The Word of God describes paradise as having “the tree of life.” It was in the Garden of Eden and it is described as being in the new heaven and earth. What is it? We should all want to know, because to have access to the tree of life is to live forever in the greatest version of life ever known. Interestingly, Revelation 22 says that those in the new heaven and earth — with this tree of life — have “the right” to it. What does this mean?

This vision of your future in Christ in Revelation 22 actually identifies a connection to God throughout life: from the Old Testament Garden of Eden, to the ministry of our Lord Jesus during His public ministry, through the age of the Church giving Christ’s Word and Sacrament, all the way to the new heaven and earth. We will all get a better understanding of the tree of life.

By knowing about the tree of life you will know how the Lord sustains you through the tumult of this life and through the incessant attacks of our own sinful flesh against us, the evil in this world which is in our face every day, and the evil one who never tires trying a new approach against you and me. How are we sustained and protected from this barrage? The answer is through the tree of life. It pays to be clear about this tree of life.

It has been my great joy to offer this series on the book of Revelation in order to demonstrate that this book is simple, beautiful, and comforting when presented in a Christ-centered way (its intended sense). Sunday is the last installment of this six-part series.

Sunday is also our second New Member Sunday in two weeks. This service will welcome six new members, three of whom are being confirmed into the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod as adults. This promises to be an exciting day even as we give thanks to the Lord for the gift of mothers in our children’s message and in our prayers.

Please invite a friend to church. Let us gather to receive Christ once again through Word and Sacrament!

Here is an excerpt from Sunday’s sermon:

We must face and confess our sin: we treat the Word of Christ as less than vital. We pay more attention to the evening news than we do to the 66 books of the sacred canon. We thirst and yearn for so many other things. We prefer things that bring worry and even worse, death, instead of seeking and longing for the Word and the Sacrament. We embrace the world’s priorities, loves, fears, and worries and when we do we begin to emulate the world…we start to become like the world…like wandering and thirsty dogs that are running around lost from their masters who can only devour the trash in the world…we become desperate and before we know it, we can begin to participate in the rebellion and immorality that is all around us. Such a soul forsakes faith and forsakes God. This should make us very concerned, because our sin proves that we practice idolatry — loving other things more than God — and that we do not belong to this picture of the heavenly paradise.

 

What is there to do? By the grace of God through His Word alone, we must change our thinking or better said pray that The Lord changes our thinking through the Word and Sacrament which give us Jesus. Our way of approaching everything must be changed. We must repent. The great Lutheran systematician Francis Pieper wrote in his essay “What is Christianity?”

 

“[The devil] endeavors to mislead man either utterly to despise the atonement of Christ or to attempt to establish his own righteousness, as a result of which Christ’s reconciliation is forfeited. The consequence is that God must punish the world with dreadful plagues, wars, floods, earthquakes, and other frightful calamities to remind man for what purpose the earth still stands, namely, that he might repent and by faith accept the reconciliation of God which Christ has effected.” (What Is Christianity? And Other Essays, CPH 1997 Reprint, 49)

 

The great irony which occurs when someone complains about the tumult while insinuating that God is not in control is that they are complaining about the very sign that proves that God is in control (as we witness the fulfillment of His prophetic prediction, Jn 16:33, 2^nd Tim 3:1ff, et. al.).

In Your Service and To Christ’s Glory,

Pastor Espinosa