REVELATION 13

13:11,12 THE BEAST FROM THE EARTH

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and those who dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed” (Revelation 13:11,12). Here a new power comes into view which has not been mentioned in Daniel’s prophecies. As it is coming up it looks quite innocent and even Christ-like, with its two lamb-like horns, but when it speaks it is obvious that the heart of Satan the Dragon is in it.[1]

Unlike the first beast, which rose out of the sea (“peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues” Revelation 17:15), this beast rises out of the earth. In chapter 12 we saw that when the dragon, Satan, was pursuing the woman (the true church) during the 1,260 years of papal domination, “the earth helped the woman and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth” (Revelation 12:16). During the Middle Ages there was, for the first time in history, a sudden and dramatic increase in human population ("the sepent cast water out of its mouth like a flood after the woman v. 15), but with the discovery of the western hemisphere, God’s people could flee for safety (the earth...swallowed up the flood). The earth represented the sparsely populated American continents that were a refuge for the religiously persecuted.

Thus it appears that this new beast with lamb-like horns arises from the relatively unpopulated Western Hemisphere. It comes into power after the forty-two months of authority of the first beast and the receiving of the deadly wound, which occurred at the end of the 18^th century. Obviously the United States of America is the country which arose in the western hemisphere and started to become a powerful nation after the 18^th century, and in fact it came into its greatest power during the twentieth century when the healing of the deadly wound was taking place. The phrase “he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence" (Revelation 13:12 NKJV) shows that the two powers exist at the same time rather than one succeeding the other, as was the case with the animals/empires of Daniel 7.

Continue to next section: 13:11 A LAMB OR A DRAGON?