Welcome friends. Great to see you for you’re visiting. My name’s Alex. I’m one of the pastors here at Salva Today we’re gonna kinda work our way to the tables. That you see dotted around the worship center. We’re gonna come to this place of communion. The Lord’s supper, the mass. You may know it as it’s this, the Eucharist.

It’s this place of gathering and remembering storytelling together. The writer, CS Lewis once said this that often people need to be reminded. More than they need to be taught. And so what we do at this table is we remind ourselves of the faithfulness of God in the story that we’re living out.

That we may be just a tiny part of this broad and big, but he’s faithful in this moment too, in this time of Lent that we’re fast coming to a conclusion of, I’m just gonna turn it off and turn it back on if in doubt. Reboot and try again.

Hey, I’m gonna take it that we’re making our journey around here, lent and Easter, this idea that God is for us. Next week, we begin our journey with Jesus towards Calvary, towards the cross and towards resurrection. In the midst of that, we’ve tried to remind you of a couple of things that Lent seems to be about.

It’s about prayer. It’s about bright sadness. The idea that Easter colors everything, even when we try to mourn as followers of Jesus, we can’t quite mourn in the normal fashion. There’s this thing that shines, brings color to everything and finally, lent is a season of what’s called repentance. That doesn’t necessarily mean weeping or throwing ashes on your head or that kind of process.

It means there’s a turning back towards you. You might say that the life following Jesus is a life of returning in the same direction. There, there’s moments where we find ourselves drifting away and we return and come back. There’s moments where we find ourselves broken and we return and come back.

And the good news is that this, Jesus is always waiting for us. And in the midst of finishing Lent, we were also. I am happy to say finishing the book of Revelation. It’s coming to a conclusion. I used to do some work out in Ireland and we occasionally did witnessing or evangelism on the most bombed street in Europe.

And you could stay in Belfast in the most bombed hotel in the world, and they would give you a certificate to say you survived. If you joined a church during the book of Revelation I feel like you deserve the same certificate. It’s a hard ask to jump in on. The reason I think it’s hard is this. Emily Dickinson once said that sometimes you tell all the truth, but you tell it.

Slant success in circuit lies, revelation is told slant. It’s not just direct information. And so you have to do a lot of process work to get any sense out of this and that is not always an easy process. If you found Revelation hard, almost to the point of saying, I don’t know what to do with this book, then you are in good company.

’cause this is a quote from Martin Luther. About 500 years ago, Martin Luther started this thing called the Protestant Reformation, which is why was sat here today. And he said this. Again, they are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book Revelation, and yet no one knows what that is to say.

Nothing of keeping it. It’s just the same as if we did not have the book at all, and there are many far better books available for us to keep. He didn’t care for the book of Revelation, didn’t actually think it was prophetic or given to us by the Holy Spirit. Now there’s signs that he warmed to it, but it just gives further evidence to how some people have struggled their way through this book.

Here’s what I think Martin Luther was struggling with. And I hear, I think this is what we at times struggle with. ’cause I think this book is a gift in so many ways, but it’s the question that we began with, if you weren’t here back when we began this series, it’s the question of side quests. If you ever played a video game, if you ever jumped into that kind of adventure was the main thing.

Save the princess. Like in almost every game, it’s actually just save the princess. That’s just like most games ever. But there’s always the side quests that you have to do. Maybe it’s collecting coins or collecting weird spiders if you’re a Zelda fan. But if you spend your time over occupied with them, you miss the purpose of the thing.

And the purpose of Revelation is to see Jesus for who he is. It’s not to figure out when the world might end. Not to figure out as we’ll see today why a beast has seven horns and also seven heads. It’s not any of those things. When you get so immersed in those things and miss Jesus, then of course the book feels like that.

And while this is the last week, it doesn’t get any easier. And this text is probably the hardest that I’ve come across to try and teach if you have kids in the room. Just little note of caution, you might have to do a little bit of explaining and what we’re gonna navigate some hard language together.

So in a moment, I’m gonna pray ’cause I need help on this one. In our final week, we look at the image of Babylon, the image of Babylon. As Revelation comes to a conclusion, it’s going to solve a problem or maybe in better terms, put an end to a problem that’s universal. It’s a problem that you’ve experienced at some point in your life as an individual.

And we experience constantly as a world it’s this one, the school yard problem. If I ask you the question, who runs the school yard? There’s a few different answers, right? Maybe the answer should be the teacher or whoever’s supposed to be the adult in the room. But on a practical level, if you have been to school ever, which is again, a huge chunk of us.

You know that teachers can’t be everywhere. They’ve got all sorts of things going on. So one argument is this, that the school bully runs the school yard. He’s the one that is in charge in so many different ways. This is a picture of me back in school, the classic British school uniforms in this picture is me over on the right, and the kid that bullied me until the day that I stood up to him.

And then I tried to become the bully in his place. Now, I looked like this in school, so bullying anyone wasn’t really on the cards. Like he was like, wait, what? Oh, little Alex, before the world weighed upon you. 12 years of kids. You look so fresh, alive, and I have questions for whoever cut your hair ’cause that.

But in the process of that picture and the evolution of it, there is the kid that bullied me and also the kid that bullied him and then not in the picture is the big brother that bullied that kid. And the dad that bullied that kid. And what tends to happen in a schoolyard setting is that there may be a bully.

And then someone else rises up and they could make the classroom great, but of their school yard, great. But the tendency is to become the bully and to have that power. And you may look after some kids in that kind of mafia type language, but you tend to do it if they show a particular loyalty towards you.

And that’s been true throughout schoolyards all over the place. Here’s the hard thing. One more little look. It’s also true of countries, so it’s true of people. This is William Yts who once said something. It’s a matter of course that of that chance should starve good man and bad advance. On a country level, it gets even more complicated.

Throughout the history that the Bible sketches it, it names empires. And then as that history ends, as the Bible narratives end, the empires continue to come. The Egyptians give way to the Assyrians who give way to the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians. When that ends, the Chinese become the most, the hand Dyna Dynasty becomes the most powerful in the world.

The Roman Empire becomes this huge, significant empire that, that this book Revelation is talking distinctly to and about. The Byzantines, the Mongols, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French, the British. It’s one long list of country after another. That kind of takes that role. And the question is, when you take that role, what?

What do you do with it? That’s exactly about Rome and by inference about other countries. The question that this text in Revelation is asking. In the final chapters of Revelation, what I suggest we see in a complicated way for us, given that we are the nation right now, that exerts the most power in the world, we see the end of the schoolyard narrative.

This is entirely a positive thing because at the end of the story, the can be only one kingdom and every kingdom as we’ll see, passes away or bows the knee to that kingdom. This is the introduction to the Babylon narrative, and I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven. This is Revelation 14.

Having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue, and people saying with a loud voice, fear God. And give glory to him for the hour of his judgment is come and worship him. That made heaven and earth and the sea and the foundations of the waters, and they followed another angel saying Babylon is fallen.

It’s fallen that great city because she made all the nations drink of the wine, of the wrath of her for fornication. If you think that’s difficult and complex, it’s gonna get a lot worse before we get a lot better. I. This concept of Babylon as a city is introduced to us in Daniel chapter four, and it’s here that we start to see, maybe this is the reason the Babylon, as a name is picked by this writer to conclude his narratives in Revelation King Nebuchadnezzar.

I, sorry I didn’t change the verse there. That should say Daniel chapter four says this, 12 months later, as the King Nebuchadnezzar was walking on the roof of the Royal Paris Palace of Babylon, he said, is not this. The great Babylon I have built as the royal residence. My mighty power for the glory of my majesty.

If you were here last week, you maybe have picked up that this is a king that simply doesn’t learn. There’s a statue that is built that says that a kingdom will come and lead people away from the worship of the true garden. And in the next chapter he says I’m going to build. A statue.

And then because some of the faithful followers of the God of Israel won’t bow down to his statue, he throws them into a furnace and they come out unharmed and he says, your God must be the God of all Gods. And then in just the next chapter, despite the warnings of that chapter, he ends up here. I have built this.

As my royal residence, my mighty power has done this for the glory of my majesty. There’s this kind of like self worship, a self adoration that comes early on with the name Babylon. But in this book, revelation Babylon is about to be revealed. It’s about to be revealed as its true self. In the most colorful of language.

So again, get ready for this ’cause we’re gonna have to do some work. ’cause in a modern context, this is hard to understand. Revelation chapter 17 verse one. One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute who sits by many waters with her, the kings of the earth committed adultery.

And the inhabitant inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries. Then the angel carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads. And 10 horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls.

She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with the abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery Babylon the great. The mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth. Let’s pray. ’cause as you can see, we need it. Jesus. Help us to make sense of this.

Help us to do what the call of Revelation is, which is to find you in it, to see how you are revealed, to be excited about the new future that you’re unfolding out of this old. Story, and some of us feel the age of this story right now in our sicknesses, in our grief, in our heartaches. Some of us walk in here limping and would say, I need to see this new story and to believe that it can come true.

So some of the language here just challenging to read. So one of the things that you’ll see repeatedly in this is this idea of either adultery or prostitution that’s talked about. Now, one of the things that’s important to know into scripture when it’s used like this language is usually like a code.

For idolatry. In actual fact, one of the things we see modeled in Jesus is this welcoming in of all people regardless of their story. So what you’re not reading here is like some kind of like attack on a particular person for where they happen to sit in their story right now, in actual fact, one of the ways we see Jesus work is that he welcomes people, especially in those.

Broken places. The writer, preacher Tony Campolo, tells a wonderful story about lecturing in the secular University of Eastern over in Pennsylvania. And in the midst of teaching a class on philosophy, he happens to ask a question, how do you think Jesus would talk to a prostitute? And one of the kids in the class stands up and yells out He never met one.

And Tony Campolo thought, oh, I got this sucker. Wait till I show this kid just what kind of person Jesus is. And he begins to go through the gospels and talk about all the ways that Jesus interacted with a person who happens to be caught in the industry that we call prostitution. And as he’s talking about it, this kid stands up again and says, are you telling me when Jesus saw that woman, he saw a prostitute?

I think he saw her as a woman, and Tony Kolo says in the midst of this, he had this moment where he just suddenly realized that the kid in class had a better understanding of how Jesus worked in the world than he did. Regardless of your background, regardless of your story, Jesus is welcome you in to his story and potentially changing yours at the same time.

But scripture still uses this term broadly as this code for idolatry. What we’re seeing here is the revelation that the great Babylon is not quite what it showed itself to be. My kids love the TV show. Is it Cake? Some of you may have seen it. The goal of the people can, the contestants in it is to make something, make some cake that looks exactly like the real thing.

And so you get like images like this. This is a shoe or is it a cake? This is a suitcase or perhaps it’s cake. This is a statue and it’s definitely cake ’cause they already cut into it. But the goal is to try and figure it out for what it truly is. Babylon may look splendid from the outside.

Nebuchadnezzar de declared it to be a work of art. But actually internally, it’s a very broken old engine of the way the world has worked. There’s a surprising twist to this Babylon story as we unpack this passage. The twist of revelation is that Babylon is not just a great city or power. Babylon is backed by a supernatural power.

The woman who’s pictured riding on this beast is the same. It’s the same beast, same story that’s connected to the dragon story that Aaron unpacked for us just a few weeks ago. All of this kind of Satanic trio that’s been unveiled is behind and backing this city. In seven and eight as he goes on to describe it, John says, when I saw her, I was greatly astonished.

There’s a fascinating twist of language there, ’cause that language is most often used about how people felt when they saw Jesus Miracles. Does an allure of this Babylon as well as also a kind of horror and a shock. And a wandering, something that’ll become important later. This kind of draw of it. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.

Then the sec, the angel said to me, why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast. She rides, which has seven heads and seven horns. The beast, which you saw once was, okay, try and follow. This now is not. And yet will come up out of the abyss and go to its destruction.

The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life, from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast. Also remember, John was astonished when he saw the beast because it once was, now is not and yet will come. This calls from mind with wisdom.

The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. Rome was known to sit on seven hills. They’re also seven kings. Five have fallen. One is the other, has not yet come, but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. The beast who once was and now is not is the eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to destruction.

The 10 horns you saw are 10 kings as well, who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings. Along with the beast. They have one purpose. They will give their power and authority to the beast. So all of that. Does that remind you of what Martin Luther’s talking about?

I can’t even understand what’s been said. How can I possibly obey it? And yet the language that we see in Revelation is often symbolic. Seven means a completeness. 10 also means a completeness. So the purpose isn’t to try and determine which king was which and where each king aligned with each nation, but to understand that these kings represent a long lineage of kings, all opposed to one thing, and it’s in the last line there, they, these kings will wage war.

Against the lamb against Jesus, but the lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of Lords and king of kings. And with him will be his called chosen and faithful followers. Throughout this text, we receive this idea. Babylon represents a humanity. That will not submit to its creator. And that list of kings of empires that sit under those kings is long and seemingly never ending.

I. This is a multifaceted story, multi-layered. On one level, it’s about Babylon, this ancient city. On another level, John is clearly talking about Rome, but on a third level, it’s about all empires who choose the way of empire. So empires like plural, that’s a kingship, a kingdom. But there’s this other element of empire that is this way of.

Controlling and stealing and taking and dominating. Bruce Metzker says this, Babylon is allegorical for the idolatry that any nation commits. When it elevates material abundance, military prowess, technological sophistication, imperial grandeur, racial pride, and any other glorification of the creature over the creator, it’s any nation that takes the story of Nebuchadnezzar and says, look what we have built here.

Worship us. Honor us. Richard Walkman says this, John has taken some of his contemporaries worst experiences and worst fears of wars and natural disasters, blown them up to apocalyptic proportions and cast them in biblically elusive terms. The point is not to predict a sequence of events. The point is to evoke and to explore the meaning of the divine judgment, which is impending on a sinful.

It seems these empires throughout history come with their own flavor of empire, but they share some common tendencies. Empire says Walter Brueggeman extract wealth from the vulnerable to give it to the wealthy, reduce everybody and everything to just a monetary value, undertake violence to make it work.

It’s the story that we see at play in Egypt who demand more bricks of their slaves and simply measure them on whether they can produce more and will use violence to back up their message. Empire means choosing the dragon again. Note Aaron sermon for its promise of unlimited power and unlimited wealth that is intoxicating.

Now here’s the interesting part. God has used empires and we’ll see some in a moment to help weave his gospel story. He has used the roads of the Roman Empire, the languages of the Greek empire, the Navy of the British Empire. However, they do not stand forever for their own purpose. And this is the heartbeat.

Of where Revelation is going every year. I love to take my kids back to England. We love to get all of my kids, my sister’s kids, my brother’s kids on the beach. We love to take photos in the same spot. This is like a happy spot for me. It’s a place where we try and, build sandcastles. We’re not great at it.

We’ve got some individual styles. We’ve got some people that like to go their own way, and usually we end up with something that we’re worked on for hours. Usually the kids have started it and the adults have finished it, as is the way of beach holidays. But in the end, there’s always the same story with a sandcastle.

The tide comes in, the sandcastle falls. It happens every single time I’ve ever built a sand castle. Get this behind the Babylon story. This is Yergen Malman brilliant German theologian died last year. The unassailable power of the forces of evil will be but sand castles that leave no trace of their existence as the evening tide washes them away.

Where is the Roman Empire? That is opposing the Christians in this era that Johnny’s writing. Where is Babylon? Where have they gone? Where? Let me add, is the British Empire gone? Something that covered a quarter of the globe now? Just a remembrance, a relic. The story of Babylon is this, and John follows it up in chapter eight.

John announces all empires will be caught up. In the incoming tide, accept those that will bow the knee to the one true king who created everything. In the midst of that, John has a couple of reminders, things that he wants us to grasp, wants us desperately to know, and they seem to be these. First John reminds the church to leave the way of empire.

Remember John’s view of this woman on the beast, his sense of allure, his sense of drawing. We have that same problem when we run our companies simply to destroy the people that are trying to do the same thing. When we desire Monopoly way of empire, when pastors rule churches like Kings Empire. All sorts of ways that empire weaves its way into the Christian community.

In Revelation 18 verse four, he says, come out over my people so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues. For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. In CS Lewis wonderful Chronicles of Nia, in the voyage of the Dawn Treader, a character called Eustis, finds himself sleeping on the gold in a dragon’s cave and wakes up the next morning, transformed.

He says this, sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy dragon ish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself. The way of empire has a way of getting to some of us here too. That’s his first kind of like prompt. This is a thing he wants you to know. Second is this, John leads the persecuted church, at least in celebrating justice in a way that might throw us, actually today there’s a sense of celebration that maybe we feel like, God, have you gone?

Too far. Is this too much? Read some of the language here in Revelation 18. Give her Babylon as much torment and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart, she boasts. I sit and throne as queen. I am not a widow. I will never mourn. Therefore, in one day her plagues will overtake a death, mourning and famine.

She will be consumed by fire. For mighty is the Lord God who judges her. How about this verse nine and 11, when the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury, see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at a tournament, they will stand far off and cry.

Whoa. Wti, you great city. You mighty city of Babylon. In one hour, your doom has come. The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys her cargoes anymore. One more verse 20. Rejoice over her. You heavens rejoice. You people, oh God. Rejoice apostles and prophets. For God has judged her with the judgment she imposed.

And you, perhaps you like me, and read that and say, is that really supposed to be how we respond to that kind of judgment feels like a horror more than something to be celebrated. And yet, here’s that interesting involvement in the story. If we’re honest, most of us have never experienced persecution for following in the way of Jesus.

I certainly haven’t. If you’ve never sat in that place, I think there’s a thing that process may be, that says, be careful about how you judge the response of those who have, because all over the world we have brothers and sisters, followers of Jesus who have sat in that place. And when you hear their story, maybe for a moment, you begin to understand the sense of relief when God’s judgment.

Arrives. This is Alan Boak, south African. There has hardly been a place where the police in the army have not wantonly murdered our children, piling, atrocity upon atrocity and as they go from funeral to funeral. Burying yet another victim of law and order, or yet another, killed by government, protected by death protected death squads, the cry continues to rise to heaven.

How long Lord? Same cry as last couple of weeks ago, right? E except now we start to see the response. We start to see the end of the story. When you’ve sat in that place, don’t you long for some kind of justice. Here’s Nelson Cradle. Interesting take. Perhaps what the Christian Church in the West needs is more anger, not less.

We may need revelation to jolt us out of our slumber. To open our eyes to see the idolatry and injustice that pervade, globalization and empire. Today, something beastly is at work, for example, in a world where people starve to death or die of preventable disease, while nations spend billions on weapons and leisure, I struggle with that.

I was hoping to buy some new skis. I like I like buying stuff. I like possessions. I long for more. And yet the well-placed words of revelation are at a times like a dagger. That gets me, it makes me ask, what am I doing in this world to create a world of justice? It’s a challenging question that we have to embrace.

What does the church doing? The face of empire, what’s our response? And it feels like there could be a few as we come to communion. Does the church take action by picking up a sword? Seems like Jesus teaching is no. Does it take no action simply by surrendering to empire or becoming a part of it, becoming part of this Babylon that John describes?

What does it find? This middle ground of resistance that seems to be our call, the middle way of resistance relies on prayer. And an expectation that God will be faithful to his promises and celebration when he is. This is the start of chapter 19, hallelujah. Salvation and glory and power belong to our God for true and just are his judgment.

He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulterers. He’s avenged on her the blood of his servants. Then the angel said to me, write this. Blessed are those who were invited to the wedding supper of the lamb, and he added these are the true words of God. There’s an interesting thing been going on throughout this narrative.

I haven’t mentioned it at all, but maybe you caught it. Where? Where is the judgment landing in these verses? It’s on systems. It’s on things that the entitled empire, it’s on this nation of Babylon, or at least the leadership of it. But where do the people stand in the midst of that? God in his brilliant way creates a scenario where every single one of those people fit this description of those who are invited to the wedding supper of the lamb.

As it’s described here, this is how Jesus describes it. In Luke chapter 14, sir, the servant said he’s created this scenario where there’s a kingdom, a feast that everyone has been invited to, but few have chosen to attend, serve A servant said what you have ordered has been done, but there is still room.

Then the master told his servant, go out to the roads, the country lanes, and compel them to come in so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of My bank will quit. Who at the end is welcomed in? Anyone who will come. Those court in prostitution, the street sleepers, the poor in spirit, the poor in wallet, anyone.

He is invited into this story. While bringing this story of judgment, John maintains this beautiful truth that the door to Jesus kingdom is open to anyone who will have him. Walter Brugmann says this about the God who, Navi Narrat narrates this story and God, to be sure is seen as all powerful, all knowing.

And everywhere present the things. If we’re honest, we most readily identify with who God is. We quite often go to those kind of Greek stories about kind of God’s attributes. These marks are common, though amongst the gods. Amongst the gods of empire. In contrast to the gods of empire, God of the Bible, he’s praised and celebrated most characteristically.

For an eager capacity for fidelity. Let me explain that for just a second. Throughout scripture, the thing that God is not celebrated for most is that he knows all things, not celebrated most because he’s all powerful, not celebrated most because he has got an omnipresence present in every single moment throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament.

This God is most celebrated for his faithful love, his decision to do whatever he has to do to interact, to save, to redeem this humanity, these image bearers like you, and you, and even me. That’s the characteristic of this God, I. God’s fidelity to his creation is his most celebrated quality.

He will bring the story to a conclusion. There can be no empire but his, and yet all are welcomed in all can belong. That’s what we remember as we come to this table has a unique quality because it reminds us of kingship, but an inverse kingship. Almost all kings in history demand your fealty and in return for your fealty will give theirs.

The story of this king who gave us this table is he acts first. He’s the one that says, I will commit to you and gives you an opportunity to commit to him. This table reminds us of the work of Jesus. In making that fidelity something that was grounded in our redemption. We come to this table and we remember, but we also come to this table and remind ourselves, God, our call is to be faithful to you, to your kingdom only, and to no other because this is the king that created everything.

It’s his story, his world. We get to be a part of it. I’m gonna give you a moment to just prepare your hearts. Maybe you see in your own heart some of the trappings of empire desire for wealth, at any cost, power at any cost. Maybe you see a desire to be successful to the point that no one else can be successful.

Maybe you see a longing for some kind of rulership. Maybe you see simply a overfocus on the here and the now. In this story, we remind ourselves of the king that created all things. Who crafted this story that will bring it to a conclusion

that on one night, 2000 years ago, gathered with his disciples, his earliest followers and broke bread with them. I handed them a piece of it and said, this is my body broken for you. In the same way. He took the cup, handed it to them and said, this is my blood shed for the sins of the world, kind of king allows his body to be broken.

Kind of king allows his blood to be shed, not an earth leaking. They’re protected at all costs. This king comes, he shares his life with us.

Gonna invite you to stand and as Aaron plays gonna invite you to take the bread and the cup, take it back to your seat in just the moments as Aaron continues to play. Take the bread when you’re ready, just as a personal reflection on what God has done for you. And then I’m gonna come back and together and we’ll take this cup.

And remember, it’s Jesus.