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?