The thirteenth chapter of Revelation reveals the rise of two great powers, the first being the Roman Catholic Church, and the second being the United States of America. Both powers would ultimately play the key roles of bringing the whole world into subjection to the Mark of the Beast.
America featuring in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation is no accident, for the history of the nation being closely connected with the number thirteen is a common recurring motif in its heraldry. Its first flag had thirteen stars and thirteen stripes. The stars represented the number of states in the new union, whilst the stripes represented the number of British colonies from which the nation was created. The Great Seal of the United States has thirteen stars, and the chest shield has thirteen stripes. Of the eagle on the Great Seal, its right talons hold an olive branch which has thirteen olives and thirteen olive leaves, whilst the eagle’s left talons hold a sheave of thirteen arrows. In the eagle’s mouth is a scroll with a Latin motto consisting of thirteen letters, and on the seal’s reverse side is an unfinished pyramid consisting of thirteen levels.
As John stood upon the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, he beheld the strangest of beasts emerge from its waters. The waters represent the mass of humanity (Revelation 17:5) or the populated world of Europe from which the beast would rise. This composite monster was the power of the Roman Empire, and is the same creature Daniel saw emerging from the waters in Daniel 7:7. Whereas Daniel saw four beasts rising up out of the sea (Daniel 7:3), John saw only one, because the Lion, Bear, and Leopard were wrapped up inside the last power. John confirms this when he says that the beast was like unto a leopard, having the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion, thus the characteristics and traits of Babylon, Persia, and Greece would be embedded within the final power of Rome.
The Greek word for the beast that John saw is “therion,” which is a wild and untameable creature. Such a word aptly describes the nature of Rome, in that it has an aggressive and untameable stance toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The beast is scarlet coloured in Revelation 17:3, for when the Roman Empire was destroyed, and the Roman spirit resurrected to life on the ruins of the Roman Empire as the Roman Catholic Church, scarlet would become the colour worn by the cardinals who run the church. Thus the beast today is the religious and political power of the Roman Catholic Church that controls the whole world.
The seven heads of the beast are the hills upon which the city of Rome was first built: Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal, Viminal. The ten horns are the barbarian tribes over which the revived Roman Empire would establish itself (the Alemanni, Anglo-Saxons, Burgundians, Franks, Heruli, Lombards, Ostrogoths, Suevi, Vandals, Visigoths). The barbarian tribes that destroyed the Roman Empire inadvertently ended up helping the pope rise to power on the ruins of it, by exalting him over the barbarians in Europe. The ten horns and their crowns also look forward to ten military dictators (uncrowned kings), who will elevate the last pope (the Man of Sin) during the Great Tribulation.
Upon the heads of the beast was the name of blasphemy, or blasphemous names. These blasphemous names have to do with the modern church that got away from the scriptures and refused to accept that God’s revealed name is the Lord Jesus Christ; instead, they became all caught up in the false teaching of the trinity. Because the churches willfully refuse to receive the truth, then whatever name they have called themselves by (Baptist, Pentecostal, Jehovah Witness etcetera) is blasphemy in the sight of God, for the spiritual children they are bringing forth are bastard-born, and are evidence that the seed of the spiritual union which produced them was not Christ’s seed, for His seed is the Word.
The true power behind the colossal organization of the Catholic Church is the Devil, for the Bible states that it was the dragon that gave the beast its power, seat, and great authority (Revelation 13:2). The Roman Catholic Church has gained immense wealth and power, and its influence reaches all around the world, but the driving force behind it are the spiritual powers of the darkness.
One of the Roman beast’s heads was wounded to death (Revelation 13:3). The seven heads we know to be the seven hills upon which the original city of Rome was built. The head that was wounded to death is representative of Capitoline Hill, which was the center of the Roman Empire where its laws were passed and where the power of the Roman Empire ended when its emperor was deposed by the barbarians. Rome ceased to be a political authority and world-governing power when it was sacked by the barbarians, but the deadly wound was healed when the popes rose to a position of political and spiritual power at the Lateran Palace on Caelian Hill, the original seat of the papacy until it relocated to the Vatican much later on.
The influence and control of Catholicism reach the four corners of the world. The death of a pope and his subsequent funeral is attended by many heads of state, and condolences flood in from powerful figures all over the world. There is no nation on earth that can war against the false church (Revelation 13:4), for it has followers in every nation and in powerful political positions as well. To even attempt a war against it would result in fierce retaliation from its followers in the very nation that dared challenge its authority.
The mouth of the Roman beast is the pope who claims to speak for God (Revelation 13:5-6). But what is coming out of his mouth is contrary to the Word, and is therefore blasphemy in the sight of God. He blasphemes against God by preaching a trinity doctrine, he blasphemes against God’s tabernacle by claiming that the magnificent buildings of the Vatican are where God dwells (but God now dwells in the heart of the regenerate man), and he blasphemes against them that dwell in Heaven by making intercessors out of the saints.
The last pope whom Satan incarnates will be the Man of Sin or the Antichrist, who for the space of forty-two months or three-and-a-half years, will take supreme control and have total domination over the whole world, and forces the masses to the will of the false church. The horrors of the Holocaust in World War Two will pale in comparison to the horrors unleashed upon those who refuse to bow to the beast in the Great Tribulation.
The false church that has waged war against the Christians throughout the church ages, will then turn its fury upon the foolish virgins who missed the Rapture (Revelation 13:7). The foolish virgins will be overcome by the Roman beast, and their blood will be shed in martyrdom. The Bride however has never been overcome by the beast, nor will She ever be overcome by it, for She is the overcomer (1 John 4:4) of every church age, and is an invincible army that can never be defeated.
Those whose names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will ultimately fall down and worship the Beast (Revelation 13:8). The whole world will worship the Beast because they do not have the revelation to identify the Beast system by the scriptures. One may remark however that this final age seems to be the most religious one, in the sense that more Bibles are being printed than ever before, the Gospel is being broadcast on television and radio, and biblical material is so readily accessible on the internet etcetera. For sure, so much evangelism is taking place, but all those denominational people who are spreading the Gospel do not have the Holy Ghost, they do not have the inward Teacher to lay the scriptures out by divine revelation. And so the prophet Amos would say that in the last days there would be a famine for the Word of God (Amos 8:11), where the whole world would be starving for true revelation.
Verses nine and ten are injected between the description of the first beast and the second beast. The Roman power has taken the whole world captive by deception, and enslaved so many people into different systems of organized denominational religion. But the end for the captor will be the Bottomless Pit of Hell from which it will not escape. And the very same Roman power that has brutally hunted down and persecuted the saints of God during the church ages, it will be killed with the sword, for Revelation chapter seventeen reveals how a nuclear bomb will flatten the Vatican, forever removing the papal kingdom from the face of the earth. Until that time comes, the saints of God patiently wait for evil to run its course, and for the cup of the iniquity of the Amorites to be filled up (Genesis 15:16). And whilst the saints wait with patience, their faith is being built stronger as the revelation of the Word becomes ever clearer to them (Romans 10:17).
The second beast (Revelation 13:11) is Protestant America which would eventually assist the spiritual power of the pope in his bid for world domination. America’s principal role is to bring the Protestant churches into the ecumenical movement so that denominational religion can eventually be brought under the control of the antichrist spirit that is elevating the pope to world leadership.
Whereas the Roman beast rose up out of the sea, the American beast rises up from the earth, or the sparsely populated new world of North America (in comparison to the heavily populated continent of Europe) which was settled by the pilgrim fathers. Having never seen an American bison (buffalo) with its front half covered in wool, John said that the beast was like a lamb, and that it had two horns which represented the initial separation of its civil and ecclesiastical power. There are no crowns upon the horns of the bison, unlike the crowns upon the horns of the Roman beast, because America was a democratic nation, not a monarchy or dictatorship.
In seeing the American bison and attributing qualities of a lamb to it is also of great significance. A lamb is a young animal that has not had enough time to mature into a fully grown ram. This shows that America is a relatively young nation. Having achieved nationhood in 1776, America is only 249 years old (as of 2025) in comparison to the nations of Europe that have existed for well over a thousand years. Being like a lamb reveals that America was a religious Protestant nation whose Constitution was founded on the Bible; but this lamb spoke like a dragon much later on, showing that the power of Roman Catholicism would eventually take over the nation; and today, the president as the figurehead of the nation says and does what the Roman power behind him has instructed him to do. The economic and military might of America has for decades been used by Rome to achieve its own secret agenda in the world.
The two beasts have a strong connection with each other, because it is the American beast that exercises the will of the Roman beast (Revelation 13:12). So America and its influence is bringing the world back into Catholicism. Furthermore, the use of the word “causeth” (Revelation 13:12; Revelation 13:16) and “cause” (Revelation 13:15) shows us that the Roman beast is working by certain methods to achieve its agenda upon the whole world.
And what exactly does it mean, that the whole world will worship the Beast? Will everybody become a Roman Catholic who burns a candle and prays to Mary? Absolutely not! From dead church religion to playing an Xbox for hours, worship takes on many forms, because it is that which occupies a man above his time spent in the things of the Lord. Behind the Roman beast is the dragon, and the dragon is Lucifer, so Lucifer gathers worship to himself by using the Roman beast. His methods of drawing such worship is through the industries of the world that caters to man’s fallen state. We shall see in Revelation chapter eighteen that the Roman beast controls the industries of the world, for when the Vatican is bombed, all the merchants of the earth shall mourn because of the sudden global economic meltdown it brings to the industries of the earth. By pornography, fashion, entertainment, sport, music, social media, religion, and so many other channels, Lucifer is being worshipped through the Beast that controls the industries of the earth.
America rose from humble beginnings to become the greatest nation on the face of the earth and the twentieth century superpower. John writes of the wonders of the American beast (Revelation 13:13). These wonders are the marvels of modern science that America achieved in her scientific and technological breakthroughs. In its development of the atom bomb, America was able to bring fire down from the skies in the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two. As America brought down fire from the skies in a time of war, it was also able to bring down fire from the skies in a time of peace, by its space program, whereby its astronaut-carrying rockets would re-enter Earth’s atmosphere with such speed, that the rocket appears as a flaming ball of fire, from its special heat shielding glowing red hot, as a result of the enormous forces of atmospheric friction generating intense heat upon its surfaces.
In making tremendous gains in the world of science, the churches of America would also achieve the miraculous by their coming together as one. The Protestants that had originally separated themselves from the Catholics, would later lay aside their differences and refer to each other as separated brethren. Only in compromise by the rejection of the scriptures could this modern miracle happen (Revelation 13:14), whereby the many different beliefs in the sphere of Christianity would come together and all pretend to believe the same thing. As America is the image to the Beast in the political realm, this great ecumenical uniting of the Protestant churches into a worldwide religious and political organization is the image to the Beast in the religious realm. And what is the purpose for building an image to the Beast? It is so that the Beast can spread its influence through politics (America) and religion (the World Council of Churches).
Until the second beast rose up, there could be no image to the Beast, because the ecumenical image comes out of America. In the time of Martin Luther and John Wesley, America had not yet gained a strong foothold on the world stage. But in the twentieth century, America would become a superpower, and through its global influence and by deception, it would cause all the world to worship the Roman beast. Without a doubt, it is from the shores of America that so much corruption has gone out into the world.
The ecumenical movement is the image of the first beast that is gathering all the denominations together into a unified fellowship. The ecumenical move receives life (Revelation 13:15) when it becomes backed by the political powers, so that whatever they should decree, the power of the state will support it. With the full backing of the state behind it, no church will be able to operate unless it is a recognized member of the ecumenical/denominational system. Those churches that would dare to continue on outside of it will be closed down, and face heavy fines and imprisonment. Furthermore, when the Tribulation sets in, the many Christians who are left behind and refuse to join themselves to the ecumenical move, will be hunted down by the state and killed.
John then makes mention of the economic condition of the world whilst the first beast sets up its image and eventually demands all to conform to a one world religion. The entire middle class will be wiped out; in other words, you will either be rich or poor, small or great, free or bond (Revelation 13:16). The cost of living is constantly rising as inflation puts ever increasing strain on the finances of the average citizen, and the purchasing power of the dollar becomes less and less. Ultimately, the state of the world will radically change, especially if a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is implemented globally, meaning that every aspect of one’s life will be surveilled and controlled by the government watchdog, making the people captives inside the dystopian digital prisons in which they shall have to live under a new world order.
Such a time in the near future is when the Mark of the Beast will be thoroughly manifest, for its placement in the right hand and forehead shows that the deluded thinking and deeds of those who rejected the Word is a result of their having been influenced and deceived by the lies and filth projected from the many media platforms into all the world. Revelation 17:2 makes abundantly plain that the leaders of the world and their subjects have all been made drunk from the media cup in the hands of the great whore. In their drunken state, they cannot think straight nor walk straight. Such a description fittingly explains the insanity of the woke agenda, the antifa movement, the exponential rise of antisemitism, and other suchlike forms. All involved or sympathetic toward such things have had their minds, views and deeds shaped by the media cup from which they drink.
That the Mark of the Beast has a connection with the commerce of the world is explained for us in Revelation 13:17. Eventually a time will come under a global reset and new world order (especially seen in the Tribulation) when no one can conduct business unless they conform to the new laws of the governments and the ecumenical churches. Church and state will be entirely united at that time, and with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (or AI), it is not hard to imagine how all the world will be trapped into a tightly woven web of centralized digital currency that gives government unlimited power and absolute control over its people. Those who refuse to align themselves or express discontent, will have their bank accounts frozen or erased, shutting them out completely from the global financial system, and driving them to starvation. Dissent will not only be dealt with by financial repercussions, but the state will imprison and kill at leisure any who refuse to conform.
And when we trace it all back, we discover that the Beast system is connected to a specific number, and it is the number of a man, and the number is six hundred and sixty-six (Revelation 13:18). This number is linked with one man, the leader of the false church, the pope of Rome. His title is in Latin “Vicarivs Filii Dei,” which means, “Vicar of the Son of God.” If we take the letters of the popish title and add together the letters which have numerical value in the Latin language, they equate to six hundred and sixty-six… V (5 in Latin) + I (1 in Latin) + C (100 in Latin) + I (1) + V (5) + I (1) + L (50 in Latin) + I (1) + I (1) + D (500 in Latin) + I (1) = 666.
The Beast system is given the number of a man because it is built by fallen man, not of God. And a system built by fallen man is a system that will likewise fall. The Antichrist or Man of Sin is the final pope whom Satan will incarnate, and under his administration the whole earth will come into a one world religion and a one world order. The influence of the false church infiltrates every government of the world, and the elite of the world actively work in cohorts to make Rome’s long-range agenda and policies a reality. This they will finally achieve, and a nightmarish reality shall come upon all who take the Mark of the Beast and upon all who miss the Rapture.
Proceed to Revelation Chapter 14