8/13/2025
This summer has been a challenge – in more ways than one! I’ve had some personal challenges, including helping to care for an old friend . . . but all that should be over now, and I really do appreciate your prayers and understanding during this . . . well, challenging time.
And then there was Revelation!
I’ve preached and taught Revelation before, but trying to distill its message into six or so easily digestible messages has been far more of a challenge than I expected it to be. And I’ve appreciated hearing from several of you expressing appreciation for the sermons, telling me that you’ve gained a broader understanding of Revelation’s message for today.
After all, it’s the book of Revelation, not the book of predictions. My point that I’ve tried to hammer home is that so much time is spent on speculating about Revelation’s future meaning that we miss what God is saying to the church NOW.
God is revealing the Dragon’s way of working in the world at all times, not just in the future, and God is revealing what life is like in Babylon, whether Babylon is code for Rome or Russia or Iran or local governments or even denominations and individual churches.
At the same time, God is revealing what God is doing behind the scenes in the meantime and how, no matter how fierce the Dragon may seem and no matter how alluring the delights of Babylon might appear, their future, and the future of all those who follow them, is the trashcan of eternity.
And for those who overcome? For those who remain faithful witnesses of the Lamb and who do not fall for the lies of the Dragon and the false security of Babylon? God has promised for us an eternity in his presence and a home in the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, which John describes as “coming down from God out of heaven.”
It is rapture in reverse. It is heaven coming to earth, merging into a new reality: a new heaven and a new earth. Yes, it is “Heaven” but not as an escape from earth but as a place for the healing of the nations. It is God’s answer to creation’s groanings, as Paul writes in Romans 8, “the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor. . .” The New Jerusalem is Eden restored, the world restored and humanity restored.
We’re familiar with John’s descriptions of pearly gates, walls of jaspar and streets of gold, but the true magnificence of the New Jerusalem is the continual presence of God. In Revelation 21:3, the voice from the throne proclaims: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the tabernacle of God is among the people. He will tabernacle with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
The key word is “tabernacle” (a word that is often translated in this verse as “dwell” but that seems kind of dull, doesn’t it?) John writes “the tabernacle of God is among the people and he will tabernacle with them.”
When you hear that word, “tabernacle,” what do you think of?
In my mind, I go right back to the Old Testament, when Israelites camped all around the tabernacle. It was God’s desire to dwell with his people – we see that promise all over the Old Testament. In the Garden of Eden, God walks with the first couple in the cool of the day. In Exodus 29:45, God says, “I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them; I am the Lord their God.” We see the promise in the prophets, Jeremiah 32:38 and Ezekiel 37:27. Here in Revelation 21, God’s desire is finally and truly fulfilled: “He will tabernacle with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” By using that particular word, tabernacle, God is pointing backwards, telling us, “this is what I’ve been up to all along!”
Revelation distills all of the hopes and plans of God for his people from all over the Bible, and so it's easy to see how Revelation 21-22 is the perfect ending for the book of Revelation, the New Testament, the entire Bible, the whole story of God and the story of humanity.
Thinking back on these weeks in Revelation, and especially after spending time meditating on the last chapters of the book, I’d like to offer some final thoughts. The book of Revelation calls us to:
Worship - giving honor and praise to God and the Lamb for the present and future salvation offered to us and to all the world.
Mission - God’s future vision of the healing of the nations can begin with us as we work to reconcile those around us first to God and then to one another. Remember, it is the faithful witness of God’s people through times of tribulation that point non-believers to Christ. The world can freak out during disasters on their own. They need the church to embody the values and practices of the New Jerusalem NOW, remaining faithful and true even – if necessary – to the point of death.
Prophecy - naming and speaking against values and practices that are at odds with God’s coming new creation, both in God’s people and also with the greater world. Remember that prophecy isn’t so much foretelling the future as it is looking at the current time and determining whether it is under the blessing or the judgment of God – and this is true in both the secular world and in the church.
Hope - we can live in a foreshadow of the New Jerusalem now by God’s grace, but we know that the New Jerusalem will never come through our efforts. The New Jerusalem will come in fullness only in God’s time and after God’s final defeat of all the powers arrayed against God and his people.
Revelation calls us to be worshiping, missional, prophetic and hopeful people as we faithfully serve God both now and in the future.
Blessings,
Pastor Terry