Revelation 4:1-5

I can pull somebody up, and I don't have to wear my hat all the time. And it breaks me off when I pull it up in my bag. That's pretty cool. That's a mailman. I'll tell you about it.

It might be me, but it's worth seeing the business side of it.

So there's something wrong with us. They got us back door. They did. It's got a problem around it. That's when you get hit on the head. You have to leave it.

It's a little rough.

It doesn't work that way.

You go through, re-frame the way it is. It's a tiny split.

It wasn't the right of the sport. It's a couple inches of hair.

How I noticed, if somebody says, Hey, when did they turn the thing backwards on the wall? I was like, they didn't. But then I started looking at their ID. It looks like I'm left-handed, and I'm not. Because of that ID, everything is blessed.

Did it come on?

Oh, yeah.

Hey, go back to that ring-string. Full circle.

I did babysit my niece for a while.

Me too.

And she's being raised by what was my brother-in-law.

She's a father.

I have a niece.

But she didn't really feel good. If I had to put her in a ponytail... It's nice. It's been a long time. It wasn't good. Because we didn't want her to go to the hospital. She's doing well herself. And where does she go to the hospital?

I don't know.

Mike Smith, will you open us up for the word of prayer?

I will. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are indeed thankful for this day that You blessed us with. To come into Your house. To come around Your Word. And we pray, Lord, now that You would bless the teacher.

Pray that You would bless the taught. And pray that You would bless the teaching. And use this time to be profitable for each one of us where we are. First in Christ, then we pray.

Amen.

Revelation 4 and 5 as a Unit: The Throne Room Vision

Well, good morning. And we have reached a milestone, as I said last week in the book. But we're moving on to another chapter. So if you'll open your Bibles and turn to chapter 4 of Revelation. Chapter 4 and 5 actually fit together as a unit.

I'm going to read both of them together.

And then we'll start walking through it and do some preliminary stuff.

And see how far we get. 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.

And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold, a throne was standing in heaven and One sitting on the throne. And He who was sitting was like that of a jasper stone and sardius in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne and like an emerald in appearance.

Around the throne were 24 thrones and upon those thrones I saw 24 elders sitting clothed in white garments and golden crowns on their heads. And out of the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder.

And there were seven lamps of burning before the throne which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was something like a sea of glass like crystal. And in the center and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind.

The first creature was like a lion and the second like a calf. And the third creature had a face like that of a man. And the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within.

And day and night they did not cease to say, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God the Almighty who was and who is and is to come. And when the living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and to Him who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders would fall down before Him who sits on the throne and will worship Him who lives forever and ever and will cast their crowns before the throne saying, Worthy are You, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power for You created all things and because of Your will they exist and were created.

And then I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back and sealed up with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a voice, Who is worthy to open the book and break its seals?

And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it. And then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, Stop weeping.

Behold, the lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seals. And I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders a lamb standing as if slain having seven horns, seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

And he came and he took the book out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the lamb, each one holding a harp and a golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals. For you were slain and purchased from God with your blood men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. You have made them to become a kingdom of priests of our God.

And they will reign upon the earth forever. Then I looked and I heard a voice of many angels and around the throne and the living creatures and the elders and a number of them was myriads upon myriads and thousands upon thousands saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing and every created thing which is in the heaven, on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and the things in them I heard saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.

And the four living creatures kept saying, Amen. And the elders fell down and worshipped. That is cool. When we think about someone going to heaven or we hear people write books about how they died and went to heaven.

Hey, baby.

Hey, baby.

What are you doing? Yeah, so when people say they die and they go to heaven and they write this book, how come they never, the first thing that John sees when he's taken into heaven is who? It's God sitting on the throne.

How come these jack legs that write books, how come none of them say that? None of them see Jesus, none of them see the lamb, none of them see, they might see this light or some, they see grandpa and grandma and they're eating pecan pie and fried chicken and all this other nonsense, but they never see God.

In this vision, John sees the central focus of heaven and what is that? It's God sitting upon his throne. Now, as the immediate, when we go from the epistolary part of the book, which was the seven letters to the seven churches, I'm going to be honest with you, you go, wow, this is a crazy shift.

Is it not? Would we agree? It seems like, hey, it comes out of nowhere and I think maybe it was me and you were talking or maybe someone else. We were talking about, they thought that maybe the seven letters went out and then the rest of the book of Revelation went out after that, that they thought they were separate.

Well, they weren't, but we do have to make the connection of why is now this throne room in heaven coming about after he has rebuked five churches, two of them with no commendation and then two of them, and then the rest of them having two of them no condemnation, two of them no commendation and the rest of them encouraged to stay the course and to repent.

Why does this fit where it's at? My understanding of the book is because he has set up those churches that will not repent, will suffer the judgment of God. Will we all agree on that? Right? What did he tell one church?

I'm going to knock your lights out, basically. I'm going to remove the lampstand from you. It doesn't mean that those people are going to lose their salvation, but he's going to remove their place of prominence and I don't even believe in and of itself that that church will be wiped out.

And let's take, as we apply it to our day and time, I don't believe that the church building or the people won't congregate, although some of those places, the churches are no longer there anymore. Smyrna, I think, is the only one that's actually in that same location in the Izmir providence of Turkey, but the rest of them are no longer there.

But when God told them, hey, if you don't repent, I'm going to remove your lampstand. I'm going to remove the very purpose for which I put you there, which was to be light. So he's putting an act of judgment on them.

Then others, hey, I'm going to come and I'm going to make war with you. I don't know about y 'all, but if the Son of God tells you He's coming to make war with you, that doesn't sound like that's going to be pleasant.

When He makes war with people in the Old Testament, He'd wipe them out. And I believe that is, in that particular case, what He's saying, that He wasn't going to wipe out everybody within the church, because He specifically says those who carry on with this doctrine, He doesn't say I'm going to come make war with you.

If you look at it, He uses the pronoun them. So He was actually speaking, hey, those that I'm encouraging within the church to remain faithful, don't compromise, but for those that do compromise, if you don't repent, I'm going to make war with you.

Then we had others where it would show where if they didn't repent, He was going to vomit them out of His mouth. Utter rejection. And I do believe that just talking about that church becoming apostate.

You tell me where Jesus ever rejected any of His children. Never. Those whom He loves, He said in that last letter, those whom He loves, He did what? He chastised them. Look, man, you spank your children, you discipline your children, for what reason?

Not because you get your jollies off whooping your kids. But why? Because you're trying to correct them and you're doing it lovingly. And He says this, hey, I'm going to vomit some of you out, but I'm chastising you because whom I love, I reproof.

So, as we move from these letters that have been rebuke and encouragement for the church to not compromise or for the church to remain faithful, we have to remember before He gets into the judgment on those who have not remained faithful, He wants us to know who's actually in control.

Remember, we heard, I think it was back in Pergamum, He said you're where the seat of Satan, the throne of Satan dwells. Okay, what does that sound like? Let's just be honest. What does it sound like?

That and who's running the show? The devil, yeah. And it was a place of idolatry and worship. If I remember correctly, 41 or 42 times the word throne is used in the book of Revelation. 34 of those times is referring to Christ and God being on His throne.

So, there'll be other times where it talks about the beast being on His throne or Satan being on His throne. And it's trying to give the idea of what it looks like is ruling and reigning. So, in the place where there was all this idolatry and all of this pagan worship, it looks as if this is the place where Satan dwells.

And that is, from our perspective, we would see people being put to death, there would be people bowing down into pagan idolatry and like, man, this is, Satan's running the show here. But ultimately, who's running the show?

God is. Now, you get into what's compatibilistic determinism, and I don't have time to get into that tonight, but that's where you go, okay, God's, or concurrence, whichever word you like better, you got God working out His plan and evil having its purpose in that plan.

Now, can that be fully grasped by any of us?

No.

Matter of fact, it's one of the hardest things to grasp, although I can explain it, but it's hard to grasp. In other words, there's many things that we'll talk about that we can't comprehend, but I believe we can apprehend them, meaning we can grasp at least and have the idea of what's going on.

Same thing as we get into the throne room in heaven, we have just read some things that John is describing that have been indescribable from John's perspective. John is trying to fathom the unfathomable.

Is that right? Is that a word?

Okay.

And he's trying to get us to grasp or apprehend the ingraspable,.

If that's a word.

So here it is. John being taken up into heaven in a vision is now, it's called ineffability, and it's not, there is no language, there's no speech that can accurately describe God, His purposes, or His description.

So understand what he is, do I believe that what John is seeing, he's actually seeing? How many of you believe what John is seeing, he's actually seeing?

I do.

I think what John's seeing, he's actually seeing, and he's describing that in a way. I don't think he's seeing something else and then trying to describe what he's not seeing. And we'll get to this in a minute because when he talks about the four living creatures, there's another passage in Scripture where those four living creatures are actually spoken of and we can say, oh wow, he is seeing the same thing that Ezekiel saw, but not identical.

Not identical because the vision he's seeing is trying to convey something. So, as we get to chapter 4, verse 1, he says, after these things I looked. After what things? Let's lay that down. Okay, something has happened after what?

What's that?

That's right. After the scolding or the encouragement of the others that had nothing wrong with them, correct. Yeah, immediately after, this is why I believe this didn't come in sections, this came at one vision.

At one time he put it all together and sent it out in seven letters to seven churches. He says, immediately after these things I looked and behold a door standing open to heaven. Man, imagine a door. I go, wow, did it have a doorknob on it.

Remember last time we talked about somebody's heart door of God knocking on it. Well, was there a doorknob on this one? He says, I saw a door standing open and the first voice which I heard like the sound of a trumpet.

So, remember back in chapter 1, what was the voice, whose voice did he hear that was like a trumpet?

Christ.

Now it wasn't like he was doing that. His voice held such power and reverberated that this voice had power. And he's saying I heard the same voice, the very first one that I heard at the beginning of the book.

He said I heard it and it's speaking with me, come up here and I will show you what must take place after these things. Now, there has been gallons of ink spilled on this statement. It is under the pre-millennial dispensational view.

They would say right here is the rapture of the church. And it comes from it saying, come up here. And he's talking about the church coming up. So they would not then be here to endure the seven seals, the seven trumpets and the seven bowls.

Okay?

I'm going to tell you that is just hugely wrong. Because he doesn't say for the church to come up here. Who does he tell?

John.

And if you say, and I've had this conversation when I was at a church where dispensational eschatology was propagated. Matter of fact, the executive pastor of that church I was very good friends with, he was that.

So I say, okay, so if John here is, he's representative of the church and he is going up, well, what are you going to do in other parts when John's coming back down again? And then John goes up again and then he's going up and down through the book like a yo-yo.

Okay, now what are you going to do?

He's like, I don't know.

I don't know.

I just think this is the rapture of the church. Okay, well, it's not. Let's just be honest, it's not. There's nothing to even prove that. There's nothing. It's all conjecture. Do I believe the rapture of the church will take place?

Well, of course I do. Do I believe it's separated by seven years of tribulation before the second coming? No. I believe it will all happen in the twinkling of an eye when the dead in Christ shall rise first.

We'll all meet him in the air. We'll come back with him. When he's riding on that white chariot, he'll speak one word. He lays everything to waste and the new heavens and the new earth come in. That's how quick it will come and not be separated by seven years of tribulation.

He says, come up here. And I'll show you these things that shortly take place after these things. And then he says here, I was immediately in the Spirit. Now, he was already in the Spirit on the Lord's day.

You remember at the beginning of the book when all this took place, he was obviously on the Isle of Patmos. He's taking this vision in. He's in the Spirit. When it says he immediately was in the Spirit, how would you understand that?

Was he in a trance? Was he worshiping in the Spirit? I would say that he was taken up in the Spirit, not bodily, in the way that Paul was taken when he was stoned to death. Well, which I believe when Paul was stoned to death outside Lystra.

That's just my opinion. Remember Paul, he spoke of himself, which we believe he speaks of himself in 2 Corinthians. When Keith was doing that, we believe that he said he knew a man.

Paul.

He knew a man that had died and went to heaven, basically. And Paul is speaking in the third person of someone else. He's not speaking of himself, it sounds like. But then if you follow the narrative of what he is saying, the flow of that whole thought as Paul was talking of himself, he says, hey, whether I was in the Spirit or not, I have no idea.

Alright.

In this case, I think John may have said the same thing. I don't know if I physically went up through the Spirit, or if I was just my Spirit went. But he was in the Spirit. This was a spiritual thing that took place.

And why is it a spiritual thing that takes place? Because what is heaven? It's a place where Spirit...

What's that?

Yeah, it's a place where Spirit shall be. Hey, is God Spirit? We're going to get into this tonight in the academy. God is Spirit. Where does God dwell? This ain't a trick question. Where does God dwell?

Scripture says, we'll read it this morning,.

It's in the providence of God.

This is so cool.

In the providence of God, we're going to read in Isaiah 57, where does God dwell? In eternity. We often think of, man, God's dwelling place is heaven. Do you understand that the heavens of heavens couldn't contain Him?

He's huge.

That's our problem is our God is too small. And I believe that that is what this text is saying. Look, John, I know the churches are going through a lot. They're being persecuted.

Some have died.

Some of them are about to be wiped out. Some of them can't stay upright and continue to minister because they're on these fault lines. I'm going to protect them. You've got these others that have all of this money, all of these things, and they're so self-sufficient.

He says, but I want you to know that when it looks bad and things look like they're getting horrible, I'm still in control. I am the one that... The God that these people are serving is far too small.

I am above the heavens. I am above the heavens of heavens. I'm the one that inhabits eternity. And he says here, when I was in the Spirit and beheld, a throne was standing in heaven. How many of you here have ever been in a courtroom?

How many times?

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm not going to tell you how many times. When you walk into a courtroom, whether you come in off the side where they do all their little fancy deal-making, or whether you come in the front, what's the first thing you see?

You see where the judge sits, which to me looks like a man who thinks he's on a throne. Okay, just my opinion. If you were to look at any pictures in ancient castles or any drawings of... photos, you come in and there is a king there,.

What's the first thing you see?

There's a throne. There's a throne.

When you come into churches, what should be the first thing you see when you walk into the sanctuary or the auditorium?

Some people don't like sanctuary because it sounds like that's the dwelling place of God.

When you walk into the auditorium, what should be the first thing you see?

What's that?

Who said pulpit?

Pulpit.

Oh, that came from the pastor's wife. Pulpit. Pulpit. Because the central part of the church is the Word. That is, look, we don't have Jesus Christ coming in His corpus, His body, coming and standing on the platform.

But we do have the logos, made flesh, this, made flesh, and it dwells within our spirits. Why? Because when Jesus ascended, He says, hey, I've got to go away. It's to your advantage that I go away because if I go away, then the Holy Spirit will come.

I can't be with you, but I can be in you. That probably made those people go, hey, how can this be? You've been with us for three and a half years. They never had to worry about food. They never had to worry about clothes.

Y 'all think about that. Twelve disciples. Never had to worry about food. Hey, David's hungry?

What could Jesus do?

Make food. He could take fish, loaves, feed 5 ,000 people. If they never had to worry about dying, although they did, remember when the storms were throwing the boat all over the place on the Sea of Galilee and they were scared to death.

And one time Jesus came walking across the water? I do wonder when all that wind was blowing and waves, how was He walking? Was Jesus walking like this? Or did He just do like the pimp walk? Did He just come walking?

Or the time...

What does He do? He gets in the boat. First He tells Peter,.

Come on out.

All right, slick lip, you want to come on?

Come on.

And He comes out walking and then He sees the waves. Obviously, the wind was blowing.

That says the wind was contrary.

Right?

So obviously, it was wavy. It wasn't like Jesus was surfing. He was walking. And then when He saw that the waves were contrary around Him, He cried out two words we all should say.

Save me.

Helped Him up.

They got in the boat.

Immediately stopped.

And there was other times.

When they thought they were going to die.

And what was Jesus... Remember what Jesus was doing.

At the bottom of the boat?

He was out. And He stands up, oh you little faith, and He gets up and He says...

It was like glass. Yeah, they never had to worry about anything.

Food,.

Clother,.

Clo-clother, clothing, shelter. And even when it came a time when they needed to pay their taxes, y 'all remember this one? Came a time when He was told to pay, they were approached to pay the tax and Peter said, should we pay this?

Jesus says, hey, you know, Jesus' words are basically no.

No.

We shouldn't.

But we're going to so we don't look divisive. So, and... Jesus is broke.

He says, I want you to do,.

I want you to throw a hook in the water and when you pull that fish up it's going to have in there one for you, one for me. So when it came time to pay taxes and they didn't have money, He said, go fishing.

So this year, Sybil, when I have a hard time paying the taxes,.

I'm going to go fishing.

They didn't have anything to worry about. And then Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, He's having that intimate moment with them and He's asked by Philip, hey, where are you going?

And He says, I'm going to the Father. He said, well, wait a minute, how come we don't see the Father? And He tells them,.

Hey, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father.

And then He says,.

But I've got to go.

And He said,.

Where are you going?

We don't want you to go. And He says, if I go,.

I'll prepare a place for you.

And He goes on to tell them.

He's going to come back for them. And then He tells them, it's to your advantage that I go away. I don't know about y 'all, but if I spent three years with a man providing everything.

That I needed,.

Me and my family, had raised family members from them. Remember what He did to Peter's mother-in-law?

He said, hey, hop up. And then she went in and went into cooking.

That's awesome.

I mean, everybody, everywhere He went, He cast out,.

We were talking about this.

This morning before class, He would go into cities, heal everybody, cast out all the demons.

I mean, and then go,.

Hey, it's to your advantage.

That I go away.

He says, because if I go away, then I can send someone.

That won't be with you,.

But will be in you. And He'll be just like me.

And He's talking about the Holy Spirit.

So He says that He would.

Send the Holy Spirit.

And be just like Him. That's what we should understand is the greatness of the Spirit. Hey, wouldn't it have been cool to be Moses?

Yeah.

Wouldn't it have been cool to be face-to-face, as it says, with God? That would have been cool. But based on the Scripture, we're in a better place. Moses didn't have the Holy Spirit living within him.

I don't know about y 'all, that's hard to grasp. Imagine hearing the audible voice of God, seeing the manifestation of God up on a mountain, peals, we're going to see that here, peals of thunder. What does that sound like?

You know, peals of thunder, lightning, smoke,.

And then go,.

But you're in a better place.

Because you have the Holy Spirit.

But man, you go, man, those people saw God, or at least a theophany of God. It says, but it's better that we have it because we have the Spirit.

And it says that the Spirit,.

The very Spirit that indwelled John was the very one that took Him up. And He says, and He saw that throne that was standing in heaven, and one seated on that throne was like that of jasper stone, sardius in appearance.

Now, I don't think God looks like a green rock.

Okay?

You know what jasper is? It's a green stone. It's kind of translucent. He's giving us descriptions of what these colors were. First of all, we know that what? God is Spirit, right? God is Spirit. He cannot be contained.

He does not have a corporal body. The only person of the Godhead that has a corpus, meaning body, is the second person of the Trinity, and that is the Son. And He took on flesh. He shed His blood. He was resurrected.

He has a body still. Seated at the right hand of the throne of God is Jesus Christ in His flesh and bone. I believe that. Can I comprehend it?

No.

I can't. It's unfathomable for me. And sitting beside on this throne was one that was a jasper stone, sardius in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne. Now, we look at this sardius, another beautiful stone in its appearance, and then a rainbow was around the throne.

I can't help, but when you see rainbow, what do you think of it? I don't mean the queer movement, right?

The promise.

Huh?

The promise.

Yeah, what else? Somebody else said it.

Colors.

Colors, okay. Anybody else? Promise of what? I agree with you. That's the first thing I think of.

Right.

Well, I mean, there's the promise given, you know, after Noah.

That's right. That's right. So, if you're going, because I am, I'm not a classic covenantal theologian. I don't hold to classic covenant theology. I believe that God unfold His redemption in promise and covenant.

And if you were with me in the other class over there when I did the Davidic promise, because I do believe it starts as a Davidic promise and then turns into a covenant later, just like the Abrahamic promise is a promise at first, and then it is solidified with a sacrifice.

There was a sacrifice involved in every covenant. If you look, I'm not talking the covenant of redemption. It's not explicit. The covenant of works, covenant of grace, all that is not explicit in Scripture.

There's one covenant that begins explicitly in Scripture,.

And you know what it is?

It's the Noahic covenant. The first covenant given by God was to Noah, like the word bread, right?

Spit it out.

It is the word for covenant came with Noah. He promised Noah, you build this boat, or this box is actually what it was. It wasn't a boat. You build this square barge. You do what I tell you to do. You preach righteousness that the judgment of God's coming.

And as you preach the judgment of God's coming, you continue to put pitch. You and your boys do your thing. Your family gets on. I'll seal it up once I send all the animals to you. And you will be saved.

You get in, do what I tell you to do, and you do what I have told you to do. By faith, you will be saved. Now remember, Noah was justified by faith. Hebrews 11, 7. It says that Noah, by faith, built the ark, condemning the whole world.

And he did it with fear and trembling. Fear and trembling. And then after God drowned the whole earth, he set the box on Mount Ararat, where we believe today was at, and he let them out. As they come down off the mountain, God promised them, actually tells them to go be fruitful, multiply.