"or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man." (Rev. 13:17-18)
Seeing the beast, my eyes wide open. I suppose when one sees God in His Perfection, he can't help but be awed and ends up standing with his mouth open. But with the beast, well, the longer you look, the more you see HE IS HUMAN. He is 6, not 7.
"I am a worm, and no man." (Ps. 22:6)
This was the Savior's cry on the Cross.
A person can see himself to be more than he really is. (That was, after all, what got the enemy in hot water in the first place: he was the first archangel saying "I will be like the Most High!")
Or, a person can feel less than his potential, as most individuals in depression would feel. The negative thoughts of "I just can't do it" or "I'm no good" or "Things will never change"...Really?
Jesus knew, down to His bones, what that felt like, as He hung on the Cross, alone. He'd felt abandoned by the closest relationships, torn apart and reversed in situations, battered physically and mentally. He's been made to feel like a worm.
"Here is wisdom." She cries, "Behold, the Man!"
What does Jesus do? Jesus, Who Himself was drowning in pain and needed to be rescued, does something another man did, recorded in an ancient historical account.
He'd been a wealthy man but found his material possessions swept away; then his children died; and his own body was ravaged by a painful disease. Initially, close friends were willing to come sit with him and just shed tears to share and ease his pain.
But then they too turned on and began accusing him! After days of this, you'd think he'd have exploded...BUT THEN HE PRAYED FOR THEM! And Jesus did that too. On the Cross, when the most natural thing would've been to hear, "God, kill those crummy no-gooders who put me up here, and get me down, ease my life please!"
JESUS' CRY WAS: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" And he prayed for his earthly mother Mary to receive a new earthly son John. Oh, can't forget the thieves on the crosses on either side of Him; they were extended the way to Heaven. And Jesus had told the mothers of Jerusalem not to cry for what was happening, but that there would be a greater lament to follow. ALL THIS WHILE JESUS WAS IN UNBEARABLE PAIN!
"Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man." (Luke 23:47)
Isn't that what I want God to do with my life: glorify Himself somehow? In fact, it rather gives me goosebumps to think that He might. But I know He has offered to do so, if I would be willing, just willing, to offer myself to Him. Like the woman at the well in Sychar, I think I'd throw down my pot and go running with glee. "He's going to use me! He's going to use me! He knows everything about me, and still He's going to use me! Hurry, you must meet Him too!"
What happened to those men in that first record? Well, "the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends; also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before." (Job 42:10)
His disease was cured; he ended up with several thousand sheep, camels, oxen, asses, ten beautiful children, and Job lived another 140 years after that.
