Revelation
Team Dragon

People often get excited about predicting the future or trying to figure out when the world will end, but Revelation is more about understanding what is happening in our present time.

The dragon in the story wants to harm people, and he uses two other creatures to carry out his plans. One of them uses the power of the government to intimidate and control people. This can be seen in history when leaders have used their authority to manipulate and oppress others. The other creature uses deception and propaganda to trick people into believing false information or ideas. It’s like when advertisements or media twist the truth to persuade us in certain ways.

The message Revelation 12-13 is that we need to be discerning and wise in our understanding of the world around us. We shouldn’t be easily swayed by false ideas or manipulated by those in power. Instead, we should seek truth, be critical thinkers, and strive to live according to what is right and good.

So, rather than getting caught up in trying to predict the future or obsessing over sensationalized interpretations, we should focus on understanding the present, recognizing the forces that seek to harm and manipulate, and staying grounded in truth and wisdom.

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

 we are in a series in Revelation. As I was studying for this series the last few months, to be honest, the last few years, because this book terrifies me, I kept telling myself and my wife that this series, whenever we do it, which is now, is either going to disciple you or disappoint you.

Because when you think about a series on Revelation, you’re assuming that there’s charts, right? There’s calendars. And we have yet to do that for you today. I, I, if I was more confident, I would ask to raise your hand if it disappoints you or disciples you, but I don’t want to know the answer to that. Uh, but again, anytime we talk about Revelation, we assume we’re going to hear a lot of fun stuff, predicting the end of the world, which I think you can use Revelation to somewhat see, uh, by putting a chart up by looking at who are the world leaders today.

How are they being used by the dragon? And how is that perpetuating the mark of the beast? And there’s a lot of these questions which we’re actually kind of talking about today a little bit. And really the big question a lot of people ask is who is the Antichrist? And so let’s look at Revelation to understand who it is.

Fun fact! The phrase Antichrist, guess how often it appears in the book of Revelation? Zero. I asked, like, a guy who’s very well known, like, very well versed in the Bible, and he’s like, 39! It’s like, that’s what I would have guessed, zero, which is pretty fascinating. It shows how much of us we don’t really know.

Now I do remember, as we’re talking about end times, when I learned, Jesus has in the Gospels where he says, anybody heard this before, this phrase before, right? That you can’t know the time or the hour. Nobody knows when the end of the world is. And so I remember when I was like a teenager, I used that to my advantage.

I was like 14 or 15 years old. I learned you do not know the time or the hour. Well, guess what? I needed my license. Which apparently the generation today, they like, they put that off. I don’t know what that is. Millennials, I did it the day I can get my driver’s license. Anybody else? Right, like the moment I’m out of here.

And so anyways, so I just could not wait to do that. But I remember hacking the system, saying, okay, Jesus, if no one can know the day or the hour, tomorrow is gonna be the end of the world. And then the next day, the next day. And I would chart out, I would get out a calendar, say, this is the end of the world.

This is the world. So then I thought, check. Mate, I’m going to get my license. Jesus isn’t going to come back because I prophesied those days, therefore, the day can’t happen. Anybody else do this? Am I the only nerd? Right? Like I, and then I got my driver’s license. Checkmate. I needed a girlfriend. Got her.

Checkmate. Right? I then needed my degree. So you predict dates. If I kept going, I needed to have children, like, you have all these things, and you know you’ve lived enough life, and you’ve reached a certain age, I’m done predicting dates, I’m ready, you know what I’m saying? Like, Lord, come back, I’m not gonna use that hack anymore, we’re good.

Thank you, Lord. I’m just glad I got my license, that was the big one. Uh, and so that’s how a lot of us treat the end times. If I just guess, then we can figure it out, and we’re trying to figure out this calendar, and… I do want to ask a really fun question as we begin. The question I want us to ask is to think this through.

Are we actually in the apocalypse? Authors have made millions of dollars answering that question. Are we in the apocalypse? And I believe I absolutely have the answer. And that answer is it completely depends on you. Why? Apocalypse, we see, is one of the first words, if not the first word in the book of Revelation, in the Greek, apokalypso, literally means the revealing or the unveiling.

And so if there’s somebody ask you, are we in the apocalypse, another way to ask that question is, are we living in an illusion or are we starting to see the world for what it really is? So if you are in, and I pray our churches in the apocalypse, meaning we see what’s going on in the world and we have eyes to see what’s really happening in the background, and we’re not fooled by the illusion that the enemy wants us to believe.

Write this down. The apocalypse is less about predicting the future and more about perceiving the present. Now one day there will be a generation where it’s the end of the world. What the Gospels, what the Bible actually wants us to do though, is to always treat each generation as if it’s the last. Why?

So that we’re urgent. So we live a life filled with meaning. Because this life will end. This world will come to a new Jerusalem. We’ll look at that next week. And so it’s actually better for us to think it’s happening in this generation. But if it doesn’t, that’s still okay. Because we lived with urgency.

And so really our prayer is that we would have eyes to see today what’s going on, all of the evil and corruption. Now if you have eyes to see, we can discern. It’s from the devil, and we’re going to learn today in Revelation 12 and 13. All the bad that’s happening in this world, it’s a lot of our own fault too because the world of flesh, the devil, but it’s the devil and his two puppet powers.

And these evil forces have worked in all of history, and they will continue to until Jesus… That’s the thesis for today. There are these, like, it’s these three things that are coming, bringing evil and corruption in this world. It’s influencing your life, your life, and it’s influencing mine. And it’s especially targeted against the church, and we’re going to learn about them.

So open your Bibles. To the book of Revelation, the Bible is not just one book. It’s a library of 66 books. And so Revelation is the second easiest book to open up to Genesis is the first easiest. Cause that’s the first book of the Bible. Revelation is the second easiest because it’s the last book of the Bible.

So if you have a Bible with you, that’s wonderful. Just go to the very end. If you don’t have a Bible, the scripture will be on the screen. Now what’s amazing for us to know is Revelation doesn’t teach us anything new that the 65 other books. Have already taught us, right? There’s nothing new here. What Revelation intends to do is to awaken us and to see all the truths we’ve learned from the other 65 books Maybe in a new way so that our eyes are open to seeing what’s really going on.

Let’s pray. You with me? Let’s get ready. Father. We just asked for wisdom today. Lord. I know we have a lot to go through God, I know we are gonna talk about the dragon and and the beasts and God my prayer all week is that we would see first that the church needs to be on mission. Lord, that the reason the dragon is seeking to oppress us is because we have so much power, and we really do have a purpose that we need to live out.

But God, also my prayer this week is that we as the church, may we not hear about these beasts and think about everyone out there who has fallen for it, but God, give us the humility today to see the ways in which we have been tempted And accused by these dragons and beasts and how we have maybe used these things to not be as loyal to you, Jesus, as we are called to be.

God, may we repent after today. God, may today be in your hands in Jesus name I pray, everybody says. Amen. Amen. Okay, so today’s passage, write this down, is all about the unholy trinity of the dragon, the sea beast, and the earth beast. Aren’t you glad you came today? It’s going to get weird. All right? It’s the unholy trinity of the dragon, the sea beast, and the earth beast.

A quick description. The description of the dragon is actually found in Revelation 12. We’re not going to be reading too much of 12 today because I want us to really camp out. In chapter 13, but what’s fascinating as it describes this dragon, it mimics the description of God, the creator in revelation four.

So think of the dragon as a mimicry of the father. Okay. That’s of the Holy Trinity, the father, right? The description of the sea beast in revelation 13, one through 10, which we will go over mimics the description of Jesus, the lamb in revelation five. Also, the description of the earth beast, which we will go over today in Revelation 13, 11 through 18, mimics the description of the Holy Spirit we see in Revelation 11.

What’s the point? This is a counterfeit. We serve the one and true God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s the one who has all the power, who has all the victory. The devil is trying to create a false trinity to try to persuade principalities, rulers, the everyday person to follow the way not of the Lamb, but of the enemy.

Okay, so in Revelation 12, we see who the dragon is. The dragon is the devil. So if you were to read Revelation 12, which I’ll summarize a little bit, You will see a pretty fascinating story. Remember, we need to read this literarily, not literally. It’s very confusing if you read Revelation 12 and think it’s quite literal.

I suggest for you to go to certain commentators, just have fun trying to read what this means. But quickly, what we believe this is, is the dragon is the devil, and he’s waging war against two things. Number one is a woman, and number two is a child. Okay, the woman… Just stay with me guys. The dragon wages war against a woman and this woman represents many different things.

John here is poetic and he’s trying to get us, we’ve seen the Bible over and over tell us that, that the enemy is against Eve, that the enemy is against the church, the enemy is against Mary. We’ve heard that. So now John says, okay, let me show it in a different way. It’s a dragon trying to fight a woman.

So the woman is Eve, it’s Israel, it’s Mary the mother of Jesus, and it’s you and I, it’s the church. So the dragon hates the woman and wants to devour her. Okay, now the dragon’s main agenda is not just the woman, it’s the child. Who is the child? Anybody know? King Jesus, right? So Mary the mother of Jesus, that’s the woman.

Has a child. We did this last Christmas Eve. Our Christmas Eve story was about the dragon in Revelation 12. And yes, your nativity scene this coming Christmas. I am fully expecting pictures of you putting a dragon into the nativity scene. Okay, it’s biblical. What, you know, whatever. Okay, so what happens here?

Revelation 12 is like a recapitulation of all of history of him trying to get Eve kind of successful there, right? Trying to get the Israel, trying to get all of these things, but then 1217 We now see, okay, he hasn’t won because he thought he won by killing Jesus, but what happened on the third day? He rose again, and in fact, the very thing, the devil should have done anything but kill him, right?

To, to help conspire. Again, we know that the scripture says God allowed it, he ordained it, but the devil was like, we won. The son of God is dead, and on the third day he conquered sin, Satan, and death. So now he’s mad. Imagine this dragon. Imagine dragons. Isn’t that a band? Whatever. Now, uh, imagine this dragon is realizing, I can’t beat this child, but I can still make this woman miserable.

And that’s verse 17 of chapter 12. It’s on your screen. So the dragon was furious with the woman, which is now the church in this point of the context. So it’s you and I, and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring. And who are the offspring? Who is the church? Those who, one, keep the commands of God.

Which is why we’re doing things like, let’s Sabbath together, let’s read scripture together, let’s pray. We want to obey, we want to keep it. And number two, and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus. Friends, that the gospel is true, that Jesus has saved us from death to new life, that we are now forgiven.

We hold firmly that this is the true story of all humanity. So what is happening is Satan wants to sabotage Passion Creek Church, and every other church in our community, and every other church around the world. He tries to manipulate us, destroy us, divide us, get us to fight about things that we shouldn’t have been fighting for, allow our emotions to get the best of us and then ruin friendships.

The devil is always at work because he’s furious because he has lost. And he thinks, if I’m going to lose, I’m going to try to take down as many people as possible with me. What we’ll see is the devil. realizes he needs two puppet powers. He needs these two other beings, these beasts, to help him do his work.

One of them, we’re about to learn, manipulates the church and the world through force, and the other one manipulates the world and the church through words. Force and words. So hear me. The dragon right now, the devil, You may be experiencing small victories in your life without you even realizing it.

That’s what I’m hoping we figure out today. In fact, the devil prefers you don’t even think you’re tempted by him. The devil prefers you think the things you’re doing are righteous, even though they’re not, even though they’re ratchet, right? Is that what the kids say? No, that’s old. Okay. Right. I’m already turning into that person now.

Now here’s what we have to remember as we dive into this, of course. Our ultimate victory resides in that empty tomb that ultimately Satan has lost. But we have to realize he’s still battling us. And we need to fight, okay? So this chapter is about to explain to us why it’s so hard to stay faithful to Jesus.

Why it’s so hard for you and I to live righteous lives. Why it’s so easy for us to lean towards division, to lean away from the church, okay? That’s what chapter 13 is all about. These two puppet powers, who they are and what they do. I want you to read 12. 18. Imagine this is like a cinematic universe, right?

This is like James Cameron. I’m imagining this dragon. Okay, let’s read it. The dragon stood on the sand of the sea, right? I’m thinking like it shows the back of the dragon. He is walking towards the sea. His feet are on the sand. And now there’s this rumbling from the ocean, right? This, this new creature coming up.

That’s how we’re supposed to be reading this text. Remember, Back in 80, 90, when they wrote this book, we didn’t have IMAX, right? So the people, when they heard this, they had a better imagination than us. And they were imagining this crazy beast coming forward. This should shock us. This should scare us. But not ultimately.

Look, let’s keep going. Verse, uh, chapter 13 now. Verse 1, And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, and on its horns, which we’ve talked about means power, were ten crowns, and on its heads were blasphemous names. The beast I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth.

Let me stop there real quick. You will actually only understand Revelation if you also know your Old Testament. This is a perfect example. Again, we’re talking about being informed by Scripture, being students of the Word. Revelation, honestly, doesn’t really make sense if you just read Revelation. You need all of the library of Scripture.

Daniel 7, for example, references a leopard, a bear, and a lion. And in Daniel 7, it is showing that the leopard represents Babylon and how corrupt they are in destroying Israel and eventually destroying the church. The bear represents the Persians and their certain tactics and how they persecuted the people of God.

And then the lion always represented the Greeks and then ultimately Rome. Right, so we have to remember these, this imagery. represents kingdoms and empires. So, some of us, we’re so caught up, we’re trying to draw this, this bear, leopard, lion thing, when really the point is, look, it’s this thing that has all of those nasty powers, it’s kind of coming together and really destroying the woman, the people of God.

Let’s keep reading. The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and his great authority. One of its heads appeared to be fatally wounded. But it’s fatal wound was healed. We’ll look back at that in just like five minutes. So hold on. That’s a fascinating verse. A lot of people I think misinterpret. The whole earth was amazed and followed the beast.

They worshipped the dragon because he gave authority to the beast and they worshipped the beast saying who is like the beast? Who is able to wage war against it? The beast was given a mouth to utter boasts and blasphemies. It was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. There’s so much to go through here.

Hear me out. A lot of people read this and think 42 months is literal, which represents three and a half years, which is where a lot of people get the rapture theology. Three and a half years. Have you heard this three and a half years? It’s great. The last three and a half years is terrible. They’re using this 42 months.

Caleb’s gonna explain all of that next week. No, I’m kidding. Okay, so what this means though this three and a half years It’s not exactly like a specific Actual 42 months 42 months in the Hebrew literature represented the opposite of perfection, right? So perfection was seven years, right? It was everything is full All of life is about it’s fully completed when he says 42 months.

He is saying This beast is ruling and it’s hurting, but guess what? There is an end. It won’t be forever. It’s only half the time. Wait till you see eternity. Wait till you see Jesus coming back ruling and reigning. So just know, this, what we believe the 42 months is since Jesus ascended, the church was birthed, up until the second coming.

That is a 42 months. It feels like forever. Oh, but it’s just a little bit. It’s not the whole thing. Jesus is coming back and it’s going to be better. Amen. Right. So we’re hearing about how terrible this beast is, but there’s good news. He has an expiration date. That’s what that’s supposed to mean. Okay. So we actually believe this beast is working through all of history.

You can look at, Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s keep reading. What verse am I on? Verse six. Thank you. It began to speak blasphemies against God to blaspheme his name and his dwelling. Amen. Those who dwell in heaven, last verse here, and it was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them, the church.

It was also given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation, meaning it is pervasive. It’s not just in the Middle East, it’s all around the world. What is the sea beast? Write this down. The sea beast seeks to frighten the church into disobedience. By the power of the state. So many commentators will say, actually the sea beast, just in one word, is the state.

I know. I just said two words there. I said the just state, okay, I got one word for you. The state. Okay, so it’s the state. It’s politics, it’s political powers. Think about it. Throughout history, Christians have been allured by the power of politics. Right? This whole idea is serve those in power and what happens?

Those in power will serve you. So let’s budge on morality so we can be in the room where it happens. Hamilton fans, right? Let’s, let’s twist Scripture in order to fit a certain political agenda and then we can have power and authority in that position. Christians are frightened, thinking that the state is so powerful, let’s just, let’s give into it.

Let’s serve it so that we don’t get as hurt by it. Because here’s what’s scary. If you resist political power, like in North Korea right now, and you say you’re a Christian, what happens? You get killed. Brothers and sisters in Iran, Iraq, all around the world actually, there are people who follow the way of Jesus.

And they don’t belligerently say, I follow Jesus, kill me. They meet in secret, they do it the best way they can, but push comes to shove, someone has a gun to their head and says, do you follow Jesus? They say yes. And they are now, they are now ushered into heaven because the enemy, the beast wants to kill the church.

Right? And so we have to see that. Like, it’s, this is hard. Like, it’s easy. I remember when I was 19 or 20, somebody asked, like, how do you want to die? And I was totally that guy. I was like, I want to die for Jesus. You know, like, I want somebody to say, do you follow Jesus? Like, yeah, I do. Kaboom, you know? And so I thought I was so faithful.

You get older, you have kids, you have a wife, all those things I predicted, you know, all that thing. You’re like, well, you know, like, I kind of want to die at 93 and my sleep and, you know, like things start to change. And that we have to realize, like, this political power, it gets scary, and on all of us, I think at the right disposition, it’s not that we want those things.

But if it comes our way, we have to be willing to stand and not be frightened into disobeying Jesus. But the CB’s primary job is to scare you to no longer follow Christ. And here’s what history has taught us. Politics is not a bad thing in and of itself. But, politics never veers towards righteousness. At it’s core, it’s natural bent is to be evil and corrupt.

Silly illustration, but I think it makes sense. There’s something about my grandma’s house that I turn into a new person. Anybody else? Like, I go to grandma’s house, I’m no longer a responsible, functioning male adult. I turn into a kid, I ask where the ice cream is, and I sit there as she serves me. It’s the worst thing in the world!

There’s something, it’s the smell. Anybody have like, you know, the smell of your grandma’s house, right? I just turned into a child. It’s the worst thing, but I can’t get over it, right? And there’s something about environments when you enter every room. That’s why we’ve done so much work here at this church, to create an environment for a certain attitude.

But politics, there is an environment there where you probably do evil things you wouldn’t do if you were in another arena. There’s something about politics that breeds that sort of corruption. Right. We know Paul, people go in. I’m going to change the system. And then two months in, they are the system, right?

It’s because there is a sea beast. There is a evil power corrupting those things. That’s one thing I am grateful for American history. Those who were on the Mayflower, they knew power politically corrupts. And so what did they do? They set up the legislative branch, the executive branch, the judicial branch, right?

They’re trying to limit power. We’re kind of in a moment though. Where, it’s not so limited anymore, and the sea beast is having its way. That’s almost as political as I’ll ever get, alright? But let’s read this quote by Daryl Johnson, I think it’s really, really helpful to describe what the sea beast does.

Political powers do not set out to be bestial. They set out to be their own master, and in the process, they churn bestial. No one can be God but God. This is the underlining statement. When the state seeks to be God, it does not become divine, it becomes demonic. We have removed more and more this understanding that we’re under God, and when you do that, something very natural happens.

You don’t become divine, you become demonic. And I’m not this weird, oh, everything’s demonic. We gotta be honest, there’s some demonic stuff happening in our country. Right? I see it. And we have to, and we can’t, what’s great about Revelation is we’re not supposed to be surprised. This is what the sea beast does.

And we have to figure out what to do. Daryl Johnson, in his commentary on this chapter, briefly, it’s not on your notes, but he gave three observations to apply in figuring out how to treat the sea beasts. He said, number one, have a healthy suspicion of political institutions. I think that’s good, right? Not everything they say is just absolutely correct.

I do think there’s another alternative, though, where you’re just, you don’t trust anybody or anything. That’s also bad, by the way. Number two, hold allegiance to political institutions lightly. I love this. He says, seriously, but lightly. Too often, the church has just thought, My country’s the best, and now they don’t ask questions and it leads them to killing people and doing things that are against the Sermon on the Mount.

Right? We have to hold that in balance. Ultimately, we serve the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of man. The third thing he said I thought was helpful. He says, Remember, the sea beast cannot be destroyed by the sword. You can’t kill it with weapons. You kill it with the word of God, and the church being the church.

Look at verse 3 again in chapter 13. One of its heads appeared to be fatally wounded, but its fatal wound was healed. What does this mean? This is showing this beast, it feels like it’s unstoppable. You can’t end violence with violence. I remember growing up, I heard the story 13 3, they would say the Antichrist is going to go on live TV, shoot himself in the head, come back to life, and everyone’s going to worship him.

I think that’s a little too simplistic. I could be wrong if that happens, okay? I, here’s what I think. It’s one of two meanings. One, some people believe this is actually referencing Emperor Nero. If you know his story, he committed suicide at 32 years old, but the lie was that he actually came back to life, and the government at that time used it.

They’re like, Nero is back alive, and he’s gonna come get you if you don’t follow him. So that had a very first century application. But secondly, and this is what it means for us today, evil is resilient. World War II, what do we, what do we do? It’s over! Evil is done! We have won! Oh, communism, right? Oh, consumerism.

Oh, nationalism. There is evil after evil. We defeat one and another one comes up. Right? So whatever this evil beast you think is today and if the government just fixed it and we destroyed them, what’s gonna happen? Evil is gonna come again in another form. Right? So the devil wants to destroy us and he often uses the state to do it.

Now, he has another weapon. Verse 11. So it’s the state, but now we’re going to learn together about the earth beast. Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf and compels the earth.

Look at this persuasion. And those who live on it to worship the first beast whose fatal wound was healed. It also performs great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in front of people. Look at this line. It deceives, underline that, deceives those who live on the earth because of the signs that is permitted to perform in the presence of the beast.

Telling those who live on the earth to make an image of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. Write this down, the earth beast seeks to deceive the church into delusions through the power of propaganda. So just how the Holy Spirit convicts us to turn to the Lamb, the earth beast mimics that activity by deceiving us to turn to the state.

Okay, propaganda. Okay, look, propaganda has reached a whole new level in the 20th century. They learned, like, to use it in warfare, and it is only ramped up with this thing called social media in the 21st century. century. Again, I feel like I’m like a 95 year old man on this front porch, just mad at the world, right?

There is hope. Stay with me. However, propaganda has had its day here and it is ruling and reigning over many of our lives. If you want to do a research history on this, look up Edward Bernays. He’s actually the nephew of Sigmund Freud. He actually came back From World War One, he learned about propaganda and then he realized I can use propaganda, not just in wartime, but in peacetime and he called it public relations, even though he knew it was propaganda and he was a marketing genius and you and I receive propaganda each and every day so much.

We don’t even realize it. He revolutionized the way we talk about products. It used to be a commercial about a product was talking about how it was built and how long it will sustain like the nuts and bolts. What does Apple say now? Not Hey, we have a really slick computer that has all the apps. It says, be different, right?

Like, it appeals to your emotions, not to your logic. This is what we do today. It plays on your fears or your desires or a want for status. This is what propaganda does. Another thing it does that we see so much today, what propaganda does, and I think the beast does here in this text, it manipulates symbols and images.

Edward Bernays is famous for, there was a crisis in the 1930s because women weren’t smoking. And they’re thinking, man, this is like a manly product, we need to show that women can smoke too. And so what he did, he organized a rally, he had these ladies all get together in a perfect picture, they were supermodels, took a picture, put it on a newspaper, and instead of calling it a cigarette, it said the torch of freedom.

Sales skyrocketed. Women were now smokers. Not by saying, hey, women can do it too. It’s pick up your torch of freedom. And women were like, yeah. Yeah. I don’t know, right? That’s what they did. Prop, here’s what propaganda does. Propaganda promises you, you don’t have to change your ways. You just have to change the wording.

You don’t have to change your ways. You just have to change the wording. In other words, these symbols and images, propaganda morphs them and changes what they allude to. My kids, when they see a rainbow, when I was a kid, I was thinking, God’s promise. He will never flood the earth again. God’s covenant promise.

What are my kids gonna think when they see a rainbow? It means something different. Manipulates an image. There’s this thing called maps. Have you heard of maps? It’s just me being, just stay with me, y’all. Instead of calling it a pedophile, you call him a map. A minor, attracted person. Why would you do that?

Sounds nicer. Change the wording. You don’t have to change your ways. Let’s not call it adultery. It’s open marriage. It’s swinging, which I still don’t understand. I don’t need to understand. Right? Swinging, right? Standing for truth is called hate speech. Just call it hate speech, and now I’m done. Now I’m a terrible, belligerent person.

What do they do? They just change the wording, so they don’t have to change their ways. Now, that’s so easy to point a finger at, because I know this room. I know like 80% of you. And, and I know like, you’re like, yeah, that’s right. I hate those. Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Hold on, okay? I know the propaganda you believe.

And I’m about to make you mad, okay? But the phrase, try it before you buy it. Our culture really believes that. If you’re like, what does that mean? Just ask a Gen Z, you’ll, they’ll get it. Um, or how about this? I know I’m rude, but I just have a lot of trauma, so it’s okay that I’m this way.

What about chanting disrespectful terms towards our president? Oh, but it’s funny! Okay, Romans says to honor the emperor, pray for him. What about the propaganda of it’s just about a relationship with Jesus, it’s not about the church, the church just can’t tell me anything to do, it’s about me and Jesus, okay?

That’s propaganda. And it is sucking the life out of the church. And it may just be sucking the life out of you. This quote by Michael J. Gorman, another great, uh, commentary on Revelation said the following, it’s quite long, but stay with me. The function of propaganda is to make evil look good. The demonic divine.

Violence like peacemaking. Tyranny and oppression like liberation. It makes blind, unquestioning allegiance appear to be freely chosen. Religiously appropriate devotion. The grand lie does not appear to start as deception, but only as rhetorical exaggeration. Have you seen that today? Eventually the rhetoric becomes a blatant falsehood, but now people have not only come to believe the lie, they also live the lie.

I’m gonna read that one more time. Eventually, the rhetoric becomes a blatant falsehood, but now people have not only come to believe the lie, they also live the lie. Over time, they have been narrated into it. At that point, the exaggeration churned falsehood becomes uncontested and uncontestable truth, and its effects highly dangerous.

Is the earth beast alive and well today? And it’s a shame that it’s alive and well in the church. We are a people of the truth. We believe, my girls this morning, their verse for the kids ministry this whole month is John 8, 32. You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. We are people who are free because of the truth.

And yet we are enslaved because of lies. Here’s what’s interesting about the beast. It is so complex. Here’s what I’ve seen it do to a million Christians. It gets you so caught up in propaganda by getting you caught up in other propaganda. Does that make sense? It actually wants you to be consumed with conspiracy theories.

That’s another conspiracy, right? The propaganda wants you to be freaked out about propaganda, and all the while you’re not living the way of Jesus, you’re not serving the church, you’re not loving the community, you’re not loving your neighbor, you’re not praying, you’re not evangelizing, you’re not, you’re so caught up on knowing the truth, the devil has you right where he wants.

Right? This is why, if I’m honest, politics stuff makes my skin crawl, because I think we sound a whole lot more like the earth beast than we do like the lamb. And it’s scary. But it’s so pervasive, we have to talk about it, but in a loving, patient, kind way. Now, how does 666 fit into this passage? What about the mark of the beast?

If you read my email, I told you I’d talk about it, so here we are. Let’s talk about it. Verse 16 of chapter 13, and it makes everyone, this is the, the earth be still, uh, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave. So nobody’s immune to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark.

The beast’s name. Or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, because it is the number of a person. Its number is six, six, six. Woooo, right? That sounded like a horse more than anything. What did I do there? Horsemen of the Apocalypse, folks.

We’re bringing it back in. Okay, so. 666 is the complete number of imperfection. It should literally be read, failure upon failure upon failure. That’s what 666 means. Now, this can reference Nero, Caesar. When you, this was what everybody did back in the day. It’s common to reference somebody by a number. If you add up…

All of the letters of Nero, Caesar, together, it adds up to 666, and this was the person persecuting the church. Also, though, and this is very helpful, this, uh, notice how it says the right hand or the forehead. This represents ideological commitment. So, on your forehead shows that you believe the lie. So this beast, this propaganda, will so consume us, it’s on our forehead, we now believe it.

This is the truth that we are set by. And the right hand shows you’re living it out. Ideological commitment and living out that commitment. The beast is so persuasive, the church too can be so consumed with propaganda they become, they live the aura of this beast. It’s kind of like A social currency, which they’re talking about more and more today.

I know they’re doing it in China and other places, right, where you kind of feel that pressure. If you believe certain statements about sexuality and this, that, and the other, then you’ll be accepted. How many of us, we see it, I think we’re so grateful to live in America. I think there’s a lot that we, uh, we are not grateful for.

I’m very grateful to still be a free country. However, it’s probable in your workplace environment, there’s certain things you just don’t mention about Jesus or mention your faith because you know it can give you a pay cut. You know that it can cause division within, uh, your workplace. Also, you know, there’s certain friends you have, you don’t bring it up because you want to keep that relationship, right?

And so the 666 is not a literal like a barcode or it’s not a tattoo. It is The Holy Spirit, when he comes on your life, there’s a light, right? There’s a seal. It’s like there’s something different about you. You follow the way of Jesus. When you follow the way of the beast, there’s something different about you.

It’s all over you. I can tell you’re following the way of the world. Daryl Johnson, again, says, The mark of the beast is not a tattoo on the forehead or on the right hand, nor a microchip embedded under the skin. It is the character of the beast embedded under the skin. It is the character of the beast implanted in the soul.

Just as the presence of the Holy Spirit makes himself known through Jesus disciples, so the presence of the beast makes himself known through its disciples. Now, how does Passion Creek Church fight this unholy trinity? That’s how I want to close and ask this question. On one hand, this information, propaganda, all that can make us crazy, right?

We can find conspiracies in every corner, and the sad part is some of them are going to be true. What it can lead to is to begin to distrust institutions even more, which isn’t always a good thing. Right? I think the church has been hurt. We’re so against all institutions that the church isn’t as impactful because we’re always doubting each other rather than living on mission together.

And we can begin to fear the world so much that like, A, we don’t want to have children. I’ve heard people say that. I don’t want to bring children into this world. Or B, we are so terrified we completely hover over them and don’t let them live in this world. That’s not compelling. That’s not the way of Jesus.

That’s not the mark of the Lamb. So, but it can make us crazy. That’s on one hand. On the other hand, probably some of this stuff is even worse than you think. Satan loves to sabotage the church. Some of our fights, Satan is in the middle of. And we, nah, nah, nah, no. The, the devil doesn’t want us to succeed.

And if I could be honest, we are cranking up our mission here at Passion Creek, and with that, the devil’s been cranking up too. And we’re not going to crank down, right? Because we have the way of the lamb, but it takes a lot of humility, a lot of patience, a lot of love. It’s getting hard, right? But look, greed has the power to self deceive.

Power has a way of putting our blinders on from certain sins. Like this is, it’s really complex. Here’s what we need to do. We need to fight, but we need to fight the right way in the right fight. Anybody feel that tension? Right? You see Christians online talking about the end of the world and you’re like, you might be right, but I want you to be wrong because you’re just weird or you’re hateful, right?

It’s like, like, let’s not talk about Revelation because those people are cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, you know? Strange. Like, I find myself, I’m like, you make me side with the non christian just because of how belligerent you are. But I know the non

christian’s wrong too. I think about that line all the time, Don’t wrestle with pigs, you’ll both get dirty. And the pig likes it! And our end time strategy is often just to get dirty with the pigs. There’s only one winner there, and it ain’t us. There’s a big temptation, Eugene Peterson in his book, Reverse Thunder, he says it is especially difficult to persevere without using the ordinary means of politics when Jesus’s way doesn’t seem to be working at all and Rome’s way is working all too well.

Do you feel that? I know there’s a better, there’s a more righteous way, but they’re winning and we can’t have them win. Friends, look at church history, the patient, the slow, the steadfast. Those who rest in a world of hurry, those who know the truth in a world of lies, those who are patient, will win. We don’t win by the sword.

We win by the scriptures, by living this genuine life. So, how do we know if we started to roll in the mud with the pigs? Write this down. The unholy Trinity wants the church to commit violence, silence, or compliance. Violence. The enemy wants you to hate your neighbor. And I’m sad to say, but there are churches organizing today that are based off of mutual hate, not mutual love.

There is a way to grow the church today based off of hating a certain people group. That will not be our church ever. But violence… Violence towards political parties, violence just in general, or silence. If I’m going to be honest, this is the one I lean towards. I don’t like fighting, you know, I like to be the guy everybody likes.

Which I should never have become a pastor, because that’s the worst gig if you want to do that. But, silence, you know what, you do you, boo, you know. It can’t be that, because we’re actually making our kids worse off too, right? There’s repercussions of being silent and not standing for the truth. Or compliance, just giving in to power, giving in to the propaganda.

You know, whatever, I’m just going to use it to my advantage. That’s what the enemy wants, but that’s not how we win. Lastly, the Holy Trinity, what does the Holy Trinity do for us? The Holy Trinity graces the church with power, love, and sound judgment. That’s the three things we need today. Power, love, sound judgment, or other translations say sound mind.

Look at 2 Timothy 1. 7. 2 Timothy 1. 7 should be on the screen. It says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment. I actually want to encourage you this week to haggah this verse. During our Formed by Scripture series, we talked about the importance of haggah, which means to eat it, to dwell on it.

I think we literally define haggah as to chew it over with unhurried delight. If I can encourage the church to be the church this week, I want you to put it on your phone, your wallpaper, I want you to write it on your notes, put it on your hand, make that the mark, right, on your forehead and your right hand.

Meditate on 2 Timothy 1, 7. Because that’s the answer. Cause what the beasts do is they make you fear. And the spirit of fear leads to violence, silence, or compliance, but that’s not the gift from the Lord. The Lord gives us a way to rise above those things, to have power, biblical power, by the way, to have love, biblical love and biblical sound judgment.

And I was going to end by describing to you what those three words mean, but I felt as if the Holy Spirit was telling me to make you do it. What if the church is the church? What if this week, by next Sunday, we have it memorized, it’s a really easy line, but that you dwell on it in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, you’re confused, you’re angry about what’s happening in politics or your next door neighbor, or even in your own home and just say, okay, God, for the spirit of God, God, you haven’t given us a spirit of fear.

But of power, love, and sound judgment. Would you give that to me? But also, Holy Spirit, would you explain that to me? I just want to challenge our church. Will you take, that’s the one practice this week. Read 2 Timothy 1 7 over and over and over again. And apply it to the tension and chaos of your life and of our society.

What could God do? Let’s pray.