Beyond our world is the perfect place of God. The churches are here, but above is the throne of the Lord. It is a throne of authority, reason, and community.
Revelation 4

Speaker: Thomas Schaller
Sermon #13132
Date: 2026-05-24
Time: Sun 11:00 am

P. Schaller –

Revelation 4:1-11, all right. You want to say to your neighbor, This is the Word of God. This is our Revelation series, so we are in chapter 4 today. We’ll go through it verse by verse. It raises a lot of theological questions that are very profound. So, let’s start from vs. 1. 

 

There is a lot to say about this chapter, because we are talking about transcending this world as we see it and seeing the throne of God. When we say the throne of God, we’re talking about the authority of God. 

 

There’s a couple words we can say here. The authority of God as in a throne. Order, as in the universe. Divine order. Reason. I’ll put here reason with it. Reason. Order. And a quote by Einstein about the universe. Also, we see here authority, order and we see beauty. We see the throne of God and the one that is sitting on the throne. We have those that are round the throne. We also have those from the throne. These prepositions. 

 

So, when we look at this chapter, we are actually going beyond this world and seeing what is behind this world. So, let’s start from vs. 1. John is speaking about the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3. Let’s pause for a moment. 

 

One Bible teacher said let’s confess our sin to God before the message, so we can hear God during the message. I do like that principle. So, let’s do that now. (Prayer). Amen. I sense at the 9:00 service the Spirit of God in the message. So, I pray that will happen here too for us right now. 

 

Chapter 4:1, so in the Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis wrote a child, a novel for children. The Chronicles of Narnia. And in the story, Lucy goes to professor’s house and there’s a wardrobe. She goes and hides in it and finds at the back of the wardrobe is like a door into Narnia. It’s like a fantasy. 

 

But that fantasy embodies something that is a reality, and that is that we live in this world but beyond this world there is another one. And actually, that other one is the perfect world of God. And that world of God is also in this world. That’s why we are living an extraordinary life. 

 

I want you to think that you are living an extraordinary life because of God. Because Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He sent the Holy Spirit into our live, so that he could be our teacher, and we could see things that are beyond sight. Looking at what is invisible. Hebrews 11:27, this verse means a lot to me. “Moses endured by seeing him who is invisible.” 

 

John has been used by God to write chapters 1, 2, 3 and the time of the churches which we are living in now is, he’s stepping into heaven and he’s seeing what is behind the troubled churches. Or we could say the troubled world. Or the chaotic world. Or the evil world that we live in. The painful world, the suffering world, the guilty world, the demonized world, the world that said no to Christ. We don’t want you and we crucified him. That’s the world we live in. 

 

But when we go to heaven and in the Bible here today, when we go with John and we look at the throne of God, now we are interested in what is really behind the troubled world. The world of death, the world of sin, the world of depression, of war and famine. 

 

And it’s bad enough in our lifetime, but we read in the book of Revelation that it’s getting a lot worse. That it’s actually going to become very, very bad on the earth. I encourage you in this series to read the book of Revelation right through many times because it goes together. Start reading Revelation. Like every week, read it if you can, as much as you can. Because it goes together. There’s a flow in the book. 

 

So, we are now looking at something we haven’t seen yet and that is the throne of God. So, it says here that John saw the throne and one who sat on it. So, here we have a little sketch of a throne. Okay. These are just my little sketch here. We have somebody who sits on it that is God who is sitting on the throne. You know, in the world of unbelief where there is no God, how could God make such a bad world and have so much suffering in it. 

 

So, we could say that there’s a tension between the throne of God and the world that we live in. I’ll put here the word “chaos.” I could put the word “pain.” I would put the word “death.” And say, here is life. But what about the throne that created it and is holding it together. So, those are good questions. 

 

At the same time, there are other questions. How amazing it is that there’s intelligence in this life. That we can reason. That scientists who have been very advanced like Einstein and many others who say that there is a logic in the universe. They have a language for explaining things in the universe and that language is mathematics. That they can explain things that are incredible by a language of mathematics because the universe is reasonable. This throne is actually a throne of not only beauty and authority but also a throne of reason. There’s more to it. There’s a community here at this throne. 

 

Let’s read vs. 3. I have the definition of those words here. “Sardis is the word in the best text where it formed part of the symbolic appearance of the Lord on his throne, setting forth his glory and majesty, in view of the judgment to follow. There are two special varieties, one a yellowish brown. The other a transparent red. The beauty of the stone is transparent brilliance, the high polish which it is susceptible made it favored among the ancients. It forms the sixth foundation of the wall of the heavenly Jerusalem.” 

 

“Then the jasper seems to denoted a translucent stone of various colors, especially that of fire. The Sardis and jasper of similar color were the first and last stones on the breastplate of the high priest, Exodus 28:17, 20.”

 

I would say and this is just a comment, I’m reading God and the Future – I’m not sure. And A.I. by John Lennox, if you want to read that book. And I think he did a great job on the book of Revelation. I’m reading that and if you want to buy that or find that and study it with me then you are so welcome. 

 

God on the throne is like a gem, a stone, that is translucent. And you know, when we look at color in this life, like the walls let’s say. There’s something flat about color in our world. But in heaven, the color is more penetrating or deeper, like a gem. And there are jewelers who have five words or when they look at a stone, they look at these elements in the stone. #1. Luster. #2. Brilliance. #3. Dispersion. #4. Refraction and #5. Scintillation. Like maybe sparkling. Maybe also depth of color or translucent, meaning there’s another dimension there that has a fullness to it. 

 

I don’t know exactly, because these are explanations or these are words that we find in the Bible and we are looking for the meaning of these words. I’m not an authority on it, but I am provoking you to think with me, that if we saw God in the throne, there would be incredible color like gems take light and what the light does with the gem. Magnifies it. So, we have God being very present. 

 

I also want to share something with you. I don’t know where I got it from. Many years ago. But maybe C. S. Lewis. I like this principle. Follow it with me. Have you ever met anybody and you say, Do you believe in God? They go, yeah, somehow the force is with us. Okay. Is that Star Wars? Okay. The force. I mean what’s lacking in that word when it comes to God? Is God a force. Yes, but what else is he? He is the personality. 

 

All right. So, when you have created things, you have bacteria, rocks, you have living things and there’s a scale. The more intelligent or the more brain of an elephant of a horse – a horse is intelligent – the more personality you have.

 

Then you have a man, and intelligence and personality, uniqueness comes about by our design. Then you have angels. We are a little lower than the angels for a while. We’ll be higher than the angels one day. Then of course you got – what is missing? You call him the force. You have magnets. Magnetic force. You have electricity. These are forces. 

 

But what is it they lack? They lack personality. I call my wife “the force.” What’s missing in the word? My wife. Her personality. Her intelligence. Her decision making. Made in the image of God. Man is made in the image of God. Force is so low and in the whole concept of creation, magnetism is a force. Waves in the water are a force. Electricity is a force, but what about a person that loves you. What about a person who sits on a throne holding all things together who made the universe and speaks to us through the universe with beauty. Beauty is one of the elements of the throne of God, an awesomeness about it.

 

Revelation 4:3, so here we have – I’ll make the throne a little bit smaller here. Okay. We have a rainbow round about it this way. And read it maybe vertical. This rainbow is the way we see it in the – we see the water vapor in the atmosphere. Water in the air. Sun coming through. We see a rainbow. And it represents a covenant. 

 

God made a covenant with us that he would never flood the earth again because of our wickedness. He didn’t. He hasn’t done it again and he won’t. But he gave Christ to judge us. That’s the judgment and the resurrection, the gift of salvation by resurrection from the dead. The gift of righteousness imputed to us so we could be dressed in white and go to heaven and be in the presence of God in heaven. 

 

Now, there’s another circle here. This is emerald. This is green in color. And the green color is mild to the eye. It’s in the middle of the spectrum of colors. Green is in the middle. That’s why you like green pastures or a green color. It’s like calming to us. I like to think about the presence of God like that. 

 

But there’s more here. There’s another circling of the throne and I think of it or I read it this way that it’s like horizontal, with 24 elders sitting around the throne like this. So, we read that here. 

 

Vs. 4. What is an elder? A leader. Is he a human being? Yes, he is a human being. Why 24? We can only guess that there were 24 critical men in the Bible. Twenty-four. Twelve sons of Jacob and then 12 disciples. One group is the fathers of Israel. The other group the fathers of the church. And being in heaven, we see like a complete counsel here. 

 

This is a counsel. I believe it is a counsel. I believe it is God wanting to share with his creation who he is. That God imparts to us his mind. That he gave us Christ. That we would be in Christ and have his heart and have his mind and have his Spirit. Therefore, we would be partaking with God in his throne. 

 

Because Jesus did say in Matthew 19:28-29 – maybe let’s put that up on the screen. He did say that authority would be given to believers. That believers would have authority with God. That the Spirit of God would be dwelling in us and we could ask in prayer and it would be done in heaven. It would be bound in heaven and it would be bound on the earth. 

 

Our office operation is in heaven, the throne of God. God is governing the world and making the world what he wants it to be and imparting to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, a government. And the increase of this government will not have any end it says in Isaiah 9:6-7. The kingdom of God has no end, and now we’re looking at the very heart of it, the throne of God. 

 

So, here we have – did we do Matthew 19:28-29? No, I was talking so we would give him time to get it up there. Okay. There it goes. Vs. 28-29. The throne in heaven is real and it’s an explanation for the world we live in. And you being a born again believer are connected with Christ organically. He’s the Head and we are members of the Body, and we are walking with him and he is actually saying to us that when he comes back the second time, we will come back with him. And we will be part of his government on the earth.

 

But actually, we are part of his government that is here on the earth now. Because we are relating to him and his awesome work that’s happening in his unfolding plan. But actually, he wants us to suffer. He wants us to be tested. He wants us to be tried. 

 

Because the tension between the perfect world of God where there is no sin, there is no death, there is no evil, the perfect world of the throne of God and then the world that we live in is dissonance. Like it doesn’t harmonize. We are in a world where we have questions. We have pain and hurt and we don’t understand everything. 

 

We learn to be quiet and submitted to him and the Word and teach me Lord so that I would understand your throne, your plan, your nature in this short time that we have on the earth which is a vapor. 

 

So, let’s go to vs. 4b. It’s a laurel wreath, an incorruptible crown on the elders’ heads signifying their victory. And by the way, Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, Revelation 3:21. Two thrones. God the Father and Christ’s throne. There will be a time when Christ will deliver his throne up to the Father and it will be the throne of the Father and the Son, and he will be here. There will be the eternal age and heaven will be coming on the earth as it is in heaven. 

 

Vs. 5. Now, because I didn’t want to just skip passed that. We found a little clip of lightning and thunder, so I want to play that for you. I wonder if that will work right now (clip). Everybody okay? Out of the throne came lightnings and thunderings and voices. And voices. 

 

Now, remember Jesus, there were times – John 12 was one of them – when he spoke, and they heard thunder. I don’t have it. We could find it, but I’ll leave that to you. I’ll find it after. But there are times in the Gospels where you have speaking – I think the Transfiguration was another one – where there was lightnings and thunder. What is the meaning of that? I don’t know. 

 

Thunder and lightning does affect me inside, in my heart. I have respect for it. We have it here in our climate in Maryland. We have sometimes incredible – I mean, wow! You’ve been in it and the thunder and lightning very close to you, you respect it. You do. It’s real. How many people – you could look that up. I don’t remember the number. How many people get hit with lightning every year and so on? It’s a real thing.

 

Now, when the throne has lightings and thunderings, I like it. I like it because it resonates with me respect, and there’s authority in it. There’s a story about Martin Luther. His parents who were just coal miners but they wanted their son to get educated, so he’s going to go to law school. Walking through the forest one day with a friend. Lightning struck this oak tree and it just splintered into pieces and Luther was horrified. And he went on his knees and he said I’m going to give my life to you, God. And he went to university to study theology and became the great man that he was. Okay. 

 

So, voices. Plural. Talking. Who is talking? God is a talking God. He ministers to us from the throne. What’s that mean? That’s just, imagine what that authority means if it comes from the throne of God. The Word of God. It comes from the mind of God, the heart of God, the plan of God. How wise it is to be submitted to the throne of God and to hear from God, what he is saying and what he is doing. What a privilege that is. It happened in Christ’s time when he was on the earth, and now today also, he’s still speaking to us from the throne of God. 

 

Vs. 5. Here we have – I’m going to try and draw a lamp. I’ll put it on a pole like this. Okay. Something like that. Lamps. We’ll put a flame here. Aren’t I a good artist? I mean you can’t get better than that! This is for sale after the meeting, okay? Seven Spirits of God. And there’s fire there. The Spirits of God are spirits of fire. 

 

They actually were on the earth at Pentecost. At Pentecost, the throne of God sent into this world, this power of God by the Spirit of God, and there were tongues of fire over the 120 people that were there in the upper room. And they spoke languages on the street so that people could hear. This was a work of grace from the throne of God. 

 

We can say your life is affected by the Spirit of God. Whenever you and I are Spirit-filled and walking in God’s Spirit, then we have this love that is in our heart and this burning before the throne, the seven Spirits of God. If you look for seven, we do have Isaiah 11:2-3. Jesus, spirit of counsel, spirit of might. We can read those. 

 

Revelation 4:6, so now we have before the throne a sea of glass like crystal. I’m not sure how to draw it, but I’ll just leave it at that. Sea of glass. What is sea? Water. I think I’m, something is going on here. I’m collapsing! Do you have a mint or anything? I got water. It’s not working. This water is not working. What? Yeah. That would be good. I got one, Scott. Thank you so much. He gets credit for doing it. Give him a hand. Thank you. Okay.

 

Where do we see in the Bible the sea? The sea is very unstable. Reuben is called – Reuben and Jacob prophesied about Reuben and said, Reuben, you are unstable like water. The world’s population is compared to water or the sea. And the Antichrist comes up out of the sea. People change quickly like water does. Like the sea is calm and in an hour it’s raging. It changes quickly. 

 

Just like you individually. Sometimes I’m very calm and I get very emotional and I am unstable like water. It’s a description for a person. Also, for a group of people. A nation. A country could go from peace to war very quickly. 

 

But this sea is not unstable. It’s crystal. It’s not going to change. Like there’s something about the nature of God that we have where we have this stability in life, and this crystal sea before the throne is a little bit of a picture of the laver. Before you enter into the holy of holies, there is this water for cleansing. But this isn’t water but it does represent that. It’s crystal. It’s part of the worship and that’s all I think I can say about it. 

 

Go to the text there. Vs. 6b. This is a text from Ezekiel chapter 1 and also chapter 10. Four beasts. They appear to be cherubim, a special class of angel with a specific duty at the throne. And they have a face of a lion. That’s the king of the forest, the jungle, the beast. That’s the most powerful. An ox, the strongest domestic animal. A man and then also an eagle, the best of the birds. 

 

And one of the things that I take away from that is that there is a union between this world and what God created. A lion, an ox, a man, an eagle. This world is connected with heaven. That these living creatures, four of them before God at the throne are – he uses what he created in this world for also the next world. So, that’s how I think about it, just personally thinking about this and reading about it. 

 

But I want to go back to the primary thing and finish up here. There’s something about this throne that is in a word we could call community. I like this word “community.” By that I mean governance. Governance by others. By God and others. God of course primary, but then he wants to hear from you. He wants to know what you have to say, because he put Christ in us. 

 

So, when Christ is in us, would God need us? Like in one sense, he’s almighty and doesn’t need anything. But he made us so that we can be part of his family. He made us so that he could get counsel from us. This is the way his staff meeting goes. He has a staff meeting. 

 

Now, notice something about bad government. When we have a tyrant who is ruling or reigning – and we could say it like this – he protects himself from opposition. He eliminates opposition. If you don’t agree with him, then you are on the outside and you’re not allowed access to him. He’s protecting his government. He’s protecting his authority, and he’s there like stabilized with that kind of environment and government. Unfortunately, a lot of us do that as people. We might do it with our family. We might do it with our church. We might do it at our company. We might do it at the university. 

 

But when we see the throne of God, we see something else. It’s another message. We have to do it some other time, but it’s Job 1:6, when Satan has access to God. It’s in John 18. Well, actually John 13, 14, 15, 16. It’s also 1 Kings 22 is a very good text on it. 

 

I want to finish up here but I can’t not share this right now, so thanks for your patience here. It’s so good. 1 Kings 22:19-20. That in itself is incredible text, isn’t it? God is sitting on the throne and he says how can I get Ahab to go to Ramoth-gilead? Well, you are God. Bring him over to Ramoth-gilead. Put in a desire to buy pizza and he will go get pizza at Ramoth-gilead at the pizza shop. God, you are God. You can do that. Bring him over there. 

 

But he didn’t do that. He goes, how do I do that? How do I do that? What is he looking for? God is looking for counsel. God is looking for counsel. He’s looking for us. He’s looking for us to talk to God. He’s looking for us to be on his team. God is looking for us to be part of his government. God wants us involved in his counsel. He has 24 elders sitting around him. 

 

What are they there for? This very reason. That he wants to hear from them. He made them like him. He has these guys around him. And I’m suggesting that the number is actually a lot more than that, but 24 are representing the government of God. And I mean we are all people that have access to the living God. Notice the next verse. 

 

1 Kings 22:21-22, now notice here. This is a spirit. A lying spirit. What is a lying spirit doing in the presence of a holy God? That goes back to this text here, Job 1:6. Satan came before the sons of God. Elohim. Satan was there before God. What is Satan doing before God in heaven before the throne of God? He’s not a dictator. He is allowing Judas Iscariot to be at his table at the Last Supper. He is allowing evil to be here in this world in our presence. 

 

He will prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies. That we are not insecure. The Lord is our shepherd; I shall not lack. We are in a kingdom and we are learning who he is. We are understanding that the world is suffering and chaotic and evil is also allowed by a living God who is a holy God and he is on the throne but he is also here washing our feet, speaking to us, comforting us, teaching us who he is. He is looking for us to interact with him, and he honors us with his kingdom. And the kingdom that is coming one day. So, that’s it. Amen. Would you pray with me? (Prayer)

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