Humble Revelation

Revelation 1:1-6 - Don't Be a Chicken

2008-11-17T22:29:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Pastor Josh Broward
July 2, 2006

Chicken Little: “The sky is falling. … It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

Sometimes when Christians talk about Revelation, they sound like Chicken Little. Throughout history, at different times and in different places, Christians have predicted the end of the world.^¹

In the 2^nd Century a group called the Montanists believed that Christ would come again in their lifetime and establish the New Jerusalem. Their most famous member was Tertulian, who introduced the word “Trinity” to describe God. Christ did not come again in their lifetimes. They were wrong.
You remember the Y2K panic a few years ago. The same thing happened in Y1K. As the year 1,000 came and in the decades following, there was great panic that this could be the end of the millennial reign in Revelation. They were wrong.
In the 16^th Century, Martin Luther, the great Christian Reformer, believed the End would come no later than 1600, and he declared that the Catholic Pope was the Beast described in Revelation. He was wrong.
John Napier, the math genius who discovered logarithms, applied his math to the Bible and came up with two possible dates for the End: 1688 and 1700. He was wrong both times.
Here’s the last and best example. In 1988, Edgar Whisenant, a NASA rocket scientist, wrote a book that swept through the USA: 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988. 4.5 million copies were sold. When 1988 came to a close with no big bangs, Whisenant could not be stopped, he published more books almost every year with predictions until 1997. Apparently, after 10 years of failed predictions, he finally gave up.^²

All of these prophesies have two glaring things in common. 1) They were all basing their predictions on the Bible, especially Revelation. 2) They were all wrong!

What happened? They weren’t stupid or crazy. Some of these people were great theologians or mathematical geniuses. These were smart, God-loving people, trying to be faithful Christians. Where did they go wrong? Why do so many people in so many different times misunderstand what the Bible says about the End and misinterpret the book of Revelation? Why do good people with good minds end up sounding like Chicken Little (“The sky is falling!”) when they read the Revelation?

Let me suggest three basic mistakes people often make when they read or interpret the Book of Revelation.

First, most Christians actually misunderstand prophecy. We usually think that to prophesy means to “predict the future.” We usually think that every time a prophet speaks, God is enabling that person to predict some events in the future. That is not true. Sometimes prophecy involves prediction, but often not, and prediction is really a side issue for the main point of prophecy.

The point of prophecy is that God speaks to people. A prophet is someone who hears a message from God for the people and then tells the people what God wants to say to them. Nazarene scholar Dennis Bratcher summarizes this point: “OT prophecy was overwhelmingly concerned with speaking God’s message to people of the prophet’s own time, interpreting God’s will for them in light of then current historical events.”^³ If some discussion of the future needed to part of that, then so be it, but the point was to understand the present.

So if we look to Revelation (or any prophecy) as a means of predicting the future, we are missing the point. Revelation, like all prophecy, was given to a specific group of people to help them hear God’s word to them, not to predict events hundreds or thousands of years later. To understand any prophecy, we have to understand first what it meant to the people who originally heard it. They must have understood the message, or else they would not have kept reading it until it became part of the Bible.

Now we’re moving into the second basic mistake: forgetting the context of Revelation. Today we read two Epistle readings because I wanted you hear the similarities between the way Paul starts Ephesians (and all of his letters) and the way John starts Revelation. Paul says who he is, who the letter is to, pronounces a blessing, and then starts praising God and Jesus (1:1-3). In a very similar way, John says who he is, pronounces a blessing, says who the letter is to, and starts praising God and Jesus (Rev. 1:1-6).

Scholars, preachers, and Bible readers usually understand that we need to understand something about Ephesus before we can understand Ephesians. We need to understand the context of the letter before we can really understand the letter. Revelation is a letter much like Ephesians. Its different style does not mean we can take it out of context and apply it like it was written express mail for people in the 21^st century.

Revelation was written to the seven churches in the province of Asia, which is now modern day Turkey. Chapters 2 and 3 have specific messages for each of these churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philidelphia, and Laodicea. Even though, these churches are all in the same general area, they are each experiencing different struggles. Some are facing significant persecution. People are being killed because they believe in Jesus. Some are facing false teachers, people who want to change the message of the gospel to blend in more with the world. Some are facing a slow death of Christian faith. Their faith has lost its fire and love, and they are becoming arrogant and cold. Jesus tells some of the churches to repent and some to persevere, or both to repent and to persevere. Whatever Revelation means for us, it first of all means something for these seven churches. When we understand what God was saying to them, then we can understand what he is saying to us.

The last most common mistake in understanding Revelation is misunderstanding the genre. “Genre” is an unusual word that means: “a special type or style,” in this case a special style of writing. Revelation is apocalyptic prophecy. Apocalypse is a special style of writing most popular from BC 200 to AD 100.

Apocalyptic writing has two characteristics that are especially important for understanding Revelation.

1) Apocalyptic writing often moves in a circular or cyclical motion around repeated themes. Apocalyptic writings do not usually move logically from step one to step two to step three. They are like a fly circling around a piece of bread looking for a good place to land.

Let me give you an example. Sarah and I have different walking styles. When I walk, I want to go somewhere. I want to get on a mountain or on a trail and make visible progress. Sarah, on the other hand, is very happy to walk around track. She likes just going around and around the same track, seeing the same things again and again. You might say that Sarah is an apocalyptic walker.

What this means is that we cannot draw a timeline from the events in Revelation. John describes the same events again and again from different angles using different images. For example, in Revelation 6:14 it says, “And the sky was rolled up like a scroll and taken away. And all of the mountains and all of the islands disappeared.” But a few chapters later in 8:10, “The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great flaming star fell out of the sky like a burning torch.” I thought the sky was taken away! How did a star fall out of it? And again in 16:20 it says, “And every island disappeared, and all of the mountains were leveled.” Didn’t they already disappear? Did they reappear and disappear again? It sounds like God is turning a switch on and off: “Mountains and islands, poof! … No mountains and islands, poof! … he, he, he. That’ll really freak ‘em out!”

If we are reading Revelation like a straight line, this and other repetitions create serious problems for understanding. But if we let Revelation be what it is, apocalyptic writing which works in thematic cycles, then the repetition stats to make sense. It is like John is flying a small plane around a big mountain, slowly moving up to the peak. Each time he flies around we see that side of the mountain from a slightly different angle, but it’s still the same mountain, and we’re still getting closer to the same peak.

2) The second important point about apocalyptic writing is that it uses emotional images not code language. John talks about some very weird things in Revelation: a lion with six wings with eyes all over, a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, riders on different color horses, beasts and dragons and world wide battles – and that’s just getting started.

Down through the centuries, Christians have tried to identify what each of these symbolic expressions mean. The Beast is this. The seal is that. The mark is this. Looking for a one-to-one relationship of images with real events or persons misunderstands John’s method. John uses words like Picasso used paint. Picasso’s obscure pictures with upside down heads and rearranged arms don’t relate directly to reality. He is trying to create an emotional impact on the person looking at his work. In a similar way, John uses shocking word pictures to make an emotional impact on his readers (or hearers).

I remember the poems of one my roommates in college. He was a long-haired singer in a hardcore rock band, and when he wrote poetry about the pain in his life it was vivid. I remember one particular poem went something like this: “crawling over broken, bloody glass … screaming into the night, my throat bleeds.” There was no one-to-one literal relationship for his images. He was just trying to express with word pictures how he was feeling. The poems definitely made an impact on me.

John is using similar word pictures to make an emotional impact on his readers as he moves round and round the same themes, building up to a climax toward the end of the book. There can be no timelines or codes to break the symbols of Revelation.

If this is true, and if teachers and preachers usually “get it right” on other books of the Bible, why do Christians usually miss it on Revelation? Dan Boone suggests we miss the boat on Revelation because of our desire for control. We believe if we study hard enough, we can know everything. Once we know it, we can control it or manage it or at least prepare for it. We want to have a detailed map of the future, so we go looking for what we want in Revelation.

If many good Christians through the centuries have gotten it wrong, and if popular Christianity often gets it wrong today, how can we get Revelation right? Basically, we need to let Revelation speak for itself within its own context.

That is what we’re going to try to do as we study this book. When we let Revelation speak for itself, we will see one basic message: Jesus Christ is the King of the universe, and his Kingdom is coming to earth despite the apparent power of the kingdoms of this earth. Jesus’ Kingdom gains victory through defeat (like dying on the cross or dying as a martyr), but through all the struggle, God is in control. Through it all and beyond it all, we will learn to worship God in Jesus Christ as our beautiful, redeeming King. Therefore, we can have an unshakable hope no matter what happens in this world. Jesus is King, and Jesus is coming to establish his Kingdom with his people.

So, church, don’t be a Chicken Little. The sky is not falling, yet. And don’t be chicken (afraid). Read Revelation for yourself. Read it, and live with deep hope and courage. For Jesus is King, and he is coming to establish his Kingdom.

As we read and study, we will be blessed. In fact, we are already a blessed community. For Jesus is King, and he is coming to establish his Kingdom in us. “Give to him everlasting glory! He rules forever and ever! Amen!” (Revelation 1:6).

1 Unless otherwise noted, all information in this section is from the website: “A Brief History of the Apocalypse,” www.abhota.info.

2 “Edgar C. Whisenant,” http://en.wikepedia.org/wiki/Edgar_C._Whisenant, downloaded 6.28.06.

3“Interpreting the Book of Revelation,” http://www.crivoice.org/therevelation.html. downloaded.6.26.06.

Revelation 1:4-20 - What Do You See?

2008-11-17T22:27:00.001-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
July 9, 2006

In the 80’s and 90’s a sunglasses originally designed for NASA were sold to the public in the USA. Let me show you their most famous TV commercial. Show: Blublockers commercial

Blublockers work by blocking out “the dangerous UV (ultraviolet) and blue spectrum light waves.”^¹ Although I’ve never owned my very own pair of Blublockers, I have tried on a pair. They really do change the way the world looks.

In reality, we all have glasses through which we view the world. Some people call this our “worldview.” Our worldview works like Blublockers to filter our world through its lenses, to help us make sense of the world. Not everyone has Blublockers (Thank goodness!), but everyone has a worldview.

The problem we face is that our worldview is not always accurate. Sometimes our worldviews distort reality. Instead of making sense of reality, sometimes our worldviews hide reality and trap us in a virtual reality.

I remember a sermon Dr. Cho preached here almost two years ago. He preached on the story of Elisha when his city was surrounded by a large attacking army. Elisha’s servant looked out at the enemy and was afraid, but Elisha could see a different reality. “And Elisha prayed, ‘O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17). Dr. Cho pointed out that what the servant could see with his physical eyes was only the virtual reality. The army of angels surrounding Elisha’s city was the Actual Reality.

In our world, we often live in virtual reality. The point of the Revelation is to help us see the world from God’s perspective. The point of the Revelation is to free us from the faulty worldviews that the world sells us or forces on us and to see Actual Reality God’s perspective.

In the Actual Reality described in the Revelation, one image shines brightly: Jesus as King. Let’s read Revelation 1:4-20 and allow the image of Jesus to come into focus.

Who is this King who comes so clearly into focus for John? Let’s move through this passage again to help King Jesus come into focus for us, too.

First, let’s look at how Jesus is King in ways we would expect.

In verse 5, Jesus is “the commander of all the rulers of the world.” This is an incredibly bold statement. Jesus Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Caesar and all his governors, the kings and queens and emperors around the world are all under Jesus Christ! The Roman pledge of allegiance was something like: “Caesar is Lord.” The Christian pledge of allegiance is: “Jesus is Lord.” John is saying Jesus is King over all, and everyone is under his power whether we realize it or not. No wonder Rome killed Christians.

In verse 6, “Give to him everlasting glory! He rules forever and ever! Amen!” No earthly person has everlasting glory. Glory fades. Fame withers. Power dies. But Jesus is worthy of everlasting glory. Why? Because he rules forever and ever! Earthly kings could hope, at best, to rule for a few decades, 30-40 years if they are lucky. Sometimes Caesars in Rome didn’t even last a few months. Jesus rules forever and ever. He is an eternal King of an eternal kingdom.

Most people cannot see Jesus as King now, but one day they will. One day everyone will see him. In verse 7, “Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven. And everyone will see him” even those who rejected him. In that day everyone will see the Actual Reality.

Verse 10, John hears a voice that sounds like a trumpet blast. When I think of trumpets, I usually think of Louis Armstrong and jazz music (Bee-bop-i-do. …), but I think what John heard was more putting your ear right next to a fire truck’s siren: (WHAAAOOOOOOUUUUU!!!!!). We find out in verse 12-13 that the trumpet-blast voice was Jesus, the Son of Man. In verse 15 John tries again to describe his voice: “his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves,” not like the gentle rolling of waves on a sandy shore, like the violent crashing of huge waves against rocks, so loud that you can’t hear anything else.

Now John sees him, Jesus, the Son of Man. Dan Boone explains, “John saw the Risen Christ. He wanted to tell us what he saw, but how could he describe the indescribable? It’s like a poet … looking at a sunset. … Trying to describe his vision of Jesus stretches John’s imagination… He reaches for the “-est” words – brightest, whitest, loudest, strongest.”^² The gold sash is a sign of Jesus’ Kingship, like a crown. The stars in his hand communicate “the sheer cosmic magnitude” of Jesus.^³ Jesus holds stars in his hand like a sack of marbles. Jesus’ words are as powerful as a two-edged sword; “it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

Amazingly, Jesus then rephrases the words of God just a few verses earlier. God says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the A and the Z - the beginning and the end. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One” (1:8). Jesus says, “I am the First and the Last” (1:17). If you have ever wanted Jesus to say with his own words that he is God, this is it. Jesus is saying, “I am what God is. I, too, am the beginning and the end. I, too, am the Almighty One. I am alive forever and ever!” Jesus clearly understands himself as God. John clearly sees Jesus as the divine King of the universe.

But John also describes Jesus in ways that we don’t normally associate with a King, and these are very important for our understanding of Jesus.

In verse 5, Jesus is the “faithful witness.” The word witness and the word martyr come from the same Greek root. Jesus is the archetypal martyr-witness. He testifies to the truth no matter the cost. Jesus asks the believers to follow this example (2:10).

Again in verse 5, Jesus deserves all our praise, not first of all because of his overriding power, but first of all because of his love. He loves us “and freed us from our sins by shedding his own blood for us.” Jesus is like no other King. He gave his life for us, his people, so that we could be free – not just from outside oppressors but from the inner oppression of our own sinful selves. Jesus is King with a self-sacrificing love that cost him his very life.

In verse 6, Jesus has made us his kingdom. Jesus’ kingdom is not defined in terms of geography. North and South Korea are divided by the 38^th parallel. No lines like this define Jesus’ kingdom.

In verse 9, John says, “In Jesus we are partners in suffering and in the Kingdom and in patient endurance.” If we are already participants in the Kingdom of the King of the universe, why do will still suffer? This is what theologians call the already and the not-yet. Jesus is already King, but not everyone sees it yet. We are already Jesus’ Kingdom, but the world has not yet fully become his Kingdom. Because his Kingdom has not fully come, suffering is still part of living in a not-yet world.

In verse 17, when John sees the amazing vision of the blazing Jesus, John falls at his feet like a dead man – not surprising. I would probably pee my pants! What is surprising is Jesus’ response. Jesus responds with gentle compassion. The same right hand that held seven stars gently touches John. Extending the right hand was a gesture of friendship,^⁴ so Jesus is saying, “Even though I am the overwhelming, shining King, I want us to be friends. In fact, you know me. I am the living one who died. I am Jesus of Nazareth. I am the man Jesus who lived and died on the cross. Look, you can see that I am alive forever and forever, and I am standing with you in your churches. Now, you are my kingdom and my priests. You are my partners in my kingdom. I want you to tell everyone what I’m going to show you.”

Jesus is surely King, but he is a different kind of King in a different kind of Kingdom. Jesus’ as King and Jesus’ Kingdom can’t be seen by the world at large, but only with eyes of faith. His Kingdom is not about domination and power. Jesus is extremely powerful. John will use the word “Almighty” nine times in Revelation, but Jesus uses his power in a different way. Jesus’ power as King moves in service, sacrifice, love, and empowerment. Jesus doesn’t beat us down. He lifts us up. Jesus doesn’t imprison us or crucify us. He frees us through his own pain. Jesus doesn’t kill us. He gives us life. Jesus doesn’t enslave us. He invites us to join him as partners in his kingdom, to bring more of the not-yet into the already.

If Jesus is the one true King of the world, then who or what is not King? The seven churches would immediately reply, “If Jesus is King that means Caesar is not the ultimate King, and his governors are not part of the ultimate power. They may abuse us, imprison us, or even kill us, but Jesus is still the King.” Pastor Brian McLaren says that Jesus’ Kingdom challenges the authority of not only physical powers like Caesar, Kim JeongIl, presidents, or bombs, but also other more intangible empires which hold even more power over us: “The Kingdom of God, then, is a revolutionary, counter-cultural movement – proclaiming a ceaseless rebellion against the tyrannical trinity of money, sex, and power.” McLaren calls the quest for money, sex, and power the “invisible Caesar” which really rules most people this not-yet world.^⁵

What does it mean for us to recognize Jesus as King above all powers in this world? What will it look like for us to live in the Actual Reality, focusing every day and every minute on Jesus as King?

First of all, we will have the faith of the early Christians that led them to keep their faith in Jesus no matter the cost. We will have confidence of peace in the end even as missiles are tested over our heads. More importantly, we will stick to our faith even when this world challenges us in direct or subtle ways.

Second, we will put more faith in love than in power. We will put more faith in giving than in making or keeping money. We will have more faith in purity and good self control than in the philosophy of instant gratification (whether it be sex or food or alcohol or whatever).

Third, we will live together as partners. “In Jesus we are partners in suffering in the Kingdom and in patient endurance” (1:9). We are in this together. We need each other. When we see the Actual Reality of Jesus as King, we also see our actual need for each other.

Last, we will join the King in bringing in his Kingdom. We are his kingdom and priests. We are his partners, his agents, his coworkers in this world. He asks us to stand up and join him in the field of action.

The book of Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ as King of the universe. It is a revelation calling for a revolution. The Revelation is Jesus’ call that we overthrow the false, virtual kingdoms which oppress us and involve us in oppression. The Revelation is the call to see Jesus as King and to join him in his Kingdom, where everyone has a place to serve. Nazarene pastor, Jim Dorsey says, “Revolutions start with people like you who see a different possibility and resolve to cause a new reality.”^⁶

What do you see? In what reality are you living?

1 http://www.blueblockers.com/gallery/history.html.

2 Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little: A No-Nonsense Look at the Book of Revelation, (Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 2005), 18.

3 M. Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation, (Louisville: Knox, 1989), 83.

4 Marva Dawn, Joy in Our Weakness: A Gift of Hope from the Book of Revelation, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 43.

5 Brian D. McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything, (Nashville: W Publishing, 2006), 134.

6 Jim Dorsey, “Revolution,” Grow Magazine, Fall 2005.

Revelation 2:1-7 - You've Lost that Loving Action

2008-11-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
July 16, 2006

Revelation is a book about battles. It is famous for its battle imagery. Consider some of the famous battle scenes. First come the four horsemen of Revelation 6. (I remember a WWF wrestling team named the Four Horsemen.) In chapter 9, even the bugs get in on the battle action as locusts are “like horses armed for battle” (9:7-11). In chapter 12, there is a war in heaven between angels and a dragon (12:7-9). And of course there is the great battle of Armageddon (16:14, 16).

Even our little passage today uses battle imagery. It is hidden in one little word: “victorious” (2:7). In fact, this word is used at the close of each of Jesus’ messages to the seven churches. These churches are in the midst of a great struggle in which they must be victorious. In fact, these churches seem to be in the middle of the very battles described in Revelation. Some have called this time of struggle “the tribulation.”

The church at Ephesus definitely understood that it was in a battle. Paul explained it to them like this: “For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms. Use every piece of God’s armor to resist the enemy in this time of evil, so that after the battle you will be standing firm” (Ephesians 6:11-13). The Ephesians knew they were in a spiritual battle in this world.

Paul had warned them. Beware because some people can “cleverly lie to us and make the lie sound like the truth” (4:14). “Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse” sexual immorality and greed (5:6). “Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them” (5:11).

Evidently the Ephesians listened to Paul. The church in Ephesus put on their battle gear and painted their faces with war paint for the spiritual and moral battle that confronted them. They would not “tolerate evil people” in their churches (Rev. 2:2). They “hated the actions of the immoral Nicolaitans” (2:6). They studied their theology books, and they could see a doctrinal mistake with their eyes closed. They knew all the right things to believe and all of the wrong things to avoid.

Conservative Christians can often be like the Ephesians. We understand clearly that a moral battle engulfs our world, and we often feel that it is our obligation to fight for the cause of morality and goodness in the world. We can feel the moral fabric of our society wasting away. We can see that even our churches fading morally, and we get defensive. We have hot topic moral issues like: sexual immorality (especially homosexuality), pornography, financial fraud, abortion, and sometimes, tobacco, and gambling. Some Christians get red in the face and start growling when someone even mentions these words.

Jesus says to the church at Ephesus and to us, “It’s good that you are enduring in this moral battle. It’s good that you know right from wrong, truth from error. It’s good that you hate what is wrong and stand for what is right, but I have one complaint against you.”

The Righteous Brothers sang a song in the 60’s that paraphrases what Jesus’ complaint against the church in Ephesus. (Play video.)

“You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips.
And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips.
You're trying hard not to show it, (baby).
But baby, baby I know it...
You've lost that loving feeling,
Whoa, that loving feeling,
You've lost that loving feeling,
Now it's gone...gone...gone...wooooooh.
Now there's no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you.
And now you're starting to criticize little things I do.
It makes me just feel like crying, (baby).
'Cause baby, something beautiful is dying.

You lost that loving feeling,
Whoa, that loving feeling,
You've lost that loving feeling,
Now it's gone...gone...gone...woooooah
Baby, baby, I get down on my knees for you.
If you would only love me like you used to do, yeah.
We had a love...a love...a love you don't find everyday.
So don't...don't...don't...don't let it slip away.
Baby (baby), baby (baby),
I beg of you please...please,
I need your love (I need your love), I need your love (I need your love),
So bring it on back (So bring it on back), Bring it on back (so bring it on back).
Bring back that loving feeling,
Whoa, that loving feeling
Bring back that loving feeling,
'Cause it's gone...gone...gone, and I can't go on, noooo...
Bring back that loving feeling,
Whoa, that loving feeling
Bring back that loving feeling,
'Cause it's gone...gone...”

“You’ve lost that loving feeling!” Jesus says, “You know guys, it’s great that you are fighting immorality and all, but you’ve lost your love. Fighting immorality doesn’t mean much if you aren’t loving.”

In this spiritual battle, there are two possible errors: we can get mean, or we can get lazy.

Some Christians get mean. One person attending our church now said that before he had stopped going to churches because everyone just tried to argue with him and tell him how he should live. They didn’t seem genuinely concerned with him. They just wanted to tell him how he was wrong.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in our battles that we take on the world’s mindset of a battle. We develop an us-against-them mentality. We start to think of the people in the world and the people who don’t think like us as our enemies. We attack people instead of practices. We get defensive and argumentative. We start to shoot before we look. In short, we get mean. Too many Christians are just plain mean.

We develop an us-against-them mentality, but Jesus’ philosophy of spiritual battle is not us-against-them. It’s us-for-them. Jesus said, “Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (Matthew 5:44). In this battle, we will win not by fighting a direct fight. That only causes more hostility. We will win when we follow Jesus example and live the Kingdom way of a life for others, loving others, lifting them up, blessing them even when they curse us, helping them even when they hurt us, giving to others regardless of whether they deserve it or not.

Some so-called Christians miss the point of Jesus’ message. Like the church in Ephesus, we hear all of the language about battles and defending the truth, but we forget the rest of the message: “Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. … Hold to the truth in love” (Eph. 4:2, 15).

But there’s another possible error for people in this battle. We can get lazy. For some Christians, Christianity is all about believing the right things and not doing the wrong things. Throughout the centuries, Christians have made the mistake of thinking that Christianity is a passive belief and a passive avoidance of wrong.

Jesus says that’s not what his Kingdom is all about. For Jesus and for all of the Bible, true relationship with God is about active faith and actively doing good in the world.

The Righteous Brothers sang, “You’ve lost that loving feeling.” But actually, Jesus’ criticism of the church in Ephesus is more like: “You’ve lost that loving action.” For Jesus, love isn’t just a mushy feeling that comes and goes beyond our choices. For Jesus, love is a practical choice. Jesus says, “Look how far you’ve fallen from your first love!” And this is his cure: “Turn back to me again, and work as you did at first” (Rev. 2:5).

In the battle for morality and truth, the church of Ephesus neglected the basic actions of love. As they fought for endurance and victory in this world full of spiritual battle, they unknowingly gave in to the Enemy by adopting his unloving ways.

Jesus says, “You have turned away from your first love. Now turn back, and start doing the work of love again. Bring back that loving action. Bring it on back now.” The Kingdom way of Jesus is a way of love, but love is hard work. Loving like Jesus is hard work. Loving like Jesus has great rewards, incredible rewards, but it requires making difficult choices in the everyday moments of life.

Jesus says, “If you are going to be victorious in this battle, if you are going to live as a citizen of my Kingdom, you have to live life my way, with a heart full of love, a heart so full of love that it overflows with good actions.”

Loving like Jesus means taking time to talk to that person who stops us when we’re in a hurry. Loving like Jesus means sharing our resources with the poor. Loving like Jesus means taking the time to build deep relationships with other Christians. Loving like Jesus means becoming friends with people who aren’t like us. Loving like Jesus means moving out of our religious circles to become friends with people who have been hurt and pushed out by religion. Loving like Jesus means giving up things that are important to us so that we can show hospitality to others. Loving like Jesus means valuing service over entertainment. Loving like Jesus means taking time to rest and to recharge with God so that we can keep making good choices to keep loving like Jesus.

The really scary thing about this message to the church in Ephesus is the end of verse 5. Jesus says, “Turn back, and live lives of love again. If you don’t, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.” If love dies, the church dies. Biblical scholar Craig Keener points out, “Some churches, like the church in Ephesus, may risk simply killing themselves off by how they treat others.”^¹ When love dies, the church dies.

How is your love? How active is your love? Maybe, Jesus’ words are for you: “Look how far you have fallen from your first love! Turn back to me again and work as you did at first.”

The message of the Revelation is that we are in a real battle, a battle for the world. The Kingdom of God is coming into the world amid and against the kingdoms of power, oppression, and materialism. The Kingdom of God wages this war through the simple, faithful, loving lives of citizens of the Kingdom. The message of the Revelation is that Jesus is the victor in this battle and that we can join him in victory by living his way of life: unselfish, genuine, honest love.

Live a life of love. Live it now with each other. Live it at home with your family. Live a life of love at work. Live a life of love here at church as we serve each other and the new people who will be coming here to look for God. Live a life of love as we serve our community and open our hearts to them in hospitality. Live a life of love and watch the Kingdom come! Live a life of love and watch as God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven!

1 Revelation, NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 113.

Revelation 2:12-17 - Secret Agents

2008-11-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
July 23, 2006

Meet Secret Agent Ethan Hunt

Profile: Ethan Hunt is an American secret agent working for the IMF, the “Impossible Missions Force.” Played by Tom Cruise, the “dream guy” for countless women, Ethan Hunt is daring, intelligent, and handsome.

Setting: Ethan Hunt’s exploits span the world. He chases the bad guys from one continent to another in just a few seconds.

Mission: Ethan Hunt’s missions are always classified as “impossible.” They range from discovering double agents to keeping weapons of mass destruction away from terrorists. In short, Ethan Hunt’s mission is always extremely dangerous, nearly impossible, and absolutely necessary to save the world. (Hence, the drama!)

Dangers: Hunt faces bombs, missiles, bullets, knives, speeding cars, helicopters, terrorists, kidnappers, and double agents – all out to hurt him or those he loves.

M.O. (Mode of Operation): Ethan Hunt is Evil Kanieval + James Bond + MacGyver. He works with a tight team of highly skilled and extremely courageous people. They consistently trust each other with their lives. The IMF supplies Ethan and his team with amazing technological gadgets which they use fearlessly. His success comes from his audacity to do what everyone else believed was impossible.

Vision: What motivates Ethan Hunt is a vision of a safe world where good people are free to live their lives without being harmed by those who work for evil. He and his team risk everything to bring safety to others.^¹

Meet Secret Agent Antipas

(Read Revelation 2:12-17)

Setting: Pergamum. Jesus calls this “the city where the great throne of Satan is located” and “the place where Satan lives” (2:13). That doesn’t sound like the kind of name that will ever make it on a city sign. What is Jesus talking about? Scholars have lots of suggestions. Pergamum was a very religious city with major temples to at least 6 different gods. Most notable were there worship of Asclepius – a god of healing, a huge temple to “Zeus the Savior,” and a temple for Roman emperor worship. Jesus could be talking about any of these or a combination of all of them, for they all threatened the church.^²

Pergamum had many trade guilds or labor unions. As part of their union meetings in this religious city, they worshipped the gods of the city. The dinner was steaks and ribs straight from the sacrifices to the idols, and the after dinner entertainment involved prostitutes from the city temples.

Profile: We don’t actually know much about Antipas, but one thing we know that he stuck to his beliefs no matter the cost. I imagine Antipas was a skilled craftsman. He made things with his hands: maybe jewelry, maybe furniture or houses. Antipas was probably a member of one of the city labor unions.

Mission: Live as a Christian in a very un-Christian place. Live as a child of God in a society ruled by Satan. Be a “faithful witness” to Jesus Christ no matter the cost (2:13).

Dangers: The dangers were obviously huge for Antipas. He was killed for his faith. He faced direct opposition from those outside the church, but he also faced a more dangerous temptation. The church in Pergamum had “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15). Some false prophets acted like innocent sheep but were really wolves who wanted to tear the church apart.

Jesus says they were like Balaam (See Numbers 22-25, 31). Balak, king of Moab, paid Balaam, a prophet-for-hire, to put a curse on God’s people. Dan Boone says, “The only problem was that the curses kept boomeranging into a blessing.”^³ Eventually, after three or four failed attempts to curse God’s people, Balak was getting mad, and Balaam had a new plan. Balaam realized that the only way to get to God’s people is to get God’s people to turn away from God.

Balaam and Balak came up with a sneaky plan. They sent the Moabite women into the Israelite camp. The women had a mission: Sleep with the men, and get them to join you in worship to our gods. Well, men will do just about anything for sex, so their plan worked. Then Balaam and Balak finally got their curse. God cursed them himself, and he sent a plague on the people to correct them and bring them back to worshipping God alone.

The church in Pergamum had some dirty, cheating prophets like Balaam. The church remained faithful when attacked directly (2:13), so Satan came up with another plan: “Just get them to compromise. Make them believe that sin isn’t sin or that sin is worth the cost.”

M.O.: What was Antipas’s Mode of Operation in this difficult city? No compromise! Whether the attack was direct or indirect, Antipas stuck to his beliefs. He would not turn away from Christ no matter the issue: life or death, rich or poor, popular or unpopular, temporary pleasure or temporary pain. He refused to compromise Christian standards for success in an unChristian world. He decided he would be 100% percent Christian, not 10%, 50% or even 90%.

Vision: What motivated Antipas in this struggle? When he turned down the labor union’s barbecued ribs and garlic bread, he remembered the heavenly banquet that will be his (2:17) and is already his in Christ, the heavenly manna, the “Living Bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:30-51). When the labor union kicked him out, and when his friends betrayed him, he remembered that Jesus loves him and has included him (2:17).

Meet Secret Agent Dana Preusch

Profile: Secret Agent Dana is one of my good friends. She is a single, female pastor who courageously and gently proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ. She loves books and StarTreck and movies, and it was in her church where I first heard the cry: “More movies, less preaching.” After a difficult and painful exit from a church where she served for 10 years, Dana refused to give up on her calling. She is continuing her education at Duke and is serving as an assistant pastor at a Nazarene church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Setting: Raleigh is the home of IBM and other high tech companies. The church located between three major universities. Dana says there is a Starbucks on every corner, and everyone drives an SUV (those expensive, gas-drinking, off-road car-trucks that people always drive on nice concrete roads). In this place the top values are: education, stuff, fun, stuff, money – and did I say, stuff?

Mission: Live as a Christian in an un-Christian place. I emailed Dana this week and asked her what her specific mission is. This is what she said, “My mission? Restore community among a people who have become too busy with life in general … and trips to the mountains and beach … to connect with each other in meaningful ways.” Her mission is to help disconnected people get connected through Jesus Christ.

M.O.: Dana has a few different strategies for accomplishing her mission. She is encouraging her church to make small group life a priority for them as individuals and as a church. She is trying to help the church people connect with each other again, despite their busy lives. She is helping people connect with a poor inner-city church so that they can see a different side of life, something different than the rich-stuff-culture where they live. Last, she is living a simple life in a stuff-oriented over-busy culture, hoping that they will see her example and see a healthier way to live.

Vision: What keeps Dana going is a consuming vision of a simple, loving community. Her vision for the church is a loving community that freely shares our love among ourselves and with the community and world around us.

Meet Secret Agent X

Setting: Secret Agent X is serving the Kingdom of Jesus Christ as a secret missionary to far-western China.

Profile: She is a simple, quiet woman. She wears simple clothes, not particularly fashionable. No one would suspect her of being a secret agent.

Mission: Live as a Christian in an un-Christian place. Agent X’s specific mission is to share the gospel with a minority group in China – the Tajiks. Most are Muslim by name but not by practice. They speak Sarokoli but have no written language. The Tajiks in western China are considered an “unreached people group.” This means that as a culture, they have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Agent X is giving her life to share Jesus’ life with the Tajiks.

M.O.: The Tajiks are so isolated that in order to learn their language Sarokoli, Agent X first had to learn Chinese. Then she had to learn Uigur. Then finally, after many years of language study, she could learn Sarokoli. All along the way, Agent X has introduced her language teachers to Jesus Christ and helped them become part of the family of God.

Now Agent X works in a university for most of the year and spends the vacations riding bicycles into Tajik villages. When she gets to the villages she tries to become friends with the people, and then she shares the gospel with them through comic books, audio tapes, or anything else she can think of.

Vision: The vision that motivates Agent X is seeing a people who have never heard the gospel experience the life transforming power of a friendship with Jesus Christ. She will be part of an entire people group hearing about Jesus.

Meet Secret Agent Chris Cheon

Profile: Chris Cheon also goes by the code name: Christian in Cheonan. Chris is smart, well-educated, and financially stable (especially in comparison to the rest of the world).

Setting: Chris lives in the city of Cheonan. Cheonan is a booming city, with sky-rise apartments and office buildings going up overnight. The reigning values of Cheonan are education, stuff, money, stuff, power, entertainment, stuff, sex, - and did I mention, stuff? The people of Cheonan tend to be well educated, and most have two primary goals: advance financially and have fun. People in Cheonan are also isolated. Most of them have moved away from their families and friends to find work or education in this growing city, and now they live in a world of surface relationships.

Mission: Live as a Christian in an un-Christian place. Chris Cheon’s mission here is to live the Kingdom Life so beautifully that the people of Cheonan want to be part of it.

Dangers: Cheonan constantly cries out to Chris to compromise Christian standards, to give in a little here and a little there. Some people in Cheonan are workaholics. They work night and day, neglecting family, friends, church, God, and self. On the other side, some people here live for fun. This group focuses life on entertainment and adventure, again neglecting real relationships, church, God and self. Chris always feels the press for materialism: a bigger apartment, a faster computer, a nicer car, better clothes. In Cheonan sexual immorality is freely available (or available for a price) through the internet, bars, love motels, and even seemingly healthy relationships.

Chris Cheon must always be on guard and must always be prepared, for here the enemy’s attacks are very, very subtle.

M.O.: Chris constantly works to maintain his relationship with God. Chris knows that if he drifts from God, that is where the danger starts. Chris meets every week with a fellow Christian so that they can hold each other accountable to living in the Christian way, not in the Cheonan way.

Chris is constantly looking for ways to show hospitality. Chris is involved in a small group. Chris serves in his church, knowing that this is a key display point for the Christian way in Cheonan. Chris also shares his heart and life with nonChristians in the community. Chris has dinner with them, goes to movies with them, and generally tries to become their friends. Eventually, Chris invites them to a dinner at his church or even to a worship service. When the time is right, Chris explains to his friends how Jesus has changed his life and invites them to meet Jesus, too. Those friends usually tell people that they have actually seen Jesus today in the life of one Secret Agent Chris Cheon.

(Mission Impossible song here.) This is your mission should you choose to accept it: Live as a Christian in an un-Christian place. Be a Secret Agent Chris Cheon. Live like Jesus so people meet Jesus. This mission is often classified: “impossible,” but “Nothing is impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37).

1 Thanks to the plot summaries at http://www.imdb.com.

2 Marva Dawn, Joy in Our Weakness: A Gift of Hope from the Book of Revelation, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 64.

3 Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little: A No-Nonsense Look at the book of Revelation, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2005), 30.

Revelation 4 - Eternal Worship

2008-11-17T22:15:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
August 6, 2006

Last week we read Revelation 3 where Jesus says to the church in Laodicia, “Look! Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me calling and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal as friends” (Rev. 3:20).

This week Jesus calls our attention to an open door to heaven.^¹ Even when our doors are closed to Jesus, His doors are always open to us. Jesus calls out to John, “Hey! Come on up here, and let Me show you what’s going on.”

The Spirit brings John straight into the throne room of heaven. John sees the throne and someone sitting on the throne, but he can barely describe what he sees.^² God is like one great big diamond shining in His own light. An emerald colored rainbow surrounds His throne.

Throne is a really important word in Revelation. John uses the word throne 47 times. Different people or things – good and bad – sit on different kinds of thrones. But here we see THE throne – God’s throne in heaven, and God sits on this throne.

This chapter is like an anchor point for the whole book of Revelation. At the heart of everything, God is King on his throne.^³ Later in Revelation, John is going to describe some really bad scenes on the earth, and he wants the churches (and us) to know that even though all of this junk is going to happen, God is still the King. No one has knocked Him off His throne. No person, no thing, no event, no cause can take God’s place as King and Ruler of the universe. God is forever “the One who sits on the throne.” This is the key to life.

Let’s look at what is happening around God’s throne. 24 elders are sitting on smaller thrones around His throne (v. 4). The 24 are the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles, and they circle God’s throne as the representatives of all God’s people. They are all wearing white robes and gold crowns. They have conquered. They are victorious. They have passed through the great tribulation of life, and they wear the robes only Christ can give. God has blessed them with the victor’s crown.

There are 7 torches representing the perfect fullness of God’s Spirit (v. 5). Lightning and thunder come from God’s throne (v. 5). Even in heaven where we can look at God face to face, he is still awe-inspiring.

“In front of the throne was a shiny sea of glass, sparkling like crystal” (v.6). In the Bible the ocean often represents chaos. In this shaky world, we often feel like we are floating on a stormy sea, tossed up and down by the chaos of life. When John sees heaven, he sees an ocean that is as smooth as glass. There is not even a teeny, tiny ripple on this sea. God has brought complete peace. God has totally dominated and pacified chaos and destruction.

Amazingly, when John sees the new Jerusalem at the end of Revelation, the sea is gone, and the buildings of the new Jerusalem sparkles like crystal (21:11). Could it be that God takes all of the chaos and junk of life, calms it, and then reforms it, recycles it to make the joyful walls of heaven out of what was our pain? What caused us pain is rehabilitated into the most beautiful city we have ever seen! That sure sounds like God to me!

And now for the first really weird thing in Revelation: Four strange beings prowl around God’s throne – a lion (king of the beasts), a cow (king of domesticated animals), a human (highest of all created animals), and an eagle (king of the birds).^⁴ They each have six wings, and the wings are covered with eyes, meaning that they can see everything everywhere. But the main point of these strange unearthly creatures is not what they look like but what they say. They see everything (all of life’s joy and all of life’s sorrow), and yet “Day after day and night after night they keep on saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty – the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come’” (v. 8).

There is no one and no thing like God! He is holy, completely separate and beyond anything or anyone else. He is eternal. He always was. He always is, and He’s not finished yet. God is still coming even more.

When the 24 elders (who represent all of God’s people) hear this song of praise, they get down off their thrones.^⁵ They fall down on the ground. They fall face down on the ground before God. They don’t hold anything back. They don’t care what anyone thinks. They worship God with all of their bodies. They submit everything they are to God. They “worship the one who lives forever and ever” (v. 10) with full-bodied, full-hearted worship.

Then, they lay their crowns in front of God’s throne. Their crowns are their own glory. These are the things that say they are important, the things that other people look at to see that they are special, their accomplishments, their successes, their achievements, the things they are most proud of. For us in our world, our crowns might be trophies, diplomas, degrees, awards, Super Bowl rings, wedding rings, pictures of our kids in our wallets, academic awards, bank books, or gold stars from the teacher. These saints take all of their “glory,” all of their crowns, everything that says they are worth something, and they lay it before God. They say, “No, God you are the One who is worth all glory. Anything that I have You have given me. Any good thing that I have ever done, any good thing that has ever happened to me is all because of You. I lay it all before You. It all belongs to You, not me or anyone else!”

In this act of worship, these 24 elders (and all of God’s people who worship like them) are rebelling against the rulers of this world. True worship is subversive to earthly status quo. Revelation talks so much about thrones because so many people and things want to rule on the thrones of our world. In John’s world and Jesus’ world the Roman government made people say “Hail Caesar! Caesar is King and God.” Hitler made people say, “Heil Hitler!” In our current world, no one human person is calling us to hail him as the ultimate king, but we still have thrones. We have our own cries of allegiance:^⁶

“All hail the stock market! You are worthy of all our hopes and fears.”
“All hail sports and entertainment! You are worthy of our time, our passion, and our energy.”
“All hail professional success! You are worthy of everything I am. I sacrifice everything else to you.”
“All hail our bodies! You are worthy of our time, money, and effort. Diets, pills, gym memberships, tanning beds, whitening creams, and spandex are small prices to pay to look good.
“All hail the kids! Your educational success is worth any and all costs.”
“All hail romance! You are worth my very identity. I’ll give up anything if you make me feel loved.”

When these 24 elders fall face down before God and give Him their crowns, they are participating in the basic Christian rebellion against the ruling powers of this world. Christian worship shouts that God alone is worthy. “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created” (v. 11).

These great worship leaders forget themselves all together. They don’t remember their former sinfulness. They don’t remember their former success. All they can think of is giving praise to God and thanking Him for His goodness.

God is like a great magnet that draws out our worship. When we really see God for who He is, we naturally worship Him. Chapters 4 and 5 slowly move toward a great climax of worship. First, the 4 living beings worship God (4:8). Then, the 24 elders fall down and worship God (4:10-11, 5:8-10). Next, thousands and millions of angels join in the singing (4:11-12). Finally, “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” sings in worship to God (5:13). God is a great magnet, an eternal sponge drawing out the worship of everyone and everything in the world. He is worthy of our worship both now and forever, and He will get our worship because He draws it out of us.

When worship God together on Sunday mornings, we are joining in the eternal, heavenly worship of God. We aren’t just singing by ourselves. We are singing with all Christians everywhere. We are singing with all the angels. We are singing with everything that was ever made, plant, animal, and rock. Everything everywhere sings out in worship of God: “Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power forever!”

But if we worship God just on Sunday mornings, we are truly missing the point of worshipping God. God doesn’t want our worship if it’s only one day a week. He wants our worship 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. He wants us to live lives of worship. Paul said, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1). This day, today living for God is our spiritual act of worship. Every day is an act of worship. Every minute we live for God is an act of worship. Every time we choose God’s way, we bow down and lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus. Every time we act with love and speak a word of kindness, we cry “Holy, holy, holy.”

This week, as part of my research about this passage which talks about casting our crowns before the throne, I researched the Christian band Casting Crowns. One of their newest songs is “Lifesong.” The idea is that our lives become a song of worship to God. Below the title, the band leader, Mark Hall, wrote: “Worship is so much more than the songs I sing. Instead, worship is in the heart that lifts the song. If you think about it, worship began when I woke up this morning. My life purpose is to give God glory through everything I do. If my life does not worship Him, my songs don't either.”

Let me read some of the lyrics of “Lifesong” to you:
Empty hands held high -
Such small sacrifice.
If not joined with my life,
I sing in vain tonight.
May the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing,
Bring a smile to you.
Let my lifesong sing to you.
Let my lifesong sing to you.
I want to sign your name to the end of the this day,
Knowing that my heart was true.
Let my lifesong sing to you.

The picture in Revelation 4 is a picture of eternal worship. “Day after day and night after night they keep on” worshiping God. Eternal means forever – as in nothing left out. We can begin the eternal worship now by worshiping God every minute of every day, by living lives of worship. Leave nothing out. Live an eternal life. Live an eternal worship. Live every minute, and live every minute as worship!

We are going to practice this eternal worship in a few minutes by singing some more worship songs together. This is worship, but this is the fuel or the practice for living lives of worship. Let’s sing with all our hearts, and live with all our hearts – all in worship of our great God!

Before we sing, I want you to listen to the song, “Lifesong” by Casting Crowns.

Lord, let our lives sing in praise to you!

1 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s idea of what this looks like at: http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image04.asp.

2 See Smith’s painting at: http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image05.htm.

3 Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Knox, 1989), 102.

4 Boring, 107.

5 See Smith’s picture of this at: http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image06.htm.

6 Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2005), 43-44.

Revelation 5 - Everyone Wants a Lion

2008-11-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
August 13, 2006

Last week we read John’s vision of God sitting on the throne.^¹ He is like a diamond radiating in His own Light. This week John’s vision continues. John looks at the throne again, and he sees a scroll in God’s right hand.

But this scroll is sealed with 7 seals. 7 is the number of perfect fullness, so this scroll is perfectly and fully closed. A powerful angel calls out in a powerful voice: “Can anyone open this scroll?” This is no ordinary scroll. This scroll is the scroll that opens God’s plans for the future. This scroll is the scroll that finally brings out God’s plans for our world. “Can anyone open this scroll?”

No one answered. No one in heaven. No one on earth. No one under the earth. No one answered. No one could open God’s future.

And John cries. John doesn’t just get a little “manly” water in his eyes that he can wipe away with the old “scratchy eyes” trick. The word used for “I cried” here is the word for “the most dramatic form of mourning” possible.^² John is doing the funeral-my-mother-died-the-world-is-coming-to-an-end-cry. Tears are pouring out. His body is shaking.

But then one of the 24 elders says to John: “Stop crying! Look over there. The Lion of Judah has conquered. The long awaited King has won the final battle. He can open the scroll! He can bring in God’s future.”

I am thinking of the classic Superman movies. Just at the moment when it seems like all hope is lost, someone shouts out: “Look! It’s Superman! Here he comes to save the day!”

So John looks, and we look. We look for the strong Lion – the King of the Beasts. We look for the Superman who can stop speeding trains and catch bullets in his teeth. We look for the powerful King, and what do we see?

A Lamb.

A Lamb? We wipe our eyes and look again. Maybe we’re seeing at least a strong ram, something that can crush its enemies with its horns. No, John uses the word for a little, bitty, baby Lamb – a small, defenseless little Lamb.^³ Baaaaa.

We expected a Lion, and we got a Lamb.

We expected Superman, and we got Erkle (a classic nerd from an American TV show).

One Bible scholar says, “This is perhaps the most mind-wrenching ‘rebirth of images’ in [all of] literature. The slot in the system reserved for the Lion has been filled by the Lamb of God.”^⁴ This is possibly the single greatest surprise scene in the Bible or in the whole world.

This is The Great Surprise – the great scandal of the gospel. If we are honest, we all really want a Lion. When the elder said a Lion was coming, we wish a Lion had really shown up. Dan Boone says, “We want our God to come in the form of earthly powers. We want heads to roll and thrones to be overturned.” We want God to play this world’s games of force and domination and win.^⁵

Why? Why do we want a Lion? Because we don’t want to be losers. We want to be winners. We want to win this world’s games. We want a Lion to lead us into victory. We are like Jesus’ disciples. (See Mark 8.) They were always asking Jesus, “Lord, when are you going to establish your kingdom? Why are you always talking about this dying stuff? When are you going to take over?” We don’t want a Lamb. We want a Lion. We want to follow a Lion. We want to be people of the Lion. We want to reign in power. We want to be the victors of the world.

But Jesus - the Lion of Judah, the King of the world, the one who brings in God’s future - is a Lamb. Let’s talk about this Lamb.^⁶

This is “a Lamb that had been killed.” The Lamb was slain or slaughtered. Great – it just gets worse. Not only is this a little, baby Lamb, but it is also a Lamb that has been to the butcher’s house. The imagery here is that Jesus is the ultimate Passover Lamb. Jesus’ death on the cross is parallel to the sacrifice of a Passover lamb to free God’s people from God’s judgment in Egypt (Exodus 11-12). Heaven sings a new song to this Lamb: “You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were killed, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (v. 9). This Lamb gave His own life as the ransom price to buy back God’s people, to buy back people from every nation and every place. Like we read in Colossians, “For he has rescued us from the one who rules in the kingdom of darkness, and he has brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son. God has purchased our freedom with his blood and has forgiven all our sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

But this Lamb is not a dead Lamb. The Lamb is alive. The Lamb “is now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the 24 elders” (v. 6). Jesus died, but He lives again. Jesus is the Crucified-Risen One. Jesus is the One who died and lives forevermore.

One of my friends pastors a church called The Risen Lamb Church. That is a good name. This Lamb is Risen, and now He has 7 horns. Horns symbolize power, and 7 means fullness or completeness. So this defenseless little Lamb that was killed is now the Risen Lamb who has complete power.

This Lamb has “7 eyes, which are the seven spirits of God that are sent out into all the earth” (v. 6). Here we see the Trinity in action. The Lamb is filled with the fullness of the Spirit of God, and God sends this Spirit-filled Lamb out into every part of the earth.

The Lamb takes the scroll, and as He takes the scroll, all of heaven falls down to worship Him.^⁷ The 4 living beings worship him. The 24 elders worship him. All of God’s people worship him. Thousands and millions of angels worship him. Finally, everything everywhere sings out: “Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever” (v. 13). The Lamb and God receive worship together. The Lamb is filled with the Spirit of God. The Lamb and God are One.

Remember that up to this point, we have not actually seen God. We have seen an indescribable One sitting on the throne. We have seen a diamond shining in light. We have seen a hand holding a scroll. But we have not seen God, at least not a God we can define or describe. Now with the Lamb, we see what Paul describes: Jesus “is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). God is so amazing and spectacular that we cannot even fit Him into our eyes. We cannot manage to put a picture of God in our brains. He is beyond us. But God has a solution: Jesus. Jesus is the visible picture of the invisible God. We cannot see God, but we can see the Lamb. We cannot see God, but we can see Jesus.

Sometimes in school, I had to draw a picture to describe myself. I had to draw something that would show my interests, my character, my passions, my heroes. I had to define myself so that others could see who I am. Jesus is God’s picture of Himself. Jesus is God’s self-definition. God says, “If you want to know what I am like, here – look at Jesus. Look at the Lamb!”

What do we see when we look at the Lamb? What do we see when we look at God’s Self-Portrait?

We see a picture that changes everything.

We all want a Lion. We want a Superman type God. But we get a Lamb, a Lamb that was killed. And this Crucified Lamb – this ultimate Loser - is the ultimate Victor, the ultimate Winner, the ultimate Conqueror of all time.

Death was his path to Life. Failure was his path to Success. Defeat was his path to Victory. Being Crushed was his path to Healing.

Jesus changes everything. The crucifixion-resurrection-enthronement of Jesus is an explosion that changes all thought on all things. We can’t think of anything in the same way after this event. Jesus – who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) – has rocked the world. Losing is Winning. Dying is Living. Giving up power is the path to true power.

That is the real crux of the issue, the central point. God is a God who gives up power. True power is not taking power for oneself. True power is giving power to others. Christ conquered because He gave up power. Because Jesus gave up power, He showed the false power of this world. Because Jesus gave up power, He now gives true power to all who follow Him. The Christian life is following the way of the Lamb who was slain. The Christian life is a life of giving up power, laying down our own power, and giving power to others so that they can become strong. This is the Christian life – giving up power for the sake of others. God is a God who gives up power. In God’s Kingdom we also give up power. We willingly give our power so that others can be strong.

We don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know how to deal with this. I spend far too much of my time and energy trying to get and keep power. This Risen Lamb is an explosion of thought that blows up our mental boxes like dynamite in a cracker box. We don’t know what to do with this kind of God. We don’t know how to live this kind of life.

What would it look like for us to live lives of giving up power to others? What would it look like to live our lives giving away our power?

If we are really honest, this vision of God and God’s Kingdom calls us to rethink everything. Laying down our power means we need to rethink everything! Rethink everything! Pastor Brian McLaren explains: “It means that you begin looking at every facet [every part] of your life again in this new light – from the way you think about God to the way you treat your spouse, from your political affiliations to your spending habits, from what makes you angry to what makes you happy. It doesn’t mean everything changes all at once, but it means you open up the possibility that everything may change over time. It involves a deep sense that you may be wrong, wrong about so much, along with the sincere desire to realign around what is good and true.”^⁸

What does it mean for us to lay down our power?

How can we give power to others through the clothes we buy or give away?

How can our leisure time be a way to give power to others?

How can we give power to others through the way we give or spend our money?

How can we give up power as we seek God’s guidance on our futures? (God is

challenging me on this.)

How can we lay down power in a constructive way when we have disagreements,

when we have been wronged, when we have contract disputes?

How can we give power away through what we say or don’t say? (Maybe by

refusing to gossip?)

How can we lay down power at work or at home? Maybe by working harder or

by working less.

How can we give power to others at church? How can we lay down our own power and live the life of the Lamb here at church?

In our small group this week, Jason Gitt shared with us one of his grandfather’s favorite sayings. “When you boil the Bible and Christianity down to its core, we only have to do two things: 1) Make sure we are right with God. 2) Invest our lives in others.” One way we can give away power is to spend our lives investing in others. How can you invest your life in other people this week?

How can we as a church, how can we as individuals, how can I as a pastor – follow the Lamb and lay down our power so that God can give others power through us? This is our calling. This is our God. This is our life.

1 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s idea of what this looks like at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image05.htm.

2 Craig Keener, Revelation, NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 186.

3 Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Knox, 1989), 109

4 Ibid, 108.

5 Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2005), 50.

6 See Ted Larson’s image of the Lamb at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/The%20Lamb%20Slain.htm

7 See Smith’s picture of the Lamb at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image07.htm

8 Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, (Nashville, TN: W Publishing, 2006), 105.

Revelation 6 - The Horsemen and The Lamb

2008-11-17T22:10:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
August 20, 2006

The Four Horsemen are probably the most popular image in the Revelation.^¹ The Four Horsemen show up in so many ways that I can’t possibly list them all, but let me give you a few of my favorites from my research this week.^²

In the TV show The Real Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters have to try to stop the Four Horsemen after they accidentally get out. Oops.
Robot Chicken, an animation show, once featured a spoof (or gag) with My Little Pony childrens toys in the form of the Four Horsemen.
One TV show that never made it to regular TV was called Waiting Four Horsemen, and the theme was the Four Horsemen of Revelation waiting in a modern day apartment for God to call them out to start the End of the World. I bet they had some strange conversations!
The Four Horsemen have shown up in all kinds of music, from Metallica (hard rock) to Johnny Cash (country-western) to Outkast (rap).
And different groups and things have been named after the Four Horsemen, including: 4 Notre Dame football players, calculus professors (at the Georgia Institute of Technology), professional wrestlers, NBA star LeBron James’s close friends, and one very strong alcoholic drink.

Of all of the possible biblical themes, the Western world has chosen to embrace this one. Great! That’s not really the way I want the Bible to be remembered. To make matters worse, the world (and Christians) generally misunderstand the Four Horsemen.

There are four basic ways to view the Four Horsemen, and Revelation in general.^³

Preterists concentrate Revelation’s time in the first century A.D, saying that all (or almost all) of the events of the Revelation were fulfilled within the first century A.D. (The Four Horsemen rode in the first century only.)

Historists stretch Revelation’s time across all of history, saying “Revelation provides a detailed map of history from its own day until Jesus’ return.” (The Four Horsemen ride in sequence in different centuries.)

Futurists project all of Revelation’s time into the future, saying the events in Revelation won’t happen until the very end of the world. They are in the future. (The Four Horsemen will ride sometime in the future at the end of the world.)

Idealists say that Revelation stands outside of time all together, saying that Revelation describes the timeless struggles of good and evil, God and Satan. (The Four Horsemen are always riding in every century.)

Actually, today most scholars combine two or more of these views. Revelation demands an eclectic (mixed) approach to understand its many varied images. Unfortunately, for us Christians and for our world in general, the idealist approach is strongest when we read about the Four Horsemen. In other words, the Four Horsemen are always riding in every century. I don’t think Christians can expect God to rescue us out of the suffering of the world through a “pre-tribulation rapture.” On the contrary, Revelation says very clearly that Christians will suffer right along with the world and, at times, even more than the rest of the world. This is the tribulation. Now is the time of struggle.

Let’s talk about these Four Horsemen and how they ride in our world.

The first horseman rides a white horse, the kind of horse kings rode in victory parades. John says he rides out for conquest so that he can conquer. His primary concern is power, and he wants to have this power over others.

Our world is full of people who want to have power over others. Our world never runs out of Alexander the Great’s, Caesars, Hitler’s, Musolini’s, Stalin’s, Kim JongIl’s, and unethical CEO’s.

But if we are honest, we are power-people, too. Sarah has predicted that Emma’s teenage years will be rough as Emma and I clash in an ongoing power struggle. Last week, Anne Cave advised me to take up swimming to keep my back healthy. I explained to her that I don’t want to give up soccer because I am hungry for the competition and the power struggle. I love to run into people, to crush a ball, or to take out my man. I feel a little satisfied inside when the other team complains that I am too rough. Yes, unfortunately, the horse of Domination and Power-struggle still rides^⁴, even in us. (Who ever heard of a church without power struggles?)

Conquest always brings along his big brother: Fighting. The second horse is red, for bloodshed, and he is “given a mighty sword and the authority to remove peace from the earth.” Wherever Fighting goes, peace disappears, and people start to kill each other.

Fighting is a constant feature of our world. www.antiwar.com has news updates on wars or threats of wars on every continent (except Antarctica, and those scientists can get pretty angry). Even in places without official wars, there are gang wars and drug wars and terrorism.

But if we are honest, Fighting rides in our hearts, too. One of my long standing, secret wishes has been to be in a bar fight. We glamorize war and fighting and make a prize of it. On a simpler or deeper level, when our own personal power is threatened, we are quick to fight. Fighting is the second horseman, and he still rides.

The third horseman is Poverty. He rides a black horse and carries scales.^⁵ These aren’t the scales of justice. They are the scales at the grocery store, like where you weigh your fruit. And a good loaf of bread costs a whole day’s wages for the average worker. This is the sad truth for much of our world. 1 billion people currently suffer from hunger and malnutrition.^⁶ That’s bad, but what’s worse is that the rich people’s stuff: olive oil and wine are unaffected. The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.

Let’s be honest here, poverty rides through us. The price of one meal for two at Outback can feed a child for more than a year. Our cabinets have more food than millions of families will see in a month. We buy more clothes, more technology, more stuff, more movies while our brothers and sisters around the world long to buy bread or rice. We aren’t poor, but we are also being trampled by the horseman named Poverty.

The last horseman is Death, and Hell is his riding partner. Death finishes what the other three horses started. He adds disease and wild animals to war and famine. 40 million people have AIDS. 26 million of those are in Africa.^⁷ Countless millions have cancer or other deadly diseases.

Death is not fair. It takes people before we’re ready for them to go. Death rides in our world, and we cannot stop it.

We may view the Four Horsemen from the idealist perspective, but they are far from ideal. In fact, they stink. It stinks to live in a world crushed underfoot by these Four Horsemen. They mess up our world, and they mess up our lives. They stink!^⁸

So we cry out with the martyrs and with people who suffer around the world and through the centuries: “How long, O Lord?” “How long will you look the other way?” (Psalm 13:1). Where is God in this picture? Horsemen ride and mess up the earth, but where is God?

John answers that God is in control. God is there releasing the Horsemen into the world. God is there giving them power and limiting their power.

Why does God give them any power? I want to know the answer to that question, but that is not the question John is answering. John is answering the question: “Who is more powerful – God or evil? Who is really in control in this messed up world?”

John’s answer to that question is definite and strong. God is in control! Whatever power evil has is limited and only temporary. One day God will bring the great Day of Judgment and make everything right. One day God will turn the universe upside down.^⁹ God will knock down mountains like Emma knocks town a tower of blocks. God will pull back the skies like a spring-loaded window shade: fffffthplplplplplplplp!

One day God will make everything right. He will bring justice to everyone. On that day, everyone will be on level ground. No one will get special treatment, not kings, not rich people, not army generals, not the power-people. Everyone will fall down before the Judgment of God. And God will make everything right.

John gives one more answer to the question, “Where is God?” God is in the Lamb. This God who is in control, this God who will make everything right in a great earth-shattering day, this God - is the Lamb, the Lamb who was killed. This God is the Lamb who has already been crushed by the powerful people. I don’t understand why God allows suffering, but I do understand clearly that God suffers with us. Where is God? He is here with us in our suffering.

So how do we respond? How do we live in a world that is overrun with the Four Horsemen of Domination, Fighting, Poverty, and Death? How do we live in this world?

Live like the Lamb. Trust God to the death.

Look again at the 5^th seal. The martyrs are the heroes of this story.^¹⁰ They trusted God to the death. Their souls, their lives, are now under the altar in heaven. Their very lives became a sacrifice to God. They lived the word of God to the end. They remained faithful to the end. They trusted the Lamb enough to live like the Lamb. They trusted the Lamb enough to die like the Lamb.

In this world we only have two choices: live like the Four Horsemen or live like the martyrs. Live to dominate, to fight, to store wealth, and to kill. Or live to help, to bring peace, to give generously, and to give life. Live like the Horsemen, or live like the Lamb. This is our choice.

The simple message of this complex text is this: God is in control, so live like the Lamb. God is in control, so trust God to the death. This world is not in control, so don’t play this world’s games. The Four Horsemen are not in control, so don’t live by their rules. God is in control, so live like the Lamb.

Trust the Lamb enough to die to domination. Give up on the power struggle. Give up on dominating others. Live a life of helping others be the best they can be.

Trust the Lamb enough to die to fighting. Give up on violence. Be a peace-maker in the world. Live a life of peace.

Trust the Lamb enough to die to wealth. Give up on getting more and more money. Give up on materialism. Give up on having a bigger apartment, a nicer car, a better IPod. Give up on that stuff, and, instead, give more. Spend less. Share more. Live a life of sharing.

Trust the Lamb enough to die to death. Give up on outliving death. Give up on controlling the time of our death. True life is more important than death. Live life to the fullest, and don’t worry about death. Live the life of the Lamb from now until you die, no matter the cost – even death. Live a life full of Life!

Church, God is in control, so live like the Lamb! God is in control, so live a life of helping. God is in control, so live a life of peace. God is in control, so live a life of sharing. God is in control, so live a life full of Life! May God help us to live like the Lamb.

1 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s picture at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image08.asp.

2 All of the references below are from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse

3 Craig Keener, Revelation, NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 27-29.

4 Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2005), 57.

5 See Ted Larson’s picture at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Opening%20the%20Third%20Seal.htm.

6 www.thehungersite.com, 8.16.06. Note: if you click a link on this site you can give food to the world’s poor for free every day just by viewing one page of advertisements. I just made it my homepage.

7 www.worldaidsday.org, 8.16.08.

8 Boone, 61.

9 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s picture at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image10.asp .

10 See Smith’s picture at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image09.asp.

Revelation 7 - Living Like Heaven

2008-11-17T22:08:00.001-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
August 27, 2006

This week I looked for pictures of different kinds of bookends. I found everything from A to Z. There are the horse bookends, without which no posh English study is complete. There are the classic “thinking man” bookends. There are many varieties of little people struggling to hold the books together. There are countless children’s bookends, like this engine and caboose. Here is Emma’s favorite: Pooh and Tigger. My favorite was probably this set from the Chronicles of Narnia: the White Witch and Aslan.

Why are we talking about bookends? Well, let me show you one more set of bookends. In Revelation chapter 7, John gives us two visions. They stand like bookends on time. The first vision, verses 1-8, happens before time. The second vision, verses 9-17 stands at the end of time as a picture of the beautiful conclusion of the world.

Let’s read Revelation 7 now.

OK, now let’s look at the 1^st Bookend (v. 1-8). In chapter 6, John has watched the Lamb open 6 seals. At the end of chapter 6, with the earth collapsing, we expect Judgment Day, but instead, God’s video screen flashes back to before the chaos, before the martyrs, before the Four Horsemen. God shows John (and us) a picture of the time before time.

At the beginning of time, as God is creating the world, He pushes chaos to the edge of the picture. Before He sets the earth in motion and allows freewill to run its course, God calls for a time of perfect calm so that He can do something very important. God shuts all the windows and the doors, turns of the fans and the air conditioners, so that His angel can work without any interference. God’s people need to be marked. God wants His people to be sealed with His personal seal. Before any of the Trouble starts, God wants to make sure that the full number of His people are marked and claimed as His.

John tells us that 144,000 people “were marked with the seal of God” (7:4).^¹ Why 144,000? If you go to the KORAIL website, you can reserve a seat on a train, and it will tell you how many seats are left. Some people think there is a train leaving for heaven with 144,000 seats.^² Better get your ticket fast!

But that is a misunderstanding. “The number 144,000 is intended as symbolic theology, not literal math.”^³ In the Bible the number 12 consistently represents God’s people (the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 apostles, the 24 elders), so here John hears that a full group of God’s people will be marked with the seal from every part of the family of Israel. The point is that God’s family will be very big, very full, and very safe – even when the Trouble starts.

So that’s the 1^st Bookend. In Paul’s words, “Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” (Eph. 1:4). Before any of the Trouble started, God chose us as his own people.

Now let’s talk about the 2^nd Bookend: verses 9-17. In verse 9 God’s movie screen fast-forwards to the end of time, or to the time outside of time, after the Big Trouble.

Here John sees “a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb” (7:9). “Too great to count” must be a really big number because in another place John gives the number 200 million (9:16). This crowd must have been huge!!

The 1^st Bookend had a very large number: 144,000, representing a very full family of God from every part of Israel. When John views the second bookend vision, two amazing things happen.

First, the number explodes. The nice, neat numeric symbolism of the first vision explodes into a swarming mass of people too big to count, too big even to organize into some kind of namable groups. John looks out at the vast crowd and says, “Uhh, there’s … um … a lot … a whole lot!”

Second, the group diversifies. There aren’t just Israelites anymore. There are people from every nation and tribe and people and language. There are Canadians, Koreans, Taiwanese, New Zealanders, Massai, Americans, Cherokee, Iroquois, English, Philippinos, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Kenyans, French, Hutu, Tutsi … people from every possible place or group in the world.

Like we prayed today from Psalm 67, all the nations are finally praising God. God’s plan was never just for Israel. God’s plan was that Israel would become a God-like, hospitable people who would slowly but surely incorporate all people everywhere into God’s loving family. Revelation 7 gives us a picture of when this finally happens.

These are still the 144,000. John will use this number to refer to all of God’s people again. The international, multicultural church of Jesus Christ is the continuation of Israel as the people of God. But the 2^nd Bookend has radically reinterpreted the 144,000. God’s elite, special people now include all kinds of people from all kinds of places.

This scene in heaven is like the World Cup victory party. They have conquered. They have survived the Big Trouble. They are victorious (see chapters 2-3). What are they doing? They aren’t giving each other high-fives and congratulating each other for making it through. They aren’t kissing the trophy. They aren’t holding up their white robes and crowns for the camera.

They are worshipping. They are giving God all the credit: “Salvation comes from our God on the throne and from the Lamb! You are the rightful Owner of all blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength. We never could have made it without you. It’s all about you, God!”

One of the elders turns to John and gives John a little commentary on heaven. First, he explains that John is now seeing the 2^nd Bookend, the time after our time, the time after the Big Trouble.

Then, he explains who these people are. They are the people who have made it through the Big Trouble because “they washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white” (7:14). Now, I have a lot of shirts, and I can tell you that blood does not make them whiter. I have had to throw away some shirts because I stained them with blood after I shaved. But this is a different kind of clothes and a different kind of blood. These are the clothes that represent our lives, what we have done in this world, our track-record so to speak. And this is the blood of Jesus from when he died on the cross. He was completely innocent. He had a perfectly clean record, the only person who ever lived who never got grass stains on his spiritual knees. When we put our trust in Jesus and his death on the cross, God transforms our dirty, stained clothes into Jesus’ clean, white clothes.

Up to this point, we have already seen that the Community of Heaven is radically inclusive and radically worshipful. Now the elder explains one more about the Community of Heaven. It is mutual, and it is healing.

The Community of Heaven is mutual. The people worship God and serve God day and night. God lives among them and shelters the people (7:15). The people give; God gives. The people serve; God serves. Heaven is a mutual exchange of love and caring.

The Community of Heaven is healing. These people are coming out of the Big Trouble. Many of them have had very difficult lives, but here, in the Community of Heaven, God heals all their wounds. God satisfies their hunger. God quenches their thirst. God protects them from the summer heat. God guides their lives. God wipes away their tears. Because they have trusted the Lamb, God takes away their dirty clothes and gives them fresh clean clothes and fresh clean lives.

The 2^nd Bookend, this picture of the time after our time, is radical. The people of God are radically large – too many to count (and for a pastor like John, you know it takes a big crowd before it’s too many to count). They are radically multicultural; in fact, they are every-cultural. Their worship is radical – day and night. They are radically mutual – serving and being served. They are radically healing – no more hunger or thirst or shame or tears. This picture is radical and beautiful!

But we – we don’t live in this time. We don’t live in the Bookends yet. We are still in the books. We are in the in-between time. The 1^st Bookend was before the Big Trouble. The 2^nd Bookend is after the Big Trouble. That means we are living in the time of the Big Trouble. If you remember from last week, the Horsemen still ride in our world. The winds still blow in our world, and the waves of chaos still crash against us.

How do we live between the Bookends? How do we live in the midst of Trouble? We have been chosen by God to make it through the Trouble, but we are not through it yet. How do we live as we journey through?

Our answer is found in the Lord’s Prayer. “May Your Kingdom come soon. May Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” Jesus taught His disciples to pray that God’s Kingdom would become a reality on earth. He taught them to pray that things will be done God’s way on earth, just like they are in Heaven. Jesus taught His disciples to pray for Heaven to come to earth. In the meantime, in the middle time between the Bookends, Jesus taught them to pray for Heaven and to live like Heaven. Live out the Community of Heaven even as we live on earth. Live like the end while we’re still in the middle.

While we are still in the middle time, live like God and work with God to make the Community of Heaven a reality on earth. In this middle time, God is calling us to live toward the second picture.

Be radically growing. God exploded the picture of his community from a one-nation family oriented community in the 1^st Bookend, to an every-cultural, uncountably huge community in the 2^nd Bookend. Maybe God wants to expand our expectations, too. Maybe he wants to explode our expectations.

Be radically inclusive. Relentlessly pursue those who are lost and left out. Look for people on the outside on the edges of our church or on the edges of our larger community of Cheonan. Notice the ones on the outside, and join God to bring them inside.

Be radical worshipers. Worship God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your body, day and night.

Be radically mutual. Give, and receive. Serve, and be served. Encourage, and be encouraged. Strengthen others, and let them strengthen you.

Be radically healing. We are all wounded. But here’s the beauty of the gospel. As we become a community, we become God’s doctors and nurses. We become God’s medicine and bandages to heal each other with his grace. We see the pain in each other and the pain in our world, and we join with God to satisfy hunger and to wipe away tears. God is using us to bring heavenly healing to each other and to our world. Let God use you more.

Let me show you a picture of what living like Heaven might look like even as we live in the Middle Time. It is a picture of one fellowship living in a place called Middle Earth.

(Show trailer of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring to 1:20.)

God has chosen us. We are called and chosen to live like Heaven on earth. In this place, in our community, in our Middle Earth, if we don’t do it, no one will. We cannot do it alone. We need each other. We have formed a fellowship, a Fellowship of the King. Let us say to each other, “You have my voice. You have my hands. You have my heart.”

Church, we are in the Middle Time, but by God’s grace we can live like Heaven. This is our calling. This is our privilege. Let’s do it together.

1 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s picture of this at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image11.asp.

2 This image is from Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2005), 67, though Boone is simply describing a faulty opinion.

3 Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation, (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1989), 130.

Revelation 8-9 - The World's Most Dangerous Prayer

2008-11-17T22:03:00.001-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
September 3, 2006

Audience survey: What do you pray for?

(write on white board)

health, finances, wisdom, character, educational success, guidance, to be closer with God, relationships, church, for someone to become a Christian, personal peace, peace in a particular country, poor people.

Does anyone pray for judgment? Come on. Anyone? Ever prayed for God to judge the world? No one? Have you ever prayed for God to pour out fierce justice like a tsunami? Ever prayed for God to shake the world with judgement like a dog shakes a chew toy? No? Really?

The martyrs in Revelation did: “I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their witness. They called loudly to the Lord and said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge the people who belong to this world? When will you avenge our blood against these people?’” (Revelation 6:9-10).

Maybe we don’t pray for judgment because we aren’t martyrs. Or maybe we don’t pray for judgment because we aren’t saintly enough. Or maybe we do pray for judgment and don’t even realize it.

Our passage today is Revelation 8 and 9. At the beginning of our passage, God’s people pray, and the peoples’ prayers go up to God like sweet smelling incense. What are they praying for? Money, health, A+’s? Probably not. The prayers here are probably similar to the other prayers in Revelation. “God, you are worthy of all glory and honor” (4:11). “God, bring justice to the world” (6:10). “Jesus, you have bought us with your blood. You have made us your Kingdom” (5:9-10). “Salvation comes from you God” (7:10). “The whole world has finally become God’s Kingdom” (11:17). We can summarize all of these prayers from Revelation, and maybe all good prayer requests, in one line: “May your Kingdom come soon.”

We’ve been praying this prayer every week when we pray the Lord’s Prayer. This is the basic summary of all prayer. “God may your Kingdom, where none are sick or afraid or sad or alone, come. God may your Kingdom of peace and fullness and love come. God may everything be as you want it to be, and soon!” This is what we pray.

This is the world’s most dangerous prayer!

“Your Kingdom come” – these three little words are the most dangerous prayer ever prayed.

Why? Why is praying a simple prayer that Jesus taught us to pray so dangerous? If God’s Kingdom is going to come on earth, on this earth, then everything has to change. We humans – not to mention Satan and evil powers – have messed this world up with our sin. This is a sin-soaked earth. This world is full of pain and heartache and disease caused and enabled by our sin. We have set up a bazillion idols and false kings to replace God in our world. Some of them are obvious, but most of them are so subtle that we can’t even see them.

If God’s Kingdom is going to come here on this earth, he is going to have to clean house. In fact, he might have to tear the house down.

Oh, yes. This is a dangerous prayer. “Your Kingdom come.” Look out! That means the other kingdoms have to go, and they don’t want to go. And the truth is we don’t want them to go either. We like the little kingdoms that have invaded our world. We are comfortable with them. They have become warm and cozy for us like an old pair of jeans.

“Your Kingdom come” means a total earth shake-up. “Your Kingdom come” means a total church shake-up. “Your Kingdom come” means a total life shake-up. “Your Kingdom come.” Are you ready for this?

In chapter 8, God’s people pray. They pray the most dangerous prayer on earth. And God answers with lightening crashes, fire and hail, flaming mountains, and all sorts of wild things. “Your Kingdom come” – the most dangerous prayer on earth.

Let’s read the story about when God’s people pray and what happens in response. Let’s read Revelation 8 and 9 now.

See why this is the most dangerous prayer on earth? God’s people pray, and then the trumpets start blowing:^¹ fire and hail, blood, bitter water, darkness, terror, terror, terror, then locusts led by a demon king, then 200 million troops riding fire breathing beasts.^²

What happens when you pray? Any fire? Maybe some hail? We’ve had people fall asleep during prayer meeting, but I’ve never seen any locust soldiers as a result of my prayers – at least not that I know of.

What’s going on here? God’s people pray “Your Kingdom come,” and all Hell breaks loose. Or more true to the text, God lets Hell out to destroy the earth. What is going on? Is this really happening? Are we really reading the Bible here? What on earth is God doing?

He is answering our prayers. “Oh, no,” you say. “I didn’t pray for this – fire and hail and locusts. I never prayed for any of this crazy stuff.” Ahh, but you did, and so did I. And so do all God’s people everywhere. When we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, we are asking God to disrupt our unholy world, to establish His holy Kingdom here.^³ When we pray “Your Kingdom come,” we are asking God to do whatever is necessary to bring His Kingdom into our world. According to John, this is what is necessary.

And, somehow, it all works. When the 7^th trumpet sounds, loud voices cry out: “The whole world has now become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever” (11:15). I don’t fully understand how God gets from the ugly scene of the 6^th trumpet to the 7^th trumpet with God’s kingdom being established over all the earth. That seems like a long step to me.

But the end of chapter 9 gives a strong hint as to how this all may fit together. Chapter 9 ends like this: “But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to turn from their evil deeds. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood – idols that neither see nor hear nor walk! And they did not repent of their murders or their witchcraft or their immorality or their thefts.”

What was the point of all of the damage in the first 6 trumpets? What was the point of all of this unleashing of evil? The point was to get the people to repent. The point was to convince the people to turn away from their false gods and to turn back to the True God. The point was to show evil for what it really is: evil. The point was to convince the people to live for good instead of for evil, for God instead of for Satan.

Theology books often talk about “the problem of evil.” Usually the question is: “How can an all-loving, all-powerful God allow evil in His world?” Or more simply, “Why does God allow so much suffering?” John doesn’t give us a full answer to this question, but he does give a partial answer. I have to confess to you -- I don’t like John’s answer. I am not comfortable with John’s answer. I wish he had another answer to share with us. But John is clear and unmistakable here. It seems impossible, but God allows evil to have destructive power in our world to bring us back to God. It is a paradox – something that is true even though it seems impossible. God uses evil for good. God allows evil forces to cause problems on the earth so that people will eventually turn to God.

Maybe you’re thinking God needs a new strategy? I have felt like that this week. It doesn’t seem to be working, God. One of peoples’ biggest objections against God is all the suffering in the world.

But before we say God needs to go back to school and read How to Win Friends and Influence People, we need to ask a question. How does God expect this strange strategy to work? What does God hope to accomplish by letting evil out and about on earth?

He wants to show us that our idols, our false gods, are – well – false. Throughout the Bible God consistently uses judgment to reveal his supremacy over false gods. The idols and the things we are tempted to worship in this world are truly worthless. In the end, they can’t protect us, can’t satisfy us, can’t heal us, can’t give us anything like true life. In the end, one way or another, we discover that putting our life-trust in anything but God is a foolish waste.

How does God show us our idols are false? He has lots of ways, but one way is to crush them and us. One sure way for God to get our attention is to take everything else away, so that we have to focus on him.

In his introduction to the book of Joel, Eugene Peterson writes: “There is a sense in which catastrophe [or problems in general don’t] introduce anything new into our lives. It simply exposes the moral or spiritual reality that already exists but was hidden beneath an overlay of routine, self-preoccupation, and business as usual. Then suddenly, there it is before us: a moral universe in which our accumulated decisions – on what we say and do, on how we treat others, on whether or not we will obey God’s commands – are set in the stark light of God’s judgment.”^⁴

In other words, it seems like sometimes God allows evil to cause problems just to reveal the evil in us. Sometimes God lets bad things happen so that we can see that our hearts aren’t right and turn back to God. In Joel, God seems to say, “Quit complaining, and get your hearts right” (2:13).

It’s interesting that the people at the end of chapter 9 are surprisingly like the evil forces that God sets loose. The evil powers come “to steal, to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10). The people of chapter 9 “refuse to turn from their evil deeds” (9:20), and they go on murdering, doing witchcraft, using other people, and stealing. Faced with the fullness of evil and all its terrible consequences, the people still chose evil. And by choosing evil, they further evil’s cause. By continuing in the way of evil, they cause more evil to happen.

Revelation gives all of us a choice: Be part of the solution or part of the problem. Evil attacks our world. If we respond with the power tactics of evil - complaining, arguing, name-calling, violence, lying, stealing, cheating, killing – then we are only furthering evil’s cause.

When problems and evil come, we face a choice – the choice of Revelation -- let the problems take us into their evil world, or resist the problems like the Lamb, by standing quietly on the side of good, by laying down our lives for others, by overcoming evil with good.

“Your Kingdom come.” This is the world’s most dangerous prayer. This is the world’s most dangerous prayer because God’s Kingdom must first come in us. We cling so strongly to our idols that for God’s Kingdom to come, sometimes he has to shake us and tear us apart inside, to rip us away from the things we are holding on to. This process hurts. It hurts a lot. I know. I know because I too have idols and things that attract my worship, and God has to shake me and tear me apart, too.

But God is not cruel in relentlessly tearing us away from our idols. In fact, this painful act is very kind. God is like a doctor setting a broken bone or cutting out a tumor. It hurts, but it heals.

Our idols lead to death, death for us and death for others. Our idols keep us from the beautiful life he wants for us and for others. Our idols keep His Kingdom out. And his Kingdom is what we all want. His Kingdom is what we all pray for. We all long for the Kingdom we read about last week in Revelation 7, the place where God shelters us, the place where every culture is affirmed and welcomed, the place where no one is hungry or thirsty, the place where no one wanders alone, the place where God wipes every tear from our eyes. We all long for this Kingdom, and so we pray. We all long for this Kingdom, so we pray “Your Kingdom come.”

But this – this is the most dangerous prayer in the world. Yes. Yes. Yes. It is the most dangerous prayer in the world, but it is our only hope. And what a beautiful hope!

And so with fear and trembling and joy and hope we pray: “May Your Kingdom come soon, Lord! Your Kingdom come!”

1 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s picture at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image13.asp .

2 See Smith’s picture at: http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image14.htm .

3 Marva Dawn, Joy in Our Weakness, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 134.

4 Eugene Peterson, The Message Remix (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2003), 1634-5.

Revelation 10-11 - Living Prophets

2008-11-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
September 10, 2006

What do you think of when you hear this word: prophet? (Answers from audience)

I usually think of someone like John the Baptist. I usually think of strange, hairy people who don’t brush their teeth and make me feel uncomfortable.

What about martyr? What do you think of when you hear the word: martyr? (Answers from audience)

I usually think of someone who dies because he or she refuses to give up their faith. Did you know there were more Christian martyrs in the 20^th century than in all other centuries combined?

Usually, though, when I think of prophets and martyrs, I don’t think of you and me. I think of other people. People out there somewhere. Strange people in strange places, or suffering people in suffering places (just north of us for example). I don’t usually think of us as prophets and martyrs. But John does. God does. Revelation does.

Let’s read Revelation 10 and 11.

This week as I was doing my research for this sermon I read something not very encouraging: “This section is perhaps the most difficult passage to interpret in the entire book of Revelation.”^¹ Great! The most difficult passage in the most difficult book of the Bible. (Why did I ever decide to preach through Revelation?) But if we stay out of the fine details, the general point of these two chapters is clear enough.

Let’s look first at chapter 10. Here John sees an amazing angel, who looks a lot like the picture of Jesus in chapter 1.^² We could talk all day about the details here, but I want to skip straight to the main point. The angel gives John the scroll in his hand, probably representing God’s plans for our world, maybe representing our Bible.

The angel says, “Take it, and eat it.” That seems like a strange thing to do with a scroll or a book. I have eaten many strange things in my life, but I’ve never eaten a book. If I did eat a book, I would be very surprised if it tasted like honey.

What’s going on? In a similar passage in Ezekiel, God tells Ezekiel to eat a scroll, and then he interprets this event by saying, “Let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people … and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says!’” (Ezekiel 3:1-11).

God is telling John, “Look, before you can be my messenger, you’ve got to let my message sink into your heart and take hold of you. You have to let it get into your bones, into your heart.

This comes at a cost. Living God’s message is not easy. It gives John a stomach ache. Sometimes, God’s message is painful because it calls us to a live a more faithful life, to give up things that are important to us.

Finally, the angel says to John, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings” (10:11). A prophet takes the message in and then lives the message out. A prophet hears the message, is changed by the message, and then speaks the message. That is God’s plan.

Let’s move on to chapter 11. During the time of trouble, two witnesses stand up against those who are destroying the earth.^³ The wild language of verses 4-6 is actually describing the two witnesses as being like two of Israel’s greatest prophets: Moses and Elijah who did similar things (Exodus 6-11, 1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 1). So two prophets like the greatest prophets of all time will prophesy and call people back to God.

Unfortunately, most people don’t listen. The prophet-witnesses become martyrs. The beast kills them. Why? The Message paraphrases 11:10 like this: “These two prophets pricked the conscience of all the people on earth, made it impossible for them to enjoy their sins.” The two prophets’ faithful lives and faithful messages pointed out to the world around them how unfaithful their lives were. The people finally take the ultimate step to relieve their guilty feelings – they kill the people making them feel guilty.

Who are these two prophets? The prophets are called lampstands.^⁴ If you remember from chapter 1, the churches are also called lampstands (1:20). Look also at 11:18, “The time has come to judge the dead, to reward your servants, all prophets and saints, to reward small and great who fear your name” (from The Message). Here servants, prophets, and saints are all one group of people.

Long ago, Moses said, “I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit upon them all” (Numbers 11:29). We read today Joel’s description of the end times: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants, men and women alike” (Joel 2:28-29). Peter said Joel’s prophecy is fulfilled in the church (Acts 2). This is now the time of the outpouring of the Spirit on all people. All true Christians have the gift of the Holy Spirit and live as prophets in the world.

Who are the two prophet-martyrs of chapter 11? Not someone “out there and far away.” We are the prophet-martyrs. The church of Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, is called to live a prophetic life in our world. This is our story. We are called to be God’s prophets in the world. We are the two prophet-martyrs. We are the ones who are killed in the streets. We are the ones who trust in God’s power to raise us from the dead. We are the prophets.

If this is true, if we really are God’s prophets – all of us, then we need to ask some questions. First, what does it mean to be a prophet? What exactly does a prophet do? A prophet gives God’s message to people. A prophet speaks for God to the people, calling the people to live out God’s dream for them.

Prophets see an alternate reality.^⁵ They see a world where life is done God’s way. They see past the current world’s rules of ambition, power, success, and self-righteousness. They see another possibility. They see a world full of justice and love and mercy, a world where people are not hungry or alone or afraid, a world where God’s hospitality overwhelms all divisions and all sufferings. They see the world Joel described (Joel 2).

Basically, prophets see the coming of God’s Kingdom. They see that one day it will come in fullness, like our passage describes, “The whole world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (11:15). Prophets call on people to live in this coming Kingdom now on earth. Prophets call people to recognize God’s Kingdom as ultimate even when it doesn’t seem like it here on earth. Prophets proclaim the Kingdom.

Next question: How do prophets prophesy? If prophets speak for God about God’s Kingdom coming in our world, how do they do this? Well, prophets obviously use words. The Bible is full of the words of prophets. But prophets also speak through their actions. God called some of the Old Testament prophets to live out their message in powerful and sometimes strange ways. God called on the prophets to embody their message. God called them to live the message in their own bodies, in their own lives.

Prophets deliver their message through words and actions. Prophets deliver God’s message about the Kingdom through what they say and how they live. They intentionally do some physical actions as sign-acts to deliver God’s message in a dramatic, real-life way.

Last question: How can we live as prophets? If God really is calling us all to be prophets of his Kingdom (and he is), how can we do this? How can we give God’s message to the world around us?

First, eat the message. Internalize the message. Get God’s word inside you. Let God’s word sink into your heart and become part of who you are. Look into the future. Imagine a world done God’s way. Imagine our world done God’s way.

Then, live the message. Live out the message. Live God’s Kingdom way all of the time everywhere. Francis Assisi said: “Preach the Gospel always and if necessary use words.” Think of ways you can embody God’s message in your actions. Think of ways we can embody God’s message in our church. Maybe, like the prophets, we can also do some specific practical things to give God’s message to the world around us. What can we do that will help us show God’s love through concrete actions?

Finally, speak the message. If we really live the message, words always become necessary. The words we speak clarify the message we live. The living must come first, but to be faithful we must also speak. Speaking the message explains why we are living the way we are living, why we are doing what we are doing.

Church, God is calling us to be living prophets. God is calling us to give his message to the world. God has put his Spirit in us. God wants to speak through us to the Christians and nonChristians around us. We are the prophet-martyrs. We are God’s message. You are God’s message. Your life and your actions speak to the world around you. What are you saying? What message is your life speaking?

What would it look like for us to live as prophets in our world? Let me give you a few examples.

Our first example is Mark Grouleau. Mark is a trained musician. He plays drums, bass, and piano. When he came to our church, he really struggled with our music. The quality and style was just not what he wanted. For a while he complained about it to his friends, but one day he made a change. He joined the music team. He saw a new reality. Then, then he began to live out that future in his own life. Now, he is able to speak within the music team about new possibilities.

Next, as you know, hakwons are a big deal in Korea. Some kids here go to school 12-18 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week. Education has become a god in Korea. A few families in our church made a prophetic choice to stand up against this culture of education-at-any-cost. They have decided that their children will not go to hakwons. The kids study at home, and the parents help them with their homework. They have decided that life and family are more important than education and outward success. By the way, their kids are doing well in school. (I’m not preaching against any use of hakwons. I am preaching against over-using hakwons.)

Let me give you one last example. This example is you. For the past two years, our church has opened our Thanksgiving Dinner to the public. We’ve invited English teachers and other people from around our city to enjoy our hospitality. In a time when many people are lonely and missing home, we gave people a taste of community and home. This Thanksgiving Dinner is a prophetic act to our community, showing God’s message of loving community in living color. If you would like to help plan this year’s Thanksgiving Dinner (or End of Year Dinner), please talk to me.

Church, we are living prophets. God wants to speak his message to the world through us. God wants to bring his Kingdom through us. Take that message into your hearts. Live that message out. Be the message. Live and act and speak as living prophets in our world.

1 Craig Keener, Revelation, NIV App. Comm., (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 287.

2 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s picture of this at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image15.htm.

3 See Smith’s picture at: http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image16.htm .

4 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/The%20Two%20Witnesses.htm .

5 Denis Bratcher, “Prophets Today?” http://www.crivoice.org/prophetstoday.html.

Revelation 12 - Retelling the Oldest Story

2008-11-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
September 17, 2006

The oldest and most basic story is the struggle between Good and Evil. People everywhere in all times want to remember or at least to hope that Good wins out over Evil. We retell this story in a thousand different ways in a thousand different generations.

One version of this story comes from Greek mythology. We’ll start with the evil character. Zeus swamped the earth with a flood of Noah-proportions. As the flood waters receded, the mud and slime began to bubble and boil. Out of the muck came a fearsome dragon named Python. Python lived in a cave and attacked the people, killing their sheep, stealing their treasures, and polluting their water. The dragon was a living plague, and doom came to anyone who met the dragon.

Far away in another part of the world, Zeus and Leto had a love affair. Fortune tellers predicted that Leto’s child would finally kill the dragon plaguing humanity. When Leto became pregnant with twins, Python chased her relentlessly so that he could kill her. Zeus came to her aid, though. He sent a strong north wind to carry Leto to a deserted island. At the island, Neptune hid Leto from Python the dragon so that Leto could deliver her children. While holding onto an olive tree (a symbol of peace), Leto delivered Artemis and Apollo (the sun god).

After four days, Apollo was already a fierce warrior. (I guess gods grow fast.) Apollo set out to avenge his mother’s near death. Apollo found Python’s cave and called the dragon out for battle. Apollo was a rapid-fire archer, and he filled the dragon with a forest of arrows. The dragon collapsed and rolled around on the ground in pain. As she breathed her last breath full of blood, Apollo cried out: “You will never again bring terror to the people of earth. Nothing and no one can help you now. Your body will rot away in the summer sun.” The god of light rid the world of the dark dragon, bringing in a “golden age” of peace and prosperity free from the oppressing powers of evil.

Romans loved this story, and it became for them a summary story of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. Sometimes, Romans even looked for a leader to emerge who would free them from darkness just like Apollo did.

Nero especially loved this story. After murdering his adopted father, Nero became the Roman Emperor in AD 54. Many people in the Roman senate were looking for a divine savior, and they proclaimed that Nero’s kingdom was the new divine “golden age.”

Nero was happy to play along. He began painting himself like Apollo. He took up Apollo’s favorite hobbies of music and chariot racing. He had idols of Apollo made to look like him. Coins were made with Nero’s face shining out beams of light, just like Apollo. Nero participated in specially crafted religious ceremonies so that the rising sun fell on his face to make him look like the sun god, Apollo. In an overarching act of pride, Nero planned the construction of a 100 foot (30 meter) statue of Apollo with Nero’s face. Nero wanted the world to see him as the savior, the one who crushes all evil powers, the one who sets people free to enjoy peace and prosperity.

Not everything was sunshine and golden age for Nero, though. Nero developed a bad reputation in Rome for his wild parties and huge orgies. He wasted away the royal treasury. He did not care for the army. His secret police plunged Rome into terror with their merciless absolute power. When half of Rome was burning, Nero called for a music concert on his balcony. After the fire was put out, he used the freshly available land to build a new palace for himself instead of rebuilding common peoples’ houses. He also started the first major persecution of Christians. Nero tortured Christians in 1001 ways: lions, whips, human torches, beatings, gladiators.

Nero painted himself as Apollo, the savior of the world. Not surprisingly, as a Christian, John has a different idea. John retells this old, old story once again in Revelation 12. Let’s read it now.

In John’s regular pattern in Revelation, he takes the old stories and images from history, mixes them together, expands them, and reapplies them in his own story. Here John mixes Greek mythology, Roman politics, and the old Jewish stories to retell the oldest story for a fresh generation.

In verse 1, John sees the cosmic woman. She is a blending of Mary’s story, Israel’s story (the twelve stars), and Eve’s story as the mother of all humanity (Genesis 1-3). She is bigger than life, and she is giving birth. (Remember, giving birth is a regular picture in the Bible for the suffering involved in bringing God’s plans to fulfillment. See Isaiah 26:17-27:1). This super-woman has her feet in the delivery stirrups when Evil appears on the scene.

John sees a big, mean, hungry dragon. Python is back and bigger than ever, with 7 heads, 10 horns, and 7 crowns. In other words, this dragon is armed and dangerous. With one swipe of his tail, the dragon knocks stars out of the sky (or maybe lures angels out of heaven to join him in his evil hunger).

When I was growing up we usually had a dog. One of my favorite things to do was to hold a treat just out of the dogs reach. Then I would watch the dog pant and whine and jump, trying to get it, ready to catch it as soon as it falls. The dragon is sitting below the delivery table, licking his lips, with all seven heads twitching with nervous energy, waiting for the baby to come out, waiting to crush it to nothingness in his powerful jaws.

The baby is delivered. The Messiah comes. The Savior of the world comes in a defenseless infant. The Messiah is born as a small baby into a world of dragons.

The dragon pounces. He lunges at the Christ child. He wraps all 7 jaws around the child and bites down. Just as he begins to shake his heads and tear his prey apart, the child is gone. God has snatched the Christ out of Satan’s death grip and brought him back up to heaven.

At this moment, we see a great battle. Michael, heaven’s chief angel, and the dragon, the Devil, hell’s chief angel, wage war. The dragon loses terribly. He and all his angels are knocked down and kicked out of heaven.

We find out a few verses later what has happened. There is a great announcement over the heavenly loudspeaker system (kind of like the announcements through our apartment speaker system that wake me up on Saturday mornings). The announcer cries out: “It has happened at last! God’s power and salvation and Kingdom have finally come! The Enemy of the people is finally defeated. And listen to this: The people have defeated the Enemy through the blood of the Lamb and their testimony because they were not afraid to die.”

Victory came for us through the blood of the Lamb, the Christ Child. The dragon did get the Child. The hungry, evil dragon did kill the Child. Evil powers put Christ on the cross. God did not save Jesus from the cross. Evil won a battle, but by winning this battle, evil lost the war.

Just at the moment when Satan expected his greatest victory, he suffered his greatest loss. Satan wanted to crush Jesus, to crush God’s work in the world, and to crush God’s people. Instead, God raised Jesus from the dead and defeated Satan’s two best weapons: sin and death. When Jesus died on the cross, he broke the power of sin by earning our forgiveness and freedom. When God raised Jesus from the dead, he broke the power of death once and for all. Now everyone - great and small - can have forgiveness, freedom, and true life by committing our lives to Jesus.

Satan is finally and ultimately defeated in the spiritual world. But the physical world has not yet caught up to the reality of Satan’s final defeat. John says, “Look out planet earth! For the Devil has come down to you in great anger, and he knows that he has little time.”

If we think of this as a soccer game, Satan is losing 1000 to 0, and we have 3 1/2 minutes to play. God’s victory is already sealed. Satan can’t possibly win, so he stops trying to win and starts playing for revenge. Satan is out to get the people on God’s team. He’s no longer shooting and passing. He’s taking cheap shots. He is starting fights all over the field.

The message of Revelation is this: God has won the final battle. Don’t give in. Look at the heavenly scoreboard. The Lamb is the MVP. The Lamb has won. The Lamb has won for us all. Hold on to the Lamb, and the dragon can’t hurt you, not in any final way. Testify about the Lamb. People can still switch teams. Don’t be afraid of the dragon. He is the world’s biggest loser and the world’s worst loser. He is just a crying baby throwing a fit. You may get hit by a few of his punches or kicks, but hold on. Keep living the Kingdom way. The final whistle is about to blow. Don’t give up. If you’re with Jesus, you’re on the winning team. Don’t give up. The Lamb has won.

Now I want to let you hear this old story retold one more time. Way back in 1985, a Christian musician named Carman created a dramatic story-song named “The Champion.” Some parts of the song are a little cheesy. It was made in the 80’s after all, but just try to get into the story. Watch and listen.^¹

In the vast expanse of a timeless place, Where silence ruled the outer space, Ominously, towering it stood, The symbol of a spirit war Between the one name Lucifer, And the Morning Star, The ultimate of good. Enveloped by a trillion planets, Clean as lightning and hard as granite, A cosmic coliseum would host the end Of the war between the lord of sin and death, And the Omnipotent Creator of man's first breath, Who will decide who forever will be the Champion.

The audience for the 'Fight of the Ages' was assembled and in place. The angels came in splendor from a star. The saints that had gone before were there: Jeremiah, Enoch, Job. They were singing the "Song of Zion" on David's harp.

The demons arrived, offensive and vile, cursing and blaspheming God. Followed by their 'trophies' dead and gone: Hitler, Napoleon, Pharaoh, Capone, Tormented and vexed and grieved. Waiting for their judgment From the Throne.

Then a chill swept through the mammoth crowd and the demons squealed with glee, as a sordid, vulgar, repulsive essence was felt. Arrogantly prancing, hands held high, draped in a sparkling shroud Trolled by demons, Satan ascended from Hell.

Then Satan cringed, the sinners groaned! The demons reeled in pain as a swell of power like silent thunder rolled With a surge of light beyond intense, illuminating the universe, In resplendent glory appeared the Son of God.

Then a Persona, yes, Extraordinaire appeared in center ring. God the Father will oversee the duel. Opening the Book of Life, each grandstand hushed in awe as majestically He said, "Now here's the rules. He'll be wounded for their transgressions, bruised for iniquities." When He said, "By His stripes they're healed," the devil shook! He screamed, "Sickness is my specialty. I hate that healing junk!" God said, "You shut your face, I wrote the book!" Then the Father looked at His only Son and said, "You know the rules. Your blood will cleanse their sins and calm their fears." Then He pointed His finger at Satan and said, "And I know you know the rules. You've been twisting them to deceive My people for years." Satan screamed, "I'll kill you Christ! You'll never win this fight!" The demons wheezed, "That's right, there ain't no way." Satan jeered, "You're dead meat, Jesus, I'm gonna bust you UP tonight!" Jesus said, "Go ahead, make my day!"
The bell rang, the crowd cheered, the fight was on, And the devil leaped in fury. With all his evil tricks he came undone. He threw his jabs of hate and lust. A stab of pride and envy, but the hand that knew no sin blocked every one.

Forty days and nights they fought, and Satan couldn't touch Him. Now the final blow saved for the final round. Prophetically Christ's hands came down And Satan struck in vengeance! The blow of death felled Jesus to the ground.

The devils roared in victory! The saints shocked and perplexed as wounds appeared upon His hands and feet. Then Satan kicked Him in His side, and blood and water flowed. And they waited for the 10 count of defeat.

God the Father turned His head, His tears announcing Christ was dead! The 10 count would proclaim the battle's end. Then Satan trembled through his sweat in unexpected horror, yet... As God started to count by saying, "...10..." "Hey wait a minute, God..." "...9..." "Stop! You're counting wrong..." "...8..." “His eyes are moving...” "...7..." “His fingers are twitching...” "...6..." "Where's all this Light coming from?" "...5..." "He's alive!" "...4..." "Oh - nooooo!" "...3..." "And yet," "...2..." "Oh...Yessssss! "...1..."
He has won! He has won! He's alive forevermore! He is risen, He is Lord, He has won! He has won! He's alive forevermore, He is risen! He is Lord!

Proclaim the news in every tongue, Through endless ages and beyond Let it be voiced from mountains loud and strong Captivity has been set free, salvation bought for you and me 'Cause Satan is defeated, And Jesus is The Champion!

Satan loses. God wins.

Evil loses. Good wins.

Selfishness loses. Unselfish sacrifice wins.

Greed loses. Generous giving wins.

Fighting for power loses. Laying down life wins.

Hate loses. Love wins.

Destruction loses. Healing wins.

Bitterness loses. Forgiveness wins.

Fear loses. Courage wins.

Evil loses. Good wins.

Satan loses. God wins.

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Evil loses. God wins.

Retell this old, old story every minute of your life.

1 You can watch this song with a slideshow video at this site: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9153994050918895114&q=carman+champion&hl=en .

Revelation 13 - Bullies, Cons, and Freedom

2008-11-17T21:54:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
October 8, 2006

(Show clip about bullying.)^¹

Raise your hand if you have ever suffered at the hands of bullies. I did. All I have to do is show you pictures of me as a kid, and you would see why. I was the smart, fat kid with the bad clothes. I got bullied a lot.

Let me introduce you to another bully. This is really the bully of all bullies. His story is in Revelation 13:1-10.

The first Beast is a big bully. The beast looks mean and ugly.^² He is a mutant: part leopard, part bear, part lion, with 7 heads and 10 horns. This all means he is terrible and powerful. He pretends to be the world’s hero, but really he is the world’s tyrant. He rules the world 42 months, 3 1/2 years, the whole time of the Big Trouble.

The Bully Beast wages war against anyone who stands in his way, specifically the people of God. He has power over them and everyone else. The Bully Beast exercises power through propaganda and name-calling, prisons and executions. His single goal is to scare people away from God, away from the Lamb.

The Bully Beast was loud and active in the time of Revelation. Christians were repeatedly imprisoned and persecuted because they refused to offer sacrifices to Roman gods.

But the Bully Beast has had power in every century. The issue is not so much “who” the Beast is but “how” the Beast acts. The Bully Beast acts from an appearance of rightness to employ power over other people to dominate them, to suppress them, to force them into service. Wherever this dominating power shows up, there is the Beast.

Dan Boone explains that the Bully Beast “is alive and well today. He rules in every inflated ego, every power play, and every manipulative move. The dragon himself inflates human pride and arrogance to the point of oppressing our fellow humans for selfish gain. The beast shows up in every rape, robbery, lie, racial slur, sexual harassment, or church split. Wherever power is used to destroy the life God intended for us, the beastly bully is at work.”^³

How does the Bully Beast act out in our world, in our city? Maybe the Bully Beast is a boss pressuring you to work too much overtime. Maybe the Bully Beast shows up in a system that uses and abuses foreign laborers. Maybe the Bully Beast takes the form of a college entrance exam. Maybe the Bully Beast shows up in our own voices when we fight for our rights. Maybe the Bully Beast is there when we scheme about how we can manipulate systems or people to get what we want.

The Bully Beast is still here and still active. But he has a friend. He has a public relations manager. His PR man is the Con-Artist Beast. Let’s read about him in Revelation 13:11-18.

Look again at verse 14: “And with all the miracles he was allowed to perform on behalf of the first beast, he deceived all of the people who belong to this world.” The second beast is the Con Beast, the trickster, the deceiver. Watch this clip of one of the greatest human conmen who ever lived. (Show trailer of Catch Me If You Can to 1:29.^⁴)

Frank Abagnale ran away from home at the age of 16. He started his con life by forging checks. For five years he toured the world, funded by his fake checks. He posed as pilot, a lawyer, a doctor, and a university professor. By the time he was finally caught, he had stolen 2.5 million dollars.^⁵ Frank Abagnale was a master liar. He could make almost anyone believe almost anything.

The second beast, the Con Beast, is like Frank. He can make almost anyone believe almost anything. He has lots of little tricks and forgeries, but like the Bully Beast, he has one main goal: to get people away from God and the Lamb. The Con Beast gets people to worship the Bully Beast because they think he’s right or because they want to be comfortable in this world or because they think they don’t have any other choice. He doesn’t care why people worship the Bully Beast. He just wants to pull them away from the Lamb.

The Con Beast works just like other con artists. www.fraudaid.com explains how con men work.^⁶ A con artist’s basic approach is to change his victim’s perception of reality. A con artist will “distract you from what’s really going on [by] using lies laced with enough truth to make [it] believable.” Then, “YOU ARE IN A BOX. YOU HAVE GIVEN AWAY YOUR FREEDOM. THE CON ARTIST NOW OWNS YOU HEART AND SOUL. Or so he would like you to think.”

Doesn’t this sound just like Satan, the great deceiver?! Satan uses the two beasts to pressure us and to trick us into doing life his way. He tries to make us feel that living life his way is the only reasonable option.

In fact, living life Satan’s way is “the mark of the beast.”^⁷ Despite some predictions, the beast is not: the Pope, Martin Luther, Hitler, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Regan, Bill Gates, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or even Barney the purple Dinosaur.

The mark of the beast has more meaning than that. Nero may have been intended at first, but 666 is not limited to any one person. It is a way of life. In the Bible 7 is the perfectly complete number, especially in Revelation: 7 churches, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 of just about everything. 6 is the number of incompleteness, almost, and compromise. 666 symbolizes evil and compromise with the world, giving incomplete things that aren’t God the place of God in our life.

The whole point of Revelation is to encourage people to claim God as King, to recognize through our lives and our actions that Jesus Christ is King of the universe. The mark of the Beast is the exact opposite of this. There are only two choices: “Seek first Jesus’ kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33) or take the mark of the beast.

This week I have thought a lot about how the Con Beast works. I have asked myself what lies the Con Man tells us to try to get us to take his mark. In the spirit of David Letterman and The Late Show, let me offer you a top ten list: The Beast’s Top Ten Lies.

10. There is no need to think. The lie is: we don’t need to think about how we are living life or consider whether we are really satisfied with the life we are living. The truth is: once we start examining life, we open the door for the Holy Spirit to show us how to live a better life.

9. Grace is not real. The lie is that we have to depend on ourselves and our own actions. Maybe others can have grace but not us. If we believe that, we take one big step away from the Lamb. The truth is that God’s grace is real and is really the only way.

8. Beauty is on the outside. The lie is that what’s happening on the outside is the most important: clothes, body shape, athleticism. The truth is that the Spirit’s work in our hearts is what matters most. That’s where the real beauty is.

7. This life and this world are all there is. The lie is that we better “store up our treasures here on earth” (Matthew 6:19). The truth is that living life God’s way gives us treasures that can never be stolen or destroyed.

6. What we “believe” matters more than what we do. The lie is that if we “believe” all the right stuff, it doesn’t matter much what we do. We can go to church one day and lie to our boss the next day. The truth is that our actions reveal what we really believe.

5. X can give us long term happiness. The lie is that a comfortable couch, or a fun vacation, or the perfect man, or the sexiest woman, or the perfect job will make us happy. This is the lie that drives the hakwon industry, the love motels, the tourism industry, and the high stress over test scores. The truth is: nothing can satisfy us except seeking God and his kingdom (Matthew 6:33).

4. My family’s greatest needs are financial security and material comfort. The lie is that we need to work more and more to provide for our families. The truth is that our kids and our spouses need us more than our money!

3. We are only responsible for ourselves and our family. The lie is that if we can draw a line of responsibility around our families and ignore the rest of the world. The truth is that we are in this world together with everyone else. The health of the entire world is our concern as Christians.

2. A biblical life is unreasonable. The lie is that all of the truths stated up to now are unreasonable and impossible to live. The truth is that this is the path to real life: trusting in Christ enough to live like Christ.

1. We don’t have choices. The greatest lie of all is that, although the truth may sound good, in reality we don’t have any choices. We are still stuck in the current system which requires us to live in ways we really don’t want to live. The truth is that in Christ we always have choices! The message of the Revelation is that we always have choices! No matter what the cost, we can always choose Christ! And choosing Christ will always be well worth the price.

Dan Boone tells a story about a time he saw a bully bullying a little kid.^⁸ He came around the corner just in time to hear the bully say: “You give me your dollar, or I’m gonna knock you into infinity and beyond.” The little kid was scared. He was holding his dollar with a shaking hand. Dan snuck up behind the bully. The little kid could see him, but the bully had no idea he was there. Dan Boone is a big guy, and he outweighed the bully by about 100 pounds (40 kilos), so the little kid gained some confidence. He held onto his dollar and started to talk back to the bully. The bully got madder and red in the face, and the little kid started to giggle. Finally, the bully pulled his fist back to punch the kid in the face, but Dan grabbed the bully’s hand. The bully melted to the ground, and the little kid burst out in laughter.

Church, the Beast is bearing down on us like a big, lying bully. He is trying to intimidate us and trick us into giving him our lives. He’s punching his hand and screaming all kinds of lies: “My way’s the only way. You’ve got to work, work, work. If you want something in this world, you’ve got to take it. There’s just no choice. If you want a real life, you have to play by the world’s rules. Give me your dollar or I’ll ruin your life! I might even kill you.”

Church, look up! Jesus is standing behind the Bully. He outweighs the Beast by a million pounds. He’s saying, “It’s not true. The Beast is lying. Trust me. Live my Kingdom way. Let me be your King. I will give you true life.” Church, don’t be fooled. Don’t be tricked into giving away your life. Jesus is with us. Look up, and live for Jesus!

1 View this clip at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=291925848254403850&pr=goog-sl.

2 See Ted Larson’s picture of the first beast at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Beast%20from%20the%20Sea.htm.

3 Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little, (Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 2005), 86-87.

4 You can watch this video clip on Yahoo Movies at:

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?id=1807745519&d=hv&cf=info.

5 “Frank Abagnale,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale. Downloaded 10.4.06.

6 http://www.fraudaid.com/What-a-Con-artist-Will-Tell-You.htm and

http://www.fraudaid.com/What-a-Con-artist-Looks-For-in-a-Scam-Victim.htm.

7 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Mark%20of%20the%20Beast.htm.

8 Boone, 82 and 87.

Revelation 14-16 - Fire Alarm

2008-11-17T21:50:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
October 15, 2006

AC/DC
Highway To Hell (1979)
Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don't need reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are going to be there too

I'm on the highway to hell

No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's going to slow me down
Like a wheel, going to spin it
Nobody's going to mess me round
Hey Satan, paying my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey Momma, look at me
I'm on my way to the promised land

I'm on the highway to hell
(Don't stop me)

And I'm going down, all the way down
I'm on the highway to hell

That was AC/DC’s famous song: “Highway to Hell.” Rolling Stone Magazine included this as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. The thing I hate about this song that is it sounds so good. The tune is so catchy, I found myself wanting to sing along when I was listening to it for this sermon: “I’m on the highway to hell!” But if you really listen to the words, they don’t sound so bad. “I’m on the highway to hell. … Ain’t nothing I would rather do. Going down, party time. My friends are going to be there, too. … I’m on my way to the promised land. … I’m on the highway to hell.” They make going to hell sound like fun.

Just six months after “Highway to Hell” hit #17 on the music charts, the band’s lead singer, Bon Scott, was found dead in his friend’s car.^¹ I guess the highway to hell was a little shorter than he expected.

But what about hell? Do you believe in hell?

One survey on www.beliefnet.com asked people these questions:

Do you believe in hell? (yes: 76%, no: 13%, I don’t know: 8%)
What are the chances that you might go to hell? (likely: 4%, unlikely: 36%, not a chance: 36%, I don’t know: 24%)
Do you know someone you think might go to hell? (yes: 56%, no: 44%)^²

Basically, most people said, “I’m not going to hell, but that guy definitely is.”

A survey in the USA found that 75% of Americans believe in heaven, but only 25% believe in hell.^³ Apparently, we believe what we want to believe: “Heaven is good, so I believe in it. Hell sounds bad and scary, so I don’t believe in it.”

Do you believe in hell? I don’t like hell, and I don’t like talking about hell. But I do believe in hell. Jesus often talked about hell in his stories. No wonder the people killed him!

We are studying the book of Revelation. Hell is part of the end time picture that John describes. This week we are reading three chapters (14-16).

Let’s start with the bad news: Hell and judgment. Unlike, AC/DC’s song, the Bible’s picture of hell doesn’t sound fun. In fact, it sounds terrible and terrifying.

At the end of chapter 14 two groups of people face judgment: God’s people (who did not give into the Beast) and everyone else (who did life the Beast’s way). All of the people who got drunk on the Beast’s wine now have to drink the wine of God’s wrath. They have to drink it full strength, undiluted, and it does not taste good!

There are two groups of people: God’s people (the wheat) and people who reject God (the grapes). An angel gathers up all of the grapes and throws them into “the great winepress of God’s wrath” (14:19).^⁴ In the winepress, the people are crushed like grapes, and their blood flows out in a huge river. The picture is ugly and bloody. God or his angels are walking on people and crushing them like grapes in a huge bowl. Remember, this is not a literal picture. There is no physical winepress where people will be crushed. But this is a picture of the horror of hell. I don’t want to be on that highway!

As if things couldn’t get any worse, John gives us another picture earlier in chapter 14: The people who live like the Beast “will be tormented with burning sulfur … and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image or for anyone who receives the mark of his name” (14:10-11). This highway gets worse and worse.

Many people wonder what hell is like. Most Christian pastors say that hell is the complete absence of God, eternal life completely removed from God. But that never made sense to me. God is the source of life. God is the source of all existence. Nothing can continue to exist outside of God.

This week I read something that makes more sense to me. An old American preacher named Jonathan Edwards said that after we die, we go straight “into the immediate presence of God. God will be the hell of one and the heaven of the other.”^⁵

If we have accepted God’s love through Christ, that love changes us. We are clean and pure, wearing the white robes of the Lamb, and being with God is like sweet music in our souls. But if we have rejected God’s love, that rejection also changes us. We are caught in our sin, “naked and ashamed” before a holy God (16:15), and we spend eternity suffering in the presence of his holiness. It is not so much that God punishes us. It is just that without Christ’s clean robes, we cannot bear the burning light of God’s holiness.

We will be with God forever. There are only two choices: blazing, joy-filled love or burning shame. I really don’t like this highway to hell.

But there is another option. There is another road, another way. In our text, John also gives us a picture of heaven. At the beginning of chapter 14, John shows us the 144,000 (representing all of God’s people), and they are with God in heaven. They have lived life God’s way. They did not commit spiritual adultery by getting in bed with the Beast. They “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7:14). Thanks to Jesus’ death on the cross, their sins are washed away. Jesus “redeemed” or “purchased” them out of the world (14:3-4).

For this group of people, God’s presence creates joy and more joy in their hearts. They burst out in song, singing louder than a great waterfall. They play harps and sing a beautiful song of joy: “Great and marvelous are your actions, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed” (15:3-4).

Wait a minute. Haven’t we heard that before? Doesn’t this sound like our Old Testament lesson from Exodus? After God led his people out of Egypt, they sang: “Who else among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is glorious in holiness like you – awesome in splendor, performing such wonders? … With unfailing love you will lead this people whom you have ransomed. You will guide them in your strength to the place where your holiness dwells. … The nations will hear and tremble … until your people pass by, O LORD, until the people whom you have purchased pass by” (Exodus 15:11-16).

This song in Revelation, this song of Heaven, is more than just a worship song. This is more than a song of joy. This is a song of deliverance. This Revelation song is an Exodus song. God is leading his people out of Egypt, out of slavery to the beast, out of hell. God is leading them to Heaven, the true Promised Land.

In fact, the second part of chapter 15 is basically a retelling of the plagues in Egypt. When God set Israel free from slavery in Egypt, he sent many plagues on Egypt: blood, frogs, bugs, dead animals, painful sores, hail, and darkness (Exodus 8-11). Through the seven bowls of wrath, God sends: painful sores, blood, dead animals, burning heat, darkness, demon frogs, and hail (Revelation 16).^⁶ Sound familiar?

God had two goals in sending plagues on Israel: to set his people free and to show the Egyptians that He the one true God (e.g. Exodus 7:5, 8:10, 23). An amazing thing happens when Israel finally leaves Egypt. “Many people who were not Israelites went with them” (Exodus 12:38). Egypt was one of the richest nations in the world at that time. Why would anyone leave Egypt to wander in the desert with a bunch of slaves?

God’s plan worked. Some of the Egyptians (and maybe some of the other slaves) saw that God is the one true God, and they decided to follow this God wherever he was going.

In Revelation, we have a similar picture. God is sending warning signs on the earth to set his people free and to invite anyone who is willing to join their exodus to freedom. In chapter 14, three angels send news to the people of earth. The first says: “Worship God. He is the one true God, the maker of everything.”^⁷ The second says: “Hey, wake up people! Babylon – the great city, the great system of this world – is fallen. It is ruined. This city and its systems are going up in flames.”^⁸ The third says: “I’m telling you guys – this is serious stuff. God is not messing around. If you don’t get right with God, you’re going to spend forever being wrong with God.” In Chapter 15, God is sending warning signs into their lives that they are on the wrong road.

After the Exodus God brought Israel to the Promised Land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” After this new Exodus, God is bringing his people into his joyful presence, where he will wipe away their tears and satisfy their hunger and thirst with the joys of heaven.

Let me tell you a story. About a month ago, a KNU professor was cooking a chicken in her apartment at the top of the KNU dormitory. She forgot about it and fell asleep. She woke up hours later in the middle of the night, and her apartment was filled with smoke. She tried to let the smoke out the window, but finally she opened her door. When she opened her door, the smoke rushed out into the hallway and set off the fire alarms for the whole building.

There was no fire – just a very black chicken, but the rest of the building didn’t know that. People walked up and down the halls knocking on doors waking people up to get them out of the building. Some people refused to leave their beds. They just kept sleeping on, or trying to sleep anyway. The fire alarms were very loud and very annoying, and people kept asking when someone would turn them off.

Talking about hell can be pretty disturbing and annoying. It bothers us. No one wants to think about hell, much less the possibility that we or someone we love might go there. Some people just want to turn this annoying sound off.

But the Bible’s discussion of hell is like a fire alarm. The building really is burning. Babylon has fallen. This world’s systems are going up in flames. We need a Savior. We need an escape. We need an Exodus.

God has provided the Exodus, the escape route, through Jesus Christ. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. … Come to me all, of you who are tired and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (John 14:6 and Matthew 11:28). God is setting his people free, and he’s taking us to heaven. Anyone can follow Jesus and be one of his freed people.

For us today, there are two ways we can respond.

Make the choice. Choose heaven. Choose heaven and then live like heaven for the rest of your life.
Be a life guard. Be a firefighter, a rescue worker. Be a fire-alarm. Proclaim the exodus through Jesus. With love and kindness, invite people around you to live free through Jesus Christ.

1 “Highway to Hell (song),” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_to_Hell_(song)

downloaded 10.11.06.

2 http://www.beliefnet.com/features/hellchart.html, downloaded 10.11.06.

3 David Couchman, “Hell: Is it real?” A talk delivered at Wellsprings Chapel, Taunton, on November 19, 2000. http://www.bibletoday.co.uk/hell.htm. downloaded 10.11.06.

4 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Angel%20with%20the%20Vine.htm.

5 Couchman, “Hell: Is It Real?”

6 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Bowl%207.htm.

7 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/The%20Gospel%20Angel.htm.

8 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Babylon%20is%20Fallen.htm.

Revelation 17-18 - What If Someone Warned Them?

2008-11-17T21:43:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
October 22, 2006

(Show Pearl Harbor Video.^¹)

On December 7, 1941, Americans throughout Hawaii were enjoying a quiet Sunday morning. Some were sleeping in. Others were having a nice cup of coffee with their morning paper. Some were getting ready for church.

Beginning at 7:53 am, some 353 Japanese planes attacked US forces at Pearl Harbor. The Americans were caught unprepared and lost 12 warships, 188 airplanes, 2,403 military personnel, and 68 civilians. It was the single worst attack on American ground in history.

Disaster struck suddenly.

But what if someone had warned them?

Someone did.

In 1924, General Billy Mitchell predicted a war with Japan including an attack on Pearl Harbor. He was court-martialed and ignored.
Throughout the summer and fall of 1941, military and public news warned that war with Japan was coming soon.
On the morning of December 7, General sent a message to Pearl Harbor warning of an immediate attack. Some how the “urgent” part of the message was deleted. The message was delivered two hours after the attack had finished.
Radar observers actually saw the Japanese fleet approaching, but they did not warn anyone because they thought they were American planes.

Yet despite all of these glaring warning signs, the US forces remained asleep in Pearl Harbor.^²

Then it was too late.

(Show World Trade Center 9/11/01 video.)

On the morning of September 11, 2001, when many New Yorkers were just sitting down at their office desk with the morning’s first cup of coffee, 4 planes had been hijacked. Two of them flew into the World Trade Center. One crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth later crashed in an empty field in Pennsylvania. By the end of the day, 3,000 people were dead.^³

Disaster struck.

But what if someone had warned them?

Someone did.

As early as 1994, the U.S. government knew that terrorists were seriously considering using airplanes as a means of terrorist attacks.
In 1998, the U.S. had information that a group of Arabs planned to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center. Some of these reports even suggested that Bin Laden intended to use airplanes for attacks on New York and Washington. However, the Federal Aviation Administration found the plot “highly unlikely.”
A month before the attack, the CIA sent a message to the FAA warning of a possible hijacking.^⁴

Despite these warning signs, the U.S. remained woefully unprepared.

Then it was too late.

Enron was started in 1985 as a merger of two energy companies in Houston, Texas, my hometown. The first CEO was Kenneth Lay. Enron quickly became one of America’s favorite companies. It was involved in energy and power markets around the world. Fortune Magazine named Enron “America’s Most Innovative Company” six years in a row from 1996 to 2001. Enron employed over 21,000 people worldwide. Business and labor experts praised Enron as a great company and a great company to work for, partly because of their wonderful pension plans for employees. The U.S. government regularly sought Enron’s advice on energy related issues.

That’s when disaster struck. In 2001 Enron was in the news almost every day. But this time the news wasn’t good. The world slowly discovered that Enron’s billion dollar profits were really just fancy numbers. The company had used illegal accounting practices and a variety of other tricks to hide huge losses for years. In December of 2001, after being investigated by the US government, Enron filed for bankruptcy.

Before the collapse, knowing that the company was going down, Enron executives awarded themselves with huge multimillion dollar bonuses.

Executives sold stock throughout 2001, but CEO Kenneth Lay repeatedly advised employees and the general public to buy more and more Enron stock. Many of them did. When things started getting bad, some Enron employees wanted to sell out their Enron stock. But the company put a freeze on the employee retirement plan for “administrative reasons.” Many Enron employees had invested their life savings, their retirement funds, and their children’s education funds in Enron stocks. By the end of 2001, Enron’s stock had fallen from $90 to 30 cents. These hard working people found themselves without jobs and without savings.

Disaster struck.

But what if someone had warned them?

Someone did.

Several of the Enron executives were investigated for insider trading or questionable accounting practices in the late 1990’s. In January of 2001, California Governor Gray Davis publicly criticized Enron’s ethics. Throughout 2001, individuals within Enron and news agencies voiced complaints about Enron’s accounting practices. As the stock fell throughout 2001, some investors decided to sell out. Others saw this as an opportunity to get a bargain.

Despite internal warnings, Enron executives played dirty till the end. Despite some external warning signs, investors kept their trust in Enron.

Disaster struck.

Then, it was too late.

Our text from Revelation today tells the story of one more disaster: the Fall of Babylon. Let’s read it together now. (Revelation 17-18)

John’s first readers would have immediately known that “Babylon” is Rome. Babylon was a common nickname for Rome, and Rome was famous for having seven hills (17:9). And Rome fits the description here perfectly. Rome was the political, cultural, religious, and economic center for the Mediterranean world. Rome imported the wealth, the luxury, and the children of people around the world. Rome became the symbol of power, wealth, and even sexual satisfaction. Rome used and abused the people and the resources of the world.

Rome eventually about 400 years after John wrote Revelation, but that is not really John’s point. For John, Rome symbolizes a wider system. Rome was the current illustration or incarnation of Satan’s trickery in our world. Rome was the best example John could give of making gods of money, sex, and power. Rome was one of the peeks along this mountain range of making gods of money, sex, and power. But it is not the only peek or even the highest. Satan continues his trickery throughout time, and new Babylons, new Romes, continually rise up.

Earlier this year I went to a KOTESOL (Korea Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) conference at Hoseo University. While I was there, I saw a man wearing a white T-shirt that read: “America is Babylon the great! Come out from her my people. Do not take part in her sins.” I remember thinking something very kind like, “What a weirdo.”

I don’t agree with his interpretation method. I don’t think we can isolate any one city or nation or system as the literal fulfillment of “Babylon the great.” But on the other hand, he may not be too far off. Modern culture is another illustration of Babylon the Great. Our culture and our systems have made gods of money, sex, and power.

It looks great on the outside. Everyone seems to be getting wealthier and healthier. Incomes and lifespans are increasing. Entertainment, travel, and fashion industries are growing rapidly. Life is good, right?

But disaster has struck. This world’s systems of outward glory and glamour and glitz are actually fallen. They are like the hollow Enron company: beautiful and wealthy on the outside, but hollow and corrupt on the inside. This evil system of idolizing money, sex, and power will come to a crashing, crushing, burning end. One day it will all be finally thrown down. The smoke will rise, and all of this system’s merchants and participants will cry bitter tears.

But what if someone warned them?

Someone did. This is our warning. The Bible is our early warning system. The fall of corrupt businesses, crooked politicians, and hollow movie stars are the smoke that tell us this system is going down. But like the Enron executives, this world’s leaders are still telling us to buy more stock in this doomed system.

One Day disaster will strike.

One Day it will be too late.

But it’s not too late yet. We still have time to heed the warning signs. We still have time to prepare.

Let me suggest some stock trades:

Sell your stock in KEEPING money for your self.
Buy stock in TITHING (giving 10% of your income as an offering of thanks to God).
Sell your stock in SPENDING money on yourself.
Buy stock in SPONSORING a child. (You can go to www.ncm.org to sponsor the basic food, medical, and educational costs for a child in a poor country.)
Sell your some of your stock in ENTERTAINMENT.
Buy some stock in PURITY by refusing to watch sex scenes in your movies.
Sell your stock in defending your RIGHTS.
Buy some stock in voluntary SACRIFICE.
Sell your stock in SUCCESS and POWER.
Buy stock in LOVE.

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where they can be eaten by moths and get rusty, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where they will never become moth-eaten or rusty and where they will be safe from thieves. Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

1 The Pearl Harbor story and the 9/11 story are both on this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5137545634635608931&q=pearl+harbor&hl=en

2 “Attack on Pearl Harbor,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor.

3 “September 11, 2001 Attacks,”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_attacks.

4 “Report Cites Warnings before 9/11,” September 19, 2002,

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/18/intelligence.hearings/. Downloaded 10.19.2006.

Revelation 19:1-10 - The Lamb's Big, Fat, Multicultural Wedding

2008-11-17T21:40:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Pastor Josh Broward
November 29, 2006

We’ve been talking about Revelation for 16 weeks now. Revelation paints a picture, lots of pictures really, of the ultimate victory of Jesus and his people. In the process of understanding this ultimate victory, we’ve had to talk about the darkness of evil, the battle plan of evil in our world, and evil’s ultimate defeat. Last week we talked about the total collapse of this world’s evil systems which are bent with selfishness and oppression. We heard God’s promise to judge this evil system and everyone who participates in it.

Today we learn three things about God’s judgment.

First, God’s judgment will be just. From this side of judgment day, and from our human perspectives, it is easy for us to question God’s justice in judging the world. What about people who have never heard of Jesus? What about people whose actions were good but never became Christians? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I do know an answer to a more important question. Will God’s judgment be fair? Yes. Absolutely!

Seeing the fullness of God’s judgment on the world, the crowd in heaven cried out in praise: “Hallelujah! Salvation is from our God. Glory and power belong to him alone. His judgments are just and true” (19:1-2).

The second thing we know about God’s judgment is that it will cause us to rejoice. When we see the collapse of systems that have murdered and oppressed and deceived people around the world, we will be filled with joy – not because of revenge, but because evil is finally defeated. The oppression and the deceit are finally over. God has won! When we see that, when we realize that, we will burst out in song. In our short passage, heaven shouts “Hallelujah! Praise God!” four times (19:1, 3, 4, 6).

The third thing we learn about judgment today is that judgment will give way to the wedding feast of the Lamb. The great crowd gathered in heaven cries out: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and honor him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and the bride has prepared herself” (19:6-7).

One of my favorite movies of all time is My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. Maybe this movie can help us understand heaven. I joyfully propose to you that the first scene of heaven will be The Lamb’s Big, Fat, Multicultural Wedding!

Remember the Lamb? We first met the Lamb in chapter 5 of Revelation. I know that was a long time ago, but think back with me. In chapter 5 someone says, “Look, the Lion of Judah is coming!” (5:5). We look, and there is the Lamb. He is a Lamb that has been killed but is now alive again. We look for the Lion, and we see the crucified Christ. Then, all of heaven and earth bow down and worship the Lamb and God.

In chapter 6, the Lamb sets God’s judgment in motion. In chapter 7, “a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language” are “standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb” (7:9). In a sneak preview of heaven, we see that “the Lamb will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe away all their tears” (7:17).

Then, we don’t hear much about the Lamb for 11 long chapters while John focuses on the dark side. But all the while, the Lamb is quietly present as the one who gives victory to those who trust in his life, death, and resurrection (12:11).

Now, finally, the waiting is over. The Lamb comes out of the shadows and into center stage. The Lamb is victorious, and it is time for the wedding! Like Jesus’ parable, the Father has “prepared a great wedding feast for his son” (Matthew 22:2).

The Lamb’s wedding will be big. John tells us he hears a “vast crowd in heaven shouting” (19:1). In a similar picture in chapter 7, John sees the crowd gathered in heaven, and he says there are too many to count (7:9). This wedding feast is going to be huge! Think of it. The current world population is about 6 billion people. 10% of that is 600 million. 25% is 1.5 billion people! And that’s only one generation! All of God’s people since the beginning of time will be gathered together for the greatest wedding feast of all time. There will be a bazillion people there! This will be a big, fat wedding!

The Lamb’s wedding will be multicultural. All kinds of people will be there, “from the least to the greatest” (19:5), big people and little people, construction workers and lawyers, cleaning ladies and doctors. There will be people “from every nation and tribe and people and language” (7:9). Every culture, every economic class, every language, every subgroup will be represented. This will be the single greatest multicultural event of all time.

Our church is becoming a sample or a foretaste of this great multicultural event. Our vision team recommended that we should “be intentionally multicultural in everything we do.” As a church, we are learning that it is hard work to be multicultural. Sometimes we misunderstand each other. Sometimes we hurt each others feelings.

Let me show you a scene that describes some of the difficulties of multicultural relationships. In this movie, the bride and groom are from different cultures, and in this scene their families are meeting for the first time. (Show chapter 13 of My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. Run to 107:45.)

As we live together in this multicultural church working together toward The Lamb’s Big, Fat, Multicultural Wedding, we will have problems and misunderstandings. Someone will give us a Bundt cake, and we won’t have any idea what to do with it. Someone will invite us to a quiet dinner, and we find out the whole neighborhood has been invited. In a multicultural setting, our expectations are always being challenged. Part of the fun and the pain, is letting go of our expectations and moving toward a new reality together.

Anyone who has gotten married or helped with a wedding knows that weddings are a lot of work. That came as quite a shock to me when Sarah and I were preparing to get married. I proposed, but I had no idea what came next: invitations, cakes, bridesmaids’ dresses, preachers, music, churches, lists, suits, ties, food, decorations, and more. But possibly the single most important part of the wedding preparations (for the woman at least) is the wedding dress.

Watch this scene as the family helps Toula get dressed for her wedding. (Show chapter 15. Cut the motherly advice scene if possible.)

John says that the Lamb’s bride “prepared herself.” She was given “the finest white linen” to wear (19:7-8). I remember Sarah’s wedding dress, and I remember thinking how incredibly beautiful she looked in it.

In Jesus’ story in Matthew, the guests can’t stay at the wedding without wedding clothes (Matthew 22:11-13). John tells us these wedding clothes of white linen are a picture. They represent “the good deeds done by the people of God” (19:8). So do we get to heaven by doing good deeds?

Not quite. Earlier in Revelation we learned that the saints “washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white” (7:14). Our robes, which represent our lives, can only get white when we put our trust in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Then, then our lives are washed clean, and we are set free to live life God’s way. We are forgiven of our wrongs and empowered to do right. The clean, white linen we will wear at the Lamb’s big wedding come only by grace, but that grace involves living a grace-filled life. The Lamb has sent nice, white, clean wedding clothes to our house. Now our job is to get ready. Our job is to prepare for the heavenly wedding feast.

How do we do this? How do we get ready for The Lamb’s Big, Fat, Multicultural Wedding? Let me suggest three things we can all do.

1. Accept the invitation. God is giving us the invitation of a lifetime. He is inviting us to the greatest party of all time. Accept his invitation. Put your trust in Jesus Christ and follow him with all your heart.

2. Pass on the invitation. Everyone is invited. Note the radical hospitality in Jesus’ story (Matthew 22). When no one on his original list came, the King sent servants out to the streets to invite everyone they saw. The same thing is true for The Lamb’s Big, Fat, Multicultural Wedding. God is continually sending out his servants with the command: “Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see” (Matthew 22:9).

3. Get ready. Put on the wedding clothes. Live like heaven. Be a heavenly community. Start living now like you are already a part of the wedding party. Live with joy, love, acceptance, celebration, and service. Make sure everyone has enough food. Make sure everyone feels included. Dance. Have a good time. Cross those cultural barriers and make some new friendships. Live with joyful faithfulness!

Part of our vision is to show hospitality with open hearts. We are already beginning to do this. There is more and more joy when we worship. Our bake sale last week was a loud and joyful party. Last week, several new people said to me, “This place feels like home,” or “This church is really homey.” That is one of the highest compliments anyone could give us. Our Christmas Dinner is another way that our church is living like heaven. We are inviting people who are lonely and homesick to come get a taste of heavenly love and community.

We are beginning to live as a joyful, loving community. Church, I’m proud of you. We are beginning to live like heaven, and by God’s grace, we are beginning to change our world one life at a time. Keep it up, church! Keep growing in hospitality and joyful love. Keep reaching out and reaching across boundary lines, and we will find more and more that we are experiencing the joys of the wedding feast here and now.

Let’s watch one more scene of the wedding feast from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and allow the Spirit to fill your imagination with pictures of this kind of heavenly life of celebration here and now.

(Show Chapter 17 to 129:45.)

“Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb. … These are true words that come from God” (19:9).

Revelation 19-21 - The End of Evil

2008-11-17T21:37:00.001-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
November 5, 2006

The End of Evil

Revelation 19:11 – 21:8

[Show LOTR: Return of the King edited clip of last battle. The forces of good go to the battle field. They are wildly outnumbered and surrounded. But then the Ring is destroyed. The power of evil is broken, and the earth swallows the forces of evil.]

This is a pretty good picture of the end of time. John describes this scene through a series of word pictures in near the end of Revelation. Let’s read John’s pictures now: Revelation 19:11 – 21:8.

Throughout Revelation, John describes two powers and two groups of people. On one hand there are the power of Evil and all those who side with Evil’s work in the world. On the other hand, there are the power of Good and all those who side with the Good.

The powers of Evil first show up as Jesus sends seven letters to the seven churches (chapters 2-3). In these letters, Evil is represented in many forms: the religious legalists, the immoral liberals, persecutors of Christians, idolaters, false teachers, the arrogant, the church folk with dead hearts, and even Satan himself.

Evil rides again as the Four Horsemen mess up the world inside and out (chapter 6). Natural disaster pours out suffering on the earth (chapter 8). The earth is engulfed in the horrors of war (chapter 9). God’s people are abused and oppressed by an Evil system (chapter 11).

Then, Evil personally appears in the form of the great Dragon, or Satan himself (chapter 12). He attacks God’s children relentlessly, but then he tries an indirect approach. He sends the Bully Beast to scare people into turning away from God (chapter 13). Next, he sends the Con-Artist Beast to trick people into turning away from God (chapter 14).

In chapter 17 John describes Evil with yet another face: The Great Prostitute. Evil is like a woman who has sold her body to the world in exchange for our souls. In chapter 18 the world’s Evil systems are named as Babylon the Great, the city of wealth, oppression, and immorality.

Throughout John’s description of Evil, he consistently describes the camp of Evil, those who work on Evil’s team. They are stubbornly unrepentant. Despite God’s desperate attempts to win them back, they stick to their Evil ways. Some of them openly curse and reject God. Others do the same quietly with their God-rejecting lifestyles.

Evil and the people who side with Evil are characterized by fear, oppression, hollow happiness, deep sadness, lack of trust, selfishness, betrayal, violence, brutality, greed, cowardice, lies, gullibility (or easily believing lies), acting like gods, encouraging idolatry, and valuing present comfort over the eternal truth. Overall, when we summarize all of this, the camp of Evil is based on selfishness, abuse of power, and temporary pleasure.

Incomplete numbers are always applied to the powers of evil. Evil is represented by the number 666, indicating that it is chronically, persistently incomplete and inadequate, always one short of the perfect number 7. The time frame of Evil and oppression and the Great Tribulation or the Big Trouble is often represented with some form of the number 3 1/2. This symbolizes again the basic incompleteness of Evil’s reign. Evil is only half of the complete and perfect number 7. The time of suffering under Evil’s attack may feel like a long time, but in essence it is short and incomplete.

But John also describes Good and the people who side with Good. Good is on the scene from the very beginning. John introduces this great discussion of Good and Evil with an explanation that he is writing to the camp of the Good on behalf of God.

In great contrast to the incompleteness of Evil, God is described in very complete terms: “the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come” (1:4).

Jesus is a “faithful witness.” He has overcome death. And he is “the commander of all the rulers of the world” (1:5). He is the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (19:16). Evil rules through violent power, but the Lamb rules through self-sacrifice. God reveals himself as the Risen Lamb, the crucified Jesus Christ (chapter 5). He loves us, and he frees us from sin through his own death on the cross (1:5). Then, instead of ruling with oppression and abuse, Jesus invites everyone from the least to the greatest to rule with him and to be priests (20:6).

Evil destroys the lives of those in its camp, but God strengthens and gives life to those in his camp. He has ransomed us from the powers of evil through his own death (5:9). One day God will live among his people and “shelter them. They will never again be hungry or thirsty, and they will be fully protected from the scorching noontime heat. For the Lamb who stands in front of the throne will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe away all their tears” (7:15-17).

Satan betrays his people (20:10), but God gives up his own life for them. “He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself with be with them. He will remove their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain” (21:3-4).

Again and again John describes the people of God in terms of overwhelming joy. Again and again, they are filled with joy and fall down in worship. In God’s camp, though there is temporary suffering, there is eternal joy. This joy erupts like a volcano of praise in the great wedding supper of the Lamb (chapter 19).

Our Good God and the camp of God are characterized by truth, faithfulness, love, sacrifice, healing, joy, satisfaction, perseverance, provision, safety, purity, celebration, long-term focus, unwillingness to compromise with the world, and courage. Overall, God and God’s people are characterized by sacrificial love, truth, and perseverance.

John consistently uses perfect and full numbers to describe the camp of the Good. There are 7 churches, and God’s actions usually come in sets of 7 (7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 bowls, etc.). John consistently refers to God’s people with different forms of the number 12 (24 elders, 144,000), meaning God’s people will be full and complete. The time of Christ’s reign is described as 1,000 years. This is 10 (a number of power and fullness) times 10 times 10. Christ’s Kingship will be amazingly full and complete and long, especially when compared with the tiny and incomplete 3 1/2 years of Evil’s Troubled Time.

I need to say a little bit about this 1,000 year reign of Christ and his people. This is THE most debated point of Revelation. It draws a lot of attention and a lot of discussion. Everyone wants to know when the 1000 years will happen and what will happen before or after the 1000 years. This is missing the basic point of Revelation. Revelation is not a book for timelines. John uses overlapping images, and his images are not always consistent with each other. There can be no timelines built from Revelation. John is trying to paint an emotional picture more than a logical timeline. Revelation is not a book for speculation about the future! It is a book for motivation in the present!

So there are two groups, two camps centered around two powers: Good and Evil, God and Satan. Somehow Satan gathers his forces for one final attack on God’s people.

But amazingly, there is no fight. There is no real battle. A battle implies a struggle, and there is none. God completely overwhelms Evil. Evil verses God is like a bow and arrow against a nuclear bomb. There is no contest. Jesus speaks and Evil collapses (19:15). A mere angel puts Satan on a leash like a bad puppy (20:2). In the great attack against God’s people, fire falls from heaven and consumes the Evil forces before they fire a shot (20:9). Evil and all of Evil’s camp are eliminated, thrown into the lake of fire forever and forever.

John describes the destruction of Evil again and again. By my count, John gives 7 pictures of the destruction of Evil before chapter 19 and then 7 more pictures of the destruction of Evil in our passage, the final account of Evil’s doom. 7 – the perfect number! One day Evil will be perfectly and finally destroyed. One day, the kingdom of the incomplete will be completely eliminated.

Why all of this talk about the destruction of evil? Because God is establishing perfect goodness. He is creating a perfect world, a new heaven and a new earth, a world of perfect goodness. God is creating a place where his perfect love and peace will fill everything. That means that anyone or anything that is unwilling to submit to God’s perfect love and peace has to go. God can’t eliminate pain and sorrow if people are still out there abusing each other. Either we accept God’s love and live God’s love in the land of love, or we move out so that Love can be King.

What about us? What does all of this mean for us? How can we choose the camp of Good and live in the ways of Good?

Revelation 21:8 gives us an answer through a negative picture. “But cowards who turn away from me, and unbelievers, and the corrupt, and murderers, and the immoral, and those who practice witchcraft, and idol worshipers, and all liars – their doom is in the lake of fire and sulfur.”

The way of the Good is the exact opposite to this. Fix your eyes on Jesus; he is our only hope. Bravely hold onto your faith in him. Live a life of integrity; don’t compromise with the world’s standards. Live a life of peace and helping others. Stay pure. Stay away from all idols and superstition and anything opposed to God. Tell the truth even when it hurts. This is the way of Christ. This is the way of the Good. This is the path to the Good life. This is what it means to live a life trusting in Jesus.

Paul explains how we should live: “Be strong with the Lord’s mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies and tricks of the Devil. For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.

“Use every piece of God’s armor to resist the enemy in the time of evil, so that after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the sturdy belt of truth and the body armor of righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News, so that you will be fully prepared. In every battle you will need faith as your shield to stop the fiery arrows aimed at you by Satan. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all Christians everywhere.” (Ephesians 6:10-18)

One day God will eliminate Evil forever. Choose Christ. Hold on to Christ, and stand firm. Stand firm.

[Show Armor of God clip. You can view this clip at:

http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php5?ct=store.details&pid=V00086. ]

Revelation 21-22 - Rehabilitating Heaven

2008-11-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Pastor Josh Broward
November 12, 2006

Question: What do you think of when you think of big cities? What are big cities like?

pollution, crime, corruption, politics, traffic, ugly
expensive, luxury entertainment, luxury cars, high fashion, success, choices
hectic, busy, high-stress jobs
homeless people, beggars, rundown inner cities, drugs
impersonal, overcrowded, high real estate prices
pawn shops, porn stores, liquor stores, shady bars, prostitutes

Question: What is heaven like? What do you think of when you think of heaven? (Get answers from church.)

Papua New Guinea’s white sandy beaches and clear water
Granddad: “The Happy Hunting Ground”
Dr. Fine: fly fishing for trout in mountain streams
One techie pastor: surrounded by fancy computers

Does anyone think heaven will be like a city? When you think of going to heaven, do you think of taking the KTX to Seoul? Anyone think of heaven and think of LA? No, New York? No? OK. Just hold on to that for a minute.

In Revelation chapters 17-18, John described Babylon the Great, the stereotypical earthly Big City, which symbolizes all of this world’s evil systems. John called that earthly Big City a prostitute. Not just any prostitute, for all big cities have prostitutes, but the Great Prostitute, the mother of all prostitutes. John saw that Babylon was selling lies. He saw that Babylon couldn’t give people life through entertainment, or joy through luxury, or peace through stronger weapons, or security through wealth, or satisfaction through immorality. John saw all of this, and he described how Babylon the Great would come to a crashing, burning, tear-filled end.

After all of this talk about how bad the Earth’s best Big City is, you would think that John is done with cities. You would think, John would describe heaven as some kind of Garden of Eden. Most of us usually picture heaven as some kind of perfect beach or mountain resort where we can rest and relax and eat without gaining any weight, a place we can swim all day. Sometimes, we just get sick of people, and we want to get away. So naturally, we think of heaven as a place where we can get away from it all, a place to get away from the Big City and all its problems. And so we go on vacation to places like this so we can experience just a little of what we hope heaven will be like.

We would like think that, and most of us do think that way most of the time. But we’re wrong! That’s not what heaven is like at all. At least, that’s not how John pictures heaven. After describing the earthly corruption of community in the Big City of Babylon, John describes the heavenly perfection of community in the Big City of the New Jerusalem. Let’s read what John says in Revelation 21:1 – 22:5.

This has a lot of symbolism, so let’s unpack this beautiful picture of the Big City of the New Jerusalem.

John sees “the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (21:2). Remember the Lamb’s Big Fat Multicultural Wedding (19:1-10)? Well, here is the Lamb’s bride: a Big City, but not just any big city. This is the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the capital city for God’s people. It was the center point of God’s activity in the world.

A voice from the throne says, “Look! The home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them” (21:3). (This is where the symbolism starts getting thick.) The heavenly city is “in the form of a cube, for its length and with and height were each 1,400 miles” (or 2,253 km) (21:16).^¹ A cube? Why a cube? Was John a math geek or something? There is one other place in Bible where a cube is mentioned. The inner Most Holy Place in the Temple, the place where God lived in a special concentrated way, this place was a cube – 30 feet (9 meters) on each side (1 Kings 6:20). John describes the New Jerusalem as the new Most Holy Place, the new place where God lives.

God has upgraded! “Movin’ on up, to a deluxe apartment in the sky-y!”^² The old Most Holy Place was 9 meters wide, 9 meters long, and 9 meters high – maybe roughly the size of the front of this room. God’s new Most Holy Place, the New Jerusalem is more than 2,000,000 meters on each side. That’s a city 7 times bigger than Texas and 250 times higher than Mt. Everest! Way to go, God! Heaven or the New Jerusalem will be HUGE, and it will be completely filled with the presence of God.

People will experience God directly and amazingly. There won’t be suns or moons or light bulbs, not even candles, for God’s own radiant Presence will be the light for the entire Big City (22:5). Everything everywhere will shine with the glory of God (21:11).

This city is made of amazing material, too. The 12 gates of solid pearl each have the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel (21:12). The twelve foundation stones of the city each have the name of one of Jesus’ 12 apostles (21:14).^³ When we read using the measuring units of John’s day, we start to see an amazing picture. The wall of the city is 144 (12x12) cubits (or 200 feet) thick (21:17). The city itself is 12,000 stadia on every side (21:16).

Remember any time a form of the number 12 is used in Revelation, it always refers to the people of God. This amazing city, 250 times taller than Mt. Everest, is made from top to bottom with the people of God! We are the building blocks of this amazing city. We are the building blocks for the New Jerusalem! Peter says, “And now God is building you, as living, stones into his spiritual temple” (1 Peter 2:5).

If I were God, I might be thinking I could get some better building materials than us sinful, messed up people. The 12 sons of Israel were a mess. They sold Joseph into slavery. Their family lives were as messed up as The Jerry Springer Show or any TV Drama. The 12 apostles didn’t get much better. One was a guerilla soldier, one was a cheating tax collector, several were grimy fishermen, and all of them chickened out when Jesus needed them most.

And what about us? None of us deserve to be stones in God’s temple. We’re all sinful, too. In our most honest moments, we’ll admit that we’re more fit for the trash heap than a heavenly city made of diamonds and emeralds.

But God is in the rehabilitation business. I quickly learned the Korean word for rehabilitation (JaeHwal) because many of my students are Rehabilitation majors, but one day I was very surprised to see jaehwal on a recycle bin. So, KNU is famous for its recycling major? Well, not exactly. In English we say that crushed can is recycled, but Korean is closer to the truth. That crushed can, fit for the trash, is rehabilitated. It is redeemed and remolded to be something useful again.

That’s the way it works with us, too. I grew up singing a song: “All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but he made something beautiful out of my life. Something beautiful, something good. All my confusion, he understood. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but he made something beautiful out of my life.”^⁴ God takes us with all of our brokenness and strife. He rehabilitates. He remakes us to be more and more like him, and he fits us into his Holy Temple. He makes us part of the very structure of heaven. He takes as lumps of coal and transforms us into diamonds.

So what does this mean? We’ll spend eternity in heaven being a pretty brick? No, the New Jerusalem is a symbolic picture of the perfect community. This Big City is the people of God in the direct presence of God and fitted together perfectly and beautifully. We are no longer hurting each other (21:8). We are no longer fighting; can you imagine a building with fighting bricks?! We are experiencing total peace with God and with each other.

As we experience this total peace, all of our diseases will be healed. Patricia, your diabetes will be gone. Stan, your low blood pressure will go up. TaeRan, your high blood pressure will go down. No one will be hungry or thirsty or lonely or sad. We will experience perfect peace and wellness and love. This is the real “Well-being life.”

This is heaven. Heaven is not the selfish grabbing and keeping and hording of the Big City of Babylon. Heaven is not even running away from each other to a quiet island. Heaven is being fitted together in total health in God’s presence.

And anyone anywhere can experience this great rehabilitation. The city has 12 gates facing in every direction (21:13), and the gates are always open (21:25). People from around the world will put their trust in the Lamb and bring everything they are and have into this beautiful city (21:24, 27).

What does this mean for us? Well, let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a very rich man. Late in life, he became a Christian, but he still loved his money. He was really looking forward to going to heaven, but he just couldn’t imagine heaven without his money. One day, he prayed and asked God if he could take his money with him. Amazingly, God said, “Yes.”

The man thought for a while, and he decided that heaven probably wouldn’t take US Dollars or Euros or Won or anything like that, so he converted all of his money into gold. Then, he put all the gold in a suitcase by his bed so he could grab it when he was dying.

Soon the old man did die. He grabbed his gold and stood in line at the entrance gate of heaven. The angel stopped him and said, “Wait a minute. You know what they say: ‘You can’t take it with you.’”

The man was ready for this. He opened his suitcase and showed him the gold with a proud smile, and he said, “The Big Guy gave me special permission!”

The angel shrugged his shoulders and said, “Go on in, but I don’t know what you’re going to do with all of that concrete.”^⁵

Heaven values different things than most people value here on earth. When we begin to think like heaven, we begin to act differently. When we rehabilitate our view of heaven, we begin to rehabilitate life on earth.

When we think like heaven, we will spend time developing our relationship with God. Then, we begin to experience heaven on earth.

When we think like heaven, we will give ourselves to God to be redeemed, healed, and rehabilitated. Then, we begin to experience heaven on earth.

When we think like heaven, we allow God to fit us together with other Christians, so that we can become a Holy Temple where we experience his presence together. Then, we begin to experience heaven on earth.

When we think like heaven, we make sure everyone has enough food and water and medicine. We become agents of God’s rehabilitation in our world. Then, we begin to experience heaven on earth.

We need to rehabilitate our view of heaven, and then we will begin to rehabilitate life on earth. Then, we will begin to experience heaven on earth.

1 See a picture of this at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image33.htm.

2 This is part of the theme song for The Jeffersons, a popular American TV show from the 1980’s.

3 See picture of this at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image34.htm.

4 Bill and Gloria Gather, “Something Beautiful,” 1971.

5 See picture of golden streets at:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image35.asp .

Revelation 22 - Coming Soon

2008-11-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
November 19, 2006

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King . …

No more crying there, we are going to see the King. …

No more dieing there, we are going to see the King. …

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we’re going to see the King.^¹

Really? Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King? How long have we been singing that song? The early church thought Jesus was coming back very soon. In fact, most generations of Christians have felt like Jesus would probably come back within their time. But almost 2,000 years have passed since Jesus said, “Look, I am coming soon!” What’s the deal? 2,000 years doesn’t feel like soon to me. What about you?

But we need to remember that in Revelation, John deals with the quality of time not the quantity of time. The Time of Big Trouble will last only 3 1/2 years – an incomplete and unsatisfying time. But Christ’s reign will last 1,000 years – a full, complete, and perfect time.

“Look, I am coming soon” is kind of like this. In the summer of 2000, I got down on my knee in a restaurant in Kansas City, and I asked Sarah to marry me. I knew with all my heart that this was the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. She said, “Yes!” But then, a few weeks later, she got on a plane and came to Korea. She was KNU’s first foreign exchange student. We had just committed our hearts and lives to each other. But she had to go across an ocean for four whole months!

That time apart felt like forever! The days moved slowly. We wrote to each other every single day. We have stacks of printed emails to prove it. Sometimes we talked on the phone for 5 or 6 hours at a time. We put up pictures of each other in our homes. We often cried because we missed each other so much. We longed just to hold each other. We longed to be married. That time felt like forever! We felt like it would never end.

We were planning to get married the next summer after Sarah graduated, but that just felt like too long. We considered getting married in January just a few weeks after she got back from Korea. We felt like having the wedding right there in the airport as soon as she got off the plane! But we finally compromised and got married over spring break in March.

When she got home, we had about 3 months to reunite and make the preparations for our wedding. That time went by very fast. Often we would look at each other and say with surprise and disbelief and joy, “We’re getting married!” Sometimes it would change into a little dance and song and hug, “We’re getting married!” It was as if it was too good to be true. We almost couldn’t believe it was happening, but we knew it was, and we celebrated it often.

We got married on March 18, 2001. (No, I didn’t have to look that up.) We have enjoyed 5 1/2 years of very happy marriage. We are still in love. We are doing life together every day. We have everything we hoped for before we got married. Now those 4 little months, when Sarah was in Korea without me, don’t seem so long. That was just a short time of waiting, preparing us for a lifetime of marriage.

When Jesus says, “Look, I am coming soon,” it’s kind of like that. And the church often says with hope and joy, “Jesus is coming!” It’s almost too good to be true. We almost can’t believe it will finally happen after waiting for so long, but we know in faith that it will, so we celebrate it often. Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!

When Jesus says, “Look, I am coming soon,” it’s also kind of like this. Joe Willey and I have been friends for 9 years. When we each got married to Elena and Sarah, they became friends, too. We are accountability partners, Joe and me, Elena and Sarah. We tell each other practically everything. For years we have lived life together. When Sarah and I moved to Korea in 2004, we left behind our best friends. We made new friends here, but it’s hard to replace the community that is built after years of spending life together.

I asked Joe and Elena to move to Korea, to join us in life and ministry here. At first they said, “No.” That’s a big request: “Sell your house. Sell all your stuff. Pack up your family and move half way across the world.” “No” was totally understandable. But I just couldn’t stop thinking of them, so after a few months, I asked again. This time something clicked. God must have been talking to all of us at the same time. They felt that inward pull of the Spirit, and they decided to do it!

For several months we looked for jobs for them. Nothing was working out. We prayed and prayed that God would help them find a good job here. It seemed like we were waiting forever. We began to wonder if it was even going to work. But then, finally, KNU hired Joe, and Joe and Elena were set to move here in February.

Sarah and I were overjoyed. Many times, we looked at each other in amazement and said, “Joe and Elena are coming!” And Joe and Elena often looked at each other in amazement and said, “We’re moving to Korea!” It was almost too good to be true. We almost couldn’t believe it, but we knew it was going to happen. We started emailing Joe and Elena a lot more often. We started talking on the phone. We helped get their apartment ready. We did everything we could to help them feel welcome when they came. We told nearly everyone we talked to that our close friends from back home were coming to Korea. I even started wearing a Cookie Monster shirt that Joe gave me a little more often, just because it made me think of them.

Then they came! It was great! It is great. We feel amazingly loved and blessed to have friends who sold everything to follow God’s call to do life and ministry with us. And now that they have been here for almost a year, that waiting time seems so small.

When Jesus says, “Look, I am coming soon,” it’s kind of like his story in Luke (12:35-47). The Master has given us “the responsibility of managing his household and feeding his family.” He has gone away, and we aren’t quite sure when he is coming back.

Some people think, “My master won’t be back for a long time,” so they mistreat the other people in this world, and they party and get drunk. This is the great temptation of our world – to live for ourselves and to ignore the responsibility the Master has given us. One day, though, the Master, Jesus, will return, unannounced and unexpected. Those who aren’t ready will be in trouble.

But there is another way. We can stay dressed and ready for service. If we are faithful and take care of the house, we will be able to welcome the Master with joy when he comes. Jesus may come in the midnight or predawn hours of Time, and it may feel like he will never come. But when Jesus comes, he will give a wonderful reward to those who are ready. When Jesus comes, we will be surprised, for the Master will serve the servants. Our Boss, Jesus, the King of Kings, will put on an apron, and serve us as we sit and eat! And the Master will put us in charge of all he owns. When we sit at that table, and Jesus gives us our reward, and we experience joy with him forever, our waiting time will seem very short – very, very short.

The book of Revelation is not a story of the End Times far away from now. It is mostly a book of real life in the here and now. How do we live now in the waiting time, so that we will be ready for Jesus coming? We respond to Jesus’ coming in the end by coming to Jesus here and now.

“The Spirit and the bride say ‘Come.’ Let each one who hears them say, ‘Come.’ Let the thirsty ones come – anyone who wants to. Let them come and drink the water of life without charge” (22:17). But how? How can we come to Jesus?

First, do laundry. Doing laundry is an important part of Revelation. Didn’t you know that? “Blessed are those who wash their robes” (22:14). When we put our trust in Jesus and ask him to forgive our sins, it’s like he gives us a bath inside and out. He cleans us up and makes us as clean as fresh snow. The first way we respond to Jesus is by letting Jesus wash our clothes and lives.

But doing laundry isn’t enough.

When I was in seminary, one of my classmates told a story of his time in boot camp (or basic training) in the US Army. He said that for two weeks they were only given one pair of clothes. The Army works the new soldiers very hard. They ran through mud. They crawled through mud. They rolled in the mud. Everyday when they got home, they were tired, sweaty, and very dirty. They all took long hot showers and got nice and clean. But then they had to get dressed, and they only had one set of clothes, the sweaty, muddy, stinky clothes they had been wearing all day. He said that was the worst part of his day: putting his clean body back into those old dirty clothes.

That sounds gross doesn’t it! But that’s exactly what we do. We ask Jesus to forgive us, and now we are “permitted to wear the finest white linen” (19:7). We hear the words of Paul: “Clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. … And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love.” (See Colossians 3:5-15.) But so often we leave Jesus’ clean, beautiful clothes sitting on the dresser, and we go back to our old dirty clothes: impurity, dishonesty, gossip, manipulation, and selfishness. And when we put on stinky clothes, we get stinky lives. The problem is that it’s hard to break our old habits.

Let me suggest three things we can do to live the new life in Jesus, three things we can do to wear his new clothes.

(1) Relate. Relate to God now. When Joe and Elena were preparing to come to Korea, we didn’t wait until they got here to start talking to them. We sent emails almost every day, and we talked on the phone more and more until they came. In a similar way, we can’t see God face to face now, but we can still relate to him. We can read his “emails” to us – the Bible, and we can talk to him “on the phone” in prayer. If you really want to stay out of those dirty clothes, you’ve got to “drink from the water of life” every day (22:17).

(2) Participate. Participate in God’s action in the world. Spend your life on what matters to God. God has given us “responsibility of managing his household and feeding his family” (12:42). Spend your life giving to others and helping other people get ready for Jesus, too. This is the work of the Spirit, and if we open ourselves to God, the Spirit will do this work through us. When we are participating in God and enjoying living like God, we are much less likely to go back to those old clothes.

(3) Celebrate. Last Saturday, my parents sent me an email saying that KNU may hire them to teach here in the spring. Even though it’s not definite yet, I went around telling everyone I met on Saturday, “My parents are coming to Korea! My parents are coming to Korea!” Jesus is definitely coming again. We can celebrate with all the joy that we would have if old friends or a fiancé were coming in on the plane tomorrow: “Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!” When we celebrate like this, two things happen. First, remembering Jesus’ coming helps us live like Jesus now. Second, celebrating Jesus’ coming invites others to come to Jesus, too.

Jesus said, “Look, I am coming soon!” How can we get ready? Do your laundry. Then, relate, participate, and celebrate. Say it with me now: Do your laundry. Then, relate, participate, and celebrate.

Church, Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming! And this time of waiting - that seems so long now – will feel very short then. Jesus is coming soon! Come to Jesus now, and stay with Jesus every day.

1 “Soon and Very Soon,” Andrae Crouch, 1978, (Revelation 21:3-4).