Revelation
A Feast and a Fight

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 Let the timer begin. Revelation 1, we looked at, at the beginning of summer, we talked about how there’s, just based off that one chapter, there’s three ways to interpret the rest of the letter. We learned that St. John is a theologian. What that means is when you read the book of Revelation, it’s more important to read it Christologically, meaning where’s Christ in this passage, than it is reading it Chronologically, we think the biggest mistakes people make is thinking this was all written in a right order.

And now that Revelation 15 just happened last week, now we’re ready for 16. It doesn’t happen that way. It’s all over the map. It’s just by which John saw the next vision. It doesn’t mean that’s when it happened. Another thing we learned is he’s a pastor to the seven churches, which means he has a pastoral heart.

And so when we read all of Revelation, the focus needs to be on discipleship, not on decipherment. It’s not like the National Treasure, where we gotta take a candle, pour some lemon juice on it, and see the secret hidden meaning, and see what happens with the Twin Towers in 2001. None of that. This is, there is a plain message we can read if we’re willing to wrestle with the text, and it’s to change us.

Lastly, we learn in Revelation 1 that John is a poet. Meaning, we read Revelation literarily, not literally. Meaning it’s not like a newspaper. It’s more like a political cartoon where you see something like a beast. It’s not an actual beast. It’s communicating something even bigger and much larger, really.

That’s Revelation 1. That was in a minute and a half. We’re in trouble. Revelation 2 and 3, he shows us there’s these seven letters to these seven churches, and Jesus has this three point sermon. He affirms each church for what they’re doing well. He rebukes them for where they’re not, and he motivates them to keep pressing on.

We knew. We learned. Those seven letters in chapters two and three are written to the first century church, but hear me, they are for every single century, every church, and we’re going to be diving into that in the month of September. When you boil it down, Jesus affirms the type of church who are people of love, who avoid heresy, and endure hardship.

How am I doing on time? Okay, I don’t know. Revelation 4 through 5, there is now this image of a scroll and the scroll is being passed around and everybody’s saying, Who can open the scroll? And everybody’s sad because they’re saying no one can open it. This scroll is the purpose of your life, but also the meaning of all of history.

It’s the answer. The answer everyone is looking for. Different philosophies, different religions, and it’s bound in this scroll. And there is this moment of like, Oh, no, no one knows the answer. And then there’s this lion who was a lamb who comes in and says, Oh, brother, I can open the scroll. I’m the one with meaning.

I’m the one with purpose. Come to me. Your life actually does make sense. There is hope. There is a future for you. And so we learned on that day, man, we have hope because of the lamb who was slaughtered because of us, who was slaughtered instead of us. And who was slaughtered for us if any of these things interest you Go to pastor creek church teaching revelation because i’m not going to explain anymore revelation 6 to 18 one week.

We talked about judgment We learned, actually you’ll see all throughout Revelations a lot about judgment, but that is a good thing. There is evil going on in this world. There is injustice. We want something to be done about that, or else he wouldn’t be a good God. And so these, these judgments are seen in three different sets of images.

Seven seals, seven trumpets, and then seven bowls. We look together specifically at the seals. And we learn that because God is a God of, who is slow to anger and full of compassion, these judgments, hear me, Are purgative they’re meant to be purgative meaning they’re meant to purge us They’re meant to wake us up and go we don’t know how to live life without christ We need to run to him or this punishment comes our way So it’s meant to be purgative, but eventually it becomes punitive Eventually, it means if you don’t come to jesus, you will suffer the punishment of these judgments.

And then we talked about the four horsemen, which are the white horse leading to deception. We see deception in our era today all over the place. The red horse, which is all about violence. Do we not see violence all over the globe? The black horse, which equals famine. We see that everywhere still. And then the pale green horse is sickness leading to death.

We have certainly seen that even within the last few years at a cranked up rate. And we ended that kind of… Passage saying, look, the horsemen ramp up when the church stands up, but we’re going to have victory. So we have to keep standing up against these horsemen. Revelation 12 through 13. We then introduce the unholy trinity.

The unholy trinity is the dragon who is the devil. The sea beast who is the state politics, political powers. And then the earth beast is propaganda. And these three conspire to destroy the church. They’ve already lost against King Jesus on the cross. At least what they can do is to destroy you and me, those who follow the Lamb.

And Michael J. Gorman, he had this great quote about propaganda, which we see every day today. It says, The function of propaganda is to make evil look good, the demonic divine. Violence look like peacemaking. Tyranny and oppression look like liberation. Do we not see that today? Our argument is that you’ll see this in every generation.

Sometimes other generations, it ramps up. Other times it seems to settle and then it ramps up again. So you’ll see this in every generation. One more thing about the unholy trinity, they want the church to either commit violence against other people, make us against anybody, that’s not the way of Jesus.

They want us to silence, not stand up for what is right. Or they want us just compliance, just to look just like Babylon, to do what everybody else is doing because everybody else is already doing it. Now, Pastor Caleb had the joy of… Bring in good news. Revelation 11 and 14 contains a lot of hope. It’s about the witnesses.

It’s about these three angels. And this whole idea is those three angels promise three things. And we can take hope in this in the midst of really hard times. Number one, the gospel will spread to the ends of the earth. So we should be all about missions because that’s the one thing Jesus says it’s going to work.

Number two, Babylon, which is the city of man, which is any time, we’ll talk about in the next thing, just corruption. That’s not gonna last. It will end, even though it doesn’t look like it today. Number three, judgment will come and all will be made right. This gives us hope to be patient, to endure in suffering, not to give in to violence, silence, or compliance.

Are you with me? Do I have any time left? Oh, look at this. I’m getting a full head of hair still today. All right next one revelation 17 through 19 We looked at this last week. We kind of taught out of order, which is kind of important because we wanted to teach you It’s not chronological 17 through 19 Babylon is the city where the unholy Trinity uses There the city for destruction.

So we talked about last week how Babylon’s a prostitute what it’s a prostitute do it perverts it deceives It seduces and you and I have to recognize you and I can be seduced by the culture It going against the way of Jesus. The main thrust of what we talked about last week is the prostitute seeks to seduce the church, you and me, by normalizing the sins of Babylon, right?

The things that generations ago used to say was completely wrong. Now even the church says, well, maybe it’s not that bad. That is what Babylon does. It seduces us to lower the standard that God’s word has put in for us. But here’s the good news. This city who seeks to be divine, Always becomes demonic and it self destructs babylon will not prevail But the kingdom of god the city of god will rule and reign forever And that’s what revelation 20 through 22 is all about This is how it all ends.

We have a more compelling answer. Hear me revelation. I want us to come away knowing It’s not just about if you were to die today, where do you go? Oh, you’re going to be sold Floating in a cloud and a harp in heaven for eternity. That’s not the full answer. Pastor. Caleb did a great job talking about that It’s much more beautiful than that.

The reality is is Jesus is coming back To not destroy the world, but to redeem it, and restore it, and to make it new. There’s a new heaven and a new earth. You and I will have resurrected bodies. Our relationships will be reconciled. All these things that we’ve grown about will one day be made right. We won’t have any more tears, any more crying.

 Any of these pains that we feel so deeply is now washed. Away