Disciples of Hope - Revelation
This is our Sunday teaching by Senior Pastor Tom Thompson. Recorded live at our Sunday Service in Harris Academy Purley, Croydon on Sunday 14th June, 2026. It is the final part of Tom’s teaching on Revelation - we are preparing a fuller resources page on the wonderful book of Revelation which we will share in due course!
Below you can find the full talk audio, and a summary article.
Talk Summary - Disciples of Hope
On Sunday, Tom continued our journey through Revelation by helping us sit with some of the Bible’s most dramatic and unsettling images: Jesus as the rider on the white horse, the great white throne, the books being opened, and the promise of a new heaven and new earth.
Revelation does not give us these pictures to satisfy curiosity about the end of the world. It gives them to strengthen hope, especially for people who know what injustice feels like. The early church knew oppression, poverty, violence and fear. John writes to them with a vision of Jesus who is faithful and true, who sees everything clearly, and who will one day judge with perfect justice.
The first great image was of Jesus coming to wage war against evil. This is not violence for violence’s sake. It is the promise that evil will not have the last word. Jesus will confront all that destroys, deceives and dehumanises. He will bring justice so fully that, in the new creation, God will wipe every tear from every eye. Not just a moment of comfort, but deep healing at the root of every wound.
The second image was of the books being opened. Every deed matters. Every unseen act of kindness, prayer, service, forgiveness and faithfulness is remembered by God. But every wrong is also named. Grace does not mean our lives do not matter. It means that, when the truth is brought into the light, those who belong to Jesus can trust in another book: the Book of Life.
Our hope is not that our own record is impressive enough, but that Jesus has given himself for us. His robe is dipped in blood — his own blood — and through him forgiveness is offered freely. To be in the Book of Life is to say: “Jesus, you are faithful and true. Your judgement is right. I need your forgiveness, and I want you to be Lord.”
Until the day when Jesus returns, we live in the gap. We still feel injustice. We still carry wounds. But Revelation calls the church to pour hope into one another: to pray, to work for justice, to forgive, to live holy lives, and to become a small taste of the future kingdom where Jesus makes all things new.