Title: John and the Sealed Book
Contents
2006' Lecture on Revelation from the pulpit of Kyunghyang (21)
"John and the sealed book (Rev 5:1-4)"
Revelation 4:2
There is a scene in which the apostle John burst into tears in front of the sealed book before the sign of the victory of the Son and Lamb.
1. What kind of book is it?
1) The book is in the right hand of the one who sits on the throne.
Revelation 5:1 says, “I saw a book in the right hand of him who sat on the throne… ' he said.
“He who sits on the throne” is God the Father. This 'book' was a 'roll book'.
To say that the book is held in the right hand of God the Father means that it is possessed under the control of God Himself. ② It means that it is kept in the safest and most complete way. ③ Moreover, it represents a responsibility with which no one can engage without God's own permission.
2) The book is written inside and out.
In Revelation 5:1, “… I wrote it inside and out.”
The fact that the text of the book is written inside and out means that ① its contents are rich and completely complete. This means that there is no need to add or subtract at all. ② It also means that God's own plan, which is certain and immutable, is indicated. God's plan is always unchanging. Therefore, he does not claim the universe and the history going on in it by means of improvisation or instantaneous mutation. At any time, through all generations from eternity to eternity, God is in control of history according to His original plan and purpose. That's what I mean by the text of a book written inside and out. ③ The fact that the writing was ‘outside’ would be a revelation event in all the phenomenal world that we can know, see, and feel. ④ The fact that the words were written with ‘in’ would be a mysterious providential event in the spiritual realm that we cannot see or understand with the naked eye.
3) It is a book sealed with seven seals.
Revelation 5:1 says again, “It was sealed with seven seals.”
'Seven' is a perfect number. ‘In’ is a sign of ownership. If so, this means ① God's own absolute and perfect right to sovereignty. It shows that all sovereignty over the writings of this book and its content is solely under the custody of God Himself. ② It also means the strict concealment of God Himself. Who dares to deal with a book sealed with seven seals? It is a complete mystery that only God Himself can know. ③ It also shows that this is a revelation written in sequence. That is, it shows a progressive revelation process. The ‘seven seals’ must have been stamped one after the other. It wouldn't have been chaotic. If that is the case, it is implying that the book should be opened in the order in which it was sealed. This is closely related to the progressive revelation events in the book of Revelation.
4) This is a book that made a powerful angel ask a question.
In Revelation 5:2, "A mighty angel cried with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?"
① It is the cry of “a powerful angel” (Revelation 5:2). ② The content of the angel's cry was to open the book sealed with these seven seals and find the right person to see (Rev 5:2). ③ He cried out with a loud voice (Revelation 5:2). The reason is not only because the content of the book is significant, but because it is a universal revelation. Because the loud voice that the mighty great angel cried out was a sound that should be heard in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. ④ It was a sealed book that the angel himself did not know the contents of. That angel was an influential servant in the spirit world. he is a spirit He was a powerful angel and an angel with a loud voice. But I, too, did not know the truth of the wonderful secret of this work of redemption, so I raised a question with a loud cry. So, didn't 1 Peter 1:12 say that even the angels wanted to look into this wonderful event of salvation with wonder and interest?
5) It is a book without a suitable person to open or view.
Revelation 5:3 says, “No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book or look at it.”
① It was not even in the sky.
It is a world where spirit creatures exist. It was a glorified world with saints who died in the Lord after the fund.
② It was not even on the ground.
Here on the earth is a world where many heroes, hogals, martyrs, Cain, wealthy people, and powerful people are ruling. Moreover, it was the place where the Roman Empire ruled the world at the time when it ruled the world. ③ There was nothing under the ground.
Below the earth are the spirits that have not ascended to heaven. Then, wasn't the entire creation world silent on this angel's question?
Indeed, it is a painful and painful moment for John of Patmos. In front of that powerful angel's loud cry, John must have waited for the recipient of the book to appear and open it to the public. But there was no one in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, who could give me an eternal and silent answer.
Revelation 5:4 says, “I wept a lot, because no one was found worthy to open or look at this book.”
The body of the apostle John is now on the island of Patmos. He came to a place where no one else went because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. But the Lord made it possible for him to experience the glory of the throne that no one else had heard or seen.
He had to go to a world of glory that no one else could go to, have seen and heard, and had to chew the pain and sorrow that others did not have as much as he saw and heard. He wept over the book sealed with seven seals. I had to weep over the book in the right hand of the one who sat on the throne, not the book of the world. I had to cry because there was no one qualified to open the book and look at it. He said he cried loudly. I had to be immersed in great sorrow and great sorrow. It was a wailing.
2. Why did they weep?
Revelation 5:4 says, “I wept aloud… ' he said.
Here, ‘crying out loud’ means that sad emotions and tears burst out with the sound of spontaneous vomit that cannot be suppressed. It means continuous grief, not a brief burst of emotional state.
why did you cry
1) The mission made me cry (tears of the mission).
he is a prophet The life of a prophet is to see the world of God. The purpose of the prophet is to see the spiritual realm, the prophet's ears to hear the spirit of the spirit realm, and the prophet's mouth to speak of what they see and hear.
He was convinced that the hope of the entire universe was contained in the book now held in the right hand of God, who was seated on the throne. He believed that church problems, cosmic problems, life problems, and history problems were all contained in that book. He must have tried to find and read the providence of the great God who came to Patmos in this book. His expectations were really high. In fact, John must have been in a state of excitement before the sight. However, in front of the created world, which is silently silent before the cry of a powerful angel, he stopped crying. This is the heart of the prophet. Prophets (evangelists) are those who suffer when God's revelation events do not relate to my heart. If they do not see the inside story of the revealed world, they feel darkness ahead and they are to the point of missing out on the taste of life.
When you can't see, hear, eat, or deliver the vision of the revealed world, you lose sight of the real taste and feel the pain of death. At that point, I stop crying. This is the spiritual physiology of the church as a prophetic group.
2) It made the souls of mankind cry (Tears of the Great Leader).
Obviously, the Apostle John thought that the book in the Father's right hand was a book related to the souls of mankind scattered throughout the world. He knows why he is on Patmos. He would also want to know the identity of the Roman Empire that had expelled him and the end of it. And he must have thought of the human race of the world suffering under the oppression of that empire. He must have wanted to know the end of the world and human history as soon as the sealing of the revelation was opened. But before the unexpected silence, he wept loudly.
In this sense, the spirit of the witness is the spirit of the world.
The church, the witness body, is the conscience of the world. Then, aren't the tears of the apostle John the priestly tears?
3) It made the suffering churches weep (the shepherd's tears).
There was no doubt that the book in the right hand of God the Father was not only the lamp of human history, but also essentially and ultimately had to do with the Church of the Lord bought with blood. Now, the Lord's churches are suffering an unspeakable ordeal under the persecution of the beastly Roman Empire. The Lord's churches are getting weaker, but the power of the persecutors is getting stronger.
In this case, John was able to intuit that this book is the way of the church who met the difficulties.
I thought that the comfort of the church was in this book, the source of refreshment was in this book, and the secret of perseverance and victory was in this book.
However, John as the evangelist and as the shepherd could not help crying in the face of the silent phenomenon that appeared in direct opposition to the mournful expectation of the evangelist.
4) The sins of mankind made us cry (tears of repentance).
No one was worthy to open or look at this book. There was neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth.
Is there no righteous person who dares to appear before God in a place where the sins of mankind have deepened? Who would dare to appear before the abstract judgments of a just God?
The Prophet, who felt this deeply and was in pain, could not but cry out the bitterness of his aching heart. Indeed it is Where there is iniquity, there is no light of revelatory activity. The tyranny of Ahab and Jezebel bound the eyes, ears, mouths, and feet of seven thousand prophets. In those days, there were no prayers of blessing, no prophecies of hope, no visions. However, as the heavens turned to bronze and the earth was torn apart, there was only the curse of death.
Didn't Eli and his family's sins cause darkness in which the vision of the Word could not be seen?
Didn't the darkness of the early three hundred years of persecution make God's children live in tunnels (catacombs)?
Where there is Nazism in Germany, militarism in Japan, and the materialism of Kim Il-sung's dictatorship, God's revelation is closed. The sin of mankind! The ruler's sin! Where there is the sin of church leaders, God's revelational activity is silenced.
5) The earnest hope of the apostle John made us weep (tears of prayer).
In fact, the apostle John's lamentation was due to the frustration of the apostle John's hope for the book. Then his wailing is an expression of hope that the book sealed with the seven seals will be opened.
Strong hope and persistence is expressed in prayer. That prayer is immediately expressed in tears. These are the bitter weepings and tears that the Lord shed while He was on earth.
There are times when true hope makes us cry. It's not really despair. It is an expression of a plea for achievement. In this sense, prayer is tears. In the end, even though John of Patmos despaired in the face of the silence of the created world, the hope of seeing the world of God again ignited his heart.
Hope for revelation leads to weeping prayers.
Apostle John and the sealed book!
It was a book in the hand of God sealed with seven seals. It was a book in which no one, neither in heaven, nor on earth, under the earth could receive, read, or interpret it.
The closed book, the unopened book, the unopened book, the secret of the book made him cry. The tears of mission, the souls of mankind, the suffering church of the world, the sins of mankind, and the earnest hope of the apostle John made him weep.