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What is in the church is none other than Christ. The lampstand is not a light; the lampstand is not an end. It is a means to an end.
The purpose of the lampstand is to uphold light. The lampstand is for the light, not for itself.
The lampstand is a vessel for the testimony of Jesus. That is what the church is.
When the church fails in the testimony of Jesus, then the lampstand has lost its meaning. Here in Revelation 2 and 3, you find our Lord Jesus as the heavenly High Priest.
He was there tending the seven lampstands, and He was there trying to restore His light. When He realized the situation, somehow, at the end of each letter there is a call to overcome.
He is calling for overcomers. In spite of the failure of the vessel in the testimony of Jesus, that testimony has to be maintained. He is calling to those who overcome—to overcome the situation, simply to rise above the situation.
Sometimes, return to the Lord. Return to the Word of God. Return to the headship of Christ. Return to the lordship of Christ. Return to love.
Brothers and sisters, that call to overcome came even at the end of the first century. This call has been going out through the centuries.
Thank God, throughout the ages and generations, you find there were some people who responded. The testimony of Jesus has never gone out in this world.
Brothers and sisters, that call is upon us today. By the grace of God, let us respond.
Dear Lord, our heart’s desire is to respond to You. Make us overcomers, not for ourselves, but that we may bear Your testimony in this generation. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Will you please turn to 2 Corinthians? Second Corinthians, chapter 4. We will read the first six verses.
Therefore, having this ministry, as we have had mercy shown us, we faint not.
But we have rejected the hidden things of shame, not walking in deceit, nor falsifying the Word of God, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every conscience of man before God.
But if also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost;
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine forth for them.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves your bondmen for Jesus’ sake.
Because it is God who said, “Out of darkness light shall shine,” who hath shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Please turn also to Revelation 12, verses 10, 11, and 12.
And I heard a great voice in heaven saying, “Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren hath been cast out, who accused them before our God day and night.”
And they have overcome him by reason of the blood of the Lamb, and by reason of the word of their testimony; and have not loved their life even unto death.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil hath come down to you, having great rage, knowing that he hath a short time.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Dear Lord, as we gather together again in Thy presence, we cannot help but thank Thee for this privilege. As we think of many in this world who do not have such privilege, who are we that Thou shouldst grace us so much?
As we are in Thy presence, we want to tell Thee that we do mean business. We do not come here just for a good time. We come here that we may hear Thy voice.
We come here that we may know Thee. We come here that we may be refreshed and restored in faith. We come here that Thy will may be done in our lives, as it is in heaven.
So, Lord, Thou who searchest our hearts, we pray that Thou wilt answer our hearts’ cry. In these last days, Thou wilt revive Thy work in us.
Thou wilt restore us and recover us, that we may be faithful witnesses of Thy testimony. We want to give ourselves to Thee once again.
We pray that Thy Holy Spirit will finish Thy good work in us. In these last days, Lord, may Thou use us to maintain Thy testimony in this evil world and to bring in Thy kingdom.
Lord, hear our cry. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We do thank the Lord for such a gathering. We are here for one purpose: we want to know what is the testimony of God, what is the testimony of Jesus Christ, and what is our testimony.
We have come almost to the last session, and I really feel that whether we can say we know what the testimony of God is, whether we know for sure what the testimony of Jesus Christ is, and what our testimony is, is tremendously important.
May the Lord help us so that these may not be just theories, or merely something that we hear. We pray that this may be something real, that it becomes our very life and our very ministry unto God.
In the beginning, we mentioned the word testimony. Testimony is truth. It is reality. It is fact. It is something that has been accomplished, and it is something that stands firm.
That is the objective side of testimony. But there is also the subjective side of testimony. That is to say, it is something that we have seen and heard, and we are first-hand witnesses.
Because we have seen the truth, because we have seen the reality, therefore we testify of it.
Not only that, this testimony is not just something that we testify. We find that this testimony becomes a part of us. This is our life. It changes our life and conforms us to the testimony. The testimony and we become one.
Our testimony is nothing else but the testimony of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, because we do not preach ourselves. We preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. This is our testimony.
Brothers and sisters, we mentioned yesterday morning that this testimony is entrusted to the church. This testimony is so huge, so big, so immense. It is so rich that it cannot be borne witness to by just some individual. It takes a whole body to be the witness.
On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, the one hundred and twenty believers gathered in that upper room were baptized in one Spirit into one body.
Before that, you had one hundred and twenty individual believers. It was a congregation of one hundred and twenty members. Such a congregation is very rare. If we had a congregation like this, I think we would be more than satisfied.
Among the one hundred and twenty, we had the apostles. We had the mother of our Lord Jesus and His brethren according to the flesh. We had those who knew the Lord and followed Him for about three years. We had also women who loved the Lord so much.
These one hundred and twenty gathered together in that upper room for ten days. They gave themselves to prayer with one accord. But they were still one hundred and twenty individuals gathered together.
On the day of Pentecost, something tremendous happened. The Holy Spirit came down, and in one Spirit they were baptized into one body. That is the real meaning of Pentecost.
Sometimes, when we think of Pentecost, we think of the sound and the sight: a rushing, mighty wind filling the room, and the Holy Spirit coming down upon the heads of the one hundred and twenty like tongues of fire.
We often think of Pentecost as sound and sight, but these are only complementary. The real meaning of Pentecost is this: in one Spirit they were baptized into one body.
From then on, these one hundred and twenty never lost their individuality, but they were one. They were members one of another. To that body, the Lord entrusted His testimony.
They were to proclaim Jesus as Lord, and they were to be witnesses to the Lord Jesus. In the very beginning, you find how glorious it was.
When you read the first few chapters of Acts, you find that on the day of Pentecost, when Peter stood up, the other eleven stood up with him. Even though Peter was the spokesman, the eleven stood with him because they bore the same testimony.
On that very day, three thousand came to the Lord. In Acts 2:42, it says that they continued in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles.
They not only continued in the teaching of the apostles. We know the teaching of the apostles is none other than the teaching of Christ.
The apostles were plural in number; there were twelve apostles. Yet their teaching was one. Peter did not have his own teaching. John did not have his own doctrine. James did not have his own theology. Their teaching was one. They taught what they had received from the Lord.
All the believers at that time continued occupied with the teaching of our Lord Jesus. They not only kept the teaching, but also continued in the fellowship of the apostles.
Again, the apostles were plural in number, yet the fellowship was singular. It was not that Peter had his fellowship and gathered a few around him, so that people could say, “We are of Peter.” No, there was only one fellowship.
The fellowship of the apostles is the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ—fellowship with the Father and the Son. They reported what they had heard and seen so that we might have fellowship with them. The teaching is one; the fellowship is one.
They broke bread. They remembered the Lord, loved the Lord, and remembered the Lord as one. They prayed, not merely individual personal prayers, but corporate prayer. They prayed together as one. That is the church life.
We find how they loved one another, how they met in the temple—for at that time they did not have their own building. They used Solomon’s porch when they gathered together. They broke bread from house to house, thanking the Lord and loving one another.
That was how the church became the vessel of the testimony of Jesus. Their testimony was powerful.
Within thirty-some years, the gospel had spread from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
At that time, the Roman world was also the center of the world. Within thirty-some years, the gospel of Jesus Christ had already covered the world of that time.
Many came to the Lord, both Jews and Gentiles. The Jews and the Gentiles had nothing to do with each other before, but now in Christ Jesus they are one. There is neither Jew nor Gentile; they are in Christ Jesus.
What a powerful testimony! People looked at them and said, “See how they love one another.”
The church from the very beginning bore a faithful testimony.
Of course, we know that the enemy of God was aroused. Even at the time of the apostles, the enemy tried to destroy the testimony.
First of all, he tried to use persecution. You remember how Stephen was stoned to death. He was the first martyr in the church of God.
After that, persecution began to spread. Saul the Pharisee was a leader in that work. He went into houses, seized men and women, brought them before the court, and sentenced some even to death.
He went to different cities, and if he found anyone who believed in the Lord Jesus, he would force them to blaspheme.
The disciples began to scatter. Thank God, wherever they went, they went with the gospel. Because of the persecution, the testimony of Jesus began to spread abroad.
The enemy saw that persecution would not work, so he tried other means. He tried to bring deception into the minds of people.
In some places, he tried to pollute the minds of people and gave them false teachings and heresies in order to lead them away from Christ, according to the world and according to the wisdom of man, not according to Christ.
You find that in the letter to the Colossians. When they were trying to follow the Lord and seeking perfection, they were deceived into thinking that they could not find it in Christ, but had to find it somewhere else—in philosophy, in ritualism, and in other things.
At the same time, you find the enemy trying to draw out the flesh that is in believers. You find that in 1 Corinthians. Even though they were the Lord’s, they were carnal. They acted no differently from the people of the world, so that the testimony of Jesus might be put to shame.
Brothers and sisters, you find that even toward the end of the first century, at the time of John the apostle, all the other apostles had passed away. In the book of Revelation, written toward the end of the first century, what do you find concerning the church?
The testimony of Jesus was entrusted to the church. The church was to bear witness to it. But when you read Revelation 2 and 3, what do you find there?
John saw a vision. He saw seven golden lampstands that represent the seven churches in Asia, and the Son of Man walking in the midst of the seven lampstands.
Our Lord is now in heaven, but He is there as our High Priest. He is not only High Priest to each one of us individually; He is High Priest tending His own church.
He is looking in the church for His testimony. The light is still shining, but of course the light has grown dim, and it is already smoking. He is trying to restore the light—that is to say, He is trying to restore His testimony.
You know what the Lord is looking for in the church? He is looking for Himself. He wants to find Himself in His own church. What He has revealed to the church, He is trying to find whether it is there.
To each church, there is a revelation of Himself. In Revelation 1, you find a vision of our Lord Jesus. Then, to each church, you find that He reminded them of some part of that revelation. That is what He is looking for: what He has already revealed, what they have seen and heard.
The seven churches in Asia were chosen. There were many churches in Asia at the end of the first century, but the Holy Spirit picked out these seven churches.
In one sense, these seven churches represent the condition of the churches throughout the ages. They can be looked at from different angles.
They were actual churches in Asia in the first century. They can also be viewed prophetically, because Revelation is a book of prophecy. These seven churches represent the churches from the first century to the last.
Spiritually speaking, these seven churches represent the churches in the world in every generation and every century. In the first century you can find these conditions, and in the twentieth or twenty-first century, you can still see these conditions.
First of all, consider the letter to the church in Ephesus. We know that the church in Ephesus had a glorious beginning. When Paul entered Ephesus, the Lord did wonderful things there.
The church in Ephesus was noted for its love. Therefore, when Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians from a Roman prison, he was able to share with them the full counsel of God.
While Paul was there for three years, he did not withhold anything from them. He shared with them the full counsel of God.
Why was this so? Why could he not do that with the Corinthian believers, but was able to fully reveal what God had revealed to him to the Ephesian believers?
It was not because the Ephesians were more intelligent than the Corinthians. As a matter of fact, the Corinthians were noted for their cleverness and logical speaking.
Brothers and sisters, the reason why God is able to open His heart to us is not because someone is intelligent, but because someone has a heart for Him. It is not the mind; it is the heart. It is love.
Because the Ephesian believers loved the Lord, they loved Him with an undying love. Therefore, Paul was able to pour out the whole counsel of God to them. What a glorious beginning it was.
But brothers and sisters, when you read the letter in Revelation 2, you find that outwardly they were able to maintain everything just as it was before.
They still had works. They still had knowledge. They were able to discern false apostles from true apostles, and they were still rejecting evil. Everything seemed to be right.
But inwardly, something was missing. What was missing was the most essential thing.
After the Lord mentioned to them that they had this and that, and all these good things, the Lord said, “I have this against thee.” Why? Because thou hast left thy first love.
Outwardly, everything went on as usual, but inwardly something was missing. What the Lord was looking for was not the outward things. He was looking for Himself.
Because God is love, and our Lord Jesus is love. When love is missing, nothing satisfies the Lord’s heart. The testimony was gone.
The form was there, but the testimony was gone. Therefore, our Lord began to call them to repent.
In spite of all the outward goodness, they needed to repent. They needed to know where they had fallen and be restored to do the first works.
At the end of that letter, He says:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh—
The Lord is calling for overcomers. The testimony of Jesus was entrusted to the whole church. Only when the whole church bears that witness is the testimony complete.
But when the whole begins to fall away, God begins to call for overcomers.
The overcomers are those who respond to the call of God. God has revealed Himself to them, but they have lost their vision. They have lost their revelation. They do not live according to that vision. They have become disobedient to the heavenly vision.
Those who overcome, overcome that falling away from the vision. They respond to the call, repent of their failure, and return to the first works.
The overcomers are not supermen or super-Christians. The overcomers are normal Christians. When everyone becomes abnormal, there are some who, by the grace of God, respond to the call of God.
They repent of all their sins and return to the Lord. They take up the responsibility of bearing the testimony of Jesus.
They take up their responsibility for the whole church. They do not separate themselves from the church, but seek to take responsibility for the whole church. These are the overcomers.
With these overcomers, the Lord is able to maintain His testimony on earth.
So, brothers and sisters, His call to overcome is here. God is calling us to overcome.
Even in our time, we find how the church has failed in the testimony of Jesus.
The success and failure of the church is measured only by one thing: the testimony of Jesus. A church may outwardly seem to be very successful. It may have lots of people, lots of activities, and may have done lots of good.
But, brothers and sisters, God measures a church by only one standard: the testimony of Jesus—whether the testimony of Jesus is faithfully borne or whether it has failed.
This is what we find in the Word of God. Now I am just trying to review what I said yesterday. Let us come now to what we want to share this morning.
The first morning, we mentioned our testimony. The second morning, we mentioned the church as the vessel of the testimony. Today, we would like to turn from the testimony to the witness.
We have the testimony of Jesus entrusted to us. We are His witnesses.
You remember when our Lord was on earth. In the Gospel of John, when He was with His disciples, He said:
When the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, shall come, He shall bear witness of Me; and ye also shall bear witness of Me, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.
Before the ascension of our Lord Jesus, He committed His testimony to His own people. In Matthew 28, He said:
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.
When the Holy Spirit comes, ye shall be My witnesses. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to be His witnesses.
What are we to witness to? We witness to what we have seen and heard, to our experience of our Lord Jesus. We bear witness that this is true, that this is reality.
Brothers and sisters, how do we bear witness to the testimony? What are the ways in which we bear witness to the testimony?
We find that there are two ways to bear witness to the testimony. These two cannot be separated. If our witness is to be powerful, these two things must go together.
Number one: the way we bear the testimony of Jesus is by our word.
Bearing testimony is not something silent. We have to speak out what we have seen and heard.
In Old Testament times, if you had seen something and heard something, if something happened and you were there, and you refused to speak out or bear testimony, it was considered sin.
How much more, then, concerning what we have seen and heard? We have to bear witness to it by our word.
Look at our Lord Jesus. Here is the Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Why is He called the Word? Because He is God’s speech. He speaks out to us what God is.
No one hath ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth, Scripture tells us very little about His early life. From His childhood until He was about thirty years old, the Bible records very little.
The only word we hear from Him was when He was twelve years old. He went to Jerusalem, to the temple.
With Jewish boys, when they reached the age of twelve, or today thirteen, they became sons of the law. Before that, they were trained in their homes. But when they reached that age, there was a ceremony declaring that this boy had reached manhood, that he could be a son of the law.
He became a member of the synagogue and had the right to ask questions and answer questions. We wonder whether it was at such a time that our Lord, when He was twelve, went to the temple in Jerusalem.
But with our Lord Jesus, it was so different. With the other Jewish boys, they simply went through the ceremony. But with our Lord Jesus, there came upon Him a deep consciousness.
To Him, being a son of the law was not just a formality. It was something very real to Him.
When His parents left, He remained in the temple. After three days, His parents found Him there. They found Him in the midst of the scribes, asking questions and answering questions.
People wondered where He had acquired such understanding. His mother said to Him, “Son, why hast Thou done this to us? How Thou hast worried us. We spent three days trying to find Thee.”
Our Lord said, “Did ye not know that I must be occupied with My Father’s business?” He spoke the truth. But He was young; He was still a minor. So He obeyed His parents. He went back and obeyed them.
The Bible says that He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. His growth was excellent; it was perfect.
For thirty years, He was hidden and silent. But it was preparation. Then, when He was thirty years old, He stepped out and began to preach the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of the heavens hath drawn near.
From that time onward, He travelled through villages and cities, from Galilee to Judea, from Judea to Galilee, passing through Samaria. There He preached the kingdom of God. He declared the testimony of God. He called people to return to God. He spoke out His testimony.
He told people that He was sent. “I did not come on My own. I did not speak out of Myself. I speak what I have heard of the Father.”
He was faithful to His Father. He was faithful to the testimony of God.
Even when He was taken and brought to Caiaphas’ house, they accused Him of many things. Many witnesses tried to say that Jesus did this and Jesus said that.
Finally, someone came up and said that He had said He would destroy the temple and restore it in three days. But all these witnesses were false witnesses.
They challenged our Lord Jesus: “Dost Thou hear all that these witnesses say? Why dost Thou not defend Thyself?” The Lord was silent. He did not say anything.
Finally, Caiaphas said, “In the name of God, tell us whether Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.”
The Lord said, “Thou hast said it. Not only that, ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the throne of God and coming in power.”
He was sentenced to death because of this. He bore witness to Himself, because that was His testimony. Whenever He was challenged, He was silent about everything else, but so far as His testimony was concerned, He spoke out, even if it meant death to Him.
Then they took Him to the governor. Again, people began to accuse Him of many things, but our Lord did not say a word.
Finally, Pilate said, “Dost Thou hear all the things of which Thou art accused? Why dost Thou not say a word? According to our Roman custom, we give the defendant a chance to defend himself before his accusers. Why dost Thou not take that opportunity?”
The Lord was silent. Finally, Pilate asked, “Art Thou the King of the Jews?” He said, “Thou hast said it. I am born King, but I am the King of truth.”
Our Lord was sentenced because of this testimony, but He was a faithful witness before Pontius Pilate. He bore faithful testimony with His word.
Then you find the same thing with the apostles. From the day of Pentecost onward, they began to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You remember in Acts 3 and 4 how the Lord used Peter and John to perform a miracle. There was a lame man sitting at the gate called Beautiful, asking for alms.
When Peter and John came to the temple, this beggar looked at them expecting something. Peter looked at him and said:
Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
This man stood up, leaped, and jumped. A miracle was performed.
There is a story concerning this. Once Thomas Aquinas, the famous theologian, was visiting the pope. The pope showed him all the wealth of the Vatican.
The pope told Thomas, “We can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’” Thomas replied, “But neither can you say, ‘Rise up and walk.’”
Because of this, Peter and John were taken into custody. They were brought before the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, priests, and scribes.
They forbade them to speak in the name of Jesus. They forbade them to proclaim that Jesus had risen.
Peter and John said, “Whether it is right before God to listen to you rather than to God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
They were beaten, but they were glad that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. They went back to their own company and told the brothers and sisters what had happened.
What was their response? They prayed together with one accord, asking the Lord to give them boldness to preach Jesus Christ.
They were filled with the Holy Spirit and preached Christ Jesus with boldness.
Brothers and sisters, the way that we bear witness to the testimony of Jesus is with our words. The word is not only powerful to men; it is also powerful even to the unseen world.
In Revelation 12, it says that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. The word of testimony is not only powerful in the world, but even in the unseen world.
Is the name of Jesus a magic word? No.
You remember a very interesting incident in Acts 19. When the Word of God was powerful in Ephesus, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest. They were exorcists.
They noticed Paul and how effective he was in casting out demons. They watched him and found that Paul used the name of Jesus.
They thought, “That is the secret. It is much better than the magic words we used before.”
When they came to exorcise a demon-possessed person, they said, “I command you, in the name of Jesus whom Paul preacheth.”
The evil spirit said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”
The demon-possessed man jumped upon them, overcame them, and made them flee away naked and wounded.
Brothers and sisters, what makes the word so powerful? If it is merely words, they are empty words. It does not work. The power of the word is that there is something backing it up.
The way we witness for the Lord is not only a matter of words; it is also a matter of our life.
If our life is empty, we must have a life that backs up that word. Then that word really means something to us. It is not hearsay. It is a word to which we are personally related. It is a word that we have experienced ourselves. It is backed by a life.
That is how the testimony and the witness become powerful. Look at our Lord Jesus. Why was every word that came out of His mouth powerful? Because behind that word, there was a life.
There was a life totally given to God.
When He came into this world, it was prophesied of Him:
Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body didst Thou prepare for Me.
Lo, I am come to do Thy will.
Thy law is written upon My heart.
Consider the life of our Lord Jesus. He was absolutely obedient to His Father. His whole life was governed by the Father’s will.
It was the Father’s will for Him to drink that bitter cup, even if it meant defilement to His purity, even if it meant such misunderstanding. He pleased the Father all His life.
There was never any distance between Him and the Father. He and the Father were one. The Father is holy; He is holy. The Father is righteous; He is righteous.
But one day, it was the Father’s will that He should become the sin-bearer of the world.
Not only had He committed no sin; He did not know what sin was. Yet He was willing to become sin. How could He take it?
In the garden of Gethsemane, He prayed:
If it be possible, let this cup be removed from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Thy will be done.
Brothers and sisters, throughout His life there was a life according to the testimony of God. God was absolutely God to Him. He was absolutely the Son, absolutely obedient to God.
He had such a love for the testimony that He died for it. Because of such a life, He was a true witness. Whatever He said was powerful.
Brothers and sisters, the same is true with us today. How can our witness be effective? Yes, we should speak out.
Whenever people ask us the reason for our hope, we must be prepared to tell them. This is our responsibility.
But, brothers and sisters, if our life does not match our word, our testimony is weak.
In Revelation 12, it says that they overcame the accuser. There, “they” refers to the man-child.