1439 - "Worthy is our God, Creator & Redeemer to receive Praise!" Revelation 4-5

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1439. Today we're in Revelation chapter 4 and 5. Remember, the reason we are in these chapters is to see the pattern throughout all of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, that there are these concurrent themes that run all the way through the Bible. That is, the Bible presents God as the creator and as the sustainer of all of life. That is, God holds everything together. As a matter of fact, in the book of Colossians, in that small prison epistle, the apostle Paul said, The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, holds everything that there is in the universe together. He is the creator, he is the sustainer, he is the keeper. And this theme is all the way through the Bible. And then running right with that is the concept of the Redeemer, the one who is chasing us, the one who is after us, the one who is pursuing us. You say, now wait just a minute. I thought we were pursuing God. Oh no, he's pursuing us. As a matter of fact, the scripture says in Isaiah chapter 53, verse 6, just as an example, when it's talking about the suffering servant of the God of creation, the God of redemption, he says, All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one unto our own way, and the Lord has laid on him. The Father has laid on Jesus the Messiah, the sin of all of us. You see, the Bible says there is none righteous, no not one. That is in Romans 3 10, a quotation from the Old Testament Book of Psalms. It's as though he is anticipating that someone would bring up the very concept that I just gave you that we're running after God. Oh no, it's we're running away from God. There is none righteous, no, not one. That's a triple negative. There is none, that's one negative. None righteous. No, that's the second one. Not, that's the third one. There is none righteous, no, not one. And for that reason, all we who have gone astray, which is everybody, so he says, For all have missed the mark, all have sinned and missed the mark. What is the mark? The glory of God. We fall short of God's glory. He is the plumb line, He is the Cana. He is the measuring rod. And so God is our goal. God is the one that everyone is measured up to, and none of us have arrived. This is why I often say in relation to heaven, you don't have to be good to go to heaven, you've got to be perfect, and everyone is disqualified from that except one, and that is the Lord Jesus Himself, the Son of God. And he died to pay for our sins, not his. See, that wasn't at quote Christmas time. That wasn't when the babe was in a manger. No, he was in a house. And the word is not brefos in Greek, it is the word podion, which is the word for a toddler and above. No, Jesus was probably eighteen months to two years old when the wise men came. Then they fled to Egypt. That's for another day. I've already talked about that in podcasts past. But what I want you to understand is in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is eighteen months to two years old when he's introduced to us. In the Gospel of Luke, he is born, and it's what we would call the Christmas story. That's why we go to Luke for chapter two for the Christmas story, because it tells of his virgin birth. In Mark, it just starts with him at his baptism. There is no birth account. There's nothing, it just starts with his ministry and his public ministry. But John, John goes to eternity past, and he presents Jesus as the Word of God, the one who creates everything. You see, John stresses the deity of Christ, the God nature of the gospel, and that Jesus is all God. Just as Luke presents him as all man, he is 100% God, he's 100% man. But he presents him as the creator, not just the redeemer, but as the creator, the divine creator. So when we get to heaven, we're going to see Jesus on the throne. That's right, Jesus on the throne. You can listen to yesterday's podcast and you can see why I say that. And what are we praising God for? Well, if you look at the text in verse eight, it says that these what I would call seraphim, Saraph is the Hebrew word for burning. Saraphim, the burning ones. It looks like Isaiah chapter six in Revelation chapter four. Why? Because there's six winged creatures. And in Isaiah chapter six it says, with these six wings, with two they covered their feet, with two they covered their face, because they were facing the glory of God, and with two they flew around. Well it says that these creatures, these living creatures, these four living creatures, each having six wings, like the Saraphim, Saraphim, the burning ones. They were full of eyes around and within, and they did not rest day or night, just like Isaiah six. And what were they saying? Just what Isaiah six was, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and who is to come, the eternal one. He is the creator. Whenever the living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty four elders, again I referenced yesterday's podcast, the twenty four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and they worship him who lives forever and ever, and they cast their Stephania, their victor's crowns, before the throne, saying, Look at this. This is the first thing in the first worship service when all of us are around the throne that we're going to praise God for, for you are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. Why? Because you redeemed us? Because you're the Lamb of God? No, that's coming. The reason that they're praising God and glorifying Him is because you have created all things, and by your will they exist and were created. In other words, we praise God for making us. We praise God for making all of the universe. And we recognize Him as creator. This is so very important. You see, God takes this creation thing seriously. And if you were going to think about this, if you were going to discredit the God of the Bible, where is the first place you would go to? You would attack the fact that God is the creator, the divine creator of everything, and that he did it in a supernatural way. Not some natural selection, as Darwin says in his diatribe on natural selection. Oh no, no, no. There's no such thing as theistic transmutative evolution. You don't jump species. Within a species, there is mutation, but transmutation is when you jump species. The Bible contradicts that completely and says that God made everything to propagate after its own kind. Never. It's contrary to the word of God to believe in Darwinistic evolution. It's contrary to the word of God. I don't care how much biology you've had or science you've had, that is contrary to the word of God. And science changes more often than I change my shirts. But I can tell you the word of God is settled in heaven forever. And he says that God created everything. He did it in seven Yom, in seven days. And those are 24 hour days. The greatest usage of Yom, by far, the great preponderance of evidence of the usage of day, Yom in the Bible is a 24 hour day. Basically what we have today. And the Bible says he did that in six days. You say, wait just a minute, that would be a miracle. Well, God signs his name miracle. Well, that would take God to do that. It'd be supernatural, supranatural, above nature. Of course it would, because God is supernatural. And so he did that. But then he did it on the seventh day. Now, if you don't use Yom as 24 hour days, you're going to have some real issues in trying to say that it's ages or this or that. So we had a Shabbat age? I mean, get real. It's so difficult trying to explain human ingenuity and human thought power. Just take God's word as it is. Why? Because it is by faith that we understand that God created the universe. It is by faith that we understand that he framed the worlds. Read the book. That's what he'll tell you. That I know goes contrary to what a lot of people believe, but it's not contrary to the word of God, and I'm going to stick with it every time. And so we're going to worship God as the creator because he is the creator and sustainer of everything. And that is in symbolism taught through Shabbat. That's in symbolism taught in the worship centers, both the portable worship center, the tabernacle, and the more permanent worship center, the stable worship center, which were the two temples, those were designed in heaven. And the earthly worship centers were patterned after the heavenly worship center. Read the book of Hebrews, especially chapter 9 and 10. And so when we come to chapter 5, this same worship scene is going on. But now in verse 8, when we come to verse 8 of chapter 5, it says, Now when this lamb of God, which John was expecting to see a lion, because he said, Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, when no one could open the scrolls, and he turned around and he saw a lamb as it had been slain. Why? Because Jesus is the lion of Judah, the Messiah is the line of Judah, but he's also the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Oh my, we could really spend a lot of time there. But verse 8 says, But now when he, this lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb of God, had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and twenty four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp and golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sang a new song, and this is what the song said, You are worthy to take the scroll, you're worthy to take the scroll, and to open the seals, for you were slain, you have redeemed us, you've redeemed us to God by your own blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on earth for ever. Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, that means it's unnumbered. Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature which was in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, such as are in the sea and all that are in them, I heard saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb for ever and ever. Then the four living creatures said, Amen, and the twenty four elders who fell down before him worshipped him who lives forever and ever. It is the concurrent worship of the Creator and all of creation that he made, praising him for that. And then worshiping him as the Savior, the Messiah, the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world and brought us back. He reconciled us to God. He brought us back to God, he bought us with his own blood. These are the words that can be echoed from Genesis to Revelation. And what I want you to understand is as we go through the Word of God and we look at it from 30,000 feet, and then we get down on the ground face to face with those who lived it out, we're going to learn from them in the coming weeks and months, and we're going to grow together, and we will see these concurrent themes over and over again that God taught his people Israel. And remember, according to the Apostle Paul, who was a Jewish rabbi, wrote to Jew and Gentile alike, and he said in chapter 15 of the book of Romans, I think it's verse 4, where he says that the things that were written before, the things that were written, he's talking about the Tanakh, the law, the prophets, and the writings, what we call the Old Testament, the things which were written before were written for our learning, for our instruction, for our admonition, so that we might have hope and encouragement. Why? Because we see that even when they were unfaithful, God was faithful. Even when they denied him, he could not deny himself. And God will keep his end of the bargain. Aren't you glad? I sure am. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.