The False Prophet; The Mark of the Beast. Rev 13:11-18

We have looked at the beast of the sea, after our background study in Daniel where we saw that the first beats represented the Antichrist and he rules a kingdom that represents and manifests all of the characteristics of the major kingdoms that were prophesied by Daniel.

Revelation 13:3 ^NASB “{I saw} one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed {and followed} after the beast.” One of the characteristics that indicates who this individual is that he has a wound that would be fatal and appears to be fatal, and there is a resurrection that occurs. Whether it is a real resurrection or a pseudo resurrection is uncertain but there is this appearance of a resurrection from the dead that is used to somehow validate him as this substitute Christ. The word “Antichrist’ means not one who is against Christ, even though he is, but the Greek preposition anti [a)nti] means a substitute, a substitute messiah. He received his authority from the dragon; he is worshipped by the people as God. So there is this religious orientation to his kingdom and he has unlimited world-wide authority for forty-two months. That must come in the second half of the Tribulation. To put it in the first half of the Tribulation would not make sense because it ends when he is destroyed by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and he and the second beast are sent immediately to the lake of fire. He is antagonistic to God, blasphemes against God, makes war with the saints, and he has authority over every tribe and nation. So he has truly a world-wide global kingdom and he is worshipped by those known as the “earth dwellers” which is a title for those who are negative to God throughout the Tribulation period and never do respond to the gospel.

Revelation 13:11 ^NASB “Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon.” A similar beast. The use of the term “beast” connects him to the first one, they are very similar in their nature and background and their authority. The word “another” is the Greek word allos [a)lloj] which means another of the same kind, so they are connected together. This one, though, comes up out of the earth. The first one came up out of the sea. There has been a lot of discussion as to how this indicates the ethnic origin of these two individuals. Some have attempted to make the Antichrist Jewish but it is difficult to see how they would take someone of this nature as the Messiah. It seems that he is a Gentile connected to the Gentile kingdoms by virtue of the imagery that comes out of Daniel chapter seven, the sea representing the chaotic sea of peoples and nations in history that produces him. The reason that the first beast is said to come out of the sea is there is because there is the specific connection to Daniel and the imagery of Daniel; he comes out of the sea just as the four beasts in Daniel came out of the sea. The beast is depicted in verse 2 in the same way that the four beasts were depicted in Daniel, a a bear and a leopard and a lion; so the writer is making that specific connection.

Why the second beast comes out of the earth is really uncertain. There are many who have taught that the word ge [gh] there in Greek for “earth” is the word that means land, and that it would come out of the land, Israel and the people of Israel. So the first beast would be Gentile and the second beast would be Jewish. But if we do a word study in the book of Revelation on the use of the word ge for “earth” it is not used of the land of Israel in that technical sense anywhere in the book, other than perhaps here. And there is nothing contextually here to force us into that determination. So there is not anything in the context, or anything in Revelation, that would support that. We have called this one the false prophet because it appears that he is the mouth-piece, the representative of the first beast, and the first beast is the one who claims to have deity, the second beast represents him—that is the role of the prophet—so that is why he is designated the false prophet, even though that is not what he is called in this passage.

John has an interesting description: “he had two horns like a lamb.” If we contrast this with the first verse of the passage which talks about the first beast which had seven heads and ten horns there is obviously something that is much diminished in the second beast. He has two horns and that would indicate that he limited power—two horns, not ten horns. Maybe that even indicates that that he is related to two different nations, but it is not clear what those two horns represent. What is important is that he is said to be like a lamb. Jesus Christ is referred to in Revelation 5:6 as “a Lamb standing, as if slain…” “Lamb” is the favorite title that is used in the book of Revelation for the Lord Jesus Christ where it is used some 27 times. So the fact that this second beast is like a lamb brings in the comparison: he is like a lamb but he is not the Lamb. He is a counterfeit, he tries to imitate or mimic Jesus Christ as the Messiah, yet he speaks like a dragon. There is an external appearance that tries to counterfeit, perhaps, Christianity and Jesus Christ, or at least the ecumenical type view of Jesus Christ, but he “speaks like a dragon.” That is an important phrase to pay attention to because what that does it forces our attention not to what he does—because he is going to perform some incredible miracles—but to what he says. Miracles, signs and wonders, are nothing more than a calling card to draw attention to something rather than a true validation. The real issue according to God is not what prophets do, not their miracles, their signs, their wonders, their charismatic personality, but what they say. It is the content of their speech, their belief system; and that is what must be analyzed.

If you are a Bible-believing Christian then you are going to (if you are consistent with the Scriptures) hold on to certain key elements of Scripture. You are going to understand that Jesus Christ is God, eternal God, co-equal, co-eternal Second person of the Trinity who entered into human history. He took on human flesh and became a genuine human being so that without giving up any of His deity or diminishing of His deity, he added to Himself true humanity, but not sinful humanity. As the God-Man then He was able to be genuine humanity and live to fulfillment that which was intended for the first Adam. He was able to fulfill that original mission of Adam in terms of not yielding/submitting to temptation but living His life in complete and total dependence upon God, in complete and total obedience to the Father and to the Word. He was then qualified to go to the cross because He was sinless. That is the foundation of Christianity: to think of Jesus Christ as the one conceived and born by a virgin, that He is the eternal God and has all of the attributes of deity, that He was absolutely sinless, that he went to the cross where He died as out substitute, and that He was buried and then rose again on the third day. He is who He claimed to be when He said that he and the Father were one—He is complete deity; that He is the resurrection and the life; and that when He said, “I am the way the truth and the life; no man can come to the Father except by me,” Jesus was stating that He was the only way to the Father. When others come along and change that, no matter what they call that particular Jesus, it doesn’t mean that they are Christian or that they are Bible-believing. No matter who you call Jesus, His character has to be the same.

You can’t change the character of Jesus and have the Jesus of the Bible. So the way to tell the difference is by the content of speech. That is emphasized all the way through Scripture and so the second beast has an appearance, a counterfeit camouflage that looks like the lamb but he speaks like the dragon. The dragon is Satan so we know that the human viewpoint, the demon-influenced information that comes out of the mouth of the second beast makes him not a lamb.

Revelation 13:12 ^NASB “He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.” When we go through verses 11-18 what we see is that there are thirteen different characteristics that are set out for the false prophet. We have seen so far that (1 ) he comes out of the earth, (2) he has two horns like a lamb, (3) he speaks as a dragon. Now in verse 12 it says (4) he exercises all of the authority of the first beast in his presence. If we look back to verse 4 we read, “they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast.” This is the same Greek word in both places, exousia [e)cousia] which indicates the exercise of control or authority or power over something. So here it indicates having power over something and the source of the power is the dragon, and the second beast exercises all of the authority of the first beast. So that means that his authority derives from Satan just as much as the authority of the first beast, and he exercises that in his presence. That is an important thing to observe there because the second beast is thought by some to maybe take the place of the first beast. But what this says is that he exercises his authority in the presence of the first beast; they operate together. The second beast is the right-hand man of the first beast. This is because he is the one who is the religious mouthpiece, the one who forces all on the earth to worship the first beast. So there is definitely this religious orientation to the kingdom of the Antichrist. Pure secularism is just as religious as any other religion; there is just an overt or covert operation of religion.

Romans 1:19ff emphasizes that we either worship the creator or we worship the creature but we are always worshipping something, and what happens here is that there is going to be an overt worship that is directed to the first beast and his claim to deity. That is what is brought into the passage by the last phrase reminding us of the fatal wound that is healed. It indicates that the exercise of this authority and the worshipping of the first beast comes after there is this miraculous healing of the wound or this pseudo resurrection that takes place on the part of the first beast, the Antichrist. It is on the bass of this miracle, the resurrection, that is going to get everybody’s attention and so many are going to just swoon over the idea that this must have been an act of God, and they are going to worship him. This is just standard operating procedure in the deceptive practice of Satan.

The phrase “in his presence” also indicates (5) that he is a spokesperson for the Antichrist, he represents him, he carries out his mandates and policies. Then we note that he causes everyone on the earth to worship the first beast. It is interesting that the word “exercises” in the first part of the verse and “causes” in that second phrase both are the Greek verb poieo [poiew] which has a wide range of meanings: to do something, to create something, to make something, to cause something to happen, to produce something, to manufacture something. So we have to look at the text to see what is there. Verse 12 states that he causes, forces or makes all of the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast. How he does this and how long it will take to do this, and if he actually brings it to completion, we don’t know. In order to make everyone on the earth worship the first beast is going to be quite an endeavor, especially if this is coming at the end of the second period of the trumpets, judgments between the end of the trumpet judgments and the final bowl judgments, a time when there has been tremendous turmoil upon the earth and all of the basic systems on the earth have broken down. Perhaps what enables him to make these kinds of religious claims is that in the midst of all of this chaos, uncertainty and destruction, the earth dwellers are devoting themselves to him as the way to be rescued from this “horrible” God that is bringing judgment upon them.

Revelation 13:13 ^NASB “He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. [14] And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.” This is the third mention of the fact that there has been this pseudo resurrection that has taken place and it is focusing on the purpose of these signs. There are signs that are performed by Satan, signs and miracles that he performs in order to deceive people. Ultimately all systems of thought are religious; something always has to be worshipped, but this worship is going to have a conscious orientation to Satan. That doesn’t mean that everybody understands that but a lot of people will. It will be made very clear where the authority comes from and they are aligning themselves over against God. That is indicated by the first seal. That is what happens as the restraint of the Holy Spirit has been removed and God in His permissive will has allowed people to go to the fullest extent of their sin natures. So we see the dynamics of deception that are taking place and we see a picture of this earlier in one of Paul’s epistles.

The context of 2 Corinthians 10 & 11 is that Paul’s authority is being challenged by the Corinthians. They had gotten into carnality and have rejected Paul’s authority, and they are being attracted to the teaching of various false teachers and prophets who come along with various types of religion, utilizing the name of Christ in that process. At the same time they are challenging Paul’s own authority and the fact that apparently he was not a well-spoken preacher. Several times he had indicated that he was not as oratorically smooth as many people might be. In this passage he defends himself and the truth that he teaches.

2 Corinthians 11:12 ^NASB “But what I am doing I will continue to do, so that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting.” In other words he is going to continue steadfast in teaching the Word in order to block those who are coming in with their antagonistic and false message. [13] “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” They were making claims related to who they were, their credentials and their authority, and this did not have anything to do with reality. [14] “No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” This is the standard modus operandi for Satan. He always disguises himself as being good, as being on God’s side, as being the one who represents truth and righteousness. He is able to pull off that deception because people do not have the doctrine or the discernment to understand the difference. The key is always going to come back to doctrine, the message of the Word. That is why we have to make sure that we really know God’s Word. We have to spend time reading it and studying it, and that is our means to the end of getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father, and building that close relationship with Him. That is the foundation for our discernment. [15] “Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.” These are the false prophets, the ones who train to be promoting religion. These are the ecumenical preachers, the motivational preachers, many of the false religion promoters; all of whom claim to have the truth. They are basically spiritually negative and they don’t want to go through the process of analysis and study and prayer and coming to an understanding of the truth.

So Satan’s ministers are those who proclaim his lies and those who are directly indwelt and empowered by him. They really disguise themselves as really being righteous. Who in the world would be against morality? Who would be against being good? Satan is not the one who is going to show up looking evil, looking ugly; the reality is that when Satan shows up he is going to be the most attractive, the most winsome, the most pleasing personality, and he is going to be the last person in the room that would be picked to be the devil. Satan doesn’t walk around flaunting his evil and his horrors, he masks it in the most attractive package that he can find, and so his ministers are ministers of righteousness but their ends will be according to their works.

So the second beast is clearly defined as the one who is the promoter of the deception and he does this through his miracles and his signs. Revelation 13:13 ^NASB “He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men.” This is the seventh characteristic of the false prophet; he performs great signs. These are tremendous miracles, miracles that will imitate the miracles of the two witnesses who have come back in chapter eleven. It is the signs, though, that are intended for deception.

Revelation 13:14 ^NASB “And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.” The Scripture says that there were true signs that were given as evidence or corroboration of the message of the apostles that were their credentials, the signs of the true apostles. There is an authenticating aspect to miracles but it is not distinct or separate from the content of the message. This deception that will come fits with the pattern that the Lords Jesus Christ warned of in Matthew 24:24 ^NASB “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” The term “the elect” there is just a synonym for those who are saved. Those who were saved would be deceived because there are the slickest counterfeit miracles that have ever occurred in history. So Satan has great power and he uses that power to deceive and distract. The only thing, once again, that protects believers is the Word of God. It is the discernment that comes from Bible doctrine that protects us from the deception of the world. But that sad thing is that when we live in a world where there is so little biblical knowledge, and when Christians are so biblically illiterate and the ministries from so many pulpits have been watered down, people don’t have the content. Their thinking hasn’t been challenged with enough to be able to exercise discernment. That is why it is so important to get into the details of the text and to really study all the implications and applications of passages because only by doing so do we really come to understand how all of the Word of God interconnects, interrelates, and networks together to build that framework of Bible doctrine.

So Satan can perform a lot of miracles. He cannot create life ex nihilo as God can. He can create of perform, using the other words for create that we have in Scripture, but the initial word that we have in Genesis chapter one, the verb bara, is used only of God. Man can’t create in that bara sense. Genesis also uses the Hebrew verbs asah and yatsar to speak of God’s creative activity, and man can make things, he can create at a derivative level. Satan can create at a derivative level in ways that man can’t create and in ways that man can’t discern, so he can duplicate or counterfeit God’s miracles in numerous ways. He can counterfeit a resurrection. He is not giving new life, he is just making it appear as if he is bringing someone back to life, a real resurrection. His miracles are lying miracles because they are claiming to substantiate something or to credit something as true from God when it is not from God. So these are called “lying wonders” as we have seen in 2 Thessalonians 2:10. God allows that, we know from Deuteronomy 13, in order to test us to see if we are going to be true to His Word or whether we are going to be led astray by that which stimulates our sense and excites us, especially in a world where there is so much horror, violence, destruction and death, as we see in the latter half of the Tribulation. For the Antichrist and false prophet come along and have these miracles to provide false hope and the people will be grasping at straws, but the only real hope that we have in life is the Lord Jesus Christ.

In verse 14 we have the eighth and ninth characteristics of the Antichrist. The 8^th is that he deceives those who dwell on the earth through these signs ^NKJV “which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast.” That phrase “he was granted to do” is a passive voice verb in the Greek, which doesn’t tell us who gave him that authority but we would assume that it is God who through His permissive will allows the false prophet to engage in these kinds of miracles. Satan has been limited from performing these kinds of miracles in the past. God used fire from heaven in the Old Testament. For example, He used fire from heaven to judge Sodom, He used fire from heaven to judge the rebellious Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus chapter ten, He used fire to vaporize the altar on Elijah, and in a few other instances in the Old Testament. But Satan is never allowed to duplicate that miracle in the Old Testament. In the Tribulation period the two witnesses will have that power and then God is going to allow the false prophet to duplicate that, and that is the emphasis of that passive voice verb. God will allow the false prophet to duplicate some of these miracles in the site of the beast to deceive the earth dwellers. 2 Thessalonians 2:10 stated that that God was going to send false signs and wonders and a deluding influence on the unbelievers in the Tribulation period. He is not forcing them to not believe; they have already made that decision. They have rejected God and so he is just going to intensify that negative volition and delusion, and they will follow after the first and second beasts.

The ninth thing that we see is that the false prophet will oversee construction of an image of the first beast that is to be worshipped. He is going to build an idol, a physical representation of the first beast, and people are going to worship it. It reminds us about the image that Nebuchadnezzar built. That was a foreshadowing of what takes place in Revelation chapter thirteen, but it is going to go to another level. We are reminded here again that the image is of the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. Notice how that keeps being repeated for emphasis to show that that is the real miracle that has brought everybody to worship him.

Revelation 13:15 ^NASB “And it was given to him to give [passive voice] breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.” He is going to give breath to this piece of human construction and there is a death penalty for those who will not worship the image of the beast. This is something that has never happened before in history with regard to an idol. In the Old Testament idols were always ridiculed for being dumb, unable to speak, for being just lifeless stone. So the 10^th characteristic that we see of the false prophet is that he gives breath to the image of the beast and he gives it the ability to speak. This really ratchets things up another notch. God is just letting evil go to its fullest extent; he is removing all restraints. Cf. Psalm 135:16, 17; Isaiah 46:7; Habakkuk 2:18, 19. So in contrast to all previous human idolatry in history God is going to allow these to speak. So the 11^th characteristic is that the false prophet will cause those who don’t worship the image to be killed.

Revelation 13:16, 17 ^NASB “And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and {he provides} that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, {either} the name of the beast or the number of his name.” The word that is translated “mark” is the Greek word charagma [xaragma] which means a mark that is engraved, etched, branded, cut, imprinted or stamped. It cold refer to a tattoo, an embedded chip connected to an external mark. The idea here is that it is visible; people will be able to look at other people and see this mark that identifies them as a beast worshipper. It is a physical sign of their allegiance to the beast and worshipping him. It is tied to some sort of act of worship of the beast. Believers at that time will not do that, but if they don’t worship the beast they will be virtually cut off from all society—from purchasing food, anything that is necessary for life, access to medical supplies. The issue here is to completely exclude from society anyone who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the extreme attempt in history to control all the economy. As we move forward in history with the technology we have it is very easy to see how this could take place with the advent of computers. Many believe we are coming closer and closer to a cashless society, and by this the whole economy can be controlled by the government and everyone can be tracked. That is an indication of the kind of control that the Antichrist will have during the Tribulation period.

Revelation 13:18 ^NASB “Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.” There are so many different speculations about this. What we do know for sure is that six in the biblical use of numbers represents man. This is a threefold six, three indicating God and so it is man deifying himself. If it has any other significance we are not sure.

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