Flowing From The Throne Of God

Flowing From the Throne of God

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” Revelation 22:1-2

Intro: In the movie “Bridge of Spies” directed by Steven Spielburg, actor Tom Hanks plays a New York lawyer James Donovan is asked to defend Rudolf Abel of being a spy during the cold war with Russia.

(Spoiler Alert) Rudolf Abel is arrested and convicted for being a spy.

When it looks like he is about to get the death penalty Tom Hanks, who also has a background as an attorney in many insurance lawsuits poises a question to the Judge Mortimer Byers

What if instead of the death penalty Judge Byers gives instead a prison sentence to the spy Rudolf Abel

Just in case…, as a type of “insurance” against the possibility that the United States also at some point might hypothetically have a spy who would be captured someday as well.

As the movie progresses a short time later Russia captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane.

James Donovan (Tom Hanks),

goes all the way to the supreme court to fight for the legal rights of the Russian spy Rudolf Abel.

And ultimately for the exchange of Abel the Russian spy for Power the American spy and also an innocent college student who happens to be caught up on the wrong side of the Berlin wall.

During the arguments presents are questions raised like can a Russian be a spy and be honorable?

Can an American Judge be a patriot

and ignore the human rights afforded individuals either foreign or domestic in the U.S. Constitution?

What makes one person a patriot or another not a patriot?

And I raise a similar question today, “What makes one person a saint or another person not a saint?”

We are here today to celebrate the lives of “All Saints Sunday.”

The word saint appears about 100 times in the King James Version of the bible.

While the New Living Translation uses the word saint only twice.

The more modern translations uses the word “servant” or one version even reverts to the word “slave unto the Master” instead of saint.

In The Apostles’ Creed we say the phrase, “I Believe in the communion of the saints.”

Someone once said, You can be a Christian and never step foot inside a church.

But you can’t be a Christian and never step foot outside into the world and not proclaim Christ.

Let’s think about like this:

You bow your head and pray at church

You sing hymns and praises at church

You hear the scriptures read at church.

But you very rarely if at all see someone praying at Wal-Mart

You very rarely if at all here someone singing Amazing Grace at the Dollar Store

You very rarely see someone reading the bible at a library or restaurant.

Even Christmas has Santa Claus

And Easter has easter bunnies.

The world outside we live in today has changed so quickly over the past 40 years

that if Jesus comes back tomorrow it will still take the church another 10 years to realize he has came.

It is a thousand time easer to live for Jesus inside the communion.

But the real defining character

The real and essential quality of the spiritual experience of the Christian as believer

is when we step foot outside the church building in live our lives daily in the nature and temperament of Christ.

I have been to a lot of funerals where people were called saints.

Is there some kind of vote taken?

There is an old story about two brothers who terrorized the town they lived in?

When they were young they were bullies in school.

When they were grown they were bullies as adults.

They were terrible to their wives and abusive to their children.

They were dishonest to their customers and cheated every way they could.

Then one day suddenly the older brother Joe died.

In making arrangements for his funeral, the younger brother asked the town pastor to do the service.

“And," said the younger brother,

“I insist that you call my older brother a saint during the funeral service."

The good pastor resisted.

But then he was told there would be a $100,000.00 gift to the church riding on his decision.

The pastor decided to do the service.

On the day of the funeral, the pastor addressed the congregation with these words.