Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God
Have you discovered how awesome God is? Have you seen the magnificence of the King of Kings with the eyes of your heart? This morning, with hushed silence, we will enter into one of the most sacred scenes in the Bible – the Lord on his throne, praised before the heavenly beings. It’s otherworldly – amazing – awesome. For in this scene we see the Lord and a portion of his awesome character.
Let’s take a peek at this from Revelation 4:2-6 and as I read it, I encourage you to close your eyes and imagine exactly what is being read.…
1. The first picture of our awesome God we see is the Sovereign Lord and King (2)
There is one throne and only one seated there. “Throne” is a key word in this chapter and in the whole book of Revelation appearing almost 50 times. Why? What does a throne represent? What does it communicate? Authority! God is the boss. He’s number #1. Whoever is on the throne has the last word.
On Wednesday we watched another tour from the Truth Project and people were coming up with their definitions of God. And one man, a tattoo artist said that he is his own god. He controls what he does and he is the one that makes himself successful. He has sadly been deceived as have many people in this world.
The throne is filled and not by you or I. The throne is filled by the God the Father (the Son approaches in 5:6). How dare we place ourselves on that throne? How dare we cast him down below us – take his place and rule where he belongs? The throne says to us: There is a God and I am not Him! Bow before God’s throne. Submit before God’s throne. Humble yourself before God’s throne.
2. The throne is an awesome picture of God but let’s go farther. Did you hear what it said in verse 3? “And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.” The Lord is BEAUTIFUL!
This is a very unusual description – you would never describe a person in this way. In fact there is no person described – no eyes, arms, legs, hair. This is God the Father who is spirit. How is he depicted? Words probably failed John as he saw the Lord in all of his splendor. All he can do is compare to some of the most colorful and sparkling stones he knows. Jasper – green but crystal clear green as he is described in Revelation 21:11. And also a stone called carnelian or sardius. It’s a red quartz crystal.
Commentators have hay-day trying to come up with the symbolism of these stones – but it seems that the main message here is simply that the Lord is awesome in beauty. And why wouldn’t he be?
What is beauty? Webster’s: “whatever excites the keenest of pleasure to the senses and stirs emotion through the senses” The Lord stirs our senses and emotions as no-one and nothing can! Everything beautiful is simply a foretaste of God.
I remember a vacation many years ago at Lake Louise in Canada. It’s a lake fed by glaciers high up in the Rockies. And I’ll never forget walking up the trail through the trees and then suddenly seeing the most beautiful scene I had ever seen in my life. Crystal water the color of turquoise. Mountains on all sides topped with snow - a glacier at the far end melting into the lake. It took my breath away.
If Lake Louise is that breathtaking and awesome, how beautiful is its creator going to be? the one who created every flower, every sunset, ever sparkling star, and every beautiful child. God is for us the definition of beauty!
Around his throne is an emerald green rainbow – Green possibly speaking of life that flows out of him to all the universe and the rainbow reminding us of God’s great mercy after the flood. Do you see this mighty God on the throne? Can you even begin to imagine such beauty?
I think of the Keith Green Song:
“Oh, Lord, you’re beautiful.
Your face is all I seek.
And when your eyes are on this child.
Your grace abounds to me!”
3. Beauty isn’t the only thing we see as we look toward the throne – we also experience the power and judgment of the Almighty God (5a).
In verse 5 John tells us what he sees: “From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder.” When the Israelites escaped from Egypt and finally reached Mount Sinai God’s glory came down to the mountain to reveal himself to Israel and it says in Exodus 19:16-17 “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.”
What kind of message does lightning and thunder communicate? Power and judgment. It’s quite a contrast to the beautiful picture we saw a moment ago. It’s not a comfortable situation. Sure, lightning is amazing when you’re watching it from a few miles away. But think of when lightning strikes close to your house. You see a brilliant flash and immediately hear a sound shaking the entire building to its foundation. It’s terrifying as you wonder if it hit a tree or your house. When it hits, we cringe in fear!
We simply do not know God if we don’t see his power and righteous judgment. But I think that sometimes we look at God as if he’s some good old grandpa. We think that we can count on his generosity and good heart. We can from time to time break the law – after all we’re only human. And sometimes we feel we must lie or cheat or bend a law in order to do something good in the end. He’ll understand won’t he? We’re weak and our old grandpa understands and will let the consequences go. God is love, says the Bible. But a holy God cannot overlook the truth and the law – if he did so then he would not be holy. He would be unfair and unjust. Psalm 9:7 “But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice.”
The prophet Isaiah stood before God’s throne in a vision and how did he react? He said (Isaiah 6:5) “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” This was the prophet – one of the great men of God! And he feared to stand before God. Why? He saw his own words were filled with sin and saw that he was NOT worthy to stand before the judge. He didn’t have the right to stand there and live. Ezekiel and the Apostle John had similar reactions when they stood in God’s presence.
How about you? Have you stood before your judge? You will have no excuses before Him because he sees everything – no lawyer will be good enough to get you off the hook.
And that’s why we need Jesus – because we can never come close to the throne of God without the life of Jesus covering us over with his righteousness – with his holiness. We need to trust in Christ and what he did for us living the perfect life and then dying on the cross as the sacrifice for each of us. The judgment and wrath that should have fallen on us fell on Jesus. He was something of the lightning rod that took the wrath meant to destroy our home!
Do you see the lighting? Do you feel the thunder? Humble yourself under the mighty hand of our awesome God!
4. But let’s look again and see what we see around the throne of our Awesome God: We see the flame of his Holy Spirit (5b) Verse five continues: “before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.”
Did you hear that? Now this isn’t speaking of seven angels or seven saints or seven Holy Spirits of God. But this is a symbol which takes us back to the Old Testament Tabernacle. There was one source of light in that tent that was the place of worship of the Lord God – the seven-branched Menorah. The Tabernacle was a miniature of heaven – it was meant to give those who worship a taste of heaven on earth.
Seven throughout the Bible is the number of perfection going back to the 7th day which is holy as the Sabbath after all creation was perfectly completed. God’s Holy Spirit is perfect and he also is a perfect guide to life.
Throughout the Scripture he is often depicted as a flame – as a source of light. What does light reveal? It pierces the darkness and not only reveals the surface, but this light goes further and reveals the heart – sins. The Spirit convicts us as we are laid bare before his light. We cannot hide. We can only bow and confess. We are brought to repentance before his piercing light!
And then the Spirit lights the way for us as followers of God to go. He alone opens our eyes to the Lord and his good news. He alone is our guide to help us understand the Word of God. He guides our path through life as we “walk according to the Spirit.” We are just plain foolish without the light of the Holy Spirit to lead our way. John 16:13 “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” Do you see the Spirit of God? Has he revealed your heart? Has he brought you to confession? Has he guided you through the Scripture? Feast your eyes on our awesome God!
5. And then let’s look one more time towards the throne as we read verse 6: and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.” We see the Lord is Perfect Peace.
Throughout the Bible the sea is often depicted. Can you imagine any of the scenes from famous Bible stories where the sea is involved? You might think of the Red sea parting in the wind for the Israelites to pass through and then come crashing down and killing the Egyptian army. Or there is Jonah the prophet who escapes from God’s calling by taking a ship in the Mediterranean only to be faced with a violent storm that threatens to kill all the crew until Jonah is thrown into the waves and swallowed by a fish. Or Jesus is sleeping on the boat while his disciples row through the storm – their lives are in danger until Jesus calms the storm with a word. Over and over the sea is depicted as a place of violence, of danger, and of death.
Contrast those scenes with a Minnesota Lake in late September. There is something awesome about being out on the lake on an early morning. There’s not the slightest breeze. The water is as clear as glass reflecting the brilliant trees on the shoreline. Immediately your stress level drops as you take it all in.
Imagine that as a foretaste of the sea before the Throne! There is not a ripple, not a blemish, not a single wave so that it looks like pure crystal. God NEVER frets, NEVER fears, NEVER is facing a ripple or trouble or hardship. He is Lord and is in control and has the past, present, and future in his hands. No one can drop a pebble in his sea and upset things.
What’s even more amazing about this peace is that it is ours as we trust in Christ. That’s the kind of peace and security that can be found in the presence of the Lord. When you are right with him and trusting in his Son Jesus Christ, there is no reason to fear or worry. Isaiah 26:3 “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” We worry and fret about so many things and all that time the sea before the throne is perfectly still – God doesn’t change. He still sits on the throne and he holds your life in his hands. Worship before the God of peace! Trust Him!
Do you see our Awesome God? What should be our response? Unabashed worship! Praise! Honor! We don’t wait for death and getting to heaven to see this scene and glory in the Lord. We are given this scene from Revelation so that we can enter into this worship here and now. We don’t need to wait but the Lord is glorified even more as we are worshipping him in the midst of our struggles, in the midst of our waves and storms.
• We can close our eyes and see the Lord God Almighty on His throne.
• We can feel the thunder and hear the lightning that humbles our souls.
• We can delight in the brilliant crystals flashing around the throne and the rainbow wrapping around it.
• We can rest in His peace.
Praise and exalt our beautiful Lord! He is worthy!
