Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #27 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are going to be reading 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 this in our last study as we looked at verse 14 and we saw that the “image to the beast” was after the likeness of the beast. It was just as when the Pharisees and scribes were questioning Him regarding whether it was lawful to pay tribute money to Caesar, and Jesus asked for a coin and said: “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.” So the image on the coin was a “likeness” of Caesar and, therefore, belonged to Caesar.
Here, in our verse, God is saying that the beast, who is Satan, has an “image” made of him. It is the “image to the beast” and has likeness to Satan. We realize that Satan is a spirit being and you cannot draw a spirit being or make an image of a spirit being, so when people try to do this, they are always wrong. That is why the idea that people have of Satan (the red cape, horns, dastardly mustache and pitchfork) is way off base because he is a fallen angel and angels are spirit beings. The “good angels” are ministers to the heirs of salvation and the “fallen angels” are able to go around the earth and cause trouble. So Satan is a fallen angel, a spirit being that you cannot make an image of, in that sense, but we know his character: he is a liar and the father of lies, the Bible says. When he was loosed, he entered into the churches and congregations of the world and took his seat as the “man of sin” and the churches began to take on his “image.” It was not a physical image, but the image and likeness of Satan, which is deceitfulness, lies, falsehoods, errors, and so forth. That is the kind of “image” that is fashioned after the beast.
It says at the end of Revelation 13:14:
… that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
This is similar to what we read back in 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.
We spent some time discussing that verse and tying it in together with Satan’s binding at the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh and the Word of God is likened to a sword, so it says, in Revelation 13:14, that Satan “had the wound by a sword.” Christ struck the blow; Christ wounded Satan at the cross. Christ is likened to the Word of God and the Word of God is likened to a sword, so it is as if Satan received “the wound by a sword,” and received a deadly wound when he was bound for the figurative “thousand year” period, which represented the entire church age. It was as though he was cast into a bottomless pit and shut up in the pit where he could not bind the hearts of the people of the nations as he had previously been able to do. While Satan was bound, God sent forth the Gospel and evangelized the world by establishing churches in all the nations of the world and establishing the presence of the Word of God among the nations of the world.
So we know that the “image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live,” has to be a reference to Satan. Only Satan qualifies as one that had the “deadly wound” and, yet, is living at the time of the end, because at the time of the end he was loosed. This means that the “deadly wound” was struck in the 1st century AD and then, incredibly, in the 20th century (at the end of the church age), he is loosed; his deadly wound appears to have been healed, due to this loosing and now an “image” to the beast is made: “… that they should make an image to the beast.” And it was the churches and congregations of the world that previously had the “image of Christ” (since Christ is the truth and insofar as the churches were faithful to His Word, the Bible), that now have the “image of the beast.” Christ had abandoned the churches and Satan had entered in and now they began to take upon themselves that likeness to Satan.
It says in Revelation 13:15:
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
The name of the beast, which God assigned to Satan for the period of the Great Tribulation, is mentioned 16 times in Revelation, chapter 13. There is a very strong emphasis upon that name. The “beast” is the one that was given rule over the churches and congregations and now we read in verse 15: “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast.” Again, the “image of the beast” cannot be literal. You cannot make a physical image of Satan, so we should not think of the “image of the beast” as if it were something carved in wood, decked with silver and gold, as other idols we can read about in the Bible. That is not what is in view. It is not an idol, as the people in the churches worship this image, but it is without any question “idolatry.” It is another god they are bowing down to (not the God of the Bible), but it is not a literal idol. Where it says, “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast,” the word “life” is not the typical Greek word for “life.” The word for “life” is the Greek word “zoe,” which is much more commonly used. This particular Greek word is only translated here as “life,” and that makes sense because actual “life” is in the Lord Jesus Christ and there is no “life” in Satan, in that sense, and there is no life in any idol that would be made to Satan. So God carefully does not use the typical word for “life.” This word is the Greek word “pneuma,” which is often translated as “spirit” or “ghost.” It is the word used in Matthew 1, verses 18 and 20, where we read of the Holy Ghost. The word “ghost” is this word “pneuma.” It is also translated as “spirit” in John, chapter 4, where Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well. It says in John 4:22-23:
Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth…
By the way, we often speak of “true believers” as compared to just the ordinary term “believers.” Some people wonder why we qualify that by referring to “true believers.” Well, the reason is that we live in a world of about two billion professed Christians. They say they are Christians and they believe they are Christians, but the reality is that they are not truly Christians, so they are “believers” but they are not “true believers.” So the Lord also makes that kind of distinction with the word “worshippers.” “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth…” It is not just “the worshippers,” as there are many believers and the world is full of “worshippers” of God. There are all sorts of “worshippers” of God that are false worshippers. They worship something they believe is God. The Muslims worship their idea of God. The Hindus worship their idea of God. The Buddhists worship their idea of God. And, again, in the corporate churches, “Christendom” worships what they believe is God and, yet, they are not “true worshippers.” The “true worshippers,” it says, “shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” We worship through the Holy Spirit which God has given to His people – through the new heart which God has granted each one He has saved. We worship God “in truth” through the true and faithful teachings of the Bible. There are not a thousand truths, or even two truths, but there is one Truth that the Bible lays out. We can discover that truth, if God is gracious to us, by comparing spiritual things with spiritual and Scripture with Scripture, and then the Holy Ghost teacheth. What the Holy Ghost teacheth is truth and God has said that the Spirit of truth “will guide you into all truth.” Those things are found through a careful study of the Bible, using the proper Biblical methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture and making sure that all conclusions fit together (like pieces of a puzzle) with everything else the Bible has to say. By doing this in a slow and diligent process, we worship the Father “in truth.” Then it goes on to say, in John 4:23-24:
… for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
There’s our word “Spirit.” We worship God “in spirit,” as He is a Spirit and He must be worshipped in spirit. Of course, if we do not have the Spirit of God within us, we are “none of His,” and you can be sure we would not be worshipping Him properly, if at all (if we are not truly saved). God likens “true worship” to worshipping in spirit. So, in our verse in Revelation 13:15: “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast,” it should say, “And he had power to give ‘spirit’ unto the image of the beast,” and I think we will be helped to understand what is being said there by going to 2Corinthians 11:1-4:
Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
Here, God is moving the Apostle Paul to speak directly to the Corinthians and, basically, he is saying that he fears for them. He goes on to address this more in the rest of the information in this chapter, but the fear is that they are so open to another ‘Jesus,’ another ‘spirit’ or another ‘gospel.’ They are wide open and accepting of these things, but they are very hard on Paul who is bringing the true gospel, the true spirit and the true Jesus. This is because even at the very beginning of the church age, there were already tares within the churches that did not have ears to hear the truths of God. They were susceptible to the deceitful teachings of Satan as he infiltrated the churches through his emissaries.
But, here in this passage, we find three synonymous terms. One is “another Jesus,” where it says: “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached.” How do you preach Jesus? The other synonymous terms are, “or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”
That means to preach “another Jesus” is the same thing as receiving “another spirit” or “another gospel.” Again, Jesus is the Word made flesh, so to “preach Jesus” is to “preach the Word,” and if you preach the entire Bible, truly and faithfully, then you are “preaching Jesus.” But if you are “preaching another Jesus,” then you are not teaching true and faithfully. Or, if you “receive another spirit,” then you have corrupted the truth of the Bible and that would be “another gospel,” and that is the term we are most familiar with and we understand that: there is the true and faithful Gospel that is laid out on the pages of the Holy Word of God; and then there are “other gospels” that distort, pervert and change that true and holy faithful Gospel that God has given us. That is the same thing as “another Jesus” and “another spirit.” They are all synonymous and are saying the same thing.
So, Satan, the beast, possesses the power to give “spirit” to the image of the beast. Again, the image of the beast is not a physical or literal image that is carved or chiseled out of stone, but it is the “likeness” of Satan through the things that the churches teach. Satan is the “abomination of desolation” standing in the Holy place and he is the “man of sin,” as it is pointed out 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.
When God was in His Holy temple and when Christ dwelt in the midst of the churches, He received the worship of the church members in the congregations of the corporate churches. When they worshipped Him in spirit and truth after His own image and likeness, then the Lord Jesus Christ received genuine worship. But then Christ left and Satan, the “man of sin” was the one ruling there and he is the “Father of lies,” and he has his ministers of righteousness and false apostles preaching and bringing “another gospel. There is a “spirit” there, but it is “another spirit.” There is a “Jesus” there, but it is “another Jesus,” and through all of this, Satan is receiving worship; he is the one being bowed to all over the world, as all the churches believe the “lie” and believe the falsehoods. They are doctrinal lies: accept the Lord and you will become saved; say the Sinner’s Prayer and you will be saved; be baptized with water and be saved; partake of the Lord’s Table and it imparts spiritual grace in some mysterious way. They are lies, lies, and more lies, and there all sorts of other lies on top of those lies!
Satan has the churches established in his “image” through the multitude of these lies, but the fact that the churches exist at all is a “lie.” They continue to meet and gather for worship and they claim it is to worship God: “Let us all gather together and sing hymns and offer prayers. Let us read from the Word of God. Let us have the preacher preach a sermon to us as we gather before God.” It is all a lie. It is all complete deception. There is no truth in it because God ended the church age. God’s spirit departed out and He commanded His people to come out, and flee to the mountains. God’s people did that, over the course of several years. God gave them time; it was not as though the churches were told one night and people had to leave the next day. They had time and the churches heard over time – the word got out there; the pastors heard, the elders heard and the deacons heard. Maybe they did not tell their congregations, but they heard and they bear the responsibility. They heard these things as they were proclaimed from the Word of God. They heard the church age was over and Satan had entered into their church and he was the spirit that was there and God’s spirit was no longer there. They heard these things and they denied them; they dismissed them; they ignored them. They continued on with their false worship and it is in no way true worship of God. It is completely (100%) the worship of the beast and has been for a long time now.