666 Has Come And Gone And We Are All Here

 June 25, 2006

By: Sellers S. Crain, Jr.

    It happened--- something that only rolls around every century.  I don't think I will be alive when the next one comes.  It is 666, the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year.  Never have I heard such hoopla since Y2K.  People were really anxious that it meant the coming of Armageddon, the arrival of the Anti-Christ, or the end of the world.  If any of that happened, I missed it.  So now that it has come and gone, and we are all still here, what are we to make of it?  Let me share some of my thoughts with you.

    The beasts whose number is 666 came up out of the abyss (Revelation 13:1) and is described exactly like the dragon in Revelation 12:3.  Why?  Because he was indwelt by the dragon (Satan) who was controlling him.  Who was he?  The answer is found in Daniel 7:2-8.  This was the fourth beast, or in Daniel's words "the fourth kingdom" that should come up which would control the world.  Historically, we know that this beast was Rome.  Notice in John's vision that the beast had the characteristics of the previous three world empires.  The reason being is that Rome did not really destroy those empires, she just absorbed them.  The fourth beast was a combination of all of the terrible characteristics of all three kingdoms that had gone before.

    The seven heads of the beast represented the seven hills of Rome, but also seven kings.  The ten horns, with the crowns represented ten kingdoms that made an alliance with Rome.  In her final hours these allies turned against Rome and aided in her downfall (Revelation 17:9-18).  Notice that this is not just Rome, the city, in particular, but it is the head of the Roman government who would initiate an empire wide persecution of the Lord's church.  While another beast appears from the land, twice called "the false prophet" (Revelation 16:13,19-20), I want us to focus our attention only on the first one from the sea.

    What was "the mark of the beast?" (Revelation 13:16,17).  First of all there is a connection between the mark put on the followers of the beast.  They were for the purposes of identification.  The mark of the beast, the name and the number are one and the same thing.  They are used synonymously and interchangeably.  The famous number "666," about which so much has been said and written is clearly identified in the text.  There have been so many wild theories about this individual's identity, and many guesses have been made.  If we will just read what John wrote, he was clearly told by the angel that this is the "number of a man..." (Revelation 13:18).  Two things are significant.

    First, he was describing the first beast, ferocious as he was described earlier, the angel said here that he was just a man and not a god.  Second, 777 is the number of perfection.  It is the number of deity, supposedly formed by the number of the trinity (3) and the number of the earth (4).  The number 666 falls short of perfection.  Yet, it is evil raised to the highest degree.  So we know that the beast is an evil man who promoted himself through his own hired priesthood (the false prophets) to be a god, and that he would "make war against the saints of God" (Revelation 13:7).  From history, we can conclude that this person was Domitian, one of the worst of the worst Roman emperors.  One from whom we have nothing to fear.  Not now, not ever!

 Brotherly,

Sellers