He Is Worthy Series

In the good old days the only thing I had to worry about losing, besides my mind, was my keys. To be honest with you, keys are enough of a challenge for me. I can recall, let’s just say, more than once, when my keys were mistakenly locked in our car or in the house. One time I locked myself out of my office and I had to get Sheila to come from work to let me back in. But now, I long for those days when keys were the only think that locked out you out of where you needed to go.

Now we all use computers and the internet and security are an issue so we have to deal with passwords. Now we are told that the best way to make sure that you don’t run into security problems is that you use a different password for each account. Of course most people don’t do that, in fact according to PCMagazine the ten most common passwords are:

1. password

2. 123456

3. qwerty

4. abc123

5. letmein

6. monkey

7. myspace1

8. password1

9. link182

10. (your first name)

The seventh in the list, “myspace1” lets you know that this list comes from 2007. I assume it’s probably been replaced by “facebook1”.

With passwords like these, no wonder so many people get hacked, but the problem with someone like me, who tried a bit harder to use a variety of passwords, is that a variety of passwords can get confusing and easy to forget. What this means is that you just get locked out of a lot of accounts until you go through the process of having them reset your password, which includes trying to read those stupid Captcha characters that they make you try and figure out before they will send you a new temporary password. I hate those things!

Of course such frustration is nothing in comparison to forgetting your computer password or having your computer password get corrupted. Things get much more difficult if you can’t even get into Windows. If you ever find yourself in that kind of a situation, it really is a crisis with no easy way out.

Please turn with me to Revelation 5:1-14

For the past couple of weeks we’ve talked about John’s second vision. In this second vision, we’ve been given a glimpse into the reality of God’s throne room. In chapter four we’ve seen how worshipping God brings order into our lives. When we give Him the proper attention and focus in worship, the chaos of our lives finds its proper context. Problems always get smaller when our focus on God gets larger. Hope leaks in. Heavenly light finds a crack in the busy, chaotic, darkness of our earthly reality and peace washes over us.

Today we move into chapter 5 and our glimpse of God’s heavenly control room shifts to a crisis. And this crisis is far worse than lost keys or lost passwords that only stop our intended progress for a time. This is a crisis dealing with God’s plan. God’s plan must move forward. The war room needs to implement the scenarios that will bring the desired outcome of victory to God’s people and an end to the cosmic war, but the plan is stalled and if the plan is stalled in Heaven, those who are on earth have no hope. Beginning with verse 1 we read:

“Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" 3 But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. 4 I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. [Let’s stop there for now]

Thus far John has been focused on the throne and the One who sits on the throne, but now his focus changes to a scroll God is holding in His right hand. The fact that the scroll is in God’s right hand suggests that this is a scroll that has something to do with God’s powerful activity—particularly in the context of deliverance and salvation.

In Exodus 15, for example, in the song of Moses, God’s right hand delivers the Israelites from Pharaoh and his armies, and executes justice by drowning the army in the Red Sea. So this scroll has something to do with both salvation and justice.

Next, the scroll is similar to the one that Ezekiel describes in his vision in Ezekiel 2:9-10. That scroll has words written on both sides as well, but it wasn’t sealed with seven seals like the scroll in Revelation. Now, in the Ezekiel passage, we are told that the scroll contained a message from God to His people that Ezekiel was enlisted to proclaim.