no more sea (revelation 21:1)

Exegetical Studies in Revelation

This message was preached at New Testament Christian Fellowship on May 23, 2021. Following a 7-part introduction to Revelation 21 that coincided with the Advent Season, this message begins a verse-by-verse study of said chapter. In the first eight verses, John sees TWO THINGS and hear TWO THINGS. This message focuses upon the first thing John sees, “a new heaven and a new earth” where there is “no more sea.” This sea is not the Atlantic or the Pacific, it is the sea of glass from Revelation 4:6, the same sea that has begun to melt by 15:6, is opened in 19:1, and is now gone. This great sea is the waters above the firmament that hide God’s throne (Job 26:8-10) and are frozen (Job 38:29-30). The mention of this sea in Revelation 21:1 necessitates a brief survey of BIBLICAL COSMOLOGY as opposed to the evolution-based cosmology of NASA. The heaven is God’s Throne, and the earth is His footstool (Isaiah 66:1). We are not a random accident spinning on a random ball around a random star in a random corner of a random galaxy that randomly flies outward from a random big bang explosion. Rather, the earth is the LORD’s and the fulness thereof (Psalm 24); it is the epicenter of His creation, His plan, and His purpose in this age.