Revelation - Letter to a Friend (4)

 

 

This morning I had a decision to make, it is a decision I make every morning, sometimes it’s easier to make than others – especially if I want to know who won a March Madness game or a World Series game. It was not so very difficult to make this morning (March 3, 2026), most mornings I don’t even think about it; this morning I didn’t think much about it. What is this decision?

 

Shall I first seek Jesus in His Word, in the Holy Bible through the Holy Spirit; or will I read the news…the news which is transient, fleeting, and ephemeral? Shall I read the Bible, which never deceives, or the news of man which deceives as a matter of nature? Shall I seek that City whose Builder and Maker is God, or will I allow myself to be seduced by the city of fallen man?

 

Darrell W. Johnson (Discipleship On The Edge, page 21) makes a statement that I think embodies a challenge for many Americans when reading Revelation:

 

“It turns out that, although the seven churches of Asia to whom Revelation was first addressed (1:4) were facing varying degrees of persecution, the greatest danger was not the persecution itself (and it never really is), but rather spiritual complacency. That is, believers were uncritically benefiting from the seductive riches and might of “Babylon,” which at that moment in history was Rome. (As we shall see in our study of Revelation 17 – 18, “Babylon” has taken on many different expressions throughout history.) The last book of the Bible calls us to a radical discipleship, to all-out courageous loyalty to the Lamb in a world “feverishly worshipping the beast.”” (Italics mine).

 

Our challenge in America is not simply spiritual complacency; it is a refusal to consider what Babylon looks like in our own time in history. It is unwillingness to read Revelation 17 – 18 and look in the mirror. We have been so indoctrinated by the Imperial Cult, and our syncretism is so ingrained within us, that we cannot imagine that the prophet Nathan would say to us, as he did to David, “Thou art the man!”

 

This reminds me of something I have experienced on Sunday mornings and in small group after small group. People often come up to me at the conclusion of Sunday worship and say, “Pastor, people need to hear what you’ve said this morning.” They seldom say, “I needed to hear that.”

 

In small groups, one of the greatest challenges is for the group to look in the mirror when reflecting on a Bible passage. The tendency is to talk about how others measure up to the passage, not how the passage challenges us to obedience to Jesus Christ. This tendency is so ingrained that when I, or someone else, reminds a group to look away from others and look into the mirror of the Word, that within minutes the group has turned away from the mirror once again and is looking at others and not themselves. Jesus desires to reveal Himself to us through His Word, we want to turn away from His gaze, away from the One whose “eyes are like a flame of fire” (Rev. 1:14).

 

Johnson reminds us that “Babylon has taken on many expressions throughout history.” If we read Revelation as being in the future, as always in the future, then we will not think as Johnson thinks, nor will we understand Revelation. Revelation was written to Christians to reveal Jesus Christ and to show them (as opposed to “telling” them about) present realities. Yes, it does indeed have unfolding reality within it, just as it has transcendent portrayals – dancing backward and forward through time and space and upwards into the heavens.

 

As Johnson writes, Revelation’s “imagery sustains the new vision of reality” (page 22).

 

Johnson also points out that since Revelation is a prophecy, that it means that Christ is calling the seven churches to an immediate response, to “some new form of obedience to his will” (page 25). “The heart of biblical prophecy is not, “look what is coming,” but “thus says the Lord” (page 25).

 

When we have been seduced by eschatological constructs and systems that move our center from Jesus Christ to examining the entrails of news and aligning ourselves with political, economic, cultural, military, and other systems of a world in rebellion against God (Psalm 2, Daniel 2), then we cannot see or consider the possibility that we just might not only be living in Babylon, but that we might be enabling and propagating Babylon – incorporating Babylon into our churches, teaching our people the ways of Babylon and the Beast, offering our children to the gods of this age.

 

Jesus said to the church in Sardis, “You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead” (Rev. 3:1). To the church in Laodicea He said, “Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire…” (Rev. 3:17 – 18).

 

We may look good by the world’s measure, but sick and pitiful in the light of Christ. Jesus speaks the truth to us because He loves us and because our Good Shepherd wants to deliver us from Babylon, just as He delivered Israel from Egypt.

 

Our danger is not persecution. I will go farther than Johnson, while complacency is a danger, active participation in Babylon and in the system of the Beast is a greater danger, trading the name of the Lamb, the Father, and the Holy City for the image and name of the Beast is a greater danger than complacency in America today. (Rev. 3:12; 14:1 – 5; 22:1 – 4; 13:11 – 18; Daniel 3).

 

Francis Schaller thought that “personal peace and affluence” would be the great dangers to the American and Western church at the end of the 20^th century, I don’t think even he could see that it would lead to seduction in the arms of Babylon.

 

How can we possibly read and respond to Revelation if Jesus isn’t everything to us? If He isn’t everything then He is nothing. We are either “following the Lamb wherever He goes” or we are following some form of the enemy and the world – overtly or covertly.

 

Let us remember, our enemy is typically not something that looks evil, but that which looks quite good (Genesis 3:1 – 6; 2 Cor. 11:1 – 4).

 

“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15- 17).

 

Are we following the Lamb, and only the Lamb?

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (35)

 

Bonhoeffer writes that the community of saints “implies three things.” A clear separation from the world. Holy conduct. The hidden work of sanctification “waiting for the day of Jesus Christ” (page 243).

 

On pages 245 – 257 he explores “holy conduct” by considering, citing, and referring to approximately 89 Scriptures. Once again, we witness Bonhoeffer’s orientation to the Bible and his desire that our faith in Jesus Christ and relationships with one another be grounded in God’s Word.

 

We, the saints, are called to live lives worthy of our calling (Eph. 4:1; Phil. 1:27; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:12). We are to daily remind ourselves that we’ve been “washed, sanctified, and justified” (1 Cor. 6:11); this reminder facilitates the work of sanctification. We have been crucified and died with Christ on the Cross and the power of sin has been broken.

 

At the top of page 246 we read, “Christians must therefore no longer be called “sinners,” provided sinners are understood as those who live subject to the power of sin.”

 

“Rather, Christians were once sinners, godless, enemies of Christ (Rom. 5:8, 10; and Gal. 2:15, 17). But now they are saints for the sake of Christ. As saints, they are reminded and admonished to be what they are (page 246, italics mine).

 

Bonhoeffer makes a statement that some may find curious, “They [the saints] are not required in their sinful state to be holy. That would be an impossibility, a complete relapse into the attempt to earn salvation by works and thus be blasphemy against Christ. Instead, the saints are called to be holy. For they are sanctified in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit” (page 246).

 

As we will see, Bonhoeffer will deal deeply with sin in the life of the saint and in the holy church-community, so we ought not to misunderstand him by thinking for a moment that he ignores sin, in fact, by highlighting the fact that in Christ we are saints, he highlights the heinousness of sin in our lives.

 

Sin is what we expect in a sinner, it is not what we ought to expect in a saint. Sin is what we expect in the world, it is not what we ought to expect in God’s holy realm of the visible church-community.

 

Our identity as saints in Christ, and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, is all because of the work of Jesus Christ – we are called, justified, sanctified, and glorified in Him – we have nothing to boast of other than the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. We must live by His Life and by no other life (John 15:1ff; Gal. 2:20).

 

“The dark works of the flesh are completely brought into the open by the bright light of life in the Spirit: “adultery, fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, hatred, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Gal. 5:19 – 21). All these no longer have any place in the community Christ” (page 246).

 

Bonhoeffer notes that the lists of sins in the New Testament are similar, usually beginning with fornication, followed by greed (which is often combined with impurity and idolatry), followed by “the sins against love for brothers and sisters, and finally the sin of excessive self-indulgence” (pages 246 – 247).

 

Fornication “is the recurrence of Adam’s sin” (p. 247). It is the transgression of “the boundaries God has set for us, and in which we abuse God’s creatures” (p. 247).

 

“Fornication is first and foremost a sin against God the Creator. For a Christian, however, it is also a particularly flagrant way of sinning against the body of Christ. It belongs to Christ alone…Being in community with the tortured and transfigured body of Christ liberates Christians from disorderliness in matters of bodily life…With discipline and chastity Christians use their bodies exclusively to serve and to build up the body of Christ” (pages 247 – 248).

 

There is a sense in which fornication became a way of life for Israel, a way that was coupled with idolatry. Bonhoeffer points this out on page 247 as he cites 1 Cor. 10:7 – 8. Has fornication become a way of life for the professing church today?

 

We live in a society in which we view our bodies and minds as things we can do with as we please, alter as we please, and we have imported this thinking and behavior into the professing church. We cannot separate fornication from idolatry anymore than ancient Israel could, idolatry has many forms and one of them is promiscuity.

 

Jesus says to the church in Pergamum, “But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality” (Rev. 2:14).

 

To the church in Thyatira He says, “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:20).

 

Just as fornication has many forms, so does eating things sacrificed to idols. If we consider that greed, the lust for power, self-indulgence, hatred, and anger are idols, then when we eat these things, when we bring these things into our hearts and minds and souls, we are partaking of the food of demonic idols. We can either eat the flesh and drink the blood of our dear Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, or we can partake of idols. Which will it be?

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that “Greed is related to fornication. An insatiable desire is what they both have in common, and it is what lets the greedy person become enslaved to the world” (page 248).

 

O dear friends, our hearts and souls and minds and bodies are to belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone. “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2 – 3).

 

Is not something amiss when we have popular “Christian” teachers who teach us the way of greed, with overt or covert prosperity gospels? Ought we not to pause and consider when “Christian” leaders entice us to align ourselves with political agendas permeated with uncleanness, profanity, injustice, vitriol, fornication, anger – no matter where on the political spectrum they are found?

 

A pastor friend recently asked me what I thought about pastors who use profanity in their writing and teaching and who encourage their congregations to do so. What bothered me about his question was that he would even ask me what I thought. What bothered me was that he hadn’t apparently decided what he thought. What bothered me was that he was wasting my time.

 

Now you may think me a bit harsh…but who has time for the evil in the world and the professing church? What I mean is that we called to have our eyes on Jesus and to proclaim Him, otherwise we will be engulfed in news and social media and in stupid religious practices that suck our energy and distract us from helping those who truly need help in Christ. We can spend the rest of our lives playing whack-a-mole with evil and in speculation when we ought to be about living lives faithful to our one spouse…Jesus Christ.

 

Another pastor recently recommended a book he is reading by a pastor. I downloaded a sample on my Kindle and deleted the sample after reading only a few pages – why the profanity? What is holy about this? How is Jesus being reverenced and exalted? How are God’s people being taught to be His holy People? This book is a bestseller. Have we lost our minds and our moral and ethical and spiritual compass? Yes, we have.

 

Dear friends, we ought not to be ashamed of refusing to watch or read filth. We ought not to be ashamed to be experientially uninformed about fornication, promiscuity, greed, hatred, and other ways of darkness and evil. When I download books from the library to read, I return more than I keep due to content – the content may include violence, foul language, fornication, or other subject matter. The point is that I am married to Jesus Christ, He has purchased me by His blood, and I am not going to pollute myself, His temple, with evil. Furthermore, if I pollute myself with evil, I will be polluting my marriage, my friendships, and the Body of Christ to which I belong.

 

Vickie and I enjoy sports, but we will turn a game off if the content of the advertisements is evil (yes, there is evil in some form in most advertising and we ought to be able to see it – it appeals to our greed, our self-indulgence, and it destroys language – a gift from God).

 

There is nothing worth polluting our souls with evil for, there is no justification for fornication…and let us make no mistake about this; unfaithfulness to Jesus Christ is fornication.

 

As Bonhoeffer writes, the church-community is to live within God’s sacred realm.

 

Are we?