Worship in Heaven, living on earth (Revelation 4)

 

This is the first in a series of messages looking at the book of Revelation at HopeWhangarei. it is message  preached as part of a series  using a preaching team, where three preachers give messages over a three week period at our three worship sites. So on my blog will only be  my portion of this series. however if you want to follow our whole series you can do via our website  https://hopewhangarei.nz/sermons/ 

there is a recording of this message on the website as well https://anchor.fm/hope-whangarei/episodes/6-2-22-Howard-Carter---Worship-in-Heaven--living-on-earth-e1dvuhf/a-a7bsd31

Today we start the second part of our journey through the book of Revelation, leading into Christmas we worked our way through the seven letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor, chapters 1 to 3. Which constituted the first vision that John had. It was important for us to focus on them because one of the things it does is ground this most difficult of New Testament writings to a definite time and place. Revelation is a letter, like most of the other new testament books, written to those seven churches in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, as they face difficult times and increased opposition and persecution from outside the faith. John calls it a prophecy and while we may think of  as being about foretelling what is to come, at the heart of the biblical understanding of prophecy is that it is God’s specific word for a specific time and place. We need to understand what it meant and said to its original audience so we can interpret it and apply to our own. What makes it more difficult is that John calls it a revelation or an apocalypse which is a literary style or genre, where the message is presented through vivid visions, with symbols and images, weird and wonderful beasts, numbers with meaning, where history is painted out on a cosmic stage and scale, not as a linear chain of events. A genre that is foreign to us, but to its first century readers may have been more common and understandable.  This book has been a playground for idle speculation, fear mongering and end of day’s countdowning… but also a great source of encouragement and comfort to the church down through the ages as they and we have faced difficult times similar to the ones faced by its first readers.

Today we look at chapter 4, which Gordon Fee says is possibly the greatest chapter in scripture to preach on, as it gives us this amazing picture of the heavenly worship, Fee says it is only bettered by chapter 5 where we meet the Lamb of God, and Lorne has the honour of preaching on that one.

It’s the start of a new vision for John. In apocalyptic writing words like I then saw, then it was shown to me are ways of moving from one thing to another. A bit like scene changes in movies. John starts here in verse 1 by saying after this refereeing us back to his previous vision. A vision that starts in chapter one of the risen Jesus standing amidst the lampstands that represent the seven churches. AS Jesus speaks to each of the churches, we have a sense of his presence and his being with them, the focus is on the immanence of God, Immanuel God with us. Jesus sees and knows their deeds, he is able to reward them for their perseverance, even Laodicea where it seems Jesus has been forgotten, he stands at the door of the city and knocks, wanting to come in and dine with his people. In the midst of all that the church is facing from within and outside, encouragement comes from the fact that the risen Jesus is with them, close and moving amongst them. It is the same for us as we deal with the issues from within and without the church, false teaching, unlove, persecution, finding ourselves being lulled to sleep, that Jesus is with us by the Holy Spirit, he sees he cares he knows, he speaks and he longs for us to repent and to persevere, and will reward us.

Then John speaks of what he now sees. There is a door before him which leads to heaven, and he is called up into the heavenly throne room. We may think that heaven is a long way away, out there off beyond the physical galaxy, but here we see that it is right close by. In Isaiah 6 the prophet Isaiah is in the temple and suddenly like the curtains being opened at a theatre he finds himself in the very throne room of God. For Jews of his day that would seem natural as the temple was the place that God dwelt with his people. Ezekiel an exile on the banks of the river kebar suddenly finds the heavens opened and he sees a vision of God’s throne moving from Jerusalem to be with the exiles in Babylon. Our celtic forbears used to talk of thin places, usually associated with worship, where the veil between the physical and the heavenly is thin. The cross is that thinnest of places. Here we see that heaven is close by, and what is even more encouraging is that such a thin place was even the island of Patmos where John was imprisoned, even the time of Isaiah as Jerusalem faced  siege and military threat, even with the exiles in Babylon, even with us here and now, in our joys and sorrows. Heaven is near. We do not serve a distant disinterested deity.

John is invited by Christ, the one with the voice like a trumpet in his initial vision, to come into the throne room and he will be shown what is to come. Before we get to that John gives us a vivid description of what he sees in heaven.  Maybe our eyes would be drawn to the central figure on the throne, and John struggles to describe what he sees when he looks there except that it is like precious jewels shining in the light. The three stones mentioned may have meaning or more likely they represent every precious stone. In Ezekiel 28:13 the king of tyre is said to be covered in all the precious stones and that is represented by these three stones. The key image is of God as Paul describes him in 1 timothy 6:16 God dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see”.

In front of the throne are twenty-four lesser thrones, on them sit twenty four elders, clothed in white with crowns upon their head. The description of cloths and crowns bring us back to the promises of the letters to the seven churches where those who overcome are seen as receiving a crown, a wreath, and being clothed in white. Twenty-four is seen as representing the totality of God’s people, his Old Testament people Israel represented by the twelve tribes and his new testament people by the apostles. 

John continues describing what he sees, he sees a lampstand with seven lamps which we are told represent the seven spirits of God. There is much debate over what the seven Spirits of God mean. In Isaiah 11 in a prophesy about the Branch of Jesse it talks of the Spirit being on this messianic figure in seven different ways, likewise in Romans Paul speaks of the seven different ways that the Spirit ministers to God’s people. In the vision of the seven churches we see the spirit being shown by the lampstand to be with the seven churches, and seven of course if God’s number representing perfection. What we are supposed to realize is God’s Spirit is present before the throne.

John also talks of a Crystal sea. It may be a reference to the sea or large bowl of water that was in the temple, part of the temple furniture and described in 1 Kings 7 beside the altar. Isaiah does not mention it in his vision of the heavenly throne room but it maybe for him that it was simply furnishing he would expect. Others wonder if this does not represent the sea which in Jewish thinking was a force of chaos. In Ezekiel it is out of the ocean that the terrifying beasts arrive but here in the throne room of God, even this murky chaotic force lies still and crystal clear before the throne of God almighty. As a created thing it serves the creator.

The last thing John sees before the action in heaven is described are four living creatures, with eyes and wings, with different faces one of an ox one of a lion, another of a man and the last of an eagle. Much of the symbols and things we see in Revelation are described and mentioned in the Old Testament, for John’s Jewish readers steeped in the scriptures they would have grasped their significance. Similar living creatures appear in Ezekiel’s vision of the heavenly throne, they each have the four faces and a different number of wings. Celtic Christians have used these creatures as symbols for the gospels, depicted in the wonderful illuminated book of kells. Commentators see them representing all living things before the throne. The ox are the domesticated animals, the lion is king of the wild beasts, the man reminds us that we too are creatures, and that is quite humbling, and the eagle represents the birds. For the biologists amongst us we may say, hey what about fish and insects, but it is very much a reflection of the Jewish world view at the time. Here creation is before the throne of God actively involved in worship.

That leads us from a description of what is around the throne to the worship that happens around the throne. The living creatures constantly worship God. Saying Holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come”. The focus is on the transcendence of God. Holy, God is totally other, separate and pure light. Spirit to be worshipped in spirit and truth as Jesus says in John 4.   All powerful. The vision we are looking at will go on to look at the rise and fall of the kingdoms and powers of this word, the actions of spiritual beings, but it starts first and foremost with the assertion that God is almighty. The eternal nature of God is also at the centre of their praise, we are so used to this idea of God who was, who is and will ever be’ that we forget its amazing power and wonder. God has always been, but is not stuffy and old fashioned but is now, present and reigning today, and as we face the future we can do so with the assurance that God will continue to rule and to reign.

Whenever the living creatures worship, it tells us the elders fall to the ground, casting their crowns before him, and worship as well. You think we do a lot of standing and sitting in our services… they say ‘You are worthy to receive glory, honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being”. NT Wright reflects on the difference between he worship of the living beings and the representatives of the people of God is the word ‘because’, the psalms tell us we join with all creation, all creation worships its creator, but the 24 elders, the people of God are the ones who worship with knowledge and reason, they see the power of God, his worthiness, that he has created all things, that he sustains all thing by his prevenient grace.

That’s the vision, what we see and the action that is described to us… But What does it say to us.

Well,  it points us to the sovereignty of God, as we start a vision of what is to come, we are drawn into the presence of God. God on the throne. You’d think that as John contemplated what is to come that we may have started with the roman emperor on the throne, what is going to happen to God’s people in Asia Minor is going to be dictated to by Rome, however here we see that the real power, the real control, the one whose purposes and plans and kingdom will reign is our heavenly father.

The repeated name for God in this chapter is the one who lives for ever and ever. It is in the worship of the living creatures it’s repeated twice, in v 9 and 10. It is what gives us encouragement and hope, kingdoms may rise and fall, and they do and will continue to But God’s rule and reign, God’s kingdom is eternal. It invites us to look up from what we see around us to grasp a bigger picture, an eternal perspective. As the book of revelation goes on we will see that we live in this time between Christ’s coming and his return and that will be a time of difficulty and strife, But God is the one who is in control, god is the one who is able to keep us and bring about his purposes and plans. We are living in the longest reign of an English monarch, but it too will come to end, but God is still on the throne.  Psalm 2 encapsulates this by talking of the nation’s raging against God, but God is simply amused, he will establish his King and his kingdom.  We live in the time between the all ready.  In Jesus God’s Kingdom has draw near, and the not yet, awaiting its final consummation. But we live with the hope and assurance that God is on the throne and is working out his plans and purposes.

As I came back to work this year, I came back with a sense of dread almost of just another COVID year. This season we find ourselves in my scripture reading for that first week, which I shared in the pastoral letter was Psalm 62, and as the Psalmist turns to encourage his readers to have the trust and hope in God that he has even as he has faced difficult times, he says he knows these two things about God. He has heard God say that Power belongs to Him and that with God is constant love. In  the first two visions  in revelation as God’s people are to be encouraged by both those things, God is close and with us, in Christ, in what we face as individuals and a community of faith  and as we see the movement of  wider history, we know God is eternal. All powerful and sovereign.

 As we move on and look at all the weird and wonderful and frightening things in Revelation, we need to hold on to that truth. We do not fear what is to come. As we live out our lives in the midst of pain and suffering, uncertainty, change of today , we  do so without fear,  Christ is with us, god is sovereign, let us join with all creation and all heaven in worship…

Light dawning in the dark (Isaiah 9)

 

link to audio of this message preached December 19th at HopeWhangarei. 

When we lived in Napier, I took up bike riding and I used to cycle from our house at Westshore, around through Ahuriri and out along the Marine parade cycle track to Clyde and back. Except for the height of summer  I would start in the dark and at some stage along the journey the dawn would break over the pacific ocean and the sun would rise out of the sea. On clear days it would be a wondrous golden glow over the blue of the ocean, on overcast and Rainey days it would turn the clouds and the dark ocean silver, either way the panorama and beauty of countryside and coastline and city around me would become visible.

The idea of light dawning in the darkness is a very evocative picture. It is one of hope and new possibilities. It can seem as if all the difficulty suffering and strife or the broken relationships and the brokenness and evil of the world and within us are like the pitch black of night. Maybe you’ve had nights where things you’ve done wrong, or decisions you have to make, or the stress and strain of life have left you tossing and turning, or even as Geoff New spoke about a couple of weeks ago you find yourself wrestling with God. The night feels endless, then the dawn comes, the possibility of hope.  Psalm 30:5 sums that up well for our experience and for the context of the passage we are looking at today when it says.

For his (God’s) anger lasts only a moment,
    but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
    but rejoicing comes in the morning.

The context of Isaiah 9, this passage which we so rightly associate with the coming of Christ, and use in advent, is that for Jerusalem and Judea it was a time of doom and gloom, they had sinned and rebelled against God and were facing judgment.

 Ahaz was the king, 2 kings 16 tells us he was a king who did evil in the eyes of the LORD. Even stooping to sacrifice his son in the fire, worshiping the Gods of the nations that had been driven out of Israel. Judah was in a difficult position politically, the northern kingdom Israel and Syria had formed an alliance and were getting ready to come against Judah. Ahaz had some decisions to make, he could form an alliance with either Assyria or Egypt, the super powers of his time, or he could simply trust in god to save his people. This is where Isaiah’s prophecies from chapter 7:1- to chapter 9 come. Through the birth of three children Isaiah speaks to the king and tells him that he should trust in God to deal with Israel and Syria, not to look to other gods nor to alliances with other kingdoms, but the God of Israel.

In chapter 7  Isaiah’s son Shear-Jeshub is to remind the king that a remnant shall remain. Then we have Immanuel, a child born to a virgin or a maiden, reminding Ahaz that “God is with us” that he and Judah can trust in God to save them, name and a prophecy which Matthew tells us is fulfilled in Christ,  and then finally in chapter 8  Isaiah’s other son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz which means quickly to the plunder, was a sign to Ahaz that before the boy could say mother or father, that Syria and Israel would fall, that Ahaz should trust in God.

Ahaz of course ignores Isaiah, and make an alliance with the Assyrians, giving them all the gold and silver in the temple and setting up an altar in Damascus to honour the  Assyrian king. Judah finds itself condemned and under God’s judgment, in the gloom and dark of the situation and their own rebellion against God, Isaiah now turns to give them hope. Hope which again is wrapped up in the birth of a child.

Lets look at the passage.

Verse one tells us that the land that is humbled will again be lifted up and honoured. God’s judgment is not his final word. The areas mentioned here, the land of Zebulun and Naphtali and galilee of the nations, the area where Israel usually first met the rest of the world, a place of mixed settlement, and the way of the sea beyond the Jordon would be honoured. These areas has been the first to fall to Assyrian domination and they would be the first to see the light of God’s salvation. Maybe jumping the gun here but Matthew quotes this verse at the beginning of Jesus preaching ministry in this very area. Here is the light dawning amidst the gloom in the very places Isaiah had prophesied.

This is the message that Isaiah now brings in verse 2. A light dawning in the darkness. Light of course in scripture is used to describe God. God would bring light where there was only darkness. Inv3 instead of the shrinking and defeat, sorrow and pain of the Assyrian oppression, there would be  a prospering of the nation and an increase of Joy. The metaphors that are used to describe this joy are that of the joy of harvest. Maybe the gardeners amongst you can relate to that. After all the tilling of the soil, the weeding, watering, cold snaps, wild winds and pests, there is the harvest. The second metaphor is the picture of soldiers dividing up the plunder. War is over the battle has been won. Maybe after unsurmountable odds, many of what Winston Churchill called ‘our darkest hours’ through pain and sorrow, final it is over victory has been won. Maybe those famous photos of crowds in London and New York’s time square in 1945 on VE and VJ day give us a glimpse of that joy.

Verse 4 gives us a historical example of how God would bring this reversal, this light in the dark. Isaiah points to the time of Midian where God used, Gideon and three hundred men, with trumpets and torches, light in the dark, to wrought an army of 10,000 Midians. This light this salvation would be as unexpected and so obviously God’s doing as that. The yoke of oppression would be lifted. Assyrian kings often gloated about the heavy yoke they placed on their conquered kingdoms. Again looking through the lens of Jesus we see that the new ruler would also have a yoke but his was easy and light.

Verse 5 then gives us an image of an end to war. This light would not use the conventional tools of this world to bring about salvation, and restoration rather the image here of war itself ceasing.

Then we see that just like Immanuel was a sign of God’s abiding presence God’s light and salvation being through the birth of a child, a son. A new ruler in the line of David. The words and titles that are given to this son, show us that this is not simply another king in the dynasty but there is something special and important about this son, this child to be born.

He is called the wonderful councilor, as opposed to the bad council of the Kings who had gone before and lead Judah down a disastrous path into the judgment of God … Mighty God, while the kings of the nations around Judea were starting to be considered god like, for jews there was one God and the passage points very much to this son being the embodiment of Immanuel God with us. Everlasting father, again while kings were considered as being fathers to their people this goes beyong hyperbally to focus again on the messianic hope of the people.  Prince of peace: The hope of shalom, not just the end to conflict and strife but the restoration of relationships, with God and with one another. A kingdom of peace and prosperity based on God’s righteousness and justice. This son and his kingdom would be an everlasting one.

The passage finishes with an affirmation that this salvation this light this new kingdom, would not be achieved by earthly powers or means, but rather it would the Lord’s doing the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. We may think of God as detached and dispassionate, but here we get  the picture of a God who is jealous and zealous for his people, wanting to bring them back to himself, full of passion and compassion, that while they had rebelled against him and sinned, and were going to be rightly judged, God was not finished with them, his purposes and plans his salvation would be achieved.

On one level this passage can be seen to be fulfilled in Ahaz’s son Hezekiah, which 2 kings 18 tells us was a good king, there was no king in Judea like him, he returned Judea to following the Lord.  Isaiah’s prophecy was a birth announcement for this new king, full of hyperbole and hope. While Hezekiah’s faithfulness and trust in God is an example of the way the Davidic kings should act he does not fit the bill, despite seeing God’s miraculous intervention, Judea and Jerusalem face turmoil and strife throughout his reign. After a meeting with envoys from Babylon Isaiah tells him of the impending fall of Jerusalem to Babylon to which Hezekiah replies with what are his last recorded words “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?” we must look beyond Hezekiah.

The book of Isaiah as a whole covers the period of the reign of king ahaz right through to the destruction of Jerusalem and finishes after chapter 40 with words that look forward to the return from exile and the reestablishment of Jerusalem. The passage in Isaiah 9 was seen as part of the hope of what God would do in that restoration time. The hope for Jerusalem being the capital of a restored and purified Israel. Yet we know from history that the hopes and aspirations for that restoration were different and difficult. So this passage became part of the messianic hope of Israel, that God would indeed send a son of David to establish the kingdom of God. 

Matthew quotes this passage as Jesus starts his ministry, in the area which Isaiah had said salvation would first dawn. Pointing us to the fact that the ultimate fulfilment of this passage is in Jesus. Jesus is the long awaited son given for our salvation, the light that has come into the world. One of the principles of biblical interpretation is that a passage in the Old Testament can’t mean something different to what it meant in its context when it is quoted in the new. This passage does exactly that as it is fulfilled in Jesus. We like Judea like Ahaz are lost and in the dark because of our sin and rebellion from God. Like Judea because we have not listened to God and gone our own way we stand in a place of judgment. But underserved, unlooked for, not by human means, God has shone the light of his salvation into our darkness. As john says in the prelude to his gospel… his introduction of Jesus on the vast canvas of eternity…the light of the world has come. It came not by military might or by powerful persuasion but in a child, in Jesus a son sacrificially  given. A son who is the wonderful councilor. . In our staff meetings at the moment we are reading through john’s gospel and this week we heard John 5:19 where Jesus says he only does what he sees the father do, and then later in John 12 it says “ I only say what the father  has commanded me to say.” What wonderful faithful council. God almighty, the embodiment of God with us Immanuel. The everlasting father, God himself in human form, dwelling amongst us, the prince of peace, the one who by his life, death and resurrection has reconciled us to himself, to God as our father and to one another in him. One who is raised to life again and is now seated at the right hand, whose kingdom is eternal. It was not done by human hands but by the grace and love of God, the zeal and passion, of God for all his people, all of us. Passion of course is the word we use to describe that last Easter week in Jerusalem… The great light has dawned in the darkness of our sin and inhumanity, both individually and as a society and world, it is the source of the greatest joy, of the harvest, and of the battle won.

But like with the extended time of Isaiah we live in the tension between the already and not yet. Yes, the light has come in shines and brings life to all who will recognize their need for god’s forgiveness, turn to Jesus and are saved, we experience the peace and prosperity and righteousness and justice of the reign of God. God has done it, as Jesus said on the cross it is finished. But not yet we still live in a world that loves the darkness, a broken, sinful, and hurting and hurtful world that needs to know the light that has been sent in Jesus. So Christ sends us out as light bearers, as lamps to show people the true light that has come into the world, to be ambassadors of this son’s kingdom and government. Who is Immanuel present and reign in us by the Holy Spirit. Who is passion filled for the people of this world.  In Jesus Christ the light of the world has dawned, and in our present darkness we are called to all that light to shine through us on the coastlines and country and people around us.