Tonight I preached on Revelation 13-14:5. It’s the passage all about The Beasts and the number 666, and the 144,000. I was pretty excited to be doing it because the beasts and all that are pretty exciting.
But when it came time to be writing the sermon it was hard. Nothing seemed to be coming. At least, I couldn’t find a big idea that I was happy with and I couldn’t find an interesting way of talking about it which didn’t just sound like a lecture on the symbolism of Revelation. I spent hours on it throughout the week, but even last night nothing good had arrived. I went to bed hoping the morning would improve things.
It didn’t improve things much. And today, a day that I had planned to have off, was a day full of sermon wrestling. It was pretty frustrating. I was feeling tired, and cranky. Mostly just cranky that my planned rest day was not restful at all.
In the end I wrote notes for my sermon, instead of a full text, which I almost always do. And I just went in hoping for the best. Actually I did more praying too.
I think it turned out ok. My end we pretty muddled I think. Someone came up to me after and said “Did you just make that up as you went along?” Which I didn’t but I can see how it may have sounded like that. They can’t all be winners
Still, people did say they liked the sermon and got stuff out of it so I can’t complain. And happily, God works despite bad preachers, so who am I to worry. It’s only my pride that’s at stake.
I’m pretty happy it’s over. I’m pretty keen for some rest. Saturday maybe.
If you want to hear the sermon, you can get it here, or I’ll put in on the podcast in the next day or two.
Update: I listened to the sermon this morning. The sound quality is pretty bad. Apologies.
