Audio Download

Revelation 13:1-2 Part 1, Who is the Beast?

[Study Aired Janary 3, 2025]

Rev 13:1 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.
Rev 13:2 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.

Introduction

By now we should all have learned that we are the ones who “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, that all things present and things to come are ours, and that we are blessed if we are given to read, hear and keep the things written in this book” (Mat 4:4, 1Co 3:21-22, Rev 1:3).

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Rev 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

By now we should realize that John is seeing this entire vision as he looks behind himself and sees what God is doing, has done and is continuing to do in his own life, as “the revelation of Christ” is being revealed within him, John, who signifies you and me and all of our “fellowservants who keep the sayings of this book” (Rev 19:10 and 22:8-9).

Rev 19:10  And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am [I signfy] thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Rev 22:8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
Rev 22:9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.

It is you and I who see these things and immediately tend to worship the messenger instead of God.

Let us remember that this chapter concerning the beast within us, the previous chapter concerning the woman and the manchild and their relationship with the great red dragon, along with the next two chapters, are all “the days of the seventh trumpet when he shall begin to sound” (Rev 10:7).

Rev 10:7  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
Rev 10:8  And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
Rev 10:9  And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
Rev 10:10  And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
Rev 10:11  And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.

This is that excruciating time in our lives leading up to the fulfilling of the great day of God’s wrath, which is poured out on all of our unrighteousnesses and ungodlinesses.

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

“Holding truth in unrighteousness” is the very function of Babylon the great, out of whom we must all come. ‘Holding the Truth in unrighteousness’ is holding Christ’s name, proclaiming His Truth and at the same time proclaiming that disobedience to His doctrine is Godly. The ministers of Babylon are quick to tell you to ‘Love your enemies’, but they add to the Lord’s words… ‘Unless he means you bodily harm, in which case you can blow him away to the glory of God’. The ministers of Babylon are quick to tell you that you, “Thou shalt not bear false witness”, but with the same forked tongue they will tell you it is just fine to lie to your child if it is a national tradition, and tell that child that Santa comes down the chimney and leaves gifts to good children.

When you and I refuse to follow the traditions of men, then we are in the process of coming out of Babylon, and we can expect to be “hated of all men”:

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Mat 10:22  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

So we will ask once more: if we are to “read, hear, and keep the things written therein” (Rev 1:3), then how do we keep these first two verses of Rev 13? To answer that question we will have to know what is signified in these two verses. So let us ask…

… What is meant by “standing on the sand of the sea”?

If this really is John as the symbol of all of us who read, hear, and keep the things written in this book, then it truly is instructive that he sees himself, at this point as “standing on the sand of the sea”. ‘Sand’, according to our Lord, is very unstable and never to be relied upon as a foundation for anything.

Mat 7:26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
Mat 7:27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

So the “sand of the sea” is the symbol of each of us when we have heard Christ’s words but simply did not see the need to “tremble before [them]”. The “sand of the sea” and standing or building on that sand, is you and me when we consider obedience to every word of God to be fanatical and impractical in a world that completely ignores the words of God.

To whom will God reveal Himself, and where is the place of His rest?

Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
Isa 66:2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
Isa 66:3 He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.
Isa 66:4 I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
Isa 66:5 Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.

So John “standing upon the sand of the sea” is in type you and me when we “Hear the sayings of Christ and do them not”. “Standing upon the sand of the sea” is “choosing our own ways and delighting in our abominations and doing evil before God’s eyes and choosing that in which God does not delight”. Standing on sand is asking what is permissible (what’s the least I can get by with?) instead of what is commendable and in complete accord with the word of God. That is where we are when this beast is revealed to us as coming up out of the sea.

Rev 13:1  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.

As always we need to know where these verses of Revelation derive their force and power. Once we see where they obtain their force and power, then we will see that all the beasts of the Old Testament become one single beast in the New Testament. If we are given to understand that mankind himself is that beast, then we will know that what applies to the verses from which these verses come applies to each of us individually before God. That is what is meant by “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1Co 2:13-14). Instead of seeing the people and events of the Old Testament as mere historical events and people, we see every person and event as what is, what was and what will be taking place in our lives.

So do the scriptures really reveal that mankind is a beast? What do the scriptures actually teach?

Ecc 3:18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

Let us ask a simple question. Where else in scripture are we told that something rises up out of the sea? Here is the answer to that question.

Isa 63:11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his holy Spirit within him?

In light of what we learned about the woman who was given the two wings of a great eagle to fly into the wilderness last week, could this beast actually be you and me as we are being brought up out of the sea into the wilderness to rebel against the very Savior who is delivering us? Is that possible? Here are God’s own words concerning you and me as His firstborn and as His first fruits:

Hos 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
Hos 11:2 As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.

That is indeed what we all do. Where do we go from the wilderness? We enter into the land of promise. It flows with “milk and honey”, but there is no mention of the “strong meat of the word” in the “land flowing with milk and honey”:

Exo 33:1  And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it:
Exo 33:2  And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:
Exo 33:3  Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way.
Exo 33:4  And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on him his ornaments.
Exo 33:5  For the LORD had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.
Exo 33:6  And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.
Exo 33:7  And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the LORD went out [“of her” (Rev 18:4)] unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp [out of Babylon].

The scriptures make clear that we do not naturally want to follow the messengers of God. We prefer to return to Egypt. Do we return to Egypt as we want? No, we will not go back to Egypt. Even at this early stage we are told that we will eventually go into Babylon until God sees fit to deliver us from there. It is right here in the same context of Hosea 11, and for those who are given to receive it, it is in the very next verses.

Hos 11:3 I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
Hos 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.
Hos 11:5 He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian [The rebellious churches of Babylon] shall be his king, because they refused to return [“They refused to… tremble at My words”].
Hos 11:6 And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them, because of their own counsels.

“Our own counsel” means we do what we want to do in direct opposition to God’s counsel and what God wants us to do. “Their own counsel” is hearing what Christ’s says in His Word, and “doing them not”. That is the spiritual meaning of “standing upon the sand of the sea”.

Why does this beast have “seven heads and ten horns”, just like the great red dragon of chapter twelve?

We saw in our studies in chapter 12 that this beast and the great red dragon were nothing less than father and son.

Joh 8:44 Ye [“Jews which believe on Me… but do not do as I say”, Luk 6:46] are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Can we “look behind us” and see that we all “walked according to the prince of the power of the air… our father the devil”, and that we were all “the children of disobedience”, before we become the children of God.

Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

This beast here in Daniel is the spiritual composite within us of all the nation empires of the Old Testament. All of those Old Testament empires are nothing more than the single offspring of the first Adam, whose carnal minded flesh is signified here by ‘the sea’ here in Revelation 13. It is only here in the New Testament that the spirit reveals, for the first time, that from God’s spiritual perspective, everything that was in Adam is revealed to be within each and every one of his children. The result of this revelation is that we find all of the Old Testament empires and the beastly symbols of those empires all wrapped up into one composite beast within each and every one of us. Notice how the four beast empires of Daniel 7 compare to the four features of the single beast of Revelation 13. This is not just coincidence. What we are being told is everything that is in Adam is in all of of his children, including “the fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly… the dragon gave him his power and seat and great authority”. Notice the correlation between Daniel 7 and Revelation 13.

Here are the four beasts of Daniel:

Dan 7:3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
Dan 7:4 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.
Dan 7:5 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.
Dan 7:6 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.
Dan 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it [was] diverse from all the beasts that [were] before it; and it had ten horns.

“It had ten horns”. Here in these five verses we have four beasts, one of which has four heads. That means we have four beasts with seven heads total.

There is no description given of the fourth beast except to say that it was dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. Who is this fourth beast? Why is it different from the other three? Where else in all of scripture do we read of any creatures which have “seven heads and ten horns”? It is only here in Revelation 12 and 13. Here is the answer to all of those questions:

Rev 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

Exactly who do the scriptures reveal this great red dragon to be? The scriptures leave no room for speculation:

Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

So as we have already established in our studies in chapter 12, this great red dragon is “that old serpent called the Devil and Satan”.

Now look at the spiritual offspring of this great red dragon, and notice how much the spiritual son is the reflection of his spiritual “father the devil”.

Rev 13:1 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.
Rev 13:2 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.

In Daniel 7 we have the same lion, leopard and bear, but in Daniel we are told that the fourth beast has the teeth of a devouring lion, even as we are told that “the fourth beast differs from the other three beasts”. This fourth beast is said to be “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that [were] before it; and it had ten horns.

Were it not for the 12th chapter of Revelation, we would never know that this fourth beast is “our [first spiritual] father the devil”, and that the beast here in chapter thirteen is merely his spiritual seed and his offspring with the same spiritual “seven heads and ten horns”.

Why seven heads?

The reason there are seven heads here in Revelation and in Daniel tells us what the number seven always tells us. What we are being told when we read that this beast that comes up out of the sea has seven heads is that this is a complete and mature beast, and we are now dealing with the revelation of Adam in his full bloom. Notice what we read of the four beasts with seven heads in Daniel:

Dan 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it [was] diverse from all the beasts that [were] before it; and it had ten horns.
Dan 7:8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn [were] eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
Dan 7:9 I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment [was] white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne [was like] the fiery flame, [and] his wheels [as] burning fire.
Dan 7:10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
Dan 7:11 I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld [even] till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.
Dan 7:12 As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.
Dan 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, [one] like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
Dan 7:14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion [is] an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom [that] which shall not be destroyed.

This prophecy here in Daniel 7 takes us all the way to the day of the judgment of this beast. “I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld [even] till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame”. This is the day of judgment we are now in, but here in Daniel this is all “sealed up”, and we are told that it is not to to be understood until “the time of the end”, the time of judgment and the time when “the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.”

Dan 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

Dan 7:11 I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld [even] till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

1Pe 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if [it] first [begin] at us, what shall the end [be] of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Well, we happen to be those upon whom “the ends of the ages have come”. It is we who are living in the time when “many are running to and fro, and knowledge is being increased” in this “time of the end”.

1Co 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [Greek: tupos, type]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world [Greek: aion, age] are come.

There it is! Christ is the “ends of the age”, and He was not accessible to those of Daniel’s generation, but He is accessible to us.

Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

We will pause here and in our next study we will learn why Daniel was told to “seal up the book” while John, here in Revelation is told “Seal not the book”.