Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

Good morning River Church.

Welcome.

Glad to see everyone!

When I think about the Christian-life, two things Jesus said stick out:

-18-20

When I put these two things together, I believe Jesus is teaching me - as a Christian - to make the Kingdom of God the main priority in my life.

And discipleship is a huge part of that - He says go and make disciples.

Here at TRC, a couple ways we make disciples is through D-Groups and Life Groups.

Earlier this year, our D-Groups (or discipleship groups) multiplied.

And last week, our second Life Group launched.

I’m excited about this because I believe it reveals our church is passionate about two things Jesus is passionate about.

Additionally, many have heard me talk about my desire to one day send out people, from our church, to start more churches.

I know that sounds weird because we’re still a small church.

But Jesus told us to seek “His” kingdom, not our own.

So, our job isn’t to build the largest numerical church in Glastonbury so people can say, “Look at them!” Our job is to seek God’s kingdom.

Starting new churches (or church planting) is a major way to do that.

So, it’s something we’re hoping to do one day, whether we are 100 or 1000.

Even though we’re not ready to do that yet, it doesn’t mean we can’t begin investing our time, resources, and prayer into church planting.

You know that 10% of the tithes and offerings gets sent out to our denomination to help other church planters.

Currently, I’m working with a church planter in Stafford Springs to help him build the Kingdom out there.

And today, I’m going to call our friend Chris Skowronek up to share with us another exciting Kingdom work starting in our area.

Now, we’re not there (ready) yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t invest our time, resources, and prayer into the Kingdom.

You know that 10% of the tithes and offerings we take in gets sent out for Kingdom work.

We don’t have our own missionaries yet, but we’ve help financially support others to go do Kingdom work.

Currently, I’m working with a church planter in Stafford Springs to help him start a church out there.

And today, I’m going to call our friend Chris Skowronek up to share with us another exciting Kingdom work starting in our area.

Chris & Uttam.

Alright, be praying for that guys!

It’s exciting!

And with that, who’s ready to talk about God’s wrath!?

If you have your bible/app, turn to .

Last week, we talked about John’s vision of heavenly worship.

We talked about the worship of God the Father - the One who created everything.

And we talked about the worship of Jesus - the Lamb who was sacrificed on the cross to save us from our sin.

And we talked about how John is receiving this vision as a parenthesis (giving him extra information for a better perspective), so that He understands God has everything under control before he’s shown the chaos about to be unleashed on the world.

In this heavenly scene, Jesus (the Lamb) is given a sealed scroll.

It’s got seven seals on it and inside is written God’s plan for the end of the world as we know it.

He’s the only One worthy to open it.

And here in chapter 6, Jesus begins breaking the seals, which signals the beginning-of-the-end. It’s when the judgments of God (the wrath of God) are unleashed.

And over the next 10 chapters, we’ll see three categories of judgment unleashed: seals, trumpets, and bowls.

Historically, people have viewed these judgments in one of two ways:

1) The first way is seeing 21 judgments poured out onto the world, with the 7th judgment in each set containing the next set of judgments.

It would look like this.

To put it another way, how many know what nesting dolls are?

Okay, so the judgments would look like this...

[Show Star Wars Nesting Dolls]

2) The second way to view the judgments is to see 7 judgments, starting with the seals, that cycle back on each other - like this.

And each time they cycle back, they grow in intensity.

Many hold to this theory because - as you will see - a lot of these judgments repeat or share details.

Using the Star Wars example, the cycle judgments would look like this...

[Show Star Wars Nesting Dolls]

Exegesis:

Now, you might be asking, “Why does God need to pour out judgments on the earth?

I thought God is love.

This doesn’t seem very loving!”

I think that’s a legitimate question.

It involves a huge answer!

One that involves discussing biblical love, holiness, God’s sovereignty, retribution… but let’s approach answering it from this perspective.

Someone say, “Sin is no joke.”

Sin is not a small thing.

It’s not something God sees and says, “That’s alright.

It’s not a big deal.

It’s just a mistake.”

Sin is rebellion against God.

Sin is serious!

And I believe these judgments show us that.

Look at the first four seal judgments...

Rev. 6:1-

Let me summarize what we just read...

As Jesus breaks a seal, a judgment is released.

Whether the seal judgment is it’s own separate judgment or if it’s the beginning of a judgment that will intensify, really doesn’t matter.

Sin is no joke, so the judgments of God have finally begun.

Crazy things are about to go down.

And even if you’ve never studied the Bible, some of this may sound familiar… many stories and movies have used the theme of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The first seal judgment describes the first horseman - a rider on a white horse.

It’s possible this rider represents what we call the anti-christ.

It is believed that one day a world leader will rise, empowered by Satan, and will take over the world to claim it as his own.

He will be adored by the world and will initially promise world peace, only to conquer the world and demand people worship him.

The second seal brings forth a red horse, indicating war.

Possibly the war that comes due to the anti-christ.

The third seal is the black horse of famine.

Because of this great war, food will be scarce.

A denarius was a day’s wage and a quart of wheat or 3 quarts of barley was barely enough to feed one person.

What’s that mean?

Everyone will go hungry.

The reference to “do not harm the oil and wine” is debated, but the best answer I found was the famine will be so bad, that no one will be concerned about “finer” things in life like oil and wine.

The fourth seal is the horse of death.

In the Great Tribulation, a lot of people are going to die.

It says a fourth of the population will be taken out.

Using today’s population, there are 7.5 billion people on earth.

A fourth would be more than all of North and South America combined.

Or, all of Africa.

Theses judgments will be catastrophic!

But I want us to noticed something… look at the progression of these first four judgments: lust (desire for power and worship)/conquer - war - famine - death.

Do you realize what’s happening?

These judgments aren’t directly from God. It’s more God removing His presence and letting the world have it’s way.

How many of us realize that, were it not for the grace of God, we would destroy our life?

My sin is so serious that I don’t need anyone’s help messing my life up - I can do that all by myself!

That’s really what’s happening here.

God is letting mankind have its way.