https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=dMX8tpo-b34
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Just want to let you know that all the smoke in the sky, I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s not a thing at all. All right, so let’s put the context here. We’ve gone through the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and then we just kind of take a break from these cycles of seven, and St. John kind of gives us the cast list for the end times. So we’ve got the angel with the little scroll giving him his second call to prophecy, the woman and the dragon, St. Michael, and then tonight we’re going to get the beast from the sea, the beast from the earth, the lamb, and the 144,000. So tonight we’ll be covering chapters 13 and 14. The dragon took its position on the sand of the sea. Then I saw a beast come out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads. On its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names. The beast I saw was like a leopard, but it had feet like a bear’s, and its mouth was like the mouth of a lion. To it the dragon gave its own power and throne, along with great authority. I saw that one of its heads seemed to have been mortally wounded, but this mortal wound had been healed, fascinated the whole world followed after the beast. They worshiped the dragon because it gave its authority to the beast. They also worshiped the beast and said, Who can compare with the beast, or who can fight against it? All right, so I put verse 18 from the previous chapter in there, just to give a little bit of context. When this was written there weren’t these chapter breaks, and so the juxtaposition of the dragon from the last chapter and this beast from the sea, that’s important. Now you see, if you remember from last week, chapter 12, when it was talking about the dragon, it has seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns. That was the dragon. Now we’ve got this beast which is serving the dragon. It’s kind of created almost in the dragon’s image and likeness. It’s sort of a copy. It gives its authority over to this beast with the seven heads. The way I interpret the seven heads is that it’s trying to grasp at perfection, at totality of trying to be the ruler of all. The evil one tries to usurp the place of God, and any time that we sin we participate in that, and trying to usurp the place of God and take his throne away from him. But you’re unable to bring everything altogether into one, right? That seven being that number of perfection, but it being scattered among all the heads, gets diffused into multiplicity. It’s not able to bring everything together in a proper harmonious unity, but these heads are continuing to fight against each other. Remember the ten horns and the ten crowns, that’s going to come up in a later chapter. All right, so talking about blasphemous names, right? Blasphemous names. So anytime that we’re blaspheming, that’s not giving proper respect to God in speech, right? Most of the time for us, if that pops out, that’s usually not something that’s really thought through. Now all right, so we got these blasphemous names here, not speaking well in regard to God. When we look at these different animals, right, it can seem a little bit random, right? The animals that they’re choosing, but it’s not. If you go back to Daniel chapter seven, which has got to be like the 50th time we’ve referenced it in this class, four beasts come out of the sea. These four beasts in the book of Daniel represent four different kingdoms. The lion represented the kingdom of Babylon, the bear represented the kingdom of the Medes, the leopard represented the kingdom of the Persians, and that fourth hybrid beast that represented the Greek Empire, right? And all of these in turn were rivals to each other, but also people who occupied and invaded the land of Israel, right? Nebuchadnezzar, most famously the one who exiled the people from Israel to Babylon. And so whatever this new beast is, it’s like all of those other beasts having been put together, right? Taking all of those different images, smashing them all together. And then this beast has been given great power and authority, right? It’s been given the dragon’s power and authority. And so most interpreters see this beast from the sea as being the Roman Empire in the original context. This would have been understood as the Roman Empire. The city of Rome was founded on those seven hills, according to legend. Those blasphemous names were titles that were given to the Roman emperors, right? Caesar, Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus were both declared divine after their deaths, and they started having temples to these deceased Caesars popping up all throughout the Empire. And so they were addressed with words like Lord, addressed as Savior, addressed with Son of God, and Domitian, who would have been a late first century emperor, he and Nero, both of them at the same time while they were still alive, declared themselves to be divine, right? Declared themselves to be Son of God. And Domitian actually insisted upon being referred to as my Lord and my God. Now, where have you heard that one before, right? That’s the words of St. Thomas upon seeing the resurrected Christ and his wounds, right? So this beast then is arrogating to itself that which is proper to God alone. That’s what is proper to Christ the Lamb alone. Now, there’s this funny thing about the mortal wound, right? The mortal wound is… So some people interpret that with Caesar, right? Nero committed suicide outside the city of Rome because he saw that he was becoming drastically unpopular for his excessive cruelty and indulgence. So he committed suicide, but there was this weird legend going around that Nero would someday return and reclaim the kingdom. He was the last in the line of Julius Caesar, and after that, another dynasty propped up. Other interpreters will look at this and say that this is actually the Roman Empire itself as a whole. After Nero died, the whole empire got thrown into civil wars. They had one year where they actually had four different emperors sitting on the throne. It wasn’t until the year 69 AD that this chaos subdued and the Roman Empire was able to right the ship. And so they worship the beast and they worship the dragon because it gives its authority to the beast. Now obviously, idolatry isn’t much of a temptation these days, right? Or at least the way it was practiced in the Roman Empire. Idolatry is not much of a temptation. But it definitely was a temptation for the people of Israel in the Old Testament times and the Christians of the first century. And if they didn’t particularly want to do it, there was a lot of social pressure to do so. Now when we read the letters of St. Paul, St. Paul talks about any time that you’re offering up sacrifices to these idols, that you’re actually offering sacrifices to demons, right? And okay, so we’ve got that in St. Paul. And then a lot of times, I had a hard time putting this together. You read something from a very, let’s say, self-consciously Christian author. We’re talking about great works, right? So you can read the Divine Comedy by Dante from the 13th century in Italy, right? And it’s a deeply theological work. It’s got this theology woven all through it, you know? And he’s obviously a man of very firm faith. And he just lives in that world. There’s these constant references to Greek mythology and all sorts of Roman mythology. It’s all coming back there, right? And the same thing if you read Milton, Paradise Lost, obviously somebody who’s trying to comment in the Christian tradition, but there’s these constant throwbacks to these pagan deities. And for a while, I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to put these things together. How, you know, okay, the sacrifices, that’s bad, but we can talk about them all we want, right? Now, a great way to understand these ancient myths is that they actually tell us about human life and human nature, right? So you could look at Ares, the god of war, right? Well, that’s basically these different gods were kind of personifications of very common human patterns of behavior, right? Things that happen. So when you’ve got Ares, the god of war, when you’re worshiping him, it’s like all of a sudden you’re mad and you’re fighting. It’s that thing that drives you into conflict and to conquest, right? You look at Athena, right? The goddess of wisdom. That’s another pattern of behavior there. You know, Zeus had a headache and then out of that headache springs Athena, right? So we’ve got this ancient Greek story. And so that’s wisdom right there, right? You’re really thinking about something. You’re really pondering something so much that, you know, you could think really hard sometimes and be really engaged in something, you get that headache and bam, out pops this idea, this wisdom that comes to you, right? And so if you think this is actually kind of the proper balance then of how to understand these Greek myths is you can use it to understand our human condition, right? You can use them, these stories to understand kind of how humanity operates. And we could go into greater detail there, but this is supposed to be a class on the Bible. But you run into big problems once you start offering worship to those gods, right? Because they all need to come underneath the power of Christ, right? That they should be, you know, these different patterns of behavior, these different passions, these different moods, these different ideas. All of them need to bow before the lamb. And when that doesn’t happen and you end up worshiping them, then at that point, you’ve been deceived. You are no longer offering appropriate worship to God, but you’re offering worship to something, right? So you’re offering worship to the deceiver. You’re offering worship to the devil. All of this is based on that very, very Jewish idea of this absolute golf between the creator and the creatures, right? That’s a unique revelation of the God of Israel to the Jewish people, which wasn’t common in the Greeks at the time. So it is definitely something that we’ve carried over into the Christian tradition that nobody can compare with God the creator, that his power is absolutely unmatched, unparalleled. But the devil, the dragon, is always trying to usurp that proper place of God. And you’ll use any trick in the book, any means that he has in order to do this. And part of that includes apparently dying and rising again, right? This idea of this mortal wound, which was supposed to have either wiped out Nero or wiped out the Roman Empire and rising again from it. The beast was given a mouth uttering proud boasts and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for 42 months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling and those who dwell in heaven. It was also allowed to wage war against the holy ones and conquer them. And it was granted authority over every tribe, people, tongue and nation. All the inhabitants of the earth will worship it. All those whose names are not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life, which belongs to the lamb who was slain. So when I when I read this one, it really makes me think of, you know, we talked about this this 42 months, the year and a half, talked about that as this period of tribulation that could have multiple significations. It could mean either the entire age of the church, which is continually under violence by the forces of evil, or it could refer to that period right at the end where the persecutions are more intense. It seems like in this passage, it really looks forward to the end. And it’s it’s useful to note that a lot of this kind of end times prophecies isn’t just stuck in the book of Revelation at the back. It’s kind of comes up in the New Testament a lot. And one of the earliest witnesses we have to this comes from the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians. Right now, the Apostle Paul, when he was going around and he was doing his preaching, he was very intent and adamant that Christ is coming again. Right. And like part of what was driving him was Christ is coming again. You got to be ready. He’s going to come like a thief in the night. Behold, I’m coming soon, he’ll say. Now, the Thessalonians had taken this message to heart and some of them were just kind of sitting around waiting for Christ to come again. Right. Is I any day now he’s going to show up. We’re not going to bother working. We’re not going to bother taking care of these things. And so the Apostle Paul has to write this letter and saying, Slow down, guys. We need to walk, look out for these signs. And so this is second Thessalonians, chapter two. We ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling with him, not to be shaken out of your mind suddenly or to be to or to be alarmed either by a spirit or by an oral statement or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no one deceive you in this way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God and object of worship so as to seat himself in the temple of God, claiming that he is a God. Do you not recall that while I was still with you, I told you these things? And now, you know, what is restraining that he may be revealed in his time for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present until he is removed from the scene. So there’s this idea that kind of in these end times, there’s going to be one finally who exalts himself to the place of God demanding worship in a way that hasn’t been manifest yet. It’s sort of like at the end of the world, everything just manifests itself in the extremes, you know, which might have formally manifested itself in a less extreme manner. You know, things might be more subtle. Now, the question is why God would allow this to happen? God would allow this to happen. And I think the passage of Jesus before Pontius Pilate puts this into a good perspective for us. Jesus says to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Israel, you would have no authority over me if it had not been granted to you from above. Now, you can make that think, oh, he’s got a delegation from the emperor. Right. But I think, you know, Jesus is talking on another level here. You know, that Jesus is saying, I’m actually giving you authority over my earthly life at this time, and I’m going to allow myself to be crucified for no crime whatsoever. And this is being given to you and is still going to work out for my purposes. And so this lawless one at the end of history is going to, you know, St. Paul talks about this mysterious restrainer. We don’t really know what he’s talking about. Who’s restraining this lawless one from appearing? The man of perdition. But he does show up. And despite his best efforts, still works for the plans of God, still accomplishes his will. Now, the beast opens its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling and those who dwell in heaven. So his name, that’s a way of going directly at God. You know, the name is your own identity. That’s how you’re identified in the world. That’s how you’re distinguished one from another. His dwelling on earth and in heaven. Right. That’s us. That’s the church, the church here on earth, the church in heaven. And so there’s a binary kind of established here. All the inhabitants of the earth, those who are on the wrong path, are going to end up worshiping the beast. They’re going to end up worshiping something underneath God, something which has pretensions to divinity, but does not have it. And then those whose names are written in the Book of Life, those who have been called and have responded to this call, they belong to the Lamb. All right. So that’s the first piece that kind of symbolizes the Roman Empire, kind of symbolizes for our times. Any kind of human institution, any kind of human power, human authority that does not willingly and continually submit itself to God. So that’s the first of the two beasts in Chapter 13. Whoever has ears ought to hear these words. Anyone destined for captivity goes into captivity. Anyone destined to be slain by the sword shall be slain by the sword. Such is the faithful endurance of the Holy Ones. Right. So. There’s really never any indication that the Holy Ones of God are ever fighting back, that they’re ever using physical violence to resist. And this passage here makes it very clear. During the early persecution of the church in the Roman Empire, most often what happened is that if you were accused and convicted of being a Christian, then you would be sentenced to death almost immediately. But in other times, you would be sold into slavery and not a cushy, comfortable kind of slavery, but you would go to the mines, the salt mines and the empire. And the average life expectancy there was something like two years. They just work you to death. Right. And so John’s making it clear. Whoever has ears, that just means listen up. Do you have all have ears? Go ahead. Listen. This is what it looks like. And he makes it makes it clear that this is all a part of God’s plan, that these martyrdoms are these giving witnesses are. A part of what the church has to endure in imitating Christ the Lamb. And it was I think it was Tertullian who said that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. Right. That’s. Through this suffering, the church is grow. The church grows. The church is fed. The church is made stronger through the ages. Then I saw another beast come up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but spoke like a dragon. It wielded all the authority of the first beast in its sight and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast whose mortal wound had been healed. It performed great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of everyone. It deceived the inhabitants of the earth with the signs. It was allowed to perform in the sight of the beast, telling them to make an image for the beast who had been wounded by the sword and revived. It then permitted that it was then permitted to breathe life into the beast’s image so that the beast’s image could speak and could have anyone who did not worship it put to death. All right. So we can see. This system of the dragon and the system of the beasts coming together in kind of an anti-Trinity at this point. Right. So in John’s gospel, we’ve got the father in heaven seated on his throne. And he delegates all of this power and authority to the lamb. Gives over rule and command of the universe to our Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the one who’s been given Lord. And the spirit is sent out through all of the world to bring everyone into correct relationship with God and to worship the lamb and the father. Right. We find the exact satanic parody going on in the system of the dragon and the beast. Right. The dragon exalts himself above the father and then gives this authority to the beast. And everybody marvels at the beast, the beast from the sea. And then the beast from the land comes and tells everybody to point their image and attention at the beast. So here this image of this beast from the earth is this false prophet. Right. Trying to draw everybody into this false worship of deities that are not that are not true, that are not the one God of heaven. Now we’re talking about these great signs and these speaking images. You know, these pagan temples, they served a number of functions and one of them was kind of a wondrous place. Right. And they are very often would include some kinds of deceptions in there to make it seem like these idols were supernatural, that the God’s powers were actually in there. So they would use basically like magic tricks. Take advantage of the fact that you’re inside and it’s dark and you can’t see properly simple machines. They would have like some ventriloquy, kind of speak answers to you out of the mouth of the gods. The you know, the oracles at Delphi were notoriously ambiguous about what their what their answers meant. Giving life to these images of the beast and trying to draw people into idolatrous worship of the beast. And so these were some of the signs we should expect that as history progresses towards its final end and you know, the system of the church, the system of Christ’s body on earth becomes stronger, more organized, that the system of the beast would become stronger, more organized, that these wonders and signs would go from simple parlor tricks to things which are very much capable of deceiving people. Talking about fire come down from heaven, even being able to imitate an ape, Elijah, the prophet who called down fire on the sacrifices in that competition with the prophets of Baal. And this is no different than what Jesus said, Matthew chapter 24, another place that we’ve gone back to more than once. False messiahs and false prophets will arise and they will perform signs and wonders so great as to deceive if that were possible, even the elect. Right. So the false messiah, that being the beast from the sea, the false prophets, that being the beast from the earth. Right. It’s all it’s all of a one thing. Now, you might say that we’re spiritually more safe these days because. We we don’t have idolatry the way we do, but really, idolatry is is no longer presenting itself as obviously as it once did. Right. I talked about how these different gods and these different deities represented these ideas, these ways that human beings performed these stable patterns of behavior. Aries is when you’re mad. Athena is when you’re thinking so on and so forth. The way that it manifests itself now is far more subtle. It’s far more subtle. And if you remember, the four creatures around the throne, right, were covered with eyes inside and out. Right. And night and day, they were singing the praises to the lamb. Right. And I talked about how those eyes represent the ability to give perfect attention to something. Right. Eyes, eyes, eyes everywhere that they could focus on that thing. And so the way idolatry really manifests itself in our day isn’t with graven images. It isn’t with offering animal sacrifices or libations or grains of incense. But it’s with the eyes. That’s the primordial instrument of worship that human beings have. And the way that we are deceived, the way that we are pulled away from is giving too much of our eyes, too much of our attention, too much of our heart over to things that are not compatible with God. And obviously, this admits of degrees of gravity. Right. Not a one of us is able to offer up that perfect continual worship of God. Even the greatest saints, when they were at the end of their lives and achieved the heights of sanctity, had moments where they were not expected that. It’s a part of it. But that’s really how we’re deceived, is not keeping our worship and our attention fixed clearly and closely onto where it’s supposed to be. Now, the way this manifested itself in the Roman Empire talks about that this this third beast is able to put anybody who did not worship it to death. This became very real in the two hundred fifties under Emperor Decius. Right. And so the empire once again was tottering. Right. Things seemed like they were going to fall apart. And Decius wanted to pull everybody together, wanted to have a great big patriotic showing of the strength, confidence in the Roman system, in the Roman Empire. And so he ordered everybody to offer sacrifice on behalf of the empire. Right. On behalf of the emperor. Of course, the Jews were allowed to continue to have their exception to that rule that they never had to offer sacrifices to these gods because they had the benefit of antiquity. But otherwise, everybody else had to offer these. And it was a very simple kind of pro forma procedure. You go before the magistrate, you say, God, may the gods bless the empire. And so he threw a few grains of incense in front of the idol of one of the Roman empires or the goddess Roma or something like that. And this was the first kind of empire wide persecution of Christians that broke out because maybe the Christians refused to do this. And that was indeed where Pope Fabian was martyred in these early two fifties under this. It was a great time of turmoil for the church, especially because in a big way it had to answer the question, what do we do with people who, you know, lapsed and gave up? You know, so. So, yeah, it was it was certainly real at that time that this false worship would lead to people being being put to death. But that’s not going to be a problem for anybody, any of us. Right. I’ll just you wait. We’re getting to the biggest passage in the Book of Revelation, according to popular imagination. The beast forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to be given a stamped image on their right hands or their foreheads so that no one could buy or sell except one who had the stamped image of the beast’s name or the number that stood for its name. Wisdom is needed here. One who understands can calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number that stands for a person. His number is six hundred and sixty six. All right, so. Numerology tends to make people a little bit nervous and nothing makes this people more nervous than this number 666 here. So let’s just dive straight into that and then we’ll talk about the mark of the beast after we explain that. So you’ve probably heard that 666 stands for a particular human being. Does anybody know who that is? Emperor Nero, right? And so if I can, if I understand how this works is that you can assign every letter of the Hebrew alphabet a number to and I think they’re even used for numbers. And so if you spell out Kaiser Nero in Hebrew in the Hebrew alphabet and add up all those numbers together, it adds up to 666. And you know, this is not the first time that Nero has been used as an image for the whole of the Roman Empire. It’s like, yeah, he’s he’s the guy, you know, when you want to talk about the whole United States federal government, you reference the president. You know, we go back to the ancient kingdoms. You want to talk about the whole kingdom. You reference the king, right? The monarch. So that’s one layer of symbolism right there, right? This is the number of the beast. If you take the Greek word beast and do the same Hebrew thing, you also get 666 out of it. Has anybody ever heard 616? Right. So that is a variation that you find in some of the manuscripts. That’s what happens when you take it from the Latin alphabet and transliterate it into Hebrew. You get 616, right? And so that doesn’t actually weaken this case. It even strengthens it even further. There was just a little bit of linguistic confusion as to the number of the beast. Now, as the emperor, he was in charge of this powerful totalizing society, right? That he got to be in charge of everything. So we’ll just hold that there. We’ve got Emperor Nero 666. Now we can also refer back to the biblical tradition to understand numerology, right? So that’s how we understand the number seven is reaching perfection because it was the seven days of creation that God finally finished everything. So six, when’s the first time that six comes up? Yeah, the sixth day, right? And so the sixth is a number that stands for a person. You can also hear this translated as it’s a human number, right? So what happens on the sixth day of creation? That’s when humanity is created. And humanity is created in the image and likeness of God. Which means that we can, to a certain degree and to a certain extent, imitate the power of God. In a way that nothing else in creation can. And so we’re, if you look at the words image and likeness in Hebrew, it’s also the same words that you use to talk about idols of gods in temples, right? So we’re like the idols of God on earth. So we’ve got a fair bit of power and a fair bit of authority given over to us simply because we’re human beings, right? But it is not a complete power. It is not a total power. That we don’t have the ability to include everything underneath us. We are still called upon to worship the God in heaven and give him all the power, all the honor, all the glory. But we don’t do that. We try to build totalizing systems, right? Try to build these perfect systems that can account for everything in creation. And to try and govern and rule over everything as if we didn’t need help from anybody else. That’s part of the symbolism behind the story of the Tower of Babel, right? That they were going to build this tower to heaven. It’s like, well, you’re going to go up into outer space? No, that’s not the symbolism of the story. You’re going to build this tower to heaven and you’re going to knock the people in heaven out so that you get to take that place. So this system of 666, you know, it’s like you’re taking that imperfect power and you’re just magnifying it. You’re just making it bigger and you’re trying to impose it more and more and more. And so, you can think of it this way. Every system of production is necessarily a system of control. Every system of production is necessarily a system of control, right? So I cooked dinner for myself tonight. I had to control what went into the pot and what didn’t go into the pot, right? Otherwise, dinner was just going to fly out of hand if all of a sudden I’m trying to boil this corn on the cob and there’s noodles in there as well. So that’s a very basic way to think about it, right? Every system of production is also a system of control. And that’s fine in your kitchen and it’s fine in your workplace. But the more and more you magnify these systems of production, they turn into ever greater and greater systems of control. The thing is, is that we don’t have the ability to exercise this perfect dominion and exercise this perfect control, right? So you can imagine building the perfect utopia on earth, right? And like you’re going to have all the perfect systems, all the perfect ways of governance, checks and balances, provide everybody everything they could possibly want on earth, right? Is it going to work? No, and it isn’t going to work because there’s always going to be at least a percent of the population that isn’t going to buy into it, right? A percentage of the population that isn’t going to fit into the plan. A percentage of the population that needs to be eliminated. All right? Now the 20th century was the century of totalizing systems. It was the century of conformity. You can look at Nazi Germany. That was a totalizing system, right? The Nazi party was going to take care of everything, the entirety of the human person. And a lot of it was like a social welfare program. They’re national socialists, you know? It kind of had that socialist thrust to it. And it turns out being murderous because human power is not able to create a perfect system that can account for everything, right? There were these dissidents, firstly, who didn’t, who saw what was coming, wasn’t going to let the Nazi party take care of things. And they were only able to come into power by building up resentment towards certain classes of people. The Jews, homosexuals, the gypsies, anybody that didn’t fit into their system. They had to exclude and they did so, as it turns out, murderously, wiping people out. The communist utopias that we tried to establish in the 20th century operate on the same principle. They tried to provide everything, including God himself, right? They were notoriously atheistic. You know, Yuri Gagarin goes into space and says, I didn’t see God there. You know, it’s like, okay, I don’t know what you were expecting him to look like. The same thing ends up being murderous. And so that’s the symbolism of 666 right there. The only other reference to 666 in the entire Bible comes from Second Book of Kings. And it’s talking about King Solomon and how many talents of gold he had collected to build the temple. 666 talents of gold, right? That was the moment where we have the fall of King Solomon, right? And so it starts off when he’s young, he’s all about pursuing the Lord, he’s all about being wise. Soon enough, he’s amassed all this power, he’s got hundreds of wives that turn his heart to idolatry. And so he’s got kind of this rise and fall to his life. And the middle point was that building of the temple, that amassing of all this wealth and power. This wealth and power that ultimately led to his downfall. Okay, so when you see this system of the beast, system of the dragon, this number of the beast, it’s all about powers that exalt themselves up and against the rightful claims of God, right? The one who is perfect, the one whose power and authority can even include those things that we can’t make fit. One whose power and authority can make the death of an innocent man be the source of life for the whole world. The contradiction, the scandal of the cross becomes the center of our faith. He could bring everything together into one. So this mark of the beast then, the beast is always going to try and knock you off. He’s always going to try and prevent this proper worship of God from happening. In various times and various places, you’re going to be offered an opportunity to compromise with the system of the beast. To offer up something that could even seem like a little thing to this system of the beast. And if you do that, then things will go well for you. You’ll have doors and polite society opened up for you. And if you remain loyal to the lamb, the system of the beast is going to exclude you then because you don’t fit, because you are not playing along with the rules. And so that’s kind of the image of this mark of the beast. If you’re willing to accept the mark of the beast, then all sorts of worldly power and all sorts of worldly opportunities will open up for you. But if you reject it, no one can buy Excel except the one who had the stamped image of the beast’s name or the number that stood for its name. All right, so that’s the end of Chapter 13. It’s real cheery stuff. Good news is that Chapter 14 is coming. Then I looked and there was the lamb standing on Mount Zion. And with him 144,000 who had his name and his father’s name written on their foreheads. I heard a sound from heaven like the sound of rushing water or a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. They were singing what seemed to be a new hymn before the throne, before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn this hymn except the 144,000 who had been ransomed from the earth. These are they who were not defiled with women. They are virgins and are the ones who follow the lamb wherever he goes. They have been ransomed as the first fruits of the human race for God and the lamb. On their lips, no deceit has been found. They are unblemished. Right. So I think St. John just wants to be mindful of his audience and know that they can only handle so much darkness and despair at once. And it oscillates between these two images. But these these two images are also kind of placed next to each other because they’re simultaneous realities. You know, we’ve got the system of the beast that seeks to subvert true worship to God. But then we’ve also got the ones who have not accepted the mark of the beast, but who are singing the praises to God. These are simultaneous realities. Mount Zion. That’s where Jerusalem was built. It’s that place of encounter between God and men. The tradition is, is that the very same mountain where Abraham and Isaac went together and the binding of Isaac took place there. That’s also Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, as it’s called in the book of Genesis. And that was the place where the temple was built, the place that was the mirroring of the of the heavenly sanctuary. Now, this hundred forty four thousand we’ve seen earlier before. Right. They’re the ones who were marked with the mark of the lamb, right, who have given themselves over to them. So they have rejected the mark of the beast and have extended instead accepted the mark of the lamb. And they’re singing, they’re singing, they’re manifesting God’s power. Right. We’re talking about the sound of rushing water or a loud peal of thunder earlier in the book that’s been associated with the voice of God. Right. And now it’s being associated with those who, having accepted the mark of the lamb, have are singing to his glory. Right. And they just get supercharged by their ability to sing. Now, I think there’s been there’s been kind of a when we’re talking about these hundred forty four thousand, it seems like they’re all men and it seems like they’re all unmarried. Right. And so a lot of people have looked at these hundred and forty four thousand and thought that they’re people like me who have dedicated their lives to celibacy. But I don’t think that’s maybe the most likely reading of this, because nowhere else in in the New Testament does it talk about being defiled with women. Right. That’s that’s really kind of unprudential, you know, harsh language to talk about it. And, you know, St. Paul and Jesus both speak of marriage highly. And I I celebrated a marriage right over there on Saturday, you know. So I think what this is more likely referring to is this fidelity is its reference to idolatry. Right. And, you know, over and over again, we’ve seen this impurity and infidelity being linked to the idea of idolatry. I think we’re just continuing that pattern again. And if you remember the first time the hundred and forty four thousand were introduced, it was it was read off like a census. Right. Twelve thousand from the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand from the tribe of Jew Rubin. Right. And so then you remember in the Gospels when it talks about the feeding of the five thousand five thousand men, not counting women and children, right. Fighting people. And so what this is actually saying is that the whole church, right. The whole church is fighting is in this spiritual combat against the system of the beast. And they are the ones who remain faithful and the ones who remain purely dedicated to God. So they’ve been. Yeah, they’re the ones who follow the lamb wherever he goes. They also talk about them being the first fruits of the of the human race. The first fruits were always the best of the crop. Right. Like we’re offering up the very best that we have to God. Then I saw another angel flying overhead with everlasting good news to announce to those who dwell on earth to every nation, tribe, tongue and people. He said in a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory for his time has come to sit in judgment. Worship him who made heaven and earth and sea and springs of water. A second angel followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon, the great that made all the nations drink the wine of her licentious passion. So at this point, we kind of kind of shift towards the final victory of the lamb here. And these angels are announcing that. So we talk about gospel. We talk about good news. Now, that Greek word, a Wangelion that had a very specific meaning in the early centuries of Christianity. Right. Good news. Gospel was usually the term used to describe a victory by Caesar’s legions. Right. And so you’d have the imperial herald come and say, I’ve got good news for everybody. The victor, the Roman Empire has won a victory against the Parthians out east. You know, and like, hooray, you know, we won an empire. Right. So that’s why that’s why the Roman Empire didn’t like Christianity is like, oh, we’ve got the good news. You didn’t have the good news. We’ve got the good news. Jesus Christ is Lord, not Caesar. Right. And so this angel is flying in. High overhead, literally mid heaven. I don’t know what mid heaven means. The good news is, is that the time is coming for God to finally execute his solemn judgment. And so we’re it’s time to worship him. The second angel comes and talks about how Babylon has fallen. And so Babylon is first mentioned as the Tower of Babel. Right. It gives its name there. We talked about that building up your tower to heaven so that you can knock that down. It’s the symbol of arrogance. It’s the symbol of power. It’s basically the Old Testament manifestation of the system of the beasts. Nebuchadnezzar stole the sacred vessels from the temple and and his son, Belt-Shazar, was using those to, you know, for just regular dining. And that was what caused judgment on him. It’s in the Book of Daniel, the writing on the wall. If you’ve ever heard that phrase, it comes from the Book of Daniel. And so the victory has already been won. Right. Babylon, the great, has already fallen and the victory has already been won. And so the victory has already been won. The great has already fallen. And yeah, again, the wine of her licentious passion, if you translate that a little more literally, it’s the wine of the passion of her fornication, that idolatry again. I mean, it’s just it comes up over and over again. Saint John is just nailing these symbolisms of worship, of idolatry, of faithfulness, of impurity. It all just it’s hammering these points home. A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice, Anyone who worships the beast or its image or accepts its mark on the forehead or hand will also drink the wine of God’s fury. Poured full strength into the cup of his wrath and will be tormented in burning sulfur before the holy angels and before the lamb. The smoke of the fire that torments them will rise forever and ever. And there will be no relief day or night for those who worship the beast or accept or its image or accept the mark of his name. Here is what sustains the holy ones who keep God’s commandments and their faith in Jesus. I heard a voice from heaven say, Write this, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, said the spirit, let them find rest from their labors for their works accompany them. All right, so we’re talking about. If you remember the previous chapter, it talks about either accepting the number of the beast or accepting its image, right? Accepting its image, that’s a powerful metaphor right there. Because if you accept the image of the beast, then you’re consenting to be being recreated in the image of the beast itself, right? Just as we’re called to be in the image and likeness of God. If you’re accepting the image of the beast, then you’re expect accepting that image of revolt, that image of trying to usurp God’s place. And you end up rejecting the normal, natural, rightful, insane claims of God and transferring them to yourself. You will be like God’s. Your eyes will be opened. And you. Alienate yourself from God when you do that, that you deform yourself to the point where you can’t look at God as good anymore, but you see him as being evil because he gets in the way of your plans because he doesn’t allow you to have this false authority. And so there’s this idea kind of in the theological tradition that the fire of God’s love and the fires of hell are actually the exact same thing. And because you’ve allowed yourself to be distorted and twisted and you’re not allowing yourself to offer up that true worship, then when you face God in the judgment seats, you will not be able to acknowledge him as good. You live distorted that image within you and accepted the image of the beast. And and that’ll burn with pain the same way that you ought to be burning with love in the presence of this God. Now, these aren’t aren’t fun passages for any of us to read. And it can sometimes seem like it’s a little much. And that’s, you know, that’s something we have to look at. The thing is, is that we can’t see all things now. We can’t see the goodness of God when we’re face to face with him. It’ll be obvious. We can’t see just how bad our own sins are, even how small, how far away they fall, make us fall from God, how short they fall of what and who we could be. So I’m confident that when the last judgment comes and everything is made revealed and manifest, what we will see is the ingratitude of those who do not accept God as their lord. We’ll see the ingratitude of them who turned away at every moment where God was offering them grace, where God was offering them an opportunity to repent. We’ll see just how many times God would have reached out to them and had them turn away and how just and merciful ultimately God is. So I’ve got confidence in that. And it’s it’s oftentimes not a helpful thought process to try and like figure this out for yourself. You know, do we have confidence in our God that he’s actually going to be a just and merciful judge? That’s what we’re called to. We’re not called to actually figure out how he’s going to do it. He hasn’t asked for help. He doesn’t need it. Now, what sustains the holy ones who keep God’s commandments? Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Even though that the system of the beast can take your life, can take away all your property, can make you miserable. They find rest from their labors, their works accompany them. That’s what sustains us. This hope of inheriting the kingdom, this hope of sharing in the resurrection. Then I looked and there was a white cloud and sitting on the cloud, one who looked like a son of man with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Another angel came out of the temple crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud. Use your sickle and reap the harvest for the time to reap has come because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe. So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth and the earth was harvested. So we’re getting to the end, right? End of this particular cycle. And this is a vision of the second coming of Christ. So we’ve allowed, God’s allowed time to progress. He’s allowed the history of the world to progress to the point that he’s foreseen. And then Christ comes again. One swipe does his entire work. It’s not even a struggle for him. He doesn’t have to go down there and do any work. He just harvests the righteous ones. Now, the angel is the one telling Christ. And that actually makes perfect sense when you remember the passage from the Gospels where Jesus says, No one knows the day or the hour of the coming of the Son of man, not even the Son, but only the Father. So that’s that’s all consistent there. And this very much echoes many of the of the parables that Jesus told about the kingdom while he was walking around on Earth. Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven who also had a sharp sickle. Then another angel came from the altar who was in charge of the fire and cried out at a loud voice. The one who had the sharp sickle, use your sharp sickle and cut the clusters from the earth’s vines for its grapes are ripe. So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and cut the earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great wine press of God’s fury. The wine press was trodden outside the city and the blood poured out of the wine press to the height of a horse’s bridle for 200 miles. So this is the judgment of the wicked. It’s a scriptural Old Testament image of this wine press of God’s wrath, you know, a lot of blood. 200 miles, it’s a conversion into modern units. 1600 stadia, right. And so number 1600 is four by four by a thousand. And remember, the number four represents kind of the completeness of the earth, you know, the four corners of the earth, the four winds of the earth. And so this is mostly just telling us about the completeness of God’s judgment. And I think that’s the end of Chapter 14 and will be done for today. Thank you for your time and attention.