Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
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Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
How to Read Revelations {Reflections}
Revelation might be the most misinterpreted book in the Bible. Far from being a cryptic code predicting modern events or a Rubik's cube of end-times prophecy, this mysterious text reveals something far more powerful: a vision of hope for believers facing persecution.
Ryan unpacks how Revelation functioned as apocalyptic literature—not predicting distant futures but "unveiling" present realities from a divine perspective. Written to first-century Christians struggling under Roman oppression, the book showed believers who felt crushed by imperial demands that the Lamb of God, not Caesar, truly sat on the cosmic throne. Those vivid, sometimes frightening symbols weren't puzzles for 21st-century Christians to decode, but representations of powers these early believers encountered daily.
The beast? Roman emperors demanding worship. Babylon? An empire built on exploitation and greed. That infamous "mark of the beast"? Historical evidence reveals citizens in cities like Hierapolis had to receive actual marks after emperor worship to buy and sell in marketplaces. These symbols speak just as powerfully today when we recognize modern "beasts" and "Babylons" demanding our allegiance.
This fresh perspective transforms Revelation from a source of confusion or fear into a profound reminder that even when it seems like chaos reigns, Jesus remains seated on the throne. What empire, ideology, or system threatens to pull your allegiance away from Christ today? Whose mark do you bear? When we see above the fray, we find courage to remain faithful even in our most challenging circumstances. The Lamb who was slain still reigns—and that changes everything.
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What is up everybody? Hey, this is Ryan. Welcome to our Reflections podcast. Hey, every summer we do this sermon series. We call it you Pick where people write in questions and we try to answer them or respond to them and create a sermon around them or on a topic or a Bible verse or a question. And then the ones we don't get to or don't have enough Sundays to get to, which we never do we never have enough Sundays we turn it into a podcast. So I had one that was great and I wanted to sort of talk about it briefly here.
Speaker 1:But it's about the book of Revelation, one of the most mysterious books in literature, but also certainly in the Judeo-Christian Bible and the Christian scriptures, and it is a weird book. And here's what I'll say. A lot of folks, when they hear the word Revelation, they think of like these strange images of like beasts and the end of the world predictions and like wild scenes and crazy numbers or codes to kind of crack and mysteries to solve, and but I don't you know. The question was how? How should we read Revelation, and is it this prediction of the future? Should we be looking for the Antichrist? Who is the Antichrist, even though every generation has thought they knew who the Antichrist was, which it turns out probably wasn't. But what if the book of Revelation isn't really about timelines or hidden codes or like actual events we're to be looking for in history? But what if it's more? It's a deeper book about hope.
Speaker 1:Hope written to ordinary Christians in the first century who were struggling under the weight of the empire and the persecution and the tension that the empire created for them as Christ followers. So here's why Revelation was written. So it was written in the first century to a bunch of churches who were living under the boot of the Roman empire and they were suffering under immense persecution and they were wondering is following Jesus really worth it? They were facing such difficult times and waves of pressure they wondered is this really worth it? And they faced real persecution, real temptation to compromise and like to leave it all and just sort of abandon hope or abandon following Jesus and instead kind of jump into with the empire and get on the bandwagon because it would be a lot easier. There's real pressure to join this cultural tide all around them and become part of the empire. Now remember the empire had been united in this incredibly dynamic way, mostly under military violence and suppression and there were all kinds of ways that they did this.
Speaker 1:But the empire demanded that you worship the emperor. There was emperor worship, they called this imperial worship, was standard practice. The empire could tolerate polytheism. You could worship all kinds of gods, but you had to worship the emperor as like the number one god, so you couldn't worship any other gods above the emperor. Well, christianity did just that. It undermined pagan worship, or idolatry, or imperial worship at every corner. They were like no, caesar is not Lord, the emperor is not Lord, jesus is Lord. So as there was, you know, as the authorities began to enforce, you know, more and more of this emperor worship or imperial worship, there began to be this increased hostility towards the Christians and persecution. And so you have this context. It's into this context that John writes not a riddle or like a Rubik's cube to be solved, to figure out future events a thousand or two thousand years later, but rather it's a vision of God's truth, god's future and how it shapes and frames how they were to live in the present moment under the persecution of this empire.
Speaker 1:So the genre helps too. Now, every book in the Bible has a genre, and actually every piece of literature usually has a genre. It might fall into a couple and that's how you know how to read it, how to interpret it. For example, you would read the newspaper, which is a genre news. Well, let's just take classical news, for example. You would read that differently than you would. Poetry. Poetry and news are not the same and it's not the same as, like fiction, mystery. These are all different genres and they impact how you read it.
Speaker 1:Well, the book of Revelation is actually this very famous Jewish genre of literature. They call it apocalyptic literature. Now, we think of apocalyptic as like end of the world and zombies and you know, nuclear war, this kind of thing. But the word apocalypsis literally means unveiling or revealing, or taking the cover off, like think of it as pulling back the curtain so you can see what's really going on. So this is a book that is trying to pull back the curtain for you and I, for the readers, especially in the first century, but also us today, to see what's really happening Now.
Speaker 1:This style wasn't new to John. There were other apocalyptic writings in the Hebrew scriptures, like Ezekiel and Daniel, that are full of apocalyptic visions and so on. But it tries to lift the reader above the chaos above the clouds and the fray, so you can get a glimpse of this transcendent or godlike perspective on the world, current events and, like what's really happening, who's in charge, who's driving? So it's less about predicting a step-by-step unfolding of history and there's been five blood moons and three tsunamis. It's not about that at all. It's more of an unveiling of what's really happening behind the scenes of the cosmos.
Speaker 1:And in Revelation, john you know who they think is the beloved John is pulled up into the heavenly throne room and he sees this vision. Now, in the vision in Revelation, he sees, for example, many things. He sees the Lamb of God who was slain on the throne. This is like a central vision to Revelation. Now think if you're a first century Jewish Christian who's like trying to be faithful to under this boot of the empire, and you hear this vision like, hey, look on the throne of the whole cosmos, who's in charge? Not the emperor, not the empire, but Jesus, the Lamb is reigning and is in charge and we are going to be okay. That's what apocalyptic literature does. It lifts you above the fray to see what's really happening Now.
Speaker 1:This means that Revelation is not some kind, as I've mentioned, a secret code book for predicting the future or events or these kinds of things. If that was the case, if, like, revelation was written just to predict what would happen in 2025, then it would have been an irrelevant book for Christians for the last 2,000 years. Like, think about that. John was writing just for us today to predict who would be the next Antichrist, whether it was president so-and-so or prime minister so-and-so, like they would have meant nothing to anybody in the previous 2,000 years. So it's not, I would argue, and there are many other scholars who believe it's not about codes and a crystal ball to be cracked to try to discover what's happening in the future, how it's unfolding. Rather, it's hope during difficult times, and that was true in the first century believers under the Roman Empire, and it's true for us today, in a world still filled with oftentimes difficult times and pressure to like abandon the faith or persecution. You know whether it's on large scale or small scale, but we tend to lose hope today. This book also does indeed speak to us today, but not in the way of like kind of predicting the future, but rather to give us hope when our necks are under the boot of this, maybe an oppressive regime or an ideology that would have us abandon the faith altogether. It's to give us hope that Christ, that Jesus the Lamb, is still on the throne.
Speaker 1:Now here's the thing. There are these incredibly wild images that are in the book that can also still speak to us today, but I think more like a symbolic way. Here's an example. There's actually two great examples of these vivid images. There's a beast in the book of Revelation and Babylon. So for John's audience, the beast they would have known this immediately as a symbol that represents this military and political power of Rome like embodied. So it wasn't like just some ethereal spirit power, but like it was this thing that was embodied in emperors like Nero and Domitian and the Christians early Christians actually called the emperor, they called him the beast. The beast was the empire's oppressive might, demanding allegiance and worship at every turn.
Speaker 1:Now Babylon, who in the ancient world folks knew stood for this city that was like, prosperous and had gained money and affluence and wealth and power through exploitation and greed and these kinds of things. I wonder if there are any cities or nation states like that today that have gained prosperity and wealth and influence and power through exploitation and greed and things like this. Maybe, maybe not, but in the image of Revelation, the prostitute or the harlot or the whore of Babylon rides in on the beast. There's a chapter in Revelation that talks about the prostitute of Babylon and she's riding on the beast Because Rome as an imperial military power, its wealth and its cultural prestige rested on the back of military conquest and oppression. So the beast and sort of the harlot of Babylon, these are things that are like they were very present in the ancient world.
Speaker 1:In the first century. They were like oh, that's the emperor, domitian is the beast and the whore. The harlot of Babylon was like any country, in this case the Roman Empire, that had gained prosperity and wealth through these nefarious means. But like there are lots of iterations of these kinds of things Do you know what I mean? Like there are lots of beasts or antichrists, things that oppose the way of God, things that try to put their boot on the neck of the weak and the poor, that take advantage. And there are lots of iterations of the beast or the Antichrist that sort of live in the same way as the emperors Nero and Domitian did and that behave in the very same way.
Speaker 1:And so it's no wonder that Christians are always looking for the next beast or Antichrist, because there are lots of them popping up all over. And the same with Babylon. Like Babylon was this incredibly prosperous city I think of. Like there's this incredibly profound image in the Hunger Games, the capital, I think it's called. I forget the story, but like the capital is like Babylon. Like the capital is this incredibly affluent, self-aggrandizing, you know city or nation or capital. That is like oppressing all the other parts of this, of its empire, in these ways and so like, and there's obviously this revolution. But so it comes up in literature, it comes up in movies all the time.
Speaker 1:And so Revelation warns Christians and others hey, beware of aligning yourself and your life with the empire and with systems that oppress and exploit people. Beware of confusing your loyalty to the state with your loyalty with Jesus. That is a message that Christians today need to hear. Be careful when your loyalty begins to bleed over from Jesus into the empire or into the Caesar or whomever your king is, because every empire that sort of absolutizes its own prosperity at the expense of others, ancient or modern societies. They find themselves wearing the shoes of Babylon, you might say. So that's what it's a warning to us today, like, hey, be careful of where your allegiance lies and watch out for empires that begin to exploit and oppress, and be careful of people who embody this idea that when they look like Nero and Domitian and Okay.
Speaker 1:So there are some stories that bring this into focus a bit more. So there's one of the disciples his name was Philip, and Philip grows up in this podunk area of Galilee. He's like a fisherman, but he ends up after Jesus goes, you know, after Jesus' death and resurrection, philip who's this disciple of Jesus goes. He ends up in a place called Heropolis, like an ancient world version of Las Vegas, like things have gone off the rails there, like anything goes. And he goes there and he's like a missionary to Heropolis.
Speaker 1:Now, when you go to Heropolis, citizens were expected to walk into Heropolis through what they call the Domitian Gate, and it was a way of worshiping Emperor Domitian. So you would walk under this gate that was called the Domitian Gate and in doing so, you were saying. You were saying, you were declaring out loud that Domitian is God, domitian is Lord. Then, after you pass through the special gate, you would go to this other area and you would light incense and offer further worship to Domitian. Now, in return. In doing this, in sort of offering your worship, your allegiance to Domitian the empire and imperial worship, you would receive like a mark on your hand and on your forehead, and this mark would then allow you to buy and sell in the marketplace.
Speaker 1:Now, remember that the Christians called the emperor the beast. So in this city, heropolis, under the Roman rule, in order to buy and sell and trade in the marketplace, you had to go and receive the mark of the beast on your hand and your forehead. So maybe the mark of the beast is not some chip that's being invented by, I don't know, elon Musk or somebody that's going to go into your forehead. Maybe it's anytime you offer your own allegiance to the empire and to foreign idols or to gods that are, you know, here and even far away but the gods, in order to kind of fit in, to sort of buy and sell in the marketplace. It's sort of like selling your soul If you do that, in order to like sort of profit from it. That's receiving the mark of the beast, if you read it in this way.
Speaker 1:And so for Christians, like going into the Domitian Gate offering incense it wasn't just like a civic duty in order to buy and sell and trade goods. It was actually idolatry. To worship the beast was to betray Jesus in every way, and so this imagery of the mark of the beast. It comes right out of that like cultural reality of the first century. So, again, talking about microchips and barcodes and these kinds of things, where does your allegiance lie, with the empire or with Jesus?
Speaker 1:And this is why Revelation matters today, because it unveils reality. May we all have an unveiling in our own lives of the ways in which we've become maybe disloyal to Jesus and have kind of climbed into bed with the empire or the ways of the empire, the ideologies of the empire, and we've sold our soul in order to buy and sell and trade and these kinds of things. And at its heart, revelation isn't about fear, it's about hope. How can we then be reminded of the hope that it's Jesus on the throne, that he wins the final battle, that at the very, very end, god promises to restore and renew all things? And we have this vision of God's future breaking into the present, here and now, that we can live in light of God's victory and the victory of Jesus on the throne and him running the cosmos, that the throne isn't empty, that Jesus reigns and rules and that, because he reigns, you and I can have courage to not abandon our faith or abandon the ways of the cross and to jump in with the empire. But we can have clarity and hope, even in difficult times where we feel like man, this is not going to work out well for us, but when we know the end of the story, in order to live more deeply rooted in courage and hope and faith in our time today.
Speaker 1:So the next time you hear about Revelation, remember it's not a prediction or a chart or a prediction of future events or those kinds of things. It's about perspective, seeing above the panic, above the fray, above the chaos, and remembering that the lamb is on the throne. This vision changes everything. All right, love you guys, peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clcelkriverorg. Peace.
