Revelation 13:9-18

9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.

10 “If anyone is to go into captivity,
into captivity they will go.
If anyone is to be killed with the sword,
with the sword they will be killed.”

This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.

This verse describes that there will be many martyrs during this time. With a one world order and Christians declared to be the enemy, it will be a most difficult time for any believer. While the Christians are spiritually protected, they will not be physically protected.

11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon.

Now there is a third dimension to the Satan-head. There is Satan, the Antichrist, and now one who promotes worship of the other two. This beast speaks from Satan.

12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.

This beast will develop a new world religion to worship the first beast because of its wound and living. This beast is a False Prophet and is given this rule of this religion by the first beast. This is a complete effort by Satan to rule and confuse all persons in every manner they can be affected. He will rule them politically and religiously. In this manner, many of the world empires have ruled their portions of the world.

13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. 14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.

This False Prophet will perform miraculous signs further leading all people to worship the Antichrist. It will set up a stature, much like Nebuchadnezzar, to be used to worship the Antichrist.

15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.

This is very strange to imagine. Either this is literal, there will be a statue or picture and it will be able to speak, or there is something else. As the cross or Jesus hanging on the cross is to Christians, it is possible there will be some distributed symbol that represents the Antichrist and everyone will have to worship at these.

Another view is that idol worship will be revitalized and it will appear to be a better life of vitality, reality, and power. In other words, if you “live” a certain way and accept certain things then you will have this better life. Unfortunately, this is already prevalent in today’s American society. … What is it that makes you happy? Whatever that is, you need to go and do it. I have seen too many friends get super fit only to then believe they deserve something better in life than their spouse and family. I’ve seen people throw away marriages of 19, 22, and 31 years just because they suddenly wanted to do what they thought made them happy. They decided that whatever it was that would make them happy was more important that whatever God says will make them happy. They swear to me that I just do not understand because I am not free to think openly like they can. I also notice a tendency to move from conservative values to liberal values. These are very conservative people turning in their thoughts to places I didn’t think was possible. When I talk to them it is as if they are speaking a different language and I sit just baffled at what I hear. Likewise, if I speak any wisdoms from the Bible they do not understand what I am saying. These are people I have known for decades and now it is almost impossible to have a conversation. My observation is that it is idol-worship and the idol is themselves. There is a societal promotion to make everyone their own idol.

In this time of Revelation, Christians will be killed for either not worshipping at the idol or for not accepting this new idol worldview. This is a Christian holocaust. Christians will either have to recognize this false way or god and “live” or stay faithful to Jesus as the Christ with the very real probability of death. There is no doubt that the temptation will be great to compromise.

16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

We read earlier that God will mark His people and now we see Satan imitating by marking his people. It will be difficult to socially and economically interact without these marks.

More than any other time, it is easy to envision how a “mark” could be within each person and control their economy. We all have a debit card or credit card and it would be very easy for each person to have a chip just under the skin that had your money accesses. India already does this, but with their phones. Their system of economy works by the phone and money is transferred after the person decides which account to move money from. Today there is also something called Bitcoin. This is electronic money made for making electronic transactions simpler, but it is much more involved than PayPal.

This verse calls to mind the Jews in Germany during the time of Hitler and the Third Reight. They were all marked with a yellow or gold David’s star on their clothing so they could be identified. The society would not do business with them and ultimately used that mark to round them up to go to the death camps. Here, those without a mark will be identified to be killed as all who have the mark are safe.

David Platt said in his book Fighting: “Mark it down: there will always be a price to pay for believers who do not worship the idols of this world. Life will not be easy in this world when you fight the idolatry of this world, plain and simple”.

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

Much has been written about what this number is and what it means. One oddity is that all taxi license plates in Israel start with “666”. Generally, the idea is that this number is of man, it is the best that man can produce. The beast will develop the best that man can make of man being man without God. The beast is a trinity of imperfection. He will make the most complete man from sinful incompleteness of fallen man. He is not the perfection and completeness of seven. He will deceive many, but he will not be able to displace Jesus. Men, when they come to themselves, will know God is real and be angry for it, and they will kill Christians for it.