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(upbeat music) - Welcome to our look at Revelation chapter four together in
Daily Drive Time Devotions. I am Pastor Tom and I have been looking forward to
this chapter. I love the first three chapters of Revelation.

I really love chapter four and five. They are incredible chapters that focus on
a worship service, a worship experience in heaven. The world is filled with a
lot of incredible doorways, doorways that you can go through to experience
incredible things on vacations or in a business or in your church.

In last week's chapter, in chapter three, verse 19, we saw Jesus knocking on the
door of our lives. And here at the beginning of chapter four, there's this
awesome doorway that is open. It is a doorway to heaven.

Listen to what happens in verse one. John writes, "After this I looked, "and
there was before me a door standing open in heaven. "And the voice I had first
heard speaking to me "like a trumpet said, 'Come up here, "'and I will show you
what must take place after this.

'" Wow, what a moment in John's life. He follows that voice and he steps into
heaven. Now, where is heaven?

It's not some distant planet. It's in essence another dimension of existence
right here and right now. I don't have to go up or out to find heaven.

It's going to a different place, a place where God is. And John is allowed to
walk into heaven. He's not the first one in scripture to do this.

The prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and Daniel were also privileged to look into
heaven. John here has the same privilege. The apostle Paul was privileged to see
into heaven.

We read in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. John here gets the same privilege. But
John, in a sense, goes even a gigantic step further.

He's summoned up into heaven. Doesn't just see, he is summoned there. One of the
people on our research team wrote, "I have one overall question on chapter four.

"Is there any reason for us to view this "as anything other than an actual
description "of a scene around God's throne? "And no, there is not one reason
"to believe it's anything else. " What happens here is John gets to attend a
worship service in heaven.

And then he gives us a detailed description of what he saw. Just think of this.
We get the chance these next few weeks together to go together, to hear the
description together of this awesome worship service in heaven.

If somebody wrote a book on this today, it would be an instant, immediate
bestseller worldwide for years and years to come. And the Bible is a bestseller
for centuries because it tells the true story of what God has done. And here in
Revelation, this book, we get to hear what happened when John went to heaven.

Now, as we start this look at what happens in this throne room of heaven, it's a
good chance to remind ourselves of three perspectives that you gotta have if
you're really going to get all that the Book of Revelation has to give to us. When
we understand these three perspectives, much of the Book of Revelation, most of
what is unclear to us when we read the Book of Revelation becomes clear. Not
all, but most becomes very, very clear.

And we're going to see examples of all three of these perspectives in this chapter.
The perspective of the Old Testament, the perspective of the first century, and
the perspective of time in heaven. Three vital perspectives.

Number one, the Old Testament. You have to understand the Old Testament in order
to understand Revelation. You're going to see as we walk through these chapters,
these next few chapters, that there are things that are taken out of the Old
Testament.

And if you understand those verses, you understand exactly what John is saying.
If you don't know those verses are there, it makes you scratch your head. So you
have to understand the Old Testament.

I always say the Book of Revelation is at the end of the Bible because you need
to understand the rest of the Bible before you understand Revelation. A second
thing you need to understand is the first century. The first people who read the
Book of Revelation.

And the atmosphere in which it was written. It was an atmosphere of persecution
of Christians. It was an atmosphere in which the emperor was said to be God.

And you were supposed to say that this emperor was worthy, the one to be
worshiped. Now in the perspective of that, as we see who God really is in these
next couple of chapters, we're going to see that he alone is the one to be
worshiped. That's a perspective that you need to have.

And a third perspective that's important, especially as we go into chapter four
of the Book of Revelation, is time in heaven. In chapter four, verse one, he
says after these things. One question you might have is how long after these
things?

And the answer I'd give you is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because time
in heaven and time on earth are two different things. Time with the Lord and
time with us are two different things.

Sometimes we try to figure out the Book of Revelation as if time in heaven is
progressing at exactly the same rate and exactly the same ways as it is on
earth, and it is not. They're just two different things. Now I know that might
be hard to grasp because we've always lived where there is time and it proceeds
a certain way.

But when you understand that it's different and don't try to match the two up,
you just realize that God's telling you the story of events in the order they
will happen and not necessarily the timeline that they will happen, then it
helps you a lot as you read through the Book of Revelation. That's the
perspective in the Book of Revelation. John is going to be seeing events that we
have yet to see and we need to get to understand that as he sees his events, he
wants us, whatever timeline we live in, to look forward to what only Jesus
Christ can do.

Now that all ties into one vital attitude. These three perspectives tie into one
vital attitude for understanding Revelation and it is the attitude of worship.
It is the attitude where Revelation chapter four and chapter five are going to lead
us.

If you approach the Book of Revelation with an attitude of worry, which is the
opposite of worship, an attitude of worry focused on what are the problems,
you're never going to get the joy, never going to get the hope. When you read the Book
of Revelation, trying to find the answers to worries that you have about your
future focused on yourself, you're just going to come out more worried. But when
you read the Book of Revelation focusing on worship, worship of the God who made
us confident that we can hope in him, then you approach the Book of Revelation
with worship and you end up with a greater degree of hope.

Worship is the attitude that unlocks an understanding of the Book of Revelation.
It is the attitude that God himself invites us to before we even begin this look
at the future. That's what chapter four and chapter five are all about.

They're two of the greatest worship chapters in the entire Bible. So let's
worship. And as we worship, we begin at the throne.

In Revelation chapter four, verse two, John writes, at once I was in the Spirit,
and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. John says
I was in the Spirit. This is not some altered state.

He's talking about I was connected to Christ. I had a sense of my connection, my
personal connection to God. God's Spirit is put into our lives, into our hearts
as believers, and being in the Spirit means I recognize my connection to my
Father.

Now in this case, John is enabled to see some things that you and I might not
ever be able to see, but he lets us in on it. And I need to be in the Spirit. I
need to be connected to God, my Father, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit if I'm
going to really understand what he has to say.

And as John begins to write, the focus of worship in this chapter is on the
throne. If you want to understand Revelation, you have to begin with the throne.
If you want to understand yourself, if you want to understand this world or anything
else for that matter, you have to begin with the throne.

It's interesting, in the rest of the New Testament, the word throne appears 11
times. In the book of Revelation, the word appears 42 times. It appears 11 times
in chapter four alone.

The word throne appears as many times in this chapter as it does in the entire
rest of the New Testament. That throne, the throne of God, is the central theme
of the book of Revelation. In fact, there's only five chapters in the whole book
where the word throne isn't found.

What are we talking about when we talk about God's throne? The throne is a place
of priority, a place of authority, and a place of glory. God's throne is a place
of priority.

All that takes place, all that you read this week in the news or see on the
internet, as exciting or as excruciating as world events might be, they all
relate back to this one throne and the fact that God has a plan through it all.
It's a place of priority. There is no news more important than this throne.

There is no one more important than the one who sits on this throne. It's a
place of priority. It's also a place of authority.

I always like what Ray Stedman said about this throne. "The fact that there is a
throne," he wrote, "means that there are absolutes "which cannot be altered or
changed. "They are guaranteed by the authority of that throne.

"Nothing man does or can do "alters them in the least degree. " It's a place of
authority. We might say I want this to happen or I might push for this to happen
or some human government might even for a few years cause something to happen,
but in the end, every knee's going to bow before that throne.

In the end, the authority is God's alone. He exercises authority over all of
human history, over all of eternity. It's a place of priority, a place of
authority, but it's also, and we're going to see this in the days to come, it is a
place of glory.

It is a place where we see the glory of who God really is. In fact, these next
few days, as we look at God's glory, my prayer for me and for you is that we'll
experience it in a way maybe that you never have before. That whether you're
driving in your car right now or sitting at your desk or it's the early morning
or late evening or in the middle of the day, wherever you happen to be, God's
glory can invade that point right now in your life as you worship the one who
sits on the throne.

Let's do that right now. Our Father, we worship you. We recognize your priority.

There is no one, nothing more important than you, and that will go into
eternity. We recognize your authority. No one can stand against you.

No idea that I have or direction that I try to take against you or apart from
you can stand. We recognize your throne as a place of glory because it's the
place where you are, and you are a glorious, beautiful, awesome God. We take a
moment right now to glory in who you are.

And ask Jesus Christ that you would reveal the glory of the Father in our lives
today. And in your name, we ask this, Jesus. Amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to continue our time together at the throne of God.