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...