Rev I Tape 3 byMalcolm Smith The Lamb on the Throne

Revelation Chapter 4-5

‘After these things I looked and saw and behold a door open in Heaven, and the first voice which I had heard like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me said, Come up here and see and I will show you what must take place after these things. Immediately I was in the Spirit and behold a throne was standing in Heaven, and One sitting on the throne and He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and as sardias in appearance, there was a rainbow around the throne like an emerald in appearance, and around the throne were twenty-four thrones and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting clothed in white garments and golden crowns on their head and from the throne proceed flashes of lightening and sounds and peels of thunder and there were seven lamps of fire proceeding from the fire which are the seven spirits of God and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass of crystal and in the centre and around the throne four living creatures full eyes in front and behind. The first creature was like a lion and the second creature like a calf and the third creature had a face like that of a man and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings 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 who is and who is to come". And when the living creatures give glory and honour and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and to Him who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne and will worship Him for ever and ever and will cast their crowns before Him saying ‘Worthy art Thou our Lord and our God to receive glory and honour and power for Thou didst create all things and because of Thy will they existed and were created."

I want us to understand the great importance of these two chapters, chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation. We shall tonight in these lectures be considering this second Vision. You may remember that last week we considered the first Vision which was the Vision of Christ in the middle of the churches. Now we deal with the second Vision and in a very real sense this is the pivotal Vision of the whole book. If I can understand chapters 4 and 5, basically I have got the book, because it is in those two chapters, chapters 4 and 5, if you don’t understand certain elements, there you will find them cropping up all the way through and there will be a problem there. So we shall deal with this first Vision – the pivotal two chapters of the book, and then we shall move on to what is called the six seals the 144000 in the second hour, and that is still part of the second Vision but we will deal with it in two hours.

I wonder what you saw when we read that chapter? To understand the Bible you should be always listening for echoes for the Bible is one book and not a lot of books all stuck together. It is one book, they flow together and certainly in the book of Revelation, as we saw last week, the key to the book is everywhere else in the Bible. If I want to know the code of this book, then look in other parts of the Bible for it. I wonder if you heard anything as we read chapter 4? You remember when Moses went up on the Mount Exodus 19, and he received the Law of God, he also received a pattern for the Tabernacle. He goes on to the Mountain and he received a pattern and notice it stated that he was to make the Tabernacle according to the pattern that he saw on the Mount. So, get the picture. Moses goes up a Mountain, he goes into the presence of God. In fact he was summoned into that presence by a trumpet sound, if you recollect chapter 19. As he goes into that living presence of God on the Mountain he saw something and God sent him back down the Mountain to make a model of what he saw - we call that model the Tabernacle. Do you recollect what the Tabernacle looked like?

We will start where God starts which is at the centre of the Tabernacle. If we were to make this room into a Tabernacle and if we put this part where I am standing the centre, then here would be the Ark of the Covenant. Remember that box made of acacia wood overlaid with gold, inside it there was placed the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments, the Law of God and that box, the Ark of the Covenant, on the top a slab of solid gold and it was called the Throne of the God of Israel. At the end of that slab of solid gold there came two strange creatures that were called cherubim and there in the centre on top of the gold slab between the cherubim there was an uncreated light, it was the Presence of God. It was the true King of Israel. Immediately in front of that Ark there was a very thick curtain, and on that curtain there were inscribed pictures of the cherubim, so the cherubim were around the throne of God and they were on the curtain in front. That curtain was a separating curtain. You could not get to that presence of God, you were separated by the veil. Immediately in front of the veil, and therefore up against the Ark but separated there was the golden altar. And the golden altar was where the Israelite in the person of His priest would worship God. Ascending at the golden altar was an everlasting song of praise and worship, right in front of the Throne. And over here, to my right, there would be a seven branched candlestick, we talked about that last week. and that was always burning there in the Holy Place, just on the right hand side, as you are looking from the Ark, it would be on the right hand side of the Golden Altar. On the left side there was a table and there were twelve loaves on the table, standing each one of them for one of the twelve tribes of Israel. So one loaf for each tribe of Israel, and there was also a goblet of wine which spoke of the joy of the Lord that they had. Now you move outside and you come way out to the courtyard, and you come to a laver, something full of water with which to wash the sacrifices and make them cleat and then right at the door over there straight opposite me and at the end would be the altar of brass where they killed the animals, where the blood was shed.

One time in the year, the time was called the Day of Atonement the animal was slain at that altar, and its blood was brought right in and it was sprinkled on to the top of the mercy seat, that golden slab, and because the blood was sprinkled, the Israelites could come into God’s presence, and he stood, the Israelite, any Israelite, right in front of his God and King because (a) an animal had died and its blood was sprinkled, and (b) that blood was brought there by a representative, the High Priest. In his representative, in his substitute, he could stand before the Throne. Now Moses saw all of that on the Mountain, and when he saw it he had to come back and he made the scale model..

Now read through at your leisure at one sitting 4 and 5 of Revelation and you will see I believe immediately that what John saw is what Moses saw. Only John now sees it taken to its total fulfillment. Moses saw it as a forecast. He saw it in picture form, he saw it as it would be. Now Christ has come, it is no longer in picture, it is in reality. And you will notice even in John’s coming into this there are many parallels to the book of Exodus. You notice there to begin with that there is a door open in Heaven, there is no Mount Sinai, it is a door open in Heaven. There is a trumpet voice calls him through the door into the invisible half of the Universe, and there to see the way the Universe really is. You will never understand the Universe from the physical end, you have to go into the invisible, immaterial spiritual side of the Universe to understand how the physical side works. What is happening around us, all that happens around us are only effects. The cause of those effects is in the invisible half of the Universe, and John was called out of the physical half of the Universe to see the world of causes. In the invisible half of the Universe he must now see what causes the world history to be what it is. What is the cause of what is going on? That is what the whole book of Revelation is about.

Understanding the causes behind this physical world, and what he saw was the Tabernacle in cosmic size. In fact he realized that in one sense the entire Universe is a cosmic Tabernacle. He came into the invisible half of the Universe, into the Holy of Holies, he stepped into the ultimate Holy of Holies. The first thing he saw, he said . ‘behold a throne’. He came into the Holy of Holies and he saw the Ark of the Covenant, only he sees it in cosmic proportion, and he says, Behold the throne of God. But then right in front of that Throne he said there was something like a sea of glass. You can’t readily get to that throne, there is a great sea of glass separating you, that is the veil that separates man from the throne. He says that right around the throne there were these strange living creatures, and we will see in a moment that they are the cherubim and so the real cherubim now, not embroidered on a curtain or made out of but the real cherubim, John sees them surrounding the Throne of God.

He saw twenty-four elders on thrones. That answers as we shall see in a moment to the twelve loaves of showbread. The twelve loaves stood for the tribes of Israel, and the twenty-four stands for a far higher Israel and a far greater Israel. He said I saw seven spirits ever burning before the throne, that was the 7 branched candlestick, a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

He walked into this and realised that what was a little tiny model on earth was the reality, that is the way the whole Universe works, and of course when we come to the Lamb as it had been slain, there is no priest, for the priest is the Lamb, the Lamb has shed his own blood. And now alive, brings His own blood, and He comes right up to the Throne with his own blood, and with Him the whole Church is there, and then beyond that there was the whole world, and so you get the picture that at the centre of the Universe there is the Throne there is the Spirit of God, there is the reality, the Church is what it is all about, and beyond that there is the world of mankind. Do you get the feeling of it.

Let us take a look at some of these things. First of all the Throne, the tremendous feeling of peace to know that the very first thing John saw in the centre of the Universe he says, ‘Behold a throne’. Remember what we said last week of how the Church was being persecuted bitterly, it seemed in fact from some viewpoints that the whole thing was a failure. If you were a Christian you were pretty well signing up for some kind of martyrdom, you certainly had to have a martyr’s mind. They would not have gotten very far in those days with ‘If you want joy, peace, health and healing come to Jesus. It was rather ‘If you want to be thrown to the lions, lose your job lose your house, come to Jesus. There was a very different approach, it was the real approach. And under that sense of persecution you could lose any feeling that God is in control. And the very first thing that John saw is he says, ‘Behold a throne’ There is someone in control, at the very centre of the Universe God has it all under control, so Diocletian, the Emperor, you remember him and spouting out ‘I am Lord and God’ and everyone must worship. No no no, says John, behold a Throne far above the throne of Diocletian, far above all the wars, far above all that Rome will ever do, there is a Throne and God is ultimately in control.

In these two chapters, the throne is mentioned 17 times. That gives me the impression that God wants me to understand that He is in control. Sovereign God. He rules His Universe. God did not make a world and then wind it up and say, Now I will meet you in glory perhaps God is now active in His Universe, He is now the present governing King. It says the One who sat on the Throne is like a Jasper stone and Sardis in appearance, and there is a rainbow coming out of the Throne with lightening coming out of it. What does all that mean?. A jasper stone is crystal, crystal clear, shining radiant crystal. John says when I looked at that throne it was just as if that whole throne was filled with flashing, radiant blazing crystal. That was the simple presence of God. He who says He is Light, the God who had appeared above the Mercy Seat in the Old Testament, the Shekinah Glory God in utter pure crystal. It speaks of the absolute holiness of God. Sardias is a fiery red, an angry red. When I looked it was the radiance of crystal, but also mixed in with that when I looked at that he said, you look at it one way it was a crystal, when I looked at it another way it was a fiery red, and so He Who is utter Holiness utter Purity, He must of necessity be at the same time in anger against sin. The rainbow – that gives me great hope, because if I were to look at the utter holiness of He Who is Crystal, and to take in the fiery angry red of Sardias I would say there is no hope for me but around the throne there is a rainbow.

You remember the first time the rainbow was mentioned, when Noah stepped out of the Ark and of course for the very first time in his life he saw a raindrop? It had never rained in his lifetime before. And now the sun was shining because now there was no cloud covering and the sun shone on the raindrops and there was a rainbow, it was the first time a human eye had first seen a rainbow. And God said that bow in the sky is the sign of my Covenant. The rainbow from that day, even in other nations, for remember every nation on earth is descended from Noah, has that idea in the back of its head, you come across it in many histories of many nations. The rainbow speaks of the Covenant God who keeps His Word. We are speaking of that word loving-kindness where God is bound to act in love and kindness, he has sealed it with a covenant, and around the throne which I would shy away from in horror, but as I come to the throne I see the Covenant seal. God welcomes man. I can approach the One who is Holy, because He is a God of mercy, and the God who has made a covenant with man, and bound himself to man, even though man does not deserve it.

The lightening? Let, the echoes keep coming – we are still on Mount Sinai, remember that one of the characteristics of Mount Sinai when the Ten Commandments were given, was lightening. The whole mountain thundered and rocked and quaked and there was lightening. The giving of the Law was a horrific fearsome thing. It told man how wrong he was, and the lightening and thunder was an apt backdrop for such a time. And now John sees the ultimate throne, the real throne of which that one was just a shadow. They kept the Ten Commandments inside the Ark. Now he sees the ultimate Throne and the flashings of lightening remind him that the God who gave the Law is Himself the law-giver, and He Who sits upon the Throne demands the absolute keeping of the law. Any infraction of it is sin. He is the one who is fiery red sardias, John sees this awesome picture.

We are seeing Revelation as a picture. I am not overly concerned with the details, I want to get the impression? What was it John saw? John saw the awful Holiness of God. And I use that word carefully. God is awe-inspiring. There is a sense in which God is really frightening. In fact if you have never been frightened at the thought of God I wonder whether you have ever really looked at God. When I see God in His holiness, the law of God demands rightly, beautifully, there can be no infraction of it, when I see that, when I see that God who is holy must punish sin, that he does not punish sin by a choice that He makes but because of Who He is, and that of the necessity of His Nature, He must punish sin, is awe-inspiring. God is the awful Other – and then there is a rainbow thrown around the Throne, and John realises there is hope, there is hope. There is a rainbow of covenant.

The sea of glass is the reminder that because God is Holy He is separated, He is Other than me. He isn’t a creature, He is the Creator and every time I come to God I realise that He is Other than myself. I began, He is the Unbeginning One Who began me. Just to think about that I realise the great distance. God doesn’t need me. God was self sufficient before anything was made. God is totally self-sufficient in Himself. I am just a heap of needs. I need God, I need air, I need water, I need you. So I come the needy one to One the Who has no needs, the one who is totally dependent to the One Who is Independent. There is a sea of glass between us, a see of holiness, a sea of Other.

The Twenty-four elders. Who are the twenty-four elders that are sitting in the presence of such an awesome Being? We come to numbers. I don’t mean the book of Numbers. Numbers in Revelation have nothing to do with arithmetic. Numbers in the book of Revelation give ideas, not figures. If you can get that you won’t go running around with a little calculator trying to work out when the Tribulation will be here. Numbers in the book of Revelation are describing ideas, not figures and facts. It’s the study of numerology, and I don’t go very much into this, you can get very wild on this and get some whacky ideas, and I am not going into it in great detail. But just where we come to numbers that need explanation we shall stop and do so.

Twenty-four elders, what does it mean? You come in the figure 24 to an idea which is basic to the whole Bible – that idea is the number 12. If you are a Bible reader you will have picked that up. I don’t think you even need to be a Bible student. You will recollect that there were twelve Tribes of Israel and twelve Apostles. There is a basic idea, Old Testament, New Testament. The number twelve in the Bible is an idea, now what does that idea tell me? Well how do you make 12? 12 is made out of 2 numbers that you will again come across very often, the numbers are 3 and 4, now 3x4 is 12, notice also and don’t let me confuse you here, we shall be coming to it, that 3 plus 4 is 7, and the number 7 is another number that is basic to the Bible. 3 and 4, this time it is multiplied, 3x4 is 12. What does 3 stand for? 3 – the Trinity, God in His Tri-Unity. 4? The totality of the world, the 4 corners of the Universe, God in Trinity working in the totality of the world, 3x4, God working His purpose out in the world 3x4 equals 12. And when God was working the totality of His purpose in the Old Testament, you have the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel in the Old Testament was the unfolding of God’s purposes to man. In the New Testament when God was working out His purposes, He did it through His 12 Apostles. So the Bible often speaks in the New Testament that the Church is built on the foundation of the Apostles, the 12 Apostles. All that we know of Christianity came through the 12 Apostles, and so 12, God at work in the World, that idea is signified often by the number 12. You have here 24, 12+12 -the 12 of the Old Testament and the 12 of the New Testament. The 24 Elders are a symbol of the Church of all ages. The church of the Old Testament and the Church of the New Testament, John says they are sitting in the presence of the God who if seen without His covenant mercy is an awful, frightening God.

It says that these Elders are clothed in white garments. White throughout the book of Revelation consistently speaks of righteousness in fact in Rev 19.8 it speaks specifically of fine linen which is not exactly what it says here, but it actually states that that is the righteousness of the Saints. Jesus is depicted as wearing a white robe, and wherever Jesus is seen in this book, the description of his clothes is white. And therefore these Elders, the picture that represented the entire Church, the Old and New Testament, they can sit in the presence of a Holy God. The Law says that they must die, but they live. They sit in His presence, the covenant mercy of God has given them His righteousness. They are seated in the presence of God in His righteousness.

Notice that they are seated. Now I know that they fell down and worshipped, but notice that basically they are seated. That is quite a statement when you think about it. In the presence of God you would expect them to be grovelling in the dust if there is any dust in Heaven, but they are not, they are seated. Seated, doesn’t that give you a few echoes? In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 where it says we are seated in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That we, through the covenant mercy of God have not only been clothed in God’s righteousness, but we have actually been brought into Heaven itself – we now experience life in a Heavenly dimension? You know how much I am opposed to those insane wretched choruses about one day we are going to make it to Heaven. Out of the cotton patches of Louisiana we are going to make it to Heaven one of these days, and put on our shoes and walk all over God’s Heaven. That is a ridiculous theology which was born in slave days, unfortunately believed by so many. We are now seated in the Heavenly places. That is what the Bible teaches. Heaven in the future? Yes, I believe in that, of course I do. But that is not the message of the Bible. That is the P.S. of the Bible. The message of the Bible is now, at this present time, the picture of Revelation tells me that you are now seated in the Heavenly places, and you are seated, seated, you are not sprawled out on your face, you are seated. Which means that you have some rights with that God. To be seated in that Presence you must be somebody. And I remember in Romans 8.17 it says we are heirs with God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.

Do you understand when I say that you are part of the 24 Elders, would you understand me if I said that? You are part of the 24 elders. The 24, that is not really 24, it is a picture, a symbol of you plus all the other Christians in the world plus all the other Christians that have ever been plus all the believing Israelites that ever were – it is the Church of all the ages, that is the 24, and so you and I on the inside of us, we are seated in the Heavens, we have the righteousness of God because of Jesus Christ and His covenant mercy, and we are seated because we are heirs of God, joint-heirs, co-heirs with Jesus Christ, and it says we have crowns on our heads, and we are going to come to that often during this book, that the true rulers of the Universe under the only Ruler of the Universe, is the Church. In fact this book is going to tell me that the whole of history, all of time can only be explained in terms of the Church. We are the final and true rulers of this world, which is a statement which would take all of this course to fully understand. But you have got that pictured. Do you really understand when I say we think in pictures – do you not have a problem when I say we are not really thinking of 24 elders, it is only a picture? It is the reality we are searching for underneath the picture.

Very well, it says there were these strange living creatures surrounding the throne – I don’t want to get into great details with them. I know that they are cherubim because of Ezekiel chapters 1-10 and you can read it, and it has those weird and strange visions that are a Bible study all by themselves, but there we find the identification of these strange creatures, and they are the cherubim, and the little we know about the cherubim tells us that they are the highest order of angel, that they are the ones who bring to pass among men the purposes of God. You remember, way back in the book of Genesis when man fell, and he was expelled from the Garden of Eden, and it says that the Cherubim were the sword that was always turning, kept or guarded the way to the Tree of Life. That tells me right there what the Cherubim are doing. They were keeping the way, it was not so much to keep Adam out from the Tree of Life, the idea more is that they are guaranteeing that the way to the Tree of Life is being be kept so that one day man will be able to go the Tree of Life. That is why they were on the veil of the Tabernacle. They were the guarantee – God says that among men the Cherubim were working out His purposes and would bring to pass His will. The Cherubim were the living guarantee that one day man would be able to go back inside the veil and right there at the throne of God be able to partake of the Tree of Life, and it is very fitting that at this finale Vision that explains history, that we are surrounded by Cherubim. They have guaranteed that man can enter the presence of God. When nations have risen and fallen according to the Scripture behind the physical rising and falling of nations the angelic beings have been at work, bringing to pass God’s will on earth, guaranteeing that one day man will be able again to enter to the Tree of Life.

That is chapter 4 and it is the prelude to chapter 5, and chapter 5 having given us the description of what one may call the Throne Room of Heaven, you then in chapter 5 (see John is going to be specific), he has seen the whole, and now suddenly he says he sees something He says, I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals’. A book of course in those days was not a book such as we have with a binding, a book was a scroll and so one could write on the inside of the scroll and one could write on the outside too, and so he says it was written on the inside and on the back. Which means that it was absolutely jam full – there was so much to say that not only on the inside but on the back too, here is a book which is overflowing with words, however it was sealed with seven seals. You know how if you had a scroll and you put seven pieces of wax, it seals it, you cannot open it, it is sealed.

Now he said he saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, saying (notice the words) ‘Who is worthy to open the book and to break the seal?’. That is a strange word to use. One had to be worthy to open the book, so whoever could open that book had to be of a certain character. It didn’t say who is strong enough to open it?, it doesn’t say who is knowledgeable enough to open it?, but who is worthy. The person who opens that book has to be a worthy person, and it says that no one in Heaven, or under Heaven or in the earth was worthy enough to open the book or to look into it. And it says, ‘I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book and to look into it. I began to weep greatly. That is of significance too. If you read through this book of Revelation John does not weep anywhere else in the book – he saw some pretty rough things. There are beasts going to rise out of these pages that are worse than your worst nightmares, and John just looked at it and wrote down what he saw. But when he saw this, and remember he is seeing a cosmic opera, it is a thing that is happening in front of him and when he saw that that little book in the movie that was going on in front of him, the little book could not be opened, there was no one worthy, in Heaven, under Heaven or on the earth, and at that point he is so overwhelmed that he wept and not only wept but it says wept greatly, so here is a man who is so involved in what he is doing, and that little book is so important that he weeps greatly.

The interpretations of what that little book means are multitude, so I say this Vision is pivotal to the rest of the book. Whatever is in that book is the rest of the revelation. So if we are wrong here we are wrong everywhere, and of course it has been suggested by a great number of modern expositors that that little book contained the history of the seven year tribulation which is yet future to us now. Quite frankly, if I was living in AD 95 and there was a little book that told about a tribulation which would not occur for at least another 2000 years, I don’t think I would weep greatly, I think I would say – hey pass the potato chips. I could not care less. That to me, weep greatly, is of enormous importance – he wept greatly, whatever was in that book was vital to him right there and then to those that he oversaw on the mainland, in fact for ages of Christians to come. That book was of enormous importance. Notice it says it was in the hand of Him who sat on the Throne. The right hand of Him who sat on the Throne – that is the right hand of power. So this book, and remember it is all symbols, was in the hand of the sovereign God of power, whatever this book is, it is connected with God’s sovereignty, His ruling of His world – it was connected with His power wherewith He rules His world.

And we are back again to ‘no one was worthy’ I suggest to you that putting all that together that in that book were the decrees of God. The will of God if you like, here was all that God purposed for mankind. Here were all the joy filled plans that God had for man and at the Garden of Eden when man fell, man put on that seven seals with his sin. And man had sealed up the purposes of God for himself. Man could not enjoy God’s purposes. Man was made to sit in the heavenly places. Man was made to walk with God, but man has effectively sealed up that will and purpose so that he can no longer enjoy God’s purposes. Sin did a job, because of the way God made the Universe and man, man must open it. That is the point. Our other studies in Genesis have underlined this. Man was made lord on this planet. Man was the only one on the planet that was unprogrammed. Man had a choice and whatever man did God said, that is the way it will be on earth. Man was made an under-god, a vice-lord. God said he would not do anything on earth directly, He would only do it through man, therefore the decisions and choices of man on earth were final. Whatever man said on earth was final, that is the way it is. And man handed the planet over to the Devil. Man sold himself a slave to sin and Satan. If ever man is going to be free – if man is ever going to open that roll of God’s purposes and see what God willed for him it must be man who does it. John was weeping greatly, for whoever can take away sin and its bondage, that person himself must be without sin, and whoever takes away sin and bondage from the human race must himself be at least equal in worth to the entire race.

Search Heaven, notice he says there was no one in Heaven, of course not they are all spirits in Heaven, we are looking for a man. A man has got to be worthy to open the book and release to men the purpose and the will of God. But there is not one in Heaven. Angels are no use, they have never sinned, but they are no use. We are looking for a man, and I say this very carefully and reverently, but God is no use either, because He is not a man either. So then he looked on earth and he says there is nobody there either, because although we have plenty of men there, they are not worthy. There is no one in Heaven and there is no one on earth.

And it was at that point that he says that he heard someone behind him and it says one of the Elders said to me, ‘Stop weeping, behold the Lion that is of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome, so as to open the book and its seven seals, and I saw between the Throne, with the four living creatures among the Elders a Lamb standing as if slain, having 7 horns and 7 eyes which are the 7 spirits of God sent out into all the earth, and he came and took it out of the right hand of Him Who sat on the Throne. John said one of the Elders – that is a representative of that symbolic church came to me and said, ‘Don’t weep, because one was found worthy – one who was of Heaven but is of earth. God who has joined Himself to our humanity, for He is of Heaven, because only Heaven could do it, but only man could do it, so God had joined Himself to our humanity, and he says, ‘Don’t weep, behold the Lion which is from the the Tribe of Judah which is the Root of David ..echoes, echoes, echoes.

Where does that come from. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah – do you remember Genesis chapter 49 when Jacob was blessing his sons and he comes to his son Judah in verse 10 of chapter 49 he says, you are a young lion, a crouching lion, and it says, you will have the sceptre and the rule of staff – from the Tribe of Judah the rule-ship would always come – until, and remember this carefully, until Shiloh comes, and Shiloh means ‘He whose right it is’ or it means ‘The worthy One’ or the One Who is Worthy. So says old Jacob, the kings of Israel will always come from the tribe Judah until the only one who is worthy shall come, until He whose only right it is to reign shall come. And then it says that unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.

Said John, I turned and saw the Lion which is from the Tribe of Judah, I saw He Whose right alone it is to rule, I saw He who alone who is worthy. I think it is very significant that as he took the book from the hand of Him Who sat on the throne, immediately the whole of Heaven said, ‘Worthy is the Lamb’. They were confessing in the word ‘worthy’ this Shiloh, this is the one spoken of in Genesis 49 v 10. What does it mean, ‘of the Root of David’? It says he sprang a root of David This one designated the Lion of the Tribe of Judah his roots are David. Do you remember what God said to David in II Samuel chapter 7 v. 12 and 13, David would have a descendant, that is David would be a root and out of that root of David, out of David’s humanity, David’s flesh and blood and bone, there would ultimately come one – a descendant of David and it says he would sit on the Throne of David, and it says he would rule for ever and ever and of His Kingdom there would be no end. David was the root – Jesus was the flower, he was the Lion that was spoken of to Judah. David who was the first young Lion of Judah, he was the first King of Judah’s tribe. To him was said of a descendant to flower and that is why you have that miserable first chapter of the New Testament. Abraham begat, Isaac begat, - what are they trying to tell you? You notice what it tells you – it goes all the way back to David, they are trying to tell you that this One who is the subject of this book is descended from David – David is the root, and it goes way back to Abraham which is included in the fact that he is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

So at that point I do not need to interpret what does the Lamb mean?. Actually at this point in revelation, it is amazing, everyone agrees with me – nobody ever agrees with me about anything else, but they agree with me about that. When you read of a Lamb in revelation, everyone says, of course, that is Jesus. Now you use that same logic for every other part of Revelation, then it is a very simple book to understand. Of course it is Jesus. A Lamb - Didn’t John the Baptist describe Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? And of course a lamb summed up all the bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament. They had rams, they had bulls, they had goats, they had pigeons, but the one animal that in the mind of a Jew summed up all the animals was the lamb. It is almost theological shorthand for the sacrifices of the Old Testament. And so here is Jesus, the one spoken of in prophecy and He has come – He is God and Man and He has come to break the seals and to shower the blessings upon the human race.

And it says He was a Lamb as if slain. Incidentally the word ‘lamb’ in the book of revelation is a very special Greek word, it is not just lamb – the word means ‘little lamb’ or you might say ‘dear little lamb’, the idea of ‘dear fluffy little white lamb’ It is not just a lamb. And so he says, I saw coming to the throne a little white lamb as if slain, slain in sacrifice. They killed the lambs for sacrifice by slitting their throats, and so here is a Lamb coming up to the throne and he has a bloody gash of sacrifice on his neck but He lives, and I do not have to think too far for that – he has only just finished saying to John ‘Behold I am he that was dead but am alive and alive for evermore’. This is the risen Jesus, the Greek word for ‘as if slain’ – the Greek word is ‘As if freshly slain’. Here is the little Lamb who looks as if it has just been slain, yet it lives.

I suggest to you that what was seen here is exactly what happened to Jesus after he left Mary Magdalene at the tomb. Do you remember that, when Mary clung to Jesus and said, ‘Never leave us again’ Jesus said, do not touch me – do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to your Father and my Father to my God and your God’ It is as if He had just risen from the dead, and checks in with Mary to let her know that it is all ok, but I have yet to ascend to my Father and your Father, and with that He is gone and he ascends into the invisible half of the Universe. I suggest that this picture in Revelation 5 is a symbolic picture of what happened – His coming into the Throne Room. Where did He come from? Remembering our picture of the Tabernacle, He had just been to the brazen altar. He had been just slain at the cross, the blood has been shed, and now He Who is the offering and the Priest at the same time, brings His own blood into the presence of the Father. And it is because of that blood, because He is worthy that He can take the book. He has ascended into the presence of His Father - the finished work of Christ.

Note that he has seven horns – again the moment you say that you are not looking obviously at a reality – you are looking at a symbol. A lamb with seven horns. Horns in the Bible in fact universally, in fact horns speak of power. There are many Scriptures that are so obvious with that. Seven, that is the number of God – God in perfect action, 3+4, so here is the perfect number, God. God’s perfect power. That is a thought you could run with for the next hour. God’s perfect power, omnipotence – a Lamb, a dear little Lamb as if it had just been slain. Man laughs and says, a Lamb, that is power? A lamb is the epitome of weakness – slay it and you have double weakness. God says, there is my power, the Lamb who died for his enemies.

And it says He has the seven spirits of God. You only know the power of the Holy Spirit because of Jesus Christ, and therefore the Christian – it says if any man has not the Spirit of Christ – we know the Holy Spirit only through Jesus Christ. There is no knowing the Holy Spirit until I know Jesus as Lord, the one who died and rose again.

And this Vision which introduces me to the Jesus of the book will become the main Vision of Jesus. He is the one in the midst of the candlesticks, He will appear as the one upon a white horse, but basically the picture of Jesus in this book is of the Lamb that was slain, and I believe that we have got that picture, it is not a hard one to get.

Notice how these visions move – first of all we saw Jesus in the middle of the candlesticks and we understood we had to have a vital relationship to Him, then we see Him seated upon the Throne, coming to take the Book that controls the world.

First of all I come to a vital union with Jesus. After I have that vital union, that is Vision 1; Vision 2 I begin to realise there is more to this than meets the eye. When I first came to Christ I just thought it was ‘on the Jericho Road, just room for two, just Jesus and me’? Ever sung that? It was just me and Jesus, me and Jesus, me and Jesus. - the second Vision dawned upon me, it is not just me and Jesus, good grief, it is the whole universe, the future, everything, all of History and He is at the very centre – the Lion of the Tribe of Judah – the Root of David, the Lamb as He had been slain, and he took the book, the moment when you could shout through out all history and all ages, ‘It it is finished is done,’.

The One who was worthy took the book broke the seals and opened it, and upon that the whole of Heaven burst into a new song – that word ‘new’ in Greek, meant new in kind. One that had never been sung before. I might buy a new suit, I have had new suits before, for as long as I can remember, but if I turned up here in a Sari – that would be a covering of a new kind. And the new song is a song that is new in kind – never been sung before and that new kind of song, ‘Worthy is the Lamb’. Shiloh, you have come, you have come and redeemed us out of every tribe and nation. And the whole paean of praise, as it says, under the earth, in the sea as well as humans on land, and all of heaven circled around and worshipped. That is what took place I believe on Resurrection Morning. It is the key to history. Understand where Jesus is and you will understand what history is about.

Webmaster note: Malcolm refers to the emperor Diocletian (AD 284-305), I think he means Domitian (AD 81-96).

The original set of 12 tapes can be obtained from Malcolm Smith's web site.
They are suitable for group study.

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