The Second Beast

All right, if you have your Bible, and I hope you do, turn to Revelation chapter
13 with us as we continue our study through the book of Revelation. And I want to
start this morning with a little bit of a thought experiment. So I want you to
imagine, imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky,
imagine all the people living for today.
Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for,
and no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer, I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us
and the world will be as one. Now I'm guessing all of you are familiar with the
lyrics to that hymn that it really is. It's a secular hymn. It's more than 50
years old now. It was written by John Lennon and released as a single in 1971. It
was sung at the opening of the Paris Olympics this year. Since 2005,
it has been sung every year at the ball drop in Times Square.
I don't know if you knew that, that they all get together and sing Imagine before
we drop the ball on the New Year's, on the New Year. Back in 2004 Rolling Stone
magazine named that song as number three on their list of the 500 greatest songs of
all time. And more than 200 artists have covered that song. And He's in grace is
the best known and most beloved hymn of the Christian church. I would suggest to
you that imagine is the best known and most beloved secular hymn in our world
today, known by and sung by people who want that to be true,
want that to be a reality. John Lennon wanted all of us to imagine a world full
of peace and harmony and love apart from God or religion. He said,
"It's easy, if you try." And the suggestion here is that this hymn,
in this hymn, is that belief in God is not necessary for us to have a world full
of peace and harmony and joy. What we all long for, you don't need God for that.
Now, I'm not here this morning to demonize John Lennon in all of this, but I'm
here to point out that as human beings, all of us are longing to find answers to
the existential questions of life. We're looking for something that rings true to us.
There are three transcendent questions that every human being is confronted with in
life, and that all of us seek to find an answer for, and these three transcendent
questions are what shape your personal or your world view. The three questions are,
where did I come from? Why am I here? What happens to me when I die?
Those three questions everybody has to grapple with at one point or another in life.
Where did I come from? Why am I here? What happens when I die? And how you answer
those questions shapes the choices you make in life. What you believe is true about
where you came from, why you're here and what happens when you die shapes how you
imagine life is supposed to be. What's your meaning? What's your purpose? Those are
wrapped up in it. And in the song Imagine John Lennon saying, "Here's the worldview
I have. Live for today. Live in the moment. Live for life in peace and all the
world should be as one." That's his vision, and we can do that apart from God.
And I would say that that's a religious viewpoint. You don't have to have God to
have a religious viewpoint or a religious worldview. This is a secular religion, a
religion that exists apart from God. You don't have to worry about where you came
from or what happens when you die. You just live for today, you live at peace,
"and the world will be as one." And we're told it's easy, but if you look around,
it never has been easy for that to be true.
We have centuries full of history in addition to what's going on in our world today
to tell us that if we try to live according to that philosophy, we don't live at
peace, we don't live as one. We can live for today but it doesn't seem to fix
things. I was thinking about the lyrics of this song as I was reading through
Revelation 13 this week, especially the second half of Revelation 13 because in our
ongoing study of this book, we've come to a portion in this text where John is
seeing a vision of the scope of all of human history and the work of the dragon
among the people of the earth. And starting back in chapter 12, the dragon emerges
and his first goal is to try to devour or destroy the sun. When the woman gives
birth to the sun, the dragon wants to devour the sun, but he is unable to. The
sun ascends and so the dragon then goes after the woman who represents the church,
who is in exile in the wilderness.
And in Revelation 13, the dragon begins to enlist the help of two others.
He enlists the help of the first beast, who we looked at last week, who is the
beast that represents all of human government and human power and authority. The
dragon seeks to marshal that power to enlist it in his crusade against the church.
And this morning we're going to look at the second beast. and the second beast
represents a way of viewing the world where God is not present.
It's a religious system that does not have God at the center of it. The first
beast is referred to as the Antichrist. The second beast is referred to as the
false prophet. And this unholy trinity of the dragon, the Antichrist and the false
prophet all come together to try to advance the work of the dragon to destroy the
work of God's people in this world. There are antichrists in our day who want to
wipe out Christianity in the countries that they govern, and I would suggest there
are antichrists who have political power or ambition in our own country who would
like to see biblical Christianity silenced in our culture. They're fine with some
kind of pseudo -Christianity that is all about being good, nice people and doing acts
of charity or caring for poor people, but they want nothing to do with the
Christianity that says there's a heaven, there's a hell, there's a God who brings
judgment, we must follow him, we must obey him in order to be right with him.
That's the kind of Christianity they want to kill. They're fine with a Christianity
that says just be nice and that's all it matters. And in the second half of
Revelation chapter 13, where we meet the second beast, he is later referred to and
identified as the false prophet. And his role in this unholy Trinitarian work is to
get all of us to imagine just how good life could really be if we would imagine
there's no heaven, imagine there's no hell, imagine there's no God, and we'd just
follow the state. We'd just follow the dragon working through the state. Let me
remind you here that the original readers of Revelation would have been easily able
to understand the work of the two beasts in their day. Because the first beast,
the Roman government, was actively seeking to destroy and wipe out the church.
They were putting to death people who professed faith in Christ. And there were
false prophets, religious leaders in that day who were aligning with the Roman
government and their message was this, if we have to modify our belief in God in
order to keep the government happy with us, then let's be flexible.
Let's go along to get along, let's not make waves. If the government wants us to
say Caesar is Lord, we can surely add that in to whatever else we profess and
confess. That was the message of the false prophets in John's day who were urging
alignment with the Roman government. And so as we come to Revelation 13 it's in
that context that we see this first being communicated but I think it has
implications for our day and throughout the church age as well. So I want to read
through the second half of Revelation 13 where we're introduced to this second beast.
Let me pray for our time in God's word as we go there. Father, we need divine
help this morning. When we come to passages like this, Lord, we confess that there
is much that is hard for us to understand, so we want to know what your spirit
wants us to take away from this text, and I just pray that your spirit would be
at work in this room, that he would be our teacher, and that you would, through
this text, confirm to our own hearts, what it is that you would have us know and
understand and believe, and that we would not just be hearers of your word, but
doers as well. I pray it in your name, amen.
Revelation 13, beginning at verse 11, you follow along as I read, this is the word
of God for the people of God.
Verse 11 says, then I saw another beast rising out of the earth.
It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.
It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence and makes the
earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast whose mortal wound was healed.
It performs great signs even making fire come down from heaven to earth, in front
of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the
beast, it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the
beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of
the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of
the beast to be slain. Also, it causes all,
both great and small, excuse me, small and great, rich and poor, both free and
slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or
sell unless he has the mark. That is the name of the beast or the number of its
name. This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number
of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is six, six,
six. Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower
fades, the word of our God will last forever. I read that and thought, there's
really nothing that needs explanation, it's so obvious. Okay, here's how we're gonna
approach this passage. First of all, I want us to spend some time looking at the
character of this second beast. And we're gonna see four things about him. First of
all, he looks like a lamb, but he talks like a dragon. Secondly, we're gonna see
that he promotes the worship of the first beast. Third, we'll see that he performs
signs and miracles. And then we will see that he requires and enforces public
identification with the beast. And then finally in verse 18,
we'll see how the faithful are to respond to this second beast. So that's where
we're going this morning. Look back at verse 11 and we'll see this second beast
rising out of the earth, John says, "It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke
like a dragon." In other words, the beast appears like someone who can save you,
someone who can deliver you, someone in whom you can find your refuge and your
hope, and someone who can point you in the right direction, someone who knows the
difference between right and wrong, but when he speaks, what he tells you are lies,
because that's how the dragon speaks. If the dragon is Satan, the serpent, then he
is the father of lies. When this second beast speaks, he speaks deception and lies.
Not lies where you hear them and you go, well clearly that's not true. These are
half truths masquerading as full truths, which become untruths.
Because when somebody tells you only half the truth and they don't tell you the
whole truth, they're telling you an untruth. And if this is a vision of a
counterfeit trinity with the dragon and the two beasts and I think that's what it
is, then this third, this second beast, this third person of the trinity is the
counterfeit Holy Spirit. And it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the true Holy
Spirit, to point people to the Messiah and to press them to worship him. Well, this
counterfeit beast is doing the same thing. He is pointing people to the first beast
and causing them to worship him. The Holy Spirit's job is to lead you into all
truth. This second beast is going to speak like a dragon and speak lies to you.
He'll lead you away from truth. He'll encourage you to worship and follow the first
beast. And he doesn't say that by saying, "Hey, let's all go worship the devil,"
because He knows you're smart people, and if you heard that, you would say, "I
don't want to worship the devil." But by telling you a half -truth, he thinks maybe
he can seduce you into this. Think about Jesus in the wilderness when the serpent
came to him in the wilderness, when Satan appeared to him, Satan used Scripture to
try to tempt Jesus to do the wrong thing. He told him half -truths. And Jesus,
of course, knew the Scriptures well enough to be able to tell the difference between
the half -truth that Satan was using and the whole word of God which directed his
life. And so as we think about this, we have to recognize that when we hear the
false prophets in our day speaking half -truths,
our antennae should go up. Let me give you an example. Somebody says to you, "God
is love." Is that true? Well, yes, is it the whole truth?
No, there is more to God than God being love. God is holy.
God is righteous. God is just. God is omniscient. I mean, we can go through the
attributes of God. Love is one of God's attributes. It's a profound and powerful
attribute, but it's not his only attribute. And when He says, you need to remember
God is love. What they're often saying is dismiss those other things that are more
unpleasant about God. And let's just celebrate the fact that God is love. That's how
a false prophet comes along and deceives, if it were possible, even the elect of
God. I saw a video online this week. I wish I'd bookmark it so I could show it
to you. I don't know who this guy was, and I don't know if he was preaching a
sermon or just speaking to a group, but he was basically arguing this. He was
saying, "God is all -powerful and all -loving, "and God gets what he wants." Now,
would we agree that God gets what he wants? We would say, "Sure." And he said,
"And God wants all people to be saved." The Bible says that. "Therefore, all people
will be saved." He's making that logical sequence. God gets what he wants,
he wants all people to be saved, therefore all people will be saved. That's a half
truth. That's not a full understanding of what the Bible says. That's taking portions
of the Bible out of context and trying to deliver them as if it's revealed truth.
That's somebody who looks like a lamb and talks like a dragon. He's a false
prophet. Now keep in mind the a prophet that's being referenced here in verse 11,
could be a holy secular prophet. There are secular prophets. When we look for
someone to guide us, someone to point us in the right direction, we may look to
religious leaders, but some people are looking to self -help gurus. Some people are
looking to people who host afternoon talk shows on TV to give them their guidance
and direction for how they're supposed to live their lives. They may look for
somebody who advances a political philosophy or people who say there are social
ideologies, there are isms in our day, and I'm one of these people and I can lead
you into truth. There are a lot of secular ideologies and worldviews in our day
that have taken on the characteristics of religious speech. In fact,
maybe you've seen this sign that pops up in people's yards. We don't have it this
much around here, but you've seen that they've kind of gone down, they've died down
in the last couple years, but in this house we believe love is love, all lives
matter, women's rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, be a
good person and make a difference in your world, we have a choice, be kind. Is
there anything that that sign says that you would say, I don't believe that or I
don't agree with that? No, but when you sit down and have a conversation about what
that sign is saying, what you find is that there are ideologies behind that that
take you on a divergent path. That's a religious creed. That's a statement of
belief. We recite the Heidelberg Catechism, that's a different kind of catechism
that's being embraced by this family. And I agree with everything that's on that
sign, but I also think we need definitions, and we need to understand that these
imperatives come from indicatives, and we need to know what the indicatives are
before we can look at the imperatives. I don't want to jump too far ahead here,
but the last verse in the passage we looked at this morning is a verse that says,
"This calls for wisdom." And if there's one overarching message from this portion of
Scripture, it is that in order to live in a world dominated by false prophecy
you're going to have to have wisdom. When we studied the first half of this chapter
about the first beast we got to the end and John said this is going to require
faith and endurance. Now John says when the false prophet shows up this will require
wisdom and understanding. And that's what we need to keep in mind. So The first
characteristic of the second beast that we should take note of is he looks like a
lamb but he talks like a lion. And there are false prophets in our world today and
we need to be on guard against them. Here's the second characteristic. He promises
allegiance to and worship, he promotes allegiance to and worship of the first beast.
In other words, the second beast job is to convince you that the first beast will
save you from all harm and provide for your needs. If you're afraid, you can count
on the first beast to keep you protected and keep you safe from harm. If you're in
need of something, you can count on the first beast to be your provider. If your
life lacks meaning and purpose, the first beast will give you a reason to live and
give you the meaning you long for. If you're sick, the first beast can heal you.
If you are hungry, the first beast will feed you, you see how it works. The second
beast job is convince you that the first beast, which is the governing authority
over the world, the first beast is worthy of your allegiance and your worship
because only that first beast can make your life what you want it to be. Some
commentators called this second beast the minister of propaganda for the first beast.
It's his job to promote allegiance to the first beast. And again, in the first
century, when Roman emperors were declaring themselves to be divine, were taking on
names of divinity for themselves, stamping that on the coins and building temples so
that they could be worshiped like gods, there were people around promoting the
worship of the emperor, They were the false prophets forcing you to give your
worship to the emperor. They would say life is better under Rome than it used to
be, right? Let's thank Caesar. Let's praise Caesar. Long live Caesar.
We need to follow Caesar. We need to obey his commands. He has my loyalty and my
allegiance. And notice in verse 12, it says, "This second beast doesn't just persuade
you "to follow the first beast. "Ultimately, he compels you to follow the first
beast. He exercises authority, he makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the
first beast. So he may come along and say, come join me and worship the state,
come join me and pledge your allegiance to the state. Follow this first beast.
And when you say, I don't think so, he says, no, no, you really need to do this.
You know, no, you must do this. He will make you do this. Again,
this has been true throughout history. Think of Daniel in Daniel's time when
Nebuchadnezzar built that golden idol, that image of himself and said, "Everybody must
worship this." Well, what happened if you didn't worship that? Penalty of death.
We're making you bow down to the emperor. Think about people, what happened to
people in Germany back in the late 30s and the early 40s if they refused to say
"Heil Hitler." And in our country, the First Amendment to our Constitution,
which guarantees freedom of religion, can you imagine a scenario in our country where
we might one day be compelled to take a loyalty oath to our country and to put
allegiance to the United States ahead of all things? I think there's a clear warning
here that we need to be on guard against anything or anyone who calls for our
unconditional loyalty and support. Whether that's an employer, a government,
a pastor, that's somebody trying to lead you to put your allegiance that belongs
only to God in some other place. Loyalty is something that should be earned, never
demanded, never coerced.
So not only does this second beast look like a lamb and sound like a dragon and
promote the worship of the first beast. But we also see in this passage that he
works with miracles and with signs, that's the third thing. This is in verses 13
through 15. Now it's not clear if John is talking here about actual supernatural
events or events that would have a natural explanation but that take on a miraculous
appearance. Remember Jesus told his followers back in the Olivet discourse in Matthew
24, false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders
and lead astray if possible, even the elect. So Jesus says it's gonna happen in the
later days that there will be false Christs and false prophets who will arise and
there will be signs and miracles that accompany them. and you may recall from the
book of Exodus, that Pharaoh's magicians had magical powers and abilities.
They could throw down their staffs and make them into snakes. Satan is able to do
demonic magic, demonic miracles. There are reports that we hear from third world
countries where this seems more prevalent, miraculous things that which doctors are
able to do to keep a tribe in line, demons do have power.
So John may be talking about, he may be seeing a vision that includes those kinds
of actual demonic miracles taking place in the world in the days leading up to the
return of Christ. But he also might be talking about counterfeit miracles too.
Historians tell us that in John's day in the pagan temples it was not uncommon for
the temple curators, the priests, to put on a little magic show and to use
ventriloquism or other natural technique to make it appear like that idol was
actually talking, like his lips were actually moving. It was the artificial
intelligence of their day to be able to do that. And I think what is written here
would have been understood by the people in the first century as reflecting reports
that were coming from the pagan temples, from the emperor's temples of miraculous
events and signs that had taken place. Were they actual demonic miracles or were
they trumped up supposed miracles put on by the secular priests? I don't know which
is true but it was happening
and the book of Revelation tells us we should not be surprised when that happens. I
will note here that in our day, there is an almost religious -like fervor over the
religion of science.
We hear this over and over again, the middle of the COVID outbreak, instead of
saying science is good and important, I believe it is, I believe in science, but
people were saying, trust the science.
Believe in science, believe in the scientists, and I'm not anti -science, but a lot
of people saw science and technology as our source of deliverance, rather than seeing
God as our source of deliverance. Richard Phillips says, "In our day, "instead of
cheap magic tricks, "the advances of science and the achievements "of government are
hailed as proof "of the false gospel of secular humanism." And and Poythrus says
technology then becomes the worker of miraculous signs. Worship the power of the
beast, the power of the technocratic state organization, the power of the expert,
because technology can work wonders like no one else can.
I'll tell you what I thought about as I read that quote. I thought about being in
the hospital last week with Jim Brown as he was getting ready to go have surgery.
Now, is anybody else amazed that in our day we can take a person who is hurting,
we can bring him in, wheel him in, we can put him to sleep, we can then cut open
his back, we can work our way around in there, do some work on the bone and
structure and put rods in, sew it back up, wake him up and now he's pain -free.
Does anybody else look at that and go, That's amazing. That's miraculous that we can
do that.
I'm grateful that we have the technology and the medical ability for that to be
done. But my hope and Jim and Jody's hope for Jim is not in what the surgeons are
able to do but what the great physician is able to do in his life. We recognize
there's a power beyond what we're able to do through medical technology.
So we're not to fall into the trap of thinking that because there appear to be
miraculous powers at work in our world today, that whoever is leading those amazing
technological advances should be a person we can trust or follow because certainly
he's smarter than me, he must have the answers. That's not necessarily the case.
And notice here in this section too, in Verse 15, this is key, the second beast,
verse 15 says, was allowed to give breath to the image of the first beast. He was
allowed, who allowed him? All that either of these beasts can do is under the
umbrella of God's providence. He can't do anything without God allowing it to happen.
And So what this is picturing is that there's a graven image, there's an idol, and
God allows this second beast, to this false prophet,
to have this graven image take on some form of life, to appear to be living.
And we don't know again exactly what this means, whether this idol actually becomes
animated, or whether it's a sign, but the result of all of this is clear.
Tom Schreiner says the message coming from the second beast is that all must worship
the first beast and its image, coercion, compulsion, and totalitarianism are the order
of the day, and those who refuse to submit to and give their allegiance to the
beast will be put to death. That's what's being pictured. And of course,
the original readers of this letter, this epistle, this prophecy understood,
completely, that a refusal to affirm Caesar as Lord was a death sentence.
It was a literal death sentence. And that brings us to the fourth characteristic of
the false prophet, the second beast. He requires and enforces the public
identification with the beast. Verse 16 says, "The second beast causes all,
"Small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, "to be marked on the right hand
or on the forehead "so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark. "That
is the name of the beast or the number of its name." The mark of the beast.
Everyone has to have a mark which proves allegiance to the beast or they're cut out
of the economic life of the community, no buying or selling. So have you wondered
about the mark of the beast? Have you heard about that? If you thought, what is
that? What's coming? A lot of speculation about what this is. You've no doubt heard
about the implants that you can get in your forehead or in your wrist that will
operate the scanners at the grocery store. In fact, somebody sent me this this
morning knowing we'd be in this passage. So can we put this up? This is a company.
They googled, "Can I put a chip under my skin?" Yes, you can get a microchip
implanted under your skin to pay for things. It's Walletmore, a Polish -British
company that sells microchips that can be implanted.
old point of service terminals, all of the terminals read the implant, the reaction
of people is priceless. So he's going to the grocery store, he's just scanning his
hand, people go, "Wow !" The guy down here, Peyton, says, "I have the Wallet -Bore
implant. It worked very well except for some variphone systems. I highly recommend
the implant." Then somebody else, a little more skeptical, one more review, "God
bless you and all that get this chip in your hand. You may not understand what
you've done, but this company definitely does. Now,
I don't think that what Revelation 13 is describing is a rice -like chip that you
get in your hand and you use as a scanner at the store. I don't think that's the
mark of the beast. I will also tell you I'm not planning to have that rice in my
hand anytime soon. I could be wrong, I'm not gonna get the plant, okay? But here's
what I think is happening. In John's day, this was already true. We saw back in
chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, some Christians were being excluded from commerce in
the community because they refused to join the guilds, they refused to be identified
with the Roman government, they refused to give their allegiance and so they were
just cut out. The storage wouldn't sell to them. They were marked, they weren't
known as not being followers of the beast. The Greek word for mark is the word
charagma, and it refers to the official seal used by the emperor on official
documents. So I think the mark of the beast here is a mark that says you have
either the approval of the emperor, you either belong to the guild, you're either a
part of, you've given your allegiance or you haven't, and everybody knows it. And if
you're not going along with what the state requires, you will be cut out of the
economic life of the community. And in our day, this has more to do with than just
a microchip. There are places in our country today where if you don't put up the
rainbow flag during Pride Week or Pride Month, there are people who aren't going to
come into your store anymore. You will be targeted for not going along with what
the prevailing mood of the culture is. I think the reference here to it being on
your right hand or on your forehead is a reference to talking about what you think
and how you act. The right hand is the hand of action, the forehead is the source
of knowledge, so your "Thinking and your actions must conform "to what the state
requires." That's the mark of the beast. You remember back in Revelation chapter
seven when we were back there, there were a couple of verses there. Revelation seven
two, John says, "I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun "with the
seal of the living God, "the seal there like the emperor's seal. "He called with a
loud voice to the four angels "who had been given power to harm the earth and the
sea, saying, do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed
the servants of our God on their foreheads. Again, I don't think this is a
reference to an actual visible seal on anybody's hand or forehead. I think this is
a way of saying that you are marked by how you think and how you act,
and it's either showing allegiance to the king or allegiance to God.
Nancy Guthrie says it this way. She says every person who's ever lived is marked
one way or another. Either we're marked by our belonging and allegiance to Christ,
or we're marked by our belonging and allegiance to his imitator, his counterfeit, the
beast. We'd like to think that there's some sort of middle ground, a way of
neutrality for nice but unconvinced people, but there just isn't.
You're following one or the other. You're marked in one way or another. And that's
a good place for us to talk about what marks our lives. Think about your own hand
and your own forehead for just a minute. Think about what occupies your time, what
occupies your thinking, what you put your hands to do. Are you doing your work
heartily as unto the Lord? Is your mind renewed with the thoughts of Christ? Is
your life about serving God and His agenda, or is it about serving yourself and
your own agenda? Are you a child of God? Are you trying to get along with the
culture? Do what it says about what's right and true? Some of you, if you look
honestly at your life this morning and ask what motivates me, what animates me, what
am I living for, you would have to be honest and say I'm living more for me than
I am for God.
I care more about my own agenda than I do about God's agenda.
And here's what I think we need to recognize this morning. There is a God who
created us and who has authority over our lives. He loves you, he wants you to
have eternal life with him, but you care more about your own desires,
your own passions, your own plans than you do about God's plans. You want what you
want for your life, more than you care about what God wants for your life. This is
what the Bible calls sin. And as a result of your sin,
you're cut off from God because you say, I'll go my own way. You wander down a
path that takes you away from God, eternally, and there's nothing you can do to fix
that. But God, who is rich in mercy, has a solution. He sends his own son,
who lives a life of perfect obedience, who lives his life always saying, "Lord, what
would you have me do?" And then following that, he goes to death on the cross in
your place to pay the debt you owe to God for your sin. And then he is raised in
new life and offers that new life to all who will follow him. He gives it as a
free gift, but we have to respond. We have to say, I'm gonna turn from the path
I'm on, and I'm gonna turn and follow Jesus. I know I'm a sinner, Jesus, I believe
you died for me. I believe I can have new life in you, I wanna follow you now.
And some of you this morning need to recognize that it's time to get busy following
God. It's time to leave following your own pursuits and your own life and to start
following Him. Some of you, by the way, have gotten off track 'cause we do that.
It's the reason we confess our sins every week because it's easy for us to wander.
We are prone to wander, the hymn says. And we have to realign and we have to get
right back on the track and we have to say, I'm gonna follow Jesus again. And you
do that by prayer. You just go to God and you say, Lord, I wanna follow you. I
want you to direct my life. And you make that declaration and then you begin to
act on it, you begin to walk in that path, you begin to learn God's ways and
follow His ways. We all need to be men and women who are marked by the mark of
Jesus, not by the mark of the beast. It should be clear to everyone, they should
see it in the work of our hands and in the words of our mouth. It should come
from our forehead in our hands that we are marked by Him "and not by the beast."
During the time of Jesus' ministry, the Jewish leaders had a practice where, if
anybody, this is in John chapter nine, where the man who was born blind is healed,
and they're looking at kicking him out of the synagogue because he is refusing to
deny that Jesus is the Christ. That was their practice. If you confess that Jesus
is the Christ, we're going to kick you out of the synagogue. That meant more than
just you can't come to church. That meant all of the people in the synagogue are
gonna shut their shop windows for you. You're not gonna be able to come in and do
trading here. So that was a common practice. If you're marked by Christ, you may be
left out. And it's been that case throughout history in different parts of the
world. Your identification with Jesus might affect your economic life in the country
where you're living. And I expect it will continue happening with growing intensity
all the way to the end. You will either need to compromise or you won't be welcome
here anymore.
Don't take the mark, don't compromise. Don't trade your identity as a child of God
for a bowl of porridge that's being offered to you. And let me say something to
students here because I think it's really gonna be intense for you. I think it's
already intense for you, but I think it's gonna be increasingly intense for you.
You're gonna face pressure to compromise on what the Bible says, or your teachers,
or your peers are gonna label you as hateful, or a bigot, you'll be cast out of
social life from your peers, you're gonna social media, you'll be slandered on social
media, and I'm just saying, don't give in. Don't compromise, maintain your allegiance
to Jesus. I know I've had a lot of quotes, let me give you just one more here
from Kevin D. Young. He says, "When push comes to shove, whatever it costs, if it
costs us a scholarship, if it costs us a promotion, if it costs us to get ahead
in the sports league, if it costs us even our very lives, we will not give in to
the system of the world. We must be prepared as Christians to face setbacks,
strange looks, and even shame and suffering to say no, we will not do what everyone
in this world thinks we ought to do. Whether it has to do with what kind of flag
you're going to fly, what sort of pronouns you're going to put in your bio, we
will not do these things no matter the cost.
Now all of that brings us to the final verse in this chapter, the famous verse
with the best known number in all of Scripture. Verse 18, this is the verse that
tells us that the faithful are to respond to the work of the dragon, and the first
of the second beast, here's how we do it, the short answer of how you respond to
the dragon's work, and the first and the second beast is you do it with wisdom,
you do it with understanding, you use discernment, and that makes sense. If this
first beast is going to come to you with the power of the state, verse 10 says,
you endure with faith, and The second beast is going to come to you with lies and
deception and verse 18 says you're going to need wisdom and discernment You're going
to have to be on your toes enough to be able to sniff out the half truths From
the whole truth. You're going to have to know your Bible well enough to be able to
spot error and not get sucked into a false system But here's the good news if
you're a child of God you have God the Holy Spirit living in you, dwelling in you,
and the community of saints from the last 2 ,000 years around you to help keep you
aligned and in the right direction. You're not on your own for this. You have God
with you, and you have the community around you to help keep you heading in the
right direction. Couple of simple questions you can ask yourself if you're wondering
if you're falling under the spell of the second beast, just some wisdom questions
here. is what I'm being told or asked to do, something that will honor or glorify
Jesus?
If you're being told by a teacher or by a government official,
by an employer, if they're telling you or asking you to do something that does not
glorify and honor Jesus, you don't do it. Is what I'm being told or asked to do
something that will benefit me? Does it bring me more power and prestige or money
or popularity or fame? Now, that doesn't mean, if it will,
that doesn't mean that it's automatically wrong. It just means there might be a
motive there that's not a godly motive. You need to keep that in mind. You need to
use wisdom there. It's what I'm being told or asked to do something that will cause
my love for God to grow.
It's what I'm being told or asked to do something that will be spiritually
profitable for others.
And finally is what I'm being told or asked to do something that for some reason I
don't fully understand. It makes me uneasy or uncomfortable. Sometimes you're asked to
do something you go, "I don't know, I just don't feel right about that." Well,
trust your conscience.
That's one factor. I'm not saying follow your heart, but I'm saying, God gives you
a conscience for a reason to cause you to, sometimes you're not sure why, you just
go, I don't think this is the right thing to do. Those are just a few questions
you can ask to try to walk in wisdom and understanding while the world around you
is trying to force you into its mold. Now, I know you're wondering, okay, so what
about the number, what about 666? So, I could go into a long explanation, but we
don't have time for that. Let me just give you my short answer related to this. I
don't think this is a riddle to be solved. I don't think it's a code where to
decipher the numbers and we're gonna find a person's name in here, a person from
history or a person in the future. There are a lot of scholars who have done a
lot of work to try to show how that might be the case. I think when we look at
the book of Revelation, We already know numbers have symbolic meaning throughout the
book of Revelation. We've seen that the number 144 ,000 has, I believe,
a symbolic, a metaphorical meaning. So does 42 months, so does 1260 days,
so does three and a half years. These are all numbers that have meanings. The
number seven is a big number in the book. So we had seven churches,
we have seven spirits, we have seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven
bowls, seven shows up over and over again, the number seven represents completeness
or perfection. So what number comes close but falls short?
Six is the number that comes close but falls short of perfection and completion.
It's incomplete, It's less than, it tries to be seven, but it can't. It doesn't
have enough to be seven. I think the number of the beast here represents the number
of incompleteness or imperfection, and I think it's repeated three times,
pointing to the incompleteness and imperfection of this unholy trinity, the dragon,
the first beast, and the second beast. The number of the beast here, the number of
this beastly system is a number of imperfection and incompleteness masquerading as if
it's perfect and complete. I agree with Dr. Greg Beale, who is a professor of New
Testament and biblical theology at the Dallas Campus of Reformed Seminary, who says
this number is six repeated three times indicating the completeness of sinful
incompleteness found in the beast.
So the next time you order something at Chick -fil -A and they say that'll be $6
.66. You don't need to freak out and run out of the other place. You can go ahead
and have your meal and eat it in peace. When the bar code on your receipt says
666 at the bottom, you're okay. If somebody sends, if the Uber driver says let's go
to 666 Waverly Place, it's all right. You can go there. If this is Jeopardy and
the answer is 666, Here's the question, what number does the Bible use to symbolize
false and demonic worldview or religion? The beastly system,
it uses that number to say it's a number that falls short. It's a number that
promises but can't deliver. It's what this number is meant to symbolize.
The drama that we see unfolding here in Revelation 12 and 13 where the dragon and
the two beasts are seeking to destroy God's people. This is the spiritual battle all
of us are facing in the middle of every day of our lives. We need to recognize
the enemy and his tactics. We need to exercise wisdom and understanding if we're
gonna stand firm in the face of this spiritual battle that's taking place.
If we're gonna recognize evil and if we're gonna say, "My allegiance, my mark, is
to Christ." Let's pray together. Father,
we thank you for the warning of your word. We thank you that this word challenges
us
to make sure that our allegiance is to you and to the lamb, not to the one who
looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon.
Help us to recognize error and sin in our world today.
Help us to recognize those forces that would want to derail us from worshiping you
and cause us to worship them, to worship another system, to worship a state,
to worship leaders other than you. Help us to stand firm with wisdom and
understanding. Help us to endure with faith.
We ask all of this in your name. Amen.