The Beast out of the Sea
13 The dragon[SIZE=.625em][
a][/SIZE] stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.
2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.
3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.
4 People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”
5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months.
6 It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.
7 It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.
8 All inhabitants of the earthwill worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.[SIZE=.625em][
b][/SIZE]
9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.
10 “If anyone is to go into captivity,
into captivity they will go.
If anyone is to be killed[SIZE=.625em][
c][/SIZE] with the sword,
with the sword they will be killed.”[SIZE=.625em][
d][/SIZE]
This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
The Beast out of the Earth
11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon.
12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.
13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people.
14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.
16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads,
17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[SIZE=.625em][
e][/SIZE] That number is 666.
Now let me ask you can the Pope cause fire to come down from heaven to earth? You realize both the beasts have great supernatural powers from the darkness? And you do realize by the great miracles the beasts has the power to do, it will probably even lead Atheists to believe that there are supernatural powers after all, and cause the strongest of atheists to bow to these beasts, because of the evidence in front of their eyes.
Now as a Pentecostal, I'm a great believer of the supernatural, and strongly believe there are greater powers in the name of the Holy Spirit, but there are powers also in the darkness that witches, wizards and people who practice witchcraft operate under, and people have been deceived by them before. Because psychics have been right before, witch doctors have healed people before, and mediums have led people to believe that they can talk to the dead, when they have been actually talking to demons, i know this stuff, and i know of witches and wizards who operate in these powers, i live in an area full of witchcraft, and i know how real it is and those kind are operating under demonic powers of the devil. Of course as Christians though we have a much greater power, but the powers of witchcraft is very very real too, therefore i believe it's quite a possibility these 2 beasts mentioned in Revelation will operate entirely under the power of witchcraft and will be able to really cause fire to come down from heaven, to heal great wounds, to levitate, to do many things, but it will be a lesser power than Jesus Christ, but it still will deceive very many people.
Now don't you think that's a possibility? If the Pope can cause fire to come down from the sky without using a single weapon, then i would believe you, but at the moment i don't. You realize a lot of Revelation is supernatural, the tribulation will almost be all supernatural activity, and there's no doubt that the beasts, false prophet can be too. As for the great harlot, there's already a lot of sexual immorality in advertising, tv, books, music, etc, none of them are the Pope, but i could be wrong though, we may not have seen the great harlot yet, the great harlot might be a much greater figure than what is happening in Hollywood today.
Some of us think we have seen the worst to come and it can't get much worse, but still it's not as bad as the times of Noah or the times of Sodom & Gomorrah or the times of Jezebel, but I tell you i don't think we have seen much yet, it can get a whole lot more worst, this is a more peaceful time in history, even though we are probably just around the corner from the next big war, it has been more peaceful lately than WWI and WWII. The times of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah were probably a lot rougher than the last 2 world wars though don't you think?