Kingship of Christ in Revelation 4

The point: Read and meditate much upon Revelation 4 and 5 together throughout the week.

Martin jokes about the length of his sermons and recounts preaching an hour-and-a-half sermon only once, using it to explain why he must break down the exposition of Revelation 4-5.

Now, as I've already intimated, it's unfortunate that there is a chapter division between Chapters 4 and 5. The vision is a unity. The vision sets forth a glorious truth, not one part in isolation, from the other. But it is convenient in the sense that it is broken down, because if I were to try to expound the vision in its entirety this morning, at least for my purposes, I would show both a lack of good judgment and a lack of grace, because you would for sure get a full hour-and-a-half old-fashioned Puritan sermon.

5:04 - 5:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: John transitions from dictating messages to the seven churches (hearing) to receiving a direct vision (seeing) through an open door in heaven, beckoned by a trumpet voice to see…

Compares John's role in dictating the letters to the seven churches to a secretary taking dictation from her boss, emphasizing John's passive role in receiving revelation.

And each of the messages to the various churches begins with, These things sayeth. So after that initial shattering vision in which John's eye was very active as he was caught up in the Spirit and made the recipient of direct revelation, the primary organ of activity or receptivity was the eye. Then for two chapters, it is John's ear that is the primary organ of the reception of revelation. Unlike the Apostle Paul, when he would write a letter, his own mental processes would be involved in thinking through the subject, in structuring his argument.

7:56 - 8:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Find comfort and consolation in the knowledge that Christ, in His regal and priestly power, is in the midst of His church, even amidst a world filled with evil.

Asks what will be the 'ballast in her hull' for the church sailing through 'troubled and tempestuous waters,' illustrating the need for foundational comfort in a hostile world.

but all of the churches existing at that time and all of the churches that shall exist in struggle and conflict down to the consummation. What comfort, what direction, what consolation is to be found in this opening vision? Well, as I try to underscore the fundamental significance of the vision, try again to keep the whole picture in focus. Having read the account of the glorious personage in the first chapter, Christ in regal and priestly power caring for the church in all the spectrum at its need, it doesn't take much for us to ask the question, yes, Christ is in the midst of the world, in t...

18:02 - 19:27 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And what is there? A nervous God biting His nails because things are getting out of hand? A nervous God because some of His ways don't appear quite just and righteous to the creature? No, no.

Martin imagines a lector reading Revelation 4 to a suffering church in Ephesus or Smyrna, picturing a volatile saint interrupting to ask if they can join the chorus of praise, illustrating the profound impact of the vision on troubled believers.

For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever. So I was meditating upon this passage my mind began to go off into a flight of imagination and I hope it was sanctified imagination. Can you imagine what it would have been like that first morning when the lector, the man appointed to read the epistle or the letter that would come from John from the Isle of Patmos came, say, to the church at Ephesus or Smyrna? And the lector is standing and he is reading.

29:19 - 30:03 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God is still upon His throne. And the very creatures that spew out their heresy and the very creatures that carry on their enmity against the church they are sustained by the very arm of omnipotence even as they pursue t…

Describes the rainbow around the throne as a 'living reminder' of God's covenant faithfulness, harking back to Genesis, to assure believers that God's sovereignty is consistent with His promises.

The throne in heaven is still set. And the one who sits upon that throne is glorious both in holiness, in majesty, and the rainbow surrounding the throne in covenant faithfulness. That rainbow that harks way back to Genesis in which God committed Himself to a covenant with His creatures. And there was the living reminder He is the God of covenant faithfulness.

32:02 - 32:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Suck sweetness from this vision by deliberate meditation and prayer, standing by the open door and seeing by faith the great reality of God enthroned.

Encourages believers to 'suck sweetness from this vision' by deliberate meditation and prayer, likening spiritual nourishment to drawing sustenance from the truth of God's enthronement.

What do you need, child of God? You need, as it were, to suck sweetness from this vision. Go with John. Not in some elevated state of direct revelation.

37:09 - 37:20 Read in full sermon