Chapters 4 and 5 constitute one vision. We turn now to the second part. Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll? But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, Do not weep. See, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals. Then I saw a lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. and they sang a new song. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise. Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them singing, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever. The four living creatures said, Amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped. May God enable us to echo their worship as we attend His most holy word. Let us bow in prayer. Merciful and living God, we always need your aid when we come to read and meditate on your word. But at no time more so than we consider the Christ, your Son, the Lamb of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and his triumphant crosswork on our behalf. Grant to us not only minds to understand at a propositional level, but hearts that rise in adoration, wills that are transformed in happy obedience. Grant, Lord God, that our anticipation of heaven may be increased, our hatred of sin may be multiplied. our shame at our frequent fickleness and mediocrity and secret hidden things may be multiplied, and our love of holiness increased as we contemplate the cost of our redemption in the gift of your Son. Lord God, open our eyes that we may see wonderful things in your law. We ask for Jesus' sake and for the good of the people for whom he shed his life's blood. Amen. Revelation 4, we saw, sets the stage for the drama of chapter five. Chapter four is to chapter five what a setting is to a plot or a drama. Chapter four depicts the throne room of heaven in highly symbolic terms, emphasizing the transcendence, the majesty, the centrality, the praiseworthiness, even the frightening majesty of Almighty God. And then in chapter 5, a drama unfolds. It unfolds in several stages and perhaps it will be most convenient to outline each stage by a single word. First, the scroll, verse 1. Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals." Now, a modern book like this one is sewn or glued along one edge, and we flip pages in order to get inside. They had books like this in the ancient world, we call them codices today, but they weren't very common until some centuries later. Now, if one speaks of writing on the inside and the outside of a book like this, one does not gain much by writing on the outside. The title, the author, a few blurbs nowadays, but that's about it. On the other hand, with a scroll, At least in theory, it was as possible to write as much on the outside as on the inside. There was as much outside as there was inside. But, in fact, most people did not do so. And the reason is the construction of the scrolls made it unlikely. Let me explain. Most scrolls in the ancient world were made of papyrus. Papyrus is a plant grown in the delta of the Nile, and it is roughly triangular in shape and with the constitution of rhubarb or celery. So you can take a sharp knife and begin to slice it at the top and then peel off an entire slice. So what people did in the ancient world was cut off slice after slice after slice, then lay them out parallel to each other, like this, vertically, until they had roughly a square, and then cut off some more slices and lay them out horizontally, covering the whole square. And then with a kind of vegetable glue that they made from plants in the ancient world, they stuck these things together and pounded them to make one papyrus sheet of paper. And then you either stuck or glued that papyrus sheet to another one, and then another one. and then another one, and then another one, until you had 32 to 34 feet, and that constituted a scroll. Then you glued a stick on each end, and you could roll it up. Now then, the average length I've said was 30 odd feet. That's about the length that is required for a book like Luke. In other words, one of the reasons I suspect why Luke acts constitute two volumes is because scrolls just did not come longer than 32 to 34 feet. So you have volume 1 and volume 2 of the work by Dr. Luke. Now, from this description you see right away that the inside of the scroll has all the strips going horizontally. Both Greek and Hebrew are written horizontally. Greek from left to right, like English, and Hebrew from right to left. Therefore, it was convenient to use your quill pen to write on the inside where all the strips are going the same direction as your pen. But if you write on the outside, your quill pen is bumping over all the grooves where the pieces are all vertical. And as a result, almost no one wrote on the outside of a scroll. There was one exception. If for some reason you wanted to include everything you had to say on one document. If it was so much material that it could not be included in one thirty-odd foot scroll, but you definitely wanted it there in one document, then you broke your rule and you wrote on the back side of the scroll. Now this book, in the right hand of the Almighty, in the hand of power, turns out to be A summation of all of God's purposes for redemption and judgment. This is not the book of life, to which we are introduced later. This is a summary of all of God's purposes for redemption and judgment. The reason we know that is simply from the way the account of the apocalypse unfolds in progressive chapters. And thus, to have writing on the inside and on the outside is a symbolic way of saying, this is the plenitude of God's purposes. God's purposes are so rich they cannot be constrained in some narrow document. They overflow, as it were, and go around the backside. And so this is the fullness of all of God's purposes for judgment and blessing, and they rest in the right hand, the hand of power of Almighty God. That is what John sees in his vision. He sees further that this book is sealed. In certain kinds of legal documents, once the scroll was glued to the two posts, and the two posts were twiddled in so that the seal was closed, one further single sheet of papyrus was wrapped around the outside. And then, with this single sheet around the outside, a drop of wax was melted onto the overlap, and thus the book was sealed. Now, as the wax was drying, you might take your signet ring, or your official seal if you were a government authority, and stamp it in the drying wax. And now the book is not sealed merely at the substantial level, the material level, it is sealed at the symbolic level. And only the right authority has the sanction to break the seal and open the book. And if you were an extremely important authority, then you sealed it with a lot of seals. For example, the last will and testament of the Roman emperor Vespasian, we are told, was sealed with seven seals. So along the join of the overlap of this surrounding piece of papyrus, they dropped seven blobs of wax and then sealed it seven times with seven seals to make official, doubly official. Now, this book of God's purposes is sealed with seven seals. It is perfectly sealed, if you like. And in part, the language is drawn again, as is typical of John, from the Old Testament. You'll recall the vision given to Daniel in Daniel chapter 8. The vision of the evenings and mornings that has been given you is true, but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future. Thus Daniel is given some material, which he's supposed to write down, and then it's locked away, it's sealed up, so that it is not unpacked yet. But in the Roman world where this is written, there is another legal element that we must understand if we are to understand what takes place in the following chapters. In a legal document, such as the Last Will and Testament of the Emperor Vespasian, there would, of course, be other copies. Scribes were set to work in the days before photocopy machines to make duplicates. But the duplicates did not have legal sanction. The scholars, or Vespasian himself, could go and look at the duplicates, but the only legal document was the original. Thus, once Vespasian had died, and the will is to be probated, brought to probate court, in effect it is the slitting of the seals that enact the official document. In other words, even though you know exactly what is in the original because you've looked at the duplicate, in fact nothing is enacted legally until you slit the seals of the original document. Thus the slitting of the seals means not simply that you can look inside, the slitting of the seals means that what is written inside takes place. Now that is clearly extremely transforming in your understanding of the book of Revelation as it unfolds in the following chapters, for the drama concerns The slitting of the seals. As the seals are slit, in effect, you have a symbolic way of saying God's purposes for judgment and blessing will be enacted. They will come to pass. And if instead the seals remain in place on this document, then God's purposes in judgment and blessing will not come to pass. That is the first element. The scroll. Second, the challenge, verse 2. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll? Now, he is a mighty angel because he must issue his challenge to the entire universe as we see in the next verse or two. Today, if I speak to a larger crowd, I have a more powerful PA system. Someone in the back turns up a crank. Or else, if I need to, I get a little closer to the microphone, like that, you see. But in the time of George Whitefield, that wasn't possible. And therefore, when he spoke to crowds in the open air, he did it without the convenience of modern technology. According to observers in his day, including none less than Franklin, who was not the most friendly observer, Whitfield could speak to as many as 50,000 people in the open air and be understood. I couldn't do that. I don't have the kind of voice or the kind of larynx, the kind of lungs that can handle that kind of thing. But he got under one of those ancient echo chamber boxes and he preached downwind and preferably into a valley, and he had the kind of voice that could project and he could be heard by as many as 50,000 people. Franklin walked around the outside of one huge crowd, calculated the number of square yards, and then walked through the crowd and estimated how many people on average were there per square yard, did the arithmetic, and came out with 50,000 people. That's remarkable. Now the angel here doesn't have a PA system. So he has to be a mighty angel. And his challenge thus is launched to the entire universe. He's a mighty angel for that reason. Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll? Now it is at this point that what we learned last night becomes so important for the interpretation of this passage. You are talking about the God described in chapter 4. He is not a God into whose presence you can simply saunter and say, oh, I'll have a go. He is the God who is surrounded by startling angels. He is surrounded by thunder and lightning of terrifying energy. He is surrounded by This sea of glass, in scintillating brilliance as the waves froth, is sparkling and frightening, symbolizing the entire fallen order that separates God from us. And God mediates His presence by His Spirit. And even the angels in His presence, those closest to Him, veil their faces with their wings and cry day and night, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. And now the challenge comes forth, who then will approach this God and take from the hand of power this scroll which contains God's purposes for judgment and blessing and act as God's agent to bring them to pass? Who will slit the seals? In other words, who has rank so exalted Attributes so full and marvelous, life so perfect and holy as to be able to approach the throne of this God and take the book and break the seals and bring God's purposes to pass. Third, the silence. Verse 3. But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. No one in heaven, that is, no angel. Not even the exalted angels described in the previous chapter. Not even the cherubim. No one in heaven. No one on earth. No human being. No one under the earth, a biblical euphemism for the abodes of the dead, no angel, no created being, no human being, no earthbound creature, no dead, no spirit, good or evil, no necromancer, no one had the requisite ability to approach this God and take the scroll from His hand and effect His purposes. Or even, for that matter, to look into it. That is, No one could even find out precisely what God's purposes were, let alone effect them. That brings you to the fourth element. The tears. Verse 4. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll. or look inside. Now it is extremely important that we understand exactly why John is weeping. He is not weeping because he is a nosy parker and is frustrated because he can't figure out the details of eschatology. That's not the point. The question is not frustration regarding his ignorance. The question is frustration of God's purposes. In the symbolism of the drama, unless someone comes and takes the scroll and slits the seals, God's purposes in judgment and blessing will not take place. And that is why John weeps. John represents the people of God who have been persecuted, who are threatened with far greater persecution. They pray. They hope for Messiah's return. They look for blessing. They look for judgment on their enemies, as the next chapter makes clear. But none of God's purposes in blessing and judgment will be affected. The seals are intact. God's purposes are simply sealed up. There may be something way off, far down the track in the future, but now they're sealed. There is nothing for the people of God now. It is important to recognize that there is a sense in which our generation understands these tears. At the end of the last century, there was a kind of naive, rising optimism associated with classic liberalism. The world was getting better and better. With enough push, enough organization, enough money, we would evangelize the world and transform it with a mix of Christian cliché and education and organization and dollars. We could do it. We could fix it. Then came World War I, the war to end all wars, if you recall, and the Great Depression. And World War II, not fewer than 20 million Russians killed, compared with which all the Allied losses were relatively minor. Millions of Jews and millions of others killed by mass pogroms. The whole world involved in trying to kill other people. And then on top of that, the brief optimism of the Eisenhower years, the happy fifties, where adults who had lived through the Depression and World War II thought, we'll try harder, burned out in hate Asbury and the flower people and Vietnam. And today, in intellectual circles, there are new movements about which I'll say more in two nights' time. There are new movements connected with radical hermeneutics and deconstruction which now deny the existence of objective truth in very clever, intellectually convincing ways. Our students who go off to university do not wipe out in introductory science classes nowadays. They wipe out in English 101. as they come to grips with Jacques Derrida and deconstruction. I'll tell you more about that in a couple of days. The cynicism is everywhere. The 80s brought a kind of reprieve, but it was superficial. What seemed in some ways to be a conservative tack was in fact a tack toward a conservative selfishness. In the Eisenhower years, family came first. In the Reagan years, money, careers, houses, they all came first. And children, if you got around to having them, came about fourth or fifth. And it was not bred out of a philosophical vision that constrained the society at large. It was merely another form of selfishness. The selfishness of the 60s in flower power and drugs became the selfishness of the 80s in bank managers. And in all of this, thoughtful people learned to weep. The famous German theologian Rudolf Bultmann driven to a naturalistic view of theology, insisted the question of the meaning of history has become meaningless. The great British atheist Bertrand Russell was asked toward the close of his life what he had to hang on to, and he replied, I have nothing to hang on to save grim, unyielding despair. Tell that to the next woman in your church who loses her baby at the age of two. Hang on to grim, unyielding despair. Tell that to the man who has just lost his wife of fifty years. Tell that to the parents who have just lost their children to drugs. Nothing to hang on to but grim, unyielding despair. In fact, our generation now is trying to go one step beyond that. We don't even want to think about these things. We turn up the CDs, switch channels, grab another packet of potato chips, and blot out thought. No, there is a sense in which just beneath the veneer of the comfort zones of our society lurk these deep rages, these deep despairs, these existential tears as life becomes meaningless. Isn't that what Brian Robinson was reminding us of today, this morning? Ecclesiastes comes in for a rerun. John understood this from a theological point of view. If God's purposes in redemption and blessing cannot be effected, as his vision seems to suggest to this point, then despair is the only responsible attitude. It is the only reasonable choice. And he weeps. Fifth, the lion. Verse 5. Then one of the elders said to me, I argued last night that the elders in the apocalypse are a high order of angels. And here, typically, an elder interprets what is going on to John. That is, in apocalyptic literature, regularly a function of angels. An angel, an elder, is explaining what is going on to John. Do not weep, he says. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals. Again, the language is steeped in Old Testament allusion, is it not? It is quite wonderful. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, that is, the promised King from the Messianic tribe, He has triumphed. As early as Genesis 49, The rule is assigned to Judah. From Judah, King David springs. From Judah springs King David's greater Son. Today, there are inadequate records of distinct Jewish tribes to make any messianic pretender have a good ground. After the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and then the further destruction of the entire city in A.D. 132-135 at the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the records were destroyed. Nowadays, there are no Jews who can trace their ancestry back in purity all the way to their tribal forefather. You can make a few guesses here and there when you come across the name Cohen, which means priest, probably there's a linkage with Levi. There are some excellent records kept for some Jewish communities during the high Middle Ages, but the links are gone. But in the first century, it was not so. For the Jews that had returned to Palestine, for many others off in Babylonia, the records were still preserved. That is why the New Testament opens up with a genealogy, if you please. The link had to be preserved to demonstrate that God's promises to bring forth David's greater son from the tribe of Judah were fulfilled precisely and exactly. He has prevailed. He is the root of David, we're told. The language draws again from Genesis 11. You will recall I referred to that passage last night. In that passage, he is described as both the root and the shoot of David. And in the last chapter of the book of Revelation, that is how Jesus refers to Himself. I am the root and shoot of David. What is meant by that? Every time I'm in Vancouver and spend a little time downtown, I'm reminded of Isaiah 11 and Revelation 5. If you go into downtown Vancouver and then cross into Stanley Park, you find the road sweeps you in a one-way system around to the right. And very shortly off to the left is the aquarium and the little zoo that's there. And at the turning-in place, the second turning-in place, into the parking lot, there is the stump of an old B.C. Douglas fir. It's probably 15 feet in cross-section, at least a dozen feet in cross-section, a very big tree stump. And it was cut down, perhaps 150 years ago, by Pacific Northwest Indians at about head height. What they used to do was cut these things down and then roll those huge, huge trees into the sound where they dug them out to make seagoing canoes. But out of the middle of this stump, the tree has grown. Probably, in fact, a new seed has gone in there, I imagine, and shot out. But to all appearance, what you have is a tree that's been cut off and killed, and out of it has come the tree. Out of the stump is a tree perhaps a foot and a half or two feet in cross-section. And every time I see it, I think of Isaiah 11 and Revelation 5. For there is a sense in which this lion from the tribe of Judah is David's root. He antedates David. He is before David. One with his eternal father. He stands behind the entire line of messianic promise. He was God's own agent in creation. By him all things were made that were made. in the fullness of time, he became what he was not. He became a human being. He took on flesh, and the flesh was in line with the tribe of David. And thus he is both David's root and a shoot from the stump that has been cut down at a time when it looked as if David's line would never reign again. Out of that stump, the shoot has come out, and the promise of Davidic kingship arises afresh. That is what the angel announces, and he announces it in terms of a struggle. He has triumphed. The verb is a strong one. There has been a terrific struggle, and in that struggle, he has prevailed. He is able to open the scroll and the seven seals. That is the announcement. In other words, we now have announced for us the fact that God's purposes in redemption and blessing will be effected because of the triumphant struggle, the prevailing victory of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Messianic King. Sixth, the Lamb. In the NIV, which I am reading, there is a new paragraph here. That is a mistake. In the original, there was very little punctuation and there were no paragraph structures, and so editors today inevitably, to conform to English style, have to make decisions. But this is a mistaken decision. We are to understand something that I mentioned last night. Apocalyptic is given to mixed metaphors. You must envisage the scene. There is John crying and weeping, weeping and crying because God's purposes in redemption and judgment seem to be eternally frustrated. And the angel, even while John weeps, says, Stop it. Look. The lion of the tribe of Judah. He has prevailed. He has opened the scroll. So John says, so I looked and I saw a lamb. You are not now being introduced to another figure. The point is the lion is the lamb. You mix the metaphors. Precisely because John wants to get all of these associated truths across. The one who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah is also the Root of David, is also the Shoot of David, is also the Lamb of God. Look closely what the text says. I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain. This lamb has been slaughtered. This lamb is a lamb that had died. Isn't that remarkable? We remember not only John the Baptist's announcement in John 1.29, but what Christian can read these words without remembering Isaiah 53? He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was bruised for our iniquities. We remember 1 Peter 1. We have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. One commentator gets it almost right and then blows it. Listen carefully. None but an inspired composer of heavenly visions would ever have thought of it, he writes. When earthbound men want symbols of power, they conjure up mighty beasts and birds of prey. Russia elevates the lion, Britain the bear, Britain the lion, France the tiger, the United States the spread eagle. Nobody mentions Canada the beaver, but we'll let that pass. Russia elevates the bear, Britain the lion, France the tiger, the United States the spread eagle, all of them ravenous. It is only the kingdom of heaven that would dare to use as its symbol of might not the lion for which John was looking, but the helpless lamb, and at that a slain lamb." It is almost right. What's wrong is that he's built in an antithesis. The vision does not teach us not the lion, but in fact the lamb. What it teaches us is He's simultaneously the lion and the lamb. And perhaps that is why the lamb then is in turn associated with such symbols of power. Do you read what comes next? He stands in the centre of the throne. Now that too must be understood in the light of the vision from chapter 4. He is one with God. What is there in the center of the throne? God. That's all there is. Around the throne are the cherubim. Around the cherubim are the elders. Around the elders in 1 Corinthians 7 and 1 Corinthians 19 are the angels. Around the angels are the great quantities of the redeemed. But in the center of the throne is only God. And the Lamb comes from the throne. This is another way of affirming the essential deity of the Son, of the Messiah, of the King, of the Lion, of the Lamb. And when you think about it, granted the picture of God, transcendent and terrifying God, depicted in chapter 4, Who else but God himself could bring about the opening of the seals and the effecting of his own purposes in redemption and judgement? Not only does he stand in the centre of the throne so that he does not have to pass through these serried ranks of terrifying circles, he merges from the throne But moreover, he has seven horns and seven eyes. He's a lion. He's a root. He's a lamb. He's a slaughtered lamb. And he's a seven-eyed, seven-horned lamb. Now clearly you're mixing your metaphors again. You're not to draw a picture of this. The point is, that he has a perfection of kingly authority. Seven is regularly a number in apocalyptic associated with perfection, or completeness, or totality. Horn is always a symbol designating king, or kingship, or king dominion. The eyes, as usual in this kind of literature, indicate a perfection of seeing-ness. That is, he sees everything. Nothing is hidden from the eyes of him with whom we have to do, Hebrews says in chapter 4. He has perfect knowledge. He sees everything. So, although he may have been a slaughtered lamb, he is not a weak lamb. In my little office at Trinity, behind my desk, above my head is a little framed piece of stitching that my wife did. Just a few words. The words are, he is not a tame lion. Now some international students have come in there and without knowing anything of the heritage of English literature have thought that was referring to me. But it isn't. It comes from C.S. Lewis, the Narnia Tales. Do you recall how Aslan, the figure in the Narnia Tales who represents Jesus, dies on the stone to wind death backward so that Edward can be saved. And the other children think it's wonderful. They're so full of joy when Aslan comes back from the dead. After the tears comes the great joy as Aslan, shining with glory, has unwound death, yet come back to life. And then a little later on, the children want Aslan back. They want to know where he is. They want to play with him. They've had such good times with him, and now he doesn't seem to be there. And they are told, Aslan loves children. It is a joy to be with Aslan, and Aslan can play. But you cannot control him. He does not come at your whim. He is not a tame lion. Yes, the lamb was slaughtered, but he's not a tame lamb. He's not simply a bleating sheep. In fact, already in Jewish literature of this time, in apocalyptic writings like this, they spoke of an apocalyptic lamb with seven horns. The imagery is taken up here. Slaughtered he may have been, but he has all kingly authority. He has a perfection of knowledge. He comes from the very throne of God. And he has prevailed. And that brings us then to the climax, the praise of heaven. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And then in chapter 6, I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. And thus the plotline of the book begins to unravel. Do you see? You cannot understand where the book is going unless you get these two chapters sorted out first. But as he comes and takes the scroll, chapter 5, verse 7, from the right hand of him who sat on the throne, when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. They who in the previous chapter had worshipped only God worshipped the Lamb, for He comes from the very throne of God. Now what are we to make of their praise? Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints. What does that mean? It is this passage, of course, that gives rise to these endless cartoons where Christians sit around in white nightshirts on puffy clouds and play harps. If I have to play a harp for all eternity, quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to go. This is confusing the symbol with that which is symbolized. It is important to understand what the text is saying. The harp in the ancient world was not like our harp, a great big mass of things with strings all in a row, and played with great dexterity with individual fingers, and a light and airy instrument. No, no, no. The ancient harp was an instrument of joy. It was a foot-tapping instrument. Do you recall the symbolism in Psalm 137 when the people are being transported into captivity? Our captors said, play us a song of Zion. Get out your harps and strum us a tune. Get a little Israeli foot-stomping music going. And the psalmist writes, by the rivers of Babylon, there we hung up our harps. How can we sing a song of joy in a strange land? In other words, the heart was associated with happiness and joy and harvest and fulfillment. How can you break it out and sing a song of joy when you're entering into exile? What is the equivalent today? Well, it depends an awful lot on our culture. It depends a bit on who you are, I suppose. For some people, I suspect it would be the banjo. Can anybody from that kind of background really be sad when a banjo is going? It might not be your favorite instrument to play Beethoven's 5th, but there is a certain kind of foot-stomping happiness about a banjo. That's the idea. Heaven is filled with joy. All the banjos come down, as it were. or whatever is your instrument of happiness, of joy, of ecstasy. This is not simply solemn. It is reverent, but it is not solemn. This is foot-stomping happiness, do you see? The banjos come down. Each one had a harp. Joy is breaking out in heaven because all of God's purposes in redemption and blessing are being affected by God's own provision. That's the idea. Not only so, but they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. This passage, and some others from the Old Testament, have led to some of the many medieval Catholic prostitutions in this regard, in which incense candles or votive candles of various types are thought to be roughly the equivalent to prayer, provided you pay so much for the candle, then you're offering a certain kind of sacrifice and the incense goes up before the Lord. Again, it is a confusion of symbol with that which is symbolized. This passage draws, likewise, its inspiration from Old Testament texts. As in Psalm 141, verse 2, let my prayer be set before you as incense. The idea, of course, in the ancient world was that incense could be very pleasant, very attractive. This was a world before Rite Guard. This was a world in which not every home was renowned for cleanliness. And therefore, instead of having disinfectants and spray tins for freshening up a place, they burned a little incense. It was sweet. It cut down the other smells. It was enjoyable. It sort of freshened up the place. And so the psalmist says, let my prayer come before you and be accepted before you as something sweet and refreshing and enjoyable. The symbolism is taken up again. The angels hold golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." Do you see what is being said? There is a profound sense in which if God's purposes for judgment and redemption had been frustrated, what would be the point of praying? All our prayers are in Jesus' name. All of our prayers that by God's mercies, win answers from this personal God who deals with us personally, are offered in Jesus' name. And if blessings are poured out, they are poured out precisely because this is the entailment of the crosswork of Christ. Without the entailment of the crosswork of Christ, what blessings would God give us in answer to prayer? He would owe us only condemnation. That's all. But now God's purposes in blessing and judgment, according to the symbolism of this vision, are guaranteed because secured by the Son. And so the first thing the angels do is break out the banjos and then bring the prayers of God's people in bowls by the bucketful into the very presence of Almighty God. and they sang a new song. Not the old song now of chapter 4. The old song was praise to God because He is the Creator. The new song is in the first instance praise to the Lamb because He is the Redeemer. And then in its closing refrain, it is to God and to the Lamb, a formula which then is repeated again and again and again. We shall see in chapters 21 and 22, again and again, God and the Lamb, God and the Lamb, God and the Lamb, linked again and again. And you sung the song of redemption. And they begin, you are worthy. No one living in the ancient world would be able to avoid remembering that that was how any new Caesar was addressed. When he became Caesar, immediately all the high officers of government, including all the senators, came around him and cried out in Latin, Veri Dignus! Veri Dignus! You are worthy! In Greek, Axios e! Axios e! You are worthy! You are worthy! John says, that around the throne the highest orders of angels bow before the living Christ, and they cry, You are worthy. The Caesars may think they bring their will to pass, but the one who brings God's will to pass in all the richness of its judgment and blessing is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, The Lamb of God, you are worthy. You are worthy. May I say this reverently? It is unthinkable, but needs to be thought. If Christ had not died, which is unthinkable, God's purposes would have failed. And there would not have been a single redeemed person. There would not have been a church. There would have been no forgiven person. There would only be the prospect and experience of hell. There would be no new heaven and new earth for us, but only unrelenting condemnation. You are worthy. John's whole point is that no one else could approach this God and take the book of God's purposes and bring its purposes to pass by opening the seals. and to do so has required his death and triumph. Now note well the particular things on which this hymn of praise focuses. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, Because you were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God. It is thus in the first place a bloody atonement. Someone has said that the best commentary on this is the hymn of Wesley. Arise, my soul, arise, shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears. Before the throne my surety stands. My name is written on his hands. Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. Forgive them, O forgive, they cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die. The Father hears Him pray, His dear Anointed One. He cannot turn away the presence of His Son. His Spirit answers to the blood and tells me I am born of God. My God is reconciled, His pardoning voice I hear. He owns me for His own, I can no longer fear. With confidence I now draw nigh, and Father, Abba, Father, cry. It is a bloody atonement. It is a broad atonement. Do you see what it says? With your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. It doesn't say he purchased everybody. It does say he purchased people from every tribe and language and people and nation. Not a whiff of racism here. Or of western cultural elitism. Not a whiff of it. God's people have been purchased by the blood of the Lamb out of every tongue and tribe and people and nation. It is a broad atonement. It is a directed atonement. They have been purchased for God. They have not simply been released from their sin and then sanctioned to go and sin further. They have been redeemed for God. No one is merely redeemed from sin and hell. Everyone who is redeemed is redeemed for God. That must be the nature of the case. Fourth, it is a triumphant atonement. Verse 10, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and they will reign on the earth. Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands, and 10,000 times 10,000. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang, worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive a sevenfold listing of attributes." That is, this is the very perfection of praise. That's the point. To receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise. There is no proper praise that is not due Him. Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them singing, to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever. Why this passage? Why every creature in heaven and on earth? Well, in part, this too reflects Old Testament worship patterns, does it not? In which nature is seen to join in. When disasters take place, the stars are falling from the heavens. When God is praised and the trees are dancing for joy and the hills are clapping their hands, or the other way around. That is part of the nature symbolism of Hebrew poetry. Thus you read in Psalm 148, praise the Lord from the earth, fire and hail, snow and vapors, stormy wind fulfilling His word, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things, flying fowl, kings of the earth, all people, let them all praise the name of the Lord. But this is more than that. This is more than that. The point is, that since the fall, the whole creation, to use the language of Paul, groans in travail waiting for the adoption of sons. But now the announcement has been made. God's purposes will be effected. God's purposes in redemption and judgment issue finally in the consummated new heaven and new earth. And so every creature is pictured as joining in, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them. Singing to him who sits on the throne and to the land Be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever Before a living creature said amen and the elders fell down and worshiped I Close But I want to say one thing One of the features of contemporary evangelicalism is our tendency increasingly to focus on the periphery. I know a godly Mennonite scholar, Paul Hebert, who analyses his own tradition this way. He said one generation of Mennonites believed the gospel, their particular version of it, and that there were certain social entailments. Whether you agree with those entailments or not makes no difference for the point of the illustration. The next generation assumed the gospel and identified with the entailments. The third generation denied the gospel, replacing it with the entailments. Now that's too simplistic. and he would acknowledge it. But it is a fairly common pattern. There was a sense in which evangelicals, in a fight for their life against classic liberalism in the early decades of this century, were more or less united, even though there were substantial theological divisions around them. But they were passionate about certain things. Some of them were reformed, some of them were not. But they were passionate about the substitutionary atonement. They were passionate about the deity of Christ. They were passionate about the inerrancy of Scripture. They were passionate about the personal nature of the Holy Spirit. They were passionate about the need for holiness. Do you see? Now we've moved into another age. And there are many people who still identify themselves with evangelicalism broadly construed. And if you ask them, do you believe in the deity of Christ? Oh, yes. Do you believe in its substitutionary atonement? Oh, yes. But when you probe and find out where their passion is, it is not precisely with the gospel anymore. It's with the abortion issue. or homeschooling, or some political cause, or women's ordination, for or against, and so on, and so on, and so on. Do not misunderstand me. Not for a moment am I suggesting that these are not things about which we need to think. Not for a moment am I suggesting that these are not issues about which Christians must fight and wrestle. Not for a moment am I suggesting that we should be narrow evangelicals in the lowest common denominator sort of theology. Not for a moment am I suggesting any of those kinds of things. I am saying, if we lose the centre, we lose everything. One of the great things in the wake of the Whitfield-Wesley revival was the fact that many, many, many, many of the converts, the John Howards and the Earl Shasperys, who transformed the face of Britain, did so because of their passionate concern to see the whole of the counsel of God work out in the life of society, but they did so while retaining the gospel at the center of their lives. We have A move toward a kind of evangelicalism that assumes the gospel, but is passionately focused on one or more things on the periphery. Single-issue Christians. And then you're only one generation from displacing the gospel with the peripheries. Now, if there is anything that all of Holy Writ makes clear, not least this most blessed of chapters, it is that the Gospel is center. What brings about all of God's purposes for redemption and blessing? The triumph of Christ. The good news of the Gospel of Christ. Who He is and what He has done. to redeem his own people to God. That is the heart of the matter. Yes, we may speak rightly of God's graces in providence and in provision in our lives and in our homes and in our families and give God thanks for such things. But the old hymn writer had it correct. Great God of wonders, All thy ways are matchless, godlike, and divine, but the fair glories of thy grace more godlike and unrivaled shine. Who is a pardoning God like thee? And who has grace so rich and free? In wonder lost with trembling joy, we take this pardon of our God, pardon for sins of deepest dye, a pardon sealed with Jesus' blood. Who is a pardoning God like Thee? And who has grace so rich and free? Oh, may this strange, this wondrous grace, this matchless miracle of love fill the wide earth with grateful praise. And all the angelic choirs above, who is a pardoning God like Thee? And who has grace so rich and free? Are there some here tonight who still do not know this pardoning grace? Will you not, even where you sit, cry to God for mercy? There is no hope for you apart from His mercy. Turn! Why will you die? The Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Sue Him for mercy, this pardoning grace sealed by Jesus' blood. Will you not say to Him where you sit, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner? Last night we closed with Crown Him with Many Crowns, partly because that formed the transition to this chapter. We sing it again tonight in retrospect. The Lamb upon His throne, Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee. Crown Him with Many Crowns.