Sermon Tone Analysis

summary

Revelation 17-18 overlaps a good deal with elements in preceding chapters, most notably 13-16.

In those earlier chapters readers were introduced to the Beast, the symbolic representation of anti-Eden chaos drawn from Daniel 7;

Babylon as a metaphor for that system and cipher for the present enemy of John’s day, the Roman Empire; and the judgment of the nations—unbelievers who have aligned themselves with the Beast and Babylon against the true God and his people.

Chapters 17-18 continues these themes utilizing other imagery and language from the Old Testament.

Collectively, chapters 13-18 lead to the confrontation at Armageddon (har-mageddon), the mount of Yahweh’s council assembly, between the returning Christ, Yahweh incarnate and risen, and the Beast (Rev 19).

In this episode we explore John’s use of the Old Testament and specific themes related to Psalm 82 and the Day of the Lord judgment of the fallen gods of the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, the Babel rebellion, in setting up this climactic confrontation.

Introduction

And you know, we’re going to do 17 and 18 today.

And there’s a lot of overlap—a fair number of overlaps—between these chapters and stuff we’ve already hit.

So we’re not going to rehearse everything that we did before.

We’re not going to cover all that turf again.

So I’m going to pick my spots.

For instance, we’ve talked before about Babylon being a chaos symbol and a metaphor.

That was chapter 14.

It’s going to pop up again here.

We’ve talked about its relationship to Rome, and so we’re not going to repeat that material.

In this episode, we’re going to try to focus on the identity of Mystery Babylon and how it’s rooted in Old Testament descriptions maybe of idolatry and specifically injustice to the nations.

And again, if that sounds like Psalm 82, take note of that.

Because it is kind of surprising how much… Let’s put it this way.

When you’re talking about Babylon and you’re talking about a system… Because this is the book of Revelation.

Okay?

The city of Babylon itself is not a big deal anymore.

There is no Babylonian Empire.

So we get John talking about Rome—the big, bad empire of its day, the last empire of Daniel 2. Because that’s when the kingdom of God comes into the picture during the Roman Empire.

I mean, we’re very clearly talking about Roman stuff throughout the book of Revelation.

So John is going to use Old Testament Babylon as a way to talk about the great enemy that the Church is facing when he’s writing the book of Revelation.

Well, everybody sort of knows that.

But do we realize what we're talking about when we talk about Babylon as a system?

That’s the Deuteronomy 32 rebellion.

That’s the Deuteronomy 32 worldview.

And so it shouldn’t surprise us that the judgments that are meted out (whether it’s the trumpets or the bowls or whatever set of judgments we’re talking about) are judgments on the nations.

They’re judgments on the people who have aligned themselves with the beast, i.e., with Babylon, with these other nations that are against not Israel (ethnic Israel in this case), but against the new Israel, i.e., the Church.

And again, I’m not a total replacement theologian kind of guy and my audience knows that.

I refer to the Church as a new Israel, not the new Israel.

I do think there’s an eschatological destiny for Israel—geographic Israel.

But you have to be thinking in these modes.

It makes a lot of sense to read through the book of Revelation… We’ve got judgments against the nations and judgments against the people of those nations tied up with the Day of the Lord, which is when those things happen in the Old Testament.

And ultimately, the gods of those nations— supernatural evil—are going to lose total control.

They’re going to be destroyed.

So they’re no longer going to govern the nations.

Their authority has already been stripped away.

When we get to our Colossians series when we got to Colossians 3, you’re going to know that Paul unites the idea of the resurrection with the nullification of the authority of the fallen sons of God of the Old Testament—the gods of the Old Testament, who are Paul’s “principalities and powers” and so on and so forth.

All these things intertwine.

Day of the Lord

And so when you’re here in the book of Revelation and you see these judgments being played out (the Day of the Lord), another element of this that’s being described is the final death of the gods.

This is when the judgment of Psalm 82 comes to pass.

And these chapters (17-18) are leading up to… We’ve both led up to and now we’re dealing with the fall of Babylon (the fall of Babel, the whole system) and the death of its gods, that’s really going to take place at

Armageddon.

Because what is Armageddon?

It is not a battle at Megiddo.

It is a battle for Zion.

It’s a battle for the seat of divine authority.

It’s the Har-moed (the mountain of assembly—the mount of assembly), which in the Old Testament, on the pagan side is going to be Baal’s mountain and so on and so forth, but on the Israelite side (on Yahweh’s side) this is Zion.

This is Jerusalem.

This is where the

battle is.

This is what it’s about.

This is all stage-setting for the ultimate conflict between the Deuteronomy 32 Babel system and Yahweh himself, for supremacy.

That’s what it is.

And so when we read through the book of Revelation, those people in this audience who understand what the Deuteronomy 32 worldview is, it ought to be jumping out at you in this talk about the nations and the beast and

Babel/Babylon.

Again, how could you miss it?

It’s just that we’re not taught about eschatology in this way.

We are taught systems.

And those systems are typically applied to, “Well, what’s going on in Russia?

What’s going on in some other country?”

We isolate it geographically.

Or maybe we literalize Babylon.

And a literalized Babylon approach is better than a literalized Russia or China approach.

I mean, because that makes no sense at all.

But this is the way we’re typically taught.

Or we’re taught to spiritualize everything, where there’s really nothing going on boots-on-the-ground here.

There’s no heaven and earth symbiosis.

This is just all ethereal.

It’s the Church against evil in a very abstract, ethereal sense.

Because again, if you’re the amillennialist or somebody like that, you’re typically, in your tradition, not thinking about the reclaiming of the nations in real time, just like they were lost.

You’re not thinking in those modes.

And so I’m hoping that as we’ve gone through 15 and 16 and now Revelation 17 and 18, these things will start to again recur in your mind and just jump out at you, because this is really what these chapters are about.

They’re stage-setting for the ultimate conflict over who is the Most High.

Who is the Most High?

Is it going to be the beast and that system?

Or is it going to be the God of the Bible?

So I want to jump in here and just start pecking away at some of the things that we haven’t addressed in too much detail to this point and sort of fill in the gaps.

So let’s just start in chapter 17 with the woman who is the prostitute (some translations will have “harlot”).

So I’ll just read a few verses here.

Let me just stop there.

“Full of blasphemous names.”

Well, “blasphemous names,” these are spiritual competitors.

Okay?

They’re the names of the gods and the other nations.

And they’re in the wilderness.

This is the realm of the dead in the Old Testament.

This is cosmic chaos.

This is anti-Eden.

But anyway…

…and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.

You know, spiritual adultery, something real simple like that...

I mean, we’re not dealing with literal adultery, but adultery is an Old Testament metaphor for idolatry—for spiritual unfaithfulness, for worshiping other gods.

Why does it make sense here?