The Two Horned Beast

by Jerry Huerta

copyright 2020

In proclaiming liberty, our nation initially sought to restrain the fiery tendency of government by limiting the power of our central government. The framers sought the mannerisms of Christ and his lamb-like nature as opposed to the dragon-like coercive nature of centralized government. Concerning authority, Christ proclaimed: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant…” (Matt 20:25-26 ESV). The framers of the constitution adopted this tenant as servants to the people and recognized God’s church as “the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matt 5:14). However, the dragon became furious with the woman/church and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring (Rev 12:17).

Scholars acknowledge the ideological contest between the agrarian and commercial interests that occurred at the nation's birth. The agrarians held to the tradition of republican virtue to establish a just social order. In contrast, the commercial interests held to the emerging Lockean liberalism for such an order. Republican virtue promoted a patriarchal society in which the economy was guided by the government, while the liberals held to individualism and free trade, with little or no government interference. While vestiges of Republicanism lasted until the end of the nineteenth century, the liberal agenda endured. Their ideology of a just social order led to a market-driven economy that diminished or assailed the patriarchal society as well as the nuclear family.

Conservative republican virtue and Lockean liberalism grounded the laws that governed the republic in theism. Nevertheless, the liberals held a different view of the law on economic activity. The liberals maintained a patriarchal system for social activity but held that economic activity exempted such governance and was subject to “natural law.” In essence, they set a contrived boundary between social activity and economic activity, fashioning economic activity as market driven (Rev 3:17). At the end of the nineteenth century, the church’s liberals rejected any ecclesiastical advocacy for the poor. By chafing against what they termed “ecclesiastic prejudice,” the liberal members endorsed such court decisions against improving the working conditions of labor in “Lochner v. New York” and the decision against the 1916 child labor law enacted by Congress. The liberals trampled the poor and turned aside from the afflicted, just as did ancient Israel, for which they were judged (Amos 2:7). No precedent in theism sets a boundary between social and economic governance! At this juncture, the rising progressive liberals capitalized on the gap between the rich and the poor by abandoning the law's theistic foundation onto one of mere social experience. And now the progressive liberals stand on the precipice to establishing a highly centralized government that speaks as a dragon: “Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon” (Rev 13:11).

The ramifications of the Church’s wickedness in these matters, at the turn of the nineteenth century, were for God to “shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land send pestilence among my people” (2 Chronicles 7:13). Furthermore, now God’s people wail: “Spare your people, O LORD, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” (Joel 2:17). Today, God’s people claim the promise of 2 Chronicles 7:13 that if they turn from their wicked ways God “will heal their land.”

“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

However, do we grasp the wickedness to which we submitted? Joel and Chronicles reveal the land is distressed because God shut the rains and commanded the locusts to devour the land because of His people’s wickedness.

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people,” (2 Chronicles 7:13)

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.” (Joel 2:25)

Find out the truth about the locusts, whose “appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run” (Joel 2:4), fulfilled in our day as the apocalyptic four horsemen of the seven seals.

Read, Thy Kingdom Come: Re-evaluating the Historicist’s Interpretation of the Revelation by Marsue and Jerry Huerta.

This post is a postscript to the book above, which is available here.