For the past several weeks, Jon has been unfolding for you images of hope from the book of Revelation. How appropriate! It is that word of assurance that our world desperately needs.
It was illustrated a few years ago in a Time Magazine essay written by Roger Rosenblatt which was entitled, "I Am Writing Blindly." It is a fascinating essay about a note from a doomed submariner. This note tells us about a basic human need. Some of you may recall the tragedy that happened a few years ago when a Russian submarine, Kursk, sank. The first official word from Russian authorities was that all one hundred eighteen crewmen had perished within minutes of the accident. Some time later the last words that Lieutenant Captain Dimitri Kolesnikov wrote to his wife were discovered when they recovered the bodies from the husk of the sunken submarine. His brief note read, "All personnel from compartments six, seven, and eight moved to the ninth. There are twenty-three of us here. None of us can get out. I am writing blindly."
Rosenblatt's essay suggests that we survive by storytelling. He writes, "What Kolesnikov did in deciding to describe his position and entrapment, others have also done--in states of repose or terror. When a JAL airliner went down in 1985, passengers used the long minutes of its terrible, spiraling descent to write letters to loved ones." More recently, we know that to be true because of messages from United Flight 93 and phone messages from the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. One such man was Bill Tslepis from Hoopeston, Illinois. He worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and was on the thirtieth floor. He left a voice mail message for his wife, which said, "Something happened. I will try to get out. I love you." They found his body the following Sunday.
Rosenblatt explains this human tendency this way. "You write a sentence, the basic unit of storytelling, and you are never sure where it will lead. The readers will not know either. Your adventure becomes theirs, eternally recapitulated in tandem-- one wild ride together. Even when you come to the end of the sentence, that dot, it is still strangely inconclusive. I sometimes think one writes to find God in every sentence. But God (the ironist) always lives in the next sentence."
You read that and think, this guy has a grasp of hope, but then he ends his essay with his commentary on the last words of Kolesnikov. "In the black chamber of the submarine, Kolesnikov noted, 'I am writing blindly.' Like everyone else."
The apostle John did not write blindly.
If this series of messages in Revelation has revealed anything, it should be that not everyone else writes blindly. Do you remember a lone survivor who was banished to an island, awaiting his slow but certain and imminent death? His name was John. His last words are words of hope and challenge to the church. John, in Revelation, writes clearly and not blindly, with greater vision than he ever had before.
His story begins as he was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. His Spirit soars as he see's life's perplexities from heaven's perspective. On at least five different occasions, John is told to write what he sees. Refer to Revelation 1:11, Revelation 1:19, Revelation 14:13, Revelation 19:9, and Revelation 21:5. He is given a revelation, a story to tell to the seven churches of his day. He writes with images and symbols describing exactly what he sees and what he is told. What he writes he writes clearly, not blindly.
John's story is one of clarity.
John's story is one of clarity. Because of what John reveals, we can see with clarity. What he sees is what the world is waiting to see. But leave it to us, always looking in the wrong place for our answers. I hope Winston Churchill was right when he said, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing . . . after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
For fourteen seasons millions have watched as people from all walks of life have tried to outwit, outplay, and outlast all the others so they can be called "Survivor" and win the million dollar prize. Is this what we have come to? Is there any way out except to be voted off the island? Is there any hope?
Centuries before John's Revelation the psalmist mused in Psalm 11:3 (NIV), "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Before he begins to list a litany of possible answers he asserts in Psalm 11:4, "The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD is on his heavenly throne."
John describes that in his story. Then in Revelation 6:15-17 (NIV) he asks a question that must be answered. It comes in his season finale after opening the seals of judgment upon the earth. "Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?' " Who can stand, John asks?
His haunting question "Who can stand?" is a rhetorical question, yet it demands an answer. You expect a negative response. When the end of world is upon us, no one can stand. Not the greatest king, not the strongest athlete, not the most brilliant thinker, not the richest corporate executive. There will be no survivors. The answer comes as a surprise. Earlier he pictures a slain Lamb standing. That's a surprise, but there's more.
Look at Revelation 7:1 (NIV). "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree." What did John see? He saw four angels standing. That doesn't surprise us because we expect angels to stand. They are God's strong agents and mighty messengers.
But that's not all John sees. Take a look at Revelation 7:9-10 (NIV). "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' "
John's story is one of certainty.
Not only is this story one of clarity, it is one of certainty. Not everyone will fall. Some will stand with certainty. Who are these people who are standing? Who is this, "great multitude that no one could count.?" They are Christians wearing white robes and waving palm branches. Contrary to the way most of the world sees us, we will be the survivors, the winners! That will come as a surprise to most people since from the world's perspective, we are a sorry lot, a small minority, and a bunch of losers. We are the only group that a tolerance-advocating, politically-correct culture will not tolerate.
I'm like the old preacher who told of his lack of enjoyment of reading mystery novels because he couldn't stand the suspense and didn't enjoy the plot twists and turns. So he cheated and read the last chapter first. Well we have read the last chapter and we know the outcome. John announces the end with certainty. Christians will still be standing when all else has fallen and everything else has been destroyed.
It reminds me of Romans 8:37-39 (NIV). "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved 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." Yes, we will stand with certainty.
John's story has a tone of urgency.
There is more to John's story. It has clarity and certainty, but there is also a tone of urgency. If what John declares is true, then we must speak with urgency. Christ's return could be at any moment and our routines could be interrupted with the end of the world as we know it now. Then comes to pass what John envisioned. Gathered around the throne of God will be people from every nation, tribe, people, and language who belong to him.
We must speak with urgency to people near and dear to us. Those we know and love we do not want to miss out on the victory party, the celebration of the Lamb. Among all those people gathered there, I want my people, my family, to be there.
We must speak with urgency to people unknown to us for three different reasons. First, Jesus is too wonderful a savior to be praised by English-written songs alone. Secondly, God is too great a God to be worshiped by uplifted white hands alone. And third, heaven is too big a place to be occupied by people who look like us alone. Ours is a world of over six billion people, half of whom have never even heard of Jesus.
John's story sounds the note of eternity.
There is one other dimension to John's story, more than clarity, certainty, and urgency. It sounds the note of eternity. Listen to Revelation 7:11-17 (NIV). "All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: 'Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!' Then one of the elders asked me, 'These in white robes--who are they, and where did they come from?' I answered, 'Sir, you know.' And he said, 'These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, 'they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.' "
In his devotional commentary Reversed Thunder Eugene Peterson describes God's redeemed people not only as safe and secure, but exuberant. "This is a curious, but wholly biblical phenomenon: the most frightening representations of evil (Revelation 6) are set alongside extravagant praise (Revelation 7). Christians sing. They sing in the desert, they sing in the night, they sing in prison, they sing in the storm. How they sing! The songs of the vision are in response to the statistics of evil. Any evil, no matter how fearsome, is exposed as weak and pedantic before such songs."
May we capture the spirit of those first century saints and modern-day martyrs. From the files of Amnesty International comes a true story that sums up John's story. This is a contemporary demonstration of first century faith. It is the story of a Chilean singer named Victor Juarez. He was imprisoned with thousands of others in the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile when the government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by Augusto Pinochet, a ruthless and brutal politician. As the singer stood among the frightened and demoralized prisoners who had been rounded up for unknown reasons, he began a solitary freedom song.
A guitar was passed to him. The spirit began to spread, and soon thousands were singing with him this Chilean folk freedom song. As usual, the authorities were threatened by the power of this spirit moving so freely and blatantly, so they seized the young man and took him away. When the authorities returned Juarez, they dumped him in the midst of the crowd and threw at his feet the guitar, which had been smashed. Not only had the guitar been destroyed, but also all ten of Victor's fingers had been cut off. As his fellow prisoners drew back in horror, Victor walked into the moat of empty space they created, lifted his bloody hands and began to lead them in singing another folk hymn and freedom song. Once more, the spirit began to move and the people took up his new song.
Predictably, the guards moved in again and took him away. This time when they brought him back, there was blood trickling from his mouth. They had cut out his tongue. Many wept. Everyone watched, as for a while, Victor lay motionless. Then he stood up and began to sway. Some thought he was fainting, but then they realized that his graceful, silent swaying was a dance, a dance to the beat of the song he had led them in earlier, but a song he could no longer sing. Soon they were all swaying with him.
When the guards came this time, they wasted no time. They shot and killed him in front of all the people. But the spirit continued to blow. The beat went on and the song continues in Chile to this day.
Here's the point. When victors and overcomers get a new song in their hearts, no one can stop the song. As long as we have instruments and can play the music, we will play. When we can no longer play, we will sing. When we can no longer sing, we will sway and dance to the silent beat. When we can no longer sway in this life, we will join the ranks of the victors who have gone before us and forever and ever we will sing the new song that God has put in our hearts.
The best that the world has to offer is to "Be a survivor." What John's story has to offer is "Be an overcomer" and you will find God in every sentence of your life and the next sentence too. So I ask you, when you come to the end of the sentence of your life, after that dot at the end of your sentence, then what? After the dot, then what?