Revelation
Team Lamb

Throughout Revelation, there are key interludes that interrupt the narrative
and provide insights into true reality. In Revelation 14, we encounter one such interlude that unveils a series of messages given by three angels. These messages serve as an encouragement for us to align ourselves with Team Lamb in the cosmic battle against Team Dragon.

However, to fight like a Lamb requires us to resist Satan’s apathy and embrace a lifestyle reflective of Jesus. To do this, we practice witnessing, enduring, and suffering.

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

If you have a Bible, uh, we’re gonna look at Revelation chapter 14, uh, so as you know, or most of you know, we’ve been kind of journeying through the book of Revelation, uh, and so we’re almost about, I think we’re like halfway through with it, uh, and our hope and our prayer is that you actually get something out of Revelation, the book that’s It’s been abused and misused and avoided in a lot of church context, but, uh, where we see, uh, Revelation active the most is that it’s really for our discipleship today, that it’s not about, um, trying to figure out like who’s who and about the future and these secret codes and keys and all of that, but really it’s good news for the followers of Jesus that it was written to at the time, but also for us today.

Uh, and so we’re going to look at, uh, Revelation 14. This morning, um, while you’re turning there, I’m going to go ahead and just pray over, uh, the Word and pray over us, and then we will dive in. So let’s pray.

God, we welcome you, uh, this morning. We bring you into this space, um, with open arms. We just, we recognize that you’re here, but we turn our attention to you now in this moment. Um, and as we read, uh, from your Word, um, I just pray that we would, above all, be comforted. That we would be encouraged, um, that we would see, uh, your hand moving throughout all of human history, but also in our lives.

And that, um, we would find, um, ways for us to, to spread the hope that we get from this book with those around us as we leave this morning. Uh, we pray all this in your name. Amen. Well, John is telling us a story, uh, about human history, about, uh, everything that’s been going on since the time that we’ve been on the earth and about where we’re headed.

It’s about the origin of evil. It’s about the origin of good. It’s about, uh, where suffering comes from. It’s about where hope comes from. It’s about, uh, what we do in the midst of pain. And ultimately it’s about how the story ends. And that’s what revelation is, is it’s a story and that’s how we’ve been presenting it.

That’s how we’ve been reading it. Uh, every week we’ve kinda been taking you through, uh, different parts of the story so that you can see, uh, the story that God is telling and then hopefully see your role in the story as well. But, sprinkled throughout Revelation, there are also, uh, interludes. And what these do is they break the flow of the narrative.

And so if you’re reading Revelation and you are confused, which you should be, probably. If you read Revelation and you’re not confused, that’s weird. Uh, but if you read it and it feels like you’re kinda… But taken back, like something doesn’t make any sense, it’s likely that you’re reading an interlude.

And scholars debate how many of these there are, uh, between eight to ten in the whole book of Revelation. But here’s the point of the interludes, right? The interludes are there to bring you out of the story and show you what’s going on behind the scenes. So the interludes are there to make you see that not only is there something, there’s judgment happening, and God is on the throne, and all sorts of weird, crazy things are going on, but the interlude is like breaking the fourth wall.

But not only breaking the fourth wall, it’s like showing you, like, another dimension. It’s like Lord of the Rings. Like, we’re racking up Lord of the Rings references. All series. There we go. When you put on the ring in the movies and Frodo goes invisible, you guys have seen the movies? Is it just me? All right, this is nerdy.

Okay. Just the movies. When Frodo puts on the ring, he’s not just going invisible, he’s seeing the spiritual realm. He’s seeing everything that’s happening around him that most people can’t see in the physical world. It’s like a higher dimension of reality, and that’s kind of what these interludes are doing.

They’re opening the curtain, they’re peeling back the curtain to show us… Here’s how the story ends, but then also here’s what’s actually going on behind the scenes. And this morning, we’re going to look at one really important interlude, and that is, that’s Revelation 14. And it’s centered around three angels with three messages.

And so if you’re really type A and you kind of want to know where we’re going, we’re just going to go through those three messages and then call it a day. But here’s, here’s the, here’s the underlying principle. Here’s what Revelation is trying to show you behind the scenes. By the way, this is what Revelation does.

Like, it is about trying to figure out what’s going on behind the scenes, but there’s no like, Guesswork, there’s no like deciphering. It’s like it’s revelation saying you want to know what’s happening. I’m gonna tell you what’s happening Here’s what’s happening. And so as we look at revelation 14, here’s here’s the message that revelation 14 is telling us And really the message that revelation as a whole is telling us is that we are in a battle That’s already been won That’s I mean, that’s what that’s what the entire book is about is that everything every moment of every day There’s something happening around us.

We don’t always See it, we’re not always aware of it. But there are these cosmic forces, Paul in the New Testament calls them powers and principalities, and I know that’s really weird to us, but John is saying this is the most real thing about the human experience, is that everything that we do, every decision we make has a spiritual element to it, and there’s a war happening all around us.

And it seems like the bad guys are winning. But the truth is, is that God is never not on the throne. That’s what Revelation’s about. So that’s the whole point. I mean, that’s the end of the message. Like, that’s the whole thing. We’re just gonna work through what that actually means for the rest of our time today.

But the key is that with that reality, that should actually impact and affect how we live. That should affect the decisions that we make, not just the way that we read Revelation and believe the things that we believe about God, but actually the choices that we make, how we interact with other people.

How we see ourselves before God, how we endure hardship and suffering, and then how we ultimately love our friends, our neighbors, and our enemies. So before we actually look at Revelation 14, I want to take a moment because we haven’t had a chance to do this yet. Um, there’s a lot of weird things in Revelation, right?

There’s a lot of, like, symbols and imagery and people and dragons and women and all sorts of things. So, uh, what I want to do is, well, there’s actually one woman. We’ll get there. Anyways. She’s not crazy. She’s on the good side. Here’s what we’re going to do. I want to give you so if it’s a battle, right? If all of our relations pointing to a battle, I want to explain the two sides of the battle.

What are the what are the two sides? Uh, there’s two opposing forces, and we know that it’s not like yin and yang, it’s not equal forces opposing each other, it’s God is ultimately sovereign and overpowering the bad guys, but the bad guys are still operating in the world today, and it’s really confusing and it’s weird, um, but I would, I just want to break down, here’s some of the symbols that you’re going to see in our passage, but also in the book as a whole.

So on one side, we have the bad guys, these are, we’re calling these guys Team Dragon. First on Team Dragon, we have Babylon. Now I’m not going to spend a lot of time here because, uh, we’re going to look actually at Team Babylon as a whole next week. Uh, or Team Dragon as a whole next week. But Babylon is on Team Dragon’s side.

If you remember our series in Daniel, we did it about a year and a half ago. We talked a lot about Babylon. Babylon is, was a nation that violently oppressed, uh, the people of Israel in the Old Testament. But Babylon is used as a code word to describe any system, uh, any cultural idea that is opposed to the kingdom of God.

It’s a, it’s an empire, it’s a nation, uh, or multiple nations marked by power, by militarism, by idolatry, by violence, by aggression, and by exploitation. Now as we’re reading Revelation, as, uh, we, we want to read it how people would have read it at the time. Uh, if, if you were a first century Jewish person or a first century Christian reading this, you would recognize that when John writes about Babylon, he’s talking about Rome.

Because a lot of these Christians are living in Rome, it’s an oppressive country that’s persecuting them. Uh, Babylon does not actually mean Babylon. Babylon means Rome. Where for our day, Babylon is any system or any culture that’s opposed to the way of Jesus. Next on Team Dragon, we have The Dragon. Uh, The Dragon, there’s, if you ever read Revelation, you’ll eventually come to a part where it talks about a dragon, and, and And we don’t believe that’s a literal dragon.

We don’t, I mean, there’s symbols and metaphor, and it’s, we talked about this week one, you can go back and listen to that, but we want to read Revelation literarily, meaning we, we think it’s literal, but we, we think it’s heavily symbolic, right? And so the dragon ultimately represents Satan. The dragon is the active enemy of God and his people.

From the beginning of time, he’s been active. And when you read from Genesis, right, he’s the serpent that tempts Eve to eat the, to eat the fruit. Uh, he tempts, uh, Cain to, to kill his brother Abel, and he’s been moving. He even tempts God himself, Jesus, in Matthew chapter 4. What Revelation is doing is he’s saying, this is who the dragon really is.

Satan is like a dragon. He’s this huge beast. He’s the ultimate agent of evil. He’s the one that’s been working all these evil things behind the scenes to keep the people of God from actually fulfilling their purpose and to keep other people from joining the family of God. That’s the dragon. He’s the ultimate antagonist to God.

And then we have the beasts. Again, people get weird about the beasts. Here’s what the beasts are. The beasts represent, um, rulers and political powers, political and religious powers that do the will of the dragon. And so a lot of damage, I think, harm has been done in the past about trying to figure out, like, the point of revelation is not for us to figure out who is a beast and who’s not a beast.

Uh, the point of the, of the beast is to figure out, like, who, who’s, Who are the people that have given themselves over to Team Dragon? Uh, and, and how are they oppressing the people of God? Again, more on the, Trey’s gonna unpack everything that I’m confusing you with now next week. So, come back again. Um, there are two beasts.

There’s the beast of the sea, which represents political power. And there’s the beast of the earth, which represents religious power. So again, the point of the beast is just to pull the people of God away from him, and to keep people from, uh, God himself. And then lastly, you have the famous, uh, 666. Uh, 666, Again, I’m not gonna unpack this, but ultimately, 666, the dreaded, I guess, trio of numbers represents the anti god powers that are at play in the world, right?

So it’s not a specific person, um, but it’s actually represents all people and tyrants and rulers who pledged themselves to the beast. So in the Bible, seven is a number of perfection. Um, and so if you have six, that’s one below perfection and three is also a number of perfection. So I don’t want to get into weird numerology, but three sixes is like the ultimate number of imperfection.

So six, six, six, which just represents, um, anybody who’s opposed to the people of God, uh, in, in John’s days, he’s reading this. Um, they would have recognized that as Nero, the, the famous emperor that’s actually literally killing and murdering Christians as they’re reading this. They would have attributed 666 to Nero.

Um, but again, John’s point in all of this is not to freak us out or to scare us, it’s actually to give us hope. Because again, we are in a battle, but the battle has already been won. So that’s Team Dragon. Now let’s look at Team Lamb. This is the good side. This is the good guys. This is, there’s, this is who we’re going to focus on today and this is who hopefully we align ourselves with as we leave this place.

So first on team lamb we have god. Pretty obvious. Uh, God is represented by a lion, usually. When you read the book of Revelation, if you come across a lion, typically it’s referring to God the Father. Uh, he’s the sovereign and true ruler over all of history. Uh, and he’s been orchestrating all these events, everything that we’ve been talking about, suffering and everything that’s been happening, good and bad, orchestrating them, uh, for his own glory and for our own good, and ultimately moving them so that, At the end of all of this, we get to the new creation, to heaven on earth, to everything that we’ve wanted in life.

God has been taking the good and the bad. So not even Team Dragon has power over the bad. God actually has ultimate power over the bad because he can use what Satan does and orchestrate it for his own good. And he’s already defeated the dragon. The dragon has been defeated. Babylon is going to fall. The beasts are done for.

This is God’s role in the story. And next we have the lamb. The Lamb represents Jesus. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. We looked at Revelation 4. Uh, Jesus is the, the Lamb, the sovereign ruler that is, uh, over the three, He’s the, He’s the, in the center of the throne room. He’s the ruler. He’s seated on the throne.

He’s the ultimate victor over sin, Satan, and death. He’s the ultimate king. He’s the one that’s gonna judge the wicked, not Nero. He’s the one that’s gonna be the savior of all humanity, not Babylon. That’s John’s point in talking about Jesus as a lamb. Next we have the seven spirits. Uh, these represent the Holy Spirit, so again, seven is a number of perfection.

Uh, the seven spirits represent the full and complete work of God, uh, in the churches. And then we have the woman. So in Revelation 12, you see the story of the woman fighting the dragon. Um, the woman represents the vessel through which Jesus comes. And so throughout Revelation, the identity of the woman kind of changes.

Uh, first the woman represents Eve. Um, and then the woman eventually represents Israel. And then the woman represents Mary, the actual mother of Jesus. And then, ultimately, the woman represents the church. The woman is the enemy of the dragon. In fact, in Revelation 12, uh, you can read about the dragon actually trying to kill the woman.

The dragon doesn’t want Jesus to come into the scene and save humanity, and so Satan actually, um, He tempts the woman in the garden, and then he tempts the woman when they are the nation of Israel, and then he tempts Mary, and then ultimately he antagonizes the church. He can’t kill the woman, and so he tries to kill the son, the baby, Jesus.

And we know he doesn’t succeed in that. So now he kills the woman and the son’s offspring, which is us. It’s confusing, I know, but we come from the woman, we represent God, we are the enemies of the dragon, but it’s okay. And I’ll explain why in a minute. Next we have the Witnesses and the Elders. So if you’re reading and you find Witnesses and 24 Elders, these just represent us, the people of God, the faithful ones who are the people of God.

Uh, if you read about 24 Elders in Revelation, it’s because there are 12 tribes of Israel and then 12 Apostles. And you put those together and 12 plus 12 is? 24! Alright, good day. These are the people of God, right? This is all, uh, Jews and Gentiles alike, most of us in this room, we are represented by the Witnesses and the Elders.

And then you get the four living creatures. So these are creatures that are surrounding God’s throne. We actually saw them in Revelation 4 and we’re going to see them again in Revelation 14. Simply put, they just, they represent all of creation, worshiping God. The creatures represent, um, the world, the created, the natural world, the goodness that was in the garden, animals and trees and life and plant and food and all of these things that God originally created for good that are now broken are one day going to be restored, represented by the creatures.

God is orchestrating, again, not just evil that happens, but things like natural disasters and brokenness in the world of creation to ultimately serve His That’s the point of the creatures. And then lastly, we get the New Jerusalem. So when you see Jerusalem described in Revelation, it’s likely not talking about the literal city of Jerusalem, but rather the promised new creation.

And so this is the place that we are all going to dwell when we die and when Jesus comes back and when all of this stuff happens, we don’t think we’re going to be just like disembodied in heaven, we believe that we’re going to be resurrected. And we’re going to live in a new city, a new world, it’s like the Garden of Eden the way that God designed it to be.

Now, that is Team Lamb. That’s, those are the good guys. That’s who we want to side with, that’s what this message is all about. And the best picture of Team Lamb that we have, It comes from Revelation chapter 14. So I’m going to read the first five verses and then we’ll kind of work through this together.

So Revelation 14, here’s a picture of Team Lamb. Then I looked and there was the Lamb, right, that’s Jesus, standing on Mount Zion. And with him were 144, 000. who had his name and his father’s name written on their foreheads. I heard a sound from heaven like the sound of cascading waters and like the rumbling of loud thunder.

The sound I heard was like harpists playing on their harps. They sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders but no one could learn the song except the 144, 000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women since they remained virgins.

They are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They were redeemed from humanity as the first fruits for God and the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouths. They are blameless. So 144, 000, let’s talk about that really quick. Um, it’s likely, some people take this and think it’s a literal number, that there’s only going to be 144, 000.

Um, believers in the end of the world. Um, or there’s gonna be like 144, 000 special believers or something like that. Um, it’s, it’s highly likely, and you can ask me about this later, I’ll explain this to you. Because I did a lot of research on this. Uh, that 144, 000 is a symbolic number, it is not an actual statistic.

And that’s because 144, 000 is a variation of 12 times 12 is a big number, it’s a complete number in Hebrew writing. You multiply that times 10, and then by 10 again, and you get a Hebrew way of saying like, a really big number. The point here is that, uh, both Jews and Gentiles alike, at the end of creation, at the end of, uh, all of the things that are gonna happen in Revelation, at the end of the judgments, the people of God are gonna be so numerous that we might not even be able to count them.

Revelation is not about a tribalistic sort of like us versus them, like hunkering down, trying to just wait out the end of the world. It’s about us proclaiming the good news of the gospel. So that when we get to the end of the world, there’s so many of us that we just, we can’t imagine how many people are actually there.

That’s what 144, 000 represents. And there’s this weird line about, they’re not defiling themselves as women and virgins. Um, here’s what that’s about. Babylon, right, the, the, the systemic oppressive nation of Rome and even in our day, um, cultural ideas and systems that keep people away from, uh, Jesus. Uh, Babylon is referred to as the mother of harlots.

In Revelation 17, you can go read it, verse 5. Here’s what John is saying. At the end of the world, here’s, here’s what’s going on behind the scenes. Peel back the curtain, here’s what’s actually happening. There’s a battle, but here’s the victory. So many people have, have withstood the battle, so many people have been redeemed by the Lamb.

They have not defiled themselves by, by fooling around with Babylon. They haven’t lived the way of Babylon. They’ve stuck with Jesus. They’ve lived their lives consistently with Jesus. They’ve been faithful to their bride being God himself. We are the faithful ones. That’s the picture of faithfulness that Revelation 14 is pointing us to.

At the end of the world, we win. And so many of us win because of our commitment to Jesus. We resist the lie of Babylon, and we follow our Lamb. So that’s how this ends. Worshipping God, that’s where we’re all headed. It’s centered around the throne with elders, with all of creation restored, singing a song that only we can understand because we’ve been faithful to Jesus.

Now I want to look at the three angels with the three messages, and we’ll be quick. So not only is there people worshiping God, there’s also messages to give us hope. So here’s the first angel’s message in verse six. So John sees this and then he says, Then I saw another angel flying high overhead with the eternal gospel to announce to the inhabitants of the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people.

He spoke with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. So the first angel goes out, and he’s sharing the gospel to people of all tribes, all nations, all tongues, all people groups, all cultures, all ethnicities.

And here’s the gospel that the angel preaches. This is the good news. Worship God, because he’s created everything, and because judgment is coming. It’s kind of a weird… Good news, or a weird version of the good news. Notice the good news is not, bend the knee, because God is the God of the universe, where there’s gonna be judgment and you’re gonna die.

This is actually really hopeful news. If you’re reading this in the first century, it’s really hopeful, because the church is persecuted. Remember, these are people living under the oppression of Rome. These are people that are actually being killed for their faith. Nero is, um, burning them, putting them in the Colosseum and making them fight.

There are horrible things happening, and they’re wondering, have I given my life to something that’s actually not gonna pay off at the end? And John sees a vision of an angel saying, no, the good news is spreading. Despite what Nero thinks he can do, nothing is going to stop the strength of the gospel.

It’s going to spread far beyond what you can even imagine to people groups that you’ve never even heard of. So many, 144, 000 people, so many of them that you can’t even, you can’t even picture that number. And they’re not all from Rome. So though it seems like Nero is actually winning the battle, winning the war, the message of God spreads.

And not only that, but judgment is coming to the oppressed, to free the oppressed and bring justice to those hurting by Team Dragon. So, this is the first angel’s message. The gospel will spread. That nothing is a threat to the gospel. And it’s gonna spread to all people. Again, Revelation isn’t about bunkering down with our tribe and waiting for judgment on everyone else.

It’s good news and hope for all people of all cultures, all backgrounds, and all social statuses that the people trapped within the systemic oppression of Babylon will one day be freed. In the midst of pain, in the midst of uncertainty, suffering, here’s our job is to turn our attention, our devotion, our entire beings towards God.

That’s the first angel’s message. The gospel is going to spread. The battle’s already been won. Second angel, verse 8. And another, a second angel, followed saying, It has fallen. Babylon the Great has fallen. She made all the nations drink the wine of her sexual immorality, which brings wrath. Again, Babylon is a code word, right?

So Babylon represents Rome, but also every system and nation that actively opposes Team Lamb today. Scott McKnight, a helpful author and pastor on this topic, says this, Babylon became for Jews and early Christians the most graphic image, metaphor, or trope for a city filled with arrogance, sin, injustice, oppression of God’s people, and idolatry.

And Babylon, notice, is characterized as a prostitute, as a woman, not an evil empire. This isn’t, um, I don’t want to have too many Lord of the Rings references, so I’ll go with a Star Wars reference, uh, and then a Lord of the Rings reference. So it’s not Palpatine, right? If Emperor Palpatine, you see he’s like wrinkled and shiveled, he’s wearing a cloak, it’s like very obvious that he’s evil.

Like, no one wants to fight for Emperor Palpatine, cause he looks blatantly evil. Like, you look at that guy and you’re like, Something happened. You’re not a good guy. That is not the picture of Babylon that John is painting. Babylon is like a seductive prostitute. Someone that actually lures people away from God, promising them evil.

It’s like the ring in Lord of the Rings. The ring is an agent of evil. It is an evil thing created by Sauron for power and for destruction. But it doesn’t appear that way. It’s beautiful. It’s golden. It appeals to you. There’s something alluring about it. John is saying Babylon. Hasn’t seduced that many people, that though she’s seductive, by promising power, by promising success, by promising freedom and satisfaction, ultimately, those things actually enslave and oppress people.

But at the end of the day, Babylon is going to fall, even when it seems like it’s winning. Now nobody hears this, and again, the angel says, Babylon is fallen, Babylon’s already gone. Nobody’s actually thinking, oh, Rome is actually… Fallen right now. That’s not the point. The point is, is that the victory over Babylon, over death, over all of these things that are keeping us captive, is so certain, we can go ahead and live like it’s true.

It’s like D Day versus V E Day, right? D Day was like the end of the war. That signified World War II was over, uh, the Allied forces had won. But there was still, VE Day, which is the actual end of the world, or end of the war, almost a year later, didn’t happen until that year of fighting was done. So we’re living in this sort of weird in between space where John says, Babylon has fallen, right?

This nation that’s anti God that you’re living in is as good as done. And can you imagine anything more comforting to people who are oppressed than this? The people of God have been oppressed by Babylon since the beginning of time. The ba the message wasn’t Babylon is weak, so fight harder. It’s that it’s already, it’s gone.

It’s done. And part of our job as followers of Jesus, which we’re gonna talk more about next week, is to recognize the Babylon that we’re in today and learn to resist it. Because Babylon isn’t a people group. It’s a system. It’s a nation. It’s, it’s a, it’s a cultural set of ideas that promise us power, but actually give us freedom.

Or give us, uh, enslavement. They promise us freedom, and they enslave us. The second message is, the second angel’s message is Babylon has fallen. Okay, third angel, verse nine. Another third angel followed them and spoke with a loud voice. If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, which is poured full strength into the cup of his anger.

He will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the sight of the holy angels and in the sight of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night, for those who will worship the beast and its image, or anyone who receives the mark of its name. This calls for endurance from the saints, who keep God’s commands and their faith in Jesus.

This is the third angel’s message. Judgment will come.

Now again, we talked a lot about this, I think, last week. The point here isn’t to force us to bend the knee out of fear that we’re going to be judged. The point is comfort. Because at the end of the day, God’s wrath is the result of people’s choices. The theologian John Stott has, I think, probably one of the most helpful ways of understanding this.

Quote, he says, God’s wrath in the Bible is something which men choose for themselves. Before hell is an experience inflicted by God, it is a state for which man himself opts by retreating from the light which God shines in his heart to lead him to himself. The unbeliever has preferred to be by himself, without God, defying God, having God against him, and he shall have his preference.

Nobody stands under the wrath of God, save those who have chosen to do so. The essence of God’s action in wrath is to give men what they choose, in all its implications. Nothing more, and equally nothing less. And so this is, this is good news to the people who are on Team Lamb, that those who have actively chosen to oppose the people of God, To hurt us, to oppress us, to fight against us, they won’t get away with it.

And for some of us, that’s the message. That’s the, that’s the wake up call now, is that there’s gonna be judgment. And if, if you’re not on the right side of the battle, that ultimately you’re already defeated. That God’s judgment is coming, not in this active sort of vindictive punishing wrath, but in you getting what you’ve already wanted.

What you’ve been chasing for the rest of your life. You want life apart from God. At the end of time, God says, you can have that. He’s not going to force anyone to bend the knee. You can get what you want, and, and that’s called wrath. But I think for most of us, and here’s the, here’s the real message of Revelation 14.

Most of us need a wake up call. For most of us, this is a call to action. Because what Revelation 14 is, is doing is showing us the reality that you and I are not neutral in this battle. Apathy is the way of the dragon. And so Revelation isn’t just meant to kind of give us a peek behind the curtain. And Revelation 14 isn’t just meant to like show us something that we can try and decipher and figure out or something that we can believe intellectually.

It’s meant to wake us up. And as you meditate on this, as you see this passage and you kind of understand what the symbols are, and you see what’s happening between These two sides of Team Dragon and Team Lamb, that you’re forced to ask yourself, I mean, naturally, if you read this, more than once, you find yourself asking, like, whose side am I really on?

Alright, whose side will I actually be on? Do I, do I align myself with Team Dragon, or do I align myself with Team Lamb? And, and the hard reality is that to be neutral is to be on Team Dragon. That the rut that we find ourselves living in, this rut of normalcy, like by default, we don’t drift towards God.

By default, we drift further and further away from God by following ourselves. By giving in to our own hopes, our own dreams, our own desires, what Eugene Peterson calls the unholy trinity of our wants, needs, and desires. When we feed those, that is Team Dragon. Here, here’s the thing. Satanism is not about wearing red at the Grammys, right?

Satanism is not about black cloaks and pentagrams and candles and demonic wor Satanism is about apathy. The way of the dragon is so alluring, Babylon is so seductive, that it gets you to follow it without realizing that you’re following it. Devil worship is about worshiping yourself. That’s how the dragon operates, he gets you to chase things that are not, um, you know, In line with Team LAM.

Your needs, your wants, your desires. The Way of the LAM takes effort. It takes an actual act of our wills and our, our lives to, to follow what we know to be true with our decisions, our behaviors, our patterns of thought, our lifestyle choices. And it’s not about earning salvation. That’s not what the message is about.

This is really just about life and death. It’s about every moment of every day, um, being given the choice to live the way of the lamb or live the way of the dragon. The dragon promises freedom, satisfaction, and power, but it actually enslaves you. It tricks you into thinking that you are following something that’s good by chasing after your own heart, your own desires, what you think is best.

But the more you chase after your desires, the more enslaved to them you become. Team Lamb, on the other hand, is hard because it’s not appealing. Following a lamb is harder than following a dragon. A lamb seems meek. The lamb looks like sacrifice. The way of the lamb looks like self denial. It looks unappealing.

But the promise of Jesus is that this is actually what leads you to life. Because the reality is you cannot be a passive participant in the Kingdom of Heaven. And so these three angels are declaring to John and to the people of John and to you and me, that faithful followers of Jesus, uh, follow Team Lamb.

They follow their lamb. They don’t, they don’t follow the way of the dragon.

And so as we look at Team Lamb, uh, I want to close with three just kind of really key takeaways. Um, What does it look like to live on Team Lamb then? What does that, what does that mean? How do we actually live on our day to day? How do we fight? Um, because the key verse of Team Lamb is in verse 4. This is what Team Lamb does.

These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, since they remain virgins, right? We’re faithful to God. But here’s what it means. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. That’s what it means to be on Team Lamb. We follow Jesus wherever he goes. So, How do we fight like a lamb?

How do we, how do we fight like Jesus fought? Three things. First, we witness. So again, looking at the first angel’s message, he’s proclaiming the good news to all people of all tribes, tongues, and nations, but he’s not doing it by himself. Most people agree, scholars, that what’s happening here is the angel is actually carrying the message that the people of God are spreading.

So, as we witness, as we share the good news, and we give people hope, there’s a spiritual reality to that. It’s not just you speaking words, or trying to win an argument, or trying to invite somebody to church, but there’s actually something happening behind the scenes that angels are carrying that message to them, actively opposing the way of the dragon.

To get those people to wake up, for the Holy Spirit to move in their lives, and for them to see the goodness of God. And, and, and witnessing is not just about preaching. It’s not just about sharing the gospel, or evangelism, or yelling at people on the side of a street. It’s about your lifestyle. It’s what the New Testament calls bearing witness.

It’s, it’s how we live our lives. It’s not just turning away from Babylon, but turning towards Jesus. It’s more than just, and I think this is where people get it wrong, is Revelation isn’t just about rebelling against, um, the evil around us. It’s also about actually doing something good to, to antagonize that evil.

To actually love our enemies, not just turn away from them. Uh, to bring hope where there is none. To, to fight suffering with love. To endure hardship. All of these things are the way of the Lamb. This is what it means to bear witness. It’s how you live your life. It’s how you choose to, to live as if the hope that you believe is really true.

If everything that we’re saying is actually reality, and if that was like the truest thing that there was, how that affects the way that you make decisions tomorrow, that’s what it means to witness. To share your faith, not just with your words, but also your actions, your practices. We call things like Sabbath and scripture reading, prioritizing things that Team Dragon does not prioritize.

Where Team Dragon says, keep for yourself, accumulate wealth, build yourself up. Team Lamb says, give what you have. Simplify your life and follow Jesus because he’s enough. That’s what it means to bear witness. When you live that out, you proclaim that good news to the people around you. That’s what it means to fight like a lamb.

Second thing is we endure. So the second angel’s message is all about hope. If Babylon really has fallen, then we can have hope. If everything that’s keeping us In a rut, if everything that feels like oppression will one day, um, be gone, everything that we don’t like, the, the political agenda, truth being marred by not reality, lies being told all around us, if, if that one day will end, then we can actually endure with hope.

We’re living in this in between, right? We feel the tension of knowing that our future is secure while actually not living in that reality. But the point of the Christian life is, is really about hope.

Revelation 14 is a reminder that the primary feeling of life on this side of the new creation is not success and happiness. It feels more like endurance. Right? It feels more like perseverance. It feels more like a struggle. If you feel like the Christian life is a struggle, that’s a good thing. It should feel like a struggle.

It should feel like you’re a little different, and you should feel like you’re reaching out to God for endurance and for perseverance. That’s the hope that Revelation 14 is offering us. We persevere, we endure, we follow our lamb with a relentless rebellion against Babylon. This is Jesus in the garden teaching us to pray, Your kingdom come, not our kingdom come, not our will be done, but we pray that God’s kingdom will be done.

This is Jesus in the garden, not my will be done, but your will be done. This is what endurance really looks like. So we endure in our beliefs, right? We don’t trade what we know to be true for something lesser. We stick to what we know to be true. What God says is good and right, and we endure in that, no matter what culture around us tells us.

But not only that, but we also endure in our witness, in our perseverance, with sharing our faith. We never assume the worst in people. This is what endurance looks like for the Christians. We never assume people are too far gone. The moment that you’ve written someone off as like, being too far gone, they’re without hope, they can’t be a part of the 144, 000 that are worshipping God at the end of time, is the moment that you’ve given in to the way of Team Dragon.

That’s tribalism, and that’s not the way of the Lamb. We persevere in our waiting, in moments where we feel like God is still not giving us the thing that we’ve prayed for. We endure. We, we trust God. We, we, we put our hope in who God is, not the things that God gives us. And then lastly, we endure our suffering, which is the third thing.

Number three, we suffer.

Verse thirteen says, Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, so they will rest from their labors since their works follow them. I’m convinced that Revelation is one of the most misused books of the Bible because people don’t want to endure suffering and hardship.

And so we believe the lie that to be on the winning team is to leave peacefully and happily, that suffering is an enemy and we have to fight against the things that are actually making us suffer. Things like the government, we fight against the government, our neighbors, if our neighbors are persecuting us, we fight against them because they’re making us suffer, our culture around us, we fight against the culture around us because it’s making us suffer, our enemies, we don’t turn the other cheek and love them, we fight against them, it all comes back to suffering, but that’s the way of Babylon, that’s the way of the dragon, that’s not the way of the lamb.

Notice at the beginning of the passage, when John sees who’s actually on the throne on Mount Zion, um, it’s a lamb, it’s not, it’s not a lion. Because a lion is easy to follow. God, as the father, is easy to follow. He could overpower sin, Satan, and death easy, but he chooses to operate as a lamb by sacrificing himself, by suffering, by dying, by showing us that suffering can’t take anything from us if we accept it willingly.

And so to follow team lamb means that we follow suffering we don’t look for it We don’t seek it, but we embrace it. We don’t try and escape it. We let it form us We let it forge us. We let it increase our faith our hope and our endurance in Jesus And it’s not about finding a way out of suffering It’s about finding a way through suffering

So we endure in our suffering because we have hope And so as we close, uh, that’s the invitation of, of Revelation 14. It’s kind of a simple message. What, I mean, what side are you on? Right, what, what, what side are you fighting for? What, what has your allegiance, your attention, and your devotion? Is it yourself?

Your own wants, needs, and desires? Because that’s, that’s likely Team Dragon. Or is it Team Lamb? Where does God want you to wake up? Where is God trying to get your attention? Where is God trying to get you to give up the things that you’re holding on tightly to? Because the promise of Revelation 14 is that, like, these things are actually draining you.

They’re taking from you. They’re promising you life, but they’re not giving you that. And what Jesus has seems unappealing, but it actually brings you life. That freedom is found in self denial, self sacrifice, through suffering, not around it. And because of that, we can have hope. Let’s pray.