The Sources of Temptation

Genesis 3.6; Matthew 4.3-9; 1 John 2.16

When people go to professional counselors for help, it is common practice for them to ask for a family history. They know that by understanding where you came from they can understand what you are today. You are to a large degree the product of your family origin or personal history. That also seems to be the underlying logic of Genesis. The account of the first temptation and the fall of man is telling us about our lives today. That scene of the first temptation in Eden is a situation that has been replayed many times over. Unfortunately, the results have always been the same: Satan tempts us, and we fall. 

There has been only one human being who successfully resisted temptation. Jesus’ skirmish with the Devil at the beginning of His earthly ministry is one of the great moments in salvation history. We should read and think about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in juxtaposition to the very first temptation in Eden. Where Adam and Eve failed, Jesus succeeded. And in so doing He inaugurated the New Creation.

We are never going to be perfect people, even after we decide to follow Jesus. But there is no reason for us to give the Devil any more advantages. You probably don’t leave your keys in your car, inviting someone to steal it. You probably lock your doors at home because you are not just going to give a burglar an easy time. Likewise, the Bible tells us not to give a place to the Devil, making his evil work even easier.

There is no way to escape being tempted. While we are in the world the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” are all around us and even within us. But simply knowing what our situation is will help us, even if we sometimes feel overwhelmed by the challenge.

We have been given an advantage in the fight against temptation because we are told about the sources of our temptations. All temptations come through: I. our adversary, II. our desires, and III. our location.

I. The first and most notable source of temptation is our greatest adversary. In Genesis the serpent just shows up without any back story being offered as to his origins. But his purpose is immediately made clear, and that is what we really need to be aware of. It is dangerous to be too curious about the Devil himself. We need to know he is there and what he is up to but having a morbid curiosity about the Prince of Darkness is not a healthy preoccupation. The Devil is no laughing matter and should never be taken lightly. The comical depiction of Satan with horns and a tail is folklore, not Biblical theology, and has fostered a kind of lightheartedness about our adversary that plays into his hands. In her innocence, Eve did not recognize the danger of the serpent. Many people today simply laugh at the idea of Satan and do not acknowledge the danger.

Satan is the enemy of God and he targets those made in God’s image seeking to destroy anything and everything that God loves and cares for. His ultimate intention is to destroy us by separating us from God. He wants to make us enemies of God just as he is, and he is not above twisting God’s words and questioning God’s intentions. Satan loves to talk theology and can even quote Scripture. But he can soon have you thinking that God is your real enemy, the one who is keeping you from really enjoying yourself. The only way to really live is to throw off this obtrusive God and live your own life as you please. Everything will be alright, the Devil reassures us, because God does not really mean what He said.

One of Satan’s most effective lies has been that God is some cosmic killjoy. Many people are convinced that God will only spoil our fun and that life is better lived on our own, apart from His petty rules and interference.

There in that pristine paradise of Eden God richly provided the first man and woman with everything they needed. There was only one restriction placed upon them: they were forbidden to eat from one of the trees God had planted in the garden. This single restriction was the very thing the Tempter directed Eve to think about and discuss with him. Even though she had the freedom to eat from a hundred of the other trees in Eden, the Tempter wanted her to think about that one restriction that God had placed upon her.

Eating a piece of forbidden fruit does not seem like a serious sin. But the serious nature of that transgression was in their intention to have a go at life without God. Satan managed to convince Eve that her independence would be better and that God’s warning about death was a lie or maybe just an exaggeration designed to frighten her into submission. Satan turns God into a problem that Eve must be rid of if she wants to really be something.

When it comes to the Devil there are two extreme errors to be avoided. One extreme is to disbelieve in the Devil’s existence. There are those materialists who reject the existence of any supernatural beings. But there are plenty of people in the Church who do not believe in the Devil.

Not only does this position reject the teaching of Scripture, it also oversimplifies the problem of evil in the world.  In other words, if we reject the existence of cosmic evil, we will always be trying to explain evil either as a psychological or sociological problem with psychological and sociological solutions. But evil is not that simple to explain or to eradicate.

It is dangerous to discount or underestimate the power of Satan, even this side of the Cross and Resurrection. Satan is called the god of this world and he still rules a kingdom of darkness. Everyone who does not belong to Jesus is under Satan’s dominion.

But the other extreme is to give the Devil too much power or attention. We are told to fear God, but we are never told to fear the Devil. And just as Satan has convinced many people that he does not exist, he has convinced many more to fear and even worship him. This explains the stubborn fascination people have with the occult and spiritualism.

We are told to resist the Devil and to be aware of his schemes. Christians have been delivered from the power of Satan and we can say “NO!” to him just like Jesus did when he was tempted. We cannot personally overcome the Devil. Jesus has already done that for us. But we can resist the Devil. We may have to resist repeated attacks. Jesus just kept saying “No!” to the Devil until the Devil left him. Perhaps we fail in temptation because we simply give up too soon. Consider this encouragement from Luther’s famous hymn: “The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.”

II. The second source of temptation comes from within our own hearts through our desires. Satan’s strategy with Eve was simple: he made Eve want something other than God. We fail to see the true significance of the forbidden fruit because we usually don’t think of it in relation to God. God had to give them a choice between himself and something else. There could have been a world without the possibility of sin, but that world would also be devoid of loving relationships as well. God made it possible for them to choose fellowship with Him or for them to choose their own way.

The forbidden fruit was probably just another tree in Eden, but God made it the object of choice. Eve decided, under the serpent’s influence, that there was something she wanted more than God. The trouble began when she began to look at the forbidden thing and then to desire it. The actual transgression was just the final domino to fall. Temptation starts with desire or what John calls the lust of the flesh.

You will never be tempted by something that disgusts you. Temptations always come in delightful, attractive packaging. We think there is something that will make us more happy, secure, popular, wealthy, or calm. Sometimes we just want a good time and a tingle up and down our spines. We want those things that will give us some advantage in life and we may even begin to think that we really cannot live or enjoy life unless we have that thing. When a desire has really taken hold, we are convinced that if we can’t have that thing we would rather not continue living.

These things that we desire take many forms and may not be inherently wicked by themselves. Many of the desires we have are rooted in perfectly neutral areas of our lives. Temptation takes a harmless desire and attaches it to the wrong object. Or, a desire may become overgrown and out of control, dominating our lives like the constant throbbing of a toothache or cramping muscle.

At some point we can no longer differentiate ourselves from our desires. We are eaten up with desire and we become the things that we long for, like an addict loses himself and becomes nothing but a drunk, or a druggie, or a gambler, or a pervert. We can’t imagine ourselves or our lives without those things that we pine and wish for. We all have desires that captivate our imaginations and activate our living. We set our goals based on desires. These goals may be for good things, but Satan wants to make them the ultimate things in our lives instead of God.

Satan knows that you can easily be made a slave to your desires and will spend your life doing nothing but scratching all the various itches while ignoring God. Augustine said that sin is taking a legitimate desire and trying to fulfill it without God. God gave us desires so that He can fulfill them. He is no ogre or cosmic sadist, enjoying it while we twist and writhe in the agony of unfulfilled desires. For every desire there is a godly, lawful, even a holy fulfillment. If there is not a fulfillment in this life, there will be in the world to come. God is good, and He wants us to trust Him with our desires.

Satan wants us to grab what we want right now on our own initiative because God cannot really have our best interests in mind. When our minds have been so poisoned against God, most of Satan’s work is done.

Once Eve’s mind was poisoned against God she began to look at the forbidden fruit in a different light. God could not longer be trusted. Temptation is a direct attack on the character and goodness of God. When the Devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, it was the same strategy. Jesus should use his power to care for himself rather than rely on His heavenly Father. You cannot trust God to take care of you, so you had better come up with something yourself. Jesus’ answer is “man does not live by bread alone.” There is more to life than satisfying one’s own desires. Satan made Eve forget that. Satan will not necessarily tempt you to become a professional criminal, a drug dealer, or pervert. He will simply make sure that you are always thinking about yourself first. Satan’s suggestion that Jesus throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple mount is just another temptation for Jesus to put himself at the center of things rather than listening to God. If the Devil cannot persuade us to doubt God’s goodness, he might just take the opposite approach and tell us that God is so good He will support you and come to your rescue no matter what you do!

If God is not good, then you must do for yourself. If God is good, then you can do what you want. Either way, self is at the center and the Devil wins the contest.

So, what do we do with our desires? You really can’t just kill every desire and Christianity does not ask you to do that. The cessation of all desire is the religion of Buddhism, not Christianity. In fact, Christianity affirms that every desire at its core is something from God. The problem with desire is not the desire itself but the objects we become attached to. We love the wrong things. Our affections are misdirected and disorderly. Our hearts become so disordered that we often don’t even know what we want.

Salvation, or that aspect of salvation that is sanctification, is about getting the heart in order by reordering the affections. A famous Scottish preacher named Thomas Chalmers once preached a profound message entitled “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.” The thesis of his sermon was the only way to effective expel the love of worldly things from our hearts is to get another more powerful love. We can give up this world if we come to love God. It is the love of God, not the Law of God, that will give us the power to overcome the sin in our hearts. But the reordering of our affections takes time. It is sort of like an army slowly taking back lost territory. We will never reach a state of sinless perfection. We will still be tempted by the Devil. And we will still have the Flesh in us with its desires. We will have to keep redirecting and reorienting our hearts toward God.

That is the whole purpose of worship, especially in a corporate setting. In worship we are helping each other see and love God more and more. When that happens all the desires of our hearts will fall into line. We will find that when we love God first we are set free to really love and appreciate other things more, especially other people.

The person who does not love God cannot love anything or anyone else truly because we will only be users not lovers. When we love God, everything else becomes good. When we do not love God, nothing is good.

III. The third source of temptation comes from our physical location in the world. John called it the lust of the eyes or the material things that we see and that we want. The forbidden fruit was tempting to Eve’s eyes. It was attractive. Is it strange to you that the thing God had forbidden would have been so pleasing to taste and to see? Why not forbid something that was already loathsome to see? Well, for one thing, everything that God made was good. God doesn’t make loathsome things. The world that God made was very good and was blessed by God. God has nothing against material things. He created matter. God made things beautiful.

As C.S. Lewis said, you don’t want to be more spiritual than God, as if all material or physical things are to be loathed. Naturally the fruit was pleasing to Eve’s eye and good to eat! God made it. We live in a world that is full of beauty and goodness, even this side of the Fall. There are thousands of things to see, touch, taste, and enjoy. God made these things and then gave us the faculties to experience these sensations. We are sensual beings who can respond to our environment.

When we hear the word “sensual” we almost always think of sex. The forbidden fruit has become a metaphor for sexual temptation, which is probably the most powerful physical experience we can have. But even that was created and blessed by God. Nothing is bad of itself.

Eve was not forbidden to eat and to taste fruit. She knew the forbidden fruit would taste good because she had presumably already tasted other fruits in the garden! The thing that God had made, which He had then forbidden, was sensually pleasing and attractive.

But we are overly impressed by the appearance of things. We like shiny things, colorful things, shapely things. We like to look at things, even those things we cannot possess for ourselves. We covet things. We spend vast amounts of time and energy looking at and collecting pretty things. Things become the main obsession of our lives, especially in the prosperous West.

For many people the accumulation of things becomes a standard by which to measure the success of their lives. To be successful implies the ability to get things or to purchase pleasures and experiences. The lust of the eyes is much harder to condemn than the lust of the flesh. We would immediately recognize adultery for the base sin of the flesh that it is, but you can be materialistic and still be an upstanding member of the local Church. If Satan can’t get you with the baser sins he will be satisfied to tempt you with the higher and more noble vices.

If he can’t make you into a sexual pervert or a drunkard, he may just turn you into an art collector or a purveyor of fine antiques. The result is the same in the end: something becomes dearer to us than God. Where our treasure is, there are hearts will be also.

The choice in the original temptation was between God and something God had made. They could enjoy the creation, but they could also enjoy the Creator. At some point, they had to choose to enjoy the Creator OVER the creation or the creation OVER the Creator. Creation was good and blessed. Creation was beautiful.

The natural world gave sensual delights and experiences. But the man and the woman were not made to enjoy these things as the primary experience of life. They were made to be with God. The Creator Himself was to be their ultimate delight and source of joy, not the fruits of the garden of Eden.

When Eve began to look at the forbidden fruit and saw that it was appealing to her senses, the sin of idolatry was conceived for the first time in the human mind.

Idolatry is to put some aspect of creation above or in the place of the Creator. Creation is good and was blessed by the Creator. But creation’s pleasures must never become a substitute for the glory of the Creator. Human life was never meant to be lived only on the level of the sensual to the exclusion of the spiritual. The world can be enjoyed but must never be worshiped. Life in the world can never be a substitute for life with God. It is possible for us to look at creation and see something of the glory of God. It is also possible for us to exchange the glory of God for some aspect of creation.

Temptation is what happens when our gaze is turned away from the glory and the beauty of God to some lesser glory or beauty. God does not forbid us from enjoying and experiencing beauty. The beauty that He has placed in nature is meant to be an invitation and an introduction to His greater glory. Satan would have us stop and stare at the threshold rather than enter the Holy of Holies.

The true depth of temptation is not simply in the appearance of the things the world parades before our eyes, but in how these things make us feel. The deception of temptation is in the fact that we seldom end up appreciating the things we want. We are after a feeling, not the things themselves.

If we could want things for those things themselves, we might begin to be thankful for them and this could lead us to worship the Creator who gave us those things as a gift. That would spoil all of Satan’s temptations. Satan’s temptation to Eve was not simply for her to enjoy the forbidden fruit as a midday snack, but to take it as a path to wisdom that would even make her like God. Imagine the intoxicating feeling of being truly free and independent like a god or goddess without any boundaries.

To step outside the limitations of our humanity, which implies dependence on the Creator, and to become gods ourselves is the ultimate form of temptation. That is the pride of life and it was pride that made the Devil fall from heaven.

Satan promises that god-like power to us. He promised Jesus all the Kingdoms of this world. Jesus came in humility, to do the will of His Father in Heaven, and then allow God to exalt Him in due time. Satan offered an alternative path to power and glory, one that did not require submission to God.

Remember the first time it dawned on you that your parents could no longer tell you what to do? That feeling of independence was intoxicating! There were probably things you suddenly wanted to do, not because you really wanted to do them, but because you now knew you could and because you also knew your parents would not approve. Satan wants us to feel that intoxicating power of being independent from our Heavenly Parent.

He doesn’t care how you get there, just that you get there. Because then you are separated from God, which was the intent of the temptation in the first place. The thing that separates us from God is not the Devil’s concern. It could be anything, even good things, can be used by the Devil to separate us from God. Life itself is just a series of choices between God and other things.

Vision of the Ages: The Message of Revelation

Preparing for the Future

Revelation 22.6-21

The final cycle of visions in the book of Revelation comes to a climax with the appearance of the New Creation. The old world has passed away and all evil has been removed. Only the people of God remain in the New Heavens and the New Earth, where they will worship God forever and see His very face. Unfortunately, some people have been excluded from this New Creation and are permanently shut out of the presence of God. After this vision fades we come to the formal conclusion of the book of Revelation, which is also the conclusion to the entire Biblical canon. The book ends with both a promise and a warning: Jesus is coming soon, but woe to those who are not ready to meet Him! The book of Revelation has told us much about the future. The end of this book urges us to prepare for the future that has been revealed in the preceding visions.

A New Creation is coming but the time to prepare for this future world is now, while we are still in this world. This New Creation has already appeared in embryonic form and if we want to be able to enter the fullness of God’s new world, we are going to have to belong to it now. The final words of Revelation show us how we can become a part of the future New Creation even while we live in this present world. This world is a staging area for the next world and what we do now will carry over into eternity, either for our eternal good or our eternal ruin and frustration. Life is serious business. If we miss what God is doing, then our lives will have been wasted.

Jesus is coming soon and so is the end of this present world order. The eternal state of things is rapidly approaching, and we must be giving what is eternal the priority in our lives over what is passing away. The present world order seems like it will last forever, and it is often difficult for us to think seriously about our own physical demise and eventual death. We may not live to see the passing of the natural order that is described at the end of the book of Revelation, but we will certainly all have to face our own passing away. Life has a way of distracting us from this eventuality. Even religion can make us too casual about the central issues of life.

The main business of the Christian life is preparing for the future. And we do this with a sense of holy fear because we know what is going to happen to those who are not prepared for what is coming. The Christian can look to the future with hope and expectation because the best is yet to come for the people of God. But we walk by faith and not by sight. The things that are revealed in these glorious visions in the book of Revelation have not yet appeared to our physical senses. It is going to take some grace for us to live in this present world while we make ourselves ready for the world that is coming. We must use the time that God has given us in this world to prepare for the next world. This is the true meaning of life. If we are ultimately excluded from the New Creation, then our lives in this world will have been lived in vain.

Time is going to run out and the world as we know it is going to end. That is the message of this text at the end of the book of Revelation. It is a fitting end to the Bible as well. Time is in the hands of God and He is guiding the history of the world and the future according to His purpose and will. God was there at the beginning when time began, and He will be there to bring time to an end. The Biblical view of time starts and ends with God. The book of Revelation says that God is the Alpha and the Omega. God is the Creator at the beginning and the Judge who stands at the end of time.

In contrast to the Biblical view of time, the pagan view has been cyclical and repetitive, like the cycles of nature. If all you have is the natural order to look at, then reality just seems to be an endless cycle of birth, corruption, and then death. The cycle just keeps repeating itself. This cyclical view of time is ultimately meaningless. The world is like a dog endlessly chasing its tail, going nowhere. If we have no further revelation, then this view of the world is reasonable. The cyclical view is even given some space in the Bible in the book of Ecclesiastes. Having been given great wisdom, Solomon made his observations about life in this world. He correctly saw how everything seems to just go through various, repetitive cycles. His conclusion was that life under the sun was ultimately meaningless. And it would truly be meaningless unless we have an additional revelation from outside the natural order.

            But there is another view of time besides the cyclical view. We know from the revelation in Scripture that time is linear: there was a beginning when God made the heavens and the earth, and there will be an end to Time when Jesus comes again and brings a New Creation. We do not learn about this from studying the natural world. Nature will only teach you the cyclical view and lead you ultimately to despair about life. The modern materialist sees no higher purpose to his life because all he believes is what he sees in the endless cycles of the natural world that eventually leads to his own demise. There is no hope found in nature. If we are to have any hope of anything beyond the endless cycles of birth, decay, and death then something will have to come from outside. The Bible tells us that there is something, or rather a Someone, who stands outside the confines of this world and has broken into time and history to bring something new.

            The Hindus believe in reincarnation, which is just an extension of the pagan, cyclical view of time. In that religion, it is taught that human beings experience a cycle of birth and death until a higher form of consciousness or enlightenment is achieved and the individual escapes the cycle to enter the impersonal state of Nirvana. In this view of life, there is more than one chance to get it right and escape the endless cycles of birth and death. If you happen to live a bad life, there will be another chance to better yourself in your next reincarnation. You do not have to get everything right the first time around!

            The Bible does not teach reincarnation. The message of the Gospel is much better and more hopeful. Our time in this life is filled with the goodness and grace of God who wants us to turn to Him and acknowledge Him as the source and ultimate meaning of life. We were created by a good and loving God so that we might come to know Him. This seeking after God is the whole purpose of our time on earth. And God is not playing a game of hide-and-seek with us. If we seek God, then we will find Him (See Acts 17.26-28). As the angel said to John, we must worship God because this is the whole point of our lives in this world as well as the world to come. Our time in this world is like a period of training or education. This life is preliminary. The startling implication to this is that it is possible to go through our time in this life and miss the point! One of the biggest lies out there is that our lives are our own to do with as we please. But the Judge is standing there at the end and He will make the final assessment of our lives. Sometimes wicked people seem to be getting away with their rebellion against God. Even wicked men seem to be happy and enjoying life, perhaps living long and luxurious lifestyles. But the feet of the wicked are set in slippery places (See Psalm 73) and time runs out for every man. Time is God’s limitation for sinful man. “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment.”

The book of Revelation sees the end fast approaching. When Time has finally melted away all that will remain is the fixed state of the eternal order. This is what the text means by this rather unusual statement: “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” In this world the concrete is still wet, so to speak, but it will be set when Time comes to an end. Those who wash their robes will enter the eternal city of God. But those who remain defiled by sin will remain forever outside in alienation from the life-giving presence of God. We are called upon to think about this final state of things and where we will be when eternity sets in. If we are needing to change, the time to begin that change is now.

,            The new world is coming, and we must be made fit to enter it. But “flesh and blood will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” In our natural state, we are not ready to live in the New Creation. The new world that is coming has been prepared for a certain kind of people and we must become the kind of people who can live in this new world. This means that a change must begin while we are still in this world. The change must be something more than superficial. We must somehow be changed from people who are alienated from God and hostile to Him to people who are in fundamental agreement with His nature. We must be changed from people who ignore and even avoid God to people who love and seek after God. We must become people who glorify God and serve Him as He deserves if we want to be a part of the New World Order. Somehow our disorderly, misdirected hearts must be put right before we can enter the New Creation.

            A person who is not prepared to live in the world to come would not even be able to enjoy it. A person who has only lived in alienation from God to suddenly be thrust in the presence of the God that he or she has been diligently avoiding would not be at home in “heaven” at all! The eternal bliss of the Redeemed, on the other hand, will be to finally be in the presence of the One they have been seeking. “The pure in heart shall see God.” But does God not love us just as we are, even in our sinfulness and alienation? Yes, but God also loves us too much to leave us in a state of alienation. He wants to make us His children; sons and daughters who reflect His glory and share His nature. God is not just after a certain kind of behavior but a certain kind of person. He wants to share Himself with us for eternity. We must become the kind of people who want what He wants. Otherwise, heaven could never be heaven.

             It is not uncommon to hear someone talk about heaven as a place where all our dreams come true and we get the things we want. But this is a misleading half-truth. Heaven is not just a state of mind, it is a real place that is eventually going to break through the veneer of this world. Will we want heaven when it breaks through? It is going to require a complete transformation. You must be born again to enter the Kingdom of God. There will have to be a change of affections and loyalties. And these changes will certainly put us at odds with this present world order. We must become strangers and aliens in this world so that we can have citizenship in the world that is coming.

There is still a part of us that is attached to this present, evil world. This Old Man belongs to the Old World, and he wants to stay attached to it perpetually! But we have also received something from the New Creation. The Holy Spirit of God has already been sent to dwell in believers and orient them to the New Creation. And if we have received the Spirit of God then we are truly children of God.

Something from eternity has broken into our time and space. There has been an invasion preceding the final victory. In Jesus, Heaven invaded earth and set up a kind of colony or beachhead. When Jesus began preaching He declared that the Kingdom of God had landed, and He invited everyone to orient themselves to this new world order. Another way of looking at this is to say that Jesus came to bring eternal life. The eternal has invaded and is spreading its influence throughout the world. We are invited to come and participate in this new life. “Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” Eternal life means that the future has broken into the present.

            People become confused about this offer of eternal life. We often think of something eternal as that which lasts a long time. But eternal life is a qualitative description of something. This is a certain kind of life, not just a life like we have here that lasts a long time. In fact, eternal life is a very different kind of life from the earthly kind of life that we know and have experienced. The only kind of life we have known is a natural or a biological kind of life. But there is another kind of life in the universe, and that is a Divine kind of life. All biological life was created by the Divine life. But the biological life that was created must not be confused with the kind of life that God Himself possesses. The world is alive, but it does not share in the Divine life that is found only in God Himself. You and I are alive, but if left to ourselves we will not share in the Divine Life. But what if that Divine life were to appear and be offered to mankind? What if those who had only known the natural or biological kind of life were able to partake in the Divine or eternal kind of life? When this natural world and all its biological life finally runs out, the only kind of life that will remain is the Divine kind of life. That is the future that is being prophesied in the book of Revelation. Those who partake of this eternal kind of life, this Divine kind of life, belong to that future time and will remain after the heavens and the earth have passed away.

            There are several signs that this coming Age is already breaking through. There are people walking around in this world right now who already possess this Divine kind of life. This Divine kind of life can be seen in the lives of people who have a desire for God and for a kind of life that puts God at the center of everything they do. Eternal life is fellowship with God. We do not have that final, face-to-face kind of fellowship that is going to be there in the world to come. In our present state, we could not handle that kind of life. The eternal life comes to us in a kind of preliminary form, being mediated to us through such things as baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In these sacramental acts, the future is mediated to us in the present and we can receive a kind of life that will never diminish or fade away. The saints belong to the future because the future life lives in them. Becoming a Christian is the closest thing we have to time travel! When the Church gathers for worship it is possible to sort of slip out of time and touch what is eternal. In our hearts or our affections, we already live in the world to come, even though our bodies and the rest of the created world have yet to be redeemed.

            Eternal life is a gift. We cannot earn it, but we must receive it. Likewise, we cannot make the new heavens and the new earth. But we can prepare for it. We are not passive spectators in what God is doing but active participants. If we are going to eventually end up in the presence of God, then we must come to know something about Him now. We primarily come to know God through what He has revealed in Holy Scripture. Therefore, we devote ourselves to Scripture. If we are going to end up in the presence of a holy God, then we must begin in this world to purify ourselves from everything that God would find offensive. This means pursuing holiness and forsaking all worldliness, idolatry, and sin. There are some things we cannot take on this journey. This is not a kind of detached, mystical escapism from this world. On the contrary, Christians are those who give the most meaning to this life, not as an end of itself, but as a kind of prelude to an even greater life. That is why the saints are always the most joyful people. They have something to really live for. We are running towards a heavenly prize and fighting for an eternal crown of glory. Christians never live aimlessly but are always thinking about the goal that is ahead and striving to reach it.

The Church was sent out into the world to be a witness for Christ and His Kingdom. The Church is like a neon sign pointing to what God is doing in the world. It is the people of God who get to invite other people to come and be a part of the New Creation. Not even angels have this great commission of preaching the Gospel to every creature! Since the Church has this commission, it is imperative that she is ready for the work.

            We cannot give what we do not have. One of the great hindrances to the Gospel is the Church itself. How can the Church be the harbinger of a New Creation if she is dominated by the Old Order? The only glimpse that people in the world can get of the New Creation that is coming is what can be seen now in the Church. The Church does not dispense salvation, but it must tell people where the water of eternal life may be found. And it must be evident that the Church is partaking of that life-giving water herself. We share what we ourselves have tasted.

            The Church is the steward of Christ until He returns. And then we must give an account to the Master for how we have managed His goods. The Church must remember that the Master is coming soon. And we must all stand before His judgment seat to give an account of our deeds. The book of Revelation ends on this sobering note. What are we going to do with what Christ has given us? Here at the end of the book of Revelation, and the end of the entire Biblical revelation, it should be clear what we are to be doing as we wait for Jesus to return. The Lord has given His marching orders and we have no right to refuse. 

            Only the Church knows what time it is in the world. We are living at the end of an Age and the beginning of a new world. The only thing that really counts is the New Creation. Everything that is old is disappearing and will soon be gone forever. In the modern world, people often wonder if the Church will last when it is the world that is obsolete and about to pass away.

            There is both a warning and a promise in this message. The warning is for those who chose to live only for the present while ignoring the future that has been revealed to us. But the promise is for those who want something more than this present world has to offer. It is only when we get a glimpse of the future that God has prepared for His people that we will be able to let go of the present world. We will not be eternally homeless. Like Noah and his family on the Ark, we will pass through the flood of God’s judgment and come to rest on the mountains of Ararat to find a new world awaiting us.

            Unless we are ready to enter the New Creation, all our activities will be null and void. The world rushes madly into the future with a million things to do. But only one thing is needful. We are busy and concerned with many things. Some of these things involve religion and ministry. These things are also vain unless we are ready to meet the Lord when He comes. Jesus is coming soon! That is the final word from Heaven. But what does “soon” mean? How many generations of believers have scanned the heavens looking for signs of His coming and waiting for Him to appear? Now more than ever we must hear the cacophony of scoffers mocking the Lord’s promise to return. We do not know when He will come. He means for us to be ready for Him whenever He comes. “The sands of time are sinking, the dawn of heaven breaks.” Either our lives in this world will end, or He will come for us in the clouds. Either way, we are destined to meet Him someday. May we be ready for that glorious day!

Vision of the Ages: "The End and a Beginning" (Revelation 19.6-22.5)

There are several cycles of visions in Revelation, each depicting the same period of history. The final cycle is the most detailed and contains the most revelations. The previous cycle was the seven Trumpets, which depict God’s judgments on the wicked world. But these judgments were always partial. When we come to the final cycle, the seven Bowls, we now see the full fury of God’s wrath leading to the very end of the world.

The seventh Bowl is a summation of the entire cycle and depicts the final destruction of the wicked world order, which is also called Babylon (Rev. 16.17-21). This final bowl of wrath gives a summary of two important themes in this cycle of visions. First, there is the unrepentant nature of the wicked world. Even with all the judgments that God has been pouring out upon the world, the wicked refuse to repent of their sins. Second, the world deserves the wrath of God. God is giving them something that they have earned by their wickedness and stubborn lack of repentance. God’s judgment is not something hasty or capricious. The world has been storing up wrath for the day of God’s righteous judgment. God’s wrath will come on those who have rejected the Gospel of Christ and persisted in their idolatry and immorality.

The wicked world order that will fall under the wrath and judgment of God is called Babylon in the book of Revelation. This borrows on language from the Old Testament Prophets. Babylon in this sense does not refer to any specific location on earth but to a broad, spiritual principle. Babylon is the City of Man or human society in alienation from God. Babylon has always existed within human history and culture and will continue until the end of the world when it will fall under God’s final judgment.

So, as the final bowl of wrath is poured out, the Old Order fades away and a New World comes into view. This New World has already been there, but now it is being revealed in its full glory. The final section of the book of Revelation shows us a series of visions about how the old order will end and the new order will begin. There will be an end and a beginning. These visions are described in mostly symbolic pictures because the realities themselves are so far beyond our experience. Rather than satisfying our curiosity, these visions about the world to come and the eternal order are meant to arouse desire and hope in the heart of God’s people who are still living by faith as aliens and strangers in this world. The visions in this final cycle give us four different perspectives of what the end of the old order will look like as well as the appearance of the New Creation and the eternal order.

The Return of Christ

The key event that will end this present Age and usher in the New Creation is the appearance or the coming of Jesus Himself. The key vision in this final cycle of visions is the appearance of Jesus coming out of Heaven. The world will end with the appearance of a person. The blessed hope of all Christians is to see Christ returning to earth. The epistles of the New Testament are filled with references to Christ’s return and the implications this event has for Christian living. If He is coming again then we must be ready. But rather than discussing the various moral implications of Christ’s return, the vision in Revelation simply describes the nature of His return. The language is symbolic, no doubt, and the vision is meant to teach us about the manner of Christ’s return.

First, He will come publicly. John again sees Heaven opened. This time someone is coming out of heaven. When heaven is opened we can expect a special kind of revelation. John received the book of Revelation when a door was opened in heaven and he was taken up to the heavenly places. But at the end, the revelation to end all revelations will come out of heaven.  The New Testament speaks of Christ’s coming as an appearance or a revelation. Every person who has ever lived will witness this event because all the dead will be raised. No one will miss seeing Him when He appears. The veil that separates the earthly realm from the heavenly realm will be permanently removed so that everyone may see the Lord Jesus Christ in all His glory. He is going to appear in this way so that He may be recognized for who He really is. There will be no more doubts about Jesus on that Day. It will be made known that He really is the Lord and that He really does rule the world. 

The Church is sent out into the world to declare the message that Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Jesus is the one whom God has chosen to rule the world and to bring in the fullness of the Kingdom. But we must accept this message by faith. At the present, we cannot physically see Jesus ruling in heaven. But one day, Christ will be seen and there will be no more doubts or questions about Him and His position in God’s Kingdom. 

This appearance at the end is necessary for His vindication. Many people have refused to believe in Him and the world has mostly rejected Him. It must be shown openly before the entire human race that Jesus really is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Secondly, He will come powerfully. When Jesus came into the world the first time, He came in humility as a baby in a manger. But that is not how He will come the second time! When Jesus comes again it will be with power and great glory. He is coming as a conquering king. He is going to judge the world and consummate His kingdom authority. There are still rebellious personalities in the world who have not acknowledged or submitted to Christ’s authority. When He comes again, every knee will be forced to bow down and every tongue will have to confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. All rebellion will cease. Christians are those who by faith have already bowed the knee to Christ and confessed Him as Lord. This is how we are saved. His appearing in glory will be the final stage of our salvation.

The End of Evil

These final visions in Revelation are meant to be a source of hope for the people of God in the world. God’s people need this encouragement because the world is a place of tribulation and opposition. The source of this opposition will eventually be put away for good. Evil cannot win, and it is just a matter of time before all evil forces are removed forever. 

The ultimate source of evil has already been identified in the book of Revelation as the Dragon, the great serpent also called Satan or the Devil. Satan started a cosmic war in heaven which then spread to the earthly regions. Satan had some allies in this war which are also revealed in the book of Revelation. Satan used the two Beasts to intimidate and deceive the people of the world into joining his side in this cosmic war. Since Satan has been cast out of heaven to the earth, his main objective is to harass the people of God who are still in the world and within his domain. This final cycle of visions shows how evil has already been dealt a mortal blow. The forces of evil remain in the world for a time while Satan gathers for a final war. But in the end, Satan’s evil attacks against the people of God will come to nothing and everything influenced by Satan will be removed.

Evil is opposition to the will or nature of God. Evil is not an entity equal to God as is taught in the philosophy of Dualism. Something is good or evil in relation to God. If something is in a right relationship with God, then that thing is good. But something that is not in agreement with God is evil. Satan is opposed to God and is therefore evil. Satan has been very successful in turning human beings against the will of God. Satan’s power has been such that the entire world is under his control. No one is immune from Satan’s influence. Humanity has joined with Satan in the cosmic rebellion and has been used to carry out Satan’s schemes. The main objective of Satan is to oppose the people of God and Satan has used wicked people to do this work. The wicked have persecuted and even killed the people of God when they could do so. But the wicked cannot prosper and they will eventually be removed from the world, along with the dark masters who manipulated them. In the world to come the people of God will have with no one to harass them. A time of universal peace is coming, like the calm after a great storm.

In one of the more difficult and disputed sections of Revelation, Satan is bound and no longer allowed to do all that he would in the world (20.1-6). While the exact timing and nature of the 1,000 years have been disputed, it is my understanding that the binding of Satan took place through the death and resurrection of Jesus. This has allowed the Gospel to spread throughout the world. However, before the end comes, Satan’s activities will increase as he gathers for a final blow. At times it may look like Satan is winning, even with his limited capacity. As the end approaches it may seem that the people of God are almost completely overcome. But the book of Revelation is showing us that Satan can never be completely successful and the purpose of God cannot be thwarted. Evil has already been defeated and the true victor in the battle will eventually emerge. No doubt there are those who find it hard to believe that Satan has really been restrained. But the spread of the Gospel throughout the world seems to prove that Satan cannot do all his will. Satan cannot stop the Gospel from being preached. He cannot stop people from coming to Jesus and being brought into the Kingdom of God. Satan cannot stop the saints from serving God and doing His will in the earth. Therefore, Satan’s power in the world has already been broken.

But Satan will be released to make a final assault before the end comes. It seems that the final days will bring an increase in evil activity as Satan makes his final push against the people of God. Satan’s final defeat is assured, but he has not given up his fight just yet. The final push may appear very successful. Like a city besieged and surrounded by an enemy force, the people of God seem to be overmatched by their enemies. In fact, it always seems like God’s people are at a disadvantage in the world. Perhaps God has designed things this way. It is God who delivers His people from evil, especially at the end. God’s people must trust in God’s power. If we were left to ourselves, there could be no victory. But if God is for us, who can be against us?

God will eventually deal with evil. At the end, there will be no doubt about the righteousness of God. God will be glorified, and evil will be laid bare for all to see. Nothing can be hidden from God forever. Everything is going to be brought into the blazing light of His glorious presence. To be even more precise, it is Jesus Himself who will judge the world (Acts 17.31). God the Father has placed the responsibility for judgment into the capable hands of His one and only Son. Every person must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Every evil deed is being recorded in Heaven and will have a just reward. God has not forgotten. Nothing evil will be permitted to enter the world to come. Our only hope is to repent or turn from evil and be reconciled to God before the end is here. After that, the eternal state of things will be fixed. Now is the time for us to recognize the evil in the world and in ourselves and to repudiate all of it. This is the whole point of our lives in this world.

The Glory of the People of God

When the old order finally passes away the people of God will be revealed. Because of the presence of the fallen creation with all its imperfections, the people of God have not been seen for what they have become in Christ. Every person who is in Christ is a new creation. But this new creation has not been revealed yet and is still hidden beneath the wrappings of this natural world. Eventually, the glory of the people of God will be revealed. That is not to say that the people of God are anything special in themselves. God’s people were children of Adam just like everyone else. It is the work of God that makes them into new creatures. The people of God are becoming something that has never been seen before, even among the heavenly hosts. 

In Revelation, there are two images used to convey the glory of God’s people that will be revealed at the end: The Bride of Christ and the City of God. Keep in mind that these are collective or corporate images, not to be applied to individuals but to the whole community of the Redeemed. No individual Christian can be called the Bride of Christ or the City of God. But when they are finally all gathered together at the end, the people of God will be a glorious, beautiful bride and a great city. Both these metaphors or images are needed to convey something about the future state of the people of God. These two images are also used in contrast to the evil world order that is under Satan’s domination.

The people of God are the Bride of Christ. The wedding of the Lamb will be the consummation of history. At the present, the people of God are betrothed to Christ and are preparing themselves to be with Him forever. The people of God prepare themselves for the wedding feast of the Lamb while they are still in this world. The image of a wedding is used to portray the love, intimacy, and joy that will belong to Christ and His people forever. The greatest love story in history is the love that Christ has for His Church, of which the earthly relationship between a husband and his wife is a shadow. The primary characteristics of a bride are beauty and purity. A bride prepares herself for her bridegroom, to be beautiful in his eyes. In the same way, the people of God have removed themselves from the world and kept themselves pure for Christ. In contrast to the Bride of Christ is Babylon, the Prostitute, which is the defilement of sin and worldliness. The whole purpose of God has been to create a Bride for His Son. The full glory of this relationship between Christ and His Church begins in this world but will be consummated in the world to come. The relationship between the Church and Christ in this world has been like an engagement and courtship. But the day of the wedding of the Lamb and His Bride is coming.

The second image of the people of God is that of a city. The two images of bride and city are intertwined in John’s vision. When John sees the Bride, he sees a city. This has created some confusion. The city described here is often interpreted to be the place where the people of God will live forever. But the city is really a symbolic depiction of the people of God themselves. The City of God is the people of God. This city is called the New Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem in the Old Testament came to represent the people of God on earth and the place where God dwelt. The New Jerusalem contrasts with Babylon, the wicked City of Man, which is in alienation from God. So, we see the final destinies of two different societies of people. The City of God is described as beautiful, decked out with all manner of precious stones. While there is nothing particularly beautiful about the people themselves, the beauty comes from the glory of God that is being reflected by His people. God’s people contain some of God’s own nature. The City of God has strong walls and foundations because it will be eternal. In this world, the people of God did not have a permanent residence. But we will be a permanent part of the world to come. 

The most important part of this city is that it is saturated with the presence of God. The City of God is itself a temple in which God will dwell. John sees no temple there because the whole city is one, giant temple. The dimensions are a perfect cube, which reminds us of the measurements of the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle. But that earthly Tabernacle was just a shadow of this ultimate reality. The whole goal of salvation has been for God to dwell with His people. This was the original state of man in Eden, it was symbolized in the Tabernacle, and it will be the glory of the Redeemed in the world to come. In this city, there will be full access to the presence of God without any of the hindrances and barriers we have in this world. The glory of the people of God will be the presence of God Himself. The glory of God will shine in the Redeemed like the light reflected in a mirror. In this world our reflection of God’s glory is poor. But when all the saints are perfected and gathered together there will be a Divine glory there that will be put on display for the ages to come.

The New Creation

The New Jerusalem is a depiction of the people of God themselves, in the aggregate, not the place where they will live. But the vision also gives a depiction of the new world, the New Creation, where the people of God will spend eternity. The end of the Bible takes us back to the very beginning of the Bible and reminds us of the Garden of Eden. In Genesis Paradise was lost. In the book of Revelation, Paradise is regained. The old order that had been subjected to the curse of death will pass away and the creation itself will be renewed. The New Creation will be different from the world we know, but not so different as to be unrecognizable. The major differences will be the absence of the curse brought into the world by sin, and the presence of eternal life that comes from having direct, unmitigated access to the presence of God.

The book of Revelation does much to shatter the idea of a completely spiritualized, immaterial heaven. The idea of the soul being released from the body and everything material has more to do with Greek philosophy than with Christian revelation and hope. The New Testament teaches the resurrection of the body and the regeneration of the material universe rather than the immortality of the soul. The creation of the material universe was God’s original idea and He has no problem with Matter. In fact, the whole purpose of redemption is to reclaim what was lost to sin and the curse of death. Revelation shows us a new world where all the effects of sin and death have been removed and creation has entered a new stage of glory. 

The hope of heaven is the hope of a redeemed earth in which the people of God will live in new, immortal bodies. We must not think of these new bodies as being something immaterial but of a different order. In the same way, the New Creation will be a material universe of a different order. Everything that is cursed by sin will be removed and the creation will rise to a level that no human being has ever seen before, not even in Eden. Revelation does not say that God is going to make all new things, but that He is going to make all things new. This is not a teaching isolated to the book of Revelation. The Apostle Paul taught the regeneration of the created universe. Our physical bodies, along with the created universe will be redeemed and set free from the bondage of corruption (See Romans 8.18-25). 

The whole point of salvation is to get us ready to inhabit this New Creation. Obviously, the work of salvation is not completed yet. The old order is still here. But the people of God have already been made into new creations in Christ and the work will be finished when we get our new bodies and set our feet on the new earth.

The other major feature of this New World will be eternal life. The curse of death will be gone so no one will die. But there is more to understand about eternal life than just the absence of physical death. Death and life are more than what happens to our physical bodies. Death and life are always connected to the presence or the absence of God. To be with God is to have eternal life. To be separated from God is to experience death. To have eternal life is more than just existing forever. Eternal life is a certain kind or quality of life that is shared with God Himself. To have eternal life is to share in the Divine Life. That is life as God intended for human beings. A great work had to be done by God to bring us this eternal life, which involved God becoming a man and dying so that we might live forever with Him instead of separated from Him. 

The vision in Revelation shows us different pictures of eternal life. The first is the River of Life. A river is a source of life. Wherever the river flows, things live and grow. The same is true with God’s life-giving presence. When we are there in the New Creation we will be at the very source of life itself. And we will also have access to the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life was lost in Eden, but it will be restored in the New Creation. We will have access to the very source of the Divine Life and we will live as we were created to live.

We must be prepared for this New Creation or we will not be able to enjoy it even if we were allowed into it. Of course, there will be people who will not be allowed in it, not because God was unwilling to let them in, but because they refused to be made ready for it. The way we begin to prepare to live in the new world is to start to have a desire for God. Even a little spark of a desire for God will do at first. But those who want something other than God will not have Him or the New Creation that He will make. How could a person go through this life avoiding or even rejecting God and yet hope to live happily in a world where the main feature of the place is the presence of the very God they have always been trying to avoid? 

The good news is that anyone can begin to prepare for the New Creation. The gift of eternal life is given even now. The New Creation will just be the fullness of eternal life. To enjoy the fullness, you must have the foretaste of the Divine Life. And that very gift is available for the asking.

For those who have already accepted the offer of eternal life, these final visions in Revelation simply show us that the best is yet to come. These are previews of coming attractions that should arouse holy desires in the heart of every child of God. All Christian living in this world is done with the next world in mind. We live in hope. 

Our hope is not in the future being promised by the progress of human civilization. Our hope is in the future promised by the living God. This is the same God who made the first heavens and earth and who has promised to make new heavens and a new earth. 

In the meantime, there is a cross to be born before a crown can be worn. But this brief glimpse of the world to come will help us be patient and keep the faith in this world as we wait for the next world to come into view.