John before the Throne of God

Revelation 4

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, we are studying in the book of Revelation, and uh chapter four is where John is raptured out of the um uh out of the world, out of the earth, and he's taken up to heaven, and this is a type of the rapture of the church. And then we see that one of the first things John does is he begins to describe um everyone that's around and everything that's around the throne of God as best that he possibly can, and uh um and describing, you know, what is going on, the events that's taking place there in chapter four. When we move on to chapter five, we'll uh talk about the ceremony, which I have already talked about in videos, but the ceremony that the church uh will be a part of, that must be a part of, of Christ taking the uh Jesus taking the uh scroll out of the hands of the Father. But uh very interesting, John, or you have to remember this is a first century person, man, uh trying to describe uh you know the events that are happening in heaven. First off, he's describing events and people and things that he sees that he's never seen before, never seen nothing like them, and they operate under a different law uh than than what uh this natural world does. Also, this is a man that's never seen a radio, he's never seen electricity, he's never seen a car, he's never seen any of these things. And so now all of a sudden he has seen what, in a sense, is all this technology using you know familiar words for us that uh had to be very unfamiliar to John. And so what uh one of the first things he describes is seeing uh God the Father on the throne. He recognizes the fact that there is a throne in heaven, he recognizes the fact that there is someone seated on the throne. He doesn't see God in a human form, but he sees God through light. Now I want you to see uh hear this because this is this is very, very powerful. John sees God through uh through the light that God wants to shine on on John, that God wants him to see. He sees him through light. And and the only way that John can describe these lights is by describing them uh as stones of color. And um and and so what we're seeing is we're seeing is that John is seeing the characteristics of God through light as color. Okay, he talks about seeing God as a jasper stone. Jasper uh stone is a clear stone, which stands for the purity, the perfection, and the glory of God. And then he says he sees him as a Sardis stone, which is a red stone, and this uh represents the redemption and the justice of God. And then we see that he sees the rainbow, the green rainbow around the throne. The throne represents judgment, but the rainbow represents the love and the mercy of God. God's judgment is always mingled with his mercy and his love. And notice is that the way John sees God through these colors and through these lights, the way John sees God, he sees him as he relates to man. He relates to man through being perfect, through being uh uh pure and through uh his glory. He relates to man through um uh his justice and through his redemption in the blood of Jesus. And then he sees man through his mercy and his love. These are the way that John relates and the way uh man relates to God and how God relates to man. This is very powerful. Uh, we are going to see also that John's gonna talk about the uh the angels that are around the throne and the elders that are around the throne, and we'll talk further about that. Praise God.