Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1102
“And cast their crowns before the Throne.” Revelation 4:10.
THERE are a great many things we should like to know about Heaven. Our curiosity has been excited full often to ask a vast number of questions, but after being excited it has never been gratified, for God’s Word has told us little about the details of that happy realm. I suppose the Lord thought it better to leave the future shrouded in mystery that we might think more of the common everyday duties of the life that now is. Therefore the Revelation He has made directs our faith to Himself and to His dear Son—and does not distract our attention with descriptions of scene and circumstance into which our imagination would fondly rise.
He has thus saved the details about the next world until we get there, to make surprises of them, so that Heaven might be all the brighter because it so infinitely exceeds anything that we had conceived. We are not told, for instance, where Heaven is. There have been very learned conjectures about certain stars and constellations which are supposed to be the center of all the celestial system and therefore may be the center of the universe and, therefore, the place where the Throne of God is absolutely located and the Presence of God peculiarly revealed. When all is said, it is only, “it may be,” and it is just as unlikely as it is likely.
I regard such speculations as stargazing to be idle and unseemly, impertinent and unprofitable—a pure waste of time and perhaps worse. We are not told anything even about the social communion of Heaven. We do know, or at least we think we have abundant reason for believing, that saints know each other—that they are not like men in a great mass, indistinct and undistinguishable—but that there is fellowship among the saints. We think that Abraham is Abraham, and Isaac is Isaac, and Jacob is Jacob—and the redeemed ones from among men sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as such—in the kingdom of God.
The New Jerusalem is said to have its streets, and streets imply intercourse, but there is little said about that—just an outline, as it were, such as an artist might make with charcoal—none of the filling up and the bright colors. We are told little of the food of Heaven, or whether there is any—whether the bodies need food to feed on for their nourishment and nectarous draughts for their refreshment, albeit, when the manna once dropped from Heaven men did eat angels’ food. And we are told little of the celebrations of Heaven, whether the worship will be uniform, or whether there will be certain days joyous above the rest, high days, feasts and festivals, jubilees and glorious times of the unveiling of God’s Presence in sevenfold splendor when the harps shall pour forth more melodious tunes!
Of all these things we should like to have known something, but our heads cannot hold much. One thing would have pushed out another. Passages like this we could not spare—“The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Concerning such a sentence I will venture to say every single syllable in the verse is worth more than whole volumes about Heaven might have been, though the Spirit of God might have inspired them—worth more for present and practical purpose to us who are yet among the sons of men.
Are there any dear Brethren who understand the Book of Revelation, the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Daniel? I am pleased to hear it. But if the Lord will help me to understand Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I shall be perfectly satisfied to go on preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for I think I shall get up to them by-and-by, in their knowledge of prophecy and mystery, when I come into clearer light and see the Master face to face! Meanwhile, there are sinners to be saved! We must go about doing this soul-saving business in His name, with the simple means put before us in the Gospels and Epistles which we are enabled to understand by the Spirit of God through our own personal experience of the revealed Truth of God.
Now, tonight, let us take a glimpse, just a glimpse, within the veil, such as our text affords us. We find the 24 elders, (who, without straining the passage, we might conceive to be and who doubtless are, the representatives of the Church), sitting on their thrones before the august Majesty of God. They have crowns upon their heads and they are represented as casting those crowns before the Throne of God. From this sublime picture I gather two things—first, that these representative men, representatives of the Church of God, will all be crowned—they have crowned heads. And secondly, that they all cast their crowns before the Throne of God. When we have talked of these things, we will gather a few lessons of practical moment for this present life.
I. Brethren, THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN ARE ALL CROWNED. I say, “all,” for these represent the whole. The 24 elders are represented as saying, “You have redeemed us out of every people, and language, and nation,” so that they represent all. It may be that there are degrees in Glory. It may be that there are none. I do not attempt to solve the question. But if there are, yet there is no degree below a crowned head in Heaven. All the saints have their crowns—“A crown of life that fades not away” is the very lowest portion of the very least saint who is admitted into Glory!