THE STORY OF THE
"IMAGE OF THE BEAST"

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I The "Image of the Beast" Defining the "Image of the Beast"

Part II The Patience of the Saints God's Response to "Image" Worshipers The Three Hebrews "Them That Had Gotten the Victory" "Song of Moses and the Lamb"

Part III Why the "Image" Remains Lifeless A Financial Collapse May Occur What Will the Vitalized "Image" Do? The Rider without a Horse

Part IV What Happens to the "Image"? The "False Prophet" What Happens to the "Scarlet Colored Beast"?

Part IV

What Happens to the
"Image of the Beast"?

    We are told of a class who get the "victory over the beast, and over his image." They have endured through the abuses heaped upon them. The "image of the "beast" seems to fall apart and disintegrate. Those who succumbed to demands of the "beast" and its "image" are sadly in line to receive the first "plague." Revelation 16:2 says,

"And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image."

Leopard-Like Beast

Image of the Beast

    This pain falls upon those who yielded to the demands of the "beast" and its "image." If God had not become involved, the results might be different. However, it was God who said,

"If any man worship the beast and his image, … the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation."

    None may escape the consequences that God has promised those who yield to the "beast" and its "image."
    We are not told what actually happens to the "image of the beast." We are told specifically that the "beast" and the "false prophet" (identified in Revelation 19:20 as the Church of England and Ireland) are "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."
    Make no mistake, these false religious systems will be destroyed and never again will a false religion be allowed to become a government in the earth. This is not said of the "image," and so we are left to ponder its fate. Just as we are not told what happened to the "woman" of Revelation 12, so we are not told what becomes of the "image."
    If one is prepared for a guess, ours would be that the Protestant Federation, possibly represented in the World Council of Churches, ceases to exist as a "beast" or as a governing body in the earth because the military or emergency government returns to constitutional rule. If that happens, a church and state union would be ended. So the "image" really has a short life once it receives "life." It is short and mean and will not be missed.
    We are not told what happens to the "woman" of Revelation 12. We know she left behind a "seed." Revelation 12:17 says,

Woman of Revelation 12

"And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

 

    What a blessed heritage she leaves behind. Apparently, in the harvest of the Gospel age the faithful saints were called out of Babylon into a condition of separation. Hence the woman who lived through most of the Gospel age, passes off the scene yielding her torch of virtue to the "remnant of her seed."

It is this "remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" that seems to trouble the "dragon" — that old serpent the devil (Revelation 12:17). The dragon is determined to "make war" with this "remnant of her seed." This is a statement of fact, not conjecture.

The Dragon will make war with the remnant of the woman's seed.

    Satan will consummate his commitment to destroy this faithful "seed." The conflict between Satan and the "seed of the woman" started in Genesis. It will culminate with the serpent bruising the heel of the "seed of the woman" and the woman’s seed bruising the serpent's "head" (Genesis 3:15). That is bad news for the "serpent."
    There is little doubt that the agencies the "serpent" designs to use in his war against the "remnant of her seed" are the "beast" and its "image" and the "false prophet."
    You fight true religion and faith with counterfeit religion and those who merely profess faith. That is how the devil secured the death of our Lord. He used the Jewish church leaders to champion his cause against Christ, the true heir of the woman. Oddly, these Jewish leaders were alleged to be holy men who fasted weekly and made long prayers to be heard by men.
    It should not come as a great surprise that Satan would again rally the Protestant and Catholic power structure to consummate his "war" against those "which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

The "False Prophet"

"And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet." Revelation 16:13

    Suddenly, and without any explanation, the language changes here. Up until this point the "image of the beast" shared the stage with the "beast" and the "dragon." No reason is given, but suddenly the metaphor changes and we have an unknown symbol thrust upon us.
    Were it not for Revelation 19:20, we might be hard pressed to define the "false prophet." However, the Lord provides the information we need to figure out who this "false prophet" is. The Revelator identifies the "false prophet" as the "beast" with "two horns" that performed "miracles" in the "sight of the [papal] beast" (Revelation 13:11, 14).
    This will be all that is left of the "image of the beast." Something happens along the way to declaw and defang this "image" so it really ceases to be a "beast." The church state status it enjoyed for a brief season is suddenly ended.
    Its religious position will be the same, however. Without the state to enforce its edicts, it ceases to exercise power. Its sympathies are still allied with the "beast" with "two horns" as it fades into insignificance and ultimately into oblivion. Hence it is not destroyed with the papal "beast" and the "false prophet."

What Happens to the
"Scarlet Colored Beast"?

    We know that the "dragon" is thrown into the "bottomless pit." The papal "beast" and the "false prophet" [Church of England and Ireland] are cast "alive into a lake of fire." The "image of the beast" becomes extinct before it can be officially destroyed. That is a total of four "beasts" accounted for.
    The "scarlet beast" is the only one not accounted for. The "ten horns" of the "scarlet beast" "make war with the Lamb" (Revelation 17:3, 12, 14). However, the "Lamb" does not destroy them, but simply defeats their warfare against him and his saints.
     Next we find that it is the "ten horns" and the "[scarlet] beast" that are engaged to "hate the whore," and "make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire" (Revelation 17:16). This shows the complete destruction of the apostate "woman" [the Catholic Church].
    We are not specifically told what happens to the "scarlet beast" except that in Revelation 20 the Lord and his saints are established in power. In that the "scarlet beast" was a "peoples' form" of government, really a republic of sorts, logically the people will not be destroyed.
    As all peoples and nations yield to the sovereignty of Christ, they will cease to be enemies of the King. So the people who constituted the "scarlet beast" will fall under the headship of Christ and his kingdom.
    Our story ends with all the enemies of the Lord vanquished and destroyed. Only two enemies will remain.
    Satan is retained as an enemy and is loosed out of "his prison" whenever the thousand years are ended. He will be allowed to appeal to any on earth that have sympathy with sin so that they may follow their father the devil. He and his kind will be "cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are" (Revelation 20:7, 10).
    The other enemy is "death." Actually, it will be the "Adamic death."

"Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. …

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is [Adamic] death." 1 Corinthians 15:24-26

The saints shall share in the victory of Christ and his kingdom. "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end" (Isaiah 9:7). The ending of the Revelation story is glorious. Hallelujah!