I guess I could be Japanese! After all, I was born in Tokyo and spent the first fourteen years of my life in the Land of the Rising Sun. But my missionary parents were Americans. I’ll never forget going onto the United States Air Force base outside Tokyo and eating American French fries for the first time—love at first taste. But I love America for more noble reasons than that. And when I sing, “America, America, God shed His grace on thee . . .” I can’t help but tear up. Truth is, God loves America, too.
So much so He has embedded America in a stunning apocalyptic prophecy that is coming true as we speak: “Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon” (Revelation 13:11 NIV). Here are six embedded clues to the identity of this strange apocalyptic global influencer:
- It comes up out of the earth. The Greek verb for “rises up” is the same root word describing the thorns springing up in Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matthew 13:7).
- It springs up out of the earth. That is in contradistinction to the first beast of Revelation 13—with its seven heads, ten horns, ten crowns—that comes up, dripping and roaring, out of the briny “sea” (v 1 NIV). And as the angel told John in Revelation 17:15, waters represent “peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.” I.e., the sea beast comes out of the peopled thoroughfares of earth, while the earth beast arises out of the barren wilderness far away from the masses.
- “Then I saw a second beast.” Obviously, some sequence is taking place. First is a sea beast, and “then” there comes the earth beast. So, what happens to the sea beast just before the earth beast comes on the scene? One of its seven heads is fatally wounded (v 3), when God declares its doom: “He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword” (v 10 NKJV). The Protestant Reformers identified this apocalyptic power—found in both Daniel 7 and Revelation 13—as the Anti-Christ that ruled from Rome during the dark and Middle Ages, taking captives and killing martyrs over 1,260 years (v 5). But this religious power itself was severely wounded when, in 1798, Napoleon’s general Berthier took Pope Pius VI captive and shut down the Vatican. At that same time, springing up in a barren land far from Europe, comes a new power destined to become a global superpower (read the rest of Revelation 13)—a power birthed in 1776, with its Constitution ratified in 1788. Can you guess the identity of this earth beast? Keep reading.
- “It had two horns like a lamb.” But unlike the sea beast with ten horns and ten crowns (clearly a monarchy), this earth beast has no crowns—it is not a monarchy. With its two lambkin horns, it instead arises as the great defender of both civil and religious liberty.
- But alas, “it spoke like a dragon.” Even in its beginnings, its dragon speak roared when (1) it drove the original inhabitants, native American Indians, from off their land and when (2) it eventually became one of the largest slave-trafficking powers on earth. Dragon speak indeed—with more to come. Ranko Stefanovic concludes: “It appears that no single religious or political entity in modern history matches the description of the earth beast as does the United States of America” (Revelation of Jesus Christ 423). However, there is one more clue to link America with the unfolding events now transpiring in this country.
- The earth beast is tagged with an apocalyptic nickname, AKA “the false prophet” (Revelation 16:13; 19:20). Because the very next action of the earth beast in Revelation 13 is to make "the earth and its people to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven” (v 12-13 ESV). Mt Carmel indeed! We all thrill to the story of one lone prophet, Elijah, loyal to the Creator God, standing up against 850 false sun-worshiping prophets of Baal. And when God nukes the water-saturated altar atop Carmel, we bow down and cheer! But in a demonic twist, the earth beast, this “false prophet,” brings down fire—not on behalf of the Creator and His Sabbath—but on behalf of the anti-Christ deception of worshiping another god on another day (see vv 4, 15-17)!
Could It Happen Here?
America becoming a “false prophet,” a pseudo-religious power? Impossible! But how else can we explain this divine prediction that our beloved global influencer one day will force its citizens (and the rest of the world) to “worship the first [sea] beast?” Why the very thought of this nation mandating worship of any sort, let alone of Rome, is anathema to our legal precedent. Doesn’t the First Amendment of our Constitution mandate, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”? Ever since the days of Roger Williams, the Baptist preacher and founder of Rhode Island (c 1650), separation of church and state has been the vital premise our Founding Fathers embraced for America. Truthfully, Revelation 13’s warning that America will one day command its citizens to worship is terribly disturbing. Could it happen here? Sadly, yes.
Have you heard of “Christian nationalism?” Christianity Today describes it as “the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way” (https://www.christianitytoday.com/2021/02/what-is-christian-nationalism/). But the genius of the American experiment over three and a half centuries has ever been the careful separation of the church and the state.
Not for Christian nationalists. According to Tim Alberta, in his book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, a national survey found “roughly two-thirds of white evangelicals either explicitly supported the notion of Christian nationalism or were sympathetic to it”—believing “that the government should declare Christianity the state religion; that being Christian is an important part of being an American; that God called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of society” (433-434). In fact, “nearly 90 percent of white adherents to Christian nationalism agreed that ‘God intended America to be a new promised land’ run by ‘European [white] Christians’” (ibid). The negative racial implications of this conviction are stunning!
Could it happen here? Leading up to the recent presidential election and now moving beyond it, Christian nationalist leaders have established grassroots movements in each state to “make America Christian again”—and already their lobbying is bearing fruit. According to Google’s AI, “as of December 10, 2024, three states [Louisiana, Utah, Arizona] have passed legislation related to the Ten Commandments and religion in [public] schools [Arizona’s bill was vetoed by the governor]” and “other states have introduced similar bills [Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Texas, Florida, Montana].”
What Our Founding Fathers Would Say
Shouldn’t we be celebrating this? No! Posting Ten Commandments in every classroom, teaching Bible classes, mandating prayer at the beginning of the day or the class—these are religious exercises that belong in church schools, not public schools. What about Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist students, even atheist students—must government law compel them to practice Christianity? Our Founding Fathers uttered a categorical No.
Turns out Christian nationalism has targeted even the federal government through an endeavor called Project 2025. In its Manual for Leadership prepared for the incoming administration, Project 2025 recommends “Sabbath rest” as a “communal day of rest” for American employers and employees, suggesting a law providing time-and-a-half pay for those required to work on their “Sabbath,” which “would default to Sunday” (Manual for Leadership, project2025.org, 589). But since when is it the government’s business to define and defend “Sabbath rest” for Americans? Isn’t that the mission of the church in America? Of course! But Christian nationalism is moving quickly to consolidate its influence in both the government and all fifty states.
Which is why Revelation 13’s prediction about America is so troubling—“It [earth beast/America] exercised all the authority of the first beast [Rome] on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. . . . [The earth beast] deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The [earth] beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed” (Revelation 13:11-15 NIV).
Can it happen here? In America? Consider this prescient commentary on Revelation 13 from The Great Controversy: “In order for the United States to form an image of the beast, the religious power [Christian nationalism] must so control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends” (443).
Revelation 13 warns that the uniting of church and state—Rome’s dark modus operandi during the Middle Ages—will recur just before the return of Christ. “Aw, c’mon. You’re just being an alarmist!”
Great Controversy again: “Heretofore those who presented the truths of the third angel's message have often been regarded as mere alarmists. Their predictions that religious intolerance would gain control in the United States, that church and state would unite to persecute those who keep the commandments of God, have been pronounced groundless and absurd. It has been confidently declared that this land could never become other than what it has been—the defender of religious freedom. But as the question of enforcing Sunday observance is widely agitated, the event so long doubted and disbelieved is seen to be approaching, and the third message will produce an effect which it could not have had before” (605).
Call to Action
This means that NOW is the right time not only for us to pray for America, but for us to work even more earnestly to reach Americans while we have the freedom. Your friends, your classmates, your colleagues at work, your neighbors—there isn’t an American alive who doesn’t deserve to hear your personal testimony for Jesus and your invitation to become friends with Him. Even for your Christian nationalist friends—God loves them dearly—you can print off this short article and share it.
“America, America—God shed His grace on thee—and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.” It is high time to turn that song into a prayer, and into our New Year’s mission for our homeland mission field . . . while there is still time.
“Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
Scripture noted as NIV above is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Unless noted otherwise, scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
