In our
sermon series on the book of Revelation, we talked last week about the scroll
sealed with seven seals. Jesus Christ was the only one found worthy to
break the seals. He did so, and last week we talked about the opening of
the first six seals and the devastation they brought.
Today we talk about the opening of
the seventh seal, and as you heard, things do not get better. In fact,
they get worse.
The seal is opened, and there is
silence in heaven for a half hour. Maybe that doesn’t sound like very
long to you, but think about it. Have you ever just sat in total,
complete silence, for a half hour? Not doing anything, not working on
something, not reading or anything, but just sitting in complete silence?
A half hour can be a long time when you do that.
We don’t know the meaning of the
silence. Maybe it was anticipation. Maybe it was dread. Maybe
it was to give everyone a chance to try to prepare themselves for what’s about
to happen. Because what’s about to happen is, in human terms, disastrous.
A third of the earth is burned up,
burning a third of the trees and a third of the grass. A third of the sea
turns to blood, killing a third of the creatures in the sea and a third of the
ships. A third of the waters turn bitter, poisonous, killing many people.
A third of the sun is struck. So is a third of the moon. A
third of the stars go dark. Locusts, with a sting like scorpions, descend
on the earth and torture people for five months. It gets so bad that
people want to die and cannot. Then a third of the world’s people are
killed.
Over the last year or two, we’ve
seen a lot of natural disasters in the world. We’ve seen hurricanes.
We’ve seen earthquakes. We’ve seen wild fires. We’ve seen
floods. We’ve seen mudslides. And they’ve been terrible things, no
question about it. I’m not trying to minimize them at all. But at
the same time, the things we’ve seen in the last year or two are nothing
compared to what the Apostle John tells us was in his vision in these chapters
of Revelation. I don’t think we can even imagine it.
We talked last week about how
somehow, even though we may not understand it, these things are all a part of
God’s plan. As Jesus told the disciples, these things must happen.
And as we’ve said before, when terrible things do happen, that’s when our
faith gets tested. That’s when we find out whether this faith we claim to
have is really real. That’s when we find out whether we truly do believe
in the goodness of God, whether we truly do have faith, whether we truly can
continue to trust God, even when we don’t understand what’s going on or why.
And in the vision John is given,
human beings fail the test. We’re told that
The rest of the people who
were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their
hands; they did not stop worshiping demons; and idols of gold, silver, bronze,
stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they
repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their
thefts.
Now, I think we have to be very
careful about reading the things that are in Revelation, applying them to our
current situation, and assuming that we’re in the end times. It’s
possible that we are, but all kinds of things are possible. Jesus said
that not even he knew when the end would come. We may be in the end times
now, but it’s possible that we’ll go on for hundreds, or thousands, or hundreds
of thousands of years before the end times come. We have no way to know.
But when I think about that part we
just read, where we’re told that no matter how many bad things happened people
did not return to God, that people put their faith in just about everything but
God, I cannot help but think about the situation we have here in the United
States, and even in our own small communities that make up the Wheatland
Parish.
There are lots of us, right here in
our communities, who put our faith in lots of things other than God. Some
of us claim to have faith in God but don’t actually think about God much as we
live our daily lives. Some of us have kind of a generalized spirituality,
where we believe there’s something, something bigger than we are, but we don’t
really know what that something is. Some of us put our faith in “Mother
Earth”, or in astrology, or in human beings. Some of us put our faith in
celebrities or athletes. Some of us put our faith in science or politics.
Some of us put our faith in witchcraft or in ancient Greek gods, or in
healing crystals or in all kinds of other things. There are any number of
so-called “religions” and “faiths” out there that people turn to rather than
turning to God.
These people are searching.
They’re searching for something to believe in. They’re searching
for something to make their lives make sense, to make the world make sense.
They don’t know what they’re searching for, but they know they need
something. And they’re looking all over the place to find it.
And we have what those people need.
Not just in this church, but in the Christian church. Those people
need God. They need to accept Jesus as their Savior. Jesus told us
that he is the way, and the truth, and the life. Jesus told us that he is
the way to heaven and eternal life. That’s what those people need.
And until they him, they’re going to continue searching, searching for
something that they need but cannot find anywhere else.
You know that I’ve been asking you
to pray for the children of our parish and for their parents. In fact,
some of you have probably heard me say it so often that you’re getting tired of
hearing it. But this is why. There are a lot of kids in our
community who are not part of a church. They are not hearing about God’s
love. They are not getting the chance to accept Jesus as their Savior.
And if no one does anything about that, that means that there are kids in
our community who are going to miss out on the chance for salvation and eternal
life.
I don’t like to think about that
happening. I don’t like to think about people I know, whether kids or
adults, missing out on salvation and eternal life. And I know you don’t
like to think about it, either. And I know none of us wants it to happen.
But if the people who are in the church don’t do something about it,
who’s going to?
It is literally up to us. With God’s help, of course--we
cannot do this or anything else without God. But still, it is up to us.
Not because I want it to be. Not because I think I or you or anyone
here has some special talent or ability to reach people for God--in fact, a lot
of us would probably say we don’t know the first thing about it. But
still, it’s up to us, because there is no one else. There is no one else
we can push this responsibility onto. There is no one else we can ask to
do it for us. Jesus told us to go and make disciples. He did
not make it optional. He said to do it. Period. The people of
the church have to do this, because no one else is going to.
And we can. Jesus would not have told us to do something impossible.
But with God, all things are possible. And remember, when Jesus
said in Matthew Twenty-eight for us to go and make disciples, he said something
else. He said, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Jesus did not tell us to make disciples and then leave us alone.
He will be with us when we do this. God’s Holy Spirit will be
there. The Holy Spirit will show us what to do and tell us what to say,
if we’ll only trust that Holy Spirit.
In our reading for today, John was shown a vision of a people who,
no matter how bad things got, would not repent and turn back to God. We
don’t want to be those people. And we don’t want the people around us,
the people we know, the people we care about, the people of our community, to
be those people, either. But if things are going to change, it’s going to
be the people of the church who change them. And with God’s help, we can.
So let’s pray. Let’s pray for God’s Holy Spirit to show us what to
do and what to say. And then, let’s pray for the courage to do it and to
say it.
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