The Beast (Revelation 13:1-10) | Pastor Jake Sweetman

In this sermon from Revelation 12:17–13:10, we explore how Satan, the dragon (Revelation 12:9), wages war against the church not only through obvious persecution, but through deceptive political powers, ideologies, and false promises of human flourishing.

Drawing from the Old Testament background of the sea and Leviathan (Isaiah 27:1; Psalm 74:13–14; Job 41) and Daniel’s vision of the beasts (Daniel 7:1–8, 17–27), we see how John’s “beast from the sea” (Revelation 13:1–4) is a composite symbol of every idolatrous empire that demands the loyalty, obedience, and worship that belong only to God (Exodus 20:3–5; Deuteronomy 6:13).

Key themes in this message:

• The dragon’s rage against the offspring of the woman—the church (Revelation 12:17; Genesis 3:15)
• The beast as the visible face of Satanic opposition in rulers and regimes (Revelation 13:1–2; Ephesians 6:12)
• Blasphemous claims of divine status and ultimate authority (Revelation 13:1, 5–6; Acts 12:21–23)
• The parody of Christ’s death and resurrection in the beast’s “fatal wound” that is healed (Revelation 13:3; 5:6; 1 Corinthians 15:3–4)
• False gospels and counterfeit salvations offered by empires and ideologies (Galatians 1:6–9; Colossians 2:8)
• The world’s wonder and worship of the beast: “Who is like the beast?” (Revelation 13:4), a tragic echo of Israel’s worship of the Lord (Exodus 15:11; Psalm 89:6–8)
• The beast’s primary weapon: lies and propaganda, not just swords (Revelation 13:5–6; John 8:44)
• Divine sovereignty over evil through “it was given…”—God using even opposition for His purposes (Revelation 13:5, 7; Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20)
• The limited, imperfect reign of the beast (42 months; Revelation 13:5; 11:2–3; 12:6,14), contrasted with the eternal kingdom of Christ (Revelation 11:15; Daniel 7:13–14)
• The call to “patient endurance and faithfulness” (Revelation 13:10; 14:12) as we walk in the way of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11; Matthew 16:24; Philippians 2:5–11)

This message challenges us to:

• Test our political and cultural loyalties against the kingdom of God (Philippians 3:20; 1 Peter 2:11–12)
• Refuse to soften biblical truth about love, justice, sexuality, and holiness to fit cultural pressures (Romans 12:1–2; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; Micah 6:8)
• See the church not as an embarrassment, but as Christ’s chosen instrument and bride (Ephesians 3:10–11; 5:25–27; Matthew 5:13–16)
• Hold fast to the gospel as truth, not mere cultural preference (Romans 1:16; John 14:6; Jude 3)

Revelation 13 reminds us that while the beast screams with borrowed power, Jesus advances His kingdom through the quiet, steady, sacrificial faithfulness of His people. Our task is not to conquer the beast, but to bear faithful witness to the Lamb who has already overcome (John 16:33; Revelation 5:5–6; 12:11).

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

We're going through the whole book of Revelation and I mapped out the remainder of the messages. I believe it's only 12 weeks left going through Revelation. So yes, hi Five Your Neighbor. So I'm really glad I'm sitting next to you. Go ahead and grab your seat. I trust everyone is doing really, really well. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms. We love and honor you. You genuinely are incredible. I'm feeling extra blessed today because I have sparkling water here. Wow. We've upped our game. This is amazing. Turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 12, the very end of chapter 12. We're going to pick it up in verse 17, is where we'll jump in and we'll read through to the first couple verses of chapter 13, which is what we're going to be unpacking today. In Revelation chapter 12, verse 17, it says this. Chapter 13 and verse 1, the dragon stood on the shore of the sea, and I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. I could think of no better title for the message today than just to call it the beast. A Mother's Day message. About your toddlers going through their terrible twos. In 2012, Apple launched its own maps application in order to replace Google Maps on the iPhone. And if you were around for that, maybe you remember that it was an utter disaster. In Australia, Apple Maps was directing drivers into the middle of a national park. No water, no food, no roads, just wilderness. Police literally had to issue an emergency warning after they had to rescue several people. In Fairbanks, Alaska, Apple Maps was directing drivers onto active airport taxiways. Not the road around the airport, the actual runway. In Barrow, Alaska, Apple Maps misplaced the entire town by a mile. I mean, can you imagine pulling up to your destination and there's just nothing there? No town, no buildings, just tundra, just Eskimo, just polar bears. I don't know what's there. The whole thing was so bad that Tim Cook, the CEO, had to issue a public apology and uh recommend to his customers that they go back to using Google Maps while they tried to fix the issue. Millions of people feeling really confident about the direction that they were going, but not actually being led in any place that they really wanted to go. That's a pretty good analogy for our text today. Revelation 13 tells us that the dominant navigation system of this world, the one that most people are following without even realizing it, has been programmed by a liar. And it isn't taking people where they want to go. And so the question that Revelation 13 forces us to ask is whose voice are you actually trusting to navigate your life? The passage picks up exactly where chapter 12 leaves off. There, the dragon, a symbol of Satan, is enraged because he has been defeated by the cross, he's been hurled out of heaven, and he now spends his limited time doing the one thing that is left available to him, which is waging war against the church. And the church, for its part, is called to overcome the dragon by walking in the way of the Lamb, the way of Jesus. The question that we are left with at the end of chapter 12 is how is this warfare enacted? Where is the battlefield that the fight is taking place? Basically, it's an inquiry into the nature of spiritual warfare. If the devil is actively opposing us as the church, then what can we expect that to look like? Revelation 13 is one of the Bible's answers to that question, and our text today is the first half of that answer. The dragon stands on the seashore and appears to summon a beast out of the sea. Now, there are a number of Old Testament images that provide the background to this scene. First, the sea in the Old Testament is symbolic of the destructive powers of chaos that are opposed to the work of God. Second, in the poetic and the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, there is a sea beast. Maybe you've stumbled upon him, he's called Leviathan. And he's basically an embodiment of these chaotic and destructive powers. Leviathan is connected to the serpent and the dragon imagery that is associated with Satan. And throughout the Old Testament, these symbols of the sea and Leviathan, they are used to describe people and kingdoms who are opposed to God. And so Pharaoh in Egypt is described of in a chaotic Leviathan type manner. Babylon is conceived of in this way. So are other nations who stand in opposition to Yahweh and his people. So when we read here that the dragon, Satan, calls forth a beast from the sea, we immediately know that we are not being invited to a picnic in the park. We also learn immediately that whatever this beast is, the source of the beast is Satan. Satan is the source of what is behind this beastly activity happening in the world. We might say that the beast is the visible face of the dragon. In fact, the beast has seven heads and ten horns, just like the dragon in chapter 12 has seven heads and ten horns. And while the dragon wears its crowns on its heads, the beast wears its crowns on its horns, as if to say that it is the visible strength of the invisible dragon. John sees the beast, it's wearing ten crowns, and it has seven blasphemous names written on its heads. Well, together the numbers seven and ten with the imagery of horns and crowns symbolize the beast's claim to complete authority and total power over the nations. And not just any power and authority, but that which rivals a god. That's what the blasphemous names communicate, the beast's claim to divinity. In John's Roman context, that would have immediately brought up connections to the Roman Caesars who used titles for themselves, such as Lord and God, and who were deified by the Roman Senate. And all this, of course, hints at the very nature of the beast itself. What is it? What does it represent? Well, the background is in the Old Testament in Daniel 7, where the prophet Daniel has a vision of four different beasts, three of which take the form of different carnivorous animals: a lion, a leopard, and a bear. In Daniel 7, it is explained to us that each of those beasts represents four different kingdoms in human history, and each of those kingdoms are opposed to God and his kingdom. But ultimately, these four rebellious kingdoms are overcome by the Messiah. Now, the lion, leopard, and bear, of course, are exactly the animals whose various parts make up the beasts that John sees here in Revelation 13. And they are brought together into one beastly figure that John sees. But John doesn't see sequential kingdoms, he sees one composite beast that is representative of all kings and all kingdoms at all times and places that oppose God and his people. To quote one scholar, the beast represents the powers of evil which lie behind the kingdoms of this world. It's coming up in Jesus' name, so I can read it off the screen. No, it's not. The kingdoms of this world which encourage in society at any moment in history compromise with the truth and opposition to the justice and the mercy of God. Did it come up? No, it didn't. That's okay. Sometimes I'm always wondering did it happen while I'm talking? And you guys are, yeah, there it is. So basically, what this text is saying is that this beast is not representative of different individual kingdoms, it is representative of all kingdoms across human history that are rebellious against the Lord. And this makes sense because revelation is not a timeline on which you can plot your place in history, it is a manual for how Christians can patiently and faithfully endure to the end of the age. Throughout this age, there have been and there will be many manifestations of the beast. But ultimately, there is one enemy that stands behind them all, and that enemy is the dragon. And remember, the dragon is enraged, and he knows that his time is short, and so he is throwing the kitchen sink at the church. And one of the ways that he does this is through the beast, which one scholar calls the monster that represents what happens whenever humanity claims the loyalty and obedience that belongs to God alone. What happens there is that humanity ceases to be human and it becomes bestial. So the dragon has a lot to work with. He is not bound to pagan Rome. He is not bound to the Ottoman Empire, to Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, Communist Cambodia, Maoist China, Sub-Saharan Africa, or autonomy-loving America. John sees one hybrid beast made up of all the worst that evil can conjure, as if to say that the devil is throwing everything he has against the advancement of the church across every generation and in every geographic location. But we know this from history that every time any regime has declared war on the Church of Jesus Christ, that regime has eventually met its end. The emperors are dead, the empires are dust, and the church they tried to destroy is still there, still advancing, still multiplying, still spreading across every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. The dragon's strategy will not work, never has, never will. It's good news. And so essentially what we put together so far is that the beast is representative of rulers and regimes who oppose God and his church. In other words, we now know the essence of the beast, and the essence of the beast is idolatrous, evil empires. This is a key to understanding how the dragon wages war against the church. The beast, the text says, receives its power, throne, and great authority from the dragon. In other words, the beast is fighting a proxy war against the church on behalf of the dragon. You see, empires do not oppose God and his people by their own wit and willpower alone. They are servants of the serpent. Let me just say it to you plainly: politics is spiritual. There is a spiritual reality that is at work in this world, and your party is not immune to the influence of the dragon. How does that work? Look at verses 3 and 4. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. People worship the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast, and they asked, Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it? So one of the themes throughout Revelation is that evil actually parodies God and parodies God's goodness. So in this case, this means that the beast aims to mimic God in order to mock him and in order to deceive humanity. So the dragon, understand, does not typically wage war with a trident. The dragon wages war with tricks. He is a play actor and he's really good at putting on a front. Now, when we get to the second half of Revelation 13 next week, we will actually meet a second beast. And together the dragon, the beast from the sea, and the second beast, the beast from the land, they fill in the shape of the devil's grandest deception, which is that he parodies not only God's activity, he parodies God's very nature. Because the three of them together form an unholy trinity who are devoted to their own glory. So with that understanding of parity in place, we can now explore what is meant in verse 3, where we see that the beast received a fatal wound to its head, but rather than dying from that wound, the beast was healed. Now, of course, there are, with everything in Revelation, various interpretations of what the beast's fatal yet healed wound symbolizes. The best interpretation, I believe, honors the fact that the beast is representing not one soul king, not one soul kingdom, but rather the combination of every ruler and kingdom that opposes God and his people throughout the entirety of the church age. It's a constant rise and fall. In fact, it is that constant rise and fall of opposition to God and his church that is itself the best explanation for the symbolism of the beast's wounding and healing. When one regime falls, another follows in its place. And in this way, the beast portrays the power of resurrection as it continues to oppose God down through the centuries. Now, in the Greek text, it literally says that the beast was slaughtered and healed. It's the exact same Greek phrase that is used to describe Jesus back in Revelation 5 about the slaughtered and risen lamb. So Jesus is described as slain and risen, and the beast is described as slain and healed. So the description of the sea beast then is a parody of the death and the resurrection of Jesus. Why? Well, in Revelation 5, the death and resurrection of Jesus is connected to his offer of salvation to humanity. And so the point behind this vision of the slain and healed beast is to communicate, get this, that evil idolatrous empires work on the basis of making salvific claims. In other words, the deception of the beast is that he offers counterfeit salvation. The strategy of idolatrous evil regimes is to put forth a vision of human flourishing that is devoid of submission to the one true God. And therefore, it is based entirely on deceptive messages and means that falsely advertise life but ultimately enslave. See, the beast casts a vision of utopia, but the methods that it requires to achieve that utopia demands unrighteousness, it demands injustice, which is why every utopian promise that the beast has ever made ends in a dystopian nightmare. And the trouble for those dystopian nightmares is that they don't just exist in novels, they affect real human lives. So, for example, if we were to take the sexual revolution, which promised liberation, freedom from outdated restrictions, the ability to define love and identity on your own terms. But what it delivered was an epidemic of loneliness, fatherless homes, shattered relationships, the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children, and a generation of young people who are more anxious, more depressed, and more confused about who they are than any generation before them. If we take Marxism, for example, promises liberation from oppression, a classless society where resources were shared equally, where the exploitation of the powerful over the weak would finally be abolished, and humanity would at long last live together in harmony and flourishing. What it delivered was the Soviet gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution of Maoist China, the starvation of millions in North Korea still today, regimes that murdered an estimated 100 million of their own people in the 20th century alone, in the pursuit of a paradise that never came. Friends, it is no coincidence that the same movements that aim to destroy the lives of their citizens begin by trying to silence the voice of the church. Because the voice of the church is the only voice in this world with a worldview that genuinely supports universal human dignity and worth. And so the way that the dragon empowers the sea beast to cast its utopian visions is by capturing people with various ideologies, which are actually just false gospels parading around as rock solid promises. Now, ideology is the role of the second beast. And so we'll get to that more next week. But suffice it to say for now that people do not fall for utopian visions in a vacuum. They fall for them because they breathe the cultural air of various ideologies that are popular at their time and in their place, which the Prince of the Power of the Air has been seeping into the atmosphere through any and every institution that he can get his hands on. From grade schools to universities, from the humanities department to the hard sciences, and down on into the culture. That, by the way, is what makes the spread of the gospel so utterly unique. There was nothing in the cultural air of first century Rome that would have made people prone to believe that salvation could come from a crucified Jewish peasant. It was foolishness to the Greeks, it was a stumbling block to the Jews. It swam against every cultural current of its day, and yet it took root across every tribe, every tongue, every nation. Not because the cultures had been conditioned to believe it, they hadn't. They believed it because it is true, friends and family. The beast does not have the luxury of truth, so he works with what he has, which is propaganda. So through the endless supply of Antichrist visions of human flourishing, which is literally what they are, a promise of flourishing apart from Christ, is an antichrist vision of human flourishing. And through that endless supply, the beast falsely portrays a kind of invincibility that captivates the wonder of the world. The text says that they are astonished, amazed. It's the same Greek word that John's gospel uses to describe the response of the people to the miracles that Jesus worked. And so the parody continues. Just as people were rightly amazed at the wonder of Jesus, so also the world is wrongly amazed at the power of the beast, who, like the dragon, parades around as an angel of light, offering salvation to a lost world who were desperate to find their way home. And as a result, the nations of the world they give their worship both to the beast itself, that is, their various political leaders and systems, and even to the dragon who empowers those leaders and systems. In other words, those who give their ultimate allegiance to any movement, empire, or ideology, don't just bow to the emperor, they bow to the dragon. Which makes sense because you cannot worship an antichrist person or system and not also be complicit in worshiping the antichrist spirit that is work at work behind them. So we see that the ambition of the beast is total worship. Worship not like a song, worship like a life. A better uh English word, maybe for us, would be allegiance to a counterfeit kingdom. And that worship has a sound. It sounds like this. Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it? That's an intentional echo of Exodus chapter 15, where on the other side of the Red Sea, the Israelites, on their way to the Promised Land, they break out in song and they say, Who among the gods is like you, Lord? And of course, the question is rhetorical. No one is like the Lord, no one is as powerful as he is, no one is compassionate and gracious and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness like the Lord. No one can deliver people into a land of flourishing like he can. Not because the beast has actually proven that. History will tell an opposite story. One looked behind the curtain and the whole thing is seen to be held together with duct tape and chewing gum. But people believe the beast. Hear me. People believe the empire is able to do what it promises because people want it to be true. They want to believe that fruitfulness can come apart from abiding in Christ. They want to believe that their towers of Babel can reach the heavens as long as they just keep building. They want to believe that human flourishing and harmony can come through some solution other than the one that begins by naming the sin sickness of the human heart. Friends, the beast may be empowered by the dragon, but he is propped up by the people. Which means its indestructibility will last exactly as long as humanity's willingness to believe the lie that we can get along just fine without God. So the pieces are starting to fall into place. The dragon empowers evil empires. Characteristic of those evil evil empires is that they claim godlike power, they command godlike allegiance, and the people worship them because they believe that the empire can give them paradise. In other words, they believe the original lie of the serpent, that they can have the life that God designed them to have, that they can have the garden, but they can have it on their terms and play God themselves. And that is a temptation that is common to all of mankind. That is a lure that the dragon can drop into the waters of chaos, that all of the nations swim in, and all people can be drawn to that lure as we overcome and struggle with our rebellious nature against God. And so no wonder verse 7 says that the beast was given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. It's as if God is warning the church this can happen anywhere. From the smallest tribe to the mightiest nation. All people are vulnerable to the deception of the beast's cunning ability to win the affection and the adoration of people in order that they would reject the kingdom of God and turn in favor toward building the kingdoms of men, no matter the cost. And so we see that the reach of the beast is worldwide. He's viral. The beast is not merely a problem for the east. He is a problem for the world. And this should startle us out of our cozy political alliances. We must not fall for the lie that it could never happen where we are. The first step in becoming beholden to the beast is believing that the movements and parties we support could never become a tool of Satan. I just find it's better to assume that they are already in some way compromised. And to hold every political allegiance loosely. Friends, pay attention when the parties and the movements and the institutions that you trust start to act in a way that is counter to the kingdom of God, even in little ways, because here's the deal: the devil just doesn't want inches, the devil wants miles. He may start with a temptation to take the fruit, but it's only one chapter later where he's tempting Cain to take a life. He may start little, but he's got big plans. Verses 5 and 6 say the beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemy and to exercise its authority for 42 months. It opened its mouth to blaspheme God and to slander his name and his dwelling place for those who live in heaven. It's very notable that the beast has seven heads, like we read at the start, but he's only got one mouth. The point behind the many-headed monster with one mouth is that there is one weapon that all empires in common have in common in their effort to oppose the kingdom of God. And that weapon is their mouth. In other words, they tell lies. Call it disinformation, call it misinformation, call it whatever you want. The beast lies. That's his primary weapon. You see, the dragon who is at work behind the powers in the world is very cunning. And he does not wage war against the church primarily with swords, but with speech. Understand that. Happens all of the time. You get convinced by some other lie, and all of a sudden, it's like you're barely a Christian anymore. Because of some YouTubers, like God doesn't exist. It's like, yeah, the beast is at work in the world, friends and family. This is the dragon waging war against you. He blasphemes God, which means that he aims to discourage your trust that God is who he says he is. Do you often experience a distrust that God is who he says he is? That is the dragon waging war against your mind, trying to get you out of a place of trust and belief and into a place of distrust, not so that you can be trust neutral, but so your trust can go towards the beast who has a false promise, a false utopia, and false human flourishing. This is the aim of the dragon. That blasphemy might sound like outright denial of God's existence, like so many communist empires have claimed. It might sound like rejection of God's supremacy, like so many postmodern movements have claimed. It may sound like a gross misrepresentation of God's character and God's ethics, like so many political movements in America, which have justified their unrighteous and unjust endeavors by twisting scripture and putting God's name on it. One of the most recent ways that we see this in our culture, this particular parody takes shape, is in the cultural redefinition of biblical words to mean unbiblical things. Like love or justice. Most fundamentally, the blasphemy of the beast means that the beast takes the name of God for itself. Either blatantly, like in Rome, or subversively, like in countless other examples, where it presents itself as the power you need. The beast also slanders God's people. And just as slandering God means that the beast claims the power of God for itself, so also the slander of the church means that the beast claims the church's significance for itself. So now the beast is a light to the world, not the church. Now the beast is the hope of the nations, not the church. You don't need to join God's family, you need to join this movement, this cause, this revolution. Therefore, the church is something to be sidelined and ignored at best, and something to be deconstructed and destroyed at worst. And in response to this, the church is called to overcome the beast by walking in the way of the Lamb. Which means that like Jesus, we lay down our lives for the sake of the truth, even when the lies get really loud and the cost of truth gets really high. And in this way of being in the world, we actually begin to subvert the beast. And this isn't just theory, the cross is the proof of concept that to lovingly lay down your life for the sake of the truth of God is the very means by which the beast is destabilized. If you don't believe me, fly to Italy and go looking for the Roman Empire. You won't find it. Because the prideful beast has no category for a power that wins by loving self-sacrifice. You know what the church is? The church is the glitch in the system of the beast that the programmer cannot fix. And this is how Jesus is winning the war. Which is why the text introduces you to the deepest reality underlying this war. That on one level, just in insofar as our eyes can see, it looks like empire versus Christians. On a deeper level, it looks like dragon versus church. But on a deeper level still, it's actually God sovereignly allowing this warfare to take place so that he can subvert the devil's tactics and bring good out of evil, just like he did at the cross. In other words, we now begin to see the limitations of the beast that God is using his tricks against him. And the way that the text alerts us to this is through the use of what are called divine passes. Divine passive is a literary device that shows us that God is doing something behind the scenes, that he is the hidden actor who is working all things together for good. And so the text says that the beast was given a mouth to utter proud words. It was given power to wage war against the church. It was given authority over the nations. The beast thinks that it has its authority from the dragon, but ultimately it is God who allows the beast to exist in the first place. The one who is doing the giving in all of those examples is God. God is giving evil enough rope to hang itself. And evil always will because pride never learns. Pride always runs the same course straight into the ground. And so what seems indestructible will eventually self-destruct. And what looks like foolishness will eventually triumph. The church that looks like it's losing is the very instrument that God is using to win this war. This is good news. To illustrate this, one more little textual nerdy note. The text says that the dragon uh empowers the beasts for 42 months. 42 months is one of several ways in Revelation that describe a three and a half year period. Three and a half years, this is the symbolic number that Revelation uses to describe the age in between Jesus' first coming and Jesus' second coming. That is the church age that you and I live in now. It's a three and a half year period. It's a broken seven. It feels like it's going to last forever. It feels like it's going to be complete, but God will cut it short. It's this three and a half year period. And when John describes the church during this period, he uses the time markers of three and a half years or twelve hundred and sixty days. But when he describes the reign of the beast and the dragon, he uses the time marker of forty-two months. It's the same length of time, but the use of forty-two months is meant to unveil heaven's perspective on the beast's claims to invincibility. Because forty-two is the multiple of six times seven. Six is the number of imperfection, it is the number of finite humanity. Seven, of course, is the number of perfection, of completion. And so the six times seven timestamp communicates the imperfect falling short of the perfect. As one biblical scholar said, perfection missing its mark. As something panultimate, striving so hard to be ultimate, but coming up short, far short. So the beast may boast of its indestructible power and its perfect plan to achieve life without God. The kingdoms of this world may offer their pathways to human flourishing. They may be convinced of humanity's innate power to achieve something that is nothing short of utopia. But as history has proven out, all of those plans fall short, they self-destruct. And the beast's shortcomings remind the church, remind you and I here today of exactly how we enter into that which is truly everlasting. We don't subscribe to the tactics of the dragon. We don't even battle the dragon on his own terms. We walk in the way of the Lamb. In the words of Jesus, we live by a different equation. 70 times seven. The equation of forgiveness, of self-giving love, not vengeance and self-exaltation and self-importance. This is how we endure. The text concludes at the end of verse 10, that all of this it calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God's people. This is an invitation, not just to first century Christians, this is an invitation to all God's people in all times and places, regardless of what stage of human history we are in, regardless of how expansive or how contracted the rejection of God and the clamoring for beast worship becomes, regardless of any of that, the call of Christians is the same throughout faithful witness, patient endurance. The message of the text is you and I, we do not wage war against the beasts. That is the work of God. We live faithfully, we persevere in witness, but we leave the battle to the Lord. If Revelation makes anything clear about our role in this war, it's that we are to cultivate worshiping communities that are gospel rich, who practice a way of self-sacrificial love that is so countercultural to this world that even many who are currently enamored with the beast will one day be in awe of the Lamb. And there will be costs to that commitment. Costs, even, John says, that may bring some to the edge of a sword and others to the inside of a cell. But even these are part of the witness of the church that Jesus Christ is Lord. In other words, the victory of the Lamb is the faithful witness of the church. What an amazing God. The beast is screaming the power of the dragon. And Jesus is happy to whisper his power through the faithfulness of his bride. What a privilege. That we could be the means by which God wins the hearts of humanity. Do not let this fall on deaf ears. The text says, Whoever has ears, let them hear. That act of listening means that you reject the beliefs, the values, the norms of the beast, you patiently endure in the way of the Lamb. What does this actually look like for us? How do we know if we're going awry? When you soften what you believe about sexuality, about justice, about truth in order to fit in, that is the beast's mouth doing its work on you. When the church feels like an embarrassment rather than a privilege, so that you get quiet about her, that is the beast's propaganda doing its work on you. When you trust a political movement or ideology to deliver what only Jesus can, you are singing Exodus 15 to the wrong king. Do not get so cozied up to this world that you fail to see it for what it is. And do not forget the power of the gospel to light up even the darkest night. The gospel did not need the culture to be ready for in Rome, and the gospel does not need the culture to be ready for in Los Angeles, in Nashville, in your workplace, in your neighborhood, or anywhere. Hold on to the gospel. It is not cultural preference, it is truth, and it will outlast every single navigation system that the beast has ever programmed. Remember those people who so faithfully followed Apple Maps out into the wilderness. Friends, the dragon has been doing the same thing since the garden programming a navigation system that promises paradise and delivers destruction. Do not listen so closely to the voices of this world that your ears are kept from hearing the voice who wants to tell you a better way.