God’s wrath is warranted and just in its execution. The first angel takes up his bowl, walks over to the earth, and pours it out. The second angel follows, goes over the waters, pours out God’s wrath and the sequence is repeated through the third, fourth…
There is a cadence to the unleashing. God’s wrath is poured out over time, it is not a tyrannical unleashing and explosion of rage. God will not be mocked, he will execute judgment in an appropriate proportion, and he will pour out his wrath as a function of his holiness and love. God alone is fit to determine what sentencing is just and how punishment should be delivered. His wrath is just, and the battle is warranted.
Joining the Song
November 10, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 15
Jesus comes down fully into the deathliness of our lives so that he can raise us fully into his everlasting life. That life can begin now. He asks that we let him join the song of our life to the mighty song of his life. He wants to take our out of tune, discordant, even grating song and tune it to his satisfying symphony.
So pervasive will be the beast’s power, so seductive its promises, that the whole world will be deceived. Everyone except one group. Those whose names have been written in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. That is, those who come to faith in Jesus, a faith that carries on even when the whole world has gone astray.
War in Heaven
October 27, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 12:7–12
The revolution that became the Protestant Church was the discovery that Scripture teaches us to rely on Christ alone. We depend solely on the merits of Christ. I merit nothing. I am joined to Christ by faith, so that his merits become my own, and I am free from having to work for spiritual rewards. Jesus is good enough on my behalf. Now I can joyfully respond in thanks by living for Jesus’ whose merits alone save me.
The Witness of the Church
October 20, 2024 • Colton Underwood • Revelation 11
The Church appears as a guttering and flickering flame in the West. But, this is the hour to which you have been called. For such an hour, the Church needs strength, courage, boldness, an unwavering confidence and a steady gaze to conquer. We must not fear to look into the eyes of the beast, clearly proclaiming the truth, genuinely imitating the pattern placed before us. And, come what may, our hope is the very hope that we commemorate every Lord’s Day. The hope of the resurrection, that out of death comes life.
In Blood Washed Robes
October 6, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 7:9–17
The multitude of believers arrive before the throne out of the great tribulation of life in a rebellious and wayward world. This is the communion of the saints. All believers of all times and places gather from every tribe and corner of the earth. With one voice, their differences are universally translated into harmony, adorned in brilliant robes. These dazzling robes are lives washed white in the blood of the Lamb. Washed with faith that has endured through the years. And now they receive the consolation of God.
The Price of the Fight
September 29, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 6
Many commentators believe the horsemen of Revelation 6 represent God’s removing of his restraints on human depravity. Our natural tendencies get to progress without being checked. We lust and covet. We seek to acquire and possess. We hurt and kill each other to get it or protect it. A balanced peaceful life and economy disappear. The weak get trampled first, then the rest. Death has a field day. All this occurs when the Sovereign God lets us finally have what we demand.
Worthy Is the Lamb
September 22, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 5
Lesser gods are not worthy. But the Lamb who was slain and yet lives, he is the one who opens the scroll. He is the one who staked his life on a redeeming future. To the degree that we join our hearts and voices to his worship, our faith will flourish. And to the degree that are our faith flourishes, we will live in peace and hope. And to the degree we live in such trust, the world will be drawn to the gospel of the one true God, the Lamb on his throne.
Love Roller Coaster
September 15, 2024 • Scott Graham • Revelation 4
At the top of a rollercoaster, you see the entire park laid out before you. Revelation is the same, laying all of the previous books of the Bible out before us and firing our imagination with a vision that will exhilarate us through all of the shaking and rolling in life that will come.
What's Your Temperature?
September 8, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 3:14–22
Lukewarm is the problem Christ Jesus found with the church in Laodicea. You know the feeling when you pick up the wrong cup, and you get day old swill? That’s what the Lord was feeling about the church in Laodicea. Bland. Inoffensive and uninspiring.
Such independence of course generated not only the good pride of being responsible but the bad pride of needing no one, of not being challenged, of getting stuck in the complacency of having too much comfort.
Recovering First Love
September 1, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 2:1–7
First love doesn’t have to be cartwheels and euphoria. But recovering first love means keeping a line open and clear between where it all started and where you are now. It means scribbling a little star at the bottom of a page or on a bulletin, or even finding a star emoji so you can tell your Lord Jesus, “I really like you. I have for so long. I still do.”
Revealing Jezebel
August 25, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 2:12–17
The letters to the angels of the churches call us to examine our lives. What are we putting ahead of Christ? What good things are we substituting for him? What compromises have we agreed to make with the empire? How might we be keeping a true faith and yet colluding with destruction?
The Living One
August 18, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 1:9–20
The sight was so overwhelming that John fell down on his face like a dead man. But Jesus, in his tender mercy, put his right hand on John’s head, and spoke the words we hear God and angels say to trembling humanity throughout the Bible, “Fear not.” In other words, don’t be afraid, John. It’s me, your Jesus. I have not come to destroy you. But to give you a glimpse of my glory and power so that you may have confidence to face a hostile world.
Where’s This Gonna End Up?
August 11, 2024 • Gerrit Dawson • Revelation 1:1–8
You can dismiss Jesus. You can ignore him. You can try to say he didn’t say what he said. You can try to wave away this talk of resurrection as the fantasies of fools. But you will see him. You will see him whom you pierced. And it will cut you to the heart to know you got it wrong about Jesus. Of course, that truth does not allow believers to be smug. They too will look on him whom they pierced. Oh, yes, we love Jesus, and we will thrill to the sight of Christ Jesus in all his glory when he returns. But the more we gaze at the wounds, the more we will see how deep they are. How painful they were. How horrifying was the price he paid for us. He is the reality we must confront. For he will confront us, each of us, with his reality.
