Sermon Tone Analysis

Please turn to Revelation chapter 4. Revelation chapter 4.

If you are new here, welcome—we are going through the book of Revelation chapter by chapter, verse by verse.

We just finished the section of Revelation-- where Jesus had messages to 7 specific churches back then in the Roman Empire..This is technically vision 1 of the book.

and now begins a new section—vision 2 that the apostle John needed and the church then and us needed.

Would you stand with me?

One of the most famous stories in all of stories is the Wizard of Oz.

The main character Dorothy is blown away from her home by a tornado.

She is not in Kansas anymore.

Just like John the Apostle here is no longer home but suffering in exile for the cause of Jesus.

And Dorothy’s mission is to get home.

So she hears about a great and powerful Wizard—and embarks on a journey to go see the Wizard of Oz with a scarecrow who needs a brain, a tin man who needs a heart, a lion who needs courage.

And when they finally get to the great and powerful oz—they see flames and power (at first)

but when the curtain is pulled back they see a little man pushing buttons and pulling levers.

The mighty oz is a scam—he really is not that impressive.

When Dorothy and her companions see the true, ultimate reality of who the Wizard of Oz is—it’s disappointing.

not so here—John the Apostle is drawn up into heaven in this vision;

and when the curtain is pulled back it is NOT DISAPPOINTING.

In fact, you could say it’s OVERWHELMING!

He struggles with language to describe this heavenly scene.

and he gets a vision for him in exile, for the struggling persecuted church back then, and for us today—OF WHAT ULTIMATE REALITY.

What do I mean by ultimate reality?

I stole that term from Nancy Guthrie and her book Blessed.

Ultimate reality could be defined as what it really going on in life.

what is really happening behind the scenes.

What really matters.

If you have ever seen or heard of the movie Matrix—it’s an old movie now.

Actor Keanu Reeves plays the main character NEO—and he finds out in the first movie that actually the world he is living in is just a computer program, a simulation, not real—that true ultimate reality is that the machines have enslaved everyone and humans are actually in a war against machines who use human beings as batteries!

recently, the series Stranger Things has come out the last few years on Netflix—and they portray that true reality is this battle with the upside down world, almost this other dimension.

over the past few years with Covid—I have heard theory after theory of all sorts of conspiracy theorists who say that ultimate reality is this…the Illuminati is ruling the world, or this small group of people is ruling the world...

it’s amazing how we all long for ultimate reality—what is really going on…to be on the inside of it, to understand it, to experience it…AND WE ALL THINK WE KNOW WHAT...

BUT

Revelation chapter 4 (and 5 next week) THAT IS ULTIMATE REALITY.

2 Parts ABOUT ULTIMATE REALITY

What we need to KNOW (about ultimate reality) that God is on the throne.

(Ruling and reigning)

In other words, he is ruling and reigning THEN and Now. over EVERYTHING.

That word throne shows up 62x in the NT

47X it occurs in the book of Revelation alone, and over 40 of those times is a reference to God’s or Jesus’s throne.

God wants us to know when the curtain is pulled back—He is reigning.

look at some of these descriptions of God.

his appearance is of beautiful jewels.

his description involves all the colors of the spectrum---incredibly glorious and beautiful.

indescribable.

those lightning and thunder reminds us of the OT with Moses at Mt. Sinai.

THE POWER AND MIGHT OF GOD! if you have ever really been in a thunderstorm that shakes the windows and the building—that pales in comparison to this...

7 spirits of God = The Holy Spirit in all of his perfection (7 is a symbolic # of completion)

and everything is centered on the throne of God.

in vs. 4—there are 24 elders with thrones focused on the MAIN THRONE!

in vs. 6 - 8 - and more beings with 6 wings like a lion, an ox, a man and a flying eagle.

(most likely angels of some kind—possibly cherubim like we see in Ezekiel 1, or seraphim like we see in Isaiah 6.

look at vs. 8

verse 11

This God on the throne is all beautiful...

the rainbow reminds us he is covenant and promise keeper (like during Noah’s time)

He is all powerful—lightning and thunder

He is the Creator God—who made all things out of nothing and sustains all things—the only reason the universe doesn’t fall apart is b/c of God’s power.

John and the churches then needed to be reminded of this…and we do now.

Revelation is about to get crazier.

judgments—7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 bowls.

the beast, the mark of the beast.

Armageddon.

John and his readers needed to know that despite all that coming—behind the curtain—God is ruling and reigning.

and you and I need this too....

in good times God is in control…we dare NOT forget that.

lest we think it’s because of me—and my achievements.

in good times, we have a tendency to think “I am on the throne.

I am a big deal.

Look at me!” dangerous!

we struggle for who is on the throne of our lives!

and in bad times—even in suffering—even in the most difficult times imaginable—God cares—but He wants you to know, He is still ruling and reigning, that even if it doesn’t feel like it, even if you have to die as a martyr for following Jesus.

He is on the throne.

Illustration....

verse 11—mentions his creation...

consider the power of God:

a. Consider this—to get to our moon, it takes a spacecraft about 3 days to get there, 240,000 miles.

b. in our solar system—on average, the planet Mars is about 140 million miles away.

If we sent a person to Mars using current technology, it would take 8 months to get there (for a lot of reasons)

c. or some of you have heard of Voyager 1 and 2, probes Nasa launched to explore the outer planets.

They were launched in 1977.

Both are traveling at about 35,000 to 38,000 mph.

13 years later—they are about 4 billion miles from the sun, Voyager 1 takes this incredible picture of our planet—called “a pale blue dot.”

It stunned our world at the time.

d.

In 2012, (so 35 years later!) it finally left our solar system and is now in interstellar space.

35 years later—that’s just our solar system.

e. if you go beyond our solar system—to the closet star (besides the sun) – Alpha Centauri star system 0 (Alpha Sin Tour we)—it is 4.3 light years.

Hear that – light years.

f.

Light year is the ruler we use to measure big distances in space.

When you and I measure things—like with a tape measure—we use inches, feet, yards.

When you travel around our world—we use miles.

g.

But in space—we need a big ruler—so we use light years.

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second…so in a year’s time—light travels approximately 5.88 trillion miles!

(we can’t comprehend that) so if the closest star is about 4 light years away—the time it takes light to travel at that speed.

Think of this—in the time it takes light to reach us from the sun—light from the sun takes approximately 8.3 minutes.

But for light to reach us from Alpha Centauri—it took light traveling at 186,000 miles per second—it took light 4.3 or 4.4 years to reach us.

(north star – that light left there 400 years ago—1620 pilgrims Mayflower took off with the pilgrims, 150 years before we became a nation)

h.

The galaxy we are in—the Milky Way Galaxy—is 100,000 light years across…so it takes light 100,000 years to travel across ours.