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As our previous article, The Final Confederacy, explains, Revelation 16:13-14 discusses end-time Babylon's three-part cohort that will fight against God and His people. This article will explain each of the three components, and what they symbolize.
Dragon
The Dragon is identified as Satan, and represents a hidden god, a counterfeit of God the Father. Satan has always wanted to usurp God’s power and position—to take the place of God. As the counterfeit God the Father, Satan now hopes to gain the allegiance of the world to overcome God’s kingdom.
His workings are disguised, and his power is made manifest through spiritualism in all its forms. In addition to the obvious manifestations of Satan through demons, spirits, and witchcraft, Satan also pulls people away from God to himself through the modern New Age movement, another form of spiritualism. This movement is one of the manifestations of the Dragon component.
Beast
The Beast represents the false son or counterfeit of Jesus Christ. It is Roman Catholicism, claiming to be the representative of Christ on Earth.
• Just as Christ received a mortal wound at the cross, so the Beast received a mortal wound but lived.
• Just as Christ was raised from the dead, so the mortal wound of the Beast was healed.
• Just as Christ is to receive all homage, so the whole world will wonder after the Beast (the Papacy), and pay it homage.
• Just as at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, so the Papacy today demands acknowledgement of its supremacy.
False Prophet
The final component of Babylon is the False Prophet, which counterfeits the Holy Spirit. The best-known experience of the Holy Spirit in the Bible was Pentecost, when tongues of fire came down upon the disciples, filling them with the Holy Spirit, and empowering them to speak in tongues so they could spread the Gospel. The counterfeit holy spirit has a similar manifestation.
We have learned from previous articles that the second beast of Revelation 13, America, will compel the world to worship the first beast, papal Rome, whose deadly wound was healed. America will play an important role in establishing the Papacy ’s status as spiritual leader, and will comprise a part of the end-time Babylonian confederacy.
In Protestant America, we see manifestations of tongues and healings that aren’t being used for spreading the Gospel but are a counterfeit. These experiences are full of emotionalism and euphoria, but don’t actually glorify God.
Also known as Pentecostalism, these great miracles, signs, and wonders are the False Prophet ’s way of unifying denominations under false doctrine.
When Christ prayed for unity within His Church, He never meant unity through compromise, but always unity in truth. The Protestant churches who join themselves to Rome by accepting papal supremacy become part of Babylon and thus form this third component of end- time Babylon , the False Prophet .
Ahead to Fire from Heaven?
Back to The Two Beasts of Revelation 13
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This article is adapted from Truth Matters by Professor Walter J. Veith, an international speaker who has studied Biblical issues in-depth in his quest for truth. His popular series Genesis Conflict brings the debate between Creation and evolution to a new climax as he dissects the arguments with a scientific eye. His highly-acclaimed series Total Onslaught sheds light on the state of the world today as we move to a one-world government and an anticipated apocalypse.
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It is our sincere desire to lay the clear Word of God before you, the truth-seeking reader, so you may decide for yourself what is truth and what is error. If you find herein anything contrary to the Word of God, you need not accept it. But if you desire to seek for Truth as for hidden treasure, and find herein something of that quality, we encourage you to make all haste to accept that Truth which is revealed to you by the Holy Spirit.
Read several authors' thoughts on papal Rome's history.
This article highlights quotes from historical and Catholic sources proving the Papacy's aggressive nature.
An Italian mystic. A minister to a British king. An Augustine monk. A Swiss farmer's boy. What do these men have in common? They were used by God in powerful ways to bring about the Protestant Reformation. Enter into the lives of these ordinary people with extraordinary stories.
Inspiration for these articles comes from Gideon and Hilda Hagstoz' Heroes of the Reformation
