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Daily Devotional #10

21 Days of Prayer

Daily Devotional with Pastor John
Friday, February 25 

Look! A Throne!

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. At once I was in the Spirit and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

Revelation 4:1-2

 

John was suddenly taken away in his vision from the problems and the messiness of the churches on earth through a door into the heavenly realms and the first thing he saw was “a throne with someone sitting on it.” This vision must have lifted John’s spirit. Times were tough, really tough. Rome was becoming more totalitarian and oppressive. The government was becoming more hostile toward the church of Christ. The churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3 were filled with what seemed to be insurmountable problems and surrounded by an increasingly antagonistic culture. John himself was banished to Patmos, left alone to rot and bleach upon the rocks. Then suddenly he sees a throne. And not just any throne. He saw the throne of God.

Instantly he was reassured  that there is a supreme headquarters. There is a control room for the universe. There is a seat of authority and power. With all that is going on in our world it would be easy to conclude otherwise. COVID continues to dominate our lives, the Emergencies Act has been invoked by our government, the Russian bear stands ready to devour the Ukraine. But there is a throne. In the Revelation, John refers to the throne 46 times and he uses related terms 77 times.

And the One who sits upon the throne is called by the creatures who surround the throne, “the Lord God Almighty … who was and is and is to come” (Revelation 4:8-9). This is the One who is on the throne. It is not the leaders of the world’s superpowers. It is not the executives of the great super-conglomerates. The God who comes to us in Jesus Christ is the One who sits upon the throne and he will be on the throne forever.

As I consider how much has changed in the world in the short time I have lived, I am amazed. When I think about names I used to fear and revere, I am reminded that they are hardly ever refereed to anymore. Churchill, Khrushchev, Mao, Pearson, Levesque, Hussein, Bin Laden, Chretien.  And frankly, it won’t be long and names like Trump, Trudeau and Putin will be gone as well. The balance of military power is shifting and the balance of economic power is moving in dramatic ways. But in all the changes that have come and will come one things remains constant – A Throne!

 

Prayer Points

  • Give thanks to God for his immutability and sovereignty. He does not change like shifting shadows. Our Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He’s got the whole world in his hands.
  • Pray for those you know who may be living in fear and uncertain of the future, that they will be enabled to see the throne and in seeing be delivered from all their fears.
  • Pray our Prime Minister and other world leaders will be humbled under the mighty hand of God and realize that they will one day give an account for their stewardship to the One on the throne.