Westwood Presbyterian Church

August 16th, 2009

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

Revelation 12:1 to 14:20  - "The Beast Times Three"

 

     Today in our journey through Revelation we meet the dragon, the beast and a second beast; the number of the beast 666; and the 144,000 for a second time. All of which have become major points of discussion among those commenting on this book – what do they mean?

     Before going any further we need to remind ourselves of one of the interpretative rules that we laid out two weeks ago – whatever we think a section of the book of Revelation is saying has to make sense to us, but it also would have had to make sense to the first readers of the book, and the readers of the book 200 years ago, and so on. That means that determining that a particular person is “The Beast” does not make a lot of sense because there is no one person who is alive on this earth now who was also alive 200 years ago let alone 1,900 years ago. The question we need to ask is what is meant – and once we have a handle on that, move to applying that truth.

 

(READ Revelation 12:1-9)

 

     Chapters 12-14 do not fit the pattern of 7’s that have dominated the book – 7 seals, 7 trumpets, of the last two week – 7 bowls up coming – but here there is a break in the model.

     The section begins with a woman in labour, she gives birth to a son who is born to rule the world – but the dragon (an enemy of the woman) tries to kill the son – but the son is rescued and kept safe. A woman gives birth to a son born to be king – sounds a lot like Christmas – and that the son is rescued from the forces of evil at the last minute – sounds even more like Christmas and the flight of the little family to Egypt. Here in the middle of the book of Revelation we have the Christmas story – the story is placed in a big context – no stable and shepherds (important as they are). This time the story is told from the perspective of heaven. There is a battle going on between God and the dragon – and if we are confused about the dragon – John makes sure that we know who the dragon is – a little later in chap. 12 he says it is the ancient serpent, Satan, the Devil. And from the moment of Jesus arrival on earth as a helpless babe – Satan sought to destroy him. Tried to stop Jesus’ mission from being accomplished. But over and over again God intervened – the mission was accomplished. The lamb was slain, and lives again.

     The battle between God and Satan is not a one shot deal – the conflict goes back to the dawn of time – and will continue until time on this earth is no more. The conflict between good and evil – was first fought out in heaven – and then when Satan and his supporters got thrown out of heaven – they came to the earth to continue their destruction and deception.

 

(READ Revelation 13:11-18)

 

     Among the dragon’s (Satan’s) forces are two creatures – a beast from the sea that appears to have taken a mortal wound but has survived it. We are being invited to hear the parody of the lamb that was slain. Here Satan conjures up a being who looks like it had been killed but survived the lethal blow. It only appears that way – for Satan is a great deceiver.

     And then the dragon calls up a beast from the land whose job it is to invite everyone on earth to come and worship the beast that appears to have been mortally wounded – but survived. This second beast is able to do miracles and perform amazing signs.

     And so we have a trinity of Satan – the dragon, the first beast (a parody of Jesus), and the second beast (who functions in much the way the Holy Spirit does.) This is a direct take off of the Holy Trinity – Satan is attempting to replace God – attempting to create a pattern and model that will deceive people into following Satan and not God. That this is the goal becomes even clearer as we move into the question of the mark of the beast.      

     Before we get there we need to remind ourselves of two things. First, the people of Israel were told in the book of Deuteronomy to make little boxes in which the law of God was written and they were to sew them into cloth so that they could tie the cloth around their heads and on the wrists of the right hands. They were also to place them on the right side of door frames. The house my parents bought on Sydney, NS had been owned by a Jewish family – and on the right hand side of every doorway were marks that had been the place where the little box containing the law of God had been placed. So the people of Israel and their houses were marked – marked as belonging to God.

     As I said to the children in children’s time – we who have been baptized have been marked – marked by the waters of baptism. Marked on our foreheads with the sign of the cross which declares to the world to whom we belong. We are here dripping wet from the waters of baptism – marked forever. Tragically we have so downplayed the significance of baptism that we do not understand that while we may not have the wet visible on our foreheads – in the eyes of God we have been marked – marked with water which is always there. All who have been baptized know this truth – we are not our own, we are not free agents – we belong to God.

     The dragon – Satan – wants to make sure that those who serve him are marked as well, Satan is staking his claim. Now what is the sign – the number is 666. And oceans of ink have been spilt on determining who exactly this is whose name is 666. To understand what this means we need to understand something about the meaning of numbers in the ancient world. The perfect number is 7 – don’t ask me what is perfect about 7 – I don’t know – but it is important to know that 7 is perfect and holy. Therefore if we were going to write the number of the Triune God it would be 777. 6 is one short of 7 – it does not come up to 7. Sin is falling short – missing the mark – it is 6. So 666 is a trinity of sin – a trinity of evil – it is the number of Satan’s attempt to imitate the trinity.

     So the issue is not the literal number 666 – the issue is anything that seeks to replace God – to become God – to take the place of God in our lives or in our world. Anything demanding we become loyal to it rather than loyal to God is seeking to mark us in line with the beast – not in line with God. Anything that would seek to mark us as belonging to it – when we know that we belong to God is to be avoided.

     Then comes the part that catches us living in consumer-driven, materialist North America – only those with the mark of the beast – only those having declared their loyalty to the structures and systems of the beast will be able to buy and sell. Those not loyal to the trinity of evil will suffer persecution – economic persecution, inability to get ahead, loss of status, fewer opportunities, political persecution, imprisonment, and even death. The forces of evil – of destruction – of Satan are ruthless they will do whatever it takes to win – including killing – obliterating those loyal to the Triune God.

     Let us not for one moment be naïve – our Christian sisters and brothers around the world are facing this reality right now. In Iran, this past Sunday two women Maryam and Marzieh were brought before an Islamic Revolutionary court and pressured to recant their Christian faith. They have been in jail since earlier this year. In response to questioning, they said they loved Jesus and yes, they were Christians, and no, they would not recant their faith. When told that they were unworthy of having God speak to them – the women replied that it was up to God and not human courts to decide who was worthy of being spoken to by God. The women were sent back to prison to rethink their answers – the two have made clear that they have done their thinking – they are committed to Jesus. Maryam and Marzieh would not ask us to pray for them to be freed from prison, they would ask us to pray that they would have the courage to remain faithful come what may. They would ask us to be prepared to enter into the faith that they have.

     While in our country people do not get thrown in jail simply for being Christians, in our country people do suffer because of their Christian faith.

 

     We look at all of this have a tendency to go one of two ways – neither is helpful.

     The first approach is to decide that it is safer to keep our head down and let no one know about our Christian faith. It is fine at home and with our church friends. We may even say a few things to very close friends. But we turn the Christian faith into a personal, private matter which has very little impact in how we live our public lives, and we certainly would not publicly state that we follow God – that Jesus is our first loyalty. So we turn the Christian faith into an exercise that is about me, my health, and the health and well-bring of my family. When it comes to taking on the reality of evil in our world – to challenge the ways in which evil is bringing destruction on people – that we will not do – that is getting into the world of politics and we all know that religion and politics don’t mix. And we end up with a quietist faith that is personal and private.

     The second approach is to decide that we will fight the forces of evil with the same political tactics they use: coercion, inflammatory rhetoric, back-room deals, rewarding friends, punishing enemies – and so on. This gets things done – legislation is passed and in the process morality is legislated. And state force gets used to ensure people do the right thing. In this process we have become like the political forces we are opposed to. This looks little like the call to be Christians who turn the other cheek and we do not seek their own benefit – but rather seek the benefit of their enemies.

     The shocking news is that Christians are called to live their faith in public ways, we are called to say to the powers of the day “Thus saith the Lord” – we are called to stand with those who have no voice – or whose voices are drowned out in the chaos of our world. All of this is public and costly. Following Jesus is costly – and Jesus knows just how great the cost is. He died – they killed him because he spoke publicly about good and evil, about God and Satan, about making a choice about who to serve.

 

(READ Revelation 14:1-5, 12-13)

 

     That brings us to the 144,000 – or 12 times 12,000 – if 7 is the number of perfection. 12 is the number of fullness or completion. This is 12 times 12 – two 12s – double fullness – double completion. This is not saying that there are only 144,000 places in heaven – it is saying that when the completion has arrived God will act to vindicate those who have followed him.

     Here is the really hard part – the 144,000 – the complete number of martyrs for the faith know this – there is something worse than physical death. Jesus himself said – “Do not fear those who can kill the body, fear those who can kill the soul.” Being loyal to the mark on our foreheads – being loyal to the One who has called us his own – being faithful to our promise to follow – that is more important than this life. John does not write this easily – and I hope you do not hear me saying this easily – John writes “Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.” But through the history of the church, Christian martyrs have understood that death is preferable to denying the one who loved them to the point of death. And surprisingly the church has discovered that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church – that under persecution, when being a Christian costs – people turn to the faith.

 

     What do we do with all this? We are called to live our faith publicly – visibly – no matter what the cost. Our faith is to impact every part of our lives – including the way we engage in the public realities of life. We have this public engagement not so that we can benefit – but so that others might benefit. We engage in the public process not so we can gain more rights – but so that others might be freed from the destructive forces of Satan and his henchmen. There is nothing more winning, more compelling than people who are prepared to give themselves away for someone else. There is nothing more attractive than people who do not care about themselves – but sacrifice themselves so that others might live flourishing lives.