I Killed Jesus

In Revelation 12:10, we are told that Satan stands in Heaven, day and night, accusing us before God.  "Accusing us of what?" you might ask.  Job 1:9-11 indicates at least one thing Satan accuses believers of - not really loving God.  We're only in it for the blessings, Satan says.  Day and night, Satan tries to convince God that we believers don't love God for who He is; we love Him for what He gives us. 

And, from time to time, Satan is right.

All too often, I love God for what He does for me, not for who He is. 

I don't have proof, but I have a hunch Satan accuses us of a lot more than being fair weather believers.  Like a tattling sibling, I think Satan tells God a million reasons why we deserve punishment.

"Kelly succumbed to that temptation today, Lord.  She doesn't deserve Your love."

"Kelly chose herself over You just now, Lord.  You shouldn't bless her anymore."

"Kelly deliberately disobeyed You, Lord.  She deserves Your wrath."

On and on the Accuser goes, often making sure I am painfully aware of what he's telling God.   The good news is Satan isn't the only one petitioning the Lord.  The Bible tells believers, "If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ," (1 John 2:1).

Right next to the Accuser, Jesus Himself is defending us!  He is saying, "Lord, I've paid for Kelly's sins with my own blood.  She stands forgiven.  Bless her and love her as if she had never sinned in the first place," (Hebrews 8:12; Romans 5:1-2). 

A mental battle ensues.  Am I going to believe what Satan says about me, "She is guilty!  She is guilty!"  Or am I going to believe what God says about me, "She is forgiven!  She is forgiven!"

Revelation 12:11 tells us Satan can be overcome by the blood of the Lamb.  When Satan tries to make you feel guilty for sin of which you've already repented, proclaim the forgiven state in which you perpetually live through Christ.  Also, let the idea that Christ had to give his very blood on account of our sinful choices motivate you to sin no more.  Sin is murderous.  It killed Christ!  Too often we think of our sins as harmless transgressions.  But the truth is Christ would never have been beaten and crucified if I, Kelly Levatino, had never sinned.  I don't think it is taking it too far to say, in a way, I killed Jesus. 

And so did you.

Let that sink in.  Let it break your heart.  And let it motivate you to resist sin with renewed vigor. 

You can do it; He can help (1 Corinthians 10:13).

When Church is Messy

In the past four months, two men on senior staff at my church have resigned.  By all accounts, these men love the Lord, His Word, and His Church with their whole beings.  Yet, on separate occasions, each man stood before the congregation and announced his decision to step down, but neither man said why.  Both times the congregation was left to draw its own conclusions.  And people rarely conclude anything positive in these situations. In fact, most of us assume the worst and lack the discipline to not contribute to the various conspiracy theories that are circulating. 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I respond to these kinds of sudden, mysterious changes in leadership at my church with anger, bitterness, and skepticism.  I don't like tangible proof that forces me to acknowledge that the Church is messy.  My church.  Your church.  The Church universal.  I like to operate as if the Church can and should be perfect and blameless.  I hold the Church to a higher standard.  If a problem arises, mature Christians ought to solve them lovingly each and every time.  It doesn't matter what the issue is, if the people love the Lord and are submitted to Him, my heart says there should never be division. 

The problem with that perspective, though, is it fails to take into account that Christians are just as fallen as everybody else.  We are just as prone to giving in to our sinful tendencies as the rest of the world.  We don't always see the truth; we don't always act lovingly; we don't always choose to obey the Lord in every situation.  We rebel.  We choose self over Christ.  We dig our heels in when we think we are right, no matter the cost.  We also often misunderstand the Scriptures and unintentionally misinterpret the Lord's will.  Our imperfect thinking and our naturally unruly hearts result in pain and strife more often than Christians want to admit.

It is no wonder, then, that the Church is messy.  As much as I want the Church to be perfect, it never will be this side of Heaven.  So what are we to do with that?  I am thinking we have to find a way to live that shows an unbelieving world that, despite our screw ups, we still have something they desperately need.

We have to highlight the fact that when Church is messy, it's not because the God of that Church slacked off or made a mistake or isn't as good/powerful as the people of the Church claim.  Church is messy because it is full of broken people.  Just like the world.  The world is messy because it is full of broken people.  When churches fight, divide, collapse, or otherwise stumble, they are illustrating in bright, bold colors how desperately they need a savior!  After all, if the Church, full of God's people, can't get it right, for crying out loud, who can?

The answer is no one.  The Bible says, "There is no one who is righteous...All have turned away, and they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good" (Romans 3:10-12).  But, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly [read: all of us!]...God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us," reconciling us to Himself, saving us from the mess we insist on creating (Romans 5:6-8).  

It doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong in my church's situation.  What matters is that we remember this truth: WE NEED THE LORD!  We are fully incapable of "doing church well" without Him.  He is our source of truth, peace, and power.  Without Him, all our works are rubbish (Philippians 3:8-9). If we want to overcome our sinful selves, we need, "Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us" (Philippians 3:20).

He can do more than I can imagine....  I am imagining a Church that isn't messy.  He can do more...  He can make a Church that is clean (Revelation 21:1-4).

Bible Study Resources: Rev. 7-9

Selected commentary on Revelation 7, 8 and 9 adapted from David Guzik at Blue Letter Bible.

Rev. 7

Who are the 144,000? 

Characteristics:  The “children of Israel” (7:4), protected and triumphant through the period of God’s wrath, meeting with Jesus at Mount Zion at His return (14:1), celibate and “the beginning of a greater harvest” (14:4), marked by integrity and faithfulness (14:5).  It is best to see the 144,000 as specifically chosen Jewish believers in Jesus, protectively sealed throughout the tribulation as the beginning of the harvest of the salvation of Israel (Ro. 11:26, Mt. 23:37-39). 

v. 9 – salvation is God’s to give, not ours to earn.  

v. 13 - The presence of so many tribulation saints is a powerful statement of God’s grace and mercy. Even in this time of judgment and wrath on the earth, many are saved.  They are possible martyrs, dressed like the “souls under the altar”, whose number is now complete (6:11)

v. 14 – only the blood of the Lamb could clean their robes - Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

Rev. 8

v. 1 - this silence in heaven demonstrates a sober, awestruck silence at the judgments to come, now that the seals are off and the scroll can be opened.

v. 2 - seven trumpets will sound as God’s battle-alarm during the great tribulation (OT ref.)

v. 3-4 - Prayer and incense are often associated in the Bible. The idea is that just as incense is precious, pleasant, and drifts to heaven, so do our prayers. So here, before anything happens at the opening of the seventh seal, the prayers of God’s people come before the Lord God.

The first 4 trumpets reveal the severity of God’s judgment.  He attacks all the ordinary means of subsistence, such as food and water; and He attacks all the ordinary means of comfort, and knowledge, such as light and the regular rhythm of days.  We know the great humility that comes upon men in the midst of something like an earthquake, because they know that “nature” is not as reliable as they had thought.  The first four trumpets also reveal the mercy of God’s judgment; these are partial judgments striking only one-third, and are meant to warn and lead a rebellious world to repentance before the final curtain. For now, God spares more than He smites.

v. 7 - God may use whatever method He desires to bring judgment, but people on earth know these events are from God, and do not think them to be merely natural disasters (Revelation 16:9; 16:11; 19:19).

v. 8-9 - some literal mass of land, probably a meteor or asteroid, falling into the sea and bringing ecological disaster.

v. 10-11 – possibly a comet or meteor crashing into the earth and bring ecological disaster; Wormwood is a very bitter substance, and proverbial for bitterness and sadness.

v. 12 - This does not describe a one-third lessening of light, but one-third of the day and night are plunged into absolute darkness. As Jesus said: the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light (Matthew 24:29).

Rev. 9

v. 1 – the “star” is a person (“he” in v. 2), best seen as an angel; whether he is a good or bad angel depends on his relation to the angel of the bottomless pit in Revelation 9:11. If the angel of Revelation 9:1 one is the same as the angel of Revelation 9:11, it is an evil angel - perhaps Satan himself. If it is a different angel, it may be a good angel sent by God to open up this bottomless pit for the purposes of judgment.

v. 2 – “the Abyss” = bottomless pit = considered the realm of the dead, the same as Hades, a prison for certain demons (Luke 8:31; 2 Peter 2:4, and Jude 1:6).

v. 3 - as part of the judgment of the great tribulation, God will allow demonic hordes, previously imprisoned, to descend upon the earth like a swarm of destructive locusts.  Locusts are agents of God’s judgment in the OT.

v. 4 - Those who have the seal of God on their foreheads (the 144,000 and perhaps more) are protected, but none other are. This is an inescapable judgment of God

v. 5 - Their purpose and period is expressly governed by God, and the purpose of all this to bring repentance

v. 6-10 - All we can know for sure is that in the period immediately before the end the wicked will be subjected to a time of unprecedented demonic torment

v. 11 - Abaddon and Apollyon both have the same thought of destruction or torment; Satan himself or another high-ranking leader of demons.

v. 13 - In the tabernacle and temple of Israel, the golden altar was the altar of incense, which was a representation of the prayers of God’s people.  Atoning blood was applied to the horns. From these horns, John hears a voice. In this, John recalls a persistent theme: the prayers of God’s people play a large role in the end-times drama.  

v. 14 - The Euphrates was a landmark of ancient Babylon. It was the frontier of the Israel’s land as fully promised by God (Genesis 15:17-21). It was also the boundary of the old Roman Empire, which will be revived under the Antichrist.  It was also associated with the first sin (Genesis 2:10-14), the first murder (Genesis 4:16), the first organized revolt against God (Genesis 11:1-9), the first war confederation (Genesis 14:1), and the first dictatorship (Genesis 10:8-10).

v. 16 – the army – possibly human soldiers, but more likely demonic troops, flooding the Earth.  

v. 20 - 21 - we are so quick to forget God’s lessons, even the lessons that come in judgment.

The Book of Life

I am teaching a Bible study on the Book of Revelation right now.  Luckily, I have a little help from Beth Moore.  (Ok, a lot of help.)  Yesterday in our small group we studied the letters to the 7 churches in Rev. 2 and 3.  There was one idea, the Book of Life, that we were unable to get to because of time.  Truth be told, I am glad we didn't get to it; I didn't have any helpful knowledge about it.  But some had questions about it afterward, and it is such an important concept, I went home and researched it.  After looking at some commentaries and bouncing ideas off my go-to Bible scholar, here are my conclusions.

Ch. 3, vs. 5, says "He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white.  I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels."

What is the book of life?
It is a real book that will be opened and read on the Day of Judgment (that is, the day God decides who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell).  Rev. 20:12 says, "And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books."  Verse 15 says, "And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire."  Having our names in the book of life is our ticket to Heaven.

How do we get our names in the book of life?
Some believe the book of life is a record of all who are born.  Upon death, those who are righteous retain their names in the book of life, but those who are unrighteous are blotted out of the book of life (Ps. 69:28).  Others believe that only believers' names ever get written in the book of life, and God wrote those names there before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:18, 17:8).  Either way, the fact remains that the only way sinful people like us can be declared righteous is through faith in Jesus (Ro. 3:22).  All who accept Christ as their Lord and Savior are deemed righteous in God's eyes and keep/have their names written in the book of life.

Can our names ever be removed from the book of life?
In the ancient world, the concept of "blotting out" someone's name meant to remove a dead or imprisoned person's name from the city's book of the living (think census).  Those who believe the book of life is a record of all who are born think that, just as it was possible to have one's name removed from the city's book of life, an unbeliever's name is removed from Christ's book of life upon death.   Meanwhile, those who believe God wrote only believers' names in the book of life before the foundation of the world necessarily say that no one's name is ever removed from the book of life. 

It is important to note that Rev. 3:5 is NOT necessarily implying that he who does NOT overcome WILL have his name blotted out from the book of life.  We can imply that if we choose, but it is not necessary to assume from this one verse that we can lose our salvation.  In fact, reading such an implication into the text would be irresponsible Bible interpretation.  What the verse is DEFINITELY saying is that those who overcome are GUARANTEED their spot in Heaven.  This verse is meant to provide assurance.  The names of those who overcome will be forever written in Christ's book of life. 

Can we ever lose our salvation?
Because Rev. 3:5 brings this question to mind, let's talk about it.  This article does a fabulous job of presenting clearly many scriptures that support the idea of "once saved, always saved".  There is no point in me reinventing the wheel, so have a look at it :)

What's the bottom line?
 A lot of smart people have differing opinions on how to interpret this verse.  We are wise to consider them all for ourselves.  Whatever conclusion we come to, we are also wise to discuss our opinions humbly and with an open mind, allowing the Lord to change our opinions whenever He wants to.  Also, if you focus your energy on pursuing the Lord and His Word, you won't have to ever worry about losing your salvation :)