{"id":10172,"date":"2022-06-05T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-05T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-revelation-13\/"},"modified":"2022-04-29T14:19:30","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T19:19:30","slug":"devotional-on-revelation-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-revelation-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Revelation"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16397\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16397\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/P9259745.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16397\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/P9259745-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/P9259745-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/P9259745-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/P9259745-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/P9259745-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/P9259745.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16397\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Grand Canyon, AZ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>God\u2019s people doing what God\u2019s people do<\/p>\n<p>Revelation 13: Meanwhile, God\u2019s holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.<\/p>\n<p>As I struggle my way through symbolism that has challenged Bible scholars across the centuries it\u2019s nice to find some firm footing, if for just a moment. I can\u2019t identify the Beast or the Beast\u2019s puppet or solve the 666 riddle. Since John writes to specific congregations in a specific place and time I don\u2019t buy into any interpretation that can only be grasped 2000 years in the future, so the 666 reference, in particular has to make sense historically, but again, I\u2019m not the go to guy for this kind of stuff. What I do like is the momentary firm footing of \u201cMeanwhile, God\u2019s holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.\u201d Their situation doesn\u2019t sound very good. There\u2019s some kind of leopard-bear-lion Beast dominating the whole world. This Beast hates the Church and intends to destroy it. Life is hard under this persecution (is it Rome or some future event or both?) and it appears that the Church will be crushed. God\u2019s people, though, stand firm. In spite of prison and the sword their passion for Christ empowers them. In the face of this crisis of (literally) Biblical proportions they \u201cstand their ground.\u201d That\u2019s exactly what God\u2019s people do. It\u2019s not that we travel easy roads, smelling roses all the way. Sometimes we take some hits that are anything but easy. We don\u2019t like it and we do all we can to avoid it, but in the end, whatever comes we passionately and faithfully stand for God. Even as I have a hard time getting the rest of this passage into focus, my view of this truth is 20\/20.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: The Lord\u2019s people have staying power even in impossible situations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God\u2019s people doing what God\u2019s people do Revelation 13: Meanwhile, God\u2019s holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground. As I struggle my way through symbolism that has challenged Bible scholars across the centuries it\u2019s nice to find some firm footing, if for just a moment. I can\u2019t identify the Beast or the Beast\u2019s puppet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1528,1428],"tags":[1380,192,342,744,806,1115],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10172"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16399,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10172\/revisions\/16399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}