Sermon from March 4, 2007
Jesus said to the High Priest on the night Judas betrayed Him: "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven" – Mark 14:62.

In Revelation, the many-eyed, four living creatures sang to the Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" – Revelation 5:9.

Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, who had just sentenced Him to die: "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above" – John 19:11.

In Revelation 11:15, 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."

Any bureaucrat in Rome or centurion in Asia would have dismissed these statements as the folly of religious zealots. Rome ruled from Hadrian's Wall on the borders of Scotland nearly to India. This Jewish Messiah and these Christian nobodies who follow Him, who you could count on one hand and who had no legal standing in the Empire, could blather on all they wanted the kingdom of the world becoming the kingdom of their Lord and His Messiah. Everybody knew who was in charge.

That's realism in politics. And while there were more Christians than Brutus and Cassius joked about, the Church was a despised minority. John's vision of how that would all change would not have impressed pagan Romans.

How would that change: not by judgment. What the terrible judgments of God can never do, the suffering witness of the Church will bring about. The Church's imitation of the faithful witness of Jesus unto death is God's secret strategy by which will take place "the transfer of the sovereignty of the whole world from the dragon and the beast, who presently dominate it, to God, whose universal kingdom is to come on earth," (Bauckham, Theology of Revelation, 242).

The Lamb and His Army on Mt. Zion
The circumstances in which the late first-century Church was to bear faithful witness, even to death, occupies Revelation 12-14. Please join me in Revelation 14.

The great dragon – that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, was the power behind the beast. The beast attacked, overpowered, and killed the faithful witnesses. But here the Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, and His faithful army of martyrs stand on Mount Zion, celebrating their victory over the dragon and the beast.

Look at the middle of verse four. It says of that strange army: They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. We know where the Lamb goes. He goes to the cross, and there He conquers sin and death and the devil. Those who follow Him receive an unusual name. John calls them firstfruits.

That is a figure of speech that is foreign to urban blockheads like us. Imagine me as a Nebraska farmer. Suppose you come to visit me in late summer, and I give you a dozen ears of corn. They are the first ears I have picked from my fields. I have 2500 acres to pick, and the harvest starts this week. Those first dozen ears are the firstfruits of my harvest. The triumphal meaning of that figure of speech will become clear in the vision of harvest at the end of the chapter.

The Three Angels
Then, John reveals three messages that defied Roman might and skepticism. Each in its own way continues the Christian confidence in God's coming kingdom. Let's read each with a few comments.

Verses 6-7: Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth – to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water."

It is the eternal gospel, something that will survive the collapse of the Roman or any other empire. It is for every nation, tribe, language and people, however ancient and venerable their customs may be. The true God has announced His arrival.

Verse 8: A second angel followed and said, "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries." Rome seemed as solid as New York, Washington, or Chicago. Yet, she is to fall.

Verses 9-10: A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath." This called the inhabitants of the earth to see in a new way the Empire and their life in it, and to give to the God of the eternal gospel their ultimate loyalties.

The Harvest and the Vintage
The last verses present us with a vision of the great divide that runs right through all human history and will climax at the end of history. Verses 14-16: I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one "like the son of man" with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, "Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. John called the victorious martyrs firstfruits. The vision of the harvest reveals the harvest of which they were the firstfruits. It is another of John's images for the conversion of the nations.

Verses 17-20 tell the other side of that story. Another angel came out of the temple of heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe." The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath. They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia. John will tell us later who treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.

Once to every man and nation
          Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
          For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision,
          Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever,
          'Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
          Yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
          And upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
          And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
          Keeping watch above His own.

Here, around the Lord's Supper, let us hold near and hold dear the bread and the cup of the Lord. He is the choice we have made "twixt that darkness and that light."