|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! (v. 1, ESV)
An open door. We all want open doors — for a job, for opportunities, and for our desires. Open doors mean invitations and welcoming. The open doors we have walked through tell our story of success or distress.
In Revelation 4, we find an open door to heaven. Wow! Let’s walk through it. Where else can we get a glimpse of our future in eternity?
At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne (v. 2).
The Apostle John saw heaven in the Spirit. We will walk through the door of heaven with our newly glorified bodies.
And John’s first sight — God seated on THE throne. There have been many thrones throughout history, but on this throne, as the Psalmist writes. . .
“The Lord has established His throne in the heavens; and His sovereignty rules over all” (Psalm 103:19, NASB).
And Revelation continues. . .
He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal (vv. 2-6, ESV).
We can take the special effects of all movies, all AI-generated graphics, and our expectations of heaven while on Earth, and all of them will seem insignificant at our very first sight of THE throne room.
In a novel, C.S. Lewis wrote about a woman questioning God who then, in a dream, walked through the door to heaven and across the sea of glass to gaze up at God. God asked her, “What are your questions?” After seeing God, she responded, “I have no questions!”
Paul writes. . . “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known!” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
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!” (Revelation 4:8)
The Bible never says, “Love, love, love,” or “Faith, faith, faith,” or “Hope, hope, hope.” The four living creatures shout, “Holy, holy, holy!” Holy means God — His character and actions define holiness. Who He is, what He does, and how He acts means holy — because God defines holiness, and holy is God.
And woe to those who don’t seek His holiness.
The twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (vv. 10-11).
We are the reason John saw and recorded heaven.
Throughout our lives, we must recognize that God sums all things and that — as a good and great God — we have a future! Nothing has happened or will happen that doesn’t work for His purposes.
There is hope! That’s heaven.