Sermon Tone Analysis

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Tones
Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
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Analytical
Confident
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Social Tendencies
Openness
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Anger
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Intro:
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
In the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son (), the Son leaves his father and wastes his inheritance.
In the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son (), the Son leaves his father and wastes his inheritance.
We could look at this topic from so many different angles but here's why I'm preaching from .
One last introductory note: Remember the Bible is ultimately one story.
And today’s passage is the climatic ending of the story.
You can't just pick up a novel, turn to the last chapter and expect to appreciate whats going on.
Its the same thing here.
The more you understand the whole story, especially the OT, the more you will understand and appreciate how wonderful our future home will be.Obviously I don't have time to explain everything about the new heaven and new earth in detail.
But lets turn out attention to:
In the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son (), the Son leaves his father and squanders his inheritance.
In the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son (), the Son leaves his father and squanders his inheritance.
What is different there?
In the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son (), the Son leaves his father and wastes his inheritance.
Whats new about the new heaven and the new earth?
To answer that we’ll focus on
When does he decide to come home?
When he was sitting with the pigs thinking to himself, "Even the servants in my father's house eat better food than this!"
a) What is no longer there
My goal today is to make you home sick.
So that you’ll want to return to our Heavenly Father.
I’m going to do that by preaching from .
The Book of Revelation was written to churches that had all kinds of problems.
We see a glimpse of that in chapters 2 & 3.
Already in this verse we are told, that when God makes everything new again “there was no longer any sea”.
i) No more sea
Some of the churches were suffering, persecuted by the world.
Some of them were compromising, becoming like the world.
For those who love sailing or marine biology, this doesn’t sound good right?
But its okay there’s still a river of water of life ().
No sea but still got river.
What about lakes?
Only lake mentioned is the the lake of fire.
But is John really trying to give us the topography (the physical layout) of the new earth?
e.g Why doesn’t he mention whether or not there are deserts or snowy mountains etc? I don’t think thats the point.
The Jews were not a sea-faring people.
They much preferred to stay on land.
For them the sea was considered a place of chaos and danger.
So that even in the Bible the sea is used to represent the source of evil that threatens God’s people.
Earlier John is given a vision in .
“The Dragon stood on the shore of the sea.
And I saw a beast coming out of the sea”.
If you read the rest of the book you’ll know that the Dragon is Satan.
This beast is the antichrist that will persecute the church.
But notice where this beast comes out from.
Its comes out of the sea.
That itself is using symbolic language from OT.
In , there’s a vision of four beasts that “came up out of the sea”.
If you’ve studied Daniel you’ll know that these four beasts represent four kingdoms e.g Babylon, Persia, Greece etc.
The Babylonians or the Persians didn’t literally come out of the sea.
They didn’t even attack from the sea.
They attacked from the land.
So its symbolic.
The sea symbolises the source of chaos and danger that threatens God’s people.
But now in this future new earth “there was no longer any sea”.
God’s people are now completely safe and secure.
This point is illustrated in another way.
So the apostle John is given these visions.
He’s given these visions not to satisfy their curiosities about the future.
But to both encourage and challenge the church to return and remain faithful to Christ.
ii) No more night
Our problem is that we only think about life from an earthly perspective.
We only think about whats right in front of us, what we can see and touch here and now.
From vs 2 onwards the vision shifts focus to a city.
The New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven.
We’re given a few details about this city of God.
: On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.
Now for us modern people, our cities are no longer protected with walls and gates.
The enemy can easily fly over our walls and bomb us from the air.
So there’s no point.
But in the ancient world, walls and gates kept out the enemy.
Usually the gates were open during the daytime for business, for trading etc. Plus during the daytime its easier to see your enemy coming from far.
But at night, its more dangerous.
Even today, with our city lights at night, its still considered dangerous.
Parents will warn their kids, especially girls, “Be very careful when you go out at night”.
And thats right.
You could be robbed or rapped, kidnapped or killed.
Even when we stay at home we will make sure our doors are properly locked.
In the ancient world the city gates will be shut at night.
But in the city of God, the gates won’t need to be shut because there will be no night.
Don’t miss the significance of this point.
The apostle John loves to play with light and darkness, day and night symbols.
You see it throughout John’s writings.
e.g In Jesus said “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.
Night is coming, when no one can work.
While I am in the world, I am the light of the world”At the Last Supper, its written: “As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out.”
He left to betray Jesus.
And then John writes “And it was night” ().
Now of course it was really night time.
But its also John’s way of saying, that this is the hour when the darkness of evil is allowed to gain the upper hand for a while.
“It was night”.
But in our eternal home, there will be no more night.
But always light.
We will be perfectly safe.
Thats why we always focus on things that won't matter.
And love things that won't last.
iii) No more curse
Because we don’t really know the future that awaits us.
No longer will there be any curse.
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