Image Is Everything - Part 2

 

    Now let me make a couple of interpretive comments before we get to the heart of the matter.  There are many approaches to the book of Revelation and to specific passages within Revelation, since this is not a classroom, I’m not going to take the time to talk about different approaches, but I do want to make some points.

 

           Mt. Zion in 14:1 speaks to us of where God dwells.  These 144,000 are living their lives where God is.  They aren’t putting off their obedience and fellowship with God until some pie – in – the – sky futuristic experience, but they are living with God in the present, in the eternal present.  That is an experience in Jesus Christ that we all can know.  That is one of many differences between having a religion and a relationship.

 

           The number 144,000 is a symbolic number that speaks to us of completeness.  That is, the Lamb is going to have a complete number of people follow Him and His work on earth won’t be finished until He is finished gathering His firstfruits.  In verse 4 we see this group called firstfruits. James 1:18 “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”  God’s people are spoken of as firstfruits in the Scriptures.

 

           The idea that this group hasn’t defiled itself with women isn’t talking about sexuality.  In fact, this group is made up of men and women, girls and boys.  Instead this image speaks to us of the fact that this group has remained faithful to the Lamb.  In the book of Revelation, the image of women is used to portray unfaithfulness to God and promiscuity with the dragon and the beast on the one hand, and on the other hand we have the woman who is the Bride of Christ, pure and spotless and faithful, with which the book of Revelation culminates.  The book of Revelation is an equal opportunity employer and there are many images of men in the book that are evil.

  

          We’ve got a contrast in chapters 13 and 14, a contrast between the beast and his followers and the Lamb and His followers; a contrast between the false lamb and the true Lamb; a contrast between the mark of the beast and the name of the Lamb. 

  

It is important to remind ourselves that chapter and verse divisions did not exist when the Old and New Testaments were written, they were added much later for ease of reference, and while chapters and verses can be useful they can also be harmful and this is a case in point.  If we simply stop reading at the end of chapter 13, we miss the author’s intent to see the contrast found in chapter 14.

 

          Two images.  The image of God and the image of the beast.  Two strains in the flow of history, in the flow of philosophy, in the flow of education, in religion, in science, in government…in all of life.  The image of God and the image of the beast.

  

          God makes us in His image.  The serpent, the enemy of God, the dragon comes alongside us and asks, “Did God really say these things?”  The serpent would have us believe that we can be greater than we are.  He would have us believe that we can attain to a greater image.  He offers us the intoxication of an independent autonomous life without God, in fact he seduces us with the idea that we can be like God.

  

          We are made in God’s image, and in that respect we bear His likeness, but we think we can do better and so we go our own way…and the image that we once bore we fractured…and in our descent from that image we have become like the man fallen into what seems like a bottomless well with smooth slimy sides, trying constantly to pull ourselves up only to slip further down.

  

          How many times in the past few weeks have I been asked if we’re living in the book of Revelation, if we’re living in the tribulation period?  How many times am I asked about the number 666?

  

          Last week I suggested we not look outside for the beast but inside, inside our hearts, inside our minds, inside these temples.  Yes, the flow of history will see the beast and work of the dragon personified in some form, but if I don’t recognize what’s going on inside of me, I’ll never recognize what occurs outside of me.

  

          Now the number 7 in Revelation often represents perfection or completeness.  It is associated with the perfection that we find only in God.  The number 6 is a less than perfect number, a number that falls short of perfection.  Man was created on the 6^th day.  When a number or word is repeated in the Bible it is done so for emphasis and to convey the fullness of an idea.  For example, heavenly beings in the Scriptures cry out to God, “Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty.”  The repeated word “holy” is showing that God is perfect in holiness or full of holiness.

  

          We have the number 666, meaning that the self-exaltation of man in his rebellion and imperfection has reached a crescendo.  Man’s worship of himself, a worship empowered by the dragon and the beast reaches a point where it can go no farther, man finally constructs his ultimate tower of Babel.

to be continued...

 

Image Is Everything - Part 1

 

Image is everything

This was preached the third Sunday after 9/11. Can you see that the previous message was a setup for this message? Can you see the linkage of the two messages?

 

 

September 30, 2001; Revelation 13:11 – 14:5.

Robert Withers, Becket, MA

 

          A few years ago, tennis star Andre Aggasi was in a television commercial for Nikon Cameras.  The commercial portrayed Agassi as the slick successful unconventional tennis pro that he is with the punch line spoken by Agassi “image is everything.”  Of course that was a double entendre in that “image is everything” was tied into Agassi’s public persona as a tennis player, which supposedly is translated into success on the tennis court, and of course, the issue when buying a camera is the quality of image that the product will produce.  So the phrase “image is everything” carried two meanings with it.

  

          There is a catalog company that also has retail outlets by the name of The Sharper Image.  It’s a place where you can purchase items for the person who has everything, like a $50 gold-plated toothpick.  The idea is that if you want to enhance your image all you need do is purchase something that is unique and different, something the average person wouldn’t own, and that owning and flaunting unusual items will give you a “sharper image” in the eyes of your peers.

  

          Few products seen on television are presented in terms of functionality but rather in terms of image.  About the only products that deal straight up with functionality are those miracle cleaning products that will take grape juice, mustard, and Kool Aid out of your carpet within 30 seconds, but wait, if you order within the next 10 minutes you’ll get a second order free and a special video on raising iguanas.

 

           Few, if any, automobile advertisements are based on the functionality of cars but rather the images they portray.  We have images of power, images of comfort, images of elegance, images of durability, images of cowboys, images of race car drivers, images of social and financial success, and of course, images of sexuality.  Somehow automobiles have been transformed from the basic Model T to personal statements that convey something about the owner. 

 

          Imagine that we are a team of archeologists from another planet.  We are sent here to research the role of images on earth.  We begin our research with ancient cultures.  We view the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Aztec, the Mayan, and the Inca, to name but a few.  We uncover representations of gods in the form of statues, woodcarvings, mosaics, and monuments.  Since many of these representations are in population centers we conclude that they were a focal point of ancient life.  As we dig deeper, we discover that sacrifice played a part in ancient mankind’s relationship with these representations, these images.  Some of these sacrifices were of crops, some were of animals and others were of humans; of men, women and children.

  

          No doubt these sacrifices were meant to appease the ancient gods.  No doubt as we progress in our study of earth things will get better.  No doubt – we think - as civilization develops, mankind will move beyond the worship of images.

 

           Our passage this morning speaks of two images, two imprints.  The first is the image of the beast.  We touched on this last week.  We have two beasts and a dragon in chapter 13, and the second beast, which appears as a lamb, in other words it has the image of a lamb, causes men to make an image of the first beast, the antichrist.  Notice that the second beast, the false prophet, causes men to make this image.  We saw earlier in chapter 13 verse 4 that the world worships the beast.

  

          Then in chapter 14 we see another group, a group that is not a part of the common flow of humanity, a group that does not worship the beast.  This group does not carry the mark of the beast on or within themselves, but on the contrary have the name of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and the name of His Father written on their foreheads – in their minds. As opposed to worshipping the beast, this group follows the Lamb wherever He goes.

to be continued...

 

Where's The Image? Conclusion

 

If you’ve read Daniel and Revelation, you’ll see that one pattern is the consolidation of power.  Mankind’s quest is to consolidate power.  This is at least as old as the Tower of Babel in the book of Genesis.  A time will come when this quest for power will be consummated, and this consummation will be energized by the dragon, Satan.  That’s a pretty basic pattern.  The thing is, even though the antichrist is characterized as a beast in this chapter, he won’t look like a beast to the world, in fact he’ll look like a savior, a person who has the solution to what ails us.

However, if we spend our time looking for an individual to place the tag “antichrist” upon the chances are that we’ll miss him, because the antichrist is more than an individual, it is a way of life, a way of looking at the world, a way of thinking.  And, assuming that the antichrist is one day personified in a person (which may or may not be the case), those who have already lived their lives immersed in a certain way of thinking will not likely recognize him as other than a savior, a wonderful human being.

 

“1JN 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

 

   I think we can say that the spirit of antichrist was manifested in Cain when he murdered his brother Able and that it’s been with us ever since.  So the first place to look for it is in here, within us, then we can worry about it elsewhere.  That won’t sell books because we don’t like self-examination, but it is something that our spiritual forebearers recognized.

 

You might say that in Revelation 13 we have an unholy trinity, a counterpart to the Holy Trinity; the dragon, the antichrist and the false prophet. 

 

There is a beast in every generation, a false prophet in every generation, an image in every generation, and the number 666 in every generation.  You’ll probably need to give that some thought, but that’s all right. That won’t sell books either, but that’s a Biblical pattern.  However, a generation will come in which this unholy trinity is ultimately personified in one manifestation or in many.  That is, a generation will come in which the power and deception of the dragon finds its ultimate expression in humanity and in a representative (or representatives) of humanity who is opposed to God.

 

The great news is that God has a plan for His people, a plan for His people to be the light of the world, a plan for His people to come into the fullness of their inheritance in Jesus Christ, a plan for His people to bear the image of God no matter how dark the darkness may be.  You see, the encroachment of the powers of evil does not mean that the people of God retreat and hide in holes, but rather that they become the bearers of the Good News of Jesus to a world that so desperately needs to hear and see Him living in and through His people.

 

This is why it is imperative that we live as Christ in this generation.  It is imperative that we bring the light and life of Christ to others, because without us they aren’t going see Jesus.

 

I once had a conversation with someone who does not live in the area, the person has no connection whatsoever with this church.  The person worked in a hospice program at the time, she is a believer in Jesus Christ, and she said to me, “Well, I don’t tell people about Jesus because that’s against policy.”  My friends, if we don’t tell dying people about Jesus then who are we going to tell?

 

We are living in mental and spiritual prisons. We are locked up in our thinking and are living in mental processes that are frankly absurd.  Do we really think on the day when we stand before our Lord Jesus that we can say, “Well Lord, I would have told my coworkers about you but it was against policy”?  Do we seriously think that God Almighty is going to accept those words?

 

How many Christians perished in the World Trade Center alongside fellow workers with whom they had never shared the wonderful news of Jesus Christ?  This is not a game; this is eternal reality.  And all the pluralistic songs and prayer services and sweet cotton candy accolades and singing “God Bless America” will not change the fact that men and women went into eternity on September 11, 2001 not knowing light and life in Jesus Christ.

 

  I do not say this to minimize the tragedy, the human suffering, the incomprehensible loss…I grieve for all of those affected…I grieve for our nation.

 

But I say this to give us a wakeup call to consider the prison our minds are in and to ask us whether we ourselves have bought into a civil religion…are we worshipping the Emperor, have we become members of the Imperial Cult, when we make no distinction between Jesus Christ and other gods?

 

People who are worried about some physical image of a beast being set up somewhere in the Middle East or wherever ought to forget about looking outward and ask God to give them an inner reality check, because the image of the beast to be concerned about is not out there, it is in here, in my heart, in my mind, in my soul…because I’ll never be what God would have me to be if that beast has a safe harbor inside of me…and if he does…then whatever occurs outside of me is really a non-issue because I’ve already internalized the image within me.

 

Well, God has got better things for us, in fact He’s got the very best for us, and we’ll continue this next week.

 

In the meantime, what images are living within our hearts and minds and souls?