Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #2 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are continuing to 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.
In our last study we looked at the beast rising up, or ascending, out of the sea and we saw how the Bible ties that in with the loosing of Satan at the time of the end, the beginning of the “little season” of the Great Tribulation, when he gathers Gog and Magog together to come against the camp of the saints.
The beast is the name assigned to Satan by God for the duration of the Great Tribulation. It is used many times in the Book of Revelation. It is overwhelmingly a name that identifies with Satan during the twenty three year Great Tribulation period. He ascended out of the sea; that is, he rose out of the bottomless pit, just as Revelation 11:7 says and just as Revelation 17:8 says.
He came against the saints, or against the churches, and that is what it points to when John is standing on the “sand of the sea,” as the “sand of the sea” can be used to refer to the corporate body of Israel or of the New Testament church.
Let us go on in 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.
This verse reminds us of what we read in the previous chapter. It said in Revelation 12:3:
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
This is very similar language, but there is a difference and it is a major difference. In Revelation 12:3, the crowns are on the seven heads, but in Revelation 13:1, the crowns are on the ten horns. That is important or else God would not have made that change. When we read of the seven heads and ten horns with crowns on its heads, that signified the rule of Satan throughout history since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden and up until the end when Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011. Satan would rule as king because he had won the victory over man. Since man had been given dominion over the earth, then that meant that Satan had dominion over man and over everything man had ruled over, all the kingdoms of this world. This was the normal and typical rule of Satan all through history.
However, there would be a drastic change in his rule when we reached the time of the end when judgment began on the house of God, the churches. This is also known as the time of the Great Tribulation. Then the crowns are not said to be on the heads, but they are on the ten horns. Let us look at a couple of verses to see what that might mean. It says in Daniel 7:23-25:
Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Now we see the “a time and times and the dividing of time,” or the “time, times and a half time” of Revelation 12, and there I had mentioned that the context determines what it means. Here, the context points to the Great Tribulation period, which worked out to be a full twenty three years or 8,400 days. This is the time when the ten horns are said to be ten kings that arise.
Let us also take a look at Revelation 17. Revelation, chapter 17, has much in common with Daniel, chapter 7. It says in Revelation 17:9:
And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
We are getting more familiar with that language of the seven heads of Satan. They are seven mountains and mountains represent kingdoms in the Bible. The woman, who is Babylon, sits over these mountains and rules. In the Bible, to “sit” indicates to “rule.”
Then it goes on to say in Revelation 17:10:
And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
These are the seven periods of reign of Satan’s rule over the earth, pointing to the perfect fulfillment of his reign, which he had won through the conquest of man in the Garden of Eden. By the time Revelation 17 is being written toward the end of the 1st century, five of these periods of rule had already come and gone; and one “is” and that was the period of his binding for the entire church age; and “the other is not yet come,” and that would come at the beginning of the Great Tribulation and that last rule would continue for a short space, the “little season” of the Great Tribulation period.
Then it says in Revelation 17:11-12:
And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
Now we are starting to get the idea. Now we have the picture. The ten horns are ten kings that have not yet received a kingdom, but they will receive power as kings to rule “one hour” with the beast. The “one hour” typifies the duration of the Great Tribulation. The Bible likens the Great Tribulation to “one hour.” The “one hour” represents the entire twenty three years. So the ten horns are ten kings that will receive power as kings to rule with the beast during the Great Tribulation period. That is why in Revelation 13:1 there is a difference in the placement of the crowns (“…having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns”), because they represent ten kings, and the number “ten” is used to represent the completeness of the rule of Satan for the “little season.” The ten horns represent Satan’s rule for that “one hour” as the beast.
The main thrust of what God is saying in Revelation 13:1 is that it is the time for Satan’s rule. He has ascended out of the sea. He is loosed. He is no longer in the “deep” or the “bottomless pit” and the crowns are now on his horns because it is the hour of judgment, the “one hour” of the Great Tribulation has begun.
He has begun to rule in a far greater way than he has ever ruled before in the other periods of his reign over the earth. There had never been a time when the world’s population had reached the numbers it reached at the time of the end – there are billions of people. And mankind had never been “given up” by God as they have been at the time of the end, as God gave them up to the lusts of the flesh and their sinful desires; He has given up men “to work that which is unseemly” with men; He has given up women to do the same with other women. The sin of homosexuality is multiplying and increasing and it has become a signal to all because never in the history of the world has that particular sin ever been in the “limelight” as it is now and the “push” is on by the inhabitants of the world to support this sin that had been hidden by the nations and rightly said to be “in the closet” and something people were ashamed of throughout history. It had never before been viewed as a “good thing” or a normal thing or a right thing and there was never a thought before our time of marriage between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. But the time of the end came and Satan was the one that was ruling, like never before in history. He is the “father of lies,” so he attempts that to make that which is “evil” seem “good” and to turn things upside down. And this is just one example, but there are many other examples, like abortion. The nations of the world think it is a right to kill their own children.
It is just incredibly alarming when we think of what has taken place since the beginning of the Great Tribulation, back in 1988, when there was the loosing of Satan and his rule in the world greatly increased and people were deceived, like never before, to believe nonsense like evolution. It has reached the point where it is the ‘accepted truth’ among the institutions of higher learning in the world – among the colleges and universities that ought to know better. It is nothing but a farfetched, ridiculous theory and, yet, it is taught as fact: “And 99% of scientists agree.” I just made that percentage up, but it is a high percentage and the most intelligent, brilliant minds of the world are convinced that it is fact. They have absolutely no proof. It is nothing more than a fairy tale. That is what we call it when a “frog turns into a prince” in the children’s books – it is a fairy tale. In the world of science, a “frog turns into a prince,” when you add a few hundred million years to the equation (or however long they are saying now) and a lower life form turned into a man. That is what the theory of evolution is and it is nothing but a fairy tale, the most ridiculous idea anyone could ever come up with. Yet it is a solidly entrenched fact in the teachings of this world because the world wants to do away with God, because Satan was given the rule. It was his time and he was able to manipulate and deceive the hearts and the minds of men that were in darkness; and that is what has been going on, especially the last few decades, in the world and in the churches. The churches have fallen away to depths of depravity; they have turned from God at just about every point of doctrine. There is no sense in mentioning all the errors, the false gospels and the denials of the truths of the Bible by the churches at the end of the world, as the churches came under the judgment of God.
Satan was instrumental in both cases and he rose to prominence and he reigned gloriously (as far as he is concerned) over the hearts of men out in the world as they were deceived by these common deceptions of evolution, abortion, homosexuality, and so on. He also reigned gloriously over the hearts and minds of those in the churches as he developed gospels of “speaking in tongues,” or “falling over backwards” or “holy laughter” or ordaining women to take positions of authority within the churches, and on, and on, and on. It is all evidence and these things are unprecedented in history. We know that. Anyone can check that out. Go look at the history books and maybe you can find a few instances of a woman pastor, for example, but it was a rarity; or maybe you can find an example of a homosexual bishop and you may not even be able to find that. I will grant that you could find a couple of instances, but they were rare and they were “few and far between,” spread throughout the centuries. But today, these examples are everywhere. All the churches in all the nations are experiencing these things, with the onslaught of women teachers, the frequency of divorce in the churches and the freewill gospel being predominant throughout the churches. These things are everywhere in the world, indicating that a drastic change has taken place and we can trace it back just a few decades; it was not too long ago that these things were not the case in the corporate church.
Likewise, those of us that have been alive for a longer length of time, if we think about the early 1980s, the 1970s or the 1960s, is there any comparison with the present world in regard to making Sunday like any other day? It is a day to play. You can work on Sunday and do whatever you want. You do not hear about stores closing on Sunday; there may be a couple of places that close because they want to keep the Sunday Sabbath. But this practice was common place just a few decades ago.
Look at the situation with crime and the coldness of men toward their fellow man and the lack of love that is in the world today. Look at the situation with mothers and what they do to their newborn babies to dispose of them. They are horrible situations and it is not just in one city or in one nation. It is in all cities and all nations. There is an increased cold-heartedness in man toward keeping the commandments of God; he has waxed cold concerning any love of God, as God would have restrained men in times past to give at least some acknowledgement of His Law and His commandments; there was at least a basic fear of God in men or in the society, where they would desire to keep God’s Law to some degree. It is gone. It is completely gone, in the world and in the churches.
This time we are living in is not like any other previous time in the entire history of the world. Something has changed and that “something” began with the loosing of Satan; God allowed Satan to rule like never before in the world and in the churches. The world and the churches began to take on the nature of the “beast.” They began to worship the beast and to be like the beast. Mankind lost more and more identity with the image of God and became more like the image of the beast.