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A literary approach to Revelation Chapter 6+7
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
First of all, let me say that after this Sunday, we will be halfway through our series on the book of Revelation. And for some of you, I know that this has been great and you are loving this. You like all the history and the imagery that we're talking about, and you find it fascinating. And so hopefully, as we go through, I'm able to bring some clarity and perspective as we read together. Some of you, however, I get that this is just not your cup of tea, and that is totally fair.
Speaker 1:I think that there is a lot to wrestle with in the scriptures, and so you do not need to be equally fascinated with every book. In fact, would say this, that one of the central messages of revelation is the reminder that Christ sits at the center. So the scriptures are not flat. Not every verse has equal authority in the Bible. It's all important.
Speaker 1:It's all there to teach us and to help us, but Christ, Jesus sits at the center, and he is the lens through which we read and we understand all the rest of the scriptures. And so if reading Revelation doesn't inspire you to go back and reengage with the words of Jesus directly, I think you've missed the point. And so that's why right after Easter, just after we come out of Revelation, we will be doing a series on the Lord's prayer, directly from the words of Jesus. We'll leave this book, and we'll go back into the life and the words and the teaching of Jesus. So if revelation is not what gets you up in the morning, that's okay.
Speaker 1:My hope though is that as we walk through this text together, while you may not come away at the end of this with a deep love for the apocalypse of John, what you will see as we explore is that Revelation has a deep love for Christ. And perhaps that can inspire you in your own journey to go back and read Jesus as well. Now that said, last week, we looked at the imagery of chapters four and five in the book. And there we found a someone sitting on a throne. And then we explored this bizarre, but actually quite common imagery worship with these four living creatures with eyes and wings that represent a rightly ordered universe, creation in worship of God.
Speaker 1:And we saw that mixed in with images of Roman worship worship. At At 24 elders that represent the power and the government of Rome, and they lay their crowns down before this one on the throne. And so part of what John is doing for us is calling us to question who sits at the center of our world. Who is really in control of the universe? Who really holds the power?
Speaker 1:And as we read, just like the persecuted church in Rome, we begin we start with saying this is Jesus, but then we begin to wonder, is it? Is this the emperor? Is this Domitian? Is Rome really as powerful as it says it is? But then we hear a lion, and we turn, and we look, and we see a lamb looking as if it had been slain.
Speaker 1:And that lamb comes and he takes the scroll that represents history from the hand of the one who sits on the throne. And all of the scene erupts into a festival of worship. And it's only here, once the lamb takes the scroll, once the worship begins that we really truly see things for what they are. That God has always been in control, that God has always been the one on the throne, that God has always been at the center of a rightly ordered universe. Caesar, Domitian, the emperor was never even part of the picture.
Speaker 1:But we only see that once the lamb shows us clearly who God is. And so it's almost like John does a double bait and switch on us. He's like the original m night Shyamalayan. Did I say that right? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Some of his movies are awesome. Others not so great. But you get this idea. Right? We start with someone we assume is God, and then he makes us wonder.
Speaker 1:He makes us question, is that God? But when the lamb comes, we see clearly and we recognize that God has always been at the center. And the reason we worship God is not because he is like Domitian, not because he is powerful in the way Rome is powerful, but because God's kingdom and his throne and his beauty and his power is predicated on the sacrificial love of Christ. This is why God is worthy of worship, because of the lamb. Now, one piece that we didn't get to address last week, but that did come up in the questions the following week, was about the seven horns and seven eyes that are the seven spirits that go out into all the world when the lamb appears.
Speaker 1:And so very quickly here, I wanna give you a bit of an explanation. Eyes and horns show us that the lamb is very wise and very strong. So that's what eyes and horns are going to represent in the book of Revelation. Seven spirits though is a little tougher, and that actually comes though from a messianic prophecy back in Isaiah chapter 11. And the key here is this, that when John says the lamb appears, he says, I heard the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David.
Speaker 1:Well, Isaiah speaks about the Messiah too. And he calls him a stump of Jesse from whose roots a branch will appear and bear fruit. Jesse is David's father, if you know the history of the Israelite nation. So when John talks about the lamb as the root of David, he's actually giving us a clue about where to go to get the reference he's about to give us. And once we go back to Isaiah, he goes on to say this, that the spirit of the Lord will rest on the Messiah, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.
Speaker 1:There's your seven spirits. Now the spirit of Yahweh, the spirit of wisdom, spirit of understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear of the Lord. So this is not some crazy theological picture about God having all kinds of spirits. We're not moving from a trinity now to a group of seven. Canadian painting reference for the wind.
Speaker 1:This is simply an image of the wisdom and strength of God. The eyes and the horns, this is everything the Messiah needs in order to carry out his purpose mission. And so that's a little deeper, maybe a little more obscure than the sort of big picture there. But it's important that as we understand and we read just how deeply infused with scripture John's imagination is. I mean, he brings up these images.
Speaker 1:But if we dig through the Hebrew scriptures, we find that he's fueling his imagination with the prophets of Israel. And that's a really neat part of this book. It's just to see how deeply infused and invested with the Hebrew scriptures John's imagination is. Now I'm gonna be moving fairly quickly through a lot of these passages, especially over the next couple weeks. But if there are any images like this, or questions, or things that you're just interested in that I don't get a chance to touch on in a sermon, then by all means, please send a text to the question number on the screen, or just shoot me an email, and I will do my best to do one of two things.
Speaker 1:Either answer it at the start of the next week, like I did now, or at the very least, what I'll do is I'll send you some homework, you can read it for yourself, and I'll give my perspective about what's going on. Because by the end of this series, we are not going to be able to cover everything here, but I do want us all to feel like we have enough background and enough context each to read Revelation responsibly. And so that's what I want to do my best to help you with over this series. So by all means, send me questions and I'll do my best, at least to give you my perspective on there. Now, this week, we have in front of us seven seals and four riders of the apocalypse.
Speaker 1:So there is a lot to cover today as well. So let's pray, and then we'll dive into this. But first, actually, me say this. I know that I have not had a chance to make a lot of jokes in this series. We're kinda moving fairly quickly.
Speaker 1:But I promise you, at some point, I will put a reference to Brad Pitt in the rest of this series somewhere. So just just know that it's coming somewhere in the next four weeks, I promise. Anyway, k. Let's pray. God, we invite you, again this weekend.
Speaker 1:We invite your spirit to be with us as we read and we speak. We wanna understand the context and the history of what's happening. We wanna do the hard work of studying and understanding. But more than that, we long to have your spirit speak to us, enliven this text to our hearts. And so we invite now in this moment your presence to be with us.
Speaker 1:In our words as we speak, in our minds as we read, in our interactions with each other, as we discuss and we wrestle. We are not here to be fascinated by revelation. We are here to be drawn toward your son. And so as we read, we ask that you would show us Christ. And as we contemplate, we ask that you would reveal to us Jesus.
Speaker 1:And as we attempt to take what we learn and apply it to our lives, we ask Lord that you would be with us, walking with us, guiding us, speaking to us, shaping and encouraging and inviting and blessing. Because we believe that we see the mysteries of the universe most clearly in the actions of the Christ. And we see who you are most evidently in the sacrificial love of the lamb who comes to show us who you are. And so our greatest desire as we speak and we read and we study is to see the lamb active in our lives. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Alright. So scary stuff this weekend. Because here we go, with the four riders of the apocalypse. And so I want to begin by reading the opening of chapter six.
Speaker 1:And then tonight, we're gonna work our way through all of six six and seven before we close. But let's begin. Chapter six starting in verse one. I watched as the lamb opened the first of the seven seals. And then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, come.
Speaker 1:I looked, and there before me was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. When the lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, come. Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other.
Speaker 1:He was given a large sword. When the lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, come. I looked, and there before me was a black horse. Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for a day's wage and three quarts of barley for a day's wage, but do not damage the oil and the wine.
Speaker 1:When the lamb opened the forest steel, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, come. I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by the sword, by famine, by plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth. Revelation chapter six one to eight.
Speaker 1:Let the Lord bless the reading of his word. Am I right? Now, this is of course one of the most fertile sections of Revelation when it comes to artistic license. The four horsemen have been the subject of very disturbing, and at times, I would suggest, actually very beautiful works of art. Now when I read this, you may picture in your mind the Nazgul from the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1:It's fairly clear that as Tolkien is writing, he is inspired by a lot of the images here in Revelation. He's drawing on John. Now perhaps though, for you, it's something more classical. This is a work by Viktor Vasnetsov as he pictured the riders of the apocalypse in 1887. And you notice here, the lamb at the top overseeing the destruction and terror that has brought on the world.
Speaker 1:Perhaps though, you want to go back even farther this time to the Bamberg Apocalypse from the year 10/20. This is part of what we call an illuminated manuscript. These were essentially picture book versions of the Bible. In the medieval times, they would make these, and the text would be on one page. And on the facing page would be an illustration that helped to illuminate what you were reading.
Speaker 1:The Bamberg Apocalypse is the book of Revelation done this way. And here you see the first rider of the Apocalypse, not looking too excited about his job, I might add, actually. And I only neither is his horse. His horse does not look impressed with about what he's about to do. Let me just get that horse a carrot.
Speaker 1:He seems depressed. Seriously, though. You notice in the background here, this is also meant to be the first living creature who shows the first rider to John's. I'm not sure if that's how you pictured that living creature, but that's how Bamberg did it. The point is though, this is just fascinating imagery, and it has captured human imagination ever since John wrote it down.
Speaker 1:Christian and non Christian alike have wondered about what we're reading here. However, once again, it does not originate, at least not completely with John. The prophet Zechariah writes, I looked up again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains, mountains of bronze. The first chariot had red horses, the second black, the third white, and the fourth dappled, all of them powerful. I asked the angel who was speaking to me, what are these, my Lord?
Speaker 1:And the angel answered, these are the four winds of heaven going out from standing in the presence of the Lord. Now just as John did with the images from Ezekiel last week, John remixes the images from Zechariah here slightly. So in Revelation, the colors are changed up. It's white, then red, then black, and then finally pale. In Zechariah, it's red, then black, then white, and then fourth is dappled.
Speaker 1:And if you're wondering what dappled is, here's a picture of a dappled, which for my one, he works pretty well as pale. But John takes these images from Zechariah, which represent God's action against the Persian Empire in the sixth century BCE, and that should give us some clue as to how John is going to use them in Revelation. But he takes these images in Zechariah, and he assigns them to the first four scrolls that the lamb is opening. So what I wanna do here is take a look at these four riders in more detail, and then we'll come back to look at seals five and six, and then eventually, the surprising revelation of seal seven. So rider one, there before me was a white horse.
Speaker 1:Its rider held a bow and he was given a crown. And he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. So last week, we were given images of the empire as strong and powerful, only to have that pulled out from under us at the end where the lamb showed us that the emperor wasn't even part of the picture here. Part of what is surprising here in this image is we are seeing just the opposite. See, the empire was incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1:Their armies were fearsome fighting forces. The United States in comparison has nothing on the dominance of Rome that lasted literally for hundreds of years. And everyone knew that if you talked about conquest in the first world, what you imagined was Rome. And yet this image from John does not look like Rome at all. You see, at the time, Rome didn't use mounted bowmen.
Speaker 1:The Roman legion generally used a system called tsetsudo formation, which was basically a row of soldiers holding these big massive shields and spears. And they would advance together toward the enemy, And this would protect them from archer fire, and then they would carry short swords out with them for once they got into close quarters combat. And the phalanx would break, and then they'd go around stabbing people like an army. And so it looked something like this when they were advancing, protected from march of fire marching towards the enemy. And then if they needed to, they could stop and they would reform into a defensive posture like this.
Speaker 1:And this is basically how professional armies worked in some form all the way from Rome up until the First World War. You lined up your men. You marched them toward the enemy. Now strategy in war was where do you attack, where do you withdraw, where's your enemy weak, where are you strong. But the individual life of an individual soldier was just not something that a general would have been worried about.
Speaker 1:Line up your men, march at the enemy. Bow men on horses. This was the strategy of anyone outside the empire. You see, your enemy is better funded than you and better manned than you, better trained than you, has more resources than you, and ultimately has more soldiers to throw at you in a battle, you learn to adapt. And you don't march at a bigger army.
Speaker 1:What you do is you move towards small, fast surgical strikes. You get in, you attack a few soldiers, and you move. In the world of the first century, the way you do that is using horses. That's what mounted bowmen were used for, the underdogs. As powerful as Rome was, they still had to spend massive amounts of energy defending their borders of the empire from all kinds of these small attacks, these raids from enemies, smaller countries outside the borders.
Speaker 1:In particular, one of the enemies that the Romans actually feared were called the Parthians. On the screen here is an ancient carving of a rider performing what's known as a Parthian shot, and that is essentially the very difficult act of shooting an arrow accurately from the back of a galloping horse. This is what the Parthians were known for. And the Parthians lived on the eastern frontier of the empire, and they were notorious for attacking Roman lands and then fleeing. So William Barclay writes this, that in AD sixty two, an unprecedented event occurred.
Speaker 1:A Roman army actually surrendered to Voliges, king of the Parthians. The Parthians rode white horses and were the most famous bowmen in the world. A Parthian shot still means a final devastating blow to which there is no possible answer. Now Barclay makes the claim here that the Parthians rode white horses. That's probably a bit of a stretch, but we do know from records that the Parthians prized Appaloosas.
Speaker 1:It was their favorite horse, which are sort of a white horse with a bunch of black dots. They're like the Dalmatians of the horse world. So the bottom line here is that an image of a rider with a bow, especially on some kind of white horse, is not an image of strength. The image John gives us here with the first seal is actually an image of profound Roman weakness. And that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Because if John is pulling this imagery from Zechariah where the riders represent God's action against the Persian Empire at the time, we should be clued in to perhaps John is using them for God's actions against the Roman Empire at this time. Armies will always be vulnerable to other armies. Empires will always be vulnerable to other empires. Okay. So let's see where this goes.
Speaker 1:Another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. So one of the great claims of Rome was the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. In fact, in all the titles of all the emperors that we talked about last week, the fact that the emperor had brought peace to the world was the central claim. I mean, if you lived at this time and some world power came along, and they crushed raiders and thieves, and they built you roads, possible, and they provided for you a safe environment to work and live, here's the question.
Speaker 1:Do you really care how they do it? Do you care if they demand allegiance to the emperor if they bring peace to the world? Do you care if he thinks he's a god if they bring peace to your neighborhood? Do you care if that peace comes to you through the conquest and the subjugation of others? Others.
Speaker 1:But now John says, what if the borders aren't as secure as you think they are? What if the peace is not as stable as you think it is? You see Paul in Philippians two says that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and tongue confess. Why? Because Jesus was obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Speaker 1:But the Romans had a saying as well, that at the name of Caesar, every knee should bow and tongue confess. Why? Well, literally, it was because the Romans, when they attacked the new area, would bring out, all of the officials, generals, kings, royalty, influential people, and line them up. And they would force them down to their knees, and they would go along the line and ask them to confess allegiance to the emperor. If they said no, they beheaded them and moved to the next person.
Speaker 1:Eventually, until everyone confessed Caesar. This is how the peace of Rome works. It is peace or you die. Peace at the point of a sword. Peace through victory was the slogan of Rome.
Speaker 1:But if peace is brought at the point of a sword, what happens when the sword is taken away and the borders fall? John says, when peace is taken from the world, people will turn on each other, they will attack each other, and they will kill each other. What John is saying here is that the peace of Rome isn't really peace. It's false. It's fake.
Speaker 1:It's the kind that comes when a bigger, stronger person forces you to act in a certain way, but it hasn't actually transformed anyone. And so once the borders go, once the sword is taken away, the peace falls apart because it's enforced from the outside. It's not the kind of grace that transforms us from the inside. And so if the walls fall, the facade fails, and our true natures begin to show themselves. In other words, the peace of Rome is no peace at all.
Speaker 1:It is an illusion. This is a statement about society's inability to bring true peace to the world. Before me, it was a black horse. Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Now, not only did Rome claim that the peace of Rome was historic.
Speaker 1:They claimed that the prosperity of Rome was unprecedented. And there was some truth to that. But now we're told that when this rider appears, a quart of wheat and three quarts of barley will cost a denarius. That's a day's wage in that time. Even though oil and wine are still readily available to everyone.
Speaker 1:So the question here is this, What do you do with the luxury of oil and wine when it now costs you an entire day's wage just to buy grain to make a loaf of bread? John is telling us here that our prosperity is not what we think it is either. This is a statement about the inability of economic systems to bring peace to the world. So he says, you have a great job. That's great.
Speaker 1:Rome got you work. There's trade. That's good. Rome facilitates trade. But is that really what life is made of?
Speaker 1:Oil and wine and a nice car to get to a good job? Things are great. Nobody's against these ideas. But if our trust is placed wholly and completely in economy and our bank account and our ability to buy our way out of any trouble that comes up, John is saying we will inevitably be caught up in the boom and bust of Rome or, dare I say, Alberta. So this image of oil and wine is a symbol of extravagance and luxury, set against the image of basic human needs like bread and grain that nobody can find.
Speaker 1:It's meant to show us that our imagination of money is upside down. Money can't buy you peace. Money can't buy you security. Finally, before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.
Speaker 1:Now, death here in Greek is the normal word Thanatos. But here, it's used as a title instead of a normal noun. And so that's why it's being capitalized in the English for us. And Hades is used in the same way. Even though Hades was not a person in Greco Roman thought, Hades was a place.
Speaker 1:So Hades was the place of waiting for the dead, before they were judged in the Greco Roman system. But here, these are two figures, and they bring with them famine, plague, and apparently animal attacks upon the world. Here, the image is one of ultimate impotence. So Rome isn't as strong as you think it is. The borders are vulnerable.
Speaker 1:And Rome can't transform the hearts of people, says John. If the sword goes away, the peace fails. Rome can't guarantee a good economy. It is boom and bust for the people of Alberta, says John. Now he says that at the end of it all, Rome is and always has been completely impotent to protect us.
Speaker 1:So the philosopher, Epictetus, who actually fled Rome during the time of Domitian. When Domitian was emperor, he actually banned philosophers from the city of Rome. And so all philosophers had to go into exile. And so right around same time as John, Epictetus goes into exile, and he writes these words. The emperor seems to provide us with profound peace since there are no wars any longer.
Speaker 1:But can he then provide us peace from fever too, or from shipwreck, or from fire, or from earthquake? He cannot. From absolutely none of these things can the emperor provide peace. So John tells us, us that armies will always be vulnerable to other armies, and laws will never be able to truly transform human hearts. Economies will never be able to absolutely guarantee our security because life will always be fraught with vulnerability regardless of what government or system we allegiance to.
Speaker 1:That's what these images are about. John is asking you, have you ever put all of your faith in the military to protect you, or the government to keep the peace, or the economy and your job to keep you secure because you've forgotten how vulnerable you are as a human being. But he's not done. Because when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, how long sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?
Speaker 1:So we've put our trust in all these false sources, and it hasn't worked out for us. And we have protected our borders at the expense of the vulnerable. We've brought peace at the point of a sword. We've enjoyed prosperity while others went hungry. And in the midst of preserving all of this power and all of this security, what's happened is Rome has been crushing and oppressing, even killing, Christians who put their faith in other places.
Speaker 1:And so because of this, people have suffered. And I watched as he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair. The whole moon turned blood red, and stars in the sky fell to the earth. So creation now begins to mourn our failures.
Speaker 1:It's as if we have undermined the very premise of creation. God created this world and we broke it. And then the kings of the earth, the princes and the generals, the rich and the mighty and everyone else, both slave and free, they called out. Hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb. And so after all of this, we turn to God expecting the worst.
Speaker 1:We've trusted other sources. We have participated in the, oppression of others. We have forgotten the reason that God created this world and our role in it. And in our shame, what we expect is God to show up and act like Caesar to punish our wickedness, to put down our rebellion, to show us his wrath. He was gonna wipe us out.
Speaker 1:Right? That is the logical conclusion after reading all these seals. The seventh seal means the end. And yet, John continues. I saw another angel coming up from the East, having the seal of the living God.
Speaker 1:And he called out in a loud voice, do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. And then I heard the number of those who were sealed. 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. So there's hope. There is this tiny righteous remnant, this little group that's maintained loyalty to God.
Speaker 1:And God is gonna save them. But when I looked, there before me was not 144,000 from just the tribes of Israel, but instead a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, every tribe, every people, and every language, all standing before the throne and before the lamb. And they were wearing white robes, and they were holding palm branches in their hands, and they cried out in a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. Do you see what John has done to us again? How he builds up an image this time of Rome's impotence bit by bit and piece by piece.
Speaker 1:And as we read it, we come and we're sucked into it until we are completely implicated in the brokenness of this world. We are part of the problem. For six seals, it gets worse and it gets worse until we are brought to the point of despair and we cry out in fearful judgment to God. But when John finally pulls back the curtain, this apocalypsis that reveals God's true character to us, it's not the wrath that we expected to see, and it's not the retribution expected to witness. It's not the outcome that anyone would have expected given the story that John's been telling us for six seals right now.
Speaker 1:Instead, in the end, what we see is grace and salvation so great it can't even be counted. So we describe it, and we talk about it, and we try to give it a number, but when we actually see salvation, it is so absolutely glorious that it outshines any number or language or description John could have possibly given it. Because God is good. That's the point here. You see, last week, if chapter four and five and the scene of the throne and the lamb was meant for churches like Ephesus and Smyrna, churches that were undergoing persecution and they needed to be reminded of the fact that God was still in control, God is still on the throne, then these seals, chapter six and seven, this is for the churches like Laodicea and Sardis.
Speaker 1:Churches who have come to believe that they really do have everything they need on their own. And that the emperor really does provide safety and security under his wing as long as you keep your head down and you do what he says. Because these images, this time, are not meant to reassure us. Alright? They are meant to shake us.
Speaker 1:They are meant to jolt us out of our apathy, but they are meant to remind us that even here in the West with our oil royalties and our stable government and our freedom to worship and speak openly as we choose, we still need God. So it is not only Egyptian Coptic Christians who rely on Christ. We mourn with our brothers and sisters in their loss this week, but it is everyone who lives and breathes with the name of Christ on their lips who depends on the lamb for their salvation. And maybe we have imagined that we could legislate morality here in Canada, that we, you and I, could create a better world by forcing Christianity and Christian laws, Christian thought on people. At the point of a sword or perhaps the point of a pen, we could legislate ourselves into the kingdom, but the spirit of God says to us, no, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:Because peace at the point of a sword can't transform people, only sacrifice does that. Or maybe we have put too much stock in stocks. Good retirement plans, and well funded bank accounts thinking security could be bought. But the spirit of God would say to us it doesn't work that way. Because security bought the cash register doesn't cut it, only trust in the living God really provides security.
Speaker 1:Or maybe this. Maybe we have imagined that God is somewhere railing against the darkness right now. That he's confused about what's happened in his world and he's angry about it. God is vindictive and vengeful about the ways that we've messed up this world. But what the spirit of God would say to us through the apocalypse of John is no.
Speaker 1:Anger doesn't help you see God more clearly. Only love does that. Because we might expect wrath and retribution from God, but when we see him, when we really truly come face to face with who God is, what we will see is something more lasting, more real, more secure, and more strong than anything else we could have ever imagined to put our trust in. Because when you experience God at the end of the day when he is finally revealed, it will exceed anything you could have possibly imagined. Because salvation doesn't belong to you and I.
Speaker 1:Salvation belongs to our God. See, anytime you get stuck in revelation, anytime you're reading and you're confused about the images, anytime you read and you get concerned about the future and and what you're reading and what you're seeing and where this is gonna go, anytime you see pain and destruction and you wonder if somehow you've lost sight of God in this book, here's the key. Turn the page. Because whenever you feel like you're lost, then you are exactly where John wants you to be so that he can reveal to you Christ on the very next page. He's trying to unsettle you.
Speaker 1:He's trying to jolt you. He's trying to make you question things only so that at that moment, when you finally think you've lost your footing, when you think that nothing is left that stable, when you think that all is lost and there is nowhere else to turn, this is where hope will come to find you. This is the key to reading Revelation, and I think perhaps for John, this is the key to life. Just keep going because salvation is just around the corner. Because even a story that starts with the four riders of the apocalypse will end for John with the salvation of the lamb.
Speaker 1:And so as we read and as we research, as we walk our way through this book, we have to make sure we don't get stuck in the middle and stop moving towards the apocalypsis where the story is finally revealed to us. Let's pray. God, help us with imagery like riders in the apocalypse and wrath and vengeance, not to lose sight of where the story is going. Because there are times that we get stuck in the middle. And we haven't reached the climax.
Speaker 1:We haven't reached the reveal, but we begin to lose hope. We begin to lose strength. We begin to lose courage to keep going. And yet, if we can simply muster the strength to turn one more page and take one more step forward. We trust that you will be there waiting for us to reveal to us who you truly are, to show us sacrifice that we couldn't have imagined, love that we couldn't have seen any other way, grace that we couldn't have numbered for ourself.
Speaker 1:And so as we walk through our experience in the world, We ask that you would be with us helping us, not to place our trust in our borders and our governments, our military to keep us safe. Yes. Honoring that and understanding how good government and systems can be, but always understanding that our trust deeply lies in you. Help us to remember that laws, legislation can never be put into place that will actually transform us. And so, yeah, we need structure, and, of course, we have to follow the law.
Speaker 1:We shouldn't be speeding or murdering or anything in between. But help realize it is only your love and your grace that reaches deep inside who we are and changes us into the likeness of your son. Help us to realize that as we go to work, as we bring home paychecks, as we spend, as we invest, as we participate in this economy, none of that is bad. But it's not where our true security and identity comes from. And so help us to remember that we are always vulnerable, but we are held in the hands of a God who deeply loves us.
Speaker 1:And so as we wrestle through these pieces, and we carry them out into our world, and our conversations, and our relationships. Let us never lose sight of your grace and your peace that we have an opportunity to show in the ways that we care for each other, the ways that we bless each other, and the ways that we encourage each other to keep going even if we're in the middle of the story right now. Bogged down in the mire of confusion. Help us to come alongside each other and say, turn the page. Keep moving because hope will come and find you.
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the risen Christ, pray. Amen. K. We'll end here as we always do with this. Love God.
Speaker 1:Love people. Tell the story.
Speaker 2:This is a podcast of Kensington Commons Church. We believe that God is invested in the renewal of all things. Therefore, we wanna live the good news by being part of the rhythms of our city as good neighbors, good friends, and good citizens in our common life. Join us on Sunday or visit us online at commonschurch.org.