These are the devotionals that are taken from the book For the Love of God by D.A. Carson. It goes along with the church's bible reading plan
December 13 - 2 Chronicles 14-15
The reign of King Asa of Judah is instructive on several fronts, and will occupy our attention both today (2 Chron. 14–15) and tomorrow.
Asa’s long reign began with ten years of peace (2 Chron. 14:1), “for the LORD gave him rest” (2 Chron. 14:6). During this time Asa “commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands” (2 Chron. 14:4). The people sought the Lord, “and built and prospered” (2 Chron. 14:7). At the end of ten years, Asa faced the devastating power of the Cushite forces (from the upper Nile). Asa could not possibly have forgotten how his grandfather Rehoboam was subjugated by Shishak of Egypt (2 Chron. 12). Asa’s own conduct is exemplary, a foretaste of how his descendant Hezekiah would handle himself centuries later when he faced the Babylonians: he called on the Lord, frankly acknowledging his utter powerlessness against such forces. “Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you” (2 Chron. 14:11). By whatever means (the text does not specify), the Lord answers, and Asa’s relatively tiny army crushes the Cushite host.
Enter Azariah son of Oded, a prophet with a message of encouragement for Asa and for all Judah and Benjamin (2 Chron. 15:1–2). Reflecting on the terrible years of anarchy under the closing years of the judges and the opening years of the monarchy, when travel and trade were dangerous and when the Levites were not sufficiently disciplined and organized to teach the people, Azariah encourages king and people alike to seek the Lord, for “he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you” (2 Chron. 15:2). Such a message strengthens Asa’s resolve. He proceeds against the remaining idolatry in the land and pours resources into the maintenance of the temple. This is the covenant community, and under Asa it begins to act like one. “They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on every side” (2 Chron. 15:15) for a further quarter century, to the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign (2 Chron. 15:19). The “high places” were not removed (2 Chron. 15:17)—a residue of competition with the temple—but for the most part Asa was a straight arrow.
We should not be embarrassed by the blessing of God on integrity and righteousness. Righteousness exalts a nation: it lifts it up and strengthens its hand. This is not merely a sociological inference: it is the way God has structured things, the way he providentially rules. Inversely, corruption attracts the wrath of God, and sooner or later will bring a nation down.
December 14 - 2 Chronicles 16
Beginning well does not mean ending well. Judas Iscariot began as an apostle; Demas began as an apostolic helper. We know how they ended up. Asa began as a reforming king zealous for God, a man who displayed formidable faith and courage when the Cushites attacked (review yesterday’s meditation)—but how he ends up in 2 Chronicles 16 is frankly disquieting.
The crisis was precipitated when Baasha, king of Israel, attacked some of Judah’s outlying towns and cities. Instead of displaying the same kind of resolute faith he had shown twenty-five years earlier, when he had to face the more formidable Cushites, Asa opts for a costly political expedient. He strips both the temple and his own palace of wealth, and sends it to Ben-Hadad, ruler of the rising regional power of Aram, centered in Damascus. Asa wants Ben-Hadad to attack Israel from the north, thereby forcing Baasha to withdraw his troops from the southern assault and defend himself in the north. The ploy worked.
This was also linking Judah with Aram in dangerous ways. More importantly, the prophet Hanani puts his finger on the worst element in this strategy: Asa is depending on politics and money, and not on the Lord God. “Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war” (2 Chron. 16:8–9).
Even then the situation might have been retrieved: God so regularly listens to the truly repentant. But Asa merely becomes angry, so enraged that he throws Hanani the prophet into prison. His dictatorial urges multiply, and Asa begins to brutalize the people (2 Chron. 16:10). Four years later he contracts a wretched disease, but instead of asking for the Lord’s help (let alone his forgiveness), he entrenches himself in bitterness and seeks help only from the physicians. Two years of disease later, he dies.
What about all those years of godly reform? We are not in the position, of course, to offer a final accounting: that belongs to God alone. But people can be on the side of goodness or reform for all kinds of reasons other than love of God; phenomenologically, people can have a heart for God for a long time (2 Chron. 15:17) but wilt before demonstrating final perseverance. In a disciplined person, it may take a while before the truth comes out. But when it does, the test, as always, is fundamental: Am I number one, or is God?
December 15 - Revelation 6
Chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, on which we have not reflected, constitute a major vision that prepares us for much of the rest of the book—including Revelation 6. Chapter 4 is to chapter 5 what a setting is to a drama. Revelation 4 depicts, in apocalyptic symbols, the throne room of Almighty God. The emphasis is on God’s awesomeness, his holiness, his transcendent and spectacular glory. Even the highest orders of angels veil their faces as they bow in worship and extol God for his holiness. In Revelation 5, the drama begins. In the right hand of God rests a scroll, which turns out to contain all his purposes for redemption and judgment. The scroll is sealed with seven seals. In the symbolism of this book, opening the seals means bringing about all of God’s purposes for redemption and judgment. If the book remains unopened, God’s purposes will remain unfulfilled. A powerful angel launches a challenge to the entire universe: Is anyone worthy to approach this awesome and frankly terrifying God, take the scroll, and open the seals—in other words, to serve as God’s agent to bring his purposes to pass? No one is found who is worthy, and in despair, John weeps. Then one of the elders tells him to stop crying. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed. John looks up through his tears, and sees—a Lamb. This is not an animal additional to the Lion. True to the mixed nature of apocalyptic metaphors, the Lion is the Lamb—and he emerges from the center of the throne. From then on in the book of Revelation, praise is offered to him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.
Revelation 6 finds the Lamb opening the seals. In due course, the seventh seal introduces seven trumpets (Rev. 8), which in turn are followed by the seven bowls of God’s wrath (Rev. 16). Thus the entire drama of the book of Revelation is introduced by the vision of Revelation 4–5.
So far as Revelation 6 is concerned, I shall focus on only two points. (1) The martyrs who are “under the altar” cry out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Rev. 6:9–10). It is a great comfort to know that justice will be done, and will be seen to be done; it is an even greater comfort to know that God is more forbearing than Christians. (2) But when that judgment does come, there is no escaping it, no reprieve. All who have rebelled against their Maker and never been reconciled to him, whether they are slaves or among the powerful and the mighty, cry out to the mountains and the rocks to hide them “from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16). But who can hide from the throne of God?
December 16 - Revelation 7
There are many disputed points of interpretation over Revelation 7. For instance, who are the 144,000 (Rev. 7:4)? Are they the same people as the great multitude that no one could count (Rev. 7:9), in much the same way that in chapter 5 the Lion is the Lamb? What or when is the “great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14)? Is it a brief period of time? If so, when—in A.D. 70, or toward the end of the age? Or is it a way of referring to the entire period between Jesus’ first and second comings?
But here I shall restrict my attention to three elements in John’s description of the “great multitude that no one could count.”
First, they spring “from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev. 7:9). There is not a whiff of racism here. Moreover, this theme keeps recurring in the book. For instance, already in Revelation 5:9, the elders sing a new song to the Lamb: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” The ultimate community of God is transnational, transtribal, transracial, translinguistic. In that sense, Los Angeles is a better anticipation of heaven than Tulsa, Oklahoma. Let the church, strengthened by the grace of God, live out now, as largely as possible, what she will one day be.
Second, everything significant about these people turns on the work of God effected through the Lamb—in short, it turns on the Gospel of God. So they stand “before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9); they cry “in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Rev. 7:10). While the angels worship God (Rev. 7:11–12), John is told that these people “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). In short, whatever else is found in Revelation, this book overflows with the Gospel.
Third, the ultimate prospect for the great multitude is not located in this life. They “are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple” (Rev. 7:15). Nothing bad will ever again befall them (Rev. 7:16). “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:17). The book of Revelation fans the flames of courage and faithfulness in this life, even in the teeth of the most virulent opposition, by holding out the most glorious prospects for the life to come.
December 17 - 2 Chronicles 19-20
Earlier we witnessed a king who began well and ended poorly (Asa; see December 13–14); still earlier, we witnessed a halfhearted reformer (Rehoboam; see December 11). Now we come across another, King Jehoshaphat, who does not degenerate, nor does he slide along in a gray zone between good and evil, but rather proves to be very good in some areas and not very discerning and even stupid in others—all his life (2 Chron. 19–20).
The two previous chapters (2 Chron. 17–18) can be divided into two parts. Chapter 17 depicts the strengths of Jehoshaphat—the man who diligently seeks the Lord and fortifies the entire southern kingdom. By contrast, chapter 18 depicts foolish Jehoshaphat, enmeshed in a needless and compromised alliance with wicked King Ahab of Israel, almost losing his life in a fight that wasn’t his. Now in the chapters before us, the prophet Jehu, son of the prophet Hanani who had been imprisoned by Asa in his old age, confronts Jehoshaphat: “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, the wrath of the LORD is upon you. There is, however, some good in you, for you have rid the land of the Asherah poles and have set your heart on seeking God” (2 Chron. 19:2–3).
Then the pattern repeats itself. Jehoshaphat works diligently to rid the judiciary of corruption (2 Chron. 19:4–11). When he faces another military crisis, this time the nations of Moab and Ammon allied against him, he turns to God for help. The culmination of his prayer is intensely moving: “O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chron. 20:12). In his mercy, God sends his Spirit upon Jahaziel son of Zechariah, who carries a prophetic word to strengthen and encourage Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah and Jerusalem (2 Chron. 20:15ff). The victory they win is extravagant, and the Lord graciously imposes “the fear of God” upon the surrounding kingdoms, thereby giving Jehoshaphat and Judah rest.
So what does Jehoshaphat do? He makes another stupid and unnecessary alliance, this time with Ahaziah, the new king of Israel, and is soundly rebuked by another prophetic word (2 Chron. 20:35–37). Doesn’t the man ever learn?
Today we would probably label such deeply disturbing repetitions “character flaws.” They can occur in people whose lives, on so many levels, are entirely praiseworthy. At one level it is entirely right to thank God for the good these people do. But would it not have been far better if Jehoshaphat had learned from his first mistakes?
Would it be impertinent to ask if you and I learn from ours?
December 18 - Revelation 9
Whatever the referents behind the horrific images of Revelation 9, the visions of mayhem and slaughter are clear enough. In war and plague, countless millions of human beings are slaughtered, one-third of humankind, some in great agony. Today I wish to focus on the closing verses of the chapter, setting this sweeping destruction in a certain framework.
(1) At one level, this destruction is the work of hell—more precisely, of “the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon” (Rev. 9:11), the Destroyer. There is no doubt this is also Satan, the Devil himself (cf. Rev. 12:7–9; 20:10). For all his efforts to entice human beings away from the God who made them and whose image they bear, Satan’s long-term goals for human beings are never benign. He may give temporary power or advantage to those who sell themselves to do evil, or to those who enter a Faustian pact with him, but his ultimate goal is the destruction of all human beings, or as many of them as he can harm, as ruthlessly, as painfully, as possible.
(2) For all that Satan himself is behind this destruction, in the larger narrative of the book, God himself has brought about this destruction as part of his righteous judgment. Satan is evil and powerful, but he is not all-powerful. Even at his most virulent he cannot escape God’s control—and God is able to use even Satan’s evil to bring about his purposes of righteous judgment on those who persist in their rebellion against God.
(3) So perverse are human beings that even the most devastating judgment frequently fails to get their attention or to drive them toward repentance. “The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Rev. 9:20–21).
Few statements are more discouraging. What is God to do? When he maintains order and stable times, his image-bearers drift away from him, indifferent to his blessings. When instead God responds in judgment, his image-bearers charge that God is unfair, or assign these things to blind circumstance, or exclusively to the Devil, or to alien deities who need placating. Apart from the intervention of the convicting work of the Spirit, few reflect deeply on how these disasters are calling to us in prophetic terms.
What disasters has the race of God’s image-bearers faced in the twentieth century? What is their message? How have most people responded?
December 19 - Revelation 10
Many images in the book of Revelation are drawn from the Old Testament. The antecedent to the scroll that John eats (Rev. 10:8–11) is a similar image in Jeremiah 15:16; Ezekiel 2:8–3:3.
Each of the three passages develops the notion of eating God’s words a little differently. Jeremiah contrasts himself with his persecutors and tormentors, with “the company of revelers” (Jer. 15:17) with whom he never made common cause. How could he? He sat alone because the hand of God was upon him. He perceived the sin in the land and the judgment that were threatening, and he was filled with indignation. What was it that gave him this stance? “When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty” (Jer. 15:16).
In his vision Ezekiel is shown a scroll written on both sides with “words of lament and mourning and woe” (Ezek. 2:10). God tells him to open his mouth and eat the scroll, and then go and speak to the house of Israel (Ezek. 3:1). “So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth” (Ezek. 3:3). The context makes clear the meaning. Even though the message Ezekiel conveyed was full of judgment and lament, even though he explained the sins of Jerusalem to the exilic community and predicted the catastrophic fall of city and temple alike, Ezekiel was to be so aligned with God’s perspective that he found God’s words sweet. However hard the message, God’s words of judgment, if they really are God’s words, Ezekiel will find sweeter than all of the words of the received opinion of self-justifying sinners.
In his vision, John the seer is instructed to take a scroll and eat it. He is told that it will taste as sweet as honey, but that it will turn sour in his stomach (Rev. 10:9–10). The content is again judgment: John “must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings” (Rev. 10:11). But here the symbolism works out a little differently. It is still important for this scroll to taste sweet in John’s mouth, i.e., for him so to align himself with God and his truth that he finds God’s ways and words to be sweet. But now an extra layer is added: however important and right it is to side with God’s perspective, however vital it is to say “Amen!” to God’s good and necessary judgment, nevertheless judgment is still judgment. There cannot finally be pleasure at the prospect of the wrath of God, as utterly righteous as that wrath is, for the sin that has called it forth is utterly tragic both in its own reality and in the consequences it elicits.
December 20 - Revelation 11
Throughout the book of Revelation there are occasional visions of the end or of the throne room of God that anticipate the last two chapters. In other words, the line of development in Revelation is not always linear. The anticipation of victory, glory, and the perspective of the Almighty are sometimes placed in the context of the darkest scenes of judgment: e.g., Revelation 14:1–5, in the context of chapters 12–14.
When the seventh trumpet sounds (Rev. 11:15–19), the veil is rolled back a little to permit a glimpse of just such a scene—not in this case of the new heaven and the new earth, but of the reign of God over these scenes of terrible judgment. I may draw attention to two elements.
First, the notion of the kingdom of God is a dynamic one and changes its precise significance in various contexts. Here loud voices in heaven proclaim: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). This suggests that there was a time before which this divine “kingdom” over this lost world had not begun. So what is in view is certainly not the universal kingdom of God’s providential rule. Nor is this the onset of Jesus’ reign, as inaugurated by his resurrection and exaltation. True, at that point all authority became his in heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18). Nevertheless, that reign is so exercised that it is still contested. What the following verses suggest is that God now so takes his great power as to destroy those who have destroyed his people. “The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great—and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18). What this announces is the imminence of the final exercise of authority that shatters all residual opposition and judges all with perfect justice.
Second, we have already seen that mixed metaphors are characteristic of apocalyptic literature. Here in 11:19, God’s temple in heaven is opened, and within the temple the ark of the covenant is seen, accompanied by an awesome storm. Terrible storms accompanying God’s great acts of self-disclosure spring from what took place at Sinai; something similar is found in the vision of 4:5. The point of temple, ark, and storm in this verse is that God himself is present and reigning. By contrast, in the vision of chapters 21–22, there is no need for a temple in heaven, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple (Rev. 21:22). Only pedants will perceive a contradiction.
December 21 - Revelation 12
The vision of Revelation 12 provides the ultimate cause of the ongoing tribulations of the people of God. That cause is nothing less than the rage of Satan.
The woman in this chapter is not Mary, but a figure representing the people of God. From her springs Jesus, the son “who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter” (Rev. 12:5). Yet she is not simply Israel, for after Jesus ascends to God, the woman is left behind with “the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 12:17). The woman, then, represents the collective people of God, whether of the old covenant or of the new.
Satan in this chapter not only fails in his vicious attempt to destroy Jesus (Rev. 12:4–5), but he is defeated by Michael and thrown out of heaven (Rev. 12:7–9). He is hurled to the earth (Rev. 12:9). Raging against this restriction (Rev. 12:13), raging as well “because he knows that his time is short” (Rev. 12:12) before his utter destruction, he is filled with fury against the woman and her offspring. Much of the rest of the chapter describes his attack on the woman and her children—on us Christians!—in symbol-laden language drawn from the Old Testament.
Among his attacks are accusations designed both to destroy our confidence and to engage God’s wrath against people as sinful as we are: Satan is “the accuser of [the] brothers” (Rev. 12:10). But in one crucial verse (Rev. 12:11), John tells us how these believers overcome the devil.
(1) “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” The preposition translated as by in the NIV should be rendered “on the ground of.” When all his accusations are brought before us—so many of them entirely justified, if we gauge things only by the quality of our faithfulness—Satan is silenced when we insist that our acceptance before God is grounded not in ourselves but in the death of Jesus Christ. “Who is he that condemns?” Paul exultantly asks. “Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34). We neither have nor need another ground for our acquittal.
(2) “They overcame him by … the word of their testimony.” This does not mean that they frequently gave their testimonies. It means, rather, that they constantly bore testimony to Jesus Christ; in short, they constantly proclaimed the Gospel. That is what spells Satan’s defeat. Keep silent, and Satan wins.
(3) “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” You cannot defeat an opponent who is not only willing to die, but for whom death means winning (Phil. 1:21).
December 22 - Revelation 13
It turns out that Satan has two unholy beasts to assist him, one that comes out of the sea (Rev. 13:1–10), and the other out of the earth (Rev. 13:11–18). Together they constitute an unholy triumvirate that in some ways apes the Trinity.
Admittedly, many of the apocalyptic symbols in this chapter have been interpreted in mutually exclusive ways by different schools of thought. It is entirely beyond these brief meditations to defend a particular structure. In my view, however, these beasts represent recurring historical manifestations of evil—in the one case, evil in its guise as outright opposition against the people of God, and in the other, evil in its guise as religious deception. (It is not for nothing that the beast out of the earth is described later in this book as “the false prophet”: e.g., Rev. 19:20.) Satan deploys not only agents who overtly and viciously attack believers, but also agents whose mission it is to seduce and deceive, if it is possible, the very elect.
Observe one of the extraordinary elements in the description of the first beast. He has received a fatal wound, but the wound has been healed. This sounds incongruous: surely if the wound has been healed, it was not fatal, and if it was fatal then obviously it could not be healed. But this symbolism is meant to describe the repeated historical manifestations of this monster. He emerges in a Nero, in the Roman Emperor, in Innocent III, in a Hitler. In every case, the monster is cut down. Many people think that evil in its worst form has finally been destroyed. The thousand-year Reich lasts a decade and a half: surely this was the war to end all wars. Then the genocide starts again—in the Eastern block, in China, in Cambodia, in Rwanda. The beast receives a fatal wound, but always the beast comes back to life.
Note some of the symbols used to describe the false prophet. He looks like a lamb, but he speaks like a dragon (Rev. 13:11): this probably does not mean that he roars like a dragon and scares everyone off, but that he appears innocent, even though his speech is the speech of the dragon—the “great dragon” of Revelation 12:9, none other than Satan himself. This “lamb” turns out to be Satan’s mouthpiece. He performs miraculous signs and thereby deceives the inhabitants of the earth (Rev. 13:14). There is no suggestion that the signs are mere tricks; miraculous power does not necessarily attest divine power. Ultimately he uses the authority he derives from the first beast to constitute an exclusive identity for his own followers, excluding all others with severe economic sanctions (Rev. 13:16–17). Even little historical knowledge can remember manifestations of such deceitful coercion.
December 13 - 2 Chronicles 14-15
The reign of King Asa of Judah is instructive on several fronts, and will occupy our attention both today (2 Chron. 14–15) and tomorrow.
Asa’s long reign began with ten years of peace (2 Chron. 14:1), “for the LORD gave him rest” (2 Chron. 14:6). During this time Asa “commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands” (2 Chron. 14:4). The people sought the Lord, “and built and prospered” (2 Chron. 14:7). At the end of ten years, Asa faced the devastating power of the Cushite forces (from the upper Nile). Asa could not possibly have forgotten how his grandfather Rehoboam was subjugated by Shishak of Egypt (2 Chron. 12). Asa’s own conduct is exemplary, a foretaste of how his descendant Hezekiah would handle himself centuries later when he faced the Babylonians: he called on the Lord, frankly acknowledging his utter powerlessness against such forces. “Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you” (2 Chron. 14:11). By whatever means (the text does not specify), the Lord answers, and Asa’s relatively tiny army crushes the Cushite host.
Enter Azariah son of Oded, a prophet with a message of encouragement for Asa and for all Judah and Benjamin (2 Chron. 15:1–2). Reflecting on the terrible years of anarchy under the closing years of the judges and the opening years of the monarchy, when travel and trade were dangerous and when the Levites were not sufficiently disciplined and organized to teach the people, Azariah encourages king and people alike to seek the Lord, for “he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you” (2 Chron. 15:2). Such a message strengthens Asa’s resolve. He proceeds against the remaining idolatry in the land and pours resources into the maintenance of the temple. This is the covenant community, and under Asa it begins to act like one. “They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on every side” (2 Chron. 15:15) for a further quarter century, to the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign (2 Chron. 15:19). The “high places” were not removed (2 Chron. 15:17)—a residue of competition with the temple—but for the most part Asa was a straight arrow.
We should not be embarrassed by the blessing of God on integrity and righteousness. Righteousness exalts a nation: it lifts it up and strengthens its hand. This is not merely a sociological inference: it is the way God has structured things, the way he providentially rules. Inversely, corruption attracts the wrath of God, and sooner or later will bring a nation down.
December 14 - 2 Chronicles 16
Beginning well does not mean ending well. Judas Iscariot began as an apostle; Demas began as an apostolic helper. We know how they ended up. Asa began as a reforming king zealous for God, a man who displayed formidable faith and courage when the Cushites attacked (review yesterday’s meditation)—but how he ends up in 2 Chronicles 16 is frankly disquieting.
The crisis was precipitated when Baasha, king of Israel, attacked some of Judah’s outlying towns and cities. Instead of displaying the same kind of resolute faith he had shown twenty-five years earlier, when he had to face the more formidable Cushites, Asa opts for a costly political expedient. He strips both the temple and his own palace of wealth, and sends it to Ben-Hadad, ruler of the rising regional power of Aram, centered in Damascus. Asa wants Ben-Hadad to attack Israel from the north, thereby forcing Baasha to withdraw his troops from the southern assault and defend himself in the north. The ploy worked.
This was also linking Judah with Aram in dangerous ways. More importantly, the prophet Hanani puts his finger on the worst element in this strategy: Asa is depending on politics and money, and not on the Lord God. “Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war” (2 Chron. 16:8–9).
Even then the situation might have been retrieved: God so regularly listens to the truly repentant. But Asa merely becomes angry, so enraged that he throws Hanani the prophet into prison. His dictatorial urges multiply, and Asa begins to brutalize the people (2 Chron. 16:10). Four years later he contracts a wretched disease, but instead of asking for the Lord’s help (let alone his forgiveness), he entrenches himself in bitterness and seeks help only from the physicians. Two years of disease later, he dies.
What about all those years of godly reform? We are not in the position, of course, to offer a final accounting: that belongs to God alone. But people can be on the side of goodness or reform for all kinds of reasons other than love of God; phenomenologically, people can have a heart for God for a long time (2 Chron. 15:17) but wilt before demonstrating final perseverance. In a disciplined person, it may take a while before the truth comes out. But when it does, the test, as always, is fundamental: Am I number one, or is God?
December 15 - Revelation 6
Chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, on which we have not reflected, constitute a major vision that prepares us for much of the rest of the book—including Revelation 6. Chapter 4 is to chapter 5 what a setting is to a drama. Revelation 4 depicts, in apocalyptic symbols, the throne room of Almighty God. The emphasis is on God’s awesomeness, his holiness, his transcendent and spectacular glory. Even the highest orders of angels veil their faces as they bow in worship and extol God for his holiness. In Revelation 5, the drama begins. In the right hand of God rests a scroll, which turns out to contain all his purposes for redemption and judgment. The scroll is sealed with seven seals. In the symbolism of this book, opening the seals means bringing about all of God’s purposes for redemption and judgment. If the book remains unopened, God’s purposes will remain unfulfilled. A powerful angel launches a challenge to the entire universe: Is anyone worthy to approach this awesome and frankly terrifying God, take the scroll, and open the seals—in other words, to serve as God’s agent to bring his purposes to pass? No one is found who is worthy, and in despair, John weeps. Then one of the elders tells him to stop crying. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed. John looks up through his tears, and sees—a Lamb. This is not an animal additional to the Lion. True to the mixed nature of apocalyptic metaphors, the Lion is the Lamb—and he emerges from the center of the throne. From then on in the book of Revelation, praise is offered to him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.
Revelation 6 finds the Lamb opening the seals. In due course, the seventh seal introduces seven trumpets (Rev. 8), which in turn are followed by the seven bowls of God’s wrath (Rev. 16). Thus the entire drama of the book of Revelation is introduced by the vision of Revelation 4–5.
So far as Revelation 6 is concerned, I shall focus on only two points. (1) The martyrs who are “under the altar” cry out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Rev. 6:9–10). It is a great comfort to know that justice will be done, and will be seen to be done; it is an even greater comfort to know that God is more forbearing than Christians. (2) But when that judgment does come, there is no escaping it, no reprieve. All who have rebelled against their Maker and never been reconciled to him, whether they are slaves or among the powerful and the mighty, cry out to the mountains and the rocks to hide them “from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16). But who can hide from the throne of God?
December 16 - Revelation 7
There are many disputed points of interpretation over Revelation 7. For instance, who are the 144,000 (Rev. 7:4)? Are they the same people as the great multitude that no one could count (Rev. 7:9), in much the same way that in chapter 5 the Lion is the Lamb? What or when is the “great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14)? Is it a brief period of time? If so, when—in A.D. 70, or toward the end of the age? Or is it a way of referring to the entire period between Jesus’ first and second comings?
But here I shall restrict my attention to three elements in John’s description of the “great multitude that no one could count.”
First, they spring “from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev. 7:9). There is not a whiff of racism here. Moreover, this theme keeps recurring in the book. For instance, already in Revelation 5:9, the elders sing a new song to the Lamb: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” The ultimate community of God is transnational, transtribal, transracial, translinguistic. In that sense, Los Angeles is a better anticipation of heaven than Tulsa, Oklahoma. Let the church, strengthened by the grace of God, live out now, as largely as possible, what she will one day be.
Second, everything significant about these people turns on the work of God effected through the Lamb—in short, it turns on the Gospel of God. So they stand “before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9); they cry “in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Rev. 7:10). While the angels worship God (Rev. 7:11–12), John is told that these people “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). In short, whatever else is found in Revelation, this book overflows with the Gospel.
Third, the ultimate prospect for the great multitude is not located in this life. They “are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple” (Rev. 7:15). Nothing bad will ever again befall them (Rev. 7:16). “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:17). The book of Revelation fans the flames of courage and faithfulness in this life, even in the teeth of the most virulent opposition, by holding out the most glorious prospects for the life to come.
December 17 - 2 Chronicles 19-20
Earlier we witnessed a king who began well and ended poorly (Asa; see December 13–14); still earlier, we witnessed a halfhearted reformer (Rehoboam; see December 11). Now we come across another, King Jehoshaphat, who does not degenerate, nor does he slide along in a gray zone between good and evil, but rather proves to be very good in some areas and not very discerning and even stupid in others—all his life (2 Chron. 19–20).
The two previous chapters (2 Chron. 17–18) can be divided into two parts. Chapter 17 depicts the strengths of Jehoshaphat—the man who diligently seeks the Lord and fortifies the entire southern kingdom. By contrast, chapter 18 depicts foolish Jehoshaphat, enmeshed in a needless and compromised alliance with wicked King Ahab of Israel, almost losing his life in a fight that wasn’t his. Now in the chapters before us, the prophet Jehu, son of the prophet Hanani who had been imprisoned by Asa in his old age, confronts Jehoshaphat: “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, the wrath of the LORD is upon you. There is, however, some good in you, for you have rid the land of the Asherah poles and have set your heart on seeking God” (2 Chron. 19:2–3).
Then the pattern repeats itself. Jehoshaphat works diligently to rid the judiciary of corruption (2 Chron. 19:4–11). When he faces another military crisis, this time the nations of Moab and Ammon allied against him, he turns to God for help. The culmination of his prayer is intensely moving: “O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chron. 20:12). In his mercy, God sends his Spirit upon Jahaziel son of Zechariah, who carries a prophetic word to strengthen and encourage Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah and Jerusalem (2 Chron. 20:15ff). The victory they win is extravagant, and the Lord graciously imposes “the fear of God” upon the surrounding kingdoms, thereby giving Jehoshaphat and Judah rest.
So what does Jehoshaphat do? He makes another stupid and unnecessary alliance, this time with Ahaziah, the new king of Israel, and is soundly rebuked by another prophetic word (2 Chron. 20:35–37). Doesn’t the man ever learn?
Today we would probably label such deeply disturbing repetitions “character flaws.” They can occur in people whose lives, on so many levels, are entirely praiseworthy. At one level it is entirely right to thank God for the good these people do. But would it not have been far better if Jehoshaphat had learned from his first mistakes?
Would it be impertinent to ask if you and I learn from ours?
December 18 - Revelation 9
Whatever the referents behind the horrific images of Revelation 9, the visions of mayhem and slaughter are clear enough. In war and plague, countless millions of human beings are slaughtered, one-third of humankind, some in great agony. Today I wish to focus on the closing verses of the chapter, setting this sweeping destruction in a certain framework.
(1) At one level, this destruction is the work of hell—more precisely, of “the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon” (Rev. 9:11), the Destroyer. There is no doubt this is also Satan, the Devil himself (cf. Rev. 12:7–9; 20:10). For all his efforts to entice human beings away from the God who made them and whose image they bear, Satan’s long-term goals for human beings are never benign. He may give temporary power or advantage to those who sell themselves to do evil, or to those who enter a Faustian pact with him, but his ultimate goal is the destruction of all human beings, or as many of them as he can harm, as ruthlessly, as painfully, as possible.
(2) For all that Satan himself is behind this destruction, in the larger narrative of the book, God himself has brought about this destruction as part of his righteous judgment. Satan is evil and powerful, but he is not all-powerful. Even at his most virulent he cannot escape God’s control—and God is able to use even Satan’s evil to bring about his purposes of righteous judgment on those who persist in their rebellion against God.
(3) So perverse are human beings that even the most devastating judgment frequently fails to get their attention or to drive them toward repentance. “The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Rev. 9:20–21).
Few statements are more discouraging. What is God to do? When he maintains order and stable times, his image-bearers drift away from him, indifferent to his blessings. When instead God responds in judgment, his image-bearers charge that God is unfair, or assign these things to blind circumstance, or exclusively to the Devil, or to alien deities who need placating. Apart from the intervention of the convicting work of the Spirit, few reflect deeply on how these disasters are calling to us in prophetic terms.
What disasters has the race of God’s image-bearers faced in the twentieth century? What is their message? How have most people responded?
December 19 - Revelation 10
Many images in the book of Revelation are drawn from the Old Testament. The antecedent to the scroll that John eats (Rev. 10:8–11) is a similar image in Jeremiah 15:16; Ezekiel 2:8–3:3.
Each of the three passages develops the notion of eating God’s words a little differently. Jeremiah contrasts himself with his persecutors and tormentors, with “the company of revelers” (Jer. 15:17) with whom he never made common cause. How could he? He sat alone because the hand of God was upon him. He perceived the sin in the land and the judgment that were threatening, and he was filled with indignation. What was it that gave him this stance? “When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty” (Jer. 15:16).
In his vision Ezekiel is shown a scroll written on both sides with “words of lament and mourning and woe” (Ezek. 2:10). God tells him to open his mouth and eat the scroll, and then go and speak to the house of Israel (Ezek. 3:1). “So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth” (Ezek. 3:3). The context makes clear the meaning. Even though the message Ezekiel conveyed was full of judgment and lament, even though he explained the sins of Jerusalem to the exilic community and predicted the catastrophic fall of city and temple alike, Ezekiel was to be so aligned with God’s perspective that he found God’s words sweet. However hard the message, God’s words of judgment, if they really are God’s words, Ezekiel will find sweeter than all of the words of the received opinion of self-justifying sinners.
In his vision, John the seer is instructed to take a scroll and eat it. He is told that it will taste as sweet as honey, but that it will turn sour in his stomach (Rev. 10:9–10). The content is again judgment: John “must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings” (Rev. 10:11). But here the symbolism works out a little differently. It is still important for this scroll to taste sweet in John’s mouth, i.e., for him so to align himself with God and his truth that he finds God’s ways and words to be sweet. But now an extra layer is added: however important and right it is to side with God’s perspective, however vital it is to say “Amen!” to God’s good and necessary judgment, nevertheless judgment is still judgment. There cannot finally be pleasure at the prospect of the wrath of God, as utterly righteous as that wrath is, for the sin that has called it forth is utterly tragic both in its own reality and in the consequences it elicits.
December 20 - Revelation 11
Throughout the book of Revelation there are occasional visions of the end or of the throne room of God that anticipate the last two chapters. In other words, the line of development in Revelation is not always linear. The anticipation of victory, glory, and the perspective of the Almighty are sometimes placed in the context of the darkest scenes of judgment: e.g., Revelation 14:1–5, in the context of chapters 12–14.
When the seventh trumpet sounds (Rev. 11:15–19), the veil is rolled back a little to permit a glimpse of just such a scene—not in this case of the new heaven and the new earth, but of the reign of God over these scenes of terrible judgment. I may draw attention to two elements.
First, the notion of the kingdom of God is a dynamic one and changes its precise significance in various contexts. Here loud voices in heaven proclaim: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). This suggests that there was a time before which this divine “kingdom” over this lost world had not begun. So what is in view is certainly not the universal kingdom of God’s providential rule. Nor is this the onset of Jesus’ reign, as inaugurated by his resurrection and exaltation. True, at that point all authority became his in heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18). Nevertheless, that reign is so exercised that it is still contested. What the following verses suggest is that God now so takes his great power as to destroy those who have destroyed his people. “The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great—and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18). What this announces is the imminence of the final exercise of authority that shatters all residual opposition and judges all with perfect justice.
Second, we have already seen that mixed metaphors are characteristic of apocalyptic literature. Here in 11:19, God’s temple in heaven is opened, and within the temple the ark of the covenant is seen, accompanied by an awesome storm. Terrible storms accompanying God’s great acts of self-disclosure spring from what took place at Sinai; something similar is found in the vision of 4:5. The point of temple, ark, and storm in this verse is that God himself is present and reigning. By contrast, in the vision of chapters 21–22, there is no need for a temple in heaven, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple (Rev. 21:22). Only pedants will perceive a contradiction.
December 21 - Revelation 12
The vision of Revelation 12 provides the ultimate cause of the ongoing tribulations of the people of God. That cause is nothing less than the rage of Satan.
The woman in this chapter is not Mary, but a figure representing the people of God. From her springs Jesus, the son “who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter” (Rev. 12:5). Yet she is not simply Israel, for after Jesus ascends to God, the woman is left behind with “the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 12:17). The woman, then, represents the collective people of God, whether of the old covenant or of the new.
Satan in this chapter not only fails in his vicious attempt to destroy Jesus (Rev. 12:4–5), but he is defeated by Michael and thrown out of heaven (Rev. 12:7–9). He is hurled to the earth (Rev. 12:9). Raging against this restriction (Rev. 12:13), raging as well “because he knows that his time is short” (Rev. 12:12) before his utter destruction, he is filled with fury against the woman and her offspring. Much of the rest of the chapter describes his attack on the woman and her children—on us Christians!—in symbol-laden language drawn from the Old Testament.
Among his attacks are accusations designed both to destroy our confidence and to engage God’s wrath against people as sinful as we are: Satan is “the accuser of [the] brothers” (Rev. 12:10). But in one crucial verse (Rev. 12:11), John tells us how these believers overcome the devil.
(1) “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” The preposition translated as by in the NIV should be rendered “on the ground of.” When all his accusations are brought before us—so many of them entirely justified, if we gauge things only by the quality of our faithfulness—Satan is silenced when we insist that our acceptance before God is grounded not in ourselves but in the death of Jesus Christ. “Who is he that condemns?” Paul exultantly asks. “Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34). We neither have nor need another ground for our acquittal.
(2) “They overcame him by … the word of their testimony.” This does not mean that they frequently gave their testimonies. It means, rather, that they constantly bore testimony to Jesus Christ; in short, they constantly proclaimed the Gospel. That is what spells Satan’s defeat. Keep silent, and Satan wins.
(3) “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” You cannot defeat an opponent who is not only willing to die, but for whom death means winning (Phil. 1:21).
December 22 - Revelation 13
It turns out that Satan has two unholy beasts to assist him, one that comes out of the sea (Rev. 13:1–10), and the other out of the earth (Rev. 13:11–18). Together they constitute an unholy triumvirate that in some ways apes the Trinity.
Admittedly, many of the apocalyptic symbols in this chapter have been interpreted in mutually exclusive ways by different schools of thought. It is entirely beyond these brief meditations to defend a particular structure. In my view, however, these beasts represent recurring historical manifestations of evil—in the one case, evil in its guise as outright opposition against the people of God, and in the other, evil in its guise as religious deception. (It is not for nothing that the beast out of the earth is described later in this book as “the false prophet”: e.g., Rev. 19:20.) Satan deploys not only agents who overtly and viciously attack believers, but also agents whose mission it is to seduce and deceive, if it is possible, the very elect.
Observe one of the extraordinary elements in the description of the first beast. He has received a fatal wound, but the wound has been healed. This sounds incongruous: surely if the wound has been healed, it was not fatal, and if it was fatal then obviously it could not be healed. But this symbolism is meant to describe the repeated historical manifestations of this monster. He emerges in a Nero, in the Roman Emperor, in Innocent III, in a Hitler. In every case, the monster is cut down. Many people think that evil in its worst form has finally been destroyed. The thousand-year Reich lasts a decade and a half: surely this was the war to end all wars. Then the genocide starts again—in the Eastern block, in China, in Cambodia, in Rwanda. The beast receives a fatal wound, but always the beast comes back to life.
Note some of the symbols used to describe the false prophet. He looks like a lamb, but he speaks like a dragon (Rev. 13:11): this probably does not mean that he roars like a dragon and scares everyone off, but that he appears innocent, even though his speech is the speech of the dragon—the “great dragon” of Revelation 12:9, none other than Satan himself. This “lamb” turns out to be Satan’s mouthpiece. He performs miraculous signs and thereby deceives the inhabitants of the earth (Rev. 13:14). There is no suggestion that the signs are mere tricks; miraculous power does not necessarily attest divine power. Ultimately he uses the authority he derives from the first beast to constitute an exclusive identity for his own followers, excluding all others with severe economic sanctions (Rev. 13:16–17). Even little historical knowledge can remember manifestations of such deceitful coercion.