All Saints Church, Worcester

Morning Worship - Revelation 4 (and Luke 8: 22-25)

Worshipping God

It happens some times. You start to prepare the following week’s sermon. Check out the readings. Get the sense of what they say. Pray. Look up when and where you’ve covered the texts before. Then, the Sunday before you’re due to preach, you’re sitting in the pew listening to Paul speaking and you know: that was the sermon you were going to preach. All change, please! But, when the passages of Scripture for two successive weeks seem to have a similar core message … Well, maybe, God has something to say to us that needs to be reinforced. Isaiah 6, last week: worship. Revelation 4, this week: worship.

Last week, Paul spoke about how Isaiah saw God in his sovereignty and majesty, his holiness. This way, we see God’s character and our own need of forgiveness and we respond by bringing the needs of the sinful world before God -- our part in standing within God’s range of vision for the world: call it mission.

The message of Revelation 4 is that God is worshipped. Worship is what we do to express our entire response to God. In the reading, John is transported to the very courts of heaven and we have the account described in terms of a vision given by God. So, we are taken with John to the place of continual worship. The vision was probably given to John at a time when there was a storm of persecution brewing against the early church towards the end of the reign of the Roman emperor, Domitian. Compulsory emperor-worship was about to be instituted and failure to worship him could mean death. So, perhaps, one reason that God gave this vision of a foretaste of heavenly worship was to strengthen Christian believers who would be tempted to fall away in the persecution about to begin.

A few general words about Revelation. It is a work of profound theology. However, it is easily misinterpreted. We are detached by 2000 years from its context and the style of its literary form - apocalyptic writing. Chief amongst all misinterpretations is that of straining out the gnat to identify encoded forecasts of specific future events, often political events. All future political events are already construed within Revelation’s theology because they occur within the march of the times between Christ’s ascension and his second coming. But hold fast to this: Revelation is a God-centred vision of the coming of his universal kingdom, BUT it is offered in the context of a world dominated by Roman power in the late first century.

Let’s get into the text. Revelation 4 steps from the vision of the glorified Christ walking among the churches in chapters 2 and 3. That’s a series of challenges and commentaries in the form of the seven letters to the churches. Chapter 4 is the vision of God himself in heaven.

Verse 1

John was not writing about things that will happen, rather about things that ‘must’ happen. The difference is that ‘must’ means that God’s will will be done, that God is in supreme control. Therefore, nothing is a matter of chance. The events, described in the following chapters, both their terrors and blessings will happen.

Verse 2

That John was ‘in the Spirit’. That’s a state of spiritual connected-ness, closeness, intimacy with God. However, it was not his permanent state. John, like us, was human; bluntly, he had other things to do, not least arising out of his exile to Patmos, possibly to work in the mines. Being ‘in the Spirit’ confuses some folk. It does not mean yielding reason. John was entirely in his mind. Had he not been, how would God have been able fully to command John’s attention and John fully to respond? Worship, being in the Spirit, fully engages the mind. Sisters and brothers, when we worship, we do not empty our minds, we fill them – with God.

Verse 3

Visions are the exception to how God reveals himself. God is not usually made known that way. How normally does a person experience God? Answer: It’s a combination of how God has revealed himself in scripture and through the lives of those who already know him, through his church. The key to this is that Jesus commissioned his church for service at Pentecost and continues his ministry and mission on earth through the Holy Spirit now that he is enthroned in heaven.

Verse 4

Don’t get over detained with the detail. As with all apocalyptic writings in the bible (e.g., Daniel, Revelation) it’s important to find the message behind the vision. So, the twenty-four elders: perhaps a superior order of angels, perhaps representing the 12 patriarchs of the OT and perhaps the 12 apostles of the New Testament. The colour white symbolically points to triumph. But the crowns do not indicate royalty. The Greek word for crown, stephanos, symbolises wealth of victory or festivity. There is but one royal King in heaven.

Verse 5

All the thunder, lightning, and voices originate from the throne of God itself. Thunder, as the voice of God, is a recorded biblical experience. The seven lamps blazing continuously are a picture of the Holy Spirit, forever given to those who have been born anew in Christ, forever guaranteeing immediate and direct access to the one enthroned in heaven, forever sealing his people with unquenchable love. Worship is our response to God’s unquenchable love.

Verse 6

Again: we’re into territory with the danger of over interpretation or misconstruction. There is great dispute as to what is the meaning/significance of the sea. A Sea of humanity in perfect harmony with God? A reservoir of evil out of which arises the monster? The barrier that the redeemed must pass? Note that in the new heaven (Rev 21.1) there is no more sea. The four living creatures (beasts in the Authorised Version) have the place of honour. Their proximity indicates they may be the most important of created beings. Their eyes suggest universal watchfulness. They constantly praise God (4.8, 5.8, 7.11, 19.4), and they are associated with the outpouring of God’s wrath (6.1-7, 15.7). Possibly John is referring to the ancient theory of cosmology of an ocean in heaven above the firmament. Others see a reference to the laver in Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 7.23). Remember, John is speaking in symbols. This looked like a sea of glass, not that it was. In any case, for Jews the sea held dark overtones. It was a place of maelstrom, danger, wickedness. Jews were not sea-faring folk.

Verse 7

The four living creatures represent the mightiest: of wild animals (the lion), of domestic animals (the ox), then humankind, and of birds (the eagle). They represent strength, nobility, wisdom and speed. This way, created Nature is represented before the throne, a fulfilment of the divine will to worship the divine Majesty.

Verse 8

The four living creatures, each with six wings, like the seraphim of Isaiah 6, are all seeing, continually praising God. In a world where evil seems to be rampant, holiness comes first. Our day is no different from John’s day. God’s holiness, his unique separation from all impurity, affirms the goodness of God. Vital for John’s day, as in ours, real power resides not with evil but with our God who is good. God’s power and eternal being ensure that his holiness will triumph over evil.

Verse 9,10

... tell of unceasing worship in heaven by this representative community of created beings. They prostrate themselves; they give place to God. As exalted as they appear, they take the lowliest place. In casting their crowns before God, they yield that God alone reigns. All must yield to God: ‘You shall have no gods before me.’

Verse 11

... is another song of worship (there is more than just one worship song in heaven!) Worship means to ascribe 'worthship', it states that God has not abandoned his world, that evil is not in control, that the divine purpose stands.

I get to the end and see that I’ve said nothing about our worship, how to worship. It’s as if reading a book about worship, attending a course, observing others are the same as doing the real thing. It doesn’t work that way. That’s where I stop, save leaving the question: "How do we worship?" And that’s the little task I’ve set before the Cell Groups: to get real and practical with fulfilling why God placed us on earth – to worship him.