May 3 2026
Revelation 4:9-11, 5:10,
One of the interesting aspects of getting older is that the value you place on things changes over time. I now value the simple joys of life over just filling my life with stuff. Jennifer has helped me to understand that what should be worth most to us are the little things do on a daily basis. So while it might seem odd to spend the money to remodel our bathroom to have a walk in shower, but it is worth it just to have a safe and comfortable experience every day. The same goes for why we decided to purchase a decent car in our later years. When you get to a certain age you no longer want to drive a car that’s twenty years old hoping that it won’t die before you get where you want to be. At our age, we would rather have something safe and reliable. So what determines just what something is worth to us depends on how much that this purchase will such give us what we value, things such as comfort and reliability.
In much the same way, we must decide just what value or worth do we place on our relationship with God. This is a crucial point that confronts us as we tag along with John as he enters through the door to heaven. You see, that doorway enters directly into the heavenly Temple where a great time of worship is witnessed by John. Yet before we get our bearings in this sanctuary we are told, right here at the beginning of the fourth chapter, that our time of worship will be joined by some strange beings that John merely calls living creatures. These four beings recall the vision of Ezekiel as recorded in the first chapter of his book. There is a lot of speculation as to who or what these four beings are so for now we will have to allow them to be to us just an unsolved mystery. What we do know about these creatures is that they worship God continually crying out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, who is and who is to come!’ As these creatures worship God, we are told that there are also twenty four elders who surround the throne of God in great worship of God. These elders go so far as to take the golden crowns, their heavenly reward, and they offer this to God, crying that he alone worthy to receive their treasures. Now it might come as a surprise to learn that this term, “worthy”, comes from the same root where we get the word, “axle”. You see, in ancient times the worth of something was done on a balance scales. This was is a simple arm that pivots upon an axle, looking much like a teeter-totter in a school yard. When weights are placed on either end of the beam, they are said to be equal when the arm is horizontal. So, when the worshippers cry out that God is worthy, they are implying that if God is on one end of the beam of the scales then for the scales to balance out we must place all of our glory and honor that we long to receive from others, all of the power and influence that we believe we possess, on the other end of that beam. This is simply the worth or value that God is to be for us. So we might say that the value we place on God, what he is worth to us, ought to be the sum total of who we are. This is what we mean when we say that we, “Worship”, God. What God is worth, the worth-ship of God, is that he alone is worth the glory we live for, and his is the only honor that we should seek, and he alone deserves to receive all we bring forth through our power and might.
Now, when we define worship as they do when they exalt God in heaven as we see here in the fourth chapter of Revelations, we naturally want to know the reason just why is God found to be of such a great worth? Why is it that we should be willing to give up all that this world seems to hold so dear, like fame, honor and wealth, and come and lay those worldly desires at the feet of God? Well, the reason we why God is to be worth everything to us is simply that we know that it is God who has created us. But this is not the entire reason because we are to also know that the very reason why we exist is that God desires us to live, and not just have life but to have a life with him. This longing of God is the essence of his love for each person. You see, none of us are some kind of cosmic mistake that should not be here; no, the life of each person can be traced back to the heart of God where he had a desire for each person to experience life. And knowing that our life has sprung forth from of the love of God, it seems right that we would respond in love and then offer God our only possession which is the life he has given to us.
So, here in the fourth chapter, we remember the God who was there in the beginning, that God from the start is always to be found worthy of receiving glory, honor and power solely because created us and gave us life. This means that from that morning when Adam first had breath, the good and right response of all of humans is that we would find God worthy to receive the offering of ourselves. So as God was indeed worthy of receiving all glory and honor from our life there in the beginning, so too he is worthy to receive these here in the present and unto all eternity.
Our worship of God then flows from the fact that God has given this gift of life to us and this is important for us to hold fast to this truth when we come to the fifth chapter of Revelations. As we enter this chapter we discover that there is a crisis that has developed in heaven because there has been found a scroll written on both sides, and this scroll is found to be unable to be opened because of seven seals or locks. So if we think about a roll of paper, we can understand that if there is writing on both sides of the paper then only what has been written on the outside layer of paper can be read. In order for the message on the inner layer of paper to be read requires that the roll of paper be unrolled and the paper be stretched out. In this way the message hidden within the scroll can be read. So here in the heavenly court, the scroll, our roll of paper, is unable to be unrolled because there is, as it were, seven drops of glue along the edge of the paper. In order for the inside message to be read, then, we need to find a way to dissolve the glue. Now instead of glue preventing the scroll from being unwound, we are told that there are seven seals. These seals in ancient times were drops of wax on which a ring was pressed onto. This ring was property of the king and when he would send a message he would seal it with a wax seal that was imprinted with his distinctive image. Only those who were authorized by the king were allowed to open the message and read its contents. So this scroll is in fact a message sent by the king but alas there is no one, it seems, who is authorized to break those seals and open the scroll. What we are told is that the one who has the authority to break the seals is the one who is found to be worthy of this task. So here again, we hear the language of worship, the asking of who is worthy, only this time the reason we place value upon this one is that they alone are authorized to open the scroll and read the message. So we are left wondering, just who is this one who is able to open the scroll, and why has he been given the authority to do so? The answer is found in the fifth verse, where we hear about one called the Lion, who comes from the tribe of Judah, the very king who has sprung up from the dead stump of David’s legacy, this is the one has won the victory. This victory has given this one the authority to break the seals of the scroll. Once again, we are left wondering, just what victory has this king won that he now has been granted all authority? Well, as we continue to read, we find that between the Throne of the king and the four living creatures, there appears a lamb that has been slaughtered. This Lamb is found to have seven horns, which speaks to complete power, and it also had seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God that go into all the earth. So the Lamb that has been slain is now to be known as being all seeing and all powerful. So we are to make the connection that because of the willingness of this Lamb to offer his life to do what his Father desired, the Father is now justified in declaring that this Lamb is indeed the king over all.
Now when we witness this Lamb take hold of this scroll, we notice a subtle change in the worship of the elders and the four living creatures. There around the throne is heard the singing of a new song because obviously there is something new to sing about. You see, in addition to finding God worthy to receive all of our glory and honor that occurs through the power he has given to us, now we too can cry, “Worthy”, before the Lamb for he is the one who offered his life to do the desire of God. This is why he alone is able to break the seals and open the scroll. The Lamb has authority because he has won the victory, and the victory is that he was slain, his blood poured out, his life offered up for us. Through the price of his own precious blood, now people from every tribe, tongue and nation are ransomed from their slavery to sin. And this Lamb has not only secured freedom for all people but he also has taken these former slaves and through his power he has made them be his kings and his priests. These are the ones who will reign with him on the earth forever.
So what the Lamb has done through his opening up the scroll is that he has opened up our future. You see, before Jesus offered up his life upon the cross in this great act of love, focusing on the future only caused doubt and despair to spring up in a person’s heart. There simply was nothing certain on which one could anchor their hope. Yes, throughout the Old Testament there are glimmers of a life in eternity yet much of what is written is only speculation. The future remained on the other side of the scroll, tightly sealed until Jesus came and offered his life in order that we all might have a life safely anchored in eternity. This is why Jesus, the Lamb who is slain, is worthy of all that we are because he is why we now have life, a life which death cannot defeat.
So our worship of God is grounded in the fact that God alone is our source of life. We exist solely because God created us and gave us life, and therefore God alone is worthy of all that our life produces. Yet this is not all, for God goes further and through Jesus, his Son, God has ransomed us from our slavery to death and the fear of death, giving us a life eternal through his mercy, therefore God alone is worthy of the offering of our life. Jesus who is human just like us, witnessed there upon the cross that when we offer our life through acts of mercy we witness that eternal life lives within us. Jesus, as the sinless, innocent Lamb, united himself forever with those whose lives have been damaged and destroyed by the evil generation of this world. Through this act, Jesus proved that God is indeed found there among the broken and crushed of this world, seeking them out in order to give them life. Yet the same love that caused Jesus to be united with all the poor and powerless is, in the same breath, the love which cries, “Father, forgive them”, to all those who seek to take the life of the least of these. In either case, the love of God is seen offering life. Yet this should not be something new or unusual for as Jesus teaches us at the end of the fifth chapter of Matthew, our Heavenly Father makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, just as he sends the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. Through this steadfast, faithful love of God, which gives us life, our fear is cast out, faith rushes in to take its place, a faith that empowers us to overcome the world. This is why God alone is worthy of everything, for he alone gives us a life which is victorious.
So at last the scroll is opened here in the sixth chapter of the book of Revelation. Now in each of the three divisions of this book we find that there are seven objects that are the focus of what is happening. In each of these seven, the first four of these seven describe the whole of the situation being addressed. Then in the fifth, sixth and seventh parts, God addresses how he will deal with all that is revealed in the first four statements. So when the first four seals are opened we first hear of one who comes riding on a white horse, the one who is crowned as king who goes forth conquering and to conquer. This is obviously a depiction of Jesus, the risen one who has conquered death. Now just because Jesus has conquered what we find is that the world has not automatically become a paradise, far from it. No, when the second seal is opened we hear that a rider has come forth on a red horse and this one is taking all of the peace from the earth. Well, we may at first be alarmed but then we should remember that Jesus himself teaches us in the tenth chapter of Matthew, that he did not come to bring peace but instead a sword. As Jesus say in the third chapter of John, he has brought light into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. Everyone who does wickedness hates the light, and this is the very source of much of the unrest in our world today.
Well, when the third seal is broken we hear of yet another rider who is on a black horse this time. This rider represents the buying and selling of trade, the endless pursuit of worldly riches. And again, this is no surprise because in the seventeenth chapter of Luke, Jesus tells us that just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, and drinking, they were buying and selling, they were planting and building, but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, fire and suffer rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Jesus continues, “ This is how it will be when the Son of Man is revealed”. So even though Jesus is proven to be the Son of Man nonetheless this means nothing to those caught up in the trappings of this world.
The fourth seal is then opened and this horse is often called the Pale rider but the original wording the horse is green. Talk about a horse of a different color! Well, the rider upon this horse is Death and wherever he rides, hell follows him. So we do see people dying by the sword, famine, disease, and wild beasts. This is just an apt description of what we witness on any given day. So as we pause to consider just what the situation is that is described in these four acts, we conclude that yes, Jesus has conquered death and the grave, and he continues to conquer the death of those who believe in him. Yet the world seems to go on as if nothing has happened. The light has dawned and the only reaction by the world is hatred because the light exposes the truth of the evil we live in. The world continues to buy and sell as if they have no clue the day of judgment gets closer every day. And death still at work turning the paradise of creation into yet another hellscape. So we are left wondering, just what is God’s answer to us as we live in these in between times? The answer we are given is found when the fifth seal is broken. We are told that under the altar are found the souls of those who had been slain on account of the word of God and for the witness they possessed. These are the ones who desperately want to know, just how long will it be until God acts and judgment comes? The only answer they are given is that they are clothed in garments of white and are told to rest until the full number of witness at last is reached. God’s answer for our times, is that we be one of those who find him worthy of their witness. We are to everyday find God worthy of our life, by offering mercy, which is giving life to the least of these, and forgiveness to those oppose such efforts. This is how we live under the altar, by carrying our cross day by day, to the glory God! Amen!
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