Closer Day By Day

It does seem fitting that we are ending the year with the last book of the Bible - Revelation.

Again, this is not one book that I love to read.  Too many mysteries and apocalyptic messages that makes it not one of my favourite books of the Bible.  But as Preacher Aun Quek has mentioned before - while we may not understand all the mysteries and prophecies of Revelation, it is still important for Christians to at least read it a few times so that we at least have an idea of the different things mentioned in this book.

Right now, it seems that we are emerging from the ominous threat of nuclear holocaust that was feared for much of the latter part of the last century.  Yet even as an era of safety and peace seems to be at hand, many warn of new possibilities of global catastrophe through widespread destruction of the world’s ecology.

A disaster on a scale described as “apocalyptic” has been forecast - the end of the world as we know it?

How will the world end?

If you leave it to the movie directors, it would end when an asteroid the size of the moon hits earth.  Or when aliens invade our planet.  Or when the earth stops spinning.  Or when the Mayan prophecies come true in 2012.

But all those are just results of overimaginative minds.

Only our God knows how things will finally end.  And He has chosen to reveal to John.  And John had penned it all down so that we too can have an idea.

So as we read about the different visions and scenes described by John, let us keep this one thing in mind - Jesus remains “the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the end… who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8).  Besides Him, there is no other self existing one.  He was there before time began.  And will still be there when all is no more.  He is the great I AM!

Bible Passage:  Revelation 1-6

Like in the Song of Solomon, I will not be writing much and hope we can all just spend time reading the book for ourselves.  Write down questions you might have.  Highlight interesting portions.  Then go and find out the answers from the preachers and pray about it as well.

What Would Jesus Say?

To me - the book of Revelation does not just reveal about the last days.

It also reveals to me where I stand.

How far am I short of the glory of God?  Where have I gone wrong in my life of faith?  Are there hidden faults which I have ignored but God deems it as important for me to change?

This is what I get when I read the letters to the 7 churches in Asia from Revelations 2-3.

What would Jesus say if He sent a letter to our Church?

Are we like the Ephesians who labour with all patience, detest those who are evil and test false prophets but lack the main ingredient of a church of God - love?

Or like the church at Pergamos, we hold fast to the name of Jesus and do not deny our faith even in the face of death but we compromise in certain aspects of faith and even allow false teachings to creep into our church?

Surely we are not like the church at Sardis where there are only a few faithful people and are in all essense dead, even though we have the reputation of being alive?

How can we - a church of love, service, faith and patience - be deemed to be corrupt like the church at Thyatira?  Have we allowed evil seductress like Jezebel to mislead us to immorality and idolatory?

No, no, no!  We are not lukewarm like the Laodecians.  This is one church we are most familiar with and we do not pretend to be well off spiritually.  We really are spiritually vibrant!  Oh!  Then why it that our actions betray our words?

We are like the churches at Smyrna and Philidelphia. We are faithful under persecution, tribulation and poverty. Although we are few, we keep Christ’s words and hold fast to what we have - even during the coming tribulations.

Seven churches.  Seven letters.  So many diffrent things for us to consider.

Let us read them again and consider them as a personal letter to us (after all we make up the church) and reflect for a moment - where do we stand before God?

Two Great Works of God

In Revelation there are quite a number of songs - not just ordinary songs but heavenly songs that are sung.  And I have chosen 2 of the songs in today’s passage to highlight 2 great works of God - creation and redemption.

Creation Hymn

“ You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created.”

Rev 4:11

Redemption Hymn

And they sang a new song, saying:

“ You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.”

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice:

“ Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
To receive power and riches and wisdom,
And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

Rev 5:9-12

These 2 great works of God are also 2 great gifts from God.

Creation and Redemption causes every creature in heaven and earth to give praise by singing “Blessing and honour and glory and power be to Him” (Rev 5:13)

We need to give thanks to God for both of these mighty acts today.

In the papers these few days, we read about how the governments are making an effort to combat global climate changes by embarking on several ‘green’ initiatives.

More and more we are beginning to be aware of how mankind is destroying the wonderful creation of God.  Some of us are also very ‘into’ the green movement and focus a lot of attention on saving the earth and are passionate about it.  We are called to be good stewards of God’s creation by exercising dominion over the earth and its resources (Gen 1:26-31).

Then there is this redemptive work of God that believers must also work hard at to communicate the message of Christ’s saving grace to all the people of the world.  We are called to carry out Christ’s mandate to make disciples of all peoples (Matt 28:18-20).  This weekend is the evangelistic services.  Still time to do something….

So these 2 great works of God - how much are we involved in it?

Let us not just sing about it but actually do something about it.

It does seem wrong not to end with a song of praise so here is one oldie but goodie