Lamar Howell's Weblog

Revelation Four Revisited

 

I looked, and saw in heaven an open door

I heard a voice – I’d heard once before –

It sounded a piercing trumpet blast

saying “Come up here and learn

what will come to pass.”

Instantly I was in the Spirit

gazing at a throne and Him sitting on it.

More brilliant than a gemstone

of transparent quartz, called jasper

and carnelian, a flesh-tinted jewel with a wax luster.

A radiant emerald-like glow

arcked him like a rainbow

Twenty-four thrones surrounded him

and twenty-four elders sat upon them

in white garments from the neck down,

a gilded crown on each head

From that royal seat lightning flared

Thunder claps split the air.

Facing this throne in heaven

were lampstands, aflame –

Seven of them all told – named for

The seven-fold Spirit of God

Spread before this One was a sea, like glass,

and in the middle of the throne

and encompassing it

four creatures, fully alive,

replete from front to back with eyes

One like a lion, another like a calf

The third – regal – with the face of a man

The last like an eagle with full wingspan

Each of the four living beings

Had three pairs of massive wings

which hosted an army of eyes

They were seraphim, which took no respite

Respected neither day nor night

All the while they cry

“Holy, Most Holy, and Holier still

Is Jehovah Adonai.”

Once the living creatures had given tribute and acclaim

even pageantry to Him who sits in heaven

To the ever-living, enduring One,

The elders got up from their places

Collapsed, faces prone before him

Pressed to the crystalline floor

Before His unrivaled throne

and worshiped Him,

who alone exists in perpetuity, time without end

Then, hurling down their crowns at his feet, said

“You, Lord are solely deserving

of eulogies unending, homage unmatched

and supremacy unchallengeable

For you hand-crafted the entire universe, all this

And by your will and for your exquisite pleasure,

it exists.