The Mystery Is That The Lion Is The Lamb

Revelation 5:1-7  And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.  And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?    And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.  And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.  And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.  And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.  And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.

Revelation 10:1-4  And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:  And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,   And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.  And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

 

This portion of Scripture is from the revelation of Jesus Christ.

•  It’s not a revelation of nuclear wars and laser product codes on people’s hands or foreheads.
•  It’s about Jesus Christ.
•  Jesus is being revealed.

The reason it is called a REVELATION is because the truths of Jesus have been hidden from the beginning of time until Jesus came.

•  And with His coming, all the great MYSTERIES of God became known to God’s Church.
•  Since REVELATION means UNVEILED, it is the unveiling of Jesus Christ,
•  Everything that God stored up until Christ was actually contained in Christ.
•  And so the revelation of Jesus is the unveiling of the WORD of God.
•  In Jesus Christ is everything.

The fulness of the Godhead is in Jesus, so all you need is Jesus and all of God comes to you.

•  That is the reason Jesus said that no one can get to the Father but by Him.

As we read through this revelation, or unveiling, things may actually become more of a mystery than ever before.

•  And this is supposed to be an unveiling of Jesus!

For example, this sermon this morning focuses on the thought that the Lion of the tribe of Judah was supposed to have arrived to retrieve the seven-sealed book.

•  But when John looks for this lion, instead he sees a lamb as it had been slain, standing up on its four feet.
•  And as though nothing is wrong with this picture, the elders and beasts cry out thanks be to God that this lamb redeemed them to God by its blood.
•  What could be more opposite to the intimidating thunder of a roaring lion than the vulnerability of a little LAMB?

How can He be a lion when John looks and sees the furthest thing from a lion as he sees a lamb.

• And not just a lamb, either, but a lamb who was slain, and is standing there, risen from the dead.

And after reading that He took the sealed book and started ripping open its seals, we go to Revelation 10, and find Jesus represented as coming down from Heaven with the little book opened, and standing on land and sea and roaring like a lion.

•  We finally see a reference to a lion-like quality in Jesus.

What is God trying to tell us?

•  A lamb is called the lion of Judah!
•  What gives?
•  The furthest thing from our imagination after being told to LOOK at the lion who prevailed to come and open the sealed book, is to look and see a lamb standing there, as if it had been dead, but risen.
•  You would expect to see a warrior like you’ve never seen before, with power beyond that of any human who ever lived, for we were told that no man was worthy to take the book.
•  That includes Buddha, all the millions of other heroes, and any other man who ever lived.
•  Every other religious leader.
•  But what you see is a little lamb.
•  A lamb.. not a sheep.
•  And a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, at that!

Who would have thought that a little lamb accomplished the work attributed to a lion’s victory and conquest?!!

They wanted Jesus to seize the power of Israel and bring down the Empire of Rome.

•  Who would have thought the MESSIAH would come and let them shamefully crucify Him in nakedness before the whole world?
• It was a shame that the Lord actually despised.
• Think of a shame compared to the nobility of a conquering lion!

Not only was the seven-sealed book indicative of a perfectly hidden mystery, but the very one worthy to open the book is a mystery in being referred to as a lion of Judah, and yet seen as a lamb slain!

• And this is a revelation of Jesus?
•  It sounds as though its complicated things more than ever!

However, God never casts His pearls before swine.

•  Jesus spoke in parables after he heard the Pharisees accuse him of having a devil.
•  And He continued to hint to the listeners that those with true hearts hungry for God would understand eventually.
•  And this is the same principle in Revelation.

Satan would never have guessed that Jesus would conquer his kingdom of death like He did.

•  The princes of this world would never have crucified Him had they known he was the Lord of glory.
•  The things of God are such a mystery that eye has not seen, nor has ear heard the things God has kept hidden since the time of Adam and Eve.

Who would have thought that by allowing the religious leaders and the ungodly Roman empire to crucify Him, and be led by these murderers when He was God Almighty in the flesh, that He would come out on the other side of the grave with such absolute victory and power?!

He fooled the devil!!

He foiled Hell.

Nobody could have guessed it!

And to beat all, God had it right there predicted in the Old Testament through story after story after story!

•  All those Old Testament stories tell us something about Jesus’ victory through the completely unexpected means of the death, burial and resurrection.

Hell’s best shot turned out to be its greatest blunder!

The very thing the devil tried to avoid by killing Jesus was the very thing that was accomplished through that killing!

•  The salvation of millions of souls!

This picture in Revelation is simply showing the overall MYSTERY explained, and how God accomplished man’s salvation in symbolic terms.

And to show this really was a lion-like conquest, we see Him with the opened book roaring like a lion in Revelation 10.

Notice that He is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

Genesis 49:8-12  Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.  Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?  The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.  Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:  His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

Notice that Judah is called a lion.

•  Judah means praise.
•  And his brothers would praise him due to his conquests.
•  All through this prophecy to Judah, by his father Jacob, we read of the man enjoying the success of his conquests.
•  His hand is on his enemies neck.
•  In other words, he fought the enemy and overcame him.
•  You do not even read of the means of obtaining victory, but just of the enjoyment of having the upper hand.
•  He is gone up from the prey.
•  He’s already destroyed his enemy and has left the battle.
•  The sceptre of dominion is his.
•  He binds his foal to the vine.
•  The possession of vineyards and grapevines always spoke of success in the Bible.
•  He has grapes galore.
•  He has so much wine from his vineyards that he washed his garments in the wine.
•  As common as water!
•  He has so much wine that his eyes are red with it!
•  And he has so much milk that his teeth are white with it, dripping in milk.

What is this wine and milk?

Isaiah 55:1-3  Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.  Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.  Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

We find here that we can buy this wine and milk and it costs us nothing!

•  What is it?
•  Verse 3 hints to us the answer.
•  It’s the TRUTHS we must HEAR, involving the EVERLASTING COVENANT.
•  The sure mercies of David.

What does this mean?

Acts 13:34  And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.

Paul said that the sure mercies of David are fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

•  No wonder the Lord roared like the lion of Judah who had drenched himself in the enjoyment of wine and milk!
•  No wonder the wine and the milk are given to us without cost!
•  They speak of the truths of the resurrection blessings of Jesus Christ.
•  They cost us nothing because Jesus paid the entire cost by his own blood!

1 Peter 1:18-20  Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;  But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:  Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

Notice verse 20:

•  He was foreordained to pay the price to redeem us, and was manifest in these last days!
•  It was a mystery hidden for millennia, but revealed to us in the New Testament age.
•  It’s the revelation of Jesus Christ!

The wine drenches his garments!

•  It’s His BLOOD, and His blood is the wine that is drink indeed!
•  The blood speaks of the truths of His victory through His death.

No wonder the Lion of Judah roared after he won the war and prevailed to open the book!

•  The lion of Judah is enjoying His success!
•  The fight is already won!
•  When that lion roared, we are meant to remember this prophecy to Judah as a lion who won the battle, has his neck on the enemy’s throat, is gone up already from the prey, and relishes in the vineyards of the success of His conquests!

The battle was won to the extent that He even sits today expecting until all his enemies are made his footstool.

•  His battle was so extensive, that it even brings down enemies from the years to later come after the cross!
•  How will he see the victory of the cross defeat enemies who rise up centuries after that cross?
•  It’s because every time an enemy rises against you today, you can fall back on the victory Jesus accomplished on the cross and throw it into your situation today!
•  And that cross will be what is responsible for dealing a deathblow to the devil again and again.

This cross is not only going to come back and haunt the devil.

•  It’s going to come back every time a child of God resorts to that victory in their dealings with this devil, and knock the teeth out of him.

The mystery is being explained!!!

God held this mystery, depicted by the seven-sealed book, which represents a perfectly hidden mystery, ever since the world began.

•  It was foreordained, Peter said.
•  That is why you see the mystery in the hand of God on the throne, after thousands of years since Adam threw all mankind into sin.

Now, God’s abode in heaven, is called the following:

Psalm 81:7  Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.

It’s a secret place.

•  A secret place is a hidden place where few are ever allowed to enter.
•  It was represented in a model form of the temple of Israel where a holiest of holies was a secret inner sanctum, inaccessible to all but the High Priest of God alone, where the holy ark of the covenant stood.
•  In this secret place was the answer all the time.
•  God foreordained from the before the time of the world this MYSTERY.
• And now we know it involved Christ.

Ephesians 1:9-10  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

Ephesians 3:3-6  How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,  Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

Ephesians 3:9-11  And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:  To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,  According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:

Colossians 1:26 -28 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:  Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:

Colossians 4:3  Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:

1 Timothy 3:9  Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.

And this secret place was the secret place of thunder.

In this secret place of God’s abode in Heaven we read the following is present.

Revelation 4:5  And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and [there were] seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

Thunders.

•  The secret place is therefore the secret place of thunder.

And look at the throne,

Revelation 4:3  And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.

A rainbow was around it.

And we read:

Revelation 5:1  And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

Here is the book that Jesus comes to open.

This secret place of thunder, with its mystery and secret hidden from before the beginning of time, housed this Book.

•  And it is no wonder we read in Rev. 10, after the book is unsealed, and the mystery exposed by Jesus, when he roars like a lion of victory…

Revelation 10:3  And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

THUNDERS peal across the skies as he speaks.

He just came from the secret place of thunder!

•  Thunder speaks of the mystery.

When Jesus spoke of His impending death on the cross we read….

John 12:27-29  Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.  Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.  The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.

The Father spoke of the glory that would come concerning the resurrection victory after the death.

•  Notice this is about the death, burial and resurrection!
• This is the means of victory that was furthest from any supposed means of victory over sin that one could have ever dreamed of!
• And this statement of the victory of the resurrection sounded like thunder to some of the people.
• It was a mystery to them.

John heard the seven thunders TALK, and was about to write down the words they uttered, but was instructed not to.

•  You see, God doesn’t cast his pearls before swine.
•  You have to get your heart right with God and receive revelation about the RESURRECTION FOR YOURSELF!
•  I am talking all about it, but its only instruction to you as I preach.
•  You need to have it transformed inside you from merely being instruction to the engrafted word planted into your spirit that is able to save your soul!
•  Information saves nobody.
•  You need it changed into ENGRAFTED WORD.
•  Word planted into your heart.
•  You need to mix this word with faith.
•  Only then will it save your soul.

And notice this, too.

Revelation 10:1  And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:

This guy was inside the secret place of thunder where the rainbow was around the throne, and come here with His head filled with the truths of the mystery.

•  He stuck his head inside the secret place and came out with the rainbow around that head.
•  He came out to speak forth the truths of the cross to us.
•  He came out roaring like a lion enjoying all the success of a completely finished war.
•  The work is done!
•  He is gone up from his prey!
•  He is drenched in His own blood that paid the price and the blood of the enemy who is completely defeated.

Isaiah 63:1-5  Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.  Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?  I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.  For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.  And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.

Christ redeemed us all by Himself!

His own arm brought salvation!

It’s not our work, it’s His!

And He completely finished it!

Who would have thought?

Revelation 10:6-7  And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

What mystery?

We know now.

TIME NO LONGER actually means in the Greek, NO MORE DELAY.

•  The mystery has been held for 4,000 years.
•  NO MORE WAITING.

Revelation 10:10-11  And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.  And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.

Take it, eat it and preach it, John!

Preach the cross!

Preach the death, burial and resurrection!.

People have to know this!

No more waiting!