Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Revelation 8:1-13

Theme: The judgments of God upon a wicked rebellious people.

Date: 06/24/2018 File name: Resurrection20.wpd

ID Number:

Most biblical scholars consider chapter 7 something of an intermission in the unfolding story of God’s judgments upon the earth.

For a moment we need to return all the way back to chapter five and that seven-sealed scroll that figures so prominently in end-time events.

The first six seals, which were broken in chapter 6, represent the ongoing events of our age, and corresponds with what Jesus said “are the beginning of birth pangs,” (Matthew 24:8).

The actual end of the age, and the beginning of what Jesus called Great Tribulation is announced with the breaking of the 6th Seal.

That seal introduces a number of cosmic catastrophes.“I

watched as he opened the sixth seal.

There was a great earthquake.

The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.

14 The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?””

(Revelation 6:12–17, NIV84).

But before the end is revealed and further details are given concerning the nature of the great tribulation, chapter 7 pictures the fate of the church in this fearful period.

The 144,000 represent the church on the threshold of the Great Day of the Lord.

The Great Multitude in that chapter picture the church on the other side of the Great Tribulation, bloodied but strong and standing before the Lord in worship.

Chapters eight and nine now tell us what the seventh seal contains.

It is a series of world-shattering judgments, each announced by an Angel’s blast on a trumpet.

I. THE OPENING OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

1.

I would encourage you at some point to go back and re-read chapter 6, skipping chapter 7, and moving right on into chapter 8

a. it will give you a sense of the flow in the breaking of the seven seals

b. our passage begins with, “When he opened the seventh seal, ... “ (Revelation 8:1, NIV84)

2. the “he” of that verse is the Lord Jesus Christ

a. in chapter 5 the call goes out, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?”

b. the answer is revealed…

“Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.

He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

7 He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.

8 And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb.

Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

9 And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

(Revelation 5:6–9, NIV84)

c. the Lamb of God, slain since the creation of the world, is the one—the only one— who is worthy to open the scroll that contains the record of end-time events and how they will unfold

1) Jesus is worthy because he died, and in dying he ransomed a great multitude of saints from all the nations

3. with the breaking of the seventh seal, the scroll is opened, and what it reveals are the judgments of God to be poured out upon a sinful, and defiant humanity and the antichrist who leads them

4. this morning, I want to deal with just the first five verses of this chapter

a.

It breaks up into three easy parts

1) the pause

2) the prayers

3) the preview

II.

THE PAUSE IN HEAVEN’S PRAISE (8:1)

“When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.”

(Revelation 8:1, NIV84)

1. there is a 30-minute silence in heaven at the opening of the seventh seal

a. if you want to make an audience nervous and fidgety let there be a prolonged silence

1) in a visually–oriented society, Americans do not take silence well

ILLUS.

Grady Nutt, a Christian comedian, once quipped, “If you have more than 30 seconds worth of silence in a Baptist worship service everyone begins peeking around to see who forgot something.”

2. silence makes people uncomfortable

a.

I believe this 30 minutes silence in heaven represents the proverbial “calm before the storm”

ILLUS.

We’ve all experienced it.

You’re in the backyard, maybe grilling or enjoying a game of catch with the kids, when suddenly you notice that everything goes quiet.

The air seems dead still, and even the birds stop singing and quickly return to their nests.

After a few minutes, you feel a change in the air, and suddenly a line of clouds ominously appears on the horizon—clouds with a look that tells you they aren't fooling around.

You quickly dash in the house and narrowly miss the first fat raindrops that fall right before the downpour.

It's an intriguing phenomenon that people have recognized for centuries, and the idom the calm before the storm, has come to refer to a period of tranquility before something chaotic begins.

1) chaotic does not even begin to describe the conditions during the Great Tribulation

b. at the opening of this last seal everything in heaven becomes absolutely still and heaven become deathly silent

1) what could possibly silence heaven?

2) it’s nothing less than the certainty of God’s judgment and wrath that are about to be poured out

c. it stuns both saint, and angel, and cherub into silence

1) the Old Testament said this would happen

“Be silent before the Sovereign LORD, for the day of the LORD is near.

... .”

(Zephaniah 1:7, NIV84)

2) when the Prophet Zephaniah wrote those words, Israel’s spiritual condition was precarious

a) they have no interest in following the Lord

b) they abandoned His will, His law, and His ways, refusing to seek or inquire of Him

c) they reverted back to ancient religious superstitions, and

d) they brought into their homes false gods

d. mankind has followed this general pattern of sinful rebelliousness

3. today ... right now, we’re seeing the groundwork being laid in Western culture for the normalizing of everything God has outlawed and declared unholy, and the outlawing of everything that is holy and righteous

a. confessing Christianity is becoming less and less tolerated in today’s anti-Christian western society

ILLUS.

Consider.

Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down two closely watched decisions.

They were both related to one university, Trinity Western University.

That's the major evangelical university in Canada, a university that in 2012 established what it hoped to become a recognized national law school.

The Canadian High Court essentially said that since Trinity Western University, which holds to biblical convictions concerning marriage, sexuality, and gender, it’s law graduates cannot possibly adequately represent people in the LGBT community, and therefore, Canadian law societies can legally discriminate against Trinity Western graduates, and not licence them to practice law.

The University’s Law School will have to close down.

Justices sided 7-2 against TWU, calling it “proportionate and reasonable” to favor the rights of the LGBT community over the religious convictions of the school’s students.

The bottom line in these two decisions by the Canadian Supreme Court is that it is now virtually impossible for any kind of Christian educational institution, any college or university in Canada that would hold to Christian biblical values to have its graduates recognized as professionals.

And here's where we have to understand that the arguments that won in Canada are arguments that are gaining in traction in the United States.

“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”

(Isaiah 59:2, NIV84)

b. if ever there was a verse that presently describes Western Culture, it’s that one

4.

The Sound of Silence in Heaven Is the Calm Before the Storm

III.

THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS (8:2–4)

“And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.

3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar.

He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.

4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.”

(Revelation 8:2–4, NIV84)