Gooding, David: 3 - Features of the Throne

Book of the Revelation and chapter four, beginning at verse nine. And when the living creatures shall give glory and honor and thanks to him that sitteth on the throne, to him that liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders shall fall down before him that sitteth on the throne, and shall worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were and were created. And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the back, close sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a great voice, who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof. No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look thereon. And I wept much because no one was found worthy to open the book or even to look thereon. One of the elders says unto me, Weep not, behold the lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath overcome to open the book and the seven seals thereof. And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came, and he taketh it out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne. When he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the man, having each one a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sing a new song saying, worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests, and they reign upon the earth. And I saw and I heard a voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying with a great voice, worthy is the Lamb that has been slain to receive the power and the riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing, and every created thing which is in the heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying, unto him that sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the dominion forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, Amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. God inspired our spirits to join their part in that heavenly choir. Last week, as we pursued our study of the topic of the adoration of God, we were observing that the worship of various people and groups that is recorded and described in Holy Scripture is found upon inspection to be the response not to some general vision of God's goodness, but rather a response to some particular feature of the manifold glory and wonder of God. And incidentally, we drew a practical lesson for ourselves from that simple observation that our worship too, whether private or public, will always be the stronger and the richer for being not just some general statement that God is good or glorious or wonderful. It will be the stronger for concentrating on some of specific details of the goodness and the glory and the wonder of God. And so it was we followed John in the vision of the throne of God that was given him, and which he describes in the Revelation chapter four, to discover, if we could, what it was that was causing the tremendous outburst and response of worship to God on the part of the living creatures and the four and twenty elders. And we found the thing that was moving that company of persons to be the glory of God as the moral governor of the universe. It was as they saw in succession the wonder of the character of God as the governor of this universe. It was as they were surprised by the magnificent liberality of God, the great-hearted magnanimity of God as the sovereign governor of the universe, that automatically they bowed themselves in a response of adoration. To help us enter into their worship, John is given to describe to us the throne that he saw, that we might make our deductions therefrom about the nature of its government and about the nature of him who sits on the throne. And we saw in the first place that that throne is surrounded by two circles, the one going vertically round, a rainbow round about the throne, full circle, and then horizontally going round the throne, twenty four other thrones occupied with elders with golden crowns and linen vestments. We perceive, therefore, that whatever proceeds out of that throne must pass through those concentric circles, and in that way God has himself boarded and limited the exercise of the power of that throne. Anything that proceeds out of that throne must pass by the rainbow of emerald green. Token that God himself has limited forever the extent of his judgment. Promise given to Noah that God will never destroy the world again by flood. His judgments are limited. We thought together of all those other limits which God, in his magnificent grace, has put upon the exercise of his wrath. And then we saw that God has not only limited the exercise of his wrath, but those twenty four other thrones proclaim that God has invited his creatures to join him in the government. Not that they might be a public front, as a collection of yes men to rubber stamp anything that God might say. This is a sincere and genuine invitation of Almighty God, that creatures come and join him in the running of his universe. Whatever we think as to who those twenty four elders are, it is the fact that it goes through the whole orders of creation that God has invited his creatures to take their part with their delegated power. And even more gloriously does it shine in the triumphs of God's redemption, that all his redeemed people will one day be invited to share the throne of the universe with Christ. This is no tyrant God, keeping us in obedience by a form of almighty slavery. This is a God who delights that his creatures come and join him in the government. Certain other features must detain us for a moment about that throne, and I trust evoke further our worship, before we turn to consider from chapter five not only the worthiness of God who sits upon the throne, but the worthiness of the Lamb who one day shall bring all things back into harmonious subjection to him that sits upon that same throne. John saw that there was not only two circles around that throne, there were two sets of things before that throne. There were seven lamps of fire, said he, burning before the throne, and before the throne there was a sea of crystals. Before the throne. What shall that geometric position tell us about the throne itself? Why, had you gone to visit Solomon in his heyday and seen, and had seen him sitting upon his throne and had tried to approach him, you would have found that Solomon had stationed before his throne and on the steps leading up to it, ten or possibly twelve or even fourteen lions. What do you suppose they would have been there for? Why, even had you been the Queen of Sheba, and I think for the look of you, some of you could, even if you had been the Queen of Sheba herself coming with all her glory to Solomon, yet as you approached him, those lions with their majestic visage and their glorious mane would have reminded you of the power and dignity of the sovereign who sat upon that throne. So that now, if we see seven lamps of fire burning before the throne and a sea, as it were, of crystal before the throne. It is the throne telling us of its power. What kind of power? Why, if the Russians wanted to impress you with their power, they would invite you to their May Day celebrations. Watch their latest atomic engineering go by. The throne we now approach is not without its physical power. From it there proceed voices and lightnings and thunders. This is the God who made the atom. If this God will impress you with the character of his power, then first let it be this, seven torches burning with their resplendent Splendid light light. for For this is not the power of darkness, but a throne that depends for getting its power upon light. The moment we think of that contrast, we think of our own personal experience, of course. Rejoice in him who has translated us from the kingdom of darkness. It has often been in the course of history that men have sought to rule their fellow men by keeping them in the dark. Religion has had its day in adding to the tyrannies of the world, and centuries there were when, in the name of religion, and indeed of Christ and of God, clerics sought to keep Holy Scripture from the people, lest the people find out what Holy Scripture says. The power of darkness. There are governments in this world who, in order to buttress their power over their fellow men, have taken to the curious activity of rewriting history. Unless children in their schools find out the facts of what actually happened, and see through the pretense and the lies and the false ideologies of those who rule them. Now, as we come to this throne, we meet a throne whose power is of this kind. It wants you to know the facts. It wants you to know the truth. It isn't afraid of your discovering. There is not one lamp, there are seven. These are the spirits of God sent out into all the earth. We should not do well immediately to suppose that this refers to the ministry of the Holy Spirit solely in redemption. This is the throne of the universe. The Holy Spirit has had it as his delightful realm of operations at all the levels of creation, to be the spirit of illumination. Why, when Moses wanted a goldsmith and a jeweler to fashion gold objects and to, uh, engrave jewels, and looked around for someone that was exceedingly capable and knew the secret of diamonds and jewels and knew how to work them and could work gold and make something wonderful out of it. He chose a man called Bezalel because in Bezalel there was the very spirit of God. God giving to a man some of the creator's insight into things. He understands a diamond and can make something of it. Oh, what a magnificent God we have, who rules us not by keeping us in the dark, but has given to men eyes to see with so that they may penetrate the very secrets of nature and watch the little particles are spinning round their nucleus of an atom. And begin to penetrate the cell. God needn't to have done it. He could have kept you running about with no more inside your head than a pig brings to the gulping down of its dinner. But he wants you to know. He's not afraid that you get to understand how it all runs. In all the scientific investigation that goes on into how this universe ticks, I never saw any notice anywhere that says beyond this point trespassers will be prosecuted, don't you come any further. And what a time we're going to have in heaven, aren't we? Following God down those eternal magnificences of his creative powers. It's the fact that man will take the very insights, the illumination that God has given him as to how nature works, and use it in their foolish pride as a basis for denying there is a God there at all. And of all the provocations that daily come upon the Almighty, surely this is one of the greatest of them. When God has invented such a magnificent universe and then given men the powers to understand how it works, they should take their understanding and use it in their folly to deny his existence and throw off his government. What I say of those greater lights that we see not in creation, but in redemption. The God who has governed us by bringing us out of the kingdom of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son, who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Scientists tell us that it is the physical life that light is the physical light that gives us to see color. It is light that makes this world not just monotone, but glorious in its variety of color. God is like that. God is light. And if that be his power to shine. Yes, but you say I'm a sinner, and when God shines upon me, his very light hurts my eyes. I prefer to be in the cocoon of my self-deception. To live in the dark of pretense. And to be summoned to stand clear forth before my almighty creator, this almost blinds me and hurts my eyes. And I can tell you how when God became incarnate and said, I am the light of the world, and his shining frightened men, and they took up stones to stone him. Then in his mercy, for a while he withdrew. Until the time came when men lifted him up upon a cross. That in the darkness of that cross, sinful eyes might look upon God and not be frightened. Find a God of such sort that while his light exposes our sin, yet himself would die for us, sinners. This is reality, man. Come face reality. Come into the light. You didn't make yourself. You are fooling yourself with deception. If you live as though you made yourself, you didn't make yourself, and you know it. Come out into the night. And face the facts. And be reconciled with God. See, there is before his throne not only seven lamps of fire. There is also a sea of crystal. What's that tell us about God's power? What you think in that regard will depend, I suppose, upon how you interpret the symbol. You could, I suppose, regard it as referring to the sea, the real sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Pacific, any sea. And you could further point out the fact that the sea now is as of crystal, pure, calm. And then we should have to say, shouldn't we, that John has taken it under inspiration, or rather God has provided it. That in order that we should contemplate his power, we should judge that power by the effect it can produce. He calms the raging of the sea. The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose churning waters cast up mire and filth. You measure the power of the throne by its ability to bring calm and peace. Ah, but notice, if you talk to us, it's not just a calm sea. It's a sea, as it were, of crystal, in which there is no mire or filth. How shall God get rid of the mire and filth? For if it's the wind that rouseth the Atlantic, it's the mire and filth in human hearts that rouse the politicians. How shall God get rid of it? So that at length there come true peace. I think we must, uh, take our symbol a little deeper. In Solomon's temple, in its court, there was a laver. There that the priests might be purified as they waited in attendance upon God. That laver was so large that they called it a sea. And since in other descriptions of heaven in the book of the Revelation, the Holy Spirit uses the furniture of temple and tabernacle to illustrate these great eternal realities, I myself suspect that here too, in this figure of the sea, the Holy Spirit is conjuring up in our mind a vision of the great labor in Solomon's temple. For now, it is not now simply the sea of physical creation. It is the sea as emblems of God's great spiritual recreation. It is the washing of water. It is the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. To which Pete Paul makes reference when he says in Titus that we too ourselves were sometimes foolish and disobedient, deceived and being deceived. When God's mercy appeared, not by works done in righteousness which we did ourselves, but by his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing performed by the Holy Spirit. The power of God to renovate, to recreate, to regenerate, and thus to purify. Happy those that have already experienced the power of God thus personally in their lives. A peace that is brought about not by ignoring the mire and the filth that keeps the troubled sea troubled. A peace that comes by the knowing of the power of God in life as the regenerating Holy Spirit bringing us new life. Happy, I say, those that already know it. One day the whole world shall know it. For Jesus Christ our Lord, using that very same term, said to his apostles, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory. And with that very temporal clause gave us tremendous ground for hope. There's coming the great day of regeneration. In the very center of that throne, said John, I saw living creatures. The throne itself was, so to speak, resting on living creatures. They were full of eyes without and within. Life with insight and external understanding. Life in its multi-varied form. There was the head of a man, the head of an eagle, the head of a calf, the head of a lion. Life teeming. Let that add its detail to our understanding of the nature of this government. How does this government govern? It governs at all level by imparting life. I don't know how, if you have ever contemplated the question how it is that God persuades an apple tree to grow apples at the due time every year. Not by sending a government white paper down from a loft saying, apple tree, thou shalt in the next two or three weeks produce some apples, get going, please. No, God gets apple trees to produce apples by giving them apple tree life. No apple tree that I ever heard of resented having apple tree life. Said, look here, this is a devil difficult, disastrous situation to be in, to be obliged to produce apples every year. Why don't we break free from this kind of a tyrant? Of course not. Well, I don't know about the apples in my backyard, they're a bit different, but a bit rebellious, I should say. But normal apple trees obey the rule because they have the knife. It is a perverse world that objects to God having any laws. Every life must have its laws. And yet we live in a world where, within the confines of our planet, the highest level of life that God has made, human life, is often to be found resentful of the laws of that father. How, you say? They must have an utterly perverted notion of what life is then. If they think that the laws of the creator who created their life stand somehow against their enjoyment of that life. That is the fact. Happy those... who, being fallen, have nevertheless been redeemed, have entered the light of God, have been born again by the washing of water through the Word, have had implanted within them not merely physical life, but eternal life, the very life of God. And they've begun to love, love to live according to God's law. How to bring the whole world back to that situation? That must be the topic of our continuing study next week. But meanwhile, let us notice this. That as the living creatures in the midst of that throne give honor to him that sits upon the throne. This is not the response of slaves rattling their sh- their chains in the prison cell. This is life! Going out in sheer delight to the author of life. This is life contingent, contingent life, created life that is aware that it had a beginning, that is aware that it isn't self-sufficient, but has caught the wonder of living from the living creator, and they fall down and they worship him that lives! Forever and forever. Oh, you who have felt in your young veins the thrill of being physically alive. Those of you for whom the future is already opening up, and you see it with all the potential of life. You didn't make yourself all that God would give you. To see the very source of your life, him that liveth forever and ever, that your experience of temporary life might lead you on to the reception of eternal life. When the four and twenty elders hear those living creatures giving praise to him that lives, they take their crowns and they fall down before him that sits upon the throne. Not yes men, but creatures that have seen that their very government, the exalted position that they hold in creation, has not been extorted from the Almighty by a series of human strikes and sit-ins. The fact that they are alive, the fact that they enjoy government with God was God's own Own idea. idea. And if it's his idea, they say, to place us in such exalted enjoyment, if it was his unsolicited idea to put us in the very government, and we fall down and we cast our crown before his feet. Who raised the wondrous thought? Or who did it suggest that blood-bought souls to glory bought should with the sun be blessed? Father, the thought was thine.