THE MOUTH OF THE BEAST, FALSE PROPHET AND DRAGON
THE MOUTH OF THE BEAST, FALSE PROPHET AND DRAGON
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
March 29,2020, the Year of Our Lord
This past Friday, Phyllis Garrett asked me to lead the prayer at her prayer group to pray for the media. The scripture in Revelation 16:13 and Eze. 19:21 were quickened to me. The Lord spoke to me many years ago that the “mouth of the beast” is the unredeemed media system of the world.
We are being inundated with the propaganda of media whose mouth is speaking great lies from the spirit of the world (beast) system.
Eze 29:21In that day will I cause the horn (Jesus and His church) of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give you the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
In chapter 16, John is given a vision of the wrath of God being poured out by the Seven Vial Angels on those who have rejected His gift of free grace through His Son, Christ, Jesus.
Revelation 16 is a message of Evangelism to the unsaved and a message of comfort to the redeemed.
Like Paul we ask, “How can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?”
In Chapter 14:19-20, “The angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. The winepress was trodden outside the city…”
The “city” in the New Testament is the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22) and in Revelation 21, that great city, New Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God.
“Carolyn that which is in Heaven will be heavenly on earth.”
The Holy city, New Jerusalem is the glorified community of the people of Christ.
Gal. 4:26: “Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”
The church is the “city”, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). The beloved community is described in the Book of Revelation as both city and bride.
“Carolyn teach New Jerusalem as purity”.
The beloved community (the city) will not experience being trodden in the great winepress of the wrath of God.
In Chapter 15:1-2: The overcomers have gotten the victory over the beast, over his image, over his mark and over the number of his name. The beast is the antichrist or the spirit of antichrist in any age in the world system.
These overcomers have not compromised and accepted the ideology of the spirit of antichrist, or the man that Satan will enter to become the imperial antichrist.
The mouth of the beast will act as antichrist’s minister of propaganda. This would translate to media in today’s world. The unholy trinity is the dragon, beast and false prophet. Antichrist receives authority from the dragon as Christ received His authority from the Father. As the Holy Spirit glorifies the true Christ, so the false prophet glorifies the antichrist. The image of the beast recalls the abomination that causes desolation standing where he does not belong. The mark of the beast is an unholy travesty of the seal stamped on the forehead of the servants of God.
For the overcomers, we have entered into the Everlasting Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven. I believe there are those on earth who have already gotten victory over the spirit of antichrist and our praises join with the saints of Heaven as we stand in the Spirit with them on the sea of glass.
Monday evening while working on the bible study, I had a visitation of what I believe was the “great cloud of witnesses.” They were singing the song of “I Saw A Man” – If I be lifted up, I’ll draw all to men to me. These appeared to be the patriarchs and writers of the Books of the Bible.
The song of Moses and the Lamb is the Song of Church. The Old and the New---the mighty multitude of the redeemed of both---a united Church. The glorious company of apostles, the godly fellowship of prophets, and the noble army of martyrs are gathered to sing the song of deliverance for the encouragement of the drooping and faint-hearted, who are still struggling in the conflict, or buffeting the storms.
We, the church must speak the words of Jesus Christ and the Lamb. We cannot come into agreement with the mouth of the beast and give weight to words which are not God’s words. As you have heard, some have judged me for continuing small groups during the “lock down” of the Coronavirus. I stand before God believing I heard heaven sing:
Rev. 15: 2-3: And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are your ways, You King of saints. Who shall not fear you, O Lord and glorify your name? For you only are holy; for all nations shall come and worship before you; for your judgments are made manifest.
In 1998, after moving to Texas, I saw a vision of the sea of glass and flames of fire under the glass.
Each harper and singer has his own note to the song. There are the patriarchs, Abel, Noah, Abraham
and Joseph; telling of purposes of covenant love. There are the prophetic harps from Moses to
Malachi. There is Isaiah singing “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people;”
Hezekiah with his balmy words for the troubled and terror stricken. “God is
our refuge and strength, a present
help in trouble; the mighty victories of David and Daniel. There is the harp of the Simeons and Annas,
who in their day stood on the threshold of a new era of time, celebrating the
praises of the great “Consolation of
Israel.” There is the Baptist, in
the presence of the “True Light,” uttering louder than ever his
old proclamation---“He must increase,
but I must decrease.” (Wanda Alger)
In chapter 16, there is a parallelism between most of the seven trumpet judgments of chapter 8-11 and the last plagues of this chapter. In the trumpet judgments, the earth, sea, fresh water and sun are respectively affected; but the present judgments are more severe than their trumpet counterparts; where the former judgments affected one-third of the area in question, these affect the whole.
The sixth plague released by the sixth vial angel like the sixth trumpet judgment affects the Euphrates. The emptying of the seventh vial, like the blowing of the last trumpet is followed by a proclamation from heaven.
The last plagues also align with the last plagues of Egypt.
Unpalatable as the work of judgment may be, it is inseparable from a moral universe. Is God unjust in bringing his wrath on us? Asks Paul, “Certainly not!” “If this were so, how could God judge the world?” (Rom 3:5).
Revelation 16:1: I heard a great voice of the temple saying to the seven angels go your ways, pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
This “Great Voice” must be the Voice of God. Since no one is allowed to enter the temple until the seven vials of wrath run their course, we must assume this is God Himself speaking.
Revelation 16:2: 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.
This is similar to the Egyptian plague of boils (Ex. 9:8) only much worse. This plague is judgment on all who have aligned themselves with everything that is in opposition to Christ.
Revelation 16:3-5: The second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea. The third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters say, you are righteous, O Lord, which are, and were, O Holy One.
Just as there are angels with authority over the four winds (Rev. 7:1), the various natural elements and forces are all placed under the control of the appropriate angels. We met the angel of fire in chapter 14:18. Now we are introduced properly to the angel of the waters.
The angel’s hymn strikes the same note as that of the Overcoming saints in 15:3 Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Your ways, You King of saints.
Revelation 16:7: I heard another out of the altar say, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.
It is my assumption that this is the voice from the Golden Altar and responds with an Amen to the angel’s affirmation of divine righteousness. Perhaps the voice from the altar is a witness to the martyrs’ prayer of Rev. 6:10.
Revelation 16:8-9: The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. Men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which has power over these plagues; and they repented not to give him glory.
Contrariwise when the fourth trumpet sounded one-third of the sunlight (and of the light of other luminaries) was darkened. In the 4th vial, only the sun is affected. Its heat output is raised to such a level that men’s bodies are scorched. The sun worshippers wail in agony as blisters rise on their skin.
This heat apparently doesn’t kill anyone, for the pagans survive it to curse God and blaspheme His name. These have their heart so hardened against God that repentance is out of the question for these people.
Only the spiritually unsalvageable are affected by these judgments.
Rev. 16: 10-11: The fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
This plague coincides with the ninth plague of Egypt (Exod. 10:21). The seat of the beast will be the place of the center of his world government. His kingdom will be in total darkness. Men gnawing their tongues in agony will hardly be on account of the darkness, but because of the continuing pain of the previous plagues.
Revelation 16: 12-14: The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. 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. They are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
As we are now seeing the effects of the Coronavirus on the whole earth, it is easy to understand how this could happen. In a matter of days, great nations and cities have been closed down. Great economies have to come to a halt. Urban hospitals have been overwhelmed.
After the blowing of the sixth trumpet four angels bound at the river Euphrates were loosed to slay 1/3 of mankind. The demonic calvary released numbered two hundred thousand, thousand.
At the time John wrote this, the Romans regarded the Euphrates river as the Eastern boundary of the empire. This 2200-mile river stretching from the Turkish mountains through Syria and Iraq to the Persian Gulf was the last natural barrier between the Middle East and the Far East. It provided protection against the dreaded Parthian (Northern Iran) armies on their way to attack Jerusalem.
Prophetically it is the removal of all barriers that would keep the oriental armies from joining with the armies of other nations for the Armageddon campaign. Today we see the alignment of Iran, Russia, Syria, North Korea and China. The Syrian civil war has now crossed the border into Turkey.
The Euphrates River is drying up.
The kings of the East are in reference to the Parthians (Iran) and their allies as well as China.
We are now dealing with an unseen spiritual enemy coming from the kings of the East. Both Iran and China have been hit hard with the Corona plague.
This is the overrunning of ordered civilization by the incursion of alien spiritual armies. The unclean spirits indicate the perversion of the minds of those in authority by demonic powers. The demonic powers are operating on a world-wide scale to engulf humanity in ultimate catastrophe. These demonic powers are here pictured as three evil spirits…like frogs from the mouths of the unholy trinity.
The kings of the earth and the whole world will succumb to these evil spirits.
Quacks and charlatans were represented as “frogs” and were metaphorically associated with serpents. Tuesday as we were studying the plague of the fiery serpents of Numbers 21, a powerful anointing fell as we lifted up in song Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
The Greek word for “unclean” also translated as “foul” in the KJV means impure (ceremonially morally, lewd or demonic). The Hebrew word for “unclean” is “tame” and it means “foul in a religious sense.” This word denotes a state of being ceremonially unfit, defiled, and polluted.
The three unclean spirits of the Revelation 16:13 are revealed in the Book of Jude, “Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core” (Jude 11). These three “frog men” have diminished the glory of God and sought the honor of men.
- Cain is the brother-killer, jealous of those who have been accepted (Gen. 4).
- The spirit of Balaam is snared by the love of money; the wages of unrighteousness, his divided heart refuses to obey God’s word instantly (Num. 22-24).
- The spirit of Core (Korah) hates and disputes authority, demanding equality (Num. 16).
Jesus delivered men from the power of unclean spirits (Mt. 10:1; Mk. 1:23-27); Lk. 6:18).
Paul instructed, “for this you know that no whore-monger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.’ (Eph. 5:5)
The battle of the great day of God Almighty is the day when His cause is finally vindicated.
Rev. 16:15: Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments, less he walk naked, and they see his shame.
This announcement by Christ is no accidental displacement: ‘the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night’ (1Th. 5:2). With all of this horrible judgment on the earth, the Lord speaks in the midst of this and says, “Blessed is he that watches and keeps his garments.” That has to mean there are still saints on the earth who are part of the redeemed.
The soldier who is alert and prepared for a sudden attack or call to action will not lose time by looking for his clothes or incur disgrace by fleeing away naked in that day. We are here exhorted to spiritual alertness because we do not know the day or the hour of the coming of the Lord either in the Second Coming or in wrath.
According to the Mishna, the captain of the temple in Jerusalem went his rounds of the precincts by night, and if a member of the temple police were caught asleep at his post, his clothes were taken off and burned, and he was sent away naked in disgrace.
Revelation 16:16: And he gathers them (the kings) together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
These demons will lure the kings to Armageddon, John nails down the place. In Hebrew this is Har-Megedon or Mount Megiddo. This was the location of many a decisive battle in antiquity. Megiddo was the name of a city which gave its name to the pass which it commanded. This is not a mountain, but a valley which separates Galilee from Samaria. It is here the armies will be coordinated.
Rev. 16: 17-20: “The seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, it is done. There were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, and so great. The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”
The flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder are such as followed the blowing of the seventh trumpet in Rev. 11:19. A severe earthquake even more disastrous than that of Rev. 11:13 splits the great city into three parts. Here we can only assume the great city is Jerusalem. It is understood by most scholars that John is here referring to Rome as Babylon. However, I tend to prefer the spirit of mystery Babylon which represents the world-systems that leave God out of their reckoning. Babylon merely foreshadows the ultimate collapse of all worldly opposition to God.
Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found compares with the breaking of the sixth seal (Rev. 6:14).
This earthquake will be of sufficient magnitude to flatten mountains, reshape the earth and destroy the major cities of the world. The earth quake in chapter 6 moved islands and mountains from their places to announce the day of God’s wrath was at hand. This earth quake signals the end of God’s wrath.
Revelation 16:21: There fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
These hailstones will be about a hundred pounds. Just as the hail of Egypt in Exodus 9:22, did not produce repentance neither did this.
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from KJV; I entered into the labors of F. F. Bruce International Bible Commentary by: F. F. Bruce; Understanding Types and Shadows by Kelly Varner The Outpouring of The Seven Plagues, Carolyn Sissom; The Song of the Church, Pastor Carolyn Sissom. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.