Revelation Perseverance

NOTE: This is the continuation of the 'Sunday Sermon' series, all entries of which can be viewed by clicking that 'label' below.

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the Bible. Also known to some as 'The Apocalypse' or the 'Revelation to John', the book is filled with symbolism as it unravels the end of times for man's journey here on the planet Earth which began in the Garden of Eden.

The symbolism of the book can likely be attributed to two parts. The first part is one that I believe to be mystical revelation in which God reveals future events to John of a spiritual or heavenly nature with symbols that he can understand and which are left to our interpretation for their exact meaning and nature.

The second part is one that I believe comes from John's attempts to describe future people, places, media, weaponry, technology and events in ways that are understandable to him based on the world of his time. For instance, John describes in Revelation 9:19 what I believe to be tanks as horses. When you read the passage and a few just prior, it is easy to follow this logic.

The Book of Revelation is about two main principles. As the New American Bible describes it "the triumph of God in the world of men and women remains a mystery, to be accepted in faith and longed for in hope." This means that we need to accept with faith that God has a plan for humanity, and that the culmination of his plan for humanity is nothing to be feared, but rather to be longed for.

Many through the ages have wanted to believe that this finale for humanity was upon them and their world. They have seen the end of days, that 'apocalypse' or prophesied time of the imminent destruction of the world and salvation of the righteous, coming in their own lifetimes. Every one of these previous believers was wrong, or was rushing God's hand.

God has laid out certain key events in the text of the Bible that must occur before the events depicted in Revelation will come to pass. Among these were the spreading of the Gospel of the Truth of Jesus Christ to all corners of the world. This has only become realized in recent decades, with the final reaching of missionaries, evangelists and, frankly, the internet into the remotest sections of the planet.

Another key event that the Bible lays out as necessary before the end times fully arrive is the rebuilding of the Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This was impossible until recent decades, with the return of the Jews to power in the region, the establishment of Israel as a nation, and their subsequent control over Jerusalem itself as a result of a series of wars. Those wars will probably look like small potatoes next to what will result if they actually attempt to build that Temple.

The organization of the European Union is another clear sign that we are moving towards those end days of Revelation. Add in the circumstances of Israel in relation to its neighbors, the budding relationship between Russia and Iran, and the strengthening of China, and any serious evaluator of a Biblical end times theory has to admit that the earthly powers and circumstances are finally aligning as fully as never before in human history to those expressed as necessary by Revelation and other Biblical revelatory books.

Now there will be some who will scoff at any 'end of the world' scenario. There are many non-believers in the world today. Not just non-Christians, but people who refuse to believe in anything beyond their own worldly thoughts and desires. For these people we can do nothing but pray, and hope that as the final years play out they see the light before it is too late.

The fact is that the Bible says there will be many who see these Revelation events unfold before their very eyes, and yet continue to disbelieve. Some will do so out of a hard heart. These are the stubborn people who simply refuse to admit they were wrong, and refuse to surrender their will to that of God. Others will be seduced and misled by the forces of evil that will emerge during these end times, most especially by the anti-Christ, the world leader who will emerge.

Keep in mind the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Jews there. If you see that happen, you can begin the countdown. If you don't see that happen, then anything else is pure fear-mongering. But if that does happen, if you are not a believer by that point you had better start paying attention to Revelation, and in fact to the entirety of Christ's teachings and those of his Apostles in the New Testament.

The end times, whenever they occur, will not be a happy period for Christian believers here on earth. There will be wars, famine, persecution, pestilence, natural disasters, and many other heart-stopping occurrences. The anti-Christ will mislead many into thinking that these are coincidental and that he has the answers. Those of us who know the truth need not fear that time and those events, we only need do two things: remain faithful, and persevere. Remember, we know how it will all turn out in the end.

Until such time, if it even happens in our lifetimes, I would urge you to open up your Bible and read. Try to take the time to read it from front to back. If nothing else, at least start out by reading through the New Testament, from the teachings of Christ to the 'Acts of the Apostles' and on to Revelation. Give yourself a fighting chance by experiencing the ammunition of revealed Truth. And may God bless you and yours as you continue your life's journey.

The Substance and Evidence That is True Faith

What is faith? A direct answer has been provided for us in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. This one book of the Bible provides in its forty relatively short verses an exact meaning, and some definitive examples of this often misunderstood and often undervalued spiritual principle.

Hebrews begins with the definition, that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." But it does not leave us there with no direction as to where this quality originated, or with no practical examples that highlight the simple definition of faith.

It is the 'substance' of things hoped, their very essence or foundation. Without a solid foundation, a structure or a system, or a person, will crumble. Faith is the substance of every good thing that we wish for ourselves and those we love. With faith, the achievement of all our dreams and goals is made possible.

It is the 'evidence' of things not seen. We cannot 'see' the being of God. We cannot look into His eyes. His arms do not wrap around us in a hug that we can feel. But when we have faith, we are actually aware of His loving presence in our daily lives. During our best of good times, our most difficult periods of challenge, and during our most awful of tragedies we experience that we are never alone.

In the book of Hebrews we receive numerous examples of men and women who entrusted their faith in God and were rewarded. Noah in preparing the ark and its inhabitants while the sun shone. Abraham in his willingness to offer up his only son as a sacrifice in the belief that God would raise him or have a greater plan. Moses in choosing the truth of his Hebrew background over an adopted Roman one when confronted with a future filled with likely persecution.

Faith, it turns out, comes directly from God. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." God created everything that is now, ever has been, and ever will be in existence. We can know this intellectually, without recourse to blind faith. Common sense in understanding visible and theoretical science points us to the signature of our Creator. Faith helps fill in the blanks and answer the questions.

God did not leave us photographs or video of his creation, but He did inspire our ancestors' words and visions to be left to us in the Bible. He did impart in us an intellect and critical thinking ability. And more importantly, He sent His Son to us to teach us directly. Jesus Christ let us know through His teaching that we "need only have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, and we can say to a mountain "move from here to there", and it will move."

In Romans 10:17, Paul imparts to us that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." This gives us practical instruction that we can gain and strengthen our faith by listening to God and the teaching of Jesus Christ, who emphasized this act of listening many times during his public ministry.

Read up on God's word, on Jesus' teachings. Perhaps just as importantly, listen to them. Go to church and hear His words spoken, His lessons taught, and share the experience with others. Remember what Jesus said, that "wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them." Your faith will be affirmed in His truth, the truth which truly shall set you free.

Conspiracy, Betrayal, Denial

We are now just three weeks away from Easter Sunday, which along with Christmas Day is the celebration of one of the two greatest events in the history of mankind. On that day of Easter we will celebrate the great victory of Jesus Christ over death, his rising from the grave into which he entered as a repentance for the sins of man. But besides that sin for which his death was payment, there was a human process of actual conspiracy and betrayal that served as the mechanization leading to his crucifixion. And near that end there were a series of denials from his most beloved and respected friend and follower. As the Bible tells it in the New Testament gospel of Luke, with the Passover festival about to begin the chief priests and scribes were looking for a way to put him to death. They feared Jesus' popularity among the people, and that many of his teachings were outside the bounds, some directly in conflict with, the tenets of the Jewish faith. The Gospel of Matthew tells that they assembled in the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas, and consulted on how best to effect his arrest and eventual execution. Their initial plan was to have this plot carried out after the festival was over, because as both Matthew and Mark tell us, they feared "a riot among the people", such was Jesus' popularity. Their plots against him came together more suddenly than they wanted because the fact is they were not in charge of things. As Luke tells it, Satan "entered into" one of Jesus' twelve disciples, Judas Iscariot, who approached the temple guards and the chief priests with an offer to betray Jesus and turn him over to them in exchange for money. When the chief priests agreed to pay him 30 pieces of silver, the conspiracy was in place, and Judas began to seek an opportunity to lead them to Jesus when there would be no crowds around to cause a disturbance. When the time came to celebrate the Passover meal, Jesus gathered with his disciples in the large upper room at the home of a Jerusalem man who was a supporter of their group. During the meal, Jesus instituted the Sacramental expression of the sharing of His body and blood. In breaking bread and passing it among his friends he said "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me." After they ate, the Lord then took the cup of wine and said to them "This cup is the new covenant of my blood, which will be shed for you." As they further celebrated the meal, an argument broke out among them as to who was the greatest of Jesus' followers. Rather than select anyone of them, Jesus instead told them that true greatness comes not from lording it over others, but through service, saying "I am among you as the one who serves." When his closest follower and dearest friend, Simon Peter, told Jesus that he was prepared to go to prison and die for him, Jesus replied that "Before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me." He also told the twelve friends that one of them sitting among their group would betray him saying "It would be better for that man if he had never been born." As we know through history, late that very night while his followers slept in the garden at Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives, Judas saw the opportunity to turn him over. He led a group of soldiers to that location, approached Jesus, and identified him to the soldiers by kissing Jesus on the cheek. Jesus was taken into custody and brought before the Sanhedrin, the council of elders, chief priests and scribes who would begin the process of a sham legal proceeding leading to his death. While Jesus was in custody, three different times that day his friend Peter was approached and accused of being one of Jesus' followers, and all three times Peter denied that it was so, just as Jesus had foretold. As the celebrations of Easter approach we should all be reminded of these moments when the very Savior of mankind was conspired against, betrayed, and denied by his very closest friends and followers. We need to remember that while our friends and family are important, no one is beyond Satan's grasp, and no one is beyond doing the exact same thing to each of us. In the end, we hope to count on the people in our lives at the most important moments. But the fact is that in the end the only one whom we can really count on is Jesus Christ himself. He was the one who stayed faithful to us. He is the one who went to the cross so that your sins would be forgiven. He was the one who suffered and died for each of you reading this. Do not turn your back on him as his followers did. Use the approach of this holy and blessed season to set your lives on a path that draws you closer to Jesus Christ.

Forgive Yourself

Apparently there are many Christians out there who, even after participating in the Catholic sacramental process of confession and reconciliation, find that they continue to worry about past sins for years after they have confessed them. The fact for many people is that the Lord forgives more easily than we can forgive ourselves. In the New Testament, John 3:17 says it most completely: "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." Let's start by dealing with the forgiveness of sins as the Church deals with it. God gave us two ways to be forgiven of our sin. First is the sacrament of Baptism, which I spoke more fully about last weekend at this blog. Baptism was given by God to take away the 'Original Sin' committed by Adam in the Garden of Eden, as well as to cleanse our souls of any sins committed by us prior to our baptism. At Pentecost, Peter, who Christ had left as the first steward of his Church, said: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins..." Of course, man is an imperfect creature, and he will sin even after being cleansed and forgiven at baptism. To help man with sins committed after baptism, another process was needed, which has been called by the names confession, penance, and reconciliation after the three main parts of this process. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and to forgive them as well. After His resurrection, He said to the apostles: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you...If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Knowing that He would not always be among men physically, Christ passed the power to forgive sins on to His followers, and instructed them to pass this along to their successors. Thus we have the formal forgiveness of sins today in the confessional. Some people are afraid to go into the confessional and face a priest to ask for forgiveness. Maybe they have been away from the Church for a time, perhaps a long time, and are embarrassed both by their sins and by their estrangement. Others are simply resentful, feeling that they should just be able to deal with God directly, and not have to use a 'middle man' like a priest. Some have especially taken this attitude with the emergence in recent years of sexual abuse scandals within the priesthood itself. "Why should I ask those pedophiles to forgive me of my sins?" is an attitude that has been expressed. The fact is, these are only excuses, not reasons, for missing out on the sin-forgiveness process. Fear needs to simply be overcome, and there is only one way: just do it. Find out when your local church holds confessions, go there during that time, sit in a pew for a few minutes praying for strength and reminding yourself of some of your more egregious sins, and then get into that confessional and lay it all out with the priest, even telling him of your fears. Pride needs to be overcome, the feeling that maybe you know better how to have your sins forgiven, and give the process a chance. Once you give up the pride, overcome the fear, and get into the confessional and begin talking to the priest, I guarantee you that the feeling you have on leaving that confessional will be uplifting and freeing. I hope and pray that more of you actually take the opportunity to get back into the formal penance process, and back into Church itself, sharing in Christ's body in the Eucharist. That said, even should you do so, you have only won half the battle. God has fully forgiven you, but you still will need to let go and forgive yourself. First, know this: Jesus loves sinners. Again in the New Testament, Mark 2:15-17 quotes Jesus Himself as saying: "People who are healthy do not need a doctor; sick people do. I have come to call sinners, not the self-righteous." In most surveys on the subject, the reason that people have left and stayed away from the Church go back to pain: the pain from sin, abuse, divorce, addiction, abandonment, betrayal, failure, poverty, loneliness, etc. One of the biggest sources of pain has always been described by respondents as guilt over past sins. This guilt has spoiled relationships, caused sleeplessness and depression, and caused many to say things to themselves such as: "God doesn't want to have anything to do with me." Fact is, nothing could be further from the truth. Sin causes these worries for a reason. Sin is evil, committed intentionally. We have taken some action, said some words, thought some idea that we absolutely know full well is wrong. It is a violation of one of God's commandments, particularly Jesus' command for us to love one another as He has loved us. William McKee has written of three ways to stop worrying about past sins. First, don't be a 'connector'. Stop thinking that bad things happen to you now because of your past sins. God doesn't work that way. Second, don't make 'comparisons'. Just because you perceive someone else to be holier or more perfect than you doesn't make it so. You have no idea what goes on in someone else mind, or behind their closed doors. You can only worry about yourself and your thoughts, words, and deeds. Finally, and perhaps most difficult, develop a 'positive self image'. It is not vanity to think well of yourself. It has often been said that you need to love yourself before you can love others, and this is very true. The roots of your past go deep, but the fact of the matter is that you are likely a much better person at heart than you give yourself credit for. One thing that is important to remember here is that self-love does not really come from ourselves 'looking in the mirror'. It comes from the reflection that we see of ourselves in others. How does our family view us? Our friends? Our peers? No matter what you currently think of yourself, start acting differently. Start treating others really well on purpose. Start talking to people in a positive tone, not using profanity, comforting and encouraging them. Do this regularly, and you will be amazed at the response that you receive from them over time, and at the improvement you will feel in your own self image. You are a child of God, and He sent his Son so that your sins might be forgiven. Don't be afraid, and don't be vain. Give the Church another chance. Go to confession, be forgiven, and then most importantly, forgive yourself. Removing the weight of your sins from your life, your thoughts, your relationships will free you to experience God's love more fully, and will indeed free you to both love yourself and others more completely. God bless you.