All those who are not followers of Jesus will worship the Beast. It seems petty to the world but it is true: in God’s eyes, it is about choosing sides. Joshua preached it to Israel – “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve… as for me and my house we shall serve the Lord!” Jesus said, “He who is not for me is against me.”  Christians feel condemned at times when this is rejected by faithless people or Christians who like to sit on the fence, one foot in the world and one foot in Christ. But the simple truth is that we must choose sides. At no time in history will this be more evident than during the Tribulation. Either a person will take the Mark of the Beast and worship Satan and his man, or they will refuse the mark, stay steadfast to Jesus Christ’s name and accept martyrdom. There will be no form of salvation for Jew or Gentile, except dying for Jesus, the Lamb who was slain to give us eternal life and pardon of sin. But the greatest part of humanity will worship the Beast. Because the world will follow the Antichrist and reject Jesus, the spirit speaks this refrain after telling us of the Antichrist’s power to get people to worship him. The plea that is written in the letters to the seven churches in chapters two and three of Revelation is once again voiced by the spirit.

“If any man have an ear, let him hear.” Rev.13.9

The Tribulation saints are then given this somber warning.

“He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.” Rev.13.10

There is to be no retaliation by the saints of God. God has declared this as the patience and the faith of the saints. They will have to submit to the slaughter. As it is written in the Psalms:

“Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.” Ps. 44.22

From under the altar in chapter six we see the Tribulation saints who were being martyred.

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
    And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
    And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.^“ Rev. 6.9-11

The tone of this passage indicates the saints will not take revenge for their blood but must wait on the Lord to do it. They cry out to God saying, “how long must we wait? How long do we have to be as sheep led to the slaughter before we are avenged and vindicated?” “Until the number of those who are to be saved is full”, is the reply. They must be patient and accept their fate and then they shall receive their crowns of life.

New Information: An Unholy Trinity

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” Rev. 13.11

Now we see even further into Satan’s true purposes. It is no longer a mystery. The true aim of the Antichrist and his system is worship. Keeping with the purpose of the topical chapters of Revelation, God is about to add totally new information to our knowledge and understanding of this man who Daniel says, “understands dark sentences” Dan. 8.23. A basic tenet of study is that the topical chapters, 12-19, all add new information to the outline of Tribulation events which are given in chapters 4-11. This is never more true than in chapter thirteen. An entirely new character is even introduced, never before seen, and only hinted at in previous Scripture. This villainous person is the False Prophet, looking like a Lamb but actually having two horns and speaking like a dragon. He is the third member of a wicked triumvirate made up of: the Dragon, the Beast, and the Two-Horned Lamb. This is Satan’s counterpart to the true Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Chapter thirteen reveals an unholy trinity. Arthur Bloomfield in his book All Things New, describes their relationship like this;

“The dragon and the two beasts are a trinity of evil, one in spirit and purpose, and there is no reason for separating them in our thinking. Satan will counterfeit the Trinity. There will be three personalities in one satanic head. They are Antichrist. Even the people recognize this when they worship both the beast and the dragon.

We shall see that this unholy trinity will launch an all-out assault on God’s name and His kingdom including heaven’s inhabitants and the saints of Christ. This war will be waged with every means at Satan’s disposal. Its design is to gain the full worship and adoration of the world. God will allow the False Prophet to do the most amazing miracles, ones that rival those of Jesus and the Two Witnesses.”

“And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
    And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
    And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
    And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
    And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
    And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Rev.13.12-17

This is the incredible ministry of the False Prophet. His mission is to give credence to the worship of the Antichrist. That is his sole purpose on earth. It is a perfect counterfeit of the ministry of the Holy Ghost which works to give glory to Jesus Christ. He can call down fire, just as The Two Witnesses can. He draws attention to the resurrection of the Beast by doing miracles and curing people of disease. They will likely seem very humanitarian acts of love and charity. These will be held in contrast to the current state of affairs and the judgments which are causing death and misery throughout the earth. All the miracles will be performed in the presence of the Antichrist and they can only be done when the Antichrist is present. These two will deceive the whole earth, we are told.

We find out in these verses that the Abomination of Desolation is, at least partly, an image of the Antichrist that actually comes alive and is able to speak. This evil priest and religious leader, this False Prophet, is the one who initiates the creation of this abominable image. We even find out that it is the False Prophet who makes people take the mark of the Beast as a sign of worship and allegiance to him. This is the final fruit of false religion. The goal of the Whore of Babylon has been to do this from the very beginning. The False Prophet is the one who pulls it off in the name of the Antichrist. The False Prophet is an enormously important figure during the Tribulation and often overlooked in prophetic movies and studies. He is the religious force, the one who leads the world into worship and adoration of the Antichrist. Ministers, bishops and Christian leaders don’t like talking about the False Prophet and the part that religion will play in the conspiracy of the end times. It often hits too close to home; professional caution teaches them not to criticize their own too loudly; it could be a reflection on their own conduct. But the False Prophet will be a leader of religion, a man of great “love and power in the spirit” – a great deceiver. He will probably be a religious leader like the Pope or a world-wide evangelist. It will most likely be the Pope since it is that office that is the acknowledged monarch of one billion religious people, is the recognized counselor and adviser of world rulers, and has built a reputation for “love” over the last fifty years.

The Number 666

“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” Rev.13.18

There are countless theories and stories about the Antichrist that cloud our spiritual vision and draw people away from the important points of Scriptural truth. Put the numbers 666 on the cover of a book or in the title of a film and you have a perfect vehicle to satisfy the public’s thirst for supernatural hocus-pocus and far fetched horror stories. It has become such a big money maker that the content about the Antichrist is unimportant just as long as it fills the public trough with scraps of tabloid sensationalism. Truth has very little to do with the message. Unfortunately, the public, including Christians, often come away with a completely distorted idea of the Antichrist. How many people wrongly believe that the Antichrist will appear as a horned devil, born to some Satanic mistress, as in the movies Rose Mary’s Baby and Omen. How many still suppose that this man will be easy to detect, a Doctor Faustus who goes public with the fact that he has sold his soul to the Devil? Many naive Christians still think that when this “son of the devil” arrives on the world political scene he will be a raving lunatic, the spitting image of Adolf Hitler, with his eyes full of madness and his veins bulging with fury. It is assumed that the Antichrist will be detectable by his loathsome appearance and demented tirades, whose system will be an odious tyrannical regime that will instantly enslave an unwilling world. They forget all too quickly that history has taught us that the archetypes of the Antichrist have always wooed the world into an illicit love affair with humanism by their charm and charisma. Each forerunner of the Antichrist has been the object of hero-worship. They always championed the popular cause. They pitched slogans promising liberty, unity and utopia. Alexander the Great promised a “brotherhood of man”; Julius Caesar promised the Pax Romana and an end to civil unrest; Napoleon marched through Europe carrying the banner, “Fraternity, Equality and Liberty”; and Hitler, only recognized after the fact for the monster he actually was, offered a new world order to millions of bitter and disenfranchised Germans. Each one became a legend in his own time. Each one became an icon. Each one a tyrant and demigod – a deity to be worshiped.

The reference to the name of the Antichrist at the end of chapter thirteen of Revelation equating it with the number 666 has solicited countless suggestions and predictions about who this “son of perdition” might be. Men with birthmarks on their foreheads, or whose name can be made to add up to 666, or whose birth date or address can add up to the number, have been imagined to be the Antichrist. Again, Scripture should be the Christian’s one and only source of knowledge about the Antichrist and his world-wide system. When the Antichrist comes there will be many ways to know him. He will sign the peace accord with Israel and many countries. This heralds the start of the Tribulation. But before that, discerning Christians may be able to recognize him because he is the head of the ten “kingdom” confederacy. They may also be able to recognize him because of some connection, not yet revealed, to the number 666. Let the wise virgins be vigilant and watching! ✞

Taken from the book Revelation Pure & Simple by Terry Myers Smith