May 16, 2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“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.’” (Revelation 7.13-14)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Where are we going? Are we simply relegated to “ashes to ashes and dust to dust”? Are we a finite beginning and end? If this is what we would dare to believe then we are in denial as to who we are meant to be. I listened this morning as a young lady testified before the community of faith in which she was a part with wisdom concerning our creation. She said,

“When God considered making birds, He spoke to the air. When God considered making fish, He spoke to the sea. When God considered making grass and trees, He spoke to the ground. When God considered making human beings, He spoke to Himself. When you take a bird and allow it to no longer fly, it will lose memory of the air and die. If you take a fish out of water, it will not be able to breathe and will die. If you uproot the grass and the tree from the ground, it will die. If you remove a human being from God, they will surely die.”

Mighty ones of God, we are not meant to be apart from God. We have been created to be a part of God, in God and with God. Is this not the truth which John declared as he introduced his gospel concerning Jesus as the Christ, saying, “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, indeed the Word was God. In the Word was life and nothing that has been made was made apart from that life. That life is intended to be the light of the world which shines in the darkness- the darkness cannot overcome the light.” Do we not declare with scripture: “Greater is He that is in me than he who is in the world“? Is this not the hold our faith is intended to have on our lives so that we may live, have life and have it abundantly and eternally? It is the life which cannot be had by us until we allow it to have us as we surrender ourselves to the very truth, the only truth, which can set us free from the bondage of sin and the penalty of eternal dying begging for death instead of life in hell. By faith we understand that if there is six, there shall be a seven. In Revelation 6, we are given testimony to the six of seven seals which were broken by the Lamb of God to reveal “what comes next.” In four, we hear of the mounts sent to be established in the world as harbingers of God’s justice to declare His will over all the people of the world on earth. In the fifth, we hear the pleas of the martyrs who had given their lives in faith as witnesses to the truth of Jesus as the Christ of God and were silenced by death so they could no longer speak the truth on earth into the world of the unbeliever. Their cry for justice was heard but would not be answered until the set number of martyrs had been reached. That number would be fulfilled in the execution of the first four mounts. As the sixth seal is broken, a great earthquake of universal proportion causes the geographic mounts to crumble into rubble. All the people hid themselves among the rock and in the caverns left behind. They pleaded for death to come and replace this everlasting dying which had come into their world. Everyone hid but not everyone was found.

As I said, when we in faith hear of six, we anticipate a seven. In Revelation 7, we are given an eye to see a pause. I believe it is intended to be like that intended for the understanding of the sabbath. Standing at the “four corners of the world” are four angels. They have the authority to hold back the wind, the ruach or “the breath of God,” which would blow mightily against the land, the water and the trees. Nothing would be able to withstand this mighty blast. Like can of compressed air used to clear out debris, so it would be in greater measure as God’s air would be released across the face of the earth. Why was this wind held back from the north, south, east and west? Because in this great pause, the redeemed would be called out and set apart. The promised number in chapter six is revealed in chapter seven. It is marked by God’s Word on their foreheads. It was the conscription of the law of righteousness for those who had made themselves servants of God. And in that moment there was a multitude surrounding the Throne of God and the Lamb who was standing there. With palm branches lifted high but not nearly so high as their voices, the people cried out in praise of the One who saves. To them is given the fulfillment of the promise of sabbath, the sabbath of sabbaths as in the year of Jubilee. They have been spared the consequence of the Tribulation which would be far worse than anything any of them had ever seen- even the martyrs’ death. But, chapter 7 is only the extension of chapter 6 in which we have been shown six of seven seals. This means that there is something more in “what comes next.” We anticipate it knowing that on the sixth day Christ died the martyr’s death. The crown of thorns had marked Him as King of kings and Lord of lords, servant of all and most of all servant of God. So, thus in that pause as when Jesus breathed His last, we know there is something more to come. God is true to His Word that is with us, for us, in us and is indeed God Himself: the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY:

You are our God and we shall be Your people in spirit and in truth. Continue to dwell among us. Let the revelation by Your Holy Spirit inspire us to greater service in a more refined identity. We do not live as ourselves for ourselves. Rather, we live in Christ as He lives in us. We declare it with all the elders and angels in Heaven, saying “Holy, holy, holy is He who was and is and is to come.” In Jesus’ name we live, serve and pray. AMEN.