The Merciful Harvest

This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire.  I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand.  This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 14.  If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR – Chapters 1-14.

Next I saw another angel flying through the stratosphere – it proclaimed Good News to every person on the planet (every nation, ethnicity, language and people group, now and throughout all of human history).  He announced loudly,

Fear God and give God glory, because it’s finally time for God’s judgment.  Worship the One who created the entire universe – everything from stars and galaxies to atoms and quarks.  The sky, earth, salt and fresh water.

A second angel followed the first.  It said,

Defeated!  The great Babylon is defeated!  She has made all the peoples of the world drink her juice (which is really the consequences of her unfaithfulness).

A third angel followed the second.  He announced loudly,

The people who worship the Beast or its image (on TV) – anyone who received its mark on their hearts or wallets – all of them will also drink the juice of God’s wrath.  The wine is poured undiluted (it’s 160 proof!) straight into the cup of God’s anger.  They’ll be punished with fire and burning sulfur in front of the Lamb and the holy angels.  The smoke from their punishment rises into the sky forever and ever.  It’ll be 24/7 – the people who worship the Beast and its image and receive its mark won’t get a break.

Saints – if you keep God’s commandments and hold to the faith of Jesus – pay attention!  This is a reminder for you to stick it out and stay faithful!

Then I heard a voice from heaven say,

Write this down: “Anyone who dies from now on and believes in God is fortunate.  The Spirit agrees, ‘They’ll get to retire from their work because what they’ve done speaks for itself.’”

I looked and saw a white cloud, with someone sitting on it.  But it wasn’t an angel with a harp.  It was someone like the Son of Man.  He was wearing a gold medal and was driving a combine.  Another angel came out of God’s Temple, and yelled to the one on the cloud,

Put the combine in gear and start harvesting.  It’s harvest time and the earth’s harvest is ripe.

So the one on the cloud dropped the combine into gear and drove it over the earth, and harvested the whole round ball.  Then another angel came out of God’s Temple (in heaven), and he also drove a combine.  One more angel came out of the altar (it was the one that commands fire), and he yelled to the angel in the combine,

Put your combine in gear and harvest the earth’s vineyards – the grapes are ripe and it’s time!

So the angel drove his combine over the earth, gathered the grapes and tossed them into the great Welches factory of God’s wrath.  The Welches factory (it was outside the city) crushed the grapes to get their juice, and blood flowed from the Welches factory deep enough to cover a doorway, and covered the earth from East to West.

The Dragon’s Army vs. the Lamb’s

This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire.  I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand.  This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 13 (and a little bit of 14).  If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR – Chapters 1-13.

The Dragon straddled the earth, from sea to shining sea.  And I saw a Beast rising out of the shining sea.  It had fifty dollar signs all around its thirteen heads, and each head was decorated with a presidential seal, covered in blasphemous names.  As the Beast emerged, I got a better look at its uniform – it was wearing a redcoat covered in a swastika imposed over a rising sun, and the Beast was carrying a hammer and sickle.  One of its heads looked dead, like it had been sacrificed, or like two fallen towers, but its mortal wound had been healed.

The whole earth saw this and was amazed, so they followed the Beast.  They worshipped the Dragon, because he gave the Beast its authority, and they worshiped the Beast.  They said,

“Who is like the Beast?  Who can win a war against it?”

The Beast was given a mouth that spoke prideful and blasphemous slogans, and it was allowed to exercise its authority for 42 months.  It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming God’s name and God’s Temple (which is those who live with God in Heaven).  The Beast was also allowed to wage war on the saints, and to conquer them.  It was given authority over every ethnicity and nation and language and people group.  Everyone who lives on the earth will worship it, everyone who’s name has not been recorded in the Lamb’s book of life since the creation of the world.

Anyone who has ears should listen to this:

“If you’re taken captive, then you’re going into captivity.
If you kill with a sword, then you’re going to be killed with a sword.”

Saints, pay attention.  That’s a reminder for you to stick it out and stay faithful!

Then I saw another Beast that came down out of the purple mountains majesty and across the fruited plains.  This second Beast had two horns – just like a lamb – but it spoke like a dragon.  It speaks for the first Beast, and does everything on its behalf.  It leads the whole world to worship the first Beast, the one whose mortal wound was healed.  It performs signs and miracles – it even calls fire down from the sky in full view of everyone.  It’s all these signs that it performs on behalf of the first Beast that let the second Beast deceive the people of earth.

It tells them to buy televisions so they can view the image of the Beast it helped them to create, this beast that had fallen like twin towers and yet lived.  The second Beast was allowed to breathe life into the image of the Beast on the televisions so that it could speak to the people of the earth, and it was allowed to cause anyone who did not follow the way of the Beast to be killed.

The second Beast causes everyone, important or unimportant, rich or poor, first world and third world, to receive a mark on their hearts and on their wallets and purses, so that no one can buy or sell who doesn’t have the mark.  The mark is the name of the first Beast, the number of its name.  You need to be clever to figure this out, but with a little effort, you can calculate the number of the Beast, because it’s the number of the title on its seal.  The number itself is 392.

Then I looked and woah! The Lamb was standing on Capitol Hill!

And he had the 500 billion with him, those who have his name and his father’s name written on their hearts and wallets.  I heard a voice from heaven that sounded like a tidal wave or a loud jet engine, and it was as musical as a majestic symphony.

They sang a new song for the one seated at the desk and for the four creatures and the fifty congresspersons.  No one could learn the song except for the 500 billion who had been bought from the earth.  They haven’t been sleeping around; they’ve stayed faithful.  They follow the Lamb wherever he goes.  They’ve been bought from among humanity; they’re the tithe of humanity, offered to God and to the Lamb.  They’re completely blameless – not even a little white lie passes their lips!

26-30: The Most Dangerous Thing. And the Most Powerful.

26. Christians need the Gospel as much as anyone.

Since I was raised in the Church, I was raised to think that the Gospel was mainly about getting my sins forgiven.  That the biggest problem in the world was that I was a bad guy and God could make me good.  And all I had to do was say the magic prayer and BAM!  Jesus saved me and set me on the straight-and-narrow.  End of story.  The Gospel had done its work in my life and now I’m one of the Good Guys, God’s Chosen Kid.

But I’ve learned that the Gospel is about so much more than forgiving sin.  The forgiveness of sin is part of the Gospel, but any gospel that stops at the cross is incomplete.  Good Friday is meaningless without Resurrection Sunday.  The Empty Tomb is what gives the cross its power.  Jesus raised from the dead so that we could follow him in that resurrection.

We are not just saved from sin.  We are saved to an abundant, exciting life with God.  The good news is that only the good creator of the world gets the final say in what’s real and what really matters.  Money does not determine my worth.  The cult of celebrity does not determine my worth.  The brokenness in my life, whatever its source, does not determine my worth.  Only God, in whose image I am created, has final authority over who I am and what I am worth.  And that God died so that I might be rescued from the Death I invited into my life.  So I am free to rejoin God and live the life I was created for and called to.

That’s very good news, and I need to hear that now as much as I ever did.

27. We should all listen to the media less.

At the end of the day, the media’s job is to sell us stuff.  Whether it’s music, a magazine, newspaper, TV show or movie, they’re trying to make a buck.  And since no one will pay attention unless they stand out, media outlets spend billions of dollars creating mountains out of molehills so we’ll listen to their message (and end up buying their products).  Sensationalism sells.

We consume so much media that their worldview has become ours.  And it needs to stop.  The media appeals to our baser instincts – they perpetuate our fear and desire to conform.  It’s poison and we could all do with much less than we take in right now.

28. Technology is useful but dangerous.

A couple of generations ago, futurists were predicting that we’d all be working 20 hours per week these days, thanks to the miracle of technology.  We could do so much so quickly that we’d have tons more leisure time.  The mad rush of progress would soon deliver humanity into a new golden age.

Clearly, that hasn’t happened.  In fact, the 9-5 has become the 8-6.  Or 7.  And the five-day work week is nearly a thing of the past, having now stretched to 6 days.  We work now more than we ever have, and all this with technologies that keep us more connected than ever.  We can’t focus on one project or person at a time – we’re constantly checking emails and texts, working on three projects at once (when we’re slow).  And all thanks to technology.

Technology is enslaving us.  Rather than letting it serve us, we serve it.  This week, try turning your email notifications off. Close your facebook instead of leaving it open in your browser.  Put your phone on silent (not just vibrate) when you’re hanging out with people (or turn it off completely!).  Just for a week.  See what happens.

That weird feeling you have?  It’s called freedom…

29. Despair might be the most dangerous force in the world (but only second-most powerful).

There comes a point for every person striving for a goal when they have to decide if they’re going to finish.  This is whether you’re running, competing in an athletic event, trying to finish a book or project, fighting a war, or anything.  When something seems overwhelming, we are very tempted to call it quits.  It becomes easy to believe that the battle is over, that we’ve already lost.

And that is  called despair.  It’s dangerous.  And it’s always right around the corner.  Despair is what tells us the marriage isn’t worth fighting for or the friend isn’t worth forgiving one more time.  It’s the little voice that convinces us not to try any more because we’ll just fail again.  Or that people never change, so we might as well give up on them.

It’s the voice that tells us redemption is impossible, that rescue will never come, that hope is a fool’s virtue.  And the voice of Despair is ever-present, often overwhelming and seemingly all-powerful.  But that’s a lie.  Despair is not, in fact, the most powerful force in the universe.

30. Love wins. Every time.

The truth is that Love conquers despair every time.  This Love is available to all of us, and when we are at our best, we embody it to each other.  In our darkest moments, when all hope seems lost and Despair whispers in our ears that we are foolish to imagine that anything could save us or redeem our circumstances, Love rises and covers us.  Love rescues and redeems us.  Not with Cupid’s bow, but with Jesus’ cross and empty tomb.

I can’t say it any better than Paul of Tarsus, so I’ll quit trying.  Brothers and sisters, this is Love:

Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way.
Love is not irritable or resentful.
Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
— 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love wins.  Every time.

Declaring War

This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire.  I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand.  This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 12.  If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR – Chapters 1-12.

An incredible sign appeared in heaven: I saw a woman who wore the sun like a gown and used the moon as a footstool.  She wore a gold medal made of twelve stars like a set of pearls.  She was pregnant, and was clearly in labor.

Then another sign appeared: an enormous, blood-red dragon with thirteen heads and fifty dollar signs all around it.  It had thirteen presidential seals on its heads.  His tail swept across the sky, knocking a third of the stars out of the sky, throwing them down on the earth.  Then the dragon positioned itself in front of the woman so it could devour her child as soon as it was born.Continue reading

The Revelation to JR. – Two Witnesses

This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire.  I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand.  This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 11.  If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR – Chapters 1-11.

Then I was given a tool belt and a steel beams and I was told:

Come and reinforce God’s sanctuary – include the pulpit and everyone worshiping in there.  But don’t bother with the foyer or classroom space.  All that’s being handed over to the rest of the world.  They’re going to run rampant all over the holy city for 42 months.

I’m going to give my two eye-witnesses authority to prophesy for 1,260 days while they’re dressed for a funeral.

Continue reading

The Executive Order

This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire.  I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand.  This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 10.  If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR – Chapters 1-10.

I saw another enormous angel coming down from heaven.  He was wrapped in a cloud and I saw a rainbow appear over his head.  I could barely look at him because his face was as bright as the sun and even his legs and feet burned like fire.  He had an Executive Order in his right hand (it looked so small in his huge hand!).  He planted one foot on the land and one in the ocean and then yelled at the top of his lungs.

When he yelled, I heard a giant roar, like seven jet engines.  I was about to write down what I heard in the engines’ roar, but someone up in heaven said

“Seal up what the seven jet engines have said – don’t write it down!”

Continue reading

16-20: Stand Up for Yourself, Nicely

16. God isn’t on my side.

Maybe it’s because I was raised in a pretty conservative family and church, but I always had the impression that God was on my side.  That I was (basically) a good guy and had life (mostly) figured out.  That while I was occasionally arrogant and a bit of a jerk, I was all around pretty righteous, so God clearly must love me.  God probably hates the same people I hate.  And wants for me what I want for me.  I’m not sure when I learned it, but somewhere along the way that God isn’t actually on my side.

God is on God’s side (I heard a great talk from Andy Stanley on Joshua 5:13-15).  At bare minimum, this ought to engender humility and compassion as we interact with the world.

17. Love isn’t always mushy.

The Scriptures are clear that God’s central attribute is love (1 John 4:7-12).  Because our culture has reduced the idea of love to emotional fluff, that statement about God’s character comes under frequent attack.  Calling God ‘love’ conjures up images of a meek-and-mild Jesus who doesn’t challenge us, who has a loosey-goosey approach to dealing with sin.

But the Scriptures don’t define love that way.  Love is self-sacrifice, self-giving.  Love always seeks the good for others.  Love in the Scriptures is primarily a covenantal term.  To say that God is Love is to say that God is always faithful to the promises He has made – even when we are not.  That God always seeks our good, even when we try to self-destruct.  That God is the giver of all good gifts, that everything that sustains us is the overflow of God’s fundamental character.

18. How to say “No”

Does anyone else have a problem saying ‘No’?  I always have.  I want people to like me and I want to be dependable.  So I say ‘Yes’ to everything.  I learned that if I can’t draw healthy boundaries, I end up doing many things poorly, which means instead of coming through for everyone, I tend to let everyone down.

At my previous church, I was often tapped to do dramas.  I liked it, and I did a pretty good job (I assume, since they kept asking me), but I simply didn’t have the time and energy to devote to them.  Every time I agreed to do a drama, the rest of my work suffered.

In those situations, I have to say ‘No’.  I have to know what I am capable of and where my limits are, and I have to practice making wise investments of my time and energies.  My decision to quit participating in dramas was actually a good thing – it forced the drama team to find some new blood.  Saying ‘No’ actually makes it possible for more people to get involved, creates more opportunities for other people to step up.  And that’s a win for everyone.

19. How to say “No” nicely

Learning to draw boundaries is an important step, but it’s only the first step.  I also had to learn how to communicate my decision in a healthy way.  When I started saying ‘No’ to stuff, people really thought I was saying No to them.  They often took my rejection of their project or idea as a rejection of them personally.

And it’s not.  In fact, a healthy decision to say No is a pursuit of health, not only for myself but for the persons and projects to whom I’m saying No.  So communicating it that way does wonders to keep hurt feelings from becoming grudges.

20. Practice makes perfect.

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you’re probably not going to be very good at it at first.  A lot of people choose just to give up, but if you really want to excel at something, you’re going to have to put in some legwork.  Malcolm Gladwell suggests it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something.

I’m working on my writing and speaking.  And I’ve got a long way to go before I hit 10,000 hours.  What about you?  What are you working on?  And how far along are you?

The Three Curses

This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire.  I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand.  This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 9.  If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR – 1-9.

The fifth angel turned on his camera and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key the bowels of the earth.  He opened it and smoke came billowing out of the hole like from a blown radiator.  The smoke covered the sky and plunged the whole planet into darkness.

Then I saw locusts emerge from the smoke, and they were given authority like soldiers.  They were specifically told not to harm the crops or food supply, but instead to hurt anyone who hadn’t been notarized by God on their heads and wallets.  They were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them.  And it was bad –  worse than anything that went down in Guantanamo Bay.  During those five months, people will try to kill themselves – they’ll chase after death – but they won’t be able to die.Continue reading

The Press Conference

This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire.  I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand.  This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 8.  If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR – 1-8.

When the Lamb signed the seventh line on the Order, there was utter silence in heaven for about half an hour.  Then I saw the seven angels who comprise God’s cabinet, and they were given seven news cameras.

Another angel with a golden coffee cup came and stood at the podium.  He was given gallons of coffee to place along with the prayers of all the saints on the golden podium that stands in front of the desk.  The aroma of the coffee, along with the saints’ prayers, rose up to God from the angel’s hand.  Then the angel took the coffee cup and filled it with boiling coffee from the podium and threw it down onto the earth, and when he did, I saw lightning flash, heard thunder crash and saw a massive earthquake.Continue reading

11-15: Why Batman is the Best

batman_inc_111. Batman really is the best literary character.

I know I’m going to get crucified for this, but it’s true.  Batman is all about what it means to be human.  He lives in a world that is broken at a fundamental level, and he himself is a victim of that world – he watched his parents murdered in front of him.  And in a world where evil seems overwhelming, in a world full of beings with supernatural powers, the Batman is only human.  He has no special abilities.  He has only his will (and a giant pile of money).  As silly as it sounds, I think the Batman speaks to that deep part of us that rages against injustice, that refuses to believe the world is just a random joke.  That part of us that knows something’s broken and wants to fix it.  That part of us that believes we can do more than everyone else thinks we can.  That part of us that knows there’s more to being human than what most people settle for.

12. Violence doesn’t solve anything.

The thing about Batman is that he’s fictional.  There’s a reason superheroes don’t really exist: they can’t.  The world really is broken, but it was broken by people.  We broke (and continue to break) the world by trying to impose our own kind of order on it.  Something like 7 billion wills all trying to get the world to march to the beat of our own drums and we wonder that chaos seems to be the order of the day?  And somehow we’ve gotten it in our heads that the answer is to try harder than everyone else.  That if we are louder or stronger or more powerful than everyone else, our way will reign supreme.  But that’s not true.  Violence only begets more violence.  Violence can be effective in the short term, but it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem, the break at the core of who we are.  It only makes it worse.

13. The worst kinds of violence aren’t physical.

In fact, physical violence might be the preferable.  Its effects are more immediate, more visible, but they fade more quickly as well.  The more insidious kinds of violence are those that leave scars on our souls – emotional abuse, degrading another person’s spirit.  Crushing other cultures not by the sword but the commercial.  Teaching someone that difference is dangerous, that conformity is humanity.  Making someone else feel less human because s/he doesn’t fit into your idea of a perfect world.  That’s much worse.

14. Power is dangerous.

And that’s scary, because as soon as you have influence over another person, it’s possible (even likely) that you’re going to hurt him or her.  None of us is perfect; we all try to remake the world in our own images.  And that means we’re always at risk – always toeing the line between really engaging another person and colonizing him, remaking her to fit into our world.

15. The best place to be is uncomfortable.

Safe is easy.  And easy is dangerous, because easy is comfortable.  When we’re comfortable, we get complacent and we quit paying attention.  We stop asking hard questions.  We start to think we’re the king of our castles.  Being in an uncomfortable space reminds us that we’re not in control.  That the world is stranger than we like to remember.  That other people really aren’t the way we want them to be.  The uncomfortable spaces are a very good place to meet God.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the balcony of a Dominican Institute in Cairo listening to the Muslim call to prayer echo across the city.  I’m pretty far outside my comfort zone.

Who’s your favorite character?  Where have you been the victim of violence?  What about the perpetrator?  And how comfortable are you where you are?