Rev 14

Revelation 14, Babylon Has Fallen

Good morning, welcome to church this morning as we get into the 18th week of our series on the book of Revelation I have good news for you…

I know you all don’t know when this series will be over, but we are in the single digits, just 8 weeks left in this book…

Review

Let’s quickly review where we’ve been because today like most weeks is loaded with Biblical imagery.

This book which is a letter to God’s people suffering incredible amounts of suffering…

So, first Jesus has a message to 7 churches which means the whole church, to remain faithful

Then we see God on his throne about to unveil his plan and as he does that, it is as if worlds are colliding…This evil sinful world and the kingdom of God

So, one of the things we saw was what I called the Politic of the lamb, who is Jesus on the throne vs. the politic of the Empire.

What I mean by politic is

Whenever you are dealing with managing power, it’s called politics…

So, there was this great judgment played out on the evil empire…

But the point of it was not to get sweet vindication…

The point is to see power of the lamb (Jesus) vs the powers of evil played out in this world…

In the previous chapters we saw a retelling of what happened in the Exodus…The plagues that were designed to get Pharaoh to repent.

And we find the same thing that happened with Pharaoh… No one repents…

In the middle of it all…God takes his people aside and he seals them. He marks them as his own people, and we see a number 144,000 which is a 1st century way of saying an uncountable multitude of people.

But then we get these parables that show us…How do people come to repent then…

And it is by a people who don’t just proclaim the message they become it…their lives are formed by the lamb

And then we get this other parable about these 2 witnesses…We find out with them that they are the church that is repentant…They are the people who are measured off for God’s purposes, they are the light of the world…they do what the lamb does and says what the lamb says and when we see this…And then they die and are raised to life after 3 days.

And 9/10ths of the world comes to repent!…The world repents when the church looks like Jesus…

And in the last few weeks John goes from there to talk to the church about the struggle with evil in this world…

The evil that the church will have to confront

So, he retells it using a dragon a woman and a baby

Basically, Satan wants to destroy Jesus, but since he is powerless to do that he goes after Jesus’ people

But we learned last week that this evil dragon makes up this blasphemous parody trinity…

Because the Dragon or Satan summons up two more beasts…One is the roman empire…and the other is the cultic religion behind the beast that seeks after wealth and fame and significance…

And that kingdom wants to mark you…with the numbers 666 which we learned is completely, in complete

And remember…I don’t think this mark is a real microchip or tattoo that you will get, but If they are giving out microchips …Don’t do it…

Revelation 14:1–5 ESV

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.

What an amazing picture of contrast that we get…we end chapter 13 with the mark of the beast and 666

We didn’t talk much about this last week but there is this ancient Greek way of calculating numbers that go with letters it’s called gematria

So, the number of the beast is 666 which means completely incomplete and it also is a reference to Nero Cesar

But the cool thing is that when you use this exact same system to calculate a number from a name, Jesus’ number is 888

So, if the number 7 is complete perfection

And 3 is the number for God then 777 is a perfect number

But we know that by adding or removing a number to the Hebrew mind was to add significance…

So, we have 888 for Jesus…a completely perfect all redeeming God who became man.

Why do I say all of this…

Because chap 13 left us off with this dark image of people who were molded into the beast and marked by that and chapter 14 starts off with the lamb!

Not the one that looks like a lamb and speaks like a dragon but the real Lamb! The one whose number is 888

So, you have complete imperfection vs total perfection 666 vs 888

Troops are gathering for battle on Mt Zion

So in the Bible Mt. Zion is this New Testament coded way of referencing Psalm 2

Psalm 2 could just as well be revelation 13 and 14…

Let’s look at it

Psalm 2:1–3 ESV

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

If we were to look at this in a more modern way: It would be as if the countries in this world said…

Hey Let’s get rid of these divine laws…these commandments…Let’s remove them from courthouses…

and strip all of our traditions of God…Let’s pretend God doesn’t exist

And then the Psalmist says

Psalm 2:4–6 ESV

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

The Psalmist ends with, blessed are those who take refuge in the king

And see in Revelation 14…John sees this king on Mt Zion.>Confronting the beast who wants to rid itself of anything that has to do with God…and Jesus is far more powerful…is the 888 to the 666

So now there are these 144,000 with the lamb…

Remember…in revelation numbers are Symbols and not Statistics.

These people are the fullness of the people of God…144,000 was a way of saying…All of the people of Israel and all of the redeemed of Jesus put together…

An uncountable huge number!

One commentator says that these are the Elite Warriors of the Lamb that gather around their enthroned king…

These people and them alone knew this song that no one else could even learn…It was a song of Glory to the king

The mark of those who follow the king:

I love this…one of the marks of these people is that they “

They follow the Lamb wherever he goes

The text also mentions that these people were celibate. This was not a call for the church to be celebrate but it is a reference to Old Testament warriors who remained celebrate before battle…because they always understood battle was holy…

But it is also a reference that these people have not defiled themselves with the empire…Babylon!

They are a people who are not part-time followers of the lamb

You know they don’t say well we will go to church this day but we will engage in worldly stuff tomorrow…The desire of their life is to follow the king

These are the people from chapter 7 who have the name of the lord marked on their forehead!

They are what Romans 12:1 calls a “Living Sacrifice”

They follow the lamb; the lamb has marked them! They have the character of the lamb!

And then this little thought ends with

They speak the language of the lamb (No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless)

In other words, they do not belong to the dragon…. They do not display the traits of the deceiver…they belong to Jesus

You have to think about this, the reason why God wants us to tell the truth and be honest is because He is all truth and Satan is the father of lies, when Satan lies he speaks his native tongue…

The reason why honesty is so impotrant is that it actually trains us for heaven…

It trains us to be in the presence of all truth

Then we get into this really complex passage but….

Revelation 14:6–8 ESV

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”

So, the first angel is there proclaiming…Worship God…the only one worthy of worship…

8 A second angel followed and said, “‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,’ which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”

Let’s Pause here for a second…Open your Bibles to the book of Daniel…As many of you know John is pulling so much from the book of Daniel.

Right after Ezekiel.

So, the way this works is much of Israel had been killed during the Babylonian invasion. but also, many had been saved as a remnant to go back to Israel one day…

And Daniel and his three friends were like the cream of the crop…

So, King Nebuchadnezzar invited them to eat from his table and to drink his wine…

Daniel 1:5 ESV

The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king.

The problem is that when you eat and drink with the king it is as if you are saying I am part of your kingdom…we are your children…

Daniel didn’t want to defile himself before God…

See the word Alter is translated many ways but one basic translation is table…and the king’s food was sacrificed to other Gods…

So, it is eating and drinking from the cup of Babylon was not a neutral act

It’s only a matter of time that you take on the image of the king

So, Daniel says test us for 10 days and if we start looking sick then we will take the kings food…

Daniel 1:15 ESV

At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food.

See it should be the other way around…They should have looked worse!

But then

In chapter 3…Every child is told this story…

King Nebuchadnezzar is so proud of his empire

He has the best schools…Everyone wants to be in Babylon

They are the most powerful and they feel safe

They have the best food

The best technology

Home values are skyrocketing

So, things are going pretty well and when things are going really well you can’t afford to have a rebellion right?

So, king Nebuchadnezzar sets up a huge statue and calls everyone to worship it…

We know that Daniel’s 3 friends do not defile themselves…Even though we imagine other Jews did…and they are thrown into the furnace…Only to be rescued by someone that looked like the “son of God”

Go to chapter 5.

Belshazzar is the son of Nebuchadnezzar and he is now in charge of the kingdom…

So, what does he do? He throws a huge party

Pay attention to verse 2

Daniel 5:2 ESV

Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.

I hope you can just get the symbolism that just happened here…Let’s take the cups from the real God, and put the wine of our empire in them!

…Getting drunk on the wine of Babylon, but using the cup of God…all the sudden what happens next?

Daniel 5:5–6 ESV

Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.

These guys must have thought…man we’ve been drinking too much wine…

And if you know the book you know the formula.

They couldn’t read the text…

They called the wise men…the enchanters the sources and magicians and they couldn’t figure it out…but what about Daniel.

Daniel reminds the young king that his Dad Nebuchadnezzar eventually bowed to the king of heaven and acknowledged God…

Then is says this:

Daniel 5:22–28 ESV

And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored. “Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

The rest of that chapter records the death of Belshazzar…

This is textbook Babylon…

A nation a kingdom that sets itself up as everything….That invites its people to get drunk on the luxuries of the empire…

A kingdom that sets itself up as savior…

A kingdom where the notion of God is ridiculous,

A kingdom where we get our moral knowledge from Facebook

A kingdom that counts its blessing in houses and cars

A kingdom that satisfies all of your wants and desires with amazon prime…

Just take a sip! But see this is Babylon…We live in the spirit of it…And really anywhere you go in the world…where there is man-made power you will find Babylon

And John was saying…Rome is Babylon…Because it sets itself up as bigger than God! It says drink our wine!

The national Goddess of Rome…Roma was frequently featured reclining on a sofa holding a glass of wine…

Almost to say…come get drunk on Rome…Come and indulge…Come and be a part of us!

But when happens when people get addicted to that?

They get up and do it again

I think what CS. Lewis said about sin is true for…when you drink the wine of empire ….that is…. you have this ever-increasing desire for an ever-diminishing pleasure…

This is 666…completely incomplete…and so when you drink the wine of empire…You will never be complete…

So, John sees this second angel…and it says

“‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,’ which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”

And look at the rest of this text

Revelation 14:9–11 ESV

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”

Verse 10 by the way is where John Steinbeck Got the title, “the Grapes of Wrath”

But see what John is saying here…When you drink the cup of Babylon…your fate is tied to it!

When you drink the Kool-Aid of empire….You get Belshazzar! You will join in the destiny of the empire!

Revelation 14:12–13 ESV

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

In the midst of it all there are these people that are faithful…

And blessed are the dead in Christ…The worst thing that Babylon can do to you is kill you…

But even if we die in the lord…We get rest from our labors…Because our deeds follow us.

See the life that is offered in Christ is so different than the empire because even if we die, it can’t undo the security and peace that we will receive, we can’t undo that connection to the father

And rather than having a life that is connected to Babylon and leaves brokenness and hurt and pain behind…

Following the lamb leaves good deeds behind

And then I want you to see how cool this is…

Chapter 14 starts with this army of Jesus and all of the people who are not drinking the wine of Babylon standing opposed to the beast of Babylon

It is the 666 vs the 888

Then as they are all standing there, there is this heavenly declaration that Babylon will lose the war and that Babylon is fallen…

Don’t tie your life to it!

And then the rest of chapter 14 is so cool…

It’s Jesus and another angel harvesting the land! It is the harvest of the whole earth…of grain and grapes

And it ends this way Revelation 14:14-19

Revelation 14:14–19 ESV

Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped. Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

But at the very end we see this image of the winepress crushing the grapes then it says that blood flowed out of the press rising as high as the horse’s bridles for a distance of 1,600 Strada

See the best way to understand this is that the winepress that is outside of the city is the cross…And Jesus is harvesting all of those people who were covered by his blood…

And that is so much blood! But I want you see that John preaches the gospel even in using numbers!

So, John is trying to tell us…just using this number that Jesus has enough blood to cover all of those who want repentance…

Starting with Israel:

1600 Strada is the traditional length of Palestine from the Egyptian side to Tyre…

SO, there is blood enough to cover every Jewish person, for Jesus was the Jewish messiah!

Then: 1600 is

4x4x10x10=1600

4= Number of humanity

4= Number of creation, 4 corners of the earth

10=number of completeness

10x10=completely complete

So, deriving the number this way= Jesus blood covers all of humanity…Numbers are Symbols and not statistics

1600 is also

40x40

40=Sinful disobedience

Looking at the number this way= Jesus will forgive you and wash you clean even of the worst sins!

So, what does Revelation 14 teach us?

1. You reap what you worship

a. If its Babylon…Your destiny will be tied to that!

b. If it’s the lamb…Your destiny will be tied to the lamb.

2. There is a remedy for bad decisions

a. All of us have screwed up…but there is 1600 stradia of blood waiting to wash you!

3. Why be tied to that which is fallen?

a. We know that what Babylon leaves behind is a trail of brokenness but when you are in the lamb you leave a trail of good deeds…why be tied to the beast?

4. The Hour has come…Babylon is always falling…Our job is to join with the angels and the saints proclaiming that there is blood enough for the sins of the world!

The New International Version (Chapter 6)

do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

There is enough blood

no matter what you have done

I dont care if you have witchcraft in your past, the blood of Jesus will cover it