Do Not Worship Power
Speaker Notes
1 Corinthians 2:6-12 (NIV)
God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
Revelation 13:11-14:5
The Beast out of the Earth
11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. 14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
The Lamb and the 144,000
14 Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. 3 And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4 These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among mankind and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. 5 No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.
A reading from Theo-Logic, Vol. 3: The Spirit of Truth by Hans Urs von Balthasar, pg. 441-442:
“THE SPIRIT SEARCHES THE DEPTHS OF GOD”
“ This statement (1 Cor 2:10) is astonishing, for the Spirit himself is God. If he searches himself, he must plunge into his own depths and know that he who is love owes his existence to love. Primarily (principaliter) he owes his existence to the love of this unfathomable origin who bears the name of Father. Then to the love of the Beloved, whose delight is in his grateful love for the origin whom he loves with no less love. In searching these depths, the Spirit acts as the witness and the fruit of this reciprocal love: but he is not an observer here: he himself is this love. No wonder, then, that this unimaginable mystery occupies him for a whole eternity – and occupies us, too, who “have received … the Spirit which is from God” (1 Cor 2:12). For if love, as such, is genuine, it has no other ground but itself; this love that has its source in the Father is, initially, the Father himself (since, as Father, he is nothing other than the pure surrender of himself; the Father does not “have” love, he “is” love); this being so, it is impossible to discover the ground of this groundless love.
…
The Spirit searches the depths of this love but does not discover in it any “ground” that would give us a key for our conceptualizing of it.
It is the mystery of love , however, that – itself groundless – grounds everything else. In its invisible light everything else becomes manifest and intelligible. To use a word from the Old Covenant, it becomes “wisdom”.”
David is a Theologian and Ethicist.