Turn with me to Revelation chapter
13. I want to look at the dragon's beasts. Much talk about the beasts in
Revelation. Much talk, many pictures, artist's
conceptions. A lot of books have been written. A lot of speculation. And Revelation
chapter 13 is all but one verse about the beasts. Now before
we get into our study, I want you to think about something. First of all, that the only way
for you to see these beasts and understand what these beasts
are is by divine revelation. You're not going to read the
book of Revelation and figure out what the beasts are. You're not going to read the
book of Ezekiel and Daniel and find out what the beasts are.
You're going to find out what the beasts are when the Holy
Spirit of God teaches you what the beasts are. John, who wrote
these things, was carried by the Spirit up into glory to see
these things. And he saw them and will see
them by the Spirit of the living God. And then secondly, that
we see these things as figurative. You don't want to view these
things and revelations as literal beings, but they're figurative. Now what are these beasts? Well,
these beasts are pictured of a world under the influence and
power of Satan. It's all about the dragon. And through these two agencies,
Satan works to deceive the whole world. There's two beasts spoken
of here, and through these two beasts, he deceives the whole
world. And if you're here today and
you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, you're a servant of the
dragon, of the devil. And you're in his employ. Ephesians
2, 1 and 2 declare the condition of all men, but especially of
those before conversion. And this is what it says, You
hath equipped them who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein
in time past you walked. In this spiritual death, this
is what Paul is about to define for us in this spiritual death
we're in in time past, you walked according to the course of this
world. Just like everybody else in it. Just like the heathen walked.
Just like false religion walked. Just like the whole world walked.
How they walked back in the days of Adam and how they'll walk
today and how they'll walk if God grants us a tomorrow. You
walk according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. If you're here and you don't
know him, you don't know Christ, you don't have those eyes of
faith given to you, then you're the servant of the devil. You're
his servant, and you're in his employ. Well, how does he work? He works by giving to men high
ideals. Well, you say, I thought he would
work by giving men low thoughts. No. No, he works by giving men
high ideals, high and lofty goals, by making them to think that
they can change the destinies of others and of themselves. cause them to lengthen their
life span, make them wiser and better and less evil than other
men. He gives them high ideals. We're in Revelation chapter 13. And there's two primary organized
bodies in this world through which Satan works. The first
may be a shock to you, the second shouldn't. He works through governments
and he works through false religion. That's how he works. And you
go down and you go down to the bars and you go down there and
boy, Satan's busy down there. Well, I suppose so, but if you
want to see how busy he is, go down to First Baptist Church. By these two beasts, the dragon
is able to influence and deceive the whole world. Now let's look
at these two beasts and I'll make some comments as we go.
Verse one, let me read several verses to you. This is John. Now remember, he's carried up
the spirit. He's in the spirit on the Lord's
day. Spirit of God carried him up, enabled him to see these
things. And he said, I stood upon the sand of the sea and
saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten
horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the
name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was
like a leopard, swift, fast, able to hunt down his prey. And
his feet was as the feet of a bear, able to tear his enemies in pieces. And his mouth is a mouth of a
lion. And the dragon gave him his power,
and gave him his seat, and gave him great authority. And I saw
one of his heads as if it were wounded to death. And his deadly
wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon
which gave power to the beast. And they worshipped the beast
saying, who is like unto the beast? Who's able to make war
with him? And there was given unto him
a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and power was
given unto him to continue forty-two months That's three and a half years.
That's the time, times, and half a time that he talks about. And
he's talking about a period of persecution. And the remainder
of the time in this gospel age is a time of great persecution. And this beast is one of the
means of that persecution. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy
against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them
that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to
make war with the saints, and to overcome them. And power was
given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations, and
all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him. Now watch
this. Whose names are not found written
in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. Everybody else will chase this
beast, and they're going to worship the dragon that made such a beast. Now Paul said to the Ephesians,
he said, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but we wrestle
against what? Principalities. That's government,
isn't it? Isn't that what he's talking
about there? Against principalities, against powers. against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. That's Ephesians 6 verse 12 if
you want to look it up. And it's not so much any one
government as it is the powers of darkness that works in those
who compose these governments. Men are depraved. That's what
the Bible teaches. ignorant, deceived, fallen from
God. And in multiplying and organizing
them, you do not suddenly have a change in heart and mind. All
you have is a large group of depraved men, a large group of
deceived men. And we, as citizens in our country,
from the time I was a child, I was taught to respect our government. And I do respect it. But I know
now what it's about. I know what it's about. And these governments are filled
with depraved men. They have high ideals. There's
nothing wrong with the ideals. What's wrong with a moral country? Nothing wrong with that. Except
that they can't make it happen. And they can't change the hearts
of men. Satan gives them high ideals. And they believe that they can.
And we look to them to do it. before God opened their eyes. When you multiply men, you're
just multiplying depraved men. It's hard to think about, isn't
it? Depraved men run our country.
If you don't believe me, turn on CNN. Men are depraved, ignorant, and
deceived, and then multiplying. All you do is just make a big
body of unbelievers. Man's mind. Think about this.
Here's the natural man. That's what we're talking about
here. The carnal man. And the carnal mind is enmity
against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, and I believe that could be equally translated the word
of God. It's true enough, he won't submit
himself to the law, God, but he won't submit himself to the
word of God, and every word that God says is law. Because his mind is enmity against
God. Because men love darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil, so the governments
of this world despise light for the same reason. Nations are
powerful. They can unleash great destruction
and death upon their enemies. And the war they make against
the saints is mostly this. They ignore them. They just ignore them. Just think
for a minute about a mighty nation. And then you think about some
little island out there somewhere, this little nation, and the island's
two miles wide and five miles long. But it's a sovereign nation. Here's this little nation now.
You think Russia's worried about them? You think the United- nah,
they just ignore them. They just ignore them. He makes war against the saints
mostly by just ignoring them and not promoting them like they
do false religion. You ever notice when one of our
presidents or somebody, when they get somebody up there on
the podium to pray for them or so on, it's always the Pope? Or it's some big man in fundamentalism? But some governments do inflict
pain and suffering and imprisonment upon those who oppose themselves
to their so-called national religion. And this beast rises up out of
the sea. I want you to see something here
that I'm not just speculating about. In Revelation 17, 15,
John talks about the waters. He talks about the sea. He talks
about where the whore sitteth. And listen to what he says. The
waters which thou sawest, where the horse sitteth, are peoples,
and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. He's talking about
the nations. Back in the book of Isaiah, he
said, the nations before me are nothing. They are nothing. And these 10
horns, if you care to go through the scriptures, you can find
it in the book of Daniel, and I'm sure you can find it in other
places. But these 10 horns represent 10 kings or 10 kingdoms. And
I'm not so sure that the number 10 is important here. It's just
a number showing you that there are a set number of kingdoms. But it's telling you that they
are kingdoms. And they're separate in time,
and they're separate in geography, and they're separate in a lot
of things. And unlike the dragon, which
wore his crowns on his head, the dragon put the crown on his
head. I want you to notice this. This beast that rises up out
of the sea, governments, they wear the crown on their horns. Did you catch that when I read
it a while ago? They wear their crowns on their
horns. What's that mean? That means
their power's been designated. The dragon gave them their power
and their seat and their authority. And then notice this. The evil
influence of Satan upon the governments of this world caused them to
blaspheme God's name. They don't even recognize his
name. They never mention his name. They blaspheme God's name,
they blaspheme his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven,
that is, all that believe. And by his influence, they're
motivated to make war with the saints. Now it's of a particular
interest to me that no government has ever promoted the gospel
of Jesus Christ. They promoted Catholicism, Catholicism is a national religion
in a lot of places yet today. I've never heard them mention
it, but I would say that Catholicism is the national religion of Mexico.
If you go down there, that's all you're going to find. And some nations have adopted
Catholicism, some fundamentalism, and every other ism, but not
Calvinism. Show me a government somewhere
in time that adopted Calvinism. But now wait a minute, preacher.
You're saying all these things about governments and that it's
a beast and that it's controlled by Satan. And he says in Romans
13 that government, all these powers, are ordained of God and
used of God to minister to his people. Why you get around that? How
can that be? Yes, God does override and use
governments for our good and his glory, but not in a spiritual
sense. We don't look to our government
for spiritual truth. If you do, you're a fool. It's not in a spiritual sense,
only in a natural. The world runs after the beast. They worship the beast and the
dragon that made him, and they're filled with awe and wonder. And
the beast, in its pretense of love and righteousness, has laws
and courts and makes this world a safer place for us to live.
But never lose sight of this, of the fact that the beast is
of the dragon and he'll do the dragon's bidding. His mouth gives
him away. He passes laws and he brags on
them to promote same-sex marriage. You think the minister of God
would promote that? No. To kill unborn babies and
call it being merciful. And though he has laws in place,
Yet he is lenient to any religion, whatever it is, except true religion
under his care. Isn't that funny? If I were to
go over here to Genoa and go to the high school and say, I
want to come in and talk to your kids, they wouldn't let me in
the door. Wouldn't let me in the door. But if some kid in
there was a Buddhist, And he had to pray three times a day,
they'd say, that's okay, we're going to grant you time to go
do that. Now you go out there three times a day. Isn't that
something? They're lenient, even though
there's laws contrary to it, they're lenient to false religion. I'm talking about the dragon's
beast. But you say our country has stamped
right on our currency, in God we trust. Yep. their God, the God of this world, God of their imagination, and
the God that'll get them re-elected. That's the God they believe in.
And governments are made up of men, and men are born in depravity. Governments are but organized
men and women doing the will of the rulers of the darkness
of this world. All right, preachers, should we rebel against these
governments and ignore their laws and refuse to fight in their
wars? No. No. Because our God is using them
the same way he used Pharaoh to raise up Moses. He's using
them. They brought our Lord a coin.
They had him in a corner, boy. They just knew they did. They
brought him a coin and said, who do we pay tribute to? He
said, well, let me see that coin. He said, who pictures on it?
Caesar, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, render unto
the Lord that which is his. Our God uses them the same way
he used Pharaoh. You think Pharaoh had a soft
spot for Israel? No way, no way. In fact, he put out the decree
to kill all the babies, hoping to destroy the deliverer. You
know what God did? Put him in a basket, pitched
it with the atonement, that's what that word pitch is, pitched
it with the atonement, sent him down the river, right to Pharaoh's
house, and Pharaoh raised the deliverer. That's right. Same way he uses the beast, the
governments of this world, who despise us, who despise light,
who despise Christ. And yet they have laws in place
that make it safe for us to live and drive down the road. Same way you use Rome to accomplish
redemption. You go over to Acts chapter 4
and read it. Here's the nation, the whole Gentile nations, the
Roman nation, the Jewish nation, all these nations were gathered
together What were they going to do? They were going to do
exactly what they wanted to do. They wanted to kill the Christ
and they were gathered together to do that. But God overrode
what they were gathered together to do and they did what God's
hand and God's counsel determined before to be done. He uses that
beast the same way that he used Rome to accomplish redemption.
And the only thing that we are to do is to know what they're
about and not worship them. and not blindly follow them or
wander after them like the rest of the world. Now when men do worship, when
they do worship this beast, they're not worshiping the beast, they're
worshiping the dragon. Isn't that what that said that
I read to you a few minutes ago? They worship the dragon who gave
him his power. The whole concept of the religion
of the nations is blasphemy against God. Man's free will, man's works
of righteousness, man's sanctification of himself, man's power to make
this world a holy place, man's power to preserve the earth,
man's right to determine his own destiny. That's the beast, and that's
his religion. All right, now go back with me
to to verse 11 here in our text in Revelation. And I beheld another beast. Now
the first one come up out of the sea. That's the nations,
that's governments. But this one come up out of the
earth. And he had two horns like a lamb and he spake as a dragon. That is, he had the appearance
of a lamb but the words of the dragon. And he exercises all
the power of the first beast, and causes the earth and them
that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly
wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so
that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the
sight of men. And he deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power
to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on
the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had
the wound of a sword and did live. Now most writers believe
that this wounded head was Nero of Rome. who committed suicide
in the year 68 AD, but then that nation was resurrected again
in the person of his successor. I don't believe that's what this
is talking about at all. I don't really know, but it seems
to me, if we keep this in the context of the verse, to refer
to the death blow of Rome by the crucifixion of Christ. That
was a death blow to that nation. The son of God came before their
ruler and their ruler judged him to death and after the resurrection the
death blow had come upon Rome in the sight of all believers
they saw that nation for what it was blasphemous and so on
but you know what it didn't take long did it the wound was healed
was healed and the people just loved Rome. Went back to reveling
in her lusts and all of the things that Rome was about. And here it's speaking not only
of Rome but of all the succeeding governments of the age. Rome
was just one of the heads. Worldly religion works in conjunction
with government. These two beasts work together. Our Lord said to his disciples,
if you were of the world, the world would love you. Huh? The world would love you. If
you were of the world, get some kind of worldly religion and
see if government won't honor you. They'll have you come down,
lead them in prayer. but get true religion and see
what they do. In 1 John 12, the apostle tells
us that false prophets are of the world, therefore speak they
of the world and the world heareth them. And then our Lord said
this, if the blind lead the blind, they'll both fall in the ditch.
This second beast is the beast of false religion. He rises up
from the land which God prepared for his elect to dwell in. God
didn't raise him up, the dragon did. He came up to serve the
dragon. He has the appearance of a lamb,
but the heart of the dragon. We say, where does it say that?
You remember what our Lord said, out of the heart the mouth speaketh. He spoke as the dragon. He had a deceiving appearance.
The appearance of a harmless lamb, but he spake as a dragon. In John chapter 8, our Lord was
confronted by this beast. They came to him in the form
of the Sanhedrin. And they said to him, we be Abraham's
seed. We're lambs. We'd be Abraham's
seed. And our Lord said, if Abraham
was your father, you'd love me. Huh? They said, we have God our
father. He said, if God was your father,
you'd love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. You
are of your father, the devil, and the lust of your father you
will do. Now the beast only had two horns,
and this teaches us that it had power, but not visible power
like the nations. Their power's hidden. The power
of religion, now you don't hear anybody talking today about the
power of religion, but I'm gonna tell you something, the power
of religion is what supports those nations. There's multitudes,
unnumbered multitudes of religious men and women that elect these
officials. And you watch them when they
campaign in our country and see who they cater to. It had two horns telling us that
it stood as one beast unified. But you say religions are diverse
only in matters of church government, ordinances, and structure. There's only two religions in
the world, works and grace. You put whatever you want on
the sign out front. You put whatever you want on
the name of your seminary. But I'm telling you this, according
to the scriptures, there's only two religions in this world,
works and grace. Verse 15, and he had power to
give life unto the image of the beast, and the image of the beast
should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship
the image of the beast should be killed. The image here is
an image of their imagination. It's an image produced by the
preaching of Satan's ministers. It's an image that leads them
to hate and despise true believers and persecute them to death.
In Genesis chapter 6, God saw that every imagination of the
thoughts of men was only evil continually. Verse 16, and he calls us all,
both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive
a mark in their right hand and in their foreheads. And that
no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or
the number of his name. And here is wisdom. Let him that
hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is
the number of a man. Man was created on the sixth
day. And his number is 603 score and 6. What's this telling us? It's telling us that the beast
is man under the influence and power and direction of the dragon. And his image, that which is
worshipped and wondered after, is man. It's man. Man's rights man's glory, man's
will, man's desires, man's goals. It's man-centered religion and
all the world shall worship him whose names are not written in
the Book of Life of the Lamb. Why don't they go after him?
Why don't they join in with their families and worship the image?
Why do they not join the multitudes and take their place with the
rest of the world? because their name's been written in the Lamb's
Book of Life from the foundation of the world. He's their surety. And because he is, provision's
been made and means to recover his banished. And he comes in
time and he gives us wisdom to know who the beast is and
who the Christ is. And we won't follow after the
beast. Preacher, you really believe what you're teaching this morning?
Absolutely. Absolutely. You really believe
that beast has power to draw away? Let me tell you something,
and I'll quit. I've got a good friend. We worshiped together. We ate
together. We went out to restaurants. He was a participant in the worship
services at the church. Knew him well. Come to my house,
used to call me, make comments about the messages. That man,
for no good reason, slandered publicly at the back door a faithful
pastor of the gospel. Walked out the door, sold his
home and moved an hour and a half from the nearest body of believers. And this is what he said before
he left. When I get down there, I'm going to put me a sign in
my yard that says the gospel is preached here every day. Anybody
wants to hear it, come on in. That's the beast. He'll carry
you away. If it's possible. If it were
possible, our Lord said, the very lick would be to see. But
it ain't possible. Because provision was made.