If you laugh with one another,
then you'll cry with one another. I'd much rather be laughing than
crying, that's for sure. But let's read this 11 verses
of Revelations 4 and deal with that tonight and start in chapter
5 next week. After this, Now when he talks
after this, after all the letters to the seven churches, after
the Lord had appeared to him and showed him all the golden
candlesticks and the seven stars and all the things
that had been said. And after this, I looked and
behold the door was opened in heaven. and the first voice which
I heard as it were of a trumpet talking with me. which said,
Come up hither, I will show these things which must be hereafter.
And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold, a throne
was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat
was to look upon like a jasper, and a sardine stone. And there
was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an
emerald. And round about the throne were
four and twenty seats and upon the seats I saw four and twenty
elders sitting clothed in white raiment and they had on their
heads crowns of gold and out of the throne proceeded lightnings
and thunders and voices and there were seven lamps of fire burning
before the throne which are the seven spirits of God and before
the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal and in
the midst of the throne and round about the throne were four beasts
full of eyes before and behind and the first beast was like
a lion and the second beast like a calf and the third beast had
a face as a man and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him,
and they were full of eyes within. And they rest not day and night,
saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, which
is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory
and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth
forever and ever. The four and twenty elders fell
down before him that sat on the throne and worshiped him that
liveth forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne
saying, Thou worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and
power for Thou hast created all things and for Thy pleasure they
are and were created. The title of my message this
evening, Behold the Throne. Behold the Throne. There's a
couple of things I want to remind us of. A couple of things. The
first thing is the purpose of this book. The purpose of the
book of Revelation. Is to comfort God's people. To
comfort His church. His mystical church. His people
on this earth. And as it goes through its tribulations,
as it goes through its persecutions, and as it battles the forces
of evil in this world. Because we wrestle not against
flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and
spiritual wickedness in high places. And the Scriptures tells
us He sees our tears, He receives our prayers, and He bottles them
up. And He tells us He's going to
avenge the blood of His saints. And our final victory in this
world is promised and assured. We have the promise that we're
all going to go to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And we're
going to dwell in a city whose light is the Lamb Himself. And so that's the purpose of
the book. But the theme of the book is
the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why He sits on the throne. We have no doubt that our Lord
has already won the victory for us. But we also have the victory
in Him. And we're going to reign with
Him. But He's already whipped the
dragon And we have to face the dragon. We see him in the victory
over the dragon, over the serpent, over Satan, and over all his
forces. There's the false prophet. There's
the great harlot. There's the beast that comes
out of the midst of the sea. And all of these represent the
evil in this world. And Christ shows that He whips
them all and is victorious over all of them. And we're victorious
in Him. We're victorious in Him. And
thirdly, this book is full of symbolism. And the best thing
I can say about that is a series of pictures. When I just read
this tonight, what we saw was a bunch of pictures. A series
of pictures. You start reading down through
here, the first thing you see is a picture of a door opened.
Then a picture of the throne. Then a picture of the beast.
They're just pictures. And they're not, they say something
to us by these pictures, by these pictures, and all of them, these
pictures are full of action. They're just none of static.
Nobody's static. When our Lord Jesus, when the
first thing John said, said, I heard the voice that I heard.
Christ had already spoken to him once in verse 10 of chapter
1 and he said his voice was as a trumpet. And so we have these,
everything's full of action. We see seven golden candlesticks. Candlesticks got fire in them.
They burn. They shine. They got light. Then
you have someone walking in the midst of those golden candlesticks.
Something's going on all the time. And this person is wearing
a long, long robe. Got a golden belt around his
waist. His hair is white just like the
sun in its brightness. His eyes full of fire and blaze. In his right hand he holds seven
stars. And out of his mouth goes a sharp
two-edged sword. And then, when all that's done,
we come here and we behold the throne. We see a throne. And around this throne there's
a rainbow. And out of this throne there's
thunders and lightnings and voices. Voices now, let's go down through
these verses one by one and see what we can learn tonight about
some of these pictures and John said and after this I looked
and behold a door was opened in heaven You know, there's only one door
that the scriptures talks about in this in the end and And that's
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is the door and He himself
is the door. And if anybody gets into heaven,
they gotta go through that door. But John said, here I saw a door
opened. A door, I mean a door opened
up. And then I first voice, that's
like the first voice which I heard. Just like the voice he heard
in Revelations 1.10. As it were a trumpet talking
with me. A trumpet. You know, and I thought
about, I didn't even think about this until this afternoon, when
I was looking at this again. And it talked about Christ's
voice being as a trumpet. And you know a trumpet, the scripture
said, if he gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself
to battle? But a trumpet, that means it's a musical. It's a
musical instrument. And our Lord's voice is as a
musical instrument. Always in tune. Always makes
the right notes. Always got the right thing to
say. Always got a sweet voice. And music comes out of that voice.
And what blessed music is. Music in the blood. Music in
the righteousness. Music in his justification. Music
in His grace. Oh, the sweet sound of His voice. And then that voice that was
talking to Him said, come up here. Come on up. Come up. Come up here. Come up
here where I am. And look what He said, and I'm
going to show you things which must be here after. The future he said come up here
and I'll show you some things that's going to happen in the
future And I'll tell you this and when we see this the only
way for anyone to know anything It's got to come from above If
anybody learned, you know, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, he
said, no man can learn anything or know anything unless it's
given to him from above. And that's what John said here.
He said, I have a voice that come up here. And the only way
we're going to know anything and learn anything is that voice
tells us what we have to learn. And you know, if we know anything,
we got to have a voice from above speak to us. The new birth comes
from above. And just like whenever we meet,
anything that we know we got to hear that voice from above.
A man can receive nothing unless God gives it to him. And that's
what he's telling us here. And it must be revealed. John
didn't know a door was up there. John didn't know what heaven
looked like. John had never been there. And so it had to be revealed. And who reveals it? Christ does. His blessed voice that speaks
to us. And then look what he says in verse 2. And immediately,
I love those words immediately. When Christ do something for
somebody, immediately. And immediately I was in the
Spirit. Now what does that mean? That
means that he was not conscious of his physical surroundings
around him. He had no concept of anything
going on around him. He was in the Spirit. He was
in the Spirit. He doesn't now see with his eyes. He doesn't see with the physical
eyes. Now he only sees a vision here. And you know this body, this
old flesh is a veil. Oh, what an awful veil it is.
It's a cloud. It's a hindrance to us seeing
the things of our Lord Jesus Christ and seeing the things
of the Scriptures. But John said, I was in the Spirit,
unconscious of anything going on around Him. And then look
what he says next. And behold, a throne was set
in heaven. Behold, a throne Behold a throne
set in heaven, and one sat on that throne. And when we deal
with chapter 4 and chapter 5, this is all one, this is a continuation,
all the same thing going on around this throne, in this blessed
throne. And I tell you that this is the pictures that we see here.
This isn't to give him a picture of heaven. But this is to give
him a vision of the universe and who rules over the universe
and controls the universe and whose mind and will is done perfectly,
that one that's on that throne. is to show us that all things
are governed by the man that sits on that throne, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I tell you, the Lord reigneth
in heaven above. And I tell you, this is comforting
to know. Behold the throne. You know,
and this is comforting. This is comforting. You know,
you can lay down at night and say, Lord, tomorrow is going
to be your day. Tomorrow, your will. I'm going
to wake up to your will. Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up
with your purpose. Tomorrow, I'm going to have a
new day of your will and purpose in this life for me. And you
know that's the most wonderful thing to go to sleep thinking
about. That I'm going to get up tomorrow and God's will is
going to be done that day. And His purpose is going to be
done that day. And I tell you, you know why?
Because He has a throne. He sits on a throne. And let
me say something about that. Now, you know, when we say He
sits on a throne, the scriptures tell us so many times about a
throne. But it also says that God inhabits
eternity. So we just have this picture
of this throne. And people that sit on the throne,
sovereign sits on thrones. King sits on thrones. Mighty
men sit on thrones. They're the ones that wears all
the crowns. And so He was on this throne.
And I tell you, you're talking about comforting and assuring.
And I tell you, because we know, because He sits on the throne,
that all things work together. All things, not just one or two
things, but all things work together for our good. For our good and
His purpose, His purpose. And I'll tell you, this is assurance.
We may be tried, but God's on the throne. He's on the throne. And I'll tell you when He says,
Behold the throne, this throne is the center. Everything gathers
around this throne. Everything that we read from
here on out is around this throne. Everything centered on this throne.
These beasts and these elders, they're all centered around the
throne. And the worship is this throne.
And the glory of this throne. It's the very, this is the center
of the universe. This is the center of power.
People say, well this, you know, in this earth, they'll say, over
there is the center of power. Over here is the center of commerce.
And I'll tell you what, the center of this universe and the power
of this universe and the control of it is Christ God Himself sitting
on the throne. You want to know what history
is? It's His history. Everything that's happened was
His. Everything that will happen is
His. And everything that will happen
is His. When we read about Him sitting
on the throne, we're reading about His will, His mind, His
purpose. You know, I tell you, we live
in a day and age in when man's the one that's got all the sovereignty.
God's the one that goes begging. Huh? Oh, listen. This age, you know, and it's
been going on for so many years now that people don't know any
different. Oh, listen, God ain't got nobody
hands but your hands, no feet but your feet. And He just absolutely
wants you to do all of His will and all of it. He's a bystander
in His own world. And He's turned it over to man
in His will. Turned it over to man in His
sovereignty. I heard a preacher say one time,
said, you're the one that's sovereign. God has to wait on you till you
decide to let Him do something. I wouldn't be in that preacher's
shoes for 10,000 worlds like this and 10,000 more of them. John said, I beheld a throne.
And I tell you what, that's what we look forward to. to being around that throne one
of these days. Huh? Oh, when that's thrown here,
this is where true history is learned. This is all that happened
and ever will happen. Everything else in this world
is just secondary causes. Huh? Secondary causes. He's the first cause of everything. And I'm certainly grateful He
is. What's a secondary cause? Anything that happens. You know what, you've got secondary
cause. He's the first cause. You witnessed to the people about
that the other day, didn't you? He witnessed to the doctor. He
witnessed to the nurse and told them, said, God gave me this.
God sent this to me. God's responsible for this. He said, you may be able to do a
lot, but he said, I'm in God's hands. Listen, he started crying. I want to tell this on you, Gary.
He started crying and said, you know, maybe God gave me this
just so I could witness to them. Just so I could witness to them.
You know God gives us things so we can tell about His grace
and His glory. Oh my! The real will, the real
mind that controls this universe is the mind and will of God Almighty. You know the throne occurs 17
times in these two chapters. The word throne, 17 times. I think that He's trying to tell
us there's a throne in heaven. You reckon we'll get it? Oh my! And I'll tell you one thing we
do, we get too taken up with the footstool and sometimes lose
sight of the throne. And this throne stands out in
the midst of the holies and holies just as the ark did in the holies
of holies in the tabernacle and in the temple. And when Isaiah
saw the Lord, he saw Him high and lifted up. Ezekiel saw this
very same vision in Ezekiel chapter 1. Same exact vision, the same
kind of people that's in this one right here. And then not
only did he see the throne, but he said, and I saw one that sat. Sat on that throne. And one sat
on that throne. Now like I said, God is not setting. Like I said, it's a picture.
Showing His sovereignty and His power and His mind and His will
and His purpose. God's not actually sitting on
a throne. He's everywhere. He inhabits
eternity. He holds the waters here in the
hollows of His hands. He put the stars up there and
there's not a star in the sky that He didn't name. And oh my, and I tell you that
one sitting on the throne, he can't be seen. God can't be seen. So all we can do in understanding
what John is doing here is describing his glory, his brightness, his
brilliancy and his radiancy. And look what he says about him.
He that sat on the throne was like to look upon like a jasper.
You know a Jasper is brilliant, clear as crystal, like a diamond.
Let me show you that over here in Revelations 21. Describe what
a Jasper looks like and what it is. Over in Revelations 21.11.
Look what it said here. He said to look upon him is like
looking upon a Jasper. He is so brilliant, he is shining,
he is clear as crystal. And look what it said here in
verse 11. having the glory of God, and her light was like unto
a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. God shines like crystal, shines
like a brilliant, brilliant, glorious, shines brilliant in
His glory. Then a sardine stone, a sardine
stone is red, bloody red, Bloody red. Oh my. That Jasper stone
symbolizes and shows us a picture of God's holiness. And a sardine
stone is bloody red. It's just bloody, bloody red.
And that shows that God's holy character and His holiness and
His throne can only be approached, can only be seen, and can only
be come into the presence of through the blood of His blessed
Son. You can't approach that throne,
can't come to that throne, can't speak to the God on that throne
without the blood of Christ who God judged in our room and place. And then look what else it says
about. And there was a rainbow about the throne. You remember
the first time a rainbow was ever mentioned? You know why
there's a rainbow? God entered into a covenant.
with Noah. And he put a bow in the clouds.
And this rainbow round about that throne, you know what it
tells us? And it says it was like an emerald. Like an emerald. And you know what this tells
us? That God's children, as far as they're concerned, the storm
is over. The rainbow shining is around
the throne. There's no storm waiting us when
we get to heaven. There's no judgment for us. I
remember a book years and years and years ago, somebody published
it. And he and I heard a preacher
say one time down in Georgia before God taught me the gospel
and I know it was wrong then. He says that there's going to
be a lot of people in heaven crying and weeping because they
didn't do God's will the way they should have and didn't obey
him as they should. There's going to be tears in
heaven. But if you sit here, you know that the throne is the
rainbow around the throne. That means just like the rainbow,
that God's judgment fell on that ark and the rainbow come out
to show that that's never going to happen again. So God's got
a rainbow around His throne. You don't have a storm. There's
not going to be a storm for you. Huh? I tell you when you see
my throne, there's a rainbow around it. Why? Because the storm
was put out on His blessed Son. And then look what it says next
And around the best for and round about the throne were four and
twenty seats four seats now look Here's the throne right in the
middle And right around this 24 seats 24 seats around his
thrones right in the middle and And upon the seats I saw four
and twenty elders. There was four and twenty and
somebody sitting in all twenty-four of those seats right around that
throne. And oh my. And look, they was all dressed
in white raiment. They had on that glorious righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you, they had on their
heads crowns of gold, crowns of gold. Oh my! And what are
these 24 elders, these 24 seats? Well, I believe I can make good
of it on here, even in Revelations. The Old Testament church is represented
by Jacob's 12 sons. by Jacob's 12 sons that's the
old that's the entire Old New Testament Saints represented
by them and then the other 12 seeds is the 12 apostles and
they represent and show the New Testament the Saints of the New
Testament and I tell you what, look in Revelations 21 and I'll
show you that that's exactly what it's about Revelations 21
and verse 12 look what it says here Oh my, so this represents the
church of the Old Testament and the
church of the New. The whole church from both dispensations. And look what he says here now.
Verse 12, And had a great wall in high, and had twelve gates,
and the twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the
names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. And on
the east gate, on the three gates, and on the south gate three gates,
and on the west three gates. And the walls of the city had
twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles
of the Lamb. So when you see these twenty-four
seats, there sits the twelve. patriarchs, I said it's the twelve
apostles representing all of God's elect from Old Testament
and New Testament too and they were clothed in white garments
of holiness and righteousness crowns of gold on their head
showing that they had won the victory and let me tell you something
like I said everything around this throne is to do nothing
but to bring glory to that one on that throne they're around
that throne Just to show that that throne is the center of
everything. And I'll tell you, whom do these
elders worship? Him that sat upon the throne,
that's why. Look what it said in verse 5. Oh my, they worship
Him that sat upon the throne. And out of the throne, out of
that throne, now he's done seen the throne, the one sitting on
the throne, what he looked like in the throne, 12 seats around
the throne. And out of that throne proceeded
lightnings and thunders and voices. Oh my, you remember that's what
happened under the law, but it's a different story here. These
are not thunders and lightnings and voices that tells us to stay
away, but tells us that we can come close. And then he talked
about the seven lamps of fire burning. And what are those seven lamps
of fire burning before the throne? Well you know in the tabernacle
they had seven lights. The Jews call it menorah. But
they had that lamp stand in the tabernacle. It had seven flames
on it. They went in there and put oil
in that lamp every day and they kept those seven things burning
all the time. that lamp stand that light that
represented Christ well here we have this seven lamps of fire
and one of these seven lamps of fire before the throne well
he said he tells us what they are they are the seven spirits
of God those seven lamps are the seven spirits of God now
why in the world are they burning? why are they full of fire? well
first of all they are full of fire to bring judgment Our God
is a consuming fire. Fire represents judgment. Fire
represents purification. And so fire represents judgment
and it also represents sanctification, purification. And the Spirit
of God has purified us, all of His blessed elect. And I tell
you what, that's seven spirits of God. That's the Holy Spirit. Always, always active. Seeing
everything, going everywhere, always. Always. And then look what it says about
the throne there in verse six. And before the throne there was
a sea of glass like unto crystal. A sea of glass. Now the last
time you've seen this, Solomon made a sea of brass and it looked
like glass. And he had seven animals facing
out from it. And he made this great big huge
sea. And it shone, it just looked
like water almost. And that's what he said here,
before God's throne, There's a crystal sea. Sea of glass. Crystal. Brilliant. Bright. Transparent. Can be seen. And look what it says. And in the midst of the throne. Right in the middle of it. And
round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and
behind. Oh my. The four beasts The four
beasts, full of eyes, they had them in front of them, they had
them in back of them. What does that mean? They stand in ready,
stand in ready to do, go, whatever God and His blessed Son purpose
for them to do. Now who are these? They're cherubim,
that's who they are, they're cherubim. You find them around
the throne in Ezekiel. You find them around, you know,
the first time cherubim is mentioned, it's mentioned where God took
in Genesis and He put a cherubim at the east of Eden, at the gate
going into Eden with a flaming sword going back and forth to
keep anyone from going in. Keep anyone from going in. And
so you see that. And the cherubims are over the
holy things of God. You see them all the time. And
look how he describes them. He describes them this way. And
he calls them beast. The first was like a lion. You
know a lion has great strength. Lion is called, is majestic,
he's powerful. Stealthy, got might. Great teeth,
full of fierceness and strength. And then you got the calf. And
that word calf is the same word of an ox. This beast here has
the strength of an ox. He's got great strength, great
power, great abilities. And then there's one who has
the face of a man. Why the face of a man? Because
a man, he has intelligence. He's not like a beast. He's got
a face. He's got a brain. He's got intelligence.
Shows how intelligent that he are. He's compassionate like
a man would be. And then the next beast is as
the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. A flying eagle. And you know an eagle, boy, I
tell you what, he can get real, real high. And he can just soar
around and no matter how high he gets he can see just exactly
what's going on below him. He can see something he wants
and down he goes and gets it. I'll never forget the first time
I ever saw a bald eagle. That was the most wondrous thing.
It was just incredible for me to see that thing. I just stood
and looked and looked and looked. I peeked around the corner and
said I ain't going to get out behind this corner or I'll make
him fly off. And oh, he stood so tall. And them things can
fly up, and they'll look down and see what there is, and he
just... And so all these beasts, they
represent something. They're pictures of something.
And you know what they do? And it says there in verse 8,
and the four beasts, each of them had six wings about them.
You know where the first place you see 6 wings? Isaiah 6. All those terrapins had 6 wings.
2 to cover their face, 2 to cover their feet, and 2 to fly. But
here these things, they had 6 wings. They were full of eyes within.
They seen everything. And listen, this is what they
do now. So first round around the throne you got these 20 elves.
Then you got these beasts. and they don't rest day and night
they have no rest they rest not day and night and all they say
is holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was which is and which
is to come now look what they do and when those beasts give
glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne and
who liveth forever and ever. You see beloved, that's what
them poor brutes, they're saying holy, holy, holy and they give
glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne who
lives forever and ever. Everything around that throne
is centered on that throne to give honor to that throne, to
give glory to that one on that throne. And this is what else
happens now. Now in those 4 and 20 elders,
the 4 and 20 elders, they fall down before Him that sat on the
throne. Oh, the 12 patriarchs, the 12
apostles, all these elders, fall down before Him that sat on the
throne. John is seeing this happening now. And worship Him. Fall down before Him and worship
Him. That liveth forever and ever. Now remember where they
had those crowns on their head? What did they do with those crowns?
And they cast their crowns before the throne. I don't need this crown. He gave
it to me and I'm going to give it right back to him. He gets
all the glory. He gets all the honor. And they cast their crowns
before the throne. And this is what they said. Oh,
the beast, the 420 elders, everyone around that throne. They're doing
one thing. Honoring Him and honoring and
glorifying Him that sits on that throne. And all these 420 elders,
they said, Thou art worthy. Oh Lord, Thou art worthy. They
represent all the redeemed of all down through eternity in
humility and worship. All their victory and all their
crowns they set before Him because He gave them to Him. He won the
victory. And they said, Thou art worthy.
You alone are worthy. Whose worthy is He? Oh, one of these days we'll find
out. It'll take eternity to find out how worthy He is. Thou art
worthy, O Lord. To receive glory. Oh, to God
be the glory. Great things He had done. And
honor. Oh Lord, we're going to give you honor. And you got power. Oh, you received glory and honor
and all power. And listen to this. For thou
hast created all things. There's not a thing in this world
or in this universe that you didn't create. and listen to
this and for thy pleasure for thy pleasure they are and were
created and that's what he's talking about here about that
throne when you get through saying what he says about it you created
all things and you know why you did it? to please yourself just
to please yourself Our blessed, blessed Savior,
O gracious God, our great and highly and lifted up, glorious,
sovereign, immutable God, worthy of our heart, worthy of our whole
being. For you made us and not we ourselves,
you made us the sheep of your pasture. Not ourselves. So Lord we thank you for your
word. Thank you for how you've met with us today. Oh Lord, what
a blessing it is to have your presence. What a blessing it
is to have your word. What a blessing it is to look
into it. Learn just a little bit out of it. Very, very little. But Lord, what we learn, it's
worth 10,000 worlds like this, oh, to learn more of You. To
learn more about our Savior, His worthiness, His power, His
glory, His honor. And how everything in the universe
is going to center around that blessed throne. And we wait for
the day when we will come there And we'll gather around that
throne and we'll worship Him that liveth forever and ever
and ever. In His holy name we bless you
and praise you. Amen. Amen. Let me see if I can
get that. Every hour of every day Every
moment and in every way I'm leaning on Jesus He's the rock of my soul. Singing his praises wherever
I go.