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We are wrapping up our series on Topographical today.

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And I know, that was the last series, guys.

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But it's been a really fun series, I think.

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I obviously enjoy traveling and it's part of the work that I do,

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but getting to visit all these places has been really interesting.

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So, Kathy, bring up that first slide to take us back to where we are,

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to remind us where on the greater globe we are.

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We are in the Mediterranean basin.

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We have been traveling many, many places in this region, road tripping around.

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Hasn't it been fun?

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The snacks we've brought for the trip, the playlists that we've put on.

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Are you guys that person that if you're on a road trip,

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the person who's driving gets to decide the playlist?

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Is that a, that's some strong nods are happening there.

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Excellent.

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We are in our last week of jet setting the Mediterranean,

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and we are ending it from the western region of Asia Minor.

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So if you're looking at the map, I'm pointing here, but I should be pointing over here.

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We are on the right side, if you can see where Turkey is.

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We are kind of on the left coast, the west coast of Turkey.

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And so the next slide will show us very specifically where we are in that region.

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The book of Revelation is where we're going to be today, which can like trigger some people.

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It is the last book of the Bible.

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It is a wild book, and oh, let me tell you, it has been wildly interpreted.

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I don't mean widely.

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I mean wildly interpreted.

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Every generation, every single one for the last 2,000 years has believed

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that the words of the book are coming true right now.

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They are happening this second.

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Look at the signs.

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They are clearer than they have ever been.

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And I don't mean to sound sarcastic or mocking of that, but for 2,000 years, it is exactly the same.

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Is Jesus coming back?

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Will we get to be with him again?

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Yes.

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Is that happening this moment?

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We don't know.

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And it's okay that we don't know.

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But every generation has believed it is happening right now because it is full of hard to understand things.

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And it's complex, and it's layered.

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And we have to be wise and aware when reading it.

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Aware of what?

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Context.

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So much context.

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Context is ever important.

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I joke around about saying that when I was in school for becoming a pastor, I call it pastor school.

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So in pastor school, when talking about biblical interpretation, the guide always was,

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what is the passage saying then?

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And then what is it saying now?

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We do not start with, what is it saying now?

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We start with, what is it saying then?

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What is it saying to the original readers?

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Always with scripture, we have to consider the world in which it was written.

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We need to understand it in its time.

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So let's do a little about that, a little with that today as we visit some of the places in Revelation.

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So the book of Revelation is diverse in its style.

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It is considered apocalypse, which is a Greek word meaning unveiling or disclosure.

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It is also prophetic, which means prophetic is something that either looks forward or brings forth.

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And it's also a letter.

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There's a lot of literary things happening in this.

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This kind of writing was actually fairly common.

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Revelation is not a unique book in its style, in what it is.

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This kind of writing was fairly common in Judaism in the centuries before and after Jesus.

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This kind of writing belonged to its own genre.

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It was a particular species of Jewish literature in which the Jewish vision of heaven and earth coming together is turned into literary artistry.

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It could include revelations of the other world being the heavenly world and sometimes of the future of this world.

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Jewish apocalypse comes out of a time of oppression and suffering that was inflicted by the powers that rule this world

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and contrasts the present evil age with a future blessed age that will soon come through a dramatic intervention by God.

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That is the style, and it was common.

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It was a writing style that was common, and it is exactly what we see in our canonical book of Revelation.

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The book also, because it was often calling out current oppressive powers, often uses very coded language.

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In this case, it's very coded language about the oppressor, which is the Roman Empire.

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There's high levels of symbolism and deep references also to Old Testament scriptures, which the readers would have all known.

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But interpretation is challenging because apocalyptic language and imagery is foreign to most people today.

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Can you see why knowing the context is important?

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If we don't, we're going to interpret it with what we know now, and that is dangerous.

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Unless the reader is familiar with those original things, the experience will be like watching the movie Shrek

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without knowing any of the references to the fairy tales or the nursery rhymes that it parodies.

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It can be funny, you can watch it, but if you know, if you know, then it's hilarious.

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The writer piles on one metaphor on top of another in order to describe the visions and to draw out their significance.

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The point of these writings was to lay out not a heavenly paradise in front of us, but a paradigm, a super reality,

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attention to which allowed the working out of the crises and frustrations at hand.

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It allowed the people listening and reading this to work out and to process what they were experiencing.

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And then it gave hope that God was going to do something about it.

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Through every generation, the belief that Revelation is about right now goes in heavier and lighter waves.

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Every millennia, whether it's the turning to 1000 or to 2000, things kind of get ramped up.

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Everybody believes, oh, it's happening, as if God works with our calendar, right?

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Oh, it's a thousand, it's a thousand now, it's like we're in the year 1000, God is surely coming back because that's significant to us.

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That's not how God works. We do not know the day or the hour.

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And so to that point, the writer of Revelation did not have Christians outside of the first century in mind.

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He wasn't thinking about 1000 AD or 2000 AD or 956 or 1426.

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None of that was in the mind of the writer.

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It was addressed explicitly to the readers identified and the great evil identified in the book was always Rome and the Empire.

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Everyone in historic leadership would have understood this to be true.

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It is a book written by an author who had a relationship with the current readers who was writing to them in an empire of Rome that was the oppressor.

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It was not written to us.

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That does not mean that we cannot glean things from it, but it was not written to us.

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It was not written for us. So who is the author?

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Revelation begins with this. Verse one, the revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.

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He made it known by sending his angel to his servant, John.

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It was once believed that this was probably the gospel writer, John of the of the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

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And if we grew up in church, we would have likely had the image of a prisoner in a dark,

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dank cell furiously writing down his visions while incarcerated. But biblical scholarship has moved away from that.

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And and they think it actually offers.

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I think it actually offers a broader view into the world that we are meeting the first century church in.

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This, John was very likely well known to his audience and possibly a traveling preacher, teacher,

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and possibly even a prophet who is steeped in Old Testament knowledge and the Jewish scriptures.

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The audience identified is revealed in verse nine.

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It says, I, John, your brother and companions in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours and Jesus,

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was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus was on the island of Patmos is not now.

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On the Lord's Day, I was in the spirit and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,

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which said, write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches.

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There's our reader to Ephesus, Smyrna, Hergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

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These cities were all within a distinct region interconnected in trade and even culture.

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You can see it on the map.

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It's hard. We're basically some of those main, the dots are small,

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but where some of the main road meeting points are is where those cities are.

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You can see how interconnected they were.

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And they were they were very connected in one region.

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It probably doesn't take more than three hours to drive from Pergamon,

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which is in the bigger loop at the top down to Ephesus on the coast on the bottom.

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And Patmos, you can see this little sort of thought bubble coming out from it, word bubble.

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It identifies where Patmos is.

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It's about 50 miles off the coast of Turkey.

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Currently, it belongs to Greece and like all those little islands belong to Greece

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and Turkey is everything that's mainland.

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Speaking of the complexities of the Roman Empire, those complexities still exist today.

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But it was a distinct region, a distinct culture, a distinct connectivity.

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As such, it is thought that John had been somewhat of a nuisance in Asia,

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which was probably why he was taken away.

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And so because he had been a nuisance, sometimes prophets are,

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and had been sentenced, he was sentenced to exile on a not too far away garrisoned island.

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This was more like a military garrison versus like a hard prison out on an island like Alcatraz.

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So it basically was to get him out of the region and quiet him down for a while,

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and a local governor had made this choice.

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When we get into the meat of the message to the churches

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and understanding the world in which the message was being laid,

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we can see why John would have been a troublesome presence for the local authorities.

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He was held there for some time, not strictly as a prisoner that we imagine,

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but more just to get him out of the way.

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And then likely he was relocated to Ephesus,

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which is kind of the jut out of the road near Meletus on the bottom there.

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I really didn't think it would be this small on the screen.

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I'm so sorry for those dots.

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We might just keep this up at the end so you can like peer through the map.

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So we know Ephesus. We were in Ephesus last week, weren't we?

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Ephesus and Laodicea, we know them as locations that Paul visited and wrote to.

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We talked about them last week.

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The Book of Acts refers to Thyatira as the location where Lydia was from,

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a business owner who held church in her home.

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She helped nurture the early church and also bankrolled it because she was really, really wealthy.

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Smyrna, Philadelphia, Pergamum, and Sardis are not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible,

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but they were significant cities in the ancient world and in this first century.

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We do not know who founded the Christian communities in some of these places,

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but we know that they were there and, as I said,

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had likely now been there for a few generations at this point.

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The book was written in the later part of the first century.

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So what we will call the letters, the letters to these seven churches,

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includes evaluations of each community, condemnation or commendation, and a promise.

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Nothing bad is said about Smyrna and Philadelphia.

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They're like the good siblings that like, Mom and Dad love you the most. Eww.

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Nothing good is said about Sardis and Laodicea,

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and Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira receive mixed verdicts.

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You can just imagine like getting this letter and just being like,

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what's he going to say about us? Like, we're doing good.

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And then like nothing good is said about these guys.

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You know, like, oh gosh.

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Today, because the letters are each long, I'm not going to go through them fully,

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but I will quote sections of them.

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But I encourage you to go back and read them.

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As always, whenever we cover a text here, we encourage you,

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go back and read it yourself.

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Go back and read it yourself.

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Find out about the places, the people, the things, the cultures.

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We learn the scriptures here together and grow in them,

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but we also want to be doing that in our own individual lives as well.

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So I encourage you to do so personally and do some more research

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on the life of the community these words were first addressed to.

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It is fascinating.

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Before we go forward, let us pray.

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Jesus, thank you so much for the way you have encouraged the church,

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the way that you have revealed yourself to the body of believers universally

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and historically, God.

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We are grateful for the fact that there were churches at all

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and that they made it through these first centuries, God.

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We are grateful for strengthening voices that reminded people

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who their first love was and to get back to it.

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God, we want to continue in that tradition to be encouragers of the church,

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to be encouragers through your word and to be encouragers through prayer

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and to hold each other up.

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Help us continue to be a church that you are alive in,

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and God, may we be a church that you are pleased with.

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We pray this in your name. Amen.

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So as I said, the setting of the seven churches is quite diverse.

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Each of them were facing different challenges,

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and some of them were facing the same challenges.

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There were issues among some of the affluent

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and that there was temptations to compromise with an idolatrous and oppressive system.

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The churches of Ephesus, Sardis, and Laodicea

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were showing signs of spiritual lethargy.

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To Sardis, once the capital city of the Kingdom of Lydia,

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which was no small thing, it was one of the biggest kingdoms of this region.

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They took on the Persians. We talked about the Persians early on.

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They fought them off.

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Eventually they couldn't hold, but they held their own for a number of times,

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and that was significant.

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They are also the kingdom that first standardized coinage in the world,

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which is a fascinating little detail.

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But it's a city that would have felt like they were once on top of the world

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and may not have known that they weren't still.

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To the church at Sardis is written,

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I know your deeds, you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

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Wake up! Strengthen what remains, and is about to die,

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for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

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Remember therefore what you have received and heard.

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Hold fast and repent.

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If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief,

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and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

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The spiritual lethargy was real.

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Thyatira and Philadelphia were commended for their endurance in the face of opposition.

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The church of Smyrna, current city of Ismere,

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it's a really big city on the coast of Anatolia,

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the church of Smyrna had persecution on its horizon.

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And the Bible says, I know your afflictions and your poverty, yet you are rich.

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I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not,

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but are a synagogue of Satan.

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Strong words.

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Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.

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I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you,

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and you will suffer persecution.

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Be faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor's crown.

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Philadelphia was promised that though there was trials coming, they would escape.

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The churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia were encountering religious rivalry

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and slander from local synagogues, which was not new.

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Paul was run out of a town because he was preaching the gospel in a synagogue,

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and realized this message is for the Gentiles here.

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I need to move on.

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And so they were facing slander from local synagogues,

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whereas the Jews and Sardis carried on a good relations with non-Jews in the city.

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So it was different in some places.

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The Christians in Pergamum and Thyatira were chastised for eating food sacrificed to idols

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and engaging in sexual immorality, the hallmarks of assimilating socially to a local pagan culture.

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There were different economic conditions since the Smyrnaians were poor,

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whereas the Laodiceans were quite rich and really boastful about it.

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The Ephesus Church was commended for resisting fake apostles and the Nicolaitans,

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while Pergamum and Thyatira were rebuked for tolerating false teachers.

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These were somewhat internal things each community faced,

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and John, because he was probably very familiar with each of these locations,

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understood that and was able to speak directly to these things.

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But each of these cities also had highly complicated relationships with Rome.

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And as time went by, and the empire used the network of the Hellenistic gridlines,

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remember how we talked about Alexander the Great's reign?

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He had sort of unified this whole region together,

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and then created a place that culturally and language-wise there was a high level of homogeneity.

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And so because of that, Rome had a template to work with, an infrastructure already to spread out.

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And so Rome used those gridlines and then moved in to overtake the whole thing

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and wanted everybody to conform.

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And so all these different areas were trying to basically deal with Rome coming in as an empire.

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And I just lost my place in the notes, it's probably very clear that as I'm like,

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oh, I'm now just sort of riffing right now.

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What I was saying, go back to the beginning, not the very beginning, I won't do that to you.

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These were somewhat internal things that John is addressing.

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And then there are the external things like the Empire of Rome that is coming in and trying to take over.

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So Rome had played a number of these cities to its advantage.

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In Pergamum, the Adalids, which was the ruling family there, became probably the most loyal to Rome.

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They saw that that was what they needed to do, and so they played the game.

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But when Adalus died without an heir, he bequeathed the whole region and the city to Rome

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in exchange that Pergamum would be kept free and autonomous.

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Do you think Rome honored that?

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Right, exactly.

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And we're not just talking the city, like I said, it was the whole region.

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Ephesus was part of the Kingdom of Pergamum.

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And so out of their hands, they all of a sudden became subjects of the Roman Republic.

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Now this is before the Empire.

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This is as the Roman Republic is expanding and trying to take over territory.

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And so Rome certainly did with it, oh great, we have more territory.

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They were literally handed territory.

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And cities in that region, all of those cities that we saw in the seven churches, were basically encompassed in that.

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So the city was declared free and served briefly as the capital of the province

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before this distinction was eventually transferred to Ephesus.

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The other cities, like Ephesus, didn't want this, and so there was major pushback.

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And they ended up, Ephesus ended up having a general lead,

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a campaign that killed all the Roman citizens in that region.

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This did not go smoothly.

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A Roman consul came and took over and brought Ephesus back under Roman rule.

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And this is all happening before, like around 90 BC.

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But all of a sudden five years of back taxes are called in,

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which entirely weighed laced to the economic structure of this region.

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So here's this background of the complex relationship this region has with Rome.

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Cities could become capitals or they could lose their status.

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If you wanted to become a capital, what were you going to do?

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You were going to probably play your allegiance towards the biggest, the biggest bully in the, in the, on the playground.

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And so all of these things were going back and forth.

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Pergamum, Smyrna, Ephesus, all sort of vied for becoming the capital of the area.

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When Augustus became emperor in 27 BC, the most important change was that he made Ephesus the capital of Asia instead of Pergamum.

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It was just taken away.

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Ephesus then entered an era of great prosperity.

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Of course it did, becoming both the seat of the governor and a major center of commerce.

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It was second in importance in size only to Rome.

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Rome played games with its cities and in an effort for cities to gain independence or power, they became fragile to Rome's whims.

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Rome always had the power and it was increasing.

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And so I cannot overstate, I cannot overstate the direction of the book of Revelation as it looks as the, at the Roman Empire,

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as the problem, as the oppressor, as the beast, as Babylon.

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One subdued chieftain of this time period of the first century allegedly said, to violence, plunder, they give the name empire.

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They created desolation and they call it peace.

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John's Apocalypse is a theologically loaded critique of Rome's faunted greatness and goodness.

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It's self-styled and self-acclaimed blessedness and benevolence offering an alternative perspective on how Rome looks from below.

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The empire demanded loyalty, but whether you gave it or you didn't, it could and likely would always turn on you.

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By the end of the first century, about first century AD, about the first, about the time of the writing of this book,

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all seven cities had become a part of the empire, had been played by the empire badly,

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and had all seen their favor or their disgrace played out in front of everyone.

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And so all of these cities now were as the Roman Empire cities, all had cultic sites for imperial devotion.

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Rome demanded devotion and it was going to get it.

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Participation, rites, and rituals, whether at the dinner of a trade guild during public games or on a family shrine featuring the Roman Emperor's image,

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these were all moments to demonstrate one's loyalty and gratitude towards the imperial family.

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How lovely that we all get that opportunity.

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This is why John singles out Pergamum, a place where Satan has his throne, since Pergamum was among the first to receive the title of Temple Warden.

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They had the biggest temple of the imperial cult.

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It had a temple to the goddess Roma and to the Augusti, and along with an immense altar to Zeus on top of a nearby mountain.

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There is an image, Kathy, it is the one, it's the third image.

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Actually, keep that wine.

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This is the hillside at Pergamum.

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You can see how tall the hill is there.

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That theater held about 12,000 people, I think.

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And the temple I'm about to talk about, you can see how towering this acropolis or city was above the lowlands.

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So maybe the next image, yep, that one, on the foreground on the bottom left, that is the Temple of Zeus.

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And it was kind of visualized, like those around it visualized it kind of like a throne.

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And so if you were coming up from the lowlands, if you were unfortunate enough to live down below,

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you had to come up the hill to do your shopping, to do a lot of major things.

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And you had to come up to the hill to do your community sort of things.

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And so you came up this very steep hill and slowly rising in your viewpoint was this huge, huge altar.

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It was massive.

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It was the first thing you were going to see on the main road coming up from the low part of the city.

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And so this is what John is calling the seat of Satan, the throne of Satan.

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It wasn't just, it is dramatic language, but it was directed, it was very specific.

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He writes, to the angel of the church in Pergamum, right, these are the words of him who has sharp double-edged sword.

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I know where you live, where Satan has his throne, yet you remain true to my name.

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You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, who was a martyr in this city.

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When somebody is martyred, it's a pretty scary thing, and you think to yourself, do I want to be this devout to the faith,

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or do I just want to look like maybe I'm a little bit more loyal to Rome?

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They had that in their midst, and here they are being commended for not renouncing their faith.

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So not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city where Satan lives.

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And so you can see here, go to the next slide where it has been remade at the Pergamum Museum in Berlin.

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This gives you a sense of size as well. It was a formidable altar.

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As I said, Pergamum was built high in a hill, and so everybody also from the lowlands could see this from the ground.

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Pergamum, as it was, as I said, was one of the capital cities for a while, and so you would have had to come to Pergamum.

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Everybody in the region reading this would have known this is what we're talking about here.

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And so if you did not turn up to sing and cheer and eat and celebrate, it would have been noticeable.

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Your absence would have been noticeable and would eventually have roused suspicion about your loyalty

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and your devotion to the local deities and to the imperial regime.

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And the chastisement of accommodating, and the chastisement of accommodation was to the Roman imperial way of life for upholding the empire.

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The problem was too many in the church were upholding the empire. They were holding the empire above the kingdom.

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The churches had become too Roman. There was a divided heart to the lordship of Christ and to the lordship of Caesar, and it had happened over generations.

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Rome would also try to buy out its cities, so if they were having trouble gaining their loyalty, they would try to buy them out.

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All of these locations, go back to the map, Kathy, all of these locations in this region were subject to extensive earthquake damage.

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If you remember back to February, the earthquake that happened in southern Turkey, that was pretty significant.

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That was not uncommon. It's not uncommon for this area.

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And so all of these locations, when they would suffer extensive damage, Rome would send money to rebuild the city,

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and as it did, would influence the design, the identity, what was important to rebuild or what wasn't,

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and would never let the city forget that it was its benevolent benefactor.

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After a destructive earthquake in 178 A.D., Smyrna was rebuilt in the Roman period under the emperor Marcus Aurelius.

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Aeolus Aristides wrote a letter to Marcus Aurelius and his son, inviting them to become the new founders of the city.

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Wasn't that nice of them to just so casually install new founders of this new, fancy Roman city?

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And because of the history of devastating earthquakes in the region, it's believed that the commendation to Philadelphia is in response to this.

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John writes, to the one who is victorious, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God.

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Never again will they leave it. A pillar in the temple of my God.

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Well, a pillar in the temples was a familiar sight, and if you were going to experience an earthquake,

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those pillars were the ones that were going to fall.

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But to be a pillar in the temple of God meant that whatever happens, whether the world shakes or it doesn't, that's going to stay firm.

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It will not fall. This pillar will remain standing. Rome will not need to rebuild you.

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Laodicea was also wealthy. Let's go to the image of, I think it's probably the one after, yep, that one right there.

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Speaking of pillars, Laodicea had at one point experienced a dreadful earthquake, and it is what ended it as a city later on in the centuries.

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But it was incredibly wealthy, and it prided itself on its wealth.

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This is the marketplace, and as far as it goes down, you can see where it crosses over, and on the other side, those pillars keep going back.

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And it goes back to the right side of the screen, I don't know, another hundred plus feet.

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It was massive. It was a massive, massive marketplace.

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Laodicea kind of sits atop of this outcropping.

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We can go to the next image, I think is, you can see the mountains here.

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This is a roadway, and go to the next one. Yep.

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So Laodicea is on a hill in a valley with mountains like this around it.

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So it kind of stood tall, and everybody could see it. It was easy to get to.

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It was a well-developed city.

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And so it's also very close to the cities of Hierapolis and Colosse.

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The Book of Colossians was written to them.

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Hierapolis was across the valley.

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And so many communities in this valley would come here to do their dealings, doing their trade.

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And so it made them very, very rich.

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After suffering a terrible earthquake, Rome wanted to do what Rome does and send money out to Laodicea.

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And Laodicea refused.

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They refused. They took great pride in this.

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But Revelation calls them out.

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Chapter 317 says, You say, I am rich.

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I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.

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But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

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That was a direct hit.

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In fact, the writer calls them out even further and jabs them at a weak spot.

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Because they were on this hill, water doesn't run uphill.

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Guys, gravity doesn't work that way.

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Across from the valley from them, as I pointed out, there was a city of Hierapolis, which was known for its hot springs.

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And if you – I didn't have time to put it in, but they have these extraordinary, like, travertine, cascading pools.

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And they were filled with hot water.

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People would come from all around to experience these thermal springs.

403
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:57,000
Down the road, Colosse experienced the coolness of a natural spring.

404
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And through the center of this valley ran a large river, the Meander River.

405
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And it's where we get our word, meander, from.

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And it had rich, cool water.

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So Laodicea had to have their water brought up to them.

408
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And, you know, the envious hot water of Hierapolis, the envious cool water of Colosse,

409
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they got the lukewarm water, didn't they?

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00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,000
Because it had to be brought up.

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00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:30,000
It was neither hot nor cold.

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And that affected them.

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They did not love that.

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00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:40,000
And so, to the angel of the church in Laodicea, right, these are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness,

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00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:45,000
the ruler of God's creation, I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold.

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00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,000
I wish you were either one of those.

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00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:52,000
So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth.

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00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:58,000
You are – you have not connected to a source.

419
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:02,000
You've not connected to a source which can give you fresh water.

420
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:07,000
You have become like your water, which was, again, this was a weak spot for them.

421
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They were sore about this.

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They took pride in so many things, and they tried to be like, please don't talk about our water, though.

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So the context for all these things matters, doesn't it?

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It brings great clarity to understanding not only how direct and important and specific the words were to these communities,

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but what they meant to them and what the admonitions, the encouragements, or even the, you know, the words of condemnation,

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what it meant.

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All of that makes a great deal of sense when you understand it in its context.

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It also makes it much more a book of its time, doesn't it?

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It makes more sense why it's a book specifically written to these people.

430
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Now, as I said, when you read, when you read scripture, you ask, what does it mean to the readers?

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What does it mean to the hearers?

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And what does it mean to us?

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John's words are a call to persevere and get back to your source when it looks like the beast is winning,

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when it looks like the empire is taking over.

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It's an encouragement that the empire does not have the final say.

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The oppressor does not have the final say. In this first century context, Revelation is a pervasively anti-imperial document.

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It is undeniably about Rome.

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But if this is what Revelation meant then, what might it mean now?

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We still have empires.

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We still have empires that are seen and unseen.

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Our loyalty is still asked to be compromised all the time.

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We all the time have to reconcile, which kingdom am I aligned with?

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Who am I serving?

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Where does my attention go?

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Where does my worship go?

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Who am I facing?

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This is still a valuable document now as a call, as a call to remember that though the empire is in front of you,

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it is everywhere you look.

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It is demanding everything from you, but it is not real.

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It is a facade.

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Revelation reminds us of the more that is not just beyond the here and now,

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but the fact that the kingdom is here and now.

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Remember to look for the kingdom.

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Remember the kingdom.

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Remember Christ in front of you.

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The empire is not your identity.

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The empire is not your home.

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You belong to something more.

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And as the generations get further and further out from the original message, the gospel,

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as it was alive in the day that it was produced, as we get further and further out, that call still stands for us.

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Come back home.

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Do not forsake your first love.

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Remember.

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Remember.

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Remember.

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So let's let the book of Revelation be a word to us for that, to remember,

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to help us remember to check ourselves and to get back home with the kingdom that is not hidden,

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but is present here and now today.

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Let's pray.

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God, I'm thankful for this word.

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I'm also thankful, God, for the unique and specific ways you spoke, directed these things to these communities

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and ways that they were going to understand them and in ways that were going to get close to their hearts.

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And I love that you do that to us today.

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Your word, when you speak to us, gets close to our heart.

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You know us well.

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You know that the things that I deal with and am challenged by and need to be re-centered away from

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are different than what another in this community might experience.

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And so you speak that truth directly to me, but what you speak to all of us is to remember to get back home.

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And we can help each other with that.

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While you are dealing with the internal issues, we are all dealing with the external ones and the challenges

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and the constant cries from the both proverbial and literal empire around us to draw our attention away

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and focus on that.

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And help us remember that the kingdoms that we see in front of us alive in the world are not real.

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They are facades, but that there is a very real kingdom we belong to, and you are the Lord of it, God.

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And so we look to you.

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Bring us back to you.

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Pray this in your name. Amen.