slouching towards Bethlehem

The Word for today:

Acts 19:21-41

mark this:  Acts 19:23-27

About that time there arose a great disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, gathered the craftsmen together and said, "Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence…

The kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ will topple strongholds:

For the weapons of our warfare are not human weapons, but are made powerful by God for tearing down strongholds.  We tear down arguments and every arrogant obstacle that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obey Christ.  (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

It will topple temples:

The Philistine leaders held a great festival, offering sacrifices and praising their god, Dagon. They said, "Our god has given us victory over our enemy Samson!" When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, "Our god has delivered our enemy to us! The one who killed so many of us is now in our power!" Half drunk by now, the people demanded, "Bring out Samson so he can perform for us!" So he was brought from the prison and made to stand at the center of the temple, between the two pillars supporting the roof. Samson said to the servant who was leading him by the hand, "Place my hands against the two pillars. I want to rest against them." The temple was completely filled with people. All the Philistine leaders were there, and there were about three thousand on the roof who were watching Samson and making fun of him. Then Samson prayed to the LORD, "Sovereign LORD, remember me again. O God, please strengthen me one more time so that I may pay back the Philistines for the loss of my eyes." Then Samson put his hands on the center pillars of the temple and pushed against them with all his might. "Let me die with the Philistines," he prayed. And the temple crashed down on the Philistine leaders and all the people. So he killed more people when he died than he had during his entire lifetime.  (Judges 16:23-30)

It will topple false gods:

When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.  (1 Samuel 5:1-4)

God will shake everything, so that only the things that cannot be shaken will stand:

‘For thus says the Lord of hosts; Yet once more I will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations’ (Haggai 2:6). 

The world has a vested interest in opposing Jesus.  Should he succeed, they stand to lose everything:

About that time there arose a great disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, gathered the craftsmen together and said, "Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence…

(Acts 19:23-27)

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As it was in the days of Samson, Daniel, and Paul--so it shall be at the end. 

The handwriting on their walls will tell them the time.  Their instincts will sense what their intellects won''t admit--that Jesus is the terminus of their enterprise.  As the hour approaches they will with desperate grip hold on to the things and thoughts they've made their gods.  They will not go gentle into their goodnight.

The death throes of this present age and the birth pangs of the age to come will happen simultaneously, as happened to Rachel on  the way to Bethlehem:

Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, for you have another son." As she breathed her last--for she was dying--she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.  So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). (Genesis 35:16-19)

Their own poetry foresees their demise, approaching Bethlehem via that same road:

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

One kingdom must die as the other is born.  Since neither death nor birth are attractive, things will get uglier and uglier as deliverance approaches.  The kings of this world--religion, government, media, commerce, self--will not voluntarily relinquish their idols or crowns.  They will have to be wrested from their hands by a Prince who will appear, to them, to be the absolute antithesis of Peace.

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(1)  "The Second Coming,"  W.B. Yeats