We come now to the end of the seven trumpets. As before, God is revealed with thunder and lightning, the signs of Mount Sinai, and now the sign of the ark of the covenant appears in heaven. The passage describes the inbreaking of God's Kingdom...

John sees an angel who shares a likeness to Christ offering a scroll to be eaten. The scroll enables John to prophecy about “peoples and nations and languages and kings.” What follows is a vision of the Church as two witnesses, witnesses who on the...

In this passage, the things of Creation are plagued by fire. God‘s judgment takes the form of reversing Creation, not by a flood, but by smoke and stars falling from heaven and sulfur. Land animals and crawling things that should be under the dominion...

Prompted by a number of recent questions, the elders are taking this Sunday to consider the sacraments. Why did Christ give us these signs? Why is it important that a Church practices them? Does it matter how we practice them? Our hope is that...

With the seventh seal broken, our expectation is that the kingdom of God will now be unleashed. What we see instead is the preparation of seven trumpets that will intensify the judgment. In the middle of it all, the prayers of the saints are joined...

Paul writes his letter to the Philippians from a Roman prison. He realizes that this may be the end for him and that a painful death may be near. Looking not to contemporary slogans but to the biblical experience of Job, he engages in a very personal...

In Revelation 5, we met a paradoxical figure – a conquering Lion who is also a slain Lamb. In Revelation 7, we meet a paradoxical people – a conquering army that is also a slaughtered multitude. The two part-vision that describes this people...

For one kingdom to unseat another always means upheaval. This is no less true for the Kingdom of Heaven in Revelation 6, as the Lamb begins to open the seals to the scroll. The judgments predicted align with the events of the fall of Jerusalem in AD...

The activity in the heavenly throne room stalls on the question of who can break the seals of a mysterious scroll. The scroll contains the secret of history: what has all this chaos really been about, and who can bring history to a good ending? Only...

With the letters to the churches now ended, John is summoned up to the throne room of heaven to see “what must take place after this.” There he witnesses the worship of God, worship taken up by angels and by saints. The Lord‘s purpose in showing John...