Discernment and Faithfulness in Revelation's Cosmic Conflict

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "John's revelation was not actually given so that we could predict the future. Although sometimes it has been used in that way. John's revelation was not given so we could predict the future, but so that we could live faithfully in the present. And if we don't understand that, we could spend time or decide not to spend time trying to figure out how to predict the future, which was not really the point of John's revelation, but rather to help Jesus' followers know how to live as followers of Jesus in the present, whether that was 2,000 years ago or whether that's now in 2024." [37:18](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "John's revelation for us is an invitation to learn to discern and then live for the Lamb. So if you don't get anything else out of today, get this. Learn to discern. Like, who's behind these masks so that I can learn how to live for Team Lamb? Fair enough? You with me? Anybody else? There's two people with me. All right. I can run with that. Small but mighty." [40:23](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Victory will be accomplished, John says, but not by the way of Babylon, not by the way of arrogance and oppression and exploitation, but by the way of the lamb of sacrificial self-giving love. That's why it's the lamb who was slain. When we're tempted to win through violence and vengeance and force, that's Babylon. That's Babylon. When we're tempted to exploit and manipulate others, that's dragon style. When we're tempted to seek absolute power for ourselves, that's wild thing number one. When we're tempted to believe the lies about reality, about ourselves, about our value, about the value of others who are created in the image of God, when we're tempted to believe those and other kinds of lies, that's Babylon." [01:07:46](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "The challenge is to learn to discern, so that we can live for the lamb. Again, I know this is a lot of material. I encourage you, take some of this material. Look around at so unique experiences again. Go back, read the book of Revelation. It's 22 chapters. It's a fascinating story. You will be confused, but we're trying to help all of us learn, okay, this is not something meant to confuse me. This is something meant to help me learn how do I live as a follower of Jesus, as a dissident in this place called Babylon." [01:08:06](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


### Quotes for Members

1. "The characters that we're going to meet today, because when you read, if you've ever read or heard someone preach or talk about the book of Revelation, you know there are some pretty extravagant characters and creatures there. So today what I want to do is do a quick survey of the main characters and help us understand who's behind those masks and why that matters. For us today. And here's why. Because these characters end up lining up as part of what John is describing as a cosmic conflict between God and his purposes and plans and the opponents of God." [38:09](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "So the lion is this majestic, powerful figure, and the lamb also has huge significance for John and his culture, right? The sacrificial lamb in their sacrificial system for forgiveness, or whether it goes back to Passover, where the blood of the lamb was what gave them freedom and liberated them from bondage. So all of these things are coming together, and you're like, wait a minute. He starts out by talking about there's a lion, and then he turns it around, and now the lion has become a lamb. And what we discover is, like, John's descriptions kind of, they just morph, almost like the Transformers, right? So the character we're introduced to here is the lion, who becomes a lamb, and then later on, we won't have time for this today, becomes the logos, which is the Greek word for word, right? So because he'll talk about the lion slash lamb is victorious with the word." [45:22](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Babylon exists wherever sociopolitical power coalesces into an entity that stands against the worship of God. One writer says this. The moral pretenses of imperial Rome, the millennial claims of Nazism, the arrogance of Marxist dogma, and the anxious insistence that America be number one among the nations are all versions of Babylon's. It's still with us. John wants us to understand. We live in Babylon. And he wants us to know how to live. He wants us to live as faithful witnesses in that space. And we will get to that, not today, in one of the messages coming up here in the month of June." [01:00:32](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Babylon is recognizable. It is recognized by its characteristics. Characteristics like being anti-God. Characteristics like opulence. And John goes to great lengths to describe how the merchants have fattened themselves and economically exploited others, and how the rich have gotten richer and the poor have become poorer. And this, John says, is part of Babylon. How it is a militaristic, murderous kind of empire. That achieves its ends through violence and suppression. The characteristics of Babylon are incredibly focused on image and ego and status. Economic exploitation and the arrogance that is seen over and over and over. Babylon intoxicates humanity. And it does this while it's being energized by the dragon." [01:02:30](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "And John introduces to us. At the very end of this revelation, the new Jerusalem. And it's clearly juxtaposed against Babylon. So don't think of Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, as a city any more than we think of Babylon as a city to say, no, this is a different reality. And notice, it's not being whisked off of this planet to some other worldly place. It's the return of Eden. Of God's original design. It's the design for creation. It's the reuniting of heaven and earth together, right? Where he says the heavens come down, the dwelling place of God will be with man. It's God dwelling with people just as he did at the beginning. And it's a Jerusalem, a reality characterized by justice and peace. And John says, this is God's plan. This is how it will end. God will be victorious, not with military might, right? Because when the lion, lamb, logos wins, the sword is not in his fist, the sword is coming out of his mouth. It is the word of God, the truth of God." [01:05:26](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)