|
|
Another Beast
RV172-02© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1993)
Today, we move to a new section in the book of the Revelation. Our subject is "The False Prophet." This is segment number 1.
The apostle John, on the island of Patmos, has come to the point in his vision of future events where he sees the reign of the antichrist during
the tribulation. We ourselves, as Christians today, in fact, live during the dawning of the age of the antichrist. The things taking place in the
world today are rapidly preparing this final scene.
The Antichrist
What John sees is a man who arises from the sea of mankind at the beginning of the seven-year tribulation period. The antichrist himself is an
incarnation of Satan, so he is a vile and evil person beyond imagination. Outwardly, he is very sophisticated. He would be described as "cool,"
but inwardly, he is a vile creature. The antichrist will rule, we find, over a confederation of ten nations at the beginning of the tribulation.
This confederacy will actually be a revival of the old Roman Empire. Mankind will be amazed at this political restoration of the Roman Empire,
with its now seemingly unbeatable emperor. People worldwide, who are not born-again spiritually, during the tribulation, will actually look
upon him as a god, and they will worship him.
The antichrist himself will be a charismatic leader who awes unbelievers, but whom the Bible calls "the beast," because, at heart, he is an
animal. The antichrist will be very arrogant and self-confident, and he will boldly blaspheme God.
The true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will, of course, be persecuted by this man, and many of them will be martyred. However, those whose
names which are recorded in the Lamb's book of life, as believers, will simply immediately go into heaven.
A Second Beast
While John is trying to grasp the revelation about the antichrist beast, he suddenly sees a second beast arising in the tribulation world scene,
and we have that in Revelation 13:11. John says, "And I saw another beast." He looks out, and suddenly, he sees another beast-like creature who
is arriving on the scene. Here, the word "another" is significant in the Greek language. In the Greek, it is "allos." There are two different
words in the Greek language for "another."
"Another" Beast
This particular word means "another thing of the same kind." You may go to a store and say, "I'd like
to buy a pen that writes well," and the man may sell you a certain type of pen, and it has a certain type of point. And you get home, and you use
it, and it is really splendid. You go back to him, and you say, "I want another one of these." You would use the word "allos" in the Greek
language, because you're saying, "I want one exactly like this – one that is just the same kind as this one."
This word is illustrated for us in the Bible, for example, in John 14:16. Here, the Lord Jesus is getting His disciples ready for His departure
from them, in His return to heaven. So, in order to prepare them, and give them some comfort, Jesus says, "I will ask the Father, and He will
give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever." Then He goes on to describe who that helper is in verse 17, namely God the Holy Spirit.
In the Greek language, the word "another" is this word "allos." What Jesus is telling the disciples is that, "Yes, I am going to leave you. My
mission is completed. I'm going to return to heaven, but I'm not going to leave you here as orphans. I'm asking God the Father to send a replacement
for Me who will take my place, and pick up the thread of guiding you." Therefore, He comforts them not only with that promise, but with this word
"allos," He says to them, "I'm going to ask the Father to give you someone who is exactly like Myself, namely, deity. Jesus Christ was God. The
replacement for His presence here on this earth will also be a person who is God. Jesus promises, thus, to send a divine person just like Himself
to replace Himself on the earth after the ascension.
In the Greek language, there is another word for "another." It is the Greek word "heteros." This word "heteros" means "another of a different
kind. If you took your pen, and found it unsatisfactory, because maybe it was a ball-point type (or some feature), you would go to the store,
and you would say to the clerk, "Give me another pen," and this time you would use the word "heteros" because want another pen, but you
want a totally different kind of pen.
This word is illustrated in the Bible, for example, in Galatians 1:6. It means another in the sense of a different kind. The apostle Paul, who
was dealing with these Galatian Christians, because they're keeping the law system, they're slipping back off into rules and regulations and
legalisms in order to be spiritual and to approach God, and they have even contaminated the gospel, because they have slipped off and said, when
it comes to males, "No male can go to heaven by trusting in Christ as Savior unless he performs the ritual of circumcision." Today, the churches
out of the Reformation, which we call Covenant Theology churches have said, "Well, that circumcision has become infant baptism," by which they
don't even mean baptism. They just mean sprinkling of the child with water. They say, "That infant baptism replaces this circumcision, and what
are they saying? They're saying that in order to get to heaven, you must perform a human work." Yet, these same people do not sense their
inconsistencies when they say, "We believe in justification by faith. Salvation is by a grace gift from God, without human works, but in order
to get started into the system, you must perform a human work and wash away that original sin that Adam gave you by this act of infant sprinkling.
So, here in the New Testament church, the apostle Paul gets these churches in the Galatia area of the Roman Empire going into Christianity. And
the Judaizers, who kept following Paul, wherever he went, come in and convince the Galatians that they have to perform the Mosaic Law ritual, or
they won't go to heaven. They even contaminated the gospel.
So, that's the background of verse 6, where Paul says, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ
for a different gospel." Now, what word do you think is used there: "allos;" or, "heteros?" "Heteros." Paul says, "I am amazed that you have a
gospel which is a totally different kind of gospel than I taught you about a no-works gospel which is a grace gift from God, and here you are
preaching a gospel that begins with religious ceremonies, and must be maintained by your personal good works and good conduct. You are preaching
a different gospel. It is a different kind of gospel than what I am preaching. Yes, it's another offer of salvation. Yes, it's another gospel
message, but it is presenting a different gospel – not the one that was revealed to me by Jesus Christ.
So, here, in the book of the Revelation, this word is now important to us. It tells us something immediately about this second beast that comes
on the scene. John sees a beast arise which is an "allos" beast, meaning that he's just like the first beast. That tells us that he is a human
being. That tells us that he is controlled by Satan. He is probably even indwelt, as the antichrist is indwelt by Satan. That tells us that he
is an animal type of character in his qualities. He is strictly low-life. The second beast is devoid of regeneration, just like the first one.
The second beast is dominated by the sin nature and by Satan, just like the first beast. The two beasts are both operating on the vilest qualities
of human nature, and they are totally devoid of divine viewpoint understanding.
This second beast is more specifically identified for us in Revelation 19:20, where God's judgment is now executed upon the antichrist, and this
second beast, which is his associate and his assistant: "And the beast (that is the antichrist) was seized, and with him (the second beast, his
associate, which here is called) the false prophet." He is further identified so that we know it is the same person, as you read through this
section here in Revelation 13, you will find that the false prophet will try to prove his false doctrines by performing miracles.
So, here we have the false who performed the signs in his presence; that is, in the presence of the antichrist, by which he deceived those who
had the mark of the beast, and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with fire and
brimstone. At this point in time, which is as the close of the tribulation, the antichrist and the false prophet, both unregenerate human beings,
are thrown into the lake of fire.
Hell
It is important to realize that 1,000 years later, when Satan himself is cast into the lake of fire, the
observation is made that the is now placed where the antichrist and the prophet are. That statement is made 1,000 years after they have been
thrown into that place, which tells us that you don't get burned up in hell. The pain is always there. Your consciousness never ceases. So, the
Jehovah's Witnesses are quite wrong in telling people that if the worst happens to you, don't worry, because God will simply rub you out of
existence. That is not true, and this one passage makes that very clear.
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
The second beast, with this title of false prophet, therefore, is in fact a religious leader. The false prophet purports to speak for God. He
purports to bring messages of divine truth, but he is in fact, as a false prophet, bringing messages which are false. In Matthew 7:15, the Lord
has tried to prepare those who live in the tribulation for that kind of religious leader: "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves."
Here is a picture of an ecclesiastical authority who wears his robes and his accouterments, who walks around with his hands in front of him (or
folded), so that he is conveying the impression of being a very holy kind of person, and in the case of the Pope, he is addressed as "Your
Holiness." And inwardly, these creatures are full of false doctrine, and therefore, they are in fact wolves in sheep's clothing – wolves
pretending to be meek and mild representatives of the true God, when in fact, they are representatives of Satan.
I need not tell you that our television airways are filled with wolves in sheep's clothing who are propagating falsehood as religious leaders.
One of the prominent religious leaders, on last night's television news seems again to be in trouble, because he has been stopped and picked up
by the police as he drove in his car with a prostitute sitting next to him. He has been through this once, so I guess he knows how to do it, and
he'll know his way around, but I just personally wish that he would knock off this evangelizing of prostitutes, and work in another field
altogether. It's beginning to look bad for him.
However, every Sunday (and he was on there this morning) he is sounding away just as powerfully as
ever, and he was a sheep, not in cheap clothes (not in his case), wearing his expensive sheep's clothes, but he is a false prophet. He is a
deceiver. And you would think that people would know better. You would think that people only need to look into the eyes of Bob Tilton once
(out of Carrollton); and they would only have to see him put that hand forward once and ask you to put your hand on the television set to
receive the power of God for success and healing that he will now transmit to you. You would think they would only have to hear that once to
say, "This is a con artist. This is a wolf in sheep's clothing. But, no, what they do is run to their checkbooks and start writing the checks
to give him the seed money so that they all will become rich.
People are going to be just like P. T. Barnum said: "There's a sucker born every minute. And it's going to continue to be like that tot the very
end.
When the false prophet comes along, he will be smooth; he will be verbal; he will have a way with words; he will be charismatic. He will carry
himself in such a way that he will look impressive. You'll take a second look at him. People who have no divine viewpoint frame of reference,
will (because he wears the clothing of an ecclesiastic) feel that he speaks for God. That is what people do today. As long as you claim to be
a preacher; as long you have the position of preacher; and, as long as you bear the accouterments of being a preacher, you are equated with
being an authority in spiritual things.
So, here the second beast is identified as the false prophet, purporting to speak for God, presents a religion that is in the form of humanism.
It will be the ultimate expression of humanism, and it will be, of course, the final religion that Satan creates.
Out of the Earth
So, John is amazed as he watches this second beast coming up, this time, out of the earth. The first beast, the antichrist, as you know, arose
symbolically out of the sea, and the sea is used in the Bible as a symbol for the masses of people of humanity. So, that simply tells us that
the antichrist rises out of the gentile nations. We don't know exactly what it means when it says that this man rises out of the earth.
It is
possible, because we're talking about the earth or the land, that the reference here is to Palestine – to the Holy Land, to the land of
the Jewish people. And if that be the case, what we may be seeing here is that the false prophet is going to be a Jew. We know that the antichrist
is going to be a gentile. It may be that the false prophet is going to be a Jew. That would make some sense because he is going to, on behalf of
the antichrist, befriend the Jewish people for the first three-and-a-half years of the tribulation, and will help them to rebuild their temple,
and to re-institute their sacrifices. The Jews would probably be much more responsive to someone who is a fellow Jew in that respect. But you
cannot press that. That is a supposition. That is not indicated in the text of Scripture. It simply may stress nothing more than the fact that
the false prophet arises from some nation on the face of the earth, and that he will be a man of the world.
Two Horns
In any case, this second beast, in character like the first, comes up on the scene of world history during the tribulation, and then his
character is described for us. We're told that he has two horns on his head in the picture that John sees. He has two horns. And these horns
are like the horns that one would find on a male lamb, or on a male animal. So, the false prophet here is given a lamb-like appearance.
Religious Significance
In the
Old Testament, as you know, a lamb had religious significance, and that is the significance of the two lamb-like horns. That further reinforces
the fact that this is an ecclesiastical leader. He is coming on the scene as someone who is a religious leader, but it also tells us that he is
coming, while being a ravenous, raging wolf on the inside, he is in the sheep's clothing to convey himself in lamb-like qualities. When we look
at lambs, they are gentle and they are meek; and here the false prophet is portrayed with these qualities.
Meekness
He is a man that you will look at and
see how gentle and how meek he is. What do you think when you look at the wolf that is known as the Pope? That is exactly the picture that you
have of him. He is so meek. He is so lamb-like. He is so sweetness-and-light. This lamb appearance of being harmless, as an ecclesiastical
leader who simply wants to do good in the world, is an attempt on the part of the false prophet to relate himself to Jesus Christ, whom
John 1:29 describes as the Lamb of God. The Lord Jesus indeed came through as the meek and lowly one. He genuinely had these Lamb-like qualities.
He was harmless; he was gentle; and, he was meek. The false prophet wants to portray himself, in fact, in the image of Christ. He will move
around the tribulation world, therefore, as a gentle loving man who is an authority on religious matters, and an authority on relationships
with God. He will be doing exactly what the Pope does today in his travels around the world. He will convey himself as "His Holiness," and
people will go crazy when the see him.
A Dragon
However, when he opens his mouth, he gives himself away. John says that suddenly he hears this lamb-like creature speaking. And John is surprised
and shocked to realize that he speaks with the voice of a "drakon" (a dragon). This is exactly the same word which has been used previously of
Satan himself. Revelation 12:9: "And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the
whole world. So, there we have very clearly that the dragon is Satan.
Deception
So, the false prophet indeed speaks, but we know that he speaks, with a
forked tongue, the lies of the dragon Satan. This gentle-appearing lamb is combined with a cunning deceit, and with the ferocity of the devil.
Please remember that people who want to lie; who want to deceive you; and, who want to con you, do not come on as unreliable characters. They
always come on as people that you can trust. They come on with an appeal that ingratiates them to you, so that you feel that this person can be
trusted. The false prophet is going to put on a front of being a trustworthy person, when in fact he is a deceiver, and a calculating, cunning,
snake-like character on the inside.
If you have ever dealt with a person who is smiling to your face, who is your sweetness-and-light friend, whom you later discover is truly
your enemy, you will understand what it is to be able to project on image, while on the inside, the true image is hidden. The antichrist and the
false prophet are going to be taskmasters at doing this.
So, the false prophet is going to claim to have messages from God. He is going to claim to be delivering these eternal truths from the masters
of wisdom that are out there that he is in touch with. This is, of course, what charismatic preachers do today. They call it having new prophecies
from God. They call them messages from God, and they call them prophetic utterances. The message that comes through the false prophet is the
message which comes from Satan. And because it is a message from Satan, it is a message which is in conflict with sound doctrine. That is what
will give the false prophet away. It is the same thing that enables you and me today to discern a religious leader who speaking the truth, and
one who is a deceiver.
In Luke 6:43-45, again the Lord Jesus taught this principle for our benefit, for the benefit of the people who will be living at this time.
These verses are often seriously misinterpreted by sincere Christians. Christians read these verse, and they think that the verses are talking
about your personal conduct. They think that when Jesus talks about knowing people by their fruits, that He means knowing people (what they are
by how they acts), and we have seen that that that is exactly what is not true. The way a false prophet acts will not give you a single clue
to what he really is, and to what he's after, and to what he's trying to do to you. If you watch him, and you observe what he does, you will
say, "Boy, what a kind person! What a concerned person! What a compassionate person! And you will get the wrong picture. It would be quite
wrong of the Lord Jesus to say that you can spot a fake by how he acts. That is not true. If he's a real fake, you won' spot it.
However, there is a way to spot the fake, and that's what Jesus points out here. In Luke 6:43, He uses the illustration of a tree and its bearing
of fruit: "For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit. Nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit." OK. We can identify
the quality of the tree by the fruit that it produce. The next question is, "What does He mean 'fruit?'" "For each tree is known by its own fruit.
For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a brier bush." You can tell what kind of a tree it is by the fruit that it
produces."
Verse 45, here' is what He means by fruit: "And a good man, out of the good treasures of his heart (or mind) brings forth what is good, and the
evil man, out of the evil treasures, brings forth what is evil, for mouths speaks from that which fills his heart;" from that which fills his
mind. That which he believes is what his mouth says. What his mouth says is the fruit that Jesus is referring to. So, what Jesus is saying here
is that you can tell a false prophet, and a false (a bad tree) by the fact that it produces false doctrine. When they speak false doctrine, you
know that it is not of God. You know that that person is not speaking for God.
So, those in the tribulation (believers) who are knowledgeable about the Word of God will quickly spot the falsehood of what the false prophet
is proclaiming. They will not be able to tell that he's false from his actions, but they will be able to tell that he is of Satan by what he
teaches.
Today, the liberal religious world can be spotted in the same say. The fruit of the mouth of a false prophet is false doctrine for the simple
reason that he is speaking messages from Satan. And John 8:44 makes it very clear that Satan is a liar, and he has been a liar from the beginning.
The message of the false prophet will thus be doctrines of demons, as Paul refers to them in 1 Timothy 4:1. Paul says that in the end times, when
things are about ready to be shut down with the second coming of Christ, then there will be an enormous amount of false doctrine going out, and
by that fruit, you will be able to tell those who are truly the spokesmen of God, and those who are the spokesmen of Satan. The false prophet is
going to be the epitome of all the religious con men of history, and people are going to follow him enthusiastically.
Please remember that the false prophet is controlled by Satan, so he himself will be a liar just as Satan is. Revelation 13:14 says, "And he
(the false prophet) deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which were given him to perform in the presence of the beast,
telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image of the beast who had the wound of the sword, and has come to life." The message of the
false prophet is that the antichrist is God. ... He tells this false doctrine because that's the message he gets from Satan.
What we are actually talking about here is that religion of the false prophet will be a revival of the old Babylonian mystery religion which
is found expressed primarily today in Roman Catholicism. All the basic false doctrines that were in Roman Catholicism were all found back in
the Babylonian mystery religion which was begun by Nimrod. And the world will have come full-circle from Nimrod, through all the gyrations of
the religious experiences, and in the time of the antichrist and the false prophet, they'll be right back to where Nimrod was with his system.
The Harlot Church
The false prophet then is going to be the last major ecclesiastical leader on the face of the earth before the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The church that he will be heading up (the religious system that he will be the head of) is described as the harlot church, and you can read
about that in Revelation 17.
Liberalism
Today, of course, the liberal religious world rejects the inerrant authority of the Bible, and therefore, it denies
the truth of fundamental doctrines. Because liberalism rejects the inerrancy of the Scripture, they, in effect, do not have a message from God.
When you say that there are mistakes in the Bible, you are saying that those are messages from men. And what do they deny? Well, they deny the
fact that Jesus Christ is God. They say, "He is just man." They deny the fact that He had a supernatural virgin birth. They deny the fact that
He is alive today in heaven. They deny the fact that He is coming back to this earth again a second time. They even deny the reality of Satan
and the demonic world. They deny all the basic fundamentals of Scripture. Certainly, they deny the necessity of salvation by the vicarious death
of an innocent Lamb in the form of Jesus Christ.
For the liberals today, salvation is through a gospel of good works. It has sometimes been called the social gospel: "If you help homeless people
to get homes to live in, you're going to go to heaven. If you help people who have food who are hungry, you're going to go to go to heaven. If
you help people to be clothed who are wearing rags, you will go to heaven." And that may be hard for us to grasp, but you should understand that
in all the liberal churches, which is what most of the religious community is, people are told that their social actions are equated with God as
qualifying them for heaven.
So, along comes the false prophet with the greatest welfare program that the mind of man has ever conceived, with the greatest expressions of
compassion and meeting of human needs, and people are going to flock to this man as the great and tender and meek and loving person. And all
the while, there is the ... grinning mask of Satan, hiding what he really is. He is the head of a system that denies the authority of the Word
of God, and thus eliminates what God has said.
Ecumenicism
These religious liberals today are seeking to unite all the denominations of the world and all the religious organizations of the world into a
single organization. We refer to this as the ecumenical movement. "Ecumenical" means "unity." After the rapture of the church, the ecumenical
movement will indeed realize its dream of unity worldwide, and the false prophet will in fact become their Pope, who will then lead them in the
worship of the antichrist.
Satan has Superhuman Powers
The Lord Jesus warned about the satanic combination of the antichrist and the false prophet, and you almost miss it if you don't have the
background of these two beasts. In Matthew 24:24, that is exactly what He is warning about, when Jesus says, speaking of the end times, "For
false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect." So what
Jesus was saying is exactly what John is seeing take place – that here's a false Christ, in the form of the antichrist, and a false
prophet joined with him in the form of the false prophet, and the two together are performing miracles. You would think that the charismatics
would have some second thoughts, and would recoil with some concern, for this passage which is so emphatic, that the way Satan is going to
prove himself is through miracles. People do not remember that Satan has great superhuman powers, and he can perform miracles. He can't raise
the dead. He can't give you life.
Satan during the Exodus
There are limitations upon what he can do, but he certain showed that he was the past-master of miracles when
his priests of Egypt confronted Moses and Aaron. Any miracle that Moses could do, they could do equally well or better, up to a certain point.
Then they were not able to compete. But you would think that you would stop and pause to consider about this miracle issue.
Ask yourself, "When was the first miracle performed in the Bible?" And after that one was performed, when was the next one? And after that one,
how long was it before the next one? And when is the next one coming? When is the next era of miracles?" If you don't know the answers to those
questions, please return for the next session, and we will deal with them – next time, or in the near future.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1991
Back to the Revelation index
Back to the Bible Questions index |