I am bringing this time together these days to a conclusion by bringing you back again to the point from which we started, asking you again to look at the first chapter of the Book of Revelation.
Revelation 1:2:
Who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Revelation 1:5:
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
Revelation 1:9:
I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Just retain those fragments in your mind, and glance down the following two chapters, Revelation 2 and 3. Remind yourselves again of the sevenfold reiteration, one clause at the close of each message to the seven churches: “To him that overcometh.”
Those of you who were with us on Saturday, at the commencement of this time, will remember that we said these who are called the people who overcome, who are exhorted to overcome, are all brought together in answer to what is meant by the testimony of Jesus.
As you see, the book opens with this threefold reference to the testimony of Jesus, which clearly indicates that this is the matter in hand for the whole book. That is the key to the entire book. It is all going to be about the testimony of Jesus. The testimony of Jesus is that which is going to explain everything in the book.
And, as we said, it is significant that immediately this is presented in the person of Jesus, the next step is to deal with the churches—or the church as a whole, in a representative way—in that testimony, the testimony of Jesus.
So we come back to this point this evening: the Lord is ever, right to the end of the dispensation, seeking a vessel of the testimony of Jesus. If these messages to the churches do lead on to the end of the dispensation—and there is no doubt about that; “Behold, I come quickly” is at the end—then these exhortations to people in the churches, or in the church, to overcome mean that such people will be those who embody that testimony of Jesus in a full and unalloyed way.
Is that not true? If that is true, then surely we are gathered at this time in line with that, in relation to that. I mean, God’s quest for a vessel of the testimony of Jesus continues to the end of the dispensation. However near we may be to the end, we are not at the end yet, and that quest goes on.
The Lord still seeks: “Do I have a people who really do embody and express what is called the testimony of Jesus?” I trust that your familiarity with the very terms, language, and phraseology does not take from the seriousness of the matter.
It therefore becomes necessary for us to give the time we have this evening to a review of what that testimony is: the testimony of Jesus. If that really is what God wants to have in a people, then you can see from these seven messages to the churches how serious a matter it is with God, and how far He is prepared to go in order to have it.
On the one side, He will go far in judgment—judgment of that which is contrary to the testimony. On the other side, how far He will go with those who overcome! You could not, I think, find it possible to go beyond what is said here as to what the Lord will do. Indeed, He leads them right up to the throne at last:
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne.
You cannot get very far beyond that, can you? Surely that is the highest, the last, the ultimate. So many other things are said here that He will do if He can get a people like this, if He can get a vessel for the testimony of Jesus according to His own mind.
One of the most terrible things, on the other hand, is said not to the world but to the church—or representatively, to the church—where things do not correspond to the testimony of Jesus. I say this simply to indicate how important a matter this is with God.
However many good and commendable things there may be, comparative things are not acceptable to God in the ultimate. He will not settle this thing upon a comparative basis. There are good and commendable things mentioned in the churches, but He comes back: “Nevertheless, I have this against thee.” And, “Except thou repent, I will remove thy candlestick out of its place.”
You see, the comparative and the partial do not pass with God. He is for the absolute; He is for the ultimate. So that is what faces us, and we have to look to see what is meant by the testimony of Jesus.
You notice the simple thing at the outset: here He is given the simplest of all His designations—“the testimony of Jesus.” It is not “the testimony of the Lord Jesus,” or any of His other titles. It is simply “the testimony of Jesus.” That is the title of His manhood here on earth.
It then is, first of all, the testimony of who and what Jesus on this earth was. We here in this place tonight will have no quarrel on one matter where this begins. It is almost a commonplace with us, so wholly accepted that you might wonder why it should be mentioned.
The fundamental fact is that Jesus is the divine Son of God—God manifested in the flesh. God was in Christ, or, utterly, Jesus was God. And Jesus is God.
That is a very striking word of the Apostle Paul in his letter to Titus:
Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
You cannot get beyond that. But I say, to us it is not a matter of contention in Christian doctrine; and yet it is something that we should take account of again.
John was in the Isle of Patmos for that, to begin with. He was in exile for that. He was a prisoner for that. He was suffering for that testimony. And that explains the suffering of the church at the beginning.
You know that it was upon that very point that the Jews crucified Jesus. “He made Himself the Son of God,” they said. That was the last thing with them, and for that they put Him to death. For that testimony, the church itself was thrown into the vortex of terrible persecution.
The persecutions from the Roman Empire and the Roman emperors were purely on that point. You see, the Caesars were gods. They had assumed titles of deity and godhead, and were worshipped as gods. Jesus as God was a challenge to that whole system and that whole authority. Hence the persecution from the Roman world.
Christ had been put to death on that very score, so the church was following in His train and being put to death on the same thing: Jesus is God.
There is a strange fragment of Scripture which is not easy to understand until you see it in that background. The apostle says:
No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.
That sounds strange in itself if you take it out of its historical context. Anybody can say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” without the Holy Spirit. Anyone can say that. You need not be a Christian to say that.
But here it is: “No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.” Put yourself right into the Roman and Jewish world as it was at that time. Stand up and say, “Jesus is Lord,” and you will need all the power, courage, and boldness of the Holy Spirit to do it. You put your very life in jeopardy when you use those words about Jesus.
All the forces of evil, spiritual and temporal, will make you a marked man or woman in that word. If you say, “Jesus is Lord,” the cross waits for you, and you need the Holy Spirit for that. No one in that realm could dare to say it but by the power and support of the Holy Spirit.
It was no easy thing to declare the deity, lordship, and Godhead of Jesus Christ in those days. It is not easy today in worlds of idolatry, in lands of heathenism, where Satan has his seat. Some of you know that.
The fact is that when this is really spiritually embodied in a people—not a part of a Christian creed, something that you say over and over week by week as a form and formula, but when that thing is, as it was at the beginning, embodied in the power of the Holy Spirit—all hell is roused to destroy that testimony.
So you can have the language and phraseology of the testimony without the reality. Have the reality, and you are a marked people. You are marked down by the enemy to be crucified, whatever that may mean.
The testimony of Jesus begins there. It begins in the spiritual world which is set against the utter, undivided, unquestioned lordship of Jesus Christ in this universe. It is there, and I want to say this and pass on: it is in that realm that the church really proves its testimony, its significance, and its power.
The final proof of the church’s reality is not what we claim to be on this earth; it is what we signify in that whole kingdom of animosity to Jesus Christ. That is where our accountability is decided and measured. That world tests the reality of the testimony of Jesus.
But then it is not His deity alone that remains. It is the testimony of Jesus—the Man, Jesus the Man—what He was as the Man, Jesus.
You see, that other spiritual world has a hatred, bitter, vicious, and sacred, of God, which is set and bent upon spoiling and destroying everything that is of God. Everything that God has made, it has made man its mark, by whom it will vent its heart upon God.
Man is God’s chief creation. Man is the crown of God’s creation, and God saw His heritage, His inheritance. He was made for God’s glory. He was made to be the vessel and vehicle of the manifestation of God—in goodness, in greatness, in glory—in this universe. Man’s destiny is a very great destiny in the mind of God, very great indeed.
God has made this wonderful thing, this beautiful thing, the crown of His creation, which, when He has it, He says is “very good, very good.” And this evil, sinister enemy of God says, “I will spoil the whole thing. I will ruin it.”
That lies behind what we find to be the work of Satan in human history. Here is a Man who satisfies God utterly and excellently, and is the answer back to the evil one, the evil power, and God’s vindication. That is the testimony of Jesus: what He is, not only in His Godhead, but what He is in His humanity.
We could long stay to dwell upon that: the perfection, the excellencies, of that Man. That One upon whom the eyes of the great Creator, God, could look and say, “I am well pleased.” No small thing for God, being such as He is, with all His high standards, to say of any man, “I am well pleased,” or, “In Him is My delight.”
The testimony of Jesus is what He was to the satisfaction of God and the answer to God for all His desires concerning man. The testimony of Jesus! No wonder Satan hated Him.
But then from His person we pass to His work, for the testimony of Jesus extends to the great work that He did. Of course, because of what He was and who He was, but the work that He did.
In the first place:
The Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
He began with sin. He took this whole sin matter, this work of evil in human life, and all the curse that had come because of it. He grappled with that great, terrible, awful thing. I do not know what you feel about sin. In this conference, the Lord has tried to impress upon us the greatness of holiness, because its opposite is so terrible.
He took the whole sin question, root and branch.
Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.
Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf.
All the sin of all time, everywhere, and of every man was taken up by Him—fully and finally dealt with. Thank God, that is the testimony of Jesus.
But that is not all. While He dealt with sin, He went to its source. He went to its source: that personal source, the prince of this world, the power of darkness, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, and all his mighty kingdom.
And He dealt with that. He dealt with that.
Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
Yes, He went to the source of all this, Satan himself, and destroyed him.
You say, “It does not look like it.” Well, it depends on how you look at it.
I have been much occupied through this day. Indeed, I have been wrestling between two messages for this evening, and I have been very much occupied today with an incident and a sequel in the Old Testament. I may as well mention it here in a moment or two, and then I will give them both messages.
It is that terrible incident of Achan. When the people of God were moving more deeply into the land of Canaan, we know how the enemy, the great spiritual enemy, had persistently sought from the very beginning of that movement to break in and arrest it. They were in Egypt, then immediately upon their exodus, and then at Sinai. By insinuating himself upon the people one way or another, he sought to frustrate that movement.
Here they are getting in; they are moving in. And the enemy comes in again and finds some ground in this man Achan, a ground of covetousness.
It was understood clearly that nothing in that whole realm and domain was exempt from the curse that God had pronounced upon it. The whole thing—man, woman, everything in that realm—lay under the curse. For reasons which we have no time to explain, it was all under a ban and under a curse, and that was understood. It had to be completely devoted, which meant destroyed, utterly destroyed.
But Achan, in the covetousness of his heart, took of the devoted thing: a wedge of gold and a Babylonish garment. He hid it in his tent. The next movement forward was a most disastrous thing for all Israel. It was disaster, and the whole thing was brought to a standstill.
Joshua, the leader, of course, was distressed, disturbed, perplexed, and bewildered. He wondered why the Lord had allowed this and had a controversy with the Lord. But the Lord explained. He said, “Israel hath sinned in the devoted thing,” and commanded that this thing should be tracked down to its very root.
So they pursued their course of discovering this sort of thing, and gradually sifted down—tribe and household—until at last, by this divine way of guidance, they came upon Achan and his family. At last he is taken.
Joshua said, “My son, give glory to God. Confess what thou hast done.” Achan made his confession. Joshua, in the wrath and jealousy of God, said, “Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day.” They took him, his family, his tent, all his belongings, and everything that had to do with him, and burnt them with fire in the Valley of Achor, until there was nothing left but ashes in the Valley of Achor.
That is the work of the devil. That is what the devil can bring about: a necessity for God to judge like that, so utterly, because of the link with the devil’s kingdom.
But what is the sequence? Yes, it looks as though Satan triumphs. It does not look as though Satan is a defeated foe. But pass over into Hosea:
I will give her the valley of Achor for a door of hope.
And into Isaiah:
And the valley of Achor shall be a place for herds to lie down in.
As judgment passes, the very work of the devil becomes ground for new hope, the way of a new hope. He is the God of hope, you see—the God of hope. He can turn the worst works of the devil to His glory.
Well, that is only, in one way, a foreshadowing and picture of Christ crucified, being made a curse, suffering the wrath of God even unto ashes. Yes, the devil has made that necessary by his interference and his breaking into this race. In a sense, that is the work of the devil. He has made it necessary for God to judge like that, unto final devastation.
But listen, listen: that is not the end.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
That is the end of the story. It is not devastation and ashes; it is a living hope, a living hope.
That is the sovereign grace, wisdom, and power of God. Yes, it does not look as though Satan is defeated and beaten off the field, but there is another side of the story. He may be the blind instrument, in the sovereign power of God, to create a new prospect and a new possibility.
Leave that. The testimony of Jesus is that He has gone to sin, gone to the source of sin, and gone to the result of sin. “Sin and death passed upon all men”—death. But He has gone there too. He has gone into death itself and has conquered death.
Oh, a mighty thing Jesus has done—a mighty thing. The testimony of Jesus.
But then, what about His ministry? We have been thinking in these meetings very much about the Levites, and especially that fragment in the prophecy of Malachi:
My covenant was with him of life and peace.
The whole of what I have been saying to you tonight is gathered up into the history of the Levites. I will not go over it again; I dare not. But it comes here. Because of the stand that the Levites took against sin and the breaking in of the evil powers at Sinai—the stand that they took with God for His testimony, to carry the ark of His testimony forward to its final glorious destination—God made a covenant with Levi, a covenant of life and peace.
That is, in effect, they should be the ministers of life and peace. They should be a vessel, the embodiment of these two great things: life and peace. The effect of their ministry was life. They were countering death all the time by the altar.
Their ministry related to the altar and to the blood, countering death and countering sin, which meant preserving life in the way of life. They were countering the anger of God against sin and God’s controversy with man because of sin, countering it by the altar, satisfying God in the propitiation for sin, and therefore holding a ministry of peace with God and from God.
They were only the Levites, a type of the Lord Jesus, who is the great and all-inclusive Levite. His ministry—what is it? Because of that which we have spoken, that which He has done and that which He is, His ministry to us and to the world is life and peace, life and peace.
We here tonight are a testimony to the testimony of Jesus, I trust. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we have life by Him and in Him. That is the testimony of Jesus.
All that remains for us to do is to bring again into view these people appealed to: “To him that overcometh, to him that overcometh.” That is, a people who will embody this testimony.
I am sure that that is what is meant in these messages. It is the counter to the havoc which Satan himself has introduced amongst the Lord’s people. It is the counter to the spiritual death which is the result of corruption and pollution, as we find there in the churches: a people who will stand clear of that, stand clear of it all, and who will stand against it.
They will, by the help of God, resist the inroads of Satan and his touch, his evil work, to spoil what is of God. That, in brief, is what is signified by this: “He that overcometh, he that overcometh.”
They are not an elect body. They are not a spiritual aristocracy chosen for this purpose. Any true believer can be, and should be, one of those. Indeed, that is what the whole church ought to be, because the Levites represented all Israel. They represented God’s thought for all Israel.
Although here in these churches we find that all the spiritual Israel is not like that, God moves in an inward way to have a Levite people in the midst of His people. He must have it. And these are they who overcome.
They are to take up what is true of the Lord Jesus Himself: that which is true of the Lord Jesus, firstly in themselves as in Him—a holy people, a holy people.
And then, because they are a holy people, they have a ministry of life and peace. I believe, dear friends, the measure of our ministry of life—ministering life to those who need life, even to the Lord’s people—is determined by this.
As we heard today, many of the Lord’s people are not really in life. There are many like Cornelius and his friends: very devout and sincere and, in a way, God-fearing and religious, but not in life until the Holy Spirit comes to them.
If there is going to be a ministry of life to anyone who needs life, who is without life, it requires a people after this kind. This is a holy life. It is a holy life, and this life cannot be ministered through unholy channels.
Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.
There is an old Levitical command, is there not? Well, we are called to a great ministry, a wonderful ministry: a ministry of His life and His peace committed to us.
What a wonderful thing to realise—that it is possible for men and women in holy fellowship with the Lord to be the vehicles of His life to others, ministering life to them, taking life to them; as James puts it, “saving a soul from death.” The great ministry of peace: ministering the reconciliation of God to souls.
It is a wonderful thing. But the ministry rests upon the condition of holy people—a holy people. The Lord make us like that, and really have in us, as a few—many, many more, perhaps multitudes more—but in us as a few, a vessel of the testimony of Jesus.