Despite claims to the contrary, the Bible never fails to amaze me at how up to date and relevant it is!
As part of our Sunday morning preaching series on the book of revelation recently, we have been trying to get our heads around the mind-bending pictures painted by the apostle John in Revelation Chapter 11 (Rev 11:1-19). It’s obvious that pictures are being used here to paint 1000 words and more.
(Those who insist on interpreting this and similar passages literally are always going to have to use a great deal of imagination – not least when it comes to the two super-witnesses who apparently have an amazing 3-year miracle-ministry that unites the rest of the world in opposing them!)
However, if you look at the picture that is painted, three key points stand-out that are right up to date…
The church will continue until God decides…
The security and certainty of the church stands out! God’s people can rely on Jesus promise that no-one can snatch us out of his hand (John 10: 28), that a place is prepared for us (John 14: 3), that all things work together for good to make us like Him and that nothing can separate us from His love (Rom 8: 28 – 39), etc…!
The annals of History are littered with both individuals and even empires who have tried to destroy the church and its witness. From Nero to Stalin, from the Roman empire to the USSR, the true church (meaning the Bible-teaching Gospel –believing church, rather than the unbelieving social organisations branded with the title) has always ultimately out-lived its attackers! Like other detractors, one day Dawkins et al will be a part of His-Story!
The church enriches the world even when opposed…
What is equally exciting is to see what a difference God’s people have made to History: Imagine where we would be without the privilege of free schooling for all that Christians pioneered so people could read the Bible? Where would medicine be without the advancement of those who founded medical causes for the sake of Christ? What else but Christian faith drove Wilberforce to campaign for the abolition of slavery, or Shaftsbury for the reform of child-labour laws, or Faraday to discover electricity or Clerk-Maxwell to research into Electromagnetism and thermodynamics, etc… etc… That is not to mention the basic tenets of morality and human rights. If you take the church out of the world then it would be a far poorer and not a richer place!
Yet not everyone sees it that way. Rev 11 describes a time (maybe many times, or maybe a key time?) when the church will appear dead – and then the godless will celebrate. “No more right and wrong!”; “No more ‘God this and God that’!”; “No more hope for the future!”… ‘Imagine there’s no heaven’ wrote John Lennon – well Rev 11 describes people doing exactly that!
The church will one day enjoy God’s glory!
There is ultimate hope. One day the church will be taken-out of the world, and the regular prayer of God’s people for His Kingdom to come (Matt 6) will be answered! One day we can look forward to describing God in terms of the one who was and who is…. we wont need to say that He is the one who is to come because He will have arrived!
The anger of the world at God must be because He will one day call everyone to account…. But He laughs at their temper, and then demonstrates His! And as the temple in Heaven is opened what we see inside is quite a surprise: the ark of the covenant is the age-old mark of relationship. Right at the heart of Heaven is the mercy –seat. What God showed John was that God’s people are loved, and that is right at the core of what is happening!