A View From Heaven III

Text: Revelation 7:9-17

Focus: The glory of heaven

Function: To help people worship God’s glory.

Form: teaching.

Intro:

A Baptist minister said:

A pastor who teaches or preaches from Revelation (at least one who doesn't always agree with the most commonly held view in America today) better have a second career close at hand. No matter the level of theological or Biblical sophistication, it seems that everyone has an opinion about Revelation! And theirs is always right!

I know what he is saying, I have had more people leave the church because I wasn’t true to their understanding of this book and therefore I may not be trustworthy to preach any part of the bible.

I am going to do a teaching again this morning.

You might call it: (SHOW) “What do we do with Revelation?”

But I am keeping true to the title, a view from heaven.

Why these images of heaven? Why the mystery?

One of the greatest dangers is to interpret the book as book only for the end times. And because the images and symbols can be interpreted in many ways, many people are convinced that now is the time. And that has happened to every generation since Christ Jesus ascended to heaven.

It does speak about end-times prophecies, but God included it in scripture because it speaks to every generation.

All of the original titles of the book say that it is a revelation given by God to John, the theologian. It is a supernatural book that explains theology from the aspect of the mysteries of heaven. It is hard to glean a lot of the theology, because the mysteries were left to us to be just what we call them, mysterious.

That is why it is a book of worship. (SHOW) Revelations helps us to see the majesty and glory of God and our hope for the future.

When we study Revelations, we are studying the place where time ends and eternity begins.

I picture a road that stops in heaven because time stops. And heaven, then is the place where light flashes out of and the light encompasses everything. The light enfolds, everything, even the road that signifies time.

I wonder if these events that John sees are in the past, or in the future. I wonder if we will be able to go back and see the garden of Eden, Solomon’s great temple and throne room, the pyramids, right when they are built, the birth of Jesus, even the terra-forming of earth in the 6 days of creation.

The fact is, we have no reference in our human experience to the ability to go anywhere in time at any time. For those who study logic, that statement in itself is illogical.

But we know that God is the Alpha and the Omega. That God existed in eternity past, He is different than us in the fact that although we will live eternally into the future. (SHOW) We have a beginning, God does not. God always was.

And that doesn’t seem logical to us either because of our human experience, there has to be a beginning point, even to God.

But if there was a beginning point to God, then who created God? Was it God the father 1, and this is God the father 2? Who then, would have created God the father 2; God the father 3? It gets ridiculous unless there is a first cause. (SHOW) The first cause is the one thing that has always existed.

There are two choices, God or matter.

The universe appears very old, so maybe that is a good argument that matter is eternal.

Some Christians say, “Well God created it to look old.” And He may have.

Evolutionary science seems to point to the fact that God created us to adapt and evolve.

(I talked to my son whose first major at his Christian college was biology, and he explained the difference between macro-and micro evolution.)

(SHOW) Evolutionary science still leads to the fact of a Creator.

It fails in explaining two main points: The origin of life, and the beginning of male/female reproduction.

They speak of a primordial soup, a pond somewhere full of the right minerals, that if broken apart and joined with other just right minerals, on an atomic level, and then something improbable happened, a flash of lightning, some energy surge, or a miracle happens and proteins are created and those then, become single cell organisms.

The odds of probability of that happening are beyond the realm of possibility.

They say, “Well there are billions of years and gazillions of stars, the universe is big enough to extend to that possibility. But even the calculated size of our universe extends beyond the realm of possibility.

Then there is a second component to Evolution that still cannot be explained.

Evolutionary theory states that genetic mutations happened, and some of them improved the individual’s ability to survive, so eventually more and more individuals with that enhanced ability crowded out the earlier species and it died out and the process continued on over billions of years until we get to this modern age.

Remember, this is a theological book about God the beginning and the end.

That theory of genetic mutations giving species an advantage over their predecessors appears to be obvious in the fossil record. Science shows that it happened. But the theory of evolution doesn’t explain the jump from mitosis to meiosis.

Sorry about the big words. We have people still working on their education, people who have other interests and we have professors here, so I want to be able to appeal to everyone.

Mitosis happens after the baby is first conceived. That first cell produces an exact copy of itself, which produces another exact copy until a living being is created.

Meiosis is when male and female cells combine half of their genetic material to form a new life that is a unique and different individual.

So here is the point, in order for a mutation to begin reproduction by inheriting genes from a mother and a father, then a father mutation would have to occur at the same time a mother mutation occurs and those two would have to find each other, mate and that child would have to be given new characteristics that would make it better able to survive than its parents.

Of course, it started on a cellular level, so specific reproductive organs didn’t mutate, just the ability for the DNA to unwind, leave the cell wall, join another cell with the same mutation.

But that is just part of it, at the same time, RNA had to evolve with some sort of ability to trigger the mechanism that started the deconstruction and reconstruction of the DNA.

Again, the odds of that happening go beyond the realm of possibility.

And you may be saying to yourselves, why am I wasting your time with a science lesson when I, as a theologian studied scripture, psychology, English and philosophy? Am I not here to learn about God, His word, His grace? Are we not here to worship?

It is like Jeremiah’s description, (SHOW) “We are fearfully and wonderfully made!”

Many of the great inventions were achieved by clergy. Even Wilber and Orville Wright’s father was a Methodist preacher.

Solomon, the preacher, theologian, philosopher was also a great scientist. When we see the glory of God in creation, we worship. So bear with me because this is going somewhere.

The Revelation is given to John the theologian not only to comfort God’s people in the midst of their trials, but also to explain to them who God is.

These three images of God we are looking at in this study are images of God in His glory.

This last one is a picture of how we are included in it.

I do love science, because in it, I see that God is fantastic.

I am not a biologist; I took 2 courses, 9^th grade biology and biology with a lab in college.

In those I saw, God is fantastic.

I remember it because the first day of biology in the 9^th grade:

• The teacher asked the class: “How many of you are Christians and believe in creation?”
• My twin brother, Nick Federspiel, a devout Catholic boy and I raised our hands.
• She said, “Mark my words, by the end of this semester; you will no longer believe that God exists.”
• Her challenge wasn’t to us, it was to God.
• My best friend died crossing the street coming to school that year. And God held us up in the midst of that tragedy. The day after the funeral, she came to Pete and me and said, “I believe in God because of the way I see the hope inside of you.”

Here is the thing: Some people consider a study of Revelation and the concept of prophecy as superstition.

But science needs philosophy, theology and faith to help it through.

The philosophical questions in science such as: (SHOW) Does God exist? If He does, why doesn’t He show Himself to us? If He exists, then where did He come from? If He exists, what is heaven like?

Revelations gives us a picture of all of that.

So why talk all this time about evolution and creation and intelligent design?

Because: (SHOW) Intelligence and the miraculous still describe these origins.

Somewhere the answer to the question, which is eternal: God or Matter has to be answered for rational people, who think about these things in order to be able to believe in God.

In that phrase: “I am the beginning and the end” God is answering that age old question.

God can answer the tough questions. In this book, especially this passage, we see the answer to the questions: “Why do bad things happen to good people? Does God allow the wicked to prosper, and if so, why?

Throughout the history of humanity, people have cried out for God to manifest Himself and show us what to do.

So, in Jesus, God became a man. And He isn’t just a person who showed us the values of love and compassion that are important to God, but He also came as Savior. He saves us, after all, what else could He do? He is God and thankfully, God is Love.

Those who worship Satan worship evil.

This is a theological book, in spiritual terms, God is trying to explain the mystery of eternity and He admits that He is the one who did it. I am the First and the Last. To Moses, He said: “I AM that I AM.”

I love this answer to Moses. Moses was no rube. He had 40 years of probably the finest education that anyone could have at that time. The Egyptians were great scientists. Their Pyramids still stand.

They didn’t know as much as we know, but they had the same brains we have. They asked the same questions that we ask.

So, somewhere there has to be a first cause, something that started all of this. It is described right here in the Book of Revelation.

Moses, I am sure had wrestled with this very question up until then. (SHOW) How did we get here?

Revelations, in its mystery gives us a glimpse of the glory of God.

Nature, in its complexity, gives us a glimpse of the glory of God.

We don’t understand Revelations because our thought processes are still limited by logic of time. However, although we can’t comprehend it, we imagine that eternity must be.

Something has to be eternal. It is either God or matter.

The book of Revelation says it is God.

And, again a skeptic trained in logic would say that the book testifying about itself is circular logic; we need independent confirmation, for many, science is doing a good enough job.

But that is why I love science. (SHOW) In science we see the intelligence of God’s design.

I do not see intelligent design as something that destroys the theory of evolution. It explains the parts that evolutionary science cannot explain.

God created in evolutionary processes.

People, who want to believe in God, who want to understand the spiritual nature of our existence because although they cannot define it scientifically, can feel it.

Again, that is one of the reasons why reading Revelation is a special blessing.

The problem, at the height of the day of Modernity was that science, a great thing, couldn’t answer spiritual questions. And the world admits it. Watch the TV show Bones, and see the interplay between the 2 lead characters, the genius doctor and the passionate FBI agent who is spiritual.

The TV shows no longer mock the concept of faith.

Even modern science has added Philosophy in the theory of the big bang.

It is the theory that the universe exploded out of the smallest particle, expands, then shrinks into that particle and explodes again.

Science sees a beginning and tries to explain it.

So, the big bang theory explains the origin. But it doesn’t explain the beginning.

(SHOW) There is really only one logical explanation for the beginning. It is God.

Matter couldn’t just decide to create itself.

Something beyond our comprehension and the rules of Logic has to have started it.

The most logical conclusion is God, the Creator.

The wonderful thing about this is that God could be just like us, with good and bad thoughts, with evil and good living in tension within Himself.

God could be a despot, a mean dictator, but He isn’t.

(SHOW) God is love, Pure and Simple.

This eternal picture of the Lamb slaughtered is a demonstration of His love.

Some people have the attitude that Revelation is a prophecy about events that will happen in our lifetime.

But that attitude may be arrogant, as if all of this (hold up bible) is only about us.

Last week we made a reference to the special place beside the throne of heaven that is reserved for the Martyrs and God said: “the vindication will come when the number of martyrs is completed.”

From the beginning of the Church, they have been saying, “God is fairness going to reign in the end?”

In chapter 7, their number is complete. It won’t be complete until the multitude that gets saved out of the 7 year tribulation joins them.

Now this isn’t the end of the book, and in the book, more martyrs are to come. The mark of the beast hasn’t happened yet. So we know more are coming.

John keeps saying, “After I saw this, I saw that.” But he never says that the events are chronological. The gospel of John isn’t chronological either. The order and placement speaks to the relationship and importance of these events.

So, these seal judgments have everything to do with the way that God cares for justice on behalf of His oppressed.

They sing another song:

(SHOW vs 15-17)

¹⁵For this reason they are before the throne of
God, and worship him day and night within
his temple, and the one who is seated on the
throne will shelter them.

¹⁶They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them, nor any
scorching heat;

¹⁷for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will
be their shepherd, and he will guide them
to springs of the water of life, and God will
wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

It is a picture of comfort, peace, rest and perfect love. They sing about it there.

I almost think I should have named the series: “The Three Songs of Heaven.”

In Chapter 1, we are given a song to sing about the hope of going there, and the emphasis on the song is the way God will bring justice.

In Chapter 5, we sing this song that focuses on Jesus and His salvation.

And in Chapter 7, we sing two songs. The first goes right back to Jesus, because it is all about Him.

It’s about Jesus who saved us.

The second song is about what He saved us to.

He saved us to be comforted. He saved us into His family. He saved us because He wants to be with us forever.

Invitation to His family.