Priscilla Shirer - Worthy Are You Lord
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Drawing from Revelation 4 and the powerful testimony of Dory Van Stone—who endured profound neglect and abuse yet discovered God’s abiding presence even in her darkest moments—the preacher urges the congregation to «look up» amid life’s «Patmos» hardships. John, exiled and suffering, receives a heavenly vision: an open door, an unshakable throne with the exalted Christ seated in victory, a rainbow symbolizing God’s enduring mercy and promise-keeping, and a calm sea of glass signifying Christ’s authority over chaos and evil. The core message: God is sovereign ruler, faithful promise-keeper, and supreme peace-giver—worthy of all worship, transforming how we face earthly storms.
Scripture Reading: Revelation 4
Going to read to you Revelation chapter 4. Oh, y’all ready? Well, I figured if we were going to do it, we might as well go ahead and do it: Revelation 4. After these things, I looked, and behold, there was a door that was standing open in the heavens. And the first voice that I had heard before, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, «Come up here, and I will show you what will take place after these things.» Verse two: And immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, there was a throne that was standing in the heavens, and one that was sitting on it. He looked like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance. There was a rainbow all around the throne, and it was like an emerald in appearance.
Verse four: Around the throne there were twenty-four smaller thrones. And upon those thrones I saw twenty-four elders. They were clothed in white, and 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 burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass, like crystal. And in the center and around the throne were four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind. And the first creature was like a lion. The second creature like a calf. The third creature had a face like a man. The fourth creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them having six wings, all full of eyes around and within. Day and night, 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 twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne. They worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns at his feet and they say, «Worthy are you, Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you did create all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.»
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus, in advance of your word, we say, «Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, » because you remain the solid rock. Thank you, Father, that we can build our lives on you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.
You may take your seats.
Testimony of Dory Van Stone
It was probably thirty years ago. I might not have even been twenty yet. As a matter of fact, if I was, I was in my early twenties. I was at a little retreat. There were about forty women gathered at this retreat. I don’t remember much about it because it was so long ago except for one thing: there was a woman that spoke at the retreat that day. She was in her sixties at the time. Her name was Dory Van Stone. Dory shared her testimony at the retreat. I remember being riveted, as were all forty or fifty of us that were sitting in that room. We were riveted, sadly, because her story was very traumatic. She told us about her upbringing, that she was born and raised, along with her little sister, in Oakland, California, to a mother that did not want them, and she would tell them that she wished she had never had them.
Most of their experience with her was her being frustrated, angry, and upset that they even existed. She tried to stay away from home as much as possible because she didn’t want to be or take care of the two girls. So Mom would leave for hours, which would often turn into days. And little Dory and her younger sister Marie— we’re talking four and three years old, five and four years old— they’d be left alone for days on end, hungry, trying to figure out what to eat, afraid at night when they would hear noises that they didn’t know what to do with. Noises during the day— they were neglected and unattended. If Mom ever did show any affection, it was always to Marie, never to Dory. Dory constantly felt overlooked, unloved, and unaffirmed. She wondered if anybody would ever love her. She remembers at her mother’s most angry moments, Mom would take both girls and lock them in a closet for hours, which would sometimes turn into days.
She shared the testimony of one time, her mother coming home and saying to her and her little sister, «Come on, we’re taking a drive.» They got in the car and took a drive down a long winding road. It was a long drive. And when they got down this one windy path that ended up at an enormous building with gargantuan stairs that went up to the front door, they knocked on the door. And before anybody even answered, Dory remembers turning around, seeing her mother walking back down the stairs, getting in the car, and driving off. That was the day they were dropped off at an orphanage. They soon discovered that the orphanage director, of the sixty or so girls that were there, was more cruel and abusive than the mother had ever been. She would beat the girls if they cried even one tear because they were lonely or sad.
So Dory learned how to hide, how to cover herself up, and cry tears that nobody would hear. She would get dressed up on adoption day because couples would come to see if there was a child they wanted to foster or adopt. She’d put on her one dress, she’d paste on a smile, and she would walk around in hopes that someone would finally love her, that they’d finally choose her. She was never adopted. She aged out of the system, was sent to a foster home, and was now separated from her sister. To make a long story short, that transition started a devastating turn of events where she went from one foster home to halfway houses to foster homes— more abuse, more neglect, more being overlooked and unloved. That was the story of her life.
Along the way, some college students had come to visit the orphanage and introduced Jesus to the kids. She had accepted Christ and that began to shift the trajectory of her life, but it was still hard. I remember after she shared her testimony, I went out to the lobby. We got our box lunches. I grabbed her book. She had a copy— she had a book that was there. I don’t even know if it’s in print anymore. It was called «Dory: The Girl Nobody Loved.» I took the box lunch and the book.
I remember going into a little corner where I could try to read some more of her story, and I was reading the details in the book that she had not been able to explain during the thirty or forty minutes she was speaking to us. She hadn’t been able to go into the detail, but the book did. The kind of neglect this young girl suffered, the kind of abuse this young girl suffered not only at the hand of her mother but from the other people who were supposed to be taking care of her and looking after her—I couldn’t even comprehend. My body language must have told what I was feeling as I read that book in the corner that day because I felt a shadow come over me. And when I looked up, Dory Van Stone was standing right in front of me.
I’ll never forget it. She saw me reading her book, saw the way it was impacting me. She walked over to me, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, «Sweet girl. Don’t you cry for me.» She said, «I want you to know he was with me the whole time.» She said, «I couldn’t quite explain it when I was little, but in those dark hours when I was at some of my worst moments, when I was alone and not knowing exactly what I was going to do next, there was a presence, an awareness of God’s peace, an awareness of God’s presence.» She said, «I didn’t know what it was then, but now in my sixties, I’m looking back on it and I realize that God himself seemed to be opening up something of a window for me so that even in the pitch black of that closet, I could see that there was a God who loved me, that he cared for me, that he had fingerprints on my life, that he was taking me somewhere.» She said, «Knowing he was with me made all the difference in the world.»
John’s Experience and Patmos
John the Apostle is the writer of the book of Revelation. Yeah. You and I have the privilege of being a part of Bible-believing and -teaching churches. So we know that this John is the exact same John that wrote the Gospel. John is one of the twelve that walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus, was in the most intimate relationship with Jesus possible. Not only because he was one of the twelve, but he was one of the three— one of the three most close companions of Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry, which means he was an eyewitness himself to seeing what it was like to be in close physical proximity with Jesus the Christ. He was there to see that brother walk on water. He was there to see when Jesus turned water into wine. He was there when that woman pressed her way through the crowd so that she could be one of the ones who maybe got close enough that she could reach out and touch the hem of his garment. And when she did, power left him and went to her and changed the course of her life. John was there and saw it for himself. He saw lame folks get up and walk. He saw blind ears start hearing and blind people start seeing, and the dead even be raised. He saw it for himself.
And not only did he see what Jesus did, he heard what Jesus said. Those disciples had heard teaching and preaching before from the Sadducees and the scribes and the Pharisees and the religious leaders of the day, but they hadn’t ever heard nothing like this. Because when Jesus opened up his mouth, his words were dripping with an authority they had never ever heard before. Think about how you’d feel if Jesus were your pastor. They were with him and experienced what it was like to be in close proximity with Jesus Christ. But when we meet John all the way in the book of Revelation, his circumstances have completely changed because Jesus has now been crucified. He has already been resurrected. He has already ascended to heaven. So John is no longer in the physical presence of Jesus. And not only has his relationship with Jesus in that sense changed, but so have his actual circumstances because now he has been exiled to the island of Patmos. It’s an island that had been situated by the Roman government to basically become a prison for anybody they considered to be a criminal or an enemy of the state. They would send them to Patmos. Patmos was like a rock quarry. They were sentenced to hard labor, no shade, no covering. The Mediterranean sun beating down on them would bake their skin, and the light refracting off of those rocks would blind their eyes so that their eyes were scarred. Their lungs would begin to deteriorate as the dust flew off the rocks, and they inhaled it every single day for the entirety of their sentence. There was no way off the island and no way for someone to come rescue them from the island. They were stuck. Think Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. Their entire lives were completely dismal, and all around them were representative of their circumstances. Everywhere they looked, everywhere John looked, all he saw were hard things. Everywhere on every side of his life.
And it occurs to me that in a group this size, there are some of you that know exactly how that feels. Yeah. Because it’s not just one hard thing. It’s like you just dealt with that hard thing and you turn over here— another one waiting on you. And then you turn on this side of your life and that side of your life, and you’re surrounded by hard things. John knows exactly how you feel. But on one day, in the middle of the difficulty of Earth, the difficulty of Patmos, John says in verse one, «I looked up, » and when I looked up, I realized there was something of a door that was standing open in the heavens, giving me the opportunity to see the presence of God, to experience the peace of God, to know that the power of God was still on my side even though I was standing flat-footed on Patmos. John says, «There’s a door— access to the presence and power and peace of God that remains open to us no matter the difficulty of the circumstances that we face.» If only we’d look up. John says, «I looked and I saw that a door was open.»
The Open Door and Invitation
When we’re in the midst of hard things, I don’t know about you— I’ll tell on myself— when I’m in the midst of hard things, I often feel like the door of heaven has been closed. I don’t feel his presence; I don’t sometimes sense his fingerprints in my life. And so I feel like the door of heaven is closed. But John says, «No, it’s not heaven that’s closed; it’s your spiritual eyes that are closed.» Because if you’ll just look, you’ll see access to God always remains available for those of us who are in relationship with him.
The reason why this matters so much and is so important, y’all, is because just a few verses earlier, at the bottom of Revelation chapter 3, Jesus had been describing his relationship with the church of Laodicea, the church of the lukewarm believers at Laodicea. Here’s how Jesus described his posture with the church: «I stand at the door and knock.» Revelation 3:20. I wish somebody would open this door, he says, ‘cause I’m standing on the outside of the door, and I’m knocking. If they’d open the door, I would come in and I would dine with them and fellowship with them. That verse is often used in evangelistic efforts. But y’all, when Jesus said that, he wasn’t talking about evangelism. He was talking about his relationship with his own people. He said, «I’m outside of the door of my own church, » which means it’s possible for us to be in here and him to be out there. It’s possible for us to be in here, consumed with personalities and platitudes and programs, and completely miss the presence of God. So if the church’s door was closed, it means they closed it just like we do. We close it through our indifference. We close it through our frustration. We close it through our rebellion. We close it through our stubbornness, our hardness of heart. But I’m so grateful that he does not treat us the way we treat him, so that even when our door is closed, John says, «Look, the door of heaven remains open to you, » that he has given you access to his presence at all times. John says, «Not only was the door open, but then I heard a voice. It was loud and clear, like a trumpet. And the voice gave me the invitation of a lifetime.» The voice said, «Come up here!»
In the middle of having your feet firmly planted in the realities, the problems of Earth, there is always a standing invitation for us as believers to live in two places at the exact same time: our feet planted on Earth but our eyes fixed on the realities of heaven. Y’all, every day we’re supposed to be living in two places at the same time— working and living and raising our kids and building the business and working in the ministry and doing what God has assigned for us to do on Earth, but our mind fixed on Jesus, on the realities of heaven. 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 above, not on things that are on the Earth, for you have died and your life is now hidden in Christ with God.» The door is open. The invitation is open. John accepts both.
The Throne Vision
He’s standing at the open door of heaven and he says, by the power of the Holy Spirit tonight, «Come here real quick, Concord. Let me escort you to this door, 'cause if you’ll grab hold of my hand for just a few minutes and let me take you to this door, you’re going to see some stuff on the other side of this door that’s going to change the course of your life.» The entire way you relate to Patmos, to Earth, will be completely transformed if you just get a little glimpse of what’s behind this door. He says in verse two, «Immediately I was in the Spirit.» And behold— can we just pause right there for just one second? You need to know, y’all, that in the New Testament, whenever you see the word «behold, » just know English can’t do the full job of translating what the original writer was trying to imply. Every time you see «behold, » you need to know what the writer meant was exclamation point! Sit on the edge of your seat, put your chin in your hands, lean all the way in and pay full attention, 'cause you’re not going to want to miss what’s on the other side of this door. John says, «Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, the very first thing he saw was a throne.»
Yeah. He said, «I looked on the other side of this door, and the very first thing that caught my attention is that even though the realities of Earth seem out of my control and overwhelming, and like there’s nothing I can do to change my circumstances, I feel like nobody’s presiding, nobody’s governing, nobody’s looking over me and watching out for me.» John says, «I looked up and realized there is a throne that has not been moved. It has not been changed. It is set and situated in the heavens.» The realities of Earth have not affected the throne. He said, «I saw a set throne. It is unmovable. It is unchangeable. It is untouchable. It is unbothered. It is 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 that is forceful enough to seize it.» John says, «Look, behold, there is a throne and it is set in the heavens.»
The book of Revelation, y’all, is overwhelming. It’s difficult to understand— so many symbols and images that we can’t quite wrap our minds around. But John says, «If you don’t walk away with anything else, would you please remember there’s a throne?» Yeah. Over forty times in the book of Revelation, this phrase comes up: «a throne.» A throne. Thirteen times in this one chapter he says, «There’s a throne— there’s a throne.» Which means the central feature, not only in the things to come for the church, but the central feature in our lives right now as believers in Jesus Christ, as part of the body of Christ— the central feature is supposed to be that there is a throne around which we govern every aspect of our life, that we remember we are not out here like loose cannons doing our own thing without the presiding sovereign ruler who is in the heavens. He is watching you. He sees you. He’s aware of the details of your life and of mine. John says, «There is a throne.»
The Throne in an Antichrist Culture
The reason why this would have mattered to the first-century believers to whom he was writing this letter is because at the time, y’all, the throne of Rome was so powerful that it was influencing the entire culture and shifting the course of the world as they knew it. The emperor was so powerful that he decided you had to legally worship him as God. He didn’t mind if you still served Yahweh, but you had to bring him up to the same par as Yahweh and bend the knee to him as the creator and Lord. The entire reason why John was exiled is because John had decided, «I don’t know what everybody else is doing, but as for me and my house, I will not bend the knee; I will not compromise my faith.» Pay my taxes to Caesar? Yes. Respect the office of Caesar? Yes. But what I’m not going to do is pledge my full allegiance to you. John says, «I’ve walked with Jesus. I’ve talked with Jesus. I’ve watched him be crucified and resurrected and ascend. There ain’t no way I’m fit to pledge my allegiance to anyone except Christ and Christ alone.» That’s why he’s been exiled.
What I’m trying to tell you is the entire system into which these first-century believers had situated this church and this Christ to whom they were pledging their allegiance— the whole system around them was antichrist. The whole system around us is antichrist. For any of us that are deciding, «As for me and my house, we’re going to serve the Lord. We’re not going to compromise our faith, » for those of us who are deciding that the church will be built on solid rock, that we’re going to make sure to teach the uncompromising truths of scripture in the house of the living God, for those of us who have decided we’re going to try to raise our children in a way that they have some kind of reverence for the things of God in a culture where there is steady moral decline and a rise in injustice and a low standard of holiness, and an intolerance for those of us who are pledging our allegiance to the Christ, we live in an antichrist culture just like they did. John says to them the exact same thing he says to us tonight: «Don’t get it twisted. They’re not in charge. He is. There remains a throne.»
And the throne is above every other throne— above all earthly thrones, above all powers, above all human authorities, above all 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 diminished in power. And it is also not unoccupied because John said, «Not only did I see a throne, but I saw somebody seated on the throne.» And John said, «I recognized him.» He was the exalted Jesus Christ, and he was positioned in a seated position on that throne. He reigns forever and evermore. John says, «He was sitting down on the throne.»
Yeah. Yeah. In the ancient Near East, kings didn’t sit. When there was a battle, when there was a war that was raging, a king would stand up so that he could have oversight of the battle, so that he could give clarity for the strategy in bringing home the victory from the battle. The only time a king sat down is once the battle had already been won. John said, «I saw him. He wasn’t standing by the throne. He wasn’t pacing in front of the throne.» John says, «I saw Jesus sitting down on the throne to remind you that the battle has already been won.» Amen! Amen! That means we’re not fighting for victory; we’re fighting from a victory. The victory has already been secured by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is the sovereign sitting king. This knowledge, y’all, it’s not designed to give you goosebumps. It’s not designed to just make you emotional. John says, «If you really get a glimpse of what’s going on behind this door, if you’ll really see it tonight and absorb it into the fabric of your soul and your life, that kind of knowledge right there will settle you. It’ll calm you. It’ll give you a peace that passes all understanding.»
Getting a good glimpse of the sovereign ruler sitting on the throne 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 has broken your heart, when your marriage is slowly dissolving, when the financial downturn has brought your business or your family down to its knees, when the doctor’s diagnosis has shocked you and shifted the trajectory of your life, when death has changed what you thought your future would be able to look like, when the unmet dreams and unfulfilled aspirations have left you with a low-grade simmering sadness or frustration— John says, «See your Savior sitting on the throne. He is orchestrating. He’s aligning. He’s watching. He’s presiding. He’s governing. He is your sovereign ruler.»
The Rainbow: Promise Keeper
But John says, «That’s not all I saw.» In verse three, he says, «I saw him sitting on the throne like a jasper stone, which is like an uncut diamond, a sardius which is like a ruby red in appearance, and there was a rainbow over 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 said, «I saw a rainbow.» Yeah. It was hanging over the throne.
Okay. Um, I have three sons. They are big jokers. Now, one of the most distinguishing characteristics of them, from when they were young to now when they’re older, is that when they were little, my boys loved to hug me. Like, it blessed them to hug me. It was their jam. They just wanted to cuddle up with me. They wanted to hug me. They wanted to jump in the bed between me and their dad and get all snuggled up to watch a show or something. They wanted to be close to me, and they wanted me to wrap my arms around them. And I did. I would hug their little selves. And when I hugged them, I was communicating to them, «I love you and I’ve got your back.»
Now they’re in their twenties— 18, 20, 22 years old. You know, they still hug me, but they give me these little raggedy pats on my back. You know? They’re like, «Let’s just hug her real quick so she can move on with her day.» You know, it’s not their thing as much anymore. Even the other day, a couple of weeks ago, right before Mother’s Day, my youngest son, who’s 16, walked in the bedroom. I said, «Jude, come jump in the bed.» He said, «Maybe tomorrow for Mother’s Day.» But you know what? Even though they’re not necessarily in the stage where they’re as eager to hug me, I still hug them with my full strength 'cause I still— I don’t care if you hug me back— I’m still communicating to you the same thing: «I love you, and I’ve got your back.»
Two thousand six hundred years before the writing of Revelation, God gave humanity a hug. There had been forty days and forty nights of explosive rains that had caused a rise in floods that had wiped out anybody and anything that wasn’t on Noah’s ark. The rebellion and the judgment had been so prolific that the wrath of God had rained down and consumed everything except those that were on that ark. But after forty days and forty nights, the earth, the sky shut up. And as the earth began to regain its composure, God gave humanity a hug: a rainbow painted itself across the sky. And the rainbow wasn’t just about water. The rainbow was God hugging humanity and saying, «I don’t care if you hug me back. Mercy will always triumph over judgment, » that the way I relate to humanity from this point forward will always be different. I’m making a covenant; I’m making a promise that I will always be merciful and that I will be slow to anger. Is anybody grateful? That I will be great in loving kindness? That my grace will be sufficient for you? John says, «Two thousand six hundred years later, I looked up and I saw not only what was on the throne, but there was a rainbow over the throne, » which means he is not just a sovereign ruler; he is also a promise keeper.
It means that he’s still keeping his promises. All these millennia later, he is still a God of mercy, a God of grace, a God who hugs us. Thank you, Lord! Even when we’re not hugging him back, even when we’ve turned away from him in our rebellion and in our sin, and when we have turned our gaze downward instead of fixing our eyes upward, John says, «Look, there’s a promise for you, » because a rainbow remains in the heavens to remind you that he keeps his word even when you don’t. John says, «I saw a rainbow.» And in a day and age when the rainbow has been hijacked, when the rainbow has been co-opted to symbolize and be utilized for things that are totally out of alignment with the truth of God, John says, «Would you look again and remember that the same one who gave it to us in the beginning is the same one to whom it still belongs, that he is a promise keeper and his covenant endures forever and ever. Mercy triumphs over judgment.»
Y’all, you know what this means? It means it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve strayed. It doesn’t matter the choices that you made, not just the ones from twenty years ago. I’m talking about the ones last night. It doesn’t matter the path you’ve walked down, the relationship you’ve been in, the destruction you’ve endured, the negative choices that you’ve made. It doesn’t matter what your history is; it doesn’t matter what your past is— it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done or where you’ve been. It doesn’t matter if the pit you are currently in is a pit you dug for your own self. The mercy of God is so extensive, so grand, so boundless, so vast that he reaches down in the pits we made for our own selves and he pulls us up out of them. His grace is sufficient for you.
And the great thing about promise keeping like that is that his mercy is not just good for one generation. His mercy extends to a thousand generations. What I’m saying to you is that your kids are covered. I’m saying your kids’ kids are covered. I’m saying that your children’s children’s children are underneath the rainbow of the promise-keeping God. His mercy endures forever.
The Sea of Glass: Peace Giver
John says, «Do you have time for just one more thing behind the door?» In verse six he says, «I want you not to just know what was on the throne and not just what was over the throne; I want you to know what was in front of the throne.» He says in verse six, «Before the throne there was a sea of glass like crystal, still completely unmoved, no ripples, no stirring— a sea of glass like crystal.»
If you have ever been on a cruise, you know that, well, if I’m going on a cruise I like my waters like a sea of glass— crystal. I mean, I appreciate not really knowing I’m on the boat, you know what I’m saying? Like, I don’t want to feel it that much. And you know that if you’ve been on a cruise, that is possible. It’s like North Park Mall being on the water. It’s enormous! It’s unbelievable, actually. There are restaurants everywhere. There are stores everywhere. Unless you’re standing by a window, in most cases, you don’t even know you’re on the water. It’s enormous! When I was a teenager, the four of us were on a cruise with Mom and Dad. They were doing one of their ministry cruises and we were all there together. There was a storm of a lifetime while we were on this boat. It was outrageous. They had to make announcements for everybody to go to their cabins. We were in the dining room for a little while. Chairs were flying across the room. There were dishes that were crashing down. We were told later the waves had gotten up to forty feet high. We could feel the front of the boat coming off of the water and then smacking back down as it surged forward through the ocean. The four of us went up to our parents' room to ride out the storm. They were on maybe the seventh or eighth floor of this boat. The waves were coming so high they were smashing over the balcony and against the doors of their cabin, seven or eight feet high, or floors high on this boat. It was a massive storm.
Okay? When John writes this book, y’all still with me? Okay, John is writing with symbols and images. He’s doing it for two reasons. He is being heavily guarded on Patmos—that’s the first reason. There are guards everywhere. He wants these letters to get to the church. He knows if he writes some stuff in plain language, they’re going to read the letters, rip them up, and not send them through. So he’s trying to write in cryptic language that he knows the church will understand that the guards won’t. The other reason why he’s writing in such cryptic language, that sometimes overwhelms us as we look at these creatures and these beings that we can’t wrap our minds around— the other reason why he writes like that is because some of this stuff he can’t find the words to describe. He’s looking at it and trying to figure out what word in my language helps me to communicate that? And the best he can do is find stuff out of the culture that he knows the first-century believers will be able to relate to.
In ancient times, the sea was a picture of demonic activity. For them, when the sea was stirred up by a storm or even just a change in tides, they attributed that to supernatural activity. They were terrified of the sea, y’all. People who lived back then, they were terrified of the sea because they believed it was a sign that one of the gods had been upset if the sea was stirred. That is why in the Old Testament, do you remember Jonah is told by God, «Go to Nineveh.» And Nineveh said, and Jonah says, «I’m not going, » and he gets on a boat to run from God. And while he’s on the boat, a storm kicks up. And the captain looks at the other sailors and says, «Can y’all please call on y’all’s gods, » because we have offended one of the gods. In a polytheistic culture, they figured one of them had been offended. Y’all figure out who offended the gods. And whoever did it, you’re getting thrown overboard because this sea is going to swallow us whole. They believed it was supernatural activity that was creating that. It’s the same reason why in John chapter 4, when Jesus says to the disciples, «Let us go over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, » and they are on that boat and a storm kicks up on the Sea of Galilee, and they wake Jesus up and say, «Do you not see this? The sea’s going to swallow us whole! Come on!»
And Jesus stands up, all calm and collected, and he speaks to the winds and the waves and he says, «Peace, be still!» And the winds and the waves obey him. Jesus was not only showing his mastery of creation on what’s on the earth— he was also demonstrating his authority over what’s under the earth, that everything in the heavens, everything on the earth, everything under the earth bows the knee in the presence of the sitting king. John says, «You need to know that if evil has been stirred up in your life by demonic activity— like you can see the devil on the division, on the dissension, on the discouragement, on the hurt you felt, the harm that has been caused, the trouble that’s been stirred up in your family— John says, 'Take a look at this throne. You will not only see that he’s seated on the throne, you will not only see there’s a rainbow over the throne, but you will see that in front of the throne, even the devil bends the knee. That all of demonic authority bows in the presence of the almighty king. He is not just a sovereign ruler, and he is not just a promise keeper. He is a peace giver.' He’s a peace speaker. He’s an evil crusher. He’s a storm calmer. He’s a chaos tamer. He still speaks to the winds and the waves. He still says, 'Peace, be still, ' and the winds and the waves, y’all, they still obey him at the name of Jesus in the presence of the sitting sovereign ruling king. Everything bends the knee. Everything on the earth bends the knee. Everything under the earth bends the knee because he brings supernatural peace.»
Yeah! John says, «Look, he’s a sovereign ruler.» He says, «He is a promise keeper.» You’re not powerful enough to work yourself out of this promise. And he says, «He is a peace giver. There is nothing happening in your life and or mine that is outside of the reach of the peace-giving Christ. He still speaks to the winds and the waves, and the winds and the waves still obey him.»
Worship Around the Throne
And John, the one who cannot explain everything that he’s seeing, who can’t verbalize, who can’t write down in actual words everything that he is contesting and that he’s able to get a glimpse of behind this door- he sees creatures the likes of which he has never seen before. He can’t fully explain them; he can’t fully describe him. But this one thing he knows: all day, all day and all night long, every single one of the indescribable creatures bow before the throne of the sovereign king. And he knows what he heard. They said, «Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.»
And then he saw the twenty-four elders, twelve representing the patriarchs in the Old Testament and twelve representing the apostles in the New Testament- basically, all of the body of Christ for all time, which includes a fifty-year-old Concord church. He says all of them took off any crown they may have had, and they laid it down at the feet of the sitting sovereign king and said, «Worthy are you, Lord, to receive glory and honor and power and authority both now and forevermore.» In Jesus' name. Yeah! In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.