Revelation 13: The beast, the mark, the seas and the many waters by Afolabi Dollars

“And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. He had 10 horns and seven heads. On his horns were 10 diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names”- Rev.13:1

The book of Revelation is ‘encapsulatively’ a book about the exposition of the OPPOSITES; the KINGDOM of God vs the KINGDOMS of the world, the SEAL of God vs the MARK of the beast, the REVELATION of Christ THE LAMB vs the DECEPTION of Satan THE DRAGON, the final battles of GOOD vs EVIL in ARMAGEDDON.

Having this understanding makes it easier to demystify the codes in the entire book of Revelation, especially chapter13.

This apocalyptic message is the encoding and decoding of prophetic information and is also the corroboration/correlation of biblical prophecies.

In the above scripture (Rev.13:1), we see the Revelation of THE FIRST BEAST which is from THE SEA. Now, most times in this book, when we see the term “SEA” or “WATERS”, it shouldn’t be taken literally, it’s metaphorical and it simply means “The mass of PEOPLE of THE WORLD”; for instance, the HARLOT sitting upon many WATERS in Rev.17 simply means that the HARLOT which symbolizes the BABYLONIAN SYSTEM has a strong influence/control over the PEOPLE of the WORLD.

Therefore, because there’s nowhere in the world you’d not find SEAS, it simply means that the first beast is coming out from THE GLOBAL POPULATION OF PEOPLE.

Now that we know what the SEA represents, WHAT then is THE BEAST? I already established in my previous article that THE BEAST is not a person, not a who but a WHAT!

Please you’ve got to pay close attention because once we can know or decode what THE BEAST is, it’s easier for us to decode and/or know what THE MARK of the beast is! The reason many of us don’t know THE MARK of the BEAST is because we don’t even know WHAT the beast is! Almost everyone is just making an ignorant noise about 666 here and there!

So, for us to know WHAT the beast is, we have to decode Rev.13 and to decode Rev.13, we must first decode Daniel.7 in the frequency of the correlation of Bible APOCALYPTIC PROPHECIES.
In Dan.7, the prophet, Daniel had a night vision (dream), about 4 different BEASTS, and when the interpretation of these 4 beasts came to Daniel in the same chapter 7, the 4 BEASTS represented 4 KINGDOMS which are:

1) Babylon
2) Medo-Persia
3) Greece
4) Rome

These kingdoms have at different times been world superpowers with global influence and dominance amidst successive invasions and overthrows!

So, even before the OLIVET PROPHECIES of Christ in Matt.24, kingdom has always risen against kingdom and nation against nation!

In Daniel’s prophecies, he saw 4 different beasts but he was so particular about knowing the 4th beast; ROME!

The 4th beast caught his attention compared to the first 3 beasts in his dream.

I implore you to do a PERSONAL STUDY on Daniel 7 and Rev.13 and watch out for the similarities in the characteristics and activities of the 4th beast in Dan.7 and that of the 1st beast in Rev.13, it’s the same description!

So, considering the similitude of description, we can see that in Dan.7, the beast was never referred to as a person or one man but a KINGDOM/GOVERNMENT comprised of men and/or kings, and this makes us know that THE BEAST in Rev.13 is NOT also talking about one man or person or a literal ugly looking beast as the beast.

THE BEAST IS A POLITICAL RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OR GOVERNMENT WITH THE LONG AGENDA OF HAVING A GLOBAL RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY OVER THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD through DECEPTION and coercion!

Characteristics of the first beast in Rev. 13

“The dragon gave him his POWER, his THRONE, and great AUTHORITY. 3 One of his heads appeared to be fatally wounded, but his fatal wound was healed. The whole earth was amazed and FOLLOWED the beast. 4 They WORSHIPED the dragon because he gave authority to the beast. And they WORSHIPED THE BEAST, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to wage war against him?”
5 A mouth was given to him to speak boasts and BLASPHEMIES. He was also given authority to act for 42 MONTHS.”

– Rev.13:2-5

Here are some of the characteristics of the first beast in Rev.13

1) The beast would have global POLITICAL POWER given by the dragon.

2) The beast would have global DICTATORIAL CONTROL, dominance and rulership enabled by the dragon.

3) The beast would have global RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY powered by the dragon.

4) As a result of no.3 above, the beast would be WORSHIPPED.

5) BLASPHEMY; the beast would take the place of God in the lives of Many.

The beast would act for 42months and we need to understand that 42months isn’t literal 42months by the normal calendar but by a PROPHETIC CALENDAR.
In Daniel’s prophecy (Dan.7), the period the 4th beast would use to wage war against the holy ones was given as “Time, Times, and half a time”;

Time=1yr

Times=2yrs

Half a Time=½yr or 6months

So, we have 3½yrs which is the same as 42months that THE BEAST would use to act in John’s prophecy.
Now, both the 3½yrs and 42months are not according to the literal calendar but according to the prophetic calendar, and by its calculation, 1yr=1day, thus 3½ PROPHETIC yrs or 42 PROPHETIC months = 1,260 literal years.

Having this understanding would make us know that THE FIRST BEAST is not about to come, the first beast as a satanic SYSTEM has been in existence for many years here on Earth with different HORNS (authorities) ruling/operating from within this SYSTEM at different eras/generations.

The first beast in Rev.13 is the system and platform for the second beast to operate/function as a DELEGATED AUTHORITY on behalf of the first beast under the auspices of Satan the dragon!

Talking about 666, if you study Rev.13 very well, John already gave the CHARACTERISTICS and attributes in IDENTIFYING THE BEAST in earlier verses before he later talked about 666 as an ADDENDUM to his identification. He never focused on 666.

Even if you checked the entire book of Revelation, it’s only in CHAPTER13 in the last verse that he mentioned 666, the focus of his VISION was more on other characteristics about the beasts which we’d find in earlier verses of Rev.13, and in other chapters of the same book, but what I’ve seen over the years are many people drawing their attention away from the MAIN CHARACTERISTICS of the beast’s IDENTITY and focusing on 666 which wasn’t even the writer’s/seer’s focus; this is part of the reason for the many confusion and conspiracy theories here and there because many keep looking for some 666 which was NOT clearly described, instead of focusing on the outlined MAJOR characteristics of the beast that was CLEARLY described/stated!

We need to also understand that John brought the idea of being MARKED on the Forehead or righthand from his knowledge and understanding of the MASTER-SLAVE relationship that existed in the past era before he wrote this book.

If you read the Rev.7:3 I stated earlier on the #EndTimeFever series, you’d see that the Angel was told not to harm the trees, seas, etc until the SLAVES of God are SEALED/MARKED on their foreheads.

Those days, SLAVES were branded or marked by their MASTERS/LORDS to authenticate OWNERSHIP and those slaves are only able to do anything under THE NAME and AUTHORITY of their master/Lord. So the slaves being MARKED or BRANDED means they’re under the SECURITY of their master/Lord, therefore telling other masters or lords to back off because a marked slaved is already taken and belongs somewhere.
This is John’s idea of both the SEAL OF GOD and the MARK OF THE BEAST.

A MARKED slave is the responsibility of his master or Lord, so anyone who is “branded” by the mark of the beast becomes a SLAVE to the beast or he’s owned by the beast and he’s therefore under the SECURITY and RESPONSIBILITY of THE BEAST who has become his master or lord, and everything this slave is going to do would be under the beast’s NAME/AUTHORITY or CODE, including the ability of the slave to “buy” and “sell” in the market.

So, no MARK means no MARKet for anyone who isn’t a SLAVE of the SYSTEM which controls the MARKet!
BUYING and SELLING are all about INTERACTIONS in and with THE SYSTEM!
Just like saying “BUY the truth and SELL it not”

We know we can’t buy the truth as an INTANGIBLE virtue, and we can’t sell it as well, we should know that this statement is METAPHORICAL.

BUYING AND SELLING are all mankind has been doing since the beginning, there’s always a spiritual TRADING going on in life which of course have a physical reflection!

So while the beast is responsible for its SLAVES who are MARKED, to ensure they BUY and SELL, God is also responsible for His SLAVES who are SEALED, to ensure they overcome because they’ve TRADED their lives/souls with CHRIST!

#EndTimeFever
#TheVOICE