Sermon for Sunday September 4th, 2022 – the end of the story (Revelation 15: 3-5)
(Please read Isaiah 40: 21-31, Exodus 15: 1-20; Isaiah 46: 1-10; Revelation 15).
As a young boy I used to marvel at how the famed detective Sherlock Holmes was able to solve all those complicated problems and mysteries. Well, for those of you who think Holmes was a real person, he was in fact the creation of the author Conan Doyle; and we have to acknowledge that he knew the end of each story long before he started writing them. The book of Revelation is the end of the story of the bible, the climax of God’s plan for the world. He did not “make it up as he went along”. Things that are a mystery to us - evil and suffering and pain – real as they are - these are not a mystery to God. He stands behind the whole story of life on earth.
What will become of us? What will happen in the end? How will it all turn out? He knows the answers. He writes the end of the story. He gives us enough “clues” to the answer to enable us to cope with some of the harder chapters that make up the story.
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ (Isaiah 46:10) Declare what is to be, present it— let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the distant past? Was it not I, the Lord? (Isaiah 45:21)
We must not expect that things will only get better if we live outside of an appreciation of the plan of God. We must know the story and where it is headed. If we have no idea about the future God has planned – the tapestry he is weaving – the story he is unfolding - then we will live like those who leave things to chance. The LORD has not called us to live in dread and uncertainty, but to look forward, to move forward in faith. It is not faith in our selves but faith in God.
The Old and New Testament both look forward to a coming-again-King and to a future kingdom of which we are and will be part. If we see the all-pervading suffering and evil that happens around us in this light we can focus on the certainties. If we don’t believe he knows what he’s doing at every turn in the story, then we will live in discouragement or worse in despair. If you think things are bad now they will pale into insignificance when compared to the events of the Great Tribulation at the end described in Revelation! At that time God will allow evil free reign on the earth. I’m glad that we (the Church) will not be there to see and experience it.
And yet we hear, over the noise of a world overwhelmed by continuing evil and suffering (especially for the people of God) the strains of angel song…
...sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and marvellous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. 4 Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Revelation 15: 3-4)
A hymn that asserts certain things (truths) that will help us live through difficult times like the ones in which we are currently living and in those to come. (Incidentally, those of us who have sought to study the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ in earnest over the past few months have all reported feeling not only enlightened but also a sense of feeling lighter… that he is taking care of business and will take care of us). So, what are the things that will help us? Evidently singing (worship) will help.
1. God is good: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways… and the first line is that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY is good, totally good. That’s not a view that most people have. If they think of God at all they are quick to lay the blame at God’s door for the injustices they see; they’ll cast him in the role as a vindictive tyrant. But when we know the whole story (rather than looking through the glass darkly as we now do) we will see he is right and fair to forgive or condemn as he sees fit. For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed…
If this is true of God it should cause us (not to cower) but to worship, to bow our heads with reverence and fear… and assert that God has been good to us, beyond what we deserve and that he is good and will be good and he always has been… and who are we to argue?!
2. God is sovereign: Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. 4 Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name?
The next strain of our song is that God reigns. In our despondency we often forget that God is in control. He’s totally good in his character but he’s totally in control of events too. The government is on his shoulders. He’s not an absent governor, heading a government in hiding! He’s Sovereign King: this simply means that God rules everywhere and (absolutely) nothing happens without His knowledge. The sovereignty of God sends a clear message to all that He is God and we are not! Recent global events have shown just how fragile we are, how dependent we are. We can be subject to circumstances or we can be subjects of the King. Those who sing these songs are those who have the right high view of God and those who know the victory belongs to him… a refrain repeated over and over again in the word of God.
15:1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: “I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea. “The Lord is my strength and my defence; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. 3 The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea. Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?
He is Lord God Almighty! The Exodus story and the story of Revelation show us that even the worst of events will bring glory to God and turn out for our good. Why? Because God alone knows what he’s doing: a people defeated and exiled, Daniel cast to the lions, Jesus nailed to a cross, Stephen stoned, Paul beaten and shipwrecked and the church persecuted. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things. (Isa 45: 7) Even in the setbacks, hurts and problems of our lives, the LORD is working out his sovereign purposes.
He is King of the nations or King of the ages – history for the people of God is HIS STORY. He is LORD of time and LORD over all tyrants whether Pharaoh or Putin. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff (Isa 40).
Even over their worst excesses, God is sovereign. Indeed the much-maligned Jesus Christ himself is called the ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev 1: 17) … and so it will prove in the end when all the enemies of God will be judged and condemned!
3. God is delivering his people from evil: the song of deliverance and the song of the Lamb is the song we will sing at the end of the age. But we can start practicing it now, start singing in anticipation. It looked for all the world that God’s people were done for but God stepped in. We sing of God’s love and salvation… of God bringing us through the darkness. It is no rose-garden and life here is never going to be that way. In the end, though, even the worst things that could happen to us, none of these have the power to harm us. God is, day-by-day dealing with the enemy, with evil. Psalm 23: 5 says that, even in the presence of our enemies, God is at work laying out a table. He will never leave or forsake us and his promises stand firm. 4 Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. (Isa 46: 4)
It is for us to sing now, not with arrogance or boastfulness but with thanksgiving and praise. It is for us to proclaim to others the works and ways of God in our lives…
I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come— yes, let them foretell what will come.
Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?
All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. Even those who scoff right to the very end, rejecting his truth and salvation, they will see and they will come under his judgment. Knowing that human history is no meaningless trudge to nowhere, they will know that God is good (just); they will know that he is the true (eternal) king in control (sovereign); they will know that God is and will deliver and keep all those who trust and love him.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV) That’s a promise to all of God’s people…
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That’s the end of the story! Hallelujah!
MFR 01/09/22
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