Eat this Book

Father, some of us today might feel like weeds, and some of us might feel like wheat.

Some of us, Father, might be worried by this parable of Jesus.

Some of us, Father, might be very excited at the possibility of being gathered into his barn.

Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would gently but deeply fall upon us.

And, Father, today may you deliver us from any hardness of heart, soften our heart, soften our mind and our will,

so that we will be responsive to you speaking to us, to you speaking deep within us.

We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would move and work upon us to make us good soil,

where your word will come into our lives and bear much fruit to your glory.

And all this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son, and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

What advice would a monk give to pastors in terms of how to do their job?

Before I was in this church, I looked after four little country parishes, about two hours.

Well, one of them would have been about a two-hour drive from here.

I looked after a tiny little church in Eganville and an even smaller church in Clontarf,

a small church in Tremor, and a small church in Killaloo.

From the names of some of them, you can tell the ethnicity of the original European settlers that came into the region.

And in that neck of the woods, and neck of the woods is an appropriate description up there,

there happened to be a place where there were several monks who lived a semi-reclusive life devoted to prayer.

And I was the regional dean for several years.

That's a sort of Anglicanese term.

I was responsible for gathering Anglican clergy in the region for a monthly meeting.

And occasionally, I would bring in somebody to speak to us.

And I, through a friend, had contact with this semi-reclusive monk who had a great name for a monk.

His name was Father Wilde.

He was the Wilde monk.

And I think if you're going to be a monk, having a last name like Wilde is just so fantastic.

Anyway, he agreed to come and speak to this group of Anglican clergy.

And I told him he could speak on whatever he wanted to speak on.

And he actually gave a very, very interesting talk.

In fact, I've always remembered part of what he said that day.

I'll just share it with you.

It has nothing to do with the sermon, but it's really cool.

He said that part of the problem for Christians and for everybody is that we always have voices in our head.

Not just schizophrenics, but all of us talk to ourselves.

And things go on in our minds.

And he said the hard part for us to figure out is, out of all the words that are going on in our heads,

which of them are actually from God?

Because if we believe that there is a God who does exist and who lives and who speaks,

who's spoken to us through the Bible,

then it makes sense that sometimes he would speak directly words to us that we should act on.

And I've always remembered that.

And that led him into his one piece of advice.

He said if God ever, for some reason, made him the rector of a parish,

the head pastor of a parish,

what he would try to do every Sunday is he would try to teach the congregation how to pray.

I mean, I guess this is exactly what you'd think a monk would want us to do,

a monk who spent many, many, many, many hours every week in prayer by himself.

But he said he would try to teach the congregation how to read the Bible and how to pray,

how to pray the Bible.

And so I don't know how well I do that every week,

but I'm going to try to do that a little bit today in this very, very interesting passage

which Nora read for us just a few moments ago.

So if you would turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 10,

Revelation 10 · chapter mention

once again, if you've forgotten your Bible,

we always have extra Bibles here at the front, which you're welcome to use.

You can leave it afterwards or you can take it home as a gift from us to you.

And there's always some there.

And if we run out of them, I think we have extras.

And somebody can find you extras if we ever run out of the ones at the front.

And in our day and age, we're most used to people who talk about the book of Revelation

talking about it in terms of trying to figure out what if North Korea is the Antichrist

or the Pope is the Antichrist or, you know, what about Russia?

Is that Gog and Magog?

And what about China?

And that's what we're sort of most used to.

But there's actually a very, very long tradition that the book of Revelation is the source of imagery for meditation and prayer.

And that's sort of been forgotten by a lot of the church, the modern, postmodern church of the West.

And this text of Revelation 10 is a very appropriate place to think a little bit about prayer,

especially because in the flow of the book, it has a very, very interesting sort of flow.

If you're a guest here this morning, you might not know.

But in this church, what we do is as often as possible, we try to preach through books of the Bible.

And so we're going through the book of Revelation.

And, you know, in the flow of this book, there's been these series of judgments called, led by trumpets.

And there were four trumpets that we looked at two weeks ago, and then there was another chapter.

And last week was really, it was very, very technicolor.

It's this image of demons emerging and, in a sense, completely and utterly destroying many of the people who are most devoted to them.

And it allowed us to really look a lot about what is the nature of evil and the demonic and what do we give our lives to.

And it was a series of six, two chapters of six very stark types of images.

And what we have here in this chapter as we begin to read it is there's an interlude.

There's a pause.

Those of you who have seen the X-Men movies, this is a great help.

And at one time, I was going to try to get a film clip up here.

This is going to come up again.

And so maybe sometime I'll get a film clip.

If you've never seen what Dr. X can do, you can have a scene like in a cafeteria or something like that.

And the fight's about to burst out and somebody starts to throw their pop at somebody.

And then you can see the pop in the air and then everything freezes.

Everybody completely freezes.

And it's as if, in the midst of it freezing, those whom he wants can walk amongst the still people.

It's as if time suspends for them.

And it's almost as if they step outside of time and then they can talk to each other about what's going on or what has to be done.

And then the spell or whatever is lifted and the pop continues to fly.

The fist moves.

All of that happens.

And that's exactly the type of thing which is happening here in the book of Revelation.

We have this series of thunders and six very powerful different images of judgment.

And then all of a sudden, there's this interlude that in the midst of it all,

it's as if all of these things just freeze.

And God says something to John.

And by saying something to John, he's saying something to those who've given their lives to Jesus.

It's an interlude, a pause, where God, in images and in other ways, speaks to us.

So, Revelation 10.

Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud with a rainbow over his head.

And his face was like the sun and his legs like pillars of fire.

He had a little scroll open in his hand.

And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land.

And he called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring.

And when he called out, the seven thunders sounded.

And just sort of pause here for a second.

One of the things we're going to really discover, which is going to make me surprised us,

is how practical the book of Revelation is.

And right off the bat, it's going to be doing something very practical.

But we have to sort of understand something about the image.

There's a little boy who comes to this church many weeks, most weeks.

And he's like this tall.

I don't know, maybe this tall.

Like tiny.

And for at least like the last three months, sometimes after the service, he comes up to me.

And he looks at me like this.

And he says, I'm bigger than you.

I'm bigger than you.

And it's very cute.

I mean, here he is down here.

And he has to look way up at me.

And he says, I'm bigger than you.

And so on one hand, we could well imagine that this little kid could go to the seaside.

And if the sea was still, he could put one foot on the land and one foot in the ocean.

And that's not the image at all that the Bible is trying to portray.

What the Bible is trying to portray is immensity.

Is immensity.

And solidity.

And a type of finality.

And a type of depth and weight and deepness.

It's picturing something, a being that is so completely and utterly huge.

That it's not just that his one foot is touching the land and the other foot is touching the sea.

But it's as if his foot is planted on the land like a conqueror who claims the land.

And it's like the other foot is in the sea as one whose foot is claiming the sea.

That it somehow now owns or controls the sea.

And in a few moments, or if you remember when Nora read,

and the whole image of his reaching his right hand up to heaven,

it's as if he is an immense being.

An immense being.

Astride the earth, the dry land, the sea, and even the heavens.

He is completely and utterly immense.

And one of the things that happens if you read through the book of Revelation

is that there's a constant shyness about portraying God.

You might remember, if you go back and read Revelation chapter 4,

Revelation 4 · chapter mention

which is a vision of God in heaven, you actually never see God.

All you see are colors and a throne.

And then the reaction of people around God on the throne.

And so it is here that the image, while on one level it's an image of an angel,

it's not an image of God, but the language of the sun, the rainbow, the cloud,

it's an image of glory, of shining, of brightness, of protection.

It's images which are often used of God to show that this is a mighty angel,

that he's God's representative, and no matter how immense he is,

that God is far more immense.

That God is far more sovereign, far deeper, far, just far more.

It's part of the shyness of how Revelation portrays God.

Just as later on, when you hear the voice,

in the original language, actually what it does is it uses the plural for the voice,

to show that the voice that speaks is God.

And it makes no sense grammatically in English.

So in English they translate it as if it's singular.

But in the original language, it isn't voices, it's a plural connected to the singular.

And there's no English grammar that works properly.

But it's all helping to show that there's this immensity,

that even the voice, when it speaks, it's like thunder.

It's something which, actually, it's like if you go near a very heavy machine,

if you go very near Niagara Falls,

and it's almost as if you feel the sound pulsating inside your body.

And that's what's being portrayed.

And here's the first practical thing,

and I have to apologize for the poor grammar.

I did it on Friday to try to meet a deadline,

and afterwards I was thinking I should have changed the wording.

But I'll show you the wording so you can fill in the thing.

Here's the first, and I'll tell you in a minute why it's so practical.

Grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge

of how incomparably immense and sovereign the living God truly is.

Grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge

of how incomparably immense and sovereign the living God truly is.

It should really have been a prayer.

The grammar is sort of sketchy.

I apologize for it.

I needed a little bit more editing.

I'll tell you in a moment how I would turn it into a prayer

to make it better grammar.

But here's the thing.

Some of you who have been going to the church for about nine or ten years,

you might remember that there was a time in our congregation

when a multimillionaire attended, and his name was Tom.

He's passed away, so I can say his name.

His name was Tom.

And he didn't look like a multimillionaire.

If you saw him, he just looked like an older guy,

just wearing sort of older clothes,

sit at the back of the church very quiet.

But he was a multimillionaire.

And, you know, I've always thought he died about a year before we began our legal problems

that culminated with us having to walk away from the building.

And I've often thought how, in an odd way, it was very kind of God to have Tom die at that time.

I mean, I hope it was kind to Tom, but it was also kind to us,

because it would have been very, very easy for us while we were in trouble,

and even now maybe, you know, wanting to get rental space or buy something.

I mean, like Tom owned the property where the LCBO is, right over there.

He owned that property.

He sold that property.

It used to be an empty lot just eight years ago or whatever.

He owned that property.

I mean, if things had worked out a little bit different,

I mean, we might have all as a congregation said,

Tom, okay, we need to pray to God for him to help us.

But inwardly, we're hoping that Tom is listening in to the conversation,

because Tom could just give us that land,

and it would hardly make a dent in his wealth.

And in fact, it would have made it very easy for us

not to try to trust in God's providence, but Tom's providence.

Because, you see, as it became,

most people in the congregation didn't necessarily know that Tom.

I knew that he was wealthy.

I also knew that he had a very, very wise policy of not tithing to us,

because that would completely make everything crazy for our budgets.

And so he gave a very modest amount.

He was generous, but very, very modest in his amounts.

And, you see, we would have always been aware

of who the wealthiest person in the room was

whenever we talked about an issue.

And here's where it's very, here's, you see,

here's where grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge

of how incomparably immense and sovereign the living God truly is.

That, like, a lot of us struggle with, you know,

maybe we have a problem right now.

We have a problem in our family.

Maybe we're struggling with anxiety.

Maybe we have a problem with our work.

And here's the thing is, that what happens,

and you've heard me talk about this before with Revelation.

I haven't talked about it for a few weeks.

But part of what Revelation wants us to get into

is just understand and pray into us how big God is.

And most of us live most of our lives

as if God is small and people are big.

As if God is small and institutions are big.

As if God is small and I am big.

As if God is small and money is big.

As if God is small and my problems are big.

And that's how most of us live our lives.

And often, a lot of the self-help literature

which people read is to try to understand

how big I am compared to my problems.

And how big I am compared to my boss.

And how big I am compared to my wife or my kids.

And the Bible, I mean, the thing is, you know,

that might work for us for a while.

Well, that might work for us for a while.

But you know what?

It doesn't really work.

All that does is create a whole new level of anxiety.

It creates a whole new level of us looking at the world

from the perspective of threats.

Of other people who seem to maybe be faster, smarter,

stronger, younger, better looking,

better connected, more money,

you know, better heritage,

better future, better mentors.

And it creates a competitive world

that actually just feeds anxiety.

And the book of Revelation is trying to help us to understand,

to pray out to God,

grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge

of how incomparably immense and sovereign the living God truly is.

So we as a congregation,

when we gather at our vestry,

who is the richest person in the room?

It's God.

Who's the wisest person in the room?

It's God.

Who's the strongest, most powerful,

most compassionate, most loving person in the room

as we make that decision?

It's God.

As I try to figure out things,

maybe with my family or, you know,

in my marriage or, you know,

with other types of things that go on

or any type of anxiety that I have

or dealing with my bishop or whatever it is,

not that I have problems in all those areas.

Don't go home and say,

oh, George has problems with all those things.

Please pray for me all the time.

I need your prayers.

But it's so easy for anxiety,

for other things to come up in my life

because I think God is small.

As soon as I say that,

I know, okay, theologically I can't say that.

Okay, that can't be right.

But at an existential level,

sorry, a big word,

at a level of my habits,

at the level of my feelings,

at the level of my emotions,

at the level of my images,

at the level of my planning,

at the level of my budget,

at the level of how I go about my day,

time after time after time,

I live in a world,

you and I live in a world,

that tends to think of God,

if you think of him at all,

as being very, very small and smaller

than the other person

or the other people in the room.

And one of the most practical things

that we can begin to do

is to understand how big God is.

See, here's how I should have done it.

I should have said,

turned it into a prayer.

Living God,

please grow in me

a humble, trusting knowledge

of how incomparably immense

and sovereign you truly are.

Wouldn't that be a wonderful prayer

for you to pray every day?

Wouldn't that be a wonderful prayer

for you or I to think of

as we're dealing with a situation,

whether it's a situation of success

or a situation of a problem?

To say,

Living God,

please grow in me.

As I think about this situation,

as I think about the conversation,

as I think about this course,

as I think about my,

whatever it is,

Living God,

please grow in me

a humble, trusting knowledge

of how incomparably immense

and sovereign you truly are.

Now, some of you might say,

George, if that's the case,

how come it is

that God doesn't often seem to help me?

George, I've done some of those types of things,

and it doesn't seem as if God helps me.

It just doesn't seem like he does help me.

Well, let's see what the next text,

it actually says,

it continues to sort of develop this theme.

Remember, this is an interlude,

and the interlude is that

there's all,

there's just like demons

and plagues that have just come,

and after this,

there's going to be this very,

very puzzling part of an interlude

which talks about

how hated Christian witnesses,

and then there's going to be

sort of a summary statement,

and then we go into these three chapters

of a repicturing of Christian theology

in terms of imagery

and demonic,

and like it just struggles.

In fact, in two weeks' time,

we get this image

of a whole birth of Jesus,

of the devil as a dragon

waiting for the baby

to come out of Mary's womb

so that the dragon can eat the baby.

I jokingly said

I was going to do it

as my Christmas Eve sermon

so I could give children nightmares

for years to come.

It's a completely different type

of Christmas pageant,

a demon about to eat the baby,

and then we go into other plagues.

So this is an interlude

where God's speaking to us,

and he's speaking to John,

but by speaking to John,

he's speaking to you and me.

Let's go back to verse 3.

Go back to verse 2.

He had a little scroll open in his hand,

and he set his right foot on the sea

and his left foot on the land

and called out with a loud voice

like a lion roaring.

Think of that.

I saw David Crowder sing once live,

and he has a song about roaring.

Anyway, every time I see that,

I can just picture him,

the way he sings that song.

It's a very good song.

When he called out,

the seven thunders sounded,

and when the seven thunders had sounded,

I was about to write,

but I heard a voice from heaven saying,

Seal up what the seven thunders have said

and do not write it down.

And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea

and on the land

raised his right hand to heaven

and swore by him who lives forever and ever,

who created heaven and what is in it,

the earth and what is in it,

and the sea and what is in it,

that there would be no more delay,

but that in the days of the trumpet

called to be sounded by the seventh angel,

the mystery of God would be fulfilled,

just as he announced to his servants,

the prophets.

And we'll just sort of pause there for a second.

Remember I said how the imagery

is trying to capture the immensity of God?

And here, if you notice how God is described,

it tries to capture the immensity of God,

why it is so appropriate for us to pray

that God would give us a humble,

trusting knowledge of how incomparably immense

and sovereign the living God truly is.

Because, you know, look how it is.

Verse 6,

He who, to him who lives forever and ever,

who created heaven and what is in it,

the earth and what is in it,

the sea and what is in it.

And that's how God's described.

And here, if you put up the next point, Andrew,

here's what this text is trying to describe.

Grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge

that only the eternal God,

who alone has created all things,

speaks with finality, authority, and power.

Grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge

that only the eternal God,

who alone has created all things,

speaks with finality, authority, and power.

Now, here's the problem.

Remember I said,

why is it that God doesn't seem to help us as much?

Well, that's a very interesting question.

And part of it is that, you know,

often when we think we're asking God a question,

if we look at the text,

we see that the text is actually asking us

to understand a whole range of things about ourselves.

So, like, take this verse where God speaks,

and because it portrays God as eternal and the creator,

it means that he has a context to know about me

and speak to me that's just bigger than mine,

that's smarter and wiser than mine.

Like, you know, if we see a parent with a kid,

or with children,

and if we see that that parent's view

is that the child should be able to determine

what they eat every day,

and completely and utterly determine

everything about their lives,

and they merely just say that they want something

and they get it, we'd say that parent

is spoiling the child.

Surely the parent has to say

a diet of lollipops is not sufficient

for healthy growth.

That, you know, occasionally you have to eat vegetables

or meat or, you know,

or whole grains or something like that.

And we understand that the parent

is supposed to have a wider, broader,

deeper context for living than the child,

and so that the parent's obligation

for a young child is to speak into that

and not obviously to ignore the child's wishes

and treat the child as if they're completely clueless,

but to understand the child,

to notice maybe what the child is allergic to

or what seems to cause them irritations,

and also just to understand basic things

about diet and time and everything

and to act into it.

And so the portrayal here,

when we said, when we prayed,

give me a humble, trusting knowledge

that only the eternal God,

who alone has created all things,

speaks with finality, authority, and power.

That's what the text is inviting us to meditate upon.

That at a fundamental level,

that God is not just looking at me

for me and my desires

and my ambitions at this moment.

He's looking at me

from the moment of my conception

to the moment of my death

and into all eternity.

And that's what this text is inviting us

to understand about the words

in the speaking of God.

And it's also challenging us

to understand something else

about all of this.

You see, because here's what a lot of us want

with how God should speak.

When I'm in trouble,

what I really hope,

I know that intellectually

I can't say this.

Theologically, it's improper.

I'm not talking about

what I can write on a theology exam.

I'm talking about

what goes actually on between the ears,

what actually goes on in the heart,

what actually goes on in the will.

And what I hope is

that as I pray,

God will speak to this person

and say,

shut up.

And to this person,

listen to George.

And to this person,

give him a second chance.

I've already given him a second chance.

Give him another chance.

And he'll speak to another person

and say,

and you,

you have to start at,

you have to give him this stuff.

And you do this.

And that's what we want God to do.

Or maybe I'm just far more wicked

than the rest of you.

But,

you see,

that's what we want God to do.

That's,

you know,

when we're in trouble,

we want God to speak

to a whole pile of people

with sonality,

authority,

and power.

And we also even want him

to do that to us a little bit

because,

you know,

maybe we acknowledge

that we shouldn't be

so snippy with our wife.

We shouldn't be so,

so driven with,

driven to,

with greed.

Or we shouldn't be

so consumed with envy.

Or we shouldn't be

so completely and utterly

consumed with bitterness

and memory.

So we'd sort of like God

to speak into those things

that I happen to find

inconvenient and bad

and wrong

and speak to me

in such a way

that it goes,

whoa,

and it just takes that

all away.

But then if I am honest,

I would like him

to be silent

the rest of the time

so I can do what I want.

Or am I the only wicked

and evil person

here in the room?

See,

that's what we want.

We don't actually

really want

an eternal God

who alone has created

all things

who speaks with

finality,

authority,

and power.

We sort of do sometimes

and other times we don't.

You see,

here's the thing,

is at the end of the day

we want to be able

to say what we think

matters.

You know,

in,

in,

if,

you know,

a lot of people

when they're trying

to sort out God,

they don't realize

that on one level

they need to recuse

themselves.

I hope I've said

the word correctly.

Like if a case

went before a judge

and,

and it turned out

that either the judge

or maybe the judge

's spouse

had a direct input

into that particular thing.

I don't know,

maybe it was a case

about oil,

you know,

something to do

with oil prices

or something,

and the judge's husband

worked in the oil industry,

then that judge

should recuse

themselves from

the judgment

because they'd be,

have to be worried

about having

a biased opinion.

And,

and yet often

when it is,

and we come to

thinking about God,

we don't realize

that on one level

we have a very

biased opinion.

Because on one level

I would like God

to speak all those

direct things

to all those

other people

and to me

and my problems

that I have

determined

are my problems,

but the rest

of the time

I don't want

him to do

any of those

things in my life.

And so it makes

it hard for me

even to read

the Bible

and see it.

And it's hard

for me to honestly

assess it

and listen into it.

Remember earlier on

in the beginning,

you probably don't remember,

I prayed

the beginning

of the sermon

that God

would not harden

our hearts

but soften our hearts,

that our hearts

would be open

to the truth

that he will speak

to our minds

and hearts

and wills,

that we would be

good soil,

that his word

will come into our lives

and bear fruit

for his glory.

And so,

you know,

I should have

written it this way,

I should have said,

eternal God,

who alone

has created

all things,

please grow in me

a humble,

trusting knowledge

that you speak

with finality,

authority,

and power.

Isn't that a good

prayer to pray?

Eternal God,

who alone

has created

all things,

I'm remembering

before God

that he's eternal

and he's created

all things.

Eternal God,

who alone

has created

all things,

please grow in me

a humble,

trusting knowledge

that you speak

with finality,

authority,

and power.

Now,

some of you

might say,

George,

that's very,

very interesting,

but,

you know,

surely it's the case

that people

have abused

scripture

and abused

religion

for their own

power and advancement.

It's very interesting.

I had two things

happen to me yesterday,

separated,

obviously,

by a few hours.

Most Saturday mornings

I go to a Starbucks

to try to finish

my sermon

and there was

a fellow

who was there

that I've attempted

to have.

He's a very regular

fellow at this

particular one

and I attempted

to have a bit of a

just say hi to him.

I've had two other

interactions with him

where he was sort of

mildly hostile to me

and I thought,

if I see him all the

time,

I try to be friendly

again and say hi

and he immediately

said,

what are you doing?

He knew what I was

doing.

I mean,

I had my Bible

open and he knew

I was a Christian.

He said,

what are you doing?

And I said,

well,

I'm working on my

sermon for tomorrow.

He said,

ah,

social engineering

with a very loud

voice,

by the way.

In fact,

actually,

it was a very

interesting challenge

for me to,

because I,

gosh,

I,

okay,

I ended up having

this conversation

where he was low

level hostility

towards me with a

very,

very loud voice

on the complete

diagonal side

from the Starbucks

so that the whole

restaurant could hear.

This was a very

good lesson for me

when he finally

was quiet for me

to ask,

is God bigger

than this guy

in this room?

Can I grow

in a humble,

trusty knowledge

that God is the

biggest guy in this

room and that

it's not me,

thank you?

Anyway,

and,

you know,

he was,

you know,

very,

very direct.

It's all just

social engineering.

That's all it is.

It's just you

manipulating people

and Christians

manipulating people

to get them to do

the types of things

that you want them

to do.

That's all it's about.

And I kept

trying to say,

stammer,

this was not one

of my great moments,

okay,

in terms of witnessing

in a Starbucks.

I kept trying to,

all I could say to him

over and over and over

again is,

I'd love to sit down

with you sometime

and have a coffee

and talk about it.

I said it about

three times

and he would just

shout over me,

you know,

in terms of what the,

you know,

the Bible is

and it's just

social engineering.

He didn't shout

but he was very loud.

Everybody in the restaurant

knew and I was

trying to focus on him

but I knew everybody

was looking at the two

of us in the Starbucks.

And,

but like,

here,

look again at verse 7.

Look again at verse 7.

But in the,

sorry,

maybe up to,

verse 6,

and swore by him

who lives forever and ever

who created heaven

and what is in it,

the earth and what is in it

and the sea and what is in it

that there would be

no more delay.

But then the day

of the trumpet call

to be sounded

by the seventh angel,

the mystery of God

would be fulfilled

just as he announced

to his servants,

the prophets.

Now,

in the original language,

you can sort of maybe

get an idea about this

but it becomes far more clear

in the original language.

The word fulfilled

is actually a word

which is regularly

throughout the book

of Revelation

and it's a telos word

in terms of end.

And the book of Revelation

regularly talks about

something which is sort of

lost to the modern mind

or the postmodern mind.

The end idea of a telos

or an end

of something moving

towards something.

That things aren't just

like at the very,

very heart of the modern

and postmodern imagination

is the image

of evolution.

And on one level,

the image of evolution,

the inappropriate one

is we want to try to think

that there's some type

of inevitable progress

to the better.

But really,

that's always

misunderstanding evolution

because at the very heart

of it is just chance.

Pure and complete

and utter chance.

Time and chance

creates everything

that there is.

And so,

and even in science

and scientific explanation,

they want to get away

from the language

of purpose

and look at causality.

They don't want to look

at the idea

that there's something

from the future

drawing things

to itself

or that things

are moving

towards a purpose

which is determined

by something other

than the human being.

We just want to look

at causality.

But the book of Revelation,

sorry,

that was a bit

of a philosophical aside.

I hope I didn't lose you

with that.

Sorry.

This idea

that there's a purpose,

that there's an end.

And so,

it says here

in the text

that in the day

of the trumpet call

to be sounded

by the seventh angel,

the mystery of God

would be fulfilled.

It's talking about

this idea

that God

is bringing things

to an end

and that this end

will be a fulfillment,

that what the end

was for

will be accomplished.

And then the word

announced

is actually

the exact same word

that's used

throughout the rest

of the New Testament

for proclaiming

the gospel.

It's evangelon.

It's a word

of evangelism.

And it's the same

as used

in the book of Acts

when it's talking

about Jesus.

It's the same word.

It's the same basic idea.

Hidden in English

but very present

in the original language.

And maybe

if you get familiar

with reading the Bible,

you might start

to realize

that often

that word

announced

has an idea

of proclaiming

of good news.

And the good news

is just never

Canada

is,

you know,

last night

was number two

in medal count

in the Winter Olympics.

That's not the good news.

It's always about Jesus,

about who he is

and what he's done.

Here's,

if you put up

the next point,

it's this.

Grow in me

a humble trusting knowledge

that the person

and work of Jesus

is central

to the end

God has

unfailingly

willed.

That's what

the text is saying.

Grow in me

a humble trusting knowledge

that the person

and work of Jesus

is central

to the end

God has

unfailingly

willed.

Now,

how does this

fit in with

my friend's concern?

I'm calling him

my friend.

My friend's concern

about social engineering.

You see,

the fact is

that for a lot

of us

when we think

of God

and we think

of the immensity

of God,

we naturally

think of

God being big

as a zero-sum game.

See,

what we're doing,

you know what a zero-sum game is?

For those of us

who are really old,

remember when there were

these things in playgrounds

called teeter-totters

or seesaws?

Young people

who've just grown up

with helmets

and hockey pads

just to walk everywhere.

There used to be

a time when

people were crazy

and parents didn't care

if their kids

had concussions

and all that stuff

and they had

tall slides

without proper armrests

and things called

teeter-totters.

It was a piece of wood

on a balance

on a piece of metal

and one kid

would get on one end

and the other kid

would get on the other end.

One kid goes up,

the other goes down

and back and forward

and kids could have fun

doing such completely

and utterly unsafe

things

back in the day.

And so,

but for a lot of us,

because you see,

really,

we live in a world

where we think

that God is small

and therefore,

if God is small,

other things are big

and we want to be

really big

and we think of it,

we think in terms of

if somebody else

gets bigger than me

then I'm actually

getting smaller

and that's a bad thing

and we see the world

in a zero-sum way,

as a teeter-totter,

seesaw type of way

and so,

when we hear of God

getting immense,

we worry that we're

getting small

and there's good reasons

for people to worry

about that.

There's no denying

that there have been

ways of portraying

the Christian faith

which make it look

as if God getting big

means that you are

an itty-bitty little person

who shouldn't think

about this,

this is for matters

bigger than you

and you just need

to suffer

and somehow

we never notice

that the person

speaking that

doesn't seem

they have to suffer

because somehow

or another

that gets blinded to us

and religions

like Islam,

it almost seems

as God gets greater

and greater

and greater

that the individual

and the person

seems to matter

littler and littler

and littler

and so,

you know,

it's not only projection

but the way that religion

often is portrayed

it's a very valid thing

for people to worry

that this talk

about God getting bigger

and bigger

and bigger

and bigger

is going to mean

that I get smaller

and smaller

and smaller

until I'm squashed

but this language

of fulfilled

and of the gospel

language of announcing

turn to 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8

2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8

and we're going

to look at

verses 8 and 9

2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 8:8

chapter 8

verses 8 and 9

and this is

you see

the fact of the matter

is

is that the gospel

changes everything

what is

Islam does not

have a savior

it has law

and submission

a lot of religion

a lot of Christianity

is just mere religion

which just merely

has rituals

and laws

and rules

and that's all

it has

and it's lost sight

of the savior

but the very very heart

there is no

there's no

fulfilling

of God's will

apart from the

person work of Jesus

there's no end

of God

apart from the

person work of Jesus

there's no

immensity of God

without the person

work of Jesus

there's no finality

to God's word

without the person

and the work

of Jesus

the gospel

changes everything

and look at this

beautiful way here

about how the gospel

is portrayed

for what it is

that Jesus does

first on the cross

verse 8

of 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8

I say this

not as a command

but to prove

by the earnestness

of others

that your love

also is genuine

verse 9

good verse to memorize

for you know

the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ

that though he was

rich

yet for your sake

he became poor

so that you

by his poverty

might become

rich

for you know

the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ

that though he was

rich

yet for your sake

he became poor

so that you

by his poverty

might become

rich

the very very

heart

of whatever

unfailing end

that God has

willed

at the very

central of his

purposes

is the

person

the work

of Jesus

and he came

and made himself

poor

and you can't

be any poorer

than dead

I helped

my daughter

very

one of my

daughters

and her husband

move

they had to move

and they'd just

been married

a very short

period of time

they have hardly

any stuff

that can be moved

like in a couple

of trips

in a minivan

and I

cheered them

all up

afterwards

I said

you know

we should

take a picture

of this

and in 10 years

time

you can try

to take a picture

of all the stuff

you're going to owe

in 10 years

time

own

compared to

this stuff

and then I said

of course

eventually you get

so old

you move

into a senior's

residence

and you're

back down

to this amount

of stuff

that sits

in a minivan

and then you die

and in the casket

you have just as much

money as Bill Gates

the father

of the fellow

said thank you

for cheering me up

pastor

that was a very

encouraging word

I have the gift

of encouragement

as you discover

week in

and week out

but here's the thing

is that you can't

get any poorer

than dead

Jesus came to die

he came to die

that I might be rich

in the father's love

and in his

eternal purpose

the gospel

changes

everything

I would

rephrase this

as a prayer

by saying

dear God

please grow in me

a humble trusting

knowledge

that the person

and work of Jesus

is central

to the end

you unfailingly

will

dear God

please grow in me

a humble trusting

knowledge

that the person

and work of Jesus

is central

to the end

you unfailingly

will

I see

by my time

I should

let's just look

at these last

few verses

very very

slow

just in closing

turn back to

Revelation chapter

Revelation 10 · chapter mention

10

Revelation 10

let's just look

very quickly

in closing

at the last

few verses

verses 8

through 11

and here's

what it says

then the voice

that I heard

from heaven

spoke to me

again saying

go take the scroll

that is open

in the hand

of the angel

who is standing

on the sea

and on the land

so I went

to the angel

and told him

to give me

the little scroll

and he said

to me

take it

take and eat it

it will make

your stomach bitter

but in your mouth

it will be sweet

as honey

and I took

the little scroll

from the hand

of the angel

and ate it

it was sweet

as honey

in my mouth

but when I had

eaten it

my stomach

was made bitter

and I was told

you must again

prophesy about

many peoples

and nations

and languages

and kings

here's how I would

summarize this point

Andrew

give me a humble

trusting knowledge

of the Bible

God's word written

as I read it

and memorize it

give me a humble

trusting knowledge

of the Bible

God's word written

as I read it

and memorize it

it should be an and

not an and

and

and I

I'm going to

change it into

a prayer

in a few moments

it's talking about

the very words

of God

and it's not

and it's basically

it's it's it's

telling us to

eat the word

and we eat the

word by reading

the Bible

and by memorizing

it

and

and it's telling

us that as we

as we

and it's very

interesting to think

of the whole

progression

because remember

it begins with

the first point

about growing

in us a humble

growing me a

humble trusting

knowledge of how

incomparably immense

and sovereign you

truly are

and then the text

moves us to say

grow in me

grow eternal God

who alone has

created all things

please grow in me

a humble trusting

knowledge that you

speak with finality

authority and power

and then it sort of

moves us to say

dear God

please grow in me

a humble trusting

knowledge that the

personal work of

Jesus is central to

the end you

unfailingly will

and then in that

context we now

come to grow in me

dear God

please grow in me

a humble trusting

knowledge of your

word written

the Bible

as I read it

and memorize it

dear God

please grow in me

a humble trusting

knowledge of your

word written

the Bible

as I read it

and memorize it

and as we read

and memorize the

Bible

mindful of the

immensity of God

and it helps to

keep pushing us

to understand the

immensity of God

the immensity of

grace

the centrality of

the gospel

how the gospel

changes everything

as it grips us

as the gospel

grips us

it changes

everything

and here we

see that it's

going to change

our expectations

that as the

Bible comes into

us

there's going to

be a mixture

of bitterness

and sweetness

the constant

challenge to

the Christianity

in the postmodern

or modern West

is to invent a

form of Christianity

which is only sweet

and that will take

its hipster version

it'll take its

soccer mom version

it'll take its

immigrant version

it'll take its

old money version

it will take its

athletic version

it'll take its

charismatic version

its Catholic version

its evangelical version

but there's a

constant pressure

in the modern

and postmodern West

to try to conceive

of a Christianity

which is only sweet

and this text

is saying

as we read

the Bible

and memorize it

the word

will be sweet

to us

but there will

be some bitterness

and upsetness

in our stomach

well what does

that mean

well because

you see

as the word

comes into us

it's going to

challenge us

it's going to

challenge us

like it did

today

why is it

that I want

God to speak

with finality

and power

to tell other

people to shut

up

but I don't

want it

to speak

into my life

in a whole

lot of ways

why is it

I want

it to speak

into finality

maybe with

that bank

or that

that loan

officer

about money

but I don't

want the word

to speak

into my life

about money

why is it

like

and it's

going to

tell us

that maybe

rather than

that

that fellow

who tried

to embarrass

me in front

of the Starbucks

that rather

than viewing

him as an

enemy

I should

view him

as a friend

like that

you see what

I mean

like that

even that

that would

happen to me

that in fact

it's

changing

and transforming

my expectations

it's teaching

me to understand

that there's

going to be

a type

of suffering

that might

befall me

as a Christian

which comes

from the sweetness

of the word

of God

that there's

going to be

times at night

where I am

upset

and anxious

and as

Philippians

tell me

that's an

invitation

for me

to pray

into it

and to pray

into understanding

the immensity

of God

and the finality

of his word

and trust

in it

just

I don't have

my bulletin

up here today

but if you

look in the

bulletin

every week

I provide

something in the

bulletin

there's something

called

going deeper

which is a

way

this week

it's like

looking at

Ezekiel

and Psalm

29

and 1 Peter

4

to give you

some background

to help

we understand

Revelation 10

and there's

another thing

in there

called

growing in

grace

which tries

to show

us a Bible

verse

so we can

memorize

every week

it tries

to turn

part of the

text

into a

prayer

today I

could do

no better

than use

a prayer

that

Cramner

wrote

almost

600

years ago

it's called

the second

colic for

Advent

couldn't do

any better

than that

I just

thought I'll

let Cramner

speak

and some

attitudes

and it's

all part of

how we get

the word

into our

lives

let's

stand

let's

pray

living God

please grow

in me

please grow

in each

person who

is here

a humble

trusting

knowledge

of how

incomparably

immense

and sovereign

you truly

are

eternal

God

who alone

has created

all things

please grow

in me

and please

grow in us

a humble

trusting

knowledge

that you

speak

with

finality

authority

and power

dear God

please grow

in me

and please

grow in us

a humble

trusting

knowledge

that the

person

and work

of Jesus

is central

to the

end

you

unfailingly

will

we thank

you

father

that

as you

become

more

immense

in our

lives

we do

not

become

smaller

we become

more

human

we become

more

free

we can

have more

courage

and more

perseverance

and more

patience

father

grow

in me

grow

in us

a humble

trusting

knowledge

of your

immensity

and of the

immensity

of grace

dear God

please grow

in me