The Nature of the Beast: It Cannot Be Tamed

The twelfth chapter of Revelation shows us a picture of God’s church as the pure bride of Christ. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12:1). We see the bride of Christ exalted in the heavens, but she is not without opposition. John tells us of a great dragon waiting to oppose her; a dragon who would be followed by a series of beasts.

 

Chapter 17 draws a contrast between this woman who represents God’s holy church and another woman who represents the false church of this world: …and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast…The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and was adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abomination” (Rev. 17:4-6). If the woman from chapter 12 represents the pure church of God, this woman draws a sharp contrast. She is clothed in all the things that are valued by fallen man. She represents the riches and prominence that catches our attention. But our present purpose is not to consider this woman, but the beast on which she rides because it is this beast that shows us the danger of false religion in our day. It is this beast that carries the woman into the wilderness away from the purpose and direction of God.

 

What could such a beast represent? We need not speculate because Scripture reveals the answer. The seventh chapter of Daniel gives an account of a vision. Daniel saw four beasts rising out of the sea. The interpretation defines these beasts as representative of political systems, or kingdoms. These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth (Dan. 7:17). The beast referenced in chapter 17 has the same origin: And I saw a beast rising out of the sea (Rev. 13:1)… This beast in the thirteenth chapter has the same characteristics as the beast in the seventeenth chapter. The woman (the false church) rides on this same political system that we find in chapter 13. And the seventeenth chapter provides the place of origin of this great beast: And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages” (Rev. 17:15).  The beast originated with man!

 

By now you’re wondering what this has to do with the church today. Why would we spend the time to consider visions of beasts and prostitutes? We study this symbolism because it shows us the opposition we face today. Not only opposition from the sinful things of the world, but opposition that comes from those who claim to be the church! Though Scripture teaches us what the church is supposed to be, and defines the role of leaders we find ourselves living in a day when Scripture no longer seems to be adequate. We always want something more: more structure, more control, more planning, more gimmicks, more bureaucracy. We place people in positions that were created by man rather than God; they lead us in worldly directions that were never intended by Jesus Christ when he established the church. The most dangerous opposition to the church today comes from the direction we are being led by the political systems and structures that we have put in place. Look where they led this prostitute: INTO THE WILDERNESS!

 

We tell ourselves that without our devices and programs the church will never succeed. Without our ideas and control we will never see people won to Christ. Without the authority of man the church can never be all that God called her to be. So we spend year after year doing God’s work in our own authority, but to pursue these futile endeavors is to place ourselves on the back of a beast. And that beast continually leads us away from God. It cannot be tamed, and we have put ourselves in a place where there is no control. We find ourselves in a situation that is little different from a secular government. We create and establish what we think we need, and it grows beyond our control as it carries the church out into the wilderness. We create and release these beasts into the world with no idea what the consequences may be. Many of them are the greatest opposition to God’s church today.

 

When man takes control, the very establishment that was supposed to be God’s vehicle to bring the gospel to a fallen world becomes little more than opposition to His work. C.E. Orr commented on this situation, “Christianity should be full of interest to all mankind, She not only cools the heated brow, cheers the drooping heart, and strews life's pathway with flowers of peace, but she deals with man's eternal destiny.  She will smooth the rough places all along his journey of life, and when he has come down to the end, it is she that will bear him across the valley and welcome him to the home prepared for his eternal inhabitancy.  Since the day of her nativity she has had a bitter obstinate foe, Satan, and wicked men have combined to bespoil her white robes and mar her fair form.  They have struggled long and hard to bring her low.  The have endeavored to extinguish her radiant light and defame her true character.  We have only to take a stroll through the halls of denominationalism to learn how far they have succeeded.  To many pews and pulpits our virgin has no excellence or beauty.  In the pulpit orator's exposition of her she is not exalted one whit above the coarse, vulgar world.   Satan has succeeded in veiling her fair form and true virtues from the hearts of many.  In the opinions of many she is reduced to a mere nothing.  Angels weep to see her fair robes trailed in the dust.  Those who pretend to love her have brought her to shame” (The Gospel Day, 10-11).

 

Have you ever wondered why we don’t see God move in great power today? Why the church seems impotent in the face of persecution and opposition? It’s because we have wrestled control away from God and climbed onto the back of a beast that is leading us away from Him. God will not settle for the position of consultant, He wants nothing less than His rightful place: King! Kyle Idleman explains, “God declines to sit atop an organizational flowchart. He is the organization. He is not interested in being president of the board. He is the board” (Gods At War, 23). Is this really the case in the church today? Can we honestly say that God is the one who sets the agenda? Does He reveal the direction? Does He dictate the doctrine we teach and the sermons we preach? The church can never live up to her God-given potential unless we can answer these questions with a resounding, “yes!”

 

Just like the prostitute, we value the things of the world. We look to the halls of academia and their sophisticated philosophies for direction. We pursue the business models of the world, and the methods of their leaders. We compromise the truth of God for the world’s version of success and find ourselves with little influence and no power. This is to be expected when our attention is turned from God. The beasts on which we ride never pursue His purposes, but always lead in a contrary direction. They take us to a place where we wander aimlessly hoping to find something that will give us a purpose and a vision. We peer hopelessly through the darkness expecting to find the Light from whose presence we have been carried. We largely buy the current lies of the world when they tell us that if we do not change we will “lose our brightest and our best.” Os Guinness wrote, “With postmodernism teaching that truth is ‘created, not discovered,’ the premium on the ‘best and brightest’ increases and the prize becomes the triumph of intellect over reality” (Time for Truth, (60).

 

There was a day when great preachers of God’s Word called us to flee from such beasts. They called us away from the rule of man, and the wilderness to which it leads. They called us to the purity of the gospel, and the authority of God’s word. They invited us to leave the things we control, and give ourselves up to the Spirit of God. Some may scoff at us for teaching such a message today, but Scripture has not changed. We need not wander through the wilderness because God has called us to something better, something more. Christianity delivers us, not only from the penalty of sin, but to the very presence of God. When the church is truly the church, our faith places us in complete harmony with God’s will and we experience the power of heaven. This is what led Martyn Lloyd-Jones to write, “Anything controlled by us, whether lifeless or lively, is not Christianity.  Christianity is that which controls us, which masters us, which happens to us” (Authentic Christianity, 22).

 

From where I stand the church needs direction today. We have forgotten who we are, whose we are, and where we’re going. But Lillie McCutcheon reminded us, “Confusion and chaos are the results of man's ignoring God.  God alone knows the pattern for the world created by His hand.  When man excludes God from his plans, it is as disastrous as flying a plane with only one wing.  Until we learn that the wing of materialism must have a balance-wing of spiritual strength, we shall continue going in circles and heading for calamity.  This is true politically, socially, scientifically, economically, and most of all religiously.  The Bible has the answer for our mixed-up world” (The Symbols Speak, 121).

 

We must remember that beasts only do what their nature leads them to do. We create them and try our best to tame them, but God has already provided all we need. The church does not need another structure or political system. The church needs the Word of God. It is only there that we will find the direction we need. It is only through the Word that we become the pure bride of Christ. Christ died that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:26, 27). Are we part of such a church?