WHOM WILL YOU WORSHIP?
Opening Prayer
Mighty God, you are my strength, my salvation, and my hope. I give all my praise to you.
Read REVELATION 13:1-10
The Beast out of the Sea
13 The dragon[a] 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. 2 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. 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. 4 People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”
5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. 6 It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7 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. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.[b]
9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.
10 “If anyone is to go into captivity,
into captivity they will go.
If anyone is to be killed[c] with the sword,
with the sword they will be killed.”[d]
This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
Footnotes
- Revelation 13:1 Some manuscripts And I
- Revelation 13:8 Or written from the creation of the world in the book of life belonging to the Lamb who was slain
- Revelation 13:10 Some manuscripts anyone kills
- Revelation 13:10 Jer. 15:2
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
There is no ‘false advertising’ in the following passage, but only a sobering reminder that the choice to worship Christ can be costly.Flung from heaven, with power that is limited for a season, Satan now wages war on the woman’s offspring – the Christian community – by unleashing the first of two beasts. Imagery from Daniel 7 is adapted to show the beast from the sea (a symbol of chaos in the Old Testament). John’s readers might have recognized this as the Roman Empire in all its might (vs 1,2). They are facing stark choices in deciding whom they will worship.
There is overwhelming pressure on God’s people because the whole earth worships both the dragon and the beast, wooed by the beast’s intoxicating power (vs 4–8). What is most sobering is that there are no easy promises that believers will be spared (vs 7,10), but instead the certainty of many deaths.
In 1998 ten statues were unveiled at Westminster Abbey. Among them are victims of Nazism, communism, and religious prejudice in the 20th century, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, killed by the Nazis in 1945, and Wang Zhiming, a pastor killed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. These individuals paid the price for following Christ.
Apply
Dante in his famous poem The Divine Comedy presents love as the driving force in people’s lives. But this love can often be defective – we can love, and therefore worship, the wrong thing. Revelation asks us: In what or in whom do you ultimately place your faith?
Closing prayer
Lord, I am grateful for the freedoms of my homeland. I lift up to you my brothers and sisters in other places, who face intense opposition because of their faith. Please enable and sustain them.
Book and Author Intros
Extras
Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.
© 2024 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.
Discovery is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.