11/07/2021 | “Fingertips and Noses” | Revelation 22:6-21

Where will Jesus find us when He comes again?
Will we be like little children waiting just for Him?
With our fingertips and noses pressed to the windowpanes
Longing eyes, expectant hearts for Him to come again.

– Fingertips and Noses, NewSong

The final instruction of the Bible is to live expectantly, longing for Christ’s return. Our mantra is to be maranatha, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’ Is that your mantra? Can you say with the Spirit and the Bride, ‘Come!’ Or is your cry, “not yet!”

How eager are you for the return of Christ? How convinced are you that the day of His return will be the very best day, not a day of disaster? Join us this Lord’s Day, as we examine Revelation 22:6-21 and consider a how to live expectantly and cultivate a longing for the return of Christ, training our hearts to cry, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

10/31/2021 | “Always Reforming” | Revelation 21:9-22:5

Always Reforming.   The church is always in need of correction, sanctification, renewal, discipleship, gospel preaching, the faithful and diligent use of the ordinary means of grace.   The marks of the church imply as much — faithful preaching of the Word, faithful administration of the Sacraments, and church discipline.   The Reformation of the Church is not an event, it is ‘laundry work.’   Ever doing and never done.  That is, until the day when the church descends from heaven – holy, radiant, finally and fully prepared to be the bride and wife of the lamb.   For now, the church must be ‘always reforming.’  But a day is coming when faith becomes sight and every promise, every ‘yes and amen’ in Christ, is fulfilled.   Then the church will at last be all she has been created to be.   All brokenness and blemish will be gone.  

Her beauty, her perfect fellowship with her Beloved, and her indescribable life, so beautifully captured in Revelation 21:9-22:5, are the hope to which we press.   Because a day is coming when the laundry work of reformation will reach its end, we press on with the work of always reforming.    As the scripture commands us, “let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”  Join us this Reformation Lord’s Day, as we examine Revelation 21:9-22:5 and consider a day when the church will no longer be ‘always reforming.’  

10/17/2021 | “Disclaimers” | Revelation 21:1-8

Everything comes with disclaimers.   The fine print.  The low-toned, rapid-fire voice at the end of the commercial that you somehow know is offering a hurried, but dire warning.  Asterisks and double-daggers qualify every statement, so as to evade charges of false advertising.   To disclaim is the opposite of claiming.   The salesman claims, the legal department disclaims.   Offers are made, then qualified, modified, mortified.   The sales pitch promotes benefit without borders, then the disclaimer draws a very small map of possibilities.

Disclaimers makes us jaded toward every remarkable promise, suspicious of every offer.  In Eden, Satan disclaimed God’s promises and man doubted.   Ever since, man has doubted.   God offers more than man can imagine.  The offer requires only faith, yet man can only doubt.  But God gives something else.  He gives faith as a gift.   God in his mercy, gives us the faith to trust that his offer comes without disclaimers.   The great story of redemption draws to a close in Revelation 21 with a vision of all God’s promises kept.   Nothing is withheld.   There are no caveats, no conditions, no last-minute substitutions – no disclaimers. Join us as we consider Revelation 21:1-8 and consider the offer that seems too good to be true, but really is.

10/10/2021 | “Final Judgement” | Revelation 20:11-15

Rock and roll ballads rarely offer helpful counsel for life’s existential angst.  But they do put their finger insightfully on the pulse of the angst itself.   Creed’s, My Own Prison, is a poignant example.  While its theology is askew, the songs’ message is clear.   Without God’s grace, men are self-condemned in a prison of their own sinful making.  The Bible is clear about our condition apart from God’s grace.  Men try to ignore it, deceive themselves about it, and rail against it, but the they cannot escape their own prison.  

Judgment is coming.   God has not hidden this truth.   Throughout the Scriptures the inevitability of God’s judgment is proclaimed with clarity and certainty.   The final judgement is never expressed in conditional language.   Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine Revelation 20:11-15, commonly called the Great White Throne Judgement, and consider what will make the difference between eternal life and death at the final judgement.

10/03/2021 | “Coronation Day” | Revelation 20:4-10

Surely no one was surprised by Brexit?   Like a young couple crafting a prenup in their first premarital counseling session, Brexit was an inevitable outcome.   The tenuous EU marriage between Britain and the Continent could never last.   Despite its pretense as a representative democracy, Britain is forever committed to its Crown.  But, as Americans, we mistrust any idea of the monarchy.   So, it is hard for us to fully appreciate the implications of Christ as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.   Scripture passages that speak of The Kingdom and of Christ and the saints ruling and reigning resonate only lightly with us.  

Yet, the comfort of Revelation 20 depends upon rightly understanding the reigning of the saints.   To miss the meaning of this powerful image is to miss some of the richest gospel comfort offered in Scripture.  Join us as we examine Revelation 20:4-10 and find simple, yet profound comfort from one of the Scripture’s most enigmatic passages. Listen to “Coronation Day” from Revelation 20:4-10.

09/12/2021 | “Enigmas” | Revelation 20:1-10

Cracking Hitler’s Enigma machine seems child’s play compared to deciphering the symbolism of Revelation 20.   The theologies growing out of the events described in Revelation 20 are the most divisive and enigmatic in Christian eschatology, or the study of ‘last things.’   And Christians often use another’s position on the Millennium as litmus tests for orthodoxy or heterodoxy.   Though fashionable to ask, “pre-mil, a-mil, or post-mil?”  Asking another Christian his position on the millennium is akin to asking how he voted in the last election.

But the enigmata of Revelation 20 is its ultimate irony.   The Revelation is not given to obscure, but reveal.  Not to distress, but comfort.  Not to divide, but to unify.   But accessing the comfort of Revelation 20 depends upon rightly understanding three simple, yet profound images: the binding of the devil, the reigning of the saints, and the two deaths and resurrections.   Join us as we examine the enigmas in Revelation 20:1-10 and find simple, yet profound comfort.

09/05/2021 | “Shock and Awe” | Revelation 19:11-21

“Shock and Awe, simply Shock and Awe!”  For most, this phrase entered our vernacular from CNN Reporter, Peter Arnett, describing the stunning exhibition of US airpower from his hotel in Baghdad on March 21, 2003.   The second Gulf War had begun.   Operation Iraqi Freedom was underway.  But the coalition bombardment was nothing compared to the ‘Shock and Awe’ described in Revelation 19 as the world’s final battle that pictures the return of Christ in judgement. 

Kings and captains, mighty men, men both free and slave, small and great gather for battle.  Summoned by the King of Rebels, the ancient Dragon and his Beast and False Prophet, they have come to resist the will of their rightful King, the Lord Jesus Christ.  They trust in everything false and swear allegiance to the King of Lies and Murder.    They think this will be their moment – and indeed it is.  Just not the moment they expected.  ‘Shock and awe’ is coming.   Join us as we examine Revelation 19:11-21 and the great promise and the great warning of Christ’s return.

“Shock and Awe,” Revelation 19:11-21

08/22/2021 | “The Big Day” | Revelation 19:1-10

Weddings should be joyful affairs.   Celebrations of the first order.    Whether lavish or simple, no expenditure of joy should be spared.   It is a day to gather and celebrate what God said was “very good.”  Jesus chose to begin his public ministry, celebrating a wedding at Cana.   And at the end of all things, Jesus completes his redemptive work, celebrating the wedding supper of the Lamb. 

Revelation 17-19 contrast the Harlot and the Bride.  A contrast which emphasizes the distinction between the deadly deceptive charms of the world, pictured as a luxuriant but violent prostitute, and the enduring, life-giving beauty of Christ’s church, pictured as a radiant bride.   In a world where Christ promises persecution while conformity to the world promises peace, it is easy to lose sight of this distinction between harlot and bride.   But in Revelation 19 the Lord unveils for John, and for us, a picture of The Big Day – the promised wedding supper of the Lamb.  Join us this week as we examine Revelation 19 and consider how we are to live expectantly, even in the midst of adversity.

08/15/2021 | “In, But Not Of” | Revelation 18

Struggling to make a decision is not necessarily a lack of decisiveness, but more often a function of ‘decision fatigue.’  And for the Christian there is a decision fatigue much more persistent than our covid mitigation strategy.   How are we to live in the world, but not be of the world?  What is our relationship to culture?    

Revelation is a book of unveilings.  And in Revelation 18, the Lord unveils the destruction of Babylon, the Harlot, who pictures rebellious, worldly culture.   The people of God are commanded to come out of her.  And while her lovers mourn her downfall from a distance, those who belong to God give thanks for her destruction.   At first glance this seems an ungracious, or even vindictive, portrait of the church. But a deeper examination reveals important insights into the responsibility and the relationship of the church to the world.  This week we examine Revelation 18 and consider what this passage says about our calling to be ‘in the world,’ but not ‘of the world.’

08/08/2021 | “Beauty and the Beast” | Revelation 17:1-21

The seductive appeal of worldliness to supply meaning, fulfillment and safety, is a deadly ruse.   Revelation 17 begins a new division within John’s visions.  A division which emphasizes the distinction between the deadly deceptive charms of the world, pictured as a luxuriant but violent prostitute, and the enduring, life-giving beauty of Christ’s church, pictured as a radiant bride.  

In a world where Christ promises persecution while conformity to the world promises peace, it is easy to lose sight of this distinction between harlot and bride.   But the Lord unveils for John, and for us, a clear revelation of the deadly beast that lies in wait beneath great worldly allure.  Join us this week as we examine Revelation 17 and consider the seductive allure of seeking meaning, fulfillment, or safety from the things of this world.

“Beauty and the Beast,” Revelation 17