Sermon Tone Analysis

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*Brothers and Sisters, Our call to worship come from **Rev 7: 13**-17:*

*13 **Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” *

*14 **I answered, “Sir, you know.”

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*And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.*

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*Greeting**: *

*B&S** Our help is in the name of the Lord, amen!*

*Grace and peace to you, from God our Father, the maker of heaven and earth, Amen*

*Sing (Musicians)*

*Confession: Lord’s days 1,2*

*Prayer (**Ditta Baalbergen**)*

*Collection*

*Reading Rev 1: 1-8*

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*Brothers and sisters, is it true for you too that at this time of the year – the second last week of the year – and most people are moving onward purposefully to Christmas day, when we will stop to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus.*

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*As we do so, of course, we will also stop to remember events and people here on earth in our own lives.

Christmas is like that…it almost forces us to think about things.*

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*And the things we think about can be categorized…in a sense it is all about beginnings…but it is also in some way a time of remembering things that have gone by…endings.*

*It is very much about first things…and last things, we may say*

*In a very special way, Christmas forces us to think forwards …..and also backwards.*

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*At Christmas we look forward to wonderful things to come, because we know that in our Lord it is made possible that we will share in a future with Him.*

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*We are reminded at this time that our Saviour was born a man some 2000 plus years ago, and that He made it possible for us to join in His birth, and baptism, and life, and death, and resurrection (that is what it means to be a Christian).

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*What joy and happiness and hope!*

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*But often Christmas is also a time of sadness…*

*We remember /last/ Christmas; the /past/ year, with all of its joys and tears; we remember loved ones, /some no longer with us./ *

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*We long for family and friends who cannot be with us because they live in another country, or do not want to be with us because they are angry with us.

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*And we become sad, almost disheartened.*

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*Put the two together – and turn them around in order - and we may say that Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Christ, reminds us of things that was…and things that we believe still will be – and look!  lo and behold!

we have discovered a truth – *

*          The birth of Christ is about turning things around…from        hopelessness to hope and life everlasting, where there will be   no more tears and hardship and death and disease.

First           things…and last things…*

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*The book of Revelation, in a very special way, brings us this message in a very special way.*

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*Revelation, written about 90 years after the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, comes to us through John, whom God allows to catch a glimpse of what is yet to be.*

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*Our first instinct might be to say – now that’s a Christmas present.*

*And then we realise, we too have received that gift, the possibility for us to see what lies ahead of us in God’s kingdom.

It’s all in Revelation!*

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*See how the book starts out…*

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*Look at the beginning…“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.”*

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*The title of this book is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”.

Not of John!*

*We might replace the word revelation with the words “to unveil”, “to take off a covering”, “to reveal” *

*That is what God is doing with this book.

He is not hiding things with seemingly obscure symbolism.

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*Revelation is not a mystery for a relaxed church to work out the puzzles.

He wants His people to what will surely be, and when they do, that they will be filled with hope.*

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*The very genre of Revelation underwrites this.

Revelation is written in a style of writing known as “apocalyptic writings”.

These writings were basically “tracts for the bad times”, as they were called then.

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*Revelation is all of this and more.*

*Like the apocalyptic writings, these tracts were designed specifically to give an encouraging word to those who were suffering.

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*Symbolism, often, is a feature of this kind of writing.*

*And all of this is present in Revelation, *

*          but there is more…Revelation is God inspired.*

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*In revelation, the author also makes extensive use of **symbolic language – poetic language, if you will.*

*One scholar says this about the symbolism in Hebrews: Symbols are used by the author “because he is writing about subject matter which is very difficult to explain in our limited human language.”*

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*After all, John writes what God Himself lets him see!*

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*And what he sees is awesome!

Revelation is a truly specatacular visual book!

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*John  sees that suffering was something that could not be escaped - because of the battle between good and evil.*

*But!

Take hope.

Be encouraged.

Because God will triumph!

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*And there in lies the most glorious message.. this is God himself revealing what “must take place”.

And we may see that He is in control beyond time and measure, from before time and substance.*

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*And in doing so, we are reminded of what is….and what was.

We are reminded that before Jesus’ coming, death reigned, but now we live in Christ, and we may look forward to everlasting life in the court of our King.*

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*And in what lies our hope, our encouragement?

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*In this…Our Lord God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is the everlasting Lord, the almighty God.

And nothing can separte us from the love of God! *

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*We see this in summary in the first reference is to God the Father: The one who was and is and is to come.

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*This is a reference to His proper name, YHWH.

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*When He introduced Himself to Moses using this name, He started out by saying, "I am who I am." *

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*A better translation renders it … "I will be who I will be."

The Name is God’s claim to self existence.

The one who is.*

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*We see it in the second reference to God the Spirit: The seven spirits before the throne.

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*This reference corresponds with the seven lamps before God’s throne that represent the seven churches to whom John is writing.

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*In the Bible, oil is often a symbol for the Holy Spirit and fire is too.

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*At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended like fire on the Apostles.

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*So the lamps are the churches, but the oil that fills them and the fire that powers them are the Holy Spirit.

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*And note…there are seven Churches, but the Spirit who fills and fires all 7 of them is one and the same Spirit.*

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*The third reference is to God the Son, Jesus Christ and John describes Him 5 ways:*

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*• Faithful witness*

*• Firstborn from the dead*

*• Ruler of the kings of the Earth*

*• Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, *

*• Him who has made us to be a kingdom and priests*

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*If we look at these closely we discover they are also references to different things that Jesus did or is doing:*

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*• He told us faithfully who the Father is and what He has done*

*• He rose from the dead, on his own power, demonstrating His power to eventually raise us too*

*• He is the rightful King of the house of David*

*• He died on the cross to pay for our forgiveness*

*• He has transformed us into people who will rule over angels and who may come personally before God’s throne*

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*And John ends this song of praise by saying:*

*Give Him glory and dominion for ever and ever*

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*John makes no bones about the Trinity.

Jesus is God and he describes Him that way.

Jesus is God, and John gives Jesus praise that is due to God alone.

And that praise is not misplaced.

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*The whole book of Revelation is about that identity.

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*John takes this whole book to describe Jesus and His relationship to the Father, to the Church and to the world.