The Shadow City of God

Welcome

Well, good morning Lifepoint fam!

If we haven’t met yet, my name is Dan and I serve as one of the pastors here at the Worthington Campus alongside Jason Phillips who is our Campus Life pastor. We are so grateful you’re here with us this us today!

New to Lifepoint

If this is your first time…or maybe over the last couple of weeks, you’ve been checking us out from a distance.

Lifegroup United

[REWORD] We want to be a church where no one walks alone.

Lifegroup United will be a special time for Lifegroups this fall as we start the process of launching Lifegroups at our campus. In lieu of home rotations, our Lifegroups will meet corporately at the Worthington Campus for a time of worship, Scripture, discussion, and prayer for five weeks. Our hope is that from our time together, we will discover and deploy several leaders and Lifegroups into our city.

Transition

Alright, if you have a bible with you, open up with me to the New Testament book of Revelation…chapter 17. Revelation 17. It’s the last book in the bible…and if you need help getting there, the table of contents is your friend! No judgment here.

Introduction

At Lifepoint, we’ve been in a series through the book of Revelation since August—though last week was our fist week at Lifepoint Worthington and we jumped into the deep end! Which is inevitable when you study a book of the bible like this.

Series Vision

Some of you have never read Revelation before so all of this is new for you…and just fair warning, there’s going to be some strange things we will encounter! Other’s of you are more familiar with it…maybe you’ve been waiting for your church to tackle this book because you’ve had a lot of questions about it.

But it’s important for us to remember that Revelation was not written to confuse us…but actually to comfort us. God doesn’t want us to just be confused about this…He wants to use this book to comfort us…and confront us a little bit!

If you were here last week, we looked at chapter 16 and saw this stunning picture of God’s judgment…and one of the things we talked about is that unlike you and I, God is able to hold these two concepts in perfect tension—Justice AND Judgment…that the one actually requires the other! If you missed that message, take a moment this week to listen to it our website and catch up…it will give a lot of helpful context for understanding more about what God’s judgment AND justice is all about—which is still a major theme we’re going to wrestle through today.

And there’s no way around it, but the passage we’re looking at today is just hard. It’s hard to make sense of John, the author, talking about…why he’s talking about it…more than that…it’s hard to figure what the heck we’re supposed to do with what he’s on about!

John is describes, what he calls, the destruction of “the great city of Babylon,” whatever that means. And then he goes on to describe the global response to Babylon’s fall. Both of which he see’s as future events…

But my hope is, when we’re finished today, we see Revelation 17 as a profound encouragement for the way we live and engage in the world around us today…that we’d see less about a future calendar and much more about a present hope.

So if you’re not there yet, open with me to Revelation 17. I’ll read apart of this passage, pray, and then we’ll get started.

Revelation 17:1–6 ESV

1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” 3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. 5 And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” 6 And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly.

PRAY

Flying Over Babylon (17:1-6)

Alright, let’s get started.

I think there’s a bit of an obvious question here: what is Babylon?

And John will actually answer this question for us, but as we work through this passage, he’ll give us a few different perspectives of Babylon.

It might be helpful to think about it this way

Those of you who like to fly…how many of you are window-seat people? You like to look out the window on the plane.

I’m all about the window seat. If my son wants to sit by the window, I’m like “Then buy you’re own ticket, kid.” I love the window seat! And my favorite part is coming into a city and landing. When you fly into a city you get a pretty unique perspective of it, don’t you? Like you can start to see where the suburbs start…you can see the the residential sides…you can see the full skyline laid out in front of you…and sometimes you can the whole thing at a glance. And it one way, you’ve seen the city, right?

But you get a totally different perspective when you drive through a city don’t you? First of all, it takes a whole lot longer…but you also see people…you see homes, businesses, neighborhoods and communities…you see it over time not all at a glance. You experience that city differently.

EXPAND

Well, in a lot of ways, John gives us these same kinds of perspectives of Babylon…he does a fly over…and we see the whole full arch of the story of this “city,” including how it ends…but he also takes us on a drive through it. And we see things from a much more down to earth perspective.

What is “Babylon”

So back to the question, what is Babylon?

Well, let’s remember that this is not the first time we’ve encountered this city in the Biblical storyline.

Some of you remember that in the Old Testament, the Babylonian empire was seen as the dominant super-power in the Middle-East…it was the empire that brought God’s people into Exile. In fact, in a few weeks, we’re going to start a new series through the Old Testament book of Daniel—the entirety of which takes place within the Babylonian Empire. So in many ways, in the era when John wrote this book, Babylon came to represent something like the anti-kingdom of God. It was the empire in direct opposition to what God was and is doing in the world.

But, historically speaking, Babylon had been almost irrelevant for centuries by the time John wrote Revelation. So why is John talking about it ?

Well here’s where we start to see some parallels remember who he’s writing to for a moment. John’s original audience is followers of Jesus living under the Roman empire; am empire that, in many ways, mirrored AND surpassed the power and cruelty of Babylon. And John is currently imprisoned by the Roman authorities as he writes the letter…so he’s got to be careful about how he says certain things…but they would have made the connection that Rome was a kind of Babylon.

It was a world system…or structure in the dominant position on the global stage. If John could use air-quotes, he would.

He wants us to know he’s talking about “Babylon”

Use air-quotes.

Babylon as she really is

And if we think of this first section like a fly-over of Babylon, where we get to see the whole picture at glance, here’s what John wants us to see.

Look at v. 1 again. Think of this as the summary statement for chapters 17 and 18.

Revelation 17:1–2 ESV

1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”

It’s really vivid language—but he wants us to see “Babylon”, the prostitute as…intertwined…with the powers that be on the global stage. The kings of the earth are with her…the people of the earth of “drunk the cool-aide” as it were...

Keep reading how John describes “Babylon” in v. 5

Revelation 17:5–6 ESV

5 And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” 6 And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly.

He wants us to see Babylon the way it really is: nothing short of evil. A system at work in the world that is dominant, powerful, alive and well.

Now, it’s interesting to me that John seems to go out of his way not to do what so many Christians reading Revelation want to do. See we want to figure out who Babylon is today…or what “empire” today is Babylon.

But John doesn’t come out and say, “By the way, I’m talking about Rome.”

No, instead what he’s talking about is something that is much more in the shadows. Out of site, but pulling strings.

And I’m not talking about a “deep-state” or something like that. But I think what he’s describing is the same thing the Apostle Paul talks about in Ephesians 6 when he says:

Ephesians 6:12 ESV

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Both John and Paul are talking about the same thing…that the world we live in today is not simply material…that what we see is not all there is…but that at work in the world we live in are real cosmic powers…real spiritual forces of evil.

Now for some of you, that sounds a bit too far out there. A bit more life fear mongering than anything else

Andrew Delbano, a secular writer, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University wrote a fascinating book called The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil…and in it, he makes argument that in modern western culture, as we have moved away from any type of belief in a Satan figure…we have actually robbed ourselves of the ability to make sense of the real evil we see and experience in the world around us…to the point that the only option we really have with evil and suffering is to turn away from us as long as we can until it comes up slaps us in the face! And then we still don’t know what to do with it.

But the Christian worldview offers a very different alternative…that evil is a real aspect of the world as we know it. That there are powerful forces at work that take root and impact how the world functions today. There are genocides today, not simply because there are people who want power through fear, but because there is a deeper undercurrent of spiritual darkness at work in the world.

There are evil people who are given power and authority to put in polices and procedures that are unjust and broken and benefit only a certain class of society.

Evil is not an abstract moral construct floating in the ivory towers of Philosophical giants…evil is alive and well in world around us, taking ground, shaping hearts, forming minds, crafting policy, taking lives, and growing.

Friends, this is Babylon. And it’s everywhere.

The world as we know it is bought in…just look at v. 2 again. The kings of the earth and the people of this world.

Now, that’s not all John says about Babylon. Look at verse 1 of chapter 18

Revelation 18:1–2 ESV

1 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. 2 And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.

Remember, I said John is taking us through a FLY-OVER of Babylon in these two verse, we see the whole story arch…the power and influence and it’s demise.

And actually, this is something that is far more powerful than we might first recognize because ultimately what John is saying is that there is an end the reign and power of Babylon. That while it is powerful and we feel the sting here and now, this is not the way it will always be.

That one day, we will join with the song of the angel here that Babylon has fallen.

More than that, we see in even greater detail than we did last week, God’s justice over Babylon. Look at v. 5.

Revelation 18:5–8 (ESV)

5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. 6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed. 7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’ 8 For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”

Friends, what this reminds us again, is that the work and power of Babylon has not gone un-noticed by God. He is not absent. He is not gone. Nor is he powerless against the force of Babylon.

The end of evil will come where every wrong will be made right as God Himself puts the world back together again.

And in this flyover of Babylon, the perspective we get is of an empire whose doom is sure.

Driving through Babylon

Here’s the problem though.

We don’t get to “fly over” Babylon…we don’t get to experience the full arch of that story here and now.

Remember what I said at the beginning about having the window seat on a plane? You get to see the whole city in like 2 minutes.

See, just like John, even though we see the whole picture…we still have to drive through Babylon.

But when you drive through, it takes a whole lot longer…doesn’t it. You experience a city very differently when you drive through it rather than fly through it.

And this, I think, is the real tension in a passage like this…one that is talking about something we still wait for…something we still long for…because in the waiting period, even when we may know the outcome, we still have to wait. We still have experience the effect of “Babylon” that is today alive and well…taking ground, growing, shaping hearts and minds. To borrow Paul’s language, we will still today do not wrestle merely against flesh and blood…but also against spiritual forces of evil...

And, listen, I’m not trying to be “defeatist” when I say this, but something I think we need to wrestle with today in our cultural moment is just how powerful Babylon actually is. And maybe there is something unique about the American spirit…but so often our response is to fight back. To wage war with Babylon. We talk about taking back the culture…taking a stand…and not going “down without a fight”. And there are very good reasons to have some of those conversations. There are very good reasons to use the influence you have today for what is right and what is good and what is true.

But the other conversation we need to have is how we, as God’s people, are to endure as we live UNDER the rule and reign and ever increasing power Babylon. Because for a season…A LONG season, Babylon will be strong. In fact, that season may continue LONG after we’re gone.

And I think this calls for a forgotten paradigm for the Christian life in the Western church - a life defined by endurance.

And I say it’s forgotten, because it was once alive and well and essential among earliest followers of Jesus who lived directly under the rule and reign of Babylon…in a society necessarily hostile to the message and way of Jesus. Sometimes we forget that many followers of Jesus live today in societies and under governmental systems that are explicitly hostile to the message of Jesus. They adopt this mantra, from the New Testament book of James:

James 1:2–4 CSB

2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

For them, its not about defeating Babylon, but little by little…by their very continued existence, subverting Babylon with the way and message of Jesus.

Yes, Jesus is the one who is ultimately victorious over Babylon and we will see that on display over the next two weeks finishing up this book …Yes, He is the one who sets up an everlasting Kingdom that is far greater than anything Babylon could produce…but the way he conquers is so backwards and upside-down from what the world would expect. He defeats Babylon through his death.

And what we understand through the rest of the New Testament story is that Jesus death is not like any other death. His is a sacrificial death…his is a substitutionary death. Because while He lived the life we should have but failed to live…perfectly obedient of all God has commanded us…He lovingly and willing stepped into the place of you and I…died the death we should have died…in our place for our sin and our own allegiance to Babylon. And yet, he did not stay dead…but rose again from the dead with promise and hope of new life and a new way of life for any who would put their trust in Him and His work on the cross…pledging their allegiance to Him and Him alone…the good news of the Gospel is that Babylon does not have the final word. Babylon may be strong, and may grow stronger still, but friends, Babylon doom is sure.

so you see, my hope as a pastor is not that I form and produce culture warriors…which sometimes is what the church is known for. But my hope is that here at Lifepoint, we would produce culture “endurers”. That come what may, whenever and wherever Babylon throws its weight around…and it will…that we are a people here who are not given over to despair. That we are not a people who are crushed and left behind…but that we are a people who cling tight to the Author and Perfecter of our Faith…that we are a people are a people who wait for, long for, and yearn for a greater Empire…a Greater Kingdom…that will one day come and break the power of Babylon and that we will see what John describes in v. 21:

Revelation 18:21 (ESV)

21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more;

But until that day, our call is to endure.

And until that day, we go about the business of God’s Kingdom knowing full well that in the eyes of Babylon, we are rebels.

And as rebels we can and should expect the overwhelming power of Babylon to push full steam ahead.

But friends, as followers of Jesus, we endure with hope.

Application

Finally, how do we endure? How do we keep going while driving through Babylon?

Endurance through Spiritual Intimacy

Endurance through Authentic Community - tie to Lifegroups United

PRAYER