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self-made gods prior to Babylon’s fall (5:23–24). Even though rebellious
humanity is tormented by demons, they do not want to turn to God. “And
they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their im-
morality nor of their thefts” (9:21). In the Bible, these vices are the fruit
of worshipping idols (Rom 1:18–32). All of these are the characteristics of
those who do not follow the Lamb (Rev 21:8; 22:15).
This unrepentant world now becomes fertile ground for Satan’s nal
great deception. The Book of Revelation shows that right before the Sec-
ond Coming there will be a short-lived confederacy of the dragon, the sea
beast, and the lamb-like beast in their opposition to God and his rightful
rule in the world. “Each has its own history but, at the end-time, they
join together in deception and coercion during the last bale” (Marshall
2000:147). In the end-time scenario, Satan will have a leading role. Rev
16:13–14 shows that the demonic activity will escalate to its highest point;
it describes issuing out of “the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth
of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits
like frogs; for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out
to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the
great day of God, the Almighty” (for the equation of the sixth trumpet and
Rev 16:12–16 see Beale 1999:513). The identication of the three demonic
spirits in terms of frogs seems to be intentional. In the plague on Egypt,
the frogs were the last plague that Pharaoh’s magicians were able to du-
plicate to inuence Pharaoh to persist in his opposition to God’s request
through Moses to let Israel go out of Egypt. In such a way, the three frog-
like demonic spirits represent Satan’s last counterfeit of God in an eort to
ensnare and deceive the world to carry out his purposes (Beale 1999:513).
Satan’s nal deception will be very convincing. While the fth and sixth
trumpets describe the demonic activities embracing the whole world, Rev
16 points to the end-time scenario as something unparalleled in history.
However the nal deception will be implemented, it will be successful
and convincing. Ellen G. White describes it as follows:
Fearful sights of a supernatural character will soon be revealed in the heav-
ens, in token of the power of miracle-working demons. The spirits of devils
will go forth to the kings of the earth and to the whole world, to fasten
them in deception, and urge them on to unite with Satan in his last struggle
against the government of heaven. By these agencies, rulers and subjects
will be alike deceived. . . .
As the crowning act in the great drama of deception, Satan himself will
personate Christ. The church has long professed to look to the Saviour’s
advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now the great deceiver will
make it appear that Christ has come. In dierent parts of the earth, Satan
will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of dazzling brightness,
12
Journal of Adventist Mission Studies, Vol. 11 [2015], No. 2, Art. 14
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/jams/vol11/iss2/14
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/jams/vol11/iss2/14/