I turned around to see the voice that was speaking
to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,
13 and among the lampstands was someone "like a
son of man," dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden
sash around his chest. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as
snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing
in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his
right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged
sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. 17 When I saw
him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and
said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am
alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
What a week this last
week was for the disciples. It started
with the Triumphal Entry into
By late Saturday night
they must have felt their lives hung by a thread and that thread was made of
rubber. It was a roller-coaster,
emotional kind of week. Have you ever
been there? Maybe you are there at this
moment. Things are so fluid you don’t
know what they next phone call will bring your way.
Normally we think of
Friday as being good. Particularly in
the context of Holy Week, we speak of Friday as Good Friday because of Jesus
dying on the cross. From this vantage
point we can look back and call it “good.”
For those who were experiencing it first hand it was anything but
good. For many it must have been the
most terrible day in their lives.
In this message I would
like to use Friday as the picture of what is awful and terrible in life. The contrast between Friday and Sunday could
not be more powerful. It would help us
if we had a better sense of where we are personally at the moment.
It was
Late in the day, the signal finally began to flash: “W - E - L - L - I - N - G - T - O - N - - - D - E - F - E - A - T - E - D - - -.” Just at that moment the fog rolled in making it impossible to read the message. Runners immediately dispatched from the scene with the news. The devastating news of defeat quickly spread throughout the city. The whole countryside was dazed and saddened when they heard the news that their country had lost the war.
However, it was not long before the fog lifted as suddenly as it came. The remainder of the message could now be read. They found that the message actually had four words and not just two. The complete message was: “W - E - L - L - I - N - G - T - O - N - - - D - E - F - E - A - T - E - D - - - T - H - E - - - E - N - E - M - Y!” It took only a few minutes for the good news to spread. Sorrow was turned into joy, apparent defeat was turned into victory![1]
Even though it is important to hear the news, we also need to understand where we are in the big picture. The present moment is not the final moment.
One of the reasons I wanted to visit
People shake their heads over the
situation in the
From what I understand of the
Bible, things will get very bad for
When I see the nations of the world lining up
against
Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. 15 "Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed." 16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. (NIV)
There are going to continue to be
terrible times in the
It is Friday in the
The resurrection teaches us to pay less attention to Fridays and more attention to Sunday. We should pay less attention to the troubles of the moment and more attention to God’s answer.
When you are
in the midst of the Friday, it is hard to remember that God has an Easter
Sunday waiting. But that is the point.
Hope comes by looking forward. If
all we ever did was look at Friday, we would die of despair.
We have our struggles in this life of Friday’s. Just as all hell could not keep Jesus in the grave on this day, neither can it prevent you from being the person God called you to be. There is a power at work in your mortal bodies that cannot be denied. No stone, no guard, and no demonic force can withstand the power of God that is a work in you.
We read the names of loved ones today as we do every Easter. On this most hopeful of days we want to remind ourselves that while we must endure the Friday’s of life, we look forward to Sunday and God’s great resurrection.
So many people are like the people
of