Today’s chapter is Revelation 10

Tom writes:

Call me a coward, but if I saw an angel who had one foot on the sea and one foot on the land and who shouted like a roaring lion - if I saw that angel - and someone asked me to go up to him and take his scroll off him... I would leg it. But maybe - if I really understood this section of Revelation - I would realise that these mighty angels are always around. Maybe I would realise that behind the sleepy-feeling days of this earth a crashing conflict is going on in the spiritual realms. Maybe I would then become more comfortable (if that could ever be the right word) with the idea of giant angels influencing every act upon this earth. This kind of talk is pretty much blasphemous to our modern “rational” ears. The disenchantment of the “enlightenment” makes most of us think spiritual stuff - if it exists at all - is “over there somewhere” while earthly stuff is “right here”. This means many of us can love Jesus and try to follow Jesus without seeing the world remotely like he saw it. We can look at our problems and other people’s power and we let them become the big story. If only we could get a new job, or have a bigger following, or get the government to do what we want them to do… then the stuff would be sorted. Let’s google it and get the answer. We never imagine an angel needs to act, or some dark spiritual power needs to be undone.

These passages show us that the unseen realm is where fates are decided. And so, a wise church, will want to be alert to the unseen realm. I want to get better at recognising the unseen opportunities available to me through the Holy Spirit. I want to get better at discerning the unseen demonic schemes that lie behind so many people’s problems. I’m trying to learn to be a priest who brings unseen realities into vision so others can grasp hold of them in their lives. I realise this could make me a bit weird - even scary - to people so entrenched in the disenchanted view of the Enlightenment. And so I want to stress that waking up to unseen things doesn’t diminish the seen realm at all. In fact, it is only when we recognise the Spiritual powers that are interacting with this earth that we can truly love the earth; that we can see this earth become all it is meant to be. So faithful endurance - living like Kingdom and Priests - means we must pray. We must pray not just for “material” things, but also for an alertness to God, and his Counsel, and to the schemes of the enemy and all his hordes. We must learn to pray and live like the unseen God is really Sovereign on the earth, trusting that his unseen power is actually something we can see and influence and release upon this earth.

Question for reflection

How much do you think you have a “disenchanted worldview”; where you only really think about “seen” things rather than “unseen” powers and forces?

Revelation 10 - Wednesday 11th December