Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
    And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 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.”
    Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
    “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
    to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
    and honor and glory and blessing!”
    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,
    “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.—Revelation 5:1-14

This is our second sermon on Bethlehem’s DNA. Why all the fuss about DNA anyway? Biologically speaking, DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It is a double-stranded molecule in the shape of a double helix or a twisted ladder. Why does DNA matter? DNA contains the code for every cell in the body. DNA is a record of instructions encoded in each cell that tells it what it is supposed to be and do. DNA makes us who we are in many ways. You could think of Bethlehem DNA as two-stranded as well—our biblical essentials and our Bethlehem priorities. Simply put—we want our two-stranded Bethlehem DNA to serve as a controlling code that defines all we are and all we do as a spiritual body.

Last week, we saw the supremacy of God. The sanctuary is for seeing and savoring the supremacy of God on his throne, exalted in the splendor of his awesome holiness. He is in a class by himself. He is elevated over everything as the Creator reigning over all of his creation. We saw the highest beings in the created order ascribing supreme greatness to God. They cry, “holy, holy, holy.” Picture it. We climb the ladder of the created order and get to the highest of the high, the best of the best, the strongest of the strong, and you stop and look at them. What are they doing? They spend all their time looking further up at God and saying, “There is an ocean to go, an ocean to go, an ocean to go!” He alone is great! Look at his worth! Look at his beauty! Look at his strength! He is blindingly beautiful. He alone is Almighty. He alone is eternal—no beginning and no ending. He alone has no beginning—everything in creation owes its beginning to him. Everything else is derived and dependent—he alone is underived and not dependent on anything else for existence! He is to be worshipped alone.

John learns this lesson at the end of the book as well. Listen to Revelation 22:8.

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.

The message of Revelation is that only God is to be worshiped. That is why Revelation 5:13 is so stunning. “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever” (Revelation 5:13). God on the throne and the Lamb that was slain are worshiped as God!

You can see on your bulletin insert that today we are looking at Gospel-Saturated Worship. God-centered worship and gospel-saturated worship are my attempt to summarize these two chapters of Revelation, which together give us a vision of worship. In other words, in worship, we see more than just a supreme God on the throne—we see a Lamb that was slain. We must have gospel-saturated worship. I hope you are ready to see it together. Let’s set our minds on things above as we enter the throne room together again.

We will see three things in Revelation 5— there is a (1) question, an (2) answer, and a (3) celebration.

The Question: Who Is Worthy?

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.—Revelation 5:1–4

We start with the switch of a symbol. Revelation 4 had the throne as its central symbol. Now in Revelation 5, the symbol switches to a scroll. What is all of that about?

What is the scroll? The scroll here brings the reader of the Old Testament back to Ezekiel 2:9–10:

And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. And he spread it before me. And it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

The scroll here contains more than just lamentation and woe. It is the scroll of God’s plan for all of history. It contains God’s very plan and decree of judgment and redemption. Whoever has control of the scroll will carry out God’s perfect plan. What a question this is! Who is worthy to have control of history? Who is worthy to bring all things to completion in perfect judgment? Who will captain the ship and complete the course according to how God the Father has mapped it out?

What a contest this is then in heaven! Not a beauty contest or a strength competition—far, far more comprehensive than that – this is a worth competition. Who is worthy to be the Lord of all the affairs in heaven and earth? Who is worthy to open the scroll and break the seals? They did an extensive search process—heaven, earth, under the earth—everywhere they looked they found no one. John began to weep. Why is he weeping? Think of all that the scroll represents! Is there no one to carry out God’s plan? Will what was promised in Revelation 4:1 (come up here and I will show you the things that must take place) fail to be seen? William Hendrickson says it well. No one to open the scroll means that there is “no protection for God’s children in the hours of bitter trial; no judgments upon a persecuting world; no ultimate triumph for believers; no new heaven and earth; no future inheritance!” (Hendrickson, More Than Conquerors, p. 109). Feel the sting of silence before rushing to the next verse where the long-awaited answer finally comes.

The Answer: Jesus the Redeemer Is Worthy

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.—Revelation 5:1–4

We need to see the beauty of Old Testament fulfillment here. This is the one we have waited for! He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:9–10 says,
      
   Judah is a lion’s cub;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
        He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
         The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
        until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

He is the root of David and the Spirit of the Lord rests on him. Isaiah 11:1–2 says,

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
         And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

This is significant in light of the fact that verse 6 says that he has the Spirit: “... With seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (Revelation 5:6). These are the seven eyes of Zechariah 3:9 (cf. 4:10) and the seven lamps of Zechariah 4:2. This is a joint image because the figure in Zechariah 3 is also called the branch. He is the promised priest from Zechariah’s vision with seven eyes.

He is the sacrificial Lamb of Isaiah 53—see especially the imagery in verse 7:

      He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
        like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

He is the resurrected Messiah of Isaiah 53:12 because this Lamb is standing as slain (not as though slain—he was really slain!). Notice that he is also a perfect ruler because he has seven horns. Horns are an expression of power to destroy. Think of a bull or a rhino. Listen for example to Deuteronomy 33:17,

    A firstborn bull—he has majesty,
and his horns are the horns of a wild ox;
        with them he shall gore the peoples,
all of them, to the ends of the earth;
        they are the ten thousands of Ephraim,
and they are the thousands of Manasseh.

It changes the image to see a lamb with seven horns for goring doesn’t it?!

He is the Daniel 7 Son of Man who receives authority and a kingdom from the Ancient of Days.

 ”I saw in the night visions,
        and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
        and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
         And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
        that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
        his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
        and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.

What Daniel saw as a prophecy is now a fulfillment. Therefore, Daniel 12:4 is reversed in Revelation. The command to Daniel was: “But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.” At the end of the book (Revelation 22:10), the apostle John is given the opposite command: “And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.” Amen, the future is now! Creation has something to celebrate!

The Celebration: Creation’s Crescendo of Worship (5:8–14)

We now have creation’s crescendo of worship. It gets louder and louder. It is like a domino effect that comes cascading from the top of creation to the bottom of creation and then back up again. Who starts and ends the domino chain reaction? The four living creatures and the 24 elders. Look at verse 8:

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song.

The 24 elders had golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Prayers as incense can be seen in the OT as well: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you” (Psalm 141:2). Some think that the harps mean that these 24 elders really are representative priests for the people because the priests in the OT would play the lyre and the harp (1 Chronicles 25:6–31).

Did you notice that they sang a new song? Why is this a new song? The answer is not simply because there is a new thing to sing about. That is true. You see it in Exodus 14-15. A new act of deliverance produces a new song.

But this song is “new” in another way as well. The last song the living creatures and the elders sang was the song of the first creation. The Creator is worthy of worship because he created all things. This is a new song because it is about the new creation and the new covenant. This is all part of the new age of redemption that has dawned because of what Christ has done. Look at verses 9 and 10:
        “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.”

I am praying even now that someone would get saved while hearing this very sermon, become a new creation, join the choir, and sing the new song.

It is beautiful how this fulfills Daniel’s prophesy. They are a kingdom and priests to our God like Daniel 7.

As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.—Daniel 7:21–22

And the kingdom and the dominion
and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
and all dominions shall serve and obey him.—Daniel 7:27

Now the worship begins to spread like holy wild fire. John sees a new vision:

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.—Revelation 5:1

Here I am going to stop so you can hear this in the light of Daniel 7:10.
  
     A stream of fire issued
and came out from before him;
        a thousand thousands served him,
and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;
        the court sat in judgment,
and the books were opened.
Only in Revelation do we get to hear what innumerable angels would say in celebration.
  saying with a loud voice,
        “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
        to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
        and honor and glory and blessing!”—Revelation 5:12

He receives perfect praise. Did you see the seven things ascribed to Jesus? Power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing! Now God on the throne and the Lamb that was slain are both worshiped together. Now all creation joins together when the crescendo is complete:

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,
        “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
        be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”—Revelation 5:13

Then the cascading of creation’s dominos of praise come back around to the four living creatures and the 24 elders in verse 14:

And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.—Revelation 5:14

One should not see Christ in some kind of diminished way here as if he is almost equal with God, but not quite because he is not on the throne. Jesus said it clearly: I and the Father are one. We see it symbolically at the end of Revelation 22:1.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

There is so much more in this vision than I possibly have time to exposit in this sermon, but we already have more than enough to fill several sermons with application. Let me make four points of application.

Application

1. The Vision of Worship in Heaven Provides a Purifying Vision for All of Our Priorities

I start here to show you that you cannot separate up-reach, in-reach, and outreach. Take ethnic harmony as an example. Jesus’ infinite worth is to be experienced and expressed by all ethnicities. Look at verse 9:

“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."

Think of the awesome implications of praying the Lord’s prayer: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When I was in Louisiana, I often heard a form of racism that was really a fear of the other. I am not racist but I just believe that there are churches for people like that. People like that? You mean like other humans that love Jesus? Are there separate churches in heaven? Why would we settle for that on earth then?! Greater ethnic diversity in Bethlehem’s worship services would be an answer to the prayer: on earth as it is in heaven.

This vision of worship in heaven provides a purifying vision for outreach. As Pastor John said, Missions exists because worship doesn’t. We want to see God on the throne and the Lamb that was slain worshiped by every tribe and tongue. Our worship and this vision of worship provide fuel to keep the engine of local and global outreach firing on all pistons.

Let’s go back to our up-reach vision for a moment. Let’s think about the link between theology and doxology.

2. The Vision of Worship in Heaven Provides a Purifying Vision for the Inseparable Link between Theology and Doxology

Heaven shows us that seeing and savoring God must be kept together. The dividing line separating theology and doxology exists only because of sin. The disconnect is certainly not owing to God. Theology rightly understood and experienced is doxology. The elder affirmation of faith is purposefully written in a worshipful way. It is meant to be used in corporate worship. It is meant to stir the affections. Theology is not stodgy, stoic, dry, and dusty. Bethlehem will not be a place for the frozen chosen. Our DNA should be like TNT—always causing an explosion of worship. We should put our theology everywhere like doxological land mines. I know that is an odd image. But just imagine that they don’t blow you up—but lift you up. You should not be able to take two steps at Bethlehem without stepping on a worship landmine that makes worship go off in your heart. Step … boom … wow—He is awesome!

3. Worship Cannot Be Divorced From the Gospel—What You Get Is Not Celebration but Condemnation

Rejecting the Redeemer is a massive sin. Being an unholy sinner is bad enough. But rejecting the rescue is even more of an offense to God. Jesus is worthy to have control of the scroll of destiny. That means that he will carry out judgment upon those who reject him. The Bible calls this the wrath of the Lamb.

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’”—Revelation 6:15–17

This is the day that Isaiah spoke about:

     Enter into the rock
and hide in the dust
        from before the terror of the LORD,
and from the splendor of his majesty.
         The haughty looks of man shall be brought low,
and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,
        and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.—Isaiah 2:10–12

Jesus will carry out the judgments of God. He has the scroll. He will crush the enemies of God. He has the royal scepter like a rod of iron. He has the sharp sword of the word that comes “from his mouth.” He will “tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:15).

Sometimes people get the false sense that the Old Testament is full of wrath and the New Testament is full of grace. We could talk about how absurd that is at many levels, but allow me for one moment to address the idea that only the OT is full of wrath and fury. Does the Old Testament know anything even remotely resembling the wrathful fury of God’s judgment in Revelation? The blood up to the horses bridle? Treading the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty? A lake of fire? The smoke of torment rising forever and ever? If anything it appears that the doctrine of hell in the New Testament takes the Old Testament view of wrath and ratchets it up many, many notches.

I think this fallacy persists because of a fundamentally a flawed vision of Jesus exists. People sometimes picture Jesus as liberal theology painted him. Some kind of limp-wristed, mellow, never say a discouraging word kind of being. But the Bible simply will not allow for that distortion. He is the fierce Lion from the tribe of Judah. Does anyone ever picture a limp-wristed Lion? Everyone must beware of trying to make Jesus in their own image. Even if you prefer to picture Jesus as a lamb, the Bible will not let you picture him as a puny lamb. This lamb has seven horns to gore his enemies with. He is the lion-like lamb and the lamb-like lion. Meekness and majesty. He tore death to pieces as a lion by being slain like a lamb. He conquered death by dying. What a marvelous mystery! We are going to close the service by reminding ourselves that Jesus’ name is power and might. “Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder, at the mention of your name. Jesus your name is power, breath and living water, such a marvelous mystery.”

4. You Can’t Have Redeemed Worship Without the Gospel

If real holiness is a repulsive terror to some, how can it be a delight to others? The answer is simple and profound: the gospel. I will let Martin Luther’s experience provide the transition.

Martin Luther (1483–1546) was the main human force spearheading the Protestant Reformation. He also suffered from a tortured conscience concerning the depth of his sin. He said he entered the monastery to save his soul. But the harder he tried, the more desperate he became. Listen to his conversion in his own words (Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther pp. 49–50):

I greatly longed to understand Paul's Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, 'the justice of God,' because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assauge him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that 'the just shall live by his faith.' Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the 'justice of God' had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.

I would argue that the best way to teach the holiness of God to sinners is not with a gob of rules, but with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The best way to see the brightness of God’s glory is with the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6)—the gospel of the glory of the blessed God (1 Timothy 1:11).

Unmediated holiness is a terror, but mediated holiness is a delight. Mediated holiness now becomes a delight. A true understanding of the gospel will lead to doxology. Listen to Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15–17. After talking about “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (1:11), he unpacks it:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.—1 Timothy 1:15–17

Conclusion

Why Does the Gospel Lead to Worship?

Let’s close by considering the difference between angelic worship and redeemed worship. Which kind of worship is higher: angels worshiping the One who redeemed others or the redeemed worshiping their Redeemer? Onlookers of Redemption or Recipients of Redemption? Those who watch redemption or those who experience redemption? A crowded beach of witnesses can watch a lifeguard rescue a drowning swimmer—but whose heart would be bursting with more thanksgiving—the people who see the rescue or the person who is rescued? Who will love the rescuer more? The rescued love the rescuer more than those who merely watch the rescue.

My heart almost bursts every time I read Revelation 7:9–17 because we get to start the worship dominos:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

     “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
        They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
        For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
        and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

It gets better as you see not only what you were rescued from (everlasting wrath), but what you were rescued for (everlasting joy in stunned worshipful awe). King Jesus saved you to participate in his shock and awe. Earthly kings have always tried to strut their splendor, but they are cheap imitations.

The opening of the book of Esther describes the splendor of Ahasuerus, King of Persia:

Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the citadel, in the third year of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants. The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him, while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days. And when these days were completed, the king gave for all the people present in Susa the citadel, both great and small, a feast lasting for seven days in the court of the garden of the king’s palace. There were white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rods and marble pillars, and also couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl and precious stones.—Esther 1:1–6

In the coming ages, God is going to show his splendor and majesty for far more than 180 days. They were probably running out of things to astound the nobility. God is going to unveil things that make us think “it can’t get any better than this.” And then the next day, “I am so glad I was wrong. This set a new record on the worship meter. As C.S. Lewis said it will be like a book that never ends in which each chapter is better than the last. It will take eternity to see and savor an infinite Triune God. Part of our worship is the conviction (in the good times and bad)—that in Christ, the best is always yet to come.

One of my favorite stories growing up was the little sailboat twice owned. “There was a boy that made a sailboat with his father’s help. One day he was playing with it on a lake and the wind picked up and it floated away across the lake. He thought he would never see it again. They happened to go to a second hand store sometime later month later and the boy saw his sailboat. It was unmistakably his! He quickly bought it and carried it out of the store—almost hugging it. He said under his breath. I made you and I bought you. Now you are doubly mine.” The angels can’t say that. They were made but not bought back. Let’s sing like those who doubly belong to him!

Closing Song: "Revelation Song"

Discussion Questions

• How does this vision of worship impact everyday life in marriage, parenting, health problems, and job expectations?
• How do you respond when you see how much the New Testament uses the Old Testament? Does it make the Bible feel closer together so that there is not as big of a gap between the Old and New Testaments? Does the New Testament make you want to read more of the Old Testament?
• What role does the gospel play in your personal worship?