Good morning. If any of you watch the History Channel, you probably recognize that trailer. It is a two-day miniseries that begins tomorrow and goes for two days. I am not one to really be into the end-time stuff, but this one seemed to catch my attention given all the weird stuff that seems to be happening in the world lately. Things like those epic storms and sand storms out west and the drought out west. Sinkholes all over the world that swallow everything up from cars to houses. Birds that have been said to fall out of the sky. Animals have washed up on shore. Just the all-around attention in the world on violence and wars. We may possibly be in the end times. We don’t know that for sure, but one thing we do know for certain is that we are at the very last sermon in this year-long series called The Story. Can I get an amen? Frankly I am tired of it. We have been going through this year-long series called The Story: God’s story as told through the people, places, and events of the Bible. We actually did start the first week of January last year. It was meant to originally run 31 weeks. I went a little bit over, specifically about 20 weeks over but who is counting. We started in the book of Genesis and we are going to end in the book of Revelation because obviously Revelation is the last book of the Bible.
A little bit of background on the book of Revelation. The word Revelation just simply means unveiling. It is also where we get the word apocalypse which often is associated with chaos and catastrophe and that sort of thing. In its simplest form, it just means an uncovering or an unveiling or a disclosing. When we look at the book of Revelation we see the unveiling or the pulling back of a curtain by God and allowing us to see into his throne room and to see his agenda that is coming down the road, his judgments. Really we are able to see a new heaven and a new earth. The book of Revelation could actually be called the Revelation of Jesus because in the book of Revelation we actually see Jesus in a new light. We see the exalted Christ really more so than we see him in the gospels. It could be called the Revelation of Jesus because it is actually the revelation that has been handed down from God to Christ onto his messenger and in this case John. The first verse of the first chapter says “The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.” So the book of Revelation is actually considered written by the writer John who was also the one who is believed to have written the gospel of John and also the three books of John, I, II, and III John. The book of Revelation was believed to be written about somewhere between 90-96 A.D. At this particular time, John would have been getting up there in age. He would have been at least 80 years or more old. At this time, all the other disciples were deceased and probably martyred for their faith. John is on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. He is there as a political prisoner. He shared his faith too much and got in trouble by the emperor Nero. He was sent to this colony on the island of Patmos where he lived out the remaining days of his life. As much as I would have liked to go through the complete book of Revelation, time would not allow it today obviously. So I have to give you a really condensed version of the book of Revelation.
As the story goes, John is on this island and he receives a visit by an angel who instructs him to write some letters to some of the churches around the Mediterranean. Specifically the seven churches that were well known. These letters were a little bit complimentary but they highlighted some criticism that Jesus had of the church. Things like the fact that the churches have lost the passion for Christ. The church was probably falling back into immoral behavior within the congregation. They were still involved in some forms of idol worship. Their faith was kind of lukewarm. They were disinterested in the things of God. As a side note, as I thought about it, this stuff pertained to the first century church but obviously could pertain to most any church in America if their priorities get out of sync. He was given these letters to write to these churches. Following the writing of these letters, he actually got a peek up into heaven. He actually began to look behind a door and was able to look into the very throne room of heaven. The passage Revelation 4:1-2 goes on to say “After this, I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven and the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, ‘Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this.’” When I thought about this passage, it kind of reminded me of the old Star Wars movie. The “Beam me up Scottie”-type imagery because really he was brought right up into the very throne room of heaven and caught a real glimpse of what it is like there. I don’t have time to go through all the passages. He said that he saw a throne with someone on it. He didn’t say what that someone looked like. But he said he saw a throne that was surrounded by a rainbow like an emerald-type rainbow. Out of the throne all these bolts of lightning were coming and sounds of thunder and the throne was surrounded by seven flaming lamps. Then he went on to say that around the throne were 24 other thrones where the elders were seated. They were dressed in white gowns with crowns on their head. That isn’t too weird but then things get kind of weird because he goes on to say that he actually saw four what he would describe as living creatures. All these creatures were surrounded with eyes all over their body front and back. He tried to describe them and he said one kind of looked like a lion. Another like an ox. One had kind of a face of a man and the other one looked like an eagle. Although we don’t know what all those things meant symbolically. We do know one thing for certain. These living creatures love to worship. We are told that they bowed down day and night and never stopped saying “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Then we go on to read that as soon as these living creatures started to bow down and worship and the elders saw the creatures doing it, then they began to worship together. They began to say “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
It doesn’t stop there. This is what is interesting. John is given this glimpse of heavenly worship and it really becomes very contagious. The story goes on to say that the person on the throne had a scroll of some sort but the scroll was sealed and no one could open the seal. It basically goes on to say everybody was sad because nobody could open the seal. Then John describes how he saw something like a lamb, a slain lamb, and the slain lamb was able to go to the throne, take the scroll, and undo the seal. I don’t have it up on the screen but once they figured that out, the worship began to continue. Reading from about verse 9 of chapter 5 it says the elders and the creatures began to sing “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on earth.” So they sang that but it didn’t stop there. Then John describes that he saw a multitude of angels that also got caught up in worship. He says, “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: ‘Worthy is the lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’” But it didn’t stop there. It continued on to say how pretty soon John saw the entire universe. Every person and creation also giving praise to God. It says “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever.’ The four living creatures said, ‘Amen,’ and the elders fell down and worshiped.” When you read Revelation and you see this image of John, one thing that is very clear is it is a very clear picture of worship. It starts in the center and goes out in concentric circles until eventually the whole universe is caught up in this worship of God. It is a phenomenal picture of worship. It is a clue that that is what heaven is about. I say right now if you don’t enjoy worshiping now, you probably aren’t going to enjoy heaven very much because heaven is all about worship.
We see a shift from John’s beautiful image of worship to a lot of imagery that is not so worshipful. For the next 16 chapters, we see images that are kind of horrific. They are disturbing and if anything they are very depressing. What happens after that seal holding the scroll is broken, you see this judgment after judgment after judgment coming out from the hand of God that really is just kind of horrific. John goes on to describe these judgments by using a series of sevens. He talks about there are seven seals. He talks about seven trumpets. Then he talks about seven bowls. I don’t have time to go into all the judgments that come through these sevens. But to give you an idea of what it was like, he starts off by talking about the four horsemen that come out, which are actually associated with the creatures that we just described and now these creatures are on horses and they come into the world kind of as soldiers and kind of angry soldiers. They begin to wreak war and destruction and death and bloodshed on the world. Then John goes on to describe later how he suddenly has a vision of hail and fire coming down on the earth. About a third of the earth becomes totally scorched, totally dry, totally burned up. Following that he gives an image of something the size of a mountain being on fire that looks like it was cast into the sea and the sea turns into blood and about a third of the creatures in the sea are killed. If that wasn’t bad enough it is followed by a star that comes in and hits the earth and destroys the lakes and the rivers so much so that if anybody was to drink from the water they would die. Then it goes on to talk about a blackout. A blackout that is so bad that the light from the sun or the moon or the stars could not come through. A blackout that would last for days or weeks. It was a very horrific scene. He closes it all out by talking about how four fallen angels are allowed to come up from the abyss and they come up and begin to also lay siege upon the earth. They do so by recruiting thousands upon thousands of demonic-type figures to come in and wreak havoc on the earth. This is a disturbing image. It really is bad. This is the stuff that movies are made of. This is the stuff that the blogs on the internet are made of. They love reading about this kind of stuff because if you try, you can actually begin to try and connect the events that occurred in the Bible during these judgments with a lot of modern-day events.
The story goes on and we find that eventually the second coming of Christ happens. Christ arrives on a white horse and defeats Satan and his armies and casts his cronies, the beast and the false witness, into the lake of fire. Then he ties up Satan for a thousand years. We don’t know why for a thousand years but during that thousand-year’ reign Christ is able to reestablish himself over all of the earth basically. After a thousand years he releases Satan to have one more final hoorah so to speak. So Satan gets free and begins another revolt, which Christ immediately crushes, and then he is thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity. That is pretty much the end except things get really kind of bad for the remaining people because it is time. It is judgment day. Basically all the people that ever lived line up at the throne of God and there is a thing called the Book of Life there and if somebody finds there name is not written in the Book of Life, they are going to be thrown into the lake of fire. The passage goes on to say the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. If anyone’s name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
If you have ever read Revelation, you know that I had to skip over a whole lot of stuff there. A whole lot of stuff. But if anything, you get the idea that aside from the first five chapters or so which talks about this lovely worship scene, the next 15-16 chapters are really about death, destruction, mayhem, and judgment. If you were to stop there, you would say this is a depressing book. The good news is God doesn’t leave John there. He gives him a new vision. He gives him a vision of his heavenly home. His heavenly domain. He goes on to write in chapter 21 “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” This is a cool thing but what makes it really cool is he goes on to write “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God.’” What I like about this passage is this is a passage where we see the link between Genesis and Revelation. We start seeing the link between the beginning of the Bible and the end of the Bible. It is a really cool thing because if you remember way back when we talked about Genesis God basically created his people to commune with them. To be with them. He created them in his image. He gave them complete domain over all the earth and all he wanted was for them to submit to him and he would just be with them for ever and ever. As we know, God did not create robots. God gave the people free will. Because they had free will, for some reason, they chose to walk away from this great relationship with God and do their own thing. Consequently, they were banned from the garden which also means they were banned from the Tree of Life, which means they could not live forever. They would someday die. What we see in the Bible is basically one long story of leaving the garden and God trying to draw his people back to the garden. It is interesting that he does. He creates a new garden. A garden that looks a little similar to the paradise but probably a little bit better. Going on to describe the garden it says “Then the angels showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.” What is really cool here is you get to see the tree of life again. You get to see the tree of life that was spoken of in Genesis all of a sudden come back in Revelation. If you wanted a quick summary of what the Bible is about, it is really a story of tree-to-tree. Leaving the tree of garden and then going back to the tree of garden. It is a pretty neat thing.
In summary that is kind of what the book of Revelation is about. I was thinking about doing this sermon and I was thinking there are so many ways I could approach this. I talked to a few people and I think they were hoping that I would answer some tough questions about Revelation. Specifically about the judgment and that sort of thing. But I just decided not to go there. I figured if you want answers to all your speculations, there are thousands of places on the internet where you can find answers. All you have to do is go home and do a Google search. Type in end times and see what pops up. Tons of stuff. All sorts of stuff. People are just sitting there waiting to answer all your questions out there. But the sad thing is that what happens many times is you go out to those sites and you will leave a little bit confused and possibly even a little bit scared. That is a shame because the book of Revelation was not meant to be a book that would scare you or confuse you. It was actually written to a people that were just like us. A people who during that time were facing very hard times. They were questioning their faith. Wondering in this day and age does it really make sense to follow this person called Jesus Christ. So what God is doing through Jesus and through John is giving those people a little bit of hope. He is pulling back the curtain and saying I am going to show you what is going on here. You are in the midst of this horrible time and you are ready to throw in the towel, so I am going to give you a glimpse of heaven and I am going to give you a glimpse of my agenda. I am going to show you the throne room of God and one day every person that ever lived will be either worshiping me or they will be living in the lake of fire. I want to show you that even though you are going through some sort of trial right now and you are being persecuted by somebody, someday you are going to get your justice. The people who are persecuting you are going to get their just deserts. He wanted to show them that someday Christ would come again. That is a promise. He would come again as a second coming and he would then be seated on the throne. Not only that. There would be this eternal dwelling created for us. Eternal dwelling. The heavenly kingdom. The new heaven and the new earth would be available for us.
In closing, I am sorry I might not have answered some of your questions. But really the more I thought about, you should only have one question to consider. When it all comes down to Revelation, the only question you consider is the question that Peter proposed in his second letter when he wrote about the end times. He said “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar. The elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?” This is the only question that we have to consider. What kind of people ought you to be? Because Peter basically knew that we might struggle with the answer, he provided the answer in the very next line. He says in 2 Peter 3:11-12 “You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” You think what does that mean? It means exactly what it says. “You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” In other words you need to live exactly the way you should be living the minute you stepped out of the baptistery. You should be living holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. You need to live holy and godly lives. In other words, you need to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Basically, you need to be what I and everybody else who preached up here all through the year have been telling you. You need to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. A fully committed disciple of Jesus Christ. We don’t know if we are in the end times. We have no idea if we are in the last days. But it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter one teeny bit. We know like that first century church that everything is going to be okay. We know because just like that first century church got a picture through Revelation, we get a picture through the book of Revelation. We have seen that throne room of God when we open up the book of Revelation. We know that Revelation is simply about worship. As we begin to worship here, we are somehow even today being caught up in the worship that is going on in the heavenlies. We know that God is in control no matter what happens. As much as we look around the world and we see all the injustices, we too know that someday everything is going to be made right. God is going to even the scales so to speak. That is what he is going to do. We know that one day Jesus is going to take his place upon that throne and we also know that right now there is a new heaven and a new earth being prepared for us that we are going to live and we are going to dwell with God for all eternity. In confidence, we, like John and all the saints who have ever lived, will be able to get to the end of days and basically sing with everybody else ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Let us pray.
