Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.Music is such a unique gift. With a few simple chords a song can energize us. A few words become an anthem when set to music. With the strum of a few strings our souls can be set at ease (1 Samuel 16.23).In the middle of the outpouring of God’s final wrath, the final measure meted out against those who oppose His justice and truth, a song is sung in heaven. We’ve seen in Scripture how God puts His sovereignty powerfully on display over the chaotic waters. His Spirit was above the waters of creation and drove apart the Red Sea (Genesis 1.1-2; Exodus 14). Dwelling among Jesus walked on the stormy waters and calmed the raging seas with His voice (Matthew 14.22-33; Mark 4.35-41).Now, at the end of His wrath, the Lord pours His judgment on land, sea and sky. As /his messengers carry forth His command, an angel placed over the waters sings. He sings of God’s just judgment and righteous truth (Revelation 16.5-6). Like King Saul, tormented by his own wickedness, it is easy for us to condemn God’s just judgment against us. We isolate decisions and excuse behaviors. We align ourselves with the powerful of this world in their injustice against others and refuse to see the blood on our own hands (Amos 2.6-8; Isaiah 10.1-4).It is to us the angel’s song is sung as the judgment is poured out. It is a renewed invitation to repent and live in Christ’s compassion. This song is a call to sing with those beneath the altar, the witnesses who’ve gone before us, the men, women and children’s whose lives testified to the mercy of God denied justice by cruel humanity. Beloved, let’s repent of our sin. Let’s lay our souls bare before our righteous and compassionate God, following His Spirit into the lives of the widow, the orphan and the resident alien (James 1.27). And with our brothers and sisters beneath the altar, let’s sing in reply, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!” (Revelation 16.7). 

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.Years ago, Bebe Winans in a live recording of Nothing but the Blood, as the piano keys tinkled in the background, shared how across American Christianity, we sang the same songs, just with different arrangements. He demonstrated what he meant by taking the song, commonly sung as a single voice, arranged the lyrics as a call and response. Winans asks, “What can wash away my sin?” and the choir reply, “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus!” And as the drums kick back on the rhythm, the bass line bouncing up and down, together the voices rejoice: “O precious is the flow / that makes me white as snow / no other fount I know / nothing but the blood of Jesus!”Reading Revelation 15, we’ve heard this song of before, just with a different arrangement. What we’ve sung before crossing on the dry ground through the Red Sea, a song of Moses, a hymn of praise to our Almighty God (Exodus 15), has become the song of the Lamb. Amos Young artfully said it this way: “As the Hebrews cried out to their God and then celebrated with Moses in the wake of their deliverance, so also can the church today pray to the Almighty one and continue to sing Moses's song, albeit attuned now to the Lamb's new key.”Beloved, take time today as you sing the songs of Eternity, hear John’s revelation as a call to which we respond. Here him exalting: “This is all my hope and peace” and join all creation singing “nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Together, let’s sing of His great and awesome works among us! Let’s lift our hands in praise as we entrust ourselves to His ways that are just and true (Revelation 15.3)! In the assembly of the saints, let’s hear the Apostle’s humble worship, “This is all my righteousness,” and join him—bowed low before the Lamb who was slain, by whose blood we are ransomed to be a people for God,” (Revelation 5.9)—knowing we stand before the Lord God by “nothing but the blood of Jesus.”Whatever arrangement you sing, friend, let’s go through this day rejoicing!

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.Years ago, I heard Duke Ellington’s Heaven for the first time, and it rocked my world. In middle school I’d stumbled across Ellington (a jazz album misplaced among the blues records), and since then I began to collect his compositions. I thought I knew his sound until Heaven. His soft recognizable piano playing is accented by a crisp soprano voice praying “Heaven come by,” sonically climbing up to the note. I sat there, enraptured by the song. The closest to that yearning for God’s eternal presence was listening to Coltrane’s Love Supreme a few years later. That was until last week.At an evening of jazz arranged by Taylor Barnett, where Steve Wilson and Daniel Clarke improvised Heaven, I found myself swept up again. All the fundamentals were there, but their interpretation made the song new, fresh, like a thunderbolt of worship. It wasn’t just a saxophone and a piano. It was a testimony.Together, exploring the book of Revelation, we've sung the songs of eternity. We’ve exalted the Lamb of God who was slain for all nations (Revelation 7.9-12). We’ve praised the Lamb of God because we’ve been ransomed by His blood to bear prophetic witness to all nations (5.9-14; 11.3-13). Now in Revelation 12, we’ve reached the apocalyptic tipping point—Revelation’s core—the place of worship where all time converges before God’s throne. All of Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation— has been telling this one grand story, but now, in worship, we rejoice God’s victory won over all time—past, present and future. “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses [God’s people] day and night before our God,” (12.10b). That’s heaven, the eternal presence of God among His people, and looking and longing for that day we sing, “Heaven, my dream / Heaven, divine / Heaven supreme / Heaven come by.” 

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Steve Hartman.Brett has been leading us in the Songs of Revelation. Brett said as we began, “Jesus deserves our holistic worship, a worship that is rooted in the depths of our heart…” So, we are looking at these “songs” with the aim of more fully joining the worship we see as we read and study these songs the picture to us the worship of the heavenly chorus.In our first passage we see a throne. Jesus is the king, he is reigning. When you and I trust in Jesus, He comes to live in us. He begins to reign in us. We were kings of our hearts. Now, we have begun to experience the blessing—the new freedom as we let Him reign/rule/be-in-charge in our lives. But, in our main passage for Sunday (Revelation 11.15-19), we see that reign, largely hidden until now, become visible. And all the heavenly beings celebrate—they worship—Jesus the king has begun to visibly reign. As you meditate on the Scripture below, I invite you to let the reality of the reign of Jesus now in our hearts and in history, though hidden, and the visible reign of Jesus that is coming lead you into fuller worship of the King of Kings.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.Arriving at a defining passage for our church, Revelation 7, I am encouraged by the words of G.K. Beale & David Campbell:  “The focus of the revelation John received from God is how the church is to conduct itself in the midst of an ungodly world.” I don’t think it would come as a shock to anyone that we live in times marked more by humanism than holiness. No matter which channel you turn to, be it cable news, broadcast news or even a comedy channel, people are divided on every topic imaginable. We’ve become so busy fortifying our encampments against the opinions of others, we missed the Apostles’ calling exhorting, encouraging and charging us “to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory,” (1 Thessalonians 2.12).Beloved, if we are offloading our calling for tomorrow in eternity instead of walking in the ways of Jesus today, we will be blind to the image of God in us and in others. When we dehumanize—and even demonize—those around us (yes, even our spiritual brothers and sisters!) we are failing to take to heart the prophetic and apocalyptic challenge of Revelation. John’s foretelling of tomorrow is meant to shape not only the way we see overmorrow but bring actionable vision for how we live today.When we lift our eyes toward eternity, we don’t see a monochromatic mass or single tribe. No, we “behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb!” (Revelation 7.9). Together at the throne of God we will sing of salvation and bless Christ’s name forever! That, my friends, is something worth celebrating, and it’s worth celebrating today! So today, may you and I, as God's priesthood among the nations, “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” (Ephesians 4.1-3).