 In this lecture we are going to discuss the Antichrist, the number 666, the appearance of the beast, and the seven bulls of wrath. You will find that these topics will take us through chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16. We will begin in chapter 13 and the idea of an Antichrist. When the world is in trouble it looks for a savior. Paul-Henri Charles Spock, one of the early planners of the European Common Market, said in 1957, We do not want another committee, we have too many already. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all the people and lift us up out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man. Be he God, be he the devil, we will receive him. This is a dangerous desire as the evidence of the twentieth century has proven. Nazi Germany answered this need with Hitler. Communist Russia responded to this hunger with Lenin and Stalin. He will look for a God and settle for a devil. These men easily fulfilled the description of the beast found in this chapter. Many times cause people to look for a savior. They mistake what they usually make is that they quest for such a person among human candidates. Instead of turning to the God-man Jesus who calls each person to moral and spiritual conversion as the condition of salvation, millions of people surrender their freedom and responsibility to a tyrant. The result in our times was the beasts found in the leaders of the Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. They were case studies of what the scripture calls the Antichrist. They murdered millions of believers, suppressed religion, subordinated faith in God to belief in the state. Small wonder the psalmist says put no trust in princes. Our tragic era is behind us, but people will again thirst for a charismatic super-leader. What they are likely to get is another version of Satan's Superman, the beast of the apocalypse, another Antichrist. But unless there is prayer, penance, and personal religious conversion, we are destined to make the same mistakes as those who went before us. Now we look at the Leviathan, the beast from the sea. The Thirteen of Revelation gives us a powerful description of the Antichrist under the image of a beast. In the first ten verses we see the beast as a monster from the sea. In the last eight verses we see another picture of the beast as a monster from the land. It is the same person in both cases, Satan in disguise. In reality for John, this devil incarnate is Nero, the Roman beast emperor. The image also applies to all the cruel tyrants of history who have brutalized human beings and sought to destroy the love, mercy, and justice of God on earth. Lastly such a beast will appear at the end of time just before the last judgment. Millenarians, people always on the outlook for the end of the world, frequently believe they have spotted the ultimate beast. They are perfect examples of what Jesus predicted in Matthew chapter 24 verses 23 to 24 about who humans will act at the end of time. If anyone says to you, look here is the Messiah, oh there he is, don't believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will arise and will perform signs and wonders so great as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect. Christ's prediction will indeed apply to the actual end of the world. It also happens to be true of any time of extreme turmoil and confusion. But fundamentalist millenarians prefer to control his words and seek literal fulfillment in their own times. They forget the other cautionary words of Jesus from Matthew chapter 24 verse 36 about not knowing the precise time of the end. But of that day or hour no one knows neither the angels of heaven nor the Son but the Father alone. Despite Christ's warnings, fundamentalist millenarians will scan today's political developments to convince us that the end is now surely near. They will deduce all kinds of biblical prophecies from Ezekiel, Daniel, the book of Revelation to support their argument. But if Jesus tells us we will never know the day or the hour, that's what should be our position. Who then is this beast from the sea in the first ten verses of chapter 13? It is simply another version of the dragon we met in our last lecture from chapter 12 verse 9, who is an image of Satan and the devil. What then is new in this chapter? Why does John linger on the mission of the beast? Because in chapter 12 the attention is mainly on the cosmic battle between good and evil, between the woman and the dragon, between the body of Christ and Satan, while here the focus is on the incarnation of the beast in a human antichrist. John is saying that the beast will become a divinized tyrant with awesome powers and its own earthly throne. The beast will have adoring followers, verses 3 through 4 read, fascinated, a whole world followed after the beast. They also worship the beast and said, who can compare with the beast and who can fight against it? We have already seen this in contemporary history with the personality cults of Hitler, Mao and Stalin. Their giant pictures and statues were everywhere in their countries. Their outstretched right arms of millions accompanied roars of adulation. John names this for what it is, blasphemy, adoring a human being as a God. Through the lips of billions the beast opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, as John writes in verse 6. John was talking about Nero, but he was also prophetically accusing all the other antichrists who have arisen since his time. As verse 7 tells us, these antichrists have been and will be allowed to wage war against the holy ones and conquer them. Roman emperors did this in the first century and dictators have done the same in our own day. But we have lived long enough to know their victory is temporary and illusory. The holy ones they persecuted kept the faith and many of them have survived to see the vindication of Christ.