Revelation / Day 26

BIBLE READING

Revelation 11: 11-19

But after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.

The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:

‘The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever.’

And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying:

‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
the One who is and who was,
because you have taken your great power
and have begun to reign.
The nations were angry,
and your wrath has come.
The time has come for judging the dead,
and for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your people who revere your name,
both great and small –
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.’

Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm.

REFLECTION

God raises the dead, He resurrects them and brings them to be with Him.  A few days ago I talked about tectonic plates, how when two Kingdoms clash, sometimes the pressure builds so high there’s an earthquake – that’s what we see here. And earthquake happens, and there are casualties – but look at what it says:

“….the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”

The fear of the Lord fell upon people. At last!!! As God’s people were willing to boldly declare the word of the Lord, as they were willing to sacrifice and lay down their lives in selfless humility and love, it was through this that people came to repent of sin and turn to God.

Jesus said this to His church just before he went back to Heaven:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…..” (Acts 1: 8)

We are His witnesses. It’s not what we do – it’s who we are.

Our message is sweet to some, bitter to others, but we don’t water it down, we don’t make it something it’s not, we don’t shrink back and shy away from the world. We witness with boldness and humility, in power and authority, with love and service, to the point of even laying down our lives. And as we so, some will respond and turn to Jesus. As with Jesus, so with us – suffering love conquers all.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Tilly Smith. I hadn’t until I read about her recently.  We’ll all remember what happened in 2004 with the earthquake in the Indian Ocean and the Tsunami which followed which killed over 250000 people. On a beach in Thailand that day was a little 10 year old British girl called Tilly Smith. She was on holidays with her parents.

Just two weeks before this, Tilly had been in school and in her geography lesson she had learned about earthquakes and tsunamis. That day, as the water began to bubble and rush away from shore, everyone went towards it, they were curious, they wanted to see what was going on. Tilly saw it and immediately remembered what she had learned two weeks before. She told her mummy, 'I think there’s going to be a Tsunami, we need to get off the beach.'

They both then started shouting a warning to everyone else, 'Get off the beach, a tsunami is coming, we need to run, we need to get away from this!'

Some people ignored her, she’s was just a little girl. But around 100 people listened to her warning and ran to safety.

Minutes later the water surged right over the beach and demolished everything in its path. 100 lives were saved because Tilly knew the signs and raised the alarm. She didn’t just care aboutherself and her own safety, she wanted to let others know as well.

In light of what we know, the most loving thing we can do is tell others about Jesus. We’re not just saved from judgement and hell to keep it to ourselves, we’re saved for something – and that is to see Jesus, seek Jesus and share Jesus. That we would live out loud what we believe.  That we would ourselves get ready for Jesus coming back, and we would get others ready.

We don’t have to be street preachers wearing sandwich boards and handing out tracts. But we can talk about Jesus naturally with the people we do life with. We can take every opportunity to demonstrate His love and speak of His goodness. We can share our story and what He’s done in our lives. We can invite people to church and courses like Alpha. 

We know how the story ends, verse 15:

“The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:

‘The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever.’”

The King is Coming to reclaim His rightful, legitimate dominion. He’s coming to judge evil and reward the righteous. It’s not if, it’s when. As witnesses we live in the present from the future. We live from victory, not for victory.