All posts for the month May, 2024

Revelation 11 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever been told someone has some good news and some bad news, which do you want first? I’m a bad news first guy, get that out of the way, deal with it, and then move on to the good stuff.

-God’s Word is that way. It starts with the reality that everyone is a sinner – separated from God and worthy of condemnation. But the good news is it doesn’t need to stay that way! God provided a way of being adopted into His family, of having the penalty our sins paid for, and allowed to come near to God without any fear, knowing you’ll be completely welcomed in. My favorite way of thinking about this is from Tim Keller who said: who dares wake up a king for a glass of water at 2 am? His child. We have that kind of access to God. Regardless of what the world thinks of Jesus, or Christianity, we’re given privileged access to the Creator and sustainer of everything! But then with that comes bad news – the world isn’t as great as you may have thought it was, and what comes with following Jesus is a guarantee that you will have struggles and difficulties, today’s text is a reminder that Jesus is still in our side.

READ/PRAY

-I want us to think a little bit about where we’ve been so far:

-Letters to 7 churches: different strengths & weaknesses to every church, but often a reflection of the community the church is in

-John is given a glimpse of heaven, where he hears about the lion of Judah and sees a lamb who takes the big scroll and opens 6 seals in short order

-Then we get a break where John sees (I believe) the entirety of God’s people from all history gathered around the throne right before the 7th seal is open and we’re brought right to the end of history.

-Then John takes us back to look at the same events from a different perspective, this time using trumpet blasts. First 4 quickly, then slows down for 5 (locusts) 6 (invading army) Finally, another interlude where John is commissioned to prophesy again to many people and kings, which leads us here:

A call to the church to continue witnessing to the truths of the gospel despite increasing persecution.

  1. Measuring the Temple (1-2)

-Picking up John’s commission from 10, similar to Ezek.

-Signifies the protection of God over His people. Even when there is persecution, tribulation, difficulty, God sill protects and preserves His people.

-42, 3.5 years – referring to the time period between Jesus’ 2 comings: not God’s final word on the matter, things are not “7” perfect or complete.

  1. Measuring a Witness (3-14)

-2 Witnesses. Who are these, and why does John talk about them?

-I believe they’re the church, picks up a prophesy from Zech. 4 referring to the priest and the king, this means that the church will be a kingdom of priests. That is a CRAZY idea! John has the gall to proclaim that everyone now has easy access to God. You don’t need a buffer, you don’t need a sacrifice, you don’t need a temple, all you need is the Holy Spirit in you! 

-Additionally, think of one of the purpose of a lamp: light up a room. Think of one of the descriptions Jesus gives of His people: the light of the world. One of our jobs as God’s people today is to be a shining light into the darkness of sin, despair, and brokenness. But in order to shine into the darkness, we also have to have the light of Christ IN us and be able to shine. That’s part of the reason it’s so important for us to have this regular rhythm in our life of gathering as God’s people: we gathering to be built up and edified, and then scatter (are sent) to bring God’s light into our daily lives. Friends, don’t miss the reality that we’re all in ministry, we just get our paychecks from different places. God has equipped and gifted you, and then sent you into your workplace to be an ambassador of His gospel message. You have an eternal job to do! 

-This prophetic witness of God’s people is kept safe by God. Just as He commissioned John to measure the temple and count His people, God will protect and preserve them in the midst of their ministry.

-Let’s think about the picture John’s painting here. What comes out of your mouth? Words (hopefully nothing else, otherwise you probably shouldn’t be here!) Words come out and consume their enemies (who also happen to be the enemies of God if they’re opposed to His people). Our enemies are God’s enemies.

-This is showing us that God’s message brings death and judgment to some people. To those that are opposed to God, the gospel message is a message of condemnation, not life. Similar to John’s call to prophesy that will taste as sweet as honey, but make him sick to his stomach.

-But just as John has done throughout this book, it’s also pointing back to the way God’s message has been preserved through His people in the past by recounting major prophets and stories from the OT from the newest to the oldest.

-The first story is about Elijah from 2 Kings 1. Elijah is seen by the king as a thorn in his side, so he continually tries to deal with Elijah to get rid of him, but since Elijah is a prophet he can’t! Culminates with the king getting sick and sending messengers to ask Baal if he’d survive. Elijah intercepts the messengers and tells the king he’ll die, so the king sends 50 soldiers and a captain to get Elijah. And this happened TWICE! Finally, a 3rd captain is sent, falls on his face in front of Elijah and begs for his life. But the theme is God’s protection.

-The second story is an earlier one from Elijah’s’ ministry, actually the first time Elijah is introduced into the story, and he has a message of doom and gloom! He shuts up the heavens so that it doesn’t rain during his ministry. Bookends of Elijah’s ministry, then John goes further back.

-This one is a more well-known story (and featured in 1998 classic The Prince of Egypt): Moses. In Ex. 7 it shares the first plague leveled against Egypt, but that’s just the start! 9 more plagues come, and culminate in the death of the firstborn (for everyone, but it only affected those who weren’t covered by the blood of the lamb, pointing to the ultimate firstborn who would die for them)

-Finish their testimony – who gave them the authority? What time is this referring to? 

-“The beast” (Not beauty and the beast, setting up the stage for what’s to come) those opposed to God and His ways. We see here the same thing we’ll see in 12-13: Satan and his minions fight against God and his people for all history. Satan hates when the church is healthy, he hates when the church is flourishing, he hates when people take their faith seriously, he hates when Christians are faithful in their witness and he’ll do everything in his power to fight against God’s plan. And from an earthly perspective, he’s incredibly successful. It says “conquer them and kill them.” Have you ever heard or read that the church is dead? There’s a phenomenal book that came out recently titled ‘The Great DeChurching’ that says this is the most significant religious shift in our country’s history right now with church attendance declining faster than it’s ever declined before (and faster than it grew during both great awakenings). I’ve read articles from the 90s that said the church was dying then! This reminds us that we have nothing to worry about! If God’s on our side, no one can stand against His plans! (This book is actually very good, I’d highly recommend it, and the biggest take away is most of the time those that left church would go back if someone just invited them, they just got out of the habit)

-Dishonor them:

-Leaving a dead body out was shameful, a way of heaping even more abuse on an already dead person

-Where is this? Great city would be Rome, Sodom was destroyed a long time before this was written, Egypt is an entire country, Lord was crucified is Jerusalem. This is a way of signifying the city of man. Nations, civilizations opposed to God and His ways

-Do you ever feel marginalized as a Christian today? This is taking place all the time! Satan works his hardest to discourage and bring down God’s people! This is why we need each other, we need to be able to encourage each other when we’re getting discouraged. Don’t get out of the habit!

-These people (earth dwellers) go on to celebrate, to party, it’s described the way we celebrate Christmas today! 

-This is painting a picture of Christians viewed as the killjoys, now that the church is gone we can finally have fun and party, we need to throw off the shackles of religion and Christianity.

-How do you view your faith? Do you see it as only rules and regulations, as only difficult and struggling? Or do you see it as life, and life to the full? Friends, this changes your entire way of living! If it’s just rules you become self-righteous and look down on anyone who can’t measure up to your standard. But Jesus doesn’t let you do that, He forces you to rely completely on Him because you can’t ever measure up! At some point you’ll even fall short of your standards! I heard a story this week of a pastor who was taken to the hardest level of a prison (serial murderers) and he prepared a message thinking these people would be struggling with self-confidence, so he began by asking on a scale of 1-10 how good were they? The lowest score was a 10! Friends, don’t look to yourselves to be justified, look to Jesus who will make you more human than you could ever dream!

-After 3.5 days: 

-Remember how John so often uses OT ideas. Here’s another one of them! One of my favorite OT passages, Ezek. 37. Ezekiel is taken to a valley filled with dry bones, “they were VERY dry.” God asks is those bones could live, Ezekiel says only God knows. So God commands him to prophesy over the bones. As he prophesies the bones come together, muscles and tendons form, then skin covers the bones, but that’s not enough, they’re still dead. Prophesy about God’s breath on them. He does and suddenly it’s a vast army. This is what God does: he raises the dead to life until they’re an army! And spiritually, God has brought the dead to life and made them a kingdom of priests who are commissioned to prophesy to the world that they too can be brought to life! This story serves as a picture of what the church has become today – God’s Word brings people back to life, before they’re a useless sack of flesh, but once God saves them they’re made a truly living person who can serve God and witness to others.

-Think of how the world responded to their death. Do you think they would respond similarly to their resurrection? No way! “Great fear” 

-Same description of Jesus’ ascension, or the end of Elijah’s ministry, connecting the ministry of the church all the way back to Elijah! This is a way of validating the message of the church. It might take away for this validation, but it will come!

-Earthquakes are connected to the very end in Revelation, but this judgment is revealing God’s mercy. Yes, even judgment can reveal God’s mercy! Remember: numbers are symbols not statistics. This is alluding back to some previous judgments we’ve seen in the past.

-Isa. Look at the numbers here. How many are left? 1/10, how many are killed in Revelation? 1/10

-Amos: what percentage is left? 1/10

-1 Kings: Only 7,000 were preserved, but here only 7,000 are killed and 63,000 are left. Even in God’s righteous judgment, His mercy is made evident! And this comes about because of Jesus! Jesus has born the brunt of God’s wrath, what’s given to us is grace and mercy!

-There is some debate about this last phrase. They’re terrified and “gave glory to God” is this referring to saving faith or just admitting that they were wrong, as is promised in a place like Phil. 2 that every knee will someday bow to Him?

-At this point I’m leaning slightly toward saving faith, but might change tomorrow! Strongest point I see for that is we’ve seen before in Rev. that even in the midst of suffering the world still refuses to acknowledge God. I lean toward saving faith because otherwise they couldn’t truly give glory to God! So the job of the church is to witness to God’s saving grace, and in response, people are saved! 

-Still not done yet! There’s another woe (trumpet) to come!

  1. Measuring the End (15-19)

-Seventh angel blows his trumpet, and heaven responds: the end is here! Remember, this is the focal point of the whole book (not just Revelation) God’s goal for all of history has been: God’s people, living in God’s place, serving under God’s rule and reign. This last trumpet gets us to that reality!

-And what’s the only right way to respond to God’s kingdom now being seen? Worship. One of the pastors I worked with said the theme of Revelation is worship, and I agree! The Bible opens and closes with worship – praising God with everything we have and everything we are.

-Notice the acknowledgement that the nations were angry: entire nations were upset with God! But God has dealt with them. Not always here and now, but they will one day be dealt with, so Christians should be on the front lines of affirming good nations and standing against evil nations – and that starts with recognizing that the church is called to be a unique nation. We’re not supposed to completely align ourselves with any nation or culture on earth, that’s idolatry. Instead, we’re supposed to live as foreigners and exiles who look for ways to be more faithful witnesses.

-See again that this is referring to the very end: the dead with be judged and entered either into glory or separation from God. Have you ever considered that those who oppose God are destroying the earth? This stood out to me this week as I consider how people talk about earth care today. We’re told that humans are destroying the earth, that it’s irreversible, and that we’ll all die within the next few decades. But they’re focusing in the wrong direction. Those who don’t obey God are the ones destroying the earth. I think connected to that is that Christians should care about the earth. Not abusing or destroying, but seeking to care for it since that’s God’s call on the human race. Lots more that could be said about that, and I don’t think it’s explicitly in this text, so I’ll leave it there! 

-Last piece we see in this section is the temple of God in heaven (not a literal physical temple, referring to the place where God lives as signified by the ark of the covenant)

-John was able to see where God’s presence is contained. This is part of the reason I believe this is the center point of the book, it’s hinting at God’s presence no longer being hidden or removed or far off, it’s now accessible to everyone who follows Him.

-The ark of the covenant in the OT was the place where God presence was made visible. It was completely separated from the rest of the temple, it was only approached periodically and by someone who entered with fear and trembling. But not anymore! Because John can see it, anyone can see it! This is pointing to Rev. 21:3 “Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them.” This is another evidence to me that shows we’re not supposed to read this book strictly linearly or chronologically. Just as other apocalyptic writers will do, he’ll talk about something, then go talk about something else, and then eventually make his way back around to talk about something he talked about previously. Here we’re once again brought up to the very end (as we were with the seals), as evidenced by all these weather phenomenon’s. But we’re not quite done, because we’re only halfway through this book.

-Once again, the question in front of us at the end of this sermon is: what do we do with this text? I think there are 3 things, and I said them at the very beginning.

1) Continue witnessing. It will often feel like our witnessing is pointless, and at times even worse than that because it will lead to persecution! But this text reminds us that even though some Christians will die for our faith, God will continue preserving His church, so we have to be faithful with our job.

2) Truths of the gospel. We don’t preach a message of self-help or how to improve your life, we preach a message that nothing you can do will save you, so come to Jesus and find true life! We don’t preach ourselves, but God sends us as ourselves, so find ways to use your personality to share the truths of the gospel.

3) Increasing persecution. Don’t get comfortable here! I’ve been reflecting recently on some of the alarming things I’ve read about our country, often coming from people who claim to be Christians. Why would we expect anything other than persecution? I think we at times forget that the 1 thing Jesus promises us is suffering, but with that promise He reminds us to be encouraged because He has overcome, and if we’re in Him, we will overcome too!

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by mikethestrand on May 26, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 26, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/05/26/revelation-11-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 11:1-4 – Sermon Manuscript

-A defining story of your life, or your family’s life?

-some of my most fond memories from growing up involved my parents taking too long to go home after church. Playing football, running through the dirt paved parking lot, trying not to get into trouble. First time parents warned you we’d be leaving in 5 minutes meant we had AT LEAST 30 min. My parents locked the doors of the church when they got married!

-We all have these family stories that we can use to communicate something about ourselves. The Bible does something similar, and it’s important for us to understand the Bible’s defining stories if we want to understand the significance of God’s message, given to John, passed down to us today. The defining story for God’s people is the Exodus: God’s deliverance out of slavery into a season of exile.

READ/PRAY

-Not sure about you, but I think this might be one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to interpret correctly! Full of OT allusions, mention of specific times and days. I’m going to give an overview of the whole chapter, and then we’ll walk through it over the next 2 weeks, just so there’s no surprises. I say most of this with a grain of salt, and I reserve the right to change my opinion on this in the future! But as I’m working through this letter and trying to study this section this week I think this is the best way to interpret the text.

-This is a call to the church to continue witnessing to the truths of the gospel despite increasing persecution.

-John is told to measure the temple and count the worshippers. This is referring to God’s people today, not a physical temple that will someday be built. 

-The 2 witnesses are similarly referring to the church (again, wait until I build my case for that!)

-The numbers are a way of pointing back to Jesus, but through a prophesy in Daniel. Their story also parallels an upcoming story in Rev. 12-13 about the beast persecuting God’s people. Their death and resurrection points to God’s provision of His people throughout history and validation of their witnessing to the truths of Jesus as the Savior and King.

-Finally, the last trumpet takes us all the way to the end, where God’s kingdom has come and His will is being done on earth just like it is in heaven. That’s where we’ll be going over these next 2 weeks, now let’s talk about how I got there!

  1. Measuring the Temple (1-2)

-John is given a commission, connected back to his role from last week to “prophesy again.” 

-Connected to Zech. 2, Ezek. 40-42. John is the next in line! 

-Notice “was given” this is all from God, God’s work, and God’s plan

-The idea of measuring is connected to counting. Think of Jesus who said God counts even the hairs on our heads (which is easier for some people than others!) It’s a way of signifying that God knows each and every person who belongs to Him. No one can take them away, no one will be lost, He will keep track of them all and preserve them all.

-Before we go on, I want to ask you a question about that: if John were asked to go and count His people today, would you be included in that number, or would you be left outside and be trampled? If you want to ensure you’re a part of God’s people, if you want be counted in the temple, then you need to confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and believe that He was raised from the dead. If you do, you’ll move from death to life, from outside the temple to inside the temple, and God will welcome you in with open arms.

-A few options about this temple:

-A physical temple that’s rebuilt, a heavenly temple, or the temple that we today refer to as the church. I don’t think it’s a physical temple because of the way this book uses symbols and imagery throughout to communicate a bigger spiritual reality. Similarly, I don’t see how it could be a heavenly temple because I’m not sure how “the nations” could trample any part of it then. 

-I also think there’s an assortment of other NT passages that tip the scale in the direction of the church, here’s a few. 

-All of these are referring to the church. Similarly, when we trace the idea of the temple (or tabernacle) throughout the Bible, it signifies God’s dwelling place with His people, not necessarily just a building. It’s meant to be a new Eden because of the way sin broke the relationship between God and His people. When Jesus comes, the Bible says God tabernacled among us (God moved into the neighborhood), and then Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises, so there’s no more need for priests or sacrifices or a temple, they’re pointing to Jesus who now fills his people with the Spirit, making them a new temple. 

-The last piece that tilts the scales for me in this direction is the ending of this letter, Rev. 21:22 says God’s eternal plan is no temple. This is like Eden where God’s plan was to be in perfect relationship with his creation, no separation, no divide, but sin broke that. That’s what’s signified by the lack of a physical temple, we don’t need that anymore, Jesus has provided a way to approach God that’s superior in every way (again, read the book of Hebrews).

-Why is there an area excluded? 

-“Court of the Gentiles” or “court of the women” most likely the first as it had been given over to the nations already.

-If the temple is the church (as I’ve argued) this could either refer to persecution of a segment of the church, or is a way of signifying that not everyone is a part of God’s people. I lean slightly toward the latter as I think it makes better sense of the comment “outside the temple.” The only way to avoid being trampled is by becoming a part of the temple, or the church. 

-We’ll get to the holy city a little more when we get to vs. 8, but really briefly notice that it’s referred to by 5 names. Holy city, great city, Sodom, Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. Can’t be all of those at the same time, and 1 of them is a country! Once again, John is using a well-known idea to signify something bigger: there will always be rulers, nations, and civilizations opposed to the work of God. Once again we see that there’s no middle ground: you’re either for God or against Him.

-We now get to a hugely debated section that is very difficult to understand and needs to be nuanced incredible carefully: how do we interpret the 42 months? One of my primary arguments through this series has been we struggle to understand this text (Revelation) because our minds aren’t saturated enough by the whole text. The 1st century reader would have devoted themselves to the Bible, many of them had memorized large sections of it, if not the whole thing. Our minds today are too cluttered by useless trivia (or movie quotes for me) to memorize large portions of God’s Word, much less go on to meditate on those Words and then apply them to our daily lives. If our identity starts to become defined by anything other than God’s Word we’re in trouble! 

-This text kicked my butt this week! I’ve shared before that my Hebrew prof. in seminary: wrestle with the text. I did a LOT of wrestling this week! Because there’s so much background to this text, I also divided this sermon into 2 weeks, so consider this part 1. Also, fair warning, you’re going to need to put your thinking caps on! There’s a mountain of other texts being referenced here that we’re going to need to wrestle through together today to understand John’s message.

First, remember numbers in Revelation are symbols not statistics, the numbers are standing in for something important. We’ve talked about these before, so 7 (and it’s multiples) refers to: perfection or completeness. 10 (and it’s multiples) refers to fullness. 4 refers to the whole creation/earth. 12 (and it’s multiples) is God’s people. But then we start adding in halves, or lesser numbers. So if you remember back a few weeks ago to the overview: 666 is signifying that Satan and his unholy trinity false short in every case (fail, fail, fail). With 42 months:

-It’s another way of saying 3.5 years. If you look at vs. 3, you’ll see 1,260 days, which also happens to be 42 months. Vs. 9, 11: 3.5 days. Maybe these are all referring to the same period of time?

-To understand this reference, we need to go back to a prophecy in Daniel 9, which itself is a meditation on God’s Word from Jer. 25, which itself is using language from Lev. 25. Do you see why this book can be so hard to understand and interpret correctly? Are you ready to wrestle through this text with me?

-First, Daniel introduces this section to us by saying he was reflecting on Jeremiah, and notice what he’s wearing, because that will come up again. This tells us that Daniel is meditating on a specific passage in Jeremiah, something to do with 70 years. 

-Jeremiah is God’s plan for getting the people out of Babylon. They’d been carried off into exile as a penalty for their sin, but there was an end point to that exile. God will bring His people back and redeem them.

-Those 70 years are the season of exile, where Israel is under the Babylonian captivity. As Daniel starts doing the math, he realizes that 70 years is close to coming up! So he begins by confessing his and the nation’s sins and asking God to listen and respond. God does by sending the angel Gabriel to visit him and tell him what’s going to happen. Before we get there, 1 very important note: Israel wasn’t in exile for 70 years, it was more like 60. So if that number is a symbol (like in Revelation) we should also expect the rest of the numbers to be symbols.

-We begin with “70 7s (translated as weeks)” Anyone remember the significance of 7? Completion, perfection. This means Gabriel is picking up the language from Jer. 25 but using weeks as a stand in for years. Look at the 6 things promised from God, specifically 2-4, stop sin, atone for iniquity, everlasting righteousness. God is saying He will take care of the sin Daniel had just been confessing. Who do you think that’s talking about? Sunday school answer: Jesus! Just wait, it gets even better!

-Gabriel then he goes on to break those years down, starting with 7 weeks. This gets us back to Lev. 25 on the sabbatical year and Jubilee (7 7s). Israel was supposed to practice the year of Jubilee every 50 years. Those who had sold property would have it reverted back to the original family, anyone that had sold themselves into slavery would be freed, it was a reset so that no one would be getting rich off the rest of the people and helped them place their ultimate trust and allegiance in God. It was a celebratory year! What’s fascinating is we have no account of Israel ever actually practicing a year of Jubilee. They became complacent and were too enticed by the world and riches instead of continually trusting in God’s provision for them. 

-The 7 7s would have started with a decree from Cyrus in 538 BC, meaning the completion should have been 489, but nothing happened then! So Gabriel begins by what would have been seen as a cycle to get to Jubilee, or a great reset. Therefore, this most likely refers to the time period between the edict and either the rebuilding of the temple or the wall (515 or 444, 23 or 94 years).

-Then Gabriel goes another 62 weeks, which would be referring the time period between the rebuilding of the temple/Jerusalem to the arrival of the Anointed One (Jesus) Math isn’t my strong suit, but my calculator said 434 years after this is getting close to Jesus’ arrival, but not exactly. There is 1 person who has added all these together (490 years) to argue that it gets to 33/34 AD, the exact day when Jesus died, but I would argue that for some imprecision in their dating because there’s MAJOR debate about which decree is referred to, and Gabriel intentionally breaks up these 70 weeks. 

-Plaza and moat: completely rebuilt, and difficult times facing various atrocities and even more persecution from the Romans.

-Finally, we get to the end. These are 2 verses referring to the same thing, first half about the sacrificial work of the Anointed One, the second half referring to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. A better translation of “have nothing” is “but not for himself,” meaning this “cut off” is for someone else.

-Then we see this strong covenant with many, but in the middle of this week (which would be how many days? 3.5) Jesus’ death means there’s no longer a need for sacrifices and offerings. So we’re still in the time period of these 70 weeks, because the second half of the week is the rest of the time before Jesus comes back a second time. 

-But what this refers to is the fact that we now look forward to living in the year of the ultimate Jubilee. If 7 7s (weeks) in Leviticus brought about Jubilee, then 70 7s would be the ultimate Jubilee! I read a quote that I thought summarized this well: 

-Jesus’ death on behalf of others provides the means for living in this new time of Jubilee. Sin is dealt with, Jesus has made a sacrifice once and for all, and now we get to live with the Holy Spirit in us, making us as new temple! Isn’t God’s story good? All that background to help us understand that when John talks about 42, he’s referring back to this promise from Daniel, reminding God’s people in the 1stcentury that God is still in control! 

-So to summarize: 42 = 3.5 years, or the time period in before we get to the ultimate Jubilee of God dwelling with His people forever. In between Christ’s first and second comings is an incomplete time because things aren’t as they will finally be forever. Half of perfection, meaning it’s not God’s final word on the subject. God will use however much time He needs to bring about His perfect plan.

-Another way of thinking about this connects to the exile idea I mentioned earlier. 7 would be the perfect and completed plan of God, but until that day we’ll be living in 3.5, not God’s final plan. God cares much more about our spiritual exile then our physical exile, so much so that he’s ok leaving us as exiles for thousands of years.

  • Measuring 2 Witnesses (3-4)

-This section will be a little easier, and take less time because I’ll pick it up again next week. The question is: who are these 2 witnesses? Why do they have authority, and what’s the significance of the days?

-I would argue this is referring to the church. Why? Look at the description of them in vs. 4. Olive trees and lampstands. What is that? Can anyone think of a passage in Revelation where we’ve seen lampstands before? First few chapters, ironically enough, does anyone remember how many churches had no critiques from the Lord? 2.

-This is picking up a prophesy from Zech. 4: Olive trees and lampstands. Later on, the olive trees are identified as 2 anointed ones, a king and a priest. By calling these 2 witnesses by this identification, John is saying the church will be a kingdom of priests – a theme throughout the Bible, but mentioned in reference to the church in Rev. 1:5-6 “To him who loves us and has set us free from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.”

-But why 2? Throughout the Bible, the minimum required number of witnesses for it be true was 2. It’s a way of validating the truth of their message.

-The final reason I think this refers to the church is the overall structure of the book. One of the predominant ways Jewish authors wrote was through chiasms. A chiasm is named after the Greek letter chi (looks like an X), a way of emphasizing the middle point, then the outer parts connect/mirror each other. Here’s the chiasm for the entire book of Revelation, emphasizing Jesus being Lord, and responding to that reality in worship.

-So just as the church will face opposition from Satan in the next couple chapters, the church will face opposition from Satan in this section, do you see how they pick up similar themes? But the middle remains the same: worshipping God because we’re now a part of HIS kingdom, instead of the kingdom of Satan.

-So what do we do with this? How should we respond to this reality?

-Worship. Do you worship and praise God because He is in control and has a perfect plan for all human history? This is why, even when life is really hard, Paul can say “Rejoice always.” This is why Christians can be faithful to love and serve God when it looks foolish, when worldly rulers and powers are bearing down because this passage reminds us we live in the 3.5, not the 7. 

-And because we live in the 3.5, we are supposed to be prophesying, declaring God’s Word to believers and unbelievers. It’s God’s Word that saves people, and it’s God Word that sanctifies people (makes holy). 

-I’m currently taking a class on pastoral ministry during the Reformation “The Christian life is a pilgrimage with a banquet spread in the wilderness for weary travelers.” Friends, if you are a part of God’s family, we have all the riches we need to grow more into what God has created us to be, and that allows us to prophesy faithfully to each other and the world.

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by mikethestrand on May 19, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 19, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/05/19/revelation-111-4-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 10 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever eaten the wrong thing, and then you end up with a stomachache?

-Growing up one of my favorite candies was Starbursts (still is, just can’t do this anymore). A friend and I would go buy a bag of them and eat the whole thing that night. And when I say a bag, I’m not talking about one of those cute little ones you buy at a gas station, I’m talking about a BAG. Quick gourmet tip for those of you that like to spice your culinary delights up a bit – mix and match the different colors to create some new flavor profiles, really takes the Starburst experience to a whole new level! The only bad thing about this culinary delight is when you eat in large quantities there are consequences. And they’re not very fun. Usually starts with aches and pains in the belly, and just progresses from there.

-But the crazy thing is, when I was 17 that didn’t bother me! I’d weigh the consequences of eating the whole bag and still thought it was worth it for my starburst sandwiches.

-Today’s text has a similar story and experience that I had with Starbursts. But instead of eating candy, John is commanded to eat a scroll, but the consequences are the same. 

READ/PRAY

  1. A Hidden Word (1-4)

-Another mighty angel, with some interesting descriptions about him, leading some to argue that it’s Jesus. But Jesus is never called an angel in this book, and there’s many other places where servants of God are described with similar characteristics to God. Right out of the gate, one of the things for us to take away is: do, or can, people use the descriptions of God to describe you? The name Christian means “little Christ,” part of the reason Jesus left the earth is so that He could be multiplied in His church.

-Wrapped in a cloud: Ex. 13:21 – signifying God’s protection and provision

-Rainbow over his head: Rev. 4:3, Gen. 9 – connected to God’s judgment, and that He always keeps His commitments

-Face like the sun: Rev. 1:16; Matt. 17:2 – the transfiguration was a glimpse of Jesus’ true nature that was concealed in His humanity. Also points back to Moses whose face would glow after spending time with God so he had to put a veil over his face so people wouldn’t be scared of him.

-Legs like pillars of fire: Rev. 1:15; Ex. 13:21 – again, back to the Exodus, which serves as a theme for God’s people throughout history.

-You can tell this person is sent from God because he looks similar to God. That should be true of us! Just like Moses’ face would glow because of his time with God, our faces should glow because of our time with Him. Does yours?

-This angel who has been spending time with God has something in his hand: a little scroll: different than the large scroll Jesus holds. Remember back in 5 where John saw the one on the throne holding a scroll with 7 seals, and then the Lamb opened those seals 1 by 1. This time, it’s a different scroll serving a different purpose, as we’ll see when we continue through this text.

-This angel is HUGE! Notice where he stands: feet on the sea and land. Historically, would have brought to mind the Colossus of Rhodes: one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, a 100’ statue straddling the harbor. About the same size as the Statue of Liberty. Ships had to sail under his legs to get the Rhodes. What is the significance of the angel in these places? 2 things:

-God’s sovereignty over everything. What’s left out? He came from heaven, he stands on the sea, and on the land. Nothing! God’s rule extends to every sphere of existence.

-But the second is needing to know the context of the rest of this book. Coming up in Rev. 13, 2 unholy beasts will come to work with the dragon out of 2 places: the land and the sea. This is setting the stage for that vision and demonstrating God’s complete rule, even over these beasts that will be coming.

-He calls out, yet another loud voice like we’ve seen a couple times before! But this time he gets a response from 7 thunders. What are these?

-Most scholars believe this is referring to Psalm 29 (which I preached on last Aug, so if you have questions go listen to that) but what’s fascinating about that Psalm is it describes “the voice of the Lord” 7 times. Anyone remember the significance of 7 times? And anyone want to question whether or not God was inspiring the writing of this book? It’s incredibly how He oversaw the writing and preserving of His Word! Psalm 29 begins by saying “The voice of the Lord is above the waters, the God of glory thunders.”

-Something very interesting about these thunders, we don’t know what they said! Throughout this book John recounts what he hears and sees until he gets to these thunders, and this time he’s told NOT to write it down! 

-I hope as we’ve been walking through this book week by week it’s giving you a better way to understand, interpret, and apply this book. I think the way people tend to approach the whole book is like a divine conspiracy theory, and there are things that are confusing (this is one of them!) but most of it makes sense if you dig in a little bit, and it’s for our encouragement and blessing. Even when something like this isn’t revealed, it’s meant to teach us something:

-Osborne quote. 

  • A Present Word (5-7)

-This angel had been signified as God’s emissary, then promises by raising his hand. This is a common way of swearing to heaven, and he’s swearing that there won’t be any more delays.

-This is picking up a theme from Dan. 12:6-7. See here the angels are promising that there will be a delay. Even though God’s people are scattered from their homeland, even though their oppressed and insignificant, they still need to wait.

-Which is where we are today! God’s final judgment hasn’t come, but it’s close:

-“In the days when the last trumpet.” God’s plans are coming to completion. Everything that God wanted to happen in the past would happen exactly as He planned. We get this interesting phrase here “the mystery of God.” What does that mean?

-Remember we just saw an aspect of this with the thunder: we don’t know what the 7 thunders said, John heard it but didn’t share. As Osborne said there “God is in control, and the saints (that’s us) do not need to know all the details.” But I think there’s a couple passages that help us understand what’s meant here by mystery. When we hear that word I minds go to something no one can possibly know. When the Bible talks about God’s mystery, that’s not what it’s talking about, it’s saying something hidden by God in the past, but now revealed today. And in some cases, the mystery is prophesied in the past and then fulfilled today. So how can it be hidden AND prophesied? Have you ever considered that?

–Rom. 16:25-27 – Notice Paul says that the mystery is centered on Jesus, who has now been revealed through the Scriptures. This is saying that all those prophecies in the past were about Jesus, and anything else people say they’re focusing on misses the point. But it’s also very easy to miss that point! We get another glimpse of this shortly after the resurrection

-Jesus appears to 2 disciples on the road who can’t tell it’s Jesus, so they essentially call him a dumb dumb (are you the only one who hasn’t heard???) Then Jesus replies: Luke 24:25-27. This is the spot I most wish I could have been a witness to in all of stories of the Bible! He literally gives these 2 disciples the proper interpretive key to understand the Bible! And notice what it centers on: “concerning himself.” If you miss that focus, you risk misinterpreting the whole Bible, including Revelation! 

-Have you ever asked why God wasn’t more explicit in His prophecies? Why do you think He operated with themes and ideas instead of coming out and sharing exactly what was going to happen. 

-Let’s take Isa. 11. First you need to know who Jesse was (father of King David) so this Messiah will come who will be from the genealogical line of Jesse/David (we saw that at least alluded to back in Rev. 7), then you need to see wisdom manifested in Him, similar to King Solomon who was called the wisest man who ever lived (continuing in the line of David). There’s also a reference to a stump, why a stump? Because David’s line wasn’t on the throne at this time. It only lasted 2 generations after David, and David was promised to have a descendent on the throne forever. Why didn’t God just tell Isaiah to write “during the time when Quirinius is governor of Syria, Mary is going to give birth to a child named Jesus who is the Savior of the world.” He could have! Why didn’t he? And I think part of the reason is because humans have the responsibility to be obedient to pursue that which is good, right, and true, or not. If Pilate had read the Scriptures and seen that prophecy how do you think he would have responded? Would he have gone along just because it was prophesied? Or would he have refused to go along in order to break the prophesy? Friends, this is where we get to mystery. God is in complete control in ways we’ll never fully understand, and at the same time we are responsible for our choices and actions, and each choice and action we take moves us either closer to God or further away from God. He’s given us everything we need to know how to move closer to Him, do we take advantage of them or not?

-But it wasn’t just in prophecies that I think we see this mystery, I think it continued in Jesus’ ministry. In Mark 4, Jesus tells a parable of some seeds (seeds sown indiscriminately, God’s Word should be sown indiscriminately regardless of the outcome) but then look at the reason He says He does this. Because those outside won’t understand. The mystery that God is doing won’t be in wisdom or strength (like the world wants it to be), it will come through the message of a crucified Savior, who died in our place, and rose again to offer us the freedom to be truly human: united to Him through the gospel message.

-Paul summarizes this well in Rom. 10– the way to not be left on the outside is through faith in Jesus Christ. This is why it’s a mystery that is both prophesied and hidden. It’s fulfilled in Jesus and revealed to His followers.

-With all that, what we see in this section is that when the dawning of the new age, where God’s kingdom is made visible (Rev. 11), the mystery is fully seen. The prophesies are done because they’re being completed, God’s full revelation is finished, now there is new life, just like He has been promising this whole time.

-If this helps you think about it, think back to the way a mystery story works. All these hints and clues throughout the book lead to the final resolution at the end where you go “Now I get it!” When Jesus returns, we’ll be able to look back at His Word and His plan in history and say “Now I get it!” But until that day, we see a job for God’s people in this last section.

  • A Bitter Word (8-11)

-Prophets had an interesting job in the OT – speaking on behalf of God, which at times including some not fun things. These not fun things were acts God commanded them to pursue that carried a deeper meaning.

-Jeremiah was commanded to bury his undies then dig them back up in Jer. 13, Hosea was commanded to marry a prostitute which included buying her back out of prostitution on multiple occasions. Carrying in that prophetic line, John here is commanded to eat a scroll. But he’s not the only prophet to do that:

–Ezek. 2:8-3:3

-Since God is in control even of history, He can repeat Himself to make a point. And the original audience who read Revelation would have had their minds immediately go to this passage in the OT. 

-He’s supposed to eat the scroll (God’s words) and then spit them out to God’s people. And notice the description of the scroll: As sweet as honey. This picks up another theme from the OT in the Psalms (Psalm 119:103, Psalm 19) With those ideas in mind, go back to Rev.

-Do you see any differences between John’s experience and Ezekiel’s experience? It’s going to taste sweet, but the sweetness stops in his mouth and will be bitter in his stomach. 

-John’s given a warning, this isn’t going to be a pleasurable experience for him. Just as many of the other prophets were warned. Sometimes speaking on behalf of God isn’t the most enjoyable thing to do, at least on this side of heaven. But sometimes it’s what God commands, as we’ll see.

-This also connects John to Isaiah 6. Isaiah sees a vision of God (similar to John in Rev.), and Isaiah comes undone. WOE is me! Not woes for other people (like we saw last week) woe for HIM! He’s a sinner coming into God’s presence, it’s unbearable! But an angel is sent to purify him, and as soon as his sin is dealt with God asks a question. Look at Isaiah’s response. We tend to read this with some unction behind it, but Isaiah is meekly saying “only if there’s no one else, send me. If you’ll allow me I’ll do it, but only for a bit.” Because as soon as he’s given the message, he asks how long. God answers. 

-Do you think Isaiah will have a popular ministry? Do you think he’ll attract great crowds and be sought out by those in authority? Nope. But he’s still commissioned by God to carry this out. And a few chapters later, God tells him how long this destruction will be. We looked at this earlier in Isa. 11 – it’s until Jesus comes. When Jesus comes everything changes! We now have hope, we have a future, we have a life with a job to do, which is what the last verses show us.

-Despite the warning, John’s obedient, and just as he was promised he gets an upset stomach.

-Just like me with the Starbursts, John figures obedience to God is worth it. And the picture this is painting is the need to ingest and digest God’s Word. All of it. We don’t get to pick and choose the passages we like and leave out the rest, we MUST ingest it, even when it’s bitter and feels harmful to us.

-Which gets to the content of the scroll. The outcome of the scroll is “prophesy AGAIN” that second word is important. I think the best way to interpret that is that this prophesy is setting the stage for the next 2 chapters. He prophesies to the church in 11 and then to the kings in 12 (which we’ll see over the next 2 weeks, so don’t miss that!)

-The question ahead of us today though us: are you willing to trust God’s Word even if/when it’s bitter? And further than that, are you willing to speak God’s Word even if it’s bitter?

-What John would experience because of speaking God’s word was persecution (he was on Patmos because he had been exiled, kicked out of his home) Are you willing to be like John and trust and obey God’s Word regardless of the outcome?

-There are things that God commands in His Word that I don’t like, that don’t come naturally to me, and sometimes run contrary to the way our culture trains us to think. Think of something like “turn the other cheek.” I don’t like doing that! When someone badmouths me I REALLY want to get them back! But that’s not the way God has commanded me to live. So I die to my preferences, I die to my desires, and I obey, even though it’s bitter in my stomach.

-Or think of what the Bible says about gender and sexuality! It lays out the parameters that sex is for 1 biological man and 1 biological woman in the monogamous covenant of marriage. Do you think people today view that as bitter?

-Or take politics! Jesus isn’t afraid to talk about politics, but when He does, He doesn’t pick sides! He says both of you are right in some areas and wrong in others. That’s a stomachache just waiting to happen when you enter into that conversation!

-I’m not going to pretend this is easy, not going to pretend it’s always fun. But I can promise you that it’s good and will lead to a much better outcome than if you aren’t obedient to God’s Word. This is part of the blessing John talks about in the Rev. 1. If you are obedient to God’s Word, then we don’t have to be afraid of anything, we proclaim God’s Word regardless of whether it’s bitter or sweet, regardless of how much of a stomachache it brings, and we trust that God is working in the midst of all these things.

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by mikethestrand on May 12, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 12, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/05/12/revelation-10-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 9 – Sermon Manuscript

Woe to the World

Revelation 9:1-21

-One of my favorite bands (first concert I took Cara to) has a song called “One of Those Days” 

I’m just having one of those days
Where I wake up to the sound of rain
With this pressure on my chest that I can’t make go away
Every minute’s gettin’ longer
Waves are hittin’ harder
Wish that I was stronger than the pain

-I don’t know about you, but I sure wish this world was an easier place! The dollar doesn’t seem to go as far, houses fall apart around you, sickness descends on your house like a plague (and when you have as many kids as I do it doesn’t leave for months!) On top of that, when you have good times planned (like a wedding for one of my cousins yesterday in Rochester) your accident-prone middle child ends up needing stitches. Don’t worry, she’s just fine, just a little traumatized. But there are always things going on that work to bring us down, discourage us, distract us from what’s true and even at times outright attack us. 

-Spiritual war is a real thing, as we’ll continue seeing throughout this book! That’s why it’s so important to keep the end in mind.

READ/PRAY

  1. The Woe of the Locusts (1-12)

-Ended last week with a warning to the “earth dwellers” because of the upcoming 3 trumpets, called 3 “Woes” Listening to Micah last week made me think of a Marvel movie. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” All the evil and difficulty in the world is coming to a head.

-It also made me think of another thing I said a few weeks ago: increasing severity and judgment. As things get worse, God’s Word still continues spreading. That’s what can give us hope: evil doesn’t have the final word!

-Just as Micah did last week, I want to caution us as we approach this text. I had a prof at seminary who would regularly encourage us to “wrestle” with the text in front of us. It doesn’t always come easy, nor is it supposed to! Just as Jacob (father of the Israelite nation) wrestled with God, our job as His people today is to wrestle with His Word to us so that we know how to live in a way that pleases Him. But we’re in a section of the Bible that deals with judgment, and our culture has a tendency to gloss over that attribute of God today to focus on his goodness and love. 

-God is good and He is loving, but that also means that He will bring about perfect justice. And I think part of the reason we struggle to believe in God’s justice is because we live in a such a safe environment. Remember: the normal state of matters in the world is war and fighting. Just think: we don’t run for shelter every time we hear an airplane. I watched Masters of the Air recently and during WW2 planes had a very different connotation. 

-God’s love is also made visible in the fact that He will bring about perfect and lasting justice. I think this is something we often miss in our world today. Love requires justice, otherwise it’s not love it’s just a fleeting feeling.

-Think of the people John was writing this letter to. Persecuted, on the fringe of society, no influence or power in society. How do you think they endured? Why do you think it was important for them to know about God’s true justice? Because they needed the reminder that this world isn’t all there is. Just think of the importance of this message for our brothers and sisters in the faith around the world who meet in secret on Sundays because of the threat of death. Do you think they need the reminder that true and perfect justice is coming? Think of what the martyrs cried out back in 6:10 “how long until you judge those earth-dwellers?”

-We also need to remember that the judgments we’re reading about have the goal of people repenting of their sin and turning to God. I was reflecting last week on the biblical idea of “salvation” and the 2 aspects involved in it: saved FROM and saved TO. We are saved FROM sin, and now we’re saved TO DO good works. That’s God’s goal for all humanity: to be saved from their sin, and then turn around and do the good works that He’s prepared for them. So even as we read about judgment, it’s not like someone who flies off the handle at a moments notice. We’re reading about someone who is slow to anger and desires everyone to follow Him, so keep that in mind as we work through today’s text.

-“Star that had fallen”

-There is ALL SORTS of debate about this star! Basically 3 opinions: referring to Satan when he fell from heaven, referring to another demon who was allowed by God to inflict this punishment, or a good angel who was carrying out the same agenda. No major issues with any of them because the outcome is the same: they open up a shaft to “the abyss.” 

-What is the abyss? It seems to be different from hell, Hades and the lake of fire. Hades is the place of the dead, and the lake of fire is the place of final punishment. But there is a theme of evil coming out.

-It’s important to note that smoke not always bad, God descended in smoke in Ex. 19, but even there is the connotation of judgment coming (I would argue)

-So this “star” is given the keys for the abyss. Keys in the Bible signify authority and power over something. So Jesus says the keys of the kingdom are given to the church (which I don’t have time to get into today, come to the membership class if you want more info there!), here the keys are given to a giant pit and out of this giant pit come locusts.

-Locusts, power WAS GIVEN. Who’s in charge here? This is vital for us to remember as we read through this! It’s not an accident, it’s not 2 equal powers fighting it out. God is in complete control, and He’s allowing these judgments to come to pass.

-Another word to notice is “like” trying to make comparisons, doing the best he can, but he’s not saying this is exactly what it is.

-There’s something weird about these locusts, they’re commanded to not harm grass, what do locusts do? Eat grass! Signifying the demonic nature. Don’t read this and immediately jump to locust hordes swarming people. Remember: symbols and imagery to signify deeper realities.

-John is picking up an idea from the prophet Joel. These locusts are connected to God’s judgment for disobedience. 

-Now notice who’s affected by this: those who don’t have God’s seal. Who doesn’t have God’s seal? “earth dwellers” unbelievers. 

-The locusts are given specific parameters on what they’re allowed to do: not killing, but torment. And even the torment has a timeline! Only for 5 months. All sorts of debate around that time! It’s generally thought of as the lifespan of locusts. It could be a way of saying it’s limited, but no one knows.

-Notice again, it’s LIKE the torment caused by a scorpion, doesn’t say it is. 

-Torment so bad people want to die but they can’t

-Can you imagine becoming so discouraged about life that you want to die? Once again, I would make the argument that John’s referring to the events that have been going on for thousands of years, in between Jesus’ 2 comings. 

-I think what we see here is people who have lost all hope in life and succumb to the despair that comes from that. Friends – don’t miss this: for some people, life on earth is the closest to heaven they’ll ever be. Can you imagine if that were true for you? This broken world with sickness, death, Satan running rampant being the best you’ll ever experience. I just read this week that suicide is the second leading cause of death for people between 10-34, second only to “unintentional injury.” I really think that’s a glimpse of the influence of these locusts. And there is some irony to this, because it shows us that following Satan always leads to death! He promises life, he has since the very beginning, but following him only leads to torment. We’ll talk about this more at the end, but this is demonstrating a lack of hope in the future, a lack of hope in God’s promises, and is the work of the evil one. 

-Description is meant to be grotesque. See all the “likes” in here? I don’t think there’s anything significant to these descriptions for us today, but here’s a picture of an artistic rendering someone tried to make of these creatures. Disgusting! Demonic! Not the way God has created things. 

-The final reason I don’t believe these are real locusts is it says “Their king” (Prov. 30:27) Apollyon = destroyer. 

-Personification of death. Where he promises life and flourishing, the only thing he can offer is torment and destruction. This is showing us just how insane it is to follow after him! “Everyone in hell is insane, for there is nothing more insane than the worship of self and the hatred of God. This too is part of God’s judgment on the human race.” Thomas Schreiner

-But this is only the first woe, there’s still 2 more to come

  • The Woe of the Horses (13-19)

-From the four horns: which altar? Place where the martyrs were (6:9) in response to the way His people were treated. 

-Four angels

-The Euphrates is another theme throughout the Bible. It’s place of origin was the garden of Eden, was the border of the land promised to Abraham, but in the 1st century was the place where the enemies were. In fact, a group known as the Parthians (keep them in mind!) invaded from across the Euphrates in 53 BC and 62 AD.

-God’s perfect plan designated to the hour. Again, please don’t miss this point in the midst of all this terrifying imagery. God isn’t caught off guard by what’s going on! Even when it feels like you’re facing an army of 200 hundred million, God’s in control. 

-These mounted troops number 200 million (twenty thousand, ten thousand), but notice that John hears their number, he doesn’t count them. When we’ve seen that throughout this book it doesn’t always match the reality (hearing a lion and sees a lamb, hears 144K and sees countless multitude) Numbers are symbols, not statistics.

-Who’s wearing a breastplate? Why these colors? What about smoke, sulfur, and fire as plagues?

-Referencing back to the Exodus where plagues killed God’s enemies, but once again it’s 1/3, not the full number of the earth. Even in judgment, God is showing His mercy to the world.

-Interesting description of these riders, they can kill from all sides. This is similar to the way the Parthian enemies were described, the ones that had invaded Roman territory before from across the Euphrates. They were masters of riding horses and shooting arrows all around. FEARED by the Romans. Here’s another artistic rendering of this one. Again, terrifying!

-But then we get to the real crux of this chapter with the last 2 verses.

  • The Woe of the People (20-21)

-The remaining earth dwellers: these judgments are meant to lead to repentance. After all these judgments, after wanting to die, after seeing loved ones die there’s still no repentance. This is why I started with the reminders about who God is today. God is not vindictive, God does not repay evil with evil, instead He is the perfect righteous judge.

-There is a day coming where we will actually praise God for his judgments. Rev. 19 tells us that one of the last things the saints will do it praise God because his judgments are true and righteous. I also think we see that a couple other places in the Bible:

–Rom. 2:3-5: God is kind, but up to a point. He’s kind because he wants people to repent and turn to Him, but if not you’re only heaping judgment!

–2 Peter 3:9: Similarly here, God is patient, but up to a point! Friends, don’t miss this again! The fact that Jesus hasn’t returned yet means there’s STILL time! Don’t let this time pass you by! Even evil in God’s cosmic plan of redemption, is meant to lead us to put our complete trust in Him.

-The works of their hands: building idols, which is serving demons. This is the irony of idolatry, because people end up worshipping created things instead of the creator. And that’s also true spiritually! Demons are created beings that coerce worship of them instead of the worship of God. And this isn’t a new problem:

–Isa. 2:8. People have always been tempted towards idolatry, which is the original sin. Look at the list John gives us:

-Murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, thefts: all explicitly prohibited by the 10 commandments. Murders (how often do we mentally murder someone?), sorceries (rise in “spirituality” or “manifesting” or “energies”), I don’t think I need to expand on sexual immorality, and thefts (stealing time from your work, coveting what someone else has). These things continue to ring true today! But the end is the same consequence as being affected by the locusts: death and torment.

-I want us to spend some time on this now, because I think we need to be willing to engage the difficult topics that our world is facing. And what I think these 2 woes (and trumpets) are pointing to is rising despair among people. See, what we need is hope, and that’s the reason we have this letter! If God is in control, if Jesus does really win, then we have every reason to hope!

-Think of what Paul tells us in Rom. 5. What do we boast in? Hope. Not in ourselves, but in God. Even in the midst of afflictions we can hope! 

-There’s a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor named Viktor Frankl who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning shared a story of the difference in longevity to those subjected to the horrors of the holocaust was directly connected to whether or not they had hope. There was a significant rise in death rates between Christmas 1944 and New Year’s 1945 because so many people had believed they would be freed by Christmas. When Christmas came and went they lost hope. Church, we can hope! This isn’t being Pollyanna and pretending everything is good when you’re struggling, this is setting our minds and directions in the right place.

-And today we see a lack of hope in people. Despair is rampant, mental health issues are out of control (Micah has preached on that before, not everything is mental health, but there are enough legitimate mental health issues that we can’t pretend they’re not real)

-There was a well-known pastor this past week who went viral for speaking out against this. “Psychiatry and psychology is finally admitting the noble lies that they’ve been telling for the last 100 years. The major noble lie is there is such a thing as mental illness…There’s no such thing as PTSD, OCD, ADHD. Those are noble lies.” I’m sorry, but this is just wrong, and the wrong way for a Christian to engage a crisis in our world. Sin has broken everything, including the way our minds work! People can have legitimate chemical imbalances, or even have neurological links that are moving down the wrong pathways. We are SUCH complex beings that we can’t just provide simple solutions to these major issues in our world today.

-The solution is Jesus, but even with Jesus that doesn’t mean all our issues will just go away – that’s prosperity gospel which is the opposite of what Jesus actually tells us. Sometimes the only hope we have is that this world isn’t all there is. We were made for a different world, a world without sickness, without fear, without death, without crying. But until we’re in that world, (or until that world comes here) the locusts will continue running rampant, continue influencing people, and continuing to bring despair. So what’s our response?

-First: cry out to Jesus. Just as the martyrs under the altar plead with God “how long?” we can come before His throne and ask the same question. His answer will probably be “Just a little while longer.”

-Second: live in authentic community. I somewhat hate that term “authentic” because it tends to mean you need to be accepting of anything I want, so when I use that word I’m saying it means you being open with people about your joys and your struggles. The reason God has given us a community called the church is to help us as we navigate the challenges of life before heaven.

-Finally: don’t lose hope! Even when things feel like they’re falling apart, we can trust that God is with us. He’s promises that He will never leave us, and He’s showing us that in this book! The one thing we can do in the meantime is remain faithful. Faithfully pray, faithfully serve God with your whole life, faithfully love other people.

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by mikethestrand on May 5, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 5, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/05/05/revelation-9-sermon-manuscript/