It seems there’s a lot of bad news lately. A sample of recent news headlines report and warn of disconcerting realities that range from escalating humanitarian crises to fatal school shootings, from potential radiation leaks to continued civil unrest, from soaring gas prices to spreading wildfires. Add to the mix a combination of health concerns, growing fatigue, financial strain, relational tensions, feelings of purposelessness, and spiritual apathy and it’s difficult to avoid being overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty.

However, times like these should prompt God’s people to be reminded of how the story ends, what the future holds, and how God wins. This isn’t to bury our heads in the sand and ignore the fallenness of the world but, instead, to behold afresh the good news of the hope we’ve been given that can energize, give endurance, restore joy, inspire thanksgiving, and spark true anticipation in spite of all the bad news.

SERMON MANUSCRIPT

It seems there’s a lot of bad news lately. There’s bad news globally:“Ukrainians evacuate Kyiv suburbs amid deepening crisis,” “North Korea fires suspected ballistic missile into sea,” “Chernobyl ‘radiation leaks imminent’ after power is cut off,” “New Zealand shifts approach to COVID-19 as daily cases hit new record.”

And it doesn’t get better as we move a closer to home. “Wildfire forces evacuation of 600 homes in Florida Panhandle,” “Six teens arrested in Iowa school shooting that killed one,” “As gas prices soar in wake of Ukraine war, Canadians could see cost of goods go up,” and “Toronto police probing antisemitic and homophobic graffiti at a downtown church.” That’s all this week! Add headlines from the last two years and it’s near overwhelming.

And maybe, if there was a reporter covering the news of your life, some personal headlines would be added: “Another visit to the doctor reveals concerning prognosis,” “Energy levels plummet as financial tensions rise,” or “Infighting at home and church leading to apathy and spiritual fatigue.”

It seems there’s a lot of bad news lately, bloodshed, suffering, and joy-stealing chaos—so much cause for concern, fear, uncertainty. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that’s noticed. And so, I want to take a break from Matthew this morning and, instead, have us remind ourselves of how the story ends, what the future holds, and how God wins.

This isn’t to ignore the fallenness of our world but it’s to see freshly the hope we’ve been given that can give us endurance, restore our joy, inspire thanksgiving, and spark true anticipation in spite of the fallenness. There is good news that transcends the bad news.

Turn to Revelation 20. Today I want to look at the three concluding chapters of the Bible and the vision of the future that was given, by the Holy Spirit, to John the Apostle. Obviously, as we study three chapters we’re not going to be exhaustive. I simply want to survey this section of Scripture and point out how the story ends, what the future holds, and how God wins. As we do, we’ll see four things for which we are waiting and three things we’re to do while we wait.

Four Things For Which We Are Waiting

We begin with the four things for which we are waiting as the people of God, four things that we’re promised will come to fruition in the future.

In the end, evil is destroyed

First, we’re told that, in the end, evil is destroyed (20:1–3, 7–10). There is coming a time in the future when Satan will be dealt with, initially for a thousand years and, finally, forever. He who has made it his mission to steal, kill, destroy, and deceive the world will be no more.

And the same goes for those who follow him (20:11–15; 21:8). It’s been said that there are two types of people in this world. Those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “thy will be done.” For the latter group, those who have rejected God’s Son and his offer of righteousness through faith, who would rather stand before their Maker and offer their life’s resume of good works as evidence of their worthiness to be in the presence of a holy God, they will realize then they have been working for the Enemy.

While evil spreads over the globe today, while it seems at times like the wicked are winning, scoundrels are in power, abusers abound, while creation groans under the curse, and while there are days I feel I’m losing the battle to sin in my life, it won’t last forever.

At the dentist we willingly endure pain—pain made necessary by our own neglect and irresponsibility!—knowing that restoration awaits. Similarly, humanity has made a mess of this world. The rot of sin is everywhere, causing pain. But there’s coming a day when it will be dealt with total finality. In the end, evil is destroyed. All of it.

In the end, faithfulness is rewarded

But, as we keep reading, it isn’t only that evil is destroyed, but also, in the end, faithfulness is rewarded (20:4a). These are believers in Jesus who have been given authority to judge (2:26–27; 3:21; 4:4). 

Believers who overcome and endure a wicked world are granted authority to judge (20:4b). Those who are martyred are made to reign with Christ in the millennial kingdom as a reward for faithfulness.

The rest of the dead who stay dead until the end of the millennial kingdom, over which believers and martyrs will be reigning and judging, are those that end up before the great white throne judgement (20:5). They’re unbelievers. 

Believers, who have a part in the first resurrection at the rapture of the church, fear not the second death, the lake of fire (20:6). We are given glorified bodies, flesh and blood but different. Imperishable. Un-tarnishable. Followers of Jesus will not spend eternity floating in the clouds. We will be embodied, physical, recognizable beings who eat, play, laugh, work, create, learn, reign, and rule forever. You see, in the end, faithfulness is rewarded. 

While we may hurt today, while our bodies may be failing, while we may be neglected by those who are supposed to care, ignored by those who are supposed to love us, marginalized, dismissed, and abused, it will not always be that way.

Athletes are rewarded for diligence in training, students for commitment in studies, parents for continued intentionality in child-rearing, employees for loyalty to a company. Similarly, followers of Jesus will be rewarded for faithfulness for his name’s sake.

In the end, God dwells with us

In the end, evil is destroyed and faithfulness is rewarded. In a way, however, both of those future realities merely pave the way for this third one. That, in the end, God dwells with us (21:1–2, 9–21). This is the renovation and preparation for God’s final condescension and possession of his people (21:3–7, 22–27).

God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden until sin corrupted that relationship. Then he chose a people promising to be their God and keep them as his people if they would remain faithful to him. He gave them a law and a tabernacle in which his presence sat behind the veil. His presence became more permanent when the temple was built in Jerusalem and was ministered by a priesthood appointed for that task. But, humanity kept sinning. Kept whoring after other gods. Kept spitting in the face of the Almighty and scorning his presence. 

So, God came in flesh (literally, tabernacled among us). And rebellious as we still were, we murdered him. But God’s original creation plan to most glorify himself by dwelling with his creatures was never abandoned and it will come to fruition. And with it, never-ending  and unobstructed access to the God of all goodness, love, holiness, justice, and power. In the end, God dwells with us.

While you may feel distant from God at times, while you may feel you’ve sinned too greatly, scorned his love, betrayed his grace, and while you may feel this world is not worthy of receiving a God as great as the one you serve and have come to know … in the end, God dwells with us.

In the end, peace is established

Finally, with evil destroyed, faithfulness rewarded, and God dwelling with us, there is an inevitable and wonderful reality that comes next. In the end, peace is established. True, lasting peace.

The source of this shalom, this wholeness, this peace is explicit in the text (22:1). Where’s it coming from? The throne of God and of the Lamb, he who is dwelling with us on a new heaven and new earth, one in which evil has been irradiated and righteousness rewarded. God is the source from which water of life flows.

Let’s follow its stream (22:2–5). From the throne, a river. Next to the river, trees. From the trees, fruit and leaves. From the fruit and leaves, life and healing. And what’s the product of a world full of life and curse-killing healing coming from the throne? Pure service (“his bond servants will serve him”), familiarity (“they will see his face”), identity (“and his name will be on their foreheads”), and everlasting light. In the end, peace is established.

While today there is always war and rumour of war and while we are relatively powerless to produce, coerce, keep, protect, or establish any sort of lasting tranquility, in the end, peace is established.

Whether peace between nations, between families, between ethnic groups, between political parties, within our own hearts and minds, and certainly between God and his people, ultimately, only one thing can usher in that type of wholeness, and that’s the Prince of Peace. Until evil is destroyed, righteousness rewarded, and his presence dwells with us, peace will continue to be allusive. But, in the end, peace is established.

Three Things To Do While We Wait

That’s how the story ends, brothers and sisters. Those are four things for which we wait with eagerness. However, the question becomes, what are we to do in the meantime? So, I want to close today with three things to do while we wait. Again, these are right out of the text.

First, we worship (22:6–9)! While we may be tempted to worship the bringers of good news in a sea of bad news—politicians, celebrities, friends—there is only One who deserves our worship and it’s the One who is coming soon. We ascribe to him all he’s due. We give him our allegiance, our lives, our hopes, our attention, our energies. It’s all for him. Why? Because he has written the end of the story that we long to one day read and he’s making sure it comes to pass as he’s declared it will. So, while we wait, we worship.

Second, we wash (20:10–16)! If you’ve never done so before, today is the day to be dressed in the white robes of Jesus’s righteousness by trusting in him for eternal life. If you are a believer, take the pursuit of holiness very seriously. Let’s not play at our faith. Wash yourself in daily repentance to restore that relationship with the one who saved you and keeps you saved in spite of yourself. Kill the sin in your life as though your physical life depends upon it, because it just may. Run toward godliness because it’s best for you, it’s best for those around you, and it most glorifies God. For both groups, the motivation is the same: He’s coming soon. So, while we wait, we wash.

Third, we watch (22:17–21)! Jesus is coming soon. The story could end at any moment, and what a glorious ending it will be. May this one word be ever on our lips: Come. As follows of Jesus we say, Come! As Christian homes we say, Come. As an assembly of his people here this morning we declare with desperation and anticipation, Come, Lord Jesus! We watch for you!

Brothers and sisters, we are to live in light of his soon return. Live in light of the reality that when we turn the page on today even, the credits might start rolling.

I titled this sermon “How the story ends … and begins.” I did so partly inspired by the closing paragraph of C. S. Lewis’s seven-book series, The Chronicles of Narnia. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the books, the Christ-figure is a lion named Aslan, a character that created the world of Narnia by the power of his word and who redeemed Narnia by the atoning sacrifice of his blood. However, seven books later, this is how the saga concludes:

And as [Aslan] spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at least they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

There’s a lot of bad news these days. But we need to be reminded of the good news of what the future holes, how God wins, and how the story ends … and begins. With evil defeated, righteousness rewarded, God’s presence fully with us forever, and an enduring peace we can’t comprehend. 

So, as we wait, let’s worship, wash, and watch. Amen, come Lord Jesus.

 

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