“When the Tables Are Turned”

Revelation 3:7-13

It has been said that the preacher’s task is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To be honest, though, this task is part and parcel of every Christian’s evangelism and witnessing. We are all called to speak the healing, saving words of the Gospel to those who are suffering. At the same time we are called to speak those same words to those who are comfortably smug in their assumptions about themselves, their relationship (or non-relationship) with God, and their eternal fate. For them the Gospel will be a word of affliction, a word of judgment, a word that demands confession and repentance.

According to Jesus, on that great Day of Judgment yet to come, there will be some surprises, not all of them happy ones. Some who have said, “Lord, Lord!” the loudest and longest will be told by the Triumphant Christ, “I never knew you.” Some who have lived lifetimes on the right hand of the world will find themselves on the left hand of God, surprised to learn that they’re not among the elect. They, the comfortable who had not comforted the afflicted, will find themselves not comforted by God.

Promises of such affliction of the comfortable are not limited to the New Testament. Amos, that southern farmer sent north by God to be his prophet, afflicted the comfortable with the truth about their sinfulness. He was especially eloquent as he spoke to those who assumed that God’s eternal favor would rest upon them no matter how they behaved. The people of Israel longed for that Great Day of the Lord, when the light of God would shine upon them, God’s own darkness would confuse and confound their enemies, and the nations would come and bow down before them.

What did Amos say to them? He said, “Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light…” Judgment was coming not to their enemies, but to them. They who had afflicted the afflicted would themselves be afflicted by the very God they assumed would save them. Thus said the Lord!

That long ago church in Philadelphia was an afflicted church. Our risen Lord’s letter to them is a word of comfort. Let us listen again to those words, this time from The Message: “I see what you’ve done. Now see what I’ve done. I’ve opened a door before you that no one can slam shut. You don’t have much strength, I know that; you used what you had to keep my Word. You didn’t deny me when times were rough. And watch as I take those who call themselves true believers but are nothing of the kind, pretenders whose true membership is in the club of Satan – watch as I strip off their pretensions and they’re forced to acknowledge it’s you that I’ve loved. Because you kept my Word in passionate patience, I’ll keep you safe in the time of testing that will be here soon, and all over the earth, every man, woman, and child put to the test. I’m on my way; I’ll be there soon. Keep a tight grip on what you have so no one distracts you and steals your crown. I’ll make each conqueror a pillar in the sanctuary of my God, a permanent position of honor. Then I’ll write names on you, the pillars: the name of my God, the name of God’s city – the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven – and my new Name.”

The Christians in Philadelphia had been through some tough times. More tough times were on the way. They weren’t rich, at least in terms of how wealth is measured by the world. Nor were they powerful as power is defined by the world.

But they were faithful. The Lord had opened for them a door of missionary opportunity. They had pursued this opportunity with a fiery passion that had never cooled, no matter what their circumstances. The door Christ had opened could not be closed.

They were faithful. They had not denied their Lord at a time when claiming him was dangerous. They were not ashamed of him. He was not and would not be ashamed of them on that great Day of Judgment. They who had been deemed so worthless by the world would be honored in heaven.

They were faithful. For them there would come a day when the tables would be turned. The day of the Lord would be a day of darkness instead of light for those theologically smug non-Christian Jews and all the other pretenders who had afflicted them. On that day the risen Lord would make it very clear just who his chosen people really were. The afflicted would be comforted. The comfortable would be afflicted.

They were faithful. Because they were the Lord would see them safely through a coming time of worldwide affliction and tribulation. They, like everybody else, would be tested, but they would be spared. When the wrath of God descended on a sinful world they would be protected. Why? Because they were God’s own people.

They were faithful. They were patient. The Lord was coming, but in the meantime he was asking them to be patient – and faithful - for a while longer. They needed to hang on to what they had. But the hanging on would be more than worthwhile. They had the assurances of no one less than their risen Lord.

The risen Lord. The incarnate God. The Messiah. The Way, the Truth, and the Life. He and only he could confer or withhold citizenship in God’s Kingdom. His assurances were as good as gold. His promises were the very promises of God.

These were his promises to the church in Philadelphia: They, the afflicted in life, would be comforted in eternity. The time of testing would come and go. They would pass through it with flying colors. They would see the tables turned on those who had persecuted them. They would be the eternal possession of God, pillars in the Church Triumphant. The One whom they had been so proud to claim in life would be proud to claim them: in life, in death, and in the life to come.

We can’t begin to imagine how comforting those words were to that battered and beleaguered church. We have no frame of reference. Persecution, we’ve never experienced it. Affliction, we’ve never been afflicted because of our faith. Poverty, whom are we kidding. Even the least well off among us has no experience of real poverty: of life-threatening famine or drought, of living in and on the filth and refuse of the wealthy because we have no other choice, of helplessly watching our children die from starvation or dehydration or some disease from which we cannot afford to immunize them. Powerlessness, none of us knows the experience of total economic or political powerlessness. We modern Presbyterian Christians living in America are, by most rational standards, some of the most comfortable and least afflicted people on earth.

But what if? What if our congregation was to become a tiny, isolated island of Christianity in a vast sea of hostile non-believers? What if we had no constitutional freedoms, political power, or economic clout? What if we were, at the least, only barely tolerated by our surrounding culture, or at the worst, persecuted by it? How comforting then would our Lord’s words be?

Would it not be wonderful to hear that we, the poor, weak, afflicted, and persecuted people of God, were, by the standards of eternity, the truly rich and powerful and comforted? Or to know that we will pass through a time of testing and tribulation, be it in the present or future, with flying colors? Or to learn that our missionary efforts were not made in vain? Or to be assured of an eternal victory over sin and death? Or to realize that some day the tables will truly be turned, that we the afflicted will ultimately be those comforted, and that those who have afflicted us will have to acknowledge our special status in the eyes of God?

Would we not be blessed by the assurances of Christ, those same assurances of God that Isaiah spoke so long ago? “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”

Thus says the Lord! Amen.