Revelation 4

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.

Today is no different.

Looking forward to diving into Revelation chapter 4.

Revelation 4 · chapter mention

This time I'm so excited to be able to introduce to you, he's been here before, but Pastor Scotty Smith, a ministry mentor to me and Kim both, and a brother who has just I've learned so much from about being a pastor, about Bible teaching, about theology, about the gospel.

And I'm just this is one of his favorite books, by the way.

He's got a new uh 14-week study guide called Revelation Hope in the Darkness coming out on New Growth Press.

You want to watch for that.

But uh I just saw it as we entered this next chapter.

It'd be awesome to hear from Scotty on Revelation chapter 4.

Revelation 4 · chapter mention

So without any further ado, I give you Brother Scotty Smith.

Good morning, dear family and friends at Village Chapel.

Scotty Smith here, and I am privileged to continue the study of the book of Revelation with you.

And it's a book that's become probably the favorite of mine in the entire scripture.

Because in so many ways it summarizes everything that God has promised and has done through the person and the work of Jesus in the previous 65 books.

In fact, John, as he writes, is that octagenarian, maybe in his early 80s, he is looking back over the entire history of redemption from Genesis all the way up to his moment of being in exile on the Isle of Patmos.

And he either directly or indirectly references or quotes 250 to 400 parts of the scripture.

It's as though the book of Revelation is the distillation, the culmination, the fulfillment, that final part of the symphony when we see everything coming together.

And it's a book that I love to reference in terms of my beloved country of Switzerland.

I'm not from Switzerland, but I've been to Switzerland nine times.

And I think I'm going to use that metaphor to kind of introduce Revelation 4 today.

Swiss chocolate is great, but the Alps are much, much greater.

You can go to Switzerland and be intrigued with Lederhoosen, with chocolate, with hamlets, with cows, with big bells around their necks.

And miss the most important part of that southern region of Switzerland.

The Alps, they are overwhelming.

Some of you have been there and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Well, the best way to study the book of Revelation is not to worry about every pair of leader hoosen, every odd image and metaphor that's there.

If we see the Alps, if we see the primary focus of the book of Revelation, the other details, whether they are poetic or metaphorical or literal, they will take care of themselves.

And chapter four in Revelation is truly one of the regions of the Alps in the entire book.

Really, chapters four and five.

Next week, when Jim will walk you through chapter five of Revelation, you better bring a seatbelt with you because it is filled with the glory and the heartbeat of the entire Bible, which is Jesus emerging as God's yes to every promise he has made.

Jesus being presented as the hero of our faith, the author and perfecter, the lamb and the lion.

And it's overwhelming that culmination of the vision that we begin today.

So, chapter 4, verses 1 through 11 move from the study of these seven letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor.

Of course, there were more than seven churches, but the number seven is so significant in the book of Revelation.

It's a number of perfection and fulfillment.

And as Jim so beautifully preached, if you do a composite study of these seven letters, you can get a good idea of what Jesus wants for his bride in every place and every location.

Every time he reproves his people in those seven letters, it is a life-giving rebuke because Jesus has given himself for a most unlikely wife to make her his queen.

And it's us.

Jesus laid down his life for us, having lived a life of perfect obedience.

He has made us his bride.

We are betrothed to him.

And those seven letters summarize our calling in every place in every generation to be the bride of Christ, to be a local church smitten with Jesus, and given to living out the only love that's better than life, where he has placed us.

Well, now we move into chapter four, and it is overwhelming.

So I will give you my three points.

We're going to look at this text under these three themes, these 11 verses.

First of all, we're going to ponder the occupied throne of heaven in verses 1 through 3.

Secondly, the aw-struck occupants of heaven in verses 4 through 8a.

And lastly, we will consider the God-centered worship of heaven 8.4 through verse 11.

So let me pray briefly for us as we move right into the text.

Heavenly Father, you know my great love for Village Chapel for Jim and Kim and so many dear friends of many decades, even in that community.

I thank you for our privilege together to open our hearts to the working of your spirit.

We need your spirit, Father, to make this scripture everything you intended to be in our lives.

Lord, don't just inform us and flame us, and don't just inflame us, engage us with your story.

We are so glad on the day that we celebrate in our culture Father's Day to call you our Abba Father.

Thank you that you are quintessential, Father.

You are the Father from whom all fatherhood derives its name and meaning.

And on this Father's Day, we are so thankful that in this scripture we will see you as you delight to be known, and we will understand the centrality of your beloved Son Jesus and God the Holy Spirit.

Oh, indeed, triune God, come and open this scripture to us, we pray, unto our transformation, unto the flourishing of the city where you've placed us, fueling the longing that we have for the return of Jesus, who right now is making all things new, and on that day will in fullness bring to completion everything you have planned and everything he has earned by his life, a perfect substitution for us.

We pray with great joy and hope in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, let's start with uh these first three verses.

The occupied throne of heaven.

Now, if you only hear one thing I'm gonna talk about in these next 35 minutes or so, this would be where you want to put the laser gaze of your heart now and for the rest of your days in this world.

Listen to how John describes for us what he saw.

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.

And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.

At once I was in the spirit, and the one who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Carnellian.

A rainbow resembling an emerald encircled the throne.

What an overwhelming picture John gives us.

But let's just walk through verse by verse, which is your habit and glorious commitment in the village chapel.

After this, I looked.

Well, after what?

Well, after the resurrected Jesus had given John a vision of what's really going on in the hearts of his beloved friends in Asia Minor, these seven letters that y'all studied and learned so much from.

After Jesus showing his great love for his bride, his living in the midst of his people, this is the next thing he wanted everybody and every one of his churches to understand.

And John sees something profound.

Look at the second part of verse 1.

I look, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.

Now, understand the movement of that door.

This door is open from the Godward side.

And I think it's so profound to realize that this is how our God relates to us through the scripture by the Holy Spirit.

He reveals to us what cannot otherwise be known.

That's why, as you have learned early in your study, the word revelation itself means an unveiling.

Not a concealing, but an unveiling.

And God, by the Spirit, opens a door from the Godward side.

John, look up here.

Look above what's going on in Rome.

Look from the perspective that I have over all things, over the entire history of redemption, and this moment that you inhabit, John, and the moment that we inhabit, brothers and sisters, living in Nashville and Brentwood and Franklin and beyond.

There was a door standing open in heaven.

And you can imagine John just peering through that door.

What are you going to see?

Streets of gold, dancing angels.

Well, there's a lot of things he saw, which we'll see, but principally the main thing God intended John to see and every generation of his people to see is this.

This voice speaking to me that had first, like a trumpet, said, Come up here, and I will show you was must take place after this.

And at once I was in the spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

The main thing our Father wants us to rivet our gaze on is the throne that is in heaven with someone sitting on it.

Not an empty chair, not simply a symbol of power, a throne that John's generation would have understood.

Far more living in a world of castles and empires and enthronements.

No, this is not just a throne.

This is not a symbol.

There is a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

Brothers and sisters, that's what we need to see in our day more than anything else.

There is no panic in heaven.

There is nothing but peace.

There's no second guessing.

There's no plan B.

There's no discouragement in the great boardroom of eternity.

There's no pulling in the captains and the colonels to figure out what we're going to do because this thing did not work.

Brothers and sisters, the God of the Bible never tries to do anything, He only does everything that is his pleasure.

And that's so comforting for us.

Indeed, the occupied throne of heaven is what we need to see all the time.

And it runs from Genesis through Revelation.

There's an occupied throne in heaven, and God just loves to show and reveal again and again and again who He is and what He is for His people.

John sees this occupied throne and verse 3, and the one who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Carnellian.

Now, every little gemstone in the book of Revelation is not to uh not to be labored over as though there's some uber significance over every gemstone.

There's so many gemstones in the book of Revelation.

In fact, when we get into the final vision, Revelation 21, 1 through 22, 6, which is a picture of life in the new heaven and new earth that we are made for and destined for.

Hallelujah.

There's all kinds of gemstones there.

And they all basically represent the glory of God's people in worship.

The gemstones that were on the breastplate of the great high priest.

They are used as descriptors of what it's going to mean for us in perfection to live before our three times holy God as a people who are so welcome, who are so secure.

And John, by mentioning these two of many gemstones in the scripture, it's just speaking of the preciousness of our God.

Our God is precious.

Now let the word precious be a category of value because, as we'll see later, when it comes to understanding biblical worship, worship is always declaring the worth of the one upon whom we have set our gaze and our heart's affection.

And that which we love the most, we worship the deepest.

And here John sees God on his throne in the midst of a Roman world.

Brothers and sisters, as crazy as the season of life is for us, not just with the pandemic, but with the the uh, again, fresh reality of the fact that we are a very broken culture.

The racism, the arrogance, the idolatry, the meanness, the rancor, the political idolatry, we need to know in the midst of all of this that our experience pales in comparison with what John and his generation do in Rome.

Now, you discovered that as you walk through these letters to the seven churches because the culture into which the vision of Jesus and his resurrected glory was given, it's meant to function well.

God's people living in the in the evil and the crazy making of the Roman world.

If the question would be, will we survive?

How will we continue beyond the persecution and the seduction and the indoctrination of a world that has set its very existence against the living God?

How will we know we will survive?

Well, this is the vision that secures it.

There's a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

Our God is sovereign.

Our Father is sovereign.

He is sovereign over everything in your own individual stories, your brokenness, your longing, your loss, your mystery.

He is sovereign over every day of this universe.

Now we'll see further what this is going to look like as we walk through the text.

So, what do we see as we begin?

The occupied throne of heaven.

Now, secondly, let's consider, beginning at verse 4, the awestruck occupants of heaven.

Verse 4.

Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders.

They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and pills of thunder.

Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing.

These are the seven spirits of God.

Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

Now let's stop there for a moment, just in terms of beginning to ponder.

So, how does John in this vision principally of a throne that is in the middle of everything, an occupied throne, how does he describe who is there?

Well, he starts with this image of 24 other thrones with 24 elders sitting on them.

Well, the study I've done has led me to conclude, along with people far smarter than I, that probably the best interpretation of these 24 elders in these 24 thrones is the entire people of God represented before the throne of God.

You've got the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles of the Lamb taken together 24 key figures who were never the point, but always the pointers.

And through the 12 tribes of Israel and through the 12 apostles of the Lamb, this growing people of God, who our God has promised to redeem, they are seen by John by faith.

The eye of faith, again, the church seems so small in his day, so in peril, so outnumbered.

But what John sees is, first of all, our God sovereignly ruling over all things.

And there are his people, these thrones around the throne of our God.

And they're described so beautifully.

They are dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

The white dress in Scripture stands for the righteousness of Christ.

We cannot make ourselves pure.

These white garments are bridal garments.

In some ways, it could be said that to be a member of the body of Christ is to be each other's bridesmaids.

No, don't run with that too far.

But we are already robed in the righteousness that is a free gift to us through the finished work of Jesus.

You see, we didn't just begin the Christian life with a clean slate, with just a beautiful forgiveness.

We began the Christian life not only forgiven of all of our sins, past, present, and future, we also began our life in Christ clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

And John is reminded, as he is an 83 or 4-year-old apostle, as those who are struggling to love Jesus well in Asia Minor, we're all part of one family from every single race, tribe, tongue, and people group.

And how pertinent, how critical is that for us in our day?

Again, more about that later.

But they are dressed in white robes and they are, they're wearing crowns.

Now, the the crowns in Scripture, more about crowns in a little bit, they they represent the fact that Adam and Eve, our first parents, were called to reign in this world not to dominate it, but to live with stewardship over all of God's creation.

See, we we were made, men and women, equal, to be God's vice regents in the world.

And the Apostle Paul picks up on this theme of an appropriate understanding of reigning, reigning not with a scepter in our hand, but with a towel in our hand to wash the feet of our neighbors.

We are called to reign in life, says Paul in the book of Romans.

And we are destined in the new heaven and new earth as the completed people of God, the completed bride of Jesus, through these 12 apostles of the Lamb, through these 12 tribes of Israel, we are called together to reign, to build, to serve forever in the fullness of the perfected state of eternity.

Well, John sees clearly the fact that the God who's made great promises will bring to completion what he has promised.

So these awe-struck occupants of heaven, uh they are represented now.

They are made up of those who've gone on before us.

You know, the book of Hebrews talks about a proper way to think about believers who are living in eternity now, is to see them with this.

This is the end of Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

There's this joyful assembly of countless angels and this vast people whose spirits have been made perfect.

You see, that's that's that's what's going on in eternity right now.

Uh, when we die as believers, we don't go into soul sleep.

We don't have a resurrected body until Jesus returns.

But to be absent from these bodies is to be present with the Lord.

And this is such good news for us.

This is so thrilling for John to see these who are dressed in the very righteousness of Christ.

They have crowns of gold on their heads.

And now, verse 5, um, we begin to understand the awe that they will show in a few moments, and they're falling down.

From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and pillows of thunder.

And before the throne, these seven lamps were blazing, the sevenfold spirit of God.

Uh, the literal Greek there is not seven spirits plural, but the fullness of God's Spirit, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, central to this throne room vision, which again is expanded on in chapter five, which we'll pick up on next week.

But here they are.

God is seeing in his majesty this thundering reality.

How should we understand thunder and lightning?

Well, I would think it's no stretch to ponder that that this.

Part of John's vision is hearkening back to Sinai.

When God thundered from the mountain of salvation, having rescued his people out of Egypt, forming them now by his law and his gift of leaders to take them into a promised land, though rebellious and stiff-necked and filled with unbelief as they were, from beginning to end our salvation is all a matter of God's grace.

Well, the God who thunders continues to throughout eternity reveal his glory.

Brothers and sisters, I think C.S.

Lewis captured it so well when he said that heaven is not going to be the place where we finally get all of our questions answered.

He said, No, when we see the glory of our God, the perfection and passion of his love, when we see our God no longer in part, but the fullness of who he is, those questions disappear because God Himself, as Father, Son, and Spirit, is the resolution of our longings.

It's the fulfillment, is the quintessential healing for which we longed.

And here he is in his glory.

And here he is in the fullness of his spirit.

And before him, I love this, verse 6.

Before the throne, there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

Now, the sea of glass, in fact, the theme of a sea runs through the book of Revelation.

The sea of glass, for those of you that love 30A or great oceans of the world that various times of day, early or late, are absolutely baby bottom calm.

This is what John sees: the glory of our God, the enthronement of our God, the entire people of God represented around this throne.

And he sees peace.

It's a calm sea.

Now, through the rest of Revelation, the sea becomes an image of the place where beasts and evil come out.

Having been defeated, nonetheless, Satan is filled with fury because he knows his time is short.

But finally, in the last vision of the Bible, we see that in the new heaven and new earth there is no more sea, not meaning that in the new earth there won't be great beaches.

We haven't even seen a beach yet.

We've only seen broken beaches.

But the very calmness before our God now and eternity, the sea of glass, will be what we will know forever.

The wonder of the absence of all chaos and evil and brokenness and sin and death.

Indeed, there will be great beaches in the new heaven and new earth.

But that's that's on down the road in your study.

Let's stay present in this text.

So we see again this amazing family gathered before the Lord, and there's this peace before our God.

In the center and 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 the face of a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.

Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings, day and night, they never stopped saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

Well, again, the the occupants of having first and foremost, God Himself, but the entire covenant family of God, that's one way, even to understand this emerald rainbow that's around the throne.

Didn't really take time to look at that image, but that that circular rainbow around the throne speaks of the fullness of God's covenant promises.

We only get to see half of a rainbow in our sky.

But in eternity, from the perspective of heaven right now, every covenant promise God has made will be fulfilled.

And that's the power of hope.

See, NT Wright describes hope as knowing God's future and remembering it into our present.

That's the power of mission.

It's why we're not waiting for the universe to be dissolved, to simply disappear, to be replaced.

In fact, that's the best way to understand what these four living creatures are.

We've got God Himself, this rainbow of covenant fullness around him, the calmness, the peace.

Providence reigns, not happenstance, not circumstance.

God's people are represented in these four living creatures.

Well, once again, I want to be very careful just to offer what probably is the best way of understanding these four living creatures.

Could be a double entendre.

They are either representative of this high caste of angels called Cherubim, andor they are representative of creation itself.

Now, I've landed more in that understanding of the primary reference here, these four living creatures.

Because you see in Revelation, the four is often used for creation, four winds, four corners of the earth, four points on the compass.

And so this would be God's way of saying to us that he was a creator before he was redeemer.

And we really do need to understand that to live at our calling and our culture.

Indeed, the story the Bible is telling is not one of replacement, but redemption and restoration.

Where will the fullness of heaven be?

It's not up there.

In fact, see, John is peering into what theologians call the intermediate state.

Because even in heaven as it exists now, there is longing.

There's the longing for the day the true king returns to finish making all things new.

The only person that has his resurrection body is Jesus.

We await ours.

Those who've gone on before us await the fullness of the story.

And the fullness of the story is one of Jesus coming back to finish making everything new.

His people will be gathered as his bride.

And the world we live in, Nashville, Franklin, Brentwood, Smyrna, you know, all the way into Chattanooga, really every corner of the earth will be filled with a knowledge of God's glory.

These four living creatures, they are reminders to us, as the book of Psalms says, that God has never left any place in the world without his voice, that the heavens declare his glory, that this world we live in will be purified, but it will not be annihilated.

Wrongly, I was taught in the late 60s as a young believer that the only two things are gonna last from this world are God's people and God's word.

Everything else is gonna burn up.

Again, men and women, this world is not gonna burn up, i.e., be annihilated.

It will be purified.

In fact, there's a fabulous part of John's vision in Revelation 21 and 22, where the splendor of the kings is brought into the New Jerusalem.

And I don't fully understand it, but I love it.

But John is a way of picking up on a part of Isaiah's vision of the Messianic kingdom when the true King Jesus takes and creates a parade of grace, not a parade of shame.

And great cultural markers of every generation, every race, tribe, tongue, and people group are brought into the New Jerusalem.

I don't know what that's gonna look like.

I do know we will maintain our ethnic racial diversity forever.

Hallelujah.

But there's also something to be said for art, culture, life, as it, and I'm getting chili bumps right now thinking about it.

It will be celebrated forever and eternity.

And a new culture will be built.

Can you imagine the new art forms, the way we will do life?

The family will be complete.

There won't be any more procreation.

The family is absolutely complete.

Marriage will be fulfilled in the ultimate image of our marriage to Jesus.

We will have perfect relationship with each other in God's created world.

These four living creatures cry out even as we are designed to cry out, the glory of our God.

We need to move on for the sake of time into the third category.

We have considered, first of all, the occupied throne of heaven.

We have briefly looked at the awestruck occupants of heaven, which uh Jim will build on next week when all of creation itself just kind of explodes in the glory of God and the entire family of God.

But let's finish with this: the God-centered worship of heaven, because that isn't just something for our future, but for right now.

And I am so thankful for Village Chapel's Village Chapel's radical commitment to be a worshiping community.

So these living creatures, the entirety of God's creation represented in eternity, the entirety of the people of God are before the Lord.

And the crying out of holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and was and is to come.

Look at verse 9.

Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and they worship Him who lives forever, and they lay their crowns before the throne and they say, You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.

You created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.

Now, let's just reflect for a few moments.

Oh my goodness, my word dropped.

Let's reflect for a few moments on what's going on in this final part of our text.

I am so excited about this stuff, gang.

70 years old and feel like I'm just coming alive to a lot of this.

So again, John is seeing the perfection of eternity right now.

Occupied throne, gathered people, all of creation represented in this glorious declaration of God's holiness.

Now, what do we mean when we say God is three times holy?

Well, certainly we should think of his moral purity.

Absolutely, just his moral perfection.

But we should also think of his entire perfection, the perfection of his joy, the protection, the perfection of his beauty.

We know the God of the Bible to the extent that we see his beauty.

He is dazzling in his beauty.

And you see, only the gospel of his grace can move us from being afraid of God to living in awe of our God.

The fear of the Lord is an affectionate reverence for this God who is a creator, who created all things, who sustains all things, who will restore all things, including you and me, who is the answer to our racism, who is the who is the crusher of political ideology that repudiates the reign and the beauty of the true King Jesus.

And here they are gathered, and here we are represented.

And there's three things that stand out in the worship of eternity.

And I've got six more minutes, I think, to hammer these things home.

The worship of heaven consists of informed minds, inflamed hearts, and engaged hands.

So here we see God being regaled in response to how he reveals himself.

This is what we mean by the informed mind.

Do not despise theology.

I remember as a young convert in the 60s saying something like this: don't give me theology, just give me Jesus.

You can't say the name Jesus without doing theology.

Which Jesus are you talking about?

The Jesus of the Bible that is revealed so powerfully and beautifully is as creator, sustainer, consummator, substitute before he's a model to follow.

Love the study of the Word of God as you do in village chapel.

Go deeper into your love of the Bible.

You guys as a church don't worship the Bible.

You do worship the God of the Bible.

So inform minds, study, learn, grow.

But you see, good doctrine is not dry dogma.

It is meant to inflame our hearts.

And this is this image of the falling down.

Three times in the book of Revelation, John himself sees something of the glory of God, the beauty of Jesus, and he falls down.

You've already seen the first one, Revelation chapter 1, the end of the chapter.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

John is overwhelmed as he receives his calling, and then the resurrected Jesus appears to him, and all these images that fulfill so many promises and types in the Old Testament.

And John falls down, and the resurrected Jesus puts his hand upon him and says, Do not be afraid.

Aye.

Jesus puts his hand on you today and me today through the gospel.

Two more times John himself falls down, and it's a picture of an inflamed heart.

You're overwhelmed.

It's not something that can be orchestrated, it's something created by God's Spirit, making the beauty of Jesus and the reality of our Father so existentially real to us.

John later, chapter 19, Revelation, describes the wedding feast of the Lamb.

And at the end of seeing the Lamb returning and overthrowing finally every expression of evil, he comes and he meets us and he greets us as the feast, as the bridegroom of a wedding feast that we long for.

Our deepest longing for intimacy will be fulfilled at the wedding feast of the Lamb.

John sees that vision, falls down, starts worshiping in an angel.

The angel says, I'm a creature.

Join me in the worship of God.

Third time John falls down is when he, in the next two chapters, gets this vision of life in the new heaven and new earth.

And it is doxological overload.

It is theological implosion.

It is beauty with gospel steroids and overload.

And he just is overwhelmed what God has prepared for those who love him.

Once again, John falls down, starts worshiping the angel.

Angel says, John, don't worship me.

Worship God.

I'm just a messenger.

I'm a pointer.

He's the point.

Four times in Revelation, the elders fall down.

And it's always in response to seeing and knowing something true about God and his story.

Brothers and sisters, we are called to have informed minds in our worship.

We are called to live with inflamed hearts.

But lastly, we are called to live with engaged hands because the rest of the book of Revelation will find God's people showing up, not holding out towards some abstract rapture just to get us out of the den of crazy making.

No, we are those that go with the Lamb who has triumph, whose triumph will be fully realized.

We move forward into every place God has positioned us.

And so these engaged hands are those that would say, yes, if the people of God are not going to be the ones that show up in the face of racism, in the face of all kinds of evil, human trafficking, you know, we don't have time this morning to list every injustice that Jesus has signed on to eradicate.

But we know that we are called because our God is redeeming people, places, and things to live out the story of redemption and restoration, informed minds, inflamed hearts, engaged hands, living and loving missionally until the day that Jesus comes back.

The visions moving forward, oh my goodness, chapter 7 of Revelation, John sees this countless number of God's people streaming towards him through the rest of history from the 12 tribes of Israel, from the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

He throws down his abacus because they can't count them all, but he is assured, as we should be assured, that God is redeeming his people.

He doesn't need us, he wants us, and he uses us.

He can raise up rocks to praise him, but he chooses to use men and women like you and me to show and tell his story of redemption and restoration.

I'm out of breath and out of time, so let me pray.

Oh Father, thank you for this glorious scripture.

Thank you for the occupied throne of heaven.

Thank you for the aw-struck occupants of heaven, people place in things.

Thank you, Lord, for the God-centered worship of heaven.

Lord, may all of these increasingly impact us, move us, change us, free us to live and to love for your glory.

Lord Jesus, you are the one who emerges next in this very vision as the one who is alone worthy to break the seals for the unfolding of the story until the day you come back.

And together we cry out Hallelujah, with a Savior, hallelujah with a salvation.

In your name, Lord Jesus.

Amen.