A Giant in the End Times

A reader named Laura sent me a link to something that struck both of us as a bit creepy, and it concerns a bizarre idea conceived by Irish entrepreneur Paddy Dunning and currently supported by Irish economic development agency Enterprise Ireland and American commercial real estate company CBRE. And it's sure to turn the thoughts of prophetically savvy believers toward the future antics of the Antichrist.

Meet the Giant: a programmable statue that's 112 feet tall and can move, speak, sing, dance, and—thanks to millions of LED pixels—take on the form and appearance of anyone from Madonna to Mahatma Gandhi. Billed as the visitor attraction of the twenty-first century, plans are currently underway to build a Giant in a total of 21 metropolitan areas, and so who knows...

A Giant could be coming soon to a city near you.

A number of people in the prophecy community are buzzing about the fact that this is clearly an eerie foreshadowing of the image of the beast referred to in Revelation 13, and at Laura's prompting I read a few more things about the Giant and reviewed a few pertinent passages of Scripture. As I did so, I began to sense the Holy Spirit's prompting to toss in my two shekels.

In this article, I want to gnaw on a few bones and share a few insights that occurred to me as I considered this creepy, 10-story monstrosity and its foreshadowing of the image of the Antichrist that will exist during the Great Tribulation. But first...

An Old Testament preview

As you might expect, we see a clear foreshadowing of the image of the beast in the Old Testament, so as a warmup it might be worth a moment to review what happened to Daniel's compadres in Babylon:

As noted above, we see the prophetically telling appearance of 666, the number of the Antichrist's name, as well as the fact that people worship the image itself rather than the king directly. Not only that, but anyone who refuses to offer such worship is to be executed. As we will see in a moment, it's the same for Satan's son the Antichrist.

Of course, you know the rest of the story. Daniel's three homies refuse to bow down to the king's statue, choosing to honor God even at the cost of their lives. In so doing, they paint a prophetic picture of the believing Jewish remnant who, after spurning the False Prophet's exhortation to worship Satan's false messiah, will flee into the wilderness where they will enjoy divine protection until Christ physically returns at the Second Coming.

Extra credit: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown into the fiery furnace as mandated, which has been stoked to seven times its normal fury—the seven-year Tribulation, anyone? The king sees them strolling about in the furnace, joined by a mysterious fourth man who has an unusual appearance. Then the three Hebrew boys emerge without so much as the smell of smoke on them. For extra credit: Who's the fourth man in the fire?

Some bones to gnaw on

Naturally, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was simply a prideful earthly king who was a bit too full of himself (and who finally came around to worshiping the God of Israel, incidentally). But what about this global leader who will rise to power in the end times we call the Antichrist?

Before we go any further, let's review one of the primary passages of Scripture pertaining to this charismatic leader and his image:

It doesn't say it expressly here, but we know from the words of Christ in the Olivet Discourse that the image will be placed in the rebuilt temple, an event known as the abomination of desolation:

One of the first questions that pressed itself upon me concerning the image of the beast is simply this:

I mean, he's going to be a charismatic world leader who is set to take the helm of a global government, a global economic system, and a global religion. Not too shabby if you ask me—Nebuchadnezzar's got nothing on this guy. And to top it off, he has apparently just been slain and resurrected from the dead...NOT. This is a cheesy imitation of the real Resurrection that will give Satan an opportunity to present his pseudo-messiah to the world as having conquered death just like the true Messiah, and it will give that psuedo-messiah the desired aura of divine power and authority. So...

Why the need to erect an image to him?

Notice that it's the False Prophet who goes gaga over the Antichrist after the fake resurrection (v. 14), and starts pushing the spiel about the Antichrist's apparent divine nature down the throats of a world desperate for answers.

And a world that has "received not the love of the truth" in the tumultuous tribulational world will swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

The False Prophet will go so far as to cause an image to be erected in the holy place in the rebuilt temple to honor the Antichrist, and will have the means to give it "breath" and make it speak. He will require all to worship this image, and with such ardor that all those who refuse will be not only be excluded from basic commerce, but hunted down and executed (vv. 14–17).

But back to my question:

Why is this image necessary in the first place? Why does Satan cause the False Prophet to have it created and put up in the temple? Why not just force people to worship the Antichrist directly? Why the theatrics?

To answer this question, we have to go back to a basic principle:

Everything Satan does is a pathetic, inferior
counterfeit of something God has already done.

Or will do.

Keep in mind that the "satanic trinity" includes Satan as God the Father, the Antichrist as God the Son, and the False Prophet as God the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who glorifies the Son and directs worship to Him, and right there we have our first clue:

Just as the Holy Spirit glorifies and directs
worship to Christ, the False Prophet will
glorify and direct worship to the Antichrist.

That's Satan's pattern—imitate the real deal.

That's all well and good, but again—why the image? Why not just force people to worship the Antichrist as a man? How hard would that be?

Since this is the image of the Antichrist, the implication is that it must be something that in some way represents and/or resembles him, or at least somehow reminds people exactly who they are worshiping when they worship it. And note that they will worship the image itself (v. 15), just as those in Babylon worshiped the image set up by the king rather than the king as a man. The above passage in Revelation 13 clearly suggests that worship of the image of the beast equates to worship of the beast himself—the beast and his image are effectively one, with little distinction made between them.

Of course, just as Nebuchadnezzar's 90-foot statue of gold was far more impressive than Nebuchadnezzar himself, the image of the beast will be far more impressive than the beast himself, who, like the Babylonian king, will be an ordinary man—just one controlled and empowered by Satan. And that's the point: Satan craves worship, and it'll be tough for a mortal man alone to generate the desired level of obeisance. Of course, a few signs and wonders won't hurt, but still—the Antichrist is a man.

That image will be impressive, whatever it is. I'm sure it will be something amazingly larger than life that will utterly mesmerize the people of the world. Whatever that image looks like, the 10-story Giant will pale next to it like a toy soldier next to a Navy SEAL. Not necessarily in terms of physical size, but certainly in terms of its overwhelming power and presence.

But as I said, everything Satan does is an inferior imitation of something God has already done...or in this case, will do during His Son's kingdom. If Satan is going to arrange for the Antichrist to have this amazing image that people will worship as if he were divine during his 42-month kingdom, what does that tell us about Christ when it comes time for His 1,000-year kingdom?

It tells me that when Jesus returns to take the reigns of His kingdom, He ain't gonna show up in a dusty robe and worn sandals.

That leads to another question:

OK, let's think this through:

If Satan has an image created to represent his son the Antichrist that is so incredibly mesmerizing and overwhelming that the people of the world will worship it and the Antichrist as if they were worshiping God during the Antichrist's brief kingdom—and Satan is merely imitating a future reality concerning God's Son, then it is logical to conclude that when Christ returns for His kingdom He's not going to look like a scruffy, itinerant, first-century Jewish teacher with a ragtag collection of no-account followers. In other words:

It's gonna be adios to the dusty robe and worn sandals.

Like many of you, I have often wondered what Jesus actually looked like when He walked the earth two thousand years ago with His 12 disciples. I have often tried to imagine what it must have been like to sit at His feet and listen to Him reveal the truth and power of the prophetic Word, and gaze upon the face of the man who was nothing less than God in the flesh.

And for the life of me, I just can't do it.

No matter how hard I try, the image just fuzzes out—I simply cannot visualize what He may have looked like.

Similarly, I have often wondered what Jesus will look like in the Millennial Kingdom—and if He will look the same as He looked two thousand years ago. After preparing to write this article, however, I am convinced that He won't.

There are several references to Jesus' post-Resurrection appearance in the New Testament, and they can be divided into two basic categories: (a) in an earthly setting during the 40-day period from the Resurrection to the Ascension, and (b) in a more spiritual setting after the Ascension.

And these are completely different. For example, in (a) we have His appearance to Mary at the tomb, to two of His followers on the road to Emmaus, to all the disciples and others behind locked doors that same evening, to over 500 of His followers on the Mount of Olives, and several other instances referred to in different places in the New Testament. There's no need to give you a detailed rundown on every one of these because it is widely accepted that they all share one fundamental characteristic, which is the point I want to make:

In every single one of them, Jesus pretty much looked like Jesus.

Although it seems that following the Resurrection He had the ability to prevent people who knew Him quite well from immediately recognizing Him, Scripture makes it pretty clear that Jesus looked like the same man people had known prior to the Crucifixion. They recognized Him, touched Him, talked with Him, ate with Him, were taught by Him, etc. They knew Him as the same beloved rabboni they had known and loved prior to the events of Passion Week.

In (b), however, things are radically different. When Jesus' appearance is described in these instances following the Ascension, it's nothing short of glorious to behold. The two prime examples of this are given to us by John in the book of Revelation:

Head and hair white as wool, eyes like a flame of fire, feet like burnished brass, a voice like many waters, a face that shone like the sun, and a double-edged sword coming from His mouth to render judgment.

Later in Revelation, John gives us another similar description:

Again, eyes like a flame of fire and again with the sword emanating out of His mouth. Not quite the same as He was on the road to Emmaus or in the garden with Mary, wouldn't you agree?

One exception: I should mention that there is one description of Jesus in the New Testament that doesn't quite fit in either category, and that would be at the Transfiguration:

Here, Jesus is transfigured into a glorified form (again, face shining like the sun) in plain sight of three of His disciples, all while He is very much alive in His physical body prior to the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

So, after the Resurrection and prior to the Ascension, Jesus looked pretty much like His normal self, and after ascending to heaven His appearance is described in glorified terms befitting the Son of God. So how will He appear during the Millennial Kingdom? Hmm...

Consider: Following the Resurrection, Jesus had 40 days to accomplish something of critical importance. The message of the gospel and the future of His Church depended on Jesus successfully doing this one thing:

He had to make His disciples believe the reality
of the Resurrection beyond any shadow of a doubt.

The disciples would be tasked with taking the gospel to the ends of the known world, and all except John would be martyred without ever once recanting the truth of the Resurrection, the foundation of that gospel.

The disciples had to know that it was really Him—that He had really risen from the grave. They had to know that the man who stood before them after the Resurrection was really the same Jesus they had followed for the past three and a half years—they had to know it with a certainty sufficient to cause them to sacrifice their lives proclaiming it. Think about it:

What if Jesus had appeared to His disciples after the Resurrection in some kind of glorified form, something like what John described in the book of Revelation, with eyes like a flame of fire and hair as white as wool and feet like burnished brass, with a sword coming out of His mouth, and so on and so forth? How do you think the disciples might have reacted?

Oh, they would have been amazed all right. They would have been completely blown away, to say the least.

But would they have been absolutely convinced that Jesus literally, physically rose from the dead?

That's the key question. Frankly, I'm not so sure. They might have believed they were hallucinating, or that He was a specter of some kind—that Jesus was somehow appearing to them from the spiritual dimension, not from within the framework of their real-world, physical reality. They might have believed any number of screwy things, but it strikes me as extremely unlikely they would have been so stone-cold convinced that the Jesus they knew and loved and followed for three and a half years physically rose from the dead through the power of God and was literally made alive again that they would have devoted the rest of their lives and died as martyrs boldly proclaiming it.

So, there's a very good reason why Jesus appeared in His normal human form during that 40-day period. Of course, after He proved the truth of the Resurrection beyond any doubt, that whole "Check it out—it's really me!" thing was rendered irrelevant. Nothing more needed to be proved in that regard.

Although the Church wouldn't officially be off and running until the day of Pentecost 10 days after the Ascension, the foundation started being laid that first Easter Sunday thanks in large part to the powerful testimony of those who saw Jesus alive and knew He had truly risen from the grave.

As a result, there is no longer any need for Jesus to appear to anyone the way He appeared during His life on earth. He is free to let it all hang out, so to speak, and display Himself to the world as the glorious Son of the living God that He is, and I am convinced that's exactly how He will appear during the Millennial Kingdom on earth—gloriously larger than life, not unlike the way John describes Him in the book of Revelation.

My point is that Jesus isn't really going to need an "image." Unlike the Antichrist and his image, when people worship Christ during the kingdom, they won't be worshiping an amazing, talking image that represents Christ—they will be worshiping the Son of God Himself in the most direct and personal way possible, as they should.

And I believe His appearance will make the image of the beast look like some trinket you'd pick up in a souvenir shop at Ben Gurion Airport.

Yes, the beast's image will be amazing—in the eyes of an unbelieving and deluded world, that is. And that raises another question:

Another question deals with the exact nature of the image itself. Will it just be a statue, or will it be a living creature of some kind, or what, exactly?

For starters, we can establish right off the bat that it will not be a mere statue or idol that is worshiped, and that's because Scripture clearly states that the False Prophet is somehow able to give it breath so it can speak (Rev. 13:15). Scripture makes it clear that neither applies to idols:

That means there's clearly something else going on here, and it strikes me that it can be argued in at least two different ways:

1. The image incorporates a lot of high technology which enables it to speak and do whatever else it does.

In other words, maybe John is being shown something that won't exist until the twenty-first century, but he has no choice but to describe it in the vocabulary of the first century. Thus he has to talk about the False Prophet giving the image "breath" and causing it to "speak" when it's really just the result of twenty-first-century technology.

But I don't think so. I don't believe this image is merely the result of high technology, no matter how advanced it may be. Think of it this way:

Q. Can you imagine anyone today worshiping the Giant for any reason?

A. No! Really?!

It's going to be a tourist attraction, for crying out loud. Oh, but it's so amazing! Well, yeah...but people today get high tech. We're accustomed to high tech. We see and use high tech every day. And a lot of new advances in technology these days are simply new combinations of technology that we're already familiar with. So, I don't see this being like...

"Ooooh...a talking statue!! C'mon, let's worship it!!"

Yawn. Even if the image of the beast involves technology well beyond that of the Giant, still...no clinically sane person today is going to worship something they know is nothing more than a bunch of circuit cards and computer chips.  Even people who believe Biden actually won the election  The vast majority of people today aren't that stupid and gullible.

2. The image is imbued by Satan with supernatural, demonic abilities.

Sure, the image may incorporate some high tech—I have no problem with that. Even though the strong delusion God sends in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 around the time of the abomination of desolation is for the purpose of influencing people to believe the lie that the Antichrist is in fact the prophesied Messiah and is worthy of worship as God, as far as the image of the beast is concerned...

The delusion makes people deluded.
It doesn't make them dimwitted.

Not the same thing. I am satisfied that there must be a supernatural element to this image that will help induce millions of people the world over to worship the beast's image and hence the beast as if he were divine. It hadn't occurred to me prior to working on this article, but it could possibly be that God allows Satan to incorporate such supernatural powers in the image of the beast as something that is part and parcel of that strong delusion.

Satan playing right into God's hands? You got that right.

Oh, can Satan actually do such supernatural things, you ask? Can Satan really imbue that image with supernatural power and abilities?

Ask Pharaoh's sorcerers:

Plus, the Antichrist and the False Prophet both work signs and wonders, and that ability doesn't come from a box of Cracker Jacks. Remember: Satan is only "restrained" during the Church Age, starting on the day of Pentecost two thousand years ago when the Holy Spirit made all born-again believers His temple on earth. At the Rapture, however, the Holy Spirit's temple will be relocated to heaven and Satan will once again be unrestrained in his efforts to be like the Most High (plus he will be in a really big hurry because he knows he doesn't have much time).

Give that image some supernatural powers? You can hide and watch.

I don't want to be overly dogmatic about it, but I am strongly inclined to go with this second option.

Since we're on the subject, I think it's worth mentioning that whatever this image is, it will not be a living creature. No more so than the Giant. In Revelation 13:15, the False Prophet gives breath to the image, and the word used in the Greek is pneuma (breath, wind, spirit).

But if the image were actually alive, John would almost certainly have used a different word, presumably zoe or bios, which are the two most common Greek words for "life." By using pneuma, it's as if John is suggesting the image may have the supernatural ability to speak, but is not alive in the normal sense of the word. Never forget:

Satan can take life, but he cannot give it.
He is a created being, not the Creator.

Incidentally, that's also one reason why most Bible commentators agree that the Antichrist's so-called "resurrection" will be a deception: Only a Creator God has the power to give life.

One other question that occurred to me has to do with subtleties that often accompany things of eschatological significance—things that only biblically knowledgeable people might notice. So...

Initially I had my doubts...but the closer I looked, the more I was convinced that there are indeed some rather subtle elements concerning the Giant that are enough to make the little prophetic hairs on the back of a believer's neck stand at attention.

The first item is the number most frequently associated with the Giant: 21. It's billed as the visitor attraction of the 21st century, and the company plans to build exactly 21 of these Giants in 21 cities around the world by the end of 2021. The sites have not all been determined yet, and the company is currently soliciting bids from various locations. Phoenix, Arizona is apparently interested, according to media reports.

But that begs the question:

Is there any biblical significance to the number 21?

As a matter of fact there is—and I admit this came as a bit of a surprise to me. I wrote an article about biblical numerics back in 2014, but I skipped the number 21 because I wasn't aware of any special meanings connected to it. Turns out I should have dug a little deeper.

According to what I have managed to dig up, the number 21 is associated with a hightened level of sin and rebellion, and here is what I missed about it: It can be regarded as the sum of 13 and 8.

The number 13 is also associated with depravity, rebellion, and sinfulness. Judas, who betrayed Christ, is considered the 13th member of the group consisting of Jesus and the 12 disciples. Note that Judas is named last in all three places where the names of all twelve disciples are listed (Matt. 10:1–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16). The Antichrist and his image are introduced in the 13th chapter of the book of Revelation, and in the Old Testament Haman planned to exterminate all the Jews on the 13th of Adar (Esther 3:13).

The number 8 is the number of new beginnings, since it follows 7, the number of divine completion. For example, the "8th day" is the first day of a new week, and so on. The gematria for Jesus' name in Greek (Ιησους) is 888—He is our new beginning in the Spirit.

Adding 8 to another number, however, tends to indicate an elevated, more intense degree of whatever it's being added to. So, adding 8 to 13 indicates a whole new level of sin, depravity, and rebellion, and that's what 21 signifies.

As an illustration, notice that when Paul wrote to Timothy and rattled off a laundry list of sinful traits that would characterize the last days, he listed exactly 21 of them:

So that's one thing. Another thing that caught my attention was graphics that appear on the base of the statue in the promotional material.

If you look carefully at the 23–25 second mark of the promotional video I linked to in the beginning of the article, you will notice there is an image of what appears to be some type of ancient god on the base of the statue, and he seems to resemble a hooded executioner (here's a webpage that affords you a good look at what I'm talking about).

Notice that there are three heads below him—the largest one is obviously Einstein and the two smaller ones are people I can't quite make out well enough to identify with any degree of certainty. But the images are arranged in such a way that it could easily be interpreted to suggest they have just been beheaded by the hooded executioner.

A hooded executioner...heads at his feet...I'm sorry, but are you picking up on this?! There is one thing that has always amazed me about Satan, and that's how often he tips his hand.

Satan must have thought he was being pretty sly and subtle with this one, but uhh...not so much. We are told in Scripture that beheading will be the mode of choice for capital punishment during the Tribulation:

So there you are. That's basically what you have in the Giant:

A foreshadowing of the image of the beast
and a foreshadowing of what is going to be
done to those who refuse to worship the beast.

Coming soon to a city near you.

Only one

I have seen a number of people lately speculating up a storm about the possible technical aspects of the image of the beast and what it may be able to do and how it may be able to do it and so forth—and apparently a few excitable folks are even convinced this Giant statue actually is the image of the beast. Well, it's not, and I feel no great compulsion to wander too far down the road of speculation about the technical details of the beast's image. The reasons for that are twofold:

1. I don't know.
2. I don't care.

I don't mean to sound dismissive or anything, but we won't be here to witness the beast or his image. Scripture tells us all we need to know about the beast and his abomination, whatever it's going to look like and whatever it will be capable of doing. So I see little point in engaging in wild speculation about the technical details.

On the other hand, of course, it is exciting to see such a clear foreshadowing of the image of the beast, and it is sobering to realize that even now the world is being prepped to embrace such a thing in the comparatively near future.

The Giant. I only have one thing to say to the creators and promoters of the Giant, who seek to erect 21 of these creepy monstrosities in 21 cities by the end of 2021:

Sorry guys, but there is only
one Giant in the end times.

And He's not programmable or covered with millions of LED pixels. Neither will He take on the appearance of Cat Woman or Captain America.

What He will do is rule the world with a rod of iron, and His glorious, 1,000-year kingdom will soon be launched without those who foolishly worshiped an abomination that was little more than a flimsy prop in Satan's futile attempt to mimic and supplant Him in the end times.

If you watched the five-minute promotional video I linked to at the outset of the article, you may recall that near the end the following cliché appears:

Awaken the Giant in you!

Unfortunately, the only "giant" we have in us is a giant sin nature, and it doesn't need to be awakened—it needs to be crucified. We are the ones who need to be "awakened" to the truth of the gospel and be born again—and when we are, we are eternally secure in Christ, the real Giant of the end times.

So, forget the slap-happy schlock about awakening the Giant in you...the only question that matters is this:

Are you awakened in the Giant?

Greg Lauer — JUN '21

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