Happy Birthday, America!

Two hundred fifty years ago—July 4, 1776—delegates from America’s 13 colonies unanimously voted to adopt what is considered today “one of the most circulated, reprinted, and influential documents in history.”[1] Historian David Armitage refers to the Declaration of Independence as “the birth certificate of the U.S.,” since it is “the first public printed document in which the very words ‘United States of America’ appear.”[2]

Still lofty and eloquent is its proclamation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”[3]

But two and a half centuries later the dark warning of an ancient apocalyptic prophecy portends a very different America, an America today rapidly morphing into the earth beast of Revelation: “Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people” (Rev. 13:11-13, NIV).

Who is this earth beast power? Consider these six embedded clues to its identity:

1. It is seen “coming out of the earth” (Rev. 13:11). The Greek verb for coming out or rising up is the same root word describing the thorns springing up in Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matt. 13:7).

2. It springs up “out of the earth”(Rev. 13:11). Hence its moniker earth beast. This is in contradistinction to the earlier sea beast in Revelation 13 (verse 1) that emerges out of the briny sea. As the angel informed John, apocalyptic waters represent “peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages” (Rev. 17:15). History will show the earth beast, unlike the sea beast, emerging far away from the crowded thoroughfares of humanity.

3. “Then I saw a second beast” (Rev. 13:11, NIV). Clearly some sort of sequence is taking place. First, there is the seven-headed sea beast, and “then” comes the earth beast. So what has just transpired with the sea beast before the earth beast springs up? One of the heads of the sea beast is fatally wounded (verse 3), leading God to declare its doom: “He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword” (Rev. 13:10). The Protestant Reformers identified this apocalyptic power—depicted as the “little horn” in Daniel 7 and the sea beast in Revelation 13—as the antichrist power that ruled from Rome during the 1,260 years of the dark and bloody Middle Ages and warred “against God’s holy people” (verse 7, NIV). But the antichrist power was mortally wounded at the end of that period (verse 3). “The tremendous storm of the French Revolution was about to break and to sweep away the church, with the nobility, the throne, and kindred ancient institutions. . . . In 1798 Rome was made a republic by French arms, and Pope Pius VI (1775-1799) carried a prisoner to France, where he died.”[4] At that same time, springing up in a barren land far away from Europe, comes a new power whose “birth certificate” is stamped July 4, 1776, whose Constitution is ratified in 1788, whose power begins to ascend just as the sea beast is fatally wounded. Who is this earth beast? Keep reading.

4. “It had two horns like a lamb” (Rev. 13:11, NIV). But unlike the sea beast with its 10 horns and 10 crowns (clearly a monarchy), this earth beast has no crowns—it is not a monarchy. With its two lambkin horns, it instead rises as a champion of both civil and religious liberty. It actually appears lamblike. Given that “the Lamb” is the numero-uno Hero in the Apocalypse (mentioned nearly 30 times), this earth beast apparently appears to be a Christlike or Christian power.

5. But “it spoke like a dragon” (Rev. 13:11, NIV). If this earth beast is the power you are beginning to think it is, then this dragon-speak is a troubling harbinger. Because even in its beginning, it was dragon-speak that drove the original inhabitants (First Nations’ natives) from their own land. And sadly, it is dragon-speak that shaped this same eventual global power into one of the largest slave-trafficking nation-states on earth. Dragon behavior with a lamblike appearance? Whose side is this earth beast on?

“America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!”[5] So we sing; so we pray.

Two and a half centuries later the dark warning of an ancient apocalyptic prophecy portends a very different America.

And pray we must! Ellen White penned a sweeping benediction for this land now 250 years old: “The Lord has done more for the United States than for any other country upon which the sun shines.”[6] Is America God-blessed? Indeed. But a few sentences later comes this warning: “But the enemy of all righteousness has designs upon God’s purpose for this country. . . . The law of God, through the agency of Satan, is to be made void. In our land of boasted freedom, religious liberty will come to an end.”[7]

Because there is one more identifying clue we must consider. It is the critical game-changer. And it is already in place. Join me here next time for The Endgame—5. The finis is nearer than we think.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence#:~:text=The%20Declaration%20of%20Independence%2C%20formally,and%20influential%20documents%20in%20history

[2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/11/life-and-times-of-the-birth-certificate-of-the-u-s/#:~:text=First%2Dyears%20spend%20semester%20delving,around%20the%20time%20the%20U.S.

[3] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

[4] Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), p. 521.

[5] https://www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/america-the-beautiful.html#google_vignette

[6] Ellen G. White, Maranatha: The Lord Is Coming (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1976) p. 193.

[7] Ibid. (Emphasis supplied.)