Good afternoon. Good evening. Working on the air conditioning, I think.
I grew up in a family that loved scary movies. Anybody like scary movies here? Horror movies?
Not so much the kind of bloody, murdery kind, more the supernatural alien kind of horror movies.
And so I grew up, you know, many family movie nights at the Henson House where we were watching horror movies.
And even after all the good therapy I've had, one of the things that stands out to me in my memory of those times is how many movies had some reference to the mark of the beast.
Right? The mark of the beast. You know, little Timmy is born with a weird-looking birthmark.
Nobody thinks anything of it until Timmy's play school friends start having accidents, you know, and they start wondering what's wrong with Timmy.
And, you know, I think about the ways that this symbol has just captured the imagination of pop culture.
I remember in high school, you know, you could tell the goth kids because they would scribble 666 in the margins of their notebooks at school and some would even get it tattooed on them, you know.
And so very, very, very much captured popular imagination.
You know, it's actually a reference to a Bible passage.
The end of Revelation chapter 13 makes reference to the mark of the beast.
And as we've been studying Revelation, one of the things we've seen is this, that Revelation is full of very fantastic, very extraordinary images.
A lot of them are drawn from the Old Testament, some are not.
But what we see again and again and again is God uses the extraordinary in Revelation to transform the way we see the ordinary.
He uses extraordinary images to get our attention, to wake us up, and to get us to revisit assumptions that we thought were settled,
to revisit perspectives that we thought were appropriate.
And He gets us to rethink our lives, our ordinary daily lives, by showing us very extraordinary things.
And that's what's happening here.
What we're going to do tonight is we're going to look at Revelation, the end of chapter 13, the entirety of chapter 14,
and we're going to look at the mark of the beast, the people of the beast.
And we're going to see that this is yet again an example of how Revelation challenges us to rethink our lives
and to rethink our faith and what it means to follow Jesus.
And I think what we'll see, what I hope you see is what I've seen,
that even though this is not the stuff of horror movies,
even though the true meaning is very different than what is often portrayed,
I think the implications are a lot more frightening.
And so we're going to look at the mark of the beast, the lie of the beast,
and then ultimately the end of the beast, the final end of the beast.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You that even when it's not crystal clear,
even when it's obscure and mysterious,
that in all times when we open Your Word,
we are ultimately trusting You through Your Spirit to speak to us.
And we pray that You would do that again this evening as You have always done,
and that You would, through Your written Word here,
bring us face to face with the living Word, Jesus Christ.
And it's in His name that we pray. Amen.
So the mark of the beast, fascinating, right?
Let's get a little context of what's happening up to this point in the story.
Last week, for those of you who are here, we looked at Revelation 12 and 13,
and we saw that between Jesus' first coming, Christmas, and His second coming,
which has not happened yet, the two advents of Jesus,
that Satan, depicted as a dragon, is going to wage war against God's people.
And we're in that time.
And so in order to wage war against God's people,
Satan relies on two beasts, reinforcements.
There's a beast from the sea and a beast from the land.
The beast from the sea represents all of the governments and systems
and institutions that are corrupt and wicked and do the work of the dragon.
And then the land beast represents all of the religious institutions
and the religious leaders that prop up those wicked institutions and governments and systems.
And so these are both tools in the dragon's hand to wage war against God's people.
And what we see at the end of chapter 13,
we see all of the people who have given their allegiance to the beast,
and we see that they are all marked on their foreheads and on their wrists with the mark of the beast,
which we're told is the number 666.
Now, we have to understand that despite what the movies say,
this is not a literal mark.
This is a symbol.
In this context, a mark, to be marked, means your defining characteristic.
It's the thing that you belong to.
It's your ultimate loyalty or allegiance.
So you might say, you know, somebody is marked by this particular characteristic.
So all of the people of the beast are marked with a 666.
So what is the characteristic that this is conveying?
Well, to understand what it means,
we have to remember that Revelation is structured in cycles of seven.
Right?
So there are seven seals that need to be broken open.
There are seven trumpet blasts blown by seven angels.
There are seven bowls that need to be poured out on the earth.
And this series of seven is, in each case,
meant to hearken back to the first series of seven that appears in the Bible,
which is the story of creation, the seven days of creation.
Right?
And so in each case, day one corresponds to the number one or the first bowl or the first trumpet.
In each case, when we see a number, it's meant to hearken back to that original order of creation,
those seven days of creation.
And so when we think about the number six,
that immediately brings our minds to the sixth day of creation,
which if you remember on the sixth day of creation,
that's where God creates all of the creatures of the earth and he creates human beings.
And then, of course, in the story of creation,
day six ends and then everything progresses to the seventh day.
And we recognize that the entire purpose of creation is to worship God and to glorify God
and to enter into Sabbath rest with God.
And so we recognize that the full story of creation, seven days,
it begins with God and it ends with God.
And the theological message of that is that all of this is meant for God's glory.
It's meant for seventh day praise and worship.
When we see a 666 that is the mark of a person,
the defining characteristic of a person,
what we're seeing is that that person is defined by the fact that they have,
in essence, gotten stuck on the sixth day.
In other words, they got stuck with the world and the creatures of the world
and human beings as the end-all be-all.
They are, in a sense, living in denial that there is a seventh day.
They ignore God and the world that he made.
They celebrate and worship the creatures, but they have denied the Creator.
And this is again and again and again the core issue that the Bible brings to light
that is the reason why the world is broken the way it is.
It's because we have, as Romans chapter 1 says,
exchanged the worship of God for the worship of the created things that God has made.
And so people who are marked with the mark of the beast, this 666,
they live sixth day lifestyles, right?
This is the lifestyle or the attitude that says,
you know, it's my money.
It's my body.
It's my time.
And I get to decide what I do with it.
There is no higher purpose.
There is no higher source of accountability.
I'm not beholden to anyone.
I can do whatever I want.
That's the sixth day mentality.
That's the mark of the beast.
And, you know, this day, these days, I think that's a very attractive worldview.
But that entire worldview is built on a lie.
And especially when it comes to the question of what does it mean to be a Christian
and how is Christianity different,
we recognize that underneath this sits a lie,
what we might think of as the lie of the beast.
Chapter 13, verse 17 says,
and this is a really obscure reference.
It's easy to just go right past this like you do so many things in Revelation.
It's easy to go right by this, but I think it's extremely important.
Verse 17 tells us that only those who wear the mark of the beast are permitted to buy and sell.
And you've got to understand that this is actually a historical reference.
In Rome, persecution against Christians was ramping up at the time that this was written.
And the reason had partly to do with the fact that the Roman emperor
had decreed himself to be a god deserving of worship
and that the Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses
needed to be worshipped for the benefit of Rome.
And so they would conquer people as the Roman Empire spread
and the deal they would make with people was to say,
you can continue in your religion
as long as you add the emperor and the Roman pantheon to your prayers
and as long as you sacrifice to them as well.
Continue in your religion, but also worship the emperor.
Also worship the Roman gods and goddesses.
And when bad things happened to the Roman Empire,
and especially as they began to decline and fall apart,
they would blame those bad things on all of the people living in the Roman Empire
who refused to sacrifice to the emperor.
You're not worshipping the emperor,
you're not worshipping the gods and goddesses,
and we're paying for it.
So this was the justification behind the persecution that Christians experienced.
And so this persecution included local officials actually beginning to say
that people who sacrificed to the emperor would be allowed into the marketplace
to sell their wares and to buy what they needed.
People who refused to sacrifice to the emperor were not allowed into the marketplace,
and there were various visible means of determining who was allowed in and who was excluded.
And so if you were a Christian in this culture,
you faced a very real dilemma.
Here's the dilemma.
Either I stay true to Jesus,
and I only worship him,
and I refuse to sacrifice to the emperor,
and yet I'm not allowed in the marketplace,
I can't sell my goods,
I can't get what I need,
I can't provide for my family,
and I'm putting my very livelihood at risk.
Or,
I make a little compromise.
I worship Jesus,
but I also do a little bit of worshipping of the Roman emperor,
just enough to count,
just enough to qualify.
I get my permit,
I go to the market,
I get what I need,
I sell my stuff,
I make the money,
I provide for my family,
I make sure they're okay.
Surely God would understand,
I want to provide for my family,
I want to feed my kids.
Surely God understands a little compromise.
Surely Jesus is reasonable.
And this was the dilemma.
And you know,
this is a very real dilemma.
It's something that Christians have had to wrestle with
all throughout history.
How do we make these challenging decisions of loyalty?
You know,
do you work for a company,
and do very benign gospel kingdom work,
while knowing that a subsidiary of that company
is making weapons,
or is doing things that are deeply harmful to the environment?
And how do you square that as a Christian?
Do you support a political candidate
that either mocks or misrepresents the Christian faith?
Should you even be involved in that as a Christian?
You know,
do you buy products that you know
may come from countries
with non-existent labor laws,
where you may be propping up unjust systems
and the oppression of entire people groups
with your consumer choice?
Right?
And so as Christians,
we have to deal with these kinds of challenging,
not-so-clear-cut issues all the time.
And yet there is a lie underneath this way of thinking
that we need to recognize.
It's what we might call the lie of the beast.
And here's the lie.
The lie is this.
I can worship Jesus,
and I can worship the idols of my culture.
I can have my cake and eat it too.
The two do not need to be at odds.
This is the lie of the beast.
I can worship Jesus and the idols of my culture.
I can worship Jesus,
but also I can worship individualism
and personal autonomy.
I don't need a community.
I don't need accountability.
I make my own choices.
I can worship Jesus,
and I can worship consumerism
and ultimately allow my life to be defined
as a consumer.
I can worship Jesus and sex.
I can worship Jesus and money.
I can worship Jesus and power.
This is the lie that we can follow Jesus
and all of these other things.
And what we need to see about the beast is this.
The beast does not set out to end religion.
Right?
We think of the opposite of religion,
the opposite of Christian faith,
as being atheism.
That's not the agenda here.
The beast does not set out to end religion.
The beast sets out to domesticate religion,
to domesticate religion,
to, as the quote goes,
pair the claws of the lion of Judah
and turn him into a house cat.
Right?
C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters,
which is about an older demon.
He imagines what it would be like
for an older demon to coach a younger demon
in how to tempt people away from God.
And he says this at one point.
If you can once get him,
meaning the patient,
if you can once get him to the point of thinking that,
quote,
religion is all very well up to a point,
you can feel quite happy about his soul.
And here's the key.
A moderated religion is as good for us
as no religion at all
and more amusing.
I love that quote.
A moderated religion is as good for us,
meaning the demons,
as no religion at all.
See, a moderated religion
or a domesticated religion,
that's a religion that plays nice.
You know,
that's a religion that knows its place at the table
and it never crosses the line.
You know,
that's a religion that knows its place.
It's a religion that never wants to rock the boat.
It's a religion that wants to make very sure
that it never says or does anything
that might in any way offend people,
that might in any way call people
to question their own choices
or their own beliefs.
It stays in its box.
It respects the fence.
And most important,
a domesticated faith
is a faith that doesn't ever question
the idols of the culture
because that would make people angry.
It would make people uncomfortable.
It would challenge things.
It might upend things.
And a domesticated religion does not want that.
A domesticated religion just wants everybody to be happy.
No conflict.
You know,
back in Revelation 3,
Jesus confronts the church in Laodicea
for being lukewarm.
You're neither hot nor cold.
You're lukewarm
and therefore I will spit you out of my mouth.
Lukewarmness is the work of the beast.
That's exactly what we see here.
And you know,
I've been thinking about this a lot this week
and I think the biggest threat to my faith,
you know,
the biggest risk is not that I would
one day just stand up here and say,
I reject God.
I reject Jesus.
I don't believe any of it anymore.
That's probably not going to happen.
What's much more likely
is that instead of one big cataclysmic rejection
is that over time,
instead of denying Jesus,
I would slowly domesticate Jesus in my own life.
I would want to trim away
all of the parts I don't like.
I would want to cut away
all the things that offend me
or the things that mean
I might not get along with my friend at work.
I want to trim away
all of the things
that make me in any way uncomfortable
or put me at any way in odds
with the people around me.
And I make it nice and neat
and I put it in a little box
and I put it in the closet
and then it's there if I need it.
That's what I'm afraid
might happen to me.
You know,
that I would get to the point
where I say, you know,
I'll follow Jesus
as long as it doesn't inconvenience me too much,
as long as it doesn't throw off my routine,
as long as it doesn't mean
I have to change the way I live,
as long as it doesn't mean
that I have to shift
in my pursuit of success or pleasure
because surely God understands
why these things matter to me.
Surely God's on board with my agenda.
I'll follow Jesus
as long as it doesn't cost me anything socially
because God wants me to have friends.
God doesn't want me to be rejected.
God wants me to be happy.
As long as I don't have to share my faith with anybody
because surely God understands
that people just don't do that anymore.
And I live in a society
where it's okay to believe what you want
as long as you keep it to yourself
and you should never impose your beliefs
on another people.
And, you know,
we all hate the idea
of the kind of imperial expansion
and colonialism of the,
you know,
and we just think, you know,
surely God understands that.
Surely God understands
if I just keep it hidden
because really it's just about me and Him.
You know,
the mark of the beast
sounds like the stuff of horror movies,
but I think the truth is much worse
because people of the beast
are not wearing 666's
and they're tattooed into their skin
and going out and killing people
like monsters.
People of the beast
are benign.
You know,
they're docile.
They're passive.
They're submissive.
People of the beast
would never take a public stand
for their faith.
People of the beast
would never speak truth to power.
People of the beast
would never push back
against dehumanizing systems
or institutions.
They would never liberate the oppressed.
People of the beast
would never, ever, ever
start a revolution.
They just want to get through the day.
And this is why we need
Revelation chapter 14
which lands like a bombshell
and wakes us up.
You know,
there are those places in Scripture
that just sort of jerk you awake.
And that's what Revelation does.
It shakes us awake.
And it says,
do you realize
the truth of the situation?
And John in 14
tears his eyes away
from the beast
and the people of the beast
and the mark of the beast
and he looks up
and he sees an entirely different vision.
It says in verse 1,
then I looked
and behold
on Mount Zion
stood the Lamb
and with him
144,000
which represents
the totality
of the true Israel.
All of God's people
who had his name
and his father's name
written on their foreheads.
John looks
and he sees
a whole other company of people.
And they're standing
on the mountain of God
and they're standing
with the Son of God,
the Lamb,
Jesus Christ.
And they also bear a mark
but it's not the mark
of the beast.
It's the mark of the Lamb.
The name of God the Father
is written on their foreheads.
That's their defining characteristic.
That's their family.
That's who they belong to.
That's who they represent.
God the Father.
God the Son.
God the Holy Spirit.
Embodied
in this great company of people.
And they're not just
standing there either.
They are singing together.
And it's a song
that no one in creation
has ever heard before.
It's a new song.
Which is a way of saying
they are representing
a new way of being human
in the world.
A new way of being human.
Nobody's ever seen this before.
God created human beings
to be image bearers.
What does it mean
to be an image bearer?
Well, to borrow from N.T. Wright,
think of it like being
an angled mirror.
If you're an angled mirror,
you're doing two things.
You're reflecting praise
and gratitude
and thanksgiving up to God
for all that He's made.
And then you're reflecting
God's love and purposes down
into the world
that you're a part of.
That's what it means
to be an image bearer.
And we do this
in innumerable ways.
Whether you're at home
taking care of kids
or working a minimum wage job
that you hate
or working in the career
of your dreams,
there are countless ways
that you are reflecting
God's love and purposes
into the world
through your work.
When we reach out
and begin to get to know
our neighbors
and to build community there,
when we recognize
needs in our midst
and we take that extra time
and energy needed
to reach out and say,
how can I help?
Right?
When we do work
to try to care for
and steward the environment,
when we involve ourselves
in works of mercy and justice
and when we do this
in our little corner
of the world, right?
Not trying to solve
every problem,
but trying to help
the person right next to us
with the thing
that is weighing them down.
When you do that,
you are reflecting God's love
and God's purposes
into the world.
That's what it means
to be an image bearer.
When you're not doing that,
all that's left
is to reflect the chaos
and the confusion
of the world
back to itself.
You've lost the angle.
The Bible says
all human beings
have lost that angle.
And the reason
that Jesus Christ came
was to restore that angle,
was to restore us
to being image bearers.
And so people of the beast
are no longer
angled mirrors.
They're reflecting chaos
and confusion
back to itself
in an endless feedback loop
of futility.
And Jesus came
to set those people free.
And chapter 4
shows us
the ultimate fate
of these two groups.
You know,
it shows us
that all of the people
of the Lamb,
even though in their lives
they were excluded
from the marketplace,
they were excluded
from the promotion opportunities,
they were rejected
by their friends
and neighbors,
they were marginalized,
they were socially rejected,
maybe even martyred,
many were martyred,
that they are now
being gathered together
in this great
celebratory harvest.
Jesus is harvesting
the saints
and they're being
gathered together
as one
for the great wedding feast
that is to come
in just a little while.
On the other hand,
all of the people
of the beast
who decided
to compromise,
who chose comfort,
who chose efficiency,
who chose convenience,
all of those things,
those people
who wear the mark
and the beast
they follow
are coming
under judgment.
It says
in chapter 14,
verse 10,
And if anyone
worships the beast
in its image,
receives a mark
on his forehead
or on his hand,
he will also drink
the wine of God's wrath.
And you say,
well, that's a hard pill
to swallow.
Nobody likes
the idea of judgment.
And yet what we recognize
is there's still hope
for the world.
Because in verse 6,
it says,
Then I saw another angel
flying directly overhead
with an eternal gospel
to proclaim
to those who dwell
on earth,
to every nation
and tribe
and language
and people.
This is saying
God has made a way
for people
who want to be
image bearers again,
who want to
realign themselves
with God's love
and purposes,
who want that mark
erased from their body.
God has made a way
to set those people free.
And it's what we call
the gospel,
the good news
of Jesus Christ.
Right?
Verse 10 says
that anyone
who worships the beast,
anyone who wears that mark,
will drink the wine
of God's wrath.
There's a cup of wrath
waiting for you,
which I think needs
to bring our minds
back to the Garden
of Gethsemane
when Jesus is alone.
He's asked His disciples
to pray for Him,
to wait on Him,
but they've all
fallen asleep.
And He's alone
and He knows
He's about to be arrested,
tortured, killed.
And He prays
to the Father
and He prays in tears
and He sweats drops
of blood
and He says
to His Father,
Father,
if You're willing,
remove this cup
from Me.
Nevertheless,
not My will
but Yours
be done.
And we recognize
it's the same cup.
Same cup.
And the gospel
tells us
that we are all
people of the beast.
You know,
I ignore God
and the world
that He made.
I live like creation
stopped at the sixth day,
that there is no more point
other than my own
personal satisfaction.
I prefer religion
that does not get
in the way
of my autonomy.
And what this says
is that Jesus Christ
knew that about us
and yet He was willing
to take the cup
that was sitting
in front of us
and to drain it Himself.
And so when we look
at the cross,
which is the central symbol
of our faith,
we're also looking
at that cup
and we're looking
at the place
where Jesus drained it
to the dregs.
And that's why
it says in verse 4
that the people
of the Lamb
are people
who have been redeemed.
They didn't earn
their way
into God's favor.
They didn't kind of
hear a message like this
and whip themselves up
into a frenzy
and say,
I need to care more.
And God said,
okay,
you have enough passion.
Come aboard.
These are people
who recognized
that apart from
the grace and mercy
of Jesus Christ,
they have no hope
and they threw themselves
at Jesus' feet
and they cried out
for mercy
and Jesus took the cup
and He drank it
on their behalf.
He purchased
their lives
and now they belong
to Him.
And so, you know,
I think all of this
is meant to wake us up.
It's to help us realize
that Jesus came
to start a revolution.
He came to set
people free.
He came to restore
image bearers
in all of the myriad ways
that you're doing that
right now in the world.
That's why Jesus came.
And He came to set
people free.
And He's calling for people
to join the revolution.
And in order to join
the revolution,
we can't will ourselves
to care more.
Our hearts have to be broken
over our own sin
and then they have to be
melted down
by God's love
so that then they can be
reforged
as something new.
And from that place
of brokenness
and from that place
of love
and grace,
that is where we begin
to learn
how to sing
that new song.
Let's pray.