Cheney United Methodist Church

Friends, in this service we arrive at one of the most challenging passages in the entire Book of Revelation. (Do you realize that I’ve said that every service during this series?!) We encounter the mysterious figure of "Babylon the Great," a symbol that has puzzled Christians for centuries. Yet John's vision is not primarily about predicting the future or identifying secret enemies. It is a prophetic warning about every society that builds its wealth through injustice, every empire that worships power instead of God, and every culture that values luxury more than compassion. Revelation reminds us that God sees the suffering of the vulnerable, hears the cries of those who are oppressed, and calls God's people to live differently. We are invited to ask an uncomfortable but important question: "What kind of kingdom are we helping to build?"

In this service, we continue our journey through the Book of Revelation, and today we come to perhaps the most famous and certainly the most misunderstood number in the entire Bible: 666. For centuries people have tried to figure out who the Beast is. Every generation seems convinced they've finally solved the mystery. Emperors, popes, presidents, barcodes, computers, vaccines, social security numbers, credit cards, AI...you name it, someone has connected it to 666. But what if John's first readers understood exactly what he meant? What if the point wasn't to help Christians identify someone two thousand years in the future, but to help them recognize evil in their own day and to remain faithful to Jesus?
So today we'll look beyond the fear, beyond the sensational headlines, and discover that even this mysterious number has a message of hope and encouragement for God's people.