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All Saints Sunday
St. Stephen's Anglican Church
The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, November 3, 2013


The Cosmic Drama


Text: Revelation 7:2-17

It seems I have been talking a lot lately about the Biblical worldview versus the secular worldview. I can't help myself. It is just that I see signs all around me that the secular worldview and its consequences have permeated so much of our culture. The vast majority of Christians would agree that the world was created by God for a purpose, and that God is in control. However, for many Christians, there is little significance beyond the confines of their individual lives. For many people, being a Christian means leaning on God to get them through the trials of life, and resting forever in His arms in the sweet by-and-by. Let me just say that such a view of what God is doing and what life is all about doesn't cut it. It doesn't begin to express the eternal and cosmic importance of everything that goes on in this world.

Today we are celebrating All Saints Day. This is the day in our annual Church calendar when we look up and out and around us at the Universal Church, the great cloud of witnesses. Our text for today is the powerful vision in Chapter 7 of the Book of Revelation where John is allowed to see and understand the multitude gathered around the throne of God praising Him. Here we get a glimpse of the great cosmic drama which explains the context of all that is going on in the world. That is what I want to illuminate today, in the hopes that all of us will have an elevated vision for the importance of everything we do as people who have embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

We tend to fix our attention on the everyday material things we encounter in our lives:

It is easy for us to focus on such things and to lose sight of the bigger picture. There is a great cosmic drama going on in the eternal, spiritual realm. It is all about God's triumph over the evil that has invaded this world.The Bible is absolutely clear about that. Book after book of the Bible presents the truth that all the fearsome and painful things we experience in life are caused by the corrosive power of human sin. And book after book of the Bible makes it clear that one day all those things will be defeated. Sickness, jealousy, heartbreak, hatred, decay and death will one day be no more. A cosmic battle is raging between God's forces of righteousness and Satan's forces of evil. It is a battle that God has already won through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of His Son, Jesus Christ. The final outcome is not in doubt. But in the earthly realm, things are still in process towards that final consummation. Things are still working themselves out.

And that raises the obvious big question. We Christians who boast of the salvation Jesus has earned for us: what is our role?

We all know the answer. But rarely do we fully appreciate the significance of our role, or the importance God places on what we do. I mentioned that in this cosmic battle, Satan and his forces of wickedness are arrayed against God and His forces of righteousness. Who do you think, those front-line troops in God's army are? They are you and me. The army is the Church. We are the spiritual warriors who are engaged in this cosmic battle.

That is what this passage from Revelation is all about. In Chapter 7, Jesus is about to open the last of seven seals and unleash the cataclysmic events of the final days. And before He does, the angel of God puts a seal on the foreheads of "the servants of our God." The servants of God: that is all the faithful believers who have given their lives to God. That is you. That is me. That is the great multitude of saints whose service we remember today. And the seal is to protect us from the destruction that is to come.

This destruction is a final cleansing of the creation. And although it is a supremely good thing, it is also supremely dangerous. And so the angel puts a seal on the foreheads of the servants of God to protect them. The scripture identifies the servants of God in two groups. First there are 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the people of Israel. Now I urge you to remember that the Book of Revelation is filled with symbolism. It would be a mistake to take this as the absolute number of Jews who were sealed. The number 144,000 is a figurative number. It is the product of twelve times twelve times ten times ten times ten. In the Bible, twelve stands for perfection, and ten stands for completion. So 144,000 is perfection times perfection, times completion times completion times completion. It is a very big number—a multitude— and it represents all the fullness God intends for it. And this is just the faithful from the 12 tribes of Israel. Next comes the great multitude "that no one can count, from every nation, tribe, people and language." (Revelation 7:9) That vast multitude is the people of God outside the tribes of Israel—people in every age and time, from all over the earth, who say, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb." (Revelation 7:10)

At the time of John's vision in Revelation, the Church was spreading like wildfire throughout the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. But Christians were suffering for their faith. Many were being tortured and killed. So Jesus gave John this vision to put what they were experiencing in its eternal, cosmic context. The opposition and mayhem they were encountering was not just about them. It was the forces of evil, opposing what God was doing to redeem His whole creation.

The multitudes have continued to grow. The vision Jesus gave John was not only for those times at the end of the First Century. Everything it shows about the consummation of God's cosmic battle is just as true today as it was then. And it has been just as true an explanation of the travails of every Christian who has lived between the First Century and today. One hundred million Christians all over the globe are being persecuted for their faith at this very moment. Churches are being bombed. Bishops are being kidnapped. Families kill their children who convert from Islam to Christianity. The Christian faith is not an individual matter.

Did you watch on September 11, 2001 when the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed in huge toxic clouds of smoke and dust? Does it look like faith is an individual matter? Does that indelible memory give you some small sense of the scale of the battle that is raging in the heavenly realm? Satan is a defeated foe, but he refuses to surrender. And until that great day the Book of Revelation tells us about, when he and his minions will be thrown into the lake of fire, the battle will rage on.

Our passage from Revelation 7 shows us a vast multitude dressed in white robes washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. And it says they are those who have come through the "great tribulation." The white robes represent their righteousness in God's eyes, and the Blood of the Lamb is Christ's sacrifice on the cross which won that righteousness for them. But what is the great tribulation?

Is it the bout they had with cancer? Is it the job loss they suffered in 2008? Is it the heartbreak over the son in jail for selling drugs? Yes, it is all those things and much, much more. For the great tribulation is the clash between Satan's forces and God's righteous spiritual warriors. In the Book of Revelation, as in all the apocalyptic writings in the Bible, time is a very fluid thing. There are multiple fulfillments of the things prophesied—in the past, in the present and in the future. We can look at the great tribulation as the whole sweep of the history of God's people. It is underway in all the challenges and trials of life that threaten to separate us from God even now. And it is underway in the vicious attacks upon Christians in Egypt, Yemen and Nigeria, in India and Iran and Myanmar.

And every one of us is a member of God's righteous army with assignments and weapons and communications and support. And every single thing we do is part of the battle. I love the recruiting ad for the US Marines, which shows ground troops running toward the sounds of chaos ready to engage in battle. As the ad ends, it leaves on the screen the question, "Which way would you run?"

God has called us to do a number of things as His spiritual warriors. First and foremost, He has called us to worship Him in spirit and truth. The First Letter of Peter says of the Church,

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. [I Peter 2:9]

That is what we see the multitudes doing before His throne in the Book of Revelation. They are crying out in a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb."

Second, He calls us to pray. In Revelation we see the prayers of the saints portrayed as a golden bowl of incense. (Revelation 5:8) It is something God treasures. Communication with God is not just to pray for my backache to be healed. It is:

Third, God calls us to stand firm on the truth He has given us in Holy Scripture. The Father of Lies, the Deceiver, is prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour souls. He does it through false gods. He does it through erroneous and destructive worldviews. He does it through corrupt value systems. In all of these, he seeks to displace God's truth. As spiritual warriors, you and I are the guardians and defenders of God's truth.

Fourth, God calls us to love our neighbors.

And if we are God's troops, what are our weapons? Here is what Ephesians Chapter 6 tells us:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. [Ephesians 6:10-18]

On All Saints Day, I want to offer you a definition of saint. I do this, because we tend to think of saints as people who were so holy, so heroically good, that they surely must be in heaven, reaping a reward. You see the obvious problem with that definition. Christian doctrine tells us that we don't get saved by being good.

For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:9)

So here is what I offer you this year for a definition of saint. A saint is a person who knows that he or she is a critical part of the cosmic drama taking place for the salvation of God's world.

Just a glance at some of the people we honor as saints will illustrate this definition.

William Wilberforce—He was converted to Christianity as a young adult, after he had already become a member of the British House of Commons. He devoted his public service to righteous causes. He is best known for his 50-year battle to end the slave trade in 19th century Britain, and the final victory was won a month after he died.

Florence Nightingale—Answering a call from God, she recruited 38 women to go with her to the Crimean War and work in the field hospitals. Until that time, there was no such thing as nurses in battlefield hospitals. She introduced new standards of sanitation and discipline that have saved millions of lives. She was a Godly woman, known as a healer and a spiritual leader, and she is remembered as the mother of the profession of nursing.

Corrie TenBoom and her family—During World War II in Holland, these Christians risked their lives time after time to help Jews escape from the Nazis. They ended up losing everything and being sent to concentration camps for the role they played in God's cosmic drama.

The martyrs of Uganda—Twenty-six young men who were pages to the king of Buganda in the late 19th Century embraced Christianity. Because of their faith, they would not submit to the king's homosexual advances. He opposed the church and threatened them with a horrible death. Their love for Jesus not only caused them to choose death, but to do so singing hymns and expressing joy. Their witness led to a great explosion of Christianity in that land.

These are ones who run toward the sound of chaos and the smoke of devastation, for they know the importance of everything they do. These are the multitude dressed in white robes washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. Like you and me, they wear the seal of the Lamb of God upon their foreheads. And, like you and me, they know the end of the story, for the Revelation tells us:

And over it all, like a resplendent glow, will be the judgment God rendered over His Creation in the very first chapter of the Bible: "It is very good."

© The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, 2013

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