Wisdom

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

WISDOM

Rev 13:11-18

11 Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. 12 He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. 14 Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

18 This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.

NIV

Once again the scholars have given way to years gone by and by all accounts they have given this number to mean “The Latin Empire”. There is a very complex system explained by the scholars of how the ancients use numbers to represent the Greek alphabet giving each letter a number and thus they can calculated it was this phrase. They can explain away all this revelation as past events using mainly the rise and fall of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires and with the rise of the Latin Empire or the Papacy and thus cast all negativity toward Catholicism as most of these supposed scholars were of protestant beliefs which developed after Luther and the reformation. There was a great distain for the Catholic Church and no doubt many of the scholars of time ago wrote their explanations through this filter of distain. We, on the other hand, cannot afford to see through our own man made filters. It can never be the wisdom of the human mind that is mentioned here which is called for to understand and calculate the number of the beast. This wisdom can only come from a divine influence upon our heart and mind. Many men throughout the ages since this revelation has been recorded have endeavored to determine which man name in their era adds up to this 666. Once again we have to wonder if this could also be a number which represents an ideology rather than a single man’s name. The thought of this adding up to the phrase or ideology of The Latin Empire, certainly bear witness to us not being the first to think it to be something other than just a name of a man. But they felt it was already visible in the Catholic Church, as with some of the Popes, especially during the dark ages, as well as in the time of the great inquisitions, were extremists with power to kill all heretics and excommunicate those from the church and thus social community, who opposed their authority, thus people could not buy or sell within the setting of that community. In the wisdom of man they would seem to make a rather solid case. But then of what value is this revelation to us? If it is all ancient history, when or if does it have any bearing on the future which is yet to come? Is there a moment in this revelation in which the ancient scholars make a transition from past to future in describing their views? Again we must remember there has been many more empires of sorts rise and fall since the time of these scholars which we now could view as having been the first or the second beast as well as what this 666 meant. But we could also view all this as something supernatural coming from the hand of God in his final efforts to show mankind their need to repent. Nothing happens without the absolute authority given by God. Again this could mean something far beyond the human ability to comprehend, but at the same time God desires for us to understand what he is doing. As Abraham was a man who believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness. God said that what he was about to do, the disaster he was about to bring to Sodom and Gomorrah, was he going to hide it from Abraham, no, he would tell him what he was about to do. God desires to let his people, those who believe him, those accept his Son as their Savior, what he is about to do. This is why he called John in the Spirit up to heaven to reveal all this revelation so that the people of God, those who believe him would know what is to happen at some future time. We have to conclude this to mean none of this has happened yet and so it is still to come because those who believe God are still here and thus can gain the knowledge God desires to share with us as to what he is going to do, as he did with Abraham. Yes, there has been and will most likely always be some form of beast, both the first from the sea, and the second from the earth. There will always be some form of either economic, spiritual or political power that rises up from among mankind that will be considered a beast by others who are not within the inner circle of this powerful force. Whatever it is that will be, it derives its meaning from the number 666. One thought we might consider is that God’s perfect number is seven. This seven has been used throughout scripture. He created everything in six days and rested on the seventh. We have built an entire religious experience based on the seventh day, the Sabbath day. We could spent a great deal of time on this seven, but it is God’s perfect number. Thus 666 is short of this perfect seven. Whatever rises up, it is not perfect, it is flawed, and it is short of being anything God has for us. Although it will happen with his authority, he will allow this beast, this power to rise up and conquer the hearts and minds of those who do not know him, it comes from he who is not God. This power that rises up will be either from Satan or from mankind itself, but it will be imperfect. What we have to learn is God has and always will be perfect and whatever he is doing in our lives is perfect. This we can know is wisdom from him.