March 5 - The Sea Monster

March 5 – The Sea Monster
Revelation 13:1-10

The dragon has been cast out of heaven, no longer having access to God. Since he wants to continue to cause damage, he hands over power to two beasts. We see that he has created in Revelation 13 an unholy trinity, a mockery of what we know.

The Beast comes up out of the Abyss. We’ve seen him before in the Old Testament. He is known as the Leviathan and in Isaiah 27:1 a further description of the leviathan is that it is a gliding, coiling serpent. He is given power by the dragon to rule on earth. He has ten horns and seven heads with ten crowns on the horn.

The heads symbolize the seven kings who will aid the beast and the ten horns probably mean that 10 will rule – one after another.

Much discussion and debate has occurred around these horns and heads. One is that there were 7 major empires ending with the Roman Empire, out of which there will be ten kingdoms who rule the world during the last days. I don’t want to spend a lot of time speculating about these – we can’t really know. The beast from the sea will rule over the world – the kings of the earth will bring their subjects to bow before him.

John describes the beast which resembles a leopard, with feet like a bear and a mouth like a lion. In Daniel 7, Daniel dreams of four beasts which represent the four great kingdoms. The lion represents the Babylonian empire, the bear represents the Media-Persian empire, the panther represents the Greeks. John wants his readers to see the movement of the world through the various empires. This beast is as great as all of them put together.

If you look at Daniel 7:3, you will see that Daniel’s vision shows the four great beasts coming up out of the sea just as this beast is brought forth from the sea.

In Revelation 13:2-4, we several things happening. Satan gives the beast power and authority. The world is astonished and follows the beast and finally mankind worships the beast. Rev. 13:3 also says that one of the heads had a fatal head wound, but it had been healed. This is the antichrist. It mimics Christ.

This is the political power that operates within the will of the dragon. He is given the power to blaspheme against God. That power will then move from words to actual war against the saints of God. The antichrist will become the authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. Everyone on earth whose name is not written in the book will worship him.

Blasphemy is not just a part of the plan – it is essential to the plan. This is so important because blaspheming the name of the Lord brings a death sentence (Leviticus 24:16) and in Matthew 12:31-32 we find that it is the unforgivable sin.

The beast named itself god, claiming to be sovereign. Then it slandered God’s name and his dwelling place.

The last verse of this portion (Rev. 13:10) reads: “This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.” These qualities will be needed to face the persecution ahead. It won’t be easy. The saints on earth will need to trust God and be strong.