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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 14
Revelation 18:1-24
We talked about Babylon last week. Let’s review. (Much of this will sound similar to what we talked about last week.) Babylon was the name of the actual city that persecuted the Church of Israel during Old Testament times, the city that actually conquered the people of Israel, destroyed Jerusalem, and held them captive for 70 years. Here in the Book of Revelation, “Babylon” is the symbolic name for the city of Rome, which was the actual city that persecuted the Church after the time of Christ, both from a secular angle as well as from a spiritual one.
And then Rome itself became symbolic of the Roman papacy and of the whole apostate Church, whether located in Rome or not. For nearly three hundred years, the Roman emperors persecuted the Christian Church, openly threatening, brutally torturing, and killing Christians by the thousands. After that, the Church got in bed with the Roman government, and for a time the outward persecutions ceased. But over the centuries the spiritual corruption and persecutions grew. And the Roman Church used the power of the Roman Empire to squash dissent, to commit every form of wickedness, to burn heretics at the stake, to silence the Gospel, and to bring a corrupted form of Christianity to the New World during the 15th and 16th centuries.
Around the same time, the Church of England was formed, outwardly in opposition to the Roman Church, but in reality it shared many of the same false doctrines and false practices. They were and are part of the apostate Church, tied to the government, and they, too, put Christians to death. Other churches began to form, supposedly in “protest” against Rome, and yet they, too, were inspired by the glory of Rome and imitated many of her false practices. (The Lutheran Church, by the way, was not immune to the false ideas of the apostate Church, but they never put dissenters to death. But they have, at times, wrongly excommunicated teachers of the truth.) The Thirty Years War was waged in Europe in the 17th century, still within the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire. And the Spanish Inquisition, which started already in the 1400’s and resulted in the torture and death of tens of thousands of people, lasted until 1834—less than two hundred years ago. Then you had other atrocities committed here in our country and in other parts of the world in the name of Christ, or under the cover of the Church, many of them committed against children. We’ve seen governments all over supposedly acting in the name of Christianity, committing atrocities, from Nazi Germany, to modern Russia, to the United States of America as it pushes abortion and LGBTQ agendas, not only here, but in foreign countries as well, all while still clinging to a veneer of Christianity, with our Roman Catholic president and most of our congress (nearly 90%!) being made up of men and women who identify as Christian.
Look at the havoc that has been wreaked in the world and the blood that has been shed in the world in the name of a false Christ as the Antichristian Church and the Antichristian government have worked hand in hand to corrupt the true Christian faith, to silence the saints, to punish those who hold to the true faith, and even to persecute unbelievers unjustly while acting in the name of Christ, thus giving a bad name to Christ and to His true Church!
What we see in tonight’s vision, very simply, is a prophecy of the imminent ruin of the apostate Church that is responsible for all this.
Just as in the previous chapter, John paints Babylon as rich, luxurious, glorious, engaged with all the nations of the earth, engaged in both politics and in business. She thinks of herself as a queen. No one can compare to her. No one can ever bring her down. She’s the envy of everyone.
That certainly fits with the Roman Church. It fits with the megachurches, too, and with the televangelists, and with all of the churches that have promised or taken pride in earthly size, wealth, prosperity, and strength.
But her plagues will come in one day. She’ll appear to be going strong until that day comes, and then she’ll receive the Lord’s judgments all at once. She’ll be burned with fire. Because strong is the Lord God who judges her…because in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth.
In our time and place in history, we may not feel the weight of the apostate Church crushing us as other Christians have over the centuries. We don’t see in our modern times the burning of heretics at the stake, or the selling of indulgences, or any physical harm being done anymore by the Church, at least, not on a large scale. And the wealth that has always characterized the apostate Church isn’t as exclusive as it used to be, isn’t as drastic of a contrast as it used to be. There’s lots of wealth going around these days, especially in our country. But the harm done to souls by false doctrine and by false ideas of heaven, of hell, of the devil and his demons, of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, and of what it means to be a Christian, is as great as it has ever been. And the lack of physical persecution simply lulls people into a false sense of security, as if you no longer had anything to be watchful for or leery of.
The days of casual Christianity are over, where it’s a small part of a person’s life, a background reality, a family tradition, nothing more. Our opening hymn had each of us asking ourselves the pointed question, “Am I a soldier of the cross?” You need to be! We have to be so vigilant that we don’t become part of the apostate Church, knowing God’s Word better each day. And to those who are linked to a false-teaching Church, the Lord calls out in earnest, Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. And as you’re being vigilant, also rejoice, because the false Church is about to fall, and the people of God will soon be safe from all her threats, from all her tricks, and from all her temptations. Babylon will surely fall, and those who live by faith in Christ Jesus will surely stand forever. Amen.
