4/18/21 Revelation 7:9-17 “This Place is a Dump!”

16 Apr 4/18/21 Revelation 7:9-17 “This Place is a Dump!”

4/18/21   Revelation 7:9-17       “This Place is a Dump!”

Today, we are going to go into the book of Revelation.  This normally is not a place that I will preach from very often.  The reason I don’t go here too often is that many people have their own ideas as to what Revelation means.  There are terms like pre millennium and post millennium to name just a couple that are not found in the Bible.  We have taken some of the visions and named them.  We have decided that we are in this era or that era and there is no changing our minds.  I feel that we should be more open about what is being said because most of it has not happened yet.  I can even get into trouble for saying that much.  Some feel that most of it has happened and some don’t.  What I am trying to say is that there is a lot of conjecture about the book of Revelation.  We do mostly agree that it is apocalyptic literature.  I would like us to remember also that this is prophecy and prophecy is in no way to be confused with fortune telling.  Prophecy is God’s inspired word that this will take place.  Fortune telling is just a guess at what will happen.  I know that the things in Revelation will take place because of the faith I have in God.  If He says it will happen, then it will happen.  He has got a perfect record so far.  Today, we are going to take a look at a section that is nothing but Good News.  Often times people mistake Revelation for a book of doom and gloom.  I think that it is a book of hope and glory.  For me and many of you, it will be a great future.

There is an old story of a little girl who had been saving her money in her piggy bank.  Her dad told her one day that they should put this money in the bank.  The little girl wondered why they should do this.  The dad said that if they put it in the bank then the money would earn interest.  She thought that this was ok so they went to the bank and opened an account for her and put the money from the piggy bank into it.  Then the little girl stood in front of the teller and waited.  The teller finally had to ask her what she was doing.  She said, “I’m waiting for my interest.”  The little girl didn’t understand interest.  I think that this is a good parallel to our own misunderstanding of life.  Far too often we seem to think that we can just stand there and wait for heaven to come.  We need to realize that God has jobs for us to do and that we are to be busy for Him and not just standing there waiting.

As we begin, we see an awesome sight.  We get a glimpse of the power of God.  We get a glimpse of heaven.  We see that there are so many people there that they cannot be counted.  This kind of number is staggering.  They are from every nation.  They speak all the different languages.  Finally, we will be able to know and understand some of the dead languages of the ancient world.  If you think that the census bureau is having trouble today, think what it would be like there.

They are all standing in front of the throne.  And Jesus is on the throne.  All of these millions and millions of people are dressed in all white and waving palm branches.  They are wearing the best robes they can wear.  This has to be very similar to the triumphal entry that Jesus had in Jerusalem.  People were waving and laying down palm branches there also.  This is the home of our Lord who is the Lord of all Lords, King of all Kings.

I want you to think about this for a minute.  Jesus Christ has anything and everything.  He is in the position that if He wants something, then He can just make it.  I don’t think that this is quite how He operates but He could.  I want to make a point here.  He comes from a perfect place where everything is perfect.

I want you to think about what Jesus gave up when He came to earth.  For thirty years He was like all the rest of us.  He had to eat, drink and sleep.  These might be things that He never had to do in heaven.  Then when he started his ministry, He continued to have limited powers.  Now I might get an argument here but this is what I mean.  Jesus could still walk on water, change water to wine, and raise people from the dead.  But there is something that He couldn’t do.  Due to his physical body, He could only be in one place at a time.  He couldn’t be walking on water on a lake and be in Jerusalem at the same time.  He was restricted.  He was never restricted before and He has never been restricted since.  But for the short time He was walking on this earth, He was restricted to His human body.  He gave up a lot so that He could walk amongst us.

So, let’s see if we can put this in perspective a little.  We all know that God is all powerful, all knowing and all everything.  He made this world.  He gave up a lot when He sent Jesus here.  So, the question I have to ask from this is, “How much do you rely on Jesus?  How grateful are you?”  I think these are a fair questions.

Nationally, we have been trying our best to make our government a god.  We have succeeded for the most part.  Most programs for the needy are now administered by the government.  When churches try to take this area back, we hear cries that we aren’t diverse or we discriminate against non-Christians or some other false claim.  We are so desperately needed in our government and yet we are being totally blocked out.  They are also trying to tell us what we can and cannot preach.  When I preach what the Bible actually says, I could be accused of hate speech.  We are also told that we cannot be political in the pulpit.  It seems pretty clear that they want to take over the church and make it a government run program and be like all the rest of their failed programs.  This is why we need the Global Methodist Church.

But this is all big picture stuff.  This is all stuff that we have little control over.  How do we do in our personal lives?  Are we thankful every day for all that God has provided for us?  Do you go to Him every day in prayer so that you can be thankful and He can talk to you?  Are you bringing your children to Sunday school so that we can keep the love of God strong for another generation?  If you really want to know how well you are doing in your Christian walk, then ask yourself are you giving God the 10% that He asks for from all areas of your life.  I’m not just talking money here.  I mean all aspects of your life.  After all, He has given you everything.  The least you could do is give a little back.  If we could get a revival going in this country, think of all the ways we could really improve our lives when we just follow the ways of God.  It would be mind-boggling!

I know that none of us are perfect.  We all have our flaws.  But if we stay as faithful as we can and keep bringing our short comings to Jesus, then we will have a spot with this multitude in heaven with Jesus.  We are just given a glimpse here of a celebration that happens all the time in heaven.  I would guess that it is even a bigger celebration when a non-believer accepts Christ as their Savior.  I think that when someone first comes to Jesus, everything stops in heaven and there is a celebration just like this.  You can read about this in Luke 15.  Each one of you is that important in heaven.  So, if you don’t really know Jesus yet, then I ask that you ask Jesus to forgive your sins and then ask Him to live in your life.  You are so important to Him that He stops everything when you first come to Him.

We have looked at the power and how wonderful everything is in heaven with Jesus.  I would like you to notice the robes.  They are pure white.  They are white as white can be.  They have been washed with the blood of Christ.  You may be asking yourselves how do we wash something in blood and it comes out white.  And the answer is that this whiteness comes from the wonderful grace of God.  We should be praising God because He can do the impossible like this.  He can make you clean!

I would like you to do a little self-inspection.  How many of you consider yourself to be a fairly good person?  I would guess that most of us would say that.  How many of us have not sinned against God in the last month?  In the last week?  In the last 24 hours?  When we sin, we are acting in direct violation of God.  There is no getting around it.  If you told a little white lie for something, then you are violating God.  In His eyes it is the same as stealing.  It is the same as telling a whopper lie.  This is because God hates sin, all sin no matter what it is.  Has your thought life been pure?  Have your motives for doing something been right?  What I would like you to see here is that you are not the good person that you might have thought you were.  None of us are.  If the color white is pure and good and the color black is foul and nasty, we would definitely be in the black zone.  I know this for a fact that everyone is in this dark zone.

If it wasn’t for God’s grace, you would be doomed.  Praise the Lord that He sent Jesus Christ to us so that He would cover our blackened selves with His blood from the cross and you can turn to white as snow.  This is what life is all about.  No matter how black you are, you can still know Jesus.  Your eternal life depends on this.  If you would like a little glimpse of what it is like on the other side, I refer you to Luke 16.

This is just the beginning of all the wonderment of being with the Lord.  You will have been cleansed so that you never have to worry about sin again. Your troubles will be done.  I have concentrated so far on how great God is.  Now I would like to look at us for a minute.  After all, you have a vested interest in your life.  When you become one of the heavenly multitudes, your troubles are over.  You will never have to worry about how your health is or isn’t.  You will not have to ever worry about money.  You won’t even need it.  When I get there, all my health problems will be over.  I will have survived the trials of this life.

So many times, in life, we get carried away with things.  We finally get one credit card paid off and then we have to worry about another one.  Or our health gets the best of us as we have just finished one surgery and now, we need another.  Our children also cause us worry as one gets sick and you know that the others will be next.  It seems like no matter what you do, after you solve one problem, two more take its place.

Bruce Goettsche compares our lives to that of a marathon runner.  They have to train and train.  They really have to punish themselves as they battle dehydration and exhaustion.  They suffer from muscle cramps and all kinds of other muscle aches and pains.  In spite of all this they continue onward.  Most of these runners will tell you that they have no dreams of actually winning the race.  They could really care less if they win or not.  They only want to finish.

We are very much like this as we only want to get through this life so that we may join our King of Kings in eternity.

The reason that we want to just finish, and by the way all finishers are winners, lies in the fact that Jesus will be there to take care of us.  You will no longer have any tears or sadness.  You will no longer have to worry about what you will eat or drink.  You will never be thirsty or hungry again.  You will live in a perfect place.

There will no longer be any floods or tornados.  You will not have to worry about crops.  You will not have mosquitoes.  The sun will no longer scorch you and the winters will not be below zero.  God tells us in other places in the Bible that you will be working and you will have things to do.  But they will be the types of things that will only bring you great joy and satisfaction.  It will be totally unlike this world.  It will be unlike anything that you have ever known.

Let me use this analogy from Stephan Brown.  Ellis Island in New York was once the biggest immigration processing center in the US.  They would process thousands of immigrants a day there.  All of these immigrants had left really hard times to come here.  They came to the land of promise for a better life.  It took most of them at least a month to get here by boat and conditions would have been very crowded on that boat.  As we view the facilities in modern times, they do not seem like much.  The people had to stay on the island as they were processed and they lived in large dormitories.  Just think how these dormitory rooms looked to the people who had spent a month to several months crowded on a boat.  They probably left worse conditions in their home country.  These rooms must have looked like a palace to these people.  They probably thought that they should stay there forever.  They could have hung up a picture.  They could have unpacked their bags.  They could have stretched a little in their tiny dorm room.  Someone would have to come up to them, grab them and tell them that they can’t stay there.  And they shouldn’t want to stay there because the place was a dump.  America has so much more to offer than this cheap dorm room.  This is only a processing center.  It is only temporary.

We can say the same thing about our lives in this world.  This world is only a dump compared to where we are going.  There is no freedom at all here compared to what we will have.  As great as you think this world is, the next one outshines this by a million times over.  This is only the processing center for heaven.

Our Lord loves you so much that He has gone ahead and prepared a place for you in paradise.  This world cannot even compare to that of the next.  So, remember this as you live out your lives.  Remember how we read today how great God is and how He will take care of us forever.  This is a promise that is far better than all promises put together from our world.  Trust in Jesus for there is no other way.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.