Revelation 13:6-10
And
its mouth opened into blasphemies to God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle,
and the ones who live in heaven. And it was given to him to make war with the
holy ones and to conquer them and authority was given to him upon all tribes and
people and tongues and nations. And the ones who live upon the earth will bow
down to worship him – of whom their names have not been written in the book of
life of the lamb, the one who has been slaughtered from the beginning of the
world. If anyone has an ear, hear! If
anyone is in captivity, into captivity he leads. If anyone is to be killed in the sword, he in
the sword is to be killed. Here is the
patient endurance and the faith of the holy ones.
Thoughts for Today
First Thought:
This beast is given the power over the world to
dominate. He makes war with the
saints. He has authority over all
tribes, tongues, nations, and people.
His power looks and feels complete.
Of course we know that it isn’t, only God’s power is complete. What can we learn from this? God is the ultimate authority, of
course. But that does not mean that we
will not be without our troubles. We
will suffer persecution. We will feel
people against us. We might even lose! But that’s because all of these perspectives
are from a temporal perspective. We
might lose here on earth. We might have
persecution and war brought to our doorstep.
We might feel like evil is winning.
But it is not.
Do you ever feel like evil is winning? Why do you think evil gets the upper hand so
often in this world, even if it is only a temporal win? Why would God put up with this?
Second Thought:
As long as we are talking about feeling like we are not
winning, notice that the world – those whose names are not written in the lamb’s
book of life – will bow down and worship the beast. In other words, the saints who are in the
world are not powerful enough to keep the world from worshipping the
beast! We might desire to prevent the
world from worshipping the things of this world. But just because we desire something doesn’t
mean that we can prevent it! Every human
being has the right and desire to make their own choices. It is like the old adage. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot
make it drink. We may desire to keep the
world for God and away from the worship of the powers and principalities of
this world. But we are not powerful
enough to accomplish that task always.
Have you ever desired to keep someone away from the powerful
pull of this world and been unable to do so?
How does this feel? Why is it
important to understand our place, continue to try to do the will of God, yet
realize that we are not able to force other people’s will?
Third Thought:
Finally, we arrive at this unusual
saying at the end of this passage. This
quote in verse 10 actually comes from Jeremiah 15:2. What this passage is about is actually the
beginning of the answer to my prior thoughts.
None of us can escape God’s will.
None of us can escape that which God has ordained to happen. We all have free will. We all can make our
own decisions. But God’s will is God’s
will. In God’s will, our best defense in
patient endurance. When the world rises
against us, we must endure patiently knowing that God is indeed in control.
Do you rest easy in God’s will? Do you find it challenging or natural to
endure patiently? What does patient
endurance look like to you?
Passage
for Tomorrow: Revelation 13:11-18
No comments:
Post a Comment