Through the years, many people have chimed in with theories of what the days preceding the return of Christ would look like. Many of us have heard about the one-world government, the beast, the false prophet, the mark of the beast, and Babylon. We’ve heard about the total destruction of our world as God unleashes His fury at all the human wickedness that has filled the earth. Multiple people have even determined just who the beast and what the mark of the beast are. Well, I’m going to join the chorus, but I’m going to come at solving the mystery of the “end-times” from a different perspective. Rather than looking at the beast, etc. as objects or people, I’m going to look at them from the aspect of the forces at work during the days immediately preceding the return of Christ.

     Before we start by looking at the beast with the seven heads and ten horns, we need to think about a concept which may be new to many of us. Let me ask a question–who are the inhabitants of the earth? (The answer to this question is a key to fully understanding the meanings of the visions and prophecies surrounding the return of Christ.) Many of us would answer the human race and the rest of the animal kingdom, but we’d be missing something big with that limitation. You see, the kingdom of evil also inhabits the earth; even though, we can’t physically see its citizens, they are just as much inhabitants of the earth as we are. Now, following up, let me ask another question–who did Jesus come to “save?” The human race, right? Or, to put it in other words, every human being who was physically born and has/had physical life. The distinction between the kingdom of evil and the human race is vital to understand Revelation 13:8-9, “”All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear.” Let me propose something here and think about this: the ones that worship the beast are those beings who are citizens of the kingdom of evil and the ones whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life are citizens of the human race. The Lamb’s book of life was established before any human being was created or conceived because God knew He was going to send His son into the world to save the world. The kingdom of evil has no part in that salvation.

     Now, let’s consider the beast with seven heads and ten horns (Daniel 7:19-27, Revelation 13:1-10). I’m thinking the beast represents the force of competitiveness in our world. The picture of one horn destroying three horns perfectly describes the phenomenon of “too big to fail,” a reality that has caused many of us much pain. Competitiveness has infiltrated every aspect of our lives–as represented by the seven heads and ten horns–and it says there have to be winners and losers. Not only that, but if we go all the way back to the first recorded death in Genesis 4:3-8, we can see that Cain saw making offerings to God as a competition. When his offering didn’t make the cut, instead of figuring out what he did “wrong,” he killed his brother. I can see Satan’s hand in that circumstance–one of the most effective ways to push people away from God is to get them to compete with each other. When they are vying with each other, people’s attention is on their opponents, not on God. Satan thinks if he can make the competitiveness strong enough, he can jerk people away from God and destroy them.

     Next, concerning the head wound, remember the furor that surrounded the year 2000? Because of a glitch in computer design, the world’s communication and data storage were threatened with obliteration. With chaos looming, computer experts were able to fix the problem or “heal the head wound.” Think about this–if the world’s computers had crashed, competitiveness would have suffered a huge setback.

     Now, let’s go on to the second beast described in Revelation 13:11-14. Here’s a question for all of us to think about–in a twenty-four hour period, how many deceptions or lies enter our life? Take a look at everything we see or hear and look beneath the surface of those things. Deception and lies are everywhere and are often in our faces. The key to the second beast is that it deceives the inhabitants of the earth. In Matthew 24:23-25, Christ said the deception was going to be so strong that, if it were possible, the very elect would be misled. What we can connect the deceptions with the competitiveness, the latter seems to be reasonable–after all, we all want to be the “best,” don’t we? This “False Prophet,” the force of deception, is trying to shove the human race towards competitiveness and away from God.

     Now comes the “scary” parts–the mark of the beast and the number of his name (666) found in Revelation 13:15-18. Everyone on the earth is subject to the competitiveness and the deceptions–we can’t live without being part of it. What’s important about the mark of the beast is that the locations of the marks cover both the kingdom of evil and the human race. The mark on the forehead denotes ownership–every citizen of the kingdom of evil is owned by Satan–while the right hand denotes authority–the human race is under Satan’s authority until the saints take the kingdom back (Daniel 7:21-27). Also, all the number 666 means is that this competitiveness and these deceptions are all man-made; they don’t originate in the supernatural. Even the fire coming down out of heaven has happened because of human hands (Revelation 13:13-14); in fact, if we want to look at the fire as being a metaphor, think about what all of our communication abilities are dependent upon–satellites in the sky.

     Going on, in order to understand what Babylon represents in Revelation 17 and 18, we need to first look at Proverbs 11:1, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight.” Now, listen to the name written on the forehead of Babylon (Revelation 17:5), “…BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” This woman riding on the beast represents the false balance that competitiveness and deception have created in our world. Have you ever heard the words, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer?” That force of inequity flows straight from Satan to the human race and, again, is meant to drive people away from God. Satan has manipulated the human race away from God’s absolute love and into the power of competitiveness, of deception, and of a false balance. However, God’s absolute love is greater than the manipulations of the leader of the kingdom of evil. In my next post, we are going to look at the people involved in the response of the human race to the last attempt of Satan to destroy God’s creation.

     All scriptures are taken from the NASB. As always, please feel free to comment–just keep it respectful.

     ©2009-2010 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.