Revelation 13 (part 1)

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks from Revelation 13 in his series called Missions as the Triumph of the Lamb.

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This evening I would like to invite you to turn to Revelation 13, and we will read only the first 10 verses. Then in the first session tomorrow morning, we’ll finish this chapter. Revelation 13:1–10. The first clause of chapter 13 really ends the reading from chapter 12. The dragon introduced in chapter 12 stands by the shore of the sea. Then Scripture says …

“And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.

Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?’ The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.

He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. He who has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Now in Revelation 12, we saw this morning Satan pictured as a great dragon. He is violently enraged against the church. He is enraged because he has been hurled out of heaven. That is, in principle, he is already a defeated foe. He is filled with fury, precisely because he knows his time is limited (according to verse 12 of chapter 12), because his sphere has been curtailed, because he knows he is done in. But like Hitler at the Battle of the Bulge, it triggers some of the worst fighting of the war.

That means God leads his people, figured here as a woman (a symbol for the messianic community, a symbol known both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament).… He leads her into the desert where there is an ongoing struggle between her children (that means Christians, like us) and the Dragon, who is out to destroy them.

All of this takes place, we saw, for 1,260 days or three and a half years or 42 months; it’s the same expression all referring back to a set period of time in the second century before Christ when there was this miserable period with Antiochus IV Epiphanes. We went through that this morning. I’m going to come back to it in a little while again this evening.

Satan doesn’t work in isolation. Revelation 13 introduces us to two agents through whom Satan carries out his wretched war on God’s people. In this section, the beast out of the sea, and then in verses 11 and following, the beast out of the land. As we work through the text, what we’ll increasingly discover is that these three together (the Dragon, the beast from the sea, and the beast from the land) constitute a kind of aped trinity.

They’re not only against God. They kind of try to usurp his place. They sort of stand in for him. The relationships among them are very similar to the relationships in the Godhead itself. This isn’t by accident. John knows exactly what he is doing when he says these sorts of things. As soon as you start following his line of argument, you see it.

Now the beast out of the sea, using the apocalyptic metaphors we’ve gradually been thinking about, is a grotesque seven-headed monster. Then, as we’ll see first thing tomorrow morning, the beast out of the earth is less terrifying a spectacle but is given to great deceptions. In terms of other language used in the apocalypse and elsewhere, the first beast is the one we commonly call the Antichrist. The second beast is the one that is regularly referred to in this book as the False Prophet. We’ll look at him tomorrow.

Satan, enraged against the church, stands by the shore of the sea (one foot on the sea and one on the land, as it were) and calls forth these two vile cohorts to do their worst. Now what I want to do tonight is focus on the beast out of the sea. It helps us to understand the nature of our opposition.

I shall divide what I have to say into five points. To cheer you up, these five points are of unequal length. The first one will take more than half my time. So if you look at your watch after the first one and then go, “Boy, this one is going to be a humdinger,” be of good cheer. These points are not all of the same length.

1. The power of Satan expresses itself in antichrists.

Plural. The power of Satan expresses itself in antichrists. That is in concrete, historical opposition to God’s people. This is not airy-fairy stuff. In concrete, historical opposition to God’s people. The symbolisms are a bit alien to us, but once you unpack them, you see what they’re on about.

Now the ancient world, I mentioned the first night, commonly thought of the sea as evil or at least a symbol for evil. It was the reservoir of chaos, as someone has said and, therefore, entirely appropriate as the matrix out of which this beast springs. This beast is elsewhere said to come out of the Abyss.

I said that in these various chats I would sometimes introduce some new key for understanding apocalyptic literature. The one I want to mention tonight is this. Very often in apocalyptic, something is introduced, and it seems entirely opaque. Then you read on a little farther in the book, and what was opaque is explained. The trouble is if you’ve had your devotions out of the opaque bit three days earlier and then you’ve forgotten all about it and you read the next bit, you might not connect the two. As a result, you don’t see the later passage is clarifying the first.

You need to read the book of Revelation right through several times until you see how the passages connect a wee bit. That sort of thing is found already in chapter 1 in the very first vision. You get this vision of the golden lampstands and the stars and what they are and so on. You read that first vision, and you think, “Oh boy. This one is going to be quite a book.” Then you get to the last couple of verses, and it’s explained.

Revelation 1:20: “The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” It’s explained for you! What seems obscure in the vision becomes a little clearer as you move on. John does this quite a lot. He introduces something, and he is not transparent. He is not very clear at all. Then a little bit farther on, something is unpacked for you.

Now in this particular instance, the beast out of the sea is treated again in some detail in chapter 17. For the next few minutes, you need to keep your finger simultaneously in chapter 13 and in chapter 17. We’ll flip back and forth between the two, and you’ll see how these things tie together. Let me read parts of chapter 17, verses 3 and following, and then draw your attention to some of the details.

Chapter 17, verse 3: “Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.” There’s that beast again, a beast with 7 heads and 10 horns. The same beast recurs again and again and again.

“The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth. I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.”

Remember back in the end of chapter 12? The saints bear testimony to Jesus. That’s how they win. Do you see? The links are being formed. Now earlier we saw the woman, who is the church, that is the mother of the church. Now you see another woman. In some ways, this book could be titled, A Tale of Two Cities (Jerusalem versus Babylon) with a subtitle of The Harlot and the Bride.

You have these contrasts running through the book again and again and again: Jerusalem versus Babylon (Babylon appearing here) and now the two women (the people of God and this one who drinks the blood of the people of God). “When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.” Well, I guess so!

“Then the angel said to me: ‘Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. The beast, which you saw now, once was, now is not, and will come out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come. This calls for a mind with wisdom.’ ” Well, I guess so!

“The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings.” I warned you apocalyptic literature has a lot of mixed metaphors. Here it’s running in two directions. Do you see? We’ll come back to this one in a moment. “Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.”

What are we to make of all of this? We’ve discovered three times in these verses this beast was, now is not, and will come out of the Abyss. That language is meant to make you think of how God is described, how Jesus is described. He was and is and is to come. This one was, is not, and will come. Do you see? It’s the same repeated phrase, slightly twisted, and that’s how you are supposed to think of him. Someone who is aping God. Someone who is aping Christ.

But there’s more than that. This is the beast who keeps coming out of the Abyss. He was and is not and comes again. Then we read in chapter 13 he receives a fatal wound and yet survives and lives again. Have you noticed chapter 13, verse 3? One of his heads had a fatal wound, but it’s been healed. Have you thought about that? If it’s a fatal wound, it can’t be healed, you think, but this is a fatal wound, and it’s been healed. It’s like an aped resurrection.

If we missed it, it comes back again in the following verses (verses 11 and 12 and following) where the next beast is introduced. He exercised all the authority of the first beast (that is the one we’re considering tonight) on his behalf and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast whose fatal wound had been healed. If we don’t get it, it recurs again in verse 14, this beast whose fatal wound has been healed. It’s been killed, and it’s come back. He was and is not and comes again.

What’s going on here? Broadly, this beast is that satanically inspired power which receives a stroke of death yet returns to hurl himself with replenished fury against the people of God. It’s the beast who keeps coming out of the Abyss. Thus he is tied in the Daniel passage to which this refers (we’ll think about that in a moment) to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. We’ll see in chapter 17 in a few moments he is also tied to Roman persecution in the first century.

There is an opposition against God’s people that gets knocked off and then comes back. Who is afraid of Antiochus IV Epiphanes today? He received a fatal wound. But the beast comes back. There’s Nero next. The beast comes back. The beast is Pope Innocent III. The beast is Hitler. The beast is Mao Zedong. He comes back, and he comes back, and he comes back. He promises great things, and eventually beast after beast, they receive a fatal wound. But the beast comes back.

That’s how you’re to understand this. In other words, the first beast is concrete, historical opposition to God’s people. The power of Satan expresses itself in antichrists who keep coming back. Notice in verse 2, “The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion.” Now if you were here this morning, you know the four beasts that are described in Daniel 7 are respectively described as leopard, bear, lion, and so on, so on, so on. That’s fine.

But this beast now, instead of being like one of them, has the appendages of each of them. It’s a way of saying that the evil of all the previous beasts get poured into the next beast. The next beast comes along and captures, as it were, all of the malignancy of the previous beast and comes back again. Just when you think you’ve gotten rid of the thousand-year Reich of Hitler, which only lasted 12 years.… No, the beast comes back. It keeps coming back.

Did not the Lord Jesus himself say, “There will be wars and rumors of war”? Satan himself is full of fury, and he sends forth his agents in concrete, historical manifestations. The beast comes back. It receives a fatal wound, and yet the beast comes back. In the sequence of beasts in Daniel, if I mistake not.… People dispute this one a bit. I won’t go into the debate. The lion is the Babylonian Empire. The bear is the Median Empire. The leopard is the Persian Empire. The fourth beast (the nasty one) is the Greek Empire.

Then it is followed by 10 horns. I’ve already mentioned a horn always represents kingdom or a king. There were 10 Seleucid kings who controlled the territory of Israel or were in a tussle with it with the Egyptian Empire. Then the little horn that caused so much damage is Antiochus IV Epiphanes who causes all the destruction of the period from 167 to 164 BC, the 1,260 days.

That’s what Daniel is looking forward to, but here it’s all picked up by the apocalyptic seer, by John himself. He says, “Yes, but the beast keeps coming back. He resembles the leopard, and he resembles the bear, and he resembles the lion. The Dragon gives this beast great authority. He receives fatal wound, but he keeps coming back. He still keeps attacking the people of God.”

At John’s time of writing, he is not clearly manifest. That is to say John keeps saying in chapter 17, “He now is not.” That is the church has by this time faced some local severe persecution under Nero. Hundreds of Christians were crucified. As they were crucified, they were then covered with pitch and set alight so they burned and hung on the cross to lighten Nero’s garden parties.

Oh, the church has already faced some of the beast, but Nero is gone at this point (the most plausible dating of the apocalypse). The Christians are not facing enormous power from Rome. They’re not facing horrible destruction except this beast is going to come back. Rome is going to keep coming at them. There are 10 major periods of persecution down to the time of the Constantinian settlement at the beginning of the fourth century.

That this is the Roman Empire becomes pretty clear when you look again at chapter 17. Look at what is said. Verse 9: “The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits.” Now anybody living in the Roman Empire knew the city of Rome was built on seven hills. It began as seven small villages on the left bank of the Tiber River. They gradually formed one town, one city, that conquered first Italy and then ultimately the Mediterranean Basin, then extended the empire north into Central Europe, all the way to Britain in the west and all the way to India in the east.

If the woman is here identified, you see, as sitting on the seven hills, then this woman who is now this horrible, Christian, blood-guzzling whore is, in fact, the Roman Empire, all put in symbol-laden terms, but it’s pretty clear what the threat is in John’s day. The threats change. I spend a fair bit of time now in Central Europe. When you talk to some of the older pastors.… It’s changing now again. They’re getting used to it.

But if you talk to some of the senior pastors who lived during the communist years who often couldn’t get an education, who were kept out of universities, who were sometimes themselves beaten or put for years in jail.… When you talk to them in 1994, 1995, 1996, sometimes they would gently cry sitting across the table from you and tell you that in some ways, it was easier under the Communists, because then they knew who the enemy was.

See, the beast was clearly marked then, but this doesn’t mean there are no struggles or no beasts. Now in Central Europe, it’s more like the False Prophet, the second beast we’ll come to tomorrow. Sometimes the beast is bloody. Sometimes the beast attacks. Sometimes the beast is clear. In John’s day, the beast was becoming very clear. The opposition was going to come from the Roman Empire.

But, you see, the reformers knew who the beast was too. Christians in China know who the beast is. Christians living in Nigeria know who the beast is, and it’s another beast. The beast comes back. Confessing Christians under Hitler knew who the beast was. The beast is killed, and the Beast comes back.

Then with mixed metaphor, we’re also told the seven heads are also seven kings (Revelation 17:10). “Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while.” That’s very interesting. It makes you want to try and figure out which Roman emperors have already come and gone. Apparently five have gone, and we’re in the sixth. There is one more to come.

People have tried to work it out that way. They say, “Well, the first five are Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. The one who is now at the moment who is not such a threat to Christians is Vespasian, and then Titus is to come.” It all sounds very neat, except if you know your Roman history, the first emperor was not really Augustus. It was really Julius Caesar.

Besides, between Nero and Vespasian, there were three short-term emperors (three in the course of two years.… Galba, Otho, and Vitellius) variously bumped off. At any case, the book of Revelation was more likely written in Domitian’s time, after Titus. It doesn’t fit very well. My guess is that the apocalyptist is playing with numbers as apocalyptic writers regularly do. The number seven reflects the totality of all of the Caesars of Rome. All of the kings together are seven. Some have come.

At the moment, we’re under the reign of one where there’s not too much pressure. Vespasian was not too hard on Christians. He ruled long enough and peacefully enough that Christians flourished AD 69 to 79. On the other hand, the beast was going to resurface. The beast did resurface. Hadrian in the second century, who built Hadrian’s Wall, was ruthless on Christians. Sometimes the strongest emperors, because they were strong also as pagans, were some of the hardest on Christians.

That brings us to the third element in the interpretation of the beast. There is more to come even beyond the Roman Empire. Do you see what it said? You’re all set up for these seven in Revelation 17:10. There are seven kings. “Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to destruction.”

You see, if the seven represent the sweep of the Roman Empire, who on earth is the eighth? It says, you see, he is not now, but he is coming after the seven, and he will likewise go to his destruction, which suggests, you see, that beyond all of these antichrists, these concrete representations of clear attack in the Roman Empire, there will be something even beyond the Roman Empire.

John is concerned to address both his own present and the future. He belongs to the seven. That is he is not one of them. He belongs to them in the sense that he is like them. He adheres to them. He acts like them. He is like them in the sense that he placed the same sort of role as the seven. But his period is an eighth time.

Now think of another John passage. Do you remember what John writes in his first letter? First John, chapter 2: “As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so also there are many antichrists.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? In other words, John understands there’s a final Antichrist all right, a final Beast. But along the way, there are many antichrists, those who try to usurp the place of God and attack God’s people in one fashion or another. Count on it. It’s going to happen. It’s part of the rage of Satan.

Now go back to chapter 13, verse 2. This beast that comes out of the sea we have seen embodies all the evil of the previous empires, from John’s perspective, embodying them and being manifested in Rome. But the beast comes back, and his authority is derived from Satan. Do you see that? The Dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.

Now go back to another one of John’s writings, namely his gospel. We’re used to reflecting on the fact that John’s gospel mentions the deity of Christ (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”) or the great confession at the end of the book when Thomas says, “My Lord and my God!”

But do you recall the number of passages when Jesus insists in John’s gospel that he does nothing but what the Father gives him to do? He says nothing but what the Father gives him to say. “My Father loves me, because I always obey him and keep his commandments.” Or in John 14, “The world must learn that I love the Father and always do what he has given me.”

In other words, there was a kind of dependency upon the Father, a distinction in roles such that the Father commands and the Son goes. The Father commissions, and the Son obeys. The Father sends the Son into the world, and the Son comes. Do you see? Likewise, even in Gethsemane that sort of thing is stressed.

The Father’s whole plan is the plan of redemption. Jesus, one with God, agrees with that. But in the agony of Gethsemane, the Father says, “This is my will for you. This is the cup you must drink.” “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.”

You see, there is a kind of authority relationship even in the Godhead. So also here. The New Testament writer who stresses these things, spells them out the most in the Godhead, is John. Likewise in chapters 14 through 17, he stresses them with respect to the Holy Spirit as well. We’ll come to that tomorrow. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit … he spells them out.

Now this Dragon in chapter 12 gives authority to the beast who keeps coming back again and again and again. This is the first part of the unholy triumvirate that is aping God and persecuting the people of God, speaking vast blasphemies, we’re told. People serve him. This text says one of the heads had received a fatal wound and been healed. The beast keeps coming back.

People, you see, are constantly surprised at the survivability of raw evil. Revelation 13:4: “Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?’ ” Again in chapter 17, verse 8: “The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life will be astonished when they see the beast.”

They’re so impressed by the power. Isn’t that what happened in the Third Reich? “He stabilizes our currency. He gives our young people some sort of vision. How can you stand against this sort of military might in any case?” Across Europe, there was much of the same. The word appeasement before World War II was an honorable word. It meant to make peace. Appeasement after Chamberlain came to mean not standing up for righteousness and thus facing a greater cost in the long haul. They tried to appease the beast.

You see, some beasts are not appeased by soft talk and negotiation. Some beasts are determined to destroy. From the beginning of history, pagan and immoral states have sometimes risen in violent evil against God’s people. They receive eventually the mighty deathblows from God, but the evil returns, whether it’s the evil of Pharaoh in Egypt who was destroyed in the sea or the Assyrian Empire.

There is no more Assyrian nation. There are maybe 150,000 Assyrians in the world today, and that’s it. Or mighty Babylon, a deserted ruin in the desert. That’s all it is. Rome standing astride the world? Shall our culture survive if it squeezes God to the periphery and worships self and things and success and money and sports and media personalities and raw power?

I know an Englishwoman. I won’t tell you her name since some of you would know her. She is far from being the sort of quintessential demure Englishwoman. She has a mouth on her. Not too long ago, she was visiting some mutual friends in Washington, DC. Well, he was mentioned this morning.… Mark Dever and his wife, Connie. Mark is well connected now in Washington, so he gets invited to some interesting places.

He was invited to one of these rather posh dinners with a lot of dignitaries around. Because this woman was visiting them, she was brought along too, managed to wangle an invitation. She found herself seated next to a four-star major general. There are not a lot of those around. That’s pretty far up the pecking order. When this general heard this Englishwoman’s accent, he said, “Oh, you’re from England, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m a bit of a history buff. I’ve really been interested in reading up on the rise and decline of the British Empire.”

If you knew this lady-friend of mine in Britain, you knew that was already going to spell some sparks. This was in the early 90s. He said, “Of course it’s all different today. Now with the demise of the Russian bear, there really only is one world power, isn’t there?” Whereupon my English friend said, “Have you learned nothing from this?” He looked at her and said, “I beg your pardon?” She said, “Every nation is called to judgment by God himself. Shall America be exempt?”

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” I don’t care whether it’s in Belfast or Berlin, God holds us to account individually and as nations. The beasts will die, and until Christ comes back, the beasts will come back again too. Expect it. Antichrist comes in many forms.

The antichrists John was facing in 1 John 2 were not so much political power as people there who had left the church on a doctrinally controversial matter to fit in with the times and were now opposing the church tooth and nail in such a way that they were causing enormous trouble. But they were antichrists. They were anti the gospel. They were anti who Christ was. John sees them as antichrists.

He says, “We know the end is coming because already there are antichrists in advance of the ultimate Antichrist. As you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so also now there are many antichrists already. That’s how we know that it is the end times. We’re in this three-and-a-half year period that stretches all the way to the end with antichrists coming back. Antichrists can be brutal.”

There is parody after parody in these texts. See, in the Old Testament Exodus 15:11. “Who among the gods is like you, O Lord?” Now the question of those who follow the Beast is, “Who is like the Beast? Who can make war against him?” Do you see? “Give up! Conform! Give in, because this beast is so strong.” That’s my first point. The power of Satan expresses itself in antichrists, in concrete, historical opposition to God’s people.

2. Antichrist is full of blasphemy.

That’s already mentioned in verse 1. “… on each head a blasphemous name.” But it keeps coming back in case we haven’t got it yet. It recurs in verse 5. “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, to slander his name and his dwelling place, those who live in heaven.”

You see, at one level, the tendency of the Roman emperors to take on divine titles for themselves would have given this an immediate impetus in the first century. After his death, Augustus was divinized by the Roman Senate. Even during his lifetime he was called Divus. That is, “one like the gods.” After he died, then he was apotheosized by decree of the Roman Senate. He became one of the gods and could be worshiped.

Nero took to himself the title “savior of the world.” In the New Testament, there is only one writer who uses that expression of Christ: John. In chapter 4, Christ is the Savior of the world. Inevitably, somebody who has lived through Nero’s time is going to see here an antichrist. The Roman Senate from Augustus on regularly declared deceased emperors to be divine, but Caligula claimed divinity even in his lifetime and then, as I mentioned this morning, divinized his horse.

Domitian, probably in John’s day, was addressed as “dominus et dues noster” (“our Lord and God”). For Christians, to whom alone is that title due? Raw blasphemies, and yet the issue is larger than the vulgar blasphemy of the Roman emperors. It’s bigger than that. It is anything that stands over against God. He blasphemes God. He slanders his name, his dwelling place, those who live in heaven.

It’s a kind of holistic attack against all God is and all of his people and all he stands for and where he lives. It reminds you of the description in 2 Thessalonians 2:4. “He opposes and exalts himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, and even sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

We sometimes think foolishly that blasphemy is something really vulgar, really ugly, where you say, “Damn Jesus” or something like that. It has to be strong. But in this sort of vision of blasphemy, it is that which usurps the place of God or which calls God down or relativizes him.

I grew up in French Canada, but most of my secondary education was in an English school. I did some of my education in French and some in English. At this point, I was in an English school. Because I was in a town where 97 percent of the people were French, the school was quite small, but it had a superb principal who was a very gifted teacher. He was an atheist but a great pedagogue.

Something you could only do in a small school.… He would invite in the better of his students to his office afterward and sit around and chew the fat with them. I mean, in some ways, it was the best kind of education. You know, this one-on-one interacting over literature or jokes or football or almost anything. He had such a sharp mind and a delicious sense of humor. I liked him a great deal. I was profoundly grateful for the time he would set aside for me.

One day I was in there, and we were laughing about something, making some jokes about something or other. He had a wonderful laugh, great sense of humor. He would slip these things in and see if he could get one by you now and then. He said, “I believe myself, don’t you, that there is nothing so high and mighty that you can’t laugh at it.”

I was only about 16, but I knew I had just seen the beast. If you’re in the position where you can laugh at anything and everything, you are God. Only of God can it be said, “… the Lord shall have them in derision,” but you dare not say, “I will have the Lord in derision.”

In our culture, do you see, where comics and comedians can make endless religion jokes, which sometimes are just laughing at the people of God (I’m all for a fair bit of that) but are laughing at God himself or the cross or the atonement? At what point are we de-Godding God? It’s called idolatry, which brings us to the third thing that is said about this beast.

3. This Antichrist commands wide allegiance.

Verses 3b and 4: “The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast. They also worshiped the beast and asked, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?’ ”

Now, of course, it is commonly true in totalitarian regimes that they demand complete allegiance. That’s why a totalitarian Marxist regime does not like religion too much, because it feels like another authority center, something that is pulling authority away from the ultimate totalizing authority of the state. Whether it’s from the far left or the far right, it doesn’t really make much difference. Anything that demands total allegiance ultimately relativizes God.

Of course, this can be true in more subtle ways as well. You can have media voices, or you can have film and book voices. You can have opinion-maker voices that are so carefully lined up that you feel yourself out of date or out of touch with your culture or out of touch with your center just because you want to hold opinions that nobody else seems to hold.

Even our visions of what the common good is may be shaped far more than we realize by what the secular society thinks the common good is. The worship of a satanically inspired perversion of secular authority is the ultimate offense against the one true God. Even (dare I say it?) democracy? Do not misunderstand. I hold the same opinion as Sir Winston Churchill in this regard. I think democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the other kinds.

There’s a sense in which rightly run in a representative system it can preserve freedoms better than any other kind, precisely because it provides you with a mechanism for turfing the blighters out every few years before they gain too much power, because Lord Acton was right. In this fallen and broken world, all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I saw a bumper sticker in the United States a few weeks ago: “All power corrupts, and absolute power sounds like fun.” That’s the problem, isn’t it? That’s exactly the problem. To have some mechanism for turfing blighters out every few years sounds pretty attractive to me as a form of government. Even good blighters get intoxicated with their own importance after awhile because this is a fallen and broken world.

The fact remains that if that democracy begins to have enough sheer diversity and value and everything else to it (in value, in gold, and what is cherished or not), it can pass laws that are ultimately so heinous, so ugly, so immoral that eventually Christians find themselves desperately out of place in a democracy, possibly even under threat.

If you think democracy is your summum bonum, your supreme good, then even democracy might itself under certain circumstances become an antichrist. We are going to face these tensions until the end of the age. There are just no easy answers to them to the very end of the age because the beast comes back. Always the Beast commands wide, wide allegiance. Always.

There is a new definition in much of the Western world about tolerance. When I was a boy, tolerance meant something like this. You might disagree with someone, but if you said they had the right to defend their views and propagate their beliefs, you were judged to be tolerant. In other words, I might be a capitalist, but I am tolerant if I allow Marxists to voice their opinions in the open marketplace. I might be a Marxist, but I’m tolerant if I allow capitalists to voice their opinion in the marketplace.

One remembers the famous saying of Voltaire. “I may hate what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That was the understanding of tolerance in the open marketplace until about 20 years ago. That’s all changed. That’s not what tolerance means anymore. Tolerance nowadays means that every opinion in various domains is equally right, and you defend that proposition. It might not be right for you, but it’s right for somebody else. If instead you say that some other opinion is wrong, then you are intolerant.

Now, you see, you must not simply disagree with someone and then say they have the right to speak. Now you must say, “Well, we all have our own opinion, and their vision is as right for them as my vision is for me.” That’s what makes you tolerant. In a recent survey done in the United States amongst university undergraduates, people were asked to choose between two people, A and B.

The first one (A) had very strong views but was willing to defend to the death the right of others to speak against those views. The other (B) had no very strong views. Which one had no very strong views? Which one is the more tolerant? Eighty-five percent chose B. That’s pushed everywhere in the media today. Absolutely everywhere!

That’s why evangelism is viewed in so many circles as intrinsically evil. When you’re seeking to evangelize, you’re trying to say that your views are better than somebody else’s views. In other words, you think you have the truth on the matter, and therefore you’re trying to convince somebody you’re right and they’re wrong. That’s intrinsically intolerant by this definition.

I would argue this definition is both incoherent and intellectually debilitating. It’s incoherent because I don’t know what tolerance means anymore if I don’t disagree first. Do you see? If I say, “Oh, your view is very true, and I tolerate you,” I don’t know what that means anymore. I have to disagree with you before I tolerate you, don’t I? “Nobody is wrong, and I tolerate all of you.”

It’s incoherent. It’s intellectual rubbish of the very first water, and nobody sees it. You try and make a point about it. “I think this is right,” or, “I think that’s wrong.” “No, no, no, no, no. That’s being intolerant. It’s being judgmental. Don’t you know what the Bible says? ‘Judge not that you be not judged.’ ” It’s the only verse people know anymore. They don’t pay much attention to the fact that six verses on, Jesus goes on to say, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine,” which means somebody has to figure out who the pigs are.

A text without a context becomes a pretext for a proof text. You say, “I don’t think these people are tolerant at all, because the one place where people do disagree with them (that is, in their definition of tolerance), there they say, ‘If you don’t agree with our definition of tolerance, you should be excluded.’ ” Read the UN Declaration of Principles on Tolerance. That’s exactly what it says. Read the Canadian Commission’s report on the nature of tolerance.

Again and again in prophetic documents around the world, “We believe tolerance should be recommended in all people for all people, except for those who do not share this vision of tolerance.” In other words, under this new vision of tolerance, it’s incoherent where it claims to be right, and it is immoral where in fact it’s wrong. It’s everywhere, and we Christians begin to feel the pressure of it, don’t we?

This is assumed to be the right view of tolerance everywhere so that it becomes harder and harder in our society to stand up and say in a tolerant way, in a loving way, in a humble way, “You know, I really believe that’s a load of bilge water, with all due respect.” It’s fairly difficult to say that with a smile anymore, because you’re automatically intolerant.

“Well, you have a right to your opinion, but I frankly think your opinion is wrong.” “Well, where is your tolerance? I mean, after all, doesn’t Jesus say, ‘Judge not that you be not judged’?” This is right through the Western world nowadays. It’s incoherent. It is intellectually debilitating, and it is everywhere. There are dozens of these things that you can take the time to work out for yourself. They become sweeping plausibility structures that demand your allegiance, widespread allegiance everywhere, or you are on the out.

4. Antichrist, if given enough power, causes great suffering among the people of God.

Verse 7: “He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. He was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.” Isn’t that aping things? What do we read in chapter 5 in the great vision there? Around the throne, blood-bought people from every tongue and tribe and people and nation. But the beast is also laying claim to every tongue and tribe and people and nation. Do you see? Aping God. Wanting it all. Never having enough.

“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast …” Well, almost all. “… all those whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” For this beast wants so to control that it will go to any authority whatsoever to brutalize and terrorize.

Ask your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus in Southern Sudan. Two million of them are starved or bombed or enslaved to death, killed, raped, murdered in the last 20 years or so. Oh, I know it’s partly Islam, and I know it’s partly oil, and I know it’s partly tribalism and all the rest. But don’t you see? Behind it all is the Beast.

What a contrast in leaders is being formed now. This beast under the control of Satan who wants to enslave and control and will brutalize all those who are not his and Christ the Lamb who himself was slain in God’s mind from before the creation of the world all planned out. Post-modernism, you see, is afraid of what it calls totalizing. It thinks all speech in some ways controls and manipulates, so all discourse in some ways has a totalizing effect.

Therefore, trust nobody. If you say to Michel Foucault, who began to use the term in great array first, “Yes, but isn’t your speech then likewise totalizing?” he says, “Well, of course it is. That’s part of the problem. Therefore, always rebel. Always kick the traces. Believe nobody. Trust no one. All speech is totalizing.” Do you hear that? What that means, of course, is all those who don’t agree with that view of totalizing are totalitarian and have to be resisted, including God Almighty.

But the leader whom we serve is not a Stalin or a Hitler, not a Pol Pot or a Mugabe. No, no, no, no. The Leader whom we serve himself died. The Leader whom we serve not only made us but is our maker. So we are his by creation, whether we like it or not. He died for us. Instead of brutalizing us, he woos us to himself by the death he himself bore on our behalf. What you must do, you see, is contrast the Lamb of chapter 5 with the Beast of chapter 13 and ask which leader demands your allegiance truly, which brings me then to the last reflection.

5. The existence and threat of Antichrist calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.

That’s what the text says. Verse 12: “This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.” Not less than both. That is, you endure. You bear up under the pressure. You put up with it. You endure to the end. Jesus says, “He who endures to the end will be saved.”

But not merely grit your teeth endurance but faithfulness in the midst of it. Faithfulness to display the kinds of things we saw in the previous chapter in verse 11. “They overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Faithfulness thus to the gospel, to the Lord Christ. Faithfulness because you either bow to the one Lord or to the other. You either bow to Christ or Antichrist.

This calls for endurance and faithfulness to the very end in exactly the same way the Allied soldiers on both the eastern front and the western front in World War II after the beaches of Normandy had to endure in faithfulness to the very end. The war was won in principle, but it still demanded faithfulness and endurance to the end.

In other words, we are not to think of our Christianity in such narrow individualistic terms that ultimately we get on with our physical therapy or with our IT job or with our banking or with our teaching (whatever it is we teach in the university system) or with our job as a street paver or whatever is we do. Then, oh yes, we have a little bit over here for Christianity (“I’d like to tell you how the Lord saved me”) and go to church now and then.

Christianity becomes a tack-on to the rest of our lives. That’s already at the heart of secularism. Secularism, do you see, is nothing but the squeezing of religion to the periphery of life so it no longer counts. You can be ever so religious. It just doesn’t matter, doesn’t control what you do with your money, doesn’t shape how you think, doesn’t shape what your values are. That too is part of the Beast. No, no, no, no, no. Either Jesus is Lord or the Beast is. This calls for endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints. Let’s pray.

Help us, Lord God, not to tire of the conflict which is necessary and inevitable until Christ himself comes back. Help us not only to stand up against the big beasts which sometimes come our way but also to discern the more subtle beasts like those of John’s day when he warns his readers in his first letter, “As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so also many antichrists have come.” Help us to think clearly about these matters, Lord God, and still to follow the Lamb. For Jesus’ sake, amen.