Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #5 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are going to be reading Revelation 13:2-3:

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

In our last study we were looking at verse 2 and we saw that the beast the Apostle John saw in the vision God gave him was “was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion.”  We saw how that related to Daniel, chapter 7, where God pictures Satan as a lion, a bear and a leopard that come against the New Testament churches and congregations.

Then it said at the end of Revelation 13:2:

… and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Now this language makes it sound as if Satan has all this ability within himself and he could grant these things according to his own will.  But we know that the dragon could have no power, no seat and no authority unless God first gave it to him.  It was God’s predetermined decision to loose Satan and allow Satan to come against the camp of the saints at the time of the end.  Even though that is not stated here, we know this is the case.  God is the one that is behind these things.  Within Satan’s kingdom of darkness, this language is being used of the dragon giving the beast “his power, and his seat, and great authority,” and, yet, the “dragon” is Satan and the “beast” is also Satan.  It all refers to the same thing, perhaps looking at different aspects of Satan’s rule during the Great Tribulation period.

The first major would used here is “power” and it is the Greek word “dunamis.”  We find it in Revelation 17:13:

These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

Here, the “ten horns” give their “power and strength unto the beast.”  It describes the mindset of the devil.  He is in agreement with himself to seek these things and to have this rule and power.  He has always desired it and now he is finally able to achieve it at the time of the end. 

It says, “and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat,” and the Greek word translated as “seat” is Strong’s #2362, the word “thronos.”  You can hear the word “throne” in this word and it is a Greek word that is translated, at times, as “throne.”  It is the same word we find in Revelation 2:13:

I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name…

This is one of Christ’s addresses to the seven churches, the church in Pergamos, and Satan had a seat there; he was ruling in that church.  Satan was able to rule in certain congregations and even in certain entire denominations during the church age.  It was only at the end of the church age that he was given complete rule over all churches and all denominations in the world.  The word “seat” is also found in Revelation 16:10:

And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,

Revelation 16 describes the outpouring of the seven last vials full of the seven last plagues.  It describes Judgment Day, so it is very significant that the fifth messenger poured out his vial upon the “seat of the beast.”  Where would the seat of the beast be?  Revelation 13 tells us.  The beast came up out of the sea; the dragon gave him his power and his seat and that “seat” would represent his rule in the churches and congregations of the world.  Remember what we read in 2Thessalonians 2:3-4:

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

Here is the “seat of the beast.”  It is at the time of the judgment on the churches at the time of the end, when there is a falling away and apostasy has overcome the churches of the world.  The “man of sin” is another name for Satan and he has taken his seat “in the temple of God,” which can only be the churches, “shewing himself that he is God.”  Satan has always wanted to be like God.  He has always wanted to have the power and to be worshipped like God.  Now, at the end, he is loosed by God and he comes and takes his seat “in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”  Of course, he is not God.  He is just a created angel who has rebelled against God, but God has given him power and allowed him to take his seat.  Finally, it says, “and great authority.”  Satan had all these things as never before, once he was loosed.  He was always the ruler of this world when he won the victory over man in the Garden of Eden.  The “seven heads” revealed that he had rule throughout the history of the world over mankind.  Yet, at the end, his power and seat and great authority were increased as never before.

Let us move on to Revelation 13:3:

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

John is given a vision of one of the heads of the beast as though it were wounded to death, but the deadly wound was healed.  Back in verse 1 of Revelation 13, the beast had “seven heads and ten horns.”  Why does it say in verse 3 that he saw “one” of his heads, instead of all seven of his heads?  Not all the heads have a deadly wound, but just one of the seven.  I think we can find the reason for that 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.

Leading up to the cross in the time of the Old Testament, God pictures Satan as having had five periods of rules or five kingdoms.  Then “five are fallen” because that time period is past.  Then it says, “one is,” and this is Satan’s rule starting at the time Christ went to the cross and Christ overcame Satan and he was bound and cast into the bottomless pit (in a figure) and the pit was sealed for  “a thousand years,” which represents the entire New Testament church age.  So that is the “one head” that is as though it were killed; it had suffered a deadly wound.

There is still another head because it says, “the other is not yet come.”  That is the final rule of Satan, when the beast comes up out of the sea and is loosed, and as Gog and Magog, he comes against the camp of the saints.  So that head is not wounded and the other previous five heads were not wounded, but there is only “one head,” or one period of rule, which represents that one period of rule during the church age when God bound Satan in order to accomplish His purpose of evangelizing the world through the churches and congregations; God sent forth the Bible into all the world, saving a good number of people, many more than had been saved in the Old Testament era, so it was as if Satan had experienced a death blow.

In Psalm 68, we have a tie-in regarding this idea of one of his heads being wounded to death.  It says in Psalm 68:21:

But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses.

God will wound the head of his enemies.  Satan is the head of the enemies of the kingdom of God.  He is the ruler over the kingdom of darkness and God did “wound his head.”  It also reminds us of that promise given long ago in the Garden of Eden.  It says in Genesis 3:13-15:

And JEHOVAH God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And JEHOVAH God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Here, again, the head of the serpent is said to be bruised by the seed of the woman, and that seed is Christ.  Christ wounded Satan to death at the cross.  You know, Psalm 68:21 says that “God shall wound the head of his enemies,” and He uses the singular word for “head.”  We have to remember what we read a while back, in Psalm 74:13-14:

Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

Here, the “heads” are plural and that tells us that when God is breaking the heads of the dragons in pieces, or the heads of leviathan in pieces, it is the final Judgment Day.  It is the judgment at the end of the world because God speaks of only the “head” (singular) when Christ defeated Satan at the cross, but Satan has “seven heads and ten horns” and all the heads are finally defeated once God brings Judgment Day on the world.  He began to do this on May 21, 2011, and Satan was deposed from all rule at that time and that is what the “heads of the dragon” point to: his reign over the unsaved people of the earth.  He had won that right by conquest in the Garden of Eden, but now God has won it back and the Lord Jesus now reigns over all that Satan previously reigned over.  Yes, it is true that Christ is reigning with a rod of iron, but He is still reigning in the Day of Judgment because Satan’s “heads” have been broken in pieces.  They have all been destroyed.  Five had already fallen by the time of the cross and “one is” to represent the New Testament church age and one was to come, and that is what we are reading about in Revelation 13; it is the final period of rule that God gave to Satan, the greatest expansion of his rule which would occur during the Great Tribulation, the period of judgment upon the churches.  Satan ruled like never before in the churches and in the earth and, yet, it would be his final rule – the last “head.”

Let us take a look at Matthew 12, because we have made reference many times to how Jesus bound Satan at the cross.  It says in Matthew 12:25-29:

And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.

This is what Christ did before sending forth the Gospel into the world by the messengers of God, the true believers; before saving three thousand on the day of Pentecost as Peter preached one sermon; before saving many thousands all over the world.  The Gentiles would hear the Gospel and many would become saved.  The Word of God would take root and be established in every nation of the world.  In doing so, God would begin to plunder the “strong man’s house,” the kingdom of Satan.  All men were held in bondage to sin and spiritual darkness, so in order for God to accomplish this, He first had to “bind the strong man.”  And He did so and that is how we know this took place at the cross, as it says 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.

Everything fits together.  Everything harmonizes well with the rest of the Bible.  You know, it is amazing as we read in Revelation 13 of the beast coming out of the sea with the seven heads and ten crowns and as we read that he is like a lion, a bear and a leopard, that we understand these things perfectly.  Well, maybe we could increase our understanding on a point, or two, but it is incredible to what degree God has opened up His Word and we can read (and understand) things that have confounded theologians for centuries; they had no idea what God was talking about.  Yet, we read it today, with our vantage point of having lived through the Great Tribulation and living now in the time after that tribulation in this Day of Judgment, we understand how everything fits together hand-in-glove.  As Mr. Camping used to often say, “It is like reading today’s newspaper.”  We see exactly what God is saying and how it fits together with Jeremiah and Daniel and other Scriptures and reveals what God did as He judged the churches through the loosing of Satan and preparing the world for the final time of judgment, which we entered into on May 21, 2011. 

So, as we read, “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death,” we understand what the seven heads represent; we understand why one of his heads was “wounded to death.”  Then we read at the end of Revelation 13:3:

… and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And we can read this and by God’s grace in opening our understanding, we understand it perfectly; we can read this with the ability to comprehend and it has been made easy for us.   It is incredible that God has made these things easy for His people to see and discern in our day: “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment,” and “none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”  We see how the man of sin is Satan; the beast is Satan; the dragon is Satan; and we see how all these things fit together.

In the last part of our verse in Revelation 3:3, God speaks of Satan’s “deadly wound,” and it is the word “death” here in the Greek.  It is the same word we find in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.”  So it was a “wound of death” with which Christ smote Satan at the cross.  What happened?  Satan was placed in the bottomless pit and that represented “death” or “hell.”  It says in 2Peter 2:4:

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

This was the judgment on Satan and the other fallen angels, the demons.  They were all cast down to “hell.”  They were judged by God at the cross.  There was no provision made for any of the fallen angels, which was proven by Christ’s demonstration as He lived out the tableau, showing what He had done from the foundation of the world in dying for His people – for certain human beings, but not for any angels, and this sealed the fate of all the fallen angels.  They had no way to have their sins forgiven, so they were “cast down to hell.”  Hell and the grave are synonymous.  They were killed, in that sense, because they could not possibly be saved.  It was a guarantee of their destruction and annihilation at the end.  So that was the “deadly wound” struck upon Satan by Christ. 

But that “deadly wound” was healed in the sense that Satan still had to be loosed.  Remember, it was that “one head” that had the death blow for the period of 1,955 years, but there was still another “head” to come for the little season of the Great Tribulation.  He came forth at that time with power and strength and a seat was given him and great authority.  It was as though nothing had happened.  It was as though nothing had changed.  As a matter of fact, his power and authority and his seat, or throne, were greater than they had been before he experienced the death blow.  So we can certainly see why it would be that “all the world wondered at the beast.” 

Lord willing, in our next study, we will take a look at this wonderment, as the world is astonished as it witnesses these things.  We will see how God uses that word elsewhere in the Bible.