The new world coming

The New World Coming: This year's sermon for Remebrance Day and First World Centenary at St James:

The First World War started on 28^th July 1914 and ended exactly a hundred years ago today on 11^th November 1918. 70 million people fought in the war. 9 million combatants and 7 million citizens died. Here (above) is a famous photo from 1914 of the Bermondsey Boys taken at the Wellington Barracks in London.

How many of them returned? We don’t know. What we do know is that no less than ten members of the St James Bermondsey Young Men’s Bible Class gave their lives in the conflict between 1914 and 1918, and are commemorated by this brass plate in our church narthex.

Today we remember them: Robert Brittain, George Benson, Stanley Blake, Leonard Cornwell, Owen Giles, Harry Hill, George Moore, Thomas Piper, Thomas Pidgeon, Herbert Talbot.

Under their names on the narthex memorial are these heartfelt words: Those Who Knew Them, Loved Them. And the same could we said by the families and friends of the 16 million who died in the First World War, the 50 million who died in the Second World War and the thousands of who have died in subsequent conflicts.

The scale of the suffering is more than we can take in. And much as we honour and remember the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for the freedom we now enjoy, we must wonder whether there is any end to war, to the pain and suffering this troubled world?

That is where the Book of Revelation comes in. The last book in the Bible is like a window into the future.To a sinful, broken, and suffering world, it speaks its message of hope about the new world that God will bring in in the fullest of time. Let’s look through that window:

We see a new world, and a new people:  

John sees a whole new world, a wonderful replacement for the damaged, polluted, war ravaged, fallen and broken world that we live in.

There is no longer any sea. Why? Because in Revelation the sea symbolises the distance between a holy God and a sinful humanity. In this new world that separation is gone forever

 In this new world, are a new people: God’s people, his church:  

The holy city, the new Jerusalem is the church, the people of God. It comes down from heaven, indicating that the church is God’s creation and God’s idea in the first place. He called it into being, he purchased it with his blood, he guards it by His Spirit, he now brings it to its final earthly home

At any wedding there is a special moment when the groom looks round and for the first time sees his bride beautifully dressed for her big day. In the same way the church, God’s people, is his bride and she too is beautifully dressed. All her sins have been washed away and the church, the people of God, is new, and radiant, and holy

With all this comes: A new way of living for the world:

 As it was at the beginning so it will be at the end. As the Lord walked in the garden of Eden with Adam & Eve  so once more he will dwell on the earth with his people, he will live with them says Revelation. All rebellion, all sin, will have gone: He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God

 And with his presence comes a whole new way of living for the world:

Everything that has disfigured and spoilt this life: death, mourning and pain will be banished from God’s new world

And it a lovely picture of the tender love of God we are told that He will wipe away all tears from their eyes.

How we need to hear that message on Remembrance Day. How we long for that day when God wipes away every tear from our eyes.

And with the new world, the new people, the new spiritual reality, and the new way of living for the world comes:

A new announcement of an old message

Jesus speaks: 

 ‘It is done’ All God’s purposes have been accomplished. All God’s promises have been fulfilled. The great act of redemption and re-creation has been completed.

And then comes an invitation: To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it

That invitation has gone out into the world for 2,000 years whenever this book is read this invitation is proclaimed, the living Lord Jesus makes it again this morning to everyone who has not yet responded

It is a drink without cost, because he has paid for it

It is a drink from the water of life because it is do with eternal, life

It is available to everyone who knows their need of it – ie who is thirsty. 

Have you responded? Have you come to the reigning Lord who has done everything for your salvation and now calls you to come to receive it?

If you haven’t may I urge you to respond to his call without delay