ARCC Sermons

We need to pay attention to the things that bring us joy and the things that bring us grief. Let us not simply assume that our hearts will be aligned with God’s heart in the end. In His providence we are given glimpses over and over again to know that which we truly love.

As we have seen previously God’s judgment can look like taking something that should be a blessing and making it a curse for those who have rejected Him. In a similar way, we will see in this chapter how God can take something of a curse and make it a blessing. The wilderness always has a negative connotation except for when we see it has preserving us from going astray with the rest of the world. We praise Him for His wilderness if it is from there that we watch His judgment fall on those who have gone after the beast and all it could offer.

The seven bowls of God’s wrath are a depiction that God is going to pour out his wrath fully on the un-godly with no chance for repentance afterwards. The bowls are repeatedly poured out throughout the Church Age culminating in the return of Christ and the final destruction of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

It is good that we are reminded at this point in Revelation that there is an eternal gospel to be shared and to be believed in light of impending judgment. It is so tempting try to decode everything in order to make a prediction about when the judgment may come. That isn’t the purpose of the revelation. The purpose is that our endurance would be based on a vision of Christ that sustains all the way to the end.

The dragon has been thrown down and he is furious. He has turned his attention to make war on those who hold to the faith in Jesus. His antics are not new, but they are powerful. In a call for the Church to endure by faith we are given a vision to see things from a heavenly perspective.

A glorious vision of the Lord Jesus from the Lord Jesus.

A theme emerges in scripture around the idea of being envious of evildoers and sinners. Throughout the ages people have struggled with the reality that those who do evil seem to flourish and be successful. Scripture doesn’t shy away from the fact that good things don’t always happen to those who “do good” and that bad things don’t always happen to those who “do bad”. As believers, how are we supposed to walk faithfully in the midst of this reality?

The gospel is ultimately hoping in a person. Our hope is that by faith in Christ we are bestowed with His righteousness, sins forgiven, and relationship with God restored. As it turns out, scripture is a narrative that shows that we really have been hoping in “persons” since the beginning. We prove over and over again that we were made for this. The problem is that we reject the Lord by hoping in someone other than Him.

What makes this Psalm unique is that we find out that this one is written in his old age. Oh the perspective we gain about that which is most important when our strength has been poured out.

We come upon a very familiar Psalm. It’s familiar because we have read similar passages already. What makes this Psalm unique is that we find out that this one is written in his old age. Oh the perspective we gain about that which is most important when our strength has been poured out.