The Wild Beast

(Revelation 13:1,2)
"And it stood still upon the sand of the sea; And I saw a wild beast ascending out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns ten diadems, but upon its heads blasphemous names. Now the wild beast that I saw was like a leopard but its feet were as those of a bear, and its mouth was as a lions mouth. And the dragon gave to the beast its power and its throne and great authority."

(Revelation 17:9,10)
"The seven heads mean seven mountains where the woman sits on top and there are seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet arrived, but when he does arrive he must remain a short while."

First we will examine how the bible uses the symbolic term (BEAST) to describe human world-power governments. The bible also symbolizes human governments, nations, or kingdoms with the terms (MOUNTAINS) and (HEADS of BEASTS). The bible also uses the term (HORNS) to describe kings or national political leaders.

The book of Daniel is so important to decode and understand the book of Revelation that the Devil himself opposed the angel Gabriel and tried to stop him from delivering this vision to Daniel. Actually Gabriel could not get through and Michael the Arcangel had to come and help Gabriel. (Daniel 10: 13,14) In the book (Daniel 8:3) Daniel sees a vision of a ram with two horns, one horn being taller than the other and that the taller horn came up after the smaller one. The ram symbolizes the Medo-Persian dual world power explained Gabriel (Daniel 8:20) The taller horn that came afterward pictures the Persians and the smaller horn that was first pictures the Medes. The Medes were dominant first but in 550 B.C.E. the Persian king Cyrus gained a victory over the Median king Astyages. Then Cyrus combined the customs and laws of the two people and united the kingdoms to expand their conquests.

It goes on and describes the territory that the dual power conqures, but I just wanted to prove how the bible uses beasts to symbolize world power governments. The images to the left are beasts used in (Daniel 7) to describe the world powers of Daniels time. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greese, and Rome. As we examine the wild beast further we will see that these four world powers are four of the seven heads of the wild beast. Beasts seem too fitting to describe world governments. Do not most governments of the world adobt wild creatures or beasts for their national symbols? And when the Greek scriptures were written the Greek word for beast (the-ri'on) means, cruel, destructive, frightful, ravenous, and monster. A perfect description of a blood-stained political system that satan has used to dominate mankind.

Now we will look at the devils means and location of his operation. He "stands on the sand of the sea." Since satan and his rebel angels have been cast from heaven and sent to the earth.(Revelation 12: 7-9) With the increase of spiritistic practices and paranormal phenominon in the 20th century, we can see he has a strong spirit organization in the area of his operation (the earth). He also has a strong visible organization on the earth as well.

Now we will see where the beast originates out from,"And I saw a wild beast ascending out of the sea." The sea and waters are symbolic for all of mankind as a whole. Compare (Revelation 17:15), (Isaih 57:20) Also in (Daniel Chapter 7) Talking about the four beasts, pictured to the left here, representing the four world powers of his time, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greese, and Rome. In (Daniel 7: verse 2) they are seen coming out of the sea, which is symbolic of mankind.

Now we will see what the wild beast in composed of, "With ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns ten diadems, but upon its heads blasphemous names." First I will show you that the horns are symbolic of kings, or national political rulers. In (Psalms 75:10) The word "horns" is used here to refer to kings. In (Zechariah 1:18,19,21) An angel tells Zechariah about the four horns that dispersed Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. These were the kings of two world powers of the seven heads which we will go over soon, Assyria and Babylon. The first three kings (or horns) were Tiglathpilser (2 kings 15:29), Hoshea (2 kings 17:6), Shalmaneser (2 kings 18:11) all from Assyria, and Nebuchadnezzar (2 kings 24:11-14) of Babylon. Now we will discuss the seven heads. Heads, like mountains, are symbolic of world power kingdoms or nations. The seven heads on the wild beast are the seven greatest world powers in the history of mankind. Of course there have been more than a total of seven, but these seven were unusually strong and stood in opposition to JEHOVAH and his organization. The seven heads are some of the nations that the beast is composed of, as stated earlier, the seven world powers from the begining. Read Revelation 17:9,10 to the left of this paragraph (or in your bible) John says in Revelation 17:10, "Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet arrived" in Johns time the five kingdoms that have fallen, in order are, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Dual power Medo-Persia, and Greese. The one that is in power at the time was Rome. The other has not yet arrived, which we know now is the dual power of Anglo-America.