Now we get to the spooky part.  The beast of Revelation makes his grand entrance.

John wrote: “And he (the dragon – Satan) stood on the sand of the sea shore.  And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems (crowns), and on his heads were blasphemous names.  And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion.  And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority” (Revelation 13:1-2).

Once again – to identify whom this beast is – we need to use those keys.  We have learned from Key 6 to look at things from God’s point of view. And from God’s point of view a beast is an evil king and his kingdom.

But what king and kingdom could this be?  This is where we can use that image of the statue King Nebuchadnezzar saw as an overlay.  Remember, the statue represented the four great Gentile empires that would rise over Israel until the Messiah came.  The fourth and last kingdom was Rome.  This could only mean that the beast John saw rising from the sea in Revelation is some kind of revival of the Roman Empire.

This dream of the statue, however, was from a pagan king’s point of view.  If you recall, we also have another picture of this last Gentile empire from God’s point of view given to Daniel.  Let’s see if the beast Daniel saw representing Rome fits the description of this beast John saw in Revelation.

Daniel wrote: “After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth.  It devoured and crushed, and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns” (Daniel 7:7).

Bingo!  The beast Daniel saw had 10 horns.  And the beast John saw in Revelation also had ten horns.  So, this 10-horned beast John saw rising from the sea must be some kind of replay of the old Roman Empire.

Yet, the beast not only had 10 horns, it also had seven heads.  And one of these heads had a fatal wound.  John said, “And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed.  And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast” (Revelation 13:3).

There has been much speculation about the meaning of this head wound.  A popular interpretation today is that the Antichrist will be killed and come back to life.  People who hold this view believe that this coming back to life would be an attempt by Satan to duplicate Christ’s death and resurrection.

So, will the Antichrist rise from the dead?  If you have seen the movie, The Omega Code, this is probably what you're expecting to happen.  The movie presents a fictionalized story based on many of today’s popular interpretations of Bible prophecy.  The movie was well made, and I enjoyed it very much.  The most powerful scene is when the Antichrist, portrayed by the great actor Michael York, awakens from the dead after receiving a fatal gunshot wound to the head.

But is this an accurate interpretation of prophecy?  I have several problems with this idea. For one thing, this interpretation is based entirely on speculation.  But even more importantly, it's an unnecessary speculation.

One of our keys to the prophecies in Revelation is to understand what came before.  In the book of Genesis, this great red dragon is depicted as a small serpent that successfully tempts our first human ancestors to join him in his rebellion against God.  Because of this evil deed, God told the serpent: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise (crush) you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).

Here we find the beginning of a conflict between good and evil that is destined to span the farthest reaches of human development and history.  In Genesis, we see God beginning a process for delivering His people from the effects of their fall into sin and the power of the serpent.  This Savior would be the promised seed of the woman who would someday crush the serpent’s head.

Of course, we Christians know that this Savior has already come and given that serpent of old his fatal blow.  This fatal blow to the head of the serpent occurred when Jesus died on the cross.  Referring to His coming death and resurrection, Jesus said, “Now judgment is upon the world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out.  And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:31-32).

You see, when Christ was crucified, Satan and his Roman Empire – the sixth head of the great red dragon – received their fatal head wound.  This is why Jesus said after His resurrection, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth” (Matthew 28:18).

But someday, perhaps sooner than we think, the Roman Empire, with Satan himself ruling over it in the form of the Antichrist, will return (Revelation 13:1-3).

And, as John said, the whole earth will be amazed.

Now we need to know what the 10 horns on this beast of Revelation represent.  But this is no problem.  The Bible provides us with the answer in Revelation.  These 10 horns are 10 kings who will rule with the Antichrist (Revelation 17:12).

Again, this is consistent with Daniel’s vision of the beast that represented Rome.  Daniel described this fourth beast by saying, “While I was contemplating the horns, behold another horn, a little one came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold the horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boasts” (Daniel 7:8).

As we know, a beast in Bible prophecy doesn’t only represent a kingdom, it also represents some great king.  In the case of this terrible beast of Revelation, that king will be the Antichrist himself.  In other words, the Roman Empire will someday return in the form of 10 kings, and the Antichrist will rise to power among them.

Many excellent Bible scholars share this understanding of prophecy.  One such scholar is John Walvoord.  In his book, The Nations in Prophecy, Walvoord says: “A crisis in the Mediterranean area leads to the formation of the revived Roman Empire composed of a ten-nation confederacy.  This is occasioned by the rise of the Roman ‘prince that shall come’ (Daniel 9:26) who subdues three of the kings and secures the submission of the seven remaining rulers.  His successful conquest of these ten kingdoms, outlined in Daniel 7:23-26, makes the Roman ruler supreme in his control of this revived form of the ancient Roman Empire.”  (John F. Walvoord, The Nations in Prophecy, 103.)