Loving What God Loves—The Book of Revelation
Rick
Joyner
The four living beings, each one of them having six wings, are
full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say,
"HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND
WHO IS TO COME" (Revelation 4:8).
In Scripture, the number four is a number for “whole,” such as when the “four
corners of the earth” speaks of the whole earth. Because man was created on the
sixth day, six is usually the number of man. Later we will see how the “man of
sin,” who personifies the sin of man, has the number 666, or three sixes. This
is a revelation of how the sin of man in its full maturity seeks to displace
the worship of the Trinity with the worship of man. This is the ultimate
maturing of humanism.
These four living beings are a prophetic metaphor of mankind as it is before
the throne of God. With “eyes around and within,” we have been
given a magnificent ability to see externally and internally. The wings speak
of the ability to soar above the earth. Even though these remarkable abilities
of mankind are now marred and distorted because of the corruption of the Fall,
God gave these abilities to man. He put it in us to want to see, understand,
and explore things around us and in us. We also have a constant yearning to
reach for the heavens. These are from God, and when mankind is restored and
again abiding in His presence, they will be perfected.
The way that these attributes will be perfected is declared by these beings in
this text—worshipping the Holy One by seeing His holiness, and seeing Him in
our past, our present, and our future. This is to see Him as the ultimate
understanding of everything. Once we see Him on His throne, we will not
continue to worship the creation but only the blessed Creator. When we have a
right relationship to God, we can then have a proper relationship to the
creation, including to ourselves. Then we will, like the four living beings, be
captivated night and day by our awesome, holy God.
We are created for God’s
pleasure. Therefore, there is nothing that can be more fulfilling to us than
doing the things that bring pleasure to God. This begins with loving Him. If we
do this as we should, we will also love all others and will love the creation. “God
so loved the world” not just mankind. As we see in
Revelation 11:18, the Lord will “destroy those who destroy the earth.” Those
who wantonly destroy the creation have lost the essence of who they were
created to be.
As we grow in our love for
God, we also grow in our love for all that He loves, and we will not needlessly
destroy or mar what He loves. The first command given to man was to take care
of the garden. This too is part of the purpose of mankind. As we are restored
to who we are created to be, our care for the creation will grow with our love
for the Creator.
Every love, or devotion, that mankind has will be distorted if we do not abide
in the Lord. Although some things are distorted by fallen men, this does not
mean that we avoid them. Rather, we must endeavor to do them in the right
spirit with excellence that comes from being changed by the glory of the Lord and
living in His presence.
He is declared to
be “He who was and is and is to come.” To know Him, we must
see Him in all three. We come to know Him as the Creator who “emptied Himself”
to become a man and live on earth among men to make the propitiation sacrifice
for the world. He is no longer “Jesus of Nazareth” but is the Lord of Glory,
sitting on His throne at the right hand of the Father. That is how we know Him
now, but we must also know Him as He will be—the King of kings who will come
again with His hosts to restore the earth. We will expand upon all of this as
we continue our study of the awesome Revelation.