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]]>Somewhere deep down, most of us carry the same quiet question: am I good enough to get into heaven? We tally our lives almost without thinking, weighing the kind things we have done and the people we have helped against the times we fell short. And we hope that when it is all added up, the good will win.
The book of Revelation speaks directly to that hope, and to that fear. In a vision that God gave to the apostle John, John is shown a final courtroom scene that answers the question more clearly than we might expect. It also unsettles the way many of us have quietly assumed heaven works.
John describes it plainly. “I saw a great white throne, and Him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from His presence, and there was no place for them” (Revelation 20:11). The throne is white because it is God’s throne, a holy throne. As you picture the scene, notice that everything else has fled. Heaven and earth find no place there. The only thing present is God, seated in judgment.
Then the dead appear. “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened”(Revelation 20:12). One of those books is the Book of Life. The dead are judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gives up its dead, and death and Hades give up the dead that were in them. Every person stands, and every person is judged by their deeds.
That phrase, judged according to what they had done, may shake an assumption many of us hold: the idea that you can earn your way in by being a good enough person.
John is playing off a mentality that was common in his day. We might call it the Treasury of Merits. If you spent time in the Roman Catholic Church, you may have heard the phrase before. The idea is that there is a book, and in that book is a ledger listing the good things and the bad things you have done. Your entrance into heaven would depend on that ledger. You arrive at the Pearly Gates, the book is opened, your name is looked up, and the tally is read aloud.
Imagine that. Imagine the book opens to your name and begins to read everything you have ever done. The time you pulled the fire alarm and lied about it. The test you cheated on. Then a few good marks too: the day you helped someone across the road, the cat you rescued from the tree. If the credits outweigh the debits, you get in. If the debits outweigh the credits, you do not. When the letter of Revelation reached the seven churches in Asia Minor, most of the congregation would have read this and nodded. Of course. That is how we assumed it would go.
But sit with the picture honestly and it should frighten us. I am pretty sure my ledger is not clean. I know the thoughts of my mind. I know the actions of my life. I know the ways I have hurt people, betrayed people, and sinned against God, and I know there are countless other ways I have done those things that I am not even aware of. They are all written there, every single one. If I am honest, I am not sure my good outweighs my bad, and I do not know that yours does either. Judged by that standard, not many of us would check the box and qualify.
If you are someone who has ever thought, I will never be good enough, this next part is written for you.
The ledger is not the only book, and it is not the end of the story. “Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death” (Revelation 20:14).
It is easy to rush past what John is painting here, but it is beautiful. This is the final victory of Jesus. Death and Hades may win in the short term, but in the long term Jesus wins. Notice that death and Hades have already given up their dead a few verses earlier. Their grip on humanity can only last so long, because Jesus wins. And then death and Hades themselves are thrown into the lake of fire. They are destroyed. They are no more. They are out of the picture entirely. John is showing you a Savior who conquers the very thing we fear most.
After that victory, John turns to the decisive book. “Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).
So there are two books. There is the book of deeds, the ledger of everything we have done. And there is this other book, and when it is opened it holds a list of names. Those names identify the people who have been saved: the ones who have given their lives over to Jesus, surrendered to Him, and allowed His sacrifice to be a sacrifice for them. They have found eternal life. Their names are written in the Book of Life.
Here is what I want to be clear about as we sit in this tension between works and faith. Your verdict does not rest on how impressive your ledger looks. Your verdict rests on one question: is your name in the Book of Life?
The apostle Paul says it directly. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
There is one way, the only way, to find eternal life and salvation. It is not standing before God and pointing to a list of good things and asking, does that get me in? A full ledger of good deeds cannot save you if your name is not in the Book of Life. You are judged according to what you have done. But if your name is not written in that book, none of it finally matters. And by grace, through faith in Jesus, it can be written there.
So the good news cuts straight through the fear. You do not have to spend your life anxiously hoping your good will outweigh your bad, because that was never the way in. Salvation comes as a gift, received by faith, when you surrender your life to Jesus and trust His sacrifice as your own. His victory over death is complete, and He offers to write your name in the Book of Life.
If you have never done that, the invitation is open today. The question that decides everything is not whether you have been good enough. It is simply this: is your name in the Book of Life?
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>Have you ever looked at the world and felt like evil is winning? Not in some abstract, philosophical way, but in the headlines, in the stories you hear, in the darkness that seems to keep gaining ground. If that is where you are, the last book of the Bible has something to say to you. Revelation 20 does not hand us a formula for calculating the end. It hands us something better: the confidence to stand when evil seems to be winning, because we already know how the story ends.
The chapter opens with a vision of restraint. In Revelation 20:1-3, John sees “an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the abyss,” holding a great chain in His hand. The angel seizes “the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil or Satan,” binds him for a thousand years, and throws him into the abyss, locking and sealing it so he can no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years are ended.
That thousand years is one of the images the church has interpreted in different ways. Is it a literal thousand years? Is it still in the future? Is it happening right now, and if so, what exactly are we living in? Many faithful Christians throughout history have answered these questions differently, drawing from different parts of Scripture. Some point out that Scripture itself says a thousand years can be like a day and a day like a thousand years, so the number may be symbolic rather than exact.
Here is the posture worth taking. We could read Revelation as a puzzle and try to calculate when Jesus is coming, or we could simply be ready for Him whenever He comes. Prepare as if He is coming today, and prepare as if He is coming in two hundred years. Either way the call is the same, and it does not depend on the math working out. Our call is radical discipleship to the person of Jesus, right now. We are not waiting on a calculation. We are looking at our lives as an invitation to follow Him with everything we have.
However you interpret the thousand years, here is the ground we all share: Jesus is coming back. And when He does, there will be a final victory and judgment over sin, evil, Satan, the beast, and the false prophet. The victory is assured. Whatever remains uncertain about the timeline, that much is settled, and it is enough to build a life on.
The vision continues in Revelation 20:4-6, where John sees thrones and “the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God.” They had not worshiped the beast or its image, and they had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ.
Earlier in this series we looked at what it means for our minds to be formed either by the world and a life without God, or by God, so that our whole worldview is shaped by who Jesus is. Everyone is marked by something. The people in this vision are the ones who chose not to be marked by the world, and now they are reigning with Jesus, seated with Him. As the text puts it, “the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.” Those who share in that first resurrection are blessed and holy, the second death has no power over them, and they will be priests of God and of Christ.
Then comes the final confrontation. In Revelation 20:7-10, when the thousand years are over, Satan is released and goes out to deceive the nations, Gog and Magog, gathering them for battle in numbers “like the sand on the seashore.”They march across the breadth of the earth and surround God’s people, “the city He loves.” And then fire comes down from Heaven and devours them. The showdown is over before it really begins. The devil who deceived them is thrown into “the lake of burning sulfur,” where the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown, to be tormented day and night forever.
This is a decisive end to evil. There is no question about how this ends. Babylon does not get away with luring people into sin, and we already watched Babylon fall. The beast does not get away with mocking God and killing His people. The false prophet does not get away with deceiving people into taking the mark. And Satan does not get away with all he has done and all he is doing. In the end there is a decisive judgment, and it lands where it should.
So what is our invitation in light of all this? Our invitation is to stand: to stand strong and stand tall, to live as if we already know how the story ends, as if we already know the final score. Even when the evil around us seems overwhelmingly dark, the light wins in the end. I have heard stories recently of darkness so heavy it is hard to take in, and the weight of it is real, but that ending does not change. That is the promise, and it is meant to change how we live today.
Maybe you are hearing this for the first time, and you do not know Jesus yet. You have been marked by the world, doing what you feel like when you feel like it, believing the lie of the enemy that whispers, “If I do this my own way, I will build a better life for myself.” But you already know where that road leads. Even before you open Revelation, you know that a life of “I get to do me and I do not care about anyone else” ends in a dark place of destruction.
There is another way. The good news of Jesus is that He came for us in exactly that darkness. He came to take our sin and our shame. He took the wrath we all deserve and carried it Himself. God placed all of it on His own Son so that we could have a relationship with Him. When Jesus died, the earth grieved, the ground shook, and rocks cracked open. The disciples were disillusioned, and it seemed like the end. But He did not stay dead. He rose from the grave and conquered all of it. That conquering started then, and it will be completed on the day of the Lord.
If you do not know Jesus, here is a clear invitation to give your life to Him. You acknowledge that you have been marked by the world and that you are a sinful person, as we all are. You receive His sacrifice for you on the cross. And you begin to walk with Him for the rest of your life.
If you already follow Jesus but you have found yourself steeped in Babylon, where it is easy to fold and fall and never really make a stand for what you believe, this invitation is for you too. As we see how the story ends, as we see the decisive end of evil, of the beast, the false prophet, and Satan himself, we get to respond. This is the Jesus who rides in with fire in His eyes, and we do not want to be on the wrong side of that. We want to be behind Him, part of His army. The way we get there is not complicated: we live for Him, and we stand for Him.
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>When most people picture the return of Jesus in Revelation 19, they imagine something fierce: blazing eyes, a sharp sword, a robe soaked in blood. It can read like the climax of an action film, the moment the hero finally rides in to destroy His enemies. But the closer you look at what John actually saw, the more the picture changes. This is better than any superhero entrance, and it carries a meaning far deeper than conquest.
John writes, “I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice He judges and wages war.” His eyes are like blazing fire, He wears many crowns, and on His robe and on His thigh is written the name King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Remember Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode humbly into Jerusalem on a donkey? Here He rides in on His trusty steed for battle, doing what so many always expected the Messiah to do.
There is a lot to unpack in this vision, so let’s walk slowly through what John is really trying to communicate.
We often rush past the opening of the passage to get to the fiery eyes, the bloody robe, and the crowns. But notice what it says first: “With justice He judges and wages war.” That word for justice can also be translated righteousness. With righteousness He judges and wages war.
This is the part most people miss. The rider is not a sword-wielding action hero who charges in and slays humanity. Jesus conquers evil by the simple presence of His righteousness. Evil cannot exist in the presence of a righteous God. Picture standing in a dark room and flipping on a light. The light chases away the darkness without a struggle.
This is not new language for John. Throughout his Gospel he returns again and again to the idea of light and dark, that Jesus is the light of a dark world. The same picture appears here. The presence of Jesus necessarily drives out evil. It is not a frantic battle. It is the simple, overwhelming presence of the rider that wages war and brings judgment.
This rider is not weaponless. “Coming out of His mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter.” But this is not the kind of sword Peter swung in the garden when he cut off Malchus’ ear before Jesus’ death. Notice where it is: not in His hand, but coming out of His mouth.
This is a familiar way to describe the Word of God. The weapon Jesus wields is not a blade meant to kill, but truth that breaks into the presence of evil. The Word of God is the weapon of God’s people. When we read about the armor of God in Scripture, we find the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. That is the weapon the army of God gets to carry.
If you want to know how evil is conquered, it is the truth of God’s Word. The truth of God’s Word necessarily defeats the enemy. That is the power of this living, breathing Word.
And yet so many of us never realize the weapon we already have. It sits on our bookshelves, our end tables, and our nightstands. We don’t open it, we don’t study it, and we don’t take the time to own what it says for our own lives. So we go about our days as the army of God without a weapon in our hands, never wielding what God has given us to wield. There is power in the Bible at our fingertips.
Here is where the vision turns. “He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is the Word of God.” Christians have understood this image in different ways across the centuries. Some say it is the blood of His enemies, the aftermath of slaughter staining His robe.
I don’t think that is the picture John is painting. I believe it is Jesus’ own blood, the blood of the sacrificial Lamb who was slain and bled out so that you wouldn’t have to. The book of Romans tells us that the wages of our sin is death. We were the ones meant to die the death Jesus died. But in all His grace, love, and mercy, He came and took your place on a cross so that you wouldn’t have to.
Look across the whole book of Revelation and John is clear: the victory was won at the cross. If you don’t know that the victory is already won, hear this. It is already won. When Jesus gave up His life for you, He won.
Have you ever noticed that throughout Revelation, the one person who never seems stressed or confused is Jesus? He is never anxious, because He has already won, and He knows it. The real question is whether you know it. Do you know in your heart that Jesus has already won?
So when Jesus rides in covered in blood, it is the blood He shed for you, so that you wouldn’t have to, so that you could have everlasting life, be forgiven, and be redeemed. He rides in victoriously in a robe covered in blood because He died for you. This is the gospel, seemingly tucked inside the book of Revelation. This is a Savior who died so that you may be saved, so that you can be a son or daughter of God.
What looked like weakness, the cross, turned out to be strength. What looked like defeat turned out to be victory. The blood on Jesus’ robe displays for us that He has conquered the enemy. Because when Jesus enters the story, we realize the truth about who He is.
Before Jesus was a conquering King, He was the sacrificial Lamb. Before there was a white horse, there was a cross. Before there was a crown, there were thorns. Before He became the judge of sin, He came to carry it.
Friends, this is the gospel. What John paints in Revelation 19 is the fullness of who Jesus is and what He has done for you. The rider on the white horse is the same Lamb who was slain. The One who returns in glory is the One who first bled in love. And the victory He rides in to claim is a victory He already secured the day He gave His life for you.
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>Could you spot Babylon if she showed up in your world today? That is the question John presses on us in Revelation 17, and it is not as simple as it sounds. The whole point of his vision is that Babylon is not obvious. She is beautiful on the outside. She offers everything the human heart already wants. And underneath all of it is something designed to devour you.
This is not ancient history with no bearing on your life. It is a current reality, and John is pulling back the curtain so you can see what is really there.
When John describes the beast with seven heads and ten horns, his first audience would have thought immediately of Rome. Rome was famously built on seven hills, so the connection was obvious to them. But the symbolism reaches beyond Rome. It points to any kingdom or empire that sets itself up without God at the center.
Rome was one expression of this. The angel explains there were others before Rome and there will be others after. The ten horns in verse 12 represent ten kings who do not yet have a kingdom. The goal is not to crack a code, to figure out exactly when this happened or to ask where we are now in 2026 and which ten names we can plug in. That misses the point entirely.
The point is that Babylon rides on accumulated political power, military power, and economic power, all of it setting itself up in opposition to God, all of it seeking to be the center of our lives.
Notice her title in verse five. She is Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes, which means she has offspring. She has daughters. Every single generation gets its own version of Babylon.
In her hand she holds a golden cup, beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with corruption and filth. That is her strategy. She is appealing on the surface because she offers everything the human heart already desires. But what is actually inside her? She is getting drunk on the blood of God’s holy people.
Babylon has an agenda. She seeks out people who bear the testimony of Jesus and makes herself alluring enough to draw them in, so that she can devour them like a vampire. John is being shown what is actually behind her. Behind the glitz and glamor and appeal lies exploitation, destruction, and death.
Here is why John’s question lands so hard. Consider a Roman coin minted around 70 AD under the emperor Vespasian, whose name appears on it. On the back is Roma, the personification of the Roman Empire. She reclines on seven hills that represent Rome. The legendary founders of the city, Romulus and Remus, appear beside her. She holds a sword, and at her feet the Tiber River is depicted as a god.
That coin is Roman propaganda. It tells a story: Rome is glorious, Rome is eternal, Rome is secure, Rome is mighty, Rome sits enthroned over the earth. John’s audience carried this coin in their pockets. They bought bread with it. They paid their taxes with it. Would they have been able to spot her for what she was?
That is the test for us, too. Babylon rarely arrives looking like an enemy. She arrives looking like security, glory, and the good life.
Babylon is clothed in scarlet and purple, the colors of imperial might and authority in John’s day. They represent political power. Underneath those robes is glittering gold, precious stones, and pearls, which represent the economic machinery required to keep that political structure standing.
But underneath even that is something far more dangerous. It is a self determined to exist outside of any need for God. Babylon says as much about herself in the next chapter, where she boasts, “I sit enthroned as queen. I am not a widow, and I will never mourn” (Revelation 18:7).
That is the anthem of a person, and it can just as easily be the anthem of an empire or a civilization: we do not need God anymore. We are the center of our own existence. This is the ancient lie of the Garden of Eden all over again. I do not need God. I am the center of my life.
It is like a wheel trying to spin without a hub. When it does, it shreds itself. And before Babylon shreds herself, spoiler alert, it is coming, John does something remarkable.
Embedded in the middle of this story about the fall of Babylon, John gives us the gospel. Right in the center of it, speaking of the kings of the earth depicted by the horns on the beast, he writes, “They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and with Him will be His called, chosen, and faithful followers” (Revelation 17:14).
Here is what that means for us. Right now we live in a world that operates under Babylon’s influence. We are suckered in, tempted by her allure, and we have all given in. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So God sent His Son, the Lamb, Jesus, into Babylon to rescue us.
Of course Babylon waged war against Him, and she is ferocious. But unlike us, Jesus lived a life we could not live, sinless and perfectly in line with God. He died the death we deserved for the adultery we committed with Babylon. Then He rose from the dead to deliver one final, devastating blow to sin, to death, and to any force that sets itself up against God.
This is the gospel. The Lord of lords and King of kings came and rescued us.
Babylon is powerful. The beast she rides is powerful. The kings of the earth are powerful. But John wants you to know they are no match for the Lamb of God. There was no contest in that fight.
And for anyone who puts their trust in the Lamb and is willing to stand with Him, a new identity is given. They are called the called, the chosen, the faithful followers. That is the name waiting on the other side of Babylon’s allure, and it belongs to everyone who turns from her glittering cup to the One who already won.
So the question remains. Could you spot Babylon today? And more importantly, when you do, will you stand with the Lamb who has already triumphed over her?
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>Most conversations about the book of Revelation jump straight to the spooky stuff. The mark of the beast. The number 666. The fear of being branded against your will. But before John ever writes a word about 666 and the mark of the beast, the Bible shows us something we tend to skip right past: the mark of God. The truth is, everybody is marked. The only question is which mark you carry.
The mark of 666 is not as deep or as mysterious as you might think, and we will get there. But to understand it, we have to understand what comes first. Scripture teaches that long before there is any talk of the mark of the beast, God marks His people as His own.
Look at Ezekiel 9:4. The Lord gives an instruction: “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” A mark on the forehead. A sign that distinguishes the people who belong to God.
Then turn to Revelation 7:2-3, where the picture sharpens: “Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God.” This angel calls out in a loud voice to the four angels who have been given power to harm the land and the sea, telling them, “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”
Here is the heart of it. Before God allows His wrath to fall, before He carries out the things He has been holding back, He says, in effect, I need to make sure My people are marked first. Those He calls His children, His loved ones, His beloved, those adopted into the heavenly family, must be sealed with His seal.
This is not a mark you can see on someone’s forehead or hand. It is invisible to people but visible to heaven. And notice what God does in that very passage in Revelation. He literally holds back the winds. He holds back His wrath. He holds it all back so that His people can be cared for and taken care of first.
That tells you something about the heart of God. The marking is not branding for control. It is the protective claim of a Father who refuses to act until His children are accounted for.
To understand what this mark really does for us and how it plays out in everyday life, go back to Exodus 13:9. Speaking of His deliverance, God says, “This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead, that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with His mighty hand.” A few verses later, in Exodus 13:16, He repeats it: “And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead, that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with His mighty hand.”
Why the hand, and why the forehead? When Israel came out of Egypt, they practiced something called tefillin. These were small boxes containing Scripture verses. People would tie one to the hand, typically near the heart, and another to the forehead. The purpose was remembrance. It kept the mind set on God and constantly aligned with the One who brought them out of Egypt.
The sign on the forehead represented the mind. The sign on the hand represented action, what they would do as a result of their mind being in alignment with the God who rescued them. Mind and hand. Belief and behavior. The mark held them together.
This is where the ancient sign becomes a present question. Is your mind aligned with the One who brought you out of sin? And do your hands, the way you actually live your life, reflect what you say you believe?
What we do with our hands should be a true reflection of what we hold in our minds, what we confess with our mouths. The question is whether they align. Do belief and behavior actually match? Deuteronomy 6:6-8 presses the same point: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.”
The mark was never meant to be a private feeling tucked away. It was meant to shape the mind, direct the hands, and spill over into the home and the next generation.
So before John gives us anything about 666, the mark of the beast, and all of that, we come to a truth Scripture has been teaching all along. You are already marked. You are already marked.
The mark of the beast gets the attention, but the mark of God comes first in the story and first in importance. The seal of the living God rests on those who belong to Him, invisible to the world and unmistakable to heaven. And here is the part you cannot pass off to anyone else: you get to decide which mark that is. Will your mind be set on the One who brought you out, and will your hands prove it? That choice is the mark you carry.
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>There is a sin in your life right now that is alluring. You feel the pull of it. You know God does not want you to do it, but it looks so good that you keep finding yourself drawn back in. And somewhere along the way, the thing you were sure you could quit whenever you wanted started to feel like the thing you cannot quit at all.
That tension is exactly what John describes in one of the strangest, most haunting passages in the Bible. Revelation 9 gives us a picture of evil that does not look the way we expect, and once you see it clearly, you understand why willpower alone never seems to be enough.
Revelation 9 opens with the fifth angel sounding his trumpet. John sees a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth, and the star is given the key to the shaft of the abyss. When it is opened, smoke rises out of it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace, and the sun and the sky are darkened.
This needs clarifying. In the book of Isaiah, Satan is referenced as a fallen star. So when John says he saw something like a star falling from the sky, he is actually describing the fall of Satan from grace. Satan receives a key to the shaft that leads to the abyss, to Hades, and he opens it. Smoke begins to build out like a large furnace, and it darkens our world.
What John shows us is a reality most of us already sense but rarely name. We are not simply wrestling with a world that is dysfunctional. We are wrestling with a world that has evil in it, evil that is actively pursuing you and trying to draw you away from the will of God. It has spilled into this world, and it does not stop at the smoke.
Out of the smoke, locusts come down on the earth and are given power like that of scorpions. A few verses later John gives a visual description of these locust-like creatures, and it is not what you might expect.
Revelation 9:7 says the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle, and on their heads they wore something like crowns of gold. That detail matters. All throughout Revelation there are two kinds of crowns named. There is the stephanos crown, the crown of victory, reserved solely for Jesus and the saints. And there are the diadems worn by the beast and demonic beings who are not divine. These creatures wear something like a stephanos crown. It is not actually a crown of victory, but it looks like one.
John keeps going. Their faces resembled human faces, their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. They had breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. We tend to imagine something purely monstrous and scary, but the language John uses is powerful, even regal. There is an attractiveness to what he is describing.
That is the genius of sin. Sin presents itself in a powerful way. It looks like opportunity, like pleasure, like achievement, advancement, and success. It presents itself in a way that is alluring and attractive. You know this is true, because there are things in your life that draw you in, that you feel a kind of gravitational pull toward. You know it is sin. You know God does not want it for you. And still it looks so good.
The genius of sin is that it convinces you its attraction is the whole story. It looks good, and you do not discover otherwise until you get up close.
It is only when we really begin to cozy up to a sin that we discover what John records in Revelation 9:10. The locusts had tails with stingers like scorpions, and in their tails they had the power to torment people for five months. You do not see the stinger until you get close. And then, once you have drawn near, the sting and the destruction of sin begin to take place.
Look back at how John describes the torment in Revelation 9:4-6. The creatures were told not to harm the grass or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not allowed to kill them, only to torture them for five months, and the agony was like the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. During those days, people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will elude them.
These are haunting verses. The people described are not killed but tormented over a long period, and they are not indifferent to it. They are desperate. The ones who suffer this way are those who have not surrendered their lives to Jesus, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Prince of Peace. They had found themselves more in alignment with fallen Babylon, the brokenness of this world, than with Him, and so they live under the consequences of sin.
Here is the reality these verses force us to name. There is an invisible line that all of us find ourselves crossing at some point. That line is the moment when you are no longer choosing sin, and sin is now choosing you.
When you started, you told yourself you could stop whenever you wanted. And you might have been right. Maybe early on you really could have. But at some point you crossed an invisible line, and you began to realize that while the sin may not be killing you, it is certainly enslaving you. Because sin always enslaves.
That is when we find ourselves persecuted by sin, feeling the sting of the scorpion’s stinger in our own lives, so much so that we begin to beg for the pain to end. We discover that our willpower is not enough to overcome the sin, because we have crossed the line. We are no longer choosing sin. Sin is choosing us.
If you have crossed that line, this passage is not meant to leave you in despair. Notice who the torment falls upon: those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads, those who have not surrendered their lives to Jesus. The whole picture turns on that one distinction.
The crown that sin wears only looks like victory. The real crown of victory, the stephanos, belongs to Jesus and to those who are His. If you feel enslaved by a sin you once thought you could quit, the answer is not more willpower. It is surrender to the One who actually holds the keys, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Prince of Peace. That is where the line gets crossed back.
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>Many of us have a Sunday routine. We stroll in a little late, coffee in hand. We sit down and quietly judge how loud the music is, catch every wrong note, evaluate whether the preaching is average or below average, and then slip out before the last song so we can beat the parking lot traffic. Maybe we refill the coffee on the way out. What does that posture say about our hearts?
There is nothing wrong with a “come as you are” approach to church. But if that casual posture means we have lost all reverence for God, something has gone wrong. And when we stop seeing God as God, we have a tendency to recreate Him in our image rather than the other way around.
In Revelation 4, Jesus gives John a vision of heaven’s throne room, and what the elders do in that throne room reveals what true worship actually looks like. Not a weekend event. Not even a morning quiet time. True worship is a fully surrendered life to God.
The first thing the elders do is fall down before the One who sits on the throne (Revelation 4:10). There is something important about the posture of our bodies that communicates reverence. You do not need words or titles to know who is in charge and who is submitting. The posture says everything.
Bowing is one way we communicate a simple but essential truth: God is God, and I am not.
Bowing used to be a regular part of nearly every church gathering. People kneeled, bowed low, and stood back up. It was woven into the rhythm of worship. But in our culture today, bowing has become an unfamiliar posture. We do not like to think of God as lofty and enthroned because it makes Him seem far off and unapproachable.
So a shift has happened, especially in the American church. Those old wooden pews, the ones people were almost grateful to kneel on just to escape sitting, have been replaced by slightly more comfortable chairs. The posture of reverence has given way to the posture of a spectator.
There is a reason Jesus wanted John to see the throne room of heaven first. When we see God in all His glory, we will all be brought to our knees. That is what bowing reminds us of. God is God, and I am not. It is the first thing the elders do, but it is not all they do.
After the elders bow, the text says they worship Him who lives forever and ever. And this word “worship” means something deeper than most of us practice.
Worship is not simply acknowledging that God is God with your words. It is allowing God to be God in your life. It is allowing Him to lead the decision making, the direction, the details. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul described in his letter to the Romans: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).
Many people praise God with their mouths on Sunday and then practically manage the rest of their lives without Him on Monday. That is not worship. True and proper worship means there is no gap between Sunday and Monday, no gap between Sunday and Thursday. God is God in every part of life.
True worship is not an event on a weekend. It is a surrendered life to God.
The third movement takes things further. As the elders worship on their knees, they lay their crowns before the throne. These crowns represent everything that has been given to them: authority, honor, responsibility. They received it all from God, and then they gave it all back.
Is that what we do?
Many of us are comfortable saying God is real. We want His presence. But we want His presence as long as we can hold on to all of the control about how things turn out.
Here is where the original language matters. The verb tense where it says the elders “lay” their crowns is present continuous. That means we could read it as: they are always laying their crowns down. This is not a one time act. This is a lifestyle. This is a way of being. That is what life looks like in the presence of God.
With every decision we make, every relationship, every circumstance, we are either tightening the chin strap to keep the crown on our own heads, or we are laying it at the feet of the One on the throne.
In 2005, I was driving west on I-94 in December, near Kalamazoo, when I hit a patch of ice. My car started spinning, probably going 75, across the highway. If you have ever been in a situation like that, everything goes slow motion. At first I grabbed the wheel and tried to force the car back straight, but it only made things worse. At some point, I had a true “Jesus, take the wheel” moment, and I just let go. The car went flying off into a snowbank about 50 feet off the road. By the grace of God, I walked away. By the grace of God, I drove away. The car was fine and I was fine.
Here is why that matters. Many of us feel like life is that out of control car. We have no control over what is happening, and yet we keep grabbing the steering wheel, trying to force everything back into our own decisions.
Maybe try letting go.
What the elders show us in the throne room of God is that true worship looks like a fully surrendered life. Not a Sunday performance. Not a morning ritual. A life that bows before God, that lets Him lead, and that lays every crown, every bit of control, at His feet. On His terms. Continuously.
What might it look like for you to allow God to be God in your life, on His terms? That is the question the throne room leaves us with, and it is one worth sitting with longer than a Sunday morning.
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>Every time a war breaks out, a natural disaster hits, or a solar eclipse crosses the sky, the same question surfaces: “Is this in Revelation?” It’s an understandable impulse. The world feels chaotic, and we want to know where we are on God’s timeline. But that impulse, left unchecked, can actually pull us away from what the book of Revelation is really about.
Revelation is one of the most fascinating and most misunderstood books in the Bible. And if we’re honest, much of the confusion comes not from the text itself but from the assumptions we bring to it. Before diving into the details of Revelation, there are four common mistakes worth naming, because avoiding them changes the way you read every chapter that follows.
Here’s something easy to forget: John did not sit down to write the final book of the Bible. God may have had that intention, but John was writing a circular letter to seven churches. That means everything in Revelation had to mean something to those original recipients. This wasn’t a sealed document meant exclusively for readers 2,000 years in the future.
Does Revelation speak to us today? Absolutely. But it also had to make sense to first-century Christians living under Roman rule, navigating persecution, and wondering whether following Jesus was worth the cost. When we skip over that historical reality, we start interpreting the text in ways that would have been unrecognizable to the people who first read it.
The best approach is to ask two questions every time you encounter a passage: “What did this mean to them?” and “What does this mean for us?” Both questions matter. But the first one has to come first.
The temptation is real. A conflict erupts overseas and suddenly everyone is flipping to Revelation trying to find the verse that predicted it. Russia invades Ukraine, and people are searching for where that fits. Persecution of Christians intensifies, and the same thing happens. Every major world event gets shoehorned into the apocalyptic narrative.
This is what we might call “headline interpretation,” and it’s one of the fastest ways to misread the text. Revelation does speak to events and patterns in human history. But it does not contain a detailed, event-by-event preview of every news cycle. Just because something hits the headlines does not mean you’ll find the exact telling of that event in the book of Revelation.
The danger here is subtle. When we’re constantly scanning for current events in ancient text, we stop reading the text on its own terms. We stop asking what John was actually communicating and start using his words as a decoder ring for CNN. That’s not how Scripture was meant to function.
This one might surprise you. The word “Antichrist” never appears in the book of Revelation. Not once. The term is only used in 1 John and 2 John, and every time John uses it, he’s referring to people of his own day. In 2 John, he even uses it in the plural, meaning there were many who fit the description.
And yet, for 2,000 years, people have been trying to identify the one singular Antichrist. The list of candidates is long and, frankly, a little embarrassing. Napoleon. Various political leaders across centuries. Whoever happens to be the most polarizing figure of the moment. The guessing game never ends because the game itself is based on a misreading.
The same goes for the mark of the beast. It’s a great conversation to have, and there will be time to unpack it more carefully. But when we become so hyper-focused on identifying the mark or naming the Antichrist, we miss the forest for the trees. John’s mission was never for you to figure out who “that guy” is. John’s mission was to help you figure out how to live your life as a faithful follower of Jesus. If we miss that, we’ve missed the entire intention of the book.
A few years ago, a solar eclipse passed through parts of the United States. People traveled to see it. It was a genuinely spectacular event. But almost immediately, groups of people declared it was a sign of the end times.
Here’s what many didn’t realize: the world experiences anywhere from two to five eclipses every year. A total solar eclipse happens roughly every 18 months. But because this particular one happened over American soil, suddenly it had apocalyptic significance. The logic breaks down quickly. If eclipses are a sign of the end, then the end has been arriving every 18 months for millennia.
This is what a US-centric interpretation looks like, and it applies to far more than eclipses. There’s a fascinating pattern where people who construct end-times timelines always seem to place themselves right at the end. Never in the middle, never at the beginning. Always at the climactic moment. Because surely the end must happen during our lifetime. Surely the timeline revolves around us.
It doesn’t. Jesus is the center of the book, not any nation, generation, or political moment.
In Revelation 1:7-8, John gives us a taste of what’s coming. “Look, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all peoples on earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be. Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
This is not a coded message. It’s a declaration. The King of Kings is returning, and His kingdom will endure forever.
John is drawing on imagery that his readers already knew. The prophet Daniel saw it centuries earlier. In Daniel 7:9-14, thrones are set in place, the Ancient of Days takes His seat with clothing white as snow, and one “like a son of man” approaches and receives authority, glory, and sovereign power. “His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14).
In John’s day, many believed Rome was the fourth kingdom described in Daniel’s vision, the kingdom of iron that would be overthrown when God’s eternal kingdom arrived. People were actively trying to expedite the fall of Rome, hoping to usher in the end. They were doing 2,000 years ago exactly what we try to do today: predict the moment and help it along.
John doesn’t discourage hope in Christ’s return. He paints a vivid picture of it right here in the introduction. But his greater purpose is practical. Yes, the end is coming. Yes, the kingdom will be established. But in the meantime, how should you live? That is the question Revelation answers more than any other. Not “when is it happening?” but “who are you becoming while you wait?”
The book of Revelation has inspired, confused, and divided readers for two millennia. But so much of the confusion comes from approaching the text with the wrong questions. When we stop treating it like a puzzle to solve and start reading it as a letter written to real people about real faithfulness, everything shifts.
John’s heart was pastoral. He wasn’t trying to scare anyone into obedience or hand them a timeline. He was writing to churches under pressure, reminding them that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, that His kingdom cannot be shaken, and that faithfulness in the present is the calling of every believer.
The best way to read Revelation is not with a newspaper in one hand and a conspiracy chart in the other. It’s with open hands and a willing heart, asking the same question those seven churches asked: “How do I follow Jesus faithfully right where I am?”
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>Have you ever felt disqualified? Not just overlooked, but actively written off. The kind of disqualified where the people around you have already decided who you are, what you deserve, and how far you’ll go. Maybe it was after a public failure. Maybe it was the whispers that followed your comeback. Maybe you’re still waiting for someone, anyone, to look past your worst chapter and see you for who you’re becoming.
If that’s where you are today, the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 has something to say to you. Because in this passage, Jesus does something the crowd never would have expected. He stops for the one person everybody else had already counted out.
To understand the weight of this moment, you need to understand just how despised Zacchaeus was. Luke 19:1-2 tells us that he was a chief tax collector, and he was wealthy. Luke, the physician and historian, includes that detail for a reason. He wants you to grasp the full picture.
Tax collectors in first century Israel were not like modern government employees collecting revenue for public services. They worked for Rome, the occupying empire, and they collected taxes against their own people. Worse still, the way they built personal wealth was through greed. They would overtax their neighbors, skimming off the top, and they had all the authority to do so. The coins they collected were stamped with idolatrous images. In the eyes of the Jewish community, tax collectors were not just corrupt. They were traitors. And the word “tax collector” was essentially synonymous with “sinner.”
Now multiply all of that by the word chief. Zacchaeus was not just a tax collector. He was the one supervising all of the other tax collectors. He had not only turned on his people, he had built an entire operation around it. In the eyes of the community, this man was utterly disqualified. Done. Finished. Beyond redemption.
Here is where the story takes an interesting turn. Luke 19:3-4 says Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree.
Think about that for a moment. He ran ahead. If he was short, why not just push to the front of the crowd? That is what you do when you cannot see. You move closer. But Zacchaeus did not do that. He climbed a tree. Almost as if he wanted to see Jesus, but he did not want to be seen by Jesus.
There is something deeply relatable about that instinct. You are curious about God. You are drawn to something you cannot fully explain. But you also feel like if He really saw you, if He really knew what you have done, where you have been, and who you have become, He would want nothing to do with you. So you keep your distance. You watch from a tree. You observe from the margins. You stay close enough to see, but far enough to hide.
But then Luke 19:5 happens. When Jesus reached the spot, He looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
Let that land. Jesus had never met this man. Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was, which means he did not know Him personally. And yet Jesus looked up into that tree, called him by name, and told him He was coming to his house. The word “must” in the original language carries the weight of divine necessity. This was not a casual invitation. It was a divine appointment. Jesus reached that spot, looked up, saw the man everyone else would have ignored, and said, “I have to spend time with you. Today.”
Jesus sees what others overlook. That is the heart of this passage. Everyone else in that crowd would have looked at Zacchaeus and seen a sinner, a traitor, a greedy man who had turned on his own people. They would have walked right past him. They would have walked right past you. But Jesus stopped. He looked up. And He called him by name.
Predictably, the people did not like it. Luke 19:7 says, “All the people saw this and began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.'”
This part of the story is painfully familiar. You finally start to change your life. You take a step in a new direction. You start turning the corner, posting on social media again after the hiatus, showing up in spaces you had avoided, beginning to rebuild. And what happens? The muttering starts. “Did you hear she finally changed her life? I don’t believe her, though.” “Did you hear about what happened after the breakup?” The crowd always has an opinion, and it is rarely generous.
They could not believe that Jesus, this rabbi, this healer, this teacher with authority and power, would spend time with a sinner like Zacchaeus. Not the chief tax collector. Not someone so disqualified.
But Jesus was never governed by the crowd’s commentary. He interrupted His own schedule for this man. He was on the way somewhere, but when He got to that spot and saw Zacchaeus, everything changed. Jesus interrupts His schedule for people. He does it for the overlooked, the outcast, and the ones everyone else has given up on.
The encounter with Jesus changed Zacchaeus immediately. Luke 19:8 records his response: “But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.'”
No one told him to do this. There was no guilt trip, no sermon on generosity, no ten-step plan for restitution. Zacchaeus simply encountered Jesus and was transformed. The man who had built his entire life around greed and exploitation stood up and gave it all back, and then some. Where he had normally been cheating people, overtaxing them, and helping himself to whatever he wanted because he was the chief and he could do whatever he pleased, he now offered to return four times what he had stolen.
That is the power of a genuine encounter with Christ. It does not just change your beliefs. It changes your behavior. It reorders your priorities. It turns a taker into a giver.
And then Jesus spoke the words that would have rocked that entire community. Luke 19:9-10 says, “Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.'”
Do you understand what that meant? The people who had shunned Zacchaeus, cast him aside, counted him out, called him done, talked about him, hated on him, and never would have allowed him in their spaces because he was so disqualified, they now heard Jesus give him a new identity. “This man is a son of Abraham.” In other words, “He is one of you. He is part of the family.”
For a man whose own people had disowned him, this was everything. Jesus did not just forgive Zacchaeus. He restored him. He gave him back his place in the family. He said to the disqualified man, “You belong here.”
Maybe you have been where Zacchaeus was. Someone who did not think Jesus would ever pay you any mind. Someone who did not feel qualified enough to even be close to Him. Someone who would never expect Him to pay you any attention.
But the message of Luke 19 is clear. Though you felt disqualified, the truth is that even in your mess, He is willing to save you. Although you feel counted out, He still has a plan for your destiny. Although you have been causing pain, there is still a purpose for your life.
Jesus did not wait for Zacchaeus to clean himself up. He did not ask him to prove himself first. He did not require a committee vote from the community. He looked up into the tree, called him by name, and said, “I’m coming to your house today.”
He will do the same for you. He sees what others overlook. He pursues what others abandon. And He speaks identity over the very people the world has written off. You are not disqualified. You are called by name.
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
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]]>If you have ever felt like the world looked at you, sized you up, slapped a label on you, and walked away, you are not alone. And you are not without hope. Because there is a Jesus who will cross a sea in a storm just to get to you.
In Mark 5, we meet a man who had every reason to believe he was beyond saving. He was living in a graveyard, isolated from everyone, cutting himself with stones, screaming day and night. People had tried to help him. They chained him, restrained him, did everything they could. But nothing worked. And when nothing works long enough, people do something heartbreaking: they label you and leave you.
It is an unfortunate truth about the way the world works. When someone is clearly in need of help, people around them will often try everything they can. But if whatever they are trying seems to fail, at some point they give up. And in that giving up, they do something subtle but devastating. They reduce the person to a label. Because if you can see someone as less than a person, as a category instead of a name, it becomes easier to walk away.
Some of you know exactly what that feels like. You have been the one people stopped trying for. You have been the one they categorized and left behind.
But here is the good news. Jesus is on His way. He is coming for you.
When Jesus got out of the boat in this foreign, pagan region, there were no crowds waiting. Nobody in this area knew who He was. This was not Jewish territory. The people here, if they worshiped anything, worshiped Roman culture. The entire scene in Mark 5 is designed to communicate one thing: everything about this place was considered impure. Impure spirits. An impure place among the tombs. Impure animals, a massive herd of pigs, on the hillside. Everything about this scene was meant to be broken, lost, and far from God.
And Jesus stepped right into it. On purpose.
He did not stumble into this region by accident. He crossed a sea in a storm to get to one man. That tells you something about the heart of God. There is no place too impure, no person too far gone, no situation too messy for Jesus to enter willingly.
When the man with the impure spirit saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees. The voices inside him shouted, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name, don’t torture me!” (Mark 5:7). This man had so many voices in his head that he had lost who he was. He did not know where he ended and the chaos began.
But Jesus did something no one else had done. He did not recoil. He did not avoid the man. He did not reach for chains. Instead, after rebuking the impure spirit, He asked a simple question: “What is your name?” (Mark 5:9).
That question is one of the most powerful moments in this entire story. For perhaps the first time in a very long time, someone did not address this man with a label. Jesus was not afraid of him. He did not dehumanize him. He asked his name. And by doing so, He began the process of re-humanizing him. One simple question started to restore this man to himself.
The man’s response reveals just how broken he was. “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many” (Mark 5:9). Legion was not a name. It was a condition. The word is a Roman military term referring to thousands of soldiers. Whether it was the man speaking or the spirits within him, the answer reflected total confusion, a life so overtaken by chaos that identity itself had been swallowed whole.
And yet, what had been completely uncontrollable by anyone else was completely under the authority of Jesus. The demons begged Him, negotiated with Him, pleaded not to be sent out of the area. The chaos that no chain could hold suddenly found itself on its knees, bargaining. That is the authority of Jesus. He is not intimidated by your mess. He is not overwhelmed by your chaos. He walks into it and takes command.
What happened next is one of the strangest and most vivid moments in all of Scripture. The demons begged to be sent into a large herd of pigs feeding on the nearby hillside. Jesus gave them permission, and about 2,000 pigs rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned (Mark 5:13).
There is a man at our church location in Taylor who told me his story recently. Not long ago, he was in a gang. Most of his adult life was spent in that world. You can imagine what that looked like. Then, out of nowhere last November, he felt an urge to go to church. Someone had taken him when he was little, and he figured he would give it a try.
So he walked in one day. And he was blown away. People greeted him. Somebody invited him over to their house. He could not believe it. Who are these people?
What the people of the church did was demonstrate, in really practical ways, the love of God. A hello. An invitation. Learning someone’s name. If you have ever wondered whether those things matter, especially if you serve on a welcome team, I have a guy in Taylor who will tell you they absolutely do. For him, the kindness of the church brought him to the feet of Jesus.
That is exactly where the man in Mark 5 found himself. Bloodstained body. Scars everywhere. Luke’s Gospel tells us he had not worn clothes in a long time. He probably had a smell to him. And none of that mattered. Jesus met him right where he was.
If Jesus crossed a sea in a storm to reach one man living in a graveyard in a pagan region surrounded by impure animals, where do you think He will not go?
He will go there. He will go to the place you think is too far. He will go after your lost loved one, your lost son, your lost daughter, your lost friend, your lost neighbor. There is no distance too great and no darkness too deep.
Jesus does not wait for you to clean yourself up. He does not require you to have it all together before He shows up. He walks into the graveyard. He speaks to the chaos. He asks your name. And He begins to make you whole.
If the world has labeled you and left you, hear this: Jesus is already on His way.
We always welcome new friends to worship with us. Find a location that’s close to you!
You can learn more about our beliefs and visit our video library to explore more topics like this one. You can also check out our events page to find out what fun new things we’re doing this season.
The post The Story That Proves You’re Not Too Broken for God appeared first on 2|42 Community Church.
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