First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL

What Is God So Mad About? Revelation 12-18 March 10, 2013 First Presbyterian Church, Sterling, IL Christina Berry If you’ve been reading along, you read chapters 12- 18 this past week. We didn’t get to have Bible study on Tuesday, so if you read, you may have found these chapters a bit overwhelming. We started out with sevens – seven angels and seven churches and seven lamp stands; seven woes, seven seals, seven trumpets. The kingdom of this earth and the holy kingdom of God. The lamb that was slain and the wrath of God. Now we have Heaven and Hell. God and Satan. Armageddon and one thousand years of peace. Golden bowls full of prayers, and golden bowls full of plagues. Now we have a woman clothed with the sun giving birth on the moon while a dragon watches, waiting, to devour the child. It sounds a little bit like the story of Jesus’ birth, but then it sounds a lot like the local mythology of the gods of the time. There’s an unholy trinity of the dragon and the beast ...

Already and Not Yet Revelation Chapters 6-11; third sermon in a series First Presbyterian Church, Sterling, IL Christina Berry Chapter 6 12 I looked on as he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as funeral clothing, and the entire moon turned red as blood. 13 The stars of the sky fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its fruit when shaken by a strong wind. 14 The sky disappeared like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth, the officials and the generals, the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in caves and in the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the Lamb's wrath! 17 The great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" Chapter 7 9 After this I looked, and there was a great crowd t...

  As much as I love words, our ability to employ them to express the inexpressible is limited.  Any description of a dream or vision, then, is necessarily inadequate. I've tried, in this sermon, to paint a picture, or compose a symphony in words, that gives the hearer or reader a sense of the indescribable. The Mighty…Lamb? Revelation 4 and 5 February 24, 2013 First Presbyterian Church, Sterling, IL Christina Berry Revelation 4:1-11 1 After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this." 2 At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! 3 And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. 4 Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elder...