The beast now
The super industrial age and the time of the beast - 18 August 2008 (John)
Back in the early nineties I imagined a time when everything would start rapidly changing. A time preceding the great tribulation when the “normal” state of things would start to morph into “end times”. Since 911 I’ve wondered a number of times if that time is now. But then, wait a minute, what was my concept of “normal” anyway?
Recently I’ve been reviewing a book-in-progress by Peter Hoover where towards the end of it he talks about “the takeover”. About how the western system and its technology came to country after country and how its uniform “Hollywood” culture came with it. ”The system”, with its urbanization, licenses, passports, tax numbers, cars, TV, cell phones, new gender roles, consumerism, bureaucracy, and so on. It made me stop and take a bigger view. It made me wonder when the time of rapid change really did start? The industrial revolution? The Renaissance? Certainly it’s clear that the power of man, held back since the confusion of languages at Babel, has now risen up again like never before. How much has the world changed in even just the last 100 years, and what has it changed into? For the rich it is shiny and glamorous, but for the slave classes (conveniently out of the way in third world countries) it is hell on earth. That I thought the early 90’s were the normal times only shows the limited perspective of someone born into our super industrial society, well into the space race, the arms race and the age of jet travel. Maybe things have sped up since 911, and maybe they will speed up even further at some point, but when did the beast of Revelation 13 really begin to rise out of the sea?
In Peter’s book he also talks about an old Anabaptist view of end times. Persecuted by Catholics and the Reformers alike, it’s not surprising that they believed they were in end times. However there was more to their view than that. They believed that end times extended all the way from the death of Christ to his return and that in every generation there was a beast, an anti-Christ and a false prophet. Silly? I don’t think so. There may be a final and most literal fulfillment of prophecy, but perhaps the sheer genius of God in the symbolism of Revelation is that it speaks to all believers experiencing their own end times. The early church persecuted by Rome, the early Protestants persecuted by Catholicism, the Anabaptists persecuted by Catholics and Protestants, Christians in communist Russia, China, etc. Was Stalin the Anti-Christ, was Mao Tse Tung? Perhaps not the final anti-Christ, but they were anti-Christ’s; archetypal forerunners of the final and most complete fulfillment of the prophetic pattern.
And how does the rise of technology fit into all this? Back in the early days of being a Christian I remember walking through the city, the noise and fumes of cars and busses all around me, the glass buildings, the endless concrete, and thinking “Lord what about all this?”. By which I was asking whether he was the inspirer of modern technology, as well as the creator of the natural world. Many Christians say so, or imply that this is the case, pointing out the many inventors who have been “Christians”. But wait a minute, almost everyone claimed to be a Christian of some sort in Renaissance and post renaissance Europe. When asking God about technology at that moment early in my Christian walk, I sensed in my heart an answer from the Holy Spirit. No. Post industrial revolution technology is a perversion of the creation. It doesn't fit with the peace of God at all, all this rushing of dead metal and plastic. After all, why would God create something so fundamentally out of kilter with his perfect creation. Something that destroys and damages the natural world; that consumes it and threatens to take it over. Is it God’s will to increase the power of fallen man? Nowadays, as I look around me and see that man is utterly in love with technology, such that even the solution to its dire problems can only be imagined as “green technology”, I increasingly understand in my very soul that all of this is from the devil. Satan is building his kingdom on earth, the beast with iron teeth and nails of brass1, which devours, breaks in pieces and tramples all things. It tramples nature, society, culture, families, and most of all the love of God in the hearts of men and woman.
For some Christians, looking at things this way could be kind of shocking. Our “beautiful” high tech world the beast, it can’t be. Surely I am just some deranged nutter with a weird Luddite2 agenda. We are so used to a Christianity that is right in among all the new wonders, and promoting it like crazy. After all, doesn’t it give us great tools for the gospel? (You’re reading this online right). Well, I’m not a Luddite, at least in that I’m not advocating that we either try to destroy technology or escape every vestige of it. The beast will rise up and we can’t stop that. Nor should we be afraid to use technology where it makes sense. The Romans built roads to connect the commercial centers of its Empire – Christians used them to preach the gospel. You could have argued that the roads were those of the beast, and walked only across fields and forests, but that would have been plain silly. I’m not against using the enemy’s technology to communicate the truth - the information super-highway, as the Internet is sometimes called, is just another road in the empire for the gospel to travel down. But I do believe we need to watch our hearts closely so that we are not looking to technology but looking to God. The Apostle Thomas preached the gospel all the way to India, and he didn’t even have a laptop. However, Revelation 13:16-17 says that there will come a day when we will not even be able to buy and sell unless we have the mark of the beast. When that day comes we will have to make a decision. We will either turn away from God or be cut off from the empire of the beast completely. This will be no easy choice. Who will feed us, who will clothe us, if the beast no longer will? Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we will be compelled to total reliance on God alone. We will go down the path of so many persecuted Christians fleeing from their empire, knowing both loss of everything and the wonderful gain of complete spiritual separation from the beast. And we really need that separation. We say to ourselves that we’d never take the mark of the beast, but how close have we come taking it already? Do you realise that we can’t travel or work or sell farm produce, or even be born or die, without a number of some kind in the system. The mark, without which no one will be able to buy or sell, is only the last and final enslavement, the capstone in the whole process of controlling our lives from the cradle to the grave.
I carry the awareness of end times with me most of the time - do you? Next time you go out, look around you – look at all the people driving by in their cars, or sitting in bars laughing, drinking, soaking up sin. Watch mankind descending into New Age idolatry as their minds are re-programmed by and endless stream of TV. They are blind, they have no idea that they are about to drive off a cliff. Technology is getting better and better, but the world and society is getting worse and worse. To me this feels like the twighlight period, like the gap in time between the gas gauge hitting empty and the engine stopping. As long as you don’t look at the guage it all seems normal, you can even put your foot down and accelerate for a while. As we take the children to sport, go to work, buy our “made in China” products and put fuel in our cars, are we aware of the kind of world we are living in, or have we been deceived by the great deception? Have we been drawn into the “strong delusion” spoken of in II Thessalonians 2 that will deceive and condemn all those who do not believe the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness? It’s no wonder the church in the west is so utterly spiritually dead, disease ridden and lukewarm. Many Christians already have taken the mark of the beast, at least in terms of their heart's choice to love the beast and all its ways. But, I hope you will be one of those who opens the door of your heart to Christ as he stands outside the church knocking on the hearts of individuals to get in (Revelation 3:20).