When I first read Revelations I was also reading Hal Lindsay. It scared the living daylights out of me. One of the reasons I have avoided reading or blogging this is because the images of the beast should frighten.
The Beast is a chimera. It is made up of many parts. It is from the pit, and it repeats the sin of Lucifer and Babel: that my our effort we can be one, and we can regulate ourselves into holiness. That we need not any mercy nor forgiveness or guilt, for we can progressive to our own salvation, which is a converged, united people.
These people forget that this convergence is fragile. On Gab, when I posted this bridge, an engineer reminded me that this was built using compression, which is stable: bridges built using tension, which is far more efficient and stronger, will not survive for centuries.
It relies on a narrative, and that narrative is that we are perfect just as we are.
This is a lie.
But those who call this lie will be hounded, for the self-esteem of the converged must never, ever be challenged.
The correct description of this beast is here, and that is that he is haughty.
And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear:
If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes;
if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain.Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.
(Revelation 13:5-10 ESV)
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
(Luke 12:22-28 ESV)
We need to contrast this narrative with righteousness.
The narrative loves to kill the inconvenient. It preaches abortion, euthanasia and practices Arkencide: the political suicide when you are shot in the back of the head after an accident in the weight room or being smothered in your bed and found in the boot of your car. Christ wants salvation for all, particularly the inconvenient, and prayer for our enemies.
The narrative preaches self-esteem, for it can be measured by a Likert scale, forgetting that the highest self-esteem belongs to the psychopath, and the other name for self-esteem is pride. We are told to be humble, grateful, and to accept that the response to our witness is beyond our control.
The narrative is a virtue spiral, where you have to approve of greater and greater evil to show you belong. You earn your way into the converged, and you work very hard to stay there. We are told that our names are written in heaven, and that Christ will preserve us.
The narrative states we will be as Gods. We are not that stupid: we know our flaws, and we are not worthy of worship.
And the narrative fears. They know their hands are dirty, and they fear that those who oppose them will destroy as they destroyed: indeed if that does not happen they see it as weakness. We are told not to worry.
Because of this. The beast is a lie; it will appear powerful, and spiritual, and have very good mind game, persuasion. Many will be deceived, But it will not be true.
To keep that lie, it will kill and destroy.
And that time, too, will pass, and the beast will face death and be judged, found wanting, and face the final death.
While those who seek God, Truth, Justice and Beauty will find it. It is why we endure. So that virtue and beauty are not extinguished from this world: those who can creat rejoice in any other’s work that is true and beautiful and true, while those who cannot destroy in their jealousy.
Do not be them, and do not be like them.
I don’t find eschatology particularly frightening, but I’m a weird duck. (And I follow Missler, who is buddies with Lindsey, so my theology runs to the scary side).
If you think that time is short, what is the most logical thing to do? Be found busy about the Master’s work when He returns. How brightly can I shine my little light? How far can I sprinkle out what saltiness I have? How can I exhibit God’s glory? Whom may I pray for? Whom may I share the gospel with? What can I be doing – today?? I do have a great sense of urgency, sometimes too great. God’s been taking me to the woodshed about that – as long as I’m obeying Him, it’s good. I don’t need to take the reins and find more stuff to do. Ach, me. Always trying to be in control. 😛
Will sucky stuff happen before the Rapture? Probably. But *since there is nothing I can do about that* why fuss? God’s got this. Where should my trust be? In the Lord. There have been bad times before that weren’t the End. No matter what the time, I know what business I was created for – I *do* know where my gifting lies, I *do* know what I’m supposed to be doing.
So I do that. The storm clouds, they’re gathering, but I stand on a firm foundation, and am not my own in any case.
And the shining silver light is maybe we’ll get to go Home sooner than we think. I can’t wait to be Home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I should add that my flesh is not always as peaceful about this as my spirit. A funny noise on a dark street still scares me, even if I know that God’s in charge, and the stormclouds sadden me, even as my heart lifts at what comes after the rain. Well, flesh is flesh and I’m no braver than the next girl.
Hal Lindsay has been a barrier to Pilgrim’s Progress since the Left Behind nonsense was written with a claim it was scriptural. That Missler endorses him is shameful and has likewise deluded many. I used to listen to Missler but as I studied became convinced he was in error (although not maliciously so) and stopped wasting my time – Missler clearly knows lots but largely misses the Gospel. Some years back Rhema had an Auckland minister who preached orthodox Christianity and was on the button but he’s disappeared and we now have Meyer’s prosperity gospel, literalism, pentecostalism, creationism and dispensationalism but little Gospel. This is what you get when you treat Scofield as a theologian and hold to recent “revelations” that appeared in most dubious circumstances and gave rise to the Plymouth Brethren.
I recall vigorous debate at an old home group about this end times stuff and eventually quit attending. I couldn’t deal with the refusal to read a passage in its entirety to get some context – it was always just a couple of lines cherry picked here and there. So much of the dispensationalism that is firmly attached to this nonsense effectively denies the sufficiency of Christ and that is a terrible mistake to make. Satan masquerades as an angel of light and all these side roads he tosses up have enough Bible to look OK until you get serious about your study and history.
A local bloke by the name of Dale Tooley (now dead unfortunately) wrote a good commentary on the book of Revelation and I recall in it he confessed amazement and even alarm that he believed a bunch of nonsense about end times when the truth of what God was saying in this part of scripture was so clear.