Take your Bibles if you will and open them to the book of Revelation.
We're in chapter four.
Let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.
Our gracious Father in Heaven, we come before your throne grateful for the day that you've granted to us, grateful for a bright new year, the opportunity to be able to consider the
things that you would have for us to learn from this book of Revelation.
that we might know the things that John was writing to the first century church both in how to live and how to trust in your word and your promises and your uh power and action
in the world.
Lord, we pray that we might learn faithfulness, that we might strive diligently to live in a way that is acceptable in your sight personally, but also as a congregation that we
might be holy and without blame before you.
Lord, we know that we do sin and that we fall short of your glory and we pray and are grateful for your forgiveness.
We ask that you forgive us when we do sin.
Lord, we pray that you be with the work of this congregation.
May it be that which is in accordance with your will and pleasing in your sight.
May we always operate with complete trust in your will and in your word and in your promises.
Lord, we pray for
the nations throughout the world.
We pray for their leaders.
We pray that they will make choices that will lead towards the furtherance and spread of the gospel.
We pray always that we might be willing and ready to teach and to preach those who are looking and searching for the truth.
We pray that they might have open hearts, willing to hear, willing to be converted, willing to be obedient to your word.
Lord, we pray that you be with the church throughout the world and pray that they also will stand firm in the faith to declare the truth and never depart from your word.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' amen.
In chapter three, John concludes the seventh preamble, for lack of a better term, initial introductory letter to the seventh church, the church that we know of as the Laodicean
Church.
The Laodiceans are mentioned more than one occasion, more than just here.
They're mentioned in the letter that Paul writes to the church at Colossae, where Paul gives instruction as he writes to the church in Colossae that when they're done reading
the letter in their congregation, that they are to send that on to the church at Laodicea.
And we know from both history and from passages like that, that when a letter was written to a church, they didn't open it, look at it, read it, it in a drawer.
They opened it, they read it, they put it before the congregation, and then they sent it on for another congregation to read, for others to learn from and to grow from.
And you can imagine that the book of Revelation occurred
and was delivered and then handled in the exact same way.
This is a letter.
We made mention at beginning of this uh course of study as we were looking at the book of Revelation and introductory matters that we quite often divide the New Testament up into
different sections.
We've got the first four books which are the Gospels.
We've got the book of Acts which is considered the section on history.
Then we have
the epistles that being uh Romans through Jude and then quite often we refer to Revelation as book of prophecy.
except while that's good to remember the thematic role of the books, it's a bit of a misnomer because Matthew's a letter written by Matthew to the church and Mark is a letter
written by Mark to the church and Luke is a letter written by Luke to Theophilus, one who's a member of the church most likely of Grecian descent, and Acts is the second part
of the letter.
to Theophilus, and John is a letter written to the church so that they might know how to love God, how to know that Christ is the Son of God, and how they might have life in His
name.
And then Paul writes a series of letters to the churches, and then Revelation is a letter to the church.
It's good for us to remember.
as we deal with passages, as we deal with the New Testament as a whole, that all of the books are letters to the churches.
And they were handled that way.
They weren't considered personal property.
They weren't considered congregational property.
They were considered to be that which one church read, learned from, understood, and then passed on to another church for them to, because it was ultimately
A letter from God.
through the hands of an individual penman by inspiration through the work of the Holy Spirit so that the church might know what God would have them to do.
So we've mentioned in the book of Revelation that unlike a lot of the books in the New Testament and even Old Testament, this book is somewhat unique in that it has a different
writing style.
It has a different communication style than those other books.
When you open up the letters that Paul writes,
You are dealing with letters that are very, very literal.
He's going to begin by describing his concern for them.
He's going to introduce the book by introducing who's writing it and who it's written to.
And then he's going to, in some of the books, head right on into the problems that they're facing in the church.
Revelation doesn't begin that way.
Revelation begins the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him to show his servants.
Notice it is a letter from God through Christ to the church.
Things which must shortly take place and he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John.
This was a letter from God through Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to John
via the angel that would deliver it to him to the church.
But it was sent in a signified, a picturified, if you could allow me to use that word that doesn't exist, a picture book form.
So it's not first to be understood in a literal physical interpretation.
It is first to be understood in a picture form from which we draw a conclusion.
In chapters two and three, you have the biggest mix between literal and figurative.
Literal and spiritual.
When I say figurative, by the way, I mean picturified.
I mean illustrated.
One of the things we had growing up uh as young boys in the 90s were baseball and basketball cards.
We used to collect them.
We had stacks of them.
I appreciate my children and their enjoyment of.
things like Magic the Gathering and collecting cards and decks because those at least you can play.
We had these cards that had people's pictures and faces on them.
And guess what?
All the cards I had of Michael Jordan, none of them could jump like Michael.
None of them could dunk like Michael.
Owning the card couldn't make me dunk like Michael, in spite of how much I wanted to.
And while we could, with our imagination, pick up the card and pretend that it was flying through the air like Michael, it couldn't.
You wanna know why?
It wasn't actually Michael.
It was a picture of Michael.
We understand that, but we've...
got to take our minds with that are so very used to opening the Bible and just going, this is what it says, this is what it means, and we've got to go, go, wait, no, this is a
picture.
What am I supposed to get from the picture?
Now, when you go back to that good old basketball card, if you had a card of Michael Jordan, you invariably got the message from the picture.
because he was invariably flying through the air.
It went right along with Air Jordan.
The branding was right on.
I didn't realize I was being sold at the time, but the branding was right on.
And Topps did a good job with it.
God is going to communicate to the church in the form, in the book of Revelation, of pictures.
And we're about to get neck deep in the pictures.
So if you look at the picture and you go, see details and I see descriptions and I don't know what all of it means, it's okay.
because every detail is not necessary for the picture if we zoom out and we get the message from the picture.
On occasion, it'll have the opportunity to go somewhere where there are real paintings by real artists.
It may be a restaurant, it may be a business, somewhere.
But one of the things that's interesting about paintings is your proximity to them changes how you view them.
When you've got a large format painting, something that's two, three, four feet in size, believe it or not, most of those are not designed to be looked at from six inches away.
And while if you do inspect it from six inches away, you will see the fine brush strokes, you will see the artist's technique, you might even see a signature down on the bottom,
you will see details that are valuable, important, worth inspecting if you were trying to learn the art of painting.
But at that distance from the painting, six inches away from a three foot painting, you're losing the picture.
When you get to the book of Revelation, there is value in learning from the details.
But if you're going to get the message, you've got to zoom out and look at the picture.
You've got to back away and say, what's the picture being painted?
What's the message?
So, Revelation chapter 4 verse we introduce our very first full picture.
in chapters four and five.
Chapters four and five are a unit.
They're really the same message twice.
And I'm gonna actually lead you into the message by just giving it to you.
Turn to John chapter 14, verse one.
John chapter 14 verse 1 you find the message of Revelation 4 and 5.
Not because there's something in Revelation 4 and 5 that tell you go read John 14 1, but because if you look at the picture you're going to get the message.
So I'm going to tell you what the message is and we're going look at the picture.
We're going come back and go, yep, yeah, that's it.
All right.
John chapter 14 verse 1, let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me.
Jesus is going to say that to His disciples nearing the point of His death.
He is going to remind them that if they can continue their faith in God, their complete trust in God, then they can have
complete assurance based upon their trust in God that they can have complete assurance of their trust in Christ.
And in chapter four, you're going to get a picture of why you should trust God.
And chapter five, you're going to get a picture that describes that if you trust God, you absolutely should trust Christ.
Okay?
So chapter four, after these things I looked and behold a door standing open in heaven.
And the first voice which I heard, which was the first voice which he heard back in chapter one, whose voice was it?
Christ's.
So the first voice that he heard in chapter one is gonna speak to him again, it's the voice of Christ.
So as you're opening and you're reading these words, remember,
You're reading John describing his own experience in the vision.
You're not reading John describing to you what he was doing physically in the world.
You're reading what John was seeing himself doing in the vision.
Because where was John in the real world, in the physical world?
on the Isle of Patmos in exile for the testimony of Christ on the Lord's Day.
Worshipping.
That's where John was physically.
But now in the midst of the vision John sees an open door and he hears the same voice which he heard in the very beginning of the Revelation.
And the voice was like
trumpet speaking with me saying, up here and I will show you things which must shortly or which must take place after this.
John is called in his vision of himself into this open door by a voice which is Christ.
Christ is telling John, John go through the door.
But he doesn't say
go through the door, does he?
What does he say instead?
What word does he use?
Come!
You walk up to a house.
You've never been there before.
You suddenly realize you don't know why you're there.
You're just there.
Be a great intro to a movie.
You're trying to figure out what to do next because now you're right in front of the door.
And the door's open.
This is not your house.
You just walk in?
eh Probably not.
Good way to get shot.
Especially in the South.
You're standing in front of the door.
The door's open.
This is not your house.
But then you hear the voice of someone who you've known for decades.
And the voice says, come in.
John is told by Christ to come in.
Now you remember John chapter 14?
John writes about the fact that Christ said, I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will bring you to where
in vision, John's going to be invited in.
But notice what we read.
He says, immediately I was in the spirit.
John's making it clear he doesn't want anybody to misunderstand.
This didn't happen physically.
Everybody who writes a book gets published by a publishing company that claims that they went to heaven and they came back and wrote a
Clearly doesn't have the honesty of John.
Because John says, no, I went in a vision.
And I saw this in a vision.
And I'm going to make it clear to you it was a vision.
He says, immediately I was in the spirit.
And behold, a throne set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
As John pictures this for us, he says, there was an open door in front of me.
And then the voice of the one who was Christ called me to come in and go through the door.
And I went in, and here's what I saw.
I was in the throne room of the one who sits on throne.
Now John wasn't
John wasn't called to go to the house of Caesar.
John didn't walk into the throne room of the one who rules and find Caesar on the throne.
Yes, Caesar was on the throne in Rome.
But he wasn't in Caesar's throne.
He wasn't in the house of power in Rome.
He was in a throne room that was far grander, far more opulent, and had far greater power.
So John says, immediately I was in the spirit.
And behold, a throne set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
And he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance.
and there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald.
John doesn't tell you what God looked like.
John tells you what the feeling of looking at God looked like.
Like color, brightness, richness, majesty.
But where's the picture of God?
There's not one.
As a matter of fact, all throughout the book of Revelation, there's never one.
Not of God the Father.
His majesty is declared through the descriptions around Him.
His glory is pictured by the
people who are surrounding him, by the individuals and the beings surrounding him.
His greatness and his worthiness of being worshipped is clear.
But John will not write a description of God.
So John says, I saw him.
But here's what you need to get from the Nod 8, what does God look like?
But how grand...
is your God.
And the rest of the chapter is going to be a description for the church to recognize that this isn't about a curiosity as to the appearance of God, this is a message of the
authority and rule of God.
and that it hasn't changed.
John has already told the church, I'm writing this to you because you're about to go into persecution.
I'm writing this to you because these things are about to take place.
They're shortly to come to pass.
You are about to get persecuted.
And John is going to write to them and say, and when I walk through the open door and I look into the throne room of God, guess what?
He's still...
on the throne.
You remember the invitation back there in verse one?
The voice said, come up here and I will show you things which must take place after this.
The voice said, I want you to see He's still on the throne.
When these events start to transpire, when the church starts to go through the persecution, when the church starts to be killed and thrown in prison like chapter 2
described, I want you to know He's still on the throne.
So John goes into the throne room of God and he sees the one who's sitting on the throne.
Verse four, around the throne were 24 thrones.
And on the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting clothed in white robes and they had crowns of gold on their head.
As John begins to, if you were put this in movie terms, begins to zoom out and pan around.
first thing that catches his eye is the one who's sitting on the throne.
can't miss it.
But then he starts to look left and right.
He starts to look around the throne and describe what's around the throne.
And he sees 24 thrones.
And on the 24 thrones are 24 elders.
How does John know they're elders?
Because the book tells him they're elders.
It's a vision.
And John knows immediately these are 24 elders.
Now you had elders all the way back in the Old Testament, you had elders of Israel, you had elders of the tribes, you had elders in the days of Christ oh that were leading
Israel, you had elders in the church, which ones are these?
I think it's worthwhile to describe or to think of them this way.
These are the people of God.
But we are given a little more information than that because what do they have on their heads?
Crowns of gold.
the word for crown in the Greek, there's two words.
One of them is the crown of a king.
It's diadem.
We even got a song that uses the term diadem.
That's not this prayer.
This isn't the crown of a king.
The other crown was the crown that the Olympians received.
It was the crown of a victor.
This is a golden crown of a victor.
So who are the elders?
They're someone who has been victorious.
They are someone who has, if we're going to gather the picture of the book, who's already overcome.
And you remember that Christ had promised to His servants, to His disciples, that they would sit and rule with Him if they were faithful.
Be faithful unto me and I will give you what?
crown of life.
Paul would write in 2 Timothy chapter 4 concerning a crown that he was anticipating not for him only but he says for all those who love his appearing.
Here John is walking into the throne room of God and he sees the one who sits on the throne and he backs up his view and he sees him surrounded by
24 representatives of those who have been faithful to Him.
They are His servants.
They are His faithful, victorious servants.
Now when He initially sees them, He sees them in these 24 thrones.
Now, the number 12 is valuable and important throughout the book.
We'll get into more uses of it as we go through the book.
But if you see a multiplication of 12, you're getting the same message, because 12 represents God's people.
There's 12 apostles.
There's 12 tribes.
There's 144,000, which is a multiple of 12.
There's 24 elders.
Okay, so just hold on to the fact 12 represents God's people.
So here John sees 24 thrones.
And on the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting, clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads.
And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices.
Now if you were to go to a pre-millennial view of this, this must be atomic bombs and nuclear blasts and nonsense.
You go in the Old Testament and you go into the prophets and when you read lightnings and thunderings and voices, this is God acting.
And John sees one who sits on the throne and he's not dead on the throne, he's active.
And he's taking part in acting on behalf of his people.
So he sees
the throne, from the throne, preceding lightnings, thunderings, and voices.
Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne of God, which are the seven spirits of God.
The number seven in the book, you're going to find it to be the number of God.
It's the number of perfection.
Anything less than seven is imperfect.
But seven is perfect.
So you have the perfect
Spirit of God there with the one who sits on the throne.
And so he says, I saw the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which we've already been introduced to back in chapter one, which are the seven spirits of God.
Before the throne, there was a sea of glass, like crystal.
And in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.
Now.
There's some Old Testament picture here that is important to realize you're not dealing with just a throne room.
You're dealing with a picture all the way back from the tabernacle through the temple to eternity.
When Moses was told to build the tabernacle, he was told to build the altar.
where the sacrifices were made.
And the priest would offer the sacrifices there on the altar and it was high up above the people and they had
sacrifices.
But then they had to take the portion of the sacrifices, especially on the day of Atonement, the blood from the sacrifice, and they had to take it into the Holiest of
Holies.
But between the altar and the tabernacle was a great big brazen laver.
A great big brazen sea of water.
And for the priest to enter into the holy place, let alone the most holy place, they had to go through, as it were,
cleansed, sanctified, consecrated before they could enter the Tabernacle.
And this great vat of water separated the people and the presence of God.
Interestingly, there's a connection in the New Testament between the brazen labor and washing and baptism.
You can't get into the house of God
the tabernacle of God, the temple of God, the church of God, unless you go through the water.
But John sees the throne room of God and once again there's this great big sea.
There's a great big body of water.
He describes it as a sea of glass.
When do you describe a body of water as a sea of glass?
When it's calm.
When you look down in that water and it's so clear and it's so calm, it's like looking in a mirror.
Now you're going to find out that the sea isn't always going be calm in book of Revelation.
That the sea is going to be quite tumultuous at times.
But John sees the sea around the throne room of God separating, probably, if we were to paint the picture in our minds, separating him from the throne room of There's separation
between him and God.
And he sees the elders and he sees the lamp stand and he sees the spirit of God and he also sees around the throne a picture from Ezekiel.
In Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 8, you have a picture of gods, for lack of a better term, battle wagon.
a picture in visions in Ezekiel of God coming and bringing justice and judgment and he's riding upon a throne that goes up, down, sideways as blink of an eye.
Never turns.
It always just goes straight forward whichever direction it's going.
And around that throne in Ezekiel are four beasts.
And their picture is here again.
Notice he says, the first, uh sorry, around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.
One of the first things to realize about God's servants in this picture is they don't miss anything.
We all grew up assuming our mothers had eyes in the back of their heads because they would see things that we thought there is no way they saw that.
Well, God's servants do have eyes in the back of their head.
They don't miss anything.
So you've got four beasts around the throne, one looking this way, and he can see front and back.
One looking this way, and he can see front and back.
One looking this way, and can see front and back.
What did they miss?
Nothing.
He says the first living creature was like a lion, the strongest land predator commonly in uh historical terms.
The second living creature was like a calf.
The third living creature had the face of a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.
The idea of calf here is the idea of a bull.
This is a symbol from
history from Old Testament and from just tradition and symbology of the strongest domesticated animal.
The eagle is pictured all throughout the text as well as history as the strongest airborne predator.
So you've got a lion, strongest land-based predator.
A bull, the strongest domesticated animal.
An eagle, the most powerful air-based predator.
And then a man.
Intelligence.
In other words, when you go up against God, you go up against infinite strength.
And it doesn't matter where you're at.
He's gonna win.
The picture of the creatures isn't about the fact that we're going to get to heaven and suddenly we're going to see these creatures that look like an eagle.
No.
We're going to see that it doesn't matter how high you go, God can bring you down.
That was told to the Edomites, by the way.
The Edomites had built their capital city and their stronghold way up high in the mountain rocks.
They literally forged and carved the city out of rock.
And they assumed because they were high up on the rocks, because they had a fortified position, because they were built into the mountain, that they would never fall.
And God said, I'll come up to where you are and I'll take you down.
God is making it clear through His imagery of these creatures that when He comes to do judgment and perform judgment against those who are ungodly, who are unrighteous, who do
not share His holiness and His righteousness, there's nowhere you can go to hide.
where his judgment won't fight you.
And notice that these four living creatures are always involved in one singular focus.
The holiness and praise of God.
the four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around them within.
You said, wait a minute, I thought they just had eyes in the front and the back.
Oh no, you could look everywhere around them.
were eyes everywhere.
They didn't miss anything.
He says, and they do not rest day or night, saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
You know that song that we sing that's in our song books?
Holy, holy, holy is where comes from.
This is the passage.
You go throughout the rest of verses of the book and you're going to find things from Revelation over and over
John walks into the throne room and sees the one who's sitting on the throne, and he backs up and he looks and he sees the twenty-four elders that are around the throne, and he sees
the Spirit of God that is before the throne, and he sees the sea of glass that is between him and the throne, and then he sees these four creatures that are sitting there by the
throne, and they're declaring God to be holy, and how often do they do it?
I never stop.
Now, when you deal with a vision, you're going to deal with some things and you're going go, wait a minute, if that's true, and if we're in a physical interpretation, if that's
true, then that thing can't be true.
Because in a picture, not every detail always has to make logical, physical sense as long as it conveys the message.
Here's an example of that.
So, they don't stop day and night.
They never cease in declaring, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.
And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits
on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for you
created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.
So as the four beasts surrounding the throne declare God to be infinitely holy, infinitely powerful, worthy of praise, whenever they do that, what do the 24 elders do?
They worship, how?
Alright?
They get down off their throne, because remember John saw them sitting on the throne.
They get down off their throne, they take their golden crown and they cast it before the throne room of God, before the throne of God, and they praise God as well.
Question, when do the four beasts utter this praise?
All the time!
So how is it that John saw the elders sitting on their thrones if they're never sitting on their thrones because they're always bowed down, always casting their crown before the
They can't be sitting on the throne and bowed down at the same time, they?
Yes, in the vision they can't.
Why?
Because it's a vision!
If you try and make it literal and physical, you're gonna have some real problems.
But the point of the picture is here are these four mighty beasts.
Unmatched, untouched, unfettered by any restraint except the Lord's.
And if he sends them out, they're going to go in an instant.
Why?
Because they have allegiance to no one but him.
And if he declares that they are going to bring judgment and justice, nothing's going to stop them.
But they don't see their own power.
They don't see their own greatness.
The only thing they see is His.
and they declare unendingly, He is holy, He is worthy, you worship Him.
And when they do, the elders that are around the throne, the overcomers, the victorious ones, they're worshipping right along with it.
And their declaration is this, you, the one who's on the throne, are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.
For you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.
John is watching this unfold.
and the message to the church.
is just because Rome says that their Caesar is God and that God sits on a throne in Rome and that you are to bow before the throne in Rome and you are to pledge allegiance to the
throne in Rome and you are to declare that Caesar is God or else you will be put to death.
that in actuality there is someone on a And it's not Caesar.
And as a matter of fact, the very distinct difference between the one who sits in Rome who created nothing and the one who sits in heaven who created everything.
is that the one who sits in heaven has the power to back up the claim.
So when you're choosing whose side to be on.
You should remember that there's someone who sits on the throne in heaven, who's surrounded by power, majesty, might, and grandeur that cannot even be described.
who doesn't threaten with physical force but rather with eternal might.
You remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10, do not fear Him who can kill the body.
rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
Now go back to John chapter 14 as we close.
you
Jesus says to the disciples, let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many mansions.
If they were not so, I would have told you.
I go to repair a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you.
to myself that where I am there you may be also and where I go you know and the way you know Thomas said to him Lord we do not know where you are going and how can we know the
way Jesus said to him I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me
Chapter five is our introduction to the Christian's access to the Father.
All right?
Thank