Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Orthopathy

Before God gave His people His Law, the world was a rough place.

In many ways it still is, but we would be wise to consider the moral baseline of civilization at the time.

We live on this side of 3,000 years of the civilizing, restraining influence of the Judeo-Christian ethic.

We enjoy the legacy of the Ten Commandments.

The world before God’s giving of the Law was an awful, scary, barbaric place to live.

People routinely practiced human sacrifice, especially of children.

Slaves were killed without any accountability.

Women were considered property.

Children were disposable resources.

Revenge was commonplace.

It was survival of the fittest writ large.

No one—not even the hardest Darwinian atheist—wants to live in a world like that.

All of us want there to be justice.

We want there to be balanced scales.

We want there to be a standard of right and wrong, punishment for the wicked and a recourse for the righteous to plead their case.

None of that would be possible without the Law of God.

No wonder the Psalmist said, “The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.…

Oh, how I love your law!

I meditate on it all day long” (Psalm 119:72, 97).

People have given their lives to preserve the Word of God.

People have gone to jail for possessing a copy.

People have traveled land and sea to faithfully translate it into as many different languages as humanly possible.

Many of us have multiple copies within easy reach, but do we really value the Bible?

Within its leather-bound, gold-leafed, onion-skin pages, we find more than history and philosophy; we find wisdom for living.

The doesn’t merely speak to us of “heavenly” things or “spiritual matters.”

God’s Law is holistic, giving us a basis for coherent thought and practice.

As we meditate on God’s Word, He shapes the way we think about our world and ourselves, teaching us to think His thoughts and lead an integrated life in which everything we do matters.

There is no dichotomy between spiritual and sacred.

God intends to govern all of life, rendering it all holy.

How dare we reduce it to trivia or an academic textbook to be studied alongside the Riverside Shakespeare or the Encyclopedia Britannica!

These are the words of life that point us to Wisdom and Truth personified, revealing to us the true character and nature of the true God who desires for us to be His treasured people, a people set apart for a purpose, rightly relating to Him so we can be rightly related to each other.

[Kenneth Boa and John Alan Turner, The 52 Greatest Stories of the Bible (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2008), 49–50.]

Main Thought: I wish to motivate you to prayer and pleading in the Lord’s presence for purging the world of ungodliness and to a pursuit of the lost at whatever personal cost you might be called to make.

Sub-intro: Provide the backdrop for Rev. 8.

The Songs of Heaven...

The Slain Lamb Standing...

The Seals Opened…

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

White, Red, Black, Pale...

The Martyrs Altar...

The Petrified Worldlings...

The Four Winds of Judgment Waiting...

The Interlude of Seven...

The Jews Restored...

The Gentiles Redeemed...

Body:

What the Lord’s Presence Provides (Rev.

7:15-17).

Enjoying Christ’s Provision (v.

16a).

Enjoying Christ’s Protection (v.

16b).

Enjoying Christ’s Person (v.

17).

The Shepherding Lamb (v.

17a).

The Solace of God (v.

17b).

The Pause in Heaven (Rev.

8:1).

The Seventh Seal (v. 1a).

The Short Silence (v. 1b).

Silence… Then Supplication… Then the Storm... [Wiersbe]

The Preparation of the Trumpeting Angels (Rev.

8:2).

Their Place Before God (v.

2a).

Provided with Trumpets (v.

2b).

The Prayers of All Saints (Rev.

8:3-6).

Angel of Intercession (v.

3a).

Note the Levitical backdrop; Solomon’s Golden Censers...

Avenger of Imprecation (v.

3b).

For centuries, God’s people have been praying, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done!” and now those prayers are about to be answered.

Likewise, the Tribulation martyrs prayed for God to vindicate them (Rev.

6:9–11), a common plea of David in the Psalms (see Pss. 7; 26; 35; 52; 55; and 58 for example).

These “imprecatory psalms” are not expressions of selfish personal vengeance, but rather cries for God to uphold His holy Law and vindicate His people.

[Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 592.]

Altar of Incense (v. 4).

Angry Indignation (v. 5).

The Censer of Cleansing (v.

5a).

5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

The Censer Cast to the Earth (v.

5b).

In the tabernacle and temple, the golden altar stood before the veil and was used for burning incense (Ex.

30:1–10).

This was the ministry Zacharias was performing when the angel told him that he and Elizabeth would have a son (Luke 1:5ff).

Burning incense on this altar was a picture of prayer ascending to God (Ps.

141:2).

[Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 592.]

The Plagues Upon the World (Rev.

8:6-9:21).

The First Four Trumpets of the Apocalypse (Rev.

8:6-12).

The Burning Earth (Rev.

8:7).

Note the parallel to the Egyptian Plagues upon Pharoah for his hardness of heart.

The Bloody Sea (Rev.

8:8-9).

The Bitter Waters (Rev.

8:10-11).

The Blackened Sky (Rev.

8:12).

The Lamenting of the Lord’s Messenger (Rev.

8:13).

The First Woe - The Abysmal Army (Rev.

9:1-12).

The Pit Opened (Rev.