Revelation: An Invitation to God’s Imagination – Worshiping Empire
Sycamore Creek Church
October 16, 2011
Tom Arthur
Revelation 11:15-19 & 18:1-3
Peace, Friends!
Today I want to begin with two readings from the book of Revelation.
Revelation 18:1-3 NLT
After all this I saw another angel come down from heaven with great authority, and the earth grew bright with his splendor. He gave a mighty shout, “Babylon is fallen — that great city is fallen! She has become the hideout of demons and evil spirits, a nest for filthy buzzards, and a den for dreadful beasts. For all the nations have drunk the wine of her passionate immorality. The rulers of the world have committed adultery with her, and merchants throughout the world have grown rich as a result of her luxurious living.”
Revelation 11:15-19 NLT
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: “The whole world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”
And the twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped him. And they said,
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
the one who is and who always was,
for now you have assumed your great power
and have begun to reign.
The nations were angry with you,
but now the time of your wrath has come.
It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants.
You will reward your prophets and your holy people,
all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest.
And you will destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.”
Then, in heaven, the Temple of God was opened and the Ark of his covenant could be seen inside the Temple. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed and roared; there was a great hailstorm, and the world was shaken by a mighty earthquake.
Today we continue in our series on the book of Revelation. It’s a crazy book with crazy images where crazy preachers preach crazy ideas. But we’re trying to take a more imaginative look at the book. In fact, I think the book is really all about an invitation to look at the world from the throne room of heaven, and see the world through God’s imagination, the way God sees it. When you get that high up and look at the world from the perspective of God’s throne room, you see one big question: who or what do you worship? The right answer to that question according to the book of Revelation is this: worship God and God alone and Jesus Christ because he’s God too. That’s what we looked at last week. This week we take a look at one of the biggest competitors for worship of God: Empire.
A Brief History of Kingdom and Empire
To get a real feel for the way that empire competes with worship of God, it will help us if we have a very brief history of empire in the Middle East leading up to the time that the book of Revelation was written.
First, God begins by building a kingdom, Israel. The first three kings of this kingdom are Saul, David, and Solomon. Things don’t go so well for the kingdom after Solomon. When he dies there’s a civil war and the kingdom is split in two between the North and the South (sound familiar?).
Eventually a big empire called Assyria comes and sacks the Northern Kingdom and takes the leaders into exile. Then another even bigger empire, Babylon, takes down Assyria and comes and sacks the Southern Kingdom and takes their leaders off into exile. Then an even bigger empire, Persia, comes and wipes out Babylon and eventually allows the leaders of Israel to go back and rebuild.
A couple hundred more years and Alexander the Great shows up and conquers the entire Mediterranean world. Alexander dies shortly thereafter and his empire is split into four empires. Some time passes and the Jews rise up in the Maccabean revolt, but then Caesar Augustus and the Roman Empire show up on the scene, and Rome makes all these other empires look like pipsqueaks.
Then around the year 0, Jesus is born. A new king born in a manger. Shortly after his birth Israel is made a Roman province. One of those Roman emperors, Nero, begins a horrible persecution of those who follow Jesus. Then Rome does the unthinkable. They destroy the temple in Jerusalem. A couple of decades later, another Roman emperor, Domitian, institutes another persecution. Emperors and their empire were persecuting Christians who worshiped the one true God rather than the emperor.
Worshiping Empire
The book of Revelation was written either during the Nero or Domitian persecution. “Babylon” was code language for “Rome.” You couldn’t write directly about Rome or soon you’d have the secret police showing up on your doorstep. So if you wanted to speak against the Roman Empire, you had to do so in symbolic language.
The passage we read to begin this message shows that kind of symbolic language. Let’s look back at one verse and see how Empire sucks us in so that we begin worshiping Empire rather than God.
For all the nations have drunk the wine of her passionate immorality. The rulers of the world have committed adultery with her, and merchants throughout the world have grown rich as a result of her luxurious living.”
Revelation 18:3 NLT
Empire brings a lot of benefits to certain people who play along with the game. Luxury and riches are to be had when you worship empire. Have you seen the great commercial for VW where the little boy is dressed up as Darth Vader? What better image of empire than Darth Vader? Watch for the luxuries that draw us in, in this commercial:
I love that commercial. Very funny. But think about what is being sold to us for a moment. It’s a great little gadget: a remote starter to your car. That’s sweet. In fact, I’d love to have a remote starter so that while I’m up here preaching, I can reach in my pocket and start my car and get it warm by the time I go out to the parking lot.
I don’t have a remote starter to my car, but Sarah and I did recently buy a new car. It does have a remote key. It came with two. One day we realized that we’d misplaced one of them. We looked around and couldn’t find it. I figured, that a regular key costs about $2 to replace so this one probably would cost about $20. So I went in to the dealer and asked about getting a replacement key. How much do you think my remote key costs to replace? $150! I decided to go home and look harder for our lost key. We found it.
OK, there’s a point to this. But hang in there just a little longer, because a remote key isn’t the only luxury this car came with. Now, the car we bought is a base model. That means it doesn’t have many bells and whistles, but it does come with the following:
- Auto up and down driver’s side window
- Cruise control
- An MPG gas gauge
- A tire pressure sensor to let me know when one of the tires is low
- Power side mirrors
- Antilock breaks
- Front and side airbags
- Child seat latches
- Rear folding seats
- Traction and stability control
- And a USB port for the radio that controls my MP3 player while it’s stowed in the glove compartment!
Remember, that’s the base model without all the bells and whistles! And there’s probably more that I’m forgetting.
Here’s how Empire sucks us in. All these gadgets are cool, but pretty soon we begin to expect them. I’ll be pretty disappointed if my next car doesn’t have at least as many cool gadgets as my current one. So we begin to orient our entire life around making sure that we will always have these luxuries, these comforts, these “necessities.” Once we’ve oriented our life around keeping these luxuries, Empire has sunk its hook in us and we’re caught. We begin worshiping Empire rather than God. We begin making sure that Empire always continues and that the status quo is always kept no mater what that Empire is having to do to keep things the way they are. We just look the other way.
Empire vs. Kingdom
The book of Revelation contrasts Empire with the Kingdom of God and the true king, Jesus Christ. Remember the second passage we began with?
“The whole world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”
Revelation 11:15 NLT
But isn’t this just substituting one empire for another? In one sense, yes. But the big question is what is the character of the king of this kingdom? We find that the character of this king is very different than any emperor we know. The key to understanding this is to note the difference between what we hear and what we see about this king.
Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Revelation 5:5 NRSV
What would you imagine seeing if you heard this declaration of the king? I’d imagine seeing a big strong lion bounding onto the scene conquering all his enemies with a roar or swipe of his claws. But that’s not what we actually see. One verse later, here’s what we see:
Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
Revelation 5:6 NRSV
It turns out that the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the true king who conquered looks like a slaughtered lamb! This king conquers not by building up an empire to sack another empire, but by dying on a cross as a sacrifice for all the brokenness in our lives and our world. That’s a strange kind of king, but that’s the kind of king that Jesus is. It’s not empire, but God’s kingdom.
Kingdom
If you are a citizen of Empire, then you seek to keep Empire conquering so that you can continue to enjoy the benefits of Empire. But if you are a citizen of the Kingdom of God, then you seek a different kind of conquering:
But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.
Revelation 12:11 NRSV
If you are a citizen of the Kingdom of God, then you conquer by staying faithful to the way of Jesus, even if that causes you to lose the benefits of Empire and even your life! I’d like to explore three different ways this plays out in our lives.
First, America is a kind of empire that brings with it all kinds of benefits, comforts and luxuries. It is perhaps the most powerful and prosperous empire that the world has ever seen. (I am speaking to the context of America because that is where I live. If I was a citizen of another nation, I think the book of Revelation would be speaking to that nation as well especially if it is a powerful and prosperous nation.) And yet some have had those benefits, comforts, and luxuries pass them by. For what ever reason, they suffer without having access to these things. They are the homeless, the laid off, the mental or physically ill, and more. The American dream has proven to be out of their grasp. I believe that if you are living into the Kingdom of God rather than worshiping empire, then the book of Revelation encourages you to patiently endure. Empires come and go, but the kingdom of God never ends. Wait patiently. The true king will be revealed.
Second, there are those of us who mostly benefit from the great prosperity of America. We do not experience a lot of suffering. The book of Revelation compels us to make sure that we are not slowly but surely being lured into worshiping Empire. I believe that the best way to make sure that we are not slowly creeping toward worshiping Empire is to conquer Empire through the voluntary suffering of self-denial. Do without some, much, or even all of the “luxurious living” of America. Live in a smaller house. Drive a cheaper car. Wear your clothes out before you buy new ones. East more simply and lower on the food chain. Use less water. Buy local even when it costs more.
Lastly, if you are worshiping God and living into the Kingdom rather than Empire, then you will be open about your faith, your testimony, even if it causes you persecution and suffering. We can see one example of this in the early church in the life of Perpetua who lived in the late second early third century. Perpetua was a well educated new mother and honorable Roman citizen who became a Christian. She was probably from a wealthy family because she was educated to write very well. When she was presented with the choice to worship the emperor or be imprisoned and executed, she chose execution rather than the idolatry of worshiping Empire. While she was in prison, she kept a journal and some of her fellow Christians added a beginning and end to it so that we know what happened. I’d like to share with you some excerpts from that journal.
The young catechumens [students preparing to be baptized], Revocatus and his fellow-servant Felicitas, Saturninus and Secundulus, were apprehended. And among them also was Vivia Perpetua, respectably born, liberally educated, a married matron, having a father and mother and two brothers, one of whom, like herself, was a catechumen, and a son an infant at the breast. She herself was about twenty-two years of age. From this point onward she shall herself narrate the whole course of her martyrdom, as she left it described by her own hand and with her own mind.
“While” says she, “we were still with the persecutors, and my father, for the sake of his affection for me, was persisting in seeking to turn me away, and to cast me down from the faith,—‘Father,’ said I, ‘do you see, let us say, this vessel lying here to be a little pitcher, or something else?’ And he said, ‘I see it to be so.’ And I replied to him, ‘Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ And he said, ‘No.’ ‘Neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian.’ Then my father, provoked at this saying, threw himself upon me, as if he would tear my eyes out…
In that same interval of a few days we were baptized, and to me the Spirit prescribed that in the water of baptism nothing else was to be sought for bodily endurance. After a few days we are taken into the dungeon, and I was very much afraid, because I had never felt such darkness….I was very unusually distressed by my anxiety for my infant…I suckled my child, which was now enfeebled with hunger. In my anxiety for it, I addressed my mother and comforted my brother, and commended to their care my son….I obtained for my infant to remain in the dungeon with me; and forthwith I grew strong and was relieved from distress and anxiety about my infant; and the dungeon became to me as it were a palace, so that I preferred being there to being elsewhere…
“Another day, while we were at dinner, we were suddenly taken away to be heard, and we arrived at the town-hall. At once the rumor spread through the neighborhood of the public place, and an immense number of people were gathered together. We mount the platform. The rest were interrogated, and confessed. Then they came to me, and my father immediately appeared with my boy, and withdrew me from the step, and said in a
supplicating tone, ‘Have pity on your babe.’ And Hilarianus the procurator, who had just received the power of life and death in the place of the proconsul Minucius Timinianus, who was deceased, said, ‘Spare the grey hairs of your father, spare the infancy of your boy, offer sacrifice for the well-being of the emperors.’ And I replied, ‘I will not do so.’ Hilarianus said, ‘Are you a Christian?’ And I replied, ‘I am a Christian.’…
They are then taken to the theater to be killed by wild beasts.
Moreover, for the young women the devil prepared a very fierce cow, provided especially for that purpose contrary to custom, rivaling their sex also in that of the beasts. And so, stripped and clothed with nets, they were led forth. The populace shuddered as they saw one young woman of delicate frame, and another with breasts still dropping from her recent childbirth. So, being recalled, they are unbound. Perpetua is first led in. She was tossed, and fell on her loins; and when she saw her tunic torn from her side, she drew it over her as a veil for her middle, rather mindful of her modesty than her suffering. Then she was called for again, and bound up her disheveled hair; for it was not becoming for a martyr to suffer with disheveled hair, lest she should appear to be mourning in her glory…
The beasts did not kill them so gladiators were brought in to finish the job.
But Perpetua, that she might taste some pain, being pierced between the ribs, cried out loudly, and she herself placed the wavering right hand of the youthful gladiator to her throat. Possibly such a woman could not have been slain unless she herself had willed it, because she was feared by the impure spirit.
Thankfully we do not suffer for our faith in that way in our current nation, but there are people around the world who do still suffer persecution in a similar manner for being a Christian. But while we do not generally suffer in this extreme way, there is a kind of persecution we suffer when we fear looking silly for inviting someone to church or bringing up our faith in a conversation. The testimony of Christians like Perpetua shows us how silly our fear is of looking silly. If we live into the kingdom rather than give in to Empire, we will share our faith even if it causes us persecution or suffering.
What would happen if we all conquered in this kind of a way? I think we’d be a truly radical and counter cultural community. We wouldn’t be buying into the whole American Dream, the lure of Empire. Sycamore Creek Church would be different than the world we find ourselves in. People would come and join our community and say things like, “You’re different than the people at my job. You’re different than my neighbors. You’re different than the people I go to school with.” We’d respond by saying, “That’s because we worship the King of kings and the Lord of lords who lived, died, and raised so that we might have life and share that life with others.” That’s our story. That’s our testimony. That’s our worship.
God, help us not to give in to worshiping empire and all its benefits. Help us to worship you and you alone. Give us strength to be open about our faith even if it causes us persecution. Give us patient endurance if we are currently suffering. Give us courage to give up some of those benefits of empire so that they don’t lure us away from worshiping you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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