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Revelation 13-14
What do you see when you look at the world around you? If I asked you – what’s the state of
play in your world? how do you see things? What would you say?
Would you mention the weather?
Would you talk about your moods or health? The state of local government? National government? World affairs? The economy? Your job? Your
family? Your relationships? If I asked you ‘How do you see
things?’ where would you look to give me an anwer?
Where we look is incredibly important. When you look to see what’s good and true and real about
life – what you look at to tell you the truth could not be more
crucial. Jesus said this in the
sermon on the mount.
"The
eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will
be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body
will be full of darkness.” (Matthew 6:22-23)
Where you look to tell you what’s what – that will determine the
whole of your life. If what you
look to is good, your whole life will be set on the right path. If what you look to is bad, you will
be full of darkness.
What do you look at to tell you how things really are? Because actually the things we see
around us every day don’t tell us what we really need to know. The weatherman tells me it’s raining,
the newswoman tells me there’s a credit crunch, the politian tells me
there’s a pensions crisis, the doctor tells me there’s a health scare,
the policeman tells me there’s a war on terror, the scientist tells me
there’s global warming, but none of them tell me what’s really going
on. Those issues, as big as they
seem, are NOT what’s really going on.
Those things are not the deepest truths of our world. They are not the things we should look
to to tell us what’s what.
That’s why it’s god to study Revelation. Revelation literally means ‘Something uncovered, disclosed,
revealed. Something shown for what it really is.’ Revelation reveals to us what’s really
going on. Because John who wrote
it was caught up above this world, above the skies, above the stars – he
is taken to the very control centre of the universe. John is shown the One who sits on the
throne. He is shown Jesus the
Lamb. He is shown the Seven-fold
Spirit of God. He is shown all of
history as the unfolding of this great God’s purpose for the world. And this book is John writing down
what he saw.
63 times John says ‘I looked’ or ‘I saw’ or ‘I was watching’. John shows us reality as it
really is. And perhaps you think
his version of reality looks pychadelic, melodramatic, over the top. I think if John was here he’d tell us
– we aint seen nothing yet. When
we see what John saw we will know that this life is every bit serious,
Christ’s judgement is every bit as fearful, God’s victory is every bit as
joyful, as what we read here.
John’s vision is not over the top. Our vision is so small and weak.
Pray to get true vision.
In these two chapters John says ‘I saw’ five times. We want to see what he saw so let’s
look at the five visions he saw.
1) First in verse 1 of chapter 13 John says ‘I saw a beast coming
out of the see.’ That’s vision
number one – the Sea Beast.
2) Next in verse 11 John says ‘Then
I saw another beast, coming out of the earth.’ That’s vision number two – the Land
Beast.
3) Then in chapter 14 verse 1 John says ‘Then
I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and
with him 144,000.’ That’s vision three, the
Lamb and the 144 000.
4) Then from chapter 14 verse 6 John sees three angels with a
message for the earth.
5) Finally from chapter 14 verse 14 there’s one like a ‘son of man’
who harvests the earth.
Let’s dive into these five visions. First the Sea Beast.
And here we pick up where we left off in Revelation 12 with the
menacing presence of the Dragon.
Look back at chapter 12:4. (Half way through the verse it says
this…)
The
dragon [who is Satan] stood in front of the woman who was about to give
birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. 5
She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with
an iron sceptre. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
Here Satan seeks to destroy Christ but Christ is snatched up to
heaven but the people of God, represented by the woman, go on the run
from the Dragon. And the Dragon
is mad. Look at verse 17:
Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war
against the rest of her offspring--those who obey God's commandments and
hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Satan is enraged at Christian – He is at war with us. He was set to make war against Christ
– the offspring of the woman. And
then, frustrated, he goes off to make war with all the offspring of the
woman. All those who obey God’s
commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus – that is, Christians.
And this is the fulfilment of a very ancient prophesy. Way back in Genesis 3 the promise was
that there would be war between the Serpent (Satan) and the offspring of
the woman. But actually the
prophesy also mentioned that there’d be war between the offspring of the
serpent and the offspring of the woman.
Just as the woman would have an offspring, so would the
serpent. So where is the
serpent’s offspring? Chapter 13:
the Sea Beast is a real chip off the Dragon’s block. Verse 2, he looks just like the Dragon
who chapter 12 also told us seven heads, ten
horns and ten crowns. And the
Dragon and the Beast work together.
Half way through verse 3 it says:
The
dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.
Just as God the Father and God the Son work
together, so Satan and His offspring the Sea Beast work together. In fact we’ll see in a moment that
there really is an unholy trinity, because the Land Beast is the third
person of this Demonic family.
Satan does not work from a distance, he has agents in the
world. And the Sea Beast is a
Satanic agent who wields Satan’s power.
Who is the Sea Beast? Well, verse 2 he looks like a leopard,
a bear and a lion. And if you
know your Old Testament you know that the these animals are depicted in
Daniel 7 as oppressive world empires.
This beast represents state power. And it’s a world-wide power – (v7 and 8)
7 He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer
them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and
nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the
beast--all whose names have not been written in the book of life
(belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.)
What do you think of as the basic political
divides? Right versus left? Labour versus Conservative? Progressive versus traditional? No the
basic divide behind every political headline is – the beast versus the
saints. You will not read this in
any of your daily newspapers but this is reality. What is truly newsworthy is the
progress or suffering of the church.
That’s not what we read in our newspapers but it is what’s closest
to the heart of the One who sits on the throne.
The real political divide is that the world
is divided into those who belong to Jesus and those who belong to the
beast. There is no third
way. Now the beast can take many
forms. It could be an Islamic
government, it could be Communist, it could be secular humanist. And sometimes the beast looks very
beastly to the world. With Nero or Hitler or Stalin it’s easier to see
monstrous power being wielded but the beast is not any of those
individuals. The beast is a power
behind the kingdoms of this world which seeks to snuff out His
church.
Will we have our eyes opened to the reality
of the Sea Beast? Satan is at
work in and through political power and the real political issues concern
how the church is faring in the face of hostile governments.
Second vision is the Land Beast. And where the Sea Beast represents
false political power, the Land Beast represents false religious
power. Because, v11, he may look
like a lamb but he speaks like the dragon. This power looks spiritual, it may even look Christian, but
it is satanic. The Land Beast,
v12, ‘made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast.’ Here is religion in cahoots with the
state. And it’s powerfully
deceptive and powerfully controlling.
It’s deceptive, v13, because ‘he performed
great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to
earth in full view of men.’ False
religion also has miraculous power.
Do you remember Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh? Many of the miraculous signs they
performed were also performed by the Egyptian magicians. Or do you remember the words of Jesus
in Matthew chapter 7: ‘Many will say to me on that [last] day, ‘Lord,
Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons
and perform many miracles?' Jesus
says He never knew those people.
And yet they perform many miracles. There is spiritual power out in the world but not all of it
is good. And if it’s not serving
the Lamb it’s serving the beast.
This is why, v14, the power of the beast is so deceptive. But it’s also controlling. Look at v16:
He
also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to
receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17 so
that no-one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name
of the beast or the number of his name.
Unless you buy into this state religion you
will be frozen out socially, politically and economically. In the Roman Empire you could get on
in the Empire fine even if you had your own personal religious views. You just had to admit that Caesar is
Lord – and in that way deny that Jesus is Lord. So Christians were constantly tempted to receive the mark
of the beast and deny the Lamb.
In the former Soviet Union a Christian could get work but only so
long as they belonged to the communist party, and in that way you would publicly disavow your Christian
beliefs. But Revelation says –
that is to receive the mark of the beast. But it doesn’t just happen in totalitarian regimes. It happens in school, it happens in
the workplace, it happens wherever Christians encounter
non-Christians. We are always
tempted to belong to the world, to share in that joke, to join in with
that rumour mill, to seek acceptance with the world on the world’s terms. We want to have access to the
inner-ring and in a world dominated by anti-Christian sentiments and so
we too are tempted to bear the mark of the beast.
What is the mark?
Well when all is said and done about the
beast the great shock of his identity is there in verse 18. His name is a number and it is “man’s
number.” Here is the shock – the beast is
man. But man not under God’s
authority but Satan’s. Both men
and beasts are day six creations.
And in Genesis man was meant to rule over the beasts but instead
we obeyed the beast and disobeyed God.
Ever since the inhabitants of the earth have been in an upside
down kingdom, ruled by the ancient serpent, Satan, made beastly in
opposition to God.
And so the beast wears
man’s number – 6. But not just
one 6, the beast is 666. Because
counterfeit worship is being offered to man here.
In
Revelation, divine worship is offered in threes. “Holy Holy Holy”. Is the One “who is and was and is to
come.” Jesus Christ is “the
faithful witness, firstborn from dead, ruler of kings of earth.” “Glory, honour, thanks.” “Power, authority, a throne.”
Three-fold repetition is usually about divinity.
(Four-fold
repetition is usually about universality (nation, tribe, people tongue /
heaven, earth, sea, springs of water… Add them you get 7: ‘power, wealth,
wisdom, strength, honour, glory, praise.’ But when God and the world, when heaven and earth marry –
they become fruitful and multiply and by the end of Revelation you
get loads of 12s.)
So
what do you get when you deify man?
666. And that is the
essence of the beast – to put man in the place of God (to put yourself in
the place of God) is to follow the beast, to bear his mark and to face
his fate. That’s the second
vision here.
Now,
skipping over the third vision we come to vision number four: the three
angels:
From
verse 6 we three angels with a message for the inhabitants of the
earth. The first has the eternal
gospel to proclaim to every nation, tribe, language and people. The entire world is worshipping the
beast, yet God has good news for the whole world. V7 – Worship God. The essential matters of life and
death of heaven and hell hinge on our worship. What do we give ourselves to? What do we fear (that’s the word in v7). What we fear tells us what we
value. Some people really fear
having their car stolen, not me.
Why? Cos it’s not a
valuable car, it cost me nothing, so I don’t fear losing it. What you fear is what you value. Do you fear God? Do you value Him? Do you give Him glory? Do you praise God or do you seek praise
for yourself? Heaven and hell
hinges on who we fear, who we worship, who we praise, to whom we give
glory.
The
second angel tells the world that Babylon the Great is fallen. In Revelation Babylon is code-name for
a great power very much associated with these beasts. Babylon is a city of power which is
also called the mother of all prostitutes. And here we see another angle on what worshipping the beast
looks like. It looks like
committing adultery with a harlot.
It’s prostituting yourself to the powers of this world and doing
so even though they are tottering under God’s judgement and about to
fall.
Then
the third angel tells us the consequences of this spiritual
adultery. Verse 9:
“If anyone worships the beast
and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, 10
he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full
strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning
sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11
And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest
day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone
who receives the mark of his name."
Usually
we speak of hell in euphemistic terms.
We might speak of perishing or destruction or a place where God
isn’t or a Christless eternity.
Here we see that hell is a reality in the presence of Christ. He is jailor and executioner. The word ‘torment’ is used twice in
these verses. Spiritual adultery,
worshipping anything but the Lamb, will be punished eternally. These three angels are flying through
the air to tell the whole world.
There is urgency to get to every nation, tribe, language and
people. All people must find
refuge in the Lamb or they will face the wrath of the Lamb for all
eternity.
The final
scene shows us this reality again from another angle. Here ‘one like a son of man’ harvests
the earth. And really it’s hard
to say which is the more striking image of judgement – the cup of wrath
or here the winepress of God’s wrath.
Verse 19:
19 The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes
and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath. 20
They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed
out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of
1,600 stadia.
Just
as there has been a comprehensive opposition to the Lamb so we see here
comprehensive judgement of those who oppose Him. In Revelation 19 we learn that Jesus
Himself treads out the winepress of God’s wrath – His own robes are
stained in the blood of this judgement.
What
do you see when you look at the world.
The odd economic problem or ecological scare? Do you see only your own difficulties
or challenges? John has eyes to
see the real issue before us.
There will be a harvest of the earth.
A
friend of mine became a Christian aged fourteen. Not from a Christian home, had no
Christian background but one day he decided to pick up the bible and read
it – and the book he read was Revelation. Now we hear that and think – I would never recommend that
anyone read Revelation first. I
wonder whether we naturally want to hide passages like this one away from
people. But he read Revelation on
his own, and he was especially spoken to by judgement passages like this
one. He didn’t have anyone to
explain the book to him but he understood enough to know that there is a
harvest coming. Jesus is coming
back and He will judge the earth.
And that perspective – that vision – was what he needed to wake up
to reality and to ask Jesus for salvation from that day.
And
that’s where I want to leave us tonight, salvation. So let’s look at the middle vision –
chapter 14, verse 1.
Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount
Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written
on their foreheads.
Here is the church
safe on mount Zion with the Lamb.
And I believe this is a present reality. The book of Hebrews describes our current experience of
salvation in these terms:
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city
of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in
joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose
names are written in heaven.
Christians are those
who do not associate with the world and its beastly powers but with
heaven and the Lamb. And the
difference could not be more marked.
In chapter 13:16, the beast ‘forced’ (‘made’) everyone
to have his number engraved on them.
And that’s a word that means stamped, engraved, etched, imprinted,
branded. The beast brands you, the Lamb writes His name on you. Those who follow the beast are forced
to receive the mark, those who follow the Lamb rejoice to belong to
Him. This is a very different
gathering. And it’s one not based
on deception and fear but on seeing and rejoicing.
2 And I heard a
sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of
thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.
3
And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living
creatures and the elders. No-one could learn the song except the 144,000
who had been redeemed from the earth.
Here is the true inner
ring to belong to. Not the
beast’s market but the Lamb’s choir.
We feel frozen out of a world dominated by the beast, but here is
something just for Christians.
Here is true worship of Jesus which the world is really missing
out on. Here is something to
enjoy that more than makes up for everything we forsake in not following
the beast.
4
These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept
themselves pure. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were
purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb.
Literally when it says
pure the word is ‘virgins’. Christians are those who do not commit
adultery with Babylon (v8). They
are those who remain faithful to their heavenly Love Jesus.
And that’s the secret
of living above the persecutions and the temptations of the beast and
this fallen world – cultivating your relationship with your true Love
Jesus.
Worship imagery
What astonishes you, is glorious in your sight, makes you bow
down, controls you, leads you, makes you sing
Adultery imagery
To what do you
give your heart? What attracts
you
Market imagery
What do you buy into? What
do you put great value on? What
is worthy in your sight?
Those who follow the
beast follow Him to destruction
Those who follow the
Lamb, follow Him to glory
Those who commit
adultery with the beast will drink with her
Those who remain
faithful to the Lamb will sing with Him
Those who buy into the
beast will be harvested
Those who are bought
by the Lamb will be saved
Before Emma and I were
married we spent a long time on opposite sides of the world. We were engaged to be married but we
didn’t see each other. But that
meant we were very eager to keep in close contact. And because we cultivated that
long-distance relationship and because we were looking forward to the
wedding day we were faithful to one another. It was unthinkable for us to go after anyone else. Our hearts belonged to each other.
We are engaged to
Jesus. We don’t see Him now, but
we will. And in the meantime we
keep in close contact. And we
look forward to being together forever.
In the meantime we are faithful.
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