Day 232

^“15 And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause all who do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.” REV 13:15 (NASB)

Have you ever heard people say that you look just like your mother, or that one of your brothers or sisters looks just like your father? People who sit around looking at baby books often exclaim over the similarity between one generation and another.

Look-alikes are basic to the movie industry, and the Internet is full of advertisements for celebrity doubles and impersonators to cover any occasion. Saddam Hussein was known to have many doubles for security. The comedy film Dave explores what might happen if the president quietly had a stroke in the back room while a security look-alike was waving to the crowd. Power-hungry subordinates keep up the sham that the president is fine, all the while finding the look-alike hilariously uncontrollable! This is nothing new. Charlie Chaplin look-alike contests were popular as far back as 1915, but even Charlie himself failed to make the finals in one of them! How’s that for an identity crisis!

The image to the beast is a puzzling symbol of an entity who at the end of time will powerfully impersonate the sea beast of Revelation 13. Part of a pattern of deception, this image of the beast comes to life and seeks to convince the world that the beast is alive and well, even though out of sight (Rev 13:12). The key to the deception is likeness, if the image did not look like the beast, the deception could not occur.

The image to the beast is a look alike. As already noted, there are 81 ways of identifying who the beast is. An image of the medieval church (the beast) would be, as it was then, the union of church and state, where the church controls the state and brings the whole world under its control – on pain of death!

Who do you look like? If you are not proud of your image, ponder how you spend your time. By beholding we all become changed. If the major focus of the day is to follow the hottest celebrity, or download the latest hit song, or see the latest show, you are becoming a “look-alike” whether you know it or not. But here’s the good news: While we had no control over our appearance in baby pictures, in the spiritual realm we get to decide who we look like.