Revelation 17:7-18 – Never Trust a Cheater

Earlier this year, Arlen Specter surprised the Washington watchers by switching his party identification from Republican to Democrat. As someone who respects politicians who don’t follow the party line (my favorite political animals are rhinos and blue dogs), I thought Sen. Specter’s change of party affiliation was a nice development. But I am definitely in the minority. A recent poll of Pennsylvania voters shows that both Republicans and Democrats think less of him because of this switch. It’s understandable that Republicans consider Sen. Specter to be persona non grata, especially because his switch gave the Democrats a potentially filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But wouldn’t you expect the Democrats to be happy? Not necessarily. Even if you benefit from someone’s switch allegiance, you’re still likely to think poorly of them and to lose respect for them. If they betrayed someone else’s trust, there’s a chance that they’ll betray yours. If the TV cop shows are to be believed, police benefit from confidential informants (or “snitches”). But they have no respect for them, because they see them as people who will sell out their friends if the price is right. Americans consider Benedict Arnold to be the scoundrel of the American Revolution, but I doubt the British thought much better of him. I don’t mean to imply that Arlen Specter is a Benedict Arnold, although I suspect there are many who would do so. My point is this: if you’re the kind of person who would let people down who thought they could trust you, then nobody’s going to trust you. Even the people you help.

In the book of Revelation, we’re seeing a lot of evil. Or, to word it more accurately, we’re finding a lot of descriptions of the evil that fills our world. And we learn that evil and suffering aren’t just happening because of chance, or even merely because of misguided human choices. There are spiritual influences at work in our world that are behind the nasty stuff that we endure. Most prominently, we read about people worshiping and giving their allegiance to the “beast,” or the Satanic competitor with God for control of the world. People and nations abandon God and good and cooperate with the demonic and destructive. However, we would be sorely mistaken if we assumed that everyone in the camp of evil was happy and content with each other, or that they play well together as one big happy team. The division of the world between the godly and the profane is not simply a difference between two competing camps that are roughly similar, like we may view conflicts like the Axis and Allied forces in World War I. They fought for different purposes, but ran things pretty similarly. There is an inherent difference between good and evil that extends beyond the fact that they are working for different purposes. They operate in different ways. And the people on either side relate with each other differently.

First, let’s think about how the people of God relate (or should relate!) with each other. There are an overwhelming number of passages that describe the unity that we share with each other, and the ways that are to support and encourage each other. For just a few examples, consider Psalm 133:1, Ephesians 4:3-6, Romans 12:10, 15-16, Romans 15:5-6, John 13:34-35, 17:23, Acts 2:44-46, 4:32-35, I Corinthians 1:10, and Hebrews 10:24-25. These are just a few examples! Even the name of our church , “Old Union,” testifies to the unity and mutual support that we are to share as God’s people. In a sense, we’re like the Marines, who never leave a man behind. We work together and support each other for God’s glory. It’s not just a good idea; it’s an inherent feature of what it means to be on the side of blessing.

At times, we may be tempted to think that the same thing is true among the forces of evil. We may assume that the followers of Satan are just as united as the people of God are, and that the only difference is that they are united behind a different leader. But nothing could be farther from the truth. If you are brought together by a spirit of rebellion, then rebellion is always going to be part of your nature. Here’s another way to understand it. The motivation for sin is often selfishness or pride. We want more for ourselves than we deserve, because we think that we are better than we are. So we take from God and others what belong to them, and assume (or kid ourselves into believing) that we deserve it. Or, maybe we don’t think that we deserve it, but our appetites and desires overwhelm our better judgment and we just go for it anyway. (Did Bernie Madoff think he deserved all those billions of dollars? Or did he just take it because he wanted it?). No matter how you look at it, evil is self-centered. It’s about getting what you want for you. There’s no sense of unity or shared purpose, unless you think that you will benefit better individually by banding together with others. But even then, you have to be careful. As the saying goes, there’s no honor among thieves. For a good example of this, remember the bank heist at the beginning of last year’s Batman move, “The Dark Knight.” A team of robbers work together to knock off a bank, but each of them kills their colleague after he has fulfilled his purpose, so that the Joker could leave with all the money for himself.

And this is exactly what we find in our Bible passage. We met the prostitute and the beast in the first six verses of the chapter, when I explained that they represented the seductive allure of power. I touched on the fact that the pride of power was most evident in John’s day in the Roman Empire. Now, we can explore the relationship between the prostitute and the beast that she rides upon a little closer. First, John provides some very thinly veiled references to Rome in his description of the prostitute (verse 9 alludes to the city on seven hills, verse 10 to the Roman emperors, and verse 15 to Rome’s domination of the nations). Fair enough. But the beast upon whom the prostitute rides is an uneasy mount. The beast is, of course, a version of the beasts that we met in Chapter 13. Verse 8’s reminder of the beast coming out of the Abyss brings the events of Chapter 9 back to mind. It is Satan’s power at work in human affairs. The woman, Rome, has attained her position by allying herself with the beast, Satan. But it is a shaky alliance, because neither the woman nor the beast have any sense of loyalty to each other. They’re both in it for themselves, and the only reason they’re working with the other one is to advance their own goals. Once the partner has outlived his or her usefulness, they turn on each other like the robbers in the Batman movie. That’s why verse 12 says that the kings of Rome (the horns) will only reign for an hour. Their time for usefulness will pass quickly.

The beast, the prostitute, and the peoples who ally themselves with them will be defeated by the Lamb, Jesus Christ. We’ll see that victory in Chapters 18 and 19. But the downfall of the beast and the prostitute is practically inevitable, because of their character and because of their reasons for being together in the first place. As Psalm 7 and other passages of Scripture point out, evil leads to its own downfall. Much of what we consider to be God’s judgment or punishment is simply God allowing evil to proceed to its own natural consequences. You dig a pit, and you’re going to fall into it. You lead a destructive lifestyle, and you’re going to destroy yourself. It’s a concept that the cliché, “give him enough rope to hang himself with,” is based upon.

So, in order to win his victory over evil, Christ first allows the forces of evil to proceed to their own logical consequences. The beast turns against the prostitute. The kings and the peoples turn against each other as they seek to advance themselves on the backs of each other. The legions of Satan end up looking like the army of Midian after Gideon’s soldiers sounded their horns (Judges 7:19-25). The easiest way to defeat an enemy is to let them destroy themselves.

The unity that we share is not simply a good way to protect each other from danger, like musk oxen forming a protective circle for their calves when the wolves come howling, or like pioneers circling the wagons to fend of Indian attacks. It’s part of our very nature as the people of God. We don’t abandon the weak or turn against each other for our own advantage. The reason we don’t do these things, what sets us apart from those under Satan’s influence, is because we have renounced our own ambitions. We happily place our lives under the care of the Lamb, the true King of the kings, because we know that he will never turn on us, forget us, abandon us, or reject us.