1. Harlotry. You can attempt a transactional relationship with Love. You can relate to God as a harlot, and when you do, you will be damned, and dying, you will die. According to the Gospel of John, this has already happened. It happened at a tree in a garden.
2. As the Bride. When you relate as the bride, you will live and give birth to the fruit of life: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, The Good, Faith, and Free Will — your true self.

• John 10:18, “I have authority to lay my soul down and authority to take it up again. This is the commandment that I received from my father,” says Jesus.
• John 12:50, “The commandment of the Father is eternal life,” says Jesus.
• John 15:12, “This is the commandment of me, that you love one another as I have loved you,” says Jesus.

1. 1. Love... At least not real love or the logic of love: self-sacrifice.
2. 2. Beauty, what the Bible calls “the Good” or the “Glorious.” You can’t reason your way to Beauty.
3. 3. Light. For light, there can be no temporal reason, but perhaps it is the reason for temporality.
4. 4. Life. Darwin did not explain life, but death. Life is a communion of self-sacrifice.
5. 5. Persons, Consciousness, Spirit. Even physicists will tell you that matter doesn’t matter, but you, the observer, do. That’s the “I” that observes “me.”
6. 6. Existence. Not things in existence, but existence. Philosophers refer to God as the Uncaused Cause or Necessary Beingness (“ousias” in Greek). Yahweh’s name is “I Am that I Am.”
7. 7. Reason. There is no reason for Reason. How could there be?

1. Maybe we don’t hope in the Word. And what is the Word? “God is Salvation; Jesus.” People say that if you hope that Jesus will save all, you won’t preach the Word. But grandpa never said, “I didn’t plant the seed for I put too much hope in the seed.” If he didn’t plant the seed, the land would lie fallow that year, but the seed would still be the seed. The Seed is eternal and it’s the seed that transforms the dirt, not the dirt that transforms the Seed.
2. Maybe we don’t understand it. But grandpa never came in from the field saying, “I can’t plant the seed because I don’t understand it and can’t explain it; I’m inadequate.” No one can explain a seed; but plant a seed and you’ll begin to understand the Seed. A little child can plant a seed.
3. Maybe we don’t want to get messy. Grandpa never said, “I couldn’t plant the seed because there was just too much damn dirt and manure, and it was like . . . all broken up.” How ignorant to think, “There’s no hope for those people—they’re too dirty, too full of Crap, too broken; They’re like a fertile field, so there’s no point in planting the Seed.”
4. Maybe we think, “I can’t make it work!” That’s the temptation of religion, but if you think you can make it work, you no longer testify to Jesus, but Me-sus, and actually crucify the Word... that’s painful and yet the Word cannot be stopped; it rises from the ground; it’s a seed.
5. Maybe we don’t realize that planting a seed is a sacrifice; it’s not seizing control but surrendering control of the very thing we desire—the Good and the Life. “Unless a kernel... falls into the earth and it dies, it remains alone.” If you only hope for yourself, you hope yourself into outer darkness.
6. Maybe we don’t know that the Word is a seed. So, we blame the dirt and keep the seed in a jar called our church, our tribe, our people—not those people: “the gentiles.” But “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love does not fail.” “God is Love.”
7. Maybe we don’t plant the seed for we don’t believe that God has made himself the Seed.

In Revelation 15 John sees seven angels with the seven bowls of the wrath of God.

Thumos (the Greek word translated “wrath”) is a passionate burst of anger. If you’ve never felt thumos, you’ve probably never felt love, not even for yourself. Thumos is a testament to Love.

It’s what a husband feels if someone takes the life of his bride. It’s what a father feels if someone takes the life of his child. “The life is in the blood,” says Scripture. Wrath is a passionate desire for blood.

But what does a husband do if his bride wants to take her own life? What does the father do, when one of his children attempts to take the life of another one of his children? In other words, what does God do when we sin; what does He do with all of His wrath?

If it’s “good news” to them, it’s not Good News to God. Endless wrath means endless restlessness, endless failure, and an endless inability to “destroy the works of the devil.”

John sees seven angels with seven plagues (literally “wounds,” or “stripes”). “Which are the last (eschatos).  With these, the wrath of God is finished (from teleo or telos).” We already read that Jesus is “the last” and we will read that Jesus is “the end (telos).”

On the cross, He cried, “It is finished; it is ended; it is perfected.” Not only does the wrath of God come to an end, it comes to perfection; it accomplishes that for which it was sent.

What is John looking at? He just witnessed the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God. He then sees a sea of glass mingled with fire and those who appear to have passed through, but now stand and sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. He also sees seven messengers (“angels”) that look like Jesus and the High Priest. They come from the temple in heaven, that is Christ’s Body and us, His people.

They are given the seven bowls of the wrath of God. They pour the bowls upon the earth and the wounds from the temple in heaven become wounds upon the earth, as if Christ was crucified from the foundation of the earth and we now participate in the fellowship of His sufferings, as if we must die with Christ and rise with Christ to pass through the sea and enter the land. John must be looking at the cross of Christ.

And so what is in these bowls of wrath . . . blood that’s wine and wine that’s blood? What could it be other than the blood of the Lamb?

The Judgment of God is Mercy. Absolute and eternal Mercy applied to temporal sin is the wrath of God.

The Grace of God burns the human ego. It will burn you right down to a child at play in His Father’s Garden. But when it does you will know something you didn’t know before; you will know the Good, which is the Judgment of your Father.

The wrath of God comes to an end, for our sin comes to an end at the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord. But it doesn’t only come to an end; it comes to a perfection, which is you in the image of God.

The wrath of God is Perfect, so entrust vengeance to God. Never repay evil with evil, but overcome evil with Good. In other words, forgive.

When you forgive, you bleed the wrath of God and are used by Him to destroy the work of the devil and make all things new.

At the end of Revelation 11, the Ark is seen within God’s temple. That’s a big deal, for the Ark contained the law. The law is a description of the Good. Naturally, folks go to the temple (or church) to gain knowledge of the Good so they can make themselves good. We think this is where good things come from—knowledge and hard work.

The problem is that if you took the law, you’d die by the law . . . (Reference “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and last week’s sermon)

At the beginning of Revelation 12, John sees a great sign in Heaven: a woman clothed with the sun. She is crying out in birth pains and in torment to deliver . . . a baby. We are the woman and Jesus is the baby. We are the Bride of Christ giving birth to the Body of Christ in space and time. We are the Temple, and Jesus is the Good in human flesh.

Once we took the life of the Good on a tree and everything died. And once God gave the life of the Good on a tree—once and for all time. That life is Eternal Seed implanted in the womb of our souls. We took His Life and He for-gave His Life and so, we will all live. This is where Good things come from.

We can’t make the Good, however,  we can make evil. We can do the “work of the flesh.”

Each of us constructs an “old man.” And with the Righteousness of Christ, God constructs a “New Man.” The old man is like a womb and the New Man is like the baby who was once wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger.

When a woman gives birth to a baby, she knows that she didn’t make the baby. God used her to make the baby and, in the process, made her a mother. No one enjoys a baby like a mother.

We give birth to the fruit of the Spirit, but we don’t make that fruit. God uses us to produce the fruit and, in the process, makes us Good. You will be forever grateful that God has made you Good.

But now, the old man is in torment to deliver the New. The devil is in the delivery room and battles against you with a river of lies. He wants you to believe that the torment is endless and has no purpose.

He tells you, “Something’s wrong. Seize control. You better quit.” The Bridegroom says, “Everything’s right. You’re having our baby. Don’t quit, but do surrender. Surrender to Love and you will give birth to Love. I am Love.”

Good things don’t come from “taking knowledge and working really hard.” Good things come from “being known, and then, going into labor.”

People don’t save themselves, and yet, without Love, we’re not really people. Perhaps we’re not people . . . quite yet.

Sometimes when I preach the Mystery of the Gospel—that God is uniting all things in Christ Jesus—people will say, “Great. Got it. What now?”

Recently, someone asked that question. It’s a question that I often ask myself… and, in a way, I know the answer. I went home and wrote out the answer; it’s a long list, summarized by the statement: “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength" and"You will love your neighbor as yourself.”

I noted that we must do these things freely because we want to do them—not because we gained this knowledge of good and evil from a list for the purpose of making ourselves in the image of God. To do the latter is to crucify Love . . . rather than live the Life of Love.

The list is called “the law.” The law is good, but no one will be justified (made right) by works of the law. And yet we must do the law, and Jesus came to fulfill the law . . . in us.

In Revelation 10, the Angel of Yahweh, that looks just like Jesus, hands John a scroll. But the Angel of Yahweh does not say, “Read it and do it.”

Once upon a time, He did say that to Moses and the Israelites and it killed them . . . and it killed Him . . . They crucified Him on a tree just outside the walls of Jerusalem.

The Angel did not say, “Read it and do it.” The Angel said, “Eat it and prophesy.”

Perhaps the Gospel is less like a list and more like a cheeseburger.

You don’t consciously apply a cheeseburger to your life—that’s just “playing with your food.” You ingest it, digest it, and it changes you.

Perhaps you don’t apply the Word to your life, but the Word applies you to His Life? (Are you asking us questions or making a statement?) Perhaps you digest Jesus and He digests you? Perhaps you literally are . . . “His Body?”

John is told to measure the Temple; it is Christ’s Body rising in the world, seeking and saving the lost through gates that are always open. You are that Body, and the wounds in that Body are gates.

“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10).

We all eat the same mysterious Gospel cheeseburger, but we are each a unique, and indispensable prophetic testimony of Jesus. As John puts it, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Eat it. And the Gospel will kill the old you and give birth to the New You. (I say capitalize because we capitalize the New Man, Jesus in us). But if you don’t ingest it and digest it, that undigested Gospel will just make everyone sick.

It’s rather shocking to reflect upon, but Jesus didn’t really leave much in the way of rituals, programs or lists of instructions to follow. On the night He was betrayed every one of His disciples was asking, “What now?” And Jesus, the Lamb on the throne, took bread, broke it, gave it to His disciples, saying, “This is my body.”

And then, He said, “Eat it.”

God barred their way to the tree of life, kicked them out of the garden, and cursed the world so that they could not remain forever as they were—alone.

Groups of fallen souls began to make contracts of self-interest to guard their own self-interests against the self-interests of others. We call these contracts, tradition, ritual, government, and law. We call these groups, families, tribes, cities, and nations.

The first act of disobedience to an expressed command of God after the fall was to build a city; instead of wandering the earth, Cain built a city. Jericho was a Canaanite city at the edge of the Promised Land. Jerusalem—old Jerusalem—was also a Canaanite city, and according to many, the location of Eden.

The Revelation is like the story of the conquest of Jericho. Having crossed the Jordan, Israel meets the “Commander of God’s Army.” He’s going to war, but not against Jericho or Israel, but against the wall that separates the two.

His Body is literally dependent on the destruction of the walls of Jericho and in fact every wall that separates people from people and people from God.

“For this is the plan for the fullness of time to unite, together under one head, all things in him—The Commander of God’s Army” (Ephesians 1:10).

The seven trumpets sound and the walls of this world start tumbling down. The first four look like “natural disasters,” but not the last three.

At the fifth trumpet, we see a plague of demons. They inhabit the darkness and lies, in which we hide from the Light and the Truth. This is the first woe and nobody repents.

At the sixth trumpet, we see a plague of armies infested with demons. They inhabit our covenants of self-interest—our traditions, laws, principalities, and powers—in which we hide from the eternal covenant of Grace. This is the second woe and nobody repents.

At the seventh trumpet, we see Jesus. Look Jerusalem! He is hanging right outside your city walls on a tree. When you see Him truly, all your walls will come tumbling down. The third woe is the Great Kindness of God and everybody repents.

The New Jerusalem is not one more covenant of self-interest separated from Hell by a wall of human judgment. The New Jerusalem is the Bride and Body of Jesus the Christ, united by one Judgment, God’s Judgment. “Behold. I make all things new.” “Repent. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” The New Jerusalem is coming down. Be kind.

In Revelation chapter six, the Lamb takes the scroll sealed with seven seals and begins to open the seals. The scroll is creation and the Judgment of God.

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse ride across the earth at the opening of the first four seals. The horsemen bring deception, chaos, greed, and Death.

Why would Jesus open those seals? Doesn’t He love us?

For the past one hundred fifty years, preachers in the west have preached that Revelation six isn’t about us good people but about the bad people that were left behind at the “pre-tribulation rapture.”

They remind us that the Lamb is also a Lion. They say that the four horsemen are the Judgment of God, but if we raise our hands and come forward, Jesus will save us from God’s Judgment.

Are deception, chaos, greed, and death God’s Judgment? Or are Truth, Logos, Love, and Life, the Judgment of God?

At the fifth seal, martyrs cry, "How long until you judge," which would imply some very stupid martyrs or the fact that deception, chaos, greed, and death are not the Judgment of God.

Jesus did not save us from the Judgment of God—that’s a lie from Hell. Jesus is the Judgment of God that saves us from our own judgment—what the Bible calls sin, which forms a prison called Hell.

“God subjected creation to futility in Hope… God consigned all people to disobedience that he may have mercy on all,” wrote Paul. You learn to trust your Father’s Judgment when your own judgment has failed. You learn to trust and love the Savior when you know that you need saving. “The Light shines in the darkness.” And “Jesus is the Light.”

Anyone in John’s day would know that if a judge on a judgment seat opened a scroll, the breaking of the seals would not be “the judgment,” but a necessary step in the revelation of the judgment. At the opening of the sixth of seven seals, one might get a glimpse of the Judgment, but not understand the Judgment.

At the opening of the sixth seal—at the sixth hour, on the sixth day of the week, on the sixth day of creation—the sky grows black, the moon rises blood red, and everyone runs, calling to the rocks and hills to hide them from the face of Him who is seated on the throne, to hide them from the Lamb. They run from the slaughtered Lamb . . . not the Lion.

We will all see the Judgment of God, and be convicted by the Judgment of God--we each slaughtered the Lamb. We will run in terror and try to hide in Hell unless we've come to know what He means.

At the seventh seal, seven trumpets blow through all space and time. This entire time, that the Lamb has been opening the seals, all of Heaven has been singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord.”

He is not a Lamb that bites like a lion. He is the Lion that is always the slaughtered Lamb. He is Love. Once you hear the soundtrack, it changes the meaning of every event in the Story. Trumpets in the Tribulation mean that it’s time for the Revelation of Glory—the Judgment of Love.

Don’t run from the Judgment; run into the Judgment—full of hope.

You were born into this world of tribulation to see the Judgment of God, fall in love with the Judgment of God, and become the very body of the Judgment of God.

Jesus is the Judgment of God. He means, "I create you. I save you. I redeem you. I Am Love."

*Sermon discussion questions will be available here: Discussion Questions "How to Conquer the World: The Meaning of Your Scroll"

*Sermon discussion questions are available here: Discussion Questions "Crown Casting"

This is the Christmas testimony of Balthasar Oswaldo Jones (who looks a lot like Peter Hiett), “Ozzie” the Wizard, the third Wiseman.

Ozzie appeared to be The Great and Powerful Oz.

He wanted people to like him, but the “him” that he wanted people to like was a lie. He would say, “Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain.”

But he was the little man behind the curtain—sad, weak, scared and very lonely.

He went to Bethlehem to “do a deal”—to schmooze the great God, who lived behind an immense curtain in the stone temple in the land of Judah.

But how do you “do a deal” with someone that great?

What do you get for the One who has everything?

If He has everything, and you give Him anything, it is His own stolen something that you have given Him. That is bad schmoozing.

The star directed Ozzie and his wizard friends to a shack and a Baby.

He attempted to enchant God to himself from behind a curtain of false power and stolen glory, but the great and powerful God enchanted Ozzie to Himself from behind a curtain of weak and flabby baby flesh.

The Baby was not impressed with the Great and Powerful Oz. In fact, He hated the Great and Powerful Oz, for the Great and Powerful Oz was a lie—a lie, which kept Him from the little man behind the curtain.

Ozzie gave to Jesus the Great and Powerful Oz, and then, the thing He desired most—the little man behind the curtain.

That night the Great and Powerful Oz died and Oswaldo was set free. The three wise men went home a different way. Jesus is the way.

Many years later, Jesus’ body was broken at a table and, then, nailed to a tree. The curtain in that ancient stone temple ripped from the top to the bottom.

The Body of Christ is that torn curtain and the eternal covenant: God doing a deal.

We are all terrified of Love because Love destroys every curtain.

“Completely Astounding:” The thing we fear most is the deepest desire of our own heart—Love.

God is Love. Jesus is Love with us—Immanuel.

For Christmas, give God the one thing that He most desires . . . and may not “have”—the little man, the little woman, behind the curtain.

*Sermon discussion questions are available here: Discussion Questions "Laodicea: Pleasant as Hell"

“I have set before you an open door that no one is able to shut, because you have little power, have kept my word and have not denied my name.”

His name is Jesus, which means, “God is Salvation.”

Ten years ago the Sanctuary held its first worship service, for we refused to confess that there is a group of people that cannot be saved and that God does not want to save. In other words, we would not renounce the name: “God is Salvation.”

For ten years we have had little power, and yet, at every turn . . . an open door.

What is the Open Door? Perhaps, power itself and seizing power—the act of denying His name—is a closed door. To know “God is Salvation” is to know that you need salvation. We know that we know “God is Salvation” when we desire Him for all. "We love because He first loved us."

God is Love. And love is manifest in weakness. As power increases in a relationship, love decreases. And as love increases, power decreases.

Jesus had all power, surrendered all power, and revealed the heart of God. God is Love. There is no power greater than Love.

The Open Door is a door to your own heart, a door to your neighbor’s heart, and a door to God’s heart. The Open Door is Jesus.

As the Slaughtered Lamb opens the scroll giving meaning to all reality, as the trumpets sound and the bowls of wrath are poured out, as the dragon rages, as the beasts deceive and the harlot seduces, as history happens something rises through an open door and before the throne of God. It is the prayers of the saints.

There is an Open Door between Philadelphia and the throne of God.

The seven angels are seven stars, who appear to be the seven Spirits of God, who are the seven Eyes of the Lamb. Himself and imputing His Righteousness to us. It means that the Spirit on the throne is calling to His own Spirit in us saying, “Live, live, live”… until "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Sardis had a name for being alive but was dead. Jesus had a name for being dead but is alive. He is “The Life.”

If you’re proud of your name, it’s not your name. If you’re grateful . . . I bet it is.

“Whoever has sinned, I will blot out of my book,” said God to Moses. That means all have been blotted out of His book, except One—He who knew no sin but became sin, that you might become the righteousness of God.

He gives you your name. Be grateful.

*Discussion Questions are available for this sermon here: Discussion Questions "Thyatira & Love That Can't Be Pimped"