Chapter 13 is still part of the interlude between the sounding of the seven trumpet and the seven bowl judgments ( introduced in chapter 15). In this chapter, Satan the dragon engaged two powerful evil beasts in his desperate effort to destroy God's people and to mock God the Almighty. The dragon, the sea beast and the land beast form an unholy trinity to insult God the holy Trinity, and to deceive people.
John saw "a beast coming out of the sea" while "the dragon stood on the shore" . The beast had ten horns with crowns, seven heads with blasphemous names. The dragon couldn't wait to give the beast his power and his throne and great authority. The devil once wanted to hand those things to God's Son, with only one request, "if you will bow down and worship me". But Jesus answered, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ' Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' " The devil failed to tempt Jesus, left Him and waited for this beast out of sea. Jesus used the true useful and powerful weapon, the Word of God to fight the devil and defeated him.
John further described the beast: "one of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed." This beast sought to counterfeit the death and resurrection of the Son of God with his recovery from a "fatal wound". Not only this beast made himself looks like a counterfeit, he also "had a mouth like that of a lion" to sound like "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" with authority. The beast got his full power and authority from the dragon only. Since the dragon's power and authority are limited by God the Almighty. There is no way the beast can match his power and authority with that of the Son of God. The Son's power and authority are handed to Him by His all powerful Father. The beast is a parody at his best.
But the deluding power of the beast is still powerful enough that it made the whole world astonished and followed him. Those who follow the beast asked," Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?" Listen, the worshippers of God claimed, "who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high." The cry offered to the beast is also a parody of praise only rightfully offered to the incomparable God.
John points to us that the beast is "given a mouth", emphasizing the special ability to articulate arrogant blasphemy against God. The beast talks bad about God, about heaven, about the heavenly beings. He attacks everything true about God. The beast is a manifestation of Satan. Drawing from Satan's immense intelligence and knowledge of humanity, the beast utters especially appealing words to deceive people, despite their diverse cultures and value system. The beast exercises his authority for 42 months which is the same length of time Jesus ministered on earth, three and half years. The beast is "given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation." But the beast is only allowed to exercise worldwide power for a prescribed time. Not so with Jesus, after Jesus completed His work on earth, He is worshiped by "a great multitude" "from every nation, tribe, people and language" in heaven, now and forever. The beast can not even try to counterfeit this aspect. There is no place in heaven for the beast. His eternal residence is in hell.
Even on earth, the inhabitants who worship the beast are not including the people whose names have been "written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." The book of life is a kind of birth certificate, proof of identify or registry of heavenly citizenship. The believers' names are written on it from the creation of the world. Satan can not do anything about this. He definitely can not force the believers to worship the beast, even he threats to kill them.
The beast does "make war against the saints and to conquer them." John listed two possible outcomes for believers resulting from the attacks of the beast, into capacity or be killed. In both situations, the believers are to listen and obey God's Word, to have "a ear". And God calls for "patient endurance and faithfulness" on part of His saints in suffering. The believers' souls are safe in God's hand. Satan can only kill their body, not their soul. And even their body will resurrect when the Lord comes. God wants His people to be patient and remain faithful during their great suffering to wait for His final victory.
Then John saw "another beast, coming out of the earth." This second beast "had two horns like a lamb." He mimics the true Lamb of God. But he "spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast." This land beast behives like the public relationship officer of the sea beast. It leads people to worship the sea beast. The dragon, the sea beast and the land beast form a counterfeit trinity. This is the way Satan mocks God. The best falsehood is the one closest to truth. Rarely, Satan's deception is obvious, rather it is cunning and subtle, making lies as truth; masquerading a devil as an angel of light.
The land beast promotes the worship of the sea beast, calling special attention to its healed wound. He performs "great and miraculously signs" to add credibility to his deceptive message. He evokes awe with his ability to cause "fire to come down from heaven." He orders the people to set up an image in honor of the first beast and then exercises power to "give breath to the image of the first beast." Satanic enablement in the end times could create real miracles to fool the people. The second beast wields Satan's supernatural power upon this image to futher control people, to "cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. False worship is enforced by brute force. He also forced everyone to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead in order for them to buy or sell. The beast adds socioeconomic sanctions to force people's compliance with his evil agenda. Again, Satan and the beasts mock God by counterfeiting the mark or seal placed on the forehead of the believers. Satan's mark on people is the identification of being his slave. God's mark on people is the identification of being His family member, a deposit of future inheritance. Satan can not snatch people from God, but God can save people from Satan's control. Once saved, people prefer to be identified by the name of their Father in heavrn, they resist accenting the beast's mark.
We might not know the meaning or the name of the beast behind the mysterious number "666". Number "6" is so close to "7" which used many times to represents perfection in Scripture. But six is not the perfect seven. The number "666" has "6" in all its digits. This could suggests that the false trinity did their best to counterfeit the true One. God will reveal the exact meaning of "666" when time comes. And the time probably is near.
This chapter ends with a call for wisdom and insight. We need Godly wisdom to tell what is from the true God, what is from Satan the counterfeit. Wisdom and insight imply the appropriate and timely application of knowledge and truth in our daily lives. Knowledge and truth are from God's Word. Satan's deception is neither of them. The ability to apply them in our lives is God given. We need to rely on God to live in a world where Satan wields ominous power but God wins the ultimate victory.
