Reading the book of Revelation helps sort out the disorientation resulting from taking in gobs of popular culture and entertainment. Revelation, carefully read, provides a jolt to our mental and spiritual system like electromagnetic paddles used to restart a heart beating out of rhythm.

Here’s how one author puts it: (I’ve simplified the paragraph some for clarity. Bold emphasis is mine.)

Seeing the world and our culture accurately requires a wake-up call, a strategy for jolting us out of our familiarity and comfort with ways of living, how we shop and entertain ourselves, our loves, our idolatries, in order to see them for what they are. Scripture does this through “apocalyptic” literature. This is the writing in the strange pages of Daniel and the book of Revelation—that gets us to see through the empires that constitute our environment, in order to see them for what they really are. We associate these passages with “end-times” literature as if they were all about predicting the future. But this is a misunderstanding. The point of apocalyptic literature is not prediction but unmasking—unveiling the realities around us for what they really are. So the book of Revelation is partially making the point that the Roman Empire (the prevailing world power at the time) pretended to be a gift to civilization and the zenith of human accomplishment. But John’s apocalyptic perspective from a heavenly angle shows us the reality: Rome is a monster.  (James Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit.)

The system of our world apart from God is likewise monstrous and will destroy those caught in its anti-God state of mind if not rescued from it.

Here is a specific case in point on how the book of Revelation does this. Chapter 6 contains terrifying images of God’s judgment. Reading carefully generates the awareness the righteous wrath of God is inevitably coming toward sin. When seen rightly, that reality will not make believers judgmental. Rather, it will lead to fresh gratitude and profound humility. That is because we recognize that we too deserve the wrath of God and that it is only God’s mercy in salvation that we are rescued. Without this humility, we will be less aware of our own spiritual blindness and become obnoxious. Seeing the wrath of God revealed in chapter 6 and then the mercy of God revealed in chapter 7 leads to repentance. It provokes us to get on our face before God and say, “Oh God have mercy on me a sinner.” It has the power to fundamentally reshape our souls; therefore, we see ourselves and our world rightly.

This Sunday the elders will work together in a way we never have and will share together from Revelation 6-7 regarding God’s vision for Bethany Place. We will look back from the picture in the text, to see what we are to be about now. From there we will also share evidence of God’s work in and through us in this past year, as well as what our next steps might be. I urge you to be present. Please pray that we will be repentant and receptive to the direction God is leading us as a church body. I cannot wait to see you this Sunday.