Sermon Tone Analysis

Unseen Reality

An Old Vision for a New Year

Revelation 4   |   Shaun LePage   |   December 31, 2006

 

I.

Open

A.     *Richard Wurmbrand *was a pastor under the tyranny of the Romanian communist dictator, Ceaushescu.

He spent fourteen years in prison.

For what? Embezzlement?

Tax evasion?

Murder?

No.

For ministering and teaching and preaching the Word of God.

When he was released from prison, he was forced into exile where he wrote several books.

One of them was titled, “Alone With God.”

B. *Let me read a portion of the prologue: *“This is a book arising from a completely idle life, a life in solitary confinement in a Communist jail in Bucharest.

I spent three of my fourteen years of prison alone in a cell, thirty feet below ground, with fifty pounds of chains on my feet and manacles on my hands, without ever seeing the sun, moon, stars, rain, or flowers, without paper or pencil, book or newspaper, let alone the Bible.

During my years of solitary confinement I composed 350 sermons.

I created them in my mind, because I could not write them down.

I delivered them every night to an unseen audience.

I also committed them to memory by using the simple mnemonic device of summarizing them in short rhymes, which I repeated again and again.

When I was released from prison I did not sleep until I had committed all of them to paper.

I managed to do so for 348 out of the 350.”

C.I’d like to share a portion of one of those sermons, but you must keep that context in mind—you must remember that this sermon was written in the mind of a man in solitary confinement in a communist prison.

Pastor Wurmbrand titled this sermon simply, “New Year”: “It is midnight.

The year 1948 has passed.

I cannot congratulate Jesus.

It has been 1915 years since He was crucified.

The 1916th nail will now be driven into His cross.

I know that every doubt of mine causes Him more pain, as if a new dart were piercing His heart.

But now, since I have nothing left in this whole world but my wit to live by, it has begun to value itself very highly.

All else seems of little importance.

My wit has questions to ask and I cannot stop it.

I realize now that the New Testament had never satisfied me really, because I found the miracles recounted there much too small for the Son of God.

Three people were resurrected, but millions of corpses remained dead.

Only three families had the comfort of seeing their beloved ones restored to life.

Many widows whose only sons died remained without consolation.

Jesus stilled a storm, but on so small a lake as Galilee.

Tempests on the ocean sank countless ships, and men drowned.

He did not help them.

On one occasion 4,000 and on another 5,000 (plus women and children) had a good dinner through miracles performed by Him.

What about the next day when they were hungry again?

And what about the millions who have starved throughout the ensuing centuries?

He sent an angel to free Peter from prison.

The incident stands alone.

James was beheaded, and since then thousands have been martyred.

Why?

How can the world go on?

It is New Year’s Eve … I don’t understand You.

Don’t You have power enough?

Don’t You have the will to wipe away all tears?

…What you have done is beautiful, but too little for an almighty God who could make the whole drama cease at once.

Why are You silent?

(Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, /Alone With God/, pgs.

7-9, 84-87)

D.     By the grace of God, none of us has ever—and will not any time soon—be sent to prison for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But, I feel confident that as we watch another year become history and begin a new one, we can relate in small ways to Pastor Wurmbrand’s questions: As we sit here—in the final hours before a new year, knowing that tragedy after tragedy, evil after evil is taking place around the world—we too have questions.

Why is God silent while U.S. soldiers are being killed in Iraq?

Why is God silently allowing AIDS to sweep across Africa, leaving millions of children orphaned?

Why is God silent while millions of His own children are being persecuted for their faith?

We too have questions.

E. Maybe for you, those things are too distant.

Your problems, your suffering, the evil with which you are faced are causing you to ask, “Are you listening, God? Are you there?

Are my prayers bouncing off the ceiling?

Why are You silent?”

F. No doubt, people throughout every century have had the same questions.

Good Christians have had the same questions.

The first-century Christians had the same questions.

Their churches and homes and lives were threatened by the same species of persecution as that which Pastor Wurmbrand faced some 1900 years later.

G.     God’s answer comes in His Word.

One specific answer comes in a picture—a vision—given 60+ years after Christ had died on the cross, risen from the grave and ascended into heaven.

This picture is found in the Book of Revelation, chapters 4 and 5.

This picture was intended to encourage and strengthen those who had questions.

This picture was intended to encourage and strengthen us.

This picture is of God Himself.

It is a picture of the Unseen Reality—God seated on His throne, reigning and ruling over the universe.

This reality—though invisible to us at this time—is indeed present tense reality.

H.CPS: We must, by faith, allow the Unseen Reality to transform our perspective of the seen reality.

We must put on the spectacles of heaven in order to rightly see the things of earth.

We must let the invisible interpret the visible.

II.

Body

A.     Context:

1.

In Revelation chapter 1, John explained that he was in exile on the island of Patmos “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”

He—like Pastor Wurmbrand—was being persecuted for proclaiming the gospel.

The risen, glorified Christ Jesus appeared to John and told him to write down what he was about to see.

2.   In Revelation chapters 2-3, Jesus dictated letters to seven historical churches that were experiencing persecution—challenging them to remain faithful; challenging them to be overcomers.

But how?

How could they—how can we—overcome our own weaknesses, our own sinfulness, the cruelty and brutality and evil all around us? How?

3.   God’s answer comes in Revelation 4. It is a spectacular scene!

B. Would you please stand with me as a way of honoring the God who has spoken to us in His Word? [ Read Revelation 4. ]

1.   *4:1**—After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.”

*

a)    John’s begins this chapter with the words “*after this*”.

The vision pictures both a present and a future reality.

(i)   “Present” in that this worship we have described for us here—with one exception—is taking place right now.

Worship of the Almighty God is the constant activity of heaven’s inhabitants.

(ii) “Future” in that “*after this*” indicates that this vision is of heaven’s worship service after the Church Age (chapters 2,3).

Chapter 5—the Lamb taking the scroll and starting the seven seal judgments—is definitely a picture of the future and is a continuation of what John saw in chapter 4.

b)    The three-part outline for the book of Revelation is found in 1:19: “What you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.”

Chapter 4 begins the third major section of the book—“What must take place after this” corresponds to “What will take place later” in 1:19.

2.   2-3—*2Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne.

3And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance.