Sermon Tone Analysis

March 20, 2012

By: John Barnett

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The greatest mystery in the world today is the patience of God in allowing sin to run raveningly through this world.

• There is no village or town without its seething, and there is no human heart without its caliginous, black drop.

• There is no life without its tears and its sorrows.

• There is no home that ultimately does not break up, and there is no family that does not see the circle of the home dissolve in the depths of the grave.

• There is no life that does not end in the grave.

• The pages of history, from the time of the first murder until this present hour, are written in blood, tears and death.

Why God delays in taking, the kingdom unto Himself.

That is the most inexplicable mystery that mind could dream of, the mystery of the presence of evil.

For these thousands of years, God has allowed Satan to wrap his vicious, slimy, filthy, cruel tentacles around human life and around this earth.

Does God know it?

Is He indifferent to it?

Is He not able to cope with it?

Oh, the mystery of the delay of God!

• That mystery has brought more stumbling to the faith of God's people than any other experience in all life.

The infidel, the atheist, the agnostic and the unbeliever laugh and mock us, and God lets them mock and laugh.

• Our missionaries are slain, our churches are burned to the ground, people in this earth by uncounted millions and millions are oppressed, living in despair, and God just looks.

He seemingly does not intervene; He does not say anything, and He does not move.

Sin just develops.

It goes on and on.

Oh, the mystery of the delay of the Lord God!

But somewhere beyond the starry sky there stands a herald angel with a trumpet in his hand, and by the decree of the Lord God Almighty, there is a day, there is an hour, there is a moment, there is an elected time when the angel shall sound and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ."

Open with me to that moment when the trumpet sounds and the Lord takes back His world:

REVELATION 6

This chapter opens the Tribulation, the first step in Christ’s taking back the earth, which is rightfully His.

One by one Christ unrolls the seals.

As each seal is broken, He takes further possession and control of His inheritance.

Finally, “the seventh angel sounded; and there arose loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever’” (11:15).

When He unrolls the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet blows, the earth is His.

Walk with me through the pages of Revelation chapters six, eight, nine, and sixteen.

Briefly, may I describe the living hell you can avoid if you are a part of the Rapture.

Here are only a few of the dreadful disasters that take place during the Tribulation:

1.

One out of every four people will die (see Rev. 6:8), some through the ravages of war, others by starvation, and amazingly many others by the ‘beasts of the earth’.

So, whether by death that come instantly and thus less dreaded or a slow and painful death that is lingering and agonizing-25 percent of all people will die.

The world's population was 5,733,687,096 in 1995, so that means at least 1,433,421,774 will die.

That amounts to just about five times the current population of the United States-can you imagine that?

And remember that the population of the world is doubling every 39.5 years.

So every day the number of people who will die becomes larger and larger.

2. One third of all vegetation will be burned up.

All grass, every tree, everything green will be destroyed (see Rev. 8:7).

3. The sun and the moon will be darkened as nature goes into revolt (see Rev. 8:12).

4. The gates of hell will open and hordes of locusts, the size of horses, will come upon the earth.

Those locusts will be allowed to sting men like scorpions and the pain will last for five months.

The Bible says men will beg God to let them die but they will not die (see Rev. 9:3-6).

5.

There will be worldwide famine unlike anything the world has ever seen (see Rev. 18:8).

6.

There will be a world war so bloody that the blood of those killed in battle will flow for two hundred miles up to the bridle of a horse in the valley of Jezreel.

This will be the Battle of Armageddon (see Rev. 14:20).

7.

All told, during the Great Tribulation, as many as half of all the people on the earth will be killed.

Now do you see why God refers to the Rapture as a ‘blessed hope’?

Because the Tribulation to come is so horrible!

But tht means we are gone and will escape everything, right?

Yes, exactly, we will miss every part of the TRIBULATION, but we will probably go through some of the worst days we have ever seen before it starts.

Take for instance the following scenario:

What will this be like on earth.

Have you ever thought about it?

In Revelation 18: 23 we find some amazing words: “The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore . . .

In 20th century terms, this verse says the power grid is shut down.

It says no power, no electricity, no technology that uses electricity will be running.

Revelation 18 marks the end of the world as we know it.

That will not happen before at least the year 2005 according to the Word of God.

But, it calls for us to ask ourselves a few questions based on this Scripture.

This evening we are faced with the very intriquing possibility that the comfort and conveniences of our civilization may become briefly impaired in the not too distant future.

Think back to 75 short years ago.

Most people had no electricity, saw no television, heard very little radio, didn’t use banks very much, worked all day, and prepared or even raised, their own food.

These same people lived in small houses, heated the houses by fire, carried much of their water from a well to use in their homes, stayed very close to home because travel was difficult, and so on.

Then came the explosion of technology which gave greater comforts but charged higher and higher fees for maintenance.

The electricity which feeds technology became vital.

The speed of technology became critical and so on.

What has happened to us is we are technologically dependent!

Think of what many of us have lived through.

The pace of change has been astounding.

We now travel at the speed of sound, we communicate at the speed of light and we clothe our selves and live with materials made at the molecular level.

Western society has grown into an inescapable interdependence with machines which can be greatly disrupted by any non-linearities.

There are seven events ahead on the calendar for this earth.

They will happen.

What will be the result of these seven only God in His plan can tell.

Let me list them:

1. *A SOLAR HURRICANE* is expected to arrive and affect the earth all of late 1999 and 2000.

2. *THE HISTORICAL MILLENNIAL FEARS *of the “Friday the 13th, black cat crowd” will be rampant (last millennium there were crazies that burned and pillaged and so on in Europe).

3. *THE GROWING GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS.*

There is an avalanche of debt in Japan, Russia and Asia that is bearing down the global hillside toward our tidy chalet in America.

4. *THE GREAT DECEIVER WORKING OVERTIME.

*From apparitions of Mary to alien encounters and UFOs Satan is out to make the most of these end days.

Expect some incredible alien sightings and peace overtures.

5. *THE Y2K GLITCH WILL HIT THE HARDWARE OF OLDER MODEL COMPUTERS.*

The good news is that 60% of the critical system computers (water, telecommunications, etc. mainframes are two years old) the bad news is

6. *THE Y2K GLITCH ON THE SOFTWARE.

*There are hundreds of billions of dollars of new computers running 30 year old programs which have real problems with both 00 (year two thousand) and 99 (dates in 1999).

And 70 % of those programs are COBOL which has proven to be susceptible to shut downs.

7. *LAST AND WORST, THERE ARE 40 TO 50 BILLION CHIPS *(embedded microprocessors) which govern our daily lives.

These chips are of four types:

• ROM (read only chips, burned in circuitry a factory)

• PROM (read only chips burned in by customer on site)

• E-PROMS (reprogrammable via UV flash if removed and flashed but only 80% at best respond)

• E-squared PROMs (programmed via electric impulse to circuit boards; the newesyt and fewest)

There is a day in the very near future when we may all get to see just how much we have come to depend upon computers, electricity, technology and conveniences.

The question is, are you ready for the lights to go out?

When the power goes off, how well will you survive?