I get at least three scam calls or texts a week. Who gets that many or even more? What I find surprising is the endless creativity, for example the recent my.gov angle. Also, just how many people are involved trying to steal my money! World crime has been estimated to generate $2T per year with counterfeiting ‘most profitable’. Illegal drugs are next. How do we make sense of this? And come to terms with international aggression such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or senseless acts of terrorism and gun violence?

In our world the generous and good co-exist with evil. It has always been this way.

Some have argued that evil used to be easily identifiable, now, it has “gone underground.” Modern cultural critics blame deviant behaviour on “social forces” or “family dynamics.” Ultimately, the problem is, we have lost both the language and the ability to identify evil for what it is, and its ultimate source.

Today we look at how the early church understood the problem of evil.

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Gratitude, a 10th Fruit of the Spirit

Where is the Holy Spirit present? There are nine ‘evidences’, called fruit of the Holy Spirit. I want to add an additional fruit and this will make an even 10 ? appropriate I think in a decimal age. In Galatians we read, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” (5: 24-25) We celebrate Pentecost today, the coming of the Spirit on the early church.

What about fruit number 10? I propose: gratitude. I was reading in the Weekend Australian magazine about David Pocock, our independent senator for the ACT. He begins his day with rigorous exercise, not surprising given his previous elite athlete status, but then he spends an allotted time for gratitude.

I believe that we as Christians are people most blessed by God. We know what Christ has achieved on our behalf and give thanks in worship. Importantly we can live our lives exhibiting gratitude, and this truly is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

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Introduction

Revelation is the most important NT book for understanding early Christian liturgy. The central message is “Only God and the Lamb, not Caesar, are worthy of worship” (4:11). What happens in heaven is far more important than anything that happens on earth. In the midst of conflict and persecution, the triumph of God and the Chr community is not only guaranteed but already celebrated (Osborne, 48). There is no ultimate harm to any follower of Christ, even to the martyrs who gave their lives as a witness to Christ.

Julius Caesar represented the power of Rome and the empire which was at times hostile to the early church. When he returned to Rome after many years of fighting its battles abroad, he planned great festivities and triumphal processions to celebrate his victories over Gaul, Egypt, Pontos, and Africa. Each of the four processions took an entire day. His goal was to hold the city spellbound by his greatness. The cavalcades wound through the streets and ended at the temple of Jupiter, displaying treasures, booty, large paintings of battles, and maps. Then came the prisoners with their barbarian kings; then the Roman officials; and then the commander himself, riding on a chariot drawn by three white horses. He wore a laurel wreath and purple toga, carried the eagle sceptre, and coloured his face with red lead to represent Jupiter, whose power had made the armies victorious, while over him a slave held the golden wreath. Yet the same slave also repeated in his ear, “Remember, you are human.”

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Text: Revelation 1:4-8

I want to look at one of the strangest books in the Bible. The book of Revelation. It strikes us as very strange. But apocalyptic is a distinct kind of sacred writing. There are brief passages in both the OT and NT. It is like our dreams because the language is very symbolic, and any interpretation is likely to be controversial because it is open to a multitude of understandings – some even more fantastic that the source documents!

It may be fun to try to identify the ‘Anti-Christ’ in our modern age or to decode numbers such as 666, but arguably this is to miss the point. It is to indulge in wild speculation and ultimately foolishness. There is a long history of interpretation from the reformers (Pope=Anti-Christ) to Hal Lindsay’s Late Great Planet Earth (Zondervan, 1970). This was a favourite when I first became a Christian. 

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In our post-Christian era, it is reassuring that our major holidays are still Christian. Christmas and Easter focus on Christ. Mostly. You may need to look past Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny (regardless of how generous they are with presents or chocolate eggs). Thankfully, Easter is still recognisable as having something to do with the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I would like to talk about the Easter theme of transforming death. We start with a focus on our ‘little deaths’. They are part of life.

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