John was invited to Heaven for a specific reason — to view the events that will happen on the Day of the Lord. This devotional reading begins to look at how John was presented with this information.
Nuggets
- God Himself has possession of the scroll outlining events leading to the Day of the Lord.
- The scroll is in God’s right hand.
- John saw a sealed scroll that there was an urgent need for opening.
A continuation of Revelation 4, Revelation 5 finds John still in Heaven in his vision.
Throughout the remainder of the book, God reveals Himself to us through showing us how He truly restores us to Himself.
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in The Appearance of the Lamb series series
“Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals” (Rev. 5: 1 ESV)
God Himself has possession of the scroll outlining events leading to the Day of the Lord.
Then
Hmmm. John must have gone to Paul’s School of Writing.
Verse 1 calls us back to the end of Chapter 4. John had been describing his first impressions of Heaven.
There is a huge worship service occurring with the living creatures and 24 elders leading. Let’s see what happens next.
In His Right Hand
The scroll is in God’s right hand.
God’s right hand is mentioned many times in God’s Word. We know the power and righteousness of God’s right hand. Here are just some examples.
- “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isa. 41: 10 ESV).
- “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy” (Ex. 15: 6 ESV).
- “My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together” (Isa. 48: 13 ESV).
- “That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer us!” (Ps. 60: 5 ESV).
So much of our provision is accomplished in God’s right hand. He protects us from our enemies and holds us in the palm of His hand. Most of all, He provides salvation.
Seated on the Throne
In the last couple of devotions, we were talking about Who was sitting on the throne. “And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald” (Rev. 4: 3 ESV).
God the Father — the Ancient of Days — is, has always been, and will ever be on His throne.
Isaiah identified God as the Ancient of Days. “‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior’” (Isa. 43: 10-11 ESV).
No other Savior – except the One that He provides. This Savior is the One for Whom they are looking.
A Scroll
John saw a sealed scroll that there was an urgent need for opening.
Let’s deal with this right off. I call it a scroll because I believe that is what was in use in John’s time – per the Complete Jewish Bible.
The Greek translation refers to it as writing material. That means it could be books. In fact, it later identified books – a whole library of books.
That isn’t really the most significant thing. What we should focus on are what is on the scroll and the seven seals. Each seal divulges some of what is on the scroll.
At this point, John didn’t know it was an explanation of history’s end. All he knew at this point was that there was so much written on it that it was filled front and back.
Yes, a lot is scheduled to happen.
Could this be the secret book about which Daniel wrote? “But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Dan. 12: 4 ESV).
Probably not. If Daniel was told to “… shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. … (Dan. 12: 4 ESV), John’s time wasn’t the end.
HELLO! Two thousand years later, and we are still here.
But what if John was in the end times? What if the end times started with Jesus’ ascension (Ac. 1: 6-11)?
We know that God’s clock is different than ours. Maybe the end times did start soon, but the Second Coming hasn’t happened yet.
However God is allowing it to happen, He wanted us to know the events of the end times.
The Author of the scroll is never mentioned. We know, however, that it is God.
God is the One Who is all-knowing. His wisdom passes our understanding. “For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Prov. 2: 6 ESV).
God, in this wisdom, has chosen to reveal the future to us. This revelation is so that we can be prepared, but it is also so that we can see his magnificence.
But it is more than that. God is showing us the unseen world. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6: 12 ESV).
But, do we have a clue as to the contents of the scroll – just the seals? We consider the bowls and the trumpets and the rest of the book as what is on the scroll.
Is it?
Nowhere in the Book of Revelation does it say and-the-scroll-says anything.
Now, we can see what is described as retributions. Did John see it that way? Part of me thinks he did, and part of me thinks he didn’t.
Throughout Revelation, there isn’t a lot of because-we-did-this-this-will-happen wording. It is kind of implied but never voiced.
In a way, it is almost a check list. True, I don’t see it necessarily as a chronological checklist, but all these events will happen before the day after the Day of the Lord.
Maclaren gave us a good idea of why we don’t see these retributions. Let me give it to you in Elaine-speak.
Resource
Part of our problem is we want to know the future. That gives us a feeling of control.
God is giving us knowledge of the future. We just have to believe He is real and what He says will happen will, in fact, happen just that way.
Another part of our problem is we don’t like change. We want that future to make no significant changes to our status quo.
Unfortunately, we don’t see God’s judgments happening now. They are.
“The Lord within her is righteous; he does no injustice; every morning he shows forth his justice; each dawn he does not fail; but the unjust knows no shame” (Zeph. 3: 5 ESV).
We tend to judge on appearances. Where we go wrong there is that we judge on the way we want things to appear. Too often, we want things to appear in the worldview way, not in the Godview way.
We think that God will only judge on the Day of the Lord. Or that He will judge at the conclusion of whatever sin we are committing.
Oh, no. God doesn’t just let us go and hang us at the end. He may step in at the middle and judge us.
To top that all off, we try to limit the ways we think God will judge. That’s right. God doesn’t take our opinions into consideration. God will judge the way He chooses.
Written
But what does the “… written within and on the back …” (Rev. 5: 1 ESV) mean? Young helped us with that. He wrote, “The allusion implies the number and variety of the counsels, works, and dealings of God. It also implies the fulness of the writing.”
Resource
This is the complete volume. Nothing has been left out.
God explained — and promised — it all.
Everything God does is according to His plan. There are no deviations, and nothing surprises God.
Some could say that this gets into predestination. The Homilist addressed that. In the sermon The Government of God, it says,
“Predestination is no special doctrine of the Bible; it is written on every part of nature; it includes as truly the motions of an atom as the revolutions of a world — the growth of a plant as the conversion of a soul. True philosophy, as well as Christianity, resolves everything but sin into the predestination of Infinite Love.”
Resource
People get bent out of shape thinking predestination takes away their free will. It doesn’t.
What is going to happen is predestined. How we choose to react to that isn’t predestined.
Oh, God knows what our choices will be. We still get to make them.
What we should take away from this is, just as the plan of salvation was designed before the foundation of the world, so was its ending. God had the complete plan from the beginning.
The complete plan has always been about our redemption. God knew we would disobey before He created us. Therefore, He went to great lengths to fix that.
Seals on the Scroll
How do we know the scroll contains everything? God sealed it with seven seals. The number seven signifies completeness.
Why is the book sealed? God is in control. The scroll comes from Him and His authority. Nothing is going to change the outcome of what is written there.
Mainly, I think the scroll was sealed because God didn’t want anyone to know how horrible it is going to be until the time was right.
Don’t we do that? We tend to keep quiet about the hard, hurtful things.
But God wanted us to know what the end will be like. He wanted us to know without a doubt that we will be judged, what we will be judged on, and the sentencing for the guilty verdict will not be pretty.
God doesn’t want us to shy away from this. He wants it to make us think and evaluate our spiritual condition. When we realize we are living in sin — even if we have made a profession of faith — He wants us to be humbled and choose Him.
Is it bad that God has chosen to hide things from us? No, it isn’t. If we knew the future, it may sadness. In fact, It may make us come to a grinding halt. God doesn’t want that for us. He wants us to depend on Him.
Making the Connections #1
Some worldview people have problems with a loving, just God being the wrathful God that we will find is described on the scroll. Burrell addressed this. He wrote,
“Three sentiments were struggling in all human breasts: the conviction of sin, the intuitive apprehension of death, and the trembling hope that God, in some wise, would deliver. The solution of the difficulty was hid within this volume of the Divine decrees — hid by the Father, to be revealed in fulness of time unto us.”
Resource
Even today — especially today — worldview people struggle with the question of what a sin is. They want their pet sins not to be classified as such. They don’t want to be judged for their actions and thoughts.
They see physical death and don’t want it. Unfortunately, they don’t know about or refuse to see that spiritual death is more important.
Worse yet, they think a loving God will give them a pass at the end because He is loving.
I don’t see that happening.
I don’t see God going to Jesus and saying, “I know before I created the people that I asked You to be their Savior. I know I sent You to die a horrible death to pay for their sins. You’ve done everything I’ve asked of You — beautifully.
“But I just can’t do it. I can’t send these billions of people to hell for eternity. I love them too much.”
There is no way God is going to do that.
God did not condemn mankind. Mankind condemned themselves when they disobeyed Him.
God is not sending us to hell. We did that on our own.
God is providing a way to escape hell’s torment.
That way is by obeying God.
If we disobeyed God to bring sin upon ourselves, we have to obey God to break sins’ chains.
Sin didn’t come into the world because Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Sin came into the world because they didn’t do what God had told them to do.
God could have asked them to do or not to do something entirely different. They would have still sinned because they didn’t do as He asked.
Our actions aren’t the sin. The denial of God is.
God asked Adam and Eve one thing that allowed sin into the world. God asks us one thing to turn away from sin.
We must ABCD. We must submit to being obedient.
Making the Connections #2
Knowing the future isn’t everything we think it would be. Schwarz helped us see that.
Resource
We wouldn’t get as much enjoyment out of the good things. I read that to mean we would think we were entitled to them.
The bad things would be worse. We would fret about the trials. The most common response would probably be that we would try to avoid them.
It is through God’s love, grace, and mercy that He doesn’t let that happen.
Except for the Day of the Lord.
God has told us point blank what is going to happen. True, we may not necessarily figure out the how.
But God has told us the what.
Why? Eternity is riding on this. Will we spend it with God in Heaven or Satan in hell?
It is our choice. Choose wisely.
How Do We Apply This?
- Walk with God.
- Find freedom for our souls.
- Love God with our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.
Resource
Father God. Thank You for loving us enough that You want to make sure that we understand the consequences of not following You. We want to be Your faithful children. Amen.
What do you think?
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