January 22 - Who is Worthy? (pt. 1)

January 22 – Who is Worthy? (pt. 1)
Revelation 5:1-14

Praise erupts in the throne room in Revelation 4:8 and Rev. 4:11. In Revelation 5, the praise transitions from God on the throne to the Lamb who has redeemed the world. Now is the time for you to read Revelation 5:1-14. Click on the passage and your computer should take you to a link for the scripture.

By the time we reach the end of this chapter, all of the inhabitants of heaven and earth are singing with everything they have to the Lamb who is worthy.

When we begin this chapter, we see God holding a scroll with writing on both sides and seven seals. Why are there seven? Remember, this is the number of completeness, but in ancient Rome, important documents were sealed with seven separate seals, ensuring that privacy was retained until the time came for the information to be revealed.

In Daniel 8:26, God told Daniel to seal up the vision because it concerned the distant future. Daniel 12:1-4 gives a little more information, but again, we find that the words of the scroll are to be sealed until the time of the end.

The fact that it had writing on both sides probably meant that it was filled with so much information it couldn’t be contained within the normal space.

The first time we ever see God write on anything, it was written on both side of the two tablets of the Testimony. God’s people received a most amazing gift. “Moses turned and went down the mountain the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God: the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.” (Exodus 32:15-16)

I’ve often heard preachers and poets tell us that Creation is the writing of God, but there are a few times in Scripture where He actually puts pen to paper (or chisel to stone) and gives His people a physical object to see His handwriting.

In Ezekiel 2:9-10, the prophet sees a hand come out of heaven with a scroll. It had writing on both sides. “Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.”

That doesn’t sound very promising, does it?

Isaiah 29:1-10 describes a vision of the destruction of Jerusalem. But, Isaiah 29:11 says, “For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, ‘Read this please,’ he will answer, ‘I can’t, it is sealed.’”

Isaiah and Daniel tell us through prophecy that the time is not right to know all of this information. By the time John gets to the throne room in Revelation 5, we realize the time has come.