Leakesville Presbyterian Church: The Most-Important Message You Could Hear

The Most-Important Message You Could Hear

Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:9-10)

If I had but one opportunity to preach to you, what would you need to hear?

Of course, all of Scripture is God-breathed and therefore profitable for you spiritually. It would be unbiblical to suppose that the Lord could not use any Scripture to transform you and me. We know He can use any text to accomplish His perfect purposes for us.

Yet this passage, Revelation 5, stands out for us this morning, both for its place in the Bible and for its message. Revelation, you understand, falls under the heading of “apocalyptic literature”: a genre that featured letters – full of symbolic language – written to persecuted minorities in order to bolster them for service. It tells the story of the church – the past, present and future of the Bride of Christ – as she suffers continual persecution in this fallen world until Jesus comes again and brings her to the New Heavens and New Earth.

But before St. John describes the troubles the church faces and will face, he depicts a Heavenly scene of worship. If you are going to serve, and to suffer for, Christ, you first need to appreciate his glory, uniqueness and victory. To that end, Revelation 4 concerns the worship of God as our eternal Creator, while chapter 5 describes the worship of Christ as the unique Enactor of the Father’s plan for all of human history.

This passage specifically teaches us, first, that God has a plan for all of history that no mere human can bring about; second, Jesus, the slain Lamb, is the Key who unlocks history’s events; and Jesus therefore deserves all praise – especially yours.

This is the central message you and I need to hear to orient us in the trajectory of our lives.

Revelation 5 first teaches that God has a plan for history that no mere human can enact.

If you’ll read chapter 4, you’ll observe a scene of Heavenly worship in which God is on the throne and is worshipped as the Creator, who lives forever and ever. His throne symbolizes His authority and rule over all of history and creation.

Here in chapter 5, the One on the throne is holding a scroll in his right hand – the place of power and preeminence – that is written on the front and back. Recall that Revelation communicates authoritative truth from God using symbols and visions; the scroll here likely is a reference to Daniel 12:4, which speaks of a scroll being sealed until the “time of the end” – the final era of history between the first and second advents of Christ. The writing surely contains God’s plan for history, and note how comprehensive this plan is: the scroll has writing on the front and on the back, which was difficult to write on due to its grain.

God’s plan is thorough, certain (being in His right hand) and authoritative (being sealed with seven seals, symbolizing God’s authentication of the plan). But as a sealed plan in His right hand, not just anyone has the right to enact it. Indeed, no mere human can possibly unlock and bring about God’s plan!

John hears the voice of a strong angel crying out and demanding that the entire universe give attention to this one question: “Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals?” In other words, who is worthy to claim centrality in God’s plan for all of eternity? Yet as universal as is the angel’s summons, John’s discovery is just as sweeping: no one anywhere – in Heaven, on earth, under the earth – is able to open the seals or even to look upon the scroll. No mere human is the true key to God’s plans for history.

Now this message clangs against our postmodern eardrums. You and I commit “we-ism” (to coin a phrase) all the time, because we think our generation is the ultimate age in space and time. We think as if our most-recently elected officials finally will usher in a lasting era of prosperity, and the world did not exist in any meaningful fashion until we came on the scene. How many former political and popular leaders thought they were central to history as well!

The major problem is that you and I leave out God with such thinking. We ignore His role in creation and His purposes in creating us and His world. St. John did not. That is why he wept bitterly when no one was found worthy to enact God’s plan for history.

So, too, does everyone weep bitterly who trusts in anyone but the Lord Jesus Christ to unfold the Father’s decrees for mankind and the world.

This passage demonstrates, secondly, that Jesus the slain Lamb is the Key to history.

As John wept bitterly, one of the 24 elders (representing the entire church, both in the Old [12 tribes of Israel] and New [12 apostles] covenant eras) surrounding the throne of God consoled him. His encouragement: the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, had overcome sin, death and hell and thus had the right to take the scroll from God the Father’s right hand. Jesus of course is the promised Lion, springing from the tribe of Judah and holding the scepter of God forever. As a Lion, Jesus is both wise and fierce in victory. As the Root of David (David’s descendant), he has the right to an eternal throne, promised to David by God long ago. So in this “scene of investiture,” as one scholar has it, Jesus goes and takes the scroll from the Father’s right hand as is his right.

Note, however, how John goes on to describe Jesus: he is a Lamb who appeared as though he had been slain. The Lamb had taken (observe the perfect tense, which indicates a past action – the Ascension of Jesus – with present-day continuing implications) his stand near the throne of God, indicating his nearness to God and, in fact, his divinity. This is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, as St. Paul writes!

Do you see the tension and perfect balance in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ? He is the Lion, the Victor, worthy to stand near the throne of God. He has seven horns and seven Spirit, symbolizing his perfect power and the all-seeing wisdom and knowledge of the Holy Spirit, respectively. But he also is the Lamb of God, humbly submitting to death, even on a cursed cross. He made an open show of his – and your – enemies, but he did so not with a sword but by going to hell for you and me on the cross. His glory is found in his “rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified” – in those awful scars evident in his glorified, not still dead, body.

Jesus receives praise and the prayers of the saints because of his triumphant conquest on our behalf. The elders (the church) sang a new song to him, as in the Old Testament, because by his Ascension our Lord marked a glorious new day in the history of redemption for God’s people.

But why, in the final analysis, is Jesus worthy of your prayers and praise? Because only Jesus allows the church to be the church to God’s glory, which is the point of history. Because he and he alone, as both God and man, has bought you and me and all types of sinners from all types of ethnic, racial and even (im)moral backgrounds from the realm of sin and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Father. He has redeemed you from slavery to sin, even as God redeemed Israel from slavery to the Egyptians. And Jesus alone makes you to be what God always intended you to be as He created you in His image: a king, ruling over His world rightly, and a priest, worshipping Him in every least endeavor and reflecting Him to the world. Remember, God put you on this earth to honor Him in everything you do, because the fullness of creation belongs to Him. Sin prevents you from fulfilling that two-fold purpose of reigning and worshipping Him, but Jesus’ cleansing and life-changing work enables you to bear his image and to be who God intended you to be from the beginning.

Were it not for Jesus’ perfect humility and triumph, you could not glorify God – and glorifying God in all things is the point of creation and history. This is why the Lamb, the Lion, is worthy!

Third, because of his conquest, Jesus is worthy of worship – not only from the church but, indeed, from all creation.

The last four verses of Revelation 5 feature a continually widening circle of praise for God, moving from the church to countless angels to every creature, whether in Heaven or on the earth or under the earth or in the sea. Even the sea, noted in Revelation for its instability and association with worldliness, offers its praise to the Key of history. The totality of creation praises the Lamb, piling on one ascription of worship after another in verse 12 to total seven words of praise. In other words, Christ deserves perfect and complete worship from everyone, particularly from you and me who have been redeemed by him. And verse 13 closely associates the One on the throne with the Lamb, and the church worships the Lord as the beasts (which, I think, stand for the noblest of creation) add their sincere “Amen” to this Heavenly chorus.

Do you see all of creation as serving our Lord Jesus Christ? Do you look forward to that day when “every knee shall bow ... and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord?” Do you groan with the entire creation for the coming liberation from the Curse that Jesus will bring when he returns again?

And if you do praise him, do you do so with sincerity of heart?

I don’t know where the Lord in His sovereign wisdom will call you to serve Him this year, this week, this afternoon. I pray we will, but cannot be assured, that you and I will meet again this side of glory.

But I am assured that you minister in a world that in sinfulness hates Jesus. You will be despised for His Name’s sake. You will have the opportunity to witness to people who have no idea why they’re on earth, or even if there is a reason why they’re on earth.

If you could keep only one message in mind as you venture out those doors and into God’s world, may I suggest you make it Revelation 5? Remember God’s purpose in creating you and in making this world – to be a king and a priest for him – and remember that only the slain Lamb, the Lion, makes history (and your personal history) possible.

He is worthy!