December 29, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
All right, so here we are, dear ones, the last chapter of the Bible. I want to tell this story first. I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan, and for years, every Christmas break, when I was in college, I would read through The Hobbit and then the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings. That was kind of my Christmas treat to myself. And you can say it, nerd. Okay, that’s fine.
And so I would just read through that. Years later, when Peter Jackson made his movies, which I thought were excellent, by the way, I couldn’t wait to see the Lord of the Rings movies.
We went out to dinner one night, my wife and I and two other couples. The other five people who we went out to dinner with were completely ignorant of Tolkien and his stories. They’d never read Lord of the Rings. They’d heard things, but they’d never read it or looked into it at all.
But they, oh yeah, we’ll go out to dinner and go to a movie. They didn’t know that the movie was going to be so long. All three movies are long.
And my daughter, bless her heart, one year for Christmas got me all three movies. The directors, you know, not that, not the, not the edited one. So I’ve got like the four-hour versions at home.
And so we were watching those and I was just enthralled, you know. I thought the production was so well done. And they stayed fairly true to the. I mean, they Hollywooded it up some, but they stayed fairly true to the storyline. And so I was just enthralled. My friends and my wife were not enthralled.
They were wondering, when is this silly thing going to get over? At one point, Gandalf has to decide whether to go through the mines of Moria or take this huge mountain pass. And he’s saying, well, the mines of Moria could be dangerous, but it’s a shortcut. And one of my friends actually in the theater yelled out, take the shortcut.
But their biggest disappointment of the whole evening, because it was the first movie, the Fellowship of the Ring, their biggest disappointment of the whole movie was no resolution. It didn’t end. It was just part one of three.
It just ended up in the air. And they were. We sat three and a half hours in a theater for this. And I, and I realized two things that night. The first thing I realized is that stories as well as music needs resolution. There’s got to be an end.
One of my favorite sitcoms is now in syndication, the Big Bang Theory. And it’s about these geniuses, you know, at. I think they’re at Caltech, but they’re all a little ocd. They all got the peculiarity of people with extremely high IQs. And who study physics.
And the most genius and the most weird is this character Sheldon. And Sheldon is very ocd and he has a real problem with things don’t come to closure. And his girlfriend one time is trying to help him with that.
And so she would play like the Jack in the box. But before Jack would pop out, she would stop. He’d be like. Or she’d do a tic tac toe on the whiteboard. And just when it got time to put in the final letter and cross, she’d erase it.
And she did all these things where he couldn’t get closer, and it just drove him nuts. We need resolution. The last three chapters of the book of Revelation are resolution. They bring the story together to an end, to a ta da.
And it’s amazing that John, the author of Revelation, ties the last three chapters of the book, ties them up by using the first three chapters of the book. And so we’re going to look tonight at a comparison as we finish our study through the Bible in a year of Revelation 20, 21, and 22, and Genesis 1 through 3.
I’m just going to read to you Revelation 22, the final chapter of the Bible.
1 Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. 3 No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. 4 And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads.
5 And there will be no night there no need for lamps or sun for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever. 6 Then the angel said to me, “Everything you have heard and seen is trustworthy and true. The Lord God, who inspires his prophets, has sent his angel to tell his servants what will happen soon. ” 7 “Look, I am coming soon! Blessed are those who obey the words of prophecy written in this book. ” 8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw all these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me.
9 But he said, “No, don’t worship me. I am a servant of God, just like you and your brothers the prophets, as well as all who obey what is written in this book. Worship only God!” 10 Then he instructed me, “Do not seal up the prophetic words in this book, for the time is near. 11 Let the one who is doing harm continue to do harm; let the one who is vile continue to be vile; let the one who is righteous continue to live righteously; let the one who is holy continue to be holy.” 12 “Look, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me to repay all people according to their deeds.
13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” 14 Blessed are those who wash their robes. They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life. 15 Outside the city are the dogs the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshipers, and all who love to live a lie. 16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne. I am the bright morning star.”
17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who hears this say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life. 18 And I solemnly declare to everyone who hears the words of prophecy written in this book: If anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone removes any of the words from this book of prophecy, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book. 20 He who is the faithful witness to all these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:1-20, NLT)
May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s holy people and God. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer.
And so I want to tell you that the Bible is one complete story from Genesis to Revelation. It’s not just a source of disjointed stories. I think sometimes. And one of the reasons we wanted to read through the Bible one year chronologically is to try to get a feel for that, that there is a flow from creation, fall, Israel, Jesus, salvation, the church, to the final second coming of Christ and glory.
And it’s God’s story. And we are in God’s story. All right? You and I are in God’s story. And the beginning and the end kind of tell the story. In Genesis 1:1, it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That’s the beginning of the Bible.
1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1, NLT)
Alright, for those of you who don’t know, I’m a big baseball fan, and this is evidence that baseball is in the Bible in the big inning. Alright? And so there you go. But in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then in Revelation 21:1, it says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. (Revelation 21:1, NLT)
All right, so God is bringing. He’s making all things new. This world is fallen. But don’t worry, God is making a new heaven and a new earth. And I just want to tell you, our destiny is to live on the new earth.
We tend to think, oh, when we die, we go to heaven. Which is true. When we die before Christ sums up all things, when we die, we go to intermediate heaven. It will be glorious. There you’ll be recognizable, but it won’t be complete yet.
All right, but then out of the sky, the new Jerusalem will come and heaven will come down. The new heavens will come down to the new earth and they will be joined. And we will live forever on the new earth. And Christ will be with us. He’s making all things new. He is renewing this earth.
All the beauty, all the glory, all the splendor, all the wonder will be there without the death and decay, without the brokenness and the sorrow. And that will last forever. And it will be good. The darkness he called night. In Revelation 21:25, there shall be no night there.
25 Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there.(Revelation 21:25, NLT)
When I was in college, I was reading about the Holocaust. And one of the most famous books written about the Holocaust was from a scholar, a Jewish scholar who was a young boy and his family was taken into the prison camp. And the book is called Night.
It’s a gut wrenching story of life in that situation. And he says, and he said he saw his father die. And he said, that’s when the lights went out and that’s when there was night.
All right? Jesus is the light. He is the light of the world. And the light has come into the world and the darkness will not put it out. One of the descriptions of hell is outer darkness. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone caving, you know, gone underground.
And I went on a tour and I’m kind of claustrophobic, so I didn’t like this. I don’t know why I went. But the worst part of it was we got down, you know, into the depths. And the guy says, none of you know what utter darkness is like. None of you have been in utter darkness.
There’s always been Some small source of light that has broken in. But we’re going to turn off all the lights here. There’s no light in this place, you know, except for the artificial light. And the minute he said that, my little claustrophobic.
So I grabbed hold of my phone, oh, if I need light, there’s going to be light. But it was, it got dark and it was, it was horrific, you know, it was. Ah, but there’ll be no night. What about the beauty of the stars and all that? Don’t worry.
There’s no beauty in this world that we’ve experienced that will not be multiplied thousands of millions of times over of the beauty of the new earth. you’re not going to miss out on a thing. All right?
There will be light. God gave the two great lights, the sun and the moon. Why will there be light? The city has no more need of the sun or the moon because the Father and the Son are there. One of the things that strikes me as I look at near-death experiences, as I kind of read those, and we had the wonderful testimony of Julie here, is the brilliance of the light of eternity.
Many people say our natural eyes couldn’t handle it. The glory and the brilliance of the light. No shadows, no darkness. Jesus, the glory of Jesus’ face will undo us. And so he is the light of all eternity. God is light. He said, let there be light.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:3, NLT)
The universe lit up, and for all eternity there will be light. In Genesis 2:17, he says to Adam and Eve about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat of it, you will surely die.
17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” (Genesis 2:17, NLT)
In fact, literally, for those of you who are biblical literalists, they didn’t. They ate it and they didn’t die. But death took hold. And ever since that time, dear ones, as Paul says in Romans, the wages of sin is death. And the Bible says in Romans that death is God’s final enemy. It’s the last enemy to be destroyed. And so Adam and Eve did die.
They were separated from God. Corruption entered into the world, entered into their mortal bodies. They were no longer to be able to be sustained by the tree of life. And their bodies wore out and died. And since then, all bodies have worn out and died. But the Bible says there shall be no more death. The enemies of God will be defeated. You will live life without end, world without end. Death is defeated, dear ones.
And that’s why death in this world, though it’s painful to lose our loved ones, it may be scary for us to face it, but we’re able to say with Paul, O death, where’s your victory? O death, where is your sting?
55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? ” (1 Corinthians 15:55, NLT)
Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And if that says nothing else, it says this: God has victory over death. That enemy has been defeated. There will be no more death.
In Genesis, it says this: Another enemy is defeated. It says, Satan appears as the deceiver of humans. In Genesis 3:1, you see the serpent. And then in Revelation 20:10, Satan is thrown into the lake of fire and he disappears forever.
So enemy number two is gone. Death is gone. Satan is gone. Let me tell you, enemy number three is gone. We’ll look at that, the next one. And that is sin. Sin is gone.
You have three enemies in your life and no, one of them is not your mother-in-law. I read a meme the other day from a man. He said, I’m so scared for my Latina mother-in-law who is here illegally. My wife and I are deeply frightened. We just hope that ICE does not come and get her. She lives at blah blah blah, and she comes home from work every night at 6. I hope they don’t get her.
Dear ones, our enemies will no longer be able to get us: death, Satan, and sin. Somehow in eternity, we are going to be completely free. Yet the possibility of evil will be ultimately and forever removed. You will freely choose to love, but you will not choose to reject love anymore.
How many of you ever have trouble with your mind, right? I think thoughts all the time. I don’t want to think. I go, why do you do that, brain? And I have this conversation inside of my own head, right? I don’t want to think that. I mean, I could do it to you right now. Whatever you do right now, don’t think about pink elephants. Stop it. Stop thinking about pink elephants. Come on, what’s wrong with you? I mean, just. That’s how it is. We’re enemy. We’re at odds with ourselves. St. Paul articulates this so well. In Romans, chapter seven, he says the very things I hate to do, I do.
15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. (Romans 7:15, NLT)
Anybody do things that you hate to do? Anybody do things that later you go, oh, I knew I shouldn’t have done that. Anybody eat more food than they knew they should have eaten this last week? And then later that night, we’re like, oh, I shouldn’t have eaten all that.
And I lay awake at night, I can’t get to sleep, and thoughts are running around in my head and it’s like, I don’t want to think these thoughts. I want these thoughts to go away and I push them back and I think Other thoughts for five or ten minutes, and then they reappear and they’re there again. And so we have this struggle with sin. We have this struggle with our. And that is going to go away. And we will have peace with God and we’ll have peace within ourselves.
Think how peaceful and wonderful it will be to be perfect, to be morally perfect without being self-righteously prudish, which, by the way, is not moral perfection. You don’t want to be the church lady on Saturday Night Live. I know that’s an old reference, Brian. You got it right. Yeah. I’m not saying you’re old, Brian, but when you and I were born, the Dead Sea was only sick. That’s all I’m saying. So. But we’re good. All right.
The walk of God with humans was interrupted in Genesis 3:8-10. The walk of God with humans resumes in Revelation 21:3. He will be our God forever, and he will forever be with us, dear ones. And we have that.
And as Christians, we ask Jesus to come into our life, and the Holy Spirit comes into our life, and we begin a walk with God. I want to tell you, from God’s side of that equation, that walk with God is uninterrupted.
But from our side of the equation, we have seasons in our life, right, where we really experience the presence of God and we feel like our prayers are being answered. We come to church and we worship and maybe, you know, we get the Holy Spirit goosebumps, or we cry or we laugh, or, you know, we experience his presence when we get gathered together corporately.
But then there are other times. We’ve all experienced these times where we’re in our room and we’re praying and we feel like, boom. It’s just bouncing off the ceiling.
And you just wonder, am I just talking to the air, God? Are you there? Anybody else experience that kind of experience of the absence of God? Why aren’t you answering my prayers? Why isn’t this situation changing? What’s going on?
As a parent, as a pastor, it is hard for me to pray for children and parents in our congregation and families who are in pain, but I can do it. But, man, when my own family was in pain, it was almost impossible to do it. I needed the church. You got to help me.
I mean, somehow my emotions are so involved, and I feel like my walk with God, when I want it to be closest, is interrupted. Where are you, Lord? Now I know by faith, he’s there, right there. But I got to tell you, in that place, I think Jesus can be with all people at all times.
I don’t know how he can do this, but he’s God, he’s good at this. I don’t think there will ever be a time in eternity where we say, hey Jesus, I want to have a little chat where he’s not like, yeah.
And when you die, you’re going to see him, you’re going to have a face to face encounter, you’re going to have a life review, you’re going to meet with him. That is, dear ones, I want that inevitability to sink into all of us. But the good news is he is full of compassion, mercy, and grace. And that walk with him will never be interrupted.
When my mother passed away, we were fortunate enough to be with her and she loved what we call hymns, but they weren’t really hymns. They were kind of the praise choruses of the 20s and 30s, the camp songs, Old Rugged Cross, there you go.
Blessed Assurance, and of course, Adam and Eve Walked with God. Where? In the garden. And we have that song, we have that song in the garden. In fact, there are many names given to God in the Bible. There are many names given to the Son of God in the Bible.
One of the least familiar names that we don’t use often is I know he’s called Jesus, but he’s also called Andy because it says, Andy walks with me, Andy talks to me. So Andy will be with you, Jesus.
Sophia, thank you for laughing at my corny jokes. I don’t want you to go to school. I’ll just miss you, you know? Yeah, you laugh at my jokes. And Sidney forever just kind of goes, rolls her eyes and sticks out her tongue. I mean, it’s just the sad not to have both of you.
Alright, in Genesis, we have the initial triumph of the serpent, but in Revelation, we have the ultimate triumph of the lamb. And dear ones, we love it when the good guys win. We love it when the good guys win.
I am a sports fan. Let me tell you what sports is. Sports is pretend war, and it’s a fantasy. But what you do when you’re a sports fan is you just imagine your team is the good guys, and the other team are the bad guys.
And if you take it too seriously, it gets, it gets kind of weird because it’s like, you know, you think evil actually does prosper when the 49ers beat the Seahawks. It’s not true. But we fantasize about that because we’re living in that drama in this world.
We’re living in the drama of good guys and bad guys. The other one is movies, especially like good guy, bad guy. But westerns, westerns are all about justice, all right? And the bad guys come on the scene and they’re really bad and they’re really evil and they’re terrorizing the town folks. And then the good guys come on the scene.
There’s one I saw recently. No, I’m not going to use Tombstone tonight. All right. I’ve used. Used it plenty. Open Range is another one. Open Range. Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner. And there’s this. Kevin Costner is a reformed gunman. He was a bad guy, but he’s reformed.
And now he just wants to live a peaceful life, be a cattle rancher, marry a girl, and doesn’t want to kill anybody anymore. But the bad guys come in, and they kill their friend, and they’re terrorizing the town, and they hire a gunman. This gunman is really snarky, you know, and so they’re having this. They’re having the what? They’re on the street, you know, with their guns, having the shootout. But the gunman doesn’t know that Kevin Costner is a gunman.
And so Costner says to the gunman, the evil gunman, he says, did you kill my friend? And the guy, like, smiles, goes, yeah, and I liked it. And you think they’re going to have this dramatic shootout, right? And the minute he says, yeah, I like it, Castro goes, it puts one right between his eyes.
That’s terrible. That’s violent. No, that’s great. That’s awesome. Bam. Justice. Justice in the garden. Evil gains the upper hand. And for all of human history, it’s been written in wars and blood and violence and disease and cancers and.
And abuse and addictions. And there’s just been this constant human struggle. And in the middle of it, God calls this people and he raises these people and he gives this people his law. And he creates this island of monotheism amongst all these idol worshiping pagans who practice all these evil things.
And his people aren’t much better. But in that island comes his son. And we just celebrated that coming of his son into the world. And his son is the light of the world. And he doesn’t reflect any of that evil.
He lives this perfect, sinless life and then dies this vicarious death. Death. And he rises from the dead. And here’s the, and here’s what the resurrection is. The resurrection is the foretaste of Jesus’ ultimate victory.
We are living in a story where the good guys win. There will be justice, and that is the end. You had the partial victory of the devil in time, but you have the ultimate victory of the Son in eternity. And our sense of justice is satisfied.
Did you wreak havoc on earth, God asked the devil? Did you bring in death, disease, sickness, and misery? Yeah, I did. Lake of Fire. Where’d he go? It’s gone. He’s gone. Is he coming back? Nope, he’s not coming back. The ultimate triumph of the sun.
Dear ones, we have great hope. In Genesis, it says, I will greatly multiply your sorrow. But in Revelation, it says, there shall be no more death or sorrow, nor crying, and there shall be no more pain. No more pain.
Every time we experience a healing, that is God’s mercy, that is God’s glory. But theologically, it is a sign of the inbreaking of his kingdom. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is God’s ultimate will for no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, no regret.
You won’t forever be in heaven going, you know, I’m so glad I’m here, and I’m so glad Jesus forgave my sin. But, man, I sure regret what a, you know, little stinker I was. No, the stinker stuff will just be gone, all right? So don’t beat yourself up over it. Now.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. If you were a stinker to somebody and they’re still. And you’re still unreconciled, go get as unstuck as you can by offering them, by apologizing to them, Go make Amends if you can. But I just want to tell you, the stink is off you. The stink and the stain of sin is off you. There’ll be no more crying. Oh, my gosh, I’m going to be. I’m looking so forward to that. I don’t know what happened to me.
I’m not sure what age it happened, but somewhere in my advancing years, all of a sudden I started to cry. I just started to cry. And at the silliest, most sentimental things. It’s so embarrassing.
You know, Hallmark commercial, he called his mom. It bugs me. I can’t. And my wife, who used to cry all the time, and this is justice. And when we were newly married, she would cry all the time. And we go to movies and she cry. And I’d mock her, you know, I’d tease her, not mock her, but tease her and tease her.
And now she’s been working 20 years at 911. Woman’s hard as nails. You know, she’s like, you know. You know when I just told that story about the bad guy getting shot? And you’re like, ooh. And I said, no, that’s good. That’s justice. She would have. She would have been applauding, yeah, shoot the bad guys. She likes justice.
And so now she mocks me. We’re watching TV, and I’ll be over there, and, you know, I’ll just kind of, like, turn my head. But, you know, she’ll ask me a question.
It’s like, I don’t want to answer it because my voice is going to crack. But she. And here’s the question she asked me. The evil woman. Are you crying? No. you’re crying. Oh, my gosh. No more crying now.
I think there’s an exception to this. I think the first time you meet Jesus, I think there’ll be crying. I just can’t imagine not crying. Just falling at his feet and crying in joy and gratitude. Maybe I won’t. But he’ll wipe away all those tears. There will be no more crying. There’ll be no more pain.
Physical or emotional. The emotional is the worst. You know, physical pain can be rough, but the emotional is the worst. But both are gone.
I was watching a young man, younger than me, in his 40s, and he said, my grandpa did it. My dad did it. Now I’m doing it. It is the rite of passage into manhood. I make noise when I stand up, all right? And for a couple years, I recognized I was doing that. I’d get up, and I’d be like, okay, here we go. All right. There we are.
And I just make all this noise when I stood up, and I made a commitment, said, I’m not going to do that anymore. But then I realized it actually helps. It hurts less when you grunt and make noise. It’s good for you.
And so now I’ve gone completely 180. The other other. I make as much noise as I want when I get up, which, you know, is annoying enough in my house, but it kind of bothers my wife in restaurants and stuff.
Here we go. Oh, boy. I ain’t a lot. There we go. Okay. People looking around. Yep. Old man getting up. I don’t know if you do it yet, Jacob, but it’ll happen. It’ll happen. All right. That’ll end. That’ll end. Maybe I’ll still do it for the humor effect, but there’ll be no pain associated with it. There’ll be no more pain, physical or emotional.
And then he says, cursed is the ground for your sake in Genesis 3. In Revelation 22, there shall be no more curse.
17 And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. (Genesis 3:17, NLT)
3 No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. (Revelation 22:3, NLT)
Now, I do believe in eternity there will be work. There will be fruitful labor, things to do, things that are important to do, things that we get to do. But any of you who work know that there are two parts of work. One is the toil, and that is the curse. The other is the joy.
Okay, so Saturday night, being a pro at crastination, I am working on my sermon on Saturday night. And it is toil. Like, oh, how am I going to put this thing together? Why did I wait so long?
And I got my Bible open and my books open, and I’m sitting there on my computer and I’m putting that thing together, and it’s just. But today, it’s joy. It might be toil for you, but I’m having fun. You might be suffering, but it’s good for your soul. Endure it. Endure it.
There’ll be no more long sermons. It doesn’t say that in the book of Revelation. There shall be no more curse. The toil of work. Right, Steven? You get up at 5 in the morning, you go out and feed those horses, and you love those horses, and that’s a big joy of your life.
But I imagine there’s some mornings where it’s rainy and the horses aren’t in a good mood, and you’re not in a good mood, and you’re shoveling. You know what? And there’s probably some toil involved in it. All right? Yeah.
So you will have all the horses you want there, and they won’t poop. Just want to tell you that. Yeah, it’ll be good. No more shoveling. You know what?
All right. Human dominion is broken. In the first fall, human dominion is broken. God gave to Adam and Eve the earth. He said, this is yours. I am the Lord of it. You are my steward. you’re not God. All right?
The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, but you are the stewards of this planet. He says, multiply, be fruitful. Subdue it. Bring it under my dominion. Make my kingdom come on Earth as it is in heaven. That is the human job. And we fumbled. We dropped the ball.
And now human dominion is restored in the rule of the new man, Christ. See, why did God have to send a man to redeem the Earth? Because God doesn’t go back on his word. And he gave the world to humans.
What happens on this planet we determine now. the Spiritual world, both the dark side and the light side, are involved, but they’re involved by our agreement and invitation. That’s why prayer is so important, and that’s why messing around with the demonic is so dangerous.
Don’t agree with the devil, don’t play with the devil, but agree with God and pray to God. And when you do, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And the dominion of Jesus Christ our king begins to spread throughout the earth. And the goodness of the Lord comes into the land of the living. And we are the agents, the ambassadors of that goodness. It happens through us. It doesn’t happen magically or mystically.
Even in the Muslim world, where people are having Jesus dreams on a regular basis, you think, well, that’s just the sovereign work of God. No humans are involved in that.
Because it was in the mid-80s that began, people began praying for the 1040 window, for that part of the human population, the most populated part of the world today that is dominated by Hinduism and Islam and Buddhism. And people began to pray that Jesus, the light of Jesus, would break into that part of the world.
And one of the things that happened was Muslims started having Jesus dreams. Because if you’re a Muslim, there’s only two ways God speaks to you: through the Quran and through dreams. They began having Jesus dreams. And so that was that kingdom invasion.
Was God acting on behalf of people, praying? Did God act initially to motivate people to pray? Sure. But God began to pray. Our people began to pray. God began to act.
And even in those dreams, dear ones, I might be over-laboring my point, but even in those dreams people aren’t converted.
Even in those dreams, people don’t come to Christ. In those dreams, people are shown Jesus, and then Jesus says, go to such and such a house, and he leads them to a Christian who leads them to Christ. Even then, God keeps to his own original rules.
We have a call to bring dominion on the earth. Anybody ever come into your life and begin to share their problems? You felt, oh, that’s enormous, that’s huge. And you begin, just in your mind, you begin to pray for them as they’re sharing their problems.
And here’s one of the prayers I pray all the time. I still do. Lord, this is, this is rough. They need a Christian in their life. Send a Christian into their life. And then God always reminds me, Kevin, I have. Who? Oh, oh, oh, that’s right, that’s right, me.
And then I say the next prayer, Lord, send a better Christian. And God says, you’re it, man. Tag. you’re it. you’re it. you’re the contagious carrier of my goodness. To bring a touch to this person’s life, a kingdom touch to this person’s life.
Human dominion restored in Christ. In Genesis 3:23, paradise is closed. In Revelation 21:25, a new paradise is opened.
23 So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. (Genesis 3:23, NLT)
25Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there. (Revelation 21:25, NLT)
Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden, and the angels guard it. And that place has been closed ever since. But it will reopen. A new paradise will open, and it will encompass the whole world. And we will be there forever. Access to the Tree of Life was lost. Access to the Tree of Life was be reinstated. By the way, just my theory. you’ve heard me say this before, but just my theory.
The Tree of Life won’t be the only tree. I am convinced that there will be no death, including animal death, in eternity. Death will be defeated. But I also can’t imagine a glorious new heaven and new earth without meat.
But meat is predicated upon animal death. And you know, you know, I’m saying there’s going to be meat trees, all right? They’re going to be. There’s going to be. I’m going to have. In my little castle in the new Earth in Ireland. I’m going to have a ribeye orchard. I’m going to have a bacon vineyard.
And because I grew up in California, I’m going to have in and out burger shrubbery. And you can come over and hang out with me, and we can eat meat. All right? You can bring your vegetables, Miller boys. You know, that’s fine. We’re good with that. But your dad and I will be eating bratwurst. Just saying.
All right, dear ones. They were driven from God’s presence. In Revelation 22:4, we will see his face. There’s a worship. All the worship songs I picked tonight were old revival songs from the 90s and early 2000s.
I just was in that mood. And when you get to pick the songs, you get to pick the songs you want to pick. So if you don’t like them, just volunteer to pick the songs and do the slides, and you can pick the songs you want to pick.
But I picked the old revival songs. I was just in the mood. One of the reasons I was in the mood is Friday night, before I put the list together, I was just. I’d had my quiet time.
I had listened to my music and praised God, and I’d read the Bible and I’d said my prayers, and I was done with my quiet time. I wasn’t being particularly holy. I wasn’t being particularly spiritual, all right? In fact, I moved on from praise music to classic rock. I’m listening to rock and roll, and, you know, a lot of people say, oh, that’s devil music. Well, there’s some bad lyrics in some of those songs, but not all. Some songs have gospel themes running through them. But anyway, this one had neither.
For those of you in Colorado, it was REO Speedwagon Riding the Storm Out, which is about a Colorado Rocky Mountain winter. I’m just listening to it, and I’m listening to these guys wail on the guitar, and I’m listening to rock and roll. And I’m telling you, man, Holy Spirit came in the room.
When I experience the presence of God, I know he’s always with me. But when my body starts to experience it for the last 20 years, I actually start to have physical manifestations. And my hand will start to shake, but then I start to twitch. I’ll start to twitch. And I think I shared this last week.
You know, sometimes I’m twitching when I’m praying, and, you know, and it’s. You know, and I’ll be in bed with my wife, and I’ll twitch. And, you know, now it’s great, because now if I want to, I can just bam, hit her. And she goes, what? I was just praying, honey. Sorry, it was. You know, it was accident.
But anyway, I’m just twitching. But my wife wasn’t there. Nobody was there. And just the presence of God came in my room. And I’ve experienced that presence that way before and stronger. But I hadn’t experienced that level for quite a while. And I wasn’t asking for it. I wasn’t.
I was saying some simple prayers, but prayers I’ve been saying over and over again. I was praying for revival. And the minute I said the word revival, and it just. And he was just there. And just five or 10 minutes, I’m just in my room going, God, thank you for being here. And, oh, my gosh, his presence was there.
I don’t want to twitch for all eternity, you know, in God’s presence. But I will say this. It does not bug me at all. I love it. I love it when I experience in my body the presence of God. I don’t apologize for it at all. And I love it when I see other people experiencing the presence of God. I love revival manifestations. I love it when people fall and shake and wiggle and all that kind of stuff. Now, there are dangers to it.
The danger to it is we can fall in love with the manifestations, not the giver of the manifestations. And then it’s like falling in love with the wrapping paper, not the present that the wrapping paper is holding.
The other danger is some people are offended by the manifestations. They don’t like them; they seem unseemly. The danger there is because you don’t like the wrapping paper, you miss the present.
And it doesn’t matter. you’re not more spiritual if you fall, shake, and wiggle. In fact, I’m the last guy I thought would do that. I am a left brain, rational theologian. You know, I’m not one of these flaky, charismatic costal types. You know, I used to watch that stuff on TV and go, that’s of nonsense. And now I are one. And I love it.
There was an old revival song. We didn’t sing it tonight, but an old revival song that was sung during the time the songs we sang tonight. And it simply is. I love, I love, I love your presence forever. World without end. World without end.
The freshness, the beauty, the love, the compassion, the overwhelming goodness of God. Think of the best you’ve ever felt in God’s presence. The best spiritual high you ever had. The most loved and embraced you ever, maybe when you were first born again. Or even the best you ever felt when you.
Okay, another thing I love, I love when I was 18 and Jill was 16 and we were dating and we were falling in love. Oh my gosh, I love that feeling. I love that feeling of falling in love. And I love being married to her now. But there’s a difference, right? I mean, she used to just like run up to me and be so happy. And now it’s like, hey, hey, what’s up? Yeah, I love that.
I love when my grandkids run up to me with their hands in the air. And I remember we went to see them one time. They were three and one, and they knew we were coming, and they were waiting at the window. When we drove up and got out of the car, they both squealed with delight.
And I turned to Jill, I said, why don’t you greet me like that? He says, why don’t you greet me like that? Point. But I just love that excitement of love. And you will have that forever. It will never be boring, it will never be mundane. The joy of Jesus will be with you forever. The joy of one another will be with you forever. I don’t know how to make this. I don’t have words. I’m not a good Enough authority.
I’m not a good enough speaker to paint the glory and the beauty and the amazement of what awaits each one of us. And it is sure. God bless you. It is sure. It is sure. It is a sure thing.
Dear ones, it’s not this pie in the sky hope. It is a rock solid reality grounded in the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And so the theological virtue as we hold on to this is the word hope. This is our hope.
You can live 40 days without water, or. No, you can live 40. You can live three days without water. You go 40 days without food. All right, I’m thinking I can do more than 40. I think some of you skinny people, you can do less. But, you know, I think. I think I can get more than 40.
But anyway, about 40 days without food, you can live, I don’t know, three days without water. You can live just a couple minutes without air. I don’t think you can live a millisecond without hope, dear ones.
This is our hope. This is our hope. And my hope for you is that every day this hope will become more and more real to you. And it will be the thing that will sustain you through the brokenness of this world. Because that’s not going away right away. Okay?
That’s not going away. There’s going to be disappointment, there’s going to be sickness, there’s going to be wars and rumors of wars. There’s going to be struggles. I happen to think the world’s getting better, not worse. But it’s far from perfect. It’s far from perfect. But his kingdom is advancing.
And one day we will step into this and it will last forever. And we’ll hang out forever. And we’ll be even more likable than we are now. I mean, I like you all now. I like hanging out with you all now, but I like it even more then. And you will actually be able to endure me. You will actually. You might even enjoy it. All right, you’re thinking, well, that’s good, but sum it up now, boy. All right, so I am done. But I want to say this.
On the night that he was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. He gave it to his disciples. And he said, this is my body, which is given for you. In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, he poured it out, gave it to his disciples and said, this is my blood, which is shed for you and for many. And here’s where all this starts. He said it was shed for the forgiveness of sins. That’s the door. In the name of the Lord Jesus, your sins are forgiven.
Now you can have fellowship with him and you can become a New Covenant person and embrace and live in this hope. And so, dear ones, I invite you to take this meal. It’s a holy meal, and it is food for the journey. It will actually, in a way that we can’t explain, it, will sustain you. This is the healthiest meal you’re going to eat, all right? And so I invite you to come and eat. It’s the food of God, for the people of God.
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