Participating in Heavenly Worship: A Divine Encounter

"After this," says John, "I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, 'Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.' At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. [00:01:23]

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!' And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him. [00:02:58]

And they sang a new song, saying, 'Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.' [00:05:22]

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying together, 'To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!' And the four living creatures said, 'Amen!' and the elders fell down and worshiped. [00:06:26]

I suppose I was naïve enough not to see its problems, and I saw only its open secrets. The great message of the book of Revelation, Jesus Christ conquers, and I will conquer in Jesus Christ. And from that time for many years in those early days of my Christian life, I turned to these two chapters that we have read together every single Lord's Day morning to prepare my heart for the public worship of God. [00:08:20]

And he finds this door flown open into heaven and finds himself "caught up," as he says, "in the Spirit." He was in the Spirit, he says, at the beginning of the book of Revelation on the Lord's Day, and in some senses, what we see in these chapters in the book of Revelation is simply a pictorial representation of what happens to Christian believers and to our congregations, our assemblies of the Lord when on the Lord's Day we are in the Spirit and a door is opened into heaven. [00:10:52]

And it seems to me there can be few things more important for the church of Jesus Christ in our own age in the midst of all the discussions that take place about the nature and character of worship than that we should understand that this is the true nature and the true character of godly worship, that by the Spirit of God we who are in Christ on earth have access to the worship that is participated in by saints and angels, cherubim and seraphim, and a myriad host of those who are glorified in Jesus Christ. [00:13:55]

And so, in the book of Revelation where there is much action, much dynamism, one of the things to look for is the camera angles and the places where the camera pauses as though the Spirit were saying, "Now, fix your gaze upon this." And here in this vivid picture of heaven's worship, you notice where the focus of the camera lies. The epicenter of worship is the triune God, the Father, who is seated on the throne, what the Te Deum Laudamus describes as "the Father of an infinite majesty." [00:17:02]

And He is worshiped supremely, says John as he observes this great scene and then begins to be drawn in to participate in it. He is worshiped supremely because He sits on the throne of His glory. At the center of the cosmos, at the center of heaven's worship, there is a throne that is occupied by God. And you notice as this narrative unfolds we are told not only for what the Father is worshiped as He is seated on the throne, but by whom the Father is worshiped. [00:21:19]

And in these two marvelous pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ, John sees both, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, the long-awaited day when Abraham's promise to his son, "God Himself will provide a lamb for the sacrifice" is married to the great promise that the Lion of the tribe of Judah will conquer for and deliver His people. And you notice that the place in which the Lamb is located in chapter 5 underlines for us that He is the one who has made our salvation actual. [00:27:30]

And so, the focus of the church's worship is on the sovereignty of the Creator God who is worshiped simply because He is the Father of an infinite majesty who is seated on the throne, but yes, as John sees, the worship of heaven is also focused on the Son who is in the center of the throne. Says John, "I saw on the right hand of Him who was seated on the throne a scroll," chapter 5 verse 1, and no one was found worthy to take the scroll and to break its seals and to open it. [00:26:39]

And so, John sees a door open into heaven. He learns what it is that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth, that is, by the Holy Spirit through the mediation of the One who is the truth. The Father seeks such to worship Him. Apparently, there were occasions in temple worship when something of this was experienced by the people of God, for example, in Psalm 133. [00:45:58]