In The Room Where It Happens

he who sat there has the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne a rainbow like an emerald.

Everyone who gets a glimpse of the heavenly throne in the Bible doesn't really seem to be able to describe the one seated on it. When we read the elders ascended to Mount Sinai, they see his feet. They're looking up through the sapphire crystal, they see his feet. When Isaiah gets a vision of God and His heavenly glory in the temple, he sees the train of His robe, just the very hem of His garment. When Ezekiel gets a vision, Ezekiel just sees Flaming fire. When Daniel and Daniel 7 gets a vision, we are only told about the dazzling whiteness of his clothes and his hair. They can only see the barest of outlines and the light shining through, and John sees the same kind of thing. His description is closest to Ezekiel's, but instead of gleaming metal, as Ezekiel saw, he describes it as these gemstones. These radiant gemstones of jasper and sardis, carnelian, sorry, carnelian. Blinding light. It's like trying to look in the sun. You can't look at the sun very long. They'll tell you not to look at it at all, because it will damage your eyes. Because the energy, the intensity is so much. And when you do look at it, everything else sort of turns dim. And when you look away, you just get the outline of the sun in your vision. And seeing the Father in his glory is an experience that goes beyond description. We're saying that darkness can veil God's face, right? When the darkness hides him. That darkness is a problem we have on earth. He is hidden by our sin and our rebellion. But when John gets into the heavens and the darkness is completely taken away, God is still hidden, but in inapproachable light. His glory is so overwhelming that we cannot behold him except to be amazed. Do you have that category for the glory of God in your life? When you think of God, there are many ways He's revealed Himself, and we are taught to come to Him through His Son, and so we know of God the Son in the flesh. But at some point, every Christian should come to the place where we realize there is something of God that is so beyond me that I cannot comprehend Him. I cannot stare at Him too long apart from His grace. He is glorious and good. So that's the first thing, and you can imagine how that arrests John's sight when he enters this heavenly throne room. The one on the throne radiating the light of clear gemstones. And then moving from the throne to around the throne is this emerald rainbow. I don't know what an emerald-like rainbow is. I know what rainbows look like, and I know what emeralds look like. I trust John is seeing something beyond him and trying to put words together to capture it by the Spirit's inspiration. And so I don't know exactly what it would look like, but I'm confident what it's supposed to remind us of is that we need mercy to see God. God hung the rainbow in the days of Noah in the skies as a reminder of the covenant that he had made that he would never again destroy the world by flood. That in his mercy, he would not destroy, give us as our sins deserve. And so John sees something of the same kind of rainbow glory. It reminds him that he and we need mercy. We do not come lightly into the presence of God. If there was not this mediating mercy, we would be undone. And that mercy is also represented, I think, by these 24 elders around the thrones. The rainbow around the throne, the rainbow emerald, and then around the throne, 24 thrones, and seated on those thrones, 24 elders. I think these are the heavenly model for the temple priesthood. They're clothed in white like priests in fine linen. We learn in the next chapter, in chapter 5-8, they're all holding harps and golden incense bowls, which are the functions of the Levites and the priests to offer incense and to sing God's praises. We know in 1 Chronicles chapter 24 that when David divided up that musical worship and the priestly service of the temple, he divided them into 24 divisions. I think that's the background for these 24 elders. It's the heavenly model for earthly worship. You might remember that Luke 1 says John the Baptist's father Zechariah was in the temple offering incense because his division was on duty. He's one of those priests cycling through these 24 duty cycles. Tradition tells us that they would serve two weeks out of the year, maybe one week at a time on a six-month rotation. We're not totally sure about that, but David divides them up. They do this service of worship. They're clothed like priests. They mediate for God's people. But here they also have golden crowns. So white linen like priests and golden crowns like kings, like they have authority, which can make us stumble a little bit because priests and kings were separate in the Old Testament. But we have to remember that we're not, John is not looking back on the Old Testament and sort of reworking things for us. John is seeing the pattern that Earth imitated. John is seeing the original, or at least a manifestation of the original. that seems to have been divided out among the priestly service of worship and the royal service of the kings. United here in these angelic representatives around God's throne, and we now know united in a man in Jesus Christ, the great priest king who mediates for us and exercises authority over heaven and earth. Now, if we'd been able to read Revelation straight through, as it probably would have been read through in the earliest churches that it was sent to, the gold crowns and the white linen would remind us of the last letter that we had just read to the Laodiceans, that they were told to buy gold and white garments from Jesus so they could be clothed like this. So what we see here, these mediating worshipers who are gathered around the throne of God, is the angelic pattern for what we see united in Jesus, and we have hope that he is transforming us into. We have been saved by the blood of the lamb to gather around God's throne in gold and white garments to worship. From the throne comes lightning and voices and thunders. There's a general pattern where he starts at the throne with the vision of the one seated, and then he goes around the throne, and then he's about to go before the throne, but it's like the throne is so captivating. He can't just keep up with his pattern. He's gotta go back. These voices and lightnings and thunders are the manifestation of the glory of God. That's a reminder and echo of what happened also in Exodus 19, 16. It happens regularly when God reveals his glory in these theophanies, Thunders and lightnings, Exodus 19, 16,

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 all the people in the camp trembled.

A storm like that on West Texas, where I'm from, can roll through with deafening thunder, and it can be really fun to watch from under the back porch. And it can be very terrifying if you're in an open field. Maybe you've been out in the mountains here when a storm has rolled through. with no shelter. And John is here exposed to the awesome power, these thunders and lightnings, and the glory of God. And literally, the middle word there is voices coming from the throne, the voice of God and His revelation. So we've gone from the throne and the one seated on it in His radiant glory that is blinding like the sun and too difficult to look at, to the mediated worship of God, His mercy around the throne and these elders, angelic representatives of the worship that God has instituted. And now before the throne, in verses five and six, we see two things. From the front to around, and now before, we first see these seven fiery torches that represent the seven spirits of God, which I suggest to you is the Holy Spirit. I'm actually confident it's the Holy Spirit as a representation of the Holy Spirit, because in chapter one, verse four, the letter opens with greetings,

grace and peace from him who is and was and is to come

, we're about to see that ascribed to the one on the throne, the Father,

and from the seven spirits who are before the throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness.

Now that's a Trinitarian formula, Father, Spirit, Son. Grace and peace consistently come from God himself and Father, Spirit, Son. We have the same pattern represented here, the same seven spirits. So these are not seven angels, it's not something like that. This is the Holy Spirit represented by seven lamps, seven torches before the throne of God. And then it brings the question, like why on earth would he represent the Spirit as seven torches. Seven is constantly the number of fullness and completion. This is the fullness of the Spirit of God. Seven days of creation start that pattern in the scripture, so it can remind us of that. In chapter five, we'll be told that the Spirit of God has been sent out into all the world. And so again, if we had read straight through, the churches that this letter is going to have been represented by lampstands. What is the light that these lampstands uphold for the world around them? It is the light that is powered by the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit comes to each church and unites us as His bride to our groom, the Savior. And that's true in Woolforth, in Charlottesville, and across the globe still today. These seven Spirits of God are the source of the illumination that we have for the world around us in our life together. And you might think of the imagery of a flame, the Spirit is consistently represented that way in certain contexts, but particularly at Pentecost. When the spirit was poured out and the sound of rushing wind came, we saw tongues of fire divided among all the congregation. We'll celebrate the Lord's Supper where the body of Christ is represented as a loaf of bread. And of course, when you take a loaf of bread and you break it, you now have two parts that are divided. But when you take a flame, And you take that flame and you then take from one flame and light other flames, the first flame remains unaffected while the other flames are added. And then those flames can be recombined and remain a flame and go out into all the world. I think one of the things that the imagery here reminds us of is that when God sent the Son into the world, he had to come in flesh as truly human in one place at one time, born of the Virgin Mary, into a point in history. And he wasn't here in America or North Korea, he was in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem and did his ministry in Judea and Samaria. But when God sent the Spirit into the world to accomplish and fulfill the work of the Messiah and bring his people into union with him, that Spirit goes into all the world like flames divided among all the churches and replicated from Christian to Christian to Christian. And now for 2,000 years, well, roughly just under, as that flame has been lit from one candle to the next, one church to the next, carrying the light of the gospel into all the world. And saints, you, as we center our lives on worship, we take this flame of the Spirit and we seek, by God's grace, to extend that flame beyond ourselves and to continue to see this light move out into all of creation. So that's the Spirit represented there before the throne, shining something of the light of the radiance of the glory of God. And then the second thing before the throne is this crystal sea, the sea of glass-like crystal. Some kind of crystal expanse is a recurring feature, another one of those recurring features of God's manifested glory. And we saw it in Exodus 24, it was, Alan read it for us, right? A clear sapphire pavement under his feet. Ezekiel 122 describes Ezekiel's vision of the likeness of an expanse shining like awe-inspiring crystals. And I think all of those expanses are meant to remind us of what happened in the second day of creation when the waters above were separated from the waters below and God put an expanse between them. And so this crystal smooth sea is now John, of all places, standing in the sphere of the heavens. In Allenred, they ascend the mountain, Moses and the priests and the elders, and they see up through the sapphire expanse. But John is in heaven, above the sea, with the throne. What accounts for that change? Well, beloved, it's the fulfillment of that blood sacrifice that Alan pointed us to. The blood sacrifice that the priests and those elders needed, the whole people needed to be consecrated to God, has been made once and for all and fully in Christ. And so John is not in the position of Moses. John has been given greater access because John has been covered by the blood of the Lamb. Beloved, as are we. And so we can have this hope that this glorious God is no longer separated from us, but a door stands open for us as for the Philadelphians. We can see and be welcomed into the presence of a holy, glorious God. So from the throne of the one seated on it, to around the throne of these rainbow emerald and the elders, to before the throne with the representation of the spirit and the sea, and then back to the throne. Around the throne are on each side these four living creatures, which, I mean, yeah, there's crazy movies that do ridiculous visual images, and I feel like these cherubim could come from one of those. Four different faces, four different animals, well, three animals and a man gathered around his throne with eyes all over them. They'll be described as without and within, that doesn't mean the eyes are inside their bodies, that's how I've read it for a long time, but they're around the throne and so the eyes are both outside, right, on the outside of that circle, looking out on the world, and they're on the inside of the circle, looking into the glory of God. They see everything, all that God has done and all that God is. Hebrews 8 tells us, these four living creatures, they get progressively built up over the course of Revelation. So Hebrews 8, 5 tells us, when Moses made the tabernacle, he made it according to the pattern God showed him as a copy and shadow of heavenly things. And so if you know the construction of the tabernacle, the very center of that tent was the most holy place where the Ark of the Covenant was covered by a solid gold lid called the Mercy Seat. That was where God was symbolically enthroned among his people. And on that Mercy Seat were two cherubim molded right onto that covering. And then when David made plans for the temple that Solomon eventually built and included those cherubim, the Ark was still there, and then two more massive cherubim behind the Ark overshadowing the whole thing. So now we have four. And then when Ezekiel sees the glory of God in Babylon on the Kabar Canal, I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. When Isaiah sees the vision of God in the temple, these six-winged beings are now flying, declaring God's holiness. And when we get to what John hears, they're still echoing the same song, holy, holy, holy. And when Ezekiel sees this vision, God's throne is being borne up by these four creatures because God's glory, in that case, has left Jerusalem's temple and is visiting Ezekiel in Babylon where he's been exiled. And that's where we hear these four faces for the first time. The ox, the lion, the eagle, and the man. And here Ezekiel saw four creatures, each had four faces. Now they are manifested to John as four creatures with four different faces. I think what that means, what that tells us is that The heavenly realms are being revealed to John in a way that he can see them, but the details change. They're consonant with each other, but they change a little each time. I think because God tailors the manifestation to show the truth that is needed during the time when the one seeing it is having his vision. Why are these four faces chosen? We are never told. There's amazing amounts of speculation. The most compelling one to me, I'll just give it to you, you know, we're all guessing, is that they roughly represent the phases of redemptive history. The ox representing the time of the priesthood, the lion representing the time of the royal kingship, the eagle representing the time of the prophets and the divided kingdom and the return and the restoration, and then the man summing everything up in Jesus Christ. You can meditate on that if you'd like. There's other ways, other people have come up with different things, the pinnacles of different parts of creation. All of creation represented there, I think that's very true as well. These throne guardian cherubs, who see everything without and within, gathered around the throne. Something like what I said was adopted by early Christians, because if you know anything about the history of Christian art, these four faces come to stand for the four gospels. And each gospel writer gets one of these animals. And there's something very true about that. The witness of God and the revelation of redemption culminates in Jesus Christ and the message of his coming, living, dying, and rising. So that is the heavenly Holy of Holies, the heavenly throne room. The Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and in the temple were copies and shadows. We have a throne like the Ark. We have lamps, like the menorah, the seven-branched lampstand. We have incense-burning priests. We have a great sea, like the labyrinth of cleansing, or the great sea Solomon built, all replicated by the furniture here, the furniture of the tabernacle, the temple replicates what John sees here. And everything is glorious and ordered and oriented to the throne of God. There's no divisions or veil. In the temple, in the tabernacle, everything's separated off into these various rooms. because we need blood sacrifices to get closer and closer to the holiness of God, but not in the heavens. These creatures are beholding the glory of God unmediated, as will we one day. So if your life seems chaotic, if you feel like history is spinning out of control, if you're worried for the fate of your kids, your grandkids, what's it gonna be like when they grow up into your adulthood. If you're sort of in college looking out at the rest of your life and things seem so different even from when your parents were graduating and the advice they give you seems a little bit disjointed because you're like, the world has changed, mom. The world has changed. I don't know what to do. I think you're not wrong. We are in a time of upheaval and transition. Being a Christian in this part of the world is changing in terms of its social status. But beloved, we're no different than those seven churches. In their chaos and in ours, we need to see the eternal, unchanging, glorious God sits on his throne. And we need to behold him and desire him and delight in him and be steadied by him. I think in that context, one of the particular notes is that the sea is clear like crystal glass. All through the Old Testament, the sea comes to represent sin and chaos and death because it's always foaming, it's always churning. That's where Egypt is represented as a great sea beast, the great enemy of God's people. And later in Revelation, the great enemy of God's people emerges a beast from the sea. On earth, the sea is a place of chaos and death. In heaven, it is undisturbed. Because God is thoroughly and completely on his throne. And he is never thrown off by the changes that wreak havoc on our emotional state, our anxieties and worries. Beloved, gaze on the glory of God and be steadied. The Spirit's light giving flame is still burning. The chaos of this world is still mirror calm in God's presence. And you see, it's crystal clear, if I'm right, that it's the firmament, because God can see perfectly everything happening in his world, and everything happening in the smallest details of yours. He knows. Everything is centered on his throne. And what is happening in that throne room? Throne rooms are places of decision and action, judgments, but the primary task of heaven is worship. So from the throne there to point two, the praise that we owe the creator. These throne guardian cherubs, these immensely kind of imaginary and fantastic beasts, what do they do in all their vision and sight and wingedness and glory? They praise God.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

And then what do the elders do in their white linen and golden crowns gathered around the throne as the heavenly priesthood? They respond with praise of their own.

Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created.

The essential center of life is worship. God's praise never ceases. Day and night, without ceasing, they go through this routine. Holy, holy, holy, worthy are you, our Lord and God. Holy, holy, holy, worthy are you, our Lord and God. Day and night, day and night, morning and evening, day after day, without ceasing. Now, I think it's possible that what John sees is all of them doing it all at once. But I think if I got the background right, that the 24, Elders are the model for the 24 priesthood divisions. But I think it's also possible to read Revelation, read what's going on here, as taking turns. I'm sure they had other responsibilities. They've got crowns, they've got linen robes, they're counselors in the divine throne room. They've got things to do, plans to execute. One author counted up, you know, like anything in Revelation, when you start counting things up, you're like, well, it works out if you kind of take these three things out. Okay, you know, you kind of squint a little bit, like everybody does that kind of thing. But we see 24 angels doing things for the rest of the book. Maybe they're the same angels. John never tells us that. They certainly resonate, right? The 24 elders, and then there's 24 angels, seven trumpets, seven bowls, four winds, a couple of messengers. It makes sense. They've got a lot of things to do. They're seated on their thrones. They're wearing their crowns, as John sees, so they would take turns. Without ceasing can mean that they take it in turn. They make sure together that the praise of God never ceases while they're also doing everything else they need to do. to accomplish the will of God. Which I think in some ways is more encouraging because it gives me hope that we can do it too. Because you and I have a lot of stuff to do to represent God and bear his image and do the work that he's given us to do in ministry. We've got kids to raise and a church to care for and saints to know and people to love and a job to do and a world to help bear the glory of God in. And yet in the midst of all that we must be committed to maintaining the regular rhythms of worship. All of that we do must be anchored, if we're going to do it with faithfulness and integrity for the rest of our lives, must be anchored in regular rhythms of worship. The one he's given us, Jesus has given us, is this one. Every week, week in and week out, we gather as the saints of God to sing his praises and hear from his word and pray to him in his name, in the name of his son, to celebrate the Lord's Supper. to do baptisms, to gather as the people of God and praise Him week in and week out without ceasing. Lord's Day worship, beloved, should be the closest thing to a non-negotiable commitment in your life. It should take something really hindering to keep you from gathering with the saints to hear from the word of God and behold the Lord in his glory. And shouldn't you imitate these regular rhythms of morning and evening prayer as well, day and night? I just commend that to you as a pattern for your life and mine. We start our days thinking about the Lord and praising him, and we end them reflecting on those days and thinking about the Lord and praising him. Our lives should very practically be centered around rhythms of regular praise that never end. And we're sinners, we're fallen, so they will. Your family worship efforts will fall apart. Your mourning habits will end. Something will come up in your life and you'll miss a day, a Sunday of gathering with the church, and then just that makes it easier the next Sunday. And if you do it two or three times in a row, now you've lost the habit and you're just never gonna stop repenting and restarting those rhythms. Never stop restarting your rhythms of worship. Maybe we can notice how scripted it is. I don't know what the tone of worship is in Charlottesville. In Woolforth and Lubbock, there's very much an emphasis on spontaneity. Anything doesn't happen sort of on the spur of the moment, it's maybe seen as less spiritual. But they say the same, these angels say the same things over and over and over and over and over and over. And call and response, call and response, responsive worship. forever. It doesn't make it inauthentic. I think they really mean it every time they say it. A ten millionth time, those four cherubim say, holy, holy, holy. They really mean holy, holy, holy. We're going to read the Apostle's Creed together, right? Scripted words that we're all going to say together because we worship God together. Because it's true that Christians have been saying for centuries and millennia And so we join in this endless cycle of sustained worship. They start with praise for God himself. Who is he? Holy, holy, holy. Utterly unlike anyone and anything in his purity, his goodness, his glory, and all of his attributes. There is none like him. Radiant in his glory and almighty. He's the Lord God Almighty, powerful and able and capable. Everything he wants to do, He has the power to do. Nothing he intends can be thwarted. And eternal, he was and is and is to come. They give praise to the one who lives forever and ever, maybe more literally from age to age, in that age, in this age, as the age, you know, whatever age is happening in our regions, in our communities, in our nation is changing. God is a God in this age and he's God in whatever age is next. Holy and eternal, all powerful. This is God. We encourage you when you think about going to God in prayer, when you establish those rhythms of morning and evening, and when you go to God with your requests, can I encourage you to learn from the Lord's prayer and learn from John's vision here? I press you to start with visions and thoughts of God and himself. Our Father, make your name holy, hallowed be your name. Before we start peppering him with all of our advice about how he ought to run the world, would you do this, would you do that? Which is right for us to do. But before we get there, Oh God, you are holy. Oh God, you are good. Start with thoughts and visions of him and proclaim those things out loud. That's what it means when they give glory, they give honor, and they give thanks. He's not lacking glory that we then have to supply him. He has all glory. No, when we give glory, it means we say it out loud. We glorify him. It's great when we have these great intense emotional experiences in our own souls when we see his glory and we're moved and sort of sometimes it's so amazing it's painful. But it's incomplete until we've spoken out loud in the presence of others. Look at this God. Come worship this God with me. Come let us join and worship him together to give glory and honor and thanks. He was, and is, and he is to come. Now that is not just an abstract statement of his eternality. That is true, he is eternal. He was, and is, and evermore will be. That's a statement of his being. But you'll notice that in Revelation here, John particularly declared that he was, and he is, and he is coming. And that last one is a statement of personal involvement. Not only does he see everything that's going on in his world, not only is he totally aware of everything going on in your life, but his intention is to come. To be present and involved. He comes in his son. And he comes in our lives by the work of his spirit, through his word. And one day he will come and we will behold his glory. And that is either a great promise of hope, or a great threat of your peril. 1 Thessalonians 1 that Keith read, when he comes, beloved, if you are not his, you will suffer a judgment away from the presence of the Lord and his glory. This glory will not be a source of joy and beauty for you, it will be a source of terror. Later in the book of Revelation, they will hide in the caves and call for the rocks to fall on them. They would rather be stoned to death than behold the glory of God. but it need not be. You are hearing the word of God today, which means you can turn to Christ in repentance and faith. You can go from his enemy, afraid of his glory, to his son or daughter. Look to Christ, the one who came, took on flesh, dwelt among us, and gave his life. By his shed blood, we are forgiven and saved and redeemed. As the rest of the church gathers and celebrates the Lord's Supper, I would invite you to consider your need for that savior, that broken body and shed blood for you. And if you will turn from your sins and put your hope in him, yes God, I want you, I want your son. I wanna see this glory and fall down and worship you. He will save and forgive. He will cleanse you and restore you and he will make you his. He will give you that gold and white garments that you so desperately need. For those of us who have been clothed not with our own righteousness but Christ's, That day is a great promise and hope. He is coming. He will arrive. In John 4, that day is still a day to come. And we look for that day as well. And so they say, "'Twas and is and is to come.' And the elders respond in worship, "'Worthy are you.'" They give their own thanks and glory and worship and power to God. Again, not because God needs power from us, but because He has all the power. That's what it means when they throw their crowns at His feet. It's like they have authority, but they know all their authority is derived from Him. He is the only one with power. Anything we do in our lives, anything good we accomplish, any degrees or credentials we get, any effectively good discipleship we do in each other's lives, the way we lay down our lives to serve others and see people come closer to Christ, all of it we lay at God's feet because it's all empowered by the one who has all power. And we say it out loud and we praise him. It's good for us to remember that all the great hopes we have for what God is going to do in and through us is power he has and must give. and we are totally relying on. So to give God thanks, as the four creatures do, is to give thanks for something that's done for you, a debt that's owed. And to give God power is to acknowledge that all the ability, all the power, everything he has done is something only he can do. Now, you might wonder, what do these four creatures, in all of their extravagant, crazy glory, have to give thanks to God for? What are they thanking him for?

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.

There's not gratitude expressed there, but John says they're giving thanks to God. And I think we understand, by the way, the elders respond. Well, worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. Thanks replaced with power because you created everything. And by your will, they existed and were created. Everything is because he made it. Those four fantastic creatures don't have life in themselves. They exist because God made them. Those 24 glorious elders exist because God made and sustains them. We gather today drawing breath because God made us. and everything we'll enjoy at the potluck and everything you'll enjoy this week is a gift of God, it's sustained by the word of his power through his son by his spirit, everything owes its existence to him. So I just wonder if you have given thanks lately for simply the fact that you are. There you are, existing. Because God made you. because God continues to sustain you. And you might be going through the very depths of the darkest valley. And I wonder if in the midst of that darkness, like you can get in the slot canyon deep enough, you can see the stars even in the middle of the day, the depths of that darkness, if maybe, in God's grace, you today can see, yes, but I'm here to experience this. I exist because you have made me, oh God. And you might not feel like that gives hope, you might immediately, your soul may respond with something like, well, how is this good? But beloved, the point is that if it is by his will that you exist, and he is the holy and good one who has made everything, what can he not turn to good in your life? What can he not use even the depths of these griefs and sorrows and despairs? You might not see it, but you don't need to because you're a creature just like me, but you can see him. And behold his glory and be sustained. So these hymns of glory and honor and power and thanksgiving to God, they're the first hymns in the book of Revelation. The first hymns that come to God in this apocalypse, in this Revelation. They're not the last. They will continue to develop and grow throughout these chapters. One way to begin kind of just wrapping this up and thinking about that is to maybe start with that temple imagery. It's clear that the temple is an image of this throne room and so you've got the The throne room, you've got the lampstand, you've got the incense offerings, you've got the great laver. We're missing the altar of sacrifice because there's no blood sacrifices in heaven. You don't need to atone for sins in the heavens, that's our problem. But the one article of furniture that's not there is the table of showbread. I don't know if you know your temple architecture very well, but there was a table across from the lampstand that held the loaves of bread and wine, flagons of wine, and that represented God's people in his presence. They were always welcome, always hospitality. God's house for his people is always open, but it's not there. There's no people in this vision. Or we might ask the same kind of question, what's missing? Well, we've got the Father on his throne, and we've got the seven spirits before the throne. Where is the Son? How can a vision of the throne room of heaven be complete without the second person, and the third one in this order, second person of the Trinity? With the Father and the Spirit, where's the Son? in the vision in chapter five. John will see the lamb, the word of God made flesh, who is Israel in its fullness. Walk right in amongst those four creatures. Where you and I would be like, I'm not getting close to those guys. Those throne guardians look like they could do some real damage, the lamb's gonna walk right up into the middle. And the bread and wine are there in him. We're gonna take the cup and take the bread because it's his body and blood that welcomes us into his presence. The lamb will ascend to the throne in chapter five. Jesus' blood ransomed people for God from every nation and tribe and language. And the rest of the story of revelation, the rest of this revelation is how Jesus, the lamb, the firstfruits bring the rest of his people into his glory and glorifies us as his bride. So John saw the one on the throne like Jasper. And at the end of Revelation, he'll see the coming of the new creation, the descent of the new Jerusalem, which is all the people of God represented as the city. Coming down out of heaven, this is 21 verse 10,

coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

We, as the bride, have been glorified like God. Its radiance is the city

like a most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal.

The glory John sees now is destined to be given to us so that we can be glorified like him, so that when Christ comes and when the fullness happens, we as his bride share in it and delight in it and reflect his glory to all the world for all eternity. And his throne won't stay above that firmament, above that glassy sea, but that throne descends with the new Jerusalem. In 22 verse three, the throne of God and the lamb will be in the new Jerusalem with us and his servants, that's us, will worship him. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Shouldn't your life be centered on unending worship on earth as it is in heaven? Let's pray. Father, who are we? Who are we? Flesh and bone and frail and fallen to even be reminded of this vision of your glory, to be like John, not just reminded, but then like him, having this confidence that we will be welcomed into the presence of your glory. Who are we? Unworthy, and yet made worthy in Christ. Worthy are you, our Lord and God. And we ask for your mercy to continue to open our eyes so that our lives will be filled with worship. A sight of your glory that stabilizes us and strengthens us and encourages us to live all of our days. Reflecting that glory that others might see and join, disciples made in Christ's name proclaimed. All glory to him, we pray in his name, amen.