The Counterfeit Trinity: The Rise of the Two Beasts - Glorious Hope | Studies in Revelation

I imagine that many of us, when standing on the seashore or

on the shore of a great lake, look out in awe and quickly get lost

in the vastness of the horizon.

I took this photo on the 1st of January this year, and I stood

looking out into the vastness of the Irish Sea and the horizon

that was there, because five minutes later, I was going to be

in the sea and I wanted to stay on shore.

But particularly in this part of the world, we enjoy looking at

this view.

We enjoy walking along the shore path to look out to the sea,

to clear our heads, not just with the breeze that this coastline

offers, but knowing that the vastness of the water gives us perspective

that our home simply cannot.

And of course, many in this community have waited on the shore

or stood at the harbor looking out for loved ones to come home from

fishing.

And so the sea for us is a place of expectant hope.

We hope for clarity and a sense of the wonders of creation.

But we also hope to see the boat coming into the harbor and know

that our loved ones are safe.

Well, for the people at the time of John, who's writing this

revelation, as given to him in a vision by God, the sea is not the

place for the casual observation of the horizon.

The sea was a place of the unknown, and it was a place of chaos.

The ancient Jews feared the sea, and they feared it because they

couldn't control it, nor could they explore it to understand what

was in it or just beneath the surface.

And so, as we concluded chapter 12 of Revelation, we saw

the dragon who represents Satan, standing on the shore looking

out to the sea.

And verse 17 of chapter 12 told us then the dragon became furious

with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring,

on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the

testimony of Jesus.

And he stood on the sea or the sand of the sea.

So as we finished chapter 12, there was something we had to know.

We must know about the dragon who stands on the sand of the sea.

The dragon, or the Satan, is a defeated foe, and he knows it.

Unable to kill the Savior and to devour the church, he goes after

the people of God.

Notice what was there.

Those who hold to the testimony of Jesus, that's who he's

going after.

And what we see now in chapter 13 is his method.

And as he stands on the shore, John sees a beast coming out of the

water.

And this beast is presented to us in verses 1 to 10, and the second

beast coming out of the land in verses 11 to 18.

Now, the image of a beast is perhaps not as familiar to us as

it was to the people of John's time.

Our ideas of a beast may come from the writings of J.R.R.

tolkien, maybe from the Hobbit, or perhaps from the Lord

of the Rings, as the Balrog is presented to us as a fiery beast

with horns waiting to consume and devour Gandalf.

But in John's day, the idea and the image of a beast was quite

familiar, whether they would have looked at one or thought of

one that looked like this, because it was the prophet Daniel

who had presented God's people with a vision of four beasts that

represented consecutive world powers over history.

And that's in Daniel, chapter seven, verses one to eight.

And we understand those four beasts to be the empires of Babylon,

Persia, Greece, and then Rome itself.

And like Daniel's fourth beast in Daniel chapter seven and verse

seven, which represented imperial Rome, the first beast here

in Revelation has ten horns, as verse one tells us.

John is seeing before him.

Visualize through this beast the Roman Empire, the ruling authority

of his time, what the people around him would have known as the

source of their tribulation in their last days.

And here Rome is described as a grotesque monster whose authority

has been granted by Satan.

Now, the beast is also described as having seven heads and

10 diadems, or crowns on the horns.

The seven heads have on them blasphemous names which are perhaps

Rome's claims to deity, such as the empire or indeed the Caesar

himself, calling themselves Lord or the son of the gods or even

Savior, revealing to us the divine pretensions of the beast.

And this is important because as we go through this passage, we're

seeing what the beast is pretending to be, because the dragon,

along with these two beasts, from the outset, we must understand,

are counterfeits.

They're trying to show themselves to be something that they're

not.

They're trying to deceive.

And so they are counterfeits.

The dragon, the Satan, the beasts, they stand up against God

and his people thinking that they will succeed, but they will

not, because there's nothing good in them, even though they try

to tell people there is.

They are in fact evil.

And that's what, as we read on, we find the first beast described

in verse three, as one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound,

but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled

as they followed the beast.

Later in this passage, we discover that that mortal wound was

inflicted by the sword.

And verse two confirms that the authority given to the beast

by the dragon is his to be had.

But we also see that the beast has this mortal wound, but it is

a wound that is healed.

Now, this perhaps sounds familiar to us, for in Christ we

see the Savior wounded for our transgressions, as Isaiah said he

would.

But yet he was healed truly in his resurrection.

So here the first beast with this description is identified as

a counterfeit Savior, a counterfeit Jesus trying to lure

the world after himself, making them believe that he is their

Savior when he is no Savior at all.

And look at what the cry of the world is in verse four, as they

worship the dragon because of the authority of the beast.

And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to

the beast.

And they worshiped the beast, saying, who is like the beast?

And who can fight against it?

Who is like the beast?

Now, that's quite the question.

But it's also quite a cry from the people of what they affirm about

the One.

They're looking to this thing, this grotesque monster.

They look at him and they don't see a monster.

They see a Savior.

How can that be?

But haven't we seen this time and time again, world leaders who

have had huge popular support, yet continue with an agenda that

is against the standards of God.

It's their charisma and their conviction about what they believe

that draw people to themselves.

And then they blind them with personality and with words.

And so the first beast is doing just that, and people are worshipping

it as if it can ever be their savior.

Well, John continues to tell us that it has a mouth that utters

proud, blasphemous words, and it has authority for 42 months.

Now, although the dragon actively gives his authority to the

beast, God reigns and rules over what the beast carries out,

allowing or permitting the beast to exercise his authority.

And even though God ordains what the beast does, he does not

have the same motivations or intent as the Satan.

God's judgment is his strange work, as Isaiah says in chapter 28

and verse 21.

And he calls on the wicked to repent so that they might live.

What a contrast to the Satan.

Because while God is calling for the wicked to repent and live

well, Satan rejoices when people are destroyed.

See, the beast is full of himself, uttering haughty and blasphemous

words against God, just as Antiochus IV Epiphanes did in his

day, functioning as a type of the coming beast.

Such activity fits also with what's described in Second Thessalonians,

chapter two.

And verses three and four is the man of lawlessness who exalts

himself as divine.

And so the beast is allowed to exercise his authority for 42 months.

And yes, some understand this to be a literal 3 1/2 years before

Jesus returns.

But John is more likely describing the entire period between

Jesus first and second coming, just as we've seen in Revelation

before that.

To understand the numbers and time periods in Revelation is to

understand the control of God.

That God knows exactly the time limit that is placed on the

evil that is on the earth.

John wrote not of days far removed from his readers.

And so he's writing here of the impact of the Roman Empire on

them.

This beast rising that is declaring itself as their savior

so that it may be worshipped, exactly what the Caesars did, exactly

what the establishment of Rome did.

And so this language, this haughty language on blasphemous words,

this language of the beast is against God and against his saints.

So this beast, harboring divine, really divine pretensions,

hates anything and hates anyone devoted to the one true and

living God.

And to demonstrate this, verse seven tells us that he wages war

on the saints of God in an attempt to conquer them, and he is

allowed to do so.

And he gains authority over all peoples of the world by influencing

culture so that they would be drawn to worship him.

And he has made people worship things of nature, of gold and of

experience, pulling them away from the knowledge of the one true

God of salvation.

But John has words of wisdom that we must pay attention to, because

he says in verses 9 and 10, if anyone has an ear, let him hear.

And this is what John wants to say to us.

If anyone is to be taken captive to captivity, he goes.

If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with a sword must he be

slain.

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

Those who have ears should open their ears and heed what has

been said.

People are now being told in advance about the authority of the

beast and his persecution and his slaying of Christians.

They are informed that unbelievers will give in to the beast.

They will worship him, and they will give him their adoration.

And so believers must ready themselves.

Some are destined for captivity, and so to captivity they

will go because of Christ.

Others are destined to be killed by the sword.

And we are seeing that in this world today.

And so by the sword they will be slain for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Now, such events do not mean that God has abandoned or forgotten

his people.

He has not the power of the Beast does not suggest God's sovereign

rule over the world has been surrendered.

For the beast exercises authority only by God's will.

And so believers are called upon to persevere and to remain faithful

to their Lord.

That's why one of the tenets that John Calvin brought to the Reformation

was the preservation or the keeping of the saints until that

day when Jesus would come, knowing what they must face by way

of tribulation and persecution.

So God's people are called to remain loyal despite the persecution

and the difficulties at hand.

And this is what we must understand about this beast.

He is a counterfeit Christ.

He will want to tell us that he can save us when all he will do

is condemn us.

And Paul marked it well when he said in Ephesians 6:12, for we

Ephesians 6:12

do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,

against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this

present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly

places.

This beast is an agent of the powers and principalities that cannot

be seen but are the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

He will use the things all around us to attempt to convince

us that they will save us, ultimately trusting in him and not

in the true Savior.

And so this is our warning tonight.

Do not think these things are insignificant.

We must be aware that the world and its pleasures are not true

salvation.

Just as Rome set itself up to be the Savior of the people, it was

no Savior at all.

And every preceding generation or succeeding generation has been

led that lie that every incarnation of the world will save.

What is it for us today?

Well, we're told money will save us.

We're told happiness will save us.

We're told our choice will save us, when in fact they will not.

It is just the next incarnation of the beast trying to

pull us away from Christ and to believe that they will save us

when it is only Christ who can and who will.

The beast of this current age simply draws us away from our true

salvation in Christ.

So trust not in the world.

Trust only in the Savior, the one who has the true power to save.

And so we've been introduced to the first beast, but there is

a second one that appears before John, and this one comes out

of the earth, and it has two horns like a lamb.

But when it spoke, it used language like the dragon, like the

Satan in verse 12 tells us it exercises all the authority of the

first beast in its presence and makes the earth and its inhabitants

worship the first beast whose mortal wound was healed.

Verse 13 goes on to say it performed great signs so that people

would be deceived and becomes what Richard Phillips describes in

his commentary.

Whereas the first beast relied mainly on par, the second beast supports

him with lies.

So this is a propaganda machine for the first beast.

And if the first beast is a counterfeit Christ offering salvation

where there is none, so the second beast is a counterfeit Holy

Spirit convincing the world of a false power of salvation of the

first beast.

His lies produce false religion.

And not just religion as we might define it, but also the political

and social ideologies that have essentially become a religion

to so many.

We're surrounded by the voice of this beast in government, media

and entertainment that touts progress beyond the narrow thinking

of the Bible, the God of the Bible, its message of salvation and

judgment and its call to holy living.

And that's what we read in verse 15, we're told that this beast

was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the

image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would

not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

And so if this second beast is a counterfeit Holy Spirit and its

actions are presented to us here in verse 15, just as the Holy

Spirit came to glorify Jesus and anoint him with power, so the

second beast honours and empowers the first.

And when John describes it granting life to the image of the

beast, we shouldn't envisage an image literally coming to life.

Instead, the point is the second beast empowering and supporting

the first beast in its endeavors.

The language or the speech of the first beast seems supernatural,

inspired, authoritative, compelling.

He speaks in oracles.

But this is not a matter merely of persuasion.

Coercion is a staple of the second beast, so called ministry

to the people.

And those who refuse to worship the first beast are put to

death.

And once again, we have seen this played out on the pages of history,

where faithful believers, those whom the dragon has gone after,

who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and live by his standard,

have they not been killed because they refused to bow the knee

to false gods?

Verses 16 and 18 or to 18 draw us with another counterfeit, only

this time it doesn't represent the Father or the Son or the Holy

Spirit.

Earlier in Revelation, we heard of the people of God, those

trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior as being marked as with his

seal.

Now, we're not told what that mark is, but here the counterfeits

of Revelation 12 and 13 have their own seal to identify who are

those or who belong to them now.

Growing up, I was taught that this was a literal seal that would

be branded on those who wanted to trade and live in the world.

I attended meetings as a young child of a man called Barry Smith

from Australia or New Zealand, who came over to this province and

had many meetings about his interpretation of the end times.

And I watched those videos.

And so I was brought up believing that this was a literal

number that would be placed on each of us.

And so the seal here in Revelation is described as the number

666.

It's there in verse 18.

But my understanding of simply listening to this man from Australia

changed because then I was told that it was going to be a barcode

that would be branded on us so that we could trade.

And then I was told it was going to be plastic money.

And when the Northern bank brought out its plastic fivers, well,

that was it.

You see, credit cards were seen, banknotes.

And yet we're still here.

See, all these were supposed marks of the second beast, the counterfeit

Holy Spirit.

But following with Revelation 13, as already said, we now see the

structures of society influencing us to live its way.

So rather than a literal mark of 666 or a barcode or a chip that

apparently was put into us with the COVID vaccine, John is telling

us of our restriction on God's people.

Just as they are marked as his, so those who reject him, those

who come to the beast, are marked as belonging to him.

You see, in John's day, this mark would have been known to the

people because slaves, soldiers, devotees of various religions

were tattooed indicating that they were owned or were solely devoted

to another.

The mark of the second beast is an apocalyptic symbol for belonging

as well as the state's political and economic stamp of approval

given only to those who go along with its religious demands.

Notice that the mark is on the hand or on the forehead.

And this is telling us that it is about how people think, what they

value, and what they do with their lives that marks them out as

belonging to the beast and instead of to the Lamb.

This mark is not a chip implanted in a person's body.

It's their internal character and the commitments being lived out

in such a way that they are marked by them.

And what becomes obvious is that there is no love for Christ

in them, nor pursuit of holiness.

There's only love for self and a pursuit of everything that this

world has to offer.

And so John concludes this chapter with more words of wisdom.

He says that the number that is the mark of the beast is the number

of a man.

And that number is presented to us as 666.

Now, there have been many wild speculations about the identity of

this person, and it's promoted many theories throughout history,

and every guess so far has been wrong.

So rather than paying attention to historic figures and

world leaders, perhaps it's better to move to a different direction.

If we consider the number that would roll on from 666 by way of

simply combination luck moving it, it would be 777.

And as we know, the number seven represents perfection.

So John is presenting us here with 666 as the number of man.

The number represents what is anti God and what is antichrist,

all that is in opposition to the one true God.

For if the number seven is perfect, we have it here three times.

And we know that throughout scripture, when something is said

in three times, it is emphasized, such as holy, holy, holy,

as we hear of the heavenly host in Isaiah.

And so then 666, three sixes in a row, emphasize for us the enormity

and the totality of evil.

And so this evening, whether you fall along a line that says there

is literal branding of a 666 on a forehead or a hand, or whether

you fall on the side where it signifies something that is not literal,

the outcome is still the same.

Those who follow the way of the beasts and the dragon, those

counterfeits are antichrist, they want nothing to do with him.

Whereas those who are sealed with a seal, a brand of Jesus Christ,

will be kept for all eternity.

Even though we have an image here of how those tribulations and

persecutions will intensify even to the day to day living of

God's people, John does not intend to point to any particular

individual here.

If he did, it would be told to us so.

Rather, the kingdom of the beast is a human kingdom, an evil

kingdom instead of a divine one.

The nature of humanity apart from God is truly demonic.

The kingdom of the beast promises life and prosperity, but

in reality it brings death, misery and devastation.

That's why we need to be warned tonight that we need to look

to the true Savior and not to the falsehood of the dragon and his

two beasts.

Through the structures of this ruling world, the dragon and the

two beasts want to present a counterfeit salvation that will indeed

tickle our ears by telling us what we want to hear.

And it will appeal to us, because in reality it is giving us

what we want.

This counterfeit salvation tells us that everyone has the right

to love and express that love in however they want.

This counterfeit salvation tells us that we have the authority

to grant life or decide when it should be terminated.

This counterfeit salvation tells us that we are okay simply

being good people and letting others live the way they want, as

long as not doing me any harm.

These are lies, lies of this current age, this current incarnation

of the dragon and the two beasts who want us to believe in

a false salvation so that we will be lost forever.

And these are lies that are being lapped up as truth by the world

all around us.

And so we have a redefinition of marriage.

We now have laws and more stringent laws in these past days

about abortion and about who has the right to live into their

old age.

And so many other subtle laws come in because of the influence

of these powers and principalities that are at work in

the heavenly places and yet being manifested in the world around

us.

And what do we do?

At times we simply slumber.

We stand on the shore and simply look out and we become an

ivory tar ourselves, wanting to be away from it all.

And yes, we do want to be away.

But we need to be the voice that challenges, because we need

to be the voice of truth, if we know the truth.

So do not be fooled by this counterfeit trinity.

They want your soul to be lost forever.

They want you to have a seal on them, a seal that marks you as

theirs, rather than a seal on you that is Christ's and that you

will be his for all eternity.

So what must we do?

Well, if you do not want your soul lost for all eternity, this

night you must look to the genuine Savior who has been tested

on Calvary's cross and has rose from the grave and is proved

as true and worthy.

That's what the writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12 and

verses 1 and 2.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,

those people who tell of the wonders of Christ, let us also lay

aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.

And what must we do?

Well, we must run with endurance the race that is set before

us, looking only to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,

who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross despising

its shame, and is seated, as this image in Revelation tells us,

at the right hand of the throne of God this night.

Will you go with what is true and genuine, or will you follow the

counterfeits of this world?

Only one will save you now and for all eternity.

Only one will keep you in this time of tribulation and persecution,

and that is the Lord Jesus Christ and He has been presented

to us beautifully and perfectly in Revelation so far and

will be again.

He is the only one we can trust.

And so tonight I urge you turn to the Savior.

Know him and know true glorious hope that indeed Christ

is the one who will see us to the end.

The end of time and then eternity.

Let us pray.

Our Father, we do thank you for your word to us.

And Father, we see images that make us feel uncomfortable, perhaps

because we're not sure what they mean or how to understand them.

But Father, all we have to do is simply look in your Word and we

see that these images are not new to us and have already taught

us something that we must know.

And so, as we are confronted by the truth of the Gospel in Jesus

Christ, knowing Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the counterfeit

trinity of the dragon and the two beasts, may we not be sucked

into their lies.

But may we look only to Christ.

May we look to him as the one who indeed will keep us.

And Father, we will have that wonderful assurance of salvation.

So indeed may we look only ever to Christ and know that indeed

he is good for us and towards us and will truly keep us to the

end.

And we ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

Sa.