Revelation 21:1

No More Sea

And there was no more sea. Revelation 21:1 (AV).

Every healthy boy and girl in many countries loves the ocean. You remember when you first saw it. You kept thinking about it, and wanting to go back to look again, there were so many things that seemed hard to explain. The sea is indeed wonderful. I know a boy who thought that if his father would only allow him to become a sailor his life would be an endless round of pleasure.

We all love the sea. It has been a very good friend and defender of Great Britain and the United States. Had it not been for the sea, Great Britain might have been a conquered by Germany in either World War. The sea is fun to visit for vacation, unless you happen to live near the sea! The sea is a family friend and a fun way to relax.

I wonder if anything ever happened to make you take a dislike to something you loved very much. You delight in the snow when it comes. Well, I heard of a young country mail courier he was little more than a boy being caught in a terrible snowstorm. His “round” was a lonely one among hills, and there were very few houses. When the drifting snow became so trying that he could hardly set his face to it, he did not at first mind it much; after a bit, however, he lost the road and then, big boy though he was, he cried like a child and said, “Oh, I wish this awful snow would stop; I wonder if I'll ever see my mother again.” It did stop, and he could distinguish fences which guided him back to the road he had lost. At the end of the day he said to his mother, “Mother, I never want to see snow again.”

It is a long way from postmen to the Emperor Napoleon, but I believe no man was ever more tired of the sound of the sea than he was. When young and in the glory of his strength I believe he loved gazing on the sea. It fed his ambition, for as he gazed it reminded him of the strength and glory of a conqueror. But the day came when Napoleon was a prisoner on a little island. There he never got away from the sound of the pitiless waves as they dashed upon the seacoast. Don't you think he would hate the sea? It separated him for ever from the attainment of his ambitious plans.

It was the apostle John who wrote the text. When he was a boy no one loved the sea better than he did.

He grew up to be a fisherman, and because of Jesus Christ the Sea of Galilee had many associations for him. He loved it to his old age. And when the great ocean was pointed out to him from the hills of Judaea, the sight of it would make him wonder what lay beyond. “God,” he would say, “all things were made by him.... In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” John had a wonderful mind. But his life ended very differently from what he himself ever dreamed it would. Like Napoleon, he was banished for a time to a little island. But, unlike the Emperor, John was sent to Patmos because of his loyalty to his great Master Jesus Christ. In his island prison John was never out of sound of the waves. In this book they can be heard from beginning to end. The voice of the “Son of man” was, in John's ears, “as the sound of many waters.” When the sea was calm and the sunset very beautiful he thought of the glory of the new Jerusalem. “And I saw... a sea of glass mingled with fire.” Don't you think you see him dreaming and praying on lonely Patmos? But sometimes John became possessed with the idea that the sea was separating him from many who were near and dear to him. Then when he pictured the New Jerusalem, it was as a place where there were no separations: “There was no more sea.”

Had it not been for John's banishment to Patmos, and for his feeling of being parted from all his friends, we should not have had this wonderful book of Revelation. The last Chapter s are like music, and you know that some birds sing best when they are in a darkened cage. John's music was the music of banishment. “I was in the Spirit,” he says at the beginning of the book. That means that God was beside him and was speaking to him.

You boys and girls can read a lesson from John's words. Have you any sick schoolfellows? You may know of one who has to be in bed all day. He is not lying there without thinking. He may be feeling very lonely indeed; and through his loneliness he may be learning a lesson. God often comes near to lonely people.

Some of you may have to go away from home soon, it may be to school, it may be to a situation. You will feel lonely at first; home was very different. But God will speak to you. He will tell you secrets, as He told them to John. But to hear Him you must pray. I have known lonely people who felt that the Heavenly Jerusalem was on this earth, and that even here their absent friends were round about them. That is a beautiful idea. Certainly I know that you need never be separated from Jesus Christ.