A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
17
August 2025
Series: Revelation: An Unveiling for Our Times
Revelation 7.9-17
John 14:1-4
Grace and peace to you
from the One who is and who
was and who is to come.
Today, in our ongoing journey
through the Book of Revelation,
we stand before a vision of
astonishing beauty and hope.
Revelation 7:9–17 has been
called
one of the most beloved and
comforting passages in the entire book.
It is read at funerals.
It is stitched into tapestries
and stained glass.
It is quoted when people need assurance
that God is with them in
suffering.
But it is also a deeply
political, radically challenging text
—one that pushes us to see
beyond the narrow boundaries
of empire, nation, race,
class, and fear.
It invites us to see the world
as God sees it.
And to live as if that vision
is true.
We’ve been seeing through this
series that apocalypse doesn’t mean catastrophe.
It means unveiling.
Revelation isn’t written to
frighten us about the future.
It is meant to help us see the
present more clearly
to see our here-and-now from
heaven’s perspective.
John seeks to purify the
imaginations of his hearers
to construct alternative
images that resist empire’s power.
And that’s exactly what we have
before us today.
John writes:
“After this I looked, and there
was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all
tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the
Lamb.” (7.9)
Can you imagine it?
An uncountable crowd.
From every nation.
Every tribe.
Every language.
A vision of humanity gathered,
reconciled, united
—not by coercion, but by
worship.
Not by Rome’s military
conquest.
Not by any empire’s forced
assimilation.
But by shared allegiance to the Lamb.
This is Revelation’s
counter-vision to the empire.
Because let’s remember the
context:
John’s churches lived under
Rome’s shadow.
Rome boasted of its “Pax Romana”—its peace.
But that peace was built on
conquest,
on slaughter, slavery,
taxation, and humiliation.
It was a peace that erased difference,
enforced loyalty, and extracted
wealth.
Rome’s vision of unity was
uniformity at the point of the sword.
And against this John offers a
different picture.
He sees difference not erased
but embraced.
Every language is there.
Every culture.
Every people.
All united—not under Caesar’s
banner, but in worship of the Lamb.
This is deeply political.
And it is also profoundly
pastoral.
Because it says to John’s
small, struggling congregations:
Your witness is not in vain.
Your suffering is not
forgotten.
You belong to something far
bigger than you can see.
You are part of a multitude
that no empire can number or silence.
But let’s be honest:
This vision can feel
impossibly distant.
Our world is still divided by
race, nation, language, class.
We see borders hardened,
refugees demonised,
racism woven into systems.
We see fear of the “other” exploited for power.
Even within the church, we have
often failed this vision.
We have divided along
doctrinal, cultural, political, and ethnic lines.
We have sometimes baptised
empire’s values instead of resisting them.
And so John’s vision is both
comfort and critique.
It says: This is what God
desires.
This is the shape of God’s
redeemed people.
This is what true worship
looks like.
It calls us to examine
ourselves:
- Who is missing from our communities?
- Whose voices are silenced?
- Whose needs are ignored?
- What walls have we built—visible or invisible?
Notice what the multitude
cries:
“Salvation belongs to our God
who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (7.9)
Salvation doesn’t belong to
Rome.
It doesn’t belong to any
nation-state or ideology.
It doesn’t belong to the
market or the military.
It doesn’t belong to us.
It belongs to God.
It is a gift.
It is universal in scope but particular in cost
—because it is the Lamb who
was slain who saves.
And this is crucial.
Because John’s vision centres
not on the throne alone but on the Lamb.
Remember what we saw last week
in Revelation 5:
The Lion of Judah is revealed
as the Lamb who was slain.
Power is redefined through
sacrifice.
Victory comes through
vulnerability.
This is the heart of
Revelation’s theology.
Empire says: Power is
domination.
Revelation says: Power is
self-giving love.
Revelation’s imagery purifies
the imagination
offering an alternative to
Rome’s visions of absolute control.”
Here, that alternative is the
Lamb.
The Lamb who suffers with the
suffering.
The Lamb who redeems through
blood, not swords.
The Lamb who gathers all
peoples not by conquest, but by love.
John’s vision continues:
“These are they who have come
out of the great ordeal.”
This isn’t cheap hope.
It’s forged in suffering.
John’s churches knew
persecution.
Christians were marginalised,
slandered, sometimes killed.
They faced pressure to conform, to worship the emperor, to compromise.
John doesn’t deny their pain.
He honours it.
And this “Great ordeal” is not
just theirs.
It is ours also.
We live in a world that is hard
to love.
We see violence, greed,
indifference.
We face personal losses, grief, fear, anxiety.
We wonder if anything can
really change.
John’s vision doesn’t promise
escape from ordeal.
It promises God’s presence in
it.
“They have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (7.14)
Strange imagery.
Laundry advice, it is not.
It’s paradoxical.
Blood stains—but here it
purifies.
Because it is Christ’s blood.
His sacrificial love.
His refusal to return violence for violence.
They are cleansed not by their
own virtue, but by God’s grace.
This is grace we can’t
manufacture.
We can only receive it.
We can only live into it.
John then hears the promise:
“They will hunger no more, and
thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the
Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd.” (7.16)
Here the Lamb is also the
shepherd.
A tender image.
Pastoral in the truest sense.
Here we see God incarnated not as a tyrant but a guide.
Not as a destroyer but a
protector.
Revelation continues: “He will
guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear
from their eyes.” (7.17)
Every tear.
Think about that.
Not ignored.
Not dismissed.
Not minimised.
Wiped away.
By God’s own hand.
This is not sentimental
escapism.
It is defiant hope.
It is a promise that the pain of empire, the grief of injustice,
the wounds of violence, will
not have the last word.
It is a promise of healing that
is both personal and cosmic.
And so our companion text from
John’s Gospel speaks here too:
“Do not let your hearts be
troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are
many dwelling places… I go to prepare a place for you.” (14.1-2)
Jesus promises not an exclusive
mansion for the privileged few,
but a spacious welcome for all
who will come.
He is the way—not of conquest,
but of sacrificial love.
Not of fear, but of trust.
Not of exclusion, but of radical hospitality.
Friends, Revelation 7 is not a
map of the future.
It is a manifesto for the
present.
It is a vision meant to shape
us now.
To draw us into God’s dream
for the world.
So what might it mean for us at
Bloomsbury?
It might mean asking whose
languages and cultures we celebrate.
Whose struggles we stand
alongside.
Whose suffering we refuse to
ignore.
Whose voices we amplify.
It might mean choosing welcome
over suspicion.
Generosity over fear.
Solidarity over apathy.
It might mean refusing to
baptise empire’s false peace,
and instead working for God’s
true shalom.
Because empire always offers us
a counterfeit peace.
Rome called it the Pax
Romana
—peace through conquest,
through fear, through enforced silence.
It was the peace of the cross used as an instrument of terror.
It was peace for the powerful
and subjugation for everyone else.
Today, empire’s peace might
look different,
but its logic remains the
same.
It tells us to value stability
over justice.
To keep quiet about racism,
poverty, and violence
so as not to make things
“political.”
To protect our comfort rather
than confront injustice.
To accept growing inequality
as the price of prosperity.
To treat refugees and migrants as threats instead of neighbours.
To believe that security
requires surveillance, walls, weapons.
Empire’s peace is always
conditional.
It always depends on someone
else’s suffering being ignored.
But Revelation’s vision refuses
that lie.
It unveils it.
It calls it what it is.
John’s great multitude is not
gathered by force but by grace.
It is not uniform but diverse.
It is not a conquered people
but a redeemed people.
And at its centre is the Lamb
who was slain.
The one who suffered empire’s
violence rather than inflict it.
The one who reveals that true peace comes only through justice,
only through truth,
only through love that is
willing to bear wounds.
So to work for God’s true
shalom
means refusing to stay silent
in the face of empire’s injustices.
It means being willing to name the systems
that benefit some at the
expense of others.
It means choosing solidarity with the marginalised
even when it is costly.
It means letting our tears move us to action.
Because God’s promise is not a
peace that ignores pain
but one that wipes away every
tear.
Not a kingdom that crushes difference
but one that gathers every
nation, tribe, people, and language.
Not a victory won by the sword
but by the Lamb’s self-giving
love.
This is the vision that must
shape our worship,
our mission, our politics, our
lives.
This is the alternative to empire’s false peace
that we are called to proclaim
and embody.
But let’s be honest: this
vision can feel so far away it’s hard to grasp.
We might nod along on Sunday,
but by Monday we’re back in a
world
that runs on fear and
competition.
We’re surrounded by messages
that tell us
that security means shutting
others out,
that success means outdoing others,
that belonging means sameness.
We hear that real power is
force,
that real victory is
domination,
that real worth is wealth.
Revelation knows this.
It knows the pull of empire’s
imagination is strong.
It knows how easy it is
to lose hope that anything can
change.
That’s why John doesn’t just
argue. He shows.
He paints this vast, cosmic,
beautiful picture
of a multitude no one can
count
—gathered, praising, healed,
reconciled.
He wants us to see it.
To let that vision soak into
us.
To let it shape our longings, our decisions, our loyalties.
Because change begins in the
imagination.
If we can’t imagine a
reconciled world,
we’ll never work for one.
If we can’t see a community of every nation and tongue praising God together,
we’ll settle for churches that
all look and think the same.
If we can’t picture God wiping away every tear,
we’ll start believing that
suffering is just how things are.
So Revelation says: Look
again.
Don’t let empire be your
teacher.
Don’t let cynicism have the last word.
Don’t accept the world as
it is
as the world as it must be.
We need this vision precisely
because the world is broken.
Because the work of justice is
hard.
Because solidarity is costly.
Because hope is fragile.
John offers us not an escape
from the world’s pain,
but a promise that God is at
work redeeming it.
He gives us a glimpse of where
God is leading all creation.
He invites us to live now
as if that future is already
breaking in.
So, friends, can we dare to let
this vision shape us?
Can we commit to seeing as
John sees?
Can we help one another imagine—and practice—
a community where every tribe
and people
and language are truly
welcome?
Where worship isn’t just words
but a witness to God’s coming
kingdom?
This is the gift—and the
challenge—of Revelation’s unveiling.
And yes, it might mean
reimagining our worship.
But I’m not talking here about
musical style or preferred choice of instrument.
Because worship in the Book of Revelation
isn’t about the music,
it’s about the politics.
To sing “Salvation belongs to
our God”
is to say it does not belong
to any government or system.
To gather across difference is to reject empire’s divisions.
To follow the Lamb is to
renounce the logic of violence.
This is hard.
It will cost us.
But Revelation dares to say: It
is worth it.
Because there is a multitude
waiting.
Longing.
Hoping.
And God is still gathering them
in.
“They will hunger no more.”
“God will wipe away every tear.”
This is the promise.
This is the hope.
This is the call.
So let us join the song of the
multitude:
“Salvation belongs to our God
who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Let us follow the Lamb wherever
he goes.
Let us bear witness to a love
that conquers by giving itself away.
Let us live even now as citizens of that redeemed, reconciling multitude.
For worthy is the Lamb.
Worthy to receive our worship, our loyalty, our lives.
To him be blessing and honour
and glory and might forever and ever.
Amen.
