A voice in the wilderness: One of his heads seemed to have a deadly wound. Revelation 13:3

One of the guys at this mornings “bible study” asked the question, do you think God will punish us for not doing more, or even something about these horrible baby abortions? I raised my hand because it was now time to say something - I had been silent all morning. I said, there was a day that I was reading in Isaiah when I saw God saying, “I have called you be a watchman upon the wall.” God spoke to me and said, this is what I have called you to. And that is why I write, for it is the primary thing I can do.

You, my readers, are who I am talking to, and I blow the trumpet about things that I believe are related to end times events.

Revelation 13:3 ESV One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.

A comparative verse.

Revelation 13:3 AMP And one of his heads seemed to have a deadly wound. But his death stroke was healed; and the whole earth went after the beast in amazement and admiration.

Let's start with a logic approach to understanding. Without any other information, what do we know of that has multiple heads? Nothing, so are we looking for some creature with multiple heads? No.

The mere fact that it refers to multiple heads tends to end the possibility of this being a human, does it not?

Our context initiates with:

Revelation 13:1-2 ESV And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. (2) And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.

In earlier posts I pointed out how this imagery is also found in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Daniel tells us that these are empires or governing bodies. Yes, a governing body can certainly have a man running it, but Daniel did not get so specific, so neither can we. Therefore, this head that sustains a deadly wound and is healed is an empire or governing body.

Given the premise that the beast rises from the sea, and appears to have a singular body indicates that there is a central theme running through all these empires. Since Daniel started with the Babylonian empire and ended his definitions with the Grecian empire(s), what could be the commonality if we extend this thought up until the nineteenth century? Everyone of them ruled over the Jewish people of God. The Medes and Persians were Assyrian, and the Grecian empire which ended with the Seleucid empire controlling what we now consider the Middle East and Mediterranean regions. If we add into this mix the Ptolemaic dynasty, which included Egypt and the Northern African nations, we effectively have what became the Ottoman empire.

If the Ottoman empire was that head, was it wounded and presumed dead? Absolutely. The empire, founded in 1299, officially ended on November, 1, 1922, when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished and Turkey was declared a republic. The Ottoman caliphate continued as an institution, with greatly reduced authority, until it was abolished on March 3, 1924.

: Territorial changes of the Ottoman Empire (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If it took a fatal wound, when did it come back and in what form? It resurrected in 1979 in the form of the Iranian revolution, where the American embassy was taken hostage. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981), after a group of Iranian students, belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam Ayatollah Khomeini, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The goal was to rule the world under an Islamic Caliphate, but that takes time, and support. Consider what the Iranian revolution did to Iran; it threw the country into the dark ages once again. We can that the Taliban did the same thing to Afghanistan.

Have there been other Caliphates attempting to control the world? Certainly, and none paid any attention until ISIL raises its ugly head, because none had such a global impact. Beside that they were always seen and merely angry young men, tired of oppression. However none, until recently, has ever been able to regain a foothold like the Ottoman empire did.

Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)
Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258, 1261–1517)
Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)
Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031)
Almohad Caliphate (1147–1269)
Ottoman Caliphate (1517–1924)
Sokoto Caliphate (1804–1903)
Khilafat Movement (1919–1924)
Sharifian Caliphate (1924–1925)

Let's say we have established what this wounded head is. What do we see next in the passage?

Revelation 13:3 ESV One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.

“and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.”

The whole earth means just that. Look around you and what do you see? What seems like the entire earth following Islam.

The word marveled is the one that upsets me. It is the Greek word thaumazō and means: to wonder; by implication to admire: - admire, have in admiration, marvel, wonder.

Now that we have had ample time to see the handy work of Islam, how could a reasonable person have anything but a vile disgust for Islam, and yet this scripture tells us that the world is in admiration of it. Consider how our Islamic American President fawns over them, calling the atrocities they commit, the acts of frustrated young men, instead of the global terrorism that it is.

As a student in 1999 I was a computer room lab assistant, working with students from every corner of the world. One of things I actually enjoyed was interacting with the foreign students. Some that stand out in my mind were from Persia and Indonesia. None of us had any clue about Islam. We lived naively under the imagery of Humphrey Bogart, heart-broken, leaning across the piano, smoking a cigarette, and saying, play it again Sam, in Casablanca.

: Screenshot of the title screen of the trailer. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all saw the travel shows, and most of us wanted to experience the mystery of Morocco. I thought it would be amazing to see the architecture of Tangiers or Turkey. And churches have sent missionaries to Nigeria, Chad, even Somalia, but any of those nations is like putting your head in a mouse trap as Boko Haran – an Islamic terrorist organization - will kill you.

I do not understand, outside of Satan blinding the minds and eyes of people, how anyone could follow such a beast.