The Counterfeit Christ

Now we fully meet “The Beast”, the counterfeit Christ. The word for beast here is not at all the same word as the beast or creatures in the opening scenes of the throne room. That was word was the Greek work, Zoa, from which we get our word, zoo and zoology. That word means a created thing or animal. But this word, truly fits the English idea of a beast. This is the word therion, and if means a wild beast, a poisonous beast, a monster. This is the anti-Christ, Satan’s counterfeit of the Son of God and the Messiah of the Jewish people.

He Rises Out of the Sea: The sea, used here in this symbolic passage, is the sea of humankind. We can see this in Revelation 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. The sea is mankind especially the  nations of the Gentiles.

From this we know that the therion is human. He is not a demon, nor he is not supernatural. He is a simply a man empowered and willfully possessed by Satan.

Here is his Description: He has Seven Heads. This is the same as the Dragon who gives him his power. The seven heads stand for the seven Gentile empires, the powers, that have ruled the world.

Some count these empires from Egypt to the revived Roman Empire of Daniel’s vision in Daniel 2 and that fits number wise but I think it should start not from Egypt but from Babylon, just at the vision did.

Here is how those kingdoms would breakdown.

Egypt – Assyria – Babylon – Greece – Roman – Revived Roman (Tribulation) – Anti-Christ.

But I think this is a better count. 1. Babylon – 2. Greece – 3 Roman – 4. Revived Roman – 5 Anti- Christ before His Deadly Wound – 6 The Woman on Scarlet Beast – 7. The 10 Kings who kill the woman and reign during the Beast’s absence –– 8 The returned Anti-Christ.

Where do those extra kingdoms come from?

Revelation 17:10–13 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. 11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

Ten Horns with Ten Crowns all titled blasphemy. This is the Revived Roman Empire that will be in play just as the Tribulation begins. They are part of Satan’s kingdom and are first foretold in Daniel 2:42  And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

Daniel 7 Daniel also talks about the Revived Roman empire and the beast in Daniel 7:7-8 Here we see the kingdom and the anti-Christ is called the “little horn) After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

So the anti-Christ rises to power as one of the 10 King federation, from the countries of the old Roman Empire and he then destroys or takes the power of three of those kingdoms, probably by the wars that we saw all the way back in the opening of the first four Seven Seals, that showed the rider on the white horse.

Revelation 6:2-4 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

Finally, John’s description of the Counterfeit Christ tells us that he had the characteristics of a Leopard, bear, lion with the dragon power. These are all descriptions from Daniel 7 of the empires of the world. So the anti-christ will incorporate all the worst of those pagan powers into his kingdom.

 And very important, John says that, one of the 10 heads is wounded as it were to death. The deadly wound is then healed and then continues for 42 months, 3 ½ years. He is given power to prevail against God’s people. He is worshipped by all kindreds, tongues and nation whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb.

Something happens to the Beast, perhaps and assignation, perhaps a political or war loss, perhaps he dies, but whatever happens, he comes back. The Bible says he rises from the pit, and when he comes back, no one can stand against him. Now all the world believes that the counterfeit Christ, has come back from the dead, he truly must be the great hope for mankind.

Delusion: Paul may have been thinking about the anti-christ, perhaps even this very even when he wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

The world without faith in Jesus will be utterly deceived. They will be true believers in the most deadly counterfeits Satan ever created.

Primed For the Anti-Christ

We told you that Satan has been playing the long game, a war of attrition, attacking the creation of God bit by bit, people by people, nation by nation.

As part of that war he has used counterfeits throughout history. Satan doesn’t know when Jesus is coming back and so he has had to have a potential anti-Christ read at all times. I think it makes sense to see Hitler as one of Satan's counterfeits, a potential Beast. He fit all the prophecies, from the revived roman empire to the nations he invaded to come to power, to saying great things and making war on the people of God. He wasn’t the anti-christ, but what is truly sobering is that Satan has another Hitler ready to put into that anti-christ role right now, today. He always has. This is what John said…

1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

This world is already primed for the big lie, the great delusion of the Counterfeit Christ. Let me give some reasons why.

The world believes in evolution not creation. That man exists by random chance not by the direct creative act of God.

In 1933 The Humanist Manifesto was written to declare that man didn’t need a make-believe God, miracles, a savior or a heaven. It said things like… humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process. humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected. We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of “new thought.” Today most people in our world are humanist and see the world as devoid of God.

Because of this belief in random chance and the denial of God, the world has rejected almost all moral and ethnic teachings and especially despises the law from God’ Word. Therefore in today’s world, the abortion of an innocent baby in the womb is not murder, while the killing of an person out of the womb is not punished by taking the life of the murderer. The most innocent among us are given death while the most guilty are given life.

Our society believes that homosexuality is not sin and that you can reject the way God created you and choose your own gender. The AMA recently called for gender to be removed from birth certificates, saying it has no basis in science. States like CA and NY have already taken gender off birth certificates.

In our own nation we see that riots are called peaceful demonstrations, while peaceful demonstrations are called attempted coups. In our society, anarchy is order, chaos is freedom, and the most sickening sin is sold as sacred. In our world today, churches are evil, Christians are haters and God Himself is truly a  monster.

Today, right now, our world is primed for the anti-Christ, all it will take is the right event and the right man and Satan has always had a man ready to go.

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Today, right now, our world is primed for the anti-Christ, all it will take is the right event and the right man and believe me, Satan has always had a man ready to go. - Pastor Kris Minefee