Rev 17

Revelation 17, Waking up in Babylon

Baby Ember Dedication

It is always a special day in the church when we get to dedicate a child and today we get to dedicate two, so, it is that special day.

So, I would like to invite up Ember Quinn Peterson, Her brother Finn, Micah and Krysta,

Baby Dedication has a long history in the church:

Two verses that Guide us as parents

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Matthew 7:13-14

13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

These verses remind us that our children follow us closely and the path that we go down will be the path that they go down…

Now let’s meet Ember. Ember your mom and Dad have chosen a verse for you that they hope will guide your life:

Romans 12:9-16, 21

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. [1]

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. [2]

Charge / Dedication Questions:

Dear friends, you have brought these children whom God has given you to be dedicated to God and to His service. By this act you testify to your faith in the Jesus Christ, and also your desire that your children shall receive the benefits of consecration to God, and of the prayers of the church, and may early learn to know and follow the will of God; and therefore, may live a Christian life.

In order for this to happen, it will be your duty as parents & Grandparents to teach your children early the fear of the Lord; to watch over their education, that they may not be led astray by false teachings or doctrines, to direct their minds to the Holy Scriptures as expressing the will and authority of God for all people, and to direct their feet to the sanctuary, to restrain them from evil associates and habits; and, as much as you are able, to bring them up in the Lord's discipline and instruction. Will you endeavor to do so, by the help of the Lord?

(Then the parents or guardians shall answer:)

“We will.”

Congregational Response:

We recognize that the church body can have a significant impact on the family Life.

So church I have a question for you and if you agree, I’d like you to respond with “we will”

Question:

Will you guide and strengthen these parents and children in the way of the Lord? Will you Encourage, give wisdom, offer support and pray for this family as they grow?

Response:

If so respond with “We Will”

Krysta & Micah As you present Ember before the Lord today I am going to ask you some more questions.

* Do you present your Joseph for dedication as a sign of the grace of God which is extended even now to your children through the atoning work of Christ and declares them to be a part of the family of God? And,

* Do you promise with the help of God to bring your children up in the

instruction and discipline of the Lord, to pray with them and for them, and to make every effort to so order your own life that you will not cause these little ones to stumble?

* Do you intend to encourage your children as soon as they are able to

comprehend its significance to acknowledge personally their own faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to serve God faithfully in the fellowship of His Church?

If so respond, “We Do”

Pastoral Prayer: Father, we pray that through the power of your spirit, you would be present with Ember. That you would set her apart for your kingdom service. Lord we pray for your protection over Ember’s life and that her life would not only praise you but bring others to praise you. Lord would you form Ember into the kind of person who makes others happy that you made this world and put them in it.

Ember on behalf of your parents and of this congregation, I dedicate you unto the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Prayer for our Country

We all know the news: yesterday there was an attempted assassination on former President Trump, at his campaign rally

One of the things that we know in scripture is that our words matter

Our political rhetoric matters

Jesus tells us that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks…

We know in fact that words do become flesh…They become actions

One of the things that I have been hoping to get across in the revelation series is that we live in the middle of a culture that is Babylon. And yeah one of the things about Babylon is that we get to vote…And its totally okay to have a political opinion. I have one, it is impossible not to have one.

What I am saying is the way the church moves forward from this matters so much.

I want to submitt to you that we do a few things

1. We are going to take a time of prayer for our nation this morning. We are going to ask you to pray for our country

2. I want to ask you to do something. I am just going to call it people over politics.

In the days to come there will be finger pointing, they

One of the points that

The words we say matters.

I wanted to take a few minutes for us

· Conflict in Congress

o In 1856 Mass Senator Charles Sumner address the Senate and lamented about what had happened in Kansas. He blamed the south’s desire for additional slave states. He had harsh words for South Carolina’s Senator, Senator Butler. Preston Brooks was Butler’s nephew and a member of the house of representatives. Two days after the speech, Preston Brooks went into Summer’s office and began beating him over the head with his gold tipped cane. Sumner was incapacitated for two years.

o When the house censured Brooks he resigned and then his congressional district re-elected him and then his constituents sent him new canes to take with him when he returned to congress.

o Between these two conflicts the tension over slavery became physical

Good morning & welcome to REC this morning…

Before we get into the text this morning, I wanted to simply help us to understand some of the major points of how we got here to this point…

There are a lot of ways to understand this book…one in which I find helpful us to understand it as a manual for discipleship in the city.

How do we live as Christians in the midst of a national system that is opposed to our very existence?

How do you live as a Christian in the midst of a culture that worships other God’s?

So foremost I think this is a text on discipleship

But second, it’s a book that sets up the contrasts of worshiping Jesus, the lamb vs the worship of the beast or Satan…

So, I think the main thing to highlight as we get to this text today is that…What Revelation is trying to tell the church is that there is a new world emerging…

There is a new kind of community that is emerging out of one of the most brutal and oppressive empires in all of history…

It is the followers of the lamb…and as they take on the character of Jesus, as they are formed and shaped by the lamb, they become like him…and are gradually overtaking the darkness…

This new community of people…the redeemed are marked by the spirit of God and God goes with them wherever his people go…

But there is this sort of Eschatological present future at play as well…

And that is the return of Jesus and the wedding feast of the lamb…making all things new…

But before that happens…Evil has to go…Given every opportunity to repent…even plagues and still, a number of people tied themselves to evil…

So, in this next bit of scripture…John has already talked about the final judgment but now he paints this picture…The “Whore of Babylon” and what John is really doing here is a political cartoon…

So normally I read through the entire text and then go back through what each verse means…

Today is just complicated enough that instead of reading everything and going back…I am going to break down each section as we read it…

Revelation 17:1 ESV

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,

So those of you who are really following closely the 7th bowl judgment from last week was on Babylon…and what john is saying is that this is so important we will go into detail about the punishment of Babylon. Which is called right up front the Great prostitute…

We are going to dive into this metaphor more in a minute

Revelation 17:2–5 ESV

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.” 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. 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. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”

You’ve all seen, “Uncle Sam” although uncle Sam was built on a real guy…He isn’t a real guy…He is the personification of the united states…

When you see uncle Sam…it is the USA Personified…

In the same way John is painting a political cartoon…except for a strong soldier like character…He uses the image of a prostitute…

And I don’t want to use strong language just to use it, so it is not my intention, but I do want to say that the ESV & NIV uses the term “prostitute”, but I don’t think that that word nearly captures what John was going for

The term that is most often used for this woman is whore or harlot…Prostitute works as the same function…But frankly it’s not as shocking and john used the word “Porne” which comes from the word Pornos…

Which is where we get the word pornography today…

John meant this in a way to shock his readers to listen up…

And we see this woman seated on the beast…remember this woman is going to symbolize Rome…and what John is trying to say is that Rome is an evil empire…it gets its power from the beast

If you remember back to a few weeks ago we talked about the author John and how he felt looking at human power vs God’s power…When Jesus was tempted by Satan and Satan said to him, “I will give you all of the kingdoms of the world and their splendor if you just worship me:” I think what the author John is trying to say here is that while Jesus didn’t take that deal…There are many nations who will…And Rome Sits on the beast…takes her power from the beast…she took the deal of worshiping the beast in return for political glory…

This woman who John is portraying, like the goddess Roma, holds a cup full of intoxicating but horrifying things…

John in a few chapters will introduce the bride…at the wedding feast of the lamb.

The Bride is shown in absolute contrast to the whore of Babylon…and I am going to get into this later…

Revelation 17:6 ESV

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.

So now we know what was in the cup…The blood of the saints…This is John’s way of saying Rome was fueled by the blood of the martyrs

This woman offers her disgusting cocktail to the citizens of Rome and to kings and rulers of the world

Babylon Celebrates the slaughter of the lamb’s people because the church refused to participate in the economy.

Rome won huge political favor by killing Christians…

Revelation 17:6b–7 (ESV)

When I saw her, I marveled greatly. 7 But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her.

This text, When I saw her, I marveled…

John feels the appeal and the lure of the prostitute’s luxury…I mean the visually stunning empire would have been appealing to early Christians…

But I love that the angel that is there rebukes John…almost as a way to rebuke all Christians…

Why are you marveling? Why are you astonished?

I mean Let’s face it…Empire is alluring no matter how you slice it…But this angel says…why be astonished at this? Why let Babylon capture your heart? And then the angel breaks down what he is seeing

Revelation 17:8 ESV

The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.

Do you get this…The Abyss we have dealt with before. it is the parody of the throne room of God…In earlier chapters we saw the Bottomless pit and hellish creatures that were just a parody of God’s throne room coming out

And John will repeat this a few times…That the beast “once was, now is not and yet will come”

It’s just a total parody of Jesus

Jesus even said of himself in Chapter 1: “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

What John is trying to tell the church is that Rome, where they live is just a complete parody of Jesus…Rome has artificial glory, it has manufactured praise, it leads to death rather than life….

But it looks really good on the outside

It is really appealing!

I mean I remember the first time I went to New York city…It’s magical…To go up on the empire state building…I’ve been up in the new trade center and from up there it just seems so amazing you can’t help but marvel at it…

But then you walk around the streets and basically smell trash, get yelled at and have to protect your belongings…I don’t know in my opinion it was great at first then I was like why does anyone even live here!

Don’t buy into the lie!

Then the next part gets a little cryptic:

Revelation 17:9–11 ESV

This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.

7 heads are 7 hills: Rome is known as the city with 7 hills

and the thing is the beast…

This is simply another way of saying all human power, if you want to know the genesis of it…If you want to know the source…it comes from the beast

Revelation 17:12–13 ESV

And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast.

This is sort of a way of saying that these 10 powers represent the totality of all of the nations on the earth which have been carried on the back of the beast, and they worship the beast

Revelation 17:14 ESV

They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”

I love this…The beast tries to wage war through its parody power…The beast tries to defeat the lamb…but even the beast knows…The beast is dead…It can’t stand a chance against the lamb

Revelation 17:15–18 ESV

And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”

Do you get what happens here? Babylon falls because evil self-destructs! The beast devours the woman…

If your life is tied to evil, it will eventually devour you. (1 Peter 5:8-9)

1 Peter 5:8–9 ESV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

Peter Reminds us that this is just the way the devil works. He is a roaring lion seeking to devour…

Peter has some experience with this.

He says Resist the devil because he know what it is like to deny Jesus…Remember what Jesus said to Peter…The devil has asked to sift you like wheat…but I have prayed fro you…

You can either get power in life from two places…

The beast or the lamb

The beast will make you look good for a time but will eventually eat you up

The lamb will make you irrelevant but eventually you will rule with the lamb!

The crazy thing is:

God doesn’t really need to judge Babylon, the beast eats it, it falls on its own…

This text is very interesting but really what I want to talk about today is this underlying current of Babylon…That I think we need to understand…

At the heart of the message of the gospel, what I think Jesus is saying to all who will follow him is you are worthy…Don’t find your worth in Babylon!

Not because of the clothes you wear…not because of how smart you are…not by what you own, not by how smart of sexy you are…

You are worthy you because Jesus loves you

…It really is as simple as that…

There is this story in the book of mark which I think illustrates this really well… The rich young ruler…

Good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus says sell everything, give it away to the poor and follow me….

In other words, get rid of all of the stuff that makes you worthy, that gives you significance, lay down your rule…and become nothing…

And the guy walks away…Why?

He’s got it all…He’s young, rich and he’s a ruler. He’s somebody!

He isn’t going to voluntarily grow old, with no money and no authority!

So, core to the message of the gospel is that when you follow Jesus, you are significant! You are worthy, because he has covered you in the blood of the lamb!

This is important because the great prostitute in this story is sort of the complete opposite of that…It’s like I can make you worthy through the clothes you wear, though your status in this world…I can make you look younger…I can make you feel important!

The beast invites you to find your significance in the riches of Babylon

The material things

The cool stuff you have

The lamb invites you to discover your significance in surrendering your life to Him and being washed in his blood

I want you to see what Eugene Peterson wrote about this:

Whoredom uses sex to lie about life: the truth of life is that love is a gift, that relationships are commitments, that sexuality is the sacrament of spirituality. The whore’s lie is that love is purchased, that relationships are “deals,” that sexuality is appetite. Whoredom is the use of good to do evil; the use of a good body to demean the person, the use of means of realizing identity to depersonalize identities. The great wrong in whoredom is not sexual immorality but spiritual sacrilege.

-Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder

See the great lie that Babylon sells is the commodification of worthiness

In other words, you want to feel complete? For just 5 months at 9.99per month…you can have this!

Want to look sexy?…Just but this electrode belt on and get 6 pack abs while you’re watching TV at night

Want to be popular, just do whatever Babylon is doing…

This is the great lie contained in the prostitute Babylon…That you can buy stuff that adds to your worth…You can look a certain way to add to your worth…

The lie of Babylon is that we find our own worth in the buying and selling of ourselves…In becoming commodities…

How many times have you heard people talk about managing your social media as if it is a brand? Why? Because all social media is marketing…in one way or another….Because we find our worthiness is tied to the way we portray ourselves. We are the products!

A few years ago…I was driving my family home from vacation in palm springs and somewhere on the 10 freeway… there was this billboard with a beautiful house…and a beautiful driveway…and a beautiful woman standing on it…She barley had any clothes on

And the Ad on the billboard literally says: “What does your driveway say about you?”

All the sudden I’m thinking I need a better driveway! The spirit of the whore of Babylon is come and find your worth in the empire…Get what you want when you want it…

Be the envy of your friends…

Folks…when you woke up this morning…you woke up in Babylon…And I’m not saying America or American government as much as I am saying the predominant world culture in which we live is Babylon

It has really become the default way of life!

You are a product…sell yourself for gain…For in this you will find your worth

Vs

You are a person…give yourself away to bless others…for in this Jesus’ blood brings you eternal worth…

The truth is that we live in this culture…And the lie is that you can never be set free from it…The lie is that it’s just the way things are…

Just as Jesus came to the rich young ruler….Jesus comes very simply to you and invites you to find your worth in him…

To cast off the chains of consumerism…To cast off the importance you place on what others think of you…To see our culture for the toxin it really is…And to worship the lamb…

It doesn’t matter if your rich or poor this morning…You live in 21st century America in California in the worlds 5th largest economy…By the whole word’s standards you are fabulously rich…

I want to invite you to make a declaration this morning…

Just in a time of prayer. Maybe you need to say, Jesus I will find my worth in you

Maybe you need to ask Jesus for Help…Lord I find my value in so many other things…Help me to find in just in you!

Your fate is tied to that of which you worship

The beast wants you to worship him but not really notice it