The Metamorphosis

In his famed Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln spoke of the United States as “that government of the people, by the people, for the people.” But today’s verse prophesies that the United States will undergo a transformation and become like the first beast against which it once fought.

The nation will reject its founding principles of republicanism and Protestantism. It will exchange its government by the populace for a government at the mercy of a king; it will surrender its belief in Christ to the control of a mere man called “pope.” On the prophetic timeline, today’s verse places this after the first beast’s “deadly wound” heals on the prophetic timeline.

Let’s focus on the second beast’s two horns. Accordingly, the government of the United States, like its two horns, has its church and state separated. Its republic is not controlled by its Protestantism, and vice versa. It is not so with the Roman Catholic Church. It is portrayed in the book of Daniel by only one horn—“a little horn” (Daniel 8:9, emphasis added)—indicating that its church and state are joined. Indeed, the Catholic Church is by far the most renowned religiopolitical power in the world.

Its head of state is the head of its church, the pope. When the United States “exercises all the authority of the first beast,” it too will have a church married to its state in resemblance of the papacy.

Furthermore, that the United States one day “causes” means that the Land of the Free will use coercion to bend the people to the will of the first beast—just like the papacy did in the Dark Ages. The phrase “in his presence” suggests that the two beasts will actually work in tandem to accomplish this.

Behind this second beast is the same, old power: the dragon, Satan. “The authority” Satan gave to the first beast (Revelation 13:4) is passed on to the second beast. Yet again, the Bible is telling us that the devil wants to be worshiped and, moreover, that he employs the same coercive tactic, the dragon’s modus operandi, to dictate religious conscience.

Lord God, You alone know the beginning from the end. Let us have no other loves or loyalties in this world above You.

For Further Study: Exodus 20:3; 1 Corinthians 15:24, 25; 1 Peter 5:2, 3

Key Bible Texts

And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. (Revelation 13:12 KJV)