Intro/Outro: Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're in a series in the book of Revelation. We're gonna spend the next 26 weeks doing a deep dive into both how to read and how to interpret this amazing book. Enjoy.
Darren Rouanzoin: 10 AM. So good to be with you. Yeah. I got this week and next week preaching, and then pastor Bill's next the following week, and then I'll see you in 2025. Would you grab your Bibles?
Let me see if you have them. Raise them up. Let's go 10 AM. Alright. You're crushing it.
Go to Revelation chapter 13. If you weren't here last week, let me give you a picture for review just that will summarize everything and make sense of the this is outside my house currently. Just take it all in. That is baby Yoda with a Christmas hat. No.
It's Yoda with a Christmas hat. Someone asked me on Instagram what's the symbolism of that, and I responded that Star Wars is the best modern allegory for what Revelation is trying to unveil. The battle between good and evil force being used for the wrong purposes. It's the sacrificial way of the Jedi that lead to the victory of the oppressive regime. This is all very biblical.
So there you go. For those who have eyes to see. Today, we talk about the dragon's tactics. The dragon is the ancient serpent, the devil, Satan that, masquerades as this mega beast. And this week, today, we're gonna talk about the dragons.
How how the dragon co ops Christians to be his puppets. It's a light talk. We're gonna talk about how not through direct attack, but indirect manipulation. He shifts Christianity from becoming or being a force of redemptive good into an army of worshipers of the beast. So we should probably pray.
Yeah. Let's pray. Would you just bow your heads for a moment. Lord, I just wanna ask you would, minister to us today. Holy Spirit that you would, release the word into our hearts to know you more.
To see things as they really are, how you see them. Okay. I I'm gonna interrupt this prayer and do something. I did it in the first service and I thought it was just for that, but I'm struggling to get through my stuff, which always is an indicator of me having to be obedient on something that's risky. So I'm just gonna do some ministry real quick.
Is that okay? In the first service, I was praying, and I was reminded of a story this week. I was reading scripture to my boys and there's this passage in Matthew 3 where Jesus is baptized and he hears from the father, you are my son, my beloved. With you, I'm well pleased. And I told them with both of them when they were born, the first words I spoke over them were mimicking the father.
I got to speak that over them. Even though they didn't understand at the time in the midst of a hospital room and doctors and nurses shouting orders. But I was like, that is true of you. That your first words you heard from your dad was you're my boy, my beloved with you. I'm well pleased.
And the truth is all of you were born into that world. The father was speaking with such clarity over your birth. And I believe there are many here that have been, listening to the ancient serpent's lies about your life for so long that you've been battling to understand your identity. I'm gonna share a couple of words. I I don't normally get this in the service, but I got a bunch of them.
So I'm gonna do this and then we'll pray. Is that okay? Then I'll get to my content.
Intro/Outro: I was worshiping and I had this moment where
Darren Rouanzoin: I felt the father's heart for so many of you in the room and I I was broken down. One of this is so a couple of things. 1, I just wrote this. I'm gonna read it. One of my boys is battling for his life.
He's been listening to the ancient serpent's lies, and he feels like death is the solution to the pain. And I wanna heal his wounds. I wanna crush the serpent's lies and hold him tight until he knows that he is my beloved. One of my daughters has been cutting herself this week. She's made a friendship with the trauma of her past, and the pain she's been causing herself is her way of trying to heal and feel.
But she's been so numbed that she's had to cope with the pain from her early experience. Tell her I love her. Tell her that she needs not hurt herself, and all the scars she's caused herself will be washed away by my love and the holy spirit. One of my daughters has returned home from thanksgiving, reminded of the family pain. And as a result, she returned to bad habits that she used to do and have been so destructive into her inner life.
I want you to pray for them. There are some of my children here who have broken their sobriety in the last month, and they're carrying years years of shame and guilt. And they've made agreements to do moderation, and I'm calling them to sobriety. And some of my kids here have hardened their hearts to others because of their pain. In the last 2 weeks, their disappointment has pushed them further down into a cave of despair and and cynicism.
And today, I wanna set them free. Is that any of you would just stand right now? I know it's pretty vulnerable to do that, but I'm doing it. So can you just stand if that's any of you? I wanna pray over you.
I had this image that we're not in a cozy little, Christmas decor sanctuary. We are in the battlefield and the Lord wants to do battle against the demons and the principalities. Stand up. There's more of you. Stand up.
Can you applaud the courage of those that are really fun? There's more. And just close your eyes. I know there's more. Go ahead.
This is your last chance. I want you to be courageous. Just stand up. We wanna we wanna pray. God would set you free.
And it's okay. We're not gonna judge you. Thank you for your courage. Alright. Would you just extend a hand?
If you're a friend, if someone's standing, we just get close to them.
Intro/Outro: Lord,
Darren Rouanzoin: we ask Holy Spirit in the name of the lamb who was slain, Jesus Christ, to crush the serpent's lies in Jesus' name. We pray for identities to be wrapped in your love as the beloved Jesus. All of those that have made agreements with the serpent. We bind the work of the enemy in Jesus name. We thank you for this precious life and the value and worth that they hold.
And we thank you God that you save them, that you freed them, that you are healing and will heal. We pray for the wounds and the scars and the pain that you would restore them. Protect them. We break off shame and guilt in the name of Jesus. And we speak life over them and the power of Jesus.
I pray sobriety over those that need to be sober. I pray for healing from addiction and old ancient wounds of your past were stored in your body be released in Jesus name. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Yeah.
Thank you for your courage. Those of you that stood up and we are a church that wholeheartedly will follow the promptings of the holy spirit at all cost. And so thank you for your courage. And I don't know if I get it right. Some of your questioning, why is this guy emotional?
You know what Jesus and John, what chapter is it? It's easiest passage to memorize. Anyone know? Jesus wept. So we wanna live like Jesus.
There you go. Get in touch with your masculine emotions, which happened to be sensitive. Alright. Should we dive in? I'm delaying what I have to do.
So Revelation 13. Let me read it to you. Verse 1. The dragon I'm gonna move around, stood on the shore of the sea and I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had 10 horns and 7 heads.
It looks like the dragon with 10 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. 1 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 worship the beast and asked, who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it? The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemy 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 and those who live in heaven.
It was given power to wage war against God's holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants on earth will worship the beast. All whose names have not been written on the Lamb's book of life. The lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
Whoever has ears, let them hear. And he quotes Jeremiah 15, if anyone is to go into captivity into captivity, they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword, they will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God's people. The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Revelation 13, is following Revelation 12. Yep. Some real wisdom there. And we are looking at this, new window into a series of visions that John has.
And John, has a vision of this ancient battle, this epic battle going on between in the heavenly realms against, Satan and the dragon and against God's holy people throughout history. And now we see after the dragon goes after, the woman, it says in verse, 17 of chapter 12. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring. And who are those offspring? Well, those who keep God's commands and hold fast to their test to their testimony about Jesus.
So what I wanna do today is give you 4 facts about the beast from the sea, and give you 3 practical ways to battle against the beast today. So 4 facts about the beast from the sea and and then we'll talk about ways we battle. So the first thing I want you to see is that the beast is an instrument played by the dragon. It's a tool used by the dragon. The dragon stands on the shore, contemplates his failure against the woman, and he begins to strategize how he will destroy the offspring of the women.
The church, the true church. He recruits help. The dragon doesn't go after the church directly. Instead, he will work throughout history to frighten the church into disobedience and deceive the church into living in illusion, which is next week's topic. He will threaten the church so that followers followers give way to the way of dragon or he will deceive the church thinking that they're living the way of the land, but actually they're playing for team dragon.
So Revelation 13 verse 2 b says the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. So the dragon empowers the beast. The dragon gives the beast its power to fulfill the dragon's will on earth. He wages war against the church because he hates the church. He doesn't hate Islam.
The dragon doesn't hate Buddhism, Hinduism, the Mormon Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, or Cultural Christianity. He's not angry at your yoga practice or your mindfulness habits or your self care habits. He's not angry with science or media or education or companies with ethical practices. He's not furious at your time spent on TikTok or YouTube. He doesn't care if you trick or treat on Halloween.
He doesn't care if you vote a democrat or republican because he will use your allegiances against you. Oh, get ready. No one's safe today because the truth is he's furious and wages war against a remnant. Those who hold and keep God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. Those who are gonna get dunked in baptismal waters.
Those who don't just add Jesus onto their busy life or make him, you know, a subscription that you can just opt out of at the end of the month before you have to pay for the fee. Those who say, I'm all in on Jesus and his way. He's furious at you. So some of you resonate with the battle you're facing. Most of us have no idea because we've been deceived by the dragon.
Those who are playing for team lamb know that this is a battle. And I I have 2 sermons to convince you, and I don't think you realize how serious I am when I say there's so many of you in our church that are lost because you've been seduced by the dragon and you've bought into comfortable living with the church. Thinking that that's the church. Little did you know it's the synagogue of satan. Not messing around anymore because at one point it will be revealed who plays for team lamb and who plays for team dragon.
You have the mark of the beast or you have the seal of the lamb. There's no in between. So at some point you have to make a decision. It's him and nothing else. Not him and your dream of a career, not him and your hope for a relationship.
Not him and your business, not him and your political party being victorious. It's him alone. Are we preaching? What is the beast from the sea and what does it represent? Now before I answer this question, because again, this is part of the infatuation of revelation and how many of us come from some bad interpretations, I suppose, is that we haven't anchored our understanding of the text in the authorial intent.
Meaning, when we make a claim that this is what is intended by the meaning of the beast or what we think this means to our best ability at our church. And what I would say is best exegesis, best way of interpreting scripture is to anchor your interpretation in what you think the author intended intended it to mean. Does that make sense? So he's using symbolism, he's using images that have so much power in our imagination to make sense of the world. So if you were living at the in the 19 sixties to 19 eighties and you saw this cartoon, what would you think?
A bear is playing an old guy in chess. No. If you're living in the 19 sixties 19 eighties during the cold war, you see that this is political revelation of what was felt in the world in your daily life. My mom grew up in a time where they practice, preparing for an atomic bomb to be released in Los Angeles. They had protocols for that.
There was an awareness in the media, in the radio stations, on the television eventually of preparing people for the disaster as the USA played against the USSR, which is this symbolism as they navigated conflict from the world in the great cold war. This is an image. You're not thinking, oh, there's literally gonna be an old man on top of the world literally fighting a bear versus chess. That's not what's going on, which I know so many of us would prefer especially when you hear this sermon. You prefer a you would prefer a literal 7 headed dragon than what I'm about to preach.
That's a little less scary than where this goes. A little more personal. Just wait. We're on our way there. Point number 1 is that the beast is an instrument, played by the dragon.
So to answer the question, what is the beast from the sea and what does it represent? The question really is, what did John see the beast to mean? So to correctly interpret this, we have to understand the old testament deeply and are the Roman context in which John was writing, especially since he was a prisoner of the state. So old testament real quick is that there are a couple of mentions of various beasts and monsters found in scripture. So we always go back.
So in the book of Job, there's 2 great monsters. There's a sea monster, the Leviathan, and there's an earth monster, the behemoth. So this is not unusual description of what were cosmic evil forces working against God's good creation, working to destroy it. Also, if you interpret Job correctly, you recognize these are not just cosmic forces, but they're earthly, empires that are trying to oppress God's people, especially in the book of Daniel, which Daniel is both historical and apocalyptic. In Daniel chapter 7, Daniel has a dream or a vision of 4 different beasts, and if you look at the descriptions of the 4 unique beasts, there's a lion, a bear, a leopard, oh my, and an indescribable beast.
And if you read Revelation chapter 13 verse 2, it describes the beast that looks resembles a leopard, feet like a bear, a mouth like a lion. Do you think he's using those on purpose? Yes. John is borrowing the imagery of Daniel, which Daniel writes about 4 different human kingdoms. He's referring to the empires of Babylon, Persia, Mead and Greece, and he knows very well about future empires because that is the story of God's people being conquered by one empire and ruled by another empire.
Then they themselves becoming their own empire, which is what the old testament criticized within itself, prophesying about future empires. So you get to John and what does John understand it to mean? The beast represents dragon manipulated political powers. This isn't some future cosmic event where we're gonna watch a beast like Godzilla come out of the sea. We're witnessing throughout history the effects of beasts empowered by the dragon to force their way to harm Christians and God's kids.
So at the time that this was written, the beast was Rome. But as we'll see in Revelation chapter 17, which we'll get to next year cause we have a break if you missed last week when I'm gone. We're gonna do the Sermon on the Mount, and then I come back and I'll finish the rest of Revelation. But, so we'll just have to wait, you know, for the next season. But, which you're used to, so be patient.
Unless Unless you wanna go to another church, which is great. Give us some seats at the 10 AM. But you can keep playing on team dragon. I'm just kidding. I'm not judge I'm not judging.
You can go out other churches. There's no problem. Not gonna judge you. But the beast from the sea according to Revelation chapter 17 is also Egypt and Assyria and Babylon and Rome and any and every empire of the future that displaces God and serves themselves rather than God. Because the beast represents the state government politics in any human system or structure or human kingdom that rejects the living God at the center of their life.
So it's Rome. It's the British Empire. It's the United States of America. It's anytime nations, government, systems of power corporations pretend to be God. John makes the case that governments that exalt humanity as the measure of all things do not become more humane, but more beast like.
Have I offended you yet? Oh, it's gonna keep going. The beast of the sea represents how the dragon influences Christians, not directly, but through politics, through government, through empire, through a field of politics, which is how he deploys his troops. He gets you to buy into the way of the beast. Now, just as quick thing, politics in itself is not evil.
I know there's like a subversive Christian movement that's like politics is all evil. No. Like the moment you have 3 people, you need a policy. Right? Have you ever been in a small group of house church?
Anyone grew up in a family? Right? So we we wanted especially the next generation, the millennials and gen z, and I don't know about alpha yet, but we wanna we don't trust systems of power. There's a a systemic movement in the culture, a zeitgeist that just wants to destroy all forms of authority. The problem with that in the church is Jesus is our king.
That's pretty authoritative. And we're subjects in his kingdom. And and actually God instituted power and structures and order out of chaos. The opposite of order is chaos and anarchy. And and God creates the family as an institution to govern.
Right? So some people want more involvement with the government in their private lives. You want the government to parent your kids, but that's great. You know, you can have rules and laws like we should have biblical, Judeo Christian worldview in our our legal system so that we make sure that murder is is wrong. Right?
Would you agree that we shouldn't steal each other's stuff? Like that's just basic way of policy making. But if you expect government to parent that, what you don't realize is where it begins is husbands and wives, fathers and, and, and mothers. What is it? Fathers and mothers parenting their kids to recognize that although murder is wrong, you also teach them to not hit each other.
So that form of governing begins in the household. Does that make sense? And there's this whole thing in Romans chapter 13, which I don't have time to get into where Paul says submit to authority and we should, because he says that there's no authority except from God. And the point is government's design is to serve God. And when he wrote that, that was under the reign of Emperor Claudius, a Roman emperor who didn't demand emperor worship.
There was a time of peace for Christians in the Roman Empire. But you get to Nero, whose nickname by the way is the beast. We'll talk about him next week. He demanded worship. He he created a lie that Christians started a fire in Rome and he set a fire against Christians and killed them and slaughtered them.
And it became a time of persecution. So but the point is, that God has instituted, for the welfare of mankind, government and policies and politics to be an instrument that serves God, not an instrument of oppression. But the point of revelation is that all forms of human systems will be corrupt, and we should hold them with suspicion because the devil has been working with them all along. Do you know this? And I'm not just talking about government and policies and people of power.
I'm talking about social media platforms. I'm talking about Apple. I'm talking about, Amazon Prime. I'm talking about every, the DMV in the post office. Clearly the beast.
Rome doesn't start out as power hungry empire, a power hungry empire. They didn't initially start with Caesar as God, but it slowly over time through, power and control and their definition of dominance and success. They created a religion. They were first tolerant. Just add Caesar to your other deities, but then they demanded you to worship Caesar as God, which got Christians in the trouble because they were saying there is one only one and only God that is Jesus Christ.
We'll come back to that in a second. The point is the dragon uses power politics and the power of politics to wage war against Christianity. You guys okay with this? Can I just give you one quote from, a a a writer named Rod Dreier in his book, Live Not by Lies? He explains his thesis and he warns the church in the west of what's going on.
He says this, and he quotes a pope. He says, a a progressive and profoundly anti Christian militancy is steadily overtaking society. 1 described by pope Benedict as the worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies that pushed dissenters to the margins. Benedict called this a manifestation of the spiritual power of the antichrist. This spiritual power takes material form in government and private institutions and corporations and the academy and media and in the changing practices of everyday American life.
It is empowered by unprecedented technology capabilities to surveil private life. There's a virtually nowhere to hide. If we were to flip back to that picture of the 19 sixties of communist Russia or even communist China, the kind of surveillance we freely give when we acknowledge the privacy platform on our phones to these corporations is what communist Russia dreamt of for its citizens. The kind of like, hey, Alexa, change the song. Meanwhile, Alexa is listening to everything so that you can participate in the beast power of consuming.
Right? You talk about something and next thing you know on Instagram and that something's popping up. That kind of surveillance is the power of the new beast. You alright? Yes.
Number 3, the beast. We're gonna keep going. I don't wanna linger too long before you leave. The beast the beast imitates God. You gotta see how John writes this.
He does this on purpose. Verse 13 I'm sorry, verse 3. 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. The fatal wound mimics the lamb who was slain.
Most scholars actually believe historically that John in this passage is referring to, the Roman Emperor Nero because Nero was the emperor who committed suicide. And then, they thought as Christians perhaps the empire would fall or the persecution would cease, but they didn't. The power remained and persecution continued. We'll talk about that more, next week when we talk about the mark of the beast. But he was a terrible emperor that made Christians suffer.
But the point of this passage is you want you need to see that Paul or sorry. Excuse me. John is showing you that the dragon and the 2 beasts make a counterfeit trinity. And here's the passages to prove this. It's the counterfeit trinity versus the holy trinity.
If you read the description of the dragon in Revelation chapter 12, it mimics and mocks the description of God the father in Revelation chapter 4. If you read the, description that we just read in Revelation chapter 13 about the beast from the sea, it is mimicking and mocking Jesus, the lamb who was slain. If you read next week, we'll read about the beast from the earth. It will mimic the activity of the holy spirit where you take on the mark of the beast. Meanwhile, the true followers of lamb have the seal of the holy spirit.
John is setting up to show you that world powers are not just neutral powers. They are mocking and mimic mimicking the power and the deity of god. The beak mocks beast, excuse me, mocks and mimics god. Here's some passages to further that point. He says in Revelation 56, I saw the lamb standing as if it was slain.
And then he says in Revelation 13, I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain. Verse 9 of chapter 5, the lamb purchased men and women from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Verse 7 says, the beast exercise authority over men and women from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Verse 13 of chapter 5 says, the whole universe worships the lamb. Chapter 13 verse 4, the whole earth worships the dragon and the beast.
So it's setting this counter narrative. Again, playing I I've been talking about this the whole time. Will you play on team lamb or will you play for team drag Dragon? Will you worship team lamb or worship team dragon? This is clear.
This is not neutral territory. So the third is that the beast imitates God. The 4th is the beast demands devotion and worship. Devotion and worship are perhaps the best words to describe what it means to follow a political party today. Right?
It says in verse 3, 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 worship the beast and asked who was like the beast who can wage war against the beast. Verse 8 says, all the inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast. The point, 3 different times. John is saying, worship, worship, worship.
What the beast wants is your worship. You don't have caps lock bold. You don't have emojis to make it make sense. But what you have in a couple of verses is that 3 different times people will worship the beast. That's exactly what it looks like.
And surprise, the great missiologist prophesied this in 1970, 1980, Leslie Newbig. And he said and predicted that the future religion of the West will be politics. He predicted that the devotion reserved for Jesus and fall, other religions would be left will be the left and right side of politics of the future political parties in the West. The beast is after your devotion and worship. And through lies and propaganda, he will woo you.
The beast will will get you to see a false forms of salvation. He he will promise you things to get you to lure you into worshiping him. Now, we might not have temples dedicated to the Roman goddess of Rome, Roma, like standing around or statues dedicated to Domitian, but we definitely have arenas of our sports teams. We have shopping malls to our consumer deities. We have morning rituals to our social media goddess, and we have sacrificial habits to our consumer god, Amazon Prime.
We don't engage in politics anymore with the respect of discourse and debate. Instead, we moralize, demonize and slander the other side and our side. We align with knowing we we align with not knowing policies, but blindly following the propaganda curated in our algorithms. It's devotion, it's worship, and that's the best words to describe our allegiance to human systems. Worship.
I love what the agnostic and professor from Kenyan College, David Foster Wallace said. He says, in the day to day trenches of adult life, there's no such thing as atheism. There's no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
Pretty much anything you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, you will never have enough. Worship your own body and beauty and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a 1,000,000 deaths before they finally plant you. Worship power and you will feel weak and afraid and you will never Or you will, need ever more power over others to f Keep fear at bay.
Worship your intellect being seen as smart, you'll end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful or you know, construed by the dragon, although they are. It's that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
This is what he The argument he makes is our worship is default setting. You're all worshiping something. And what John wants you to see in Revelation 13 as you live amongst empires throughout history is that the beast uses peer pressure to get you to conform to the dragon's will. Peer pressure. This is what I mean.
I'm borrowing this from one of you that came up to me last week and showed me this. Peer's pressure. He will use politics, economics, education, religion, and social media to get you to worship the dragon, to get you to conform. Is this not true? And all of these have a promise attached to them.
All of these have a form of of salvation, a bright light at the end of the tunnel. If we can just get our person in office, then our world will be better. The way we conceive the world will be better because our person, the person that's like us, the person that holds our values will shape the world we live in to in a better way. Now I'm all for and I think every Christian needs to vote with a biblical worldview. Policies need to be determined by the Judeo Christian world, we get from a biblical perspective.
I believe that with all my heart you should. But I do think that he will co op both sides for his purposes. We know this through our history. And what's the point? Our hope is not in a person or a politic or a program.
Our hope is in Jesus Christ. The same with economics, the consumer God that if you can just get this thing, attain the thing, it will make your life better. That we know that it's a lie. And and and the beast will see this next week. The beast will get you to participate in the consumption of his goods.
So his motive is for you to spend more and more of your resources on the things rather than steward them and be live simply so that you can, like Jesus says, give more and more away. And in our context, we live in the belly of the beast. Where the economics of our age, the consumer gods of our age, defining ourselves by how much money we have, by what cars we drive, by what we wear, by what what people think by our 4 1 k, by the next thing we're trying to accomplish that. Deity needs to die in the church and the problem is we just bring Jesus into our beast like life and we just polish it off to make our life look a little better rather than be redefined by the king of the universe. And so we don't repent.
We just accessorize. I'll let that one sit for a second. That's from the holy spirit. I didn't write that in my notes. I should write that down for next service.
We don't repent. We accessorize. Education. I don't just mean the education system although I also mean the education system in the US. And there are so many of you that are actively resisting the beast as you're employed by in schools as teachers and and faculty.
And I love it and stay faithful to subvert the beast that is dominating, indoctrinating a world view that is anti christian. And so our job is to not run away and live with lilies among the field and buy chickens and escape the beast. I know that some of you, that's your temptation. I'm not pointing anyone out, Alex, my wife. No, I'm just kidding.
We're we're called to sit in the heart of the beast as a witness unto death. But the economics and the education, not just the education system, but the idea, this the false salvation in the west is that if you just get the right information, then you'll be saved. Right? If I if I could just diagnose my problem with the right therapist, then I can be better. Little did you know it's just a treadmill for some of you.
You need therapy. But there's also another side where you just need to be healed and move on. Or or like if I can just it's a personal enhancement salvation. Like if I can just do the juice fast and do the soul cycle, if I could just do, you know, and then my life will get better. That's this promise of if you just know the right stuff and apply it properly, your life will be saved.
No. You're saved through Jesus. It's part of the system. Religion's the same and then social media, all media. This is this is so clear like, the way the beast is drawing you to worship is is what Huxley said.
Right? We don't need to burn books anymore. We just aren't gonna read them. We're distracting ourselves into oblivion. We're numbing ourselves every day from the pain of reality rather than embracing the pain and solving it through Christ's help.
We just escape it through entertainment. Right? This is what we know this. Like and there and there's spirits to these things. There's spirit there's there was a spirit we where there is a spirit we're living in American politics.
It's an anti Jesus spirit that demonizes the other side, that causes you to to really, really dis I mean, think about this. That in the church brings disunity. That is a spirit. We don't we don't get to determine who gets to take the bread and the juice. We say, oh, great.
If you voted that way and you voted this way, Jesus holds us together. It was 2020 that we saw the, you know, the massive split because of policies that were formed pushed on government. Some pastors were calling pastors cowards, and some of you were part of churches and left churches because they didn't align with your political affiliations. What is up? How petty are we?
Imagine if the empire was killing you and destroying your homes. Are you really gonna debate what church you belong to during that time or what Jesus you're following? It's all idol idolatry. But it's it's everywhere. Like the spirit is in the consumer.
Like, how many of you when you buy something on Amazon Prime, like get that emotional ecstatic experience when that that big blue car stops and brings a pack of toilet paper. It doesn't matter what it is. It's a box. For you, it's Christmas morning. You got pens for the office.
It releases the oxytocin. There's this free It's a spirit of consumerism. Do you see it? Or like you can be you can be caught up in a trance of mindless numb numbing escape through scrolling. You're literally designed for union with the creator of the universe and you're just wasting your life.
Mark Sayers says this, he says, our current western context deforms our hearts and lives in profoundly destructive ways. This deforms is what he says. Big business, big data and big porn's ability to reshape our inner worlds is unparalleled in human history. In other words, the beast is alive and well and you carry his mark everywhere you go with one of these. He deforms our hearts to worship.
The beast calls us to worship. N t Wright says, you become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship. And a dragon knows you become more like him when you ascribe value and worth to the things that are of him. Even though they're disguised as Prime and Apple and Netflix.
Republican, Democrat, Habit. What is our response? Are you guys okay? Yeah. Do you wanna go back to a literal reading of 7 headed dragon instead?
See, I told you it was easier. What's our response? Well well, John ends this section of scripture and he says, whoever has ears, let them hear. Look, he he draws you into recognizing that this has to be seen through a decoded lens. As a a level of awareness that the activity and the symbolism has meaning beyond itself.
And we as followers are Jesus, it says, this calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God's people. This calls for a level of living and engagement in the world in the midst of an empire that resists the tyranny of the moment with faithfulness to Jesus. So what are the ways we can battle the beast? Three things and then we'll call for some baptisms. Number number 1.
And I need you to hear this intentionally. The word is surrender your life to Jesus and live the way of the lamb. Like this idea of our our our Christianity today is add Jesus to the chaos and hurry hurry of your life. Add Jesus to your overly programmed life. Add Jesus to the the habits that you have, the patterns of giving or finances that you do, your time schedule.
Just fit them in. Some of you just wanna give them like 5 minutes of devotion. I'm like, how do you navigate the world of propaganda that the beast is throwing at you with barely having time to read scripture? And I realize you might have scripture on your phone, but you're not reading it. We know that this generation, the gen z and below is the least biblically literate in history in the west.
And the idea of not having scripture at one point was a problem, but now we have scripture in our hands. We we don't know what it means to surrender. We only know how to be victorious because the world is built in our image. It makes you the center of the world and Christianity says you are not the center. Jesus is the center and the only way is not to achieve more but to receive grace.
So so many of you have prayed a prayer in in quiet passing in a moment of I'm gonna give my life to Jesus, and you've never been baptized, which is an accessory. The only biblical response to Jesus followers is to get in cold, hot, some kind of water, and get dunked, letting people know you're all in. There's no there's no half hearted devotion to Jesus biblically. It's his Lord and savior or nothing at all. And there's only one team you play for if he's nothing at all.
And at some point you will have to publicly acknowledge Jesus. I don't know what we've create made these creative ways of following Jesus to make it as as comfortable as possible for you. He died on a cross. That's pretty uncomfortable. And then he'll say, pick up your cross daily and follow me.
So the invitation is not to achieve, not to add, not to accessorize, not to quietly make this thing in your head and heart. It's to get dunked in the reality of the trinity, telling the powers and principalities of this world, you're never going back to the way it was. So surrender. That's what I mean by surrender. Some of you need to rebaptize your life in Christ because you're playing for the wrong team.
Are you okay with that? Can I say that? A little harsh. I have urgency in my life right now. I'm preaching for purpose.
I don't want to build a church that you can just come and walk in and out of thinking that was a good Sunday. I want your life to be torn upside down in transformation because God was present. And you can't do anything other than to reject God or accept it and then your life changes. That's the only way that I wanna keep going. Is that okay?
Number 2, what is most important is that we are called to practice cultural discernment. This is the key for faithfulness in the empire, not to escape the empire, build like a little new age monastic monastery for Christians who don't want to do life in the real world. No. We live comfortably in the real world as radical, resistance movement to the way of the beast and empire. And so cultural discernment is Daniel in Babylon.
Daniel the story of Daniel is his Israel's besieged Jerusalem is taken over by the Babylonians. They desecrate the temple. They kill everyone and then take a bunch of people as slaves and exile them, into Babylon, a hun hundreds of miles away. And Daniel was one of the elites, so they take him and they put him, in the the temp, the, the king's table where he's gonna be educated in their Ivy League schools, indoctrinated into their Babylonian myths. But Daniel resolves not to defile himself.
And what does that what does that subverting of the empire looks like? It looks like him sitting at the king's table but not eating meat sacrificed to idols. He's there, but there's something different about him. Right? He's reading the Babylonian myths.
He's reading about all their different deities, but he quietly goes back to his room and prays 3 times a day. This kind of quiet reformation that's embodied in a person becomes the catalyst for reformation for the future. It's Nehemiah, who never been to Israel. He hears about his hometown 70 something years later still being destroyed and the the the the, gates of the city and the the border, the walls of the city are still destroyed. So he prays.
He has an opportune moment as a cup bearer because he's broken by what's happening. He talks to the king. The king resources a pagan king resources, the reconstructive movement of Nehemiah's day in 70 something days, 52 days, excuse me. And it all happens because of Daniel's faithfulness in his private quiet life. Cultural discernment is engaging in the world.
Some of you cannot be on social media. You need, you don't know moderation, so cut it out. It's better to be welcome into heaven than a part of your life being socially acceptable in hell. Some of you need to pull back on the constant consumerism that is so never checked. It's mindless consumerism.
You have all this stuff. Everyone else in your lifestyle is doing the things that you're doing, but you're a Jesus follower and he says it's better to give than receive. Now we've been talking about giving for 3 weeks and I'm not sure if you're hearing that your devotional life, your worship is connected to your finances. If you were to look at your bank account, does it scream Jesus follower or does it look like the beast? Self focused narcissism, comfortable living.
Look, I'm not challenged. God wants to make some of you billionaires, but he wants you to be Jesus followers first. I believe that with all my heart. God's not against making lots of money. He's against the idol of money that's in your heart.
So you could have no money at all and worship money. You could have all the money in the world and not worship money. Do you realize that? In the same way that you could have all the money of in the world and be spiritually poor, you could have no money at all and be rich like no one else. Does that make sense?
Cultural discernment is learning to navigate the watery chaos we're swimming in with, one foot on the dry ground. It's it's to recognize that some of you Look, your kids are in public school. Great. That's fine. If they're in public school, you have to work twice as hard to make sure they're not being deformed by the systems of power.
I don't just mean the education system. I don't just mean teachers. I mean the peers and the parents of the students that they're with that are being discipled by the world. And you have to navigate their worldview because they've been entrusted to you as parents. Don't trust the church to disciple your kids, Although we do disciple your kids, you have been tasked with the the task of discipling your children.
Are we alright? Cultural discernment. Cultural discernment with how you engage in the world. Some things you are going to opt out of. It's not universal for everyone.
Some things are universal, but there are things God's whispering to you about uniquely because he knows you. Just just say yes to the whisper. And the third is simply to redirect your worship to Jesus. Look, all the beast is after your devotion and worship. So if all of the resources of your life are ways you are worshiping, then what does the time that you spend, where your attention goes, what your mind thinks about, what does that say about your worship?
Are you filled with fear about the outcome of your future? Are you are you dwelling and beholding and dwelling on the chaos of the world? When you listen to those podcasts so they make you more like Jesus or you become more bitter towards the other side. Do you see what I'm saying? It's forms of worship.
When you worship you're giving your resources, your attention, your life back to God or and you're becoming more of the person God intended you to be because he's the only being worth worshiping. But if you worship anything else, you be you take on the trade of that thing. You become more and more like the thing that you're consumed with worship. Giving your time, your attention, your your money, your, the things that you value. Redirect those things back to Jesus.
Okay. That's all I got. Is that right? Garden Church. I wanna invite you to recognize that you have limited resources in this world.
Direct them towards Jesus and see what he does. Listen listen to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. Because where we where we live is right on the battlefield. We are not called to live comfortably with peppermint mochas. Although they are good.
And thank you for everyone tagging me in eggnog latte, coffee shops that serve eggnog lattes. I really appreciate you. You have no idea. I wanna publicly say I see you. We're called into the business of war, but we wage war the sacrificial way of the lamb.
Let's pray.
Intro/Outro: Thank you so much for listening. For more information, please visit us at garden. Church.