Season 4 Podcast 69 “Pt I The First Beast.”
In Chapter 13 of Revelation, John mentions two beasts. Many have attempted to identify the beasts. It is not my purpose to determine what John saw or what he specifically referred to. I am not qualified and shall leave that to others.
My purpose is to use my literary license to employ the beasts metaphorically, as I would any other literary allusion regardless of the source, to illustrate what is happening to our world today. I find the use of metaphor very helpful. If I exceed the writer’s intent it is because my purpose is not to interpret John, but to use his extraordinary imagery as it applies to our political circumstances today.
Let’s examine the imagery of the first beast.
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.
They are political kingdoms. The number seven means completeness which suggests that it is not just seven nations but the entire world which has turned wicked. It is One beast meaning a totalitarian state that has united all the other states. Ten horns represent total power. Ten Crowns suggest a powerful king or ruler and represent a totalitarian state comprised of subservient states ruled by a single tyrant. The beasts have the name of blasphemy meaning they are all anti-Christ. It is a war against Christ and all his followers. There is to be no freedom of religion, no freedom of speech, and no right to peaceable assembly. Coming up out of the sea suggests that they are on the move and set forth to conquer the world and put everyone under their power, a one-world government.
One only must look at the news to see that such a force is growing today. People are pushing for a one-world government. Some are using climate change as an excuse or pandemics as an excuse or poverty as an excuse, but the images above are all about power, and the invisible force behind the power is Satan though they don’t know it.
First of all, notice that the beasts do not refer to Satan. Satan is referred to as the dragon that controls or gives power to the beasts.
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.
The extraordinary prophet Daniel who saw our day as clearly as Isaiah and John saw the same image. Daniel adds further details.
DANIIEL 7
“Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
