His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Today on His Perfect Love.

Matt VanderVen: We have such a love in our heart for the Lord and and and we want to express that love. We really do. We want to express it. But we struggle so to do that. Worship is God's gift to humanity that when we can open our mouth, we can give back to him what he is rightfully due. He did it for us. He did it for us. You know, we didn't know love until he first loved us. Worship is our way of giving to God what he deserves and he provided a way to do it. Can you imagine what life would be like without worship?

I I I can't imagine a world. I certainly we can't imagine a heaven without it because there's so much of it going on in heaven.

Guest (Male): Ever wonder what we'll be doing in heaven? Well, as you study Revelation chapter 4, you discover worship will be a big part of it. And as we learn today, four magnificent living creatures will be leading the worship. Pastor Matt Vanderwaal believes these creatures are angelic beings and they have a unique calling. Part of it involves carrying out the judgment of God. Learn more about them now on His Perfect Love. Again, we're in Revelation chapter 4 with Pastor Matt.

Matt VanderVen: This is verse 7. The first living creature was like a lion. The second living creature was like a calf. The third living creature had a face like a man and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. What is John trying to tell us? I mean, is your mind blown when you let the video play? I mean, this is real. You and I are going to get up to heaven. We're going to see these four living creatures. We're going to see the throne room of God. And I don't want you gawking. Don't gawk, please.

Don't embarrass us, right? Don't be like Right? I think we're all going to do that. We're going to try We're like I'm not doing that. We're going to do that. We're going to gawk. Why? Because we've never seen anything like this. John, he's going in such incredible details. Now, look at how many times we're told about these living creatures. They're significant. And it's going to make sense when you figure out what their calling is. They have a very unique calling. And so do we. And when you start to look at the characteristics of someone and then you map it back to their calling, you realize God doesn't make mistakes.

If we do the same thing with these living beings, we're going to realize exactly what he's been trying to communicate to us. Even if we don't know exactly, you know, are these Ezekiel's supernatural Revelation chapter 4, right? That's where we're at, verses 6 through 9. Look at Revelation chapter 5 verse 6. And looked I behold in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures. You see that with me? Okay, I can continue reading 6 through 14 and it will describe them and I might do that in a little bit depending on time.

Look Look at chapter 6 1. Now, when I had saw the lamb open the seals and I heard one of the four living creatures. So now, one of these four living creatures is also an orator. He's given a responsibility and he says what? He says it was like a voice like a thunder and what's he say? He says to John, you come and see. So he also has authority. These four living creatures, one of them specifically, it's describing here. And then chapter 14, just look at chapter 14 verse 3, please. We look at these four living creatures and it says very clearly, they sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures and the elders.

Interesting. There they are again, okay? What about chapter 15 verse 7? Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the judgment or wrath of God who lives forever and ever. So now we learned another one of these of the four. He's also going to have a responsibility in the end in the great tribulation where he's going to be handing things to the angels that are going to be doing bringing God's wrath to this earth, the wrath of the lamb, Jesus Christ, which we know is the seven year great tribulation and the different things that are going to be happening during that.

And then also turn to chapter 19 verse 4, please. 19 chapter 19 verse 4. And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne saying amen and hallelujah. So there's something that you know, they certainly have a calling these living creatures and I think the text describes that these creatures um are not figurative because as as you just heard, they're they're worship they're worshipers. They're carrying out judgment or should I say God's judgment and they're actually acting as ministers for God to carry these judgments out. The last of the judgments as well, that was what we just read in 19 4.

And so they have different responsibilities, okay? They're real and they're actual beings. That's what I just want us all to understand here. They're special, they're exalted, they're in order of what we would describe as an angelic cherubim, seraphim, some seraphim, some kind of being like that. We don't read in the Bible of any other being other than seraphim and cherubim and then these four beings. So they're in some capacity in that. Maybe they're part of a cherubim but just have different responsibilities but they do look different. They have some of the wings of a seraphim.

If you've ever studied angelology systematically, they do have six right? Which not all cherubim do. Seraphim do but they do have qualities of the cherubim as well. So maybe they're a class to themselves. But Revelation chapter 5 look at verse 6. It says and I looked and beheld in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures stood in the midst of the elders stood a lamb. This is the first time we're introduced to Jesus Christ in the throne room of God. Did you realize that? Up to this point, John has seen what? The Godhead sitting on the throne.

And that's how we know it's the Godhead because chapter 5 tells us that the lamb now gets introduced. We know that the Holy Spirit is there because we saw the seven the spirit of God, right? And it's perfect sevenfold ministry, right? The seven spirits obviously speaking to the characteristics of the fullness of the manifold ministry of the Holy Spirit. And now we're given Jesus. And look at how he's described. There stood a lamb as though it had been slain. He's recognizable. Having seven horns, horns speak to power and seven eyes, eye being omniscient, all knowing everywhere that way.

Which are the seven spirits of God. He connects it closely again to the representation of the Holy Spirit and how they're connected. And he says that what? The seven spirits of God sent into all the earth speaking of the characteristics that have been sent. The Holy Spirit is gifting his ceiling upon all of you and I here. That's significant. Don't miss that. He says he sent it to all the earth. Right? We're not the frozen chosen. Then he came and took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. Now, when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures there they are again and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb each having a harp.

Not everybody gets a harp. You and I aren't going to be getting a standard issue heaven harp, right? We don't get At least I don't believe we are. I shouldn't say it dogmatically but I don't read anywhere into heaven that that's where John when he raptured up they're like, oh, here's your standard issue harp, right? It's number 5 4 3 2 1 harp, right? No, we don't No. Golden bowls full of innocence. What's that about? These are the prayers of the saints. This blows my mind. Every single prayer that has ever been echoed in the last 6,000 years on earth and including heaven are in these bowls of incense, okay?

And they're sitting in heaven. There's not a single prayer that was ever uttered that went into vapor that just disappeared somewhere. Every prayer you have ever prayed is standing in a bowl in one of the elders' hands in the very throne room of God right now. He says and if you question any of that, look just read it here in in in verse 8. He says golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the that Greek word is the word we use for saints, born again believers, Christians. And what do they do? They sang a new song.

You are worthy to take the soul scroll, excuse me, and to open its seals for you were slain and you have redeemed us. That's why again I believe those elders, those 24 elders are representative of the church, born again believers. By your blood. Isn't that what we celebrate in communion? 1 Corinthians chapter 11 do this, this do, right? In my blood He says I give you the new covenant. Life is in the blood. He is tying it all back for us. Out of every tribe, tongue, people and nation have made us kings and priests to our God.

Are angel angels ever called kings and priests? No, humans are, right? As a matter of fact, you all you're a royal priesthood, the Bible tells you. Every one of you. Every one of you that is born again, you are a priest. You are a royal priesthood, a precious people, your Bible tells you. That's how God sees you. You are ministers of God. And we shall what? Reign on earth. We are going to co-reign with God when we come back at the end of the great tribulation. Then I looked and I heard a voice of many angels around the throne.

So now John is kind of looking around and taking a panoramic view and he says and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands and thousands saying with a loud voice. So what is happening? Corporate worship. You know, when you came in here this morning to ready your heart, you came in and you began to worship cuz that's what you were made to do. You're a worshiper. You were born to do that. That 's why you could take a little baby. You could take a little kid. I remember when my son when he was little, his first birthday party, put on a little music.

My son didn't He didn't have to known. Oh, I love it. It's just there's something so pure about what music can be used for good or evil, right? We got to be careful the music we listen to. It it can move us emotionally to things. We We want to be moved to the spirit of the Lord and we want to enter into the throne room of God. It's powerful worship and we were created to do that. Look what these beings are doing too. They're all part of this worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power, riches and wisdom, strength, honor and glory and blessing.

I think we're starting to realize what these beings were created to do. They're given harps. They're around the throne room of God and they seem to be keep, you know, doing these things over and over again one particular action and certainly the whole 24 elders with them, what do they do? They fall down, they worship the lamb Jesus Christ, they offer reverence to them just as they did to the Father, right? Back in verse 6 as we just read. And I think this is proof positive that obviously we're talking about God and and in chapter 5 the deity of Jesus Christ, he's God.

I mean, obviously there's no denying any of this because all of heaven was told never to bow to an angel. And there's there are cults out there. There are cults out there that try to say Jesus isn't God. He's the brother of Lucifer. You You realize that Mormons and different Jehovah's I mean, there's a lot of cults out there and it's a direct attack on the deity of Jesus Christ or the humanity of Jesus Christ. And you read passages like this very clear and you come in Revelation and nobody in heaven goes don't bow to Jesus.

You never see it. And yet every other time you're told not to bow to an angel, right? So he is higher than the angels. He's not a created being. He's an eternal God. And anybody that questions that deity, please read the book of Revelation. It's very clear here. Now, along with the 24 elders as I mentioned, they have harps, they have these golden vials or bowls that are full of incense. We're told they're the prayers of the saints. Again, harps almost always or should I say frequently associated with worship in the Old Testament and with prophecy that would go forward.

Second Kings chapter 3 verse 15, First Chronicles chapter 25 verse 1, you can read about that. Incense represents the prayers of the saints. We just read that together. Therefore taken together Okay, so now we need to kind of pull this all together as John is trying to help us. These four living creatures, these 24 elders they hold in their hands all that the prophets have ever prophesied that just blows my mind and all that the believers have ever prayed for, okay? And it's all about to come to pass. You talk about climatic in this whole situation of all that's going on in heaven and all the sounds and all the noises, they know what's about to come.

And these things needs be. And the purpose of the four living creatures is God has been allowed us to see what have they been declaring the whole time? The holiness of God. Have they not leading in worship? They led worship and then the 24 elders began to worship. And then as we read in chapter 5, all of heaven begins to It says thousands upon thousands and then First, excuse me, back in verse 11, 10,000 upon 10,000 and then thousands upon thousands saying with a loud voice and they begin to worship. Worthy is the lamb who was slain.

So friends, these four living beings what are they? What is their principal role in heaven? They're worshipers and their lead worshipers. Their job around God is to turn around. Do you remember Lucifer, Ezekiel 28? He is a cherubim. He was arrayed in all of his beauty. What was Satan before he was Satan? He was a cherubim who was the lead worshiper. And then he fell because of pride because he recognized his own beauty and how God arrayed him in such magnificent beauty. And then he fell and as we already know in Revelation and he took a third of the angels with him.

We call them demons today but then there are the rest of the angels of heaven then there are saints that have passed and are now with the Lord, absent with the body, present with the Lord, right? They're with God and all of heaven is singing and worshiping. Friends, you're going to be there. I'm going to be there either through the rapture plan which can happen at any moment or when we our eyes close on this earth and we go to meet Jesus. We're worshipers just like they were worshipers and they were created to worship. We're worshipers.

And I assure you you won't have to worry about where your voice is going to sound like. I know some of you oh man, I love worship but my voice How great do we sound in our showers? I actually had somebody explain it to me that was a singer and they said, you know why we sound so good in our showers? And I don't mean just because we're alone and you know, the acoustics in the bathroom. Phenomenal, the acoustics in my bathroom. But it's because the steam They were telling me the heat it actually opens and relaxes the whole thing and and you're able to have more vocal range than you normally would.

I was like, that's awesome. I don't know how true that I love it though. I mean, I love it. I love what that person was telling me um and I believe everything she says. She's very smart and knowledgeable about these things but I thought maybe that's the reason why we all sound like we're opera stars in our showers, right? But you're going to get into heaven and I really believe when we open our mouths, it is going to be unlike anything you and I have ever experienced on this earth. Millions of people all singing in unity.

And it's going to be beautiful. I mean, just let the video play in your mind right now. Man, does that not peace you out here this morning? Just to think what's coming. Right? It's awesome. And And then look what else happens. There These powerful creatures they're going to turn around and and they're summoned to go and they're going to go out and say, okay, you send the horsemen, you do this, you do that. We see their power in chapter 15 verse 7. I just read that to you. When they unleash one of the last of the seven plagues of God's wrath on on humanity, they're going to have that responsibility, right?

So these these four living creatures they're similar if not the same, I believe, as Ezekiel's uh living creatures. They're They're foreign number, full of eyes. They have face like uh like beings, Ezekiel again. They have six wings, Isaiah chapter 6. If you're looking for that specifically, I've mentioned it a couple of times. You want to know why I know that? Isaiah chapter 6 2 tells me that. And they offer worship. Isaiah 6 3 says they do the same thing and we just read the same thing in chapter 4 here. And what are they always saying?

In Isaiah they said the same thing. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. Is the Lord God Almighty, right? They may not be the exact same but boy boy do they have then similar callings. These beings are an exalted order of angels whose purpose is primarily and we need to know this, Revelation 19 4 worship. Do you see the high premium that God puts on worship that he literally created these unique beings to lead all of heaven in worship? You You ever think why we're allowed to worship? He It's not God needs us you know, pat on the back.

God's not insecure. You and I we're we're finite human beings. We have such a love in our heart for the Lord, don't we? We have such a love in our heart for the Lord and and and we want to express that love. We really do. We want to express it. But we struggle so to do that. Worship is God's gift to humanity that when we can open our mouth, we can give back to him what he is rightfully due. He did it for us. He did it for us. You know, we didn't know love until he first loved us.

Worship is our way of giving to God what he deserves and he provided a way to do it. Can you imagine what life would be like without worship? I I I can't imagine a world. I certainly we can imagine a heaven without it because there's so much of it going on in heaven. Right? Then we read and let's look at the faces, right? Because he goes on and he says the first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature like the face of a man and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.

So he goes on to say the four living creatures each having six wings were full of eyes around and within and they did not rest day or night saying holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Friends, Jesus is coming. So what does it say? He says like a lion, like a calf and like a man. Now, John described these four cherubim each with a different face. Again, Ezekiel I talked about that. You can get the different idea. Numbers chapter 2 verse 3, verse 18, Numbers chapter 2 verse 25 also talks about this.

It's significant because some people are trying to figure out what is with these faces? What What does it symbolically mean or what is he trying to come You know, literal faces but what is he trying to communicate to us? How many of you remember back in the Old Testament, right? We've talked about this before. Revelation, powerful book. You remember there's 404 verses. 278 of those verses specifically refer back to the Old Testament which means if we want to understand the book of Revelation, what do we have to do? Go back to the Old Testament to understand that.

That's why we meet on midweek, right? We look through our Old Testament scriptures midweek Wednesday nights. That's why we do it cuz God We can't understand the full composition revelation of God's word without understanding both the old and the New Testament. We know the whole counsel of God. So what we learned back in Numbers 2 is that the way Israel encamped Do you remember when they encamped around the tabernacle? They had banners. Does anybody remember reading about that? So Judah What was the tribe of Judah? There was a banner and what was on that banner?

Anybody remember? Oh, somebody I heard of somebody say it over here. A lion or the face of a lion, right? So we start to see some of these ideas. So some scholars have come back and and you know, they have really said, well, maybe just maybe all this is speaking to these faces. He's tying Israel back in. I mean, Israel certainly God's chosen people but he's giving us an image, right? Some rabbis There's teaching from the Talmud that they would take which is oral traditions that would say that a lot of what we're seeing in the book of Revelation, God's chosen people What are these four creatures doing?

They're before the altar. They're leading worship, right? They're bringing everybody into worship. What were the people of Israel not what were they are? Okay, they are God's chosen people. Please don't make that mistake of thinking the church replaced Israel. The church didn't replace Israel. I'm going to tell you right now, God is not grammatically challenged. Right? God If God wanted to say that, he would have said that my church is has replaced Israel. He doesn't say that in one scripture, one verse or one passage. As a matter of fact, he's got a lot of promises for Israel that haven't been fulfilled yet and that's including a new covenant when they cry out which I do believe is going to happen very very soon.

Um so when we look at that, what these four living creatures They're Okay, going back to the the the tabernacle and as they would have been camped out, what was Israel supposed to be as a Why are they God's chosen people? Was it because they were great? No, the Bible specifically says they weren't great. Was it because they were great or maybe many in number? No, the Bible says it wasn't because they were great or many in number. Was it because they were holier than everybody else? Bible says us they clearly were not holier than everybody else.

God shows favor on whom he chooses to show favor. And God showed favor on Israel and he chose them to be his chosen people, the Hebrews as they were originally called. And why? What was the one thing that Israel has always been chosen to do? The whole world up to that point other than the Hebrews were what? Polytheistic. They were all pagan worshipers. The one thing that separated Israel was they were monotheistic, believing in one true God, the Shema, right? That's what separated them. That was what was unique. And Israel was always designed by God to be a nation that would preach or reach the pagan nations around them to turn them to the one true God because they were committing idolatry all around them.

Now, yes, did Israel fall in sin? Of course they did. Does the church fall in sin today? Of course it does, right? There's no perfect Christian but that doesn't mean God said, well, you know what and this is such a a revelation to people today. When we blow it, God doesn't turn around and say, forget you Christian, you've blown it. No, God's a God of reconciliation, God's a God of forgiveness and God's a God of grace. You want a good example of that? Israel. He's not done with them and they're not even calling on him as Messiah today.

Now, there's some Jews that got saved but but as a nation as a whole, they will. Jeremiah 31 31 says they will. As a people group, he'll even give them a new heart. So I'm just bringing all this out because there's many believe that as they were organized under tribes under these four heads um you know, they weren't mascots but tribal banners that that again the Talmud and others wrote. There's a scholar by the name of Pool that says these four creatures were portraits on the four banners that the Israelites used and they marshaled in the four companies allotting men of three tribes to each company.

So what he's saying is is that Judah had the standard lion in its colors according to Jacob's prophecy that tribe and that's again Genesis chapter 49 9. Ephraim Anybody remember Ephraim's banner or as it was given to him? Ephraim had an ox. Reuben Do you remember which one Reuben had? Reuben had a man. And Dan? Dan had a eagle. So the four different faces of the cherubim are often taken as symbols, okay? This way of speaking back to old covenant testament of Israel and pointing back. Now, do we know that dogmatically? No, that's just one idea that many scholars have said possibly.

There's other ideas, okay? Some have taken these four faces and said, well, maybe this is symbolic of Jesus and how he's represented in each gospel, right? Maybe in classical church architecture these four characters are repeated as a motif or something to signify both in heaven, on earth and in the four gospels. Maybe he's trying to say there's some connection, right?

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Matt Vanderwaal on His Perfect Love. You can hear the study from Revelation again when you visit hisperfectlove.org. That's hisperfectlove.org. We've expanded our podcast too. Look for us on oneplace.com and most of the major podcast platforms. The Calvary Chapel Harrisburg mobile app is another great way to listen to Pastor Matt's messages shortly after they're delivered. We can help you get started when you visit hisperfectlove.org. We're thankful for the listeners that come alongside of us with their prayers and financial support. If you're interested in supporting this radio ministry, there's a place to do that at hisperfectlove.org.

Together we can reach people with the love and truth of God in these last days. Pastor Matt loves to hear from his listeners. Even just a quick hello telling him where you hear the program and how you're blessed by it means a lot. Email us there at the website hisperfectlove.org. Well, that will do it for today but come back next time when Pastor Matt will again study the book of Revelation with us here on His Perfect Love.

Guest (Male): His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Chiller.