Volume 1, Issue 44
7 Jun 2016
I n our study of the Bible’s most enlightening beast theme, we’ve seen the following:
❶ That the “beast” of Revelation 11:7 is the same as the first beast of Revelation 13.
❷ That this beast is a conglomerate of all of the Gentile world powers of all time, as well as the consummate Gentile world power at the end of time.
❸ That this beast may not only symbolize the end-time Gentile world power, but also the individual who leads it.
❹ That both the “image” and “number” of the beast show that the end-time world will be reprobate; that is, populated by those who have committed the beastly sin of deifying themselves in order to determine for themselves, in total disregard of God’s Word, what is “good and evil.”
Having seen these things, as well as many other things in our study thus far, we are now ready to turn our attention back to Revelation 11:7. According to this verse, “the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make war against [the two witnesses], and shall overcome them, and kill them.” Notice where the “beast” comes from. He “ascends out of the bottomless pit.”
James, the half brother of our Lord and the leader of the church in Jerusalem, wrote the following in James 3:13-16: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (NIV).
Way back at the beginning of these articles on the two witnesses, we learned that the Lord Jesus Himself taught that the secret motive behind all unbelief is the self-seeking ambition of the unregenerate heart of man. This is the beastly sin! This is how we who were created in the “image of God” have become so beastly. It is because we have harbored the ultimate selfish ambition in our hearts, the usurpation of the place of God in our lives.
Notice, the “bitter envy and selfish ambition” of which James speaks comes from the same place as the “beast.” It “does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” In other words, such selfish ambition originated with Lucifer and is birthed in Hell. Furthermore, wherever this satanic and hellish ambition is harbored in human hearts, one will “find disorder and every evil practice.”
As our world now descends into its biblically predicted end-time depravity, a descent proven to be underway by our legitimizing of perversion, such as homosexuality, we will find ourselves in a world of ever-growing chaos characterized by unprecedented evil. It will be like it was in the days of Noah, when “every imagination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was…evil continually” (Genesis 6:5; Matthew 24:37).
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Don Walton
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