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October 15, 2006
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Christian Disciplines
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Gather at the Throne"
Revelation 4 and 5
- Have you ever had someone pull you from whatever you were up to in order to see something absolutely breathtaking?
Gabrielle, an artist with photography and oil paint, has a real eye to see splendor in the tiniest things. When she says: "Dad, come and see this picture I took?" I know it will be a treat. Some pictures have amazed me - taking my breath away - as I see the magnificent glory of God displayed in droplets of water on a spider's web or in the delicate winged butterfly.
Susanna too invites me to be an observer of God's glory. She and I walk together three mornings a week, taking the dog out for some exercise but also as a good way to spend time together and memorize some Scripture. She tends to be much more observant than I am and on more than one occasion she has had to say, "Dad, Look up! See just how beautiful the sunrise is!" And then I realize I had not been looking up and out at the beauties around me but kind of down toward the path.
The other day I had the privilege of stopping by Leola's house to visit for a bit and before I left she said, "Pastor, you just must see my fuchsias!"
From the second story we first looked at those in the backyard and two of her big hens were in the bed with the flowers looking for good things to eat. Leola opened a window and spoke to them like naughty children, "Girls, you know better!" At the sound of her voice off they sprinted toward the other side of the yard. Leola had invited me not them to see those flowers and they knew better!
After a view of the impressive fuchsias behind the house we went out in the front and walked the garden. Leola has so many varieties in her yard. I have never seen so many superb and beautiful blooms of every size and color all together in one place.
- Aren't these experiences we have all had -
whether by having someone invite you out to see some beautiful bloom
Or by having a small child take your finger and drag you across the room to look at something wonderful out the window-
Or by receiving the call from your niece that your grandnephew has been born and that she named him after you, inviting you to drive over and hold that little bundle yourself-
We have all been one place and then been invited into another in order to see something that we might otherwise have missed.
This is what happened to John the apostle.
In about 90 AD while exiled to the island of Patmos, on the "Lord's Day," on a Sunday, John was given a revelation of Jesus. Jesus in his holy splendor came and spoke to John, giving him a message he was to write down and share with others. Patmos was a rock quarry. It was not the place John would have expected to see heaven, but Jesus invited John to do so! "Come up here!" Jesus said to John. I hear John saying to us, as Gabrielle, Susanna and Leola have said to me: "Come and see!"
While John's vision took him beyond the scenes of worship in these chapters to scenes of what would take place after that time, we are going to stay in the throne room as we come and see three discoveries described in this visit to heaven.
- In the first 6 verses of chapter 4, John's discoveries draw my attention to the throne room in heaven. There was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.
This throne figures prominently in all John saw. It was a central element in all he beheld, it is the center of worship in heaven. Worship is centered around this throne of the living God.
But the throne is not all John saw. Color and light fill this throne, from which come flashes of lightning, voices and peals of thunder. John's gaze takes in, in an instant, all this color and sound, the 24 elders surrounding the throne dressed in white with crowns of gold on their heads, the fire in the 7 lamps before the throne, the Seven Spirits of God, he tells us, and the sea of glass like crystal.
Imagine yourself standing in the hallway outside a ballroom. The sound of the orchestra and the guests is muffled; an air of mysterious excitement seems to leak through the crack between the double doors. Suddenly the doors swing open from the inside and all the sounds and sights and people impact all your senses.
This seems to be John's experience. Did he gasp? Did he stand there, mouth hanging open, gazing at all that was before him?
Imagine the colors - rich reds and greens and a rainbow of splendor. The sounds, the sights, the beauty, the vastness of this place which includes a sea like glass before the throne! It goes beyond our comprehension. Karen, my beautiful wife, pictured this chapter in the quilt to your right. She filled it with color, light and beauty. Yes, it is beautiful and what it cannot convey is the movement, the life, the sounds of John's scene!
John describes the fiery presence of God's Holy Spirit there before the throne as the "seven Spirits of God". This was not to say that we have been wrong all along about trinity and that God is really a NINE-ITY. Not at all! But this was a visual representation of the Holy Spirit.
The number seven is used here as a sign of perfection not of number. God's Spirit is perfect. In Isaiah 11 this perfection is pictured by seven names being used to describe the Spirit which will rest on the coming Messiah, there described as a shoot and branch "from the stump of Jesse" (Isaiah 11:1-2).
But that's not all! There is so much more to John's experience! Come and See!
Capture his meaning. There in the throne room is the Spirit of God pictured as light and fire in perfection. This is God's Holy Spirit: who came to rest on Jesus at His baptism and remained on Him as is seen In Him in chapter 5 of this scene; who came as tongues of fire to rest on the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost; and who comes to dwell in our hearts that we too might live as children of the light.
With all this, John beholds but does not respond to what he has seen. He does not fall on his face, as he did in the first chapter when He first beheld the Lord Jesus in all His splendor. John does not worship God in this scene. He is an observer. He simply describes what he saw and there is nothing passive about this picture.
- Beginning in the sixth verse also, John's discoveries draw my attention to the center of the throne.
Again he has been taking in the whole of the scene and now looks at the center of the throne and there around the throne sees what before may have appeared as those magnificent colors or flashes of lightning what he describes as four living creatures. They are described as "living" - they are beings filled with the life of God. They are not your everyday being -- described as having six wings and as being "full" of eyes in front, back and under their wings. With wings we know they can fly, with eyes we know they can see everywhere, always.
The four likenesses of the beings shows how they represent all wild, domesticated and winged and human creations - and they represent them all as before God, worshipping God.
John is not flustered nor put off by them. My guess is that although unusual to us, in the context of this heavenly scene they were perfectly suited. When John saw them he may have remembered Ezekiel's description of similar living beings from the visions God gave him when called to bring God's Word to the people.
John's attention is on what they never stop saying, a phrase you read with them earlier today: "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and who is and who is to come."
And most amazing is how this refrain and chorus is ongoing as they and the 24 elders continue the antiphon in heaven declaring God's holiness with the elders falling before the throne declaring His worth. God is Holy. God is worthy. This is the message from heaven!
Look at the movement of worship involving spoken adoration and bowed postures and crowns cast before the throne. The focus of all is upon the living One seated on that throne. No one pictured is concerned about themselves but only about giving glory and honor and power to God. Why? Because, we are told, God created all things, and he did so, simply because he wanted to. (There was nothing that forced him to do so.) It was an expression of his great power.
Come and see such worship!
- John's discoveries draw my attention to a scroll which can only be opened by a Lamb.
Again, John now sees something more particular in the center, in what he says is the "right hand of Him who sat on the throne." It is a scroll. What happens in the rest of the book of Revelation is based upon the breaking of the seals on this scroll. But now, John weeps and weeps for no one is found worthy, no one is found deserving of breaking those seals. There is no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth (wherever that is) who "could open the scroll or look inside". Imagine the meaning of this!
One of the elders who has been worshiping and perhaps who continues to worship now also speaks to John, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."
"Then I saw a Lamb" John tells us.
The Lion (verse 5) is victorious by becoming a Lamb (verse 6)! By coming, One whom Isaiah predicted was the "root" or "branch" from David, Jesus, has triumphed through the cross. By dying he purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve God. By rising, Jesus, continues His work, seen as "standing" in the center of the throne, He is not dead but lives, so that with Him, these He purchased will reign on the earth.
God, the Living One is seated on the Throne, and the Lamb, Jesus, the Son, stands in the center of the throne. And notice the Spirit now is pictured as being In the Lamb, the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus, and the seven eyes on the lamb are a picture of the perfection and the all-seeing ability of God's Holy Spirit, the Three, the One on the throne. Now, the worship of heaven changes as the Lamb takes the scroll.
Rather than the spoken antiphon of honor and praise between the living beings and the elders, now the beings and the elders all fall together before the Lamb, in heavenly harmonies they sing a new song to the Lamb. They sing holding harps and golden bowls of incense which are the prayers of the saints, your prayers and mine.
The Lamb is equally as worthy as the Living God seated on that throne to be thus praised and worshiped. He is praised for taking the scroll, for taking authority over all that will happen upon the earth. As John's vision first moved from the whole room, to the center of the throne to the scroll, now with this song, his vision moves outward as he sees and hears the resounding praise of not thousands but millions of angels joining in the praise of Jesus. Imagine millions of voices praising Jesus! And then further to include the whole universe. He writes that "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them" sing: "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, forever and ever!"
- Wow. Come and See worship which captures all our lives up into the glorious light and bounty of heavenly joys. We've beheld the spoken, rhythmic praise of the living beings and the elders, and the mighty songs that resound throughout heaven and earth and the universe, through it all I hear John saying with them all,
"Come and See! Come and see that God alone is worthy of our worship, our adoration and our praise. Come and see God's worth, how deserving God, the Triune God, is of our bowed hearts and bodies, our spoken words, and triumphant songs of praise.
Come and See! Get pulled away from the ordinary routines of life as the Lord says to you: Come and worship!
( http://www.journal33.org/other/html/worthy.htm -- assistance on word study on worthy)
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