7 It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. 8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. 9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear. 10 If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.
The entire Revelation of Jesus Christ to John the Apostle is a demonstration of God’s plan for the very end of the age and the return of the Son in glory. Every event is decreed by God; every character, whether angel or demon, saint or pagan is acting a role that God the Author has written.
As the prophesied events and personal behaviors exhibited in the Great Tribulation will not be new to earth or to mankind but only intensified, these four verses I have selected for today’s text serve to highlight the sharp contrast between those who are God’s children and those who are His enemies – those who will serve Him and those who will oppose Him – those who are destined for glory and those who are destined for wrath.
Let’s focus on these various characters today and see what they are destined for.
ANTICHRIST
The Beast from the sea. That is how he is introduced in Revelation 13:1.
He is the Antichrist. I will not go into a detailed teaching on the Antichrist here, but we should take note of just a couple of truths concerning this term and this person.
John the Apostle, in his first letter to the churches, warns about the antichrist, (small ‘a’) and he is speaking of the spirit of antichrist which is already in the world. He states that any teaching that denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is of that spirit. He is not speaking specifically there of this man – this person that will rise to power in the Great Tribulation.
In a very real sense, the spirit of antichrist has always been in this world since the Fall of man when Adam succumbed to the temptations of Satan in the Garden of Eden.
Satan is the ultimate ‘antichrist’, and it is he who will be the power behind the person of the Antichrist during the Tribulation. But that spirit is in the world and manifests in false teachers, in false prophets, and even in the words and actions of unbelievers everywhere and in every time, who openly defy and deny Christ. The spirit of antichrist is behind every other religion in the world. Any religion, any system of beliefs that denies the Christ of the Bible is false, it is of the enemy, it is of the spirit of antichrist.
An important truth to realize in our own day is that in 1 Jn 2 the Apostle taught that the growing prolifery of false Christs, or antichrists, in the world is an indicator that we are in the last days and the end is growing near.
But here in Revelation 13 we are introduced to a man. This man could very well be in the world today. He could be a child right now. He could be a fully grown man right now. Since we cannot know when the Tribulation will begin we cannot know who or where this person is. But he will be a man, born of a woman, and at the time he is destined to be revealed he will rise to power and deceive the nations.
He may not even know that of himself until it happens. He may be a politician or a wealthy philanthropist or a successful business man.
But when the time comes for him to fit into God’s plan for the final days, he will be the Antichrist who is spoken of in Revelation 13, and he will be Satan’s man of the hour.
What I want you to see today in our text is the phrase ‘it was given to him’.
Now first let me make clear that this past tense terminology that John employs is typical of prophets of God when they are speaking of future events that God has revealed to them. They are speaking for God; they are speaking God’s words. And when God speaks of that which He has decreed, although it may be in our future in that it is something that has not yet transpired in history, yet God refers to it as though it has already taken place, because what God has decreed cannot be changed, cannot be thwarted, cannot be avoided or resisted. It is as good as done.
This is a joyful truth for the born again believer in Christ, because God speaks of our future glorification and our eternal security in Him as though already accomplished also (Romans 8:29-30).
Back now to this phrase ‘it was given to him’. This means that the power and the authority and the freedom to act which are all exercised by Antichrist during the Great Tribulation are his to do only according to the divine plan and purpose of God, and only with His permission.
The Antichrist will be blasphemous, arrogant, vicious, evil, aggressive and demonic.
He will think he is absolutely in charge and in control, as he wages war against the saints and kills them enmasse. But it will be given him to do and if it was not he would be able to do nothing.
It is what he is destined for and God’s plan cannot be thwarted.
ALL WHO DWELL ON THE EARTH
The designation of ‘all who dwell on the earth’ is a reference to those who are not saved; not followers of Jesus Christ. This is substantiated in the next, qualifying phrase, ‘everyone whose name has not been written…’, etc. We’ll talk more about that group later.
The term, ‘all who dwell on the earth’ is used 5 times in Revelation, and in every case it is a reference to those who do not belong to Christ.
They will worship the Beast, the Antichrist. This is the second thing that will be given to him. Pay attention to that. He is a pawn. In the eyes of the world and those who are worldly he will be the most amazing and powerful person who ever lived. He will have authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. He will be what every evil tyrant, every evil dictator, every military conquerer in history has wanted to be; ruler of the world. But none of them have accomplished their goal.
I suppose Alexander the Great came closest. He conquered so much of the known world that he sat down and wept, moaning that there was nothing left to conquer.
But even he did not have authority over every tribe and every tongue of man. The Antichrist will. But it will be given to him. It is his destiny.
And it is the destiny of all who dwell on the earth during the Great Tribulation, that they will worship the Beast. They will be completely deceived. But that is not to say they will be innocent victims because they will be deceived.
They are those who will “…perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”
This is what is written about them in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, and I do mean about these specifically who are talked about in Revelation 13, because in 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul was writing about those who will follow the decptions of the Antichrist.
Before we move on from here I want to repeat something that I have had occasion to mention recently in other studies. God does not reward deliberate unbelief and He does not coddle or beg anyone who defiantly rejects His truth.
Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah, when He said,
“HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.” Jn 12:40
He was talking about those who had rejected Him and rejected truth, and He was saying that because of their rejection they now could not believe because God had blinded their eyes and hardened their heart.
God does not reward deliberate unbelief. Instead, He gives them more of what they have demanded; ignorance, blindness, lack of understanding.
Jesus said in Matthew 13:12
“For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.
What He meant by that is that God rewards faith; He rewards belief with greater understanding, but that those who reject will have what little knowledge they possess taken away from them.
This is what we see happening in Revelation 13. They have rejected the truth that leads to salvation, they have repeatedly rejected Christ, and they we be sent a deluding influence from God so that they will fall hook, line and sinker for the lie that is the Antichrist.
ALL WHO ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK
Now we come to this other group to which you belong if you are a believer in Jesus Christ. By that I mean one who has been drawn by the Father and given spiritual life from above and you have exercised saving faith in the Good News of Jesus Christ and you are now one of His called ones, filled with the Holy Spirit and made an heir and joint-heir with Jesus.
These are the ones referred to as the saints in verse 7, with whom the Antichrist will make war. He will be allowed to destroy many of them physically. He will kill their bodies, but he cannot touch their faith.
We see them again in chapter 15 verses 2-4 singing a song of triumph because in their martyrdom they have been victorious over the Beast.
These are the ones who are implicated in Revelation 13:8, whose names are written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.
Now first, let’s talk about that book of life.
There are six mentions of the book of life in Revelation; in 3:5, here in our text, in 17:8, 20:12 and 15, and 21:27. In every case the reference is to those whose names are written there, and the final two references should make any thinking person sit up and take notice, since 20:15 says that if “…anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire”, and 21:27 promises that in reference to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, “…nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
There is an old hymn which I was relieved to not find in our hymnals, titled, “There’s a New Name Written Down in Glory”. The author of the song is rejoicing that he has just gotten saved and that his name is now written down in glory. And by the way, the ‘white robed angels’ are so happy they’re singing about it too.
This is unbiblical and misleading. There is no indication anywhere in Scripture that when a man or woman first believes in Jesus for salvation God says something like, “Oh, look! We hooked another one! Get out the book and write his name down!”
God is not taken by surprise, God is not waiting for people to believe so He can jot their name in the membership role of Heaven, and He isn’t keeping some running tally.
All who are His chosen ones, all of His elect from eternity past, are in this book. No one else is there, and no one in it can or will ever be removed. That is the teaching of the Bible.
Look back at verse 8. “…everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life…”
Do you see that phrase, ‘from the foundation of the world’? In every instance that term is used in all the Bible it is a reference to untimed eternity past. It means that in eternity past the names were already in that book and that book as it is now existed in the preserving soveriegnty of God before the foundations of the earth were laid.
Those whose names are in that book, before the world was made, were destined to be His, destined for whatever His individual plan was for their life, destined for glory and eternity with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, enlivened and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, set apart for the Father and to His everlasting glory.
Please pay attention to this and don’t miss it. There are those who would teach that the names of every person ever born were written in the Lamb’s book of life, and they are only blotted out when they die outside of Christ or at some point where God determines it is too late for them to be saved.
This cannot be. If that was true, there would be no reason to ever use the phrase, ‘everyone whose name is not written in the book of life’. There would be no reason to ever use the phrase, ‘everyone whose name is written in the Lamb’s book of life’. There would be no distinction to make.
In addition, this teaching denies the soverignty and foreknowledge of God with the implication that He delays blotting out names until either their physical death or their total depravity decides their ultimate fate.
No, there are those whose name is written before the foundation of the world, and those whose names were not written. And both groups, my friend, are destined in the absolute omnipotence and sovereignty of God from eternity past.
THE LAMB WHO HAS BEEN SLAIN
Now I want you to look back down at verse 8 and see that this book is called the ‘book of life of the Lamb who has been slain’.
Why that specification? Why not just stop at calling it God’s book of life, or the book of life of Heaven or of Jesus?
It is because the names written in this book of life were to be the recipients of grace. They were to be those who would benefit eternally from the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who through His atoning death on the cross took the burden of sin in His body and paid the penalty for it there.
Let’s take a closer look at that word ‘slain’.
Listen to Hebrews 10:19-22
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
In verse 20 of Hebrews 10, where it says that our entrance to the Holy place by the blood of Jesus is ‘by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh’, that word ‘new’ – by a ‘new’ and living way, is the Greek word prosphatos. It literally means ‘freshly slain’, ‘freshly killed’. This is the only use of it in the New Testament, and it was translated ‘new’. Freshly slain.
What does that say to us? Coming from God, who is eternal and to whom time means nothing, it means that in the economy of God it is as though Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for sin on Calvary is just accomplished.
It is always fresh, always new, perpetually efficacious.
It is as though just now He took the beating and the scourging and the mockery – as though just now He shed His blood and died taking to Himself all the wrath of God against sin.
Believer, have you heard in the song, “The blood that Jesus shed for me, way back on Calvary, the blood that gives me strength from day to day, it will never lose its power”? How could it lose its power? It is as new as though Jesus had just shed it for you and for me. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – freshly slain!
Now listen to this. That verse in our text has been alternately translated in some translations, “…everyone whose name has not been written in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain from the foundation of the world”
It doesn’t matter which translation you have. If we understand that ‘from the foundation of the world’ means eternity past, then we understand that although Jesus Christ was born of a woman and under the law, and on a day in history went to the cross according to the Father’s plan and died there, still, in eternity past it was determined, it was destined, and your name was written in the book of life, and from eternity past your eternity future has been as secure as it was the day Jesus died, as it was the day Jesus rose in triumph from the grave, as it was the day He ascended into Heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand, as secure as it will be the day He raptures His church and glorifies His saints, as secure as it will be in the uncounted eons of eternity, because the blood that purchased you is forever, ‘just now’.
So the book belongs to the Lamb that was slain for you, and from the foundation of the world your name – if you are one of His – is written down.
You will never worship the Beast, and those Tribulation saints who are under the vicious, demonic attack of the Antichrist will never worship the Beast, but will sing the song of the Lord’s Redeemed. They are destined for it.
You are doubly sealed…triply sealed. Your eternal security is sealed by the decree of election in that God chose you before the foundation of the world and wrote your name in His book. You are doubly sealed by the atoning work of Christ who bought you with His blood – “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” 1 Pet 1:18-19
And you are triply sealed in that you now have the Comforter; the Holy Spirit of promise.
“Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.” 2 Cor 1:21-22
THE SPIRIT
Now let’s talk just briefly about verse 9
“If anyone has an ear, let him hear”.
The Holy Spirit speaks to those who have an ear to hear. In the beginning of the book of Revelation in His letters to the churches, Jesus repeatedly admonished, ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches’.
So the same Holy Spirit inspires the Apostle here to write, ‘If anyone has an ear, let him hear’. But notice that he does not say ‘what the Spirit says to the churches’.
The church has been raptured. The church is in Heaven waiting for these things to take place and be fulfilled. It is the Tribulation saints to whom the Spirit now speaks. It is they who ‘have an ear’. The unsaved are deaf to the Spirit.
They are spiritually dead and utterly incapable of seeing, understanding, hearing, comprehending anything pertaining to spiritual truth. Therefore what the Spirit says to those living physically in the time of the Great Tribulation will be to those who have been saved during the Tribulation – He is not speaking to those ‘who dwell on the earth’ at all. He is speaking to those whose names are written in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. It is they who have an ear to hear.
What is it He wants them to hear? Well, through the prophet the Spirit has revealed this Beast, this Antichrist, who will rise to a greater level of power than any man has ever known, and He has said that this powerful Beast will be given permission to war against them and overcome them.
So being the gracious God that He is, He will now give them words that constitute both admonition and comfort for that terrible time of trial just ahead.
10 If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.
What is He saying? He is saying that if God has destined you for captivity, incarceration, by the Antichrist, and even if God has destined you for death at the hands of this evil one, then to jail and/or to death you will go. Don’t fight it! Don’t take up arms and rebel. He is the enemy, but God has ‘given’ him to do this. Let him have his moment; it is decreed, it is destined according to God’s plan.
Is any of us wise enough to know what God’s purpose is? No, we are not. But here it is, in God’s Word, and it is for us to obey.
He said if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. That should bring to mind the declaration to Peter in the garden of His arrest that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword.
That’s captital punishment. If you’re going to be a militant Christian and take matters into your own hands, then you will suffer the punishment of the one in authority. What does that say to us about those who would bomb abortion clinics or shoot doctors who perform them? What does it say about Christians who would deface or destroy property in protest against some infraction of the Ten Commandments?
Now listen, this does not negate the need for war or the validity of a Police Officer using deadly force when called for. But when we’re suffering for the cause of Christ, in the name of Christ, for the sake of righteousness, the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh (2 Cor 10:3-4) and we are to trust God to be our defender. Listen to 1 Peter 4:14-16
If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; 16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.
Then verse 19 at the end of that chapter says,
Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.
Our greatest example of this trust is found in Christ Himself, who “…while being reviled,…did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.” 1 Pet 2:23
And what does this say to the proponents of easy, comfortable, trouble-free Christianity? I assure you they will crumple under the puniest weight and fall down at the slightest breeze. I would counsel them to consider whether they are really Christians at all.
This is the perseverance and the faith of the saints. This is how they endure to the end. This is how they see the glory of God who vindicates them and puts a song of victory in their mouth.
And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. 3 And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! 4 “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED.” Rev 15:2-4
Now I want to say this to you in closing.
The truths we’ve been looking at today are not just for those who will live and be saved through the Tribulation. Please be careful to not dismiss these verses we’ve studied as pertaining to others who will come later but not to you.
If you are a Spirit-filled believer and follower of Jesus Christ today you should recognize that all of these elements of this future world condition exist now. Nothing will change, but only intensify to the end.
The spirit of antichrist and many false Christs – false teachers are in the world even now. Those who are of this world, who dwell on the earth, are among us and all around us now. In fact, they outnumber us.
That is why we have the commission to tell them the Gospel whenever we can find opportunity, because we don’t know who or how many of them are destined for life – whose names are already in the book but they don’t know it yet.
Yes, all of these things exist now. There are many Christians around the world today who find themselves persecuted for the name of Jesus. They are incarcerated, they are treated harshly, they are killed. As God gives grace they are entrusting themselves to a faithful Creator in doing what is right. And He will raise them up and put a song of victory in their mouth.
No, none of this will be new; it exists now and you, Christians, are called to persevere, to exercise faith, to trust God for your supply and your defense, and this you can do by His grace if you rest in the assurance He has given that your names are written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain, for you, the destined
