September 29: THE SECOND ALLY INTRODUCED (part 1)

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. Revelation 13:11

You will remember from the previous chapter that the earth helped the woman (12:16). During the bulk of the 1260 years, the faithful woman was enabled to find various safe havens in the “old world” from which to live and operate as she served the Lord Jesus. However, she continued to be pursued and hunted down. Many of those who chose to cross the Atlantic to reach the “new world” did so in order to escape the withering persecution of the Roman church. There are accounts of those who came ashore and literally kissed the ground, thanking God for His protection during their travel over the vast ocean. It was a treacherous journey, but being on the run in Europe was exhausting. The desire to worship God in peace overrode the risks of crossing the ocean. God’s providence was evident to the thankful pilgrims.

The terminology, the earth, is meant to contrast with the sea from which the papacy appeared. The striving multitude of pagan cultures around the Great Sea (what the Hebrews called the Mediterranean – see Daniel 7:2) provided the background for the old pagan Roman Empire to implode into the setting that allowed the little horn (v.8) to wax strong by 538AD and emerge as dominant papal Rome in the Old World.

Christopher Columbus discovered a new continent (on behalf of Europe) in 1492, and within a few years, Amerigo Vespucci demonstrated that the New World was not Asia, as so many had thought. Shortly thereafter, an amateur geographer from Germany began writing “America” on drawings of the newly discovered land mass. When it became apparent that there were two land masses (that were not Asia), North America and South America were written. The amateur geographer’s name was Waldseemuller, who was also a clergyman. This side of the world was very sparsely populated as compared to Europe, and is here referred to as the earth.

Another beast was coming up. The Greek here indicates that it was a small, slow development like a little plant pushing its way up out of the soil. Over the next three centuries, the American colonies were taking shape. In 1776 the United States declared independence. In 1787 the Constitution was adopted. By the time that the papacy received its mortal wound (Revelation 13:3) in 1798, the United States of America was recognized by other nations as a nation.

Two horns like a lamb. The “American Experiment” was the founding of a nation upon the two governing principles of civil and religious liberty. These two tenets, established in our country’s founding documents (the Constitution and the Bill of Rights), were designed to preserve the inalienable rights of individuals. Notice the absence of crowns in this description. In contrast with the persecuting history of Europe, these two lamblike horns represented a civil government without a king and religion without a pope. The structure in our representative republic was designed to avoid the tyranny of human leaders with too much power. This young, lamblike, fledgling nation considered itself a champion of individual rights and stood apart as the standard-bearer of freedom. Most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Christians, as were all of the Supreme Court justices. A pillar of the Christian faith is that worship of the true God must be voluntary. This is what is meant by liberty of conscience.    

But John also saw that this beast would eventually speak like a dragon (to be continued) . . .