Call On the Lamb of God Bible reading: Rev 5:1-14 and 6:1-17 [] omitted from spoken sermon
Introduction https://youtube.com/watch?v=KfX7RTVPLqI&si=TSwAPuZPYPXnfhfa
We live in apocalyptic times, times in which God is shaking the heavens and the earth, [not because of the actions of any mere mortal man, like a US president, but] so that we see the fruit of the coming Kingdom of God. Hebrews 12:27 reads, “The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.” (Heb 12:27) This shaking of the created world far exceeds ordinary human traumas. Online recently online for an international prayer meeting for Myanmar, which I most recently visited a couple of months ago, mention was made by locals there of the Covid pandemic, then a cyclone, floods, a military coup, the outbreak of the ongoing civil war and the tragic earthquake. It is not as if Myanmar is in scenes like Revelation 6, but they, with the whole world, are in the book of Revelation; we entered the “the last days” when “the last one”, Jesus, came cf. Acts 2:17; Heb 1:2; Rev 22:13. Speaking, some years ago, to a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, he remarked unforgettably, “If we have been though such terrible things, the Lord must have a special purpose for Rwanda.” Since then, 100’s of thousands have been baptised there. Western Christians however have largely failed to be grasped by the wider purposes of God because we have a miniaturised view of Jesus and his mission. We need to be embraced by the fact that Jesus is waging constant conflict, what some call “the Lamb’s War”; ““The [ten horns which you saw are] ten kings [who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings] with the beast. [13 These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. 14 These] will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”” (Rev 17:12-16). (https://renovare.org/articles/the-lambs-war). In this conflict against the evil powers in the heavenly places (Eph 6:13) the ascended Christ moves to conquer all forms of evil standing against the progress of the kingdom of God through the Church. The Lamb of God throughout Scripture (e.g. Isa 53; John 1:29; Rev 5; 14; 17; 19), exercises his mission for God the Father over the nations principally through triumphant suffering (submissive filial obedience) and he shares this calling with his people. The old motto “no crown without the cross” (https://hymnary.org/text/if_thou_wouldst_my_disciple_be) applies to us all today.
The Apocalyptic Man
Revelation 1:1 literally reads, “The apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.[ He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.] 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.” Jesus, as a consummated/perfected/glorified human being, is the substance of all things apocalyptic (cf. Rev 22:13). [This is far more than a claim that he is a teacher of end-times realities.] We have heard in Revelation 6 [On the one hand we read of Jesus in Rev 6:12-17; When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then] the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”] The “wrath of the Lamb” is a terror to unrepentant sinners.
The Lamb justly pours out God’s wrath because he first took it on himself on behalf of the world at the cross. The cross is God’s “No!” on sinful humanity as the resurrection is his “Yes!” for us. The dramas of the end times discourse of Christ in Matthew 24 come to pass in Jesus’ own passion and death. In the scandal of the cross “the love of many grows cold” (Matt 24:10 ,12) e.g. the disciples (Matt 26:56, 69ff.), in Gethsemane Christ calls his disciples to watch at the End (Matt 24:42>26:38) for a great persecution accompanies the consummation of the old world (Matt 24:9, 21). As the prophets foretold fearful astronomical omens in heavenly bodies (Isa 13:10ff; Joel 2:10, 31; 3:15 cf. Acts 2:19-20), and earthquakes (Isa 13:13; Joel 2:10; 3:16), these shakings accompany the climax of Christ’s earthly life [in the Gospels] “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” (Matt 27:51-53). John 12:31-33 records Jesus’ words about the cross as a cosmic Judgement. “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 [He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.”]. Christ’s final climactic declaration: “It is finished” (John 19:30) points to his eternally completed work. The realisation of the goal of all creation has come in Jesus.
Given that the death of Jesus has consummated/brought to completion the penalty of the world’s sins in him, the resurrection-ascension of Christ is the anticipation of the End for all who trust in him. “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24) This is the triumphant conquest for the saints of the powers of sin, Satan and death. Jesus in himself has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:10); to understand this is to understand the mystery of martyrdom.
In Revelation 12 comes a much more poplar verse about the Lamb than what we read in Revelation 6, “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Rev 12:10-11). The Lamb is both the ultimate source of the world’s afflictions, popularised in his release of the dreadful Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rev 6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse), and its overcoming!
To be grasped by this we must live, [not so much in the illusory, “pie in the sky when you die bye and bye”, ] maturely in having “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). Only by Word and prayer does insight come into the holy intentions of him who, to quote, “kills and makes alive” (1 Sam 2:6-7). The Lamb of God as revealed in Scripture is the ultimate author of the dynamics of heaven and earth. A meaning expounded in the scroll he receives from the hand of God in Rev 5. He receives this scroll as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes”, symbolising his universal power and knowledge as a crucified and resurrected Person.
Suffering and Revelation
Jesus prophesied, ““And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Luke 21: 25-26). Such fear is abroad in our day in all ages of people and across the planet (Daivd Stephens testimony of non-believing politician), especially in relation to climate catastrophe. Christians should be the first advocates of responsible “creation care” but the last to manifest apocalyptic terror because we know that Jesus is “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36). Throughout Revelation we hear again and again of those terrorising of the earth, including the Beast, that to them was “given power” (6:2,4,8; 13:14-15). This means that all useless trauma and terror in the Church is traceable (cf. Isa 2:19,21; Rev 6:12-17) to residual idolatries. Things such as unforgiveness, rivalry and prejudice are intolerable to the Spirit (Phil 1:14-17; 2:3 etc.). The dreadful contemporary politicisation of Christianity, especially through the use of social media, must end (JY to various brothers). We need to experience in the Spirit, what Paul expounds in Colossians 1, “ Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:24-27). This is the sure and certain hope (Heb 6:19) of the glorification of the whole cosmos.
Application and Conclusion
Jesus calls us to inhabit a different order of reality, the kingdom of God, than that of this passing world (cf. 1 Cor 7:29-31 DY to JY about me “living in a different world”). The first application of the ascension of the Lamb [for the Church Rev 12:5] is spelled out in Revelation 5:10, “you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they (shall) reign on the earth.”” Christians “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ ” (Rom 5:17) because true believers, whatever our limitations, “walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor 5:7).
The travails of the present time (Rom 8:22-25) are inducing in the global Body of Christ a ferment of apocalyptic hope that will ultimately transform the world. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”. ” (2 Cor 4:17). Biblically informed believers know that “the last days” herald the final triumph of the Beloved Lamb of God for whom we await with anticipation. The End ceases to be a threat because it is enclosed in glorious Promise. The eternal City of God is entrusted to one of us (1 John 3:1-3), [but unlike us when it comes to sin and evil (Heb 4:15),] a City whose foundations are secured in him and the glory of whose light is him (Rev 21:23). [“the cosmos is recapitulated and elevated to the rank of a bridal City” (von Balthasar).]
In the End all consecrated creatures will be totally satisfied with both the process and outcome of God’s plan for creation. [Let me uses a rather pathetic analogy. The game Pinata has kids striking a bag containing mostly paper mâché, but also holding the most delectable lollies/candies until it breaks open yielding its treasures. This image is not inhumane, because the Lord allowed himself to be beaten at the cross.] Just as Christ needed to be made perfect in his Sonship through the most severe trials (Heb 2:10; 5:8-9), Christian maturity teaches us that ““My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”” (2 Cor 12:7) is a word applicable not only to an apostle but to the coming of a new creation for the whole Body of Christ.
Through the complete atonement and its full forgiveness, the Church is becoming the one wrathless safe zone on the planet x2. The final purpose of the will of God in Christ is to make of the Church, in all places across the world, a refuge from the times of trial and trouble he has so long been sending upon it. However improbable the folk of Darlington Christian Fellowship might consider it to be in the natural order, through the lens of the death and resurrection of the Lamb of God, the lens of the Gospel, this is your call in the plan of God our Father.