August 2 2026
Revelation 14:1-13, 15:1-6,18:1-10
Well it won’t be long until all of my brothers and sisters will be gathered together for my daughter, Sarah’s wedding. My oldest sister, Hilary, and her husband Paul, will be the first to arrive as she is going to say with us for a week before the festivities. Hilary is, one might say, the free spirit of our family. She got her degree in Art, and then headed out to California where she found work in an art gallery. The art gallery she worked for eventually opened up a new gallery in New York, so she and Paul moved to the SoHo district for a while. Then they moved back to San Francisco where they still live, While Hilary and Paul lived in SoHo, Jennifer and I went to visit them. Now for a country boy like myself saying that New York City was overwhelming is an understatement. There simply no way to describe the vast number of people all on the move, and the constant noise, and the continual hustle and bustle that never seemed to cease. Hilary and Paul had a tiny little apartment that was somewhat suffocating. So I was glad when they offered to take us up on the roof top of their apartment building. As we stood there on that rooftop and looked out upon the city, all that could be seen for miles in every direction was row upon row of buildings with the skyscrapers way off on the horizon. It was so unbelievable to imagine all the people who lived there. Needless to say, I was quite happy when the time came to leave.
What brought this memory to mind is that in this week’s scripture verse, we hear mention of Mount Zion. This may not seem like much but in the New Testament the ultimate goal for the people of God is depicted as being a city, the new Jerusalem which sits upon a hill named Mount Zion. For me who does not think favorably about city life, this is rather a disappointing image. I mean, yes, eternal life is a great hope but why, we must wonder does this life have to be described as living in a city?
Well, as it turns out, this image of our eternal dwelling being the city of New Jerusalem, is not only found here in the book of Revelation but in other places in the New Testament, especially in the book of Hebrews. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is known as being where we can find one of the clearest descriptions of faith. There in the very first verse, faith is described as being the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Well what is not yet clear, the thing that is hoped for is in fact an eternal life lived in the New Jerusalem. This becomes clear to us when the author of Hebrews writes about the faith of Abraham. In the eighth verse, we are told that Abraham obeyed God when God called Abraham to go to the place Abraham would receive as an inheritance from God. Abraham set out not knowing where he was going, how’s that for faith? By faith, Abraham migrated to the land God promised to him, a foreign land where Abraham and his family, lived in tents. Abraham’s child Issac and his grandchild, Jacob also lived in tents in that land as they inherited what God had promised to Abraham. The author of Hebrews then tells us the reason why Abraham and his family were content to live in tents is that they were waiting for the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Now, if we move to the thirteenth verse, the writer of Hebrews tells us that Abraham and his family died in faith because they never received fulfillment of what God had promised to them. Instead, they saw the fulfillment of these promises from a distance and they welcomed their arrival. This is why they spoke of themselves as being strangers and exiles while living in the land because they knew this was not their permanent home. They spoke of themselves like this because they were looking for a land of their own, a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one. This is why God is not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, for they never stopped believing that God prepared a city for them to one day dwell in.
So when we read in the book of Revelation about Mount Zion, we are to know that here is where the city is located that God has prepared for all of his people. It is this city that is the very focus of our faith. The image of a city has perhaps been chosen so that we might know that in the age to come our life will be lived together with all of the rest of the people of God. This city will be a holy city because there will only be us, citizens of the heavenly city. This is the way Paul states that we are to understand ourselves. In the third chapter of Philippians, Paul writes that we should no longer have our minds set on earthly things but instead we are to know that our citizenship exists in heaven, this is where we are to know we are from. So, Paul, explains, we wait for the arrival of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly bodies into the likeness of his glorious body, bodies worthy to live in our glorious home.
Now if you listened closely to what is said about our life in the heavenly city, the emphasis is on waiting. This is a very important aspect of knowing that our final destination is the New Jerusalem found on Mt. Zion. I don’t believe that it is an accident that after we read in the book of Revelation about a time of great suffering that is coming upon the people of God, as we find in the thirteenth chapter, that John turns to speak about Mount Zion. John is helping those listening to his story to focus not on the hardships but to instead turn their attention to their hope in heaven. I’m sure that when people hear that in times of great trial we, as God’s people, are to be at rest, to find contentment through the strength we have through Christ, most people find such an idea rather unbelievable. Yet what makes such rest a real possibility for us is that our hope is knowing that we are citizens of a heavenly city. As the writer of Hebrews tells us at the end of the sixth chapter, our hope is an anchor for our life, both sure and steadfast. So it makes sense that our faith is tied directly to our hope. Going back to the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we remember that there it tells us that faith is the assurance things hoped for. Yet if we look at the original Greek, what is actually written is that faith exists through standing under what we hope for or expect. The imagery we find here is that our hope in a heavenly city acts as a shelter over us so that we can stand confidently in faith. This is the reason why we can find rest and find contentment no matter what our circumstances because our confidence is found in the unchangeable nature of our hope, the firm reality of our heavenly home.
So as we rest we aren’t just doing nothing, far from it. No as we rest we are actively awaiting for this promise of a permanent home to become a present reality. Now if ever there were a universal dislike it would probably be that we all hate to wait. We can’t imagine living without our microwave or our instant mash potatoes. When we order online we want it delivered the next day. So scriptures insistence that we have to wait patiently for our joyous homecoming makes us all a little uneasy. Yet this waiting is an important part of our salvation. We discover this important aspect of waiting when the writer of Hebrews describes the faith of Moses. In the twenty-fourth verse of the eleventh chapter, we are told that it was by faith that Moses, when he became a grown man, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. If you recall, the mother of Moses had placed her baby, Moses, in a basket and and sent him floating down the Nile so that he would not be killed. Moses was found by the daughter of Pharaoh who brought the mother of Moses to the royal palace to be his nurse. So Moses was raised as an heir to the throne but when he became an adult he made a choice to suffer hardship along with the people of God instead of enjoying the temporary pleasures of sin. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Moses considered abuse for the sake of Christ to be a greater wealth than all of the treasures of Egypt.because he was looking ahead to his reward. This testimony of Moses is to cause us to ask ourselves, this question: do we consider suffering for Christ to be of greater value than the temporary riches that we might possess right now? Or to put it another way, are we indeed like Moses, able to turn our back on the pleasures of today and instead wait for the imperishable treasure that is found in our heavenly home?
As I pondered how to make sense of this choice between demanding pleasure now versus waiting for an eternity filled with joy, I thought of the times we would take our family to Texas Roadhouse. Now if you have ever ate there you know that as you wait for the waitress to bring your order they give you all the warm rolls and honey butter you can eat. My son, Matt, would naturally see such an offer as a challenge and proceed to eat so many rolls smeared with butter that when his steak arrived he found that he was no longer hungry for the sizzling, delicious steak set before him. This is much the way it is for us as we wait for to enter our heavenly home, the New Jerusalem built on Mount Zion. If we begin to seek to ease our hunger for pleasure by indulging in all the temporary delights we desire, then we will find that we will have no desire for the greater and more permanent joy that is eternal. Even worse, what will happen when we keep indulging our every desire is that we will become addicted to those desires. This is what James tells us in the first chapter of his letter, that it is our desires that drag us away from God so that we become trapped by them. We end up no longer free but instead we find ourselves enslaved by our own desires.
Now it should come as no surprise that those who are addicted to their own desires and pleasure have a city where they belong. John writes of this city beginning with the eighth verse of the fourteenth chapter of Revelation. There we hear an angel proclaim that the city named Babylon has fallen. It is Babylon which has made all the nations drink of her wine, the wine of passionate immorality. Babylon is the true home for all those who have been caught and enslaved by their own desires.Now it should come as no surprise that this city Babylon is closely associated with the all powerful ruler and his followers that we learned about last week because the ultimate purpose of power is to be able to take pride in the fact that one can possess whatever their desire craves. This is the reason John states that Babylon has dominion over all the kings of earth because those in power are actually slaves to their base desires which drives their ambition.
When we understand Babylon as being the collective of all those addicted to their base pleasures, then we know that the sin that comes forth from those who live there is very great. Going back to the first chapter of James, we hear James explain that when when a person’s desires enslave them then those desires take hold of them and the result is sin, a life that goes against the goodness of God. And when sin comes to its ultimate end, the result is death. This is the reason why our righteous God must eventually destroy the great city called Babylon, this collection of souls dominated by their desires. Those who seek the pleasures of the moment, fulfilling all of their desires no matter the cost, indulging their every fantasy having not a care for all those who suffer on account of their indulgence, all these will most assuredly come under the judgement of God. You see, when people are driven by their desires they have no trouble trampling under their feet those who stand between them and their pleasure. They have no problem taking more than their fair share so that others do not have enough. They have no trouble using and abusing people also that they can obtain their endless pursuit of worldly wealth. So it is only right that God must put an end to this city which represents those who destroy innocent lives in order to chase after their never satisfied appetites.
The story of Babylon in the book of Revelation is to serve as a warning to those who read of this city’s downfall. When the suffering that Christ calls us to endure becomes too difficult, the temptation will be to seek some worldly pleasure which may offer us some relief. Yet we must never forget that indulging our desires is always dangerous. There is a certainty that we will become addicted to our desires if we keep chasing after the things of this world. Yet all is not lost because we have a God given gift which helps us to keep on waiting for the best life that is to come. Going back to the example of eating at Texas Roadhouse, imagine that while you waited for your steak to arrive the waiter would bring to your table a sample of that delicious steak that you are waiting for. In that little morsel you could taste that mouth-watering savory goodness that will be on your table before you know it. So when the rolls are passed around you refuse to indulge in eating those because what you are now hungering for is more of that steak which you have just had a taste of. Well, in much the same way, we are told at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Hebrews, that it is possible for us to have a taste of the goodness and power of the age to come. This is what Jesus speaks of in the twenty-second chapter of Luke, when he states that the bread we eat and the cup we drink when we partake of the Lord’s supper will one day find their fulfillment when the kingdom of God comes at last. Perhaps this is why we only take but a morsel of bread and a small cup of juice when we come to his table because what we partake of is just a sample of the great life which will be ours one day in the age to come. In these few moments when we share in the life of Christ around his table we experience the peace and unity together that will one day be ours as we share life together in the great city of New Jerusalem. Our communion together calls us to remember Jesus yet we do not just remember the past when Jesus went to the cross and allowed himself to be broken and his blood poured out for us. We also are to remember what we are reminded of in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. There we are told to remember to fix our gaze upon Jesus who is the pioneer and the perfection of our faith. Jesus turned his back on worldly joy and instead endured the cross, having no regard for its shame, and now is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. This is why we are now able to lay aside all earthly burdens and the sins that constantly distract us so that we are now able to run with endurance the journey that takes us home to our eternal home. So as we sing our songs of praise to God here on earth we do so remembering that we join those in heaven who sing a new song before the throne in heaven. We, like those who have gone before us can also claim that we too follow the Lamb wherever he goes. We are certain that through the suffering and death of Jesus that we too can know ourselves as being those who are redeemed from the human race. Indeed we, like those in heaven, are an offering of the first fruits for God and for the Lamb.
This gift Jesus has given to us of being invited to come and share together around his table gives us then the foretaste of the great banquet we shall feast on when we arrive at the city of New Jerusalem seated there on Mount Zion. Even though this world is filled with many pleasures which call out to our desires, we find that we are no longer tempted to indulge in these delights. No, we have had a taste of something far greater that is worth waiting for, a taste of home, a home for us eternal in the heavens. Praise be to God. Amen!
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