The Beast, part 2
Let us read Revelation 16:13,14. In our previous lesson, we studied the Dragon.
This lesson will cover the Beast. Let us read Revelation 13:1-10.
1. Who does this leopard-like beast represent?
Answer: The Papacy, Popery. Let us confirm this point.
2. What does a beast represent in Bible prophecy? Daniel 7:17, 23; 1 Kings 18:10
3. What is the name that is written on the head of this beast? Revelation 13:1
4. What does the Bible call blasphemy? John 10:30-33; Mark 2:5-7
5. How long was this nation to reign before receiving a deadly wound? Revelation 13:3,5
Note: These 42 months represent prophetic time.
6. How many days are in 42 months, considering that a Biblical month has 30 days?
Answer: 1260 days.
Note: A Biblical month has 30 days: Genesis 7:11,24; Genesis 8:3,4.
Here we have the fact that 42 prophetic months represent 1260 prophetic days.
7. What does a day represent in Bible prophecy? Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6
Note: Based upon the previous facts, 1260 prophetic days represent 1260 literal years.
8. When did the 1260 years of the reign of the Papacy begin and when did it end?
The Great Controversy, 439: Power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” And, says the prophet, “I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death.” And again: “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.” The forty and two months are the same as the “time and times and the dividing of time,” three years and a half, or 1260 days, of Daniel 7 — the time during which the papal power was to oppress God’s people. This period, as stated in preceding chapters, began with the supremacy of the papacy, A.D. 538, and terminated in 1798. At that time the pope was made captive by the French army, the papal power received its deadly wound, and the prediction was fulfilled, “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity.” {GC, 439.2}
9. What did this nation receive between A.D. 538 and 1798? Revelation 13:4
Note: This has been a nation that professed religion because it receives worship.
10. What kind of power did this nation have between A.D. 538 and 1798? Revelation 13:7
Note: This was a political nation. Using the previous conclusions, this nation was a union of church and state.
11. With whom did this nation make war between A.D. 538 and 1798? Revelation 13:7; Daniel 7:25
12. What are the characteristic traits of the saints? Revelation 14:12
Note: Since this nation made war with God’s saints worldwide, this was a nation wherein the church once controlled the military armies of the world.
13. What will happen to the names of the individuals who worship the beast, the Papacy? Revelation 13:8
14. Which day does the Papacy, the Pope of the Roman Catholic church, call the day of worship?
Answer: Sunday.
15. What did the Bible predict that this nation would do that it did indeed fulfill? Daniel 7:25
16. Who was the person that legislated and announced that the worshipping of the sun, which was then called Sunday worship, was the day of worship for Christians?
The Great Controversy, 53: In the early part of the fourth century the emperor Constantine issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. (See Appendix.) The day of the sun was reverenced by his pagan subjects and was honored by Christians; it was the emperor’s policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity. He was urged to do this by the bishops of the church, who, inspired by ambition and thirst for power, perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and glory of the church. But while many God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment. {GC, 53.1}
The Great Controversy, 446: The special characteristic of the beast, and therefore of his image, is the breaking of God’s commandments. Says Daniel, of the little horn, the papacy: “He shall think to change times and the law.” Daniel 7:25 And Paul styled the same power the “man of sin,” who was to exalt himself above God. One prophecy is a complement of the other. Only by changing God’s law could the papacy exalt itself above God; whoever should understandingly keep the law as thus changed would be giving supreme honor to that power by which the change was made. Such an act of obedience to papal laws would be a mark of allegiance to the pope in the place of God. {GC 446.1}
The Great Controversy, 446: The papacy has attempted to change the law of God. The second commandment, forbidding image worship, has been dropped from the law, and the fourth commandment has been so changed as to authorize the observance of the first instead of the seventh day as the Sabbath. But papists urge, as a reason for omitting the second commandment, that it is unnecessary, being included in the first, and that they are giving the law exactly as God designed it to be understood. This cannot be the change foretold by the prophet. An intentional, deliberate change is presented: “He shall think to change the times and the law.” The change in the fourth commandment exactly fulfills the prophecy. For this the only authority claimed is that of the church. Here the papal power openly sets itself above God. {GC 446.2}
The Great Controversy, 446: While the worshipers of God will be especially distinguished by their regard for the fourth commandment, — since this is the sign of His creative power and the witness to His claim upon man’s reverence and homage,–the worshipers of the beast will be distinguished by their efforts to tear down the Creator’s memorial, to exalt the institution of Rome. It was in behalf of the Sunday that popery first asserted its arrogant claims (see Appendix); and its first resort to the power of the state was to compel the observance of Sunday as “the Lord’s day.” But the Bible points to the seventh day, and not to the first, as the Lord’s day. Said Christ: “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” The fourth commandment declares: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.” And by the prophet Isaiah the Lord designates it: “My holy day.” Mark 2:28; Isaiah 58:13. {GC 446.3}
17. What will be the fate and destiny of the faithful Christians who died honoring Sunday as the Lord’s Sabbath, who did not have an opportunity to learn about God’s seventh-day Sabbath? Acts 17:30
18. Who gave this beast, this nation, its power, seat, and great authority? Revelation 13:2
19. In the primary sense, who does the dragon represent? Revelation 12:7-9
20. Why was Satan expelled from heaven? What has ever been his desire? Isaiah 14:12-14; Matthew 4:8-10; Revelation 13:15-17
21. Through whom does Satan seek to receive worship? Revelation 13:4
Note: As people worship on Sunday, a day falsely instituted by Popery and not by God, they worship Satan either ignorantly or knowingly.
22. What was the chief god that the pagans, the heathens, worship? 2 Kings 23:5; Deuteronomy 4:16-20
23. What are God’s instructions and warnings to His people concerning sun worship? Ezekiel 8:16-18; Deuteronomy 17:2-5
24. Various animals have been used to depict the different parts of this beast, the Papacy. However, the Papacy predominantly looks like which animal? Revelation 13:2
25. What is so significant about a leopard that would cause Jesus to identify Popery as a leopard? Jeremiah 13:23; Hosea 13:7, 8; Daniel 7:8
Note: In this study we discovered the Beast power of these last days from the Bible.
We will address the fact that there is a beast within the hearts of every man that must be conquered.
26. Who shall be saved?
Answer: “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast…” Revelation 15:2
27. What led to Nebuchadnezzar, king of ancient Babylon, to become a beast? Meditate upon Daniel 4:27-37 and write your thoughts.
28. What were the thoughts of David that led him to utter the following words? “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee”? Psalm 73:22. Read Psalm 73:1-22
Meditate upon the following statement:
Selected Messages, Vol. 1, 122: We have far more to fear from within than from without. {1SM 122.3}
29. What did Christ say at the close of His early ministry? What should we also strive to say? Read John 14:30
30. Meditate upon Psalm 51:10 and write your thoughts.