Revelation 13:1-10 – So You Think You’re a Big Shot?

We Presbyterians recognize that idolatry is the root of sinfulness. At times, we make idols out of ourselves and believe that anything is permissible, so long as we benefit from it. Other times, we sin by serving other causes or institutions; they may be good things in themselves, but when we over-emphasize them our lives get out of whack. These days, it seems as though we’ve become polytheists when it comes to idolatry. There are so many different gods that we’re trying to serve that we never get a moment’s rest. And that, of course, leads to a violation of the Fourth Commandment for rest.

This passage deals with idolatry at the next level. Not only are tempted to give our primary allegiance and devotion to things and people other than God, but there are forces in the world that believe that they deserve it. This isn’t always the case. I think of an otherwise-devout grandmother who didn’t bring her grandson to Vacation Bible School because he had baseball practice, and “of course baseball is more important.” This is a case in which baseball had become an idol, but I don’t think anyone associated with baseball would say that it’s the most powerful or important thing in the world (although maybe I’m wrong!). I’m thinking instead of institutions that are so important that we’re tempted to place Christianity in their service. Take family, for example. The famous saying goes “The family that prays together, stays together.” While that may be true, do you notice where the emphasis is placed in that proverb? The most important thing is to keep the family together. So let’s worship God in order to keep our family strong. Priority should be given to God, not the family. A better slogan would be something that tells us that it’s good to have strong families because this enables everyone to serve and praise God better. Our nation is another example. Some people argue that it’s in our nation’s best interest to have faith play a larger role in social discourse. The USA will be better and stronger if we as a nation acknowledge God’s lordship. That may be, but it misses the point entirely. Our focus should be upon how to live faithfully for God, and not upon the nation.

Here, we find a demonic force at work in the world that believes it’s the most powerful and important thing around. And the people of the world (except for those redeemed by Christ) buy into the lie. This beast is like Goliath, the champion of the Philistines who taunted the Israelite army. He was big and strong and boastful. He taunted the Israelites for being to weak to stand up against him. Goliath’s impudence was one thing; what was even worse was the fact that the Israelite soldiers believed him. When he told that he’d wup them, they believed him and ran and hid. The only person on the Israelite side of the battle lines who saw the truth was David, who couldn’t believe that everyone was letting Goliath talk like that. And when he protested, his big brother told him to shut up.

Chapters 12 and 13 of Revelation present what I call the Unholy Trinity: three demonic beings or forces who are at work to oppose God and deceive the people of the earth. We met the first in Chapter 12: the dragon who tried to keep Jesus out of the world and who was thwarted in his attempts to destroy the people of God. In the first half of Chapter 13, we meet the second being: the beast who came out of the sea. This sea-beast wasn’t in opposition with the dragon, but actually worked together with him. Verse 2 says that the dragon gave the sea-beast the power and authority that it wielded. We’ve already identified the dragon as Satan; the sea-beast is the social-political-military-economic powers of the world, the human forces that drive history. The way the sea-beast appears in John’s vision gives us some hints about it. First, the fact that it emerges from the sea brings up two points. First, the sea was understood by the Israelites (who were not a sea-faring people) as an uncertain, evil, forboding presence. Second, the Roman Empire came from “overseas.” This is the first of several hints in the description that help us recognize that for John and his churches, the Roman Empire was the form that demonic social evil took in their day. The beast was a crazy combination of a leopard, bear, and lion: three animals that appear in Daniel’s visions to represent different human empires. This is a political-military beast. Of course the fact that these are three pretty scary animals also lets us know how dangerous and terrible it is; this is the first-century version of “Lions, and Tigers, and Bears… oh my!” It represents tyrannical power on the earth, and the Romans for John’s people were tyranny incarnate. It’s up to us to watch for such tyrannical powers in our own day and age. There are all sorts of candidates for it, and we could have a rousing debate about what the sea-beast looks like today. In fact, there are some Christians around the world who would argue that the United States’ military and economic might make us the sea-beast of today. However, the sea-beast is not just any powerful force or nation that happens to be around; it is a powerful human institution which opposes God and seeks to destroy His blessings. As citizens of a powerful nation, it’s up to us to ensure that our country never becomes a sea-beast, and to do everything we can to get things turned around if we get off track.

OK, back to the Romans. (But remember: the sea-beast isn’t just Rome It’s also Egypt, and Babylon, and any other human power or institution which attacks God’s people. Whether intentionally or not, it’s the dangerous human forces that are in league with the devil.) The sea-beast’s seven blasphemous heads represent the seven Roman emperors (the “heads of state”) who claimed to be divine. The head that appeared to be mortally wounded by recovered is a demonic parody of Christ’s resurrection. This is one more example of how Satan’s best ideas are ones that he steals from God and corrupts to his own purposes. It is also a reference to Nero, because there was a belief in John’s day that Nero would come back to life. Whether by ruse or by Satanic power, the beast gains awe and respect by appearing to recover from a fatal injury. God isn’t the only one who can perform miracles (or at least, what appear to be miracles. It would be a whole other discussion to define what makes something a miracle). Satanic wonder-working is another form of deceit. Even if it doesn’t trick you into thinking that it’s God, it at least gets you to believe that it’s powerful and irresistible.

In verse 2, we hear that the dragon (Satan) gives power and authority to the sea-beast. The sea-beast does what Satan tempted Jesus to do: worship me, and I’ll give you power and authority over the world. Of course, I’ve always wondered what kind of power and authority it really is if you can only do what Satan commands, and you’re just a pawn to advance his purposes. The other thing that I have to wonder about here is who exactly gave power to the sea-beast (we see another reference to this in verse 5). It seems as though Satan is giving the beast the power to do whatever it does. And Satan probably thought the power was his to give. But it’s not. We’ve already seen in Chapter 12 that Satan can’t do anything without God say-so. The fact that the sea-beast had authority for 42 months (half of seven years, which is God’s perfect number), is a hint that its time of glory is all part of God’s plan. So when you’re caught in the midst of the beast’s power, don’t get freaked out. It’s all part of how God is working things out.

But the beast’s supposed power deceives many people. They see its show of force and its wonder-working abilities, and can’t imagine how anything could be more powerful or awesome than the beast. And by extension, the dragon who gives it power. I’m thinking at this point of the massive military parades that the old Soviet Union used to put on, and which North Korea still has. The purpose is to inspire the nation’s citizens into thinking that foreign invaders don’t stand a chance against them. And so everyone (except God’s people, of course) exclaim “Who is like the beast?! Who could ever stand up against him, and against the dragon who gives it power?” This, by the way, is blasphemy. The question “Who is like…” appears repeatedly in the Old Testament as an exclamation of praise for God, whose power and authority truly is beyond all comprehension (Exodus 15:11, Psalm 35:10, 89:6-8, 113:5). The beast’s activity is nothing but prideful boasting and defiance of God. It is establishing itself as an idol for people to worship instead of the Lord.

So, what does this sea-beast look like today? My first thought is money and the economic system. Plenty of people, even church people, think that you can’t accomplish anything without money. We’ve seen how the world has come crashing down when our byzantine economic system fell apart. “People’s lives have been ruined!” the pundits exclaim. Actually, what they mean to say is that people have lost their money, and the stuff money can buy. What a shame to think that one’s entire life is nothing but finances. That’s not at all what God says.

The passage ends with an admonition for “patient endurance and faithfulness.” These are our marching orders. Don’t fall for the deceit of Satan and his human minions. When they appear to be invincible, don’t take the bait and fall in step behind them. Hang on to the Lord whom you know truly is invincible. Be patient for when the 42 months come to an end and God continues his plan. Endure what you may have to put up with in the meantime. And never lose your faith in the One who truly is Lord; don’t give in to the temptation of worshiping an idol.

Revelation 12:7-17: A Yen for the Yin

C.S. Lewis, the twentieth century’s most influential Christian author, once wrote that Christians often make the error of either giving Satan too much credit, or not enough (sorry; I don’t remember exactly which book he said this in). Sometimes we ignore Satan and don’t recognize that he really can harm us in all sorts of ways. But at other times we become so afraid of him that we forget that Christ has already defeated him.

Popular spirituality in America over the last few decades has been influenced by an emphasis in eastern religions on harmony and balance. In its proper place and with a correct understanding, that’s fine. I’m all for moderation and keeping things even. However, if we take this a step too far when it comes to our understanding of spiritual matters, we risk falling into one of the oldest and most pervasive Christian heresies. It’s usually summed up with the term “dualism.” The most common expression of it these days is the widespread use of the Chinese “yin-yang” symbol. It has risen the rank of coolness and PC’ness. When it comes to symbols, it’s right up there with the peace symbol and the smiley face. The “yin” is light, activity, male, and height; the “yang” is darkness, passiveness, female, and depths. The way most of us think about it, however, yin is good and yang is bad. The world is a balance between good and bad: two opposite forces struggling against each other. In some ways of looking at it, it’s a balance kind of like the “circle of life.” In others, it’s a never-ending conflict between two opposite forces.

Throughout Christian history, the idea of a conflict between the forces of good and evil has led many people to see it as a dualism struggle between opposite but equally powerful forces. Dualism can be found in many different Christian heretical movements through the ages: the Gnostics, the Manichees, the Cathars, and so on. Even among orthodox-evangelical American Christians today, it’s easy to see signs of dualism. In our case, we think that God ultimately has more power than Satan, but only barely. It’s an epic struggle between God and Satan, and it takes everything that God has to defeat his ancient adversary. And somehow Satan always rises back up for another round of fighting.

This, however, has nothing to do with the Bible’s presentation of Satan’s power in comparison to God’s. C. S. Lewis’ advice would do us well. Yes, we need to be aware of what Satan is doing; more on that in a moment. But he is already a defeated enemy. His abilities and strength are laughably puny in the face of God’s infinite majesty. Or to use the yin-yang scheme, the yin is immensely more powerful and prevalent than the yang. Today’s passage gives us a poignant image of this truth.

In verses 1-6, we read about Christ’s successful invasion into Satan’s domain, the world. Despite Satan’s best efforts, he came into the world and won his victory. His people (us, the church) are still in the wreckage of Satan’s world (or, the first budding of Christ’s kingdom on earth), but God gives us refuge from Satan’s attacks. Now, in three short verses, we read of Satan’s counterassault on God’s heavenly stronghold. John begins this passage with the sentence, “There was war in heaven.” Ah! we may think. This is the final confrontation between God and Satan: the forces of good and the forces of evil. But if we do, we are sorely mistaken. God doesn’t even bother lifting a finger. He leans over to Michael, one of his archangels, and says, “Michael, would you please go out and take care of that mess outside?” This is only one of three places in Scripture where Michael is mentioned (the other two are Daniel 10 and Jude). In the common Jewish understanding of the time, however, Michael was the guardian angel of the Jewish nation. So he’s not exactly a minor angel. Nonetheless, he’s an angel; a servant of God. There’s no dualist tension between God and Satan. Michael, one God’s peons, can handle Satan and his crowd without any help from God.

However, we keep losing sight of this fact. We keep thinking that Satan is powerful. Well, he’s dangerous. And we need to be aware of him. But if we are resting secure in the grace of God, we don’t need to lose any sleep over him. The reason why we may give the devil more than his due is, well, because we fall for his tricks. In this passage, we read two descriptions of Satan and what he does.

Let’s start with the second one: Satan as the accuser, which we read about in v. 10. This is actually what the name “Satan” means: the accuser. In the original Old Testament understandings of Satan, this is how he was first understood. He was the one who brought accusations to God about the sins of the people. It may be easiest for us to think of Satan as the prosecuting attorney, presenting a case against the people before God, the judge. But over time, he wasn’t content merely to accuse people for what they had done wrong. He began to create situations so that he would have something to accuse us of. That’s a bit more sinister than simply presenting a case; it’s as though the DA’s office starting making people commit crimes so that they could prosecute them. And this brings us to Satan’s second description (which we find in verse 9. He is the one who leads the world astray. Satan is the deceiver. And he does it in order to undermine God’s authority (well, to try to undermine it). He began his work of deception all the way back in the Garden of Eden (read Genesis 3 again, and notice carefully how he twists things to get Eve to believe what isn’t true, so that she will sin). He’s call the deceiver frequently in the New Testament, and deception is one of the greatest threats in the early church (and in the church today, I’d say). In order to have something to accuse us of, to rip us away from God’s loving friendship, he leads us astray so that we think what we’re doing is OK. Then, after we’ve gone down too far, Satan springs up and yells “Surprise! God, look at what he’s done! You’ve got to punish him!” And then he chuckles to himself because he’s managed to trick one of God’s followers to fall away. Like it or not, Satan’s accusations were accurate. He may have been acting in bad faith and stacking the deck against us. But our sins were real, and led to punishment.

That plan worked pretty well for Satan for a long time, until God put a stop to it. Once Christ entered the world to take charge of what is rightfully his, he created a way for us to escape from Satan’s accusations and still be in a loving relationship with our Lord. Through Christ’s atoning work, we have been set free from all accusation. Our sin has been redeemed and there’s nothing we can do, or ever could do, that will undo the salvation that Christ has brought to us. Satan can accuse us all he wants, but God has an answer for it all. “Yes, they have sinned. But payment has already been made for that sin, and for any and all sin that will ever happen. My relationship with my people no longer depends upon them living sinless lives. It only depends upon the victory that Christ has won on the cross and in the tomb. Satan’s career as an accuser was over. Our sin is overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and there no longer any accusation.

However, Satan didn’t stop his work at deception. All he did was change his tactics. He now tries to trick us into believing that there’s something we can be accused of. Just as he tricked Eve into believing something about God’s commands about Garden of Eden that wasn’t true, he know tries to trick us into believing that maybe Christ’s work of redemption wasn’t so powerful after all. And who knows? Satan may believe that himself. He may be a dualist and still think that he has as much power as God does. He can try to make us believe that we are still under the threat of accusation. If he can get us to doubt that Christ has saved us, then he can get us to deny his salvation and not accept it. And sadly, he’s pretty effective at this. It may be something along the lines of “If you want God to forgive you, here’s something hard that you have to do to earn it.” As if we could ever earn God’s love, or would ever have to! Or, his deception could be something more like “Yeah, Christ died for your sins. But what you just did, and the person that you are, is so horrible that not even God can love.” He can try to get you to deny the greatest truth of all creation: God loves us, and there is nothing that can ever stop or interfere with that love. We are not capable of doing something so big that God cannot forgive it.

So, how do we resist Satan? We hear the answer in verse 11 of the song of victory. We can be like our “brothers,” who resist and overcome Satan with two things. First, the blood of the Lamb: an acceptance of Christ’s self-giving sacrifice for us. Through his death and resurrection, Satan’s accusations no longer have any hold over us. Second, they resist and overcome Satan “by the word of the testimony.” It’s so simple and obvious that it’s easy for us to overlook. The best way to combat deception and lies is with the truth. We silence accusation and we expose deception by proclaiming the truth of Christ’s atonement.

Now, Satan isn’t going to like that. He’ll try to shut us up. And his attacks against some of our fellow believers has killed them. Well, at least their bodies and their lives on this earth. But if we love God above all else, even life, Satan can never win. But even at this, we need to remember that God’s power to protect and save us is infinitely greater than any attack Satan can throw at us. The worst thing that we can do is to forget his love and his power, and begin to believe the Satanic lie that we are caught in an epic battle between good and evil. It’s all good.

Revelation 12:1-6 – The Invasion of Christmas

The “D Day” invasion of Normandy in World War II was one of the greatest military operations in history and marked a dramatic change in the course of the war. There are many factors that led to the success of the Allies against the Nazi occupiers, but the lack of Nazi preparation wasn’t one of them. The Germans didn’t know exactly when and where the invasion would take place, but they knew it was coming. The beaches of Normandy were heavily fortified and fiercely defended.

This isn’t a history lesson or a paean of praise for the courageous veterans and victims of D Day, but the image of that horrific and momentous event can help us understand what Christmas is all about. Because yes, this is about Christmas. You won’t find any shepherds or mangers or wise men in this passage, but it tells the story of Christ’s coming into the world just as well as the familiar story from the second chapter of Luke. What makes it different is that it doesn’t tell the story from an earthly, human perspective. This passage tells us what happened on Christmas on the spiritual plane. When we see it this way, we can recognize it as a cosmic battle that puts the invasion of Normandy to shame. Christmas was an invasion by the forces of good into territory occupied by an evil enemy, in order to liberate its inhabitants.

We only heard about the forces of evil that opposed God for the first time in Chapter 11. Beginning in this passage and extending on until Chapter 20, we will see the confrontation between God’s servants and Satan and his minions over and over again. This passage is “round one.”

First, let’s make sure that we know who’s who in the story. It begins with the description of a woman who represents the people of Israel. She’s clothed in glory, which is exactly how God treats his people. You may recognize a reference to Joseph’s dreams when he foresaw the honor he would receive from his family. John’s vision recycles the images of Genesis 37:9-10: Joseph’s brothers and father knew that the images of the sun and moon were his parents, and the eleven stars were the brothers. Add in the twelfth star of Joseph himself, and the sun, moon, and twelve stars of this woman help us see that she is the people of Israel. Is she also Mary? Yes. Is she also the church, whom Satan attacks? Yes. All of the above.

The woman is pregnant and about to give birth. The late stages of pregnancy certainly evoke the same kind message that the mighty angel of 11:6: there will be no more delay! The awaited time has come. The woman’s child is, of course, Jesus Christ. God himself comes into the world through his people. He comes to take over the world, just like the Allied forces landed in Normandy to take over Europe. Or, to word it more accurately for both events, Christ came to retake the world from an enemy who had tried to steal it, and the Allies came to liberate the countries that had been overrun by the Nazi death machine. In both cases, the invaders were coming to kick

Next, we meet a tremendous and fearful dragon. The dragon is, of course, Satan or the devil, the supreme spiritual being or force that opposes God. Representing Satan as a dragon taps into the typical symbolism of the ancient world that portrayed dragon-type creatures as the primordial enemy of God. Dragons are associated with serpents, like the one that we meet in the Garden of Eden story. They are also connected with sea monsters, like we find in Isaiah 27:1. The stars that the dragon swept out of the skies are the fallen angels who joined him in his rebellion against God; stars and other celestial bodies were considered to be spiritual beings. Satan, the dragon, had come down from heaven and had invaded the earth. He considered it to be “his” territory. Remember how Satan tempted Jesus by offering him power over the earth if he would just worship him? Satan truly does consider the earth to belong to him. I suppose in some ways we can’t really blame him. Look at the violence, immorality, greed, bitterness, suffering, and nastiness that fills our world. Read the newspaper or watch the evening news, and it sure looks like Satan owns the earth.

And that’s why the prospect of God coming into the world was something that Satan would not tolerate. Again, think of the Nazis on mainland Europe. There was no way they were going to let the Allies get a toehold on the beaches! They did everything they could to protect “their” turf. Never mind that they had no rightful claim to the countries that fell to their blitzkrieg. As far as Hitler and his lackeys were concerned, it all belonged to them. Satan’s pride and greed convinced him that he had to defend his world from God’s invasion. It was all Satan could do to tolerate the presence of God’s people in his world. Well, tolerate is hardly the right word. He did his best to root them out, but for some reason he could never finish the job. God’s righteous remnant kept springing back up like weeds in a flower garden. Unbeknownst to Satan, of course, he couldn’t get rid of them because God was protecting and preserving them. They had the seal of protection upon them. Not to stretch the analogy too far, but God’s people in a world run by Satan was a bit like the underground resistance fighters in occupied countries like France, the Netherlands, and Norway. Now, Satan got wind of the possibility that God was going to invade, and that he was going to use his people as a beachhead (OK, so the analogy with World War II kind of breaks down here: the underground resistance wasn’t how the Allies came into Europe, but the beaches of Normandy and the boot of Italy).

The image of the dragon crouched in front of the woman, ready to devour her baby as soon as he was born, is strikingly similar to King Herod’s plot to kill the infant Jesus (Matthew 2). We need to be careful, however, not to think that Herod was the embodiment of Satan. The relationship between the spiritual and the earthly is a bit more complex than that. Think of Satan as the spiritual central command, commanding all of his agents, both demonic and human. Herod’s actions were a reflection or an expression of Satan’s dominance of the world. You might not care much about Herod, but you may encounter people or social forces through whom Satan is wielding his nefarious power. That person or force is an agent, willing or not, of a larger demonic influence.

You’ve got to hand it to Satan: the best way to deal with an invading enemy is to grab him when he’s still a helpless little baby. You don’t wait until he’s full grown and has a band of loyal followers and a base of operations. Just like the Nazis didn’t wait until the Allies had an established foothold on French soil.

But this was no ordinary baby. When verse 5 describes him as one who rules the nations with an iron scepter, that’s a direct reference to Psalm 2, which describes God’s authority over the rulers of the world who resist him and think that they can stand up to him. In the psalm, God laughs at their schemes. “Don’t you know who you’re dealing with? I’ve got the power to crush you. All of the power that you think you have is a joke, an illusion.” And this, again, is where the comparison with D Day breaks down. The Allied invasion could have failed. But there’s no way in the world that Satan would ever be able to stand up to Christ’s invasion. If we think again about the threat of Herod killing all the Bethlehem babies, Jesus didn’t just escape by the skin of his teeth. It may have looked that way. But God was in control of the whole situation.

After the baby’s birth, John’s vision moves along on a pretty fast timeline. Verse 5 covers everything from Jesus’ birth to his ascension into heaven. His baptism, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection. John just glosses over it all. Not because it’s not important, but to get to the particular point that he’s dealing with here. The child, the invader, is safe. There’s nothing Satan can do about him. But what about the mother: us, God’s people who are still here in enemy occupied land? Satan can still make things pretty nasty for us. Let’s stick with World War II for an example, but go over to the eastern front. In 1989 I was in what was then the Soviet Union, and we toured a cemetery of villages. It’s a memorial unlike any other you can imagine. As the Russians slowly pushed the Germans out of their land, the Germans had a cruel response. Every time they lost a battle, they would target a random village that was still in their control. They surrounded it, killed all of its residents, and burned it to the ground. To honor their memory, the Russians selected one of these villages to serve as a memorial for all of them, and erected monuments in it for each of the destroyed villages. As memory serves me, there were at least a couple hundred monuments there, each testifying to a brutal event. The Nazis were losing the war, but they did what they could to exact revenge and terror. We are like those poor Russian villages still under Nazi control. Satan is enraged that Christ is reclaiming his territory, territory that Satan thinks is his. He can’t get at Christ, so he does the next best thing and attacks his people: us. The Nazis couldn’t beat the Russians, but they could terrorize the Russian people under their heel. If you ever wonder why horrible things happen, and continue to happen, they are partly the result of Satan’s frustrated lashing out over Christ’s invasion. And the more closely associated you are to Christ, the more likely he is to target you.

But there’s good news. The woman may not have been lifted up to heaven to escape the dragon, but God brought her into a wilderness place where she could find refuge for a while. We aren’t in heaven yet, but God offers us protection, at least for a while. In Scripture, the wilderness is often a place where people encounter God (think especially of the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea and Jesus after his baptism). We’ve got an enemy prowling about, but God is sending us protection in the midst of it.