All posts tagged revelation

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/

Revelation 6 – Sermon Manuscript

-Jumping right in today! But I want to try something different. The Bible is meant to be heard, so I want you to just listen to the words. You’ll have plenty of time to follow along during the sermon, but this morning just listen as I read it.

-I’ve been listening to the Bible this year instead of reading it, different things will stand out.

READ/PRAY

  1. The 4 Horsemen (1-8)

-First thing for us to remember is this is connected to where we’ve seen 4 other creatures come up.

-Those 4 represent all of creation, think of the way we describe the “4 corners of the world” Text explicitly makes this connection for us, as it’s the living creatures that speak to the horsemen.

-This is also (once again) picking up an OT theme (make sure you know your Bible!)

–Zech. 1:8-11; 6:1-8. 4 horsemen sent out to patrol the earth and report back to God about what’s taking place on the earth. 

-It’s a bit like the story of the tower of Babel in Gen. 11. Do you think God is unaware of what’s going on here? Do you think things surprise God or catch Him off guard? No! But He uses different means to communicate the way He engages with His creation. Tower of Babel: “Let’s build a tower, make a name for ourselves, reach the sky” (the realm of the gods). Then there’s a significant level of irony in vs. 5“Then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building.” 

-First: a white horse with a bow, a crown, and conquering. Most debated of the horses.

-I shared last week that many interpreters think this is referring to Jesus. Why? White generally stands for purity in Revelation (look down at vs. 11) We also see Jesus riding a white horse in Rev. 19. If that is the case, the significance of this horse is the spread of the gospel message conquering the world. This would connect back to what Jesus said is Matt. 24:14 “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

-But others say this can’t be Jesus because the rest of the horses bring terrible judgments and persecutions. Clearly we’re supposed to see these horses as connected somehow – they’re all seals, the same wording is used for each one. If that were the case, this would refer to the ways nations rise and fall and continually fight against each other. This would connect to something else Jesus said in Matt. 24:6 “You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars.”

-Honestly, I’ve gone back and forth between these 2 all week! As of now I’m leaning towards the latter, but could easily see how it could be referring to Jesus! The immediate context seems to be more negative than the gospel going out, BUT one explanation that I thought made sense of it being Jesus is that as the gospel message is spread, the response of the evil one is death and destruction. You can decide which one you prefer either one works!

-Second: fiery red horse that removed peace.

-This rider fosters division and discord among people. One of the supposed benefits of the Roman empire was what is called “Pax Romana” the peace of Rome. But this horse is here to show that it’s a fake peace that can’t actually accomplish what it claims to. And as we know history will go on to demonstrate, that peace wouldn’t even last much longer than this! 

-The normal state of human affairs is war. I read an article this week that’s a little old now, but stated that in the past 3,400 years, humans have been at peace for 268 of them, 8%. I think we can at times struggle to understand what some of our fellow Christians across the globe experience on a regular basis. It has been estimated that over the 20th century, 231 million people died in wars. That’s only 1 million shy of the entire population of the US (MN has 5.7 million, meaning that’s 40.5 MN) Dear friends, until Christ returns we won’t have peace.

-Third: black horse, rider has scales.

-The amount of foods don’t make sense to us because it’s using antiquated systems. But what they’re communicating is the minimum amount of food required for a person to survive. And it requires an entire days wages. This is saying that there’s a famine. The high inflation we’ve seen (or shrinkflation!) has nothing on this! Can you imagine if the bare minimum of food you needed cost every penny you made? Not to mention the food that the rest of your family would need! How destructive would this event be?

-But notice what’s not harmed: oil and wine. These are the extravagant foods that aren’t getting inflated. But if people are spending every penny they own to get the bare minimum, do you think oil or wine being cheap is going to help them? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. 

-Fourth is a pale green horse ridden by Death and Hades (place of the dead, think hell)

-The color here stood out to me: why pale green? What helped me understand the significance was when I used to watch Scooby Doo growing up. Think of it like a zombie: the walking dead. It fits perfectly with its rider.

-This one means death is inevitable. So many people will die in horrible ways. It’s almost as if things just keep getting worse with each horse. Where God originally created and designed everything to be at peace with each other, now there’s only fighting against each other (plague, wild animals)

-Let’s summarize all of these horses. I love the way Eugene Peterson says it.

-“War is social evil; famine is ecological evil; sickness is biological evil. War attacks the goodness of community; famine violates and ravages God’s bounty; sickness destroys and wastes God-give bodies.” Do you think any of these things are taking place today? What’s even more difficult is the way we talk about them:

“War is disguised as patriotism and a glorious struggle for freedom. Famine is disguised as a higher standard of living. Sickness is disguised by technology.” (Reversed Thunder, 76)

-We have so sanitized sickness today that we hardly think about it, until we’re the ones affected. In 2022, our country spent $4.5 trillion on healthcare, which means an average of $13,493 per person, which accounts for 17.3 percent of our country’s gross domestic product. How healthy do you think our country is if that much of our money is spent on healthcare?

-That should get us to an even bigger existential question: How can Jesus be reigning on His throne is there’s so much war and destruction and death and evil in the world? You’ve probably heard that question before, or asked that question before, or maybe you’re asking it now because of something that’s happening in your life! That’s a real, legitimate question that we all have to wrestle with at some point in our lives, and I don’t think I have enough time to completely answer that question today, but I do want to propose a way of framing it that I think shifts our perspective on the evil we see in the world around us today.

-There’s some words that I glossed over as we were looking at the horses that I want us to go back and look through. First, who’s the one opening the seals?

-Sunday school answer: Jesus! He’s in charge, even in allowing these horrendous events to take place (I’m not saying He’s responsible for them, I’m saying He has a bigger plan than we do, He sees more than we do, and responds in a better way than we could).

-Second, we need to pay attention to the verbs in connection to the riders. First “a crown WAS GIVEN,” second “WAS ALLOWED TO,” third doesn’t say anything the living creature is the one who says what will take place, fourth “THEY WERE GIVEN.” Remember, none of this catches God off guard or by surprise. Because Jesus is worthy, because He’s reigning on His throne, He’s ultimately in charge of what’s taking place. He’s allowing evil to have its day. Not completely, and not without reason, but evil does still have some level of authority in the world today. Does that make God unloving or not good? I don’t think so. We need to acknowledge that we don’t know everything, including the mind of God! 

-Think of what Paul says in Romans 11. We need to trust that God does have a plan that He is working out in our lives for our good and His glory. That doesn’t make the pain and suffering of this world any easier, but it gives a purpose and a direction to it, because He promises that He’s still in control and walking with us in the middle of it. And that’s exactly where the next seal goes:

  • The Martyrs (9-11)

-“Under the altar” – the place where the blood would pool. These saints who had been slaughtered (gross injustice) because of their faith and trust in God.

-Think of where else we’ve seen a loud voice in our study through this book so far. At the beginning, John hears a loud voice behind him, Rev. 5 the angel asks all creation who is worthy? And finally the response of all creation to Jesus being worthy is LOUD. This time, God’s people are crying out begging God for justice. Questioning how long God will allow evil to continue, how long will sin continue affecting creation, how long until everything broken will be fixed?

-Do you ever feel that way? The world isn’t fair so you ask God how long He’ll allow these terrible things to take place? This is one of the reasons I love the Bible is it allows for questions, it describes doubts in great detail, and it understands the breadth of human emotion. 

-Think of what David says in Psalm 13. Do you ever feel like you can ask God these kinds of questions, or do you feel guilty making demands of Him? Dear friends, please don’t put on a front around God, He actually knows what you’re going through better than you do. Passages like this are in the Bible to remind us that God isn’t distant or removed from you, He’s intimately and actively involved in your life. And sometimes He demonstrates that through the people sitting by you right now. God has given us a community (called the church) to help remind you that you don’t suffer alone. Even here it’s the soulS, plural. Church you will never ever be alone. God will be with you, and so will His people.

-They’re also not condemned for asking for God to respond and judge people! (I know that goes against the way most people think today) Romans 12:19, God will execute perfect justice someday, even thought we don’t see it today.

-Just as the 4 riders were given permission, here the saints are given a white robe and told to rest.

-The white robe signifies purity and righteousness (that will come up again next week), and the rest comes about because of Jesus’ work on their behalf. This is important because any time there is suffering or difficulty it’s tempting to ask if this is because of something we did wrong. (story of the man born blind in the Gospels He was born blind to demonstrate the goodness of God, Fanny Crosby who was made blind by a doctor but made her more excited to see Jesus’ face)

–The Magician’s Nephew quote

-It’s fine to ask, but then when we ask for God to work, we also need to be content to trust in His plan. Notice that He answers the saints, but the answer is “wait,” and not only wait, but in the waiting, the 4 horsemen will continue wreaking havoc on the earth. More death, more destruction. But God is still there, still guiding, still waiting, until the next seal:

  • The Wrath of the Lamb (12-17)

-I liked the way I read one person describe these events as an earthquake and a heavenquake. It describes creation coming undone! The injustice that God allows extends to all of His creation. 

-Strong language used often in apocalyptic literature to signify the ending of all things. We know this is used to signify the ending of all things because it’s not the end of the book! 

-Look back at vs. 10. Remember the phrase I’ve shared a couple times now about “earth dwellers”? That’s who the saints are asking to be judged, the people who, even in the midst of suffering and difficulty refuse to believe in Jesus.

-Now jump down to vs. 15 and see the way they’re described: how many descriptions? 7. Do you think that’s significant? Who’s left out of the eventual judgment of God? NO ONE! They’re scrambling to hide, trying to find some way to escape this coming judgment from God.

-Can you imagine being so scared of something coming that you’d rather die in a landslide than face it? I don’t like scary movies, so I haven’t seen too many of them, but I can’t imagine begging to be killed by a mountain. 

-This is here to remind us that there is something far worse than death to be afraid of, which is what these “earth-dwellers” are now realizing. Jesus is already on His throne, He’s already working and ruling, but they haven’t admitted it until now. And now it’s too late for them, but not for us.

-Look at vs. 17: someday, Jesus will return, but not quietly, not in Bethlehem, and definitely not as a little baby. This time He comes with wrath as a conquering lamb. But because we’re still here today, that means that day hasn’t yet come. So what choices are you making now to make that day a cause for celebration instead of begging for destruction?

-I’ve said this before, but part of the reason you’re here today is to respond to what God is doing in your life. Don’t let this moment pass you by! God is telling you exactly what’s going to happen someday. His wrath is going to fall to the earth, and it’s either going to fall on you, or it’s going to have fallen on His Son.

-That’s where the “earth-dwellers” ask 1 last question: who is able to stand? That’s a rhetorical question, the answer is no one. No one except one. And you can either be covered by the blood of that one, or face the wrath on your own where you won’t be able to stand. I beg you: be saved from the wrath of the lamb today. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Confess and believe. That’s all it takes! 

-And for those of you who have believed, the Lord tells us: just a little while longer. Remain faithful, continue trusting in God’s good plan for your life (even unto death), and continue taking one step closer to Him each and every day. 

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by mikethestrand on April 14, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 14, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/04/14/revelation-6-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 6-16 – Sermon Manuscript

-Where people start to freak out about how to read!

-I’m going to present my current reading of how to interpret this writing, subject to changing over the course of my life! 

-What I’m presenting isn’t anything new, isn’t heretical, but it may be different than what you’ve currently heard. When we got to Revelation in seminary, my professor regularly said “This is the conclusion I’ve come to, try it on for size, see if it makes the most sense of the WHOLE Bible.”

-Bryan Chappell’s book.

-There are legitimate options for how you interpret this book. But it is probably the most difficult book to get 100% correct. And part of this is because we’re reading an ancient text, this is the last book written, and it’s still written something like 1,931 years ago. This reminds me of a post I saw a few years ago on how to read the Bible literally.

-Please don’t divide fellowship with other Christians who believe differently than you!

PRAY

-What we’ve learned so far:

-Numbers are almost always symbolic. 7 being the most used, referring to perfection. We’ve also seen 12 or multiples of 12 come up (24 elders) signifying God’s plan. We’ve seen 4 come up signifying all creation (4 living creatures, 4 corners of the earth). 10 often signifies completeness (10 commandments, we have 10 fingers & toes)

-Representation. Remember the angels of the churches in heaven, representing them around the throne. Last week we saw the prayers of the saints being like incense around the throne. There are spiritual (heavenly) implications to the things we do on earth.

-Another way of saying this is: what’s seen on earth isn’t always the true picture. I read an article this week titled ‘A Christian revival is under way in Britain’ One of the fascinating things I’ve been reading is the way even atheists are changing their minds about Jesus and Christianity. There were 4 people referred to as the “4 horsemen of the new atheism” One of them, Richard Dawkins, just admitted he is now a cultural Christian. After actively trying to tear apart Christianity for decades, he’s suddenly changed his tune after finally seeing the good Christianity has brought to Western civilization. We’ll get to the reason this is taking place as we work through today’s sermon.

-Last week we saw the centrality of Jesus in everything (God, creation, salvation)

-The way of Jesus is as a slain lamb. It’s not responding in kind, it’s not repay evil with evil, it’s trusting ourselves to a good God who has a plan for us and all of history to lead to His eventual outcome: God’s people in God’s place, serving under God’s rule and reign.

-But before we get there, there are some things that will be happening.

  1. The Seven Seals (6:1-8:5)

-There are 3 sets of 7 that we’ll be looking at, the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls. I found the way my professor at seminary explained it very helpful.

-Grand Canyon (or any big hole in the ground), walk right up to the edge. Then you come back and walk a little further but eventually come back close to the edge, then you come back and go a little further and this final time you actually go and look straight over the edge. 

-If that doesn’t make sense, he used another illustration of having 7 seals, then using a magnifying glass and zooming in on the 7th seal to find 7 trumpets, then zooming in on the 7th trumpet to find 7 bowls. 

-This is called recapitulation, that is restating or repeating the same event from different perspectives. 

-One author summarized it this way: “In the seven seals we are seeing things from the perspective of the suffering church. In the seven trumpets we are seeing things from the perspective of the world as it is being called to repentance. In the seven bowls we are seeing things from the perspective of the temple, from the throne of God.”(Discipleship on the Edge, 303)

-4 horsemen of the apocalypse

-White horse – some debate about whether this rider is Jesus, because in Rev. 19 we see Jesus riding a white horse. Also picks up the “conquering” language that we saw with the churches

-Red horse – wars, and these happen regularly

-Black horse – the rich get richer, and the poor can’t survive

-Pale horse – ¼ of the earth dies by plagues, famine, animals.

-Nothing about them is unique to the future, happens over and over again and will continue happening over and over again. Think of what Jesus says in Matt. 24 “You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because these things must take place, but the end is not yet.”

-5th seal: martyrs are begging God to end all things, but they’re told not yet. 

-6th Great earthquake, not literally, as the earth we knew it could not continue. Marker of the judgment of God, every person on the earth realizes it. They’d rather die by an earthquake than face the wrath of the Lamb. 

-Again, think of what Jesus says in Matt. 10:28 “Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Eternal death is far worse than earthly death.

-Then there’s a big interlude in 7 to the beginning of 8

-Chapt. 7 – The great tribulation, sealing of God’s people. Think of the sealing of the scroll that we saw in chpt. 5. 

-One thing to note about this sealing: John’s using Israel to describe all of God’s people. Just as what John heard about the lion in chpt. 5 didn’t match what he saw (a lamb), here we have 144,000 (12×12, then 10x10x10) then when John looks to see it’s more people than anyone could count from every nation and tribe, people and language. The gospel has gone to the 4 corners of the world, and everyone is now welcome!

-7th: no judgment, just silence: All creation pauses before God

-But God isn’t pausing: the prayers are being brought before God. Don’t forget that prayer changes things. God listens, God responds, they don’t stop at the ceiling. 

-The description of this event will come up again, same wording and phrases for the other 7s.

  • The Seven Trumpets (8:6-11:19)

-Again, the first 4 come out in quick order: 1/3 of the earth burned up, 1/3 of the sea becomes blood with 1/3 of the creatures dying, 1/3 of the rivers and springs, finally 1/3 of the sun moon and stars. Almost as it the creation is becoming undone. What God had done in Genesis couldn’t withstand these terrors. 

-The key fraction is 1/3 – both a lot, yet noticeably less than half. The majority world (or could call it the 2/3 world) could say that these judgments have already occurred, or are already occurring.

-5th trumpet: notice that the pit is opened, these woes are overtly demonic, those who argue this is just helicopters or human warfare don’t acknowledge the spiritual component, just as some argue that Jesus’ miracles weren’t supernatural events

-Believers are still protected (9:4) This tells us that believers will be there in the midst of these events.

-6th trumpet is allowing 1/3 of humans to be killed. We’ll talk about the pictures John is drawing from when we get here, but it is meant to be repulsive.

–9:20 – Still no repentance from unbelievers, meant to lead to repentance. Even God’s judgment is intended to lead people to repentance, so this signifies that people will have no excuse when the final day of judgment comes. 

-Once again, after the 6th event there’s another interlude: 

-Little scroll, similar to a story where Ezekiel was told to eat a scroll, but this time there will be no more delay, and John is commanded to continue to prophesy

–Chapt. 11 we have an interesting story about 2 witnesses, who are they? It’s important to remember that the Bible requires 2 witnesses to make a matter stand. It’s not enough to have just 1 witness, you need 2.

-Vs. 4 describes them as 2 olive trees and 2 lampstands. Olive trees picks up an idea from Zech. 4where Joshua the priest, and Zerubbabel the governor are described as 2 olive trees, the last time we saw lampstands was in Rev. 2-3 describing the churches, so most scholars believe these 2 witnesses is a way of signifying the church. The church is the true witness, who is protected and preserved by God in the time between Jesus’ 2 comings (what we’re living in now) So the olive tree signified God’s people as the new kingdom and priests (we saw that last week in Rev. 5:10)

-There’s some timing listed in this chapter too, that I haven’t talked about before, but there’s a number of ways it’s described: time and times and half a time, 42 months, 1,260 days all signifying 3.5 years. That 3.5 years is half of 7. 7 is a way of signifying the perfection of God (7 churches), 3.5 is a way of signifying it’s not God’s final word on these matters. I get that from the way a 1st century Jew would have thought. For anyone born in the early 90s, if I say 9/11 what comes to mind? The World Trade Center. If I say “4 score and 7 years ago” what comes to mind? Gettysburg address. There are certain phrase that become so embedded in the culture they become shorthand for referring to something bigger. 3.5 years is the time of a major event known as the Maccabean Revolt where a group of Jews fought off the invaders and won! So 3.5 years became identified with a period of extreme suffering that would only last for a period of time and then stop. It also unlike 7 where it’s perfect, it’s half of it saying it doesn’t have the final word.

-This also shows us that things won’t only get worse or only get better as time moves on. I love the way my professor at seminary summarized what we see taking place: progressive polarization in the world. People respond to the gospel message, but increased persecution is also a reality. Both things will be taking place at the same time. And don’t we see that in the world around us? It seems like there’s always little pockets of places where the gospel is flourishing and spreading like wildfire, and then other places where it’s receding and falling away. Rise and fall, but the gospel continues to spread, and Satan continues to fight.

-I’m actually going to jump ahead to chapter 16 now, because I want to conclude in something that blew my mind from the middle section here 

4.  The Seven Bowls (16:1-21)

-Here we see the wrath of God being poured out as from a bowl. There is enough similarities between the events taking place here, and the 7 trumpets to think that they could be referring to the same event.

-Jim Hamilton’s comments.

-But notice this time, there’s no break between any of these judgments. No interlude, no more waiting. We’ve gone back to review it enough, and the judgment is now here! So just as I said at the beginning, we’ve seen the repeats, now John is seeing the whole thing in front of him! And this time we get a loud voice saying “It is done” That should bring to mind a phrase we think about on Good Friday “It is finished.

-One other thing is the increasing severity of these judgments. Where initially it was ¼, then we went up to 1/3, and now there’s no one and nothing left out. It’s as if all creation is coming undone because of the wrath of the lamb! More to come on these, because now I want to look at a couple things from the middle section which explains the way the battle continues to unfold.

  1. The Dragon vs. the Lamb (12:1-15:8)

-We looked at the first 6 verses of this on Palm Sunday: it’s a heavenly perspective on the Christmas story. But John continues, and goes on to talk about the way the war would unfold. The dragon is called the devil and Satan, he is thrown out of heaven, and is described as the accuser and deceiver. That’s literally his job! He is right now doing any and everything he can to fight against Jesus and His followers – the church. 

-Then we have the completion of what’s been called “The Satanic trinity”

-Satan doesn’t have complete power, so all he can do is copy. And that’s what he’ll try to do! Copy everything God has done, but it will always fall short and be insufficient in some way.

-The second part of this trinity is a beast from the sea. John picks up descriptions from Daniel 7 to describe it, which tells us this beast is kingdoms of the earth. Rulers, governments, earthly authorities that refuse to submit to the Lordship of Jesus and instead try to become god. And the beast is the one behind it all! It’s described as appearing to be fatally wounded, but is healed, and how often have we seen that with various forms of government across the world? Think of the 20th century: the rise of Naziism, which dies and has communism take its’ place, and followed by nationalism, and then socialism, and on and on the isms go. This is the work of the best in human history! But it’s not just 1 beast, because then there’s a beast from the earth who supposedly looks like a lamb (where have we seen that before?) but speaks like the dragon! This final beast empowers worship of the sea beast. People using worldly standards, and looking to worldly powers to solve all their problems. Of course the world is going to oppose the work of the lamb, they’re empowered by the devil, and he’s had millennia to hone his craft! 

-vs. 18 has to be one of the most misunderstood texts in the Bible, and I won’t say this is most definitely the correct interpretation, try it on for a bit, think of the rest of Scripture.

666 – Gematria, but doesn’t really make sense because “Six hundred, and sixty, and six” in Greek. I think a better way of thinking about this is referring to the unholy trinity. Just as God’s perfect number is 7, so the trinity would be 777, but Satan falls short every single time. So you can read 666 as Fail, Fail, Fail.

-I want to end with Rev. 14, because I’m still reflecting and processing an interpretation I read from a commentary this week. It’s a section titled ‘Reaping the Earth’s Harvest’

-Most scholars believe there are 2 different reapings taking place. The first section is Jesus reaping out the believers. Think of what Jesus says in Matt. 9 “the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few.” So reaping is positive throughout the NT. 

-What I’m still processing is whether or not the second reaping is also positive. Here’s why. There’s enough language that’s the same between the 2 accounts, that they could be referring to the same event. Throughout the Bible, there’s also references to Israel as the vine of the earth throughout Scripture. So the first readers could have heard this referring to the true Israel of God’s people. 

-Then we have anther significant phrase “outside the city.” There’s a pretty significant event that took place outside the city in the Bible: the crucifixion of Jesus. That is the place where God’s wrath was laid out in full. And is there enough blood in that event to cover over the sins of everyone? Listen to what he says:

-Now, it may be true that these connections are just a little too clever, and I wouldn’t say it’s most definitely correct, but it does make sense of the text, it makes sense of the Bible, and it makes sense of the cross.

-Church don’t miss this. Jesus’ precious blood that was shed on the cross is enough to cover every sin you have committed, will commit, and is the only way you can ensure you’re following the way of the Lamb instead of the way of the dragon.

-As we continue seeing our world continually polarized, our command hasn’t changed: make disciples of Jesus. Whether you were alive in the 1st century, the 4th century, all the way down to the 21st century the command hasn’t changed. We faithfully focus on telling everyone the truths of the gospel, and living in such a way that shows that we believe it. 

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by mikethestrand on April 7, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 7, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/04/07/revelation-6-16-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 5:1-14 – Sermon Manuscript

-When I was growing up there were these books at the library and friend’s houses that were called ‘Magic Eye’

-Supposedly, if you stared at it just the right way an image would pop out. I say supposedly because I could never get it to work! Friends would tell me what they “saw” and I’d just have to take their word for it. After years of frustration and honestly a level of embarrassment, I finally figured out how to do it in my mid 20s. 

-I think there’s a tendency for Christians to be viewed like I felt trying to look at the ‘Magic Eye.’ We claim to see the world differently, to interpret world events differently. Just as it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure out those magic eye pictures, God doesn’t want us to take that long to figure out how to live in the world He created, and today’s text gives us the way we should interpret everything in the world.

READ/PRAY

-Remember what we saw last week: 

-John was given a glimpse of the heavenly reality that’s taking place all the time. The 4 living creatures around the throne serve as God’s royal protection. The 24 elders reign with God as co-heirs. And day after day without ever stopping they are worshipping and praising God because He alone is worthy.

-One thing for us to realize is anytime we gather to worship (like we’re doing today) we’re joining in to something that’s already taking place. God is being worshipping all the time, and sometimes we get to join in with the elders and the living creatures in worshipping God.

-I say sometimes because we as humans tend to miss out on opportunities to worship God. God has created us to as worshipping beings, you can see this in the ways humans have this desire for something bigger or greater. I watched a documentary onetime called ‘Free Solo’ about Alex Honnold’s climb of El Capitan without any ropes or assistance. As someone who hates heights the documentary made me sick! My palms sweated the entire time I watched it!

-Because we have been created with a sense of something greater than ourselves, we all long to feel a connection to something bigger than us, whether that comes through free climbing El Cap, or driving at fast speeds, jumping out of a perfectly functioning airplane, traveling to the furthest corners of the world, whatever it is we have this desire to worship, and as Augustine reminded us, our hearts will remain restless until they find their rest solely in God.

-Today is a continuation of last week, and sets the stage for the rest of this book. None of the other events that we’ll study the rest of this year would happen apart from today’s text. It shows the reason why we need to worship God, and His purpose in all of history.

  1. Is Anyone Worthy? (1-5)

-The next thing God reveals to John is something God is holding. Last week the focus was on the throne and around the throne, after taking in the big picture view, John sees something in God’s hand.

-A scroll, writing on both sides, sealed with 7 seals. What is the significance of all this?

-Scrolls were the most common form of collecting writings in the 1st century. Contained edicts from the government, could be receipts, personal letters. Books weren’t common, and were far more expensive (although scrolls weren’t cheap either!) Made from papyrus that was stretched out and glued together, which often meant one side was smooth and the other was rough where it was patched together, so very rare for papyrus to be written on both sides.

-The writing on both sides connects back to Ezek. 2:9-10. One of the important things to note about that is the extent of what’s covered by the writing in this scroll. The only reason you would write on the front & back was because you needed to fit everything in. I read someone this week who argued that the reason we have Luke & Acts divided is because they couldn’t fit on 1 scroll. See if the story was divided onto 2 scrolls and you lost 1 you’d end up with only half the story. In this case, because it contains God’s plans for all of history, He wanted to make sure that no one could divide it. 

-Lastly, it was sealed with 7 seals. Just as we seal an envelope with licking the nasty glue, in the 1stcentury the way you sealed something was using wax that would be dripped onto the joint of the scroll, and often imprinted with the royal crest or some other sign to denote who authorized this writing. Then, once the seal was broken it signified that the document was now authorized and would go into effect. Once again, the number 7 signifies the perfection and completeness of the sealing. Just as everything related to God is perfect and complete, even the way He seals His plans is perfect and complete.

-Mighty angel with a loud voice.

-What kind of voice do you think this is like? He’s interrogating all of creation, seen and unseen, on earth and under the earth. 

-A loud voice historically been connected to preaching. Charles Spurgeon (London, 1850s-1892) would measure the chest of anyone who felt a desire to preach. Today he would be sued for discrimination, in the 19th century, this was called “vetting the candidate”. He said “Gentlemen with narrow chests are advised to use dumbbells every morning. You need broad chests and you must do your best to get them.” 

-Ironically enough, with all the writings we have from Spurgeon, we don’t have the size of his chest recorded. We know he had a 52” waist, so you can imagine the chest that accompanied that waist! He was able to preach to a crowd of over 23,000 people without amplification. Could you imagine sitting close to him as he was preaching? My watch gives me a notification when I’m in an environment that’s too loud (Timberwolves game), and I’m sure he would have set off my watch! 

-This angel isn’t preaching to tens of thousands, he’s proclaiming to billions (or as vs. 11 says, “countless thousands”) and asks all of the created order who is worthy or able to open up God’s revealed plan for all of history.

-Who is able? No one. So how does John respond?

-Weeping. When is the last time the implications of Jesus’ resurrection moved you so much that you wept? Just as I mentioned with the scrolls being sealed, if no one is worthy to open them, then all of God’s purposes: both judgment and blessing can’t happen. 

-Remember the churches that John was writing to. Facing immense persecution, widespread martyrdom, if no one is found who can open the scroll, then the judgment they’re facing has no purpose and it leaves them hopeless. Think of the despair that John would have felt in response to that!

-Maybe you’ve felt that way before. That life is utterly meaningly, that there’s no point to the issues you’re trying to face right now, that you’re all alone in the universe and no one cares, no one sees you, and no one will ever be there for you. That’s certainly the way John felt, as well as many of Jesus’ followers throughout history. I’ve felt that way throughout my life! Yet in the midst of that, this story reminds me that I’m not alone and never will be. In the middle of history is the greatest event the world has ever seen – where God became man and dealt with all our sins once and for all on the cross. Which is exactly where this story goes next:

-One of the elders (remember them from 2 weeks ago, the 24 who sit around the throne casting their crowns at God’s feet) encourages John to keep watching. Even when it seems/feels like there’s no hope, God’s still at work.

-A lion is going to appear! This is referring to Gen 49:9

-Root of David comes from Isa. 11:1

-Has conquered, just as the promise to the churches in Rev. 2-3 a reminder that all of this is only possible because of what Jesus has done.

-Before we look at the next section, I need some help from the kids. 

-If I told showed you this picture, what would animal would I be showing you? A lion! 

-And if I showed you this picture, what animal would I be talking about? A lamb/sheep. The elder tells John to look at the lion, but what does he see when he looks? Look at vs. 6

  • He Is! (6-7)

-The lion looks like a slaughtered lamb. Don’t miss this idea here, I would argue that it’s the interpretive key to understand all of the book of Revelation.

-Remember that we saw with all the churches that their status on earth wasn’t matching up to their heavenly reality. The churches that seemed to have it all going for them were spiritually bankrupt, and the churches that seemed to have nothing were the most spiritually rich. And that’s the upside down way God has designed the world to operate.

-The only way the Lion of Judah conquers is by being the sacrificial lamb. This picks up another prophecy from Isa. 53, and seems honestly foolish if you only see things through a worldly lens. In a fight, what would you rather have on your team, a lamb or a lion? Which one do you think would help you win? 

-Or think of this in terms of mascots. March Madness right now, at times it’s funny thinking of the mascots some teams choose. One college where I grew up in ND had the Beavers, how fear inducing is that? Or think of the mascots of various countries: Russia has a bear, Britain a lion, France a tiger, the US an eagle. All of those kill lambs! One swipe from a lion and the lamb’s dead! And that’s the point. 

-Don’t miss this reality, but the only way to truly defeat evil and violence is by refusing to respond with more violence. If you have siblings and get into fights, isn’t the tendency to just escalate? They push you, so you shove them back even harder. They hit you so you hit them back even harder. But what does the way of the lamb teach us? That the only way to truly deal with evil once and for all is by taking the full force of it on yourself. Because notice how John goes on to describe this slaughtered lamb: standing. How is that possible? Because Jesus didn’t stay dead – the grave couldn’t hold Him back, after dealing once and for all with evil, He came back from the dead. 

-Look where He’s standing. I think a better way of translating this is “in the middle.”

-Jesus is in the middle of the throne. Not off to the side, like God the Father has scooched over to make room for Him, literally in the very center of the throne.

-But He’s also in the middle of the four living creatures. Remember from last week that these are stand-ins for everything God has created. At the very center of all of creation is Jesus. Jesus holds all creation together, Col. 1 tells us that everything was created and exists only by Jesus, and John 1 tells us that apart from Jesus nothing will ever come to exist. 

-But He’s also in the middle of the elders. If these 24 elders are representing God’s people in the old covenant and in the new covenant, that means Jesus literally stands in the middle of God’s plan for all of history. 

-Jesus in the middle of the throne as God, middle of the creatures as the center of creation, and middle of the elders as the center of all of God’s redemptive plan.

-7 horns, 7 eyes:

-Talked about horns the past couple weeks now, 7 being perfect and complete meaning He has all the power. Eyes leads to wisdom, He can see everything, nothing catches Him by surprise or off guard. So Jesus is both all-powerful and all wise, nothing can defeat His plans, and nothing can stand against Him.

-Think back to what we studied in Rev. 5, the text made a big distinction between who was ON the throne, and who was AROUND the throne. Does anyone remember anyone else who was able to come straight to the throne? 

-This is another evidence that Jesus is God! No one else is worthy, no one else is allowed to approach the throne except God, so God does what only God can do an He grabs the scroll.

-And what’s the response?

  • Amen! (8-14)

-As soon as Jesus grabs the scroll, which is rightfully His, they respond as they should: they fall down before Him in worship. John is going to give us 3 different responses, each expanding out from the throne. The first is those who are around the throne at all times:

-They respond by singing a new song. 

The normal response of God’s creation to His revelation is singing. This is why we sing every week, because we respond to God’s revealing Himself to us, we gather around His revelation (His Word) and we respond to that revelation by singing praises to Him.

-They use language from the Exodus, where Israel was saved from bondage and slavery, but now it’s a people from “every tribe and language and people and nation.” Now God’s people has no ethnic limitations! Because of Jesus’ work they are a kingdom (not with the same limitations as an earthly kingdom), and priests. Seems like a weird connection, until you realize this was God’s intent for His people from the beginning. Reign over the rest of creation and be in right relationship with God.

-Next group is many angels, numbering “countless thousands, plus thousands of thousands.” Literally more than could be counted! 

-Why do they say He’s worthy? 7 things, which means perfectly worthy of being worshipped! Notice that He’s worthy because He was slaughtered, He wouldn’t’ have been worthy apart from that because God’s plan would have been stopped. 

-Lastly, John gets a glimpse of every creature joining with the angels and those around the throne joining in the praise of God! Either willingly or by force. (Phil. 2) 

-This vision wraps up by the four living creatures saying “Amen” So let it be, we agree with what everyone has said and has done.

-At the very heart of the gospel message is the reality of suffering. The closer we get to the heart of Jesus the more sensitivity we will have to the suffering of the world around us. Prepare for it, and bring it to Jesus when you see it, then work to bring that suffering to an end. 

-The lamb has conquered! We work from that victory, not toward it! Jesus has already won, nothing can stand against us and we have nothing to be afraid of!

-This also tells us that the way of the lamb is sometimes going to look really dumb. If we can’t see things from a heavenly perspective, we’re going to be tempted to use the world’s standards and neglect to be obedient to the way of the Lamb. Think of how Jesus taught us to live: 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the humble,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

Doesn’t that feel backwards to us? We’re taught to look out for number 1, to make sure we get our way! But that’s the world talking, and not Jesus talking. If we actually want to see true wisdom come, if we want to see heaven come down to earth, it must start with us viewing the world the right way, living in the way of the Lamb, and joining with the rest of creation in worshipping Him with all we have.

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by mikethestrand on March 31, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on March 31, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/03/31/revelation-51-14-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 12:1-6 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever read a story or watched a movie that doesn’t really make sense until you get to the end?

-Mysteries do this really well – all these little hints throughout the story until it brings all of them together in 1 cohesive unit at the end. Knives Out, Glass Onion

-Agatha Christie books/movies do this really well. If you know what you’re looking for the as the story unfolds you can see these events taking place, but if you don’t know the ending you’ll be pretty confused by some of what’s going on.

-God does that with the Bible in what is known as progressive revelation His story progressively unfolds, you see little hints and threads of His bigger plan throughout the book, but you need to read all the way to the end to find out how all those little pieces fit together.

-We’re going to be looking today at the work of the dragon in a specific moment leading up to the Palm Sunday story, and see that what Jesus has done is created a way for us to become wise and whole people, if we trust Him, obey Him, and live the way He’s designed us to. 

READ/PRAY

  1. A Woman, a Dragon, and a Child (Revelation 12)

-All sorts of different mythical stories in the 1st century where gods and goddesses fought against dragons (Egypt, Ugarit, Mesopotamia, Greece, Roman)

-Not saying any of those are true, but God often speaks to His people in ways they can understand. He’s trying to communicate things that are incommunicable at all times. If you’ve ever seen an adult hold a baby you’ve seen this! 

-“A great sign”

-Not seen by anyone else, this is just revealed to John.

-Connects back to Isa. 7:14 “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.”

-Unfortunately, God isn’t the only one who gives these signs, as we’ll see in just a couple verses.

-“A women”

-Who is this woman? Mary seems to fit here, but we need to take the bigger context, so look down at vs. 17 – most commentators believe this is signifying God’s people, who had been waiting for generations for the Messiah to come

-God’s people as His bride appears throughout Scripture (Isa. 54:5, Hosea, 

Rev. 19:7-9, 21:9)

-“Clothed with the sun, moon under her feet, crown of twelve stars”

-Beautiful and exalted with the brightest star we can see! This woman is astoundingly beautiful! She takes on some of the characteristics used to describe God: Psalm 104:2 “He wraps himself in light as if it were a robe” This woman is closely connected to God, but it also connects us to a story all the way back in:

–Gen. 37:9 – story of Joseph, who eventually did have this take place for Him. But Joseph isn’t the main point of the story, because Jesus is the even better Joseph who allows us to be saved from the famine of sin and death! Getting a little ahead of myself though.

-“She was pregnant”

-Theme throughout OT of Israel suffering labor pains while waiting for the arrival of the Messiah Mic. 4:10 “Writhe and cry out, Daughter Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you will leave the city and camp in the open fields. You will go to Babylon; there you will be rescued; there the Lord will redeem you from the grasp of your enemies!” Everything leading up to Jesus’ arrival could be said to be the pain of childbirth, longing for the arrival of the King. But the woman’s not alone.

-“Another sign: great fiery red dragon”

-seven heads, ten horns, a crown on each head. At first glance this is supposed to be absolutely terrifying! Think of a 7 headed dragon, 3 heads have 2 horns coming out and the rest have 1 horn (horns signify strength, think like a Rhino). Every head has a crown on it. Unfortunately for this dragon (and unknown to Him), his role is to be the butt of God’s master plan. He has literally been created for destruction. While at first glance it looks like the left 2 heads, in reality he’s more like the dragon on the right. 

–Dan. 7:7, 24 – dragon manifests himself in and through human rulers and authorities. Blomberg “Since Satan is not omniscient, and since only God knows the timing of the end, the devil must have an “antichrist” ready in every era, lest that turn out to be the time God has appointed for the consummation of all things.”

-The fact that this dragon has crowns on his head shows that he’s trying to imitate Jesus. When we get to this section again in June, we’ll see that this is the first of the unholy trinity. Satan tries to mimic and destroy God’s perfect plan, but he falls short each and every time. 

-But this story is really a tale as old as time. Think back to the beginning of the Bible: Gen. 3:15 the serpent themes throughout Scripture: Pharoah’s headdress, fiery serpents being sent upon Israel (Num. 21), Goliath’s armor. 

-Are you a part of the army of the serpent or the serpent slayer? There’s a wonderful little book on this titled ‘The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer’ that traces many of these themes throughout the Bible, if you’re interested let me know!

-The violence of the dragon: “tail swept”

-Some say this is the fall of Satan with his fallen angels, Others appeal to Dan. 8:10 calls Israel the stars: which would mean this is the dragon’s hostility toward the people of God. I could be convinced of either option, but the point is the dragon is opposed to the work of God.

-Stood in front of the woman while she’s giving birth.

-Is there ever a time that a woman is more vulnerable than during delivery? I haven’t ever experienced the labor pains myself, but I’ve seen it a number of times now and am very grateful that my wife won’t ever need to experience that again! It takes literally everything out of a woman! 

And then in the midst of that pain and struggle, this dragon positions himself to help deliver the baby straight into his belly! This is grotesque, but a true description of Satan’s goal.

-But also think of what happens when Jesus is born: Matt. 2 – Herod kills all babies, just a Pharoah worked to kill all the Israelite babies in Exodus. The serpent hates people, who are created in the image of God, he is opposed to them from birth to death, Literally the opposite of God.

-I thought this was such a cool point from Micah’s last class on Bible interpretation: a correct interpretation of the text will lead to human flourishing. That is God’s intent for His creation! Becoming everything He’s created us to be, worshipping Him with all we have. Not following the way of the dragon.

-The woman gave birth to a Son (notice the capital letter and the description of this son)

–Psalm 2:9 – this is all about the ways the dragon looks to usurp God’s authority, the ways he uses nations and kings to do his bidding and fight against the chosen one, but nothing he can do will thwart God’s plan. What looks like certain destruction for the Son (giving birth into the open throat of the dragon) becomes the means by which the dragon is defeated.

-John then skips over every other event in Jesus’ life (we’ll see him talk about those next week in Rev. 5) and goes straight to his ascension. 

-“The woman fled into the wilderness”

-“The wilderness represents life in the present age” Tom Schreiner

–Hos. 2:14 wilderness is a theme in the history of God’s people: leaving Egypt (God’s provision), Jesus’ ministry. So even as the dragon is waging war against God and His people, God will protect and preserve a faithful people who will serve God instead of the dragon.

-But what does that look like, practically, for life today? How do ensure we’re following the Lamb instead of the dragon? Let’s look at a story from John that sets the stage for the triumphal entry. 

  • A Dragon, a Disciple, and a Messiah (John 12)

–John 13:2

-Some context: Lazarus had just been raised from the dead, Jesus’ notoriety was rising and Lazarus kept spreading the news about what Jesus had done to him. 

-Seems that Lazarus and his sisters were good friends of Jesus. 

-Also coming to the end of Jesus’ ministry & life. This serves as the beginning of the end, is a day before Palm Sunday and leads into the triumphal entry. But as we read it, I want us to notice a couple throwaway comments that John says to give us some background about Judas. 

READ

-All throughout the Gospels the reader is forced to deal with the question: “how do YOU respond to Jesus?” That’s part of the reason they’re so powerful, they draw you into the story and force you to respond.

-Read a story this week of someone who gave a NT to an unbeliever who had  no history with the Bible. He said the stories at the beginning were super repetitive, the middle made no sense, but he really like the science fiction at the end. Yes it is repetitive, but they each have a different goal.

-Lazarus is eating with everyone, Martha is serving everyone, and in comes Mary! How grateful do you think this family would have been? Lazarus had died, had been raised back to life, how would you respond? Wouldn’t some kind of priceless gift have been appropriate?

-“A pound of perfume” a Roman pound is like 12 oz so think a soda can size that gets dumped over Jesus. 

-The best of the best, this isn’t a knock-off, hasn’t been watered down, this is the perfect specimen of perfume, worth a year’s wages. This could have been a family heirloom that had been passed down for generations. Wealth is viewed differently in different times of history, we tend to think only about money, but there wasn’t a common currency or global trade market to track, so items were used as a retirement account.

-This perfume would have followed Jesus everywhere he went for days. Think about that – as Jesus was led to his death this smell would have been accompanying Him, reminding Him of this night of joyful celebration with His closest friends.

-Then who does the focus turn to? Judas, the betrayer. 

-John gives us some back story here about Judas’ character. 

-I’m guessing you, like me, have had this exact conversation before. Anytime you spend money, someone’s going to ask you if you considered the poor children in Africa. Yes, I have no way of getting to them, I do support children all over the globe, and I still needed a car to get around, house to live in, etc. That was a much more effective argument when I was 16 years old!

-Look at vs. 6: Judas stole from the funds. Funds received from people supporting Jesus and His ministry. Have you ever considered how few people in the Bible would pass a background check to serve at church? David was an adulterer murderer, Moses was a stuttering murderer, Peter was an impulsive and seemingly angry man, Judas was a thief liar and betrayer, Paul was a master at finding Christians and killing them. Would any of you trust your kids to those men? No! Apart from Jesus at work in them. Jesus would have known exactly what Judas was doing, He would have known the ulterior motives Judas had for being in charge of the money-bag, but he allowed Judas that opportunity.

-Jesus gives us the freedom and opportunity to choose. Ultimately He knows what we’ll choose, but He will still allow us to be tested to learn that He’s the only thing we need. Yet just like Judas, we so often miss it. We give into the temptation, we refuse to stand strong, we don’t acknowledge that Jesus is all we need.

-Jesus’ response has a tendency to be very misunderstood. 

-Doesn’t mean don’t care about the poor because they’ll always be poor, nor does it contradict Jesus’ other teachings about always looking to care for the poor and marginalized, but just as He tells us that our love for our family must seem to be like hate compared to our love for Him, so our devotion to Him must take precedent even over and above acts of compassion. 

-“Acts of devotion and acts of compassion for the poor are not mutually exclusive.” (Colin Kruse)

-I think this is what James means when he talks about faith without works being dead. Our worship must lead to a transformed life, otherwise our worship is pointless. 

-I was listening to a podcast this week: “The reason is that when you dive deep into biblical wisdom…you start to see the reality that according to the Bible, wisdom is about becoming a certain kind of person, not necessarily knowing what sort of rules to follow. So there’s, there’s always this inward direction with wisdom, wisdom is always kind of pushing toward the heart. And it’s always trying to create certain kinds of people.”

-What we see when we look at these 2 passages is the temptation to become a certain kind of person: one that follows the way of the dragon, or one that follows in the way of the Lamb. One leads to life, and one leads to death. One leads to joyful celebration, and one leads to sorrowful mourning. And every one of us has a choice as to which of these 2 characters we’re going to follow and emulate. 

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by mikethestrand on March 24, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on March 24, 2024

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Revelation 4:1-11 – Sermon Manuscript

-I got forwarded an email this week from one of my uncles of my grandpa’s farm being featured in the local newspaper, and grandpa winning a fairly prestigious award! 

-It’s funny what they emphasize in the article. “electrically heated watering devices” and “The Strands have an ‘all electric’ farmstead”

 -Then grandma called me this week and told me about another article that came out about the same time and described her as a “progressive” woman because of all her electric appliances! 

-It got me thinking though, how would you describe electricity to someone living 200 years ago? Vines connected to large skinny trees that connect all houses together. If your house is connected to these vines you can get a mini sun in your house to be able to see at night! What a gift! That means you can work longer hours, sleep less hours, and get all sorts of mental health issues due to working too much. Do you think they’d have any framework for how to understand what we’re saying? 

-Or imagine trying to describe facetiming or skype to someone just 30 years ago. You get to SEE them and talk to them! My kids get frustrated and confused when my parents call me without facetime because they can’t see them.

-Take it a step further and try to explain Wi-Fi to someone who hasn’t seen a computer, or an iPhone (yes, not an android) to someone who doesn’t know what a computer is (so easy a caveman could do it)

-Now take that and multiply it by infinity and you’ll start to see the tall task in front of John today: trying to explain the infinite using finite words to finite people.

READ/PRAY

  1. The Throne (1-3)

-“After this”

-Not referring to time, just saying the next sequence of visions was moving from the letters to the churches to the next thing God wants to reveal to John.

-This also serves to set the stage for the rest of the book. Think of the first 3 chapters as the introduction, then this begins a new section where God is giving all the spoiler alerts as to how we should view the events of human history.

-“Open door”

-Can you imagine getting a glimpse of heaven like this? What do you think this looked like? Do you ever contemplate heaven? The words in here were written to the 7 churches, yes, but they’re also for us today to be reminded what heaven is like, to understand what God wants from us, and to have our hearts stirred by the reality that God is in control and worthy of our full allegiance and worship, not anything on this earth that tries to distract us. Focus on heaven!

-“The first voice” “In the Spirit”

-1:10 – same voice we read about in here

-“In the spirit” isn’t the first time this happened:

–2 Cor. 12:2-4 “2 I know a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether he was in the body or out of the body, I don’t know; God knows. 3 I know that this man—whether in the body or out of the body I don’t know; God knows— 4 was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a human being is not allowed to speak.” 

-The big difference is Paul wasn’t allowed to talk about it, but John is commanded to! Similar to Jesus’ ministry where He regularly told His disciples to not tell anyone until after He was ascending to heaven, then they were supposed to tell everyone!

-“Throne in heaven”

–Isa. 6:1-4: God’s presence connected to the temple, Seraphim (6 wings), continually call the Lord “holy, holy, holy” The noise literally shook the foundations of the building! 

–Ezek. 1:26-28: brilliant light, rainbow 

-“Jasper and carnelian stone”

–Ex. 28:17-20: the priestly garments. A way of signifying the set apart nature of priests, which turns out was a reflection of God Himself! One of the things we see throughout this book is that God has designed earthly ideas to reflect heavenly realities. That will keep coming up in today’s text and the rest of the book!

-“rainbow”

-Can you see how John’s fumbling with words here? Rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Ezek. 1:4 “there was a whirlwind coming from the north, a huge cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire, there was a gleam like amber.”

-Once again, we need to keep in mind the whole biblical storyline here. Does anyone remember when rainbows were first mentioned in the Bible? Gen. 9, right after the flood! What does God promise to do? Never again flood the whole earth. That is another way of saying God’s preservation of His people despite His right judgment coming.

  • Around the Throne (4)

-24 thrones, 24 elders (subservient to the main throne)

-Numbers are almost always symbolic in Rev. so some people try to argue they’re humans who have earned their crowns and white clothes by being faithful unto death like God promised to the churches.

-Others argue that they’re angels, and the number refers to standing in for the 2 12s God used in His renewal plan of the world: 12 sons of Israel and the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus.

-Another argument is like the 24 orders of the priests (1 Chron. 24:4-5)

-I think this is meant to be similar to the letters to the churches, a heavenly representation of an earthly reality. (We should probably flip that around: a heavenly reality of an earthly representation) Just as the 7 churches had corresponding angels, here the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples have corresponding angels. 

  • The Throne (5-6a)

-Zoom back to the throne. What comes from the throne?

-Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody “Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening”

-Very few things more frightening than a huge thunderstorm. I remember driving with a friend in WY (the part of WY I lived in was flat, literally opposite corner of the pretty Jackson Hole side, more like Nebraska) we saw a big storm coming in from MILES away and he commented “can you imagine people coming here in covered wagons and not being able to pull out your phone and see where the end of the storm is?” These pictures start to show what the part of Wyoming I lived in look like. Close to mountains, but you can’t see them! 

-This ditch was almost dry before this storm came through, this was the aftermath of a pretty good-sized storm. But aren’t storms terrifying? Even today when we can easily see the trail of the storm when it’s passing through the power is incredible! 

-Similar to Isa. 6 noisy, loud, smoke filled the temple, Ezek. 1:4 “there was a whirlwind coming from the north, a huge cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire, there was a gleam like amber.”

-God’s people saw similar things when He met with Moses in Ex. 20

-“Seven fiery torches”

–Rev. 1:4 where the 7 spirits showed up before. Not saying there are 7 literal spirits, referring to the complete perfection of the one true God

-“like a seas of glass” not a sea of glass, closest John can get to trying to describe it

-Separation between the throne and everything else. Often the sea in early times (and probably should today too) is viewed as terrifying, full of chaos

-An impossible barrier for us to cross. But there’s also a significant theme of water throughout the Bible that I think needs to shape the way we think about a sea here. 

–Gen 1:2 Creation, spirit of God was hovering over the water

-Gen. 7 (flood) 

-1 Kings 7:23-26 Bronze sea in the temple 

-Finally seeing the waters of baptism as another picture of the way we approach God (Rom. 6, 1 Peter 3)

-This separation between the throne is only accessible through the waters of baptism, which is the first act of obedience to demonstrate your new faith in Jesus Christ, which means we now have access to this throne! 

  • Around the Throne (6b-11)

-“Four living creatures”

-All sorts of proposals: 4 Gospels, astrological signs, divine attributes. Representative of the created world (again, just as the churches have divine representation, this represents all of creation serving the one true God)

-Midrash (Jewish commentary on the OT) comment on the book of Exodus: “Man is exalted among creatures, the eagle among birds, the ox among domestic animals, the lion among wild beasts.” Taking the “cream of the crop” as a stand in for all creation.

-Similar to what we see in Ezek. 1, 10, specifically we learn that these are Cherubim, angels (Ezek. 10:15). They guard God’s presence, are found in the most holy place where God is enthroned as king, were sewn into the curtains of the tabernacle, carved into the walls, doors, and frames of the temple – so where God’s presence is you find Cherubim. 

-Covered with eyes, 4 directions, signifying that they are vigilant in protecting God and carrying out His commands

-“Day and night they never stop” more lit. never rest.

-This is what they do 24/7. There’s no down time, no breaks. And think of the repetition of this. They never stop saying:

-Why do we think repetition is such a bad thing? My first role in ministry was music, thankfully people don’t have any strong opinions about music! GK Chesterton Orthodoxy

-Did you know that God loves repetition? Do you know that He doesn’t get tired of hearing people worship Him? I think this is hard for us to admit sometimes because we’re the ones that get tired of it. I have a friend who grew up in the Caribbean who told me the reason they repeat words and phrases for so long is because it takes that long for those realities to start to reach into their hearts. If we can’t regularly reflect and be moved by the realities of the gospel and who God is something’s wrong with us, not the repetitive words.

-“Whenever”

-glory, honor, and thanks – acknowledge that God alone has and contains all these divine truths. 

-Elders join in 24/7. It’s not just the 4 creatures, it’s also the elders who are worshiping God all the time, without any breaks. 

-Fall down – prostrate themselves. Just as we need to realize that there are spiritual realities and implications to our lives, we also need to realize that we are complex creatures who are called to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths. Or as we see in Deut. 6 to love God with all our “muchness” That means there are certain physical responses that are appropriate to use in our response to God. There’s a reason we stand when we sing, there’s a reason we bow our heads when we pray. These physical responses help our bodies match the reality of what we’re doing, and God intended it that way. There are all sorts of physical descriptions of faithful ways to worship God in the Bible: sitting, kneeling, standing, shouting, crying, silence, raising your hands, raising your head, staring at heaven. All of those don’t always have to be present in worship of God, but if they’re never used I wonder if we’re being faithful to worship God with everything we have and are?

-This gets us to what the elders are doing: Cast their crowns – who gave them the crowns? Rev. 2:8 “Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.” 

-This is important: when we worship God, we’re not worshipping Him with anything we earned by ourselves. From the very breath in your lungs, to your skeletal structure, to the muscle and skin tissue covering your body, all of that is a gift given by God. 

-The only appropriate response to understanding who God is, Him revealing Himself is to worship Him. Think of what Paul reminds us of in 1 Cor. 4:7 It’s a rhetorical question because the answer is NOTHING! 2 chapters later he says: how do we glorify God with our bodies? We use them to worship God!

-Look at what they say:

“You are worthy to receive” Roman phrasing used to welcome the emperor or government officials. By referring to God this way, it undercuts the whole imperial cult! Caesar isn’t Lord, Joe Biden isn’t Lord, Putin, Kim Jong Un, Netanyahu, none of them are worthy to receive this glory and honor and power. Why not?

-They don’t reign cosmically. In the scheme of things where there are millions of galaxies, more planets than we can ever know about, none of these countries make a dent in all of the created order. They didn’t bring anything into existence and they will someday die! But not God.

-Weird word order: created and exist logically makes sense, but this is making a theological point that everything only exists by Him, and they only come into being by Him

-Someday, anyone who is in Christ will join with the 4 creatures and the 24 elders in worshipping God 24/7, using everything they have and are to honor, praise, and glorify God.

-Some really bad ideas about what that means. What if I don’t like singing? Are we just going to be playing harps on clouds all the time? 

-There is going to be continuity and discontinuity between heaven and earth, and I think there’s going to be a lot more continuity than we often think about. We have a picture in the Bible of what our resurrected bodies will look like and how they’ll operate in Jesus’ resurrected body. He was able to eat, walk, talk, be touched. His disciples recognized Him! But there were also some unique things, like walking through walls, disappearing. 

-When we get to heaven, we’re all going to have jobs to do! We’ll be able to continue learning new things, practicing new skills, and all of them will be tools that will be used to worship and glorify God. And here’s the best part: we have eternity to explore these things! So if it takes you 100,000 years to learn something, don’t worry, you’ve got eternity to keep learning and worshipping the Sovereign Creator 

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by mikethestrand on March 17, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on March 17, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/03/17/revelation-41-11-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 3:1-22 – Sermon Manuscript

-New classes starting NEXT WEEK at 9AM:
-“Strange New World” how did we get to the point in a generation where the statement “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” not only makes sense, but has become the norm
-EFCA Denials and Affirmations: social justice, woke, CRT, Christian nationalists, transgenderism, gender roles in the church, annihilationism.
READ/PRAY
1) Sardis: Wake Up! (1-6)
-About the city: one of the most glorious cities in Asia, but it was well past its heyday.
-Almost an impregnable military stronghold. Sheer cliffs on 3 sides, steep approach on the 3rd side.
-Fell in 546 BC because some men climbed up the “unscalable” cliff and just opened the gates to the enemy. “Capturing Sardis” became common language to describe achieving something impossible. Happened again in 214 BC! Another guy climbed up the cliff and opened the gates!
-17 AD a terrible earthquake devastated the town, rebuilt by Rome, who then used the face of the emperor on their currency.
-Special interest in death and immortality, focus on the fertility cycle and bringing life out of death.
-One of the largest Jewish synagogues every excavated was found here, room for over 1,000 people.
-Jesus is the one who has authority and power in heaven, not the strong Jewish community (hold on to that idea, it comes up again at the end)
-Reputation for: literally “name is alive” How would you feel if Jesus’ commendation toward you is: you have a good name. But your name doesn’t match up to reality
-I think this a theme throughout Scripture! Think of the Apostle Peter (Rocky!) yet he might be the most insecure and weak of the twelve apostles because he repeatedly caves in to peer pressure. See Jesus takes what looks useless to us and turns it into something useful. Paul describes the gospel message as a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks. Yet that’s what we believe!
-How can this church turn it around?
-Be alert! Wake up! Just like the city left their backside unguarded, stop sleeping and start shoring up the weaknesses in their lives.
-Strengthen what remains: 2 Tim. 1:6 “fan into flame” think during the summer when you have a bonfire. If you don’t tend to it, it will slowly burn out. Then you’d need to blow on the smolder, throw some grass on it. Similarly, if there are good things happening, and God is working in some small area, feed it! They’re not dead yet!
-Remember what they have received and heard: think back to the truths of the gospel message they believed in. Don’t stray too far from that simple message that Jesus Christ died for you! Hold to that and live a life of repentance.
-If the church doesn’t stay awake, judgment is coming. No one knows when that day is, but judgment is guaranteed. Think of 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.”
-The whole church isn’t on the verge of dying: there’s a faithful remnant who are continuing to serve the Lord. Do you have the conviction to be that kind of person?
-What promise does Jesus give to the conquerors here?
-Dressed in white clothes: mark of purity, completeness
-Never erase: “At some point “the curse of the Minim” was added to the 18 Benedictions prayed daily by Jews in the ancient world. “The curse of the Minim” reads, “May the Nazarenes and the Minim suddenly perish, and may they be blotted out of the book of Life and not enrolled along with the righteous.” (Jim Hamilton). This Jewish commitment Jesus says has it backwards! And if Jesus writes them down, nothing can erase them. Matt 10:32-33 Whoever denies Jesus before others will be denied by Him.
2) Philadelphia: Love Jesus First! (7-13)
-The city: called “The gateway to the east” Volcanic soil fertile and ideal for grapes. (city of brotherly love, just like the one in Pennsylvania)
-Youngest city, founded sometime after 189 BC. Biggest issue: prone to earthquakes. Many people lived outside of the city because of that. Walls of the city were constantly cracked, building were built assuming they would fall. The pillars used would show signs of deterioration. While we don’t have any pillars left from the original, this is what they would have looked like (from archway of the church of St. John the Theologian in Philadelphia)
-After a big earthquake in 17 AD, taxes were removed for 5 years, in response the city renamed itself “Neocaesarea” and then also added the name “Flavia” in response to the imperial dynasty.
-Primary allegiance was to Dionysus, the god of wine.
-While Philadelphia was big and impressive, the church there was the opposite.
-Jesus is holy and true: don’t give in to the worldly standards or expectations, and don’t put your hope in the wrong places.
-Key of David: allusion to Isa. 22:22 “I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder; what he opens, no one can close; what he closes, no one can open.” Entrance into God’s presence. The Jews had kicked the church out, but Jesus won’t.
-No negative word said about this church. They’ve remained faithful and haven’t denied Jesus’ name.
-Similar phrasing from Smyrna, but Jesus promises to be with His people in the midst of the hour of testing.
-“Earth dwellers” (CSB-“those who live on the earth) always refers to unbelievers throughout Revelation
-Remain faithful to Jesus, don’t deny, even unto death.
-Conquerors receive:
-Pillar in the temple: unlike the pillars that were prone to earthquakes, this pillar can’t be knocked over!
-Remember how many times the name of this city was changed? If Jesus writes His name it will never change, and they’ll be a part of a new city: New Jerusalem. Ties to the book of life where the names reside.
3) Laodicea: Let Jesus In! (14-22)
-This city: 2 major trade routes through here, a hub of trade and communications in the province. Allied closely to Rome, administrative and judicial center for the area. Eventually became the banking center adding wealth. Became the home to a textile industry known for producing raven-black wool. And a famous school of medicine that created “Phrygian powder” and eye salve.
-Also prone to earthquakes, destroyed in 60 AD, but refused help from Rome. The citizens paid to rebuild.
-No water supply, piped in via an aqueduct.
-Amen, faithful and true, OG:
-Col. 1:18 “He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.”
-Not that Jesus is a created being, but think of what we learn about Jesus in John 1:3 “All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.”
-Works are neither hot nor cold. I remember being told that God wishes they were either spiritually on fire for him, or cold enough to be done with them, but that’s not the point he’s making.
-Just as He’s done other places, and for the same reason I will use illustrations from movies or events taking place around us to help us understand the text, Jesus here is saying that He wishes the people were hot and healing like the waters at Hierapolis (city 6 miles away), or cold and refreshing like the waters at Colossae (10 miles away), but lukewarm (like the water than came through the aqueducts) which was repulsive. Additionally, the water would pick up minerals as it was transported, so by the time it got to the city it was repulsive, literally vomit inducing!
-So because they are neither bringing the healing power of the gospel to bear in their conversations, or refreshing others with the message of the gospel Jesus is going to vomit them out. Be done with them! It’s because of how they define themselves:
-They think they’re wealthy, and they are! But only on earth.
-Remember, one of the purposes of Revelation is to help us change our glasses, or the way we see and interpret events that are taking place around us. Jesus’ goal with these letters is to give these churches a glimpse of what’s happening spiritually. So because of the immense wealth of this city, this church has started to imbibe that same thinking and think they need nothing. But spiritually, they are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. What an indictment!
-Jesus goes on to give them some advice: buy true gold (spiritually), white clothes (contrasted with the black wool or purple cloth that was a marker of wealth), and spiritual ointment to have their eyes opened to the spiritual world instead of only focusing on the physical/material world.
-This is similar to a story in Acts 8 – Simon the Sorcerer thinking material wealth gives you access to God’s kingdom. He actually asks the apostles to give him the ability to lay hands on people and give them the Holy Spirit! Peter responds “May your silver be destroyed with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, your heart’s intent may be forgiven.”
-Despite having all the material wealth they could need, spiritually both Simon and the church at Laodicea are spiritual bankrupt. The only way to get true and lasting riches is to repent of putting your hope and trust in God’s good gifts, and instead put your hope and trust and confidence in Him.
-We then come to one of the most quoted verses from Revelation that has been used in more evangelistic messages than I can keep track of! But it misses the point of what Jesus is saying here.
-Is this letter written to a person or a church? A church! Instead of Jesus standing at the door of someone’s heart, it’s painting a picture of being too wealthy and independent to admit their need for Jesus. It’s a terrifying indictment of a church! This is another way of saying this church has stopped functioning as a church and instead has become a social club.
-But this also paints a picture of an historical reality that the people would have understood. At this point in history, most cities in this area were so safe and secure that they never closed their gates. But that wasn’t the case in Laodicea. They wanted to protect and preserve all the wealth and prestige they’d accumulated so every night they’d close their gates. In fact, when the city was rebuilt, the gates had placards on them noting who paid for it. So the church would have had that image in mind when Jesus is condemning them in this way. Jesus had been shut out of the church the same way the city shuts people out of their gates. They think they have arrived and need no help, even from Jesus!
-If the church finally acknowledges their need of Jesus, and let Him back in (to where He belongs), He will come and eat with them. This is a way of signifying restoration of relationship. Eating together was the sign of close connection and relationship building. (think of the accusations of Jesus who ate with sinners) Jesus wants to be in close relationship with His church, but the church can become so independent that we’ve inadvertently thrown Him out and closed the door.
-The final call to the church is to sit in proper judgment. Don’t assume that because of material wealth that you have spiritual blessings! Jesus is the one who sits on the throne of judgment, and He invites His followers to sit with Him IF they remain faithful to Him
-What about us? Where are we at today? If we were to be given a letter from Jesus, where would we be commended, and where would we stand condemned? In 2014, an author and researcher named Thom Rainer wrote a book titled “Autopsy of a Deceased Church” that had some incredibly helpful information on it! And then he followed it up with “Anatomy of a Revived Church” in 2022. Look at the chapter titles of his first book:
-Let’s think about some of these: “the past is the hero.” Anyone ever heard someone say “we’ve never done it that way before!” That’s a good description of this issue. And because I’d rather talk about issues than dance around them, this has been an issue in our history! We have a tendency to look back on 04-10 as the “glory days” when our halls were filled, when attendance was up, but what we forget it he turmoil that was taking place behind the scenes. The past tends to be viewed through rose colored glasses, but God’s still at work here today! And we know from Revelation that the best is always in the future!
-“The budget moved inwardly.” As of today, 13% of our annual budget is given toward outside ministries, missionaries, or organizations. From a crisis pregnancy center to campus ministries to missionaries in China, our dollars aren’t just being focused on ourselves.
-“The Great Commission Becomes” the great commission is Jesus’ command in Matt. 28 “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” We can summarize that as Make & mature disciples of Jesus. If discipleship isn’t taking place (either new conversions or people growing more like Jesus), then we stop being a church on mission with what Jesus has called us to do and be. Going means going into even our local community, our neighborhoods with the gospel message. (“from the edge of the parking lot to the end of the world”) It means we have to live different from the same worldly pursuits our neighbors are living out.
-“The preference-driven church” As soon as someone starts defining the church based on their preferences we’re going to die. Period. Unless we are willing to die to our preferences we have not hope of being a healthy church. As soon as you find yourself says “I don’t like __” realizing this is what’s happening in your heart. Whether it be the music, the class topics, the LG materials, the kid’s ministry, or even the preaching. When you start viewing the church through what you get instead of what you give you setting the church up to fail.
-“The church rarely prayed together” I read an article a few months ago that was titled “32 Random Thoughts About the Local Church” One of them says “Few people want to be part of a church that doesn’t pray, but few people want to attend a prayer meeting. You should ponder this conundrum.” Do you spend time in prayer for our church, or time praying with other members of the church? One of the commitments I’ve made since coming here is trying to end as many meetings as I can praying. Not every time, but a majority of the meetings I have I try to close in prayer. If we’re not praying, we’re not growing.
-There’s more that could be said, and I’m not trying to say this book is the same as the Bible, it’s not, but it gives us some time to pause and reflect on where we are as a church. Are we too complacent about what’s going on around us to be effective in witnessing to those around us? Are we too blind to the spiritual realities we’re facing because we’re too obsessed with earthly riches?
-Yes, these letters are to churches, but churches are comprised of individuals. So every single one of us needs to ensure that we’re keeping Jesus as the center and focus of everything we do, so that we as a church can move toward that same goal.

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by mikethestrand on March 10, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on March 10, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/03/10/revelation-31-22-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 2:1-11 – Sermon Manuscript

-Letters have become incredibly special today! I remember back when texts were the most significant thing you could get. Those things cost 5 cents each! I also remember when getting a phone call was the most significant thing! Back when you had to call a friend and awkwardly talk to their parents for a few minutes before you could ask to talk to your friend. Now, most people I know are annoyed when you get a phone call, texting is ubiquitous, and letters are incredible special and dear to your heart. Except for the ones from Anderson windows that look special and handwritten, until you open them up and find out it’s an advertisement.

-How would you feel if you got a letter from Jesus? Would you be excited or nervous? 

-It’s at times difficult for us to remember that these letters are written to real people who lived in a real place, who had real lives, and needed comfort and correction from the Lord, just like we do today. What’s even crazier is we do have a number of letters written to us: 66 of them – we call it the Bible! Each time we open it God Himself is speaking to us – which means there will be times where we challenged, and times where we’re comforted. That’s true of any and every relationship! 

READ/PRAY

-First thing to note is the similarities between all these letters.

-Chart

-7 churches, address to angel, connection back to Christ, encouragement, correction with a call to repent (of 5 of them, the 2 that don’t have that call are the least impressive and most impoverished), listen, and finally a promise on how to overcome. Keep that in mind as we walk through these churches over the next few weeks!

-Churches tend to reflect or adopt both the positives and negatives of the cities and cultures they’re in, same today. 

-You may have heard the story of asking a fish what it’s like to live in water, and the reply is “what’s water?” It’s similar for us growing up – we assume so many things but until we run into someone who lives differently than us we tend to not get challenged on those assumptions. (Thank you, the food was very good, may I please be excused)

-If you say “church isn’t like it was when I was growing up” this is part of the reason why. Acts 17:26 We all have appointed times. I’ve talked to retired pastors who have shared they’re glad they’re not ministering today because it’s much more difficult. That’s ok! They don’t need to! God called them to a specific time and season, just as He’s called me to a specific time and season, and I’m very hopeful about the future of the church! 

-As we walk through the letters to these churches, there are things that will apply to us, things that will apply to other churches, and things that applied to the churches that were written to. Written first and foremost to these churches, but have application for the church throughout all of human history.

  1. Ephesus (1-7)

-Ephesus was a major port city. 3rd largest city in the Roman empire. Roads traveling from here to all of Asia (hence why Acts can describe Paul as preaching the word to “all of Asia”)

-Major commercial port that required constant dredging to prevent the harbor from becoming completely silted over and inaccessible by boat.

-Because of the commerce, also home to 1 of the 7 wonders of the ancient world: temple to the god Artemis, 4x larger than the Parthenon in Greece. Artemis was the god of fertility, magic, and astrology (do you think it’s a coincidence that Jesus is described as holding 7 stars). 

-Not only did they worship Artemis primarily, but significant cultural centers would also become centers of emperor worship (often referred to as “imperial cults”) Ephesus had 3 temples dedicated to 3 different emperors.

-Church was founded by Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla (Acts 18-19)

-Paul there for at least 2 years (Acts 19:10), wrote a letter to them called “Ephesians” that we studied a few years ago!

-Riot against Paul for affecting the economic base (Acts 19:23-41), but I think it’s important to note that Paul’s warning when he left was to be careful not to let people lead them astray from the true faith. (Acts 20:28-30)

  1. True Orthodoxy (1-3) “straight teaching” Right belief

-Jesus is speaking to them, remember the one we just studied last week who holds the 7 stars and walks among them.

-Jesus is there and present in the church. Not some distantly removed dictator.

-Positive: works, labor, endurance, cannot tolerate evil people.

-Eugen Peterson: untiring, unflagging, and vigilant work

-Tested “apostles” not part of the 12, can be just church messengers

  • True Orthopraxy (4-7) “straight action” right action, right practice, living

-Correction: abandoned, fled, run away from first love. 

-Far more intentional than just drifting away.

-Eugene Peterson: “abandoning their first zestful love of Christ”

-A few debates about what this love is referring to, but because we know the author of this book, I think it sheds some light on what he’s referring to. Proposals: love for Jesus/God, or love toward others.

-Think of John 3:16 “For God so loved the world” or 1 John 3:18 “Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and truth” or 1 John 4:7 “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” and finally 4:11“Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.”

-I think we also need to keep in mind Jesus’ words on the great commandment: Matt. 22:37-40.

-Jesus is saying it’s not enough to just have correct theology. In fact, those with the best theology are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire: James 2:19 “You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe-and they shudder.” 

-Summary of God’s expectations for His people: love God supremely, love others sacrificially. It’s not enough to just mentally agree with some truth claims: those truth claims are meant to soak themselves deeply into your life and change the way you live, including even your emotional life.

-The way you could summarize this church is that they’ve become so committed to right beliefs that they’ve neglected to love God or other people. They’ve forgotten the great commandment.

-Think of just how many “heresy hunter” organizations exist today! A quick look at YouTube and it can quickly become overwhelming! True belief matters greatly, but so does the way we live. You can’t separate those 2 truths! And I think this is an area that we as a church need to be wary of. I’m honestly not worried about us drifting away from the truth: we have more seminary degrees in this room than some seminaries offer! What I do worry about is become so determined to hold onto the truth that we neglect Jesus’ command to love others too.

-This even affected the EFCA over the past couple years! A pastor was hired at a church in NJ who claims to be an expert in theology, and to have a prophetic gift from God, and wrote 3 books denouncing the EFCA as “woke,” Marxist, and social justice warriors. He was given multiple opportunities to repent, he was called out for a lack of charity and grace toward others, and at moments he literally lied about things people said. If you only listen to his side, it sounds like he was doing the right thing, but if you talk to those that have tried to engage with him it becomes clear that there’s no love and only wanting to care about true beliefs (according to him).

-And it’s not just him, there’s whole organizations devoted to the idea that we need to stand firm and fight for the truth, or else the world will fall down around us. Do you really thing that’s our job? Is God so dependent on us fighting for Him that if we don’t stand up His plans are going to fail? My encouragement to you is to be careful of those organizations that only want to fight. Yes, we must stand firm for the truth, but don’t forget to look for the fruit of those who are leading organizations. Hold their lives up to Gal. 5. Do you see outbursts of anger? What about dissensions – trying to divide people (even Christians!) apart? Same with factions – whose side are you on? 

-Church: don’t miss this reality! Those that want to constantly fight and divide are not a part of God’s kingdom, they are manifesting the works of the flesh. Correct theology doesn’t mean you get into heaven! Your life must bear fruit. Always remember what we want to hear Jesus say to us when we finally see Him: “Well done good and FAITHFUL servant.” All of us are going to be surprised at some area of our theology being wrong (doesn’t mean we give up on learning and studying) AW Tozer, Ravi Zacharias (watch your life and doctrine)

-I think it’s important for us to see how Jesus commands them to respond to this letter: remember, repent, and do. 

-I got coffee with someone this week and chatted about how forgetful we are, even when God does incredible things in our lives. That’s normal for humans! That’s why God constantly tells us to remember. But not just remember, go on to repent (turn around), and then live the way you should be living. It’s never too late to repent! 

-If they don’t go back to their first love, Jesus says he will remove their lampstand. That means they would no longer be a church. Sure they can continue meeting, continue trying to achieve certain aims, but Jesus no longer views them as a true church. If we have all the right theology, but have not love, we stop functioning as a true church. This threat fits in with the concern of the city. Remember the constant dredging they did to remove silt from the harbor? There was this constant fear that the city would stop being a city because they were completely dependent on the harbor for their economic growth. Similarly, the church needs to fear no longer being a church unless they “dredge” up the sin in their lives and deal with it.

-I don’t have time to dig into the Nicolaitans, they’ll come up next week!

-Last thing we see is that this message is far broader than just this church. ANYONE who has ears. 

-“To be an “overcomer” in the eschatological war demands a day-by-day walk with God and dependence on his strength.” (Osborne)

-Conquering comes about by the sword of the Spirit, not the sword of power and influence

-Intentional contrast between God’s provision and Artemis’ provision

  • Smyrna (8-11)

-Smyrna had a history of dying and being brought back to life. It’s also the only city that still exists today as Izmir, Turkey. 

-Another harbor city (about 35 miles N of Ephesus) Claim to fame was the birthplace of the poet Homer

-Another prominent location with temples to various gods and emperors. Had an acropolis that was referred to as “the crown of Smyrna”

-The local currency had written on it “First of Asia in beauty and size.”

-Had a large and influential Jewish population who had access to economic and cultural power in the city. The Christians at Smyrna then faced oppression from both Jews and Romans in the city. Left out economically, banned from shopping in the marketplaces, yet 1 of only 2 churches that don’t receive any rebuke from Jesus. 

  1. True Riches (8-9)

-While Smyrna thought they were the first in priority, Jesus is the true First AND the Last. Just like the city had died and come back to life, Jesus shows His true divinity by rising from the dead (and holding the keys to death and Hades in His hands)

-Jesus sees what’s going on. He sees the way they are afflicted and the material poverty that they face, but that’s not the reality spiritually. 

-Even if the church faces being social outcasts, and lacks material means, Jesus is still among them. Do we need to change some of what we view as a successful church? 3Bs: buildings, budgets, butts, ABCs: adults, buildings, cash. What if the most wealthy churches are actually impoverished spiritually? 

-Jesus says he knows exactly what’s going on: slander from Jews, affliction from Romans, and the church feels oppression from both sides.

-This isn’t an antisemitic statement. Jesus was a Jew. Early disciples were Jews. But He is saying something new/unique is now taking place. 

-When confronted by Jewish leaders, Jesus says this: John 8:44

-Because Jesus has come, suddenly genealogy doesn’t matter anymore! Suddenly anyone can become a follower of the 1 true God! So when Jesus goes on to talk about a synagogue of Satan, He’s saying that because they don’t believe in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, they’re serving their father Satan who can only lie. Let me say it again: this verse is NOT antisemitic, and using it to argue that is a gross misinterpretation. 

  • True Suffering (10-11)

-The only guarantee on this side of eternity is suffering. Jesus promises us that!

-10 days isn’t a literal amount of time, but most likely picks up on an idea from Daniel 1 where the prophets were similarly tested.

-Once again, we see suffering is coming, but if you remain faithful you’ll receive not the crown of Smyrna, but the crown of life.

-The promise to those who overcome (persevere) is the second death will never hurt you. Second death is the eternal death (that idea will come up again later)

-This promise to Smyrna would see it realized just a few decades later when their bishop was burned at the stake (and may have even been in the church when this letter was read!) 

-Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna: “Polycarp said: “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” … The proconsul said: “I have wild beasts. I shall throw you to them, if you do not change your mind.”

But he said: “Call them. For repentance from the better to the worse is not permitted us; but it is noble to change from what is evil to what is righteous.”

And again [he said] to him, “I shall have you consumed with fire, if you despise the wild beasts, unless you change your mind.”

But Polycarp said: “The fire you threaten burns but an hour and is quenched after a little; for you do not know the fire of the coming judgment and everlasting punishment that is laid up for the ungodly. But why do you delay? Come, do what you will.”

-Are we willing to face those kinds of threats? That kind of persecution? That kind of loss of social standing if we get the crown of life? That’s the blessing that comes from Jesus if we remain faithful unto death.

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by mikethestrand on February 25, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, History, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 25, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/02/25/revelation-21-11-sermon-manuscript/

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