Revelation Overview

Have you ever had that experience when you are trying to, maybe you've got family together, it's a Friday or Saturday night and you're trying to pick a movie, and you've got a few streaming services, the more the harder, you don't know where to find the movie, but you're looking to choose one that's dramatic.

You're interested in one that's very dramatic.

You know it's heavy going, but you know it's going to be a fantastic movie.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Because you know it's well-written.

It's going to be tough, but it's well-written, it's wonderfully acted by a great cast who just work and gel so well together.

And the cinematography, it's just incredible.

But it's still a movie that demands something of you, and so you get your treats together.

What are you getting?

Put your hand up if it's sweet.

Savory?

Chips and who's both?

Bring it, bring it both.

And you sit down and you enjoy a movie.

It's one of the luxuries of life.

It's a lovely thing to do.

So about two, three hours later, a little misty-eyed, as it's been a heavy movie, you all say on the Rotten Tomatoes scale, do you guys do Rotten Tomatoes scale as families?

You go, it's a high 80s.

It's low 90s.

For those of you who don't know Rotten Tomatoes, 100's top.

90 is a very good score.

And you know, the Shanks's do it.

Give Rotten Tomatoes scores.

But you get to the end of this dramatic movie and it's like, it was tough, but it was worth a high 90, a high 80 in points.

I'm hopeful that as a church, please do not Rotten Tomatoes score the sermons.

You already do that.

I'm hoping that as a church, we're going to say at the end of this series and study of the Book of Revelation that we say it was worth it.

It was hard, but it was worth it.

We've spent time in the last month or so looking at the end of the world.

It's a provocative title.

We've looked at some of the background of that statement, things like the Day of the Lord.

We've looked at the millennium views, the options.

We've studied what Jesus and Paul and Peter and Daniel and Luke said in a real overview way about the end of the world.

And last week, we looked at code breaking apocalyptic, the genre of apocalyptic, which is revelation.

And we looked at numbers, how they work in the Book of Revelation.

And, you know, I get it.

As we've reflected as a staff, sermons are getting longer.

They've been like 40, 45 minutes, and I feel for you guys.

But feel for me, too, because and Ben, we've got to write them.

It's challenging stuff.

And then I think to myself, wait on, we had 10 weeks of Romans before that.

So it's been a challenging time, I think, at NorthernLife.

But it's a season.

I really just want to say that it's a season that we've been in, and we won't stay there all the time with sort of dense teaching.

I hope you'll take the opportunity to, and those listening online, to do the Bible loop, which is just a way that is helpful for us to study the Book of Revelation together.

I'd hate for us to look at the end of the world as a subject, and not do some good study of Revelation chapter by chapter.

So today, rather than try to do very quick, very long chapter by chapter, we're looking at Chapter 14, which I think is a bit of a summary of the whole Book of Revelation.

We're introduced to three angels who give this summary, and they basically tell us that before the end of the world, the Gospel will go to the entire world.

The Gospel will go to the world.

Babylon will fall.

Babylon will stand trial, and believers should have already jumped ship by that time.

And there's going to be a special party.

I think Revelation 14 gives us an overview of the whole Book.

firstly, the Gospel will go to the whole world.

Verse 6, Chapter 14, verse 6.

John says, I saw another angel flying in mid-air, and he had the eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people, four of them.

He said in a loud voice, fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come.

Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.

If you were to read the Book of Revelation up to this point in the preceding 13 chapters, you'd already be familiar with angels and also other beings that we're not sure exactly who they are in the heavenly court, heavenly creatures.

Angels are messengers of God.

They are supernatural beings.

And it would seem they're quite glorious.

Several times, people want to bow down and worship them.

They, throughout the Bible, communicate God's truth to people and God's people.

And sometimes they administer God's judgment on his behalf.

Here John sees an angel flying in midair.

What do you think that is saying?

It's telling us that this angel has perspective.

He can see what's going on.

And he has the gospel.

But it's not the angel's responsibility to take the gospel to the world.

Whose job is that?

It's us.

It's the church.

We were given that job in Acts.

We are to take the gospel to the whole world.

And it is the whole world.

Remember the number four.

The four-fold description tells us it's all the world.

Every nation, tribe, language and people, four.

It's the entire planet.

Every people group who calls us, us, and them, them, needs to hear the gospel.

And what is the gospel?

If you're new to church, you might think, oh, that's quite jargon sounding language.

The gospel in two words is trust Jesus.

Hallelujah.

Trust Jesus.

In a few more words, it's the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the sin of the world.

And the fact that every human being who puts faith in his finished work can be forgiven and saved and granted eternal life.

The gospel is good news, and it is for the entire world.

The gospel is going to every nation.

It's what fired, that truth is what fired up the 19th century missionary movement, mainly from America, the United States, and from Britain.

It fired up a generation, and they sent missionaries out to places like China and India and Africa and Latin America.

A couple of hundred years later, those nations are leading the world in Christian growth.

Did you know that right now, I hope I'm wrong, but I think Malling College, Our Baptist College, is at a fairly historic low in numbers of people being trained up to take the gospel to the whole world.

I know that because Ben's there, and in a class 30 years ago that I would have had 20 people in, the end of your training going out, he has a very small handful of people.

Leadership classes that used to be packed have a handful of people.

There are people training, learning about theology, but there are less people, and I think this is true across Bible colleges in Sydney, less people being trained saying, I'm going to do this to go to the world.

Here and out there, around the globe.

So that's something for us to pray about.

It's not always the case.

We have two missionaries here who are lovely people, and you know who I'm talking about.

They were here recently.

We can't say their names online because they serve in a closed country, but I love their story.

They were in their early 40s.

They were at a missions conference in the Blue Mountains, and they heard for the first time about what is called the unfinished task, what the angel was talking about, that the gospel needs to go to every people group, and it will.

And they were at a transitional time in their life, and they heard the Lord speak to them to say, you get amongst that.

You get part of that.

And so they left their jobs in their early 40s, and they went and got trained up, and now they're more than a decade into full-time gospel work, taking the gospel to, as you know, places in the world where there are barely any Christians to multi-millions of people.

How about you?

The gospel's going to the whole world before the end comes.

Do you feel like you're amongst it?

Do you have a role to play?

Guess what?

You can save on your air tickets in Hornsby.

The people have come to us.

We are a wonderfully diverse, ethnically diverse community.

And we get to share the gospel with many of the nations of the world.

But also, you know, you can give to the local church financially.

You can be available for the spirit to prompt you to speak a word in season, to testify with your words and your actions in the workplace, wherever you live out your life.

Of course, we are called to be witnesses in our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the outermost parts of the world.

I'm thrilled to be part of a church who want to be generous.

How about you?

We are a generous church.

Last couple of weeks ago, we had a quarterly business meeting and we brought the idea of supporting one of our young people who was up speaking, Hamish, who's our kids' pastor.

And he has been accepted to go to work with an evangelistic group at Sydney University.

Talk about people from all nations.

And so he's going to do that course for two years, full-time training to become a gospel worker.

And our church voted, we wanted to back him.

He's going to raise private support, but we're going to back him in anything that he doesn't raise.

That's us, that's us.

Because we want to be behind what the angel said, amen?

The gospel going to the whole world.

I'm so excited about what our diaconate has approved, and we're going to bring to the church, and then we will decide together.

We want to be generous next year.

So in our budget, we want to raise our giving to ICM, which is International Care Ministries, an amazing group that do mission work and gospel training and in every way training for life.

For the poorest of the poor in the Philippines, we want to raise our giving to that gospel work by 1000%.

We'll talk about that.

You may disagree, but I hope we don't.

I hope we agree to really get behind gospel work because the gospel is going to the nations, and we get to be part of it.

That's a wonderful thing.

The angel said in a loud voice.

What does that mean?

Everyone hears, and it's authoritative.

There are fallen angels who want to push back on this gospel, who want to say, no, it's not true.

But John sees an angel that is speaking authoritatively, and he declares for the whole world to hear, fear God.

Give him the glory, because the hour of judgment has come.

Worship him who made fourfold description, heavens, earth, sea, springs of water.

He made everything and he deserves the praise.

The end of the world will come.

A day will come when the announcement is made.

The hour has come.

I was struck in that new song, wonderful song.

Thanks for leading us in it.

I'm paid to be a pastor and I have to regularly recalibrate my faith.

I'm not about to lose faith every week, at all, I'm not.

But when I study Revelation and I live in the normal world you live in, it is so jarring, I just wonder, how does this even connect?

Like the thought that some declaration will come, the hour has come, it's over.

It's just so hard to comprehend, but I have to remind myself, the Bible says that that's the truth.

And I have to live under that.

So apparently, there will come a day, a minute in time when the Father says, the hour has come.

It is all over in this age.

We're gonna go through a judgement and a transformation, a full resurrection of every human being and the planet, and we're starting a new creation.

And there are people who are covered in the blood of Christ who will be there.

And others won't.

But there will come a time when that declaration is made.

Do you believe that?

The Gospel must go to the whole world.

And then a second angel followed and said, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.

They've got a sort of way to describe things in a sort of spooky and challenging way.

Babylon will fall, we are told.

We've talked in previous weeks about how Babylon is the great archetype of the beastly empire, the world, a way of thinking that is empowered by the devil himself, the ancient dragon.

Babylon has been manifest in world history as Egypt, as Rome, and as many other nations, powers, empires.

And Babylon ultimately will exist in the end times.

There will be an empire which will rise up, and from that empire will come a charismatic leader.

The second angel declares Babylon has fallen.

Revelation spends a good deal of time in different chapters unpacking the evils of Babylon, so the world system that we don't want to be part of.

In Romans chapter one, let me remind you, you might remember we looked at this months ago.

Romans chapter one verse 18, Paul says, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

The Book of Revelation is an apocalypse.

Does anyone remember what an apocalypse is?

I'm showing you with my hand.

Revealing, take the lid off is what apocalypse means.

I think Romans is so powerful because it says, God's hand, his gracious, merciful hand is restraining the sin of this planet.

It's restraining what free will wants to do, but he is removing it.

Romans 1 says, the wrath of God is being revealed.

The wrath of God is revealed when his restraining hand comes off and people are allowed to do what their sinful hearts want them to do.

There are times when God does bring the judgment, but I think what we see in Revelation is a lot of the judgment is the lid is taken off.

The restraining hand is taken off and it's like, okay, have your way.

You define what is good.

You define what is evil, Babylon, and see what happens.

Fallen is Babylon the Great.

Means a time will come when the world way of shaking their fist at God and saying, my way, not yours.

That will come to an end.

Evil will implode on its own evil.

And throughout Revelation, we have so many different descriptions of all of this.

But in chapter five, there's this wonderful scene that I hope some of you are familiar with where there's a scroll and it has seven seals on it.

And heaven is going, who could unpack this?

Who could be worthy to open up the scrolls?

And who is worthy to open the scrolls?

The Lord Jesus, the Lamb.

He can come and he starts on an opening up the scrolls.

And when the scrolls are opened, certain things start to happen.

You know, something that Ben was telling me when they studied Revelation at college, and I had forgotten this, but Revelation is word pictures more than pictures.

Let the words paint a picture, but don't get a pen out and sketch it.

Because when it talks about riders on horses, just think about this.

Is there a stable in heaven?

Are there horses in heaven that are going to ride in the air?

Or is that painting a picture?

That we're not meant to draw a picture of a horse, but the horse has authority, right?

The white horse has real authority, like kingly authority.

So having that in the back of our minds, in chapter five, the scrolls, the scroll is open and the seals are taken off one by one.

And it's tempting to think that each scroll is the very end of the world.

But from this amillennial view that we've been taking, this is describing the whole interadventure period, these seals.

So it's between Jesus and Jesus' return.

So the riders on the horses describe world history.

You could push back and have a different view.

And there are different views, but we're just putting forward something that's cohesive.

So imagine Jesus, when he's taking off the seals, and the seals have a white horse rider, a red horse, a black horse, a pale horse, but that's actually describing world history.

And let me tell you some of the things that happened in world history over the last 2,000 years that he predicted.

Wars, conquest of war, injustice, death, plague, natural disaster.

These are all the things you find with the riders on the horses.

This is what happens when God's hand of restraint and protection is removed even slightly.

And then later on in the Revelation, John sees 7 trumpets and 7 bowls.

And again, it's all getting so confusing, but we're suggesting it's a recapitulation.

The seals are basically telling the same story as the trumpets.

They're telling the same story like a Russian dog.

You open it up, and it's telling the same story as the bowls.

The history of the world is affected by the brokenness of sin, and that's what Revelation is explaining to us.

And again, we're suggesting that the last 2,000 years are really part of this tribulation and suffering predicted for the church.

Not that there won't be an acute level of that towards the end of the end, but in Revelation, the period of 42 months, 3 1 2 years, 1,260 days, time, times, and half a time, it's a helpful thing to go, that means the end of Advent or period.

That's what's going to happen in the church is history.

All these things, wars, conquest, tribulation, suffering.

Babylon will fall, and it's described in Chapter 16, verse 16, let me read a little bit.

The battle where Babylon falls is called what?

Starting with A, Armageddon, Armageddon.

Chapter 16, verse 16, then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne saying, it is done.

Then there came flashes of lightning, rumbles, peals of thunder, and a severe earthquake.

No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake.

The great city split into three parts, and the city of the nations collapsed.

God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.

Every island fled away, and the mountains could not be found.

From the sky, huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people, and they cursed God on account of the plague of hail because the plague was so terrible.

So we wonder, what on earth is happening here?

How would this battle even happen?

The Battle of Armageddon.

Well, chapter 19 paints another picture from another angle of the same battle.

Chapter 19 verse 11 says, I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called Faithful and True.

With justice, he judges and wages war.

His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.

He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.

He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.

The armies of heaven were following him.

This is Armageddon.

Riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.

Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.

He will rule them with an iron scepter.

He treads the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.

On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Armageddon is one, we're told, by Jesus on a white horse.

But he's already bloodied before the battle.

What's going on there?

He's already wounded.

And we know, many of us in the room know why, because Jesus has already won the battle.

We sang it at the beginning of the service.

He's already won the battle through his death and resurrection.

When he said it is finished, he meant it.

He had done everything in a perfect life to offer his perfect blood, and then later on, three days later, he rose from the grave.

And he sent his Holy spirit.

Jesus has won the battle of Armageddon.

Amen?

He has.

And so all he needs to do with that sword of his mouth, which just means he's speaking the truth, is declare it to the world.

He comes here with the breath of his mouth.

He says, I won.

It's over.

There's no fight.

There's no big battle.

It's over when Jesus turns up.

Hallelujah.

So I would just encourage you not to try to come up with a way that in Megiddo in Israel, you find some battle with a crusader, red crosses, and people fighting with, like, it's all done.

In fact, what are we called as the church to do in the last days?

We're not called to take up swords.

We're called to do the same thing the Lamb did.

We will win as a church by laying down our lives.

Amen.

That's our calling.

Now, I'm not saying we don't defend with armies.

I'm not getting into all that, but it's not our calling to win the Battle of Armageddon with guns and swords.

We win because we're part of what Jesus has accomplished, and we lay our lives down in His name to point people to a loving Saviour.

Amen.

Revelation chapter 18 unpacks the sad fall of Babylon.

It's really worth a read, put on some sad music, because it's sad.

Then a third angel declares, in essence, that Babylon will now stand trial.

There will be a judgment.

Let me read from verse 9.

Babylon will stand trial.

A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and its image, and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they too will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured out full strength into the cup of his wrath.

They will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb, and the smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever.

There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.

So there's a judgment on Babylon, on the world.

And if you're not in Christ, you're in Babylon.

You're in the world.

You're marked in this language of the beast, the 666 mark, because you belong to Babylon.

They stand trial and they're judged.

When Jesus lovingly wrote to the seven churches, the essence of what he said to them all was, don't compromise, don't compromise, don't give up what is perfect for the lure of that which is imperfect.

Be careful, because Babylon is powerful.

It'll lure you in.

And way back in Genesis, when God sent the flood to destroy the world of those first peoples living with Noah, the ark that Noah built was the symbol of God's grace.

And the charge was, come out of the world.

Come out of the world.

It's destined for judgment.

Find refuge in the ark, God's ark.

Here in Revelation, Jesus has been saying to his church, jump ship, jump ship.

Don't go down with Babylon.

Don't be tied up with the world.

Don't one day say, I worship Jesus, while all the while being a devotee of the way of Babylon, the way of the world.

Don't do that.

And that's why Revelation talks about being an overcomer.

We don't overcome.

Jesus overcomes.

But when we put our faith in Christ, we become an overcomer.

And it does take faith.

It takes commitment.

There's a challenge to live the Christian life.

For those reading Revelation way back in the first century and every century since, jump ship.

Revelation 18 says, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great.

She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit.

Come out of her, my people, so that she 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.

Babylon, who represents the beastly empire, the antichrist, who is the charismatic beastly leader we hear about, and the dragon who empowers it all.

They will be judged.

Don't be tied up with them.

Come out of the world, my people.

Which doesn't mean we sort of hide in little gatherings.

We're called to be part of the world or in the world, but not of it.

Don't be tainted by the sin, but take the gospel to that same world.

Jesus says to his church, this calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.

I think Jesus is saying to that first church and to every church in the last 2000 years, it's not going to be easy following me.

There are temptations, no matter what age you live, no matter what age you are, no matter what society you live in, the world, Babylon's pull is very strong.

And it will pull you towards idolatry, the self, pride, lust, greed, bitterness.

In fact, next week we begin a series where we're going to look at some of these things with 10 preachers from our church called His Grace is Enough to Overcome some of these challenges that we come up against.

The world wants to convince us that we are God, but we are not, amen?

We're not.

There's only one God.

And he deserves to be worshipped.

But Babylon wants to say, you're good enough to be God.

You try it.

But we know that's not the way to live.

John says, I heard a voice from heaven say, write this, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.

Yes, says the spirit, they will rest from their labour for their deeds will follow them.

There is labour to follow Jesus.

There are deeds to be done, good works prepared in advance for us to do.

Will there be pushback?

Yeah, there will.

But faith in Christ is the only way to die with a blessed hope of eternal life and to live now with a blessed hope of a life that matters.

Can I read that again?

Faith in Christ is the only way to die with a blessed hope.

It's what the scripture says.

That hope is of eternal life, life that will never end in a place that has no sin.

But it's also faith in Christ gives us life now.

And we live with this blessed hope, a joy filled, glorious hope that changes us and the people we interact with.

It's abundant, this life we're called to live.

And Revelation finishes with a party.

It ends with a party, which is interesting because last night was such a balm, a soothing ointment to be together in community and laugh and enjoy one another.

And who did?

I know he wrote Revelation, but who came up with laughter?

God did.

They laugh in heaven, amen?

Of course they do.

Of course they do.

God made joy and laughter and He made the idea of a party.

Revelation ends with a party, in fact, a wedding and you're invited.

How good is that?

But you're not just invited as a guest.

Jesus wants to marry you.

We get invited to be the bride, and the bride is a community.

The bride is a community.

We're in this together, loved by the lamb.

Revelation 21 tells us in verse 5, He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new.

Then He said, write this down for these words, the trustworthy and true.

He said to me, it is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, to the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Without cost, certainly was not without cost to the Lord Jesus, but you don't earn your way into this party.

You receive it by faith.

And all your guilt and all your shame and all the mistakes, they're taken away because Christ's blood is enough to cover our sin.

Amen?

That's the gospel.

Are you thirsty?

Come and drink of the grace of Jesus, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy spirit.

But I'm not good enough.

Yeah, you're not, neither am I.

But we come because it is the grace of Jesus that brings us and allows us.

In Revelation 21 verse 9, one of the seven angels who had the seven balls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, John, come, I'll show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high.

Remember Moses was the only one who was allowed to go up the mountain?

Now we're all going up there.

We're all going to see God.

Those of us who have faith in Christ.

He carried me away in the spirit to the mountain great and high and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

You pick up what that says there.

I know we're jumping around, but he says, I'm going to show you the bride.

And then he shows them a city.

The bride is a community.

So when you see all this stuff in Revelation about the city, the holy city, and we think, oh, how it's described, and what's it going to be, and the jewels on the ground, it's less about that and more the fact that it's a perfect place filled with redeemed humanity.

It's a community, and it's beautiful.

We belong to the lamb.

Revelation 22, 17, The spirit and the bride say, Come, and let the one who hears say, Come, let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

That's how the Book of Revelation ends.

There's just a couple more words, but that's how it ends.

It's an invitation.

Give up that which will never give you life, Babylon, and receive the life that will never end in Jesus.

The good news is for everyone who will receive it, it's to be taken to the whole world, and we are called to be part of that great endeavour.

The reality is Babylon will fall, even though, in this world, the world looks big and tough and strong and wise and powerful.

But Jesus shows us what true power is.

It's found through the cross.

Babylon falls.

There is a judgment of all moral beings.

Everyone will get judged.

And there is forgiveness and eternal life for all who will put their faith in Christ and receive his love.

And there is going to be a great party to celebrate it all.

So can I invite you, if you haven't done so, come and live forever.

God's love for you is eternal and it's free.

It will just cost you your whole life.

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