Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #1 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are going to be taking a look at Revelation 13:1:

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.

Every statement in the Bible is, of course, important.   The Apostle John has been given a vision and in this vision he is standing upon the sand of the sea.  When we study the Bible, we learn not to ignore statements like this, because everything has significance and is used by God to help us to understand what He is saying.

Here, the fact that John is standing upon the sand of the sea has significance.  Concerning this phrase, it says in Isaiah 10:22:

For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.

This is quoted in the New Testament in Romans 9:27:

Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

This is telling us that Israel of old had a large number of people within their nation – maybe a couple of million – and, yet, there was only a remnant that was actually saved.  That is why we read elsewhere of a time of apostasy within Israel and the Lord made the statement, “I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”  That means there were only seven thousand among the nation that had been saved by God and were true believers.  That gives us insight into the phrase “as the sand of the sea.”  When it says, “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea,” it means there were many that outwardly identified as the people of God and, yet, only a remnant or portion that were actually the people of God. 

That is how it was with the churches (during the church age).  Even though there were many that said they were “Christian” and populated the churches, yet, within those churches was just a remnant and few that were really born again: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” 

When the world’s population mushroomed to about seven billion at the time of the end, God started saving people outside of the churches during the Latter Rain, the second half of the Great Tribulation.  Because of the tremendous population in the world, God could say He saved a great multitude out of the world.  Yet, if He saved tens of millions out of these billions, it would still have been a remnant or a small portion of the whole.  That is what God has done all through history, concerning His people elected to salvation, those He died for from the foundation of the world.

We find this language of the “sand of the sea” in Revelation 20:1-3:

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

We are very familiar with this, as we have looked at it, time and again.  This is when Christ bound Satan at the cross in 33 AD.  He judged him at that time and it was made manifest through the demonstration the Lord had just performed that there was no salvation for any of the fallen angels; Jesus took upon Him the seed of Abraham.  He did not take the sins of any fallen angels, which further illustrated and guaranteed that the judgment of God was upon Satan and his demons, all of the fallen angels that fell with him.  There was no possibility of salvation for them.  This, in a sense, locked them up under the wrath of God in the condition of hell.  God also set further limits upon Satan at that time; He restrained him from preventing God’s program of evangelization through the establishment of the churches in all the nations and the presence of God’s Word, the Bible, in all the nations.  Satan could not prevent it because he was bound for a figurative “thousand years,” which represented the entire church age of 1,955 actual years.

Then we read in Revelation 20:7:

 And when the thousand years are expired…

This was the end of the time that God had bound Satan and this would have been May 21, 1988, the day before Pentecost, and the end of the church age.  Then it goes on to say in Revelation 20:7-8:

… Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth…

The number “four,” as well as the language of “the nations,” indicates that this is a universal, worldwide occurrence and Satan will be able to deceive all nations, as it goes on to say:

… Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

This is not just a coincidence that God speaks of Israel as being the “sand of the sea” (and Israel is a type of the corporate church) and then at the time of the end when Satan is loosed from the bottomless pit and he goes to deceive the nations of the earth, they are said to be in number “as the sand of the sea.”  What God is telling us is that the churches will be handed over to Satan.  The Gentiles had come into the churches and the Gentiles are the nations; they are full of unsaved people, at this point as God begins the process of separating the wheat from the tares.  All those that remain in the churches will be the unsaved subjects of Satan and they will become this “sand of the sea.”  They will be the corporate church that Satan rules over. 

As we are seeing in Revelation 13:1, the Apostle John was positioned by God to “stand upon the sand of the sea,” because John was a true believer and he was in the early church as the church was forming.  So he was part of the “sand of the sea,” but, of course, he was part of the “remnant” that was within the churches.  So God is going to show him this vision of the beast rising up out of the sea, and the beast is another name for Satan that was assigned to him during his rule during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation.  As the beast rises out of the sea, there is the Apostle John standing upon the “sand of the sea.”  John’s location is “within the churches” and the beast is going to come against the churches.  This is really what Revelation is going to “pound home” in hammer blow, after hammer blow; God is going to declare that He has given up the churches and He has turned them over to Satan and Satan will rule there.  It is an official and lawful handing over of the church institution to Satan.  Satan actually had a legitimate claim upon the churches, once God officially turned the churches over to him.  He (Satan) could now say that they belonged to him; he was now the ruler of all the churches and congregations of the world.

We saw that Christ was the “angel” or “messenger” that came down from heaven with the key to bottomless pit and He is the one that bound Satan for a thousand years and cast him into the bottomless pit.   What is interesting is that the “bottomless pit,” “Strong’s #12, the Greek word abussos, is translated that way five times in the New Testament.  It is translated as just “bottomless” two times and it is translated as “the deep” two times.  Now let us take a look at the two instances in which it is translated as either simply “bottomless,” or as “the deep.”

In Luke 8, we find the historical account of the man that was possessed with many devils and we will see that the Lord Jesus asked him a question, in Luke 8:30-33:

And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.

They were drowned in the lake.  Now when “Legion,” these many devils, besought Christ “that he would not command them to go out into the deep,” the word “deep” is the word “abussos,” and is the same word translated as the “bottomless pit.”  That indicates the judgment and wrath of God and this is picturing God’s judgment on the fallen angels that came at the end.  It is significant here that this word is translated as “deep” and then the devils go out of the man and into the swine and run down into a lake and drown in the “deep” water. 

We also find this word, in Romans 10, translated as “deep,” in Romans 10:6-7:

But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

Here the “deep” is identified with “the dead,” or with “death.”  This language that God uses with “abussos” identifies with the sea we are reading about in Revelation 13:1:  “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea.”  He is coming up out of sea, or out of the deep, or out of the “bottomless pit,” the abyss which he had been cast into and where he had been bound.  He could not come forth in this way until he was loosed for the “little season,” according to Revelation 20, at the time of the end.  Then when he was loosed, he gathered the nations of Gog and Magog and came against the camp of the saints.  That is exactly what happens in Revelation 13:7: “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.”  So we have the loosing of Revelation in view at the beginning of this chapter in Revelation 13.  It is stated in a slightly different way, as it does not say he is coming up out of the bottomless pit, but it says he is coming up out of the “sea” and he is called the beast. 

We have additional confirmation that it is picturing the loosing of Satan at the end of the church age and the beginning of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of the judgment on the churches.  Again, it says in Revelation 13:1:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea…

The Greek word, Strong’s #305, that is translated as “rise up” is the same word we find in Revelation 11:7:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

The word “ascendeth” is the same Greek word.  Now we have a third passage in perfect harmony with Revelation 20 and Revelation 13:1.  Notice that phrase, “when they shall have finished their testimony,” and when did they finish their testimony?  Was it on May 21, 2011?  No – that is completely wrong; it was at the end of the church age when they finished their testimony.  It was at the point when Satan was loosed for a “little season.”  That is when he “rises up” and that is when he comes up out of the “sea” or the “deep.”  That is when he comes against the camp of the saints, as we read in Revelation 20 and Revelation 13:7 and here in Revelation 11:7, also.  There is strong agreement.

People that are trying to get this to fit with what they think their eyes saw on May 21, 2011, are just in error.  It is completely off the path that God has set for the timing of the Great Tribulation and the events that accompany it.  This cannot be applied to any time but the end of the church age and the beginning of the judgment on the churches.  Let me read it one more time, in Revelation 11:7:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

Why is he ascending and rising out of the bottomless pit at this time?  It is because he has just been loosed.  Does Satan then go back to the bottomless pit and rise again, and again?  No – the Bible says that he was bound for a thousand years and then he was loosed for a little season, at the beginning of the little season.  He does not return and come out and then return and come out.  That is not found anywhere in the Bible.

It says, “the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.”  Again, in Revelation 13:1, here is the beast rising up or ascending out of the sea, which is a picture of the bottomless pit or the deep.  Then a little further on in the chapter it says it was given to him to make war with the saints and overcome them.  It matches perfectly with Revelation 11:7. 

Also, let us go to Revelation 17:8:

The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit…

Again, the word “ascend” is the same as “rise up” in our verse.

…and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

He “was” prior to the cross, and He “is not” at the time of the cross, when he was bound by Christ in the bottomless pit, and “yet is,” as here he is again at the time of the end; he has returned, due to God’s plan to loose him to accomplish the purpose of God for the “little season” of the Great Tribulation period, right before Judgment Day.