07/09/2015
Diliman Bible Church, Sunday, 06 September 2015
Quotes from Today’s Sermon
GOD HIMSELF IS, AND WILL BE, WITH US, HIS PEOPLE
The Message of the Book of Revelation
Reference: Revelation 7: 9-17
by Reverend William B. Girao
What is the message of the Book of Revelation? The Word of God through the Book of Revelation is telling us that - God is absolutely sovereign in His rule; Jesus Christ is Lord; heavenly reality is much greater than our earthly experience; we who believe in Christ are destined for glory; and our ultimate joy - our SUMMUM BONUM or highest good - will be in enjoying the direct personal Presence of God and of Christ for all eternity.
Revelation is the Bible’s BOOK OF HOPE: God’s and Christ’s encouragement for us who believe as we face persecution; cope with the sorrows and disappointments of life; struggle with the present seeming success of the wicked and the seeming triumph of evil; and bear with the present disheartening failures and shortcomings of the Church.
In our times of solitude, we often feel the weight of self-blame. But praise God! In the end, all our regrets, disappointments and failures will be wiped away - just as when bitter tears are wiped away from our eyes by the person who loves us the most and whom we love the most. All the sorrows, pains, and self-blame brought about by sin will vanish, just as a nightmare vanishes when we awaken to a bright morning. In God’s presence there will be no room for anything except self-affirmation, comfort, and thanksgiving.
“He will wipe away every tear from his eyes” - the tears of pain and suffering; the tears of loneliness; the tears of longing for someone or something you’ve been deprived of; the tears of frustration; and the tears of disappointment. All these will be wiped away and forgotten, like an unpleasant dream. The past tragic consequences of sin will be irrelevant, insignificant, and not worth remembering in the overwhelming radiance of the divine Presence.
“ It is done” refers to history. It also refers to redemption. The long, painful and extremely costly process of redemption is finally done. Salvation or God’s calling, redeeming and perfecting a people He could claim His own, is finally accomplished. God has completed the full number of His redeemed community - a people who love Him of their own free choice; a people who lost their lives or were willing to lose their lives in order to be loyal to their Savior; and a people who obeyed Him out of pure gratefulness.
In the end, praise God! All our cries of distress, helplessness, pain, mourning, hunger and fear will become totally unnecessary. God’s presence will comfort us. His presence will restore everything we have lost. He will bring back with Him our believing, departed loved ones. He will answer all our formerly unanswerable questions.
With God’s presence, we will finally have everything. He will grant us all our heart’s deepest desires. For our loneliness, He will provide us perfect companionship. From the prison of others’ expectations of us that we could never fulfill, God will give us the full freedom to be ourselves. We will be fully accepted, approved of, and appreciated, instead of being criticized, blamed and condemned.
The most exciting feature of our eternal home will, however, not be the place, but the Presence. However important - and these are important - the restful permanence, reassuring familiarity, perfect interdependence, and incomparable beauty of the New Heaven and New Earth will have, the most awesome feature of our eternal dwelling will, in fact, be the immediate presence of Him who loves us the most, and Him whom we love the most.
“ This is the future that even now determines and shapes our present. For it is to this future order that we belong, and to which we are meant to point with every fibre of life and work.”
William Dyrness
“ One day we are going to glory where [words of welcome] will be spoken by our blessed Lord, the One who has prepared our home for us. ‘Welcome home!’ he will say. And we really will be home.Forever” James Montgomery Boice
The Bible, the Word of God, begins with God’s tremendous creative power bringing everything into existence out of nothing. It ends with God’s redeemed people right at the very entrance to eternity.
The Bible begins with the fall of man; it ends with God’s redeemed people ready for eternal dwelling in God’s presence - and in-between, the coming of the Son to die for the world, and the Father calling out and perfecting a new and chosen people.
God’s Grand Drama concludes in the words of a theologian, thus:
“And so the Bible ends, with a redeemed society
dwelling on a new earth that has been purged of
all evil, with God dwelling in the midst of his people.
This is the goal of the long course of redemptive
history. Soli Deo Gloria!”
George Eldon Ladd
The above quotes were taken from Never Alone - The Risen Lord Is With Us, The Message of the Book of Revelation, by William B. Girao, OMF Literature, Manila, 2013.
