DAY 356

WALK HUMBLY

Micah 6 & 7 and Revelation 13

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

As we turn to Revelation 13, I wanted to highlight this verse from Micah. It is one of those verses you want to memorize. I find it curious that we are told to walk humbly with our God on the day we are reading about beasts that exalt themselves.

Let us break down Revelation 13 into three pieces: The First Vision—the Beast from the Sea (vv.1-10); The Second Vision—the Beast from the Earth (vv.11-17); The Number of the Beast (v.18).

Let me begin with the end. The commentator I am leaning heavily on concludes the first beast from the sea is Satan’s perversion of society, the beast from the earth is Satan’s perversion of the Church, and the number does not stand for any person or institution…it stands simply for the beast. You can stop right here if you like, if not here is a bit more.

The first vision: the beast from the sea—the dragon’s seven heads and ten horns showed that power was his very essence. What Satan desires most of all is to have God’s omnipotence and this beast is one of Satan’s attempts to that end. [In my day 355 ½ posting on Numbers I wrote about the number seven.]

We are not used to this type of writing; apocalyptic. People of John’s day would be used to it. They would be well schooled in Old Testament’s apocalyptic book, the Book of Daniel. In Daniel, he explains his vision of his beast as the four great kings. In Revelation we are shown a beast with diadems (a crown worn as a sign of sovereignty) and a throne. The beast is a symbol of worldwide power politics. For John this would be the Roman Empire, but every generation faces their own “Rome.” This Scripture is not anti-government; nor is this Scripture about one government. Rather the Scripture points out how this beast rises from the Spiritual world to infect and pervert the good things of this world, in this case government and it does so in every generation…and the image of this beast is meant to communicate that this infection is no small thing. How long will this last? The text answers 42 months. Curiously this is the same length of time the two witnesses will prophesy (11:3) and the woman survives in the desert (12:4). What does this mean? I will spare the details, but the thought is that this is a figurative way of saying the “time of the nations”—this means we need to ignore the time element and simply understand that there will be a time period when nations, when governments shall rule. During that time the church will survive, albeit challenged and even persecuted, but this time period of governments will come to an end…that I believe is why it is described as a fixed period of time…meaning it has an end.

The second beast looks like a lamb and speaks like a dragon! It is the beast that corrupts the faith, the beast of false religion. It even works great signs! However in the end it demands allegiance, even marking or setting oneself apart for this false religion. How can you tell if it false? Ask a few simple questions: Does it lead to Jesus? Does it follow what we read in Micah? Is it in complete agreement with the Scriptures, or does it twist them into its own meaning? I can make it even simpler, this beast is any religion, philosophy, or ideology that sets its hope in salvation upon human endeavor and not the grace found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Finally we come to the number. I will write a separate post on it, and if you want you can read it. Consistent with my posts on Revelation I do not see it as some secret code, nor do I see it standing for a specific person, rather I see it as a sign of the beast, the beast that in any shape or form, sets itself up against Almighty God. Which brings me back to Micah…I imagine the beasts are the exact opposite of that verse.