Sermon for April 27, 2025 (Revelation 1:4-18)
I didn’t want to tell the children this, but up until I was about six, graveyards scared me too. Before that time, I guess I really didn’t understand much about death, and I foolishly and childishly believed that people and animals just might be able to come back to life. After that age though, I knew that only Jesus, those He raised on earth, and those who will rise on the Last Day will come back to life. Later, I would walk through graveyards with no fear at all while my friends would make very long trips around them and we’d meet up on the far side. Most of my friends outgrew their irrational beliefs about the grave, but it’s a sad thing to see and hear just how many church-going folks still have unbiblical understandings of these things. Many adults still think that “ghosts” are what remain on earth after a body dies, and they often base more of their knowledge about death, heaven, and hell on what they see in the movies than what God’s Word tells them. It seems that, as a culture, despite our prideful attitudes that make us feel as though we’ve got all the answers to life, we’re still very much like children in our fears. All around the world, there is widespread interest and fear in false spiritualism and occult arts—children of darkness pretending to be enlightened, but daily drifting further and further away from their salvation. Ironically, God says that losing our salvation in Christ is the only thing that anyone should truly be afraid of!
So what about us? What are we afraid of? We’re not like the rest of the world. We don’t fear the devil or any of his schemes because we know his work has been destroyed (1 John 3:8) by Jesus’ work on the cross. But as followers of the One True God who know that He is a loving God, we also know that He is perfectly righteous and does not tolerate the presence of sin. We know that all people, the wicked and the justified, will be raised when Christ returns, so shouldn’t we fear God so that we don’t lose our salvation?
Do you remember the great American preacher, Jonathan Edwards, from English class? Well, he knew that a healthy “fear” of the Lord was supposed to be a good thing for a Christian to have. Psalm 111:10 tells us that “fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”—so Edwards used this passage to his advantage. As a way of driving people to repentance and making his church a necessary part of his peoples’ lives, he told them all about the terror they should have for God as sinners who stood before a righteous God. He convicted their consciences as a way of leading them to the cross and its forgiveness. In his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards took full advantage of God’s holiness to shame and condemn those who do not claim the Son of God as their Mediator. Let me read a passage from that sermon right now to give you an example of Edwards’ use of the Law to supposedly “encourage” a hunger for the Gospel and generate a so-called “healthy” fear of God.
SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD by Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), Enfield, Connecticut; July 8, 1741
God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but what are contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the promises are yea and amen. But surely they have no interest in the promises of the covenant of grace who are not the children of the covenant, who do not believe in any of the promises, and have no interest in the Mediator of the covenant.
So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction. …
The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
Now, I know you were paying good attention to that segment from Rev. Edwards. By the way, that wasn’t even a tenth of his sermon. But did you remember the whole time you were listening that he was addressing only the “unsaved” as he spoke? At the very beginning, he made it very clear that he was only talking about unredeemed sinners being dangled over the fires of hell like repulsive spiders … he wasn’t talking about you … but didn’t it sound like he was? The problem with his sermon is that we are all “spiders” as sinners. Each of us understands that it is only by the grace of God who sent Jesus to bear our sins to the cross that any of us are still alive right now. But did Rev. Edwards’ uses of fear and constant reminders of your own unworthiness to receive God’s forgiveness make you feel closer to God or did they lead you down the dangerous paths of doubt, guilt, and despair?
History tells us that Jonathan Edwards’ own congregation was writhing on the floor in self-hatred and hopelessness when they heard that sermon. The same people who had just a week earlier professed a saving faith in Christ were now crushed by the twin burdens of the Law and their own failures. Mr. Edwards had succeeded in generating a fear of God, but his sheep could no longer look their pastor in the eye, and you can only imagine the guilt they must have felt in hearing the Gospel message that a sinless Jesus died to pay the penalty for their sins!
It is only too human for us to believe in our hearts that a little fear is a good thing. We think it’s a useful tool in keeping people in line. We convince ourselves that we have learned many valuable lessons through fear, and we justify our desires to “scare others straight” by claiming that godly fear is the beginning of wisdom … but what does our Savior say? After all, He is our boss, our role model, and yes, our Judge that we must answer to on the Last Day. What does Jesus say about fear in the life of a Christian?
Let’s look at our lesson from Revelation—or even at our lesson from John. Jesus appears to John, and knowing his good friend’s proper respect for God, Jesus reassures him—“Do not be afraid!” Jesus, appearing in all His glory and with all of the Father’s authority and might, comforts his friend and even encourages him by reminding John of the facts of His existence before all time, His death for the sake of all creation, and even His complete victory over death. Jesus does not condemn John any more than He condemns Thomas for the sin of doubt he commits prior to seeing his resurrected Lord. Jesus could have easily criticized John or Thomas as He frequently did before Good Friday and Easter saying, “Do you still not understand?” (Mark 8:17), or “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26), or even “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33). But He says nothing like this after the resurrection because, as Paul says, under the new covenant in Christ’s blood, there is now “no condemnation” (Romans 8:1) for those who are in Christ. In Jesus, sin is defeated. Fear is defeated. Shame is defeated. Worry is defeated. All of these enemies are rendered harmless through faith in Christ. Using them against yourself or against anyone else is forbidden. Jesus doesn’t hold those sins of weak faith against you or anyone else who receives His gift of forgiveness.
So friends, stop living in fear. You’re too grown up to dread death. You’re too mature in the faith to worry about a tomorrow that you know is in God’s loving hands. And most of all, you know better than to feel bad and beat down about how you’ve fallen short of God’s expectations. Instead, think about all the wonderful things that our perfect Savior has done for you not just 2000 years ago on the cross, but continues to do each and every day as His forgiveness puts all the little difficulties of your life into proper, heavenly perspective. He is always with you and He is always defending you to His Father. Jesus’ presence in your life is not something that should trouble a heart already disquieted by sin, but rather Christ is present in Word and Sacrament to comfort those who struggle in fighting the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12). The devil is your accuser, and he never ceases in his work of undermining your faith by planting weeds of doubt and fear among the peaceful harvest that Jesus is cultivating in you. But Jesus is greater than our enemy. Jesus is your Defender—He is your peace and your hope in a world that is taken over by ungodly fears. Abiding in His presence, abandon your fears for HE IS RISEN!
Now, may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.