May we look to the Lord in prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, how we do praise and thank Thee that it is through Thy beloved Son that we can have entrance into Thy very presence. O dear Heavenly Father, we do believe that as we gather together in the name of Thy beloved Son, Thou art in our midst; and we do desire to walk very softly before Thee.
We ask Thee, O Lord, that Thou wilt once again reveal Thy Son to us and in us, that we may see Him, that we may possess Him and be possessed by Him, that Thy will may be done in us as it is in heaven. We commit this time into Thy hands.
We pray that Thou wilt grant to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We pray that Thou wilt strengthen our inward man, that we may be able to apprehend with all the saints, and be filled unto all the fullness of God. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I think by now we all know what the theme of this conference is: Press On to Fullness. Probably the first question we would like to ask is: What is this fullness? Why must we press on to fullness?
Three brothers have already spoken, and I trust that you have already heard: this fullness that we are talking about is the fullness of God. It is the fullness of the Godhead. Our God is full. He is fullness.
We have read a number of times these Scriptures from Ephesians and Colossians. In Ephesians 3, it is said that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God. In Ephesians 4, we find that we are to arrive at the full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Again, in Colossians 1, we find that it is God’s good pleasure to have all His fullness dwell in His Son. Then, in Colossians 2, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Him, in Christ, and ye are complete in Him.
So, when we are talking about this matter of fullness, we are focusing upon the fullness of God—His fullness of the Godhead, His fullness in Christ.
On one hand, it is beyond our comprehension to know this fullness, because if we were able to know this fullness, we would be able to know God fully. But God is infinite. So, on one hand, it is beyond our comprehension.
When Paul touched upon this fullness, one aspect of that fullness was the love of God. He said that this love of God is measureless: what height, what depth, what width? It is something that he could not describe. It is beyond our comprehension.
And yet, immediately following, we find this: that ye may be filled even unto all the fullness of God. It is beyond our comprehension, and yet it is within our reach. It is something that we do not fully understand, but thank God, it is something that we can enter into and be filled with. This is really a mystery; it is the mystery of God.
We are very thankful that this fullness of God has come to us. Now the question is: How does this fullness come to us?
I think you have already heard that this fullness comes to us in God’s Son. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him. This One came into this world. The Word became flesh, full of grace and truth, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father.
This fullness of God is in His Son. When His Son came into this world, even though He took the form of a servant and was found in fashion as a man, yet within that Man dwelt all the fullness of God bodily. He brought that fullness into this world. He is full of grace and full of truth.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to us. In giving His Son to us, He is giving His fullness to us in His Son. As we believe in His Son, we find that indeed God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
It is true that we are complete in Him, and to be complete means to be filled full with Him. It is a fact. It is the truth. It is something that God has given, and it is something that our Lord Jesus has accomplished for us.
But for this fullness to become a daily, living experience to us—that is to say, for us to move from position to condition, from potential to possession—we need the operation of the Holy Spirit.
It is ours; it is given. But how are we going to experience it and possess it? Without the Holy Spirit, this fullness is ours positionally, but we are not able to enter into it experientially.
Thank God, the Holy Spirit has come. He is given to us, and His responsibility, His work, is to bring us into that fullness: to take that which has been given to us in Christ Jesus and make it a reality to each one of us in our daily lives. This is what God has done.
God is so full, and Christ is so rich, that it is impossible for any one person, or even a few people, to possess and contain that fullness. That is the reason why God is looking for a body.
In Ephesians 1, it is said:
The church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him
that filleth all in all.
We need the church. God needs the church. Our Lord Jesus needs the church, because it is only in the church, in the body of Christ, that He is able to fill to the full and manifest His glory.
This is what the church is ordained, or predestined, to be. But how can the church really become what God designed it to be—the fullness of Christ? Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto the full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Until God has a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish. How can it be? Again, we say: this is what the Holy Spirit is doing on this earth today.
If it is the will of God that we should enter into His fullness, then I believe it is our duty and responsibility to press on to fullness. If we do not press on, it is a matter of unbelief, or it is a matter of disobedience on our part.
May the Lord help us through this week, as we share together on this matter of fullness, that it will not be just a theory for us to talk about. Rather, may we look to the Lord that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it will become a reality—not only to us individually, but also to us together—that God may be glorified.
My assignment is on the last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation. Our brother Dana shared with us on this fullness in the Gospels. Our brother Ernie shared with us on this fullness in the book of Acts. Our brother Lance has begun to share with us on this fullness in the Epistles. It falls to my lot to share with you on the fullness in the book of Revelation.
Our brother Lance mentioned last night that the Epistles are the most important part of the New Testament. But I will say, too, that Revelation is the consummation of all the revelations given, not only in the New Testament but also in the Old Testament.
Revelation is the last book of the Bible. It gathers up everything that God has revealed and brings us to the final fulfillment. This book is called “the revelation of Jesus Christ,” which God gave Him to show unto His servants.
The book of Revelation is the revelation of our Lord Jesus. It is the final and full revelation of our Lord Jesus. It is the revelation of the fullness of Christ. It tells us not only of His fullness, but how His fullness fills all things. It is the last book that exhorts us to press on into fullness.
Will you please turn to Revelation 1? We read from Revelation 1:12-18.
And I turned to see the voice which spake with me. And having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks;
and in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle.
And His head and His hair were white as white wool, white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire;
and His feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and His voice as the voice of many waters.
And He had in His right hand seven stars: and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword: and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as one dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last,
and the Living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
The book of Revelation begins with a vision. We call it the Patmos vision, because the apostle John, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus, was exiled to that small island.
On the Lord’s Day, probably he was sitting on a rock, facing Asia—that is, Asia Minor—and thinking of the churches in Asia, the churches in which he had labored before he was exiled. As he was meditating in the presence of God, the Bible says that he became in the Spirit. Then he heard a voice saying, “What thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches.”
The voice came from behind him, so he turned around and saw that vision. Brothers and sisters, sometimes when we are occupied with our present conditions and circumstances, it deprives us of a vision. We need to turn away, for a time, from that which is immediate and current in order to see the spiritual reality before God.
As John turned back, he saw seven golden lampstands. We know that these golden lampstands represent the seven churches in Asia.
Why does the Bible use the lampstand to represent the church? Because that is what the church is. The church is not the lamp. It is not the light. It is a lampstand. The church never exists for itself. The church exists for one reason: to contain and uplift the light.
We know who the light is. The light is our Lord Jesus. He is the light of the world. He is the light of life. The church is that vessel, that instrument, used by God to uplift Christ, that Christ may shine wide and broad and that many may come to His light.
The lampstands are golden. Gold represents the nature of God. The church is not something earthly. The church is not something of man. Even though it is composed of men, we have to remember that it is not man as such; it is the Christ. Amen.
The church is full of God, full of His life, full of His nature. It is spiritual. It is heavenly. It is godly. It is of Christ.
But John did not see just seven lampstands. He saw One like unto a Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands. That is the Patmos vision.
John saw the seven lampstands as the background, but in the foreground there was a Person. He was like unto a Son of Man. Brothers and sisters, this should always be our perspective when we talk about the church: we must always see the church as the background and Christ as the foreground.
When John saw this vision, he fell down as one dead. Remember the story of Saul of Tarsus. While he was on his way to Damascus, trying to seize the followers of the Lord Jesus and bring them to Jerusalem, suddenly a light from above shone upon him. He was smitten by that light, and he heard a voice: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?”
He testified that he saw the Righteous One. Here was a man on his way to persecute the followers of Jesus, and he met Jesus. He found that the One whom he thought was merely Jesus of Nazareth—a Man to be despised and persecuted—was the risen Lord, the Christ, the Lord of all. This vision smote him to the ground and transformed his whole being.
We may say that surely this should happen to Saul, but it should not happen to John. Who was John? John was one of the first disciples of our Lord Jesus, and he was the last of the twelve apostles. He followed the Lord throughout those three years and a half. He knew the Lord most intimately.
He knew the Lord as the Lamb of God, as his Lord, and as his Master. He was the one loved by the Lord, and of course he loved the Lord. He even lay upon the breast of our Lord Jesus. He was in such an intimate relationship with the Lord while the Lord was on earth.
I do not believe that any one of us here knows our Lord Jesus more than John did. Yet, when John saw One like unto a Son of Man in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, immediately he fell down as one dead.
It is almost like what Daniel said: “When I saw Thee, my beauty turned into corruption.” Even though John knew the Lord so well, and that was his beauty, yet when he saw the Lord in His glory, his beauty turned into corruption. There was almost no life in him. The Lord had to touch him, raise him up, and say, “Fear not.”
Brothers and sisters, do we know the Lord? Thank God, we do know Him as the Lamb of God. Many of us know Him as our Lord and Master. But if we really see a vision of the risen Lord, the Lord in glory, we will be like John: we will fall down as dead. All our beauty will turn into corruption. How much do we really know Him?
When He was on earth, it is said in Isaiah 53:
He was as a root out of a dry ground;
He hath no form nor comeliness;
and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He was despised, and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
And as one from whom men hide their face,
He was despised; and we esteemed Him not.
We know Him as the crucified One—despised, rejected, with no form, no comeliness, and no beauty. But here we find that He is the Lord of glory. What a contrast! Yet He is the same One. The crucified One is the One who is now in glory.
John says that he saw One like unto a Son of Man. The Son of Man is a title that our Lord Jesus took upon Himself while He was on earth. He always called Himself the Son of Man. It is a name associated with the days of His humiliation.
He is God, and yet He became man, just like we are. But the Son of Man also means that He is the beginning of a new mankind. Man had fallen and come short of the glory of God and of the purpose for which God created man. But here is a Man called the Son of Man, and He is the One who satisfies God’s heart as Man.
He is a Man after God’s own heart. He is the perfect Man. He is the beginning of a new mankind. Thank God, we have a Man in glory.
He is there not merely alone as the Man, the Son of Man, but He is there as our representative. He is there to bring many sons into glory. What characterizes Him as a Son of Man will characterize many men, and He will bring many sons into glory. Thank God, there is a Man in glory, and that guarantees us and assures us that He will bring us into glory.
This tenfold description tells us of the risen Lord, the Son over His house, our great High Priest, the Man in glory. This is the vision that John saw on that island.
But, brothers and sisters, this vision was given to him in connection with the seven golden lampstands. It is true: God’s purpose is for us to see Him, to see Christ—the glory of our Lord Jesus, the moral glory of the Son of Man, and the eternal glory of the Son of God. God wants us to see Him.
But remember: it is in relation to the church. He wants us to see the church too. You cannot see Him without seeing the seven golden lampstands. What He is is not just for us to contemplate, but for us to possess. What He has revealed is toward us. He wants us to be filled with His fullness.
That is what the church ought to be: the body of Christ, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. He reveals Himself to His church.
Brothers and sisters, what is revelation? What is revelation for? Revelation is never given for us merely to contemplate or speculate about. Revelation is given that it may become our vocation.
Our God is a practical God. He does not give us revelation simply that we can talk about it and boast of it. Revelation is given with a responsibility. It is given that we may be involved in that vision, that we may become part of that vision, and that the vision may become vocation to us.
Revelation either fulfills or condemns. If we respond to revelation, it brings fulfillment. But if we do not respond to revelation, it condemns us. It is a very serious matter.
In the seven letters to the seven churches, in every letter the Lord reminds them of Himself. What is the Lord looking for in the church? He is not looking for work. He is not looking for labor. He is not looking for knowledge. He is not looking for many things. He is looking for Himself.
He tells every church, “This is what I am. This is what I have revealed to you. Where am I in your midst? You have this, you have that, you have many good things—but do you have Me?”
To the church in Ephesus, He said, “You have all these things, but I have this against thee: thou hast left thy first love.” He is first love, but where is He?
To the church in Smyrna, the suffering church, He said, “Be thou faithful unto death,” because He is the first and the last, the One who became dead and is alive for evermore.
To the church in Pergamum, He is the One who has the two-edged sword. That church had become so complicated, and He wanted them to return to the simplicity and sincerity of Christ.
To the church in Thyatira, He is the One whose eyes are as a flame of fire and whose feet are like fine brass. The Lord looked at the church and saw that it was of the flesh. He wanted to divide the soul and the spirit.
To the church in Sardis, He said, “I am He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars.” But where is life in your midst?
To the church in Philadelphia, He said, “I am the Holy One, the True One, He that hath the key of David.” Hold fast that no one take thy crown.
To the church in Laodicea, He said, “I am the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” But there was no reality in their midst. He was outside the door.
Brothers and sisters, the fullness of Christ is revealed to the church. This is our inheritance. But it is revealed that we may possess it, to the glory of God.
Therefore, we must press on to fullness.
May the Lord help us. Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, O how we praise and thank Thee that it does please Thee to reveal Thy Son in us—not just a little bit, but the fullness of Christ to the church. O, what a privilege!
But Father, we do acknowledge that it is a great responsibility. We have to acknowledge that we have failed. We have failed to respond to Thy beloved Son. There is much in us, but it is not Thee. Lord, we have very little of Thy Son.
We pray, Lord, that Thou wilt create willingness within us, a repentant and contrite spirit; that Thou wilt create within us a hunger and thirst after righteousness. O, we pray that Thou wilt so empty us that Thou mayest fill us with Christ Jesus.
O, that He may be all and in all, that Thy will may be done, and Thy glory may be manifested. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.