Revelation 13:11-18 “Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. (12) And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. (13) He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. (14) And he deceives those who dwell on the earth--by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. (15) He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. (16) He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, (17) and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (18) Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.”
In this section we want to discuss how the anti-Christ will expand his kingdom in the earth, and what impact that expansion will have on the various nations of the earth. We have already examined the above quoted passage of scripture when we discussed the person of the false prophet. Nevertheless this passage also gives us some insight into the expansion of the anti-Christ’s kingdom in the earth, and so in light of that we will discuss this passage again in this section. Other than the state of Israel, there is no scriptural evidence to indicate that the anti-Christ will expand the reach of his kingdom by means of military conquest. So if not by conquest, how will he expand his kingdom? We can see from this passage that it is mainly the false prophet who will be instrumental in extending the reach of the fourth kingdom in the earth, for this passage declares that he is the one who will cause the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the anti-Christ. In other words the false prophet will go throughout the earth to persuade more and more nations to align with the fourth kingdom by submitting themselves to the reign of the anti-Christ. So how will the false prophet accomplish this? His strategy will be to persuade the leadership of the various nations to align themselves with the fourth kingdom, for once a nation’s leaders are persuaded then they can be used in turn to persuade their populations. The anti-Christ and false prophet will be working closely together with Satan to accomplish this, for as the God of this world, Satan is well able to influence a nation’s leadership to align themselves with the anti-Christ’s reign; and even if there are some leaders who obstinately refuse to submit, they can easily be eliminated and replaced with others who will be more than willing to submit to the anti-Christ’s reign. During this time Satan will also stir up the target nation’s Muslim population to agitate for their nation to align themselves with the fourth kingdom. And so, the false prophet will first target the nations that are primarily Muslim; for example most of the nations in Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa and West Africa. Because the nations in these regions are primarily Muslim, they will obviously very quickly submit to the reign of the anti-Christ, thus aligning themselves with the fourth kingdom. After bringing those nations into the fold, the false prophet will then target nations that have a significant Muslim population but not yet a majority, i.e. a Muslim component of anything between twenty and fifty percent of the population. Because of the lack of a Muslim majority in these nations, persuading them to submit to the reign of the anti-Christ will prove to be a bit more difficult; nevertheless the false prophet’s ability to perform miraculous signs will help to “persuade” those nations’ leaders, particularly his sign of calling down fire from heaven. It is interesting to note from this passage that in persuading the nations of the earth to worship the anti-Christ, the false prophet will remind them of the incident of the beast being healed from his deadly wound and the fire called down from heaven which destroyed the Israeli leadership. And so when reminded of that incident, most leaders will be “persuaded” to submit their nations to the anti-Christ’s rule. It seems unlikely, given the time frame of only forty two months, that the false prophet will be able to reach nations with a Muslim component of less than twenty percent of their population; and so it seems probable that those nations will escape the anti-Christ’s grasp. Nevertheless because approximately thirty five percent of the nations of the world have a Muslim component of twenty percent or more in their populations, those nations would therefore most probably have succumbed to the reign of the anti-Christ by the end of the forty two month period[1]. As an aside, it is not by accident that the Muslim population in many West European nations and the UK is growing exponentially currently[2]. Clearly Satan is targeting those nations for assimilation into the kingdom of the anti-Christ.
We have mentioned how the leadership of the various nations will be “persuaded” to submit to the reign of the anti-Christ, but what about their populations? Obviously the Muslim component of the population will willingly submit themselves to the anti-Christ’s reign, but what about the rest of the population? By the time the false prophet arrives in a nation to proselytize it, most of its citizens would have either seen or heard about the incident of the anti-Christ’s miraculous recovery from his mortal wound. And so based on that, a large percentage of the non-Muslim population will already be deceived into thinking that the anti-Christ is the deity that he claims to be, and will thus be quite willing to convert and submit to his reign. Nevertheless there will still be a component of the population that will be unconvinced, and will therefore need an “incentive” to persuade them to bow their knee to the anti-Christ. So what form of incentives will be used to persuade these people to submit to the reign of the anti-Christ? Unlike a nation’s leadership which the false prophet can threaten when he meets with them face to face, it would be extremely impractical if not impossible for him to go throughout a nation; calling down fire from heaven on everyone he comes across who refuses to worship the anti-Christ. And so once a nation’s leaders agree to align themselves with the kingdom of the anti-Christ, there are two processes which the false prophet will insist on being implemented to ensure that the whole nation submits to the reign of the anti-Christ. The first process he will insist on being implemented is for everyone to receive the mark of the beast i.e. 666, which will be placed on either their right hand or on their foreheads. The purpose of the beast’s mark is twofold. Firstly, it will identify who the followers of the anti-Christ are, and secondly, it will enforce submission to the anti-Christ’s reign, because no one will be allowed to buy or sell, except those who have the mark of the beast. Many have thought that the mark of the beast would be some sort of implanted microchip which will have to be scanned to allow the individual to purchase or sell. There are two problems with that theory however. The first problem with the microchip theory is that the mark of the beast is meant to be visible, thus identifying the individual as being a follower of the anti-Christ; while the sanction of not being able to transact without the mark is secondary. And so while an implanted microchip can fulfil the role of allowing or denying transactions, because it is hidden under the skin, it cannot fulfil the role of identifying who the followers of the anti-Christ are. The second problem with the microchip theory is that most of the nations that have a large Muslim component in their populations are relatively poor, having scant infrastructure and almost zero technology to support a microchip based system of transacting. Most of the transactions in those nations are conducted either by cash or by barter. And so trying to install sophisticated technological infrastructure capable of supporting a microchip based system would take many years to implement; time which the anti-Christ does not have. Also, such a system would be unable to prevent the use of bartering. So if not an implanted microchip, what is the more likely option for the mark of the beast? The most likely option would be some form of tattoo which is visible to everyone, thus making it very easy for the nations in question to enforce the policy of no mark of the beast, no transaction allowed, including barter. In other words the citizens can enforce the policy themselves by means of visual confirmation. Because the mark of the beast will have to be uniform, it will obviously be implemented from a series of centralised points using government sanctioned tattoo personnel and equipment. None of this is new, for a similar program has been done before i.e. the tattooing of millions of Jews during the Holocaust[3]. And so although some of the population will be willing to receive the mark of the beast, most will have to be coerced into receiving it i.e. if you don’t receive the mark of the beast then you cannot transact. Nevertheless, there will be some (mainly Christians) who will still refuse to receive the mark of the beast, and so these will be forced to flee to nations that would have not yet succumbed to the reign of the anti-Christ.
Michael E.B. Maher
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/ [3] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/tattoos-and-numbers-the-system-of-identifying-prisoners-at-auschwitz
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