Sermon Tone Analysis

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| *The Believer’s Immediate Response to Christ’s Imminent Return \\ (Revelation 22:6–12)* |

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*/22:6/*/ Then//14// the angel//15// said to me, “These words are reliable//16// and true.

The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants//17// what must happen soon.”/

*/22:7/*/ (Look!

I am coming soon!

Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy expressed in this book.)//18//*22:8*

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things,//19// and when I heard and saw them,//20// I threw myself down//21// to worship at the feet of the angel who was showing them to me.

*22:9* But//22// he said to me, “Do not do this!//23//

I am a fellow servant//24// with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who obey//25// the words of this book.

Worship God!” *22:10* Then//26// he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near.

*22:11* The evildoer must continue to do evil,//27// and the one who is morally filthy//28// must continue to be filthy.

The//29// one who is righteous must continue to act righteously, and the one who is holy must continue to be holy.”*22:12*

(Look!

I am coming soon, and my reward is with me to pay//30// each one according to what he has done!*[1]*// /(22:6–12)

 

Intro.

Verses 6–21 of this chapter form the epilogue to the book of Revelation.

·         Having taken the reader through the amazing sweep of future history all the way into the eternal state, all that is left for John to record is this divine postscript.

·         By this point in the Apocalypse, all the glorious and gracious purposes that God ordained before the foundation of the world will have been attained.

·         The devastating judgments of the Tribulation will have been carried out, and their memory will remain only in the torment of the damned.

·         The Lord Jesus Christ will have returned in blazing glory, executed His enemies, and reigned on earth for a thousand years.

·         All rebels, both angels and humans, will have been sentenced to their final, eternal punishment in the lake of fire.

·         The present universe will have been “uncreated,” and the eternal new heaven and the new earth created, in which the King of Kings will be reigning with His Father.

·         The holy angels and the redeemed of all the ages will be dwelling in eternal bliss with Him in the new creation, particularly in heaven’s capital city, the New Jerusalem.

·         From His throne in the center of that majestic city, the brilliant, blazing glory of God will radiate throughout the re-created universe.

·         Absolute and unchanging holiness will characterize all who dwell in the universal and eternal kingdom of God.

·         They will constantly praise, worship, and serve Him throughout eternity in an environment of perfect peace, joy, and fulfillment.

1.          Bracketing the book of Revelation along with the epilogue is the prologue, recorded in 1:1–3:

/The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near./

a.

The prologue introduces the theme of Revelation, the second coming of Jesus Christ.

b.

The epilogue provides a fitting conclusion to the Apocalypse by pointing out what is to be the believer’s response to the Second Coming (vv.

6–12).

c.

This postscript also, one final time in Scripture, invites nonbelievers to come to saving faith in Christ before it is forever too late (vv.

13–21).

2.          In a series of rapid-fire, staccato statements that move breathlessly from theme to theme, verses 6–12 delineate the responses every believer should have to the imminent coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

a.

These verses convey a furious rush of energy, a wild flurry of excited effort to call forth immediate reaction to the vital truth they communicate.

b.

The text is pregnant with urgency, pressuring every reader to take action based on the truths it presents.

c.          Nothing more clearly communicates that sense of urgency than the repetition of the phrase /“Behold, I am coming quickly”/ (vv.

7, 12; cf.

v. 20).

i.

That declaration is the refrain of this passage.

The phrase appears three other places in Revelation;

ii.        in 3:11 it is a promise of blessing, as it is in its three uses in chapter 22.

iii.

In 2:5 and 2:16, on the other hand, the phrase warns of Jesus’ coming in judgment.

iv.

In 3:3 and 16:15, Jesus likens His coming to the unexpected coming of a thief.

(Unlike a thief, of course, Jesus will come not to steal, but to take back what is rightfully His.)

v.        Since Jesus could rapture His church at any moment, triggering all the end-time events culminating in His return, believers (and unbelievers) need to be ready.

d.

A natural reading of the New Testament yields the truth that to the early church Jesus’ coming was imminent; that is, that it could happen at any time.

i.

They believed that He could come back for them in their lifetime.

ii.