In this sermon‑style monologue, the speaker recounts a high‑school missionary trip to Honduras where they helped build an orphanage, ran a Vacation Bible School, and witnessed profound need among the children. A recurring anecdote involves a local boy repeatedly pointing at the speaker’s boots, wanting a different pair of shoes that the speaker unintentionally gave away, highlighting miscommunication and the pain of unmet desire. The narrative then shifts to a heartbreaking encounter with an emaciated infant in a nearby hospital, whose death the speaker learns about after returning home, deepening the sense of helplessness. These personal experiences become a springboard for a theological meditation on Revelation 5, where God the Father holds a sealed scroll that no one can open until the worthy Lamb‑Lion, Jesus, is found. The speaker draws a parallel between the boy’s unmet need and humanity’s need for the scroll to be opened, emphasizing that only Christ, who embodies both sacrifice (the Lamb) and authority (the Lion), can fulfill the divine purpose. The talk also uses legal imagery of a scroll as a deed to illustrate the concept of divine authority and redemption. Throughout, the speaker weaves personal grief, biblical exegesis, and doctrinal reflection to explore the tension between human inability and divine provision.
Chapters
The question I wanted to start with was, have you ever wanted something really, really bad, but for some reason it just couldn't happen? For some reason, or just didn't happen. Maybe you thought it could, but it, but it didn't. I remember once when I, so I think it was grade 12, and I went on a Fly and Build, and we went to Honduras. And while we were down there, we were building an orphanage. We were like doing a stage of the orphanage. So I think we were just doing the, the trusses and, and some of the doors. And so we were doing that during the afternoons, but in the morning we ran like a VBS program for the village kids around there and the orphanage kids. And when I was there the first day, as I walked in off the plane, there's just kids running around and everything, the orphan kids and stuff. They're all excited because there's new people there. And so there's so many of them running up and saying things to you in Spanish and hugging you and running away. And so the next day when we had our first work day, I got up and I had brought work boots. You You know, we're gonna be on a work site. So I put on my boots and started out there. We did prayer, we did worship, and then as we were out on the work site, this boy walked up to me who I didn't recognize from the day before. Evidently he'd met me, but he walked up to me and he pointed at my feet and said something in Spanish and patted himself. And I said, "You want my boots?" And he said, "No." And he said something else in Spanish, pointed at my feet. I said, I, these are my work boots, but I could give them to you on the last day that I'm here if you're gonna be around. Looking for a translator, couldn't find one, so I said, and he said, he pointed at the boots and he said, "No." I said, "Okay, I'm sorry, I don't know what you want. If you're pointing at my boots, you don't want my boots." So every day, this little boy would come up and he would look around for a translator and he would throw his hands up, he'd point at my boots and say, "Not the boots." But I didn't understand what he wanted. And finally, on the day before we were leaving, This lady came and she talked about the needs in that area, and she said, "Some of the kids there live in cardboard boxes. They literally live on a piece of cardboard, and many of the children there have never had a pair of shoes." And so she said, "If you happen to have a second pair of shoes with you, that would be fantastic. Even if they're just flip-flops, anything, the kids would love them, and they will protect their feet." So I thought, "Oh yeah, there's that pair of shoes that I was wearing when I came." And so I went out, I thought I could wear boots on the airplane home, and I could wear boots to the other places we go to. So I went in feeling so happy that I had these shoes, and I came back, and I gave them, and big pile of shoes, and this lady took them all away. And the next day, this little boy comes up again, and we're all leaving, and we're hugging goodbye to everyone. He points at my shoes again, and at my boots, and says something. And this time, there's a translator there, because we're all together, we're getting on the bus to go. And I said, "Oh, oh, come, come, come." What does he say? He points at my boots and then he says no, but he wants my boots. I don't know. And he said, so I talked to the boy for a little bit. He said, you had another pair of shoes on the first day when you were here. He doesn't want the boots because they're too heavy for his feet, but he would love to have the runners that you were wearing. And I'd given them away the day before. And I felt so bad because I thought it's the honest truth if I tell him I gave them away yesterday. But it's the worst thing I could possibly tell him because he's been trying all week and he is, if anyone's entitled to that pair of shoes down there, it's him. And they were gone. And so when I told the translator and the translator said to him, he said, "No!" And he's pointing at me, "Me first, me first!" And I said, "I'm sorry, they're gone." I said, "Does he know the lady that—" And he said, "No, she's from the city and she takes it and she has many more children in there." I said, "Well, tell him I'm sorry." And I wanted more than anything to be able to just have— I mean, it'd be so easy if I had another pair of shoes or if, you know, just if I could go to a shoe shop and buy a pair of shoes, but it's just not that easy down there. And I couldn't give him that pair of shoes. So there's times when we want something and we think, "I could do that," but then something gets in the way. It was really cool the way they had the flying build set up. High school kids would come and they were there to have that first experience of a fly and build of a missionary trip. And the trips were run by university students. And so the university students were leading the young people, leading the high school kids. So you really looked up to these university kids as a high schooler because you're like, I want to be like you one day. And there was this girl there that she led the worship every morning and she taught us a song that It's just a scripture song, but I've never heard it anywhere else sung to the tune that she had. And it was, um, if I sing it, you'll know the verse. I think it's in, um, I think it's in Proverbs. Um, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path. Is that Proverbs 4:7 or something? Yeah, 4, 5, 4, 6. And so she taught us that song and she— we sang it every day together. I have this vivid memory in my mind because we went to another orphanage where they were— well, it wasn't so much— it was a hospital really for infants that were starving. And so while we were there, we were— we met a number of children and there's— there was this one little baby that we picked up and got to hold and— well, she did. And it was 4 months old, but it was smaller than any newborn I've ever seen as an adult now. It was just tiny and it was emaciated and a little boy. And she was holding that and they took a photo of her. And I still, I don't have it anymore, but I had that photo for years. And so I remember that story like it was my own story because of the picture and the, and the emotional attachment I had to her and her being in the photo and the boy. And it's like it all went together. And so we, that was, I think, the second day we were there. We went there in the afternoon and we prayed for that little boy every day because all of us had made that connection to him. And then when I got back to Río Lindo Academy, when I got back there, it's a boarding school, and I'm standing in line and I hear this guy say behind me, "What's taking so long? I'm starving." I don't even know what happened. I just spun around. I said, "You're not, you're not starving. You don't even know what you're talking about." And he's like, "Whoa, Edgren, calm down, boy." And I just, because I just, it just came, just rose up out of me that we had found out just a day or two after we got back. They called us. They told us that that little boy had passed away. And so, it really had an impact. And at that time in my life, if I could have had anything, I would have loved to give my shoes, but I would have loved to have been able to do whatever was necessary to help that little child have life, be able to be strong and to grow up. And to not, really the symbol of that trip for me is those two things, not being able to give away my shoes and having a child that we saw pass away that we could do nothing for. And there's this story, and Faye's going to really dig into it in Revelation, about a time when not only was everyone unable to do something that really, really needed to be done, but even God himself sitting on the throne— he's in Revelation 5, he's sitting there holding this scroll, and, and he's trying to give it to people to open it, but there's no one worthy to open the scroll. And so as he continues looking around, and, and it's of course, it's a, it's a It's a vision, it's a parable, it's a metaphor. It's not that it really happened like that in heaven, but John is seeing that way so he can have an emotional reaction like I did to that little child, like that little boy did with the shoes. John can see God the Father trying to get someone, please open this, we need this scroll open. We cannot save humanity if we can't open this scroll. And John starts weeping. He's like, when will someone be found who's worthy to open the scroll? It's the point in scripture where Jesus flips from being, he flips back and forth from being the Lamb of God to the Lion of Judah, to the Lamb of God, to the Lion of Judah, and he does both because he's given his life and he's worthy because of who he is, who it is that gave his life. And as Jesus walks into the throne room and the Father goes, "Ah, yes," and he just exhales this joy and hands the scroll to Jesus because he's worthy to open the scroll. And I, I wonder, you know, we have times in our lives when we have that slight feeling of wishing we could give something or do something or see something accomplished, but it's not possible. It must not weigh at all into the universe's desire to see forgiveness for humanity, because there was only one way for it to be granted, and there was only one entity, one person. Well, he is a person and God together, one. There's only one who can give that gift of opening the scroll and making it possible for the deed for this world. Um, some scholars, that's what they think the scroll represented. We know that as he opened it, more and more things happened on earth, but back then, if you had a scroll, you made a deed. If somebody came in and said, I owe you this much money for a piece of property, or I'll give you this piece of property as collateral for what I owe you, They would take the proof, the deed, they would roll it up and they would put 7 stamps across it, or as many stamps as responsibilities you had to meet before you could have the scroll back, before you could open it and say, "The land's mine again." And so, God is actually taking— he has the deed for earth, but he's not entitled to open it until Jesus conquers the devil on the cross.
