Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro goes here.

The fact that the river of life flows from the throne of God shows that the source of all life is found in God.

This picture that we are shown is also a reminder that in the New Heavens and the New Earth death and all that accompanies it have been completely done away with and that then life will reign supreme.

Then in verse two we read.

I don’t know whether or not there will be essentially a canal that the river of life will flow down some central street within the city.

But, those details that we get caught up in.

Are not the point of the revelation.

Rather, in the New Heavens and the New Earth eternal life is a central part of what life will look like.

And then we are told that on either side of the street is the tree of life with its twelve fruits that yield its fruit each month.

Again, will this tree straddle the streets somehow along with the river?

Who knows?

Not sure I even care.

Look, have you ever known a tree to bear fruit every twelve months.

Fact is such a thing has never been seen perhaps twice a year but not monthly.

Why?

Because every tree must essentially die back and then experience regrowth in order for new fruit to grow.

In the New Heavens and the New Earth this season of dying will no longer exist.

Because death has been completely done away with.

When the passage speaks of the healing of the nations by the leaves of the tree I believe that what is being spoken of is what has already been revealed in a contrast between this age in which we all experience suffering, anguish, pain, and death.

But in the age to come and all that are given access to the tree of life will see all of this left behind never to be remembered again.

Then in verse three we read.

Everything in the new age will be transformed by God.

And so he is due all of our worship.

In verse four we read.

The central hope of our salvation is that we will see the face of Jesus.

This is our greatest hope here and now.

To one day look into the very eyes of Jesus.

In the Old Testament the saints were told to keep the word of God before them always and so they created what were called phylacteries.

They were these little boxes that they would put the small pieces of papyrus with the scriptures written on them and then strap those boxes onto their foreheads.

It was symbolic of their desire to keep the word of God foremost within their minds.

In the age to come such things will not be necessary.

Everyone will simply know God as he has always intended for us to know Him.

We will not need to strive to know Him.

He will simply be known.

Then in verse five we read.

Again John makes this statement that the Lord will abolish the night.

Is this a physical reality or is this statement more metaphorical I’m not certain.

The metaphor that stands behind the statement is clearly true.

In the end light beats out the darkness and there will be no darkness at all.

I ask whether or not this is a metaphor only because it is a common metaphor that John uses.

For instance in first John chapter one verses six and seven we read.

In the new heavens and the new earth we will finally see this statement in its fullest possible means come true.

So is this a real physical manifestation or is it simply a metaphorical usage of night and day.

It certainly is being used I believe in the metaphorical manner.

It is also possible as many argue going to be true in the physical sense as well.

This is my struggle with this idea.

There is a sense in which the new heavens and the new earth is simply a return to that which was meant to be prior to the Fall.

That means that the Sun and the Moon, Day and Night will all exist because all of these are seen in Genesis chapter one.

This is the reason that I am more inclined to say that John is simply writing metaphorically here and not literally.

This is always one of the great struggles in reading the book of Revelation.

The next several verses I am going to run through really quick to be honest because they need little explanation and that is because they are meant to be able to stand on their own with little discussion.

What is difficult in this next section is the flow from here until the end.

John is going to appear to write what appear to be somewhat disconnected statements.

From verse six until the end he is going to focus on the authority that the book is meant to play within the life of the church.

So these are very important verses and I’ll be honest should be seen as an encouragement I believe for every church to truly study this amazing book.

So, in verse six we read.

The angel now assures John that what he has seen is both true and reliable.

The last part of this statement that the angel makes is an affirmation that this book is prophetic just as Old Testament prophecy was prophetic and the source of both is the Lord.

In verse seven some of your bibles may have the words in red as though the speaker shifted and Jesus is now speaking.

I believe that the flow of the two verses together makes it more likely that the angel is simply quoting what Jesus has essentially stated previously although perhaps not directly.

Jesus words are used here to reinforce two basic ideas.

First is that his return should always be viewed by the church as being imminent.

When no one knows, but we should always live as though his return could be at any moment.

Second is a reminder that the church in every age is going to be caught up within this battle per se between Christ and Antichrist.

And as a result we need to live lives of unswerving loyalty to Jesus Christ in the face of constant demonic pressure and persecution.

Then in verse eight John is our speaker and we read.

When John received the revelation that was given to him and he understand God’s full redemptive purpose in what we call the consummation he was so awestruck that his natural response was to worship the angel.

And of course we saw that the angel stopped him and redirected him towards the worship of the Lord.

We see this in verse nine where we read

Then in verse ten we read.

At this point it would appear that the speaker is still the speaker that we saw just previously.

And John is told to not keep the words of this prophecy sealed.

This appears to be a reference back to the scroll that we first saw that had seven seals.

And John was witness to the breaking of those seven seals.

This indicated that the contents of the scroll had been up until that point hidden from the eyes of men.

But Jesus steps forward as the only one worthy to break the seals and thus open up and reveal the prophecy that was written upon the scroll.

And that prophecy is the contents of this book.

And so now that Jesus has chosen the time and person to reveal the contents of the scroll to those contents are now meant to be accessible to all of mankind.

And that is the revelation of those things that are still yet to come at the end of this age and the beginning of the age to come.

John in verse twelve again quotes Jesus and he writes.

This is basically a repetition of what we read in verse seven.

Right.

Throughout the Bible we are giving this picture that Jesus or the Messiah is going to come and he is going to do so in the role of Judge over mankind.

And so the scriptures continually remind us that we will one day be judged on the basis of our works.

But what specifically are the works of believers in Jesus Christ.

Because we have already stated that our good works are likely filthy rages before Jesus.

So what are the good works that we see played out within this book that Jesus expects from us.

I do believe that there are a few of them.

And I’ll be honest if I had thought through this more clearly I would have probably followed on this series with a series on each of these.

Don’t worry those are still going to be seen at a later date though.

So what are these works that I believe the book of Revelation is calling us to every day as Christians.

There are three things I believe this book calls over and over.

They are patience in tribulation, steadfastness under persecution, and faithfulness to Christ Jesus.

I believe that this book shows to us the clear requirements of what it means to do good works in the name of Christ Jesus and these are those works.

Then in verse thirteen we read what we might call the foundation for the authority from which Jesus speaks.

And we read.

Jesus is able to stand as judge over all of humanity because he transcends all human experience.

None of us can claim to have existed from the beginning of all things and will exist until the end.

Jesus is the one who spoke all things into existence.

And it is the grace and love of Christ that sustains all things to this very day.