Shabbat Shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome to Part 49 of our Book of Revelation series of studies and to probably the most widely known segment of all, chapter 13 and verses 11 to 18. It will not, then, surprise you to learn that it has been subjected to a number of different interpretations over the centuries, as well as inspiring the popular imagination and a lot of works of fiction. So as ever we are going to have to tread very carefully to ensure we don't get different prophetic levels mixed up or be confused by the popular versions in circulation.

Sadly, where the popular culture is concerned, the only version of this account they know anything about is the mutilated one concocted by Hollywood such as The Omen. So whatever novels you may have read or movies you may have seen about the Antichrist, the Mark of the Beast and the Number of the Beast, get them right out of your head. That too goes for the many conspiracy theories that each age has birthed that have come and gone. Today is no different with Covid jabs and genetic engineering currently being the most popular interpretations in the early 2020's though that fad will pass. Not so long ago it was bar codes being stamped on people's heads because that was the latest tech back then that happened to have 666 data division bars. I guarantee new conspiracy theories will emerge over the next couple of decades which, though they may possibly be true as far as political control of the population is concerned (like triple-stranded DNA), they don't necessarily have anything directly to do with the Book of Revelation and in particular this section. So be forewarned if you're embracing one of those pet theories currenly in vogue and think that's what the 'Mark of the Beast' in chapter 13 is all about! Sometimes I think the Enemy does this to get believers off the track and to mock them for being so gullible. Much of the software that drives the internet is named after demons but do you think that means we have lost our salvation for using it? So do not be quick to arrive at premature conclusions and use them to terrorise people into faith. Be absolutely sure you know what you're handling or otherwise be quiet.

But before we plunge into today's segment, which I know remains of enormous popular interest, let me give the briefest of summaries of what we covered last week and the week before. Chapter 13 is all about the Two Beasts, Monsters or Creatures, the first rising out of the sea and the second (today's) arising out of the land which nearly everyone believes connect directly to the Four Beasts Daniel 7. The connection of 'our' two Beasts with the Roman Empire (which is the 4th Beast of Daniel) is absolutely certain too and so with the big problem of Caesar-worship in the first century AD, and in particular with the infamous Emperor Nero (though others prefer the depraved madman Caligula). The Dragon or Satan of chapter 12 inspired Rome to make war on Christians/Messianics, for the Dragon gives the first Beast (or Antichrist) power and authority (13:2). The greatest likelihood of this being the correct interpretation is strengthened by the apocryphal Psalms of Solomon which I make mention of now for the first time, wherein Pompey is described as the 'Dragon' (2:29). Though this wasn't literally true, this being an uninspired text, it does show how the Dragon was linked to Rome in the minds of the people of late first century, because the Dragon of Revelation isn't a human being but a fallen angel.

So the Roman emperors were being directly compared to the Devil himself which was indirectly true. From the earliest Christian times Daniel's Fourth Beast was interpreted to be the Roman Empire so our laying emphasis on this before any other exegetical claims rests on a secure foundation. Whatever, or whoever, is therefore pointed at in the very end of the last times falls, therefore, within the spirit and imagary of the Roman Empire and its caesars, only now all nations and all absolute rulers the world over are being telescoped together. The end-time Beast will be a global totalitarian ruler who will use every Machiavellian device available to him to consolidate absolute power, including seduction and war (which we talked about last week). Spiritually, he will therefore have the dark potency of the evil dictators of the past all rolled into one. Little wonder, then, that last week's segment ends with a sense of hopeless resignation on the part of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones), those, at any rate, who are not gathered in the Twelve Cities of Refuge during this monster's last 3½ years' reign as they face almost certain martyrdom during the last great slaughter before Yah'shua (Jesus) returns.

A few added thoughts to round the first half of chapter 13 to give even more historial context and then we can move on. The symbol of a seven-headed monster, which described the First Beast, is a very ancient one and we even find it in Babylonian mythology. Whilst it's hard to know absolutely whether the 7 heads and 4 horns represent various Roman emperors or not (I think it's very likely), it's clear that the 'blasphemous name' refers to the title of the first of the Roman emperors, Cæsar Augustus, which literally means 'the divine Casear)'. The emperors after him made the same claim to divinity and demanded worship with Domitian using the blasphemous title, dDominus et Deus Noster or 'Our Lord and God'. Anyone who claims to be a god or divine is therefore in very, very deep and dark spiritual water indeed and will be punished severely. That goes equally for Mormons who think they are becoming gods, to many charismatics who think they are godlets, to pantheists who think they are collectively god, and to élitist satanists who think they are gods.

So let's go straight to today's text in the last half of chapter 13. Luckily there are very few disputes as to how to translate this, though different versions nuance certain parts in different ways. As usual, I will read the New King James Version (MKJV), messianised, and only include the most signifcant alternative readings. For those of you who want to minutely dissect the text, I refer you to the online article:

"11 Then I saw another ('second' - JB) beast ('monster', KNT; 'animal' - JPB; 'strange animal' - LB) (also called the 'false prophet' - Rev.16:13; 19:20; 20:10) coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb (Dan.8:3) and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast (Rev.13:4) in his presence ('on its behalf', NIV) (Rev.13:14), and causes the earth and those who dwell in it (Rev.13:8) to worship the first beast ['on its behalf' - NRSV] (Rev.13:15; 14:9,11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4), whose deadly wound was healed (Rev.13:13). 13 He performs great signs (Mt.24:24; Rev.16:14; 19:20), so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men ('while people watched' - JB, JNT; Aram. 'before the sons of men' - HRV; 'all' - NRSV; 'in front of people' - ESV) (1 Ki.18:38; 2 Ki.1:10; Lk.9:54; Rev.11:5; 20.9). 14 And he deceives ('will seduce' - HRV; 'led astray' - Barclay) (Rev.12:9) those who dwell on the earth (Rev.13:8; 3:10) by those signs (2 Thess.2:9-10) which he was granted ('allowed' - ESV) to do in the sight ('presence' - ESV; 'on behalf' - ESValt, NASB, NIV) of the beast (Rev.12:9; 13:12; 19:20) [1], telling those who dwell on the earth to [that they should] make an image ('statue' - JB) to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived (Rev.13:3). 15 He was granted power to give breath ('spirit' - ISRV) to ('breathe life into' - JB; 'impart the breath of life to' - Moff.; 'give the breath of life to' - JBP) the image ('statue' - JB, LB) of the beast, that the image ('statue' - JB) of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed ('condemn to death...' - JBP) (Dan.3:3-7,15). 16 He causes all, both small and great (Rev.19:5), rich and poor, free and slave ('bondservant' - ESV; Aram. 'masters and servants' - HRV), to receive ('be tattooed' - LB) a ['certain' - LB] mark ('branded' - JB, Barclay) on their right hand or on their foreheads (Rev.7:3; 14:9; 20:4), 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark (Rev.14:9) or the name of the beast, or the ['code' - LB] number ('cipher' - Moff.) of his name (Rev.14:11; 15:2. 18 Here is ['a puzzle that calls for' - LB] ('This calls for' - KNT) wisdom ('shrewdness' - JB; 'careful thought to solve it' - LB) (Rev.19:9). Let him who has understanding ('Let the discerning' - Moff.; 'those who are able' - LB) calculate ('count' - JNT/CJB; 'work out' - KNT) the number ('cipher' - Moff.) of the beast, for it is the number ('numerical value' - LB) of a man ('a man's number' - NIV) (Rev.15:2; 21:17): His number is 666 ('Six hundred and Sixty-Six' - KNT, HRV, Moff., RSV, JBP, Barclay) ('six hundred and sixteen' or '616' in some MSS)" (Rev. 13:11-18, NKJV).

N.T.Wright tells of an incident that alerted him as to what was going on in today's text. He was attending a seminar in a large American city somewhere and during a break found himself in a room surrounded by shelf after shelf of old books. Now if you're a bibliophile like me, when you see books, curiosity is aroused and you have this overwhelming desire to have a peek at what's there. If I'm visiting someone for the first time and I notice a bookcase filled with books in their living room, for instance, then I am am consumed by curiosity to know what kind of books my host reads and to see if there's something new there which I might find interesting. You see, sometimes I'll come across a book in someone's house that sparks an interest which can give leads to important Bible topics. A few years ago when one of my sons and I were staying with some friends of my mother in Sussex, England I was given a bed in our host's study and, joy of joys, I found myself surrounded by lots of interesting books as he was a surgeon. My eye caught a particular volume about the life of Stalin written by a competent historian whom I had never heard of before. That set off a chain of events. The book gave deep insights into the psychology of the Soviet dictator, our host ended up giving it to me so that I could finish it at home, and one thing led to another during my researches that would furnish me with clues as to how the mind of the great end-time dictator - the Anti-Messiah or Antichrist - might likely work; and mass-murderer and sadist Josef Stalin was beyond question one of Satan's prototype antichrists.

I mention that only introduce you how the New Testament scholar N.T.Wright got an important insight while attending this seminar. In a bound, he had his nose in one of the bookcases, his eye alighted on a title that looked interesting, and eager fingers wrapped themselves around the spine of the book to take it out, only to be shocked by what he found. You see, it wasn't a real bookcase full of books at all. It was a fake. The whole 'library' in that room was a dummy. The shelves were less than an inch or two deep. Worse, what looked like books were indeed books - or rather, parts of books. Someone had got hold of hundreds of lovely old leather-bound books and had had their spines, and the first inch of the book, cut off in order to glue them to a back wall in order to make it look as though the room were a genuine library. Hundreds of beautifully bound old books were destroyed to create an illusion. And for a book-lover, that's a shocking experience. The room was a delusion. It wasn't what it seemed to be. It wasn't real. It was what is called a parody, a cheap imitation of something real. Comedians do this all the time to make fun of politicians and others when they imitate their voices and mannerisms. They do that for laughs. But sometimes parodies are done to mock and deceive. And this is exactly what we are seeing the Devil do in chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation - it is a satanic parody of what's holy.

The dangerous thing about the second kind of parody - an imitation designed to deceive - is, if you deceive enough people long enough, that the parody becomes a new or alternative reality. If you're born and raised in a particular society like communist Russia, nazi Germany or the postmodernist West, that's all you know and it becomes your 'reality'. A parody of this kind was being enacted on a massive scale in John's day across the entire Near East and a similar parody will be enacted at the very end of days by the coming Anti-Messiah or Antichrist. Indeed, in every generation, Satan sets up alternative realities with the intent to deceive and enslave, a cheap imitation of the real thing, but believable enough to fool all but the most spiritually alert. In John's day, the reality - which we cannot see with our natural eyes...the same reality throughout time - is John's description of Yahweh's Throne Room in chapters 4 and 5. When we read about the Throne Room it may sound strange and unreal to us only because we are living in a fake reality, like those books where only a portion was showing and which had no utilitarian value other then to create an illusion of sophistication. The Creator's world is the Ultimate Reality, the only reality that matters. Once we have that vantage point the meaning of everything in life will start to fall into place and we will be able to make sense of things. That's why the Book of Revelation exists. It's to wake us up from a deep sleep caused by Satan's counterfeit.

You see, the One sitting on that Throne in the Throne Room is the all-powerful, sovereign lord of Creation. Everything that exists has its basis in Him. What we see didn't just turn up out of nowhere. Nothing didn't create everything out of nothing with no purpose in mind other to enjoy life as best you can until you die and then vanish forever as the current atheistic and evolutionistic Big Lie would have you believe. That's been the fake library, the false narrative now for the last couple of centuries that has replaced Christianity in my lifetime, and it's now the predominent one, not just in the West where it began, but throughout the whole world. The whole planet is falling under the spell of a massive delusion.

Two thousand years ago, in the Roman Province of Asia Minor where the Book of Revelation is set, where the seven congregations (churches) lived, a different kind of alternative reality or counterfeit was the Devil's main narrative or story-line back then. The reality was, and still is, that the Elohim (God) of Creation had sent His Son, the Lamb, who had conquered the world and rescued people from their slavery to sin in order to appoint them as rulers and cohenim (priests) in Yahweh's New Creation; and finally, that the Ruach Elohim (Spirit of God) was at work in, and through, these newly saved people to accomplish Elohim's (God's) work on earth. And yet this description of ultimate reality that I am giving you now seems to most modern people to be 'weird' for the simple reason that the counterfeit, which has been drummed into us since we were children at school and in the media, seems real because that's all we have heard again and again; and so we reason (because that's what human beings tend to do) that that the majority cannot be wrong. Every majority things this at some time or another. The ancients were no different. That's what they though about their reality 2,000 years ago too. The Christians/Messianics seemed the 'weird' ones, come to disrupt and create chaos in their orderly and familiar (to them) pagan world of unreality. I get it. I too once thought Christians were the weird, disruptive ones when I was an atheist. And did you know that Christians 2,000 years ago, who didn't believe in the divine caesars, or the thousands of gods and their ritualistic worship orthe ubiquitous temples, were given a sobriquet or a name to mock them. You'll never guess what it was. Any ideas? ....they were called atheists. So, yes, your modern 'atheist', along with modern Christians, would have been called 'atheists' by those ancient Romans and Greeks for not believing in their gods. How ironic.

Two thousand years ago a relatively new parody had been born that was gaining ground throughout Asia Minor at the end of the first century, in the same way as the new globalist, postmodernist 'Woke', 'Climate Change' religion is in our day. The parody back then was that the Roman Empire, in the language of John's Apocalypse, gaining its ultimate authority from the satanic Dragon, was putting itself about as the World Ruler, just as the unelected statist globalist élites are doing in our own timeline. That was the First Beast. In fact, if you are acquainted with our website, I have a chart scattered throughout the registers showing how this has been happening in my own lifetime and what processes are involved:

So what about the Second Beast, also known as the False Prophet, who is the subject of today's text? The Second Beast is like the First one, only it's subordinate, and 2,000 years ago it represented the local élites, in Roman city after Roman city, and Roman province after Roman province, who did their best not only to copy the First Beast at a local level, but insist, in order to keep favour with the First Beast, that everybody in their domain should worship the First Beast. That's the very clear tavnith or pattern which often blinded Christians submit to when they misinterpret, by twisting Paul's meaning in Romans 13:1-7, their obligations to the state (see The Limits of Obedience to the State) and end up worshipping the Beast themselves. This relentless demand on people to worship the First Beast was going on all around the first century believers, as it is today in its new forms. John's readers would have been very familiar indeed with what John wrote about in Revelation 13! City after city vied with one another to be allowed to build yet another new temple to Rome, to the emperor, or to a member of the emperor's family. These local power-brokers are the Second Beast "coming up from the earth", arising (that is) locally rather than coming across the sea from Rome itself. Don't we see this same anxiety to please the unelected élites of our day by local initiatives in our own society, new rules (and taxes) for supposedly cutting down carbon emissions and supporting some new minority's rights at the expense of ordinary, common sense folks forced to worship at these local élites' new altars? You know what I am refering to. So these local authorities complete the 'Unholy Trinity' consisting of the Dragon, the first Beast and the second Beast, a wicked combined parody of the Father Yahweh, the Son Yah'shua (Jesus) and the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit).

Part of the the satanic parody of the truth is that the local élites, described in today's passage by John as having "horns like those of a lamb" by trying to look like what they are not, even parade the fact of how nearly the Beast seems to have come come to being killed, and yet there it is, alive again! Rome had recovered from the apparent death-blow, just as our modern Roman system is about to 'die' at the conclusion ofn this Penultimate Judgment which were're passing through as I speak, but then revive later. The believers, of course, heralded Yah'shua (Jesus) as the true Lamb, just as we do; and His actual death on the cross and subsequent resurrection was the basis of their allegiance to Him - their belief that He had defeated the Dragon himself at Calvary.

And did you know that, 2,000 years ago, there were several tricks commonly employed to enable statues of various pagan gods to move about, to breathe, weep and even speak? I saw a fascinating YouTube documentary on this not so long ago. Even the Vatican in Rome once employed such tricks to keep the people in line by opening massive doors apparently without huiman aid. Sophisticated pagan writers of the time mention many such devices, pouring scorn on their trickery. But people were taken in back then through the work of the local 'beasts' or 'monsters', just as our own generations have been and will be when a similar Statue or Image 'comes to life' and starts speaking, perhaps using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and modern high tech, and stupid people will come to worship the first Beast; and through that means, the Dragon or Satan himself will be worshipped. The difference between then and 2,000 years ago will likely be scale and new more sophisticated technology. Why do you think once well-educated, free-thinking people who formerly possessed so much common sense, have been - and are being - so dumbed down today? The generation following my own is ignorant in so many vitally important areas of life because they haven't been taught properly by the Marxist-infiltrated educational system. Even Oxford Universiry, my own Alma Mater, and once (arguably) the greatest university in the world, has gone 'woke' and is slavishly following the New World Order agenda. These dumbed-down masses believe almost anything the dark paternalistic ruling élites tell them now. So they will be fooled on a grand scale right at the end, and Satan will get the worship on a global scale that he so much craves.

What's more, idolatrously worshipping, or not worshipping, the 'image of the day' was quickly becoming the dividing line between people who were acceptible in the community and people who weren't. It's how they were 'socially credited' and segregated. Not long after this time, roughly around AD 95, some local officials introduded a formal requirement that unless you had offered the required sacrifices you weren't allowed in the local market! There were various kinds of marks and visible signs which were used to set people apart either as 'able to trade' or as 'not able to trade'. And the same will happen in our day by means of RIFD chips, electronic tattooes and/or smartphone aps...and I don't doubt using nanotechnology circulating in our blood stream too introduced by means of regular 'inoculations'. It's already happening. You can't buy anything online now without some bank app and this is new, happening within the last few years: one day it was just suddenly 'there' and the way we did commence online changed overnight, as I discovered one day when I tried to buy a book on Amazon and couldn't until I got a mobile phone ap from my local bank. Why do you think the modern élites want to eliminate fiat money - coins and banknotes? So they can 'cancel' you electronically in seconds by removing your Bank aps, shutting down your electronic bank accounts, or refusing you admission to certain places without a chip or a tattoo or whatever device will be that's required. Nothing has changed, except the technology. And we're not being asked whether we agree to it or not, and we're not going to be.

So two thousand years ago, Christians/Messianics, from quite early in the life of the Besorah (Gospel) Message going forth, were faced with a stark alternative: stay true to the Lamb and risk losing your livelihood, the ability to sell or buy; or capitulate to the Beast, sacrifice to Caesar at the behest of the local officials, and then everything will be all right - except, of course, your integrity as one of the Lamb's followers...and your status in the eternities. Why do you think that we keep urging you to become self-sufficient and get off the grid as soon as possible? Why do you think Yahweh has ordained gathering places for Torah-obedient believers in Yah'shua (Jesus)? This isn't some cultic way of controlling gullible believers (though I don't for a moment doubt that counterfeits will arise, and have already arisen doing just that...who are actual cults) but rather it is to enable Yahweh's people to survive so that they can continue to evangelise and not starve, not be imprisoned, not be murdered or worse...not capitulate and not do the modern equivalent of sacrificing to 'Caesar', something the modern Church of England and others like it, are not doing and have become fully apostate. If you're required to be in the world system for now, at least have an off-grid working in parallel that you can switch to when it becomes clear that not to is to compromise your standing before Elohim (God). Think ahead. Be wise as serpents but harmless as doves (Mt.10:16).

Sad to say, there are Christians and Messianics who would like to think that they will always choose reality and reject the parody. But would they? Would we? The less prepared we are, the more vulnerable we become to the pressure of the local élites; and that pressure will steadily increase. There will be lulls, to be sure, and there may even be some local victories in certain places, but the pressure to conform to the Beast's system will always return...and each time stronger than the last as he perfects his wickedness, learning from his previous mistakes. I know this to be so.

I recently saw in a vision the Enemy mobilising to do what he tried to do to us some years ago all over again as a new generation arises that does not know the power of El Elyon, the Most High, that did not get a bloody nose as the previous one did or end up as ashes! Am I trying to scare you? No, just make you aware of reality. By now you should know that all the things we warned you of years ago have come to pass, or are coming to pass now before your very eyes. You have seen what that looks like over the last 2-3 years in particular. The pressure is on and mounting, the same kind of pressure the first century believers experienced. What do you rather I do? Pretend otherwise, soothe you with flattering words, tell you lies? Give you false comfort? I won't do it. I love you too much to do otherwise. You'll always get the truth served plainly and in concentrated form here. But now you are equipped with the kind of evidence that wasn't around a decade or two ago. It's here, being brazenly paraded for all to see; it's right up in your face. What you must'y do is just 'hang around' and wait to see what's next. You must 'stay ahead of the game' as I keep repeatedly telling you. This is not a jok and it's not some nutty 'conspiracy theory' like the psyop called 'flat earthism'. It's real.

Look at the satanic élites' scramble right now to use their proxy, the World Economic Forum, to create '15-minute cities'. Before long we won't be able to get into the cities, or access their facilities, without the required electronic 'bells and whistles' under, or on, our skin or in our mobile phones...and/or the required 'needle-jabs'. They've already started in Paris, Barcelona, Oxford and some other places. Then what will you do? They plan to have two-thirds of the world population caged up like rats in these electronic cages by 2050. These are the iron portions of the iron-and-clay feet of the statue described in the Book of Daniel:

"...the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay" (Dan.2:41-43, NIV).

This is a critically important scripture so don't lose hope. Nevertheless, you must get used to not having acess to certain 'necessities' and 'desirables' in the cities and trust Yahweh to compensate for the lack until your dependence on the system is nil. Get used to being on the periphery as many of us have learned to and acquire prepping skills now. There's tons of useful advice online that you can still get free.

In so many ways this is a vitally important key chapter of the Book of Revelation. It brings us down to hardcore reality. Every one of you will have important decisions to make in the immediate days ahead, just as the believers of the first century did. Do you want to live your life using Caesar's coinage even though on it are blasphemously stamped 'son of God'? Because to do so will be to compromise your salvation and inheritance in the world to come. Will it be a compromise if I put the modern equivalent of my 'stall' by the 'side of the road' during one of the great 'imperial festivals' in order to catch the crowds on their way to the modern equivalent of a pagan 'temple'? Will it matter if I buy a slab of 'beef' (or worse, pork) in that 'market', even though I know it will have been offered in sacrifice to Caesar's temple just up the road? You now know what the Book of Revelation says about such things.

We've had plenty of opportunity to practice doing this over the years by involving ourselves in Christmas and Easter markets which are pagan events dressed up to look Christian, but they are chickenfeed compared to what will be 'offered' true believers in the immediate future. Does it matter if we buy a newspaper or a magazine that openly mocks the Christian faith and promotes every other way of life except the Gospel one - even if all I'm going to read is the sports news or check up on the weather forecast for the day? How literally are you going to take the mitzvot (commandments) to purify yourselves, like James' admonition: "Come near to Elohim (God) and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8, NIV)? How near to Elohim (God) do you want to come? How double-minded or compromised are you prepared to be? These are rhetorical questions, for now, so you don't have to answer me - I'm just prodding your consciences and what you do hereafter is up to you, whether you want both feet in the Kingdom, just one foot, or none at all.

I could ask you lots of questions like that but I am sure you can think of your own. You're all intelligent and savvy. That's one of the curses or blessings of coming under my ministry, depending on your point-of-view, of course. Then you can decide whether I'm threatening you maliciously to manipulate you or warning you kindly to save your souls. To be fair to the critics, it could be either, couldn't it? Every minister with a heart for people and a love for Elohim (God) knows this. Now, granted, these aren't necessarily the most important questions we face, but neither are they unimportant, else Yahweh and His servants wouldn't raise them in the Scriptures and insist you make choices. But it's important that we face choices which may well not be so clear-cut as we would like. Personally, I prefer in such circumstances to err on the side of being too conservative than being too liberal, but either way we can make adjustments later to find the right balance. Therefore we need to not only pray for discernment to distinguish the reality from the parody, and to act accordingly, but we need to make this habitual and not simply a desperate last minute course correction brought upon ourselves by careless living and stark reality.

The final verse of chapter 13 is one of the most famous in the whole book and reveals the greatest parody of all; but it can't really be properly appreciated without your first being well grounded in the first 12 chapters (which is its context), and indeed the whole of the rest of the Bible, if we are to avoid being trivial. Let me read it to you in the Kingdom New Testament translation and then we'll end today's message with a careful examination of the text:

"...Anyone with a good head on their shoulders should work out the monster's (beast's) number, because it's the number of a human being. It's number is Six Hundred and Sixty-Six (not 6-6-6)" (Rev.13:18, KNT).

The point of this obscure passage is that neither Hebrew nor Greek has any signs for numbers. The letters of the alphabet do duty for the numerals as well. If you can imagine A=1, B=2, C=3, then you get the idea. So '3 cows' would be 'C cows' as C would be the letter for 3 and A+B would be 1+2. (Actually, the letter C is the Roman numeral 100, L is 50, V is 5, and I is 1). Since that is the case, if the letters in any name are given their numerical value, they can be added up and so give a sum total. This is why Dr. James Moffat, the father-in-law of the explorer David Livingstone, translates 'number' here as 'cipher'. And he's right. The problem with this particular cipher, though, is that numerous names can be totalled to give the number '666' or 'six hundred and sixty-six' (not 6-6-6). So great is the superstition surrounding the number that Seat Nº 666 in the European parliament is always left vacant as no representative dares sit there.

The fact that some manuscripts have a second total - 616 or 'Six Hundred and Sixteen' (to be more accurate) - is perhaps the biggest clue of all; and if it doesn't reveal who Mr.666 is, it does tell us conclusively who believers of the first few centuries thought Mr.666 was, and that is not unimportant because presumably (and admittedly this is only an assumption, though I think it's a very reasonable one) that's who they were taught Mr.666 was by their pastors and bishops. You see, what these early believers did was translate 'Nero Caesar' into Hebrew (and this is one reason many believe the Book of Revelation was written in either Hebrew or the closely related language of Aramaic), spelling 'Neron Caesar' which is the sum of 666. However - and this is a problem - in order to 'get' 666, 'Caesar' (actually, 'Cæsar') has to be written defectively. If spelled 'Nero Cæsar', the sum of the letters is 616, which is the reading of some manuscripts (MSS). There are those who hold that 616 is the original reading, and that it represents 'Gaios Cæsar', in other words, the wicked Caligula. I don't believe that is correct, though it could be, because only a tiny minority of manuscripts use it. The 'church father' Irenæus took the number as standing for 'Lateinos', in other words, 'the Latin' or the 'Roman', and this is a reason why many later came to associate the Antichrist with a Roman Catholic Pope. These are the two points I want to make:

• 1. Nearly all the earliest Christians believed that the Antichrist was one of the Caesars of their day, and most that it was specifically Nero; and
• 2. To arrive at an interpretation, certain untestable assumptions have to be made, so any interpretation at best can only be tentative or provisional.

Now were I to pick on the Caesars contemporary with the early Messianic Community (Church) then it would have to be Nero, as was generally believed, if for no other reason than he was the first and most notorious persecutors of the first believers. In that way he could then be a type of either a latter-day final Antichrist - the end of a line of many antichrists (the 'omega' of final/last Antichrist' with Nero being viewed as the 'alpha', or first antichrist) - and/or a picture of something less tangible like the 'spirit of antichrist'.

Another interpretation, then, which we must also take seriously, sees in the number 666 simply a continuation of the contrast with Christ of verse 11:

"Then I saw another monster (beast) coming up from the earth. It has two horns like those of a Lamb (Christ), and it spoke like a dragon" (Rev.13:11, KNT).

It certainly sounds good but is it true? Again, it depends whether you view Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek as the primary language of the Messianic Scriptures. And though we have to work with Greek - because it was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time the New Testament was written - to posit that a language steeped in pagan usage and meaning is somehow amenable to being used as a divine cipher...well, for me, that is pushing credulity a bit far. Could Yahweh have used koiné or common street Greek to imbue sacred meaning - yes, of course, anything is possible with Elohim (God); but if you were then to ask me whether this arguement is probable or likely, then I would say, no, for two reasons:

• 1. Because Hebrew was the original receptor language that Yahweh used for the bulk of the Bible, a language that evolved within a specific Torah context for centuries and is more likely to contain a divine signature; and (having said that),
• 2. To warn against using Scripture as a code book as Kabbalists and others do, again for two reasons:
  • a. Because that is the basis of occultism and the Bible is not an occultic book with some hidden 'esoteric' message behind the plain message of the 'exoteric' text; and
  • b. Because no language is ever static - it continually changes, borrowing new words from other nations, changing the meaning of words over time (like torah) and generally becoming subject to the whims of the fallen human beings who create and use new or modified words.

The number 666 is the one and only exception to this rule. Why was it used? Why wasn't the Beast named openly? Why the secrecy? For a very practical reason - such would have brought down even worse persecution on the first believers than they were already suffering if the text had simply said, 'and his name is Nero'; plus we know John is willing to use code language to protect believers in times of persecution. It's a question of justifiable prudence. The first believers would have known the meaning of such code words and phrases where one turns up in 2 John where a cryptic reference is made, for example, to the "elect lady and her children" (v.1) which has likewise been the object of massive speculation that I have anaylsed before but which we don't have time to go into again today. But there's another, better reason why no name is named and that's because Nero wasn't the final, end-time Antichrist, and this is a multi-layered prophecy.

So if you want my interpretation, 666 was, firstly, a code for the mad, demon-possessed and beastly Roman Emperor, Nero, a number that was easily memorisable. It also explains why 616 appears in alternative readings which I have already explained, as 666 was adjusted by over-keen early teachers to make sure thew knew it was Nero whom they thought was the guilty party. Do I believe in a literal end-time Antichrist and False Prophet? Absolutely, and I also believe Nero was his type as well as a representation of what one might call the 'spirit of antichrist' which John discusses in his epistles (1 Jn.2:18; 4:3; 2 Jn.7). Can we identify the name of the Omega- or Final Antichrist by doing numerical manipulations with 666? If by that you mean, knowing his name in advance, then I would say, definitely not, because 666 fits so many possible characters, the most recent ones - in my time, at any rate - being the last Soviet President Michael Gorbachov (who recently died, and who had a whopping big birth mark on his semi-bald head which silly Christians were calling the 'mark of the beast') and the most recent ones being Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. And frankly I have no intention of wasting my time in idle and useless speculation which has more than a 99 per cent chance of being totally wrong. Will the letters of the actual end-time Antichrist's name add up to 666? Maybe, I think so, but by then it will be irrelevent, won't it, because his works will already have clearly established who he is. And that's all I ever intend to say about that, other than to deal with a currently very popular conspiracy theory which believes 666 will be, or is being, satanically coded into modified human DNA to replace Yahweh's already present signature of '777'. But that's for next week.

We're clearly going to need some more time to look into other aspects of today's text, like triple-helix DNA, which I have been too ill to do this last week, and which would make today's sermon too long. So we will take that up, and other matters, next sabbath before we take a longish break for the New Year (Aviv 1) and Spring Festivals. Until then, Yahweh bless and keep you all in Yah'shua (Jesus) our Messiah. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] "...and by dint of the miracles he is allowed to perform in the presence of the Beast..." (Moffat)

Acknowledgements

[1] Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone - The New Testament for Everyone Commentary Series, Vol.19 (SPCK, London: 2011)
[2] E.W.Bullinger*, Commentary on Revelation (Kregel Classics, Grand Rapids, Michihan: 1984)
[3] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (JNT Publications, Clarksville, Maryland: 1992)
[4] ESV Study Bible (Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois: 2011)
[5] The NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995)
[6] Ed. J.R.Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (MacMillan, London: 1909)
[7] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007)

Further Reading

[1] The Mark of the Beast: What is It?

*E.W.Bullinger was a brilliant Anglican clergyman and scholar whose works merit careful study by serious students of the Bible. He was, however, seriously in error in at least three main areas, namely, (1) he believed the 'Church' has been raptured before the Book of Revelation opens, (2) he believed that the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 are 7, literal Jewish churches or assemblies yet to come, and (3) he believed in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture.

• 1. White horse - military aggression
• 2. Red horse - bloodshed
• 3. Black horse - famine
• 4. Pale Green/Blanched/Pallid/Sickly-looking horse - disease, epidemics

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• 5. Persecution & prayer
• 6. Tremour & terror

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  INTERLUDE I (Ch.7)
  (The 144,000 Redeemed)

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• 7. Silence in heaven, listening to prayers which are then answered in a final catastrophe: a severe earthquake I

• 1. Scorched earth
• 2. Polluted sea
• 3. Contaminated water
• 4. Reduced sunlight

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• 5. Insects and plague (for five months) (1st Woe)
• 6. Oriental invasion (200 million army) (2nd Woe)

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  INTERLUDE II (Ch.10-11)
  (The Malak with the Little Scroll)
  (The Two Witnesses)

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• 7. The Kingdom comes, the world is taken over by Yahweh & Yah'shua (Jesus) after a severe earthquake II (3rd Woe)

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  INTERLUDE III (Ch.13-14)
  (The First & Second Beasts)
  (The Lamb & the 144,000)
  (The Messages of the Three Malakim)

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• 1. Boils on the skin
• 2. Blood in the sea
• 3. Blood from the springs
• 4. Burning by the sun

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• 5. Darkness
• 6. Armageddon

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• 7. Hailstorm (OB 368:11-12) and severe earthquake III, leading to international collapse