Woodland Friends Church Kevin Davis

The Ephesians were doing all the right things, weren't they? They were stopping bad teachers, serving the right people, building bridges, dodging bullets! They only lacked one thing, was it a big thing? Jesus says so. His Whole Word says so.

Many profess quite freely that THE BIBLE is about JESUS. But even some believers in such sentiments get to Revelation, and ask, "What is this about?" "Prophecies, I guess. Maybe... disaster? Catastrophes?" Instead of Revelation being about prophetic fulfillments, maybe it's just about the fulfillment of Christ in all things!

The Reformers, like Calvin, Luther, or even Matthew Henry, John Knox, or the Wesleys – did they teach, and did the kids running around in their times – 16, 17, 1800s believe in the left behindism? And you might say, “Hah, nice try! You can’t pull that one over me! Of course they couldn’t have imagined a one world nation, and the other creepy features of Left Behind,” but then you might think they held their counterpart of a rebuilt Israel, and a dystopian, one-world leader. The reality is the Reformers were vastly different from where we are today. So totally different in their views of Revelation, that it’s not even comparable. And that's just two interpretations out of four major views of Revelation.

Are the ones we based our faith-walk on going to find us faithful? Will your parent or relative who led you to Christ? Will your teacher, pastor or mentor? How about the church you were saved at? Most importantly, will Christ find us faithful in a faithless generation?

Jesus, fully God, fully man, walks out onto the water and intends to just cross the other side. It’s only a few miles. Why risk a boat ride on a stormy night when you could just walk it, right? And the word choice here of Mark suggests that first of all, this was just for Jesus’ benefit! He intended to pass them by! Then He appears to change His mind, “D’oh! There they are! They saw me! Now they’re freaked. I gotta fix this.”

People who have gone before us. People we could in some small way thank for their obedience and faithfulness that we now get to be here. In a facility. Being the church together on this hill. Still hearing the Word of the Lord. Still studying His ways... will we leave the same legacy for future generations?