Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

It seems the best Hollywood can do when it comes to heaven is to depict a user-centered virtual-reality machine.

In movies like What Dreams May Come, paradise is pictured as a place where whatever we can imagine comes to be.

Great visuals, but really a terrible movie.

After the main character (Robin Williams) dies in a car accident, he is guided through the afterlife by his spirit guide, Cuba Gooding Jr.. His heaven is beautiful and can be whatever he imagines.

Even his children are there.

But, when the main character’s wife commits suicide and is sent to hell, he journeys to hell to save her.

Upon arrival, he finds that rescuing his wife will be more difficult than he'd imagined, why? because to free her from hell she has to be convinced that it is her depression that is keeping her there.

In essence, movies like this portray heaven as a place where we get to be a god.

How very wrong from the true, biblical picture of eternity!

In Scripture, the great joy of heaven is not eternal life in a self-made world but abundant life in the presence of a reality-defining God.

Unlike humans, who would probably max out our creativity after just twenty years of innovation, our God is infinitely beautiful, majestic, powerful, and creative.

In His presence, we will never stop experiencing new, joyous realities.

With the totally inaccurate portrayal of heaven and hell (and the lack of a maker thereof) this movie, at best, unacceptable, but at worst, blasphemous.

The movie allocates the Creator of heaven and hell to perhaps pantheistic in nature and unimportant.

This is against what Jesus, the Christ taught as he was the one who spoke most about the subjects of heaven and hell in the whole Bible.

Jesus ought to know the most about these subjects and certainly, we do get an accurate picture of the afterlife from Jesus, the Messiah as well as other biblical books, such as The Book of Revelation—so let’s turn there for our view of heaven and the afterlife.

One day, we will be brought into our eternal home—God’s glorious presence

Transition:

Now ending the interlude of chapter 10:1–11:13, we encounter the “third woe,” the completion of the seven trumpets (8:7–9:21).

Surprisingly, instead of going into another series of plagues, this “woe” features a heavenly celebration that includes God “rewarding,” “judging,” and “destroying”:

Scripture Reading:

We have already been told in 10:7 that when the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, “the mystery of God will be accomplished.”

The consummated kingdom of God has arrived.

We need to remember that this book does not unfold completely in a neat liner, sequential fashion but sometimes retells the same great realities in different ways as it moves forward.

The events and details described here will be more fully explained in chapters 19–22, but they refer to the same events.

This is still timely, even if it’s not totally chronological--John once again needs to be lifted up and encouraged.

So God gives him a broad overview of what is yet to come.

John once again needs to be lifted up and encouraged.

So God gives him a broad overview of what is yet to come.

The end time will be one of great horror and tragedy.

We have watched scene after scene of catastrophic judgments take place.

Imagine what John was going through.

He was nearly living it as he had to look upon these scenes and be an eyewitness of these horrors.

So John now gets a sketch form of the glory with the horror.

That is why every so often Christ gives John a scene of hope and of the glory that is to come.

That is what this passage is about this morning.

Transition:

The scene is now set for the rest of the book to unfold.

• The second woe will be demonic military horse-like creatures that sweep the earth, and kill one third of the ungodly and evil population.

• The third woe is the seventh trumpet, the judgments that result from the blast of the seventh trumpet.

I.

The Introduction to the Woe (vv.14-15)

In chapter 8, the eagle/angel announced three “woes” prepared for the “earth dwellers” and tied them to the final three trumpet judgments.

The first two woes occur in 9:1–21, but John announces the conclusion of the second woe here, and perhaps more importantly, that the third woe is coming soon.

There are only three woes, and we are told that the third woe is coming soon.

Rev

Great! we are getting to the third woe!

What is a woe?

Who here has heard of a woe besides in Revelation?

Actually, there are many “Woes” outside of this one book

we find this word used many time mainly in The Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Interestingly, in about every occasion in the Gospels, it is Jesus using it

[[, , , , ]]

woe = οὐαί in context, as used in Revelation, the meaning is horror/disaster

As a recap in Revelation:

• The first woe will be the demonic locust-like creatures that sweep the earth and torment people.

• The second woe will be demonic military horse-like creatures that sweep the earth, and kill one third of the ungodly and evil population.

• The third woe is the seventh trumpet, the result from the blast of the seventh trumpet:

Rev

This isn’t horror/terror?!?

A Heavenly announcement about the eternal kingdom cannot be the third woe!

SO The 7th trumpet blasts and there is no judgment that comes forth.

Why?

Because there are some things that need to be seen before the judgments actually take place.

What we are going to see is a continuation of a sequence of events.

The judgments and woe of the 7th trumpet are actually still coming in the form of the seven bowl judgments.

The 7th trumpet will blast forth 7 more judgments.

The bowl judgments will bring the climax of human history and the end of time as we know it.

Before that happens, there are some things that we need to see and understand.

The first thing we see is in this morning’s passage, and there is more to come.

The book of Revelation will quickly become very confusing if you try to make this passage fit into a neat, linear, chronological sequence.

Although it occurs in the middle of the book, this text points to events to be explained more fully at the end of the book.

Yet these are not separate events but the same events, taken in at different points in the narrative.

In Revelation, it’s more like we are in a helicopter hovering over the action with the freedom to move quickly through space and time rather than in a car driving from point A to point B.

The present passage leaps ahead and shows us in a broad sense what is to happen over the next ten chapters.

God was preparing John for the terrible events that were yet to be revealed to him.

He prepared him by showing that God would triumph over evil and establish His kingdom forever.

So John, and we, are given five scenes of what is yet to come.

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord”

we now see the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord.

The scene jumps over all of history and shows our God and His Christ ruling over the whole world.

All the kingdoms of this world are done away with, and all the people on earth live and work as citizens of God’s kingdom.

The long-awaited messianic kingdom has arrived as God and his Messiah have now become king of the whole earth (cf.

; ; ; ).

The singular references in “the kingdom” and “He will reign” point to the unity of Father and Son, a theme emphasized throughout this whole book.

Transition:

These next two verses elaborate on the announcement from verse 15

II.

The Reaction of the Announcement (vv.16-17)

The big announcement that YHWH’s Kingdom is totally here causes a stir in heaven, and rightly so!

Rev

The twenty-four elders are becoming famous for falling down in praise and adoration.

Something we ought to emulate.

They thank the “Lord God Almighty,” a description of YHWH repeated several times in Revelation.

In chapter 1:8 and chapter 4:8 this title is accompanied by “who was, and is, and is to come” as a means of emphasizing God’s sovereign reign over human history.

But now, something is missing!

do you see it missing?

the “and is to come” is omitted since the future is here the eternity present.

The day of the Lord has finally arrived!

YHWH has begun to exercise his mighty power in all its fullness.

He has defeated and judged His enemies, rewarded his servants, and established his eternal kingdom.