Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I now can sing Since I've been
[00:00:03] Speaker B: redeemed I'm on the everlasting, everlasting rock
[00:00:08] Speaker A: I faith in Christ my redeemer king
[00:00:12] Speaker B: I'm on the everlasting, everlasting rock Then Ro Ro pillows I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise and let's spread the flowing seas abroad and build the lofty skies I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day the moon shines full as his command and all the stars obey there's not a plate or flower below but makes thy glories low and clouds arise and tempests blow by order from thy throne While all that borrows life from thee Is ever in thy care I and everywhere that man can be O God of presence there.
Amen.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Welcome to the Voice of Hope, a Bible teaching program produced by Heralds of Hope.
I'm your host, Anthony High.
In this episode, we continue our journey through scripture. As we open God's Word together, I invite you to consider what it means for our lives.
Whatever you're walking through right now, I know that the Bible leads us to know Jesus and his redemptive purposes.
Now let's join our Bible teacher, Jmar Horst, as we continue our series in Revelation.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Most of us are familiar with the term a right hand man.
But like many sayings, we're not quite sure where they originate.
This phrase, right hand man, stems from historical military practices because they associated the right hand with strength and honor and protection.
Because most people are right handed, the right side was traditionally the strongest and the most dependable in a fight. And so that made the soldier who was positioned on the leader's right side the most trusted protector.
And biblical texts use this phrase, the right hand, as a metaphor for divine favor and power and ultimate authority. For example, sitting at the right hand of the throne of the majesty on high. That's the position Jesus holds.
In Genesis 35:18, Jacob named Rachel's second son, Benjamin. What does it mean?
Son of the right hand?
And then in Psalm 16:11, you will shew me the path of life in your presence of fullness, of joy. At your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
And then Psalm 80:17 reads like this, let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, upon the son of man, whom you made strong for yourself.
So over the centuries, the term has evolved from a literal battlefield position, or even a biblical metaphor for authority, into a broad idiom that we use today. We use it across politics, across business, and even in daily life. And what we use it for is to describe someone who is indispensable and highly trusted, whether that's a man or a woman.
I've titled today's study Satan's Right Hand man from the opening verses of Revelation chapter 13. And once we read this text, I believe you will clearly see the reason for my choice.
Now, you also need to keep in mind that what we're seeing in these next chapters is not necessarily sequential or chronological.
There are numerous things that seem to be happening simultaneously during this final three and a half year period of the Great Tribulation.
So with that, I invite you to turn to the scripture, Revelation chapter 13. And beginning with verse one, here is God's word to us.
Then I stood on the sand of the sea and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns and and on his heads a blasphemous name.
Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear and his mouth like the mouth of a lion.
The dragon gave him his power, his throne and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded. And his deadly wound was healed.
And all the world marvelled and followed the beast.
So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast. And they worshiped the beast saying, who is like the beast, who is able to make war with him?
And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.
And he was given authority to continue for 42 months.
Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle and those who dwell in heaven.
It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.
And authority was given him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.
All who dwell on the earth will worship him whose names have not been written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword.
Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
The introduction of the beast out of the sea is central to the events of what we call the Great Tribulation.
And our text for today reveals several facts about Satan's right hand man.
Let's explore those facts together. The first one is the source of his authority.
And so, as John is watching, a living creature, or a beast as it's referred to, emerges from the sea. And I believe that this is the same beast out of the abyss that we were introduced to in Revelation chapter 11 and verse 7.
If you recall, he came forth there to kill the two witnesses.
In this text, we have a fuller description of his appearance and also the source of his power.
So let's take a moment to compare this description to the dragon in chapter 12 and verse 3. A great fiery red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven diadems on his head.
This creature in our text, this beast out of the sea has seven heads, ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.
In the Tanakh or the Hebrew Scriptures, a horn often refers to a king. It symbolizes power.
Remember, Daniel saw a vast empire that would use brute force to advance its attempt to rule the world.
This beast is also a counterfeit of Revelation chapter 19 and verse 12, where the Almighty wears many crowns, and he has a glorious name on those crowns, a name that only he knows.
Now, remember, John is writing to those who are suffering under the Roman Empire's cruel persecution.
And so he's using symbolic language. He says in Revelation 17:9, Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.
That seems to refer to Rome, which was built on seven hills. And we see this imagery repeatedly throughout the book.
And then, furthermore, this creature had blasphemous names on his head.
The blasphemous titles that were assumed by Roman emperors in the first and second centuries. Those are well known to us today.
And compare this to Revelation 17:3.
And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and 10 horns. So this seven heads, 10 horns imagery is repeated throughout the book of Revelation. And here the woman is portrayed as both an individual and also a religious system.
This was also true in chapter 12 regarding the mother of Jesus and the nation from which Jesus came.
So by now, it should be clear to us that we are dealing with an individual king. We call him the Antichrist, as well as the kingdom that he's representing.
The biblical teaching about the Antichrist originates in the Book of Daniel.
Daniel chapter seven portrays the Antichrist as a little horn. That's in verse eight. And this little horn arises from the ten horns of the fourth beast in Daniel's vision.
That horn represents a person. Why do I say that? Because it possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boasts.
Earlier in the same verse, Daniel notes that Three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before Antichrist.
That indicates that he will destroy three of the other rulers and subjugate the rest during his rise to power.
The beast is further described as a composite of the creatures that Daniel saw in his vision. If you can remember that he saw kingdoms that were represented by a lion, that would be Babylon, a bear, the Medo, Persian Empire, and then finally a leopard, that would be Greece.
And all of these animals were familiar to shepherds in Palestine in John's day. They understood the cat. Like vigilance of the leopard and the crushing power of the bear and the roar of the lion, they knew those things.
In this vision, those three morph into a fourth creature that was more terrible than any of them. And since the Roman Empire followed the previous three world powers, it is often historically regarded as being the fourth beast.
And so the strength and brutality of the earlier empires, Babylonian, Medo, Persia and Greece, those were all combined and multiplied in the Roman Empire.
And then the final sentence of verse two reads like the dragon gave him his power, his throne and great authority. And so this beast out of the sea is revealed as the second person of the false trinity.
The dragon empowers him and works through him. So this beast is Satan's agent.
In chapter 12, we learned about Satan being cast out of heaven in a great rage.
His plans to usurp Christ's authority have now been compressed into three and a half years. And so he knows that his time is short. He unleashes his last desperate onslaught against God by empowering his final Antichrist. And that's the Antichrist with a capital A. I say that because John wrote in his Epistle that there were many Antichrists, but this one will be the final one. And so the source of the Antichrist's authority is the dragon or Satan himself.
And that leads us to the next fact about Satan's right hand man. It is the marvel of his invincibility.
Verse 3 tells us that I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and and his deadly wound was healed.
I believe that's a mocking counterpart to Revelation chapter 5 and verse 6 where John recorded and I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
Now, did you notice the similar phrasing regarding the deaths of these two?
Some people suggest that The Antichrist won't truly die. He only appears to be dead.
But there's a problem, because if we adopt that interpretation, then we have to apply that to Jesus as well, since the death of both of them are described in similar terms. And we do know that Jesus died. That's a historical fact.
The Antichrist will also die, but then he will be miraculously restored to life.
Now, that does introduce for us a challenging question.
Does Satan have the power to restore life, or is it just the appearance of restoration?
Jesus warned in Matthew 24:24, for false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive if possible.
Even the elect.
And the final Antichrist will be at the pinnacle of this deception. 2nd Thessalonians 2. 9 puts it this the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power signs and lying wonders. And we'll see further examples of this deception later on in chapter 13.
Others would point out that it was just one of his heads that was mortally wounded. And so they argue that the head whose fatal wound was healed was a kingdom, a kingdom that was destroyed and then later restored.
They see the death and resurrection miracle as the revival of the Roman Empire.
In their view, the Antichrist will unite the countries that occupy the territory that the ancient Roman Empire included, and they will raise up a new empire with those participants. And that revival of power will be so amazing to the other nations that they will submit to its rule.
Now, the most obvious problem with that interpretation is that while verse three speaks of one of the heads being slain, there are other passages that specify that the beast himself is slain. Chapter 13, verse 12, and verse 14, chapter 17, verses 8 and 11.
In addition, the personal pronoun in the phrase his fatal wound indicates that one of the kings is in view, not the whole empire.
And so it seems unlikely that merely reviving the Roman Empire would cause the worldwide astonishment and wonder that we read about in this verse.
And so, as a result of what appears to be a miraculous healing of the deathstroke, all of the world, it says, is filled with wonder.
They follow the beast, they worship him, and they worship the dragon. And they say, who is like the beast and who can make war with him?
It's kind of a rhetorical question.
The implication is that no one can be victorious over the beast.
And so those who are living on the earth at that time, who have foolishly rejected Jesus as the Messiah, will be convinced that the Antichrist is invincible.
Their deception will be complete. Their doom will Be sure.
And then there's something else here.
This question, who is like the beast? May be a parody of the name of the archangel Michael. If you remember, his name means who is like God.
It also refers to the Antichrist in superlative language that is normally reserved for the worship of God.
Psalm 113, 5, 6. Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high, who humbles himself to behold things that are in the heavens and in the earth?
The final form of apostasy is not simply the worship of some pagan deity.
No, it's the worship of Satan himself.
In his whole program, he seeks to be like the Most High. And that goes all the way back to the beginning of his rebellion. You can read about it in Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 14.
And because men worship Satan, they also worship the beast. That is, they worship the man who rules over the revived Roman Empire. He is Satan's substitute for Christ as king of kings and Lord of lords.
And then to him the whole world flocks to give worship.
And that's indicated in the questions, who is like the beast? And who can make war with him?
The point in history at which this all takes place is apparently at the beginning of the Great Tribulation, when the head of the revived Roman Empire, described here as the beast, finally assumes authority over the entire world.
The source of the Antichrist's authority, which is Satan and the marvel of his invincibility lead us to the final fact that describes Satan's right hand man, and that is the scope of his hostility.
This creature, this beast out of the sea is given a mouth that speaks arrogantly. He blasphemes God's name and his holy dwelling place.
And remember, God's name stands for all that he is. It is the sum of his attributes.
And so this creature speaking blasphemy will include the tribulation Saints of Revelation 7:15.
Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will dwell among them.
And so this creature will blaspheme God's name and his holy dwelling place, and those who are in heaven with him.
In Daniel, chapter 7, verses 8, 20 and 25, this arrogant speech is described as pompous words, and they're spoken against the Most High by this dreadful character.
In addition, verse seven informs us that it was granted to him, that is, to this beast, to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.
This hateful ferocious, demonic creature will not be what we would call all talk and no action.
No, his blasphemies against God's name will be accompanied by swift and vengeful action.
Acting as Satan's right hand man, he's going to wage war against the saints throughout the entire world and overcome them in the will of God. Many believers in Christ, among both Jews and Gentiles, will perish as martyrs during this awful time of trial.
There are others who will be preserved despite all that the beast can do.
Daniel 7:23 prophesies that this beast will devour the whole earth.
That indicates the worldwide extent of his power.
Everyone living on earth whose name has not been written in the book of life of the Lamb, that would be the unbelievers.
Those people will worship the beast.
And so the dream of world conquest that was achieved partly by the Babylonians and then by the Medo Persians and by the Greeks and the Romans, is now closer to reality than it's ever been before.
It is the satanic counterfeit of Christ's millennial reign, allowed by God in this final evil display of Satan and wicked humanity. But it will not stand as Satan's lieutenant. The Antichrist will be allowed to continue for 42 months or 3 1/2 years.
This is the same 3 1/2 year period as seen in Revelation chapter 12, verses 6 and 14, and Daniel chapter 7, verse 25 and chapter 12, verse 7. The last half of the 7 year tribulation period.
The 1,203 score days of Revelation 11:3 however, is seem to be the first half of the tribulation.
The two of them together add up to Daniel's 70th week of 7 years. You can read about that in Daniel chapter 9 in verse 27.
The first half marks the rapid rise of the beast to world power and then the second half, his global reign. With all of these seven years simultaneously being the great day of God's wrath on the ungodly world, according to Revelation, chapter 6, verse 17.
And then this section closes with a saying that was repeated earlier in the book to each of the seven churches.
If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
Now, this phrase isn't found in John's Gospel, but in the other Gospels it's used by the Lord Jesus when he is going to teach radical truths or give great principles or wonderful promises.
In fact, one writer said it could be better translated this the one who has ears to hear must hear in all of its previous uses in the book of Revelation it is followed by the phrase what the Spirit says to the churches.
And so the fact that that phrase is omitted suggests that the church is not in view here.
It has been raptured prior to the beginning of the tribulation.
Now reinforcing the exhortation is the warning of God's ultimate sovereign justice that will be brought to bear on the wicked.
Several variations occur in the text of verse 10, but the general meaning is clear.
If any man is for captivity, into captivity he goes. If any man is to be killed by the sword, he must be killed by the sword.
We might call this the law of divine retribution.
Those who persecute the saints and lead them into captivity must suffer the righteous wrath of God.
And then within this ultimate judgment upon wicked men lies the patience and the faith of the saints in this hour of trial.
The Scriptures frequently mention this final vindication in places like Matthew 5:38, Romans 12:19, or Galatians 6:7.
And the same truth that serves as an encouragement to the saints also acts as a warning to their persecutors.
Their ultimate doom is assured even though they will enjoy a brief period of power.
Satan's purpose to usurp God's place in the future Great Tribulation is the motivating power behind his activities today.
His desire to be like God originally plunged the universe into sin, and his program has never changed. He's still seeking today, as he has throughout his career, to lure unsuspecting men and women into obeying him rather than obeying God.
In the Great Tribulation, this purpose will be clearly evident, and after it is brought to manifestation, it will be divinely judged.
Let's review these facts about Satan's right hand man.
The source of the Antichrist's authority is Satan.
The marvel of his invincibility will cause the world of unbelievers to worship him, and the scope of his hostility will be universal.
Despite all this, the message of this text is clear.
Let this monstrous beast from the abyss, from the sea do his worst.
Let Satan and his demonic hosts have their hour.
God controls the future, and believers belong to Him.
In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us, according to Romans 8:37. And we will triumph on that glorious day when the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Race of gold and raining lighter or death and hell Cherubing legions swell the radiant string praises all heaven's fiery changes, sweeps his light and clasps wings afar the Lamborghini.
[00:26:14] Speaker C: This concludes today's teaching, we trust that God's Word has encouraged you today. If something in this episode has stirred your heart, we'd invite you to open the Bible, sit with what you've heard, and ask, what is God asking of me through this?
Before we close, here's a testimony from a listener in South Asia.
As I listened to your program, the messages deeply touched my heart and I accepted Jesus as my Savior.
The radio program has been my greatest help in growing my faith.
I have now been appointed as a media Home Leader in our church.
Thank you for this great resource for our spiritual health and growth.
If today's teaching has encouraged you, we'd love to hear from you.
Your stories and responses mean so much to us.
Reach us at heraldsofhope.org contact by email at hopeheraldsofhope.org or by phone at 866-960-0292.
To explore more Bible teaching and encouragement, visit heraldsofhope.org programs. You can also listen to and share the Voice of Hope wherever you get your podcasts.
Join us the next time as we continue our journey through Scripture.
Until then, may God's Word strengthen your faith and remind you that his work in the world is is far from finished.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Trumpets blow wider yon portal's throat Save your triumphant crown lion of Judah, hail and let thy name prevail from age to age.
Lord of the rolling years, claim for thine own but with thy blood and tears My.
