In the Meantime…
Revelation 15
Written: Friday, August 8, 2025
The following is a hypothetical story. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. A retired couple were walking together through the Mall. He thought they were out for a leisurely stroll. She stopped in front of the first ladies clothing store and said: George, I think I’ll go in to see if they have anything that fits. George said, And what am I supposed to do in the meantime…
What am I supposed to do in the meantime… Most of life is lived in the meantime. Between what we thought was going to happen and what really happens. From birth to death, we are being constantly being pressed into the meantime. Routines change, plans put on hold, dreams die. Even before we were born for nine months from conception to birth our mothers lived in the meantime. Just about everything was put on hold to bring us into the world.
And it is the same at the other end. After a lifetime of hard work, we retire. The next unspoken thing on the agenda is death. So, what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Most of us here this morning are living in the meantime.
Even the Church lives in the meantime. The Christian Church has exists between the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The last thing we were told was to wait. We’ve been waiting for 2,000 years in the meantime.
Back in Revelation 6 when the fifth seal is broken those who had been slain for the word of God and for their witness cried with a loud voice. O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long, how long, before you will judge and avenge our blood?
And the disconcerting answer comes back. Wait a little longer. Wait a little longer. There is no biblically, straight answer to the question: How long? We live in the meantime. Surrounded by Corruption, injustice, evil. Why doesn’t God do something? People are getting away with murder.
We live in the meantime. We are caught between arthritis and adoration, between sin and sanctity, between time and eternity. What are we supposed to do in the meantime?
I am happy to report that the book of Revelation gives us a couple of suggestions on how to spend our meantime. Remember this is a book for the 21st Century.
Here is what we are supposed to be doing in the meantime.
1. Sing by the Sea
2. Do good Works
I. Sing by the Sea
Revelation 15: I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and, also those who had conquered the beast, standing beside the sea of glass with harps in their hands.
And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!
Singing by the Sea. I need to shatter the picture you have in your head. It is the picture of you getting a group of your Christian friends together and heading off to English Bay on a glorious summer night and singing kumbaya. Forget that!
I want you to think of Spot’s Pool. We were in the city of Mazatlán when our kids were young. We were on a holiday. Walking from our hotel to the Supermarket to buy a few things to eat. Along the way to the Supermarket was this huge sink hole filled with all manner of debris: stagnant water, dead animals, algae, garbage, and the smell. The kids loved it just to see their parents run by the place with disgust. After several times running by this horrible place one of our lovely children christened the place Spot’s pool. So forever after when we saw something that was very disgusting. We called it Spot’s pool. So, let me assure you that the sea we are looking at in Revelation 15 is Spot’s pool.
Almost always in the Revelation the sea is a symbol of violence, evil, pain, and chaos. It is no accident that Tel Aviv is a 20th century creation. Historically the Jews were very fearful of the Mediterranean Sea. They built their towns and cities in the Highlands of the Judean mountains. Jerusalem is about the only major Capital city in the world without a natural body of water. Jews thought of the sea as a place of evil and death. They remembered crossing the Red Sea. They saw heaven as a place where there was no more sea.
Yet we are told that these Christians stand beside the stinking sea, singing. They stand in the face of injustice, evil, and chaos. They stand with the stench of corruption all around them. They stand boldly, without fear, without arrogance and sing. They are in the world but not of the world.
And so we sing by the sea in the meantime.
And what do we sing? I might have thought a lament. Certainly, there is a place for lamentations in the life of the believer. But no, these early Christians sing a song of praise to God and to the Lamb. Great are your works O God, Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. We may not understand your timing, Lord. We may not understand all your ways. We may not understand why you don’t clean up this mess. But we lift our voice in praise to you O God.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. In everything give thanks. We will not murmur and complain. We will not try to figure out why the world is in a mess. We will die with unanswered questions. We will praise God, in the meantime. This is one thing we are to do in the meantime…
II. Do Good Works
There is one more thing we are to do in the meantime. We are to go about doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil. We are to bring peace to the violence, love to the hated, healing to the pain. A Christian is never to retire from doing good works.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord for their deeds follow them. We are not to leave behind a marble slab but good works. Good deeds are the lasting memorial we all seek.
Good works play a huge role in Revelation. Deeds matter. All throughout the Revelation what we do counts in our lifetime and for untold generations. Revelation 2:2 Jesus says, I know your works, 2:5 Do the works you did at the first, 2:23 – I will give to each according to your works. 3:2 I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 14:13 – Blessed are the dead in Christ for their deeds follow them. Revelation 19:8 the fine linen is the good deeds of the saints.
At this point some Protestant zealot stands up to remind us of what Saint Paul said in Ephesians 2: By grace you have been saved through faith This not our doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Martin Luther points out in his most important book, The Bondage of the Will that the main issue that split the Church 500 years ago was not the papacy or purgatory or indulgences. The main issue that people fought and died for was this question: Are we saved by doing good works or are we saved by God’s grace?
If you have read the New Testament, you know the answer. A Christian is someone who has been saved by God’s grace. But read the rest of what Saint Paul has to say in the same passage, We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. That we should walk in them.
The major proof that we are saved is that we will do good works. James goes on the say in his little book, that faith without works is dead. We prove that God’s grace has saved us by doing good works.
Most of us here this morning are living between retirement and death. I am very concerned we make those years count. One of the great lies of the devil is that we can’t make any difference – our best days are behind us.
I am here this morning as a messenger from God to encourage all of us who live in the meantime between retirement and death. We can do good deeds that will make a different not only in our lifetime but in many generations to come.
In 1970 Dr. Norman Borlaug (BorLOG) was already past retirement age. Yet that year he won the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the lives of two billion people around the world. He was the man who discovered a way to grow corn and wheat in arid climates.
But if you check your history and go back a generation perhaps the Nobel Committee made a mistake. Perhaps the credit should have gone to Henry Wallace. In the 1940’s Henry Wallace was Vice President of the United States. He used his power to set up an experimental farm in Mexico to develop hybrid corn and wheat that would grow in arid climates. And he hired a young man named Norman Borlaug to run it.
So while Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Prize it was really Henry Wallace who was the man responsible of saving two billion lives.
But wait a moment, the more I think about it neither Norman Borlaug nor Henry Wallace should have gotten the Prize for saving two billion lives. Go back another generation.
Maybe it was George Washington Carver who saved these lives. Dr. George Washington Carver, as many of you know, was the famous black scientist who discovered 101 ways to use peanuts.
What most people don’t know about George Washington Carver is that while he was at University he took a six-year-old boy under his wing to go on botany expeditions every weekend. Dr. Carver took that little tot and directed his life. He gave the six-year-old Henry Wallace a vision about the future and what he could do with plants and help humanity.
It's amazing isn’t it. Dr. Carver spent most of his life with the peanut and yet those years he invested in a small boy were to save two billion lives.
So perhaps you’re thinking, Dr. George Washington Carver should have been the one to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
No, not so fast. Go back another generation. The man who really saved all those people was a farmer from the backwoods of Missouri - a farmer named Moses, and his wife Susan. Little George was born a slave during the awful days of the America Civil War when wild gangs roamed the countryside wracking havoc.
One night some southern sympathizers raided Moses and Susan’s farm, took their slaves and rode off. Moses followed the kidnappers and traded his only horse for baby George. He was too late to save the mother.
That night the old farmer and his wife made a big decision. He gave the baby his name and decided to raise the child as his own. That’s how Moses and Susan Carver came to name that little baby George Washington Carver. Obviously, the farmers from the back waters of Missouri are the ones who saved the two billion people. They deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.
Who knows my brothers and sisters how far into the future the decisions we make in the meantime will have an impact for good? Your good works matter – now and for unborn generations.
I am standing before you this morning preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ because 400 years ago an old man by the name of James Chilton made a far-reaching decision. He decided to leave misty shores of England with his wife Susanna and his 13-year-old daughter Mary to an unknown land across the sea where he could worship God according to the dictates his conscience. He never set foot in the Promised Land. He died on a ship in Plymouth Harbour, but his daughter lived on.
His courageous, godly act of faith has had a ripping effect down the generations. That man of God was my grandfather to the 10th generation. His decision in old age to follow God is part of the reason I stand before you this morning preaching the Gospel.
We never retire from good works. While we wait for our Lord’s return – in the meantime - we sing by the sea, and we go about doing good.
