In Bible prophecy God several times used beasts to represent the then future, but now in our day past Gentile world powers created by humans among humans. They are:
And 2. the Seven Headed Beast seen by John. John's beast represents the string of the seven Gentile Nations that have ruled: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medio-Persia, Greece, Rome, Europe-America.
Rev 13:1-4
There is the Wild Beast with
horns like a lamb.
The Fiery colored Dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns.
Rev 12:3, 9, 13; 13:4; 20:2, 10 [Horn with mouth: (Rev 13:5; Dan 7:7-8]
A Scarlet Colored Wild Beast with 7 heads and 10
horns and 10 diadems; ridden by a whore.
Rev 17:3-6, 8, 11
An 8th King: He or his government is last before Christ's Kingdom and represents all the previous governments of men.
Rev 13:1-8 His destruction marks the end of Satan's existence and influence... (Dan 8:23-26; 1 John 3:8) [Horn with mouth: (Dan 7:7-8; Rev 13:5]
All these prophetic images seem like a wonderful jigsaw puzzel; producing one final complete and detail
picture for those individuals who put forth effort to understand. (
Dan 12:9-10;
Rev 22:10-21) They are interrelated as each prophecy appears a random snapshot of some portion of the whole of the string of governments by men. This study represents my effort to understand what these prophecies as a whole tell Christ's
followers; what truth is revealed to me in my effort to understand!
Graphic is public art download but seems accurate.
Nebuchadnezzar's dream revelation also conveys that God's Kingdom by Christ [a great stone cut out apart from human effort] will destroy the last of the kingdoms of men in what the Bible refers to as the "end of days" [for Satan's influence (1 John 3:8)] or Armageddon. (Dan 2:44-45) It promises a stone will be cut out as God's work to destroy all these kingdoms; by striking their foundation.
What this means!
It means your faith in the promises of Christ is your ark of salvation through the tribulation and Armageddon. (Rev 13:9-10) Just as the flood of Noah's day, Armageddon is coming! (Luke 17:26-30) If you have listened to Jesus and truly expect the things he promised, that faith will protect you alive. (Mat 21:21-22; Luke 17:6) If you are following some church, you are most surely lost. If you have actually been reading the words of Jesus and talking about him and his Father, they have been listening. (Mal 3:16-4:3)
The Bible is full of prophecy. As many have asserted, Bible prophecy is history written in advance. As human creations of God, each of us are free moral agents with the ability responsibility to choose life or death. (Deu 30:19-20) So, God's inspiring of prophecy was not because He could foresee our individual future choices. Still, He could clearly and reasonably see our disobedience would bring untold horrors. And, while even God doesn't foreknow our personal choices, He can "cause to become" just as he sees fit. So, using his knowledge of where we were headed in our chosen disobedience, along with his purpose to fix the problem; he wrote out our then future in considerable prophetic detail.
He knew that even though humanity as a whole rebelled against his rulership, some individuals among his "good" creation of Adam and Eve would respond to his love, if given the chance. The Bible is the account of how God gave us that chance! As humanity abandoned following God, they naturally set about forming groups [including governments] to organize and direct themselves. While allowing mankind their demanded and imagined freedom from his direction, God exercised enough control to keep Satan [as the leader of the rebellion against him] from destroying all of Creation. So, since God manipulated even wicked mankind so as to exercise some control, He could foretell the coming world powers. In his very accurately predicting the world's rulers, יהוה [God's Hebrew Name] several times used visions and dreams given his followers. Two outstandingly used in that way were Daniel and John [the writers of the Books of Daniel and Revelation].
Recorded centuries ago, then, those visions and/or prophecies often used huge and strange monsters or beasts, and in one case a huge image of a statue of a man, to reveal the world powers we have by our day in time seen come and go. Since most Bible prophecies are only understood after they have happened, so the followers of God have the benefit of seeing their fulfillment in history. Their purpose must be to instill faith in those of us who live today, at what appears the culmination of most of those prophecies. (Dan 8:)
We recount several prophecies and they often overlap. That is to say, one beast may represent the whole of the period the Bible refers to as the Gentile times
[the period after God's kingdom on earth with his Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, until the promised day when יהוה would reestablish his Kingship over the earth and all Creation.]
so as to display all seven [or eight counting the last wicked king] of the Gentile world powers יהוה foretold, while a different beast or beasts may represent only five of those nations out of the whole of seven.
This set of webpages, then, is my effort to try and organize and identify the different beasts of vision, so as to better understand what God was teaching us.
More Prophetic Beasts of the Bible!
♦ The Dragon or Serpent with seven heads and ten horns.
• Before the Dragon is introduced, we see a woman about to give birth. (
Rev 12:1-2) The woman is God's heavenly organization. She is working on the earth to produce the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
• The Dragon is then introduced representing Satan the Devil and the angels who followed him, as he tries to destroy Jesus and his Kingdom. (
Rev 12:3-4)
The seven heads of the Dragon represent the world powers that are now history: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, Britain-America!
• The woman successfully gives birth to Jesus Christ as King of God's Kingdom. The Dragon tries to destroy the child but he is resurrected to heaven and seated at the right hand of God. (
Eph 1:15-23)
•
Rev 12:7-12 clearly identifies the dragon to be Satan the Devil and tells us he is hurled down to the earth.
•
Rev 20:1-3 further tells us Satan is abyssed for a thousand years. Could that thousand years relate to
•
Rev 12:7-12 where we were told Satan was thrown out of heaven. Being restricted from the heavens would certainly have seemed an abyss to Satan.
The Dragon's heads represent the world powers he has used to deceive and mislead mankind.
♦ The Wild Beast with seven heads and ten horns.
This Wild Beast, also with seven heads and ten horns, represents those same governments the heads of the Dragon represent.
The seven heads of the Wild Beast represent the same world powers the heads of the Dragon represent!
The fact they are so similar should not be surprising, since the nations they represent have largely served the desires of Satan. The Bible says Satan gave them his power and throne and great authority. Satan, too, has his woman, working to accomplish "his will" in the earth. Satan's woman is religion.
• This seven headed Wild Beast
[there are some others] comes up out of the sea of mankind (
Isa 57:20-21) and is given power from the Dragon:
Rev 13:1-3 ...And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. (2) And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. (3) One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. (
Dan 18:23-26)
• Remember, this wild beast has been around for nearly
4000 years, since Egypt ruled the earth as represented in its first head. Since then, it has been given great authority and much of mankind has worshipped it
[looked to it for help and protection].
Rev 13:4-10 CEV
...and they worshiped the dragon who had given its authority to the beast. They also worshiped the beast and said, "No one is like this beast! No one can fight against it." (5) The beast was allowed to brag and claim to be God, and for forty-two months it was allowed to rule. (6) The beast cursed God, and it cursed the name of God. It even cursed the place where God lives, as well as everyone who lives in heaven with God. (7) It was allowed to fight against God's people and defeat them. It was also given authority over the people of every tribe, nation, language, and race
[likely referring to the Dark Ages]. (8) The beast was worshiped by everyone whose name wasn't written before the time of creation in the book of the Lamb who was killed. (9) If you have ears, then listen! (10) If you are doomed to be captured, you will be captured. If you are doomed to be killed by a sword, you will be killed by a sword. This means that God's people must learn to endure and be faithful!
• This prophecy now starts to speak about another Beast, one that came up during those centuries. It foretold what we can now see has happened during the existence and rule of the Beast with ten heads:
Revelation 13:11-18 ESV
(11) Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. (12) It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. (13) It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, (14) and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. (15) And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. (16) Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, (17) so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. (18) This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.
