One of John's most famous visions in the book of Revelation depicts two beasts that wage war against God's people. Today, W. Robert Godfrey examines this vivid passage, reassuring Christians that satanic opposition will not ultimately defeat us.
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Meet Today's Teacher:
W. Robert Godfrey is a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow and chairman of Ligonier Ministries. He is president emeritus and professor emeritus of church history at Westminster Seminary California. He is the featured teacher for many Ligonier teaching series, including the six-part series A Survey of Church History. He is author of many books, including God’s Pattern for Creation, Reformation Sketches, and An Unexpected Journey.
Meet the Host:
Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diodems on its horns and blasphemous names on its head. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's and its mouth was like the lion's mouth. And to it, the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. Throughout church history, there has been great fascination with the book of Revelation, along with many interpretations of it, with its beasts, a dragon, and numbers. But our teacher this week, Ligonier Ministries chairman, W. Robert Godfrey, doesn't consider Revelation to be a mere puzzle book, but instead is a letter to be understood, and one that should bring God's people comfort. This is the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and we'll be spending the next few days in the book of Revelation to give you a taste of this 24-message study that brings clarity to much of the interpretive confusion when it comes to this book. The series is titled Blessed Hope, and we'll send it to you on DVD and give you lifetime digital access to the messages and study guide, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. Well, if you have your Bible with you, turn to Revelation chapter 12, beginning at verse 13, because we're jumping right into the middle of this study, as Dr. Godfrey considers who, or what, these two beasts are. This is the summary almost of the book, and it would be very easy to pass through it quickly and not pay much attention to it, but it really gives us a picture, a brief picture to be sure, but an important picture of the whole history of the church. And here it is, and when the dragon saw that he had been thrown to earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. This woman is the church as a whole, but the woman was given two wings of the great eagle, so she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she is to be nourished for a time and times and half a time. You never see Mary represent with two big wings like an eagle. You see, this is obviously a symbol of something else. This is the symbol of the church being able to flee from the evil one, so the evil one cannot completely destroy the church. And where does the church flee? It flees into the wilderness. Well, throughout the New Testament, we're told until Christ comes again, we're in the wilderness. We're in the exile era. That's who we are as the people of God. We're like Israel in the wilderness. We're not yet in the promised land. We're going to get to the promised land, but for right now, we're in the wilderness. But in the wilderness, we will be sustained. That's the promise. And the picture is almost like Elijah, isn't it? Elijah in the day of famine, nevertheless, was nourished in the wilderness by the Lord. And she has to be nourished for a time and times and half a time, three and a half years, symbolic of the whole history of the church, symbolic of the whole time of the Dragon's War, symbolic of the whole time of the church is hiding in the wilderness and being preserved there. But the devil is really angry. And so we read on to see how he's pursuing this war against the woman, the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with a flood. He's aping God's judgment on the world at the time of Noah, right? See how you have to pause and let these things kind of, you can recognize them if you think about him as if you don't rush. Here is this effort of the devil to bring judgment on the church, aping how God brought judgment on a wicked world. But the earth came to the help of the woman and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the Dragon had poured from his mouth. Where's the mouth of the earth? Well, it's a symbol. It's a symbol. Creation itself comes to the defense of the church and protects her from the evil one. Verse 17, "Then the Dragon became furious with the woman and went off." He has to face the fact he can't destroy the church as a whole. He went off to make war on the rest of her offspring. Now, if this is Mary, it teaches that she had other children. You might take that away for a moment when you're feeling nasty with your Catholic friends. But it's the church, you see. And the picture here is that while the evil one cannot destroy the church as a whole, he can destroy members of the church or thinks he can destroy them. He can make war on them. Now, who are these offspring? They are those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. So here is the whole history of the church. The devil furious, make it war, trying to destroy, but unable to do it. The best he can do is pick off a few stragglers. No, that's not the right way to put it. But he can kill some of us, but if we stand with the commandment of God in the testimony of Jesus, he cannot destroy our souls. The worst he can do to us, the worst he can do to us, is send us to heaven. Think how terrible that is from his point of view. The worst he can do to us is glorify us early. Here's a beautiful picture of what the whole history of the church is about, suffering, pursued, but protected and glorified. And what a beautiful picture. So now we're ready for chapter 13. All right. So it is interesting, but it's not as interesting as this last bit of chapter 12 in terms of spiritual encouragement. I think maybe logically, it doesn't really matter that much that these last words of chapter 12 really belong with chapter 13. You know, these chapter divisions are not divinely inspired. They were dreamed up much later. And so sometimes they get it wrong. Anyway, the dragon now is standing on the sand of the sea. He's standing by the seashore. You know, in our day and age, people love to live by the sea because it's beautiful and sometimes it's cooler and it's, you know, we like the sea. The ancient people didn't like the sea. The sea was unpredictable. Storms came off the sea, sailors drowned at sea. Lots of people couldn't swim. The sea was a symbol of chaos for them. And so standing by the sea doesn't mean he's sunning himself trying to get a tan. It means that he is communing with chaos to pursue his purpose of war against the saints. And so this brings us then to this fifth vision in the fourth cycle, another vision of the war of the dragon against the people of God. But here he is enlisting help. And this help comes in the form of a beast. Chapter 13, verse 1. And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with 10 horns and seven heads with 10 diodems on its horns, very much like the dragon. This servant of the dragon is very much like the dragon, its description. And blasphemous names on its head. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear's and its mouth was like the lion's mouth. And to it, the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. So this description of the beast actually becomes a description more impressive than the dragon himself. And then we're told that the dragon is giving to this beast some of his own authority. He's going to be an agent of the dragon. There's been great interest. Who is this beast? And of course there's not just one beast in Revelation 13. There are actually two beasts in verse 11. We'll see another beast rising out of the earth. So there's the beast from the sea and then there's the beast from the earth, both of them serving the dragon. And what do you have? You have an unholy trinity. And sure enough what this is is another aping of God on the part of the evil one. And in a certain way we can say the dragon is very much aping God the Father. And we'll see the beast from the sea aping God the Son. And in a certain sense we'll see the beast from the earth aping the Holy Spirit. So this is reminding us that we live in a world where the dragon is constantly out to deceive us. And he can't ever be very creative. He's not really that imaginative. And so what he does is take God's truth and distort it and twist it and corrupt it. And that's what we're seeing here in this unholy trinity that is emerging. And just as the Father gave the mission to the Son to save mankind, now the dragon gives a mission to the beast from the sea to destroy mankind. There's been a lot of discussion of who the beast is. And depending what commentary you read when you'll have differing identifications of the beast. Of course if you really believe in a literal interpretation a beast has to be a beast. And almost nobody thinks that. Everybody sees that this is a symbol. It's kind of a monster, isn't it? It's a beast from the sea like the Loch Ness monster or something. But if we grant that it's a symbol what does it symbolize? And some people have argued that it symbolizes political power. I think that's a mistake. We won't spend a long time talking why I think it's a mistake. I think as we go along we'll see it really represents religious power. It represents false religion being promoted against true religion. I think that's important to see because I think from the Bible's point of view, political power is significant. We'll see political power later in the book being discussed in its significance. But behind political power there's always religious reality. Ultimately political power either supports or opposes true religion. The real issues of life are religious. We may have lots of people running for president but in the end of the day Washington will not solve all our problems. And Washington, this is the most positive thing I'll say. Washington doesn't even create all our problems. There are deeper problems and deeper solutions that are religious in character. That's what's being said here. And we see I think almost immediately that that's true in verse 3. This beast from the sea, one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound but its mortal wound was healed and the whole earth marveled to see the beast. He died and was raised. Not really but it looks like it might have happened. You see that? He's aping Christ. Christ really died and really was raised. He just seems to have a deadly wound and just seems to have been healed but he's copying Jesus. And in copying Jesus he's trying to draw the world to himself and the world marvels. Verse 4, "And they worship the dragon." See this is a spiritual reality. They worshiped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast and they worship the beast saying, "Who is like the beast and who can fight against it?" Well you remember we had read that over and over again in the Old Testament. We read, "Who is like the Lord our God?" Well here's the beast claiming that he's like the Lord God. He is God. He is to be worshiped. He is God in the presence of these people. So here's the war that's going on against the church here not described in bloody terms but here described initially in spiritual terms. This call to worship the beast to worship the false religion. And the beast was given a mouth uttering hottie in blasphemous words and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. Now see again you could argue the devil will have his 42 months and then the woman will have her 42 months and then the beast will have his 42 months and make a sequence of it. But that really is not what's intended here at all I think. It's that the time of the dragon and the time of the woman and the time of the beast are all concurrent. They're all happening at the same time. This is not one after another. This is at the same time. How is the dragon making war on the woman? Well by promoting false religion represented by the beast from the sea. Verse 6 it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling that is those who dwell in heaven. There it is very explicitly. We are the people who dwell in heaven and we're the ones that the beast is making war against. Verse 7 also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. There's a parent victory. There's a parent victory in the beast at times but it's only apparent and authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation and all who dwell on earth will worship it. Those who dwell in heaven won't worship it but those who dwell on earth will worship it. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. There's a wonderful promise isn't it? Those written in the Lamb's book of life whose names are written there before the foundation of the world they cannot be harmed by the beast. There can be a parent conquest but not real conquest as we said before. All he can do is send you to heaven early. That's the greatest power that he has. And you know some people have said well here's the language of war, here's the language of conquest. This must be political power. No, throughout the whole history of mankind you see lots of religions making war and using violence. We see it in our own day don't we? It continues to be true. It's so important that we as Christians say it must not be true of us. However angry we get we are not to make literal war in the name of our religion but war is made against God's people in the name of religion. And then there's a quotation it seems to be largely a quotation from or at least an allusion to Jeremiah 15. And what this quotation is meant to say is those who are elect God will surely protect those who are reprobate will go to their doom. And Jeremiah seems to say that if anyone is to be taken captive to captivity he goes. If anyone is to be slain with a sword he must be slain. And then the conclusion of this fifth vision is in the ESV here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints. Interestingly and I'm not sure why they translated this way interesting in the Greek the words a call are not present. And so in Greek literally it reads here is the endurance and faith of the saints. And you see it makes a difference. If it's a call then it's an appeal it's something we need to do. And of course we do need to do it that's true enough we do need to believe and endure. But I think this is a promise here. Here is the endurance and faith of the saints in the promise of God that he will keep us. And so the focus is not on us and our doing the focus is on God and his doing his promise. And that's always critical for us. The greater our difficulty the more important it is to be surrounded by his promises. And that's what's being said here. So here is the dragon marshalling false religion. He never cares of course which false religion he's perfectly happy whatever false religion you fall into. But here is the dragon establishing this powerful visible apparently resurrected beast. And as if that is not enough we go on to the sixth vision which is of a second beast who will soon be identified as a false prophet. So what is the function of the Holy Spirit? He's to bear testimony to Jesus. He's to bring people to Jesus. And here we're going to discover that this beast from the earth as a false prophet is trying to bring people to the beast from the sea and to lead them astray and to deceive them. Verse 11 of chapter 13 then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. This is literally a wolf in sheep's clothing being represented for us here. 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. It performs great signs even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. And by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth. Now you notice that he has apparent power to perform miracles. John doesn't pause to explain exactly where this power comes from whether it's true spiritual power or if it's just pretend power we don't really know. But Jesus had already warned his disciples during his own earthly ministry that they will be those who come along and apparently have miracles to accompany them. I remember preaching once in a Dutch Reformed church in the central valley of California and saying that miracles were given to accompany Jesus and the apostles to testify to them. But because we have that sure foundation now we don't need those miracles any longer and one dear lady came out of church afterwards and shook my hand and said well of course there are miracles. So I see them on television every day. There are moments when preachers feel like a complete failure. But sure there are things that appear to be miracles but we were warned. You remember our series on Deuteronomy? We were warned in Deuteronomy that even if there are miracles it doesn't validate teaching unless the teaching is in harmony with the Word of God. And that's what we're seeing here too, that same warning. Don't let miracle workers apparent miracle workers lead you astray and deceive you from what you know to be the truth. And you know it's not the truth as that verse 14 goes on because this false prophet tells them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. Making an image. Can't you imagine anybody well-schooled in the Old Testament just gasping? We know that's wrong. If there's one thing the Old Testament says with crystal clarity is my people are not to make an image. And then what's done with this image? It 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. So this is an image that can talk. Actually you know it's interesting but historians of the ancient world tell us there were images in pagan temples that appeared to talk. That they were constructed so the priest secretly could move the jaw of the image and can make sounds through the image. So John may well have been aware of some of these fakes and had them in mind as he talks about the false religion being promoted here. Verse 16 also it causes all both great and small, both rich and poor, both free and slave to be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark. That is the name of the beast or the number of its name. Here's an aping of baptism or at least it's an aping of the ceiling of the Holy Spirit of God's elect. The mark of the beast is going to be required so that those who dwell on earth can be distinguished from those who dwell on heaven because those who belong to Christ will not accept the mark of the beast. So in every way true religion is being counterfeited. In every way there's an effort to deceive true believers and in every way it will fail. And then that brings us to one of everybody's favorite verses. The last verse of chapter 13, this calls for wisdom, this understanding of these beasts and the dragon and this false religion, it calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast for it is the number of a man and his number is 666. So it takes wisdom to understand what's being said here and it takes a little bit of calculation and the church and even non-church people have been calculating vigorously ever since. We're out of time so we'll have to come back next time to do our calculation. Talk about leaving us on a cliffhanger. That was W. Robert Godfrey, a church historian and the chairman of Ligonier Ministries. He'll be with us all week this week on Renewing Your Mind until Wednesday looking at a fascinating section of the book of Revelation and then spending Thursday and Friday in the Psalms. As I said earlier this series, blessed hope, is 24 messages and after listening today I'm sure you can see how helpful the study guide would be. So I encourage you to request the complete series when you call us at 800-435-4343 or when you visit renewingyourmind.org with a donation of any amount. You'll not only get the series on DVD, you'll have lifetime digital access to the messages and that study guide as well. Go back to chapter one and take the time at your own pace to study this valuable book that is sadly misunderstood by so many. Make your donation at renewingyourmind.org or by clicking the link in the podcast show notes. So who is the man whose number is 666? Dr. Godfrey joins us tomorrow to give his view here on Renewing Your Mind. [Music] (gentle music)
