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And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, who were redeemed from the earth.
This is the 14th chapter of Revelation, and there are some curious things in this chapter we need to understand before we continue. John is in vision, and he is writing down the things which he sees. Don’t bother trying to conjure up a mental image of this, for what John saw is pure imagery. I think I saw a painting somewhere, a drawing someone did once upon a time of this particular chapter. And what they drew was a mountain, and they had a sheep on it—a small sheep or lamb—and they had a whole hoard of people, with every one of them having some kind of Hebrew letters scrawled on their foreheads. Well, that sort of thing is basically useless. John’s is a verbal description and is intended to be conveyed verbally, but what he’s talking about is not lambs and scratchings on people’s foreheads. It’s something else; it symbolizes something else.
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And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, who were redeemed from the earth.
This is the 14th chapter of Revelation, and there are some curious things in this chapter we need to understand before we continue. John is in vision, and he is writing down the things which he sees. Don’t bother trying to conjure up a mental image of this, for what John saw is pure imagery. I think I saw a painting somewhere, a drawing someone did once upon a time of this particular chapter. And what they drew was a mountain, and they had a sheep on it—a small sheep or lamb—and they had a whole hoard of people, with every one of them having some kind of Hebrew letters scrawled on their foreheads. Well, that sort of thing is basically useless. John’s is a verbal description and is intended to be conveyed verbally, but what he’s talking about is not lambs and scratchings on people’s foreheads. It’s something else; it symbolizes something else.
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them who dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceives 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, that had the wound by a sword, and did live.
Yeah, I suppose he would. I would say that if someone is able to bring fire down from heaven and to do miracles in the sight of men, he’s going to deceive a few people. People are going to believe in and be impressed by what he does.
Now, this one that comes along, this one that has the horns like a lamb and speaks like a dragon is one who, well the Lamb of God is Christ, the dragon is the devil. So we’ve got one who, what shall we say, looks Christian but speaks devilish—one who appears to be a minister of righteousness but in fact is actually working out the devil’s agenda? A sobering thought, isn’t it?
And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, except he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that has understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three score and six.
Now, we’ve got a fascinating study ahead of us! This is the famous mark of the beast. You may have heard of it somewhere down the line. What is this mark of the beast? and how does it work?
1 And 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.2 And the beast that I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as if it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world marveled after the beast.
4 And they worshiped the dragon who gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all tribes, and tongues, and nations.
Whatever this beast is, it’s powerful, and blasphemous, and violently opposed to the Jewish people. No, it’s not Islamic. It’s so tempting to think that when you find some power that is anti-Christian or anti-Jewish. But Paul tells us that this great power exalts itself above all that is called God, and sits in the place of God and calls itself God. If you understand how violently monotheistic Islam is, you would know that’s not possible. No power claiming to be God other than Allah himself could ever command the respect and following of the Islamic people.
This beast is not Islamic. What ever it is it gets its power from the devil, and it’s part of the devil’s scheme to destroy the faithful people of God—Jewish and Christian. We suspect that what all these prophecies we have been studying are trying to warn us about is that there is yet another Holocaust to come upon the people of God—the holy people, whether they be Jewish or whether they be Christian.
And 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 that I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority.
Who is this beast? Or, better yet, what is it? This passage is in Revelation 13. It’s part of an ongoing story that deals with the persecution of the saints, the persecution of the people of God—the war of Satan, if you will, against the people of God. Centuries earlier, Daniel saw a vision that dealt with this same beast.
After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
You talk about a nightmare—this incredible, weird, strange beast with horns and heads and then a little horn popping up and speaking great things! Of course, the question is: What does this nightmare mean? What part is symbolism? What’s the imagery? What’s it supposed to be opening our understanding up to so that we could know what this thing is all about?
As we approach Thanksgiving Day this year, and we look forward to being with family and friends, to good food and good football, it might be a good time ask, not why we do this, but why we are able to do it.
How is it that we have so much to be thankful for as a people? It is all too easy to gripe and complain, but we really have it pretty good overall. Why is this the richest country there has ever been, while other nations with great resources stumble around in the dark?
I have couple of things for you to consider. First, the proclamation of George Washington in 1789…
Are you a grateful person? Do you give thanks often? When you do give thanks, to people or to God, is it from the heart, or are you like a shop clerk that has been trained to say it?
When you are ungrateful (and you are ungrateful from time to time) why are you ungrateful, and what is it in you that determines this?
And 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 that I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority.
We’re in the 13th chapter of the Book of Revelation. Now, Revelation 12 and 13 (and 14 for that matter) are often called inset
chapters. But they really belong here because they continue as a part of the seamless description of the vision of John. They include, however, history as well as prophecy. It is almost as though the Holy Spirit is going to bring us up to date on what’s going on here and the whole historical pattern of what is happening here.
Now, time has very little meaning in a vision. So some of what we read here will be past, some of it will be future, and it will not always be easy to sort it out. Our objective in studying this passage is not so much to foretell the future—as appealing as that might be—but to be sure that we understand the future as it plays out day by day because there’s going to be a lot of terrible things taking place. In fact, the whole message of Revelation 12 and is that the dragon is going to practice some staggering deceptions. He’s going to use the beast from the sea, and then a later beast from the land, as instruments of this deception. And the deception, to use the words of Jesus (Mark 13:22), will become so bad that if it were possible it would even deceive the very elect of God. There could come a time when even the most faithful among us could begin to doubt ourselves, our faith, and maybe even our sanity. In fact, it is even possible that some Christians could be deceived into worshiping the beast. But, what is this beast anyway, and what does it mean?
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.
Thus begins the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation. The seventh trumpet has sounded. These seven trumpets are a part of the seven seals of the book of the last days of Man upon the earth and of Man’s mis-government. And we are following on the heels of incredible disasters that have struck the earth. Men have been dying by the hundreds of thousands—no, people have been dying in the millions. Disasters, wars, the beginning of what could be a nuclear winter—words fail to describe the kind of events that John has been seeing in this vision.
But remember, this is all just a bad dream in a way. Nothing is happening. John is on the Isle of Patmos. He’s been carried in vision to the day of the Lord—the time of God’s wrath, the time of God’s vengeance upon the earth—and he’s standing there, round-eyed, looking at all these things that are happening and marveling at them as angels showed him one thing after another. So, the seventh angel sounds and blows his trumpet and there is silence in heaven about the space of half an hour, some statements are made, and all of a sudden there appears a great sign in heaven.
If you want to know about the last days
one of the places you’ll naturally go looking is the Bible, and if you grab a concordance and do a search for the expression in the last days
you will find exactly six occasions where the term is found, Old Testament and New. However, if you search the Hebrew phrase, you will find the expression some 13 times in the Old Testament alone. The reason is that in over half of the occasions where it is used, it is rendered in the latter days
. I presume there are contextual reasons for choosing one expression or the other.
We would like to insist that the expression always means exactly the same thing, but English doesn’t work that way and we shouldn’t expect Hebrew to be any more precise. We run afoul of some very bad interpretations because amateurs find a meaning of the Hebrew that fits their assumptions and then they impose that rendering everywhere it is found because it supports their particular bias. I have the impression that God wants us to be less dogmatic and more enquiring, but that’s a hard adjustment for some people to make.
The last time I spoke here, I introduced the topic of the last days with Paul’s warning of debilitating, weakening times in 2 Timothy. Then came Peter’s powerful admonition in 2 Peter 3. I’ll begin here with another occasion when Peter addressed the question of the Last Days
, the Day of the Lord
, and the prophet Joel. We’ll find it in Acts, chapter 2, occurring on the Day of Pentecost.
The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.
Mystery? What mystery? Well, we’re in the Book of Revelation, chapter ten. And these angels that are appearing to John sequentially are telling things that are going to happen in the future. And John is writing them all down faithfully so that we will know what it is that’s coming, and why it is coming.
Now we have come right up against the seventh of the angels that are going to blow trumpets. You’ve heard of Gabriel blowing his trumpet and the judgment day coming? Well, that’s where we are. This angel comes forth, puts the trumpet to his lips and blasts out. This is the time when the mystery of God will be finished. Whatever it is, this mystery is connected with the seventh trumpet. The fact is, John was leading up to this prophet, he saw an angel come down from heaven and stand on the earth and on the sea, and cry with a loud voice and when he did there were seven thunders cracked out with a voice, that said something. John took his pen in hand and was going to write them down, and somebody said, No, no, don’t write what the seven thunders uttered.
And so he didn’t. And one suspects because they made this statement, and then immediately say, The time is come, we’re not delaying any further and the mystery of God should be finished.
The angel probably had said something about this mystery. John was privileged to hear it. We’re not. Alright, what is the seventh trumpet all about?
