June 26 ▪ Day 177

Scripture Readings

Psalms 54:4
Lamentations 3–5
Revelation 13–14
Proverbs 27

Verse Focus (Psalms 54:4)

Surely God is my help;
     the LORD is the one who sustains me.

Meditation

Our verse focus today is another encouraging Scripture. Psalms 54:4 says, in the NIV, “Surely God is my help; the LORD is the one who sustains me.” The ESV translation is nice, too, saying, “Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.”

Who better to give you help than the one who gives you life in the first place? God created us; God gives us life and breath. God upholds us by His mighty right hand.

Earlier today I was meditating on Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” In the context of the passage, this verse speaks of being able to be content whether you have plenty or whether you are in want. No matter the circumstances, God gives us the strength to face those circumstances with joy, trust, and contentment, using the strength we get from Him. This, to me, is exactly what today’s verse is telling us, too.

God is my help. Surely, God is my help. Certainly. Absolutely. Without doubt. God — the Creator of the Universe! — is my help. Not just help, but my help. This is personal, very personal. Intimate. The help is what I need — not what any believer might need, but what I need specifically. That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? What an awesome God we have!

Father God, thank you that we can always turn to you for help. Thank you for your strength. Thank you for wisdom and guidance. Thank you for your love. May we shine with your brightness this day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Lamentations 3 is my favorite of all the different laments included in this short book. It is three times the length of the other songs, containing 66 verses instead of 22. It is still an acrostic poem, but each stanza consists of three verses. There are 22 stanzas for the 22 letters of the alphabet. Each of the three verses in the stanza starts with the same letter. Successive stanzas advance to a new letter in the alphabet. In a peculiarity unique to this chapter, the poem reverses the standard order of the 16th and 17th letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

In chapters 1 and 2, the speaker was a woman who personified Zion. Here in chapter 3, the speaker is an individual believer, rather than a nation. The man is not identified, although some will tell you that this is Jeremiah. I don’t think it matters who the speaker is — we read of his suffering and identify with his struggle to continue having faith. I especially love verses 19 through 26. I will quote them for you below, in the NIV, since that was the translation I read when I first came to love these verses.

¹⁹I remember my affliction and my wandering,
     the bitterness and the gall.
²⁰I well remember them,
     and my soul is downcast within me.
²¹Yet this I call to mind
     and therefore I have hope:
²²Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
     for his compassions never fail.
²³They are new every morning;
     great is your faithfulness.
²⁴I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
     therefore I will wait for him.”
²⁵The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
     to the one who seeks him;
²⁶it is good to wait quietly
     for the salvation of the LORD.

This passage has influenced my prayers and my thinking. I often think of how God’s mercies are fresh every morning. I’m so grateful that — in many ways — each new day starts with a clean slate.

As I read Lamentations 3 anew today, I notice that several of the verses sound Messianic, such as verse 15 and verse 30. But of course Christ is our Suffering Servant, and one of the things Scripture teaches us is how the righteous person patiently endures affliction.

Chapter 4 begins a new lament, but this time the focus is on what happened when Jerusalem was besieged. Verse 6 comments on how protracted their punishment is. “The punishment of the daughter of my people surpassed the penalty of Sodom, Which was overthrown in an instant with no hand laid on it.”

Not only is their suffering prolonged, but they face a crueler death than those who died in battle. Verse 9 speaks of the people starving because of the siege. “Better for those pierced by the sword than for those pierced by hunger, Better for those who bleed from wounds than for those who lack food.” Verse 10 always strikes me with horror. “The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children!”

The lament ends with a note of hope, as it speaks of the end of exile — judgment will soon come for Israel’s neighbors.

The final song in Lamentations is a bit different than the others. Although chapter 5 also has 22 verses, it is not an acrostic poem. It is also more of a community prayer than a lament. The people pray for God to remember them. Verse 7 says, “Our ancestors, who sinned, are no more; but now we bear their guilt.” The people suffer. Food is scarce. Princes have been killed. Elders are disrespected. Women are raped; children stagger under heavy loads.

Yet the people recognize God’s sovereignty. Verse 19 says, “But you, LORD, are enthroned forever; your throne stands from age to age.” They plea for restoration. Verse 21 cries, “Bring us back to you, LORD, that we may return: renew our days as of old.”

Revelation 13 continues the events that occur when the seventh trumpet is blown. After learning, yesterday, about the two witnesses, the woman, and the dragon, today in chapter 13 we learn about two beasts. The first beast is described as having “ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name (v. 1).” It is also described in terms of different animals — a leopard, a bear, and a lion. The beast gets its authority from the dragon (Satan). One of the heads has a “mortal wound (v. 3)” that somehow gets healed. The dragon and the beast are worshiped. The beast will have authority for 42 months (three and a half years). And the beast is “allowed (v. 7)” to wage war on the saints, and even to conquer them. The Scripture tells us in verse 8, “All who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”

Verse 10 concludes the description of the first beast with a warning. “Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.”

The second beast supports the first beast and causes the people to continue worshiping the first beast. Verse 11 describes it as having “two horns like a lamb;” it also speaks “like a dragon.” The second beast performs “great signs (v. 13),” deceiving all those who dwell on earth (v. 14). All people are marked on the right hand or the forehead and must use this mark in order to buy or sell goods. The mark is the name of the beast, as well as the number of its name. Verse 18 concludes the chapter, saying, “This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man [or of humanity]. That number is 666.”

So the first beast is strongly reminiscent of the end-time prophecy in Daniel 7:2-28, which describes four beasts, three of which are the lion, bear, and leopard. The fourth beast in Daniel does not appear like any particular animal, but it is described as having ten horns. Later in the book of Revelation, in chapter 17, the beast is somewhat explained. Some of these clues point to the Roman Empire. Thus many believe the first beast symbolizes the Roman Empire. The heads represent different emperors, and the blasphemous names are the divine titles those emperors assumed.

However, if you recall from our earlier studies of prophecy in the Old Testament, most prophecies have more than one fulfillment. You might have an immediate fulfillment, as well as a Messianic fulfillment, and possibly future end-time fulfillments as well. The prophecy here is Revelation is likely similar in that, just as the people and the objects can symbolize more than one thing, so also the prophecy itself can refer to more than one set of events. So it is very possible that the Roman Empire was the primary fulfillment of this prophecy in New Testament times, and there may have been fulfillments in other periods of history, too. We may be seeing a fulfillment in today’s current events, but it is also possible that an end-time fulfillment is yet to come. Of course this makes interpretation very difficult, but it also may explain why there are so many divergent theories.

One thing I want to point out, however, is the language used to describe the authority and powers of the first beast. “It was allowed (v. 7)” says the ESV — or “it was given,” says the NIV. The wording is careful to remind readers that the beast’s actions are being permitted by God the Father; He is still the one in control.

Note also how those who are saved have had their salvation planned from before the foundation of the world (v. 8)! I love the confidence and the assurance that this verse gives to believers.

In a couple of references later in the book of Revelation, the second beast is also called the “false prophet” (Revelation 16:13; Revelation 19:20). The second beast does everything to encourage worship of the first beast and the dragon. Some see a fulfillment of this prophecy in how the Roman Empire forced Christians either to worship the emperor and his image or suffer martyrdom.

Many of you will have heard the theory about the hidden “666” inside UPC bar codes. This was an end-time interpretation that came up in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There have been several books written on the topic, and you can still find articles all over the Internet. Do the bar codes really have a the number 666 embedded in them? To a computer, no, they don’t. Technically, they don’t. But the codes used as separators to mark the beginning, middle, and end of a bar code look to human eyes to be exactly the same as the code for a number 6. So people are all hyped up about “the mark of the beast” that is now a ubiquitous part of commerce.

Regardless of what you think about bar codes, we are getting closer and closer to a society where people might get chips embedded in their bodies for identification and banking. We already use such chips in phones and in credit cards. Is it so far-fetched to think that it might be deemed simpler to have such chips directly embedded in people? Maybe it starts out having to do with medical information. Or national identity. If we can see technology heading in this direction, does that tell us that we really are in the end times? That the false prophet is already here? Or is this merely one of the fulfillments of this passage in Revelation?

Revelation chapter 14 speaks about the Lamb and the 144,000. This is presumably the same 144,000 as in chapter 7, although not everyone agrees. Many people believe that the 144,000 are Christians, or, at the very least, Messianic Jews. These 144,000 are noted for being pure and were redeemed as “firstfruits” for God and the Lamb (v. 4). They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They sing a “new song” that only they themselves are able to learn (v. 3).

Verse 4 speaks of the 144,000 as being virgins; they are “not defiled with women.” Again, whether or not this means that the 144,000 are literally all men, and also virgins (in its understanding with regard to sexual relationships) is undecided. Many interpret the virginity as referring to people who have never worshiped idols.

Of course, whether or not the 144,000 is itself a literal or a symbolic number is something that interpreters debate. The number 12 is seen to symbolize totality (just like the number seven signifies completeness). Squaring the number 12 and then multiplying it by 1,000 is seen as a way of emphasizing the perfection and totality of the number of believers — it is not a literal count, but should represent all of God’s people throughout history. Others disagree and believe that there will literally be 144,000 descendants of Jacob who will have a special role during the end times.

Three angels fly overhead with different message. The first declares the gospel, exhorting people to fear and worship God, because the hour of judgment has come. The second angel proclaims the fall of Babylon the great. The third angel warns that anyone who worships the beast and his image and who gets the mark on his hand or forehead will drink “the wine of God’s wrath (v. 10)” — they will suffer endless torment and have no rest.

Verse 12 concludes the discussion of the second beast, repeating the warning offered after the description of the first beast. “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.”

The remainder of chapter 14 speaks of the harvest of earth, which is “fully ripe (v. 15).” The one who begins the harvest is described like “a son of man (v. 14),” but angels also participate in the harvest. There are two different reapings — the first, done by the one like a son of man who sits on a cloud, and the second, done by an angel who reaps the grapes for “the great winepress of the wrath of God (v. 19).” When the winepress is trodden outside the city, blood flows out of the press as high as a horse’s bridle for about 180 miles (v. 20).

These two reapings appear to be the separation of the sheep and the goats that Jesus spoke about. The one like a son of man is presumably Jesus; he gathers his saints to himself. But then an angel gathers those deserving of God’s wrath — and the blood spilled seems endless.

Apparently, however, the blood is not actually endless — at least, if you interpret these as literal numbers. I found someone on the Internet who had done math calculations based on the volume of blood described in Revelation versus the average volume of blood in a human being, and he came up with anywhere from 15,000 to 30,000 bodies. Of course he was assuming that the 1,600 stadia was the diameter of a circle radiating from the winepress — I’d argue that it was more likely the radius, and so the number of bodies should be higher. Still, even if you double the number he got and say 60,000 bodies, it seems like a pretty small number if we’re talking about the harvest of the entire earth — so that makes me lean towards another interpretation of this vision.

It did make me start wondering about how far the eye can see, though. How did John see the distance of the blood? So I did some more googling. Turns out, if you’re on flat land, the farthest the eye can see is about three miles. On the other hand, if you’re on the top of Mount Everest, you would be able to see about 211 miles in any direction — giving a view of approximately 140,000 square miles, roughly the size of Montana.

Now the size of Montana compared to the size of the United States and the world is pretty small (I figure 180 miles is close enough to 211 miles that we can use it as a rough guestimate of the spread of blood from the winepress). But if you think of being on earth… you couldn’t possibly see far enough to see the distance of all that blood. Even at a high elevation, it would be blood as far as the eye could see. And that image gets back again to the idea of the blood spilled during the reaping as an endless amount. A horror that we cannot fully comprehend.

Proverbs 27 contains a number of proverbs that speak about relationships, and how we help or hurt one another. Verse 17 is famous! “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” We become better individuals through our relationships with other people, although it is often the friction of those relationships that makes us grow. Verses 5 and 6 also have interesting things to say about our relationships.

But the verse that I’d like to look at today is verse 9. As it is translated in the NIV of 1984, “Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel.” We value our friends for many reasons. Loyalty and trustworthiness are fairly high on the list. A sense of humor, and the ability to make one laugh are some of things I treasure. And, of course, there’s the simple pleasure of your friend’s company.

But here Scripture is telling us that the pleasantness of your friend — in other words, the happiness and satisfaction you get from your friend — comes from his or her ability to give you advice. To listen. To be wise. To add perspective. To help you sort out your life problems. To encourage you. To be sincere in desiring the best for you.

It’s actually a pretty amazing definition of a friend! Not only do I want friends like that, it also makes me want to be a friend like that.

Father God, thank you for this proverb’s look at friendship. Help me to be the kind of friend who listens carefully and closely, and who is able to give wise counsel. Again, I thank you for your Scripture. I’m so grateful that your mercies are new every morning. I don’t have to be defined by my past mistakes. Thank you for your compassion and your steadfast love. Continue to help us understand Revelation and know how we should respond. In Jesus’ name, Amen.