Sermon from January 18, 2009
You wanted to know about the end times. “What does the Scripture say about the end times?” What about “the end times and the antichrist, Israel, the rapture, tribulation, millennium, judgment, and the book of Revelation?” Talk to us about “biblical prophecy being fulfilled for the end times,” about “how Revelation ties in with what is happening currently.” “Is the United States in prophecy for the last days?” What are “the signs of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?” Did Kay Arthur say that “a famine is coming to our nation?” “What about those who set a date for the end of the world?” “Why does my understanding of eschatology matter for the decisions I make today?” Oh, yes, you want to know about the end times. It was the number one question among adults and teenagers.

And why not? It is intrinsically interesting. More urgently, the world we have known is slipping away from us; we’re living at the end of something. Maybe it’s the end of all things. We don’t know that; we just wonder. The book of Revelation is part of the Bible; does it say anything to these hopes and fears? Yes, it does.

Who am I to tell you what it says? Here are my credentials. First, I have been part of the discussion about these matters for the past 50 years. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it makes me familiar with the issues and emotions in academic circles and in congregational life. Second, I have made myself familiar with the latest research into the book of Revelation. That research has been done by world-class scholars, as we might expect. It also has a pastoral dimension, which no one expected. It caught me by pleasant surprise. That also shapes what I say to you. Third, I believe I have prophetic insight into the situation in which the Church in this country finds itself. I will say more about that next Sunday. You will have the responsibility to test my claim to have prophetic insight. So, you have to understand it, and you have to live with it for a while.

How shall we proceed? With a bold attempt and a humble caution. First the attempt: I’d like to tell you what the book of Revelation is about in this sermon. It can be done, you cheery skeptics, it will offer a first answer to many of your questions, and it will prepare us to see the world the way Christ sees the world. I assume you did not come here today for piffle and drivel but for substance and hope. Well, substance and hope it is. Now the caution: Revelation is not “history written in advance,” so that if you crack the code, you’ll know the fate of Russia, Iran, China, Israel or America in the next few years. I will not aid and abet such efforts. So, take a deep breath and hold on tight. This ride will not only be exciting, it is going somewhere. We want to arrive, ready to act.

What the Book Is About
What is the book of Revelation about? In one sentence: it is about overcoming evil and converting the nations to Jesus Christ. So, tomorrow on your desk at work or on your notebook at school you should post a sign that says, “Questions about the book of Revelation? Inquire here!” You can dazzle them with a single sentence.

Okay. There’s more to it than that. People will demand that you explain that single sentence. But don’t let their skeptical chatter cheat you out of the sublime simplicity of that single sentence. Just point out that the human family always needs a simple sentence to express any big idea. The earth goes around the sun. Gravity makes apples fall. Geese fly south by instinct. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

That’s all that most people know about orbital mechanics, gravitation, instinct and probability. That’s all they need to know to get along in this world. The book of Revelation is about overcoming evil and converting the nations to Jesus Christ.

That’s all most people need to know to get along in this world. I could understand at this point, if half the congregation stood up and walked out. I hope you won’t do that. There is more to it than that. Unlike the theories, experiments and equations of science you can understand much more about the book of Revelation.

Let’s get started. Revelation is realistic about evil. Sometimes evil is local on a small scale. Revelation 2:20-21:  I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

Revelation’s realism about evil can also speak to man’s inhumanity to man. Revelation 6:9-10: When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”

Revelation never becomes cynical or despondent in the face of evil, because it envisions a world in which evil will be destroyed. Revelation 20:10: And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. It is the vengeance of God against evil, and we are right to tremble.

Revelation also envisions a world in which God replaces evil with human happiness. Revelation 21:4: He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 22:2: On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Not many people would object if God replaced evil with human happiness. Caterwauling on a massive scale will greet the idea that Revelation is about the conversion of the nations to Jesus Christ. You don’t get one without the other in the Christian vision of reality.

Revelation 5:9 will represent this edgy part of the Christian vision. And they sang a new song: “You – Jesus Christ – are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

John, great apostle and prophet that you are, you’ve been out in the sun too long. You and your band of fellow prophets are presiding over churches small enough to fit into people’s living rooms. You have zero political clout. Local authorities have murdered one or two of your members with impunity. And you envision a church made up of people from every tribe and language and people and nation?

The idea is still edgy, not because it now seems delusional, but because it’s happening before our very eyes. Saudis beef up their religious police, because they don’t want the Christian camel to get its nose into the Muslim tent. They know what will happen. Secular liberals spend prodigious amounts of money and file interminable lawsuits to keep manger scenes out of public squares. They sense, even if they can’t say, that “this little babe so few days old, has come to rifle Satan’s folds.”

The book of Revelation is about overcoming evil and converting the nations to Jesus Christ. Remember that. Dream about it. Tell your friends about it. It’s good!

The Divine M.O.
That’s all well and good, but how does Revelation propose to achieve this vision? The spread of the Church to all nations on earth should temper our skepticism. But the scope and horror of evil in the last 100 years are something the world had never seen. Revelation’s proposal may not persuade you, but it should take your breath away.

Revelation has many memorable images, none more meaningful than here in chapter five. The chapter opens this way: Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” Whoever breaks the seals and opens the scroll will carry out the destruction of evil and the conversion of the nations.

But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. No one was worthy, and no one felt worthy for the task. John wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.  His tears didn’t last long.

Verse five: Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” The regal titles befit a conqueror. Nothing prepares you for what comes next.

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain. You expect a lion; you see a Lamb. You expect a conqueror; you see the conquered. By what authority did that Victim receive the name Lion? By what confusion did John call that pathos royalty? Nevertheless, there He was, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. There He was with seven horns and seven eyes, representing the plenitude of Divine power on earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.

How could that pathetic creature have about Him the signs of power? How could He set in motion the secret strategy for establishing God’s rule over the world? Is this heaven’s burlesque, a confession of heaven’s impotence in the face of earth’s evil?

Here is G. B. Caird’s comment: “Omnipotence is not to be understood as the power of unlimited coercion, but as the power of infinite persuasion, the invincible power of self-negating, self-sacrificing love” (Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, 75).

That’s God’s M.O. God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. (See 1 Corinthians 1:26-29.) He scatters those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He brings down rulers from their thrones. He sends the rich away empty. He submits to crucifixion and condemns evil to destruction by doing so. Good Friday is the fulcrum on which the human story turns from its descent into darkness and begins its ascent to the light.

The cross is heaven’s way to overcome evil and convert the nations to Christ. And that’s where the Church comes in. We participate in and further Christ’s triumph over evil and the conversion of the nations by participating in God’s M. O.

Look at Revelation 3:21: To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. How did Christ overcome? He submitted to the cross. Revelation 11:7 carries this theme forward and applies it to the Church: Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Revelation 12:11 completes the comparison with Jesus: They overcame him – the beast – by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

The Church’s imitation of Christ’s faithful and sacrificial witness to the eternal gospel becomes central to the destruction of evil and the conversion of the nations to Jesus Christ. That’s what the book of Revelation is about.

The Coming Kingdom
Chapter five showed us the present from the perspective of heaven. The Church needs one more perspective in order to bear faithful and sacrificial witness to Christ. She needs to see the present from the perspective of the future. Christ overcame evil and guaranteed the conversion of the nations at the cross. The Church is called to overcome evil and convert the nations by her faithful and sacrificial witness to Christ. For what kind of future does she lay down her life?

Revelation 11:15 offers this memorable summary of things to come: The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” Revelation 21:2 introduces another powerful image of the future: I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ to rule the nations makes every other social and political system provisional. We can never again think that any political system has final sovereignty over human life or the last word on human happiness. Something infinitely better is coming. That’s how the future teaches the Church to see the present. That’s how the future teaches the Church to bear sacrificial witness to the eternal gospel.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
That’s what the book of Revelation is about. Evil will be overcome, no matter how awful it gets, and it will get awful. The nations will be converted to Jesus Christ. Central to both will be the Church’s self-sacrificing witness to Jesus Christ, who will come again into human history to judge the living and the dead and to rule the nations.

In light of this vision Revelation has one command for the Church in her present spiritual warfare: Overcome! Go back to Revelation 3:21: To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne. What must the Church overcome?

John introduced his image of the Holy City to compare it with an unholy city, which he called the great prostitute and Babylon. I will inspect that comparison with you next week. My own prophetic insight builds off the prophetic insight of John’s comparison. It brings the United States into biblical prophecy, and it brings us face to face with what the Church in this country is being called to overcome.

He who was seated on the throne . . . said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

From time to time this week lift up your nose from the grindstone. Lift up your eyes to the hills “whence cometh our help. Our help cometh from the Lord,” who will destroy evil and convert the nations. Let us bear sacrificial witness with Him and to Him.