Blessing, Glory, Honor Forever

April 29, 2018 Background Scripture: Revelation 5:6 – 14 Lesson Passage: Revelation 5:6 – 14 The twenty-four worshipping elders of last week’s lesson are identified in today’s lesson. Identification is important whenever prophetic writing is under consideration. Prophetic writing is often a combination of facts, symbols, and images. As a result of this mixture of literary devices, prophecy can be extremely difficult to understand and interpret in the absence of clarifying statements or descriptions. Therefore, whenever something within the writing is identified, it adds a measure of clarity as far as understanding and interpreting the writing. In today’s text, the twenty-four elders sung a song of redemption. It is in the lyrics or the words of the song that they identify who they are. The words of the song declare, “and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;”. The twenty-four elders consisted of individuals out of every demographic of people on the earth. They were redeemed by the slain Lamb of God. This description of the elders is the same description used for the New Testament church. Put another way, this list of demographics is an enumeration of the “whosoever will” group that heard the gospel message and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. This identification of the twenty-four elders gives us better context for considering the lesson. In the scene described by today’s text, John was viewing the “raptured” church gathered around the throne of God. Their garments and crowns were indicative that they had been glorified and had received their reward (crown of life). In today’s lesson text, the raptured church was worshiping the Lamb who had been deemed worthy to take the book of judgment from God’s hand and remove the seals. The removal of the seals would unleash the final judgments of God. Both heaven and earth will be affected by the final judgments. When the Lamb took the book, the elders and the living creatures worshiped and sang and offered the prayers of the saints before God. After this praise, millions of angels began to exhort the Lamb and declare that He is worthy to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing. This then led to a universal praise of the Lamb by every creature in heaven and on earth. This universal praise declared that the blessings and honor for God and the Lamb should be eternal. To this universal praise the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders exclaimed, “Amen.” Judgment Day had arrived and the Lamb that was slain to be Savior was now the eternal Judge of the living and the dead. The church, twenty-four elders, was already in heaven before the beginning of the judgments. This was one of the promised blessings for the church; she would not come into judgment. The Lamb had taken the church’s punishment on Calvary. Because of this blessing, all the redeemed should proclaim “Blessings, Glory, and Honor to the Lamb forever!” Robert C. Hudson March 8, 2018