Priscilla Shirer - The View that Changes Everything
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Summary
In this heartfelt Mother’s Day message from Revelation 4:1-11, the preacher shares a vision of heaven’s open door where God’s throne stands firm and unshaken amid life’s hardest storms. Drawing from John’s exile on Patmos and the testimony of Dory Van Stone, she reminds us that no matter the chaos, abuse, or pain we face, God is sovereign on His throne, faithful to His promises like the rainbow, and the giver of perfect peace that calms every storm. The key takeaway is simple yet profound: look up through that open door, see Who’s in control, and find the strength to keep going because He’s with us, He’s for us, and He’s already won.
Opening Greetings and Mother’s Day Acknowledgment
Thank God. Thank God. Listen, just stay standing because you know how we do when we read the Word. We’re going to stand in reverence to the Word of God. But even while you’re standing, let me just say happy Mother’s Day to all of you. And I also want to say that I’m very mindful of those of you who have lost children and what this day would feel like for you or who have lost your mothers, like I have, and my husband has. I’m wearing my mom’s and my mother-in-law’s rings today just to keep them close to my heart, but I’m mindful of you if you’ve lost that in your life.
The great thing about the body of Christ is that you have spiritual mothers among you. Thank you, Aunt Shirley and Auntie and all the women who are in the house who cover us. I’m so grateful for that. I am going to thank the leadership of this church for allowing me the privilege to share God’s Word. Let me tell you something: being under authority is a good thing when you have healthy authority. It’s a safe covering to be under. I’m grateful for it. I’m also grateful for my daddy. I will never be in the presence of my father, my daddy, my pastor, and not say thank you. And Pastor John, my goodness, he’s my little brother, but he’s my pastor. I’m grateful for you. Amen.
Reading Revelation 4:1–11
We’re going to read God’s Word together because I’m excited to see what God is going to say to us today. I hope it’s a blessing to you as it has been to me. And then I’ll pray. Revelation 4. Revelation 4. I’m going to read verses 1–11. After these things, I looked, and behold, a door was standing open in the heavens. And the first voice which I heard sounded like a trumpet, loud and clear, speaking with me and saying, «Come up here, and I’m going to show you the things that are going to take place.»
«Immediately, » verse two, «I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was standing in the heavens. And there was one sitting on the throne, and he was sitting like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne. It looked like emerald in appearance.» Verse four: «And around the throne, there were 24 smaller thrones. And upon those thrones, I saw 24 elders. They were clothed in white garments. They had golden crowns on their heads. And from the throne proceeded flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire that were burning around the throne, and they are the seven spirits of God.»
Verse six: «And before the throne, there was, as it were, a sea of glass that was like crystal. And in the center and around the throne, there were four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. And the first creature was like a lion. The second was like a calf. The third creature had a face like a man. And the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, were full of eyes all around and within. Day and night—yes, Lord—they do not cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.' And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders will fall down before him. They will worship him who is forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 'Worthy are you, Lord. Worthy are you, God, to receive glory and honor and power and authority. For you did create all things, and because of you, they exist and were created.'»
Prayer
Father, we thank you in advance for what you’re going to say to us. And in advance, we cry, «Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.» Speak, Lord. We are your sons and your daughters, and we have come to hear a word from the mouth of God in Jesus’ name. Everybody agreed and said amen. Amen. Amen.
You may take your seats.
The Story of Dory Van Stone
Probably three decades ago, maybe actually a little over three decades ago, I ended up at this little small women’s retreat. There were probably 50 to 60 women at this retreat, and I was among the youngest there at this particular retreat. I don’t remember much about it, but there is one woman I can’t forget. She was in her 60s at the time. She stood on the platform; she was one of the speakers, and she shared her testimony.
I will never forget this woman’s testimony. Her name was Dory Van Stone. Here she was now in her 60s, telling the story of her young years. All of us who were at that retreat that day were sitting in our chairs, leaning all the way in, completely fascinated with her as she told this testimony. The reason why I can’t forget it is that her entire upbringing was filled with havoc, chaos, devastation, abuse, and neglect. She grew up in Oakland, and her mother was basically frustrated at the fact that she had children at all. Dory and her little sister Marie were often left unattended for hours on end, which sometimes would turn into days on end. They were hungry, living in fear, and having to figure out life basically on their own. And when mom did show up, she spoke to them so harshly, abused them, slapped them across their faces, told them directly that they were ugly, unloved, and wouldn’t amount to anything; she was devastated that she had them. Dory recounted that on one occasion, mom came home finally and said, «Hey, let’s take a ride, girls.»
Dory said she felt something in her heart warm up because she thought, «Oh, we’re taking a little afternoon drive with mom.» Finally, she wants to spend time with us and enjoy us all being together. They got in the car, took a ride, and ended up at a big large building where mom said, «Come on, let’s get out of the car.» They walked up the stairs of this large building, stood on the doorstep. Mom turned, walked away, got back in the car, and said, «Bye, kids.»
It was an orphanage for the majority of the rest of her upbringing until she came to adulthood. She was really in this orphanage where she soon discovered, along with the 65 other children in the orphanage, that the orphanage director was actually more cruel, unloving, and abusive than her mother had been. The orphanage director named Miss Gabrielle would beat the girls severely anytime they cried because they were lonely. Anytime they cried because they were sad, they were beaten brutally. They were locked in closets in the dark for hours on end that sometimes would turn into days. She said, «All I remember was wondering, is anybody ever going to love me? Is anybody ever going to choose me? Am I ever going to be enough? Am I ever going to be cared for?»
She said when adoption day would roll around, where couples came to see if they could adopt a child, she would dress up, hope springing in her heart because maybe today is the day somebody’s going to choose me. And she would walk around with a little plastered-on smile, hoping that finally somebody would, but they never did. So, basically, she aged out of the orphanage. They had to send her away to make room for other children. She ended up in a foster family. And without going into all of the details, let me just tell you, there was a ripple effect of devastating circumstances, one after the other, as she was transferred from one foster family to halfway houses to other foster families where she continued to suffer neglect and abuse at the hands of the people who were supposed to love her.
She told this testimony, and when there was a lunch break at the retreat, I went to the little book table outside. I grabbed her book. It was called Dory, the Little Girl Nobody Loved. I don’t even know if it’s in print anymore. But I grabbed it, picked up my little box lunch, went to the corner of the room that we were in for this retreat, and I just sat with my little box lunch and started reading this book. The details in the book that she hadn’t given during the testimony were in this writing. And so I was able to see more of what it was that she had actually gone through. It was devastating and horrific. There I was sitting and reading this, tears welling up in my eyes. My body language must have expressed what I was feeling because before I knew it, I felt a presence in front of me. I looked up, and it was Miss Dory. She had seen me in the corner reading her book. She walked over to me and said to me, I’ll never forget it. She just looked at me—a little girl at the time—and said, «Sweet girl, don’t you cry for me.» She said, «Because God was with me the whole time.» She said, «I cannot really explain it to you completely.» And she said, «When I was younger, I certainly didn’t understand what was happening. But now, the older I’ve gotten, I’ve realized that somehow, in those dark closets for hours on end, or when I had to hide under the covers at the orphanage so the director wouldn’t hear me crying, or when I was hungry and felt unloved—she said, 'Somehow in that darkness, the Lord opened up something like a window for me where I was able to see him and sense his presence and hear his voice, where I knew he was near. Somehow, there was a peace that passes all understanding. Somehow, I knew that even though nobody else seemed to see me, he saw me. He knew where I was. He was going to take care of me. Why he let it go on so long, I don’t know. But I know the presence of God was with me through all those circumstances. And she said, knowing that he was with me, that right there is what made all the difference.'
John’s Experience and the Open Door
John the Apostle has known what it is to be with Jesus. I mean physically, because John is the one who wrote in his gospel, „The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.“ Listen to the surprise, the shock, and the excitement in his voice. „The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth.“ He can’t believe that he got to walk with Jesus, talk with Jesus, and hear Jesus speak words that were dripping with an authority he had never heard before. He’d heard teaching from the scribes and the Pharisees, but he’d never heard anything like this. He was there and walked with Jesus when Jesus caused blind people to see, lame folks to walk, deaf ears to hear, and dead people to be raised. He was there when the woman with the issue of blood touched his garment, and her entire life was changed. He had been in the physical presence of Jesus. But when we meet him in the book of Revelation, Jesus has been crucified, resurrected, and has now ascended. Hallelujah. John’s entire relationship with Jesus, in that sense, has been completely changed. And now at 80 years old, so have his life circumstances because now he is living on Patmos. He has been exiled to this little island that the Roman government had made a place to send anyone they thought was a criminal or an enemy of the state. So it was basically a prison. Think Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. It was a rock quarry, and the rocks were devastating because the prisoners were made to work day in and day out, chipping away at those rocks. But the sun would bear down on them, boiling their skin underneath the blaze of the hot sun in the middle of the Aegean Sea. And the sunlight reflecting off of those stones would cause their eyes to be burned. You could see that in Nelson Mandela’s eyes after he had stared at those rocks all day long and all through the night. The glaring off of those rocks disintegrated the use of their eyes. The dust flying off of the rocks would go into their lungs, destroying their lungs. Their entire bodies were disintegrating being on Patmos. They were in a rock quarry, which means there were hard things all around them. Amen. And here he is facing the most difficult, devastating circumstances of his entire life. And he says, „But then I looked up, and there was something of a door that was standing open in the heavens.“
In a group this size, there are many of us on this Sunday morning who are in this room and also on the other side of the screen who may be streaming in. It is not lost on me that this Mother’s Day meets you in a place where you are in some of the most difficult circumstances of your life. And it’s not just in one area; it’s all around you. Hard stuff. John says, „I know what it is to be on Patmos, but if you’ll just look up, you’ll see that there is always a door standing open in the heavens. Access to God’s power, access to God’s presence, access to God’s peace, access to God’s perspective, so that you can know he is with you during hard things.“ The reason why this is important is that just a few verses earlier in Revelation chapter 3, when Jesus is speaking about his relationship with the church at Laodicea—remember the complacent, indifferent, apathetic believers at Laodicea—he said, „I’m standing at their door and knocking.“ He’s standing at the door of the church, knocking on the door, which means it’s possible for us to be in here and him to be out there. He says, „I’m at your door, knocking, “ which means we sometimes close the door through our rebellion. We close the door through our indifference. We close the door through our desire to ignore what it is that he is doing and what he is saying. But I’m so grateful that he doesn’t treat us the way we treat him; that even when we are faithless, he is faithful. So when your door is closed, John says, „Look, the door of heaven remains open to you.“ So John says, „The door was open.“ And then I heard a voice. The voice was as clear as a trumpet. And the voice said, „Come up here.“ But God, I’m down here. I’m down there with all the difficulty and all the devastation and all the hardships and all the hard stuff. But there’s an invitation—a command, really—the God of the universe is saying, „No, you have the opportunity still, while you’re down there, to step your spiritual feet and your spiritual awareness into the throes of heaven, even while your physical feet are planted on planet Earth.“ That means, for the believer in Jesus Christ, we’re supposed to live every day, y’all, being in two places at the same time: our physical feet, yes, planted firmly down here, but our spiritual feet and awareness up there. Access to the heavens, humanity intersecting with heaven. This is our same invitation. This is our exact same privilege. In fact, the Apostle Paul put it this way in Colossians chapter 3. „If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Set your mind on things eternal, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden in Christ with God.“ So now John is completely captivated and conscious of the spiritual and supernatural realities that are happening simultaneously to the ones that are happening on earth. And he says to us this morning, „Come here real quick, O Cliff. Would you please grab my hand and let me escort you to this door?“ He says, „Because if I can just get y’all to this door, you get ready to see some stuff happening on the other side of this door that if the hard stuff of earth has dulled or diminished your view of heaven right now, if you’re a little bit blinded and you feel like the door of heaven has been closed to you, that you have not sensed his presence or his peace or felt like he’s even hearing your prayers, John says, 'Grab my hand. Let me take you to this door. Because if I show you what is on the other side of this door, it’s going to change the course of your life.'“
The Throne That Stands Firm
John says, „Immediately, I was in the Spirit.“ And behold, can I just tell you in the English language, y’all, „behold“ doesn’t really translate what it is that the writer is trying to communicate. It’s an exclamation point. It is a riveting opportunity. He’s saying to look with excitement and anticipation because you’re not going to believe what you’re about to see. John says, „Behold, I looked; and the very first thing I saw was a throne.“ Despite the devastation, despite the difficulty, despite the insurmountable realities that are all around us, John says, „I looked and I realized there was a throne.“ And in some translations, it says „set.“ It was standing. It was unmoved, unchanged, unbothered, unaffected. There is no coup that is powerful enough to overthrow it. There is no person influential enough to usurp it. There is no dictator forceful enough to seize it. He says, „Look, there is a throne, and it is set in the heavens once now and forevermore. The chaos in our earth is not affecting the throne. The throne is set.“ In fact, dozens of times in the book of Revelation, this word „the throne“ is concentrated. The word „the throne“ is found 13 times in this one chapter alone. This means the central feature of the revelation, even in those things that are to come for the church, and the central feature for us right now, is to make sure that we keep as the centerpiece of our lives the fact that there remains a throne that is steadfast, unmovable, and unshakable. The reality is that when we see the chaos and confusion of our lives, sometimes it feels overwhelming. It seems like nobody’s in charge, nobody’s presiding over the things that we see happening in the culture, in the world, and underneath the roof of our own houses. John says, „If you’ll just look, you’ll see that even when you’re overwhelmed, a throne still stands in the heavens. He is the sovereign ruler who is in charge and in control of your lives. Is anybody worthy? Is anybody just? Is anybody righteous and worthy of sitting on the throne? John says, 'Look, behold, there is still a throne, and it is set in the heavens.'“ And can I just say on this Mother’s Day that if there’s anything more sobering, reassuring, and confidence-building that we as moms sometimes need to know, it is that there is a throne. Because these kids be out here doing the most. And sometimes we just need to rest easy remembering there is a throne. That God sees them, that he knows where they are, that he knows what they’re doing, that he knows the friends that are influencing them, that he’s aware of the things happening in our children’s lives. Thank you, Lord. That we are not aware of.
In the first century, the people to whom John would have originally written this letter, y’all, were living in devastating times. The Roman government was making it so that people had to legally worship the emperor as God. In fact, the reason why John has been exiled to Patmos is that he has refused to bend the knee to the emperor. The emperor didn’t mind if you still served Yahweh; you just needed to bring him up to the same par and worship him as well as Lord. John had decided that as for me and my house, we are not going to bend the knee; we are not going to compromise. There is one God. Pay my respects to Caesar; yes. Pay my taxes to Caesar; yes. But what I’m not going to do is give you my full allegiance because that belongs to Christ and Christ alone. What I’m trying to tell you is that the entire culture, the entire government, and the entire system into which these churches were situated were anti-Christ. Everything about the environment was fighting against what these Christian believers would have been trying to raise their children to understand and line their lives up with. I’m saying the mothers back then felt just like the mothers today, where everything you’re trying to instill in your children, your grandchildren, your nieces, your nephews, and your cousins is working against you. John says, „Look, there’s a throne. They’re not in charge. He is. There is a throne that is above all earthly thrones, above all powers, above all human authorities, above all other seats of influence, above all presidents, above all administrations, above all monarchs, above all kings, above all governmental systems, above all institutions, above all establishments. There is a throne. It has not been replaced. It has not been moved. It has not been diminished in power. John says it is also not unoccupied because he says, „I saw a throne, and somebody was sitting on it.“ Because listen to me, what good is a throne that nobody is sitting on? He said, „I saw the one who, honestly, I can’t even find words to describe. He is the sovereign ruler and the king of kings and the lord of lords. His presence was bright and brilliant and beyond human explanation. And I saw him. He was seated on the throne. And the reason why this matters is that in the Middle East, y’all, kings didn’t sit. When there were battles raging, they stood up pacing to make sure they had oversight of the entire battle and to ensure that they were delivering the strategy for the battle. The only time Eastern kings sat down was once the battle had already been won. Amen. They sat down when the victory was already complete. John says, „Look, there’s the throne and there’s the king, and he’s sitting down on the throne to tell you that the battle has already been won.“ Amen. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, I’m so grateful that he’s on the throne. And y’all, that knowledge is not designed to give us goosebumps or to make us emotional. If you really grab hold of what John is showing us behind this door, it’ll settle you. It’ll calm you. It’ll give you peace beyond understanding. It will allow you to do what Psalm 46:10 says: be still and know that he is God. When your child has left home and broken your heart. When your marriage is slowly dissolving. When the financial downturn has brought your family and your business to its knees. When the doctor has delivered a diagnosis that has shocked you and shifted the trajectory of your entire life. When death has stolen the hope you had of what your future would look like. When your unmet dreams and unfulfilled aspirations have left you with a low-grade simmering discontent and sadness, John says, „In light of all of that, turn your attention upward through the standing open door. Look inside, and you’re going to see there’s somebody in charge. He’s on the throne, unmoved and unshaken. He is a sovereign ruler.“ Hallelujah.
The Rainbow of Mercy
John says, „That’s not all I saw.“ Verse three, „He who was sitting on the throne was like a jasper stone.“ That’s like an uncut diamond, so brilliant in the light. And a sardius— that’s like a ruby. It’s red in color. And there was also a rainbow around the throne. John says, „I don’t want you to just know what was on the throne; I want you to know what was above the throne.“ He says, „I saw a rainbow.“
Okay, Jerry and I have been married for getting ready to be 26 years. I can’t believe it. Can I just pause and introduce my husband to you, y’all? This is Jerry Sher. I know. Just stand up, babe, because sometimes they don’t see you. You do. I know. We’ve raised these three boys together—three boys that have become men. I’m going to tell you one of the most distinguishing differences between when they were younger and now. When they were younger, all they wanted to do was hug me. It blessed them to hug me. They wanted to cuddle. They jumped in the bed. They wanted to be between me and their dad. They wanted me to wrap my arms around them. They would snuggle in when they were tired or they were a little bit sad or they just wanted to have a moment of respite. They would let me hug them, and they hugged me back. And every time I hugged them, I was trying to communicate to them, „I love you, and I’ve got you.“ The difference now, when they’re 20-something and 16 and 18, is that, „Mom, you are touching me.“ They’re not really as interested in the hugs, is what I’m saying. They’re not readily jumping in the bed. Even last night, I said to Jude, our youngest son, I said to him. He came in our room right before bed. I said, „Jude, come on, jump in this bed with us.“ He was like, „Maybe for Mother’s Day tomorrow.“ Hugging me is not their jam right now—you know, they let me, but they give me these little raggedy pats on my back—but I hug them anyway because I still don’t care if you hug me back. I’m still communicating to you that I love you and I’ve got your back.
In Genesis chapter 9, God gives humanity a hug because there has been judgment, rebellion, and sin that has proliferated so far across the earth that the entire earth needs to be destroyed by a flood. There are 40 days and 40 nights of such explosive rains that floods consume the entire earth. Everyone and everybody are consumed if they weren’t on Noah’s ark. But then one day, God’s judgment is assuaged. His justice is taken care of. The sky shuts up. And as the earth begins to regain its composure, God gives humanity a hug. A rainbow arches itself across the sky. It is a declaration of his covenant with humanity that mercy will always triumph over judgment. The rainbow wasn’t just about water; it was about instituting a season of grace for his people for all time. Mercy would be the way he would relate to us moving forward. There was a rainbow back then. And John says, „Look, behold, there’s not just a throne, but there’s a rainbow arching over the throne, “ which means he is not just a sovereign ruler; he is also a promise keeper—not just for one generation, but for a thousand generations. That he’s the one who keeps his promises. He keeps his covenants for 2600 years. The rainbow remains proof that our God keeps his word. He is merciful. He is gracious. He doesn’t give you what you deserve. He doesn’t treat us the way we deserve to be treated. Instead, his loving kindness is vast. His patience endures. He is slow to anger. Anybody grateful? And he is great in loving kindness, which means John says, „Take a look. You’re going to see that rainbow.“ This means that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Thank you, Lord. It doesn’t matter where you’ve gone. It doesn’t matter what you’ve said. It doesn’t matter the path you’ve walked down or the difficult decisions that you went through or the abuse you caused or that you suffered. It doesn’t matter what your history is. It doesn’t matter if the pit you are currently in is a pit you dug for your own self. No matter how deep that pit, the mercy of God is so expansive, so extensive, so boundless that he can reach down in the pit you made for yourself and pull you up out of it. John says, „Look, there’s the rainbow.“ And in a time when the rainbow has been co-opted, when the rainbow has been utilized for social and political agendas that are completely out of alignment with the truth of God, John says, „Would you remember the rainbow was his back then? And the rainbow is still his today. His mercy endures forever. His promises, they’re unconditional. Thank you, Lord. His mercy is far-reaching. Thank you, Lord. His covenant is unbreakable.“ John says, „Would you just look? If you do, you’ll see he’s a sovereign ruler, and he’s also a promise keeper.“
The Sea of Glass — Peace in His Presence
John says, „I saw somebody on the throne. I saw something around the throne.“ But he said, „That’s not all I saw.“ He said, „I just got to tell you one more thing because what I saw was in front of the throne.“ Verse six says, „And before the throne, there was a sea of glass like crystal—crystal clear waters.“ We took a cruise. This is years ago. And I’m just going to say, if you’ve ever taken a cruise, I don’t know about you, but I like my waters crystal clear like glass. I’m not trying to feel the most when I’m on the cruise. You know, and if you’ve been on one of them, you know, it’s big; it’s like a shopping mall on water. It’s enormous. There are movie theaters over there and basketball courts over there, and there’s cafeterias everywhere—in restaurants. It’s like you’re at North Park Mall. That’s what it feels like on the water. It’s unbelievable. And most of the time, you’re sailing along, and really unless you’re standing by a window, you don’t even really detect the fact that you’re moving, unless there’s a storm.
So years ago, we’re on a cruise with mom and dad for one of their ministry events that they were doing together. And the four of us were there all together. And y’all, it was the storm of a lifetime. It was so dramatic that they had to make announcements for everybody to go to their rooms as soon as possible because of the danger regarding it. We found out later that the storm had so stirred up the sea that the waves were about 40 ft high. We could actually see and feel that the front of this big ship was coming up off the water and slapping back down. We remember that all of the dishes in the dining room were sliding off the tables, chairs were flying everywhere. Things were being overturned and upended. It was devastating to be in that storm with the waters that rough.
When John is writing the book of Revelation, he is trying to write it in a way that has a lot of symbols in it. And there’s two reasons why. One of them is that he is being heavily guarded on Patmos. If he writes in plain language, there are some letters they’re going to rip up and not send through to the church. So he’s writing in symbols that he knows the people in the church will understand, that the guards may not. But the other reason why he’s writing in symbols is that there are some things he can’t actually find the words to explain. He can’t figure out how to describe it exactly. So whether John saw an actual sea in front of the throne or whether this was just the best picture he could find, he describes it as a sea that is crystal clear, completely still like glass. For the ancients, the sea was representative of demonic activity. When they got on the sea, they were terrified of the sea. They were mortified of the sea. When it was stirred up in any way because of storm or just because of a change in tides, they would be completely mortified because to them in a polytheistic culture, what it meant was that one of the gods had been upset. This is why when Jonah was running from God, and he got on that ship with those other sailors and the storm kicked up, one of those sailors in the book of Jonah looked around at everybody else and said, „Can y’all please call out to y’all’s gods? We got to figure out which god we made mad.“ And whichever one of y’all did it, y’all going overboard because this sea right here will take us out. It was a sign of demonic activity.
This is also why, in the New Testament in John chapter 4, when Jesus is with the disciples going over to the other side, and a storm kicks up and the disciples are fearful and don’t know if they’re going to make it. This is why when Jesus stands up and says to the winds and the waves, „Peace, be still, “ he is not only showing his mastery and authority over creation, what’s on the earth; he’s showing his mastery and authority for what’s under the earth. He wants everybody to know I’m in charge of what’s up there, what’s here, and also what’s happening below. All demonic authority is under the control and is subdued in the face of Jesus Christ.
John says, „I want you to know that if you sense the enemy has been doing a number on you, stirring things up with you and your loved ones, your children and your grandchildren, if you’re seeing the seas of your life in chaos and in complete disorder and strife and jealousy and hurt and harm on every side; if you feel like a ship without a sail that’s being tossed to and fro on the roughest of waters because of what the enemy is assailing against you, John says, would you just look? You’re going to see not only that somebody’s sitting on the throne, not only that there’s a direct declaration of his mercy over the throne, but you’re going to see that before the throne, even the devil bends the knee. That all demonic activity is stilled in the presence of an Almighty God. Because he’s not just your sovereign ruler; he’s not just our promise keeper. He is also a peace-giver. He is a peacemaker. He’s an evil crusher. He’s a storm calmer. He is a chaos tamer. And at his name, every knee, every assignment that the enemy has against you and your family bends the knee before the throne, and all the chaos he causes becomes still in the presence of Jesus Christ. He has authority over hell and over its intentions. The devil doesn’t have the final word. He does. He is your sovereign ruler. He is, thank you, Lord, a promise keeper. And he is a peace-giver. He still speaks to the winds and the waves. He still says, „Peace, be still, “ and the winds and the waves still obey him. In your life, in your children’s lives, in your grandchildren’s lives, in your great-grandchildren’s lives, not just one generation but to a thousand generations. The presence of God changes everything. And all the angelic creatures, all of the forces of heaven, the 24 and the 4 elders, all of them, when they were in the presence of the throne, said, „Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.“ And then the elders took the crowns off their heads and laid them down at the feet of Jesus. „Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy art thou, God, to receive glory and honor and power and dominion both now and forevermore.“ In Jesus’ name, come on, let the church say amen. Praise the Lord.
Closing Prayer and Altar Call
Would you bow your heads with me, please? You cannot have access to heaven if you don’t have a relationship with God. And there is only one way to have a relationship with God. John said, „Look, behold, Jesus is the one who is on the throne. And to make it through the difficulties of life, to be able to stand firm in the face of demonic weapons that are trying to be forged against you and your family, you’re going to need a relationship with Jesus. You can’t make it without Jesus. I’m going to tell you, I’ve lived long enough at this point to know that without Jesus, there is no hope. If there’s anybody in this room and you realize you need a door open to heaven, you need to see the Savior, you need to have a relationship with the Savior, and you recognize on this Mother’s Day that you don’t and you want to change that today, please come down to this altar and let us pray with you that once and for all the trajectory of your entire life will be changed. Is there anybody? Don’t leave today unless you’re sure?