Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today I want to challenge you to think through the issue of who is it that has an open door of access to the very throne and presence of God. We are in the book of Revelation and we are unpacking Revelation chapter 4 today where this very thing opens up before us. An open door into the very presence of God.

John is ushered into that open door before the very throne room of God and we've just concluded our look at the seven churches of Asia who are on the ground experiencing all kinds of suffering and persecution and tribulation. And now we are going to see how these churches are seen and viewed and loved and treated before the very throne of God. But we have to first ask the question, who is it that has an open door access into the very presence of God?

And before we get to that, particularly I want to remind you of an upcoming study on this very book, the book of Revelation, where we can interact with one another over this profound book, the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. And so I want to encourage you to think about joining us for a Bible study. It's entitled, Revealing Revelation, A Community Study of the Apocalypse. Revealing Revelation, unpacking, throwing light on the images, the bizarre sometimes images in the book of Revelation and the sometimes complex layers of meaning that the book of Revelation has that our Lord Jesus Christ revealed through the prophet John.

And so we are commencing a community Bible study, not one that is restricted to our church, New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And so we have located the Bible study off of our premises, Revealing Revelation, A Community Study of the Apocalypse, will take place at Starbucks on 17th Street, beginning Thursday, October 10. And thereafter, each Thursday evening for the foreseeable future, but it begins on Thursday, October 10, and it runs from 7 p.m. to 8.15 p.m. And it's going to be led by myself, Pastor David Bass of New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and Pastor Mike Gillia of Share the Sun Ministries.

One reason this is a community study is it's led by more than just me, Pastor Mike. We'll also be contributing, we'll be oscillating, we'll be sharing the lesson load one with another, but we invite you to come and share your perspective. Learn some things perhaps, but also we will learn some things, no doubt, and we'll also be able to interact on our points of view on the book of Revelation, not always an easy book to understand. It's so often the one that new believers are the first one to go to with very little background and study of the rest of the Bible.

When you do need to have your biblical hat on, so to speak, if you're going to unpack Revelation, you better know the rest of the Bible pretty carefully. So we invite you to join us for this Bible study, a community Bible study of the apocalypse. It's called Revealing Revelation. Once more, it's going to begin Thursday, October 10, running Thursdays thereafter, and it's going to go from 7, precisely 7 p.m. to 8.15 p.m. It'll be at Starbucks on 17th Street, and it's going to be led by Pastor Mike Gillia of Share the Sun Ministries and Pastor David Bass of New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

And you can get more information and let us know that you're going to be coming. We've been getting some good responses. Let us know. You don't need to reserve a place, but we'd like to know somewhat of who might be there. And so call, if you can, at area code 208-523-0196, area code 208-523-0196 to let us know that you'll be there.

Well, let us then look now to chapter 4 of the book of Revelation. I'm preaching through the book of Revelation, and what a delight it's been. A lot of great response. Not everybody always agreeing. That's okay, too.

But serious inquirers, those that are learning things that they'd never heard before concerning the book of Revelation. We just finished the seven letters to the seven churches, and today we're going to be transported from earth to heaven as we look at Revelation 4, verses 1-6. And I want to read that today and then make some comments on the throne room of heaven. Okay? So, let us look at Revelation 4, 1-6.

And I read, After this I looked, and there in heaven was an open door. The first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. Immediately I was in the Spirit, and a throne was set there in heaven. One was seated on the throne, and the one seated looked like jasper and carnelian stone. A rainbow that looked like an emerald surrounded the throne.

Around the throne were 24 thrones, and on the throne sat 24 elders dressed in white clothes with gold crowns on their heads. Flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder came from the throne. Seven fiery torches were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. Something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal, was also before the throne. Revelation 4, 1-6a, the first part of verse 6.

And this message is entitled, Door. Yes, because we have before us here an open door into the very presence of God through which the apostle John is issued. Now, one of the highlights of a family trip to New York, and then to Washington, D.C., way back in 2001, was the Bass family visit to the New York Metropolitan Art Museum. We had a chance to go there. My brother lived in New York City, and so we stayed with him, visited a lot of the highlights of New York City, where, indeed, they featured a special extravagant show at the Metropolitan Art Museum of the original works of one of my top three artists of all time, and that is William Blake.

I love William Blake. His poetry, his painting, he's sometimes bizarre himself, too, if you know him at all. And it couldn't have been more fortuitous for me. Now, Blake was a genius of insight and vision. He was also half mad, half crazy.

I still cannot decide whether I like his painting or his poetry more, so I'm content to live with a tie in this regard. But in his work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he has a line that is very apt for our subject today. He says, if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite, unquote. From William Blake, the doors of perception. He has become very famous for that phrase, the doors of perception.

And part of the reason that Blake was considered mad was precisely because those doors of perception were open to him as they are open to some men. William Blake madly, obsessively chronicled what he saw with both pen and paint. And guess which book of the Bible, besides Job, guess which book of the Bible was William Blake's favorite to paint? Oh, yes, of course, it was the book of Revelation. Oh, doors of perception.

He painted them as well. Doors. They allow access and egress and they portend great change and transformation. Doors and often danger. My favorite director of Westerns, Sergio Leone, he also used doors very effectively to communicate abrupt changes in plot direction or danger or mood or all three at once with Sergio Leone and his movies, doors.

Characters step through doors. They get shot. They meet loves of their lives or they find great fortunes. The apostle John also uses doors very effectively to communicate a very important transition in the apocalypse. Things as they are in the infinite, in the heavenly realms, as William Blake might say.

Well, into what kind of world are we ushered through this door with the apostle John? Well, let's see. First of all, in verse one, I have a multi-point outline here that I'd like to go over with you. And point one is taken from verse one. First of all, door, consistent with that revealed under the old covenant, we are from time to time given access to that unseen reality, which is ours under the new covenant.

Yes. Verse one reveals to us that unseen reality and we have access to it too, which is ours in the new covenant because it's consistent as well. Verse one, consistent with that revealed under the old covenant, we are from time to time given access to that unseen reality, which is ours under the new covenant. Verse one, the heavenly counterpart to what we have just experienced on earth is inaugurated here. We have two chapters of the church universal on earth.

That's the seven chapters, or I'm sorry, the seven churches over the chapters two and three, the seven churches of Asia, with all of its warts, faults, and foibles, as well as its triumphs and glistening good works, right? We saw this in the white garments of the church and all of that was on display. And now we will see the themes and motifs of those churches reprised in the heavenly realms in another two chapters, chapters four and five. Here begins what I've talked about is characteristic of apocalyptic literature is that the pattern of oscillation between the two realms of creation, that of heaven and earth.

That happens in the genre of apocalypse. There is oscillation between heaven and earth. And we know this because John signals major changes in the apocalypse. He does that six times with the phrase, after this, I looked. When John says in Revelation, after this, I looked, you know, we're in for a change.

Indeed, here we are ushered from lower earth to heaven with a bold behold, right? Which as you might expect is meant to grab our attention. The idea of behold, it's meant to grab our attention in order to focus us. Well, what is that upon which we are to set our focus? A door standing open in heaven.

Whoa, where do you find those? I constantly highlight that we are creatures who straddle two realms. We humans, we are those created to straddle two realms, the physical and the spiritual. And most of the time we are unconscious of that spiritual realm, though we may perceive it in subconscious ways, unperceived by the five senses. Yet from time to time, those doors of perception, as Blake calls them, are cleansed and opened such that we are given an even fuller access to that reality, which is ours under the new covenant.

Yes, we, the church, we, Christians, we, saints of Christ, have a fuller access to that spiritual reality, which is ours, and it's under the new covenant too. Oh, these are some of the blessings of the new covenant. And this is what is happening to the apostle John. This is what happened as well to the prophets under the old covenant too. Amos says, for the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets.

prophets. And he says as well, the doors of perception were cleansed for Ezekiel in this vision of the Lord too, where he says in Ezekiel chapter one, as I look, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north and a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually. Yes. And the doors of perception were also cleansed for Isaiah and his vision of the Lord too. He was ushered into the throne room, into the very presence of God.

He says in chapter six of Isaiah, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple, unquote. Oh, but nowhere are we given a clearer vision of unimpeded access to the presence of God. Then in Jacob's ladder, way back in Genesis chapter 28, where we see that Jacob as he slept, and he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.

And he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place. There is none other, this is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven, unquote. All through the ancient world, there were places where the veil between the physical and the spiritual were especially thin and the Bible is no exception. At Horeb, for example, the Mount of God, as it's put in the Old Testament, Moses encountered God at the burning bush. Then again at Mount Sinai, Moses and Israel met God in thunder, lightning, and earthquake.

The Mount all through the Gospels is Mount Hermon as well. Remember this as we go further into Revelation because we'll see the Mount all through the Gospels is Mount Hermon where our Lord went to pray, to preach the Sermon on the Mount and where he was transfigured before his disciples. But these gates of heaven are not always obvious to the naked eye, brother and sister. Generally, there are no department of the interior signs which mark them as a point of interest ahead. No, such was the stone upon which Jacob lay his head before his fateful encounter with the angel of the Lord.

He said, surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven. What we miss, oh dear listener, if we do not have this as background, what we miss is profoundly crucial is that which Jesus claims for himself as he gathers his first disciples. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.

This is back in the book of John. Remember, perhaps this is a rather enigmatic claim for many, but no longer for you. You now know that it is Jesus who is the very gate of heaven. The one by whom we as Christians have access to the very throne room of heaven. When you are in Jesus, you have an open door to heaven.

There is now no longer a random stone or a high mountain access to which is had only by a few. No, now in Jesus, all of us now have access to the presence of God through him, through Christ. Ah, that's the upshot of behold, a door standing open in heaven in chapter four of Revelation verse one. And as you will discover increasingly as we go through Revelation, John is deliberately leaving breadcrumbs of interpretation for us as he did only a few verses ago in chapter three, verse 20. Remember that promise?

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. Only a few verses back, right? And now behold, a door standing open in heaven. Ah, here is that door to fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Welcome, pilgrim. You are here. You're almost home. Straddling heaven and earth you are as a creature, spiritual creature. And you are straddling heaven and earth in ways old covenant saints were never able to do.

We do this now, every Sunday in worship too. Guidance for which is given throughout Revelation too. Revelation is also a book about worship. And we're going to unpack this in our Bible study too. Revealing Revelation, a community study of the apocalypse.

So many of us are so eager to get to what we call the good stuff, the stuff about prophecy, that we miss what Revelation has to tell us about worship. And there is much to offer in worship. I hear people say all the time, well, pastor, there's no order of worship. There's no liturgy in the New Testament. So we're free to do really what we please, full well what we please in worship because there's no prescriptions for us for worship in the New Testament.

Ah, au contraire, dear listener. There is a lot that the New Testament has to tell us about worship and liturgy. And the book of Revelation is one of those books. The early church used to take much of her liturgy and much of her style of worship from the book of Revelation. And we'll see how this happens more and more as we unpack the book of Revelation.

We do this every Sunday in worship, don't we? We open a door to heaven, guidance for which is given throughout this book, the book of Revelation. And it's all because of the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God, who we will encounter momentarily, figuratively speaking, okay? Well, that's the significance and the portent for behold, a door standing open in heaven. But there are also things this text is not saying to, dear listener.

We are confronting here another indication that the church is not to pass through the tribulation, but it's to be removed for the prophesied terrors. That is, is to, we are to be raptured out of them. That's Donald Gray Barnhouse speaking about what he thinks this text means, an open door into which John is bidden to come up, right? We're confronting here another indication that the church is not to pass through the tribulation, but is to be removed before the prophesied terrors. That is, is to be raptured out of them.

That's how he sees these things. And many of you see it too. This is one of those daisy chain claims. As I have mentioned before in understanding how to interpret the apocalypse, this is one of those daisy chain claims for a text, which on its face says no such thing. In the context of the apocalypse's genre, this is a classic vision encounter with God, a vision encounter with God, which has far larger consequences for the church in which John will expand upon as we progress.

But nowhere does he even hint about the fiction of a pre-tribulation rapture here. This is pure wishful exegesis, as I call it. It is a figment of imaginative interpretation. The pre-tribulation rapture being a kind of interpretive rubber band, which when stretched to tie together bunches of unrelated texts, merely snaps and breaks. And that's what's happening here.

If you think that this indicates anything to do with a rapture, and its teaching really pales in comparison with its true meaning, you cheapen the text when you foist upon it a rapture here. The true meaning of this text has far greater consequences that we as ordinary believers now stand before the very gates of heaven, having an open door to the presence of God whenever we participate in our covenant renewal service, our worship, the Lord Jesus now being the very ladder of heaven. Yes. And this is further reinforced for us when our Lord's voice bids John. That's the voice which we first heard, right?

As John puts it, that voice which we first heard, hearkening back to the founding vision of Revelation. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. You remember back from chapter one, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. That is Sunday. And I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.

And now we hear that voice say, come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. Well, we're going to see in days to come that our oscillation will take us on a journey into the very presence of the sovereign God of the universe. And we'll see the seven churches of Asia, that is the whole of the church throughout redemptive history, shepherded and superintended to her final destiny as the beautifully prepared bride of Christ. That's the beautifully prepared bride of Christ, excuse me, of later chapters. But for now, we are scheduled for an important appointment with a very important person.

And we'll see this then in days to come and weeks to come. And we're going to put a pause here on this study of Revelation chapter four, at least for the time being, because we're swiftly running out of time. And I would like to once more remind you of a very important study of the book of Revelation. You may be sitting there scratching your head right now or saying, no, no, no, I'd like to defend the view of the rapture in this verse. Well, you can do so by attending our community study of the apocalypse that is called Revealing Revelation, a community study of the apocalypse.

And we're going to be doing this, inviting you, the public, to join us for a community study of the book of Revelation. And it's going to be held at Starbucks on 17th Street beginning Thursday, October 10th. And it's going to run promptly from 7 p.m. to 8.15 p.m. beginning October 10th, but running subsequently on Thursday nights thereafter, at least until Christmas. We'll evaluate around Christmas and see if there's enough interest to continue. But we invite you to at least have a taste of the study of the apocalypse, Revealing Revelation.

And it's going to be taught community-wide as well by Pastor Mike Gilea of Share of the Sun Ministries, as well as myself, Pastor David Bass of New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And we invite you to join us for this. You can call us for more information about this study. Let us know you're coming. We'd love to just have an idea of how many people we're going to get.

And call us to let us know, area code 208-523-0196 to do that. And I would invite you also to join us for our worship services, where we are at this very moment unpacking the book of Revelation, preaching through it, I am. And it's been a delight to do. Our people have loved it. And we've had many positive feedback, much positive feedback on it, as well as some criticisms here and there.

That's okay. Differences are welcome. We wouldn't be the church if we didn't have differences of points of view on this. And we invite you then to join us for worship. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 Force 3 on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

And you can call us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. That's New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church meeting for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 Force 3 on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Join us. Come and join us. Call us for more information or feedback at area code 208-523-0196. That's area code 208-523-0196.