The throne of God- Revelation 4

Revelation 4:1-11

                                                     Isaiah 6:1-3

The throne of God

The message of Revelation chapter 4 is really quite simple, and yet like most simple truths of the bible, it is profoundly hard to embrace.

The simple message of Revelation chapter four, is this:

God is at the centre of the universe and we are not!

God is at the centre of the universe and we are not!

We may believe this is true, but sadly many of us fail to live this reality.

Often God is on the outer of our lives, an after-thought, or a go to when we are desperate! Never in his rightful place in the middle.

In this vision which the disciple John saw of heaven, God, the uncreated one, the Holy one, the one who cannot be defined by anything else, was seated on his throne, and all other things which were not God, things which were created by Him and for Him, where in awe and praise and worshiped God who sat at the centre on his throne.

All these things which God brought into existence, all bowed and worshipped God, the creator and sustainer of all things.

It is like John saw God seated on his throne and then there were concentric circles of all created things around his throne, all bowing and worshipping Him: there were 24 elders who cast down their crowns in worship to Him, and then there were four living creatures who day and night constantly praised God, saying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.

Friends, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we live our lives with God at the centre, the reality is, God is the centre of the universe because He is, and as creator and sustainer of all things, this is what he made his creation for, to worship Him.

God is like no other- He truly is Holy.

And, God created his creation to worship him, not just us humans, but all creation:

Listen to this from Psalm 98:7-8:

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;    the world and those who dwell in it!Let the rivers clap their hands;    let the hills sing for joy together

Psalm 19:1-4 says this:

The heavens declare the glory of God,    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours out speech,    and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words,    whose voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out through all the earth,    and their words to the end of the world.

Friends, this means that when we look up at night and see the vast amount of stars in our sky, we are seeing these stars declaring the Glory of God. Their very existence, claims the glory of God, He is the one who created these stars….and think about this……there are so many stars in our universe that we cannot count them….this is God showing us his Glory right?

God didn’t need to make that many stars, so many we can’t count them, but he did, to show us his Glory, his abundance, his creativity, to show that nothing is too excessive for Him.

Friends, all creation was created to worship God, and we humans, as the pinnacle of his creation, we were created to worship God. This is where we find our purpose, this is where we find our Joy, our fulfillment.

Friends, if you want to live life to the full, you need to get on the universal program, you need to get on the “worshipping God train”, because this is what God created us to do, worship Him.

Our greatest need is met when we worship God.

And when I say worship, I’m not just talking about singing and praise, although that is part of it, but I am talking about the kind of worship that the apostle Paul talked about in Romans 12, a worship where our whole lives are living sacrifices to Him.

To worship God, means we glorify God in all that we do! We direct all our praise, all our adoration, all our being towards God. We even glorify God in the very mundane things we do, like eating and drinking (1 Corinthians 10:31).

What is our purpose in life?

To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

And so in one sense, worshipping God is completely selfish, because your deepest Joy is found when we worship God, but at the same time, your deepest Joy is found when you know your place in the universe, your place in the universe is with all other creation, around the throne of God giving Him all praise, and glory and honour.

Our deepest Joy is knowing, praise God, that we are not God.

I think, some people are so miserable today because they try and put other things at the centre of the universe. And these things whatever they are, money, career, family, government, sex: simply can’t maintain being centre of the universe because all these other things have been created by God. All these things are not worthy of our worship and praise.

Only God can be centre of the universe, because He is. That is the reality and the sooner we get on board with that, the fuller our lives will be.

God created us to worship Him, and if we don’t worship God, then we will inevitably worship something else.

We try and fill that “worship hole”, with all other sorts of things apart from God- celebrities, politicians, pastors, wife, husband, children, and so on…..

Now, before I look at the implications of that truth, - God is the centre of the universe and we are not, let us look a bit closer at this vision of the throne of God.

Look at verses 2-3

At once I (that is John) was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.³ And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.

John saw a throne and seated on the throne was God.

Notice, that John never gave a physical description of God on his throne, he never gave us information of what his face looked like, how tall he was and so on, NO, he only gave us a vague description of some sort of appearance. This fits in with the rest of scripture, which describes God as Spirit, it also fits in with the 10 commandments, where God commanded his people not to make an image of him.

Interestingly, the reason why God didn’t want people to make an image of Him, is because he knew they would start to worship the image instead of God himself.

Just like they started to worship the bronze snake that Moses made in the desert, just like they worshipped the golden calf that Aaron accidently made, just like people today worship popes, or crosses, or all sorts of other images rather than God Himself.

Or other things which are supposed to represent God. We worship man, who was made in the image of God.

You see friends, God created us to worship and unfortunately we have a bent towards worshipping anything else apart from God.

This is the essence of sin!

We constantly miss the mark!

If we think of God as the perfect number 7, we should worship him, but often we don’t, we worship things that are not quite perfect, we fall short of God’s glory and worship the created things, which are like a 6.

In fact most times we probably oscillate between 6, 7.

John here describes God as having the appearance of precious stones, jasper and carnelian, and also a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Now, no-one really knows what these things represent, but I think it just means God’s throne was precious, it was like no other throne, it was indescribable in many ways……I mean how can a rainbow have an appearance of emerald? John was describing something not of this world and that can be hard to describe, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah also found it hard to describe things of heaven.

John goes on to describe 24 elders who were seated on 24 thrones around the throne of God. They had white garments, which represented their purity in Christ, and they wore crowns which they cast off before God as they bowed and worshipped Him and cried,

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God

To receive glory and honour and power

For you created all things

And by your will they existed and were created”

Now, who were these 24 elders, who were in constant worship towards God?

They were representatives of all of God’s people.

They were representatives of all of God’s people.

There were 12 tribes of Isreal, who represent God’s people under the Old Covenant, and there were 12 apostles, who represent God’s people under the new and better covenant of the blood of Jesus.

And so these 24 elders were representatives of all of God’s people.

These 24 elders being representatives of God’s people, is consistent with the other creatures that were worshipping God, because these 4 creatures were also representatives of all other parts of God’s creation.

Look at verses 6-8 with me:

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: ⁷ the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. ⁸ And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,    who was and is and is to come!”

These four living creatures are similar to the creatures that the prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision, which you can find in Ezekiel chapter 1. Ezekiel in his vision of heaven, saw one creature which had four faces, faces of a lion, ox, man and eagle, but here this is not one creature with four faces, but four different creatures, each with their own face.

The lion creature represents the wild animals of the world, since the lion is often called the king of the jungle, the ox represents the domestic animals, it was the ox that was the most valuable farm animal, the man obviously represents the humans, and the eagle represents the birds of the air.

And so these four creatures, the lion, the ox, the man and the eagle, were representatives of all of God’s animal creation.

But most importantly, all 24 elders – that’s representatives of God’s people, and all creatures- representing their animal kingdom, were worshipping God together.

Friends, when Jesus returns, the veil will be pulled back and all the earth will see this reality, all will see, all of creation worshipping God.

And when that happens, many jobs will become redundant.

There will be no need for pastors, our faith will be sight

There will be no need for doctors or nurses- there will be no more sickness

There will be no need for funeral directors- there will be no more death

There will be no need for missionaries- people will all know God.

Which begs the question, what is our purpose of mission now?

What is our purpose of mission?

Until Jesus returns or he calls us home, and all creation worship Him, what do we do now?

In our vision booklet, we have expressed the desire to see our congregations doubled by this time next year. And so we are going to pray for a non-believer that God would open their eyes and they would become a part of our local congregation.

But, but, what is our end goal?

Our end goal is that the person that we are praying for, would also join in the worship of God, because this is where all of life finds purpose.

The actual word “worship” comes from the old English word “Worth- ship”, which basically means, we honour and glorify something that is of great worth.

Friends, there is nothing of greater worth than God Himself.

And so, our end goal is not just to be part of a family of believers……..because they could be part of our family………but not worship God in their hearts

Our end goal is not that people become decent human beings, because you can be a decent human being but not have life, because you are not worshipping God.

Our end goal is not to provide food, clothing and shelter for people, - all these things great, but they could have all of that and not have life, because they are not part of the worship of God.

Friends, as our motto says, we want people to enjoy Jesus together, that means worship Jesus together, and all other goals are a distant second.

You know, I cannot fathom eternity, I know God has placed it in my heart, but it is hard for me, a finite human being in this life, with an average life span of 80 years by God’s mercy, to grasp eternity.

And so to grasp eternity of worshipping God, seems boring, I have the attention span of a fly, how could I be worshipping God for eternity I don’t know, but I believe I won’t be bored, I will be eternally grateful, eternally joyful, eternally knowing God more.

I think my problem and this could be yours too, is that I have become so settled on things of this earth, I have become so familiar with the consequences of sin, that I just can’t imagine what this endless peace will look like, but I know it will be all satisfying.

Let us pray