The time the beast got the closest to accomplishing that goal (before the time that is prophesied in our text) was at the Tower of Babel. Make no mistake about it, the devil’s intentions there, way back then already, were to establish a worldwide anti-Christian kingdom. That was the only time in the history of the world that the world was truly united under one head. When all nations and all peoples came together as one body to overthrow God’s rule in heaven and to establish the rule of man upon the earth. But because it was not time yet, God intervened and scattered men across the face of the earth, giving them many different languages and different cultures, so that they could not so easily unite as one world together once again.
God wounded the beast there, giving him a stroke that was unto death by ruining that anti-Christian kingdom there. And that is the wound that the text refers to that is now healed. Revelation 13:3:
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the best.When was this worldwide political power wounded unto death? It was back there at the Tower of Babel, where this beast otherwise would have risen out of the sea and taken over the world in a blasphemous revolt against God. And for how long has the devil been working to heal that wound, to overcome that stroke, to overcome the language barrier and the natural division between men, to produce once again on the face of the earth a united one world kingdom of blasphemy? He has been working. He is working at it now. And it is getting close. And in this future anti-Christian kingdom, Satan will be fully loosed by God to finally accomplish it.Revelation 20:1–15 says at the end of the 1000 years (those 1000 years is the whole New Testament period), at the end of the New Testament age, the devil be loosed for a season. Right now God still has him bound. Perhaps He is slowly loosing him, but God has him bound, keeping him from establishing this one world kingdom, so that the gospel can have free course throughout the earth and gather the spiritual kingdom’s saints amongst the nations of men. But when that purpose of God is nearly accomplished, God will loose Satan for a time, so that he can fully deceive the nations and bind them as one in order for rebellion. God will allow men to fill up the cup of iniquity in that day. He will allow the full depravity of man to flower in one worldwide development. The devil will have convinced all men to unite in full rebellion against God, overturning all of God's revelation to men.1
Cory Griess
3 One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.