The Beast from the Sea
Dragon on land and Beast from the sea. Dragon turned over its power to the Beast. People worshiped the dragon, then gave their power/worship to the beast. Beast: loud mouth, boastful, blasphemous against God/Christ/Church...held absolute sway over all tribes and peoples, tongues and races.
"Everyone on earth whose name was not written from the world's foundation in the slaughtered Lamb's Book of Life will worship the Beast." Can't really just pluck this phrase out of context, but if one would, how would this effect thoughts of the possibility of salvation for all people, for all creation? It suggests there's an "in" list, which means there must be an "out" list, regardless of what we do or believe, as it's "written from the world's foundation." May have to look back at that one...
God's holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.
Beast from under ground. Pointed to the first beast as the object of worship.
EP: "If the devil's design is to separate our behavior and our belief from the rule of God, politics will be a field where he deploys his troops. The beasts from the sea and the earth are images John uses to show how the satanic will covertly work in the areas of government and religion. With the sea beast, the Dragon will frighten us into disobedience ('to make war on God's holy people and conquer them; to deceive them into illusion). To intimidate and to deceive are countered by John's words to his parishoners. 'God's holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.' We may lose our lives by violence in this world, but death is not defeat. Death is not the worst thing that can be done to us. Exiles and martyrs were active in their suffering, witnessing the passion of Christ, seeing endurance and faith as aggressive forces in the battle that rages between God and the devil."
Anyone not worshiping the Beast would be killed. Without the mark, it was impossible to buy or sell anything. 666.
"John expects the deceit of the land beast to be penetrated by the hard, critical thinking of the Christian mind. The land beast is, more than anything else, religious. It has a Christlike quality; it's like a lamb but it's a parody, not a derivation of Christ. There's no part of life in which deceit is more prevalent than in religion. How do we protect ourselves from organized deceit? John says: 'Use your heads. Figure out what's going on. Most of the conspicuous religion at any time derives from the land beast. Expose these religious pretensions. They have nothing to do with God. It's a human number, a human manipulation, not divine mystery. It's religion that makes a show, that vaunts itself, that takes our eyes off the poor and suffering and holy Christ. 666 is a triple failure to be a 777, the three-times perfect, whole, divine number. The number is a riddle, but it's not rocket science. John wants us to use our heads and figure it out. For the Christian's greatest weapon against deceit is discernment." EP on the end of chapter 13.
A Perfect Offering. Only the 144,000 learned to sing the song. The first fruits, pure, perfect offering.
Angel voices: Fear God and give him glory! His hour of judgment has come. Worship the Maker of Heaven and earth, salt sea and fresh water! 2nd and 3rd angels proclaim judgment. "Blessed are those who die in the Master from now on; how blessed to die that way!"
Harvest time. Harvest earth's vineyard. The grapes are bursting with ripeness. The giant winepress of God's wrath. A river of blood flowed out for 200 miles.
EP: "Paranatural power we're not used to, these satanic forces. The forces of salvation are always at work behind the scenes on our behalf. The beast visions penetrated the hoax of evil; the salvation visions reveal the support system that backs up the life of endurance and discernment. 3 Salvation assisting vision: Lamb leading worship, three angels preaching sermons in midheaven, Son of Man harvesting the fields. While we're doing our best to worship God and not the powers of world, to understand our faith and not be misled by the Devil's religious flimflam, and to cultivate a life of holiness in a weed-filled society, we're being helped to do each task.
"Three activities by which we survive and flourish politically: engaging in worship, listening to the proclaimed Word, and practicing holy living."
Song of Moses. Angels carried the disasters, not the other way around.
"Seven congregations barraged by violence from without and infiltrated by lies from within, John can think of nothing better than to call them to worship. His insistence on putting everything they're experiencing in the context of worship isn't the work of someone who can't bear the assaults of life and seeks an escape. No spiritual leader has been as in touch with the realities of living in a difficult world as John was. His recurrent representations of worship aren't pious, escapist fictions; they are theological convictions. The conviction is that God's action, not the world's action, is what we want to be involved in. The world isn't the context for dealing with God. God is the context for dealing with the world. And so, in a turbulent world where we're constantly getting disoriented, worship is the way we get reoriented." EP
Pouring out the seven disasters. Graphic. Can see it, smell it, touch it, maybe even taste it. Foul demons crawling out of the mouths of Dragon, Beast False Prophet. Frog-demons gathered the kings together at the place called Armageddon. Back to chaos.
"Consequences poured out on earth. Get them all the time, but we don't see. Aspect of judgment, not unlike the plagues of Egypt. Moses' task (and every spiritual leader's is) was to shape a worshiping people before the Lord. 'Free my people so that they can hold a festival for God in the wilderness.' Moses' task was to lead his people in worship. Pharoah's sin was that he prevented them. The judgment plagues are visited over this issue and this issue alone. The greatest evil that people of faith face from the outside is the obstruction of worship. The greatest evil that they face from the inside is the subversion of worship. This is what we have most to fear."
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