Hard Texts:  HD Glasses?

Revelation 16

October 15, 2006         (Click the date to see the bulletin)

 

1.  We recently found a really good deal on a TV.  It’s an HDTV – High Definition Television.  HDTV wasn’t all that new to us – my sister and her family are BIG sports fans (their eldest son is a big St. Louis Cardinal’s fan, so much so that he has taught his very young daughter to say “Albert Pujols is the man!”  Even while she was a baby and they were teaching her signs for bottle and food PJ was teaching her the signs for touchdown and safe and off sides.  Other than that, she seems to be developing normally.)  Anyhow, my sister and brother-in-law bought a 45-inch High Definition Television – or maybe it’s 52.  Really big.  And from time to time they invite us over to watch a big game.  It’s amazing!  It’s almost like we’re at the game!  You can actually feel the depth of the vision.  It reminds me of the 3-D glasses that movie theaters used to hand out – cardstock frames with one red lens and one blue lens.  We would put them on to watch the movie, and what a difference it made!

2.  HDTV . . . 3-D glasses . . . and the visions John portrays in the Book of the Revelation.  They have one thing in common.  They are all bigger than life, with more depth than we could ever imagine coming from a screen or a book!  And what was the subject of that high-definition vision?  The subject was worship, and it was a vision for the whole church! People continually miss that point!  This Book was written to seven churches – and since the number seven signifies wholeness, these seven churches represent the whole of Christianity.  However, in recent years the imagery morphed from words in the Bible to pictures on the big screen.  And it moved from an audience which knew its references were found in the Bible, to one which was totally ignorant of Biblical history.  And in the vacuum of that ignorance, meanings developed which John did not intend.

3.  The Revelation begins with a vision of Christ in Chapter 1.  It is followed up with a vision of God’s people at worship in Chapters 4 and 5; it ends in Chapters 21 and 22 with the newly-created heaven and earth fashioned into a place of worship -- a sanctuary filled with worship.^[i]   And in between are all kinds of visions to correct the incorrect worship of the people of God.  And to make certain we see them in the best possible light, John gives them to us in High Definition with red and blue 3-D glasses!  Vivid visions!

4.  As vivid as John’s visions are, they are also vague.  A favorite hobby-turned business over the centuries has been to match up these vague visions with historical events.  When one particular generation didn’t witness the “end,” then the next generation picked up the prediction business.  We forget that prophecy means “to speak forth the word of God,” either correcting and condemning those who abuse, or comforting those who have been abused – afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, as a journalist named Finley Dunne said 100 years ago^[ii].

5.  Prophecy for the ages.  Words of comfort straight from Jesus for the dark days. Civilization was dark during the “Dark” ages, and the Revelation regained interest.  But the end still didn’t come.  In almost every century since the time of Christ, there have been people who wanted to believe that John predicted a cataclysmic end of times, and the cataclysmic events they saw happening in their own day was proof positive [to them] that John’s predictions were accurate.  In our own unstable and violent era, books like The Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series feed on fear [and reel in big bucks in the process.]  But today it reaches people who never go to Church and never hear the story of the ways God saved his people through time.   John wrote words to comfort the Christians in his day.  But in our day his words have become scary rather than comforting.

6.  We think of the Book of Revelation as a scary story, but it is not a story.  It has no  beginning, no middle, no end.   So those who try to use it as a prediction of historical events in the future have to impose a story upon the images, make it a story about the future, when these images actually refer to God’s interaction with people in the past . This Book is as a series of revealed reminders, each one of which gets to something deeper – kind of like a big box that holds a smaller box that hold a smaller box that holds a smaller box, seven altogether, until you finally reach the smallest, and when you open it, a rocket sends a spectacular firework display into the skies.  Each display is followed by another, different in color and bigger than the last, seven of them, and everyone who watches sits enthralled.

7.  As we watch, we wonder what it all means!  The person who picked this text asked for some clarification, especially verse 12 about the Euphrates River.  So I’ll clarify.^[iii]

Verse 1:  “Loud voice from the Temple” is from Isaiah 66 . . “The voice of the Lord, dealing retribution to his enemies.”  Then the angels pour out seven “bowls” which were metal vials used in various parts of worship in the Temple.

Verse 2:  1^st bowl that causes “Foul and painful sores” is from Exodus 9 . . “The dust caused festering boils on humans and animals throughout the land of Egypt.”

Verse 3:  2^nd bowl that turns the water to blood is from Exodus 7

Verse 4:  3^rd  bowl that makes the waters bitter is from Exodus 8

Verse 5:  “Angel of the waters” comes from 1 Enoch 66:1-3; God as holy judge is from Psalm 119:137

Verse 6:  Leviticus 17:10

Verse 7:  Hymn is based on Exodus 21:24

Verse 8:  4^th bowl makes sun burn the people; Could be reference to Matthew 13:6 (sun scorching seed on rock)

Verse 9:  Ties back to Daniel 3:6, where those who refuse to worship God are thrown into the fire.

Verses 10-11:  5^th bowl that plunges the area into darkness from Exodus 10:22

Verses 12-14:  6^th bowl dries up Euphrates River from Isaiah (11:15; 44:27); Jeremiah 50:38 and Herodotus’ comment that Cyrus walked across drained bed of Euphrates to conquer Babylon and free the Israelites

Verse 15:  “Stay ready” like many of Jesus’ parables on watchfulness and waiting

Verse 16:  “Armageddon.”  Best Greek texts say Harmagidon (rough breathing mark above the a which would sound like ha or har which in Hebrew means Mountain, so it would be the Mountain near Meggido, or Mt. Carmel,  which was the site of many battles, particularly the one on which the  King of Egypt, killed the righteous reform king Josiah (1 Kings 12:29).  By the time Jesus was born, this event had become known as “that day.”  “That day” for us is September 11, 2001.

Verses17-19:  7^th bowl poured into air, voice said “It is finished.”  Great earthquake.  Does that remind you of anything?  What Jesus said when he died (John 19:30); earthquake?  “So great was the plague” comes from Numbers 11:33.

8.  Over and over and over again, the images in The Revelation refer to events that happened during the history of the People of God.  Jesus showed John how God had been with them all the time, year after year after year, even though it didn’t seem like it at the time.

And Jesus wanted John to tell the people that, because God had been there in the past, God will be there in the future.  Jesus KNEW it, because he was right there with God.  Things might be bad, but they would turn out okay, because God was with them.

9.  Can you remember a time in your life when things were bad?   So bad that you didn’t know how you’d ever make it through,  but it “turned out okay” because God intervened in your own history?   I certainly can!  And I am so grateful!  I thank God for caring enough to stay with me, and not leave me to the wolves.  I want to stay as close to God as I can!  And what about you?  What does the memory of your difficult days stir up in you?  Gratitude?

I hope so!  And what does that gratitude make you want to do?  Pay closer attention to God!  God is alive and well in our world today.   We can see God at work, if we only pay attention!