Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #26 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are continuing to look at Revelation 13:14:
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
We were discussing in our last study the deception of these “signs and wonders” and these supposed miracles that are being performed by Satan during the time of the Great Tribulation at the time of the end. Even today these things are going on in the churches are congregations of the world. There are estimates of about 500 million people that are affiliated with the Pentecostal churches and they would be open to these things and many more in “Christendom” are probably accepting of these 500 million professors, as if they were just a different denomination and they would never dare say these were not of God; they would not dare say anything like that.
But it does not matter. We know the church age is over. We know it does not matter whether a professed Christian says he is a Pentecostal or a Presbyterian or Reformed believer. None of it matters. God is through with all of them at this point in time, no matter what denomination with which they align themselves.
Here, notice, in Revelation 13:14, that the beast, Satan, “deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do.” Yes, God had loosed Satan and gave him power within the churches during the judgment on the churches. Notice that he had power to do these things “in the sight of the beast.” Now that is a significant statement because we normally read of things in the Bible that are done “in the sight of God.” I will read a few of those verses, starting with Luke 16:15:
And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
That is exactly the case. It is exactly the situation in the churches. These “signs and wonders” are highly esteemed among men. They feel very good about them and, yet, it is “abomination in the sight of God.”
It also says in Acts 4:19-20:
But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
So, “in the sight of God” is a fairly common statement in the Bible. It says in Acts 8:21:
Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
Of course, God sees not only outward things, but He can look on the heart. He knows what is going on in the hearts of men.
In Hebrews, chapter 4, we read of an all encompassing statement in regard to God being able to look upon the heart. It says in Hebrews 4:13:
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
All things are manifest. Nothing can be hid from God and, therefore, everything is done “in his sight,” and this is probably one of the reasons it is mentioned so often in the Bible.
But what is the condition of the churches at the time of the end at the time of the Great Tribulation? God has left the churches. He had been in the midst of the congregations for almost 2,000 years, but after the 1,955 years of the church age, He came out of the churches and Satan took his seat in the churches, as it says in Revelation 13:2:
… and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
So the one seated in the churches, in Revelation 13:14 and in the rest of the verses we are going to read about the image made to the beast, is language referring to Satan in the New Testament churches. We can just picture this. Can you not picture the throne where the ruler is seated? But upon that throne is no longer the Lord Jesus Christ, but the “man of sin,” Satan who that had been loosed, is seated there and all these signs and wonders are being done in his sight, as it says in Revelation 13:14: “And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast;” It is all being done in the presence of the beast whose spirit is present in the churches.
Of course, God still knows all things about all places and all people and creatures. He knows everything that is going on in the churches and it is not as though the things done there escape His sight, but in this way, God is revealing that He is no longer ruling in the churches, but Satan is ruling there.
Then it goes on to say in Revelation 14:14:
… saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
The Greek word that is translated as “image” is Strong’s #1504 (eikon) and I would pronounce it as “i-kone,” and it is from Strong’s #1503 (eiko) and it means “to be like.” That is what the word “image” means. For instance, in Matthew, chapter 22, some of the Pharisees were trying to entrap Jesus and get Him in trouble with the Roman authorities regarding payment of taxes, and it says in Matthew 22:17-22:
Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.
So the Lord escaped their trap. The trap was that if Jesus would say, “Yes, we are to pay tribute money,” then they would have gone to the Jews and said that Jesus was a Roman sympathizer and He wants the Jews to pay the publicans. The publicans were despised in the eyes of the Jews and Jesus would have been aligning Himself with the publicans. (Of course, the Lord did that when he ate with publicans and harlots.) But, here, it was a very well crafted trap by the leaders of the scribes and Pharisees in their attempt to accuse Christ. Yet, Jesus is infinitely wise and managed to escape their trap by asking them to show Him the tribute money and He said to them, “Whose is this image and superscription?” They could not deny that it was the image of Caesar. It is just like today when we take out our money and look at our coins or bills, what do we find? We find the image of presidents, the image of men, and it has been that way for many centuries. So the Romans printed money with the image of their ruler Caesar and, therefore, give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; in other words, Christ is saying that they are to pay the taxes, but He said it in such a way that they could not grab hold of His words and find fault with the things He said, due to the careful wisdom of God. The Lord Jesus Christ was able to escape the traps of men and He gives His people the ability to escape the spiritual traps set by men.
Anyway, we are trying to learn more about this word “image.” Whose image and superscription was on the tribute money? It was Caesar’s image. What does that mean? It means that the image on the coin looked like Caesar and, therefore, it belonged to Caesar, so give to Caesar the things that are his and give to God the things that are God’s.
Now who is made in the image and likeness of God? It is mankind and, therefore, we are to give to God what is His. That means that you and I are created in the image of God and we belong to God. He is the potter and we are the clay – He fashioned us and molded us and we are His. We may think we are a free agent. We may think we are an individual that is independent of anyone and any thing and we have no responsibility to God. Yet, that is part of our deceitful nature – we think we are our own: “It is just me and I will live my life my way.” But we belong to God and God can do with us as He wills. If we are a piece of pottery unto “dishonor,” then God will destroy us because we are His and He does not like what has become of that creation and, therefore, He will destroy it, finally.
If we are saved, by God’s grace, then we are pottery made unto “honor” and God will allow us to live for evermore because He has redeemed us; He has bought us. We originally belonged to Him, but now He has purchased us back from the demands of the Law; He paid the penalty the Law demanded and we are His, once again. He has restored our souls and restored us to our original condition of being a servant in a right relationship to our Creator. Therefore, give unto God the things that are God’s. We ought to give God our lives, our bodies, our thoughts and all that we are, because it all belongs to Him. It is not a great or tremendous thing that we do this, but it is our duty and obligation. It is simply a right response to that which is just and we serve God in accordance with how He would have us to serve Him.
This word “image” has to do with “likeness.” It says in 2Corinthians 4:3-4:
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Christ is the perfect “image” of God. Mankind is created in God’s image. Christ is Eternal God who entered into the human race and in His Person we see the perfect image of God that reveals to us God’s likeness. It says in Colossians 1:14-15:
In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
And we shall we “like Him,” the Bible tells us, when we have our resurrected bodies and we are made one whole personality at the end of the life. When we go to be with the Lord, we shall be like Him – we will be in that perfect “image” and that “image” will mean that there is no sin. If we are in the perfect likeness of God, there is no sin, no darkness and no evil any more. Those things will be gone and we will have been recreated a new creature in the image of God and we will be able to keep this image into eternity future.
It says in Colossians 3:9-10:
Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
Now this is interesting in two ways:
We are told to “lie not one to another, see that ye have put off the old man with his deeds,” so it is saying that “lies” would go along with our old nature. That is how we entered into the world – we were born and conceived in sin; we were “born speaking lies,” and we had a heart that was “desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, who can know it?” We did not even know our own nature and that is how we were prior to salvation.
Once God saves us, the old man and his deeds are put off and the new man is put on and we are “renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” Basically, God is saying that we begin to take upon ourselves the “image” of Christ, once we received the new resurrected soul. This is necessary because we have to be truly born again to become “after his image” in our new nature. But we are ““renewed in knowledge after the image,” so as we begin to grow in wisdom, understanding and knowledge concerning the truth of the Word of God and those truths are forming and shaping us “after the image of Christ.” That is why we are “growing in grace and in the knowledge of God.” We are growing in our Christian life, more and more, into the image of Christ.
Early on after salvation, we may not present or show forth that image of Christ all that much, but as we continue to learn truth from the Bible we begin to have it applied to our lives and, therefore, we begin to show the “image” of Christ more and more. For instance, we have learned that Sunday is the Sabbath. In our past lives, we would not have treated Sunday any differently than any other day, except it was a day we had “off” from work and it was a day for fun, for sports or whatever we wanted. But now we have learned that Sunday is the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. Sunday is a time to involve ourselves in spiritual activities, so we are not going to the baseball game; we are not going to mow the grass. We are spending time in the Bible and spending time in prayer. So this “image” becomes clearer on this point.
Another example would be marriage. Perhaps, it is our third marriage. Maybe we had no problem with divorcing and our conscience was not bothered by having divorced two previous spouses, but now God has saved us and now our response is, “Oh, marriage is forever. We are not to divorce.” If we have already divorced, we are to stay married to the person we are with and now we believe it, we live it out and we even speak about it with others. Then another piece of the “image of Christ” is formed and this process continues in our lives. Of course, Christ is Light and all these things are true and faithful to the Word of God and we, therefore, begin to shine with a similar light as Christ; we are taking on His “image” as we go along. This is why people will begin to react negatively to us. It is not so much us, but the “image” we are now revealing. It is the likeness of the Lord Jesus that people do not want to see and they are starting to see that in us.
It says in Romans 8:28-29:
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
This describes the child of God. We were predestinated to be “conformed to the image of his Son,” the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot help it and we could not stop the process, even if we wanted to it. We might be involved in all kinds of affliction and tribulation and our lives might have been full of difficulties since we became a Christian and maybe (in some way) we just want it to stop and to run away from it, but there is nowhere to go. God has begun a good work in us and He has begun to fashion and form us after the “image of his Son” and that process will continue for as long as we live, until it is complete. And it will not be complete until we are that completely new creature in both body and soul and in the very presence of God when our attention is directed toward the new heaven and new earth in eternity future. It certainly is not completed in this life.
We can see from these verses that the image of Christ has to do with knowledge and being conformed to it is “growing in grace,” learning the truth and putting off the “lie.” But the churches have been given over to Satan at the time of the end and the spirit of the “evil one” is the one in the midst of the churches. The churches previously had the Spirit of God in its midst and would teach truth and, therefore, would have the likeness of God, but that does not apply to the evil, end time church. It does not apply to this rebellious house that God has brought judgment against when He started the end time judgment of mankind at the house of God. Then the churches begin to take on the “image of the beast” and through “lies and deceitfulness,” through “lying signs and wonders,” through “all manner of deceivableness” and through the “strong delusion” God has sent them, they “believe the lie.” And in their belief of “the lie,” they are not growing in grace, but they increase in their own works and in error and they are being formed and fashioned in the “image” of the one that is ruling over them, Satan himself. He is the beast that rules and sits in the churches as the “man of sin” and he is the one being worshipped as God. This is the “image” that Revelation 13 will describe, in verse after verse, through the rest of this chapter.