Lightning in a Bottle: the Lightning is God, the Bottle is you

University of Queensland economist David Savage has done a comparison of the behavior of the passengers aboard the Titanic with those on the Lusitania, another ship that also sunk about the same time.  As the Titanic was sinking and women and children climbed into the lifeboats, the cellist and violinist from the band stood and played.  They died when the ship went down.  Men stood and smoked cigars.  They died, too.  This behavior is puzzling to economists, who believe that people generally behave in their own self interest.  "There was no pushing and shoving," says Savage, who has studied testimony from the survivors.

But when the Lusitania went down, the passengers panicked.  There was a lot of similarities between these two events: both ships were luxury liners, they both had a similar number of passengers, and each had a similar number of survivors.  The biggest difference, Savage concludes, was time.  The Lusitania sank in less than 20 minutes.  The Titanic took two and a half hours.  "If you've got an event that lasts two and a half hours, social order will take over and everyone will behave in a social manner," Savage says.  "If you're going down in under 17 minutes, basically it's instinctual."  On the Titanic, social order ruled, and it was women and children first.  On the Lusitania, instinct won out.  The survivors were largely the people who could swim and get into the lifeboats.

Yes, we're self interested, Savage says.  But we're also part of a society.  Given time, societal conventions can trump our natural self interest.  Sadly, natural self interest includes spiritual self interest.  Look at the story of Noah and the world-wide flood.  For 400 years, Noah preached repentance to the people.  Society pegged him as a crackpot, a person to be ignored.  But when the door of the Ark was shut tight and the rains began to fall, people banged on the door, begging to be let in.

It's the same way with those preaching hell-fire and damnation.  Society turns their heads from these doomsayers.  Yet while Jesus was here on Earth, he told a parable (doubtless rooted in truth) about a rich man who died and went to hell, and poor Lazarus who died and went to heaven.  The rich man begged to come over the divide, but it couldn't happen.  He begged that Lazarus could come and cool his tongue with a drop of water, but it couldn't happen.  Finally, he begged that Lazarus could come back to life and share the truth with the rich man's brothers, so they could avoid the rich man's fate.  Abraham answered that the society in which his brothers lived, much like the society that the rich man himself had lived in, would not listen to one who knew the truth--even one that had risen from the dead.

We know that Jesus has risen from the dead.  Yet our society has chosen to politely excuse ourselves from His message that repentance is required for redemption.  We have time, you see.  The Apocalypse is not yet upon us, and there is no need to panic.  Like the passengers on the Titanic, we are watching our ship sink, yet we are stoically smoking cigars and waiting to die.

Revelation 4:5 says, "From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder.  Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing.  These are the seven spirits of God. "  John is reporting on his own vision of heaven, and of the God who sits on the throne.  In the book of Revelation, thunder and lightning always mark and important event connected with the heavenly temple.  In the rest of the Bible, the lightning and thunder and even the blazing of the lamps are symbolic of the awesome majesty and power of God:

• Exodus 19:16.  "On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast.  Everyone in the camp trembled."  God was preparing to give Moses the Ten Commandments.
• 1 Samuel 7:10.  "While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offerings, the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle.  But that day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites."  God was showing His power to protect His people from their enemies.
• 1 Samuel 12:18.  Then Samuel called upon the Lord, and that same day the Lord sent thunder and rain.  So all the people stood in awe of the Lord and of Samuel." This was Samuel's last act as Judge over the people of Israel, and God showed the people his favor toward Samuel's ministry.
• Job 38:1 (also Job 40:6).  "Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm."  Job had been questioning God's justice, His mercy, and His power over life's circumstances.  God was about to set Job straight.
• Psalm 18:13, 14.  "The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.  He shot His arrows and scattered the enemies, great bolts of lightning and routed them."  A poetic recitation of God's protection of His people throughout history.
• Revelation 8:5.  "Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake."  A future view of God's power and might, foretelling of an important event in heaven, one that we will get to in the months ahead (God willing).
• Revelation 11:19.  "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within His temple was seen the Ark of His Covenant.  And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm."
• Revelation 16:18.  "Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake.  No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake."

See, God knows how to get our attention.  Why, then, do we always forget the message that He is sending us, and instead play by society's rules?  It is as if Society was our god, and God is mute.  We would rather please Society than to obey God.  Society can shame us, especially in the here and now.  Who cares about eternity?  If being godly embarrasses me now, I will not be godly--this is a choice we are making every day.

Another way that God seeks to get our attention is through the Church.  Our text (chapter 4 verse 5) refers to the Church as "the Seven Lamps" and "the Seven Spirits".  This signifies a two-fold purpose of the Church: to be a light to the world, and to share God's truth to all people.

Source of Light
Zechariah 4:2 says, "He asked me, 'What do you see?'  I answered, 'I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top and seven lights on it, with seven channels to the lights."  The vision here was probably of seven lamps arranged around a large bowl that served as a bountiful reservoir of oil.  Isn't that a beautiful metaphor? God supplies the fuel, no matter which church is shining the light.  The bowl represents an abundant supply of oil, symbolizing the fullness of God's power through His Spirit, and the "seven lights...seven channels" represent the abundant light shining from the lamps (seven being the number of fullness.)  Remember, in Revelation 1-3, there are messages sent directly to seven churches.  These churches were probably real, and most likely were not the only churches in existence at the time.  The seven churches of Revelation represented all of the churches.  Today, there are seven distinct branches of Christianity--Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Adventists (although there is always some blurring between the distinctions).  Scripturally, each Christian Church draws its power from the same source: and that source is Jesus.

J.B. Phillips paraphrased the first chapter of John in this way: "At the beginning, God expressed himself.  That personal expression, that word was with God, and was God, and he existed with God from the beginning.  All creation took place through him, and none took place without him. In him appeared life, and this life was the light of mankind.  The light still shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.  A man called John was sent by God as a witness to the light, so that any man who heard his testimony might believe in that light.  This man was not himself the light; he was sent simply as a personal witness to that light.  That was the true light that shines upon every man as he comes into the world.  He came into the world--the world he had created--and the world failed to recognize him.  He came into his own creation, and his own people would not accept him.  Yet wherever men did accept him, he gave them the power to become sons of God.  These were the men who truly believed in him, and their birth depended not on the course of nature nor on any impulse or plan of man, but on God.  So the word of God became a human being and lived among us.  We saw his splendor (the splendor as of a Father's only son), full of grace and truth."  (John 1:1-14)

The light, the very splendor of God's own son, belongs to the Church to share with the world.

Source of God's truth
Revelation 1:4 says, "To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from  him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne."  I love this expanded version of "I AM"-- He is, He was, and He is to come.  Amen!  This is the message of the church.  And the seven spirits are described in Isaiah 11:2: "The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him--the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power; the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord."

The word of God, which as John shows us is Jesus, is given to the Church to share with the world.  Revelation 3:1 says, "To the angel of the church in Sardis write: these are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars."  This mystery was already explained in Revelation 1:20: "The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches."  Again, the number seven represents completeness--not only has God given us enough truth to find Him, he has bestowed this Truth to enough churches to reach every man, woman and child on earth for Him.  There is no excuse--one of the churches will speak to every person, but not every person will respond to all the different churches.  That may be why God allows so many doctrines, so many interpretations, to thrive--"so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22)

Revelation 5:6 says, "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.  He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out to all the earth." Don't get caught up in the strange description--seven is the number of completion; horns are representative of power; the eyes allow God to see the whole world through the worldwide Church.

So God is using the Church throughout the World to send a message.  This message is of obvious import, because it is accompanied by thunder and lightning, rumblings and earthquakes.  And yet He sends this message in a portable package that is you.  He is sending a message in a bottle.  That bottle, as fragile as it is, contains the power of Almighty God.  You are, in other words, Lightning in a Bottle--you can do the impossible, because with God, all things are possible.