The fourth Sunday of Bible Month - a new heaven and a new earth

So we’ve reached the last Sunday of our study of Revelation.Perhaps you are glad about that! I said at the beginning of the month that the reformer Martin Luther said it either finds you mad or drives you mad. Well, we are still in one piece. Four sermons on it and leading two training sessions on it and three Bible studies on it I’m still in one piece – just! 

 

We have arrived at chapter 21 today. John sees a vision of a new heaven and  new earth and he gives us the greatest promise of Scripture: See the home of God is with mortals and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and he will be their God… and it’s a fabulous place — you think about all the things that drag us down, well.there’s none of those. 

No more tears, no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain. Why? The former things have passed away. Throughout our journey grappling Revelation we’ve been reminded over and over that Jesus is on the throne. And today he says “behold” (that’s a word he uses a lot) “behold, I make all things new.” 

 

There are two powerful things I see in these verses.

 

One, that they come while there is still threat and trouble and real hardship. Remember John receives God’s long term vision while in exile for being a Christian. But the message here is one of hope and life and celebration one day. The message here is that today is not how it will always be. There’s a lot for us to cry about, the state of the world, so much so we don’t want to open a newspaper anymore. There are so many people we know in pain. But God is telling John today might be rubbish, but tomorrow won’t be. We sing it don’t we in Great is thy faithfulness: “Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” Over and over again we are told in these verses “do not fear” and “behold” so you can stand firm because God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year. We are singing that in my afternoon and evening services this Sunday. 

 

Some of us have been meeting to do some more in depth Bible study on some of the chapters in Revelation we might not ever read in church. Thursday’s was a real explosion of the delights of theology about judgment. Before chapter 21, we’ve been told Babylon, the name for everything evil will be destroyed. Of course as Revelation is a survival guide to get through the horror of the Roman Empire, Babylon is Rome. Read chapter 18 sometime, everything is obliterated in an hour. 

 

An angel casts a mighty millstone into the sea – thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all evil, is never to be seen again, and we are to sing praises because of that. Alleluia for the Lord our God omnipotent reigns! So I guess here’s a call to be strong in our faith, to remember the mighty power of God, to remember Jesus is king and to remember nothing will separate us from his love. 

 

There are times when we think the world or our dire situation we find ourselves in is it forever. I wrote this in a silence on a quiet day I was leading up at Dallowgill. Dallowgill had its roof lift off in a storm a year last May. 

It took Methodist Insurance ages to send sometime to put it right so in the meantime lots of damage was done to the inside walls of the chapel leaving us through a wet winter. We took Methodist Insurance on and we’ve now had the chapel painted for nothing and it looks bright and lovely. Sometimes you’ve got to keep believing! So I guess Revelation 21 calls for optimism in our preaching and our prayers and our programme. God doesn’t give us here the possibility of a new heaven and a new earth, it is a certainty. 

 

It’s like in Psalm 42 where the psalmist says, “As the deer pants after the water brook, so pants my soul after Thee, O God.” The psalmist in the same in Psalm 73, he says, “Nearness to God is my good.God is my portion forever.”  Being preoccupied with the person of God, longing to be in the presence of God is the heart of Christianity.. In fact, the pure in heart, according to the words of Jesus in the Beatitudes, are promised that they will some day see God. Through the centuries, that desire to see God, to be in God’s presence, to enjoy God forever, that desire, that there is nothing in the world that can satisfy has been on the hearts of believers. That’s why we come to church! You know it took another 300 or so years for the Roman Empire to be defeated. But in that time the Christian community wasn’t completely destroyed. We might not know how to be church today in a confusing and largely agnostic world but we I think are called to keep going —- why?

 

Well, here’s the second thing I see in these verses of Revelation 21. There’s a new way God works. God comes down to us. The Holy City, the new Jerusalem comes down from God out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband. God comes down. We think about that at Christmas when we remember Jesus coming long ago as Immanuel on earth, but actually God promises to be alongside us always and one day Christ will return. There will be a second Advent. 

 

We say it in our creed but have we lost any excitement or anticipation about it? We believe that he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and that his Kingdom will have no end. Don’t we? The corruption, injustices, greed, and dodgy leadership in the earthly city will be replacedby a holy city, with no chaos, with peace and Christ triumphant returning in glory. Come to Bible study on Thursday this week where we will do chapter 22 and debate the second coming! We need a new heaven and a new earth. I don’t like cities. When I go hospital visiting in Leeds, I have the aggressive driver behind me who can’t cope with my hesitating over which lane to be in. 

We were in Newcastle on a Saturday night. I was only going to pick up a take away pizza. Swarms of people were on the street so I couldn’t go very fast.  Newcastle FC had just won. They thumped my bonnet did some shouting “TOON!” rather the worse for drink. Then’s there’s London, a mass of people all looking at their phones as they walk along or on the underground pushing and shoving because they’ve a divine right for a seat. Give me getting stuck behind the slurry lorry in Kirkby anytime! But note the city is transformed. There is a new Jerusalem. Jerusalem a hotbed of political and religious unrest for centuries will one day be the arena where God is closer to us than we can ever know now.  “See the home of God is with mortals and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and he will be their God…”

 

Remember, as this chapter opens all the sinners of all the ages, demons and men, including Satan, the false prophet, the Antichrist, and everybody else, are now in the eternal lake of fire. They are out of the presence of God and the saints and the holy angels forever. They have been dismissed into their own disconnected, isolated place of eternal punishment. They are gone from the presence of God, the saints and angels forever. God comes and makes His home with us. Now this is the Father’s house, and we’re all in it together. That is the amazing reality of heaven. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” 

 

That means, according to verse 22 of Revelation 21, “There’s no temple.” John sees a new Jerusalem and there’s no temple. Why? “Because the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple.” In other words, a temple would indicate that you have to go somewhere to see God; or go somewhere, as in the Old Testament, to behold the shekinah. You don’t need a temple, because you’re in God’s house. This is so staggering that John’s listening to this voice, and the voice repeats this thing several times: “The tabernacle of God is among men.” And the voice says it another way: “And He shall dwell among them.” God’s going to dwell with His own. And what the psalmist, I’ve quoted him a lot, here’s Psalm 16 - he anticipated when he said, “In Thy presence is fullness of joy, at Thy right hand are pleasures forever,” is going to become reality. 

 

Isn’t that amazing?

But here’s where I end this sermon. Sarah and I put this service together on Thursday afternoon and we had a think about whether to end the Revelation 21 reading at verse 7 all nice and hopeful and positive or at verse 8:

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Um! Would you like me to climb the pulpit steps and thunder to you like a Victorian preacher might well have about hell? Well if hell is separation from God then life like this cannot be enjoyed. Remember Jesus said in Mark 8 where some fear they might lose their possessions or their jobs or their friends or their comfortable life if they trust him it is worthless to gain the whole world but lose one's soul.   

We still have work to do. The new heaven and the new earth haven’t come yet. They will — but we are called to expect and anticipate and help people see a foretaste of it. Do we expect it ourselves? That’s the issue. Tom Wright when he was Bishop of Durham did some Easter services in the very deprived former pit village of Easington Colliery. He said in one “If we believe God’s new creation has begun, we are called to make little bits of new creation happen in our world as it is.” There is no temple in Revelation 21 as we don’t need help finding God. What will we do with our time? What will we talk about when we don’t have to worry about paying the assessment or where we find more stewards? But for now we have a Gospel to proclaim until Jesus comes again.

Is that okay? Don’t give up. God is ahead of us. All shall be well. 

 

A lady at the coffee morning at Allhallowgate on one of the coaches that arrived told me her problems. She said “maybe I shouldn’t have read Revelation!” She’d read the hard bits and she’d not read the promises and the reminders. The notes for preachers suggest you read it with a highlighter pen in your hand and mark all the promises, worship and certainties and then remember them when we have it tough or we think there’s little future. That’s not a bad idea. 

 

Luther found Revelation found him mad or drove him mad! Whilst I am glad next Sunday there will be no reading from Revelation in my services it’s been good to do a book all about how to be when it’s so so hard. There is a new heaven and a new earth coming and God will dwell amongst us for ever. We hold on to the foretaste of that through our stories, our fellowship, our service, our sharing of bread and wine, our waiting on God, our remembering his mercies and we look forward in hope and expectation. 

 

“Everyone who wins the victory will inherit these things. I will be their God, and they will be my children.”

The third Sunday of Bible Month: Holding On

Has anyone ever said to you “can you do this or that thing” and you say “hold on a minute, I’m just doing this.” And does the person get exasperated because they need help now? We don’t like being told to hold on. I remember ringing one organisation and you had to listen to almost the entirety of Vivaldi’s four seasons before they spoke to you. You ring up the hospital and you don’t get to speak to a real person and sometimes the voice when you’ve clearly said which ward or department you want, says “sorry I didn’t understand that.” 

 

There is another sort of holding on. Holding on to support so you can get through a difficulty. At school they made me attend Weak Swimmers Club. What a dreadful thing that was, it made you feel really good about yourself. Weak Swimmers Club! Anyway I’d be made to swim a length on my back from the deep end and the scary PE teacher because all PE teachers were scary in the 1970’s would hold a large pole above me as I splashed and struggled down the pool. He’d yell “hold on to it if you feel you need to.” But the water was what I was thinking of, not the pole. The support was there but I didn’t reach for it.

 

Some friends convinced me to go on the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Never again. I had to hold on for dear life as we turned upside down over the sea.

 

It seems to me having preached on Revelation for the last three Sundays and led Bible studies on it, that it is rather like a roller coaster. There are promises shared which leave us on a high, but then we are led into some very dark places, with the Antichrist and the Tribulation. John in his vision wants us to have enough to hold on when everything around us is uncertain. Remember Revelation’s context is the threat of persecution of the new Christian community by the mighty Roman Empire. How do you hold on when life is crumbling about you?

 

There’s that old dreadful story of the patient who ran into the doctors and said “I’ve only got 40 seconds to live” and the doctor says “hold on a minute, I’ll be with you.” 

 

Did you hear this week about part of Poland called the Hel Peninsula. There’s a bus that goes to Hel. What’s it’s number? 666! Some religious conservatives claim the route is "spreading Satanism".

 

The Bible identifies 666 as the "number of the beast", and Hel is just one "l" short of the English word "hell". Following the complaints, bus company PKS Gdynia announced: 

"We are turning the last 6 upside down!"Explaining the reason for the change, the bus company said the number 669 was "less controversial". For many people there is a road to hell. Do they have the resources to get off it onto a better road?

 

Let’s delve into Revelation chapter 11. How to hold on is here. The encouragement here isGod will protect his people against all satanic opposition, and they will proclaim the gospel until the kingdom comes. There isencouragement to keep proclaiming and living out the gospel message even as life becomes increasingly hostile. Revelation is meant to encourage you, embolden you, and motivate you. 

The chapter begins with a new instruction to John. In verse one he’s given a measuring rod and specific instructions: “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there.” The measuring of the temple is intended to send a message about the certainty of God’s plan.

Then there’s the emergence of two witnesses who will prophesy during the hard times ahead while clothed in the sackcloth of mourning and repentance. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that scholars differ on whether the two witnesses are figurative or actual people. One view sees these witnesses as representative of the church. They would argue that the two witnesses are merely symbolic for the church’s witness, and they connect it to the Old Testament principle of having two witnesses confirm the validity of testimony. That’s in Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 19. Others take this more literally to refer to two prophetic-like figures who emerge during this time and who speak boldly for the people of God in the tribulation.

The proclamation ministry of these witnesses reaches its conclusion in verse 7, after which they receive fierce opposition from “the beast that rises from the bottomless pit.” And they are killed. 

According to verses 9-10 the world (“peoples and tribes and languages and nations”) rejoices over the death of these two witnesses because of the “torment” that they have been to those who dwell on the earth. It would seem that the witnesses have lost. But not so fast!

After three and a half days, the witnesses are raised to life. Some take this to be literally three-plus days; others connect it to three and a half years where it seems that the people of God have lost while under horrendous persecution. 

According to verse 12, a loud voice from heaven calls to them: “Come up here!” And just like Jesus, they are taken from the earth as their enemies watched them. And in similar fashion at Jesus’ death, there was an earthquake. 

This one results in seven thousand people being killed, many people are terrified, and they realise that they are on the wrong side of God’s glory. 

Whether you think these two witnesses are literal people or whether they symbolise the church, or if you think the temple is a literal rebuilt temple in Jerusalem or you think the temple is a figurative picture of the church, God protects his people and his Word from defeat.

Remember these words of Jesus:

“If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you…but when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 

But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.”

Faithful witness is rarely affirmed and loved by the world in which we live. 

That shouldn’t give us a persecution complex or a martyr’s syndrome, but help us to live faithfully and confidently. God protects his witness in the world. The witness is called to hold on. 

Martin Luther knew the fury of being opposed for the gospel. Can I remind you about one of the verses of “A Mighty Fortress is our God”?

And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo! his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him. Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever!

Then, this. The last section in chapter 11 is a glorious celebration of where history is headed. Verses 14-15 indicate that it happens again through judgment as the second woe is past. The third is soon to come. It is the seventh trumpet, and the final trumpet is blown.

Remember that there were seven seals, so this represents the culmination of God’s plan. It’s as if we are taken to the mountain to see the conclusion of everything. Verse 15 tells us that there are loud voices in heaven who make a glorious announcement: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” You could think of this as the centreof the book of Revelation. It’s where the Revelation of Jesus Christ is heading. The chapter ends with another image of God’s glory. In verse 19 we see a temple that is open. 

The ark of the covenant was visible, something that was never the case in the Old Testament. 

Only one person saw the ark once a year. And with this image there’s powerful flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and hail.

It’s a glorious vision of the victory afforded to God’s people, and it’s meant to be deeply encouraging. So God’s people are called to hold on. And I’ve not time to dwell on our other reading from Revelation 14 but there is a word that even in death we hold on to see the glory of heaven. We quote it in funerals “I heard a voice from heaven say “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours.” My pastoral tutor in college David Dunn-Wilson taught us “always preach the Gospel at a funeral.” I’ve done four of them in the last ten days and there’s another coming soon. At one this week someone said to me “thank you for giving us hope.” 

Isn’t that what people want today? Not just to hold on, but to travel well and find life in all its fullness.

So what’s the work of the Church? This Sunday is the 142nd Anniversary of our church at Allhallowgate. Are we called to help people hold on, be a witness and anticipate the Kingdom? Well, yes, yes and yes.

Let me end by pointing you to the Gospel for this Sunday. Jesus is travelling around cities and villages teaching, healing and proclaiming "the good news of the kingdom". When Jesus encounters crowds he feels compassion for them, for they were "like sheep without a shepherd". Jesus gives the twelve disciples "authority over unclean spirits" and the task of curing disease and sickness. The charge they are tasked with is a rippling out of the ministry of Jesus, an extension of that ministry. Jesus is not asking them to do anything he has not done and they have not witnessed.

Later, there are further instructions for the disciples – travel light, accept hospitality ,offer peace but where no welcome is received move on. Jesus offers a warning that they may meet hostility, so they should be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves". 

They may be arrested and punished but they are assured that God, through the Holy Spirit, will provide them with the words they need at the appropriate moment. In other words they will not be alone and unsupported. It’s hard to be church today. The labourers are few! 

But the task is the same. To show a different and more powerful way. To lead people to see the glory of God and meet Jesus. Last night I joked what the church at Allhallowgate might look like in another 142 years! My colleague Sarah asked her churches at their AGM where they might be in 3 years to which some said “ we might not be here” - at least I didn’t hear “ shut!” We have to have some hope and some vision else all is lost. 

We go forward today holding on to Jesus, to each other, to our tradition and our story. We go forward to be witnesses of the power of God. We anticipate the Kingdom. We go out to share good news. In the end holding on now will lead to glory later. As someone shared in a quote with me this week: words of William Barclay: 

"Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory." 

 

And today we will end like this getting through another Revelation migraine and discovering our purpose: “changed from glory into glory til in heaven we take our place, til we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.” 

 

“The kingdom of the world has become
    the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
    and he will reign for ever and ever.”

Amen.

The second Sunday of Bible Month: Heaven’s door opened

In his important book Knowing God, Jim Packer says, "The study of God, who He is, what He's like, is the most practical project anyone can engage in." The most practical project anyone can engage in. "Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives," he says, "as it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, to put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square, and leave him as one who knew nothing of England or English to fend for himself, so," Packer says, "we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life, blindfold as it were, with no sense of direction and no understand of what's around you. This way," Packer says, "you can waste your life and lose your soul." 

 

So today we continue our journey through the minefield of the Revelation of Christ revealed to John. We are encouraged to look up. We see heaven in our readings this morning and we see Jesus as king enthroned in glory. 

 

Let’s think about kings first. There’s been a lot of discussion since 8.17 on Friday night about the nature of honest and respected and trusted leadership. I had to look up the meaning of the word egregious used by Boris in his venomous and angry resignation statement! He’s not a happy bunny is he but nor are a lot of people about him. It was really something the audience live at Any Questions on Radio 4 on Friday night cheered loudly when the presenter announced his going. Then there’s what’s going on in the United States and your man Trump. How many counts of felony? And they’ll still elect him unless he’s in jail because some of them think he’s Jesus come back to save them and Jesus was wrongly accused. Thank God I say — and you might disagree with me —- that we have a monarchy in this country. We watched King Charles III crowned and seated on an ancient throne in a ceremony going back centuries. He’s not immune from scrutiny in a social media age but largely we think him a good man, and best of all a man of faith and Christian conviction trying to make the world better.

Revelation chapter 4 is a lovely chapter. John is there struggling in exile and he’s written to the seven churches about the persecution coming and to hold on to their faith. 

But surely those churches needed proof they weren’t being fobbed off with just words. Was God really going to show them his glory and power? In an amazing scene we can only really start to imagine God says to John, “come up here and I’ll show you.” And John is lifted up to heaven. Wow!  Revelation chapters 4 and 5 were written at a time when the church was suffering terribly for its faith in Jesus and more suffering was on the way. 

And it is designed to help hurting Christians look beyond the strange, mad, painful place, the realities of this world, to see God's greatness and glory and majesty and grace, and seeing that, be enabled to press on. Notice how John begins with his vision in the first verse of chapter 4. "After this I looked and behold, a door standing open in heaven." That word, "behold," by the way, is the most frequent command in the book of Revelation. "Behold." I wonder if you know what the second most common command is. "Fear not." Behold! Fear not! How will we obey the command to "fear not" in this strange, mad, painful place that we live in? How will we face our present sufferings, future trials? How shall we "fear not," John? We'll do it by obeying the command to "behold," to look. 

You silence fear by looking where John points us. God opens the door of heaven and tells John and tells us to look, to behold. And what is it that John sees? Verse 2 - "and behold a throne and one seated on it." That is, if you'd like, the message of the book of Revelation in a nutshell - "Fear not! Behold a throne and one seated on it!" The Lord has not abdicated His rule. He has not defected from His sovereignty. Though we may not always be able to grasp how it is so, John is inviting us to lift our eyes from our circumstances and to see again the throne and the one seated upon it. The message is, as Jeremiah put it long before, that "a glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary." The glorious throne is our sanctuary. Let us run to it, rest in and cling to the vision of the greatness of God that John sets before our eyes - God in His sovereignty and in His mercy. And that vision is given to John and to us to say “hold on, there is a bigger picture. Today is not tomorrow.” So the first thing we need to remind ourselves of today is this – the church is here to seek and share the glory of God in Christ — so together in everything we do – we worship the king all glorious above. 

I’m overwhelmed with funerals at the moment. I had one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, one on Friday and I’ve another on Tuesday. I try and offer the promise of heaven to those I’m sharing with. People want to know there’s something beyond trouble and tribulation and death. 

I like what Gareth Baron has written in the worship from home for this week: “Being a Minister I have heard many people express their thoughts of what heaven will be like. “I believe heaven is..., I think heaven will be like…, I want heaven to be this…” various prefaces to their beliefs, wants and likes projecting what heaven would be for them. Oppositely are those who have asked me what heaven is like, almost expecting me to produce my phone with photos as if I have been.” We don’t know. But it’s got to be better than here. No more death or roadworks or Donald Trump. In the conclusion to the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis attempts to express the absolute joy that will come as our earthly lives come to an end and we are reunited with our God for all of eternity:

 

The things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

I like that. 

And see this: Around the throne in heaven were twenty-four thrones and seated on the thrones were elders clothed in white garments with golden crowns on their heads." These are the representatives of the people of God across the ages - the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles of the new covenant era - here are the representatives of the church from across history. And what are they doing? They are participating in the reign of God. 

What a thing heaven will be - the church participating in the reign of God, there, seated on the throne. They have crowns on their heads. And with the elders are these four strange living creatures who almost defy imagination. John piles up symbol upon symbol to teach us about them. They are positioned, one on each side of the throne, facing every direction, poised to do the will of the one who sits there. They're covered inside and out with eyes. That is, they're full of wisdom. One is like a lion, another an ox, the third a man, the fourth an eagle. What are they? What are they for? Hard to say. Are they perhaps here to represent all the creatures that God has made and over whom He continues to rule. 

More important than their description is their activity, these servants of God. Look at what the elders and the living creatures are about. Like the seraphim in Isaiah chapter 6, day and night the living creatures never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" They adore God for His holiness. They adore God for His holiness; they adore God for His power. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty" - infinite in His power. And they adore Him for His immutability, His unchangability - "He was and is and is to come." "As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. Great is thy faithfulness!" That is their song.

And as they sing praise, they cast their crowns before the throne. Even their rule is but an aspect of the reign and rule of the sovereign God. And they sing, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created." And so must sing that too to make a difference in our world, giving a glimpse of heaven, as Charles Wesley puts it so well we anticipate that heaven below and own that love is heaven.