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Facing The Beasts of Revelation - ch. 13
Facing The Beasts of Revelation 13
Satan has waged war against God’s purposes from the beginning (ch. 12). He always has lost even though it was often at great cost to God’s people. He then ‘set off to persecute those “who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus’ (i.e. - Christians / the church). He didn’t do this directly but rather orchestrated it using worldly people / powers.
There is the ‘sea beast’ who received power from Satan (the dragon). In the first century this appears as the persecuting element of the Roman Empire. It is pictured as complete power and authority over the people. Even with seeming ‘death stroke’, it survived to continue persecuting God’s people. With the passing of Nero, the Empire spiraled into civil war and went through 4 Emperor changes in a matter of a few years. It looked like the Empire would implode, but it recovered and went on to persecute the church. Thus it made ‘war on the saints’ (vs. 7). In such a situation the call to God’s people is still the same: be faithful unto death (cp. vs. 10).
Then appears the ‘land beast’. This appears in the first century as the Emperor worship of the Roman Empire. They set up a system demanding worship and persecuted all who would not comply (mainly Christians). Worshiping the Emperor by declaring him to be ‘lord’ allowed one the privilege of the market place. Refusing to do this meant you were excluded from the markets.
Such power and persecution, while great for the moment, were NOT the power of God but only of imperfect man. This seems to be the meaning of the number ‘666’, which falls short of ‘7’. The number 7 is connected with God over and over again in this book. This is thus the number of man. Not any particular man, but certainly NOT God.
Those who refused to worship the beast were those who were faithful to God. As we turn to chapter 14 we will see that they have the Father’s name on their foreheads (they are marked as His people) and they stand with the Lamb. This is the 144,000 that we saw going through the persecution. They have remained faithful in in the face of such oppression by Satan and his people.
I often wonder how we (meaning ME) would do in such circumstances? We have the promises of God to those who remain faithful. We have the example of these in the first century that overcame. Yet, would we remain faithful against such an onslaught against us? Hugh DeLong
