I know it’s not Tuesday.  But it’s Spring Break and, as much as I love having the kids at home, it does make it fairly difficult to have a complete thought around here.  Let’s try it anyway.

I saw—it took my breath away!—the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, 144,000 standing there with him, his Name and the Name of his Father inscribed on their foreheads. And I heard a voice out of Heaven, the sound like a cataract, like the crash of thunder.

And then I heard music, harp music and the harpists singing a new song before the Throne and the Four Animals and the Elders. Only the 144,000 could learn to sing the song. They were bought from earth, lived without compromise, virgin-fresh before God. Wherever the Lamb went, they followed. They were bought from humankind, firstfruits of the harvest for God and the Lamb. Not a false word in their mouths. A perfect offering.

Revelation 14:1-5

So John sees Jesus standing on a mountain.  There are a bunch of people standing with him.  And God speaks.  And his voice sounds like thunder.  But it also sounds like a cataract.  Which leads to the question.  What in the world is a cataract?  Tuns out, that is a weird bible word for a huge wave in the ocean.  So God’s voice(in this passage) sounds like thunder or a big ocean wave.

And exactly who are these 144,00 people?  Can I just tell you that your life will be infinitely better if you just decide you don’t need to know?  I have seen some very smart people twist themselves into intellectual pretzels trying to answer this question.  I’m not saying it isn’t important.  I’m just saying I have no idea who these people are and my Christian life has been no worse due to my ignorance.

I saw another Angel soaring in Middle-Heaven. He had an Eternal Message to preach to all who were still on earth, every nation and tribe, every tongue and people. He preached in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory! His hour of judgment has come! Worship the Maker of Heaven and earth, salt sea and fresh water!”

A second Angel followed, calling out, “Ruined, ruined, Great Babylon ruined! She made all the nations drunk on the wine of her whoring!”

A third Angel followed, shouting, warning, “If anyone worships the Beast and its image and takes the mark on forehead or hand, that person will drink the wine of God’s wrath, prepared unmixed in his chalice of anger, and suffer torment from fire and brimstone in the presence of Holy Angels, in the presence of the Lamb. Smoke from their torment will rise age after age. No respite for those who worship the Beast and its image, who take the mark of its name.”

Meanwhile, the saints stand passionately patient, keeping God’s commands, staying faithful to Jesus.

I heard a voice out of Heaven, “Write this: Blessed are those who die in the Master from now on; how blessed to die that way!”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “and blessed rest from their hard, hard work. None of what they’ve done is wasted; God blesses them for it all in the end.”

Revelation 14:6-14

Honestly, it’s just hard to imagine that AFTER ALL OF THIS, there are still people left on Earth that are ‘unbelievers’.  But clearly there are a bunch.  And you know what I love?  God is still sending angels out to warn people.  He is STILL giving out second chances.  Ya’ll we just are not worthy of a God this good.

But as much as God is loving and patient and forgiving, there will come a time for his wrath.  And folks…it ain’t gonna be pretty.  I lament that Revelation is most often preached as a way to scare people.  I don’t think that is the point or the intention.  But if the idea of the wrath of God doesn’t scare you, you may want to seek professional help.

This passage ends with one of my favorite parts.

Meanwhile, the saints stand passionately patient, keeping God’s commands, staying faithful to Jesus.

Living in this world angers me, annoys me, saddens me, horrifies me and frustrates me multiple times a day.  But God has given me simple instructions.

Be passionately patient.

Keep God’s commands.

Stay faithful to Jesus.

Revelation Chapter 13 has a lot to ponder.  By all means.  Go read it.

There is much I don’t know about this chapter but here’s my attempted summary.

There’s a beast and a dragon and even more numbers.  The beast is an actual person…not a Disney character.  This person will be some kind of world leader.  (I don’t want to cause any controversy here but I’m pretty sure it ain’t Obama.)  The beast (man) will survive an assassination.  In that, he will actually be killed but come back to life.  This makes him quite popular with Earth’s inhabitants as you might expect.  (This is how I know it isn’t Obama because even if he died and came back most everyone I know would still hate his guts.)  The beast will, of course, be controlled by Satan.  And remember the passage from last week?  Satan is real, real, mad because he knows his time is short.  The beast is no fan of the church (meaning Christians) and he wages war on them.  By this I mean an actual war and not just the stuff we call war now.

Are you listening to this? They’ve made their bed; now they must lie in it. Anyone marked for prison goes straight to prison; anyone pulling a sword goes down by the sword. Meanwhile, God’s holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.

Revelation 13:9-10

Then this happens.

I saw another Beast rising out of the ground. It had two horns like a lamb but sounded like a dragon when it spoke. It was a puppet of the first Beast, made earth and everyone in it worship the first Beast, which had been healed of its deathblow.

This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from Heaven. It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived. It was able to animate the image of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would be killed. It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a mark on the right hand or forehead. Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything.

Solve a riddle: Put your heads together and figure out the meaning of the number of the Beast. It’s a human number: 666.

Revelation 13:11-18

So this second beast appears to be a flunky for the first beast.  It’s confusing, ain’t it?

Anyone who doesn’t worship the beast will be killed.  I don’t think this is a metaphor.  I’m pretty sure these people will actually be murdered.  And those people are going to be faithful Christians who will not worship a false God.

Then we finally get to ‘the mark of the beast’.  I don’t know what to tell ya.  The Bible calls it a riddle.  I hope you weren’t looking at me for the answer.

But let me say this.  I have no plans to get implanted with anything anytime soon.  But the worship of the beast and the taking of the mark seem to me to be undertaken knowingly.  By that I mean that I don’t believe anyone is going to be conned into this deal.

I know it’s not Tuesday.  I’m doin’ the best I can people.

A great Sign appeared in Heaven: a Woman dressed all in sunlight, standing on the moon, and crowned with Twelve Stars. She was giving birth to a Child and cried out in the pain of childbirth.

And then another Sign alongside the first: a huge and fiery Dragon! It had seven heads and ten horns, a crown on each of the seven heads. With one flick of its tail it knocked a third of the Stars from the sky and dumped them on earth. The Dragon crouched before the Woman in childbirth, poised to eat up the Child when it came.

The Woman gave birth to a Son who will shepherd all nations with an iron rod. Her Son was seized and placed safely before God on his Throne. The Woman herself escaped to the desert to a place of safety prepared by God, all comforts provided her for 1,260 days.

Revelation 12:1-6

Boy this passage is just chock full of everything, ain’t it?  Let’s see what we can do with this.

Best I can tell, the woman here is a metaphor for the Jewish people.  The dragon is Satan.  The Son is Jesus.

There are a whole bunch of numbers here.  Twelve stars.  Seven heads.  Ten horns.  1260 days.  I’m sure I could get a bunch of people to argue about what the numbers mean but I don’t wanna.  Just for me, when I see 12 in the Bible, I usually assume it means the 12 tribes of Israel.  Sometimes it means the 12 disciples of Jesus.  Go with the one that makes more sense in the context and you will probably be fine. Seven heads and ten horns has something to do with rulers and empires.  I don’t mean to dismiss this as unimportant but I also don’t want to labor over something that God has veiled.  Maybe I’m not supposed to know EXACTLY what these numbers mean?  The 1260 days is 3 and 1/2 years.  So it would appear that Israel will be sheltered some kind of way from Satan for 3 1/2 years.  When is this gonna happen?  I have no idea.  Sometime during the tribulation.  And, no, we don’t know when that is happening either.

War broke out in Heaven. Michael and his Angels fought the Dragon. The Dragon and his Angels fought back, but were no match for Michael. They were cleared out of Heaven, not a sign of them left. The great Dragon—ancient Serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, the one who led the whole earth astray—thrown out, and all his Angels thrown out with him, thrown down to earth. Then I heard a strong voice out of Heaven saying,

It’s Valentine’s Day!

So it seems like a good time to talk about love.

I’ve been brewing this post in my mind for several months now.  Each time I begin to write it I stop short.  Mostly I was too angry to make sense so I scrapped whatever tirade had made it’s way out of my keyboard.  I hate writing and reading angry blog posts. I’m guessing you do too. But when you write, ideas generally won’t go away until you communicate them. I suppose that’s the height of narcissism really.  The idea that one must tell others of their opinion.  (It’s the kind of thing I make fun of people for doing on Facebook but do myself constantly on this blog.  Am I a hypocrite or what?)

So here’s my dilemna. The best I can tell, if you are a Christian the only way you can respond to ANYTHING that happens in the world today is…Love.
Love, Love, Love.  It’s our only option it seems.

You see I’m actually all about Love.  What I am not on board with is being dictated to love by a society that would not know love if it washed their filthy feet.

When we talk about love, we really seem to be saying “Will you ignore my sin if I ignore yours?”  or “Can we just agree to disagree about sin?”  or “Can we just pretend sin does not exist?” And more often than not, this is followed by a lesson on Jesus.  Look, I can admit there is much about Jesus that I still need to learn.  I hope I get closer to him every day until Heaven.  But I gotta be honest, I don’t need your Pinterest post about a fantasy Jesus that you created.  I don’t need a Facebook primer on the Bible.  Justify yourself on social media all you want.  I choose not to.

And I choose that path because there is no justification for me without Christ.  I highly doubt you know many people that were worse sinners than me.  I couldn’t talk my way out of it.  None of my arrogant worship of all the things I thought I knew would save me.  They still can’t.  So you don’t need to lecture me about Jesus and his amazing love.  I know full well how Jesus loves.  I know how he pursued me, wooed me, won me.  I know how undeserving I was and still am.  And I know that He loved me when I didn’t even acknowledge my sin much less repent of it.

So here’s a point we can all mostly agree on.  Jesus is the MVP of love.   And as his followers we need to practice what He preached.

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”

John 13:33

I feel confident I could find very few people that would argue with me about this verse.  It’s just universally accepted.  I wish it was universally lived but that’s a topic for another day.

But let’s look at something else Jesus said about love.

“Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list.

But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

Matthew 22:36-40

So here we have biblical support for the idea that the absolute rule for Christians is love.  But let’s look again at what Jesus identified as being the ‘most important’.  You would have to twist yourself into an intellectual pretzel in order to deny that Jesus is categorically stating here that love for God trumps love for one another.

What does that mean?

Does it mean I get to love God and hate people?

No.

Does it mean I get to judge you for any reason?

Nope.

Does it mean I get to use God’s word as a weapon against you?

Un uh.

What it means is this.

If you ask me to choose between believing what you say or believing what God says, you will lose every time.

It means that my first priority will always be God.  No perfection is implied here.  Only intention.

And above all it means that I will love my fellow man as much and as hard as I have strength to do so for as long as I live.   But I will not hate God just to prove that I love you.

Wow…3 months since my last Revelation post.  This may actually be a new record.  I have no excuse.  I was kinda hoping we might get raptured by now but it appears the Lord may tarry a bit longer, so let’s get back at it.

The second doom is past, the third doom coming right on its heels.

Revelation 11:14

Oh goody.  More doom.

 The seventh Angel trumpeted. A crescendo of voices in Heaven sang out,

The kingdom of the world is now
    the Kingdom of our God and his Messiah!
He will rule forever and ever!

The Twenty-four Elders seated before God on their thrones fell to their knees, worshiped, and sang,

We thank you, O God, Sovereign-Strong,
    Who Is and Who Was.
You took your great power
    and took over—reigned!
The angry nations now
    get a taste of your anger.
The time has come to judge the dead,
    to reward your servants, all prophets and saints,
Reward small and great who fear your Name,
    and destroy the destroyers of earth.

 The doors of God’s Temple in Heaven flew open, and the Ark of his Covenant was clearly seen surrounded by flashes of lightning, loud shouts, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a fierce hailstorm.

Revelation 11:15-19

This is pretty ok with me actually.  ‘Destroy the destroyers of the earth?”  Yep.  Totally onboard with this part.  I’m always ok with God giving people what they deserve unless that people happens to be me.

Did you see this part?

Reward small and great who fear your Name

The fear of God is just a strange concept, isn’t it?  I’ve known people to interpret it in all kind of ways.  I was going to write something really smart explaining this but then this other guy did it better than me…which is annoying 🙁

Unfortunately, many of us presume that the world is the ultimate threat and that God’s function is to offset it. How different this is from the biblical position that God is far scarier than the world …. When we assume that the world is the ultimate threat, we give it unwarranted power, for in truth, the world’s threats are temporary. When we expect God to balance the stress of the world, we reduce him to the world’s equal …. As I walk with the Lord, I discover that God poses an ominous threat to my ego, but not to me. He rescues me from my delusions, so he may reveal the truth that sets me free. He casts me down, only to lift me up again. He sits in judgment of my sin, but forgives me nevertheless. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but love from the Lord is its completion.

William D. Eisenhower – “Fearing God”

Somebody really ought to “Amen” here.