Clothed in clouds and rainbows Revelation 10

I saw another strong angel coming down out of the heaven, clothed with a cloud, and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pilllars of fire. Rev. 10:1

Wow. Now from the very start I will tell you that I am not a scholar when it comes to the book of Revelation, and I will not try to give you a theological view of this verse. I will be digesting it from the point of view of a true novice and from the “under the sun” view of things.

The trumpets have sounded, vials poured, seals broken...all kinds of chaos are poured out upon the earth. Judgments are being poured out upon the earth, and here comes another angel, dressed in a cloud, shining brightly with a rainbow like a crown or halo. This makes sense. Rainbows come from rain clouds with light shining through them. The rainbow was the symbol immediately after the flood given to Noah and his crew offered their sacrifice upon stepping on the earth again, the sign that God would not destroy the world with water again. It doesn't represent God never judging the world again at all, just not by water.

This time, we are told, it would be by fire.

So this beautiful angel in cloud and rainbow comes and stands on the earth and on the water, but the storm is not over. Think about it. When do you see a rainbow? It is after the storm has passed. He roars and says something, but John is not allowed to tell us what is said. Doesn't that make you curious? What did he reveal to John that God would not want us to know before the time? But he does continue to speak, and this we do hear. He “lifted his right hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, WHO CREATED HEAVEN AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE EARTH AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE SEA AND THE THINGS IN IT,that there will be delay no longer, but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as He preached to His servants the prophets. Rev 10:5-7

That's it, he says. God created all of this and it is over. It's out with the old, and in with the new. The promise of the flood is over, and we are starting over. New heaven, new earth, and no more sea. The only lake will be the lake of fire.

A cloud is made of water, and this is what the angel is dressed in. The water of the air. I read of smoke filling the heavens around the throne, and there is thunder and lightning coming from the throne of God. Rev. 4 gives us this image. Voices of the angels thunder throughout heaven during the breaking of the seals and other actions taken in heaven and earth. Maybe these cease when the rainbow-clad angel comes to earth? The wrath of God will no longer shake heaven? Maybe God is done with that stuff and is moving on to another means of judgment? Like I said, I am no prophetic interpreter, but we are given images we can understand to some extent, and this would make sense to me. But then I read on and in chapter 17 there is more thunder and lightning...more smoke of the glory of God, so what do I know. I know that God has a symbol of rainbow, currently stolen by a group that is taunting God, believing their sin is not judgeable, but acceptable and needing to be accepted by the world. I know that He will not be taunted and that His patience does have an end. Over and over He delayed judgments on nations. Their iniquity was not “full”. They start out evil and get past the point of no return, and then He sent destroyers to clean up the mess. Every generation accepts a little evil, thinking it is harmless, and before they know it, the consequences come. The sin produces problems, the problems create actions that multiply the consequences, and the people who sin believe that more sins are acceptable. When we are so full of sin that righteousness looks foolish, there is nothing left for God to do but step in. The only way to cure cancer is to cut it out, chemo it to hit where it has spread, and radiate the immediate area where the cancer was concentrated to make sure it is all gone and doesn't take root again. It is a harrowing process. Sickness, burns, pain, and agony. But when it is said and done, there is remission, and in some cases, healing. Our rainbow-clad angel is telling us that this particular cancer has spread so far that it cannot be cured. The treatment to kill off the cancer cells will kill the patient. But it cannot be allowed to live any longer. It's a sad deal, but the clean-up of the universe is going to be put into action.

There is much to learn from our rainbow-clad friend. He points to God, the creator, and says that He did create all of this, and it is His to do with as He pleases, including destroy it all for rebelling. He tells John and the time to end all of evil has come. This is terrifying, but will result in those of the kingdom seeing the Blessed Hope coming and all going back to pre-rebellion. New heaven is coming, new earth, and a wedding. With all that is happening in the world, the tension is mounting. Who can do something about the mess we are getting ourselves into? God will deal with it, so when the rainbow-clad angel comes, know that it will be resolved quickly. Then we will be able to rest and rejoice. Until that time, keep looking up.

Royal robes John 19

 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him. John 19:2 Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. vs. 5

It has been a few weeks since Easter, Good Friday, etc. but the message of the crucifiction is never out of date. It is the essence of Christianity. If you really look at the story of Jesus getting bounced from one ruler to another during the trials before His condemnation, you will see that the issue they had was His kingship. Pilate directly pointed this out...”Shall I crucify your king?” was his question to the Jews, and the sign he placed over His head on the cross convicted Him of being KING OF THE JEWS. The Jewish rulers convened and said they would rather have Rome ruling over them than let Jesus stir things up. It was all a matter of whether Jesus was their King or not.

King:dictionary.reference.com/browse/king

• a male sovereign or monarch; a man who holds by life tenure, and usually by hereditary right, the chief authority over a country and people.

This is the definition of a king. It's a guy who inherits the right to rule.

And Jesus in their mind didn't qualify, but it was not because He didn't tell them He did. He told them over and over that God was His Father, and if that were true, that would make Him the inheritant of world authority. He should have been respected, listened to, and obeyed, though He didn't ask much of most people. Most were taught, a few were asked to do basic things to show they had faith, like washing their eyes or heading toward the synagogue, at which time they were healed. A few that wanted to walk close were asked to give things up and follow Him. But He never asked them to join an army, pay Him taxes or teaching fees, or to do anything He didn't do or set the example for them to copy. He was King, but He didn't exalt Himself. If He would have tried, they may have said worse things about Him. The people wanted to make Him king. He was nice, He healed people, met their physical needs, had compassion and cried with them. He was everything they thought a good leader should be. But He turned down the earthly kingship for an eternal one.

Did you ever think of what would have happened if He had let His power go to His head? He told them He could have called 10,000 angels to save Him. He could have taken over the temple at any point by force, but He let the Pharasees keep it. He could have wiped out the Romans, but He let them rule and told people not to bother fighting them. If He had not died, we would still be in our sin. We would be hopeless.

There have been a lot of things in life lately that make me feel a little on the hopeless side. Physical, psychological, financial...all sorts of things can grab a hold of the heart and wring the hope right out of it. And then I think of Christ. The worst thing that happened to Him was the best thing that happened to me (and you, if you accept it), and we are reassured that this world is not “It.” This isn't all there is. People will let us down, sin against us, die, cheat us, fire us, talk about us behind our backs...you get the drift.

But Jesus is King. He came out in the purple robe as a broken man because that is how the world sees Him. That's not how I see Him, for He is no longer broken. He is all powerful, all loving and kind, and He is the ruler of my life and of those who join the kingdom. He is benevolent to His own. Like Peter, we can be assured that Satan has permission to sift us like wheat, but He can't take our souls. Any pain of this world is a temporary thing. Any persecution will just make Glory all the better. We are a part of the eternal army that one day will someday put evil to eternal silence. He has promised, written the decree, and knows the beginning from the end. The older I get, the more I realize that the days slip away quickly, and carrying the burdens of them wearies the bones, greys the hair, and zaps our joy.

But when things get bleak, we hear a gentle voice calling us into the throne room. We are reminded whose we are, see a glimpse of the castle we will get to live in, and hear the songs of the angels in our hearts. The doubts slowly melt away, replaced by the peace that passes understanding. We will walk on water even in the midst of the storm. The King will wear the proper royal robes, and if He wants them to be purple or scarlet or changes them frequently during His eternal reign for our enjoyment, He will. We will reign with Him, so I guess our robes will be royal ones, too. He doesn't force His kingship on us...He lets us decide which kingdom we will serve. As much as we like to think we run our own lives, we don't. We will always have a ruler, and we get to choose who that is. I choose Christ. I choose to enter the throneroom for direction and comfort and peace of mind and heart. Won't you join me there?

Lifted Skirts Nahum 3

“Behold, I am against you,” declares the Lord of hosts; “And I will lift up your skirts over your face, and show to the nations your nakedness and to the kingdoms your disgrace.” Nahum 3:5

No one likes to be humiliated. I personally have faced public humiliation a few times, and it is HORRIBLE. A couple of times I probably earned it, but many times, I was innocent, or at the least, clueless. There is nothing like having all of your faults put on parade to a watching public. It is mortifying. You want to crawl under a rock and never come out. You fear showing your face for years to come. Going home to my five year class reunion was a step of faith way back in the day, and when people actually APOLOGIZED for how they treated me, I was stunned...and relieved. It wasn't ALL me. As I have aged and learned and looked back, I am embarassed at my actions and attitudes that at the time seemed perfectly justifiable to me. But others did not see me that way. I was not being honest with myself, and their being honest with me was not kind. But truth is revealed eventually. And with God, all truth of motive, action, pride, humility...all will be shown for the truth of what it is...there will be no faking it, no justifying it. All will be uncovered. We usually do not admire those who uncover people's weaknesses and humiliate them. So where does God get off talking like this? So who are we talking about here? Who does God want to humiliate? Why would a loving God say such a thing, the watching world would ask?

Well, this passage is about Nineveh...described in verse one here as “bloody, completely full of lies and pillage, swords, spears, corpses, sorceries and harlots.” These were not nice people, folks. This is the city that Jonah ran from God over. I have heard stories of skulls stacked feet high around the city as a warning to others to keep away, as trophies of their military prowess. They were not nice to enemies, and were morally corrupt toward one another. It and Babylon are both symbols of total evil and depravity in scripture. They thought they were something, but God was going to humble them, showing that under that skirt of war and victory, they were naked, vulnerable, and disgraceful losers. They would not be able to intimidate the Lord God of the Universe into thinking they were undefeatable. They were filthy animals of human beings. Along with harlotries came diseases...and those would also be shown by their nakedness. They could never cover their sin forever...they would be shown for what they really were, just men.

So there we have it. It says in Hebrews that all things will be laid bare before the one to whom we must give account...we have touched on this before. We can dress up and play Christian, good girl, and honorable person, but God knows if we are or not. And some day the whole world will know. We will be shown for what we are. Are we a child of God, or are we faking it? Are our skirts beautiful, or full of the blood of the innocents? In either case, what are the skirts covering? Is there disease, uncleanness, and filth? The filth of our bodies comes out of us in these places, and some of us are not very good at using the tp to clean it up. We are full of filth...it is a part of who we are, and eventually it has to come out of us or it will kill us from the inside. If we are not nurturing life, other filth comes out, and the skirts also covered that. There is little that is pleasant under the skirt. The Lord cleans us up like a baby needs to be cleansed of its filth. But the enemies of God continue in their evil ways, the filth accumulating day after day. Every once in a while, we can clean ourselves up, but the filth still continues to come out day after day, year after year, event after ugly event.

Are we threatening people with our masquerade? Do they fear the person behind the mask of horror like the phantom of the opera? Is the person behind that mask really a threat, or merely acting out, thrashing against the God who made them? Do we fear the God who would cleanse us instead of fearing the flesh-eating filth that we choose to live in day after day?

So to make this a little more uplifting, let's look at the other end of this thing. The skirts may be lifted to humiliate the enemies of God, but the children of God will be dressed by Him, handed their clothing of white. It will reflect the pure, clean nature of the one distributing them. They will be exalted, lifted up to reign with Him over heaven and earth. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess Jesus as Lord, even the enemies, but after that, we will be separated from them. That confession will be made in one of 2 ways...one set of people will bow in worship and adoration and joy, and the others will be forced to see God for who He is, realize they rejected the one that would have lovingly taken them in and cleaned them up, and state to their own condemnation that Jesus is the Lord that they willingly refused over all the years of their lives. It is after that day that we will never experience humiliation again. There will be no more sin, no more filth, and no more exposure of our weaknesses, for we will not have any. It will be heaven. Literally.

So are you fighting the God who wants to clean you up like a baby thrashing on a changing table, or are you grateful for the God who will clean you, clothe you, and present you to the world as His? Your choice! But the cleansing comes through the fountain of the blood of Christ. He paid for the bath, the clothes, and the ceremony of adoption, and the wedding feast...who would turn that down for a skirt-raising with the Ninevites? Not me!