“The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever! The 24 elders, who were seated before God on their thrones, fell facedown and worshiped God, saying: We thank You, Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry, but Your wrath has come. The time has come for the dead to be judged and to give the reward to Your servants the prophets, to the saints, and to those who fear Your name, both small and great, and the time has come to destroy those who destroy the earth. God’s sanctuary in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant appeared in His sanctuary. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings of thunder, an earthquake, and severe hail.” (Revelation 11:15-19 HCSB)
Love is so often misunderstood. We have this concept of love that is full of misconceptions and mistakes. We have wonderful examples of love, but we seem to somehow turn them around and upside down. Take a mother’s love for example, an appropriate and fitting consideration as we celebrate Mother’s Day. It is, perhaps, the closest we come to seeing, experiencing, and understanding God’s love in our daily lives. Don’t misunderstand me, not every mother shows this kind of love. But that’s precisely why we need to cut through all this sparkly cellophane, sweep away all the confetti and glitter, take off our rose-colored glasses, and push aside the flowers and big, red heart pillows so we can see the truth about love.
You see, all of those shiny, glittery things are not really love. They’re just the ways we try to say thank you for the many ways we’ve experienced a mother’s love. Her love is expressed in those countless ways she has sacrificed her own needs for the needs of her family. Her love is seen in the strength she musters each day to repeat the same mundane and exhausting tasks of caring for you and me. Each day, she takes her own wants and needs and pushes them aside as she moves your needs and desires to the top of her list and labors away at them. It’s just what she does because God made her that way, and He is giving us a glimpse of Himself through her expression of His love.
I read a story about Martin Luther, the 16th-century reformed priest, and his lovely wife Katie. Luther was in a dark and troubling mood, and Katie was concerned for him. Yes, even men [and women] of deep faith can fall into times of depression and struggle. So, Katie determined she needed to address the issue, but her plan was a bit unusual and unorthodox. Katie dressed in black mourning clothes and greeted him that way when he arrived home. Luther was taken by surprise and said, “Katie, you’re wearing mourning clothes. Who died?” She spoke her feelings, “Your God died. At least I suppose He did by the way you act.” She would later write, “It was a bit dramatic of me. But we got him back, and that was the point.”
In this week’s focal passage, we get a glimpse of God’s deep love for us. Like Luther, it may take a bit of a shock to rouse us from our depressed state or sleep. I’ve been telling you as we’ve been moving through our study of Revelation that God’s judgment is intended to be redemptive. In the last few verses from last week, we were confronted by a violent earthquake in which a tenth of the city fell and 7,000 people were killed. When that happened, the survivors were terrified and “gave glory to the God of heaven.” I’ve seen this type of thing happen numerous times over the last sixty years of walking with Jesus and forty-seven years of pastoring churches. We’re confronted by heartache and tragedy and we suddenly get serious about God. For some, it is real and their lives are changed for eternity but for many, it is short-lived and they fall right back into their old ways of ignoring God living for themselves.
I think John is writing these words to a group of churches who had begun to act like their God was dead, too. They were living with the threat of hunger, loss of income, prison, or death if they continued to walk with Jesus and be bold in their faith. Many were struggling with these conditions and some were turning away from faith in Christ. Listen to the words of our focal passage, take off your mourning clothes, and rejoice because our God isn’t dead: “The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our LORD and of His Messiah, and He WILL reign forever and ever!”
Revelation is God pulling back the curtain so we can get a glimpse of reality. We tend to think that the things we can see, touch, smell, hear, and taste are real. But scripture tells us that the things we can’t see, the things that are spiritual and eternal, are real, and these things around us, the things we experience with our senses, are just temporary and are going away. So, God is giving these churches of Asia Minor (and our church) a chance to see reality, what is really happening, so that they’ll be strengthened, encouraged, and will remain faithful in the midst of God’s love-filled judgment.
Yes, you read that right… God’s judgment is full of love.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard words of love and affirmation in the midst of punishment, but I have. The idea of punishment has gotten a bad rap over the years. Today, many parents have chosen to take a different disciplinary approach for their children. Listen carefully, I’m not advocating for cruelty, brutality, or abuse, but I am a byproduct of Christian parental discipline. Children don’t know what’s best for them and often make poor choices. Christian parental love guides, teaches, and, when necessary, disciplines children into learning, growing, developing, and becoming people who seek God and honor Him with our lives. I don’t want my kids to be moral, happy, financially comfortable, and productive members of society – I want them to be better than that. I want them to be people who love God first and foremost and who then seek to love others in the same way they are loved by Him.
God’s children are no different. We think we know what’s best for us, but we don’t.
Those loud voices from heaven declare: “The kingdom of the world HAS BECOME the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever!” One Greek scholar refers to this as a “prophetic aorist” tense of the Greek word ginomai – to cause to be, or to come into being. It is a stated fact with a future fulfillment. This is similar to Jesus telling the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was among them (see Lk. 17:20-21). Do you remember what I said above? We think things that are real are the things we can identify with our physical senses. Jesus tells the Pharisees, the kingdom of God or the rule and reign of God in this world is not something that is seen with man’s eye. It isn’t something we can identify with our physical senses. It is a stated fact and it IS reality, but it is something that is not understood or seen by the world.
X
That’s not a mistake or a typo, that letter X is alone on that line intentionally. I want you to stop and take a look at it for just a moment. In Greek, it is the letter CHI. Notice how all of the lines converge into a single point in the center. Much of scripture is written in poetic form and it often uses the chiastic literary form or structure. The purpose of using a chiastic structure is to create symmetry and draw you towards the central focus of the text. Our focal passage is the very center of that X – the focal point of the entire text. Everything before flows into it and everything after flows out of it. Things are stated in a structure that flows into the center of the text and then are restated and emphasized as they flow out of the center idea of the text. Here is a classic example of this structure: “Then He told them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” (Mark 2:27-28 HCSB)
Once we’re reminded that God’s kingdom reign has been established, the 24 elders fall facedown before God and worship as they proclaim: “We thank You, Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.” Do you notice anything different about that statement from similar previous statements? As we’ve encountered it in the past, it was threefold with past, present, and future tenses. Now, it is only past and present because the future fulfillment of these things is no longer in the future but has become the present. While the end of the world is future tense, the reign of God in the life of every believer and in each and every church is present tense. We may be waiting to see the complete fulfillment of His promises, but we are living in the reality of His kingdom and His power in our lives, right now!
Next, notice how the wrath and reward of God are woven together. “The time has come for the dead to be judged and to give the reward to Your servants the prophets, to the saints, and to those who fear Your name, both small and great, and the time has come to destroy those who destroy the earth.” Our reward and their judgment are intertwined and eternally tied together. We won’t see the reality of our reward until they see the full wrath of God on THAT Day of His judgment. Two things to note: the “nations were angry” and God’s judgment is ultimately designed and destined to “destroy those who destroy the earth.” I believe those two things are intimately related.
Why would the nations be angry at God? I believe their anger and God’s judgment flow out of the same root cause: their destruction of the earth. No, I’m not talking about ecological, sociological, or even political destruction of the earth. Those are very real issues, but they’re just symptoms of a much, much deeper problem. The deeper problem that is causing the destruction of the earth is that we want things our way, not God’s way. Not just religious things, everything! Why would that cause the nations to be angry at God? Because when our will and God’s will collide, there’s only one right choice: His will, and we simply don’t like that. What starts as dislike soon becomes resentment and then grows into anger.
Come on, surely you can see in your own life how much you dislike someone else making decisions for you and about you. That doesn’t become easier even when the one making those decisions is loving, perfectly wise, and has your best interests at heart. Simply put, men become angry at God because He’s right, we’re not, and that offends our pride. God has given us commandments and principles to guide us, protect us, and provide what’s best for us, but we believe these rules only restrict us, deny our desires, and keep us unfulfilled and unhappy. We’re angry at God because we think He’s holding out on us.
Here’s the thing: we typically don’t see our sin as being destructive. We certainly don’t see it as being destructive to others or the earth. Yet, that’s exactly what this says. Our sin and our disobedience towards God’s will and His Word destroy our lives, the lives of those around us, and God’s good creation. God’s judgment is not just about one or two poor choices in our lives or our disinterest in church. God’s judgment is about the fact that we reject His authority, question His goodness, and place ourselves above Him. All of this causes us to choose our will over His will, which destroys us and the world around us. Ultimately, those who reject God get what they want: life without Him for eternity.
But that’s not what people of faith want. We recognize how our sin choices are destructive and how those choices impact us and the world around us. We actively seek to die to self, live unto Christ and be obedient to God’s will and His Word. But we live in the midst of a dark, broken world. We suffer, not just because of our own sin, but because of the sin of others and its impact on this world. We see these things being played out in our local communities but also on the world’s stage. We weep with those who lose family or friends when another mass shooting occurs. We mourn the anger and violence that plagues our existence and dominates the nightly newscasts, and we cry out “How long, O LORD?” But wait, what’s that I see?
“God’s sanctuary in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant appeared in His sanctuary. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings of thunder, an earthquake, and severe hail.” (Revelation 11:19 HCSB)
John gives us a glimpse into heaven and we see the ark of His covenant. It is the sign of God’s covenant promise to His people and it appears at just the right time, just before the full wrath of God’s fury is about to be poured out upon the earth and those who destroy it. So, the focus for the churches of Asia Minor, and for you and me, is to remember these central ideas regarding the sovereignty of God, His kingdom and His promises and how the struggle and their suffering flows into them and how victory and their daily walk with Christ in the midst of struggle and suffering will flow out of them.
Like Luther and his wife’s mourning attire, we need a powerful reminder that our God is not dead, His sovereignty is not in doubt, His power is not weakened, and His promises stand firm and resolute. God’s love for His people stands resolute. The ark of His covenant promise is not lost, it sits in His sanctuary as the flashes of lightning, rumblings of thunder, an earthquake, and sever hail indicate the approaching storm or God’s wrath. And remember, this is that POINT in this chiasm where everything we’ve already seen and everything yet to come is focused, the fulfillment of God’s promise and the outpouring of His wrath on those who destroy the earth.
The stage is now set, everything is in place, the audience lights have dimmed, the stage lights have come up and the curtain is drawn back…
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