All posts tagged Jesus

Revelation 14:14-20 – Sermon Manuscript

-I HATE scary movies! Thrillers I can handle (and often enjoy, even when they keep me up late because I need to find out what happens)

-Even though I don’t watch them, I know all the tropes that come with scary movies: don’t go near the basement, stay away from windows, make sure you stay in a group. Good lessons to be learned if you ever find yourself in a horror movie!

-One of the pieces I hope you’re taking away from our study in Revelation is similar – that there are only 2 options to how you’re going to live your life: either worshipping God or worshipping the dragon. Today’s text is meant to be like a horror movie where we run away from these consequences and run towards God. See sometimes God tells stories that are repulsive to serve as models for us so that we run away from sin and death and run to Him. 

-C.S. Lewis “Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”

-Part of the reason we (and the 7 churches) need to read about true justice is because we need the encouragement to remain faithful in the midst of this difficult world. When you’re used and abused, sometimes the only encouragement is to keep your eyes on Jesus, knowing that He will bring about perfect justice.

READ/PRAY

-Same section as last week, interlude between judgments, we’ve looked at 7 seals and 7 trumpets, then we’re in this interim leading into the 7 bowls where I believe John is given a glimpse of the arrival of Jesus through a heavenly perspective. 

-Jesus, the Creator of everything, came into creation as a baby. Didn’t appear out of nowhere, didn’t float down out of the sky, didn’t crash to earth on a spaceship like Clark Kent, he was born the same way you and I were born, which meant Satan thought he had the perfect opportunity to finally destroy God’s plans, but each time he’s thwarted! He gets angrier and angrier and works to destroy God’s plans and bring praise on himself instead of praising God, that’s why there’s this repeating theme of worshipping and praising God throughout this book, Satan’s aim is to steal that worship.

-Today we see 2 stories of reaping, but before we dive in there’s some debate about this section (much like the rest of the book) 3 options as to what this refers to:

-Both are negative judgments against those not following God

-1 is positive (grain) and the other is negative (grapes)

-Both are positive judgments referring to salvation.

-Yes, every interpretive option is on the table! Personally, I don’t find the first option convincing, and only found 1 person who argued that these both refer to negative judgments from God, and I’m currently leaning toward the middle option that this is recounting 2 separate harvest that serve 2 different purposes, as I’ll explain when we go through.

  1. The Grain Harvest (14-16)

-The next thing revealed to John is one like the Son of Man, some debate about who this could be referring to, some angel that looks similar to Jesus? Jesus himself?

-I would argue it’s Jesus. This title (taken from Daniel), last time referred to Jesus in 1:13, so it would make sense that when it’s used again it’s referring to the same person, this time instead of standing among lampstands (the church), he’s seated on a cloud. Jesus says his return will be “on the clouds” which is being realized in this vision to John.

-Golden crown on his head, connects back to the elders, signifies his rule and reign. Last time we saw the Son of Man, he had 7 stars in his hand, this time what does he have?

-A sharp sickle. This time he’s not standing sovereign in the church, this time he’s standing sovereign in harvesting.

-This would have been a common theme in the 1st century. Think of one of the pivotal scenes in the Gladiator: walking in the wheat field. When’s the last time you took a stroll in a wheat field? This is part of where we can miss some of the stories or implications in the Bible because we live in a different day. In the 1st Century their lives were dominated by the changing of seasons, and if the fields weren’t taken care of, death was immanent. When I need food it comes in saran wrap that I rip open! 

-So when John sees Jesus with a sharp sickle in his hand, we tend to miss the implications, too. My mind jumps to something like the grim reaper, or a horror movie (doesn’t help that people already have Halloween decorations up). Not a positive idea. What John’s readers had in mind was more like this: farmer’s out in their fields reaping their harvest, that means it was another successful year, they were going to continue having enough food, it’s a positive connection.

-Then “another angel” appears. Remember from last week, we’d seen 3 angels who delivered various messages: eternal gospel, fall of Babylon, the cup of God’s wrath. This angel comes out of the temple.

-The temple is where God lives, so this angel is sent from God with a message that it’s time to reap. This is where people have attempted to argue that this Son of Man couldn’t be Jesus then, because angels are sent from God, angels don’t tell God what to do. I would disagree with that sentiment, because it doesn’t say Jesus is submitting to them, all the angel is doing is sharing the message from God, and if you remember, one of the things Jesus said while He was on earth was that He didn’t even know when He was going to come back. How that works when He is God is a mystery, but we know that in everything Jesus does, He submits Himself to the will of the Father. 

-Why is it time to reap? Because the harvest is ripe. This is full of a bunch of previous imagery John would have heard from spending time with Jesus! Just a couple examples:

-Jesus tells a couple parables about sowing and reaping in Matt. 9, one is very well known where the seed is sown on all sorts of different soils which leads to different outcomes, but the second parable is applicable for today’s passage. 

-He shares a story of a good farmer who’s taking care of his field and plants his seed faithfully and lets it start to grow, but during the night one of his enemies throws a different kind of seed into the field to compete with the wheat. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to us, think of this like 2 businesses who are in constant competition with each other and continually look for ways to undercut the other. When the plants start to come up, they notice that wheat and weeds are growing together! The servants come to the master and ask if they should pull up the weeds, and he responds:

-This is a picture of what happens all around us all the time! Just as the eternal gospel is being sown and people are being saved, Satan (the enemy) is continuing to work to fight against God, just like this image shows us. Friends, this should give us hope because it means there is hope, even if it feels like the world is just getting worse!

-The second passage that illumines this text is from John 4 right after he met a sinful woman at the well and told her that He is the Messiah. His disciples come back very confused, and here’s how Jesus answers their questions:

-His disciples can read the signs of the seasons, as can we! As the temperature drops at night, we know the leaves will start changing colors, and then the first frost will come and kill all your plants. But how good are we at reading the signs of the spiritual seasons? See, we’re supposed to be looking for opportunities to share the gospel indiscriminately, we’re supposed to be like the Sower who doesn’t care what soil we’re in we continue throwing out seed.

-Because here’s the other reality: the harvest is abundant. Friends, spiritually it’s harvest season all year long! You don’t need to wait for pumpkin spice season to invite people in!

-What we see in Revelation is the implication of the gospel going out. As the seed of the gospel takes root in people’s lives they continue to grow and produce more fruit in more people and eventually will be harvested into heaven. Jesus uses so many different harvesting illustrations that John would have remembered and picked up on as he saw this vision from the Lord. 

-And because Jesus talked about this so much, I don’t want us to miss one of the applications for us today. Look at vs 38 here:

-Friends, this means we need to actively be praying that the gospel continues to go out, that more people are called by the Lord to go out and share the gospel. But this message isn’t just for others, we’re included in that “workers” word. There’s a reason we end every service saying: “you are sent.” God welcomes you in each week, and then God sends us out each week to live as his witnesses and to share the gospel in our words and our lives.

-But that’s only 1 harvest, John is given a glimpse of another harvest:

  • The Grape Harvest (17-20)

-Differences: first is done by the Son of Man, second by an angel. This one has some connection to the altar and the fire on the altar. This second one talks about the implication of the harvest, first one just mentions that the earth was harvested, so it seems like a bit of a stretch to argue that this is exactly the same as the previous one.

-First thing is an angel with a sickle, we’ve seen a sickle before! He’s ready to go, but he’s waiting for the call, so yet ANOTHER angel comes with a message.

-“Authority over fire” connection back to 8:3-5, judgment coming because of the prayers of the saints, which I think is also signified by “came from the altar” which also connects us back to the saints in Rev. 6:9 There the martyrs are begging God to return in judgment and avenge them, but they’re told to wait a little longer. Now we’re seeing that time has come.

-Instead of wheat, this time he’s to gather clusters of grapes because they’re ripe, and this is where the story diverges from the previous harvest. The grapes are successfully harvested, but then they thrown into a great winepress of God’s wrath.

-This connects to last week’s text again, 10 “he will also drink the wine of God’s wrath,” so John is saying where this judgment is coming from. Wine pressing is an interesting phenomenon in the 1st cent. The way wine was made was stomping on the grapes in a winepress until the juice flowed out, that juice was collected and preserved to let it ferment and create wine. 

-This idea is actually picked up in Rev. 19 in a description of Jesus. The one who’s enacting God’s judgment is Jesus. We talked a bit last week about God’s wrath, but don’t miss that Jesus is also wrathful. So often Jesus is pictured as a hippy who walked around with long flowing locks and told everyone to just get along, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, the difficulty is Jesus just doesn’t play by the same earthly rules that we tend to get so bogged down in. He doesn’t have to play the power game because He’s already reigning supremely. And while His first coming was in humility, His second coming is with a vengeance.

-But there are some things for us to note about this pressing of the wine. First: outside the city. We have an opposite idea of the city today than the 1st century would have!

-City provided protection and safety from the oppression of the wilderness where you could be robbed or attacked by wild animals. I have a friend who lives in downtown St. Paul and anytime he offers to host a meeting I ask if it’s safe to come in there from the burbs! Outside the city is where you were left to fend for yourself, and this is even more true when you realize that coming up in Rev. 21, the city of God will come down to be the place where God’s people can live securely, so being pressed outside of the city is a terrifying reality.

-And even more terrifying: what flows out isn’t juice but a river of blood up to about 5’ for 1,600 stadia (which is approximately the length of Palestine 1,664 stadia), symbolically it’s 4×4 by 10×10 – if you can think back to 7:1 we saw the 4 corners of the earth, thinking back to Rev. 4 there are 4 living creatures, so 4 is often referring to all of creation, then 10 refers to completeness, so what’s signified is the way God’s wrath extends to all of creation.

-One of the most significant things we’ve seen through this book is the reality that there are only 2 ways to live: either for God or against God, and everyone is moving closer to one of those realities with each decision they make.

-One of the incredible things about this section in Revelation is the judgment only comes after the eternal gospel has been proclaimed. Look back in your Bibles to 14:7 “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship the one who made heaven and earth.” How do we do that? 

  • Blood Enough?

-Throughout this section there has been this idea of wine and blood almost intermixed. Those who have the name of the beast will drink the wine of God’s wrath, here we see that wine is actually blood and condemnation on those who are opposed to God, but even in the midst of this, there is good news because someone has drunk the entire cup of God’s wrath, and now stands willing to welcome us in with open arms where we won’t need to drink that cup or be crushed in the winepress of God’s wrath, someone who took all of God’s wrath on Himself and now gives the freedom to live a new life: Jesus.

-The reality is this description of brutality described here could also be seen as describing the payment Jesus made. Do you know where Jesus was crucified? Outside the city. And think of how Isaiah describes the crucifixion in Isa. 53 Jesus was trampled so that we don’t need to be, his blood poured out so that ours doesn’t need to be.

-And what about the 1,600 stadia? Quote from Discipleship on the Edge What an incredible blessing that we have! Jesus was crushed on our behalf, His blood ran freely so that ours wouldn’t. His blood is enough to cover every sin of those who repent and believe in Him.

-Jesus talks about this idea on his last night before the crucifixion, He pleads with His Father to take the cup of wrath away, but submits Himself to His Father. Friends, Jesus drank the whole cup, not a drop of wrath needs to be given to any of us IF we trust in Jesus as the one true Messiah, the Savior of the world.

-Salvation is both the most difficult and easy thing in the world. Difficult because it meant someone had to die, someone’s blood had to run, someone had to drink the full cup of wrath. But easy because now you don’t have to, now the Bible says salvation requires 2 things: confess and believe. Confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He reigns over everything and is worthy to be worshipped and praised, and then believe that truth in your heart which means focusing your life in a different direction, and this is true for all of us, whether you’re a brand new believer or you’ve been a believer for 100 years, if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, do you live like it? What step do you need to take today to better live in Jesus’ kingdom here? 

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by mikethestrand on September 15, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on September 15, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/09/15/revelation-1414-20-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 39 – Sermon Manuscript

-Do you know anyone that never seems like they’re actually interested in talking to you? They always look just past you to see if there’s someone else they should be talking to so you end up feeling like an inconvenience. I know someone like that, and it frustrates me every time I talk to him! I’d rather he just tell me he’s busy than stand there and pretend to listen to me! At the other end of the spectrum I’ve met a number of people who are “Christian famous” who will remain completely engaged and focused on you no matter what’s going on around them. Met Matt Chandler once, and it really stood out to me!

-Which one of those responses do you view God’s way of engaging with you?

READ/PRAY

  1. Silent Suffering (1-3)

-Who is Jeduthun? Psalm 62, 77 – 1 Chron. 25:1

-Remember, these are written as the songbook for God’s people, just like we might make notes to Tami, Richie, or Micah

-David begins by contemplating how to be a happy person, which is the aim of this book! “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.”

-How are we happy? By living the way God commands us to!

-He starts by pursuing holiness with his mouth, the way he speaks.

–James 1:26. 3:6-10. Isn’t it fascinating the way James talks about the tongue? He says that the tongue is the marker of whether or not someone is “religious” (said in a positive way here, truly following after God). He goes on “no one can tame the tongue” no one. Out of the same mouth praises God, and belittles humans who are created in God’s image.

-Reflection on Jesus’ words in Luke 6 – the mouth reveals what’s really in your heart. 

-Maybe you’ve had this experience where something happens to you that you know isn’t good or right, and you overreact. Anger, frustration, flippant, and even in the middle of your poor response you tell yourself that you’re overreacting, but you can’t stop! 

-Swindoll “Life is 10% happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Jesus talks about this reality earlier in Luke 6: If anyone hits you, turn the other cheek. If anyone takes your coat, give them your shirt. You can’t control what other people do, but you can control the way you respond, and that’s what God cares about. We’ll talk more about this idea later, but keep it in mind as we work our way through it.

-This is what David is meditating on in this Psalm. He doesn’t want to sin against God, but he’s seeing the wicked sinning and seemingly not suffering for it. He kept silent even when he wanted to speak good, so he got more and more frustrated at the lot of the world.

-Don’t expect the world to act like Christians, they’re not saved! But you will feel an inner turmoil about it, I know I do! It’s hard when it feels like Christians are being increasingly marginalized, when pastors are no longer trusted (read this week that trust in clergy fell to the lowest on record at 32%), when pastors fail at what feels like an alarming rate. Is there anyone actually following after God? What’s the point?

-We’re not the first people to feel that way! This is part of the reason the Bible remains relevant even 3,000 years after it was written – humans haven’t changed! We have the same desires, we still sin, and God is still God.

  • Short Shadows (4-6)

-Eventually, the tension builds up in David and he can’t help but talk, but just as last week he directed his focus in a specific direction, this week he does the same thing. 

-Look at the first word of this verse: Lord. Up to this point the pressure had been building in David, the frustration was increasing, but instead of blowing up at someone standing nearby, he aims his direction to the only one who can truly help him with his situation.

-Maybe you’ve been in a situation like this, where you were working your hardest to not respond in a mean way. Kids, maybe you’ve had that experience where your sibling just keeps pushing your buttons and they won’t stop! David is demonstrating for us here the right way to respond: go to God! Pray! Ask God to help you! God can handle your complaints, He knows all your emotions, and He’s promised to walk with you through every situation in life.

-But what David asks isn’t help in the present situation, it isn’t for God to destroy his enemies, this time he asks God to help David remember the end of his life.

-That’s a fascinating thought, isn’t it? All of us are mortal, we will someday die, and the older you get the shorter you realize your life is. Calvin turned 7 this past week, and I don’t feel like I’m old enough to have a 7-year-old! In my mind he’s still crawling in diapers! One of the things I’ve tried to do with my kids (imperfectly) is to not make them feel like they’re growing up too quickly, because of this reality. Calvin has lived 7 years, he should be a 7 year, regardless of how I feel, and if I just try to keep him stuck at where I feel like he should be both he and I miss out on the joy of our relationship today! This is what David’s expressing in theses verses. Our lives are nothing when you compare them to eternity. That’s why last week’s message is so important: endure in the midst of suffering and difficulty, because the end is coming! 

-There’s a sobering that comes when you reflect on your future, isn’t there? It shifts your focus, keeps today’s difficulties in perspective, and should bring joy to today’s experiences. I think this is where it’s so important to spend time with people older and younger than you. Older people help you remember that life is short (“just you wait, blink and they’ll be in high school”), younger people help you remember to take advantage of each day. Every day when my kids wake up they ask “what fun thing are we going to do today?” Every day is full of potential, if we are willing to be faithful with it!

-There’s a phrase that David uses here at the end of vs. 5 that is most often used in Ecclesiastes: vapor. It’s the Hebrew word hebel which has led to all sorts of debates about its’ meaning! It’s translated as breath, or emptiness, or vain, or futility. Some have translated it as fog.

-And David is comparing human life to that hebel, that vapor. Thankfully, winter hasn’t come yet, but during a cold winter day when you walk outside, what happens when you breathe out? You can see your breath! How long can you see your breath? A couple seconds? That’s how God sees human life, just like we see our breath.

-But this is only true of our earthly life. That’s what David means when he talks about being aware of our end! We need to factor eternity into our daily lives, and by keeping an eternal perspective, it will shift the way we engage our lives today. 

-There’s a missionary named CT Studd (1860-1930) served as a missionary in China, India, Africa who wrote a poem that has a refrain that is embedded in my mind: “only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

-Selah. Contemplate the idea that your life is a vapor.

-David then continues contemplating the how short his life is, describing life as a “mere shadow,” where people rush around to get stuff, but they don’t know where they’ll end up. Have you ever considered that nothing you have will last forever?

-We see this in history, I think. Think of how we’ve discovered the Egyptian Pharaohs buried: with all their stuff, and sometimes even some of their slaves, which his incredibly morbid. But they didn’t believe this! They thought they were able to take all their possessions into the afterlife! 

-I read a couple stories this week about some of these realities that helped me to understand some of what David’s saying. The first was a man who looked at the average life expectancy for a male in the US and calculated how many days he had left. Each day he would knock a number off to remind him to “count his days.” Similarly, my dad’s dad died of a heart attack at 62. My dad and his brothers calculated the exact day, and when each of them turned that age they send a text out to the thread to give thanks for their good health. How do you number your days?

-The second story was about a man who lost his wife in his late 60s, but by God’s grace was able to meet another woman who had lost her husband about the same time. This man worked hard, but he wasn’t wealthy by any means! The woman he married, however, first husband was VERY wealthy! So this man who never had much suddenly had access to this other man’s wealth: friends you can’t take anything with you, even money! Only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.

  • Substance (7-13)

-Once again, David turns his attention to the Lord. He asks a question that’s true for all of us: What are we waiting for? 

-I think just as he’s been contemplating the realities of living in the world, here he’s continuing to ponder that idea. Another component of being human is waiting, isn’t it? You wait for food to be done, you wait in line at the grocery store, you wait at traffic lights, you wait for your kids to get ready, or you wait for your mom and dad to play with you! But then as you get older, you’re waiting for bigger things: you wait for your dream job, you wait for your dream car, you wait for the perfect house, you wait for a vacation, you wait for retirement. Yet each time you achieve what you were waiting for it changes, doesn’t it? That dream car doesn’t seem to be quite a dream when you have to take care of it, the dream job isn’t quite as dreamy as you had thought when you run into issues and conflict, and it’s not quite as fun or enjoyable as you thought it would be.

-What does David wait for? He says his hope is in the Lord, he’s hoping for God to be present to him. He’s asking God to be with him, to come alongside, to support him. If God is with him, it changes all the other waiting that we do on earth, doesn’t it? Suddenly all the other waiting starts to make sense because God is doing a work in us even as we wait. It shifts our perspective and mindset as we wait for the events on earth.

-But there’s a second component to this hope because David needs salvation from God. Another component to numbering our days is pursuing holiness instead of dabbling in our sin.

-We talked quite a bit about this in last week’s Psalm, but there are consequences to our sin, the question for us is what do we do with our sin? Do we continue to play with it assuming that it’s not that big of a deal, or do we confess our sins and bring them to the only person who has provided a way for our sin to be dealt with?

-When we keep our focus on eternity it begins to make our sins look really dumb. God doesn’t give us a list of rules as a punishment or as chains, God tells us how to live so that we can have life to the full! He wants us to live full, healthy lives in this world that He’s created, which means He knows best how we should live and desires that all of us can be in lasting relationship with Him.

-So friends, deal with your sin. Because your life is just a moment, keep short accounts. Because your life is just a vapor deal with your sin today.

-Selah. 

-The last place David goes is asking God to hear him because this world isn’t his home.

-I don’t know about you, but I love home (the place where your phone automatically connects to the Wi-Fi). I know where everything is (most of the time), I’ve got my earthly possessions there, I can grab food from the fridge whenever I want, it can become too easy at times to remember that this world isn’t actually my home. It can get too easy to get comfortable here and not count my days, not deal with my sin, not keep God as the focus of my life, which is why I need reminders like this Psalm. I need the reminder to keep an eternal perspective each day so that I don’t become complacent in my walk with God.

-As we wrap up, I want us to contemplate David’s direct requests to the Lord throughout this Psalm, there’s 3: (4) make me aware of my end, (7) what do I wait for, and (12) hear my prayer. 

-These 3 requests together are how we are able to keep eternity as the focus of our lives. The first is the reminder of our mortality. Because of sin, we will all die at some point. Because we will die, we should live differently today, which is what leads to the second request.

-We wait for the Lord! I think Paul gets at how we do this in Phil. 4:6-7. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can live a worry-free life! That’s a whole lot easier to say than to live. But look at the outcome: the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. Friends, lasting peace is possible, but only through Jesus, which gets us to the third one, and what Paul also mentions here:

-In everything, through prayer and petition, present your requests to God, or as David says “Hear my cry!” Bring everything to the Lord: your hopes, your sickness, your sin, your joys, He’s honestly the only one who’s patient enough to deal with it all! 

-Just as we saw last week with David’s reaction to being sick was to run to God, we see the same thing this week. We need to each day run to God because He cares for us, because He helps us to number our days, and because He’s the only one who can bring lasting peace to our lives. 

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by mikethestrand on August 11, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Life, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 11, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/08/11/psalm-39-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 32 – Sermon Manuscript

-Do you ever feel like someone’s always watching you? Security cameras everywhere (even in our building!), self-checkout you can watch them recording you!

-It would take 17 hours to read the terms and conditions for the top 13 apps in the UK

-I figure at this point that Google knows more about me than I do. And if that’s true of Google, how much more is it true of God? He created us, He knows us far more intimately than even Google does! So why do we so often pretend like we can keep things hidden from Him? 

-We’re going to talk to today about something that affects us all, something that has been true of almost every human being who has ever lived (1 exception, which we’ll get to), that is we are all sinners. EDoT: “Sin is not only an act of wrongdoing but also a state of alienation from God.” Rom. 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Anyone left out of that? Nope!

-But we don’t talk about it much today, and if we do we’ve somewhat sanitized this idea. We talk about messing up, a mistake, it was my bad, but we don’t often think about it how bad it is: cosmic treason against the Holy Creator God. I don’t say that lightly or carelessly, but because we have committed treason, all of us, we are worthy of eternal separation from God. 

-We talk a LOT today about God’s love, about His forgiveness, His mercy, and those are all right and good, but the only reason they’re good is because of just how terrible sin is, and I don’t think we give much thought to that anymore. We may have thought about it when we read ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’ in high school, or if we hear about someone REALLY messing up, but we don’t think about ourselves as sinners very often.

-Today’s passage gives us the reality that we’re all sinners, but it also tells us how to deal with that sin so it no longer affects us.

READ/PRAY

  1. Joyful Forgiveness (0-2)

-David wrote this, has some similar ideas to another Psalm he wrote – 51, after his sin with Bathsheba was uncovered. 

-Maskil – no one knows what that means, root word has to do with teaching or instruction, but that title is on a number of Psalms that don’t fit that.

-Joyful: happy, blessed. Begins the exact same way as the very first Psalm. Our minds should immediately jump back to that first Psalm, which gives us the theme of the whole book. If you want to be truly happy (not fleeting, like graduation which the gifts eventually break, or wedding day which is just 1 day, or getting a new car which eventually becomes an old car), it only comes through being obedient to God, by being a God-like person, responding as God would respond if He were you. Heavy job!

-Jesus talked about this too! One of his most famous sermons Matt. 5. Same word used here! Happy are the…

-Instead of rooting this joy/happiness in what we would think of blessing, David goes to sin. Does that feel like a sharp left turn to you? Maybe this should tell us something about the way we think about our sin! Instead of being flippant or careless to it (which has been an issue since at least the 1st cent.) Where Paul had to warn someone not to continue in sin to get more grace because that’s not the way it works! If we want blessing it comes by continuing to fight against the sin that we have within us.

-David uses 3 words to describe sin here, each one having a slightly different connotation and significance to them:

-Transgression – this gets to the idea of rebellion. Think of what we saw in Rev. 12 of Satan stirring a great rebellion against God. He tried to become god and let an entire revolt against him, but lost. If we don’t trust in Jesus we are a part of the rebellion. I think this is a part that is often missed today. We don’t start from a place of goodness, or even a place of neutrality when we look at God’s standard. All of us start in the same place: condemned as sinners.  I’ve had 5 kids now – it’s amazing how much we don’t need to teach them to be sinners! And it’s also amazing how much work it is to shape them to become upright people (I’d say it’s impossible until they’re saved!). 

         -This means that because we sin, God sees us in outright rebellion against Him. That’s why I’ll saw there’s only 2 options in your life! And we often only compare ourselves to other sinners, not to a completely perfect God, who is the standard we’re supposed to compare ourselves to. When we compare ourselves to perfect, who would dare to say they’re good enough? Think of one of the old proverbial phrases “to err is human” Being human means you will err, you will sin, you will transgress.

         -Think of it like this: could you get pulled over for going 1 mph over the speed limit? Technically, yes! That is breaking the law as it’s supposed to be the LIMIT for driving in that area, but we all know we’re not going to get pulled over. We tend to view God’s law the same way: technically it’s breaking the law, but God’s going to give grace to me, when in reality we’re just demonstrating that we’re more willing to rebel against Him than we would care to admit. 

-Sin – this one is picked up by a Greek word that means “missing the mark.” Often used in connection to archery. Think of your favorite local retail store: anyone know what store this is? Target. If you were aiming at the bullseye and you hit here, would that be successful?

         -Once again, so often we’re using the wrong standard of measurement when we think about sin. If we miss the mark, well that’s just human. Exactly! There’s an eternal chasm that separates the perfection God calls us to and the way we actually live. We all constantly and repeatedly miss the mark, no matter how hard we try we can’t ever reach it.

         -One of the best days of my life growing up was when I finally reached a mark. As I’ve shared, I love basketball, I’ve been playing basketball as long as I can remember, and there’s different goals you have as you grow. When I was in 7th grade I remember finally being able to touch the net. From there it’s grabbing the net and pulling yourself up, and then the backboard, and finally the rim. Rim is 10’, do you think it would be possible to ever touch it if it were 20’? Anthony Edwards can jump ridiculously high, but I don’t think even he could touch that net! What if it were in space? That’s where you start to get how far off the mark we are compared to God’s perfect standard. There’s literally no way for you to reach it.

-Iniquity – corrupted or twisted. This gets to the very motivation for us. Not only do we sin, but we still want to do sin! Think of what Paul says in Rom. 7“For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.” We can’t help ourselves! We’re literally at war within ourselves for anyone who is in Christ. We fight against the sin within us, striving and straining against the sin, at least we’re supposed to be.

         -There’s a word that’s not used much anymore, but signifies what we’re supposed to be doing: mortifying sin, that is killing it. John Owen “be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” (The Mortification of Sin). Friends, it’s much easier to just ignore it, or pretend sin isn’t an issue, but until Christ returns we’re going to continue needing to fight against sin, and until we actually start fighting and pushing back against sin, we won’t be blessed or happy. Remember, to err is human, but the quote goes on: to forgive divine. How does forgiveness come in?

-This is where we see 3 words that show us how God’s grace comes against even our sin, 1 for each of the ways we sin, did you see them as we were reading?

-Forgiven – pardoned from holding you accountable for your rebellion. Have you ever considered the power of forgiveness? Think of Les Miserables: Jean Vaujaun is forgiven for stealing silver and it literally changes the course of his life, that’s meant to be a picture of the what forgiveness does to us.

-Covered – when you miss the mark, God’s mark is counted instead of yours. Gets to the idea of the Passover (we’ve seen in Revelation the need to keep the Exodos story at the front of our minds). Anyone remember whiteout?

-Does not charge – take the biggest loan you’ve ever had (house, car, college) and imagine logging into your account and seeing the balance is $0, and you didn’t pay it. And all of this is rooted in who God is (grow in your theology!)

-Do you see what David’s saying here? The way to be happy is have all your sins dealt with once and for all, and that’s only possible because of who God is. He’s actually picking up on an idea from the Exodus:

-Some commentators believe David was reflecting on this passage because he uses the same language: Ex. 34 – forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin, same words! And look at how this passage describes God. Slow to anger, abounding in hesed. Compare His judgment to His love and forgiveness. The God of the OT isn’t all judgment and wrath!

-Paul quotes these verses in Rom. 4 to make the point that forgiveness from God is only possible if you have faith in Him, which begins an argument 2 chapters earlier where we see that God’s hesed is meant to lead to repentance. If we repent, we will be happy/blessed people, but what happens if we don’t? David goes on to list exactly what happens.

  • Sinful Desolation (3-5)

-Unlike someone who’s happy, because their sins are covered is someone who refuses to acknowledge that they’ve sinned. David could think on a time like that, and it literally affected his body!

-If you’ve ever had secret sin, have you ever felt this way? Like it physically was eating you up from the inside, and if people only knew what was actually going on inside they’d reject you? Remember: God knows everything, including what you think. You can’t hide from him, but many people do try to hide. What’s scary is if you become numb to sin and don’t have a reaction! That’s when you need to start worrying.

-Selah: I want you to take some time now to reflect and ask the Lord to reveal any sins that you need to confess.

-After having his body waste away from trying to hide, David confesses, and God forgives. John picks up this same idea in 1 John. We see this tension between still being sinners, but being able to be cleansed from our sins, and all it takes is confession. Doesn’t that seem too easy? On the one hand, I worry that we don’t take our sin seriously enough, but at the same time I also worry that we sometimes don’t confess because we feel like we need to pay some kind of penance or earn God’s forgiveness. This is why the message of the gospel is (or should be) so scandalous! It’s not based on what you or I have done, it’s based on what Jesus has done.

-I realize we just had one, but there’s another Selah in here for a reason! So take some time and think about the sins the Lord may have just brough to mind and confess them.

  • The Response of the Forgiven (6-11)

-Therefore: building on everything else said so far. Since forgiveness is possible, what should the response be?

-Instead of bottling it up and trying to hide, pray IMMEDIATELY to God and ask for forgiveness! When this happens, you suddenly go from being in rebellion against God to being able to withstand anything that comes your way. See: great floodwaters won’t hurt them (even a flood like Noah faced). God becomes our safe place. I onetime heard a story about the way we should think of God in relation to our sin, when a little kid gets into trouble is their instinct “Oh no, dad’s gonna kill me!” or “Oh no, I need to go find my dad!” Friends, because of what Jesus has done for us, our response should be the second one. When we sin, we run to God because His grace and mercy are enough for all our sins.

–Selah

-Here we see what this could be viewed as instruction, we end with an exhortation from David. He contrasts following and being obedient to God with bring like a horse or mule who can’t do the right thing. Very similar to how Paul describes unbelievers in Rom. 1 as suppressing the truth and refusing the acknowledge the Creator God who rules over them.

-He goes on to say that many pains come to the wicked, but whoever trusts the Lord will be surrounded by faithful love.

-We don’t always see that around us. Doesn’t it often seem like the wicked are the ones who are doing well? That the one who cuts the most corners gets ahead, the one who cheats gets the raises and accolades, and Christians are increasingly marginalized? Psalm 73 talks about that exact idea! Asaph is complaining about how the wicked always prosper and do well while he’s wasting away, but then he gathers with God’s people and is reminded what’s truly true. Friends, God will bring about perfect and eternal judgment and justice someday, and when that day comes you can either have many pains, or faithful love: which one will you have?

-The last verse is a reminder for us to praise God for His forgiveness that is given to the 1000th generation! We can choose today to be forgiven, to be healed, to have our sin covered over, and to be finally and fully happy and blessed.

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by mikethestrand on June 16, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 16, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/16/psalm-32-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 31 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever had one of those experiences where your response to a situation doesn’t match what’s happening? I remember most acutely feeling that during college. You leave for a year, then come back home and suddenly things at home feel weird. Siblings bother you in new ways, parents rules are overly restrictive all of a sudden, your best friends are acting weird (graduates, just wait a year, and I promise I won’t say I told you).

-As we grow as Christians, there will be times and seasons where our response doesn’t match the situation at hand. What do we do when that’s true? How do we snap out of it, and what would God have us do in the midst of those situations?

-I remember hearing someone onetime say the problem with people is they listen to themselves instead of preaching to themselves. If we feel discouraged doesn’t your inner voice make it worse? Or if you’re sad doesn’t your inner voice make you more sad? Or if you’re feeling guilty doesn’t your inner voice heap on even more guilt? Today’s text will demonstrate exactly what it means for us to take every thought captive for Christ – and it doesn’t come by faking it til you make it, or by reciting a verse out of context (God causes all things to work for good), but by being real with God.

READ/PRAY

-Housekeeping notes:

-Book of Psalms vs individual Psalm (please don’t get a tattoo PsalmS)

-Psalms were the songbook of God’s people throughout history, the songbook of Jesus, and gives words to the gamut of human emotion and experience. Luther called it a “mini Bible,” because it traces the whole storyline of Scripture, and points to realities of the incarnation of God’s Son. Athanasius “Whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you . . . learn the way to remedy your ill.” 

-These are used to help you know how to talk to God during every season of your life. I use that term season intentionally. I’ve found it helpful for myself to think of life in terms of seasons. Read The Resilient Life in seminary on this

-Every ministry job I’ve interviewed for has asked the question to my about balance in work and life. I don’t think there is. Wobble is better word.

-But God is still God in every season you’re in. “All of my life in every season you are still God.” (Desert Song). The Psalms are here to give us words in every season we’re in. Soak your mind in them, friends. 

-I know many people who read through this book each month, I’m doing a Bible reading plan this year that reads through it twice. Some orders of monks read through it every week.

-These are poetry, very different than prose, very different from apocalyptic. Read it full of flowery language, lots of extremes (very high highs and very low lows). Lots written by King David, all have musical notation, but none have the musical notes (intentionally).

-Last thing is the headings (verse 0) are a part of the original writings. Some give information about events that inspired the Psalm, some have musical notations, some tell the author. 

-Can be hard to preach, so keep that in mind! Because it’s poetry in order to get a cohesive outline we need to read it more section by section instead of verse by verse, so if I don’t touch on a verse you really liked or wanted to learn more about, I’m sorry! 

-Some notes about this Psalm: themes repeated in other places in the Bible. Psalm 71 copies the first 3 verse verbatim. Jesus quotes vs. 5 on the cross, Jonah quotes 6 from the belly of the fish, Jeremiah quotes vs. 136x. This one was apparently popular!

  1. God Is a Refuge (1-8)

-David begins by committing to seek refuge in God. 

-There are many times and places where David would be tempted to beg this of God. Chased by Saul, surrounded by enemies after he’s king, wayward children in his elder years who tried to take the kingdom away from him. There were many seasons in his life where he would need God to be a refuge.

-Disgrace means different things here than it would to us. Has a bigger and deeper meaning to them: social outcast, ghosted.

-If he’s been dismissed by everyone else, he starts to wonder if God will treat him the same way.

-Trusts himself to God’s righteousness. What does that mean? It means David is trusting himself in that God is right and will do right by His people. Since God is righteous, He can only be righteous to His children.

-Listen closely. One of the realities of being a parent today is the use of screens and how to handle them well with kids. I’ve had to learn how to be more present with my kids because they notice if I’m not actually engaged with them and distracted by my phone. This is David proverbially taking God’s face in his hands and saying “look at me!” That’s BOLD and takes courage, but is possible because he’s our Father.

-Interplay between 2-3. Asks God to be a rock of refuge, but it’s because God is a rock and fortress.

-James Montgomery Boice “’You are…then be…’ should be the prayer of every Christian.” Church, the reason we need to grow in theology is because it gives us a foundation to build the rest of our lives on. We could spend the rest of this sermon on this idea (actually the rest of our lives). Since God is faithful, we can ask Him to be faithful to us. Since God is love, we can ask Him to be loving to us. Since God is good, we can ask Him to be good to us. See, it’s only because of true things we know about Him (theology) that we can trust in Him throughout our lives. It’s only because we grow in theology that we can continue persevering in our faith and know that God will continue working in our lives. Theology isn’t just an intellectual pursuit, it’s a pursuit that is meant to help us better understand and trust Him. Keep that in mind as continue, I’ll come back to it.

-And notice how David continues: for your name’s sake. It’s not ultimately for us. 1 Cor. 6 your life is not your own, you were bought with a price. 

-David repeats this idea until vs. 6 where he contrasts himself with the wicked. I thought we were supposed to love everyone, including our enemies? Did Jesus just upend all this judging and hatred of the OT?

-Judge not? We’ve been reading some pretty dramatic ways Jesus responds to evil in Revelation lately. Does He just sit passively back and let evil run unchecked? No! Because God is the ultimate judge that provides a meaning even to our suffering today. On top of that, we even have a passage in the NT that tells us one of our jobs is to judge, but only a subset of people: the church. Friends, we must love each other enough to judge each other when we see sin grabbing a hold in someone’s life. 

-Idols were thought to bring healing and protection. Think more like a rabbits foot than a cosmic judge who sits on clouds. There were gods of each aspect of life. God of sea, god of rain, god of crops – needed to appease the right one based on the activity you were pursuing. 

-Where David lands this section is important. Instead of being handed to his enemy, God places him in a spacious place.

-Where would you rather go for a walk? Think of the freedom and joy that comes from a wide-open space to run and play. Think of Psalm 23 “He lets me lie down in green pastures.” Friends, this is God’s plan for your life! Wide open spaces. I remember growing up terrified that if I took 1 wrong step I would be outside God’s will and never get back on track. That’s not how God’s will works! He’s told us His will for all of us, and it leads to wide open spaces! You don’t have to be afraid of taking the wrong step, you don’t have to worry you’ll never get back on, this is the point of the overquoted passage in Rom. 8 that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. It means even when we take the wrong step, He’s still with us.

  • God Is Gracious (9-20)

-Things seem to take a sharp left turn for David here, almost as if he did step out of God’s plan for his life! He lists all sorts of issues: his body is failing him, he’s ridiculed, abandoned by his friends, ghosted, oppressed everywhere he looks. How do you respond in those situations?

-I remember when I was in high school reaching a point where God was starting to become more real to me. It felt like I was the only one following after God in the school, felt like I was the only one taking my faith seriously, and then my dad showed me 1 Kings 19: Elijah onetime felt the same way and God told Him (basically) get over yourself, you’re not as big of a deal as you think, I’ve got 7,000 others besides you. I learned that God works in community, not just individuals, so because God works in community, I can ask Him to give me community. God is always working to preserve His people! I can rely that I’m not alone and be encouraged to remain faithful. It is graduation season too – so high schoolers (and those who know a high schooler) remind them to remain faithful. It may feel like you’re the only one following God (even at a Christian college) so use this Psalm as a reminder to continue being faithful.

-Let’s look at how David responds, start in vs. 14

-Instead of focusing all his attention and energy on his peers, “friends” David looks to the Lord, and preaches to Himself in vs. 15. This is another reason I find the Psalms so helpful for us today: how often do we forget to preach to ourselves? How often do we succumb to listening to ourselves and then spiral worse and worse? Friends, this is part of the reason it’s so vital that we soak our minds in God’s Word. We need to have our minds shaped by what God says about us, not what we think or how we feel, because that changes minute by minute.

-Make your face shine is a way of denoting spending time in God’s presence. I’ve been kind of surprised how often that idea has come up in Revelation – the face shining connects back to Moses (Ex. 34) and also points to the transfiguration, which is then supposed to be reflected in believers today (2 Cor. 3:18).

-He goes on to contrast himself with the wicked (17-18), before going back to contrast them with those who fear (follow) God. He ends this section with something that we saw earlier that I told you to keep in mind. “God is….so be…” 

-God is good, therefore he asks God to be good to him, and everyone who fears him. Another reminder that we ask things of God because of who He is. Friends, God is good! And He is always working things out for us but it may not look like that while we’re on earth. Notice how it’s “stored up” Goodness is piled up in heaven just waiting for us!

-We’ve seen that through our time in Revelation: God continues protecting and preserving His people despite increasing persecution on earth. This is why we worship and praise God – because of His goodness (He IS good), because of His love (He IS love), because of His faithfulness (He IS faithful), even when it doesn’t feel that way. 

-This is another remind how important this gathering is in the lives of Christians. I don’t know about you, but I get discouraged during the week! I beat myself up, I doubt things about God that I know are true! But then I get to come in and have my selfishness shaken up each week! I get reminded that there’s something bigger than me, someone supporting me, and some people that He has called me to, which is the same place David ends:

  • God Is Faithful Love (21-24)

-It’s almost as if David has spent time in church! His outlook has been shifted, his desperation has changed and he realizes that God is on his side!

-The word he uses here is important hesed Sally Lloyd-Jones in The Jesus Storybook Bible “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” Because of all these truths about God, He always heard and always answers our prayers.

-We then see the need for us to live a certain way. Because God is faithful love, we can ask Him to be faithful in His love toward us, but we also need to respond by faithfully loving Him. If we do that then we can preach this last verse to ourselves and each other. We don’t need to fear, we don’t need to doubt, we can be strong, we can be courageous (bold!) because we know our outcome is as solid as the tomb is empty.

-End praying how this teaches us to pray. Spurgeon “We may pray to enjoy in experience what we grasp by faith. Faith is the foundation of prayer.”

-God is a refuge, so be a refuge

-God is faithful love, so be faithful love

-God is gracious, so be gracious

-God is good, so be good

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by mikethestrand on June 9, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 9, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/09/psalm-31-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 12:1-18 – Simon Manuscript

-8.5 years ago, there was much anticipation and excitement as the next Star Wars movie was released. This had been building since 2012 when Disney bought Lucasfilm, and it took 3 long years to get The Force Awakens to release. I remember eagerly sitting down to watch it, and it was a blast! Seeing Han and Chewy get back on the Millennium Falcon, watching lightsabers shoot out again, and it even featured a new cross shaped one! 

-Just 1 problem: it was literally the same story as Episode 4 – A New Hope. Bad guys are building a battle station, the good guys need to blow it up. It was so close to being such a good story, and then the next movies just devolved from there! Today’s text has a similar feel: things are so close to being good and right, only in this case, instead of bad writing, we have a literal enemy, a dragon.

READ/PRAY

  1. A New Hope (1-6)

-Preached on this section on Palm Sunday, so we’ll just do a quick overview! First is “a great sign” that John is shown of a woman who is unbelievably glorious.

-Descriptions are similar to some descriptions about God, and connects to Joseph’s dream back in Gen. 37

-Stand in for the people waiting for the Messiah, as if in labor, which is a description of Israel a number of times in the OT

-Another sign: a dragon. opposed to God’s people, tail sweeps stars out of the sky, many people believe this is referring to the original fall of Satan and his demons.

-Stood in front of the woman: Satan knows Gen. 3:15, and he has done his best throughout history to destroy all the offspring of the chosen one: Pharoah, Herod.

-Have you ever noticed that theme in the Bible? How many barren wombs are a part of Jesus’ genealogy? Or how many stories in the Bible are of a barren woman where God intervenes and brings about children? God’s plan was to save the world through an offspring, God works in people and families to bring about His perfect plan, and Satan has done everything in his power since the very beginning to thwart that plan and kill off God’s family.

-After all that, notice that the Son isn’t called a sign. The others are pointing to something else, but the Son is the point.

-Quickest description of Jesus’ ministry: born straight up to God! The dragon thought he was ready, thought he would finally win and defeat the Messiah, but he was again thwarted.

-Made me think of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. The Jesus figure is a lion who allows himself to be killed by the white witch in the story. He’s then raised back to life, and when asked why he says there’s a deeper magic that she didn’t know. Satan is just the prince of this world, he’s limited in what he can do, but God isn’t.

-Woman (God’s people) off to the wilderness. Think of all the times God’s people were led off into exile: Egypt, Babylon, Rome, place where they learn to fully rely on God. Yes, it’s a place that looks desolate, looks like only death is possible, but with God the wilderness becomes the place of provision.

-How many of you have experienced something similar in your own life? Times and seasons of stretching, times and seasons where you feel like you’re about to break, and then when you’ve made it through you look back and see God’s fingerprints over each step of the journey. I’ve had times like that, and I know some of you are having those times right now! One of the ironies I’ve found in my life has been the place that I viewed as a slice of heaven became one of the biggest wildernesses in my life.

-My last semester of college, I got asked to play piano for a friend’s wedding in Denver, and I fell in love with CO. I’ve been to Hawaii twice, I like CO better. I was going to move there after college at find whatever job I could, but I ended up back here! Then got a call to a church in Wyoming (close enough!), but after 4 years Cara and I moved to CO, I made it to heaven on earth! What I didn’t realize was the church had some major disfunction that took a couple years to rise to the surface. Church was growing numerically, which hid some of the issues, so then we tried adding a second campus, which also started to grow, so then we needed a second person to preach, and I was asked to take on that responsibility, but didn’t get to release the music side, so there were many weeks where I would lead the music and preach. I was exhausted and on the verge of quitting. A friend and I joked about working at the Smuckers plant next to the new campus just to provide for our family. Yet God was doing something in the midst of that that I can see now, but couldn’t at the time. He was stripping away some of my self-reliance, He was wooing me more to Him and affirming some of the ways He’s wired me that I didn’t want to admit. What I had thought would come from living in my favorite state, came from moving back to where I grew up: a church to love me and my family.

-Friends, don’t rush through the wilderness seasons – God doesn’t waste it, He wants what’s best for you, and wants you to realize that if you have Him, then nothing else matters.

-Back to 1,260 days – the time period between Jesus’ 2 comings, which could be summarized as a wilderness time! Things are difficult, but they’re training us that we need to rely more fully on God.

  • The Dragon Strikes Back (7-9, 13-18)

-God’s people are taken to the wilderness and protected/preserved by God for a season, but how does the dragon respond? With war!

-Michael (name means: who is like God) is viewed as the protector of God’s people, leads the charge against the dragon (the devil, Satan, deceiver)

-Because of his rebellion against God, he’s thrown out to the earth, where his reign seems to be supreme. 

-“The one who deceives the whole world” What do you think that looks like? Questioning God, doubting His Word and work, not obeying Him. Why do you think people so often question whether God exists or not? Why do you think when anything bad happens one of the first places people go is blaming God? Why do you think people who go through a wilderness season are more prone to give up on following after God? Do you think maybe there’s someone who’s sowing those kinds of seeds into the world?

-Think about what Paul tells us in Rom. 1 the world suppresses the truths of the gospel. People don’t want to admit that there is a supreme judge, an author of life who has expectations for his creation. Where do you think that comes from?

-We’ll look at that middle section at the end, because John picks up the idea of the dragon a few verses later.

-After losing the war, do you think Satan just gives up and admits defeat? Nope, when have you ever heard of a defeated enemy giving up easily? If he can’t win in heaven, he’ll try to take it out on God’s people who are left on earth.

-Reiterating what had already been said in the previous section, remember the woman was persecuted by the dragon, but then taken to the wilderness.

-God’s protection and provision are evident in how carefully He cares for His people. The wilderness looks like a place of desolation, but it’s the place where God can be proven the most faithful.

-Wings like an eagle: Ex. 19:4 “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Remember the exodus account is meant to serve as a model and foundational story for the way God’s people view the world. It’s the same thing for us! We were once slaves to sin, had no purpose or identity in ourselves, but God has made us a people, a kingdom of priests who love and serve the true God together.

-How long was she nourished? Time, times (2), half = 3.5, same time period we saw last week and in vs. 6. Remember, numbers are symbols not statistics in apocalyptic literature. They’re a stand in signifying something else. God’s provision of His people will continue through their entire wilderness wanderings. Just another reminder that God is in complete control, we can trust Him, we can follow Him, and we can persevere in difficult because we know our outcome is secure. 

-“from his mouth” think back to last week where something came out of the mouths of the witnesses. This time it’s a flood: accusations, deceptions, anything to get rid of this woman! I think this is pointing back to the deception that the devil brings. It’s literally in his name to deceive, to lead people astray, to discourage them and lead them away from following and obeying the one true God.

-And who helps the woman now? Creation. This is picking up another piece from the Exodus: as God’s people have been delivered they sing “You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them.” (Ex. 15:12) Creation knows who the king is, creation knows who to obey. We’re the ones who tend to disobey, the ones who give into the lies of the deceiver, we have since the beginning! Even if we were the ones in the garden, we would have eaten the forbidden fruit.

-I think this is modeled in Jesus’ so-called triumphal entry on the back of a donkey. The religious leaders get upset and tell Jesus to command everyone to stop praising Him, and Jesus responds. There’s a certain irony here, because the stones are crying out. The rest of creation operates as God intended, humans are the ones who don’t! Rocks cry out to God by being rocks! Dogs cry out to God by barking and wagging their tails. Fish cry out by being fishy. Humans are supposed to cry out by worshipping God with all they have and are, but so often we worship creatures instead of the Creator. Even nature obeys God’s commands, and this shows that God will continue protecting His people despite the work of the dragon.

-The woman is protected, so the dragon lowers his expectations a bit, and decides to go after the rest of the offspring. Who’s that? Those who believe in Jesus, the church!

-“Keep the commands” it’s no coincidence that what Satan first attacked was God’s commands. This is also the way we demonstrate that we’re children of God instead of children of the dragon: we are obedient to God’s commands. Think of what Jesus said as His last commission to His disciples: “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” Everything He commanded. Turn the other cheek, bless those who curse you, caring for the least of these. All of that is included in this command! And that’s just the first part!

-“hold firmly to the testimony” What do you hold on to firmly? What are you looking to as your source of comfort and strength? Easy life, money, job, marriage (if single), house, car, obedient kids, even the “right” church. All those things will fail you. Unless you hold firmly to Jesus you will be let down.

-Note that it says the dragon is waging war. This will continue happening. Satan isn’t going to give up just because the gospel message has been preached. He knows it better than we do, but he views that as even more reason to fight!

-I kept thinking of the old hymn by Martin Luther in connection to this passage this week ‘A Mighty Fortress’ which says at the end of the first verse: “On earth is not his equal,” but that’s not the end of the story, it goes on to say, “One little word shall fell him.” What’s that word? Jesus:

  • The Rise of Overcomers (10-12)

-Because Satan has been defeated, there are implications for you and me, and anyone who’s following after Jesus.

-First notice that how Satan is described: the accuser. Friends, don’t miss the reality that no one can out-sin the grace of God. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! When the accuser heaps his accusation on you, when it feels like a flood bearing down on you, remember that he has no more power.

-John Newton said, “Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” Newton wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” was saved while he was a working in the slave trade, then pursued abolition and became an Anglican priest. Yet he fought to see the slave trade abolished, and saw it happen just months before he died. Can you think of the guilt John had as he reflected on his life? You can’t just wipe those kinds of images off your mind. Yet God’s grace goes deeper still! Christ was, is, and always will be a great savior.

-Secondly, we need to remember back to the letters to the churches. One of the promises God gives is to the one who conquers, but that was just setting it up to get to this reality. How do we conquer?

-By the blood of the lamb. Think of what washes us as white as snow, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Jesus victorious death rendered all the accusations the devil can throw at us useless. The opposite of velcro. Rom. 8:33-34 Satan has no room to accuse! Only 1 person does, and He’s on our side! There’s a difference between guilt and shame for your sin. God wants us to run to Him when we’ve sinned! Because his mercy is greater than all our sin. The devil wants us to be like our first parents and run and hide. But if Christ died for us (which He did), then we need to run into His arms.

-By the word of their testimony. I think there are 2 aspects to this, the first is we need to be careful of our words. Are we zealous about telling the truth all the time? We worship and serve the one who described himself as the way, the truth, and the life, that means we can’t even be content with a little white lie (as if there was such a thing). Our testimony must be rooted in the truth. But secondly, we have to be willing to testify, regardless of the consequences. Jesus told us the world would hate us because it hated Him. We need to stop worrying about trying to be cool or impressive and instead worry about pleasing God.

-They did not love their lives. Death isn’t the worst thing that could happen to us, second death is. Jesus even said we shouldn’t be afraid of those who threaten to kill us physically. What does death do to us? And if even death doesn’t hold power over us, then we shouldn’t be afraid of anything else! 

-Finally, we end with a reminder to rejoice. Eph. 2:6-7 “He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” We’re already in heaven, we just don’t see it yet. The devil will continue thrashing around like a chicken with its’ head cut off, but it has no power. His time is short because we have an eternity to look forward to living with God. So persevere now, run to Christ when you sin, and know that his grace covers all of your sins.

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by mikethestrand on June 2, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 2, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/02/revelation-121-18-simon-manuscript/

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
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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/

Revelation 7 – Sermon Manuscript

-I grew up around farmers, which also means I grew up around farms. Both grandparents were farmers, uncles took over those farms. I don’t remember the exact time, but I know at one point I learned about branding the cows.

-For the uninitiated – cows have a tendency to wander, even going so far as to break down fences to continue their wandering. If your livelihood is connected to your cows, don’t you think you’d work hard to make sure you had them all? Branding became the solution. Each farm had to come up with a brand (and coinciding name) that stood for their farm. And you can imagine that as more people continued building these farms, they would have to come up with some kind of system, right? Here’s what they came up with! Pretty impressive, right?

-Today we’re going to be looking at what it means to be branded by God, to has His name imprinted on us.

READ/PRAY

  1. Sealing the Servants (1-8)

-The next part of John’s revelation, after seeing the undoing of the natural world is 4 angels, standing at the 4 corners of the earth, restraining the 4 winds. Remember 4 signifies the whole thing, just as the 4 living creatures stand in for all of the created order, here the 4 corners are standing in for all the earth.

-But what are the 4 winds? Let’s think back to what we saw last week where we saw another 4. 4 horsemen. Most scholars believe this is referring to that same event, the judgment of God coming down on the earth. A small group of people would argue this is referring to the literal stopping of winds from the earth, which for a 1st cent. Civilization that depended on the winds to sail would have been devastating. The outcome is the same, just different way of interpreting the text

-Another evidence that we shouldn’t read Revelation as linear. That’s us imposing our Western way of thinking onto the text of Scripture that takes place in a completely different time and place. The Bible has a specific context, written by people with personalities, yet guided along by the Holy Spirit each step of the way. It’s our job to (with the HS) figure out what exactly was going on, we’re not supposed to impose our ideas onto the Bible!

-4 angels holding the judgment back, another angel comes out from the east who has something in his hand: the seal of the living God.

-Remember we’d just seen the seals being torn open (at least the first 6)

-Another loud voice (just last what we saw last week)

-Don’t harm any of the creation for a bit. I want us to think about that for a bit. Remember from last week, even in the midst of suffering, even in the midst of persecution, even in the midst of difficulty God is still in control. He’s not an absent landlord, He’s not far off and removed, He’s ruling and reigning over everything and only allows evil to go so far.

-There’s this beautiful story that models that for us in the book of Job. Job was called a righteous man, God had blessed him with a big family, lots of wealth, but allowed Satan to test him by taking all his wealth, killing all his kids, and even making him incredibly sick. It got so bad that at one point his wife’s encouragement was: curse God and die. Super helpful! And then his best friends come and try to argue theology with him and try to convince him he’s done something wrong. All these terrible things happen, yet in the midst of that it says Job does not sin. I don’t know about you, but it takes a LOT less than what Job went through for me to jump to sin, blaming God, accusing God, asking God why (and to be fair, Job does finally get to ask God why), but what’s important for us to note from this story is that God’s in control. Satan can’t do whatever he wants, his power is limited.

-What that means, dear friends, is that evil will someday end. Evil is only permitted between the Fall in Genesis 3, and Christ’s second coming. As we’ll see in just a few verses, grace can’t be counted, but evil can. God will only allow a certain level of evil to continue, and then he’ll say “no more.” 

-Another way of thinking about this that’s been helpful for me is like food. When I was growing up I remember my mom teaching my about expiration dates on food, which means I turned it into a game to find the latest date possible on all the food we needed. I would scour the shelves trying to find one that expired later than the one my mom found. Just as our food eventually expires, Satan and evil have an expiration date. They can’t fight it, they can’t beat it, they can only submit to it. It’s the same thing for us – evil can only do so much to us, either Jesus will return and fix it, or He’ll take us home where evil can’t dwell!

-What does it mean to be sealed? Once again, John is picking up a theme from the OT (the knee jerk reaction to what we’re reading in here should be to think there’s some connection to the OT)

–Ezek. 9 – God’s temple was being abused, as we see throughout the OT, God’s people would swear allegiance to Him, then slowly start drifting away and need to be called back to Him. In this case, only some people are grieving the way God’s temple is being treated, so God has a mark put on them so that when the killing begins they’re spared. Once again, that should sound similar to another story in the OT that also has important mark being given: 

–Ex. 12 – The Passover. All these plagues bearing down on the Egyptians to demonstrate who the true God is (just as Revelation demonstrates God’s power over Satan and his followers, look at the way God is described in the seal “the living God” that’s how He’s unique! No other god is alive like our God). The last plague is the death of the firstborn. This is a way of signifying the family line would stop. But there was a way to be saved from this plague: and look at how it’s described “The blood…will be a distinguishing mark for you” Do you see that, even in the OT, God’s people were marked off as different and unique.

-Adventures in Odyssey mark

-We also need to pull in a couple other NT passages to understand what John’s getting at here, both in Eph. When does the sealing of God’s people take place? The moment of conversion, that time where your new life is given and you’re made a new person. But there’s also a future orientation to this sealing, the 4:30 says there’s a coming day of redemption where this sealing will matter.

-This sealing is also brought up again in Rev. 14:1 where it says the sealing is with the name of the Lamb and his Father’s name on their foreheads. The name is a way of referring to all of someone’s being. So this marker means they’re identified with God.

-What about the forehead? I think this is picking up a theme from Deut. 6 (which the 1st cent. Jews would have known) God’s words are said to be so important that we should “Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead.” Our entire way of viewing the world should be so saturated by God’s Word that it’s like it’s tattooed on our forehead. People need to see that there’s something different about us, not just that we say something, but that we live differently. This also picks up a theme we see back in Rev. 7 – 144,000

-We then have an interesting section, and one of those that probably reminds you of the sections of the Bible you tend to gloss over or skip: genealogies. I’ll keep saying this through the book, but remember numbers are almost always symbolic, trying to signify or stress something. So in this case we have 12 x 12 x 1000, specifically “every tribe of the Israelites.”

-Weird ordering, because Reuben is the oldest, only 1 of Joseph’s sons is listed and so is Joseph, but Dan isn’t listed. Judah makes sense because the focus of this book is the revelation of Jesus, and he comes from Judah’s line, but no one really knows why the rest are on here.

-To understand what John’s getting at we need to take a look at the next section:

  • Salvation for the Servants (9-12)

-Remember 2 weeks ago we saw a vision of the throne room where John was told about the lion, but looked and saw a lamb. 

-In this section, John is told a number of the sealed, but then he looks and sees what? A vast multitude! This is important, because this means people like you and me can be welcomed in, and it shows the fulfilment of God’s promises all the way back in the beginning.

-All the way back in Genesis 15, God met with Abram (not yet Abraham) and promised him that his family lineage would be so big that you couldn’t count them. And what does John see in Rev? A family so big that no one can count them. Friends don’t miss this: God’s plan from the very beginning has been to bring people from every tribe, tongue, and nation into His kingdom! Whereas it used to be limited to a specific ethnicity, He’s now blown open the limits and welcomes everyone in. 

-But John’s referring to them here as Israelites why is that? It’s a way of saying that God’s plans haven’t changed. Just as He preserved His people in the OT, He’s continuing to preserve them today.

-John is picking up some ideas throughout the rest of the NT. Romans 2: where the sign of being a follower of God was circumcision in the OT, now it’s the circumcision of the heart, which only the Holy Spirit can do! 

-Similarly in Gal. 3: who are Abraham’s seed now? Those who belong to Christ! God’s plan of redemption, while it started with a specific ethnic group, has now gone global! Everyone is now welcome to the family of God, and will be in heaven with Him forever.

-How do you think he can tell there’s all these ethnicities? People look different! If it’s just a glance that John’s given, he can see these different groups of people represented. Think of that. Jesus even talked about the implications of that in Acts 1: Jesus tells his disciples that they would witness about Him: in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Church you’re sitting here today because that’s true! 

-I was listening to a podcast last month that was talking about this idea. If you think in terms of generations, we’re only 50 generations removed from these disciples. Isn’t that crazy? If you take 40 years as an average generation, we could trace our faith lineage back by only 50 generations to the beginning of the church. What Jesus promised would happen has happened! You and I are sitting here today because 50 generations of people have had their lives changed by the coming of Jesus, and have been willing to share that with other people. And the great news that will continue happening until Jesus comes back! Even if it takes 100 more generations it will happen!

-Look at the way this multitude is described: standing before the throne. Think back to last week, which ended with a question: “who is able to stand before the lamb?” Here’s the answer: a multitude of people who were clothed with white robes.

-Remember we saw those white robes last week. They were given by God to the martyrs as a symbol of their purity. That idea first came up in 3, letter to the church at Sardis, those who walk with the Lord will be clothed in white.

-They also have something in their hands: palm branches: connects to palm Sunday – celebration for salvation.

-Think of what the people sing when Jesus enters Jerusalem: “Hosanna (save us) blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” What do the people sing this time? Salvation belongs to God alone, who is seated on his throne, and to the Lamb. 

-This is a celebration! They’re rejoicing that Jesus has come back again, salvation has been accomplished, they’re now able to stand in God’s presence without fear so they rejoice.

-Church, this is the reason we meet each week! We gather on Sunday because it is a reminder to us that Jesus accomplished salvation on our behalf when he walked out of that tomb. This gathering is a celebration because salvation belongs to God alone, and we rejoice at the fact that we can now come boldly into his presence without fear because of what Jesus has accomplished for us.

-But it’s not just the saints praising God, look who else joins in! The rest of the creation: angels, elders, 4 living creatures. 

-This section is unique in the whole Bible: Amen at the beginning and the end. They’re agreeing with everything the saints have said, but they go on to share 7 things they’re praising God for. Because God’s plan is perfect.

  • Sheltering the Servants (13-17)

-Elders asked a question (equal to John, not above, another reason to think of these as angels) 

-GRK John calls him lord. John doesn’t have any idea who they are or where they came from. So he’s given an answer.

-The great tribulation?

-Just like last week, where the 4 horsemen are wreaking havoc on the earth, this is referring to what’s going on now. Doesn’t say anything about limited this tribulation to 7 years.

-Think of WW2 – some of the most intense fighting was when the war had essentially been decided, so Satan will continue fighting up until the very end. 

-“For this reason” what’s the reason? They’ve been washed, saved, sealed. All this is a jump forward to the very end.

-Sheltered by God: live with them. God’s dwelling place will be with His people again (tabernacled)

-No more struggling or suffering (hunger, thirst, heat)

-Lamb as a shepherd

-Wipe every tear: no more grief at all!

-All of this only for those who have been sealed by the Lamb, those who have put their hope and trust in Him, who can have the confidence to stand in that day of judgment.

-Last week I exhorted you if you haven’t put your trust in Jesus as Lord to do that, but today I have an exhortation to those who are saved. What are you doing to pass on that faith to the next generation? Not just talking about little kids (although they’re included too!), but what are you doing to be faithful to be Jesus’ witnesses to the end of the earth? Share the good news of the gospel with others, tell them about how to stand when the day of wrath comes, tell others how God is working in your life, but don’t keep it to yourself!

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by mikethestrand on April 21, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 21, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/04/21/revelation-7-sermon-manuscript/

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