Let Us Adore the Lamb

I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. (Revelation 5:4)

Have you ever thought of your prayers as the aroma of heaven? This is the picture we get when we read Revelation 5. Here is a glimpse of life in heaven.

In Revelation 5, we see God almighty on the throne with a scroll in his hand. The scroll had seven seals. They all had to be pulled off before the scroll could be opened.

I think the opening of the scroll represents the final days of history, and the pulling off of the seven seals represents the kind of history we will pass through as we move toward those days.

At first, John wept that there was no one worthy to open the scroll and look into it (Revelation 5:4). But then one of the elders in heaven says, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Revelation 5:5).

By dying on the cross, Jesus had earned the right to open the remainder of redemptive history and lead his people victoriously through it.

In the next verse, the Lion is pictured as a Lamb, “standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). Isn’t this a beautiful image of Jesus’s victory on the cross? Standing, not lying, though it had been slain!

It is as sure as though a lion had devoured the foe — but the way he achieved the victory was by letting the foe slay him like a lamb!

So, now the Lamb is worthy to take the scroll of redemptive history from God’s hand and open it. This is such a kingly act that the twenty-four elders of heaven (God’s worship council, as it were) fall down before the Lamb in adoration.

And do you know what the golden bowls of incense are? Revelation 5:8 says they are “the prayers of the saints.” Does not this mean that our prayers are the aroma of heaven, sweet smelling before the throne of God and before the Lamb?

I am strengthened and encouraged to pray all the more often and all the more vigorously when I think that my prayers are being assembled and stored up in heaven and offered to Christ repeatedly in heavenly acts of worship.

Let’s all bless and honor and adore Christ here below with our prayers, and then doubly rejoice that the worship council of heaven offers them again to Christ as sweet smelling incense before the Lamb who was slain.

John Piper 

Let Us Adore the Lamb

I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. (Revelation 5:4)

Have you ever thought of your prayers as the aroma of heaven? This is the picture we get when we read Revelation 5. Here is a glimpse of life in heaven.

In Revelation 5, we see God almighty on the throne with a scroll in his hand. The scroll had seven seals. They all had to be pulled off before the scroll could be opened.

I think the opening of the scroll represents the final days of history, and the pulling off of the seven seals represents the kind of history we will pass through as we move toward those days.

At first, John wept that there was no one worthy to open the scroll and look into it (Revelation 5:4). But then one of the elders in heaven says, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Revelation 5:5).

By dying on the cross, Jesus had earned the right to open the remainder of redemptive history and lead his people victoriously through it.

In the next verse, the Lion is pictured as a Lamb, “standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). Isn’t this a beautiful image of Jesus’s victory on the cross? Standing, not lying, though it had been slain!

It is as sure as though a lion had devoured the foe — but the way he achieved the victory was by letting the foe slay him like a lamb!

So, now the Lamb is worthy to take the scroll of redemptive history from God’s hand and open it. This is such a kingly act that the twenty-four elders of heaven (God’s worship council, as it were) fall down before the Lamb in adoration.

And do you know what the golden bowls of incense are? Revelation 5:8 says they are “the prayers of the saints.” Does not this mean that our prayers are the aroma of heaven, sweet smelling before the throne of God and before the Lamb?

I am strengthened and encouraged to pray all the more often and all the more vigorously when I think that my prayers are being assembled and stored up in heaven and offered to Christ repeatedly in heavenly acts of worship.

Let’s all bless and honor and adore Christ here below with our prayers, and then doubly rejoice that the worship council of heaven offers them again to Christ as sweet smelling incense before the Lamb who was slain.

John Piper 

The All-Satisfying Object

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

The quest for pleasure is not even optional, but commanded (in the Psalms): “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

The psalmists sought to do just this: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1–2). “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpart when the psalmist says that men “drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights” (Psalm 36:8 NASB).

I found that the goodness of God, the very foundation of worship, is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence. No, it is something to be enjoyed: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8). Taste. Taste! And see.

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).

As C.S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.” His people adore him unashamedly for the “exceeding joy” they find in him (Psalm 43:4). He is the source of complete and unending pleasure: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

John Piper 

Let Us Adore the Lamb

I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. (Revelation 5:4)

Have you ever thought of your prayers as the aroma of heaven? This is the picture we get when we read Revelation 5. Here is a glimpse of life in heaven.

In Revelation 5, we see God almighty on the throne with a scroll in his hand. The scroll had seven seals. They all had to be pulled off before the scroll could be opened.

I think the opening of the scroll represents the final days of history, and the pulling off of the seven seals represents the kind of history we will pass through as we move toward those days.

At first, John wept that there was no one worthy to open the scroll and look into it (Revelation 5:4). But then one of the elders in heaven says, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Revelation 5:5).

By dying on the cross, Jesus had earned the right to open the remainder of redemptive history and lead his people victoriously through it.

In the next verse, the Lion is pictured as a Lamb, “standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). Isn’t this a beautiful image of Jesus’s victory on the cross? Standing, not lying, though it had been slain!

It is as sure as though a lion had devoured the foe — but the way he achieved the victory was by letting the foe slay him like a lamb!

So, now the Lamb is worthy to take the scroll of redemptive history from God’s hand and open it. This is such a kingly act that the twenty-four elders of heaven (God’s worship council, as it were) fall down before the Lamb in adoration.

And do you know what the golden bowls of incense are? Revelation 5:8 says they are “the prayers of the saints.” Does not this mean that our prayers are the aroma of heaven, sweet smelling before the throne of God and before the Lamb?

I am strengthened and encouraged to pray all the more often and all the more vigorously when I think that my prayers are being assembled and stored up in heaven and offered to Christ repeatedly in heavenly acts of worship.

Let’s all bless and honor and adore Christ here below with our prayers, and then doubly rejoice that the worship council of heaven offers them again to Christ as sweet smelling incense before the Lamb who was slain.

John Piper