Things Must Happen

The message given in the Sunday night worship service of the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, August 28, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Revelation 5:1-6a and 6:1-17.

            In our reading for tonight, The Apostle John is being given a vision.  At the right hand of God he sees a scroll.  There’s writing on both sides.  It’s sealed with seven seals.  There’s no one to found who’s worthy to open the seals.  And John begins to cry.

            We’re given no indication that John has any idea what’s on the scroll.  I wonder, if he had known what would happen when the seals were opened, whether he’d have been crying.  He might’ve preferred the scroll to stay sealed.  But we’ll come to that in a minute.

            Because someone is found who’s worthy to open the seals.  The Lion of Judah.  The Root of David.  The Lamb who had been slain.  Jesus Christ.  Jesus is worthy to open the seals.  And he starts to do so.

            I know some of you are familiar with the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  It’s something we don’t hear a lot about these days.  I think people more familiar with them years ago than they are now.  But if you’ve ever heard that phrase, this is where it comes from.  As the Christ opens the first four seals, a horse and a rider appear each time.  And what they represent is not good, at least not in our eyes.  Conquest.  War.  Famine.  Death.  These are the plagues, the bad things that are going to happen as the end of the world approaches.  Which is why I wonder whether John knew what was going to happen when the seals were opened.  

            When the fifth seal is opened, the martyrs make an appearance.  The people who have been killed because they stood up for the word of God.  And they ask when their murders are going to be avenged.  They want God to get going and wipe out evil now.  But they are each given a white robe and told to wait.

            Then comes the opening of the sixth seal.  And there’s an earthquake larger than any earthquake anyone has ever seen.  And everyone goes to hide.  They are desperate to get away, because they know God’s judgment is coming.  As it says, “The great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?        

One of the things we always wonder about is why God allows bad things to happen.  Now, understand what I said there.  I said God allows bad things to happen.  I did not say God causes bad things to happen.  Many of us--maybe most of us--have had some really bad things happen, either to ourselves or people we care about.  I’m not saying God pointed a finger and said “This bad thing is going to happen to you now.”  But if God is all-powerful, as we believe, then God could stop bad things from happening.  And God chooses not to, at least much of the time.  And we wonder why.

            But what our reading for today shows is that allowing bad things to happen is part of God’s plan.  As it says in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, there’s a time for everything.  Including a time to weep and to mourn.  A time to die.  A time to kill.  A time to hate.  A time for war.  Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for all those things.  And it also tells us that God has made everything, which must include all those things, beautiful, in its time.  God has made things like death, killing, hatred, war--God has made all those things beautiful in their time.

            To me, that means that God allowing all of those things must, in some way, be part of God’s plan.  And we’re also told, in Romans Eight, Verse Twenty-eight, that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

            And again, it is not God causing these things to happen.  It’s God allowing them to happen.  The fact that the Christ is the only one worthy to open the seals shows that God has power over those bad things--conquest, war, famine, and death.  And when the seals are opened, God does not command that conquest, war, famine, and death take place.  Those things are simply set free.  They are allowed to happen.  The forces that cause these things are given the ability to do what they wish to do.  God does not require them to do those things.  God simply has stopped restraining them.

            And you may remember that Jesus told us all this would happen.  In Matthew Six, Jesus says, “you will hear of wars and rumors of wars... Such things must happen...Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.”  Jesus told the disciples all this.  But Jesus told them one other thing.  Jesus told them, “Do not be alarmed...Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.”

            These things must happen.  We run into that phrase time and time again.  In Revelation, in Ecclesiastes, in Matthew, in other places.  These things must happen.  Again, in some way, a way that does not always make sense to us, these things apparently are all part of God’s plan.  This is the way it needs to go.

            Why?  We don’t know.  We could speculate.  In part, I suspect it has to do with some of the qualities of God that we tend to ignore.  You know, we like to think about God as being a loving, caring, forgiving, compassionate God.  And that’s all true.  God is all of those things.  But what we don’t like to think about is that those things are not all God is.  We don’t like to think about God’s wrath.  We don’t like to think about God’s judgment.  Now don’t get me wrong--I’m not saying God is up in heaven with a big red pen, just waiting to catch us making a mistake so God can punish us.  But Jesus spoke about a day of judgment, and so does the book of Revelation.  And we forget that at our eternal peril.

            I suspect God’s righteousness, God’s justice, God’s holiness, are all tied it up in why these bad things must happen.  That’s not a full explanation, and I don’t intend it to be.  Only God knows that full explanation.  God just told us that these things must happen, and if we believe in God then we don’t have much choice but to accept that.

            It sounds kind of scary, when we think about all these bad things happening.  That’s one of the reasons we don’t like to think about God’s judgment--it scares us.  We know, deep down, that we’re not the people we should be.  We try to hide it, a lot of times.  We try to pretend that we’re pretty good.  We try to convince ourselves that what we’re doing is okay, that we’re doing the best we can.  After all, we tell ourselves, God does not expect us to be perfect.  God knows we’re going to mess up.  It’s okay.

            But deep down, we know it’s not okay.  I mean, we may be pretty good, in human terms.  But we know we could do better.  God does know that we cannot be perfect, but God also knows that very few of us are truly doing the best we can.  Most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, know we have plenty of room for improvement.  Most of us have lots of times when we don’t follow God as well as we should.  We don’t trust God the way we should.  We don’t love our neighbors the way we should.  We know how unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness we are.  No matter how many excuses we try to make for ourselves, deep down, we know.  And we know that God knows, too.

            And so, when we think about God’s judgment, we get scared.  But we don’t have to be.  The disciples were probably scared, too, when Jesus started talking about all this stuff in the gospel of Matthew.  But remember what Jesus told them.  “Do not be alarmed...whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.”

            That’s what it comes down to.  Standing firm in our faith to the end.  Not making excuses for ourselves, but repenting of our sins and asking for forgiveness.  Not being perfect people, but standing firm in our faith.  Continuing to believe in God, no matter how many bad things happen.  Continuing to believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, no matter how desperate the situation may be.  Continuing to love our neighbor, even when our neighbor does not seem to deserve our love.  Standing firm in our faith, no matter what.

            Because the worse things get, the more tempting it is to give up on God.  And the worse things get, the more the world tries to get us to give up on God.  And the worse things get, the more Satan tempts us to turn away from God.  

            But God is always there.  No matter how bad things get, God is always there.  No matter how bad things get, Jesus Christ is still the Savior.  The same Christ who was worthy to open the seals and allow these terrible things will, in the end, triumph over them.  And because of that, you and I do not need to be alarmed.  We don’t need to be scared.  All we need to do is what Jesus said.  Stand firm in our faith.  If we do that, we will be saved.  We will have eternal life.

            God has allowed some bad things to happen.  And God is going to allow still more.  We don’t know why.  But we do know that we don’t have to be scared.  If we stand firm in our faith, we will be able to stand up to God’s judgment.  And we will be saved.