December 26/27 Revelation 13-16

December 26/27, 2014

I hope you had a blessed Christmas.  Don’t forget, it’s still just the Second and Third Days of Christmas!  The final three readings from Revelation cover two days each. Therefore, this reading is for Friday and Saturday, December 26 and 27.

Revelation 13-16

Revelation 13 begins with the dragon standing on the shore of the sea. It’s almost as though he wills first one beast, and then another, into existence. The first comes out of the sea and has two devilish purposes: 1) to entice the whole world into worshipping the dragon, and 2) to exercise authority over all the earth, doing particular harm to the saints of God. The second beast comes out of the earth and has just one job: to force the world to worship the first beast. This is the chapter that gives us the puzzling “number of the beast:” 666. It’s fruitless to attempt to figure it out. Suffice it to say that as of Revelation 13, we have a trinity of evil: the dragon, the first beast and the second beast, which many see as the devil, the antichrist and the false prophet.

Revelation 14 shows us the Lamb standing on Mt. Zion. We hear a new song sung by the 144,000 redeemed before heaven’s throne. Three angels step forward with proclamations: 1) Worship God! 2) Babylon is fallen! And 3) do not worship the beast!

It is here that the Holy Spirit speaks a word of comfort: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they will rest front her labor, for their deeds will follow them.” (Rev. 14:13).

Revelation 14 ends with the harvesting of the earth. This is no “rapture,” no happy time, but that time when the “grapes of God’s wrath” will be trampled across the earth.

In Revelation 15, we pause for another great “Song of the Lamb;” this one is sung by “those who have been victorious over the beast.” This introduces the seven angels, who emerge from the heavenly temple with seven bowls of wrath!

Revelation 16 narrates those seven bowls of wrath and their hideous affects. As awful as these judgments are, the angel in charge says to God: “You are just in these judgments!” (Rev. 16:5) These bowls of wrath set up the final great battle where God overthrows evil!

Your fellow traveler through the New Testament,

Pastor Gary