The Coronation of the Lamb

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

In May 2023, something extremely significant took place in the UK that hadn’t happened for a very long time. not sure if any of you can remember what it was. It was the coronation of a new king, and, you know, the, the previous monarch had ruled for the longest time in history of any monarch that we’re aware of, I’m fairly sure. And her son, King Charles III, became King Charles III. And, and I don’t, I don’t know about you, I didn’t watch it. I’m Dutch, so I think nothing about the, the English monarchy whatsoever. Um, however, this week, as I was preparing the sermon, out of interest, I, I looked up some of the clips of the coronation service that played out. And it’s incredible the amount of grandeur and, and pomp and show, and how incredibly well-structured the thing is. It was really impressive to sit down and watch. Um, I didn’t watch much, but I did watch some. And, you know, I thought to myself, I, I saw a, I’m not sure what he is, if he’s a altar boy or, or a serv- a squire or something, I’ve got no idea, but there’s some young lad who is, like, right there with the king doing different things, and I thought to myself, “What a privilege it must have been for this young boy.” He looked maybe 10 years old, and he’s right there. Uh, I mean, you could imagine he’s never gonna forget this, right? The day he sat and attended the king when the king was coronated.

You know, we, we are given, in this passage, a front row seat to the coronation of the King of kings and Lord of lords. We, we know Jesus has always been King. We know that God is King. But now we see humanity crowned in heaven in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you and I, through John, are given a front row seat to this marvelous occasion. And we’ve been journeying through it. We’ve been watching this one dramatic coronation scene play out. It started back in chapter 4, didn’t it? It started with the Father, God the Father upon the throne in chapter 4, and, and around God the Father, creatures, seraphim maybe, and elders, and different people gathered around the throne, worshiping God the Father as the creator of the universe.

And as we drew near the end of the chapter and heard the praise of creation, all of a sudden there was a lull in the service, a, a solemnity set in in the service. And, and a voice went out, a cry of maybe the service leader. as one of the elders cried out, “Who is worthy to take the scroll?” In, in King Charles’ place it might be, “Who is worthy to take the Queen’s scepter? Who is worthy to take the crown?” Whereas for Jesus, the question was, “Who is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals?” And we looked at that last week. And, and then there’s this sound of weeping in the crown room, in the throne room, because there’s no one worthy, there’s no one there. John is weeping, but then we hear the good news, don’t we? The, the doors at the back of the, the service, at the back of the church service, at the back of the temple, open up. Dramatically, the doors open wide and in walks the Lamb. In walks the root of David, and all eyes turn, and what do they see? A lamb, as though slain. And the lamb, as though slain, walks down the purple carpet and walks directly up to the throne. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, ascends the throne and goes right up to God the Father a- and takes the scroll, takes the seal, because He is worthy. He is worthy to take the scroll. He has done what is necessary.

And then the, the Lamb turns and looks upon the congregation of the holy in glory. He looks upon them and they look and they see a lamb, as though slain, standing with a scroll in his hand, and there’s a solemn silence. And then the response of creation begins. You see, the, the crowning of the King has just taken place, and now the response of creation happens, in what we might call the worship of the Lamb.

And it begins with a display of adoration and homage. And so, it all begins in verse 8. When the Lamb had taken the scroll, the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders fall down and worship. The immediate response of those nearest the throne, when they realize what’s happened, is to fall down before this Lamb, to fall face-down before the Lamb.

Now, that’s a striking thing to take place. You’re in the presence of God the Father. I mean, it’s idolatry to bow down to anyone except for God, right? And here is God on His throne, in glory, and they bow down to someone else, someone might say. They bow down to the Lamb. Why? Well, it’s a little bit like in King Charles’ coronation. There’s a moment when all of a sudden different dignitaries come up, different family members, different princes come up, and they have to bow before the king and swear fealty to him. They have to swear that “I am your subject. You are my king. I will obey you, I will serve you, I will do what’s necessary.” And, and it’s a little bit like that’s what’s happening here. As the King ascends the throne, as Jesus is clearly worthy since He’s taken the scroll, the elders and the seraphim fall down, acknowledging their subjection to this King. Acknowledging that He is their Lord, that they will serve Him, that they will obey Him, that He has right to command them to do whatever He wishes. It is a total subjection, right?

And brothers and sisters, that is what is required of you and me. And when we become saved, when he rescues us from sin, we must bow before him in subjection and say, “Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to thee. Use me as you please. To death, to life, whatever it might be, I will obey you. I will serve you. I am your servant. I am no longer a foreign power, but I am one of your citizens.”

But there’s another reason they bow down, and that’s in worship and adoration. It’s a, it’s a sign of rejoicing, isn’t it? You see it all through the Old Testament. Whenever the s- whenever the saints, whenever the people of God are overwhelmed with the, with the work of God, what do they do? They fall down. When the glory of God appears in the temple, the people fall down upon their faces. When the sacrifice goes up and the fire descends, the people of God fall upon their faces. Why? Because I’m not worthy, and you are. You are worthy of all my honor, all my praise.

And you see this in what’s in the hands of these elders. We’re told that each eh, elder has a harp and a bowl full of incense, which is the prayer of the saints. They are holding in their hands an item of prayer and an item of praise. Why? Because that’s the 2 ways that we worship our God. We don’t worship our God anymore through burnings of candles and smoking of incenses. We, we don’t come to him with fat and blood. We don’t come to him with fancy priest garments or anything like that. What do we come with? We come with a harp to sing our praise, to sing our worship, to adore our Lord, to adore our God. And we come with prayer, which I think’s an important reminder for us.

Because often we can make prayer all about our needs, can’t we? But first and foremost, prayer is about worship. Prayer is about adoration. And we must watch this. And consider for yourself, on a Wednesday night when we’re gathered in prayer, how much of our prayer is adoration. Or is it subtly becoming more like a Santa wishlist? You know, you know what I mean? What do you want for Christmas, Sunny? Write the list. And so, we come to prayer and go, “Well, God, I want this and I want that, and I need this and I need that, and I want this and I want that, so do this for me and help that person.” Now, it’s good to make our needs known, as I said earlier, when we’d had our time of congregational prayer. But that’s not the only thing prayer is for. In fact, if anything, that’s secondary, because your Father already knows what you need. You don’t even need to ask him for things. He delights for you to ask him, because then he can give you in response to prayer that your delight in him might be more. But one of the primary reasons for prayer is to adore your God, is to speak to your God and speak of his excellencies, speak of his wonder

And so, as the elders and the living creatures fall down, they fall down in subjection. They fall down in worship. And I think there’s an important point to make here, and that is that presently in redemptive history, where we are seated right now, this is an optional reality for you. Today, it is an optional choice whether you come and fall down before Jesus as Lord. But a day is coming when it will no longer be an optional reality. When Jesus Christ returns, remember what the scriptures say? Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. All eyes shall see him, it says in Revelation 1. And at the return of Christ, even the staunchest atheist on the face of the planet, whether you call it a Stephen Hawkins or someone else, they will fall down and say, “Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.” And Jesus will say, “Depart from me, worker of inequity, for I never knew you.” And so, this is an invitation for you today to call Jesus “Lord,” to do exactly what these elders do and fall down in subjection, fall down in adoration, trusting in him and him alone, and rendering your life as a living sacrifice to the Lord, day in and day out.

And so, as, as these, these creatures and as these elders fall down, all of a sudden, a, a song begins. You, we might call it the, the inner harmony begins, an inner harmony begins, and you see this in verse 9 and 10. the elders take up a song. The, the We remember, don’t we? They represent the church. The church takes up its song, “Worthy are you.” It’s a new song, we’re told in verse 9. “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood, you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

You know, there’s a really wonderful moment in the, uh, coronation of the King of England, and it’s when, it’s when everybody arises and sings, “God Save The King,” the national anthem. So, basically, the whole proceedings is finished, all done. king is crowned. He sits upon his throne. He’s been coronated, and all of a sudden everyone takes up this triumphant chorus because it’s finished. They have a king, and they declare, “God save the king.” And, and this, this chorus erupts, and the camera pans and you see princes and you see lords and you see servants and you see all these different people all singing with one voice, “God save the king.” And it’s a new song, isn’t it? Because just a month ahead of that when the Queen died, or just before the Queen died, what was it? “God Save The Queen.” But with the change of monarch, it became “God Save the King.”

And, and this is a little bit like what we have going on here. The, the crowning has taken place. The king has taken up his crown, he’s grabbed the scroll, and then this, this chorus, this inner harmony begins in the center. Voices are heard in response to what’s happening, and it’s incredibly fitting that it begins with the church. It doesn’t begin with the creatures, the living creatures, the Seraphim. It doesn’t begin with the angels. It begins with the church. Why does it begin with the church? Well, because they’re the primary benefactors of the work of this king, aren’t they? I mean, the angels didn’t need to be saved. They’re sinless. They need to be preserved, but they don’t need to be saved. Now, everything else in heaven, the, the creatures, well, they’re sinless. They don’t need redeeming. Why did Jesus come to the earth? To save the people from their sins. “You shall call him Jesus, for he shall save my people from their sins,” the angel says.

As the primary benefactors, it’s fitting that the Church of Jesus Christ are the first to take up a response, a coral response. And it makes sense that it’s a new song, because just like when the queen shifted to a king, we’ve shifted from the Old Testament to the New Testament. This is the ascension of Jesus here, remember. And with a, a new season, a season of grace you might call it, comes a new song to acknowledge the work that this redeemer has done.

And they, they don’t so much praise the lamb for who he is as much as they praise the lamb for what he’s done. It’s like you hear about in, in history books about what were called the Roman Victories. And so, in the Roman victory march, the, the general or the emperor would return from battle and he would enter back into Rome again, and there The, the streets would be lined with people, and he would march in victorious over the enemies of Rome, and he would be celebrated. And everywhere he went, there would be sacrifices made, and songs sung, and his praises declared, and people would cheer, and people would wish to touch him on the way past.

That’s a similar thing happening here. The king has returned victorious. He’s gone to earth and he’s conquered the enemies of God. But how has he conquered them? Well, he’s conquered them through his life, hasn’t he? Because they sing, “You were slain. Worthy are you for you were slain.” The way he is victorious over the enemies of God is, is not through force of arms, but through loss of life. He lays down his life as a ransom for many, and he overwhelms the enemies of God with th- the love of God. He could have come in power. He could have summoned a legion of angels to fight by his side, and I have no doubt but that the angels would have loved to have defended their captain. But instead, he comes as a servant. He counts equality with God not a thing to be grasped, and he humbles himself even to the point of death, death upon a cross.

And so, they sing of their returning king, one who, in the words of Isaiah 53, would be slaughtered on our behalf, who would lay down his life, who would suffer for us, who would take our stripes upon himself. But they also sing of the victory of ransoming. There’s this wonderful passage in Ephesians where it speaks of Christ returning to glory with a great host of captives, and it’s this, it’s this picture of the victory, the victor march again, where, where the, the king has gone out into enemy territory and that he’s brought a host of captives back with him. And so, the Lord has entered into enemy territory and he has captured, he has ransomed a host of people for himself and brought them back, and he’s paid for them with his own blood. He’s shed his own blood. it, it’s not clear in the English here, but in the Greek it’s quite clear. He’s paid God. He hasn’t bought them from the devil, but he’s paid God.

You see, the debt that we owed in our sin was not a debt to self or a debt to the devil. It was a debt to the Lord, for we had sinned against God and God alone, and the only way to be acquitted was for our debt to be paid. This is why the, the translation of the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts,” is so much more helpful, because we owe a debt to our Father in heaven. And yet, this king, they sing, has come and he has paid our debt. And so, we stand as free subjects of the king. We sing in our free worth before God because of everything that Christ has done.

They praise him for his ransoming. But notice where from. He’s, he’s ransomed the elect from every tribe, language, people, nation. Now, it’s not, as Universalists will tell you, that, “He’s saved everybody. He’s ransomed every person that ever lived.” No. It’s, it’s classes of people. He’s ransomed people from every tribe, people from every people, fr- people from every language. It speaks of brevity. It speaks of breadth. It speaks of immensity of numbers, a picture where no people group misses out.

And on a side note, that should really encourage us in our labor in the Gospel, shouldn’t it? Because if the Lord Jesus Christ, to ransom people from every people, that should spur us on to take the Gospel to every people, right? And not to be like the foolish elder that said to William Carey, “Well, if God wants to save the cannibals, he’ll do it himself.” No. We take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

But he’s also made us a kingdom. He says in verse 10, “You have made them a kingdom.” They celebrate him for making a kingdom. “Priests to our God, and they shall reign.” He establishes them in their place now under the king. The king has done a work so that under him, his people would be like vice regents ruling over his kingdom. Why? Well, ’cause Jesus needs people to run his kingdom, to labor in different paths, and so that his glory would be established upon the earth, and he rules through his people. And so, he has poured out honor upon them. It’s an incredible thing, isn’t it, to be an enemy and then to be made a, a king under the King? I mean, we didn’t deserve anything and He made us saved. But then He, He lifted us up into positions of high estate. It’s like Joseph, right? From prison to the, the second-most powerful person in Egypt. And so much more has Christ done for us.

And I think this, this inner harmony, this song of the elders reminds us, it reminds us that the church exists for the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. We, we don’t primarily exist to be a comfortable home or family, though we are. We don’t primarily exist for anything 0 other than the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and everything fits under that metric. And so, we serve for the glory of our King. We fellowship for the glory of our King. We gather and pray for the glory of our King. We come together Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day for the glory of our King. This is the purpose of our existence, today and tomorrow and into eternity.

You see, a day is coming when mission will stop, because Christ’s work will be finished and every elect shall be saved. But do you kno- do you know what won’t stop? The worship of the Lamb. We will gather together and we will sing His worship Sabbath by Sabbath, week by week, year by year, eternity upon eternity, for as long as God exists. Which, if you haven’t worked it out right now, is forever.

It also reminds us of the importance of studying the works of Christ. You see, if the Church of Christ here is, is adoring and worshiping and praising Jesus Christ because of what He’s done, and if that’s our calling to do likewise, it’s really important for us to know what Jesus has done. Uh, give yourself to the study of what we call Christology, 0 of the, of soteriology, 0 of the, the works of Jesus. Read the scriptures, take it up, read the Gospels, read Acts. Ask yourself, “What has my Jesus done for me? What has my King done? How can I praise my King for what He has done and what He continues to do today?” Make it your life goal to be an expert, a doctor in the works of Christ. S- because your worship can only be lifted as high, your adoration can only be lifted as high as your knowledge of the one that you adore. You can’t truly adore one you don’t know, can you? So, study His works.

And the inner harmony echoes, and you know, it’s a, it’s a big sanctuary, right? So, the, the song ends and you have that trailing echo bouncing out into the farthest reaches of the sanctuary a- and then as you, as you stand with John or as you sit in the front row of this coronation, you, you hear a voice that up ’til now you haven’t heard. It’s, it’s not the voice of the creatures. It’s not the voice of the elders. It’s not the song of creation. It’s angels. In fact, yet you hadn’t really noticed them yet. But, but behind you, th- there’s a, there’s a great ringed choir around the entire sanctuary, a choir of angels. It’s a great choral response. The choir was ready. They’ve prepared this piece. They’ve been waiting for their moment to respond.

And, and the conductor gives the cue, and a song is heard, lifting up by the outer choir. And this is no, this is no 100-person choir. This is myriads of myriads and thousands of 1000, which is apocalyptic language for innumerable, a number beyond reckoning. Every angel is there. No one’s missing this day. As the king returns victorious, all the angels take up their song, and they sing, “Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

It’s a different song, isn’t it? Why do the angels sing a different song? Well, the angels sing a different song because they have a different experience of Jesus. Our knowledge of Jesus is all in relation to redemption, isn’t We can’t know Christ outside of redemption. We will forever know Jesus as the one with marks upon his hands. It’s, it’s an unforgettable reality for us. But angels have no knowledge of redemption. Peter says that we know things in the Gospel that angels long to peer into. I- it’s a strange thing to think about, but angels, angels don’t know what it means to be saved. You, you know the joy you have for being saved? An angel has never tasted that. I mean, what a bliss to have never fallen. They are very privileged, but they have never tasted and never will taste of redemption, and so they don’t need to sing of redemption in the way you and I do.

Their song is quite different. Their song is directed primarily to the person of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and so they just sing, “Worthy is the lamb.” And they direct their focus to the person of the Lord, Jesus Christ, to who he is. Why? Because for eons, they have dwelt in the presence of the Son of God and lavished upon him worship and praise. For thousands of years, since their creation, they have sung the glory of the triune God. And then, one day, they watched the second person of the Trinity take on flesh. And you could imagine the angels maybe being a little bit confused. This is not fitting for our king. I mean, he’s the king of the angelic host, isn’t he? He’s, he’s the captain. He’s the commander. What, what do you mean the commander is being born as a babe, a vulnerable baby? I mean, he could go and conquer the world with a sword with- without breaking a sweat.

They set their hearts upon their captain that they have worshiped since creation began, and they del- desire and delight to continue to worship him. They worship him for his divinity because he is God, truly God. And, and so they worship him with the same words that are used in the Old Testament for the Lord himself. Only God is worthy of glory and blessing. That, the word for blessing there is a word exclusively used in the praise of God when it’s used in this way. And yet, the angels ascribe it to the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Remember those words in Psalm 29, “Ascribe glory to the Lord. Ascribe glory to the Lord, all you Earth.” Well, here are the angels, they’re ascribing glory to a man, the God-man, one who was both God and man.

I think this, this outer choir’s echo reminds us, it reminds us that it is good to appreciate a man for what he does, but it is better to appreciate a man for who he is. Y- you might liken it this way. Husbands, uh, y- you know the, the dreaded question you get asked every once in a blue moon where your wife says to me, “Why do you love me? Why do you love me?” And you go, “Oh,” and you start sweating immediately and say, “What’s the correct answer?” What, what would your wife think if you said to her, “Well, you make really good dinner”? She’d probably look at you with a face of like, “Well, that’s a good start, but surely something more than that.” “Well, I, I mean, you iron my clothes. You know, you do the dishes. You buy me nice presents. Y- you join me for lunch. Y- you gave me children.” Now, if you echoed those things, husbands, how would your wives receive that? Th- there’d be an element of like, “Okay, thanks.” But wouldn’t they much, much rather you looked at them and said, “I love you because of who you are. I just love you.” Why? I don’t How do I des- I just love you. It’s just you as a person. I mean, I- I’m grateful for everything you do. I’m thankful for all the different things you do, but at the end of the day, it’s just you.

Then in a relationship, you’re welcomed, you’re welcomed to move beyond what a person produces into who they are. This is oneness. Wh- when you sit at a, in a restaurant a- and you look at one another and, and you don’t really feel the need to fill the space, you can just gaze into one another’s eyes and enjoy one another’s company, enjoy the person that sits before you. But the angels understand this. I mean, they know the works of redemption, don’t they? They, they understand intellectually. They’ve r- they know the scriptures. They know what Jesus has done. But their chief delight is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that ought to be the same for you and me.

It is good to r- to sing praises to God for his redemption, and we should study the works of Christ, but let us not be contented with that. Let us press on, as Paul says, to know the Lord, to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection, to press into the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, because in him is our chief joy found. And so study Christ like a Puritan would. You might ask yourself, “Well, how would a Puritan study Christ?” Well, a great example is John Owen. Go find a copy or borrow my copy of John Owen’s The Glories of Christ. It’s a, it’s a th- it’s a thick book. It’s not huge, but it’s dense. It’s Puritan. Every paragraph’s the equivalent of a chapter in another book, and the whole thing is a study of Jesus Christ in his glory. And it digs into him in his humanity, and in his divinity, in all that he’s done, and, and it goes deeper and deeper and deeper. And every time you think to yourself, “Well, I can’t go much deeper than this,” there’s 5 more sub-points. And under every sub-point is 17 sub-sub-points of just more and more, and they plumbed the depths of the glory of Christ, and that’s what you and I should do. Don’t be contented with the surface knowledge of Jesus, but know him as the lover of your soul, as the chief among 10,000, as the Song of Songs puts it, the one who says, “My banner over you is love.”

And so we hear the outer choir of angels echoing forth over the back of our heads from the bench seats, from the bleachers. And as the song fades and echoes out, all of a sudden you hear another, a sound. Uh, i- it’s, it’s a song, but it’s a strange-sounding song. You hear a swell, like a groundswell, like, like a flood welling up in every direction. We’re told in verse 13, “I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.’”

It’s the congregational response, isn’t it? The, the inner harmony of those closest to sung, the angels have responded, and all of a sudden, as though the, the service leader had said, “Congregation of the Lord, please rise,” and all of creation stood up. And you hear the baying of dogs, and the tweeting of birds, and the chirping of crickets, and the roaring of lions, and the neighing of horses, and the bubbling of fish, and the song of whales, and the cry of the dolphins. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the livestock in the paddocks, every corner of creation gathers in the presence of its King, and lifts up its voice, and sings together, and they, too, sing a new song.

You see, we remember, don’t we, that the 4 living creatures were representative of creation and that they sang the cr- song of creation since its inception? “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” But they no longer sing that, do they? All of a sudden their song has changed. All of a sudden, creation sings, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.” The song has changed from, “The Lord God,” generic, to now specific, effectively, the Father and the Son. The Spirit has given voice to creation to now adore and praise the ascended Son at the right hand of the Father in glory.

And previously, it was to a triune God in generality, because the specifics had not been shown. Redemptive history had not been worked out so that it could be known. But now, creation sees its Lord.

And then you might ask yourself the question, “Well, why are the dogs singing? And why are the cats singing? Why is creation singing?” Children, i- it’s, it’s a picture, right? It’s a vision telling us something wonderful. telling us something special. And that is that Paul tells us in Romans that creation groans under the effects of a curse. You see, children, when, when humans sinned, when we broke God’s law, God cursed everything. All of creation became frustrated. Creative Created life became futile. Everything became hard. And so, creation, every animal, every plant, every weed that previously was intended to grow and produce perfectly now groaned under heavy curse. And yet, the Lamb came to redeem it.

You see, in the redemption we receive at the return of Christ, creation will be restored. Whether it’s a new heavens and a new earth or a restoration of the old one makes no difference. The point is, we’ll end up with a perfected earth again. The futility and frustration of creation life will disappear.

There’s a second reason why creation is singing, and that’s because it was created for the glory of God, wasn’t it? Remember all the wonderful Psalms? “I look in the heavens.” And what do they do? They declare the glory of God. What do the tr- I love this. What do the trees do in the Psalms? They clap their hands to the glory of God, and the mountains sing, because God made it for His glory. I mean, have you ever thought about the fact that there are parts of creation that no eye will ever see? There are mysteries in creation that no eye will ever see. I mean, we can make guesses about what’s in the center of the earth, but we have no idea, and we never will know in our human intelligence unless God tells us. And yet, God knows. God created it, and God loves it. And He made it that way for His glory.

If you think about the fact that, that for millennia, no one lived on New Zealand. A- and it just, it just sat here with, with, uh, kauri tree, w- you know, tana mahuta, growing, seed form at the birth of Christ, about the same time. And these trees and the birds and all the animal life, they just sat here unseen by any human. And yet, God smiled down upon it as a declaration of His glory.

You know, there’s that age-old question that people love to talk about. “If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” Well, I don’t know, but it gives glory to God. Creation was made for His praise.

And I, and I think this reminds us as creation takes up its, its adoration of the Lamb- I think this is a healthy reminder for us, that if God cares this much about creation, since God loves creation and loves to be glorified in creation, should not God’s people care about maintaining it? More than the crazy climate change nutters? It should not be the insane people you see on the internet who care the most about creation. It should be the Church of God, because we know its real purpose. We know why it exists. We know we were set here as the people of God, as his created people, to care for it.

So, do your garden to the glory of God. Care for your pet. Get a pet, especially a dog, ’cause they’re better than cats. Get a pet for God’s glory. I mean, don’t you love walking into The Leonard’s Place and seeing all of those flowers? There w- there was a, a flower I hadn’t noticed before. I walked in on Wednesday, on the right, and I saw those little flowers. Don’t ask me what they’re called. I’m rubbish at anything, the names of almost anything. This little flower, I sh- I s- they’re just beautiful. God made that. Care about creation.

I think the other thing this does is it reminds us and fills us with hope that a day is coming of restoration, a day of a new heavens and a new earth is coming, a day is coming when this creation will no longer grow n- and that should fill us with hope. When our bodies ache and our bodies age and the f- the plants we try and grow wither up and die You know, some of us have a special talent for killing every plant that we touch. A day is coming when those plants will grow and they will not get diseased. We put a, we put a tomato plant in the other day, it got absolutely decimated by something. No longer. Aphids will no longer destroy your veggies. A day of restoration is coming, and that’s something worth giving thanks and living in hope for, isn’t it?

And then as the, as the singing fades, there’s one closing word on this coronation service, the closing Amen. In verse 14, “The 4 living creatures said, ‘Amen.’ And the elders fell down and worshiped.” Finally, the voice of the Seraphim are heard. Up till now, depending how you interpret the first song, some take that to be the Seraphim and the elders singing. Up till now, the Seraphim haven’t really been heard in this chapter. They were heard in 4, but not 5. But now, as though the, the presiders over the ceremony, they declare, “Amen.”

What is, what, why, why Amen? We say Amen. You know, if you g- go, come to prayer meeting on Wednesday, what do you hear? One person prays, the person finishes, you hear this little echo throughout the room. Maybe not everyone, but a bunch of different people will go, “Amen.” Or occasionally, especially if, if you’re in other churches, you’ll get Amens while you’re preaching. Someone will Amen during a song. You get Amen during everything in some ser- some services.

Why Amen? Well, Amen means, it means “I agree,” on one hand. It means, “This is true,” on another hand. It means, “I desire for this to happen.” And it also means, “I will labor to see this happen.” So, it’s, it’s an agreement, it’s a desire, and it’s a commitment or promise, you might say. So, every time an amen is said, this is the intention. I agree with this thing, I want it to happen, and I will labor to see it take place. That’s what you say when you pray and say amen.

And so here, the cherubim, they’re saying, “I agree heartily with the worship of the Lamb in this way. This is good worship. This is right worship.” And they say, “I long for the Lamb to receive glory, honor, and praise. I long for the Lamb to be celebrated. I want him to be praised.” And they say, “We will join them. We will worship. We will see him made worthy. We will see him honored. We will see him receive power, and glory, and might, and wisdom, and blessing, and glory, and praise.”

And that- and that should be us, right? Shouldn’t that amen be ours? Shouldn’t we hear all of this and say, “Amen. That’s what I want. This is good, this is true, and I will labor to see it” And as the curtains draw on the coronation service, you see one last thing. The elders fall down and There’s the closing amen, and the curtains draw, and you see the elders falling down in worship.

And I think this is just a wonderful reminder for us that, firstly, the worship of God’s people is not just a future reality. This is not telling us of something in the future. This is telling us of a present reality. This began at the ascension of Christ, and the people of God are to take up the same worship today. And we will. Our doxology comes from verse 13. And so it’s an invitation as we see the elders, the last act, falling down in worship. It’s a reminder from Jesus Christ to you and I, the thing that should carry on right now is the worship of the Lord’s church, the worship of Christ’s church, the adoration of God’s people to the King.

But I think there’s a solemn reminder here in the amen, too. Brothers and sisters, friends, if, if you can’t say amen to the worship of the Lamb, let me be very blunt. If you cannot say amen to the worship of the Lamb, there is no place for you in heaven. And I think that’s a challenge for every one of us to ponder. Does heaven hear our hearty amen to the praise of the Lamb in every form? Or do we shrink back and shrivel back ’cause we don’t delight in the Lamb? Well, brothers and sisters, may God grant us to say amen and to worship him.

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