First of an Advent Series at a Church in Perth WA. 6th November 2016 Revelation 19
Nations, societies, cultures, civilizations: they all have a beginning, and they age and they rot, and there comes a time for a cleanup. It is this that we are looking at in our reading this morning in the Book of Revelation. It is the first sermon in an Advent series though Advent Sunday is not for another 3 weeks: it is still a good time for us to think about the future.
I turned 70 this year. I dreamt a few nights ago of two of my kids when they were tiny. It’s strange how the past comes back to you. Maybe it was the visit from friends that night. Don took a lot of photos when George Whitefield College team were with us and had mounted them in an album. Every shot was a reminder of a person and an event. The Book of Revelation is like that. You get it wrong if you read it through thinking it’s an A to Z account of all the events before the end. No, it’s a series of pictures of the sort of things we can expect – when I say we, I include the Apostle John, who received this vision – it’s a series of pictures of what he and the Christians who lived in his day could expect before the return of the Lord Jesus. But it does lead up to a climax and probably that is why the minister chose chapter 19 to kick off our Advent considerations.
A Mighty Roar
Let’s look at a few pages of this photo album. We start with section 19 – let’s call the chapters sections; some of them have a number of pictures on them, and the first one here comes with sound effects: a great roar – think of a packed football stadium, and the match has been going on for a long time, and our team is down, and it looks like we will certainly lose the game, and in the last minute exciting things are happening and as we look at the clock and realize there is only 20 seconds to go, and we are closing but still down, and then an incredible run and a score and then a conversion, and in the last 5 seconds we are the winners, and the crowd roars. Only this isn’t 30,000 voices in a packed stadium, it is a crowd of hundreds of millions and this is not a game, it is the struggle for good, which just at this moment is tearing Syria apart and killing thousands, but it has been like that for all the world’s history. And it’s over. It’s over. The King has come. What a roar of voices that will be, when all who have struggled in any way for God and for good, and have suffered, see that their side has won, that God has won.
Who is Babylon?
But look closely at this picture:
Revelation 19.1 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
We are roaring our pleasure and excitement at the fall of the Great Prostitute. We must go back to the previous section to figure this one out, the section that is called “The Judgement of the Great Prostitute.”
A lot of people used to think this was the Pope. There is a reason for this. In the 16th century the Church in many countries was trying to reform itself from many of its mistakes and corruptions. The western Church, whose head was the bishop of Rome, known as the Holy Father, or Pope along with the Holy Roman Emperor, ruled the Western World, and as always happens when people have power and wealth they go rotten. Much of the Church objected to any change, wanted to protect its privileges and so it fought against the reformers, and that meant persecution. Many godly Christians in many countries were killed, some in the most horrible ways. And it seemed to many that if only the Pope would take a strong lead things would be different, but the rottenness seemed worst in Rome and to be flowing out from there. It is understandable that people who saw their godly leaders being burned at the stake by order of the Pope should see him as the Great Prostitute. At that time in some ways he was. But who knows whether in our time she might be one of the instruments God uses to save the West.
So she is not the Pope. Then who is she? At John’s time she was the city of Rome itself: the city that sits on many waters. It was her corruption and her insatiable appetite for luxury and pleasure that infected all the other governments and people. But John knew you couldn’t blame all the corruption on one city. Look with me at this next snapshot (17.5) The woman has a name on her forehead:
Mystery – Babylon the Great – the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.
Not just Rome, the truth is John never mentions Rome by name. He couldn’t. That would make Revelation a book of treason. It had to be written in code. But who is Babylon? If you go back to the picture in chapter 11.10 we get a clue.
11.7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.
The two prophets are the true confessing Church of Christ – they are killed and their bodies lie in the street of the great city. Which city is that? It is symbolic of course: “Where their Lord was crucified!” Where was that? Jerusalem? But it says Sodom and Egypt! They are both places where the people of God were persecuted, as was Jerusalem and Rome and Babylon. There is no one city in which the Church of God will be exterminated, it will happen in many cities and towns and villages at many times. The next picture has the whole world having a party and sending each other presents because there is no more preaching. They think the game is over and they have won. But they don’t understand that God is real, and he has made himself known, and has claimed the world through his Son the Lord Jesus, and it you set out to fight God you are going to lose, however much it may seem your side is winning at the time.
Who is to be Drowned with a Millstone Round Her Neck?
Come back to 18.21 and look at another picture. This one helps us understand what we are talking about.
Revelation 18.21 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 … for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. 24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”
It is a great help in understanding Revelation to know the rest of the Bible, and especially the teaching of Jesus. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a great millstone was tied around his neck and he was drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18.6) A great millstone thrown into the sea! – so will it be for Babylon.
So let’s talk about the Royal Commission into institutional responses to claims of child abuse, where the church has been so guilty, and many other institutions of society. We have heard this week of a prominent footballer wanting to indulge a passion for young boys. It seems there is no institution of society that has been guiltless in this matter. Peter speaks about the corruption that is in the world because of desire, (2 Peter 1.4) and this is just another example of that. But how could the church be involved, that knows Jesus’ words on this matter? I will tell you the answer. Not all the church is the Church. There are many who hide in churches whose hearts are far from the Lord they are meant to serve. And judgement must always begin with the house of God. But these little ones Jesus speaks of and cares for so much are more than sexually abused children. We should include his disciples, whom he thought of as little ones, who are brought to sin by pressure from friends and institutions and even churches, and from governments, as well as from evil desires in their own hearts.
Think about the same-sex marriage debate. Have you noticed there hardly is any debate. We get what amounts to propaganda from the media because they do not let you hear the other side of the story; they have made up their mind and are crusading for the same-sex marriage cause. So it will probably win. Actually, a lot of people are not sure it will win, so they are opposing a plebiscite and a free vote of the people of Australia. They want to impose it.
It is important to be clear about this issue. The Bible is not against close friendships between men or women, or even them deciding to live together. It is sodomy—anal intercourse between two men—that it rules out as being harmful to God’s creation purpose. But the older a society gets, the more addicted does it become to pleasure. A generation ago everyone knew sodomy was wrong. But people now don’t want to hear that. Sin is not just sin because God says it’s wrong; he says it’s wrong because it hurts people, and the main people who will get hurt here are children and young people, and any one who has the courage to speak out and say, “This is wrong.”
But our society has been heading in this direction for a long time. We delight in personal freedom, but what this means is gambling, divorce, prostitution, abortion, drug abuse; the popularization of sodomy is the latest. In John’s day you could add gladiatorial combat, public crucifixions and any number of brutal entertainments. And all these things bring about an economy which exploits people’s passion for pleasure, to make money, and which moves against anyone or anything that opposes the money flow. This is Babylon. And the net result of all these things is destruction of lives. Which is why God has resolved one day to bring it to an end.
Power, Pleasure and False Religion
There are other things: Power, pleasure and religion are the big three we learn about in Revelation. Religion is included, because false religion is as destructive as anything else, as we see in Syria and Iraq today, and religion can also be harnessed to serve the interests of political power or pleasure. There will be churches that champion same-sex marriage and give their blessing to sodomistic practices. If the government goes this way, it will use these churches to justify its policy. These churches will vilify orthodox Christians who disagree with them.
The important thing to grasp is that Babylon is doomed. God will bring it down. Which is why it is so important that you and I are not a part of it. But this is a choice every person has to make. Do I renounce the world, the flesh and the Devil and live for Jesus, or do I live for now and forfeit the future. The inducements and rewards of the world can seem very great so it is not an easy choice.
The Ultimate Marriage
Let’s look at the next picture in 19.6-9:
Revelation 19.6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
We are looking here at things as God winds everything up, and it is heading is to a wonderful marriage of the Son of God with his people. This is what all creation has been waiting for. It what is pictured every time we witness a bride in white giving herself to her husband. He is called the Lamb here because he won his kingdom by dying as a sacrificial lamb for his people. She is dressed in shining white linen – granted to her to wear because Christ shed his blood to make her clean, and because she responded to his gift by doing good.
And here is another reason why Christians should be willing to fight for marriage as we know it. The argument is not about giving everyone the right to marry, it is about changing what marriage is. Everyone does have the same right to marry. What we are being asked to do is give a tiny minority the right to change marriage from something it has been for thousands of years into something else, which many will not be able to recognize as marriage. How could a minister of the gospel dare to stand and say of a same-sex partnership, that it is “an honourable state of life, instituted from the beginning by God himself, signifying to us the spiritual union that is between Christ and his Church”? (Anglican Prayer Book)
Again, don’t get me wrong, there is no quarrel with two men or two women who want to live together – even to enter into some sort of civil partnership, if they need to protect their rights. But a sexual partnership between two men is forbidden by God, and cannot therefore claim his blessing, nor can it be held by Christian people to be “honourable”, nor was this kind of marriage instituted by God from the beginning, nor does it signify the ultimate union of Christ and his Church. Any minister who said otherwise would be a prophet of Baal, not a servant of Christ.
But we must face the fact that we are a minority and although the society once agreed with us, it may do so no longer. If the law about marriage is changed we will be faced with efforts to force our churches and schools to conform. And that could be the beginning of persecution such as we have not experienced in Western societies for a long time.
Worst Case Scenario
So let me consider for a moment a worst-case scenario – before I look at one last picture and draw it to a close. Suppose the laws are changed. Suppose society’s sense of morality changes. Suppose we are seen by the majority to be “bigots, homophobes, dinosaurs”, and a danger to our own children. Supposing our schools are threatened with loss of funding or worse. Supposing ministers are threatened with fines and imprisonment if they teach that sodomy is against God’s will, and if they refuse marriage to anyone who applies. Suppose church wardens are liable to the law if they discriminate on sexuality grounds who uses the church for public meetings. Suppose ordinary Christians are criminalized for having opinions that favour true marriage over new marriage. And suppose majorities in church synods decide in favour of blessing same-sex activity. And suppose lots of schools, ministers and ordinary people give way to compromise. Imagine that it actually happens like Revelation 11, that the witnessing Church ceases to be. I’m not suggesting that churches cease to be, but that they cease to be Christian. Jesus says it will happen one day. What then? Well, it will make not a rat’s tail of difference to the coming of the Kingdom of God, only to who will belong to that Kingdom in the end. That is what this vision of John is all about. Christians at the time he wrote the Book of Revelation were faced with things like this and worse: death if you refused to offer incense to the Emperor, loss of employment if you could not join your trade guild, because it involved idolatrous sacrifices. The world can do its worst, but God will triumph and his Kingdom will come, just as Jesus taught his disciples to pray. So we do not need to be anxious about that one. This chapter is full of excited crowds and hymns of victory: God will give victory to all that is good over against all that is corrupt and evil and ruins peoples lives.
Listen to them!
“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
Praise our God all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great.
“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
The angel commands John, Write: “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” and he added, “These are the true words of God.” Blessed, makarios, means happy. It is the same word Jesus uses in the beatitudes. You know the beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Well, here is another one: Happy is everyone who is called to the marriage feast of the Lamb! I don’t think this means everyone who is invited is happy, because we are all invited. But it is those who accept the invitation and when the day of the Lord Jesus comes are summoned to the feast. Will you be there? You must decide now whether you want to stand with Jesus and his people, and, if necessary suffer the abuse of the world, but in the end you will be summoned to the great wedding feast.
Who is the Rider on the White Horse?
I want to show us one last picture before we close. Did you notice that we have been thinking about the marriage feast of the Lamb: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the man who did not retaliate, who allowed the people of his day to abuse and humiliate him, and to kill him, and prayed, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they are doing?” He is still praying to his Father in those words. But it is not the whole story. And the very next snapshot we see as we turn the pages of John’s book …
Revelation 19.11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Yes, he is the Lamb of God, gently caring for God’s people and building his true and eternal church, but there is another side to it. He is also the one seated on the white horse, who goes forth conquering and to conquer. He is the one who is judging the nations with a rod of iron even now, and will judge us all at the end. Civilizations are born and grow, and grow old and rot, and he sweeps them away. And the day of Judgement draws nearer.
Join him! Standing with Jesus and his people will hurt, but you will be among the ultimately happy. You will see the victory of everything you have loved and believed in. Or will you stand against God’s general? Don’t be foolish!