The Beast from the Abyss-Lent 15, 2022

In the big picture of Revelation so far, we’ve seen that seven churches received letters from God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) as warning and encouragement for the days to come.  Why warning? Ah, those “last days”.  The churches are instructed that those who overcome will inherit various blessings belonging to the righteous in heaven.  Overcoming.  Hold that thought.

Then John is whisked up to the throne room of God to see one of the combatants in the great spiritual battle: God Himself who (spoiler alert) wins.  But who exactly is God triumphing over? 

In the heavenly chess match, God made another move:
two witnesses who preach with power from on high.
But this is no actual chess match. 
It’s war.

Revelation 11:7 Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.

Today we have our first introduction to one of the other combatants in the spiritual battle.  John describes it as a beast that comes up from the Abyss. The pit of hell.

Evil personified.

Rather than a pixelated dig into the nuances of who this beast is or speculate who may be or have been the beast in history, let’s let the words of Revelation speak for themselves.  Big picture. He’s evil personified, from the pit of hell and he’s powerful enough to be a real enemy of those who witness.  He attacks.  He overpowers.  And he kills them.

Thought for today:

Digging into the nuances of who this may be…while interesting to speculate… don’t do it. In truth, it serves a very negative purpose and plays into the hands of Satan: It frightens.  Fear is his turf.  Don’t play there.

I do not want you to believe this book of Revelation (and particularly any passage explicitly referencing evil) will be simple, casual reading.  It’s not. 

It’s spiritual and my nightmares for many days writing this particular episode exposed something very important to me:  God wanted me to tell you that words have power to build or destroy.

Fear is a powerful enemy of the Church, of God’s people,
and frankly of people in general.  

How many times in Scripture does God tell His people not to fear?  You may have heard 365, one for every day, but there’s a bit of creative license going on there depending on the translation you use.  Let’s just say, God repeats Himself… a lot… because we need it.

Think back over the past couple years of COVID.  How did fear cause people to do things, think things, close churches, and abandon hope in life that they wouldn’t have done were it not for a pandemic?  A plague giving reason to fear death?

Reading Revelation (even seeing the spiritual battle ahead of us)
should give the Christian hope.  Not fear. 
Hope.  For when all seems lost, it’s not.  God wins this battle and it’s not even close. 
God wins.  Eternal life is real.  And there is hope for you and me.

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2022 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

• Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
•  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
• Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
• ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
• Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
• Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
• Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
• Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
• The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.