The Grand Prophetic Vision We Anticipate

English

The Grand prophetic vision we anticipate

Revelation 5:1-10

Nine Mile Run is a historic stream valley in Pittsburg, PA once renowned for its magnificent beauty. But, for a half a century, Nine Mile Run was used as a dumping ground for industrial slag from Pittsburgh area steel mills. By the mid-1990s, the stream there was no longer flowing and the site was contaminated. At that time, three artists from Carnegie-Mellon University proposed that the land, now generally viewed as wasteland (called a "brownfield"), be re-developed and their proposal, though risky, was adopted. The artists did not want to destroy what was there and start all over. No, they wanted to reclaim the life and beauty that had been abused for so long. They had a magnificent vision.
So, the three art professors put a project team from Carnegie-Mellon University together. The team consisted of a broad range of professions: studio artists, scientists, historians, landscape architects, botanists, urban planners and engineers. 18 years have gone by. There have been countless snags and obstacles but the team had a clear vision and they would not give up. And what they did has turned the slag of a brownfield into a place of wonder.
In past sermons, I have shown you how beauty grew up out of that slag. But, what I haven't told you is that the project had, as its larger goal, becoming a residential area for 1200 people. Many were skeptical about this ever happening. But it has happened – and now the people of Pittsburgh say once again that Nine Mile Run is one of the most beautiful and desirable areas in their city. Its story is a wonderful story of reclamation and redemption. And it brings us into today's message.
God's creation was once good and beautiful but the slag caused by centuries of human sin too has marred its goodness. But God, the ultimate creator and artist, loves the world and has a vision for it. The prophets of the Scriptures foresaw how God's reclamation plan would look. Let me remind you of what they saw:
• No children will be harmed – not by a cobra and certainly not by guns in schools (Is 11:8-9).
• Violence will not exist in our world (Is 60:18).
• Captives will be freed, the blind will see, and death will be no more (Is 61).
• All nations will come to bow down before the One God (Ps 72).
When Jesus came, he proclaimed that he was the one who would bring this re-created world into being in Luke 4. When Jesus defeated death through his resurrection, appeared to hundreds of people and poured out the Holy Spirit on all who believed in him at Pentecost, many Christians anticipated that the day in which God promises to make all things new would come immediately.
However, when we come to the last book in the Bible, we find that the world is still in turmoil. The great Apostle John is living out the end of his life on an island prison. The person who seems to be in control of the world is not a holy God but a narcissistic emperor in Rome. This emperor has started killing Christians who refuse to worship him. We discover in Rev. 2-3 that God has planted churches in communities to give witness to him but these churches are small, fragile and often spiritually weak themselves. In other words, at the end of Revelation 3, it seems like God's magnificent vision foretold by the prophets will never happen.
Then, just when all seems hopeless from a human perspective, in Rev. 4:1, Jesus calls the imprisoned Apostle John to "come up" out of his limited early perspective to see how things look from God's perspective. Jesus lets John see who really is in control. What John sees in Rev. 4 is countless awe-inspiring creatures who themselves are awe-struck by the One on the throne – the King over all kings, the Emperor over all emperors. And, in this vision, John records how God will begin to bring the vision spoken of by the prophets to completion. That brings us to our text today, Revelation 5:1-10.

#1: The Scroll –- God has a vision he is unveiling
I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals...(5:1-3).
Do you ever read thrillers or mystery books that are so intense that you look to the back to see if a character you really like is still alive? I sometimes do it and I think, "If my favorite character gets killed, I don't want to read it anymore." Well, God's Word gives us a glimpse of the end so that we might live in confidence now – no matter how difficult the "now" might become.
In the kind of literature Revelation is written in, a scroll is the document on which the future is recorded. It was usually 32 feet long with writing on one side because it was difficult to write on both. But, two things might lead to writing on both sides: 1) the writer is too poor to possess two scrolls, or 2) the author believes the scroll has such important information that it has to be kept on one scroll and sealed to be kept safe. Given that the powerful God described with such magnificence in Rev. 4 is holding the scroll, the reason this scroll is written on both sides is that the events it describes are sacred.
What God is saying by putting the story on one scroll is this: "Everything that is of importance about my plans and purposes are here. Evil will be judged. Goodness will be rewarded. All creation will reveal that I am who I am – loving, just, forgiving, compassionate.... It's all here."
When the scroll was complete, it would be rolled up and sealed. Here, it was sealed not once but seven times. This meant that its contents were perfectly safe. No one would be able to keep it from being opened without God's permission. It meant that everything God has declared will be -- will be!
John knew a bit about God's future because he had read Isaiah and the prophets. John did not see the future clearly – but he did know that God's plan was that evil would be punished and all things would be made new. But, how would God do it? How will he take things from the pain and injustice that fills our world now and turn it into something beautiful? I'm sure the Apostle John asked that. Do you?
Then, in v.2, John sees a mighty angel with a mighty voice (because he will make an announcement that will reach to the entire created universe and do it without a microphone). The angel shouts out, "Who is worthy to walk into the presence of the eternal God, to take his scroll and to open it?" You see, when a scroll was opened, the events in it would begin to unfold. But, no one and nothing in the entire universe came forth. No one was worthy even to peek into the back of the scroll to see what was there.

#2: The Tears –- Sometimes it is hard to live now even when the end is in mind.
I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside (5:4).
Why does John weep so deeply and with such agony here? People often ask that. I can tell you that it's not because he's nosy and cannot handle his curiosity being left unsatisfied. John weeps because he understands the meaning of the scroll being in the hand of this holy, powerful and good God. John knows that if the scroll is not opened, then God's purposes to restore beauty and goodness in this world, to end pain and death, and to judge and eliminate evil will never come to pass. John knows that if God does not intervene in history:
• How will wrongs ever be righted?
• How can the unending suffering in this world be anything but futile and purposeless?
• How will those who have been abused and misused ever have justice in the universe?
• Who among us imperfect creatures can ever be saved?
As I was talking about this with a group of our pastors last week, several said, "We personally agree with the message that evil must be judged and but we're afraid it will not resonate with most people in our generation." I know they are right that many people no longer believe in absolute evil and goodness. But, because of that, I believe I must make this point all the more in our day. Over the past 75 years in Western culture, philosophers have cast doubt on whether is a moral structure to the universe – on whether there is anything like objective right or wrong at all. Years ago, existentialists argued that there is no meaning in the universe other than the meaning coming from choosing to act. Bible scholars like Rudolf Bultmann said that even asking a question about the meaning of history is itself meaningless.
Today, of course, at the heart of the hardest forms of post-modernity is the notion that there is no objective truth about any belief. The post-modern view is that I certainly may say that certain things are true within my own experience -- but that only means they are true to me personally, not to everyone. In fact, in America today, the idea of "faith" has been redefined as "personal religious choice." Of course, this is not at all what the Bible means by faith. We are told that when we discuss truth, we are permitted only to claim what seems right to me -- or to my community. If groups I personally choose to associate with agree that something is true, then we may say it is true for us. But, we dare not "force our morality" on others.
One of the gurus of post-modernity, Stanley Fish, was interviewed after the 9/11 crisis – when even the media were saying that maybe there really is such a thing as absolute good and evil. A reporter asked Fish, "Has your view about good and evil changed since the random and torturous killing of thousands of people in New York?" He said, "Of course not. What happened there proves I am right. Yes, the people jumping to their death thought this was evil. The people being incinerated thought so too. Their families thought it was evil. I understand that. But, people in other parts of the world were cheering! This shows you that good and evil are not real. They're just perceptions from one's own point of view."
The reporter then asked, "If that's your opinion, then should we just let the perpetrators go? Should we not fight them?" Fish said, "Of course, I think we should find them and punish them." "Why?", asked the reporter. "Fish replied, "Because I'm of the America tribe!"
But, it's clear that Fish's viewpoint leaves us open to the might makes right philosophy. In John's day, a megalomaniacal emperor had the might! So, John knew that if no one is found to open the scroll, then the world is open to any kind of evil that might be done by the one in power.
I was surprised how this "me-centered" point of view has made it all the way to the hills of Appalachia. When I went back to my brother-in-law's funeral, two big men from the hills came up to see me after the service and said, "Preacher, don't you feel like a foreigner there in Southern California?" I laughed and said that yes, as a West Virginian I probably would never feel quite as sophisticated and cool as Southern Californians are supposed to be." Then they said, "We don't mean that. We're talking about all those Mexicans and blacks and their kind. There are getting to be more of them and less of us." I said, "You're right. You should see my church. We have people from everywhere – Egypt, Philippines, China, Kenya, Vietnam, Mexico, Cuba... from everywhere. I love it!" But, with hatred in their voices they said, "Well, we don't love it! People who come from where you come from don't like it and won't put up with it!"
I won't go into the rest of the tense conversation. All I want to say is that there are things that are right and wrong not simply because "I and my kind" think so but because God has made it to be so. John understood what it meant if there would be no one worthy and able to bring about goodness and to punish evil. He knew what would be lost if that were true. A loss of justice. A loss of direction. A lost of purpose. A loss hope beyond the grave. He knew – and he wept.

#3: The Lion (or is it a Lamb?) –- There is Someone who can change things.
Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah... has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll... Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne... (5:5-8).
This is a majestic scene. I hope you will try to picture it. The one who can open the scroll first is described as the lion of Judah. Any person who had ever read the OT prophets knew what this was about. The lion of Judah was the Messianic king who was to come through the line of David and usher in a kingdom of justice and peace. What is shocking is that John first sees him as a lion in v.5 and then sees him as a slaughtered lamb in v.6! Note this: It is not two beings but only one. The lion is the lamb and the lamb is the lion. And John says he has conquered – he has prevailed. What this means is that this hero who will open the scroll has struggled mightily with the evil in this world and has triumphed over it. He is a slaughtered lamb who now lives and reigns at the right hand of the Father.
Let me tell you this: No human being would ever have imagined seeing the great conqueror as a slaughtered lamb. When we choose symbols for our nations, we choose symbols of power, like mighty beasts and birds of prey. Russia's symbol is a bear. France's -- a tiger. The USA -- a bald eagle. All are ravenous creatures. Only a God who loves us would choose a lamb as his symbol of might. And we know this: Jesus is that lamb – but he is still a lion too. He is perfect in sacrifice and in strength.
The point is that Jesus is the one who entered this creation and lived life as it is to be lived and then was willing to die in our place. He has died in our place and has triumphed over sin and death in his resurrection. So, he can take the scroll. God's purposes will be fulfilled. Forgiveness is real. Salvation is real. When God is done, all will be new. This leads to the last point, i.e., the praise by all creation.

#4: The Unexpected, God-glorifying Family – It will be better than Christmas.
You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation (5:9).
The end of Rev. 5 is glorious. Read through Revelation 4-5 and you will see that the praise of God begins with the four living creatures and then keeps growing until all creation is reconciled and unified in praise to God. In vv. 9-10, John tells us how Jesus' death relates to all the people groups of the earth: The reason Jesus has the right to open the scroll of history is that by his death he ransomed people for God from every "tribe and tongue and people and nation." All things will ultimately declare the Creator's praise. But what God's Word emphasizes is that it was God's design in the death of Jesus to ransom some from every kind of race and language and make us into one "kingdom."
Let me say it again: According to Rev. 5, Jesus died to ransom worshippers from every people group.
This has a huge implications for our mission as a church. Christ died to ransom people from all people groups. That is why we are passionate about sending and supporting people to go to unreached peoples at LAC and to be witnesses to the saving and reconciling power of Jesus.
But another implication of the purpose of God in the death of Christ is that those he redeems come from all the races and that all together will worship their Savior. It is inconceivable that we should believe that the goal of God in history is to unite all people in our passion for glorifying God and then not care about reflecting the unity of God's family to our divided world through our worship together now!.
This is why we are so passionate about becoming a church that already is beginning to reflect the global make-up of the family of God. The walls that separate people from people simply come down in the family of God that has been called together by one who was slain to bring us to together to God. God's eternal plan is to have a people from every race, ethnicity and nationality – a people made up of those who once were incarcerated but now have found grace – of those who have failed miserably and found reclamation and renewal in God's grace-filled family – come together to worship him.
And the key is that we begin now to worship together – together. By the end of Rev. 5, everyone and everything is praising and glorifying God. This is our destiny. This is our calling. Do you know any who say they love Jesus but will not worship with the whole family? You must ask them why. I imagine Revelation 4-5 will trump their answer. Worshiping together with the whole family is what we were made for. This is what God loves. This is what he asks of us. This is what honors him. We belong to one another and should be worshiping God together – together.
We will now go to communion remembering that we have the privilege of being in this unexpected and eternal family only because God pursued at infinite cost. The cost was the blood and life of the Son of God. Consider verse 9 very closely: "You purchased for God with your blood people from every tribe." God paid the infinite price of his own Son's life to obtain a kingdom of worshipers – from every people group.
Blood-bought ethnically, generationally, and socio-economically diverse but unified worship brings glory to God. When we give up our own preferences simply to praise God together with the entire family of God, we will discover the all-satisfying, everlasting, God-centered, Christ-exalting experience of true worship – for this kind of worship is truly the worship of heaven.

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor