Revelation 4:1-11 November 23, 2003
Worship In Heaven
Jesus has just dictated 7 letters to 7 churches that were in deep distress. Some were being persecuted to the point of death, some were being attacked by false teaching and evil actions, others needed to wake up from their boredom induced slumber, most needed to repent. You would think Jesus would give these letters to John and then said, all right, now get to work on fixing these places. Since John was imprisoned on the Island of Patmos, he could at least get to some serious praying for the churches, maybe some administrative changes – move the leadership around to fix the problems. Get up and do something before everything fell apart. But that is not what Jesus does. He dictates the letters, and then says Come here I’ve got something to Show you….
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I spent a summer working with a ministry that was always on the verge of collapse, and on the wall of the office was a picture of this sailor in the midst of this horrendous storm, the caption on the bottom said “bail first, pray latter!” When I used to run a drop-in Basketball program up at Humber, the guys would often use the Lord’s name in vain, so I would say to them, “Guys, it’s no time to be praying, we’ve got a game to play.” It was funny, but it was dead wrong – maybe we need to bail and pray at the same time, play and pray at the same time, but it is always time to pray and worship.
When we sing “Come, Now Is The Time To Worship” no matter where we are, no matter how good or bad things are going, no matter if our world is falling apart, or building up, Now is the time to worship.
Day and night they never stop saying:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,
who was, and is, and is to come."
St. John’s Churches are in deep trouble and Jesus invites him to a worship service.
Why? Because, worship is what we are made for, and everything that we do right flows out of worship.
Westminster Shorter Catechism’s first question is “What is the chief end of man?” “What is the first purpose of humanity?”
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.
Eugene Peterson writes in his book on Revelations “Reversed Thunder;”
“In worship God gathers his people to himself as center. Worship is a meeting at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this center, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move in either frightened panic or deluded lethargy as we are, in turn, alarmed by specters and soothed by placebos. If there is no center, there is no circumference. People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.
Israel was plagued for centuries by Baal worship - portable centres for worship set up on every hill and under every green tree. But they were not true centers; they were arbitrary locations, similar to the sites for emperor worship in the Roman first century. In Israel, Jeremiah called for a return to the center; some of the people listened and responded. "Behold, we come to thee; for thou art the lord our God. Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the lord our God is the salvation of Israel" (Jer. 3:22-23) .The hills are a delusion, and so is every casual or pompous way station at which people seek easy and instant centering. People who do not worship live in a vast shopping mall where they go from shop to shop, expending enormous suns of energy and making endless trips to meet first this need and then that appetite, this whim and that fancy. Life lurches from one partial satisfaction to another, interrupted by ditches of disappointment. Motion is fueled by the successive illusions that purchasing this wardrobe, driving that car, eating this meal, drinking that beverage will center life and give it coherence.
Over against these false places of worship, Jeremiah declares "a glorious throne, set on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary" (Jer. 17:12). This is the throne that St. John sees in his vision. "The throne of God - the fact of the throne, and the fact of God enthroned – is the revelation of the Bible.”
- Eugene Peterson
We must listen to Jesus’ call to “come up here” whether we are in good times or bad, whether there is work to be done, or if we are exhausted by the work, whether we are alone or in a crowd. We must worship.
John obeys and immediately he is in the Spirit, and before the very throne of God. He tries to describe what he sees but it is beyond anything that he has seen before. He says that the one sitting on the throne looked like gemstones – jasper and carnelian, and surrounding the throne is a rainbow, but not a regular one, one looking like an emerald.
Surrounding the throne are 24 other thrones, and elders are sitting on the thrones. They are the representatives of the whole people of God of the Old Testament and the New - the12 tribes of Israel and the 12 Apostles. These people are dressed in white because they have been made pure by God through Jesus, and they have crowns on their heads because they are princes – sons of God
Back to the throne – there are flashes of lightning coming from the colours of gemstones, and rumblings and peals of thunder!
Seven lamps – seven spirits, or the sevenfold Spirit. Seven? I thought God was three in one, what is this seven? Numbers often have symbolic meaning in the scriptures, past their statistical significance – this is not always true sometimes seven is simply seven, but in places like this it is a sign of perfection, completeness, trueness. The sevenfold spirit of God, represented by these seven lamps is the Spirit in His fullness.
Sea of Glass – we usually think of a sea as a large body of water – like an ocean, but in scripture it is also used to describe a large shallow basin. The Old Testament temple had a bronze sea that was a large shallow bowl used for ritual washing. (sea sounds so much more majestic than basin) Clear glass was almost nonexistent in John’s time so to see this sea as clear as crystal would be an awesome thing.
Four creatures around the throne – this is not the first time that we see these four creatures in the scripture. Ezekiel sees similar creatures holding the portable throne of God in chapter 1, in chapter 10 he sees them again and he says tat he realizes that they are cherubim. Rafael did not do his research when he painted his cherubs. The cherubs in John’s vision are huge, awesome and fearful beings – Rafael’s couldn’t scare a mouse.
John says, “In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings.”
Their eyes speak to the all seeing God they serve, their faces speak of God’s majesty, strength, wisdom, and loftiness.
In Isaiah’s vision in chapter 6, the six winged creatures use two of their wings to fly, two to cover their bodies and two to cover their faces. – even as sinless, angelic creatures they feel the need to cover themselves before the awesome holiness of God.
So here with uncovered faces all they can say day and night is:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,
who was, and is, and is to come."
We Worship Because God is Holy
Holy- pure God can do no wrong
There are times that we night think that we are doing pretty good on the holiness front – we’ve been behaving pretty good lately – at least better than most of our family! But this feeling is like being the best player on the ice in a game of shinny, and coming into contact with the holiness of God is like being dropped into the 7th game of the Stanley Cup! We are way out of our league!
Separated – “other” than us
Romans 11:33-36
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
We worship by laying down our “crowns”
The elders see may have crowns on their heads – they have a certain amount of authority and power, but by laying them down in front of the throne they are confessing that they are in the presence of the true king. Robin Mark really gets the sense of this in his song , Jesus, All For Jesus
Jesus
All for Jesus
All I am and have
And ever hope to be
All of my ambitions
Hopes and plans
I surrender these
Into Your hands
What does it mean for you to lay down your crown before God?
We Worship Because God is Worthy
He is worthy because he is the creator of all that is.
Scripture begins and ends with creation – Genesis with the creation “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And it ends in Revelation with praise for the creation
I am so amazed with the creation – I am amazed with the intricacies of it and the immenseness. I am amazed with the interconnectedness of creation – we joke that a butterfly flaming its wings in china creates a hurricane in the Caribbean, but it almost that true, and as God holds it all together, when there is a multitude of reactions for every action, and God created all of those reactions and they all fit together to make this hole thing work. If we remove one species from the system of introduce a new species to the system, it puts the whole system out of whack, but God created it “in whack” so that it would all work together in beauty. I am baffled and in awe of him.
He is worthy of all our praise.
We must worship God!
We are created for this
It centers our life on what is true
He is holy
He deserves to be in charge
Above all else he is worthy.
What is happening in your life? Good, bad? Busy, exhausted? Jesus is saying, “Come up here, I’ve got something to show you.” Come worship the Lord in all his glory!
- Call Nancy back up to continue to worship Him
