This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Revelation” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 26, 1994.

We are looking first of all tonight at Matthew chapter 8, and we are beginning at verse 23. This is Matthew 8, we are reading from verse 23. Let’s give our attention to the reading of God’s word. And when Jesus got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm in the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves, but he himself was asleep.

And they came to him and awoke him, saying, Save us, Lord, we are perishing. And he said to them, Why are you timid, you men of little faith? Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. And the men marveled, saying, What kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? And when he had come to the other side, into the country of the Gadarenes, two men, who were demoniacs or demon-possessed, met him as they were coming out of the tombs.

They were so exceedingly violent that no one could pass by that road. And behold, they cried out, saying, What do we have to do with you, son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? Now there was at a distance from them a herd of many swine feeding. And the demons began to entreat him, saying, If you are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.

And he said to them, Be gone. And they came out and went into the swine, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the waters. And the herdsmen fled and went away to the city and reported everything, including the incident of the demoniacs. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they entreated him to depart from their region.

Then turning over to Revelation chapter 13, and we will read from verse 1. And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore, and I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne, And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed, and the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?

And there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemy. and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. And it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.

And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes. If anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed.

Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints. Let’s pray together. Father, we are acquainted with the power of your Spirit and the blessed power of your Word, which is in fact the Word of your Spirit, or else we would not be here But Father, it may well be that such power as we know resides with you and in your word, is diminished in our view for various reasons. Therefore, O God, we pray that you will fill us with that knowledge of your power, and specifically that knowledge of the power of your word. Lord, may we be well acquainted with it, not just as we began our journey with you, but as we would continue that journey, realizing that it is by your word that we are sustained. Oh, help us, Lord, in our attitude, with respect to your word, that we might give ourselves to it as you have given that word to us. Our Father, may the power of your word be evident in our lives. This for the sake of your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.

In Matthew chapter 8, and you may want to compare the parallel passages in Mark 5 and in Luke chapter 8, Jesus is set for a confrontation with the raging storm that breaks forth over the sea, not first of all, and then subsequently, with the raging demoniacs on the land who come forth to him out of the tombs in the territory of the Gadarenes. Now, as we begin our message this evening, it is specifically the sequence of events that interests us. First of all, the mention of the sea. and then the event that transpires on the land, Jesus’ confrontation with respective powers that stand over against his person and mission. Now, we are not out of bounds.

When we see in the story, the first one here that we read this evening from Matthew 8, we are not out of bounds when we see in this story of the storm-tossed disciples a preview of the Church’s own future. Read the text with the Church in view. Better yet, Read the text with you as a part of the Church in view.

As the disciples follow Jesus, so also does the Church. As the disciples launch forth with Jesus upon the sea, so the Church launches forth in her mission. As the disciples face the storm upon the sea, so the Church faces the tumult that expresses itself in the rage of the peoples that are set upon overthrowing the Church in her effort.

And just as Jesus sleeps in the boat, as if his consciousness was somehow removed from the situation, so Jesus is not obviously present to the Church in her immediate situation. But Jesus is present, despite the outward appearance. Jesus is engaged, even in this scene, in the boat with the disciples, Jesus is engaged with them and for them despite outward appearances. And even in what appears to be his unconscious state, he is consciously nonetheless absorbed by his interest in and for the Church.

Truly, Christ’s Church will not be overcome by the raging waters that rise up now, as it were, in the peoples and nations that stand opposite to her in her efforts, nor by the raging of him who stands behind those nations, any more than the storm and the sea overcame the disciples that day on the Sea of Galilee two thousand years ago. Now, if the experience on the sea serves as something of a living parable concerning the evil that awaits the Church standing opposite her in the fulfillment of her mission, the next story, the story about the demoniacs, in its own way does the same.

This story is laden with the weight of religious impurity. The Gadarene territory is Gentile habitat. The demoniacs themselves are unclean, they are possessed of demons. The tombs suggest the very same thing, lending a sort of ghoulish quality to the story. And then, of course, there are the swine. We know that the swine are unclean, according to the Old Testament legislation.

Would it be that this story also, in its own way, forecasts the Church’s future in her confrontation with the fierce forces of religious uncleanness? The two stories, then, that we have here, back-to-back, moving from the sea to the land, set before us not only the threats to Jesus and his disciples, but also the threats that rise now for the Church, those who are savingly united to Jesus Christ. But why have I called your attention to these two stories in Matthew chapter 8?

Maybe you are ahead of me here. The pattern in the Gospel that we observe at this point is not unlike the pattern that we find in Revelation 13. Here in Revelation chapter 13, we peer behind the events that are set before us in Matthew 8. and see the grand ethical scheme at work in which the kingdom of heaven does battle with the kingdom of Satan and of the world. Revelation 13 opens with a seascape.

The great dragon, that is, the serpent of old, the devil and Satan, stands on the seashore, summoning his cohort the hideous beast that now rises out of the sea. But who, specifically, or what, is this beast that rises out of the sea? In order to answer that question, we may have to settle the matter of the place of origination with respect to this beast. And in this line establishing the point of contact between the story in Matthew and Revelation 13. Before we identify the beast, let’s settle the matter about the sea and what it is all about.

A clue as to what the sea is all about is found in Isaiah chapter 17 verses 12 and 13. Here you have an image presented to you out of the Isaiah prophecy in which the roaring of the sea is compared to the tumult of the nations. The roaring of the sea is compared to the tumult of the nations that stand in rebellion against the Lord. Now, there are many confirmations of this line of analogy within the scripture, that the sea and peoples are brought together.

You may remember one of Jesus’ parables, the parable of the dragnet, in which fish are taken out of the sea, those fish indicative of the saved, rescued from the great numbers in the world. You might also remember the stories about Jesus and the great catches of fish. How the disciples have labored without any success, and then at Jesus’ word they let down the nets and a great catch of fish is brought in. Again, the catch of fish speaking to us about those rescued from the world. In other words, the kingdom of heaven is gathering its citizens. The kingdom of heaven is gathering its citizens, its subjects, as it were, from the sea, the sea of the tumultuous nations which are in rebellion against the Lord.

And in keeping with the imagery of Revelation 13, this, the kingdom of heaven, does in a demonstration of power over the beast who is identified specifically with the sea. Still, it is revelation itself—not what we glean from Isaiah specifically, nor even from the Gospels themselves—that confirms our interpretation of the sea at this point. If you turn over to chapter 17 in Revelation, verse 15, you will see here the interpretation of the sea or the waters we have given confirmed. This is the angel, one of the angels, speaking to John. He said to me, ìThe waters which you saw where the harlots sit are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. The identification, therefore, of the sea is settled as we move from Isaiah to the Gospels to Revelation itself. But the sea is in some fashion related to the nations. And as the sea is in tumult, we are seeing in this tumult the tumult of the nations in rebellion against God.

This then being established, who then, or what, is the beast that is called forth from the sea, this specific agent of hell, this emissary of Satan. In order to identify the beast, it may be well for us to look at a passage in Daniel’s prophecy. I have in mind Daniel 7, verses 2 and following, where we have an account of Daniel’s great night vision. You will note in this chapter, and in the record of its vision, there is first of all recorded for us a stirring up of the sea, and this by the four winds. Then out of the sea comes the four beasts. These are identified for us there in the opening verses of Daniel chapter 7.

These beasts We are told later in Daniel 7, specifically verse 17, are four kings, and they are representative of four kingdoms that have been variously identified in the history of the interpretation of this prophecy. Some have identified the four kings and kingdoms in relationship to Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. That’s a fair interpretation and identification of those beasts. The succession of these kingdoms providing them the background for the appearance of Messiah, a figure that is very prominent in that seventh chapter of Daniel.

But you will note now, as we move on to chapter 13 in Revelation, that this Daniel prophecy undergoes a rather remarkable transformation, and that transformation is apparent at two points. First of all, there are not four beasts in Revelation, there is but one. And secondly, we have not in succession the lion, the bear, and the leopard, as in Daniel, and these related to three successive beasts, but rather we have in the one beast the reverse order set before us—the leopard, the bear, and the lion. So the imagery has been inverted along with the compression of the four beasts into one.

Now, what in the world is the intention of the Holy Spirit in transforming that older prophecy of Daniel along these lines. It is obvious to us that the Revelation passage is working off the Daniel passage, but it is equally clear to us that this Revelation prophecy now has undergone a transformation, and a transformation that sets up now for us the compression of before into the One, and the inversion of the characteristics that were attributed to the successive Beasts in Daniel, now to the One in Revelation.

We would have to say that the message that we have here in Revelation is a deliberate effort by the Holy Spirit to recast the Daniel prophecy. We would have to say that the message here of Revelation 13 is a deliberate effort by the Holy Spirit to recast the Daniel prophecy. Now, why would the Holy Spirit be interested in doing that? Well, he’s interested in doing that specifically because there are people out there that are persisting in the line of Daniel interpretation when the day of Daniel’s interpretation has been superseded.

We are no longer dealing with the empires of Assyria and Babylon and the Medo-Persians and the Greeks. But there are those who take up their Bibles and treat the Daniel prophecy as if it is still specifically along the lines that are outlined there in Daniel, applicable to our present circumstance. There has been a deliberate recasting of the Daniel prophecy by the Holy Spirit.

And this recasting takes us away from the particulars of succeeding world empires. Your interest now is not in a succession of empires, one giving way to another. Your concern is not reading your daily newspaper to see who’s in and who’s out, who’s up and who’s down. Who’s in power and who’s not?

From this passage in Revelation it becomes plain and clear that the Holy Spirit’s intention is to drive you away from that kind of approach to prophecy and biblical interpretation. So this deliberate effort on the part of the Holy Spirit takes us away from the particulars of succeeding world empires to a general composite picture of that demonic force that is at work in unbelieving culture and government. The beast, then, that rises out of the sea, the cohort of the dragon, is the spirit that holds the nations in its grip. This spirit possesses seemingly miraculous power, in that it mocks the risen Christ, giving evidence that it shares in the identity of Antichrist, receiving the fatal wound and then being healed, having died and then come to life. This spirit then seemingly possesses miraculous power, power that marks the risen Christ, Reviving even when it appears that it has received a fatal blow.

Note the progression of the description. I have in mind there verse 3. Now, do you understand what is being said by that third verse? It’s very important. Because you see, what biblical interpreters have done with that text is to try to identify some specific empire or some specific emperor or world leader who suffered a pair of deaths and then was resuscitated in some fashion. The most popular identification associated with this verse is the figure of Nero, who committed suicide in 1868, and then was reported to have revived later. Well, that’s not the intention of the Holy Spirit, so that you might identify this verse with a particular figure like Nero. No, not at all.

You see, one nation falls, another rises. One dies, another comes, but they are all of the same spirit. They are all of the same beast. So does it matter that Germany falls and Russia rises? They’re both cut from the same tree. The death of the one and the life of the other is the death and the life of the same entity.

And so it goes. That’s the nature of the beast. Just when you think it’s dead, it’s alive again. showing itself somewhere else in the world, as if by resurrection. You thought you had it killed. So one nation falls, another rises, one gives place to another, but it’s all the same thing. It’s the life of the same beast that is coming to expression.

Though it is not apparent to those who are riding the crest of power and importance, they are under the power of the beast, and they worship the dragon. and are made to worship the beast as well. They hardly perceive it so, but their boasts, their national and even racial arrogance are blasphemies against God and against Heaven.

Are you not getting a little tired of the arrogance that is expressed so regularly through the spirit of nationalism. And it’s not as if racism is disappearing from the face of the earth. Everyone’s talking about it, but it thrives. And it thrives not because nearly there is racial hatred, It is because there is racial arrogance. They hardly perceive it to be so, but their boasts, their national and racial arrogance, are blasphemies against God and against Heaven. They don’t acknowledge it, but they are intoxicated with power.

Our age is an age in which language and vocabulary about power has become the vocabulary of the time. And while we have all of the hand-wringing over rampant, unrestrained violence in the world. Are we not amazed at the hypocrisy of nations, governments, and enterprises within the world that are profiting off of violence? Our own nation, in this regard, is brought before our eyes. A nation that is exercised day after day in the media of all places over the issue of rampant violence, and yet that very media depends upon the portrayal and even the promotion of violence. It’s not enough for us to hear about the murders in California. We have to be shown the flood of blood. Why? Because we’ll be abhorred by it? We will be abhorred at the sight of it? Repulsed?

Though they do not admit it, they stand hypocritically, these who are in the grip of the spirit of the beast. They are the ones who are promoting violence, even as a philosophy of life. and they are particularly incapable, blind as they are, to perceive the true nature of the conflict in which they are chiefly involved. And in that conflict, they are set ultimately over against the Church of Jesus Christ. That is the true culture war that is going on.

Nevertheless, as you read through Revelation 13, the message is that the saints are secure. They are spoken of as those who already dwell in heaven. They are spoken of as those whose names are written from the foundation of the world in the Lamb’s Book of Life. These have the promises of God. while those in the service of the beast have the promise of captivity and execution.

As the beast of world power then raises its ugly form from the sea of the multitudes and nations of the earth, and this so as to overwhelm the church and destroy that church in a blast of fury. May we know that our Lord, though apparently distant, is close at hand, is intimately bound to us, guaranteeing our safe voyage and our success. Why are you so fearful, O ye men of little faith? Our Father, may it be with a text like Revelation 13 in hand, that we are enabled to see through the pretenses of world culture and government, and even perceive the hypocrisies in which those governments and cultures are involved. We know our God that the world is drawn on in its worship of the dragon and of the beast. There is the exaltation of power, and that is pursued even ruthlessly. There is the preoccupation with violence, even by those who say that they are appalled by it.

We also know, O And we are not naive when it comes to the matter of the Church’s place, for surely we are the object of the dragon’s scorn and the fury of the beast. But we know that as surely as our Savior was present with his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, he is present with us. We know as surely as he brought calm to the sea and tranquility to the souls of his disciples, so he preserves us that we shall not be overwhelmed. Help us therefore, O God, lest we be stalked by fear and even terrorized by it. Instead, O God, may we know that we belong to a faithful Savior who shall not abandon us.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.