision are so striking, there s just no mistaking it. When John wrote the book of Revelation, he expected that we would compare it with the book of Daniel. Not only are the animals the same, but if you do a little math, you ll discover something remarkable. Since one of the animals in Daniel 7 has four heads, there s a total of seven heads and of course, the beast of Revelation 13 also has seven heads. The fourth beast of Daniel 7 has 10 horns as does the beast of Revelation 13. The two visions are so similar that they actually become keys for unlocking each other. So what does it mean? Now, there s no way we could possibly unpack all of the details right now, but there s one important detail I want you to see in the time we have left. There s no need to speculate here, because the Bible leaves no room for guesswork when it comes to the beast of Revelation 13. As we ve looked so far at the beast of Revelation 13, and paid careful attention to the Biblical details, we ve discovered that in Bible prophecy, the sea represents masses of people. And we ve found that Daniel chapter 7 is a critical key that unlocks Revelation 13. Now, let s turn to the nature of the beast itself. Keep in mind that in the Bible, when you come across that word beast, it s just an old-fashioned way of saying animal, and while Revelation 13 doesn t outright tell us what animals symbolize in Bible prophecy, Daniel 7 does explain it. We read in Daniel 7 and verse 17 (Daniel 7:17): Those great beasts, which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth. Now, it really couldn t get any simpler than that: a beast (or an animal) in Bible prophecy usually represents a king. And a few verses later, in verse 24, it expands on that idea (Daniel 7:23): Thus he said: The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms. So there you have it, spelled out in black and white: a beast (or an animal) represents a king or a kingdom. And the fact that the four animals mentioned in Daniel 7 are also mentioned in Revelation 13 tells us something very important. Somehow, there s a direct tie between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of the beast of Revelation 13. Somehow, the values, the ideas, the methods of operating from Babylon, Medo- Persia, Greece and Rome are handed down through time and find their clearest expression in this entity known as the beast.

7 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 7 So what you actually have in Revelation 13 is a king or a kingdom a political entity that really exhibits the characteristics of human government. It s the absolute apex of man s rebellion against God. When the human race made the conscious choice to turn away from the Creator and to run things their own way, it resulted in the disaster we live with today. Remember the big picture: long ago in Heaven, Satan rebelled against God, and what he coveted was worship. The Bible tells us that Lucifer wanted to sit on God s throne. You read that in Isaiah 14. After he was evicted from Heaven, he came to this earth, determined to get on earth the worship he wasn t able to get in Heaven. And so he creates his masterpiece of deception, the beast of Revelation 13. And if you look carefully at that chapter, you ll notice in that verse 2, it says that the beast gets his power, his throne, and great authority from the dragon. And who is the dragon? There s no guesswork involved, because the Bible tells us explicitly (Revelation 12:9): So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world... All through human history, we ve been dealing with exactly the same situation a fallen angel has been working hard to turn the human race against God using two primary strategies: deception and force. He s been trying to obliterate our memory of the living God and redirect our worship toward himself. The beast of Revelation 13 is simply the culmination of centuries of concentrated effort, and the devil s ultimate objective is really obvious when you compare Revelation 13 with a remarkable passage found in the writings of Paul. Here s what Paul says regarding the Second Coming of Christ in Second Thessalonians, chapter 2 (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4): Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. When you gather the Biblical data and start looking at the big picture, you discover that this is a much bigger issue than bloodthirsty tyrants like Hitler or Nero. This is a global issue driven by the subject of worship and the ultimate question is a matter of loyalty. So here s what we know: even though the beast is a strange-looking animal, it s still an animal, which means that it s a political entity of some sort and it s a political entity that demands worship. It s got to be something that s global in scope, because the Bible says, the whole world wonders after the beast. It s a human kingdom, because it comes up out of the sea of humanity, and it represents the very peak of the devil s attempts to redirect worship toward himself.

8 It Is Written Script: 1205 The Beast Page 8 And of course, that means it s not only political but it s also, by its very nature, religious. You know, I ve heard almost every theory imaginable about this, from a massive supercomputer in Belgium, to a single head of state somewhere in Europe or the Middle East but a lot of those theories are based on nothing more than guesswork and speculation. The mystery of the beast is not a mystery at all. In fact, if you want to do something interesting, start checking out what our forefathers in the Christian church understood about Revelation 13, and you ll discover that at one time there wasn t much confusion about the topic at all. And of course, the real question for right now isn t really a matter of identifying the beast it s more a matter of identifying you. Right now, at this moment, are you directing your own life, or does your loyalty belong to your Creator? As the events of Bible prophecy play out in real life, that s going to be one of the most important questions in the world because if your heart is not with your Creator, you re going to find yourself a sitting duck for the biggest scam in the history of the world. And when you consider the Cross when you consider what God has done to secure your place in His Kingdom, there s really only one choice to make. Today, will you choose Jesus? Let s pray together. PRAYER: Our Father in Heaven, we thank you today that the mysteries of Bible prophecy can be made clear through the leading of your Holy Spirit and through the study of your Word. I pray that you will give us clear understanding, a full understanding, of this subject. Don t let us be swept away by ideas and speculative theories, no matter how popular they might be. Give us your grace to stand on your Word, to stand on the truth and to live surrendered to the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Bless us now, please, we pray in Jesus name, Amen. It Is Written Box O Thousand Oaks, CA USA Tel: (805) Fax: (805)