We walk by faith. And so the necessity is that, having walked, we trust God to meet us as we are walking.
Actually, we find in our life that it is not the events themselves, or executed plans, that become the most important thing. The wonder of wonders is that, as we take a step by faith, the Lord meets us, and we see more of Him.
I join with you in your sense of uncertainty because of this sniper. Obviously, it sounds like he is coming down I-95.
You know, it has been a most amazing phenomenon to a person like myself who has lived in the New York area: how unsettled New York is, even at this time after September 11. The people as a whole—I am not talking about the saints so much, but the area as a whole—still remain greatly intimidated and insecure.
It is like Washington, D.C., right now because of this sniper. Every time there is, you know, a backfiring car, people freak out. I was in New York City recently, and I saw that happen. I was down by Ground Zero, and I do not know, some old car backfired, or some motorcycle or something. I mean, people hit the ground. People started crying. People are right on the edge—very insecure.
One of the people that I know is involved in Wall Street itself, in the stock market, in the New York Stock Exchange. He said, “You know, we go in here every day with a sense of dread. It is hard for us to be optimistic because we know that if the terrorists want to get Jews, there are more Jews in the New York Stock Exchange than just about anywhere else in New York City. They could just bomb us out, and we are expecting it, and we are afraid.”
So there is a great insecurity in our lives. We have actually lived in a place where we became very casual about this: “Nobody is going to touch us. Nobody would dare do anything in the U.S.” Now all that is gone—at least in New York, it is gone. And now this man is terrorizing people locally here.
But we walk by faith, and we have to walk. We do not go hide in our houses. We walk by faith, and we trust that God will keep us. Only God knows the answers. Only God knows what is going to happen. But we walk by faith, and we trust in our God.
I would like to share something this morning. I suppose it does fit into that. I just felt to say that, but I would like for us to turn to a familiar passage and read together the first chapter of the book of Revelation, and just share some simple thoughts: the revelation of Jesus Christ that John received on the Isle of Patmos.
We will read the whole chapter.
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bondservants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bondservant John,
who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.
Blessed is he who reads, and those who hear, the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.
May we sense that reality.
John, to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood,
and made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.”
I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands;
and in the middle of the lampstands I saw One like a Son of Man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash.
His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.
His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace; and His voice was like the sound of many waters.
In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength.
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,
and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things.
As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”
Lord, we come to You. Father, You are the great I AM. We pray that we might see Your Son more clearly every day. May we see Him in His exalted glory and find that rest and encouragement that comes from a vision of Him.
We just give You this time and our thoughts, and pray You encourage our hearts. In the name of the great Encourager, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, I see this chapter now as I never have before because I went with Christian Chen on a trip to Turkey, Greece, and Italy. I went to six of the seven churches. I guess there were no ruins at Thyatira, so we did not go there, but I went to all these other places. I went to the ruins, and for most of these towns there were sufficient ruins to get a little idea, at least, where the old city was. It was very, very interesting.
Now, the weak and the sleepy need not apply for such a journey as this. When you go with Christian Chen, you spend long hours on a bus. You get up at six in the morning and get off the road by seven. You come back at one in the morning, go to bed for a few hours, roll out, and go out again.
We followed in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul—that was the name of the journey. We went through the dangers, the sleepless nights; we went and saw the whole thing. We went on all three of his missionary journeys.
We went on the first journey around, you know, where he went there in eastern Turkey now. We went on the second journey, which is over in Greece. We went on the third journey, which was around Ephesus and the seven churches.
My, oh my, oh my. Was Paul a faithful servant or what? This man walked it. We took the bus and we almost died.
But we learned a lot of things, and we went to Ephesus. Oh, the ruin of Ephesus is worth the trip in itself. You go to Turkey—see Ephesus. It is an amazing ruin that they have excavated there.
But we also went to Laodicea. I never knew why this lukewarm thing was such an issue in Laodicea until we first went to Hierapolis, the city higher up from Laodicea, where the hot bubbling pools were, where everybody went to get their special bath.
They had aqueducts that took that hot water down to Laodicea, and it was just lukewarm. There is something very wonderful about seeing that there and realizing that the Laodiceans were satisfied with lukewarm water because they refused to pay the price to go up the hill to Hierapolis, where the water was hot. Hmm. Very interesting.
But anyway, we also went to Sardis. We stayed in Smyrna, that place where so many people were persecuted and even put to death. We went to Philadelphia, and there a car ran into our bus. We spent six hours there while the cops and the people wanted to turn the bus over. We had adventure after adventure.
It was not all sealed up for me in one vast, comprehensive vision until we took the day to take a three-hour ferry ride out to Patmos. We took this ride out there. We went to Patmos.
You know what? Now it is an island where rich Greeks live. But there is still this rocky cave up in the highest part of this little island where John saw this vision in exile.
We have no reason to doubt that this cave was actually it because, as the church is always faithful to do, they built a humongous church around this little cave. So, of course, you cannot see out of the cave or anything, and you have to pay money to go into the cave because it is all locked up in this huge church with candles and icons and everything else. But this was the place.
It was there that something came together for me. I saw something that I want to try to convey to you today.
Our brother Christian Chen said this. Now, I do not know—maybe he has Superman’s vision—but anyway, on a really clear day, he says you can see from Patmos to the very coast of Ephesus. That would have to be a very clear day. I mean, it is quite a ways. But anyway, I take him at his word.
John was there, exiled on the island, and all he could do now was pray for those seven churches that he used to shepherd, help, and counsel. Now he is stuck on this island. Of course, he hears reports of the decline in the churches, the crisis that they are in.
There is nothing as ugly as seeing a church in crisis when you have seen it in its glory. To see Ephesus in its first love makes Ephesus in its second love look pretty ugly.
You know what it reminds me of? It is sort of like this. I might as well confess: I play golf. Because I play golf, they have manufactured a lot of golf courses around man-made reservoirs. As an example, Lake Lanier is one of my favorite golf courses. It is outside Georgia, up above Atlanta. They just took some kind of a pine forest and flooded the thing and made it this wonderful lake. Then they built a golf course. You see the high priority of golf already.
Now the point is this: when there is a drought and that beautiful lake starts to go down, I go to some of these reservoirs, and in time of drought, it is the ugliest place I have ever seen. Why, there are all kinds of stumps and rocks stuck up there, and all kinds of stuff that was part of the forest before it got flooded. It is ugly. But when the water is up, it is beautiful.
Now, when the life of Jesus is up in the church, it is beautiful. You see a placid lake. Why, you can take your little Jesus canoe and just negotiate this wonderful lake and, you know, throw your thing into the water and catch some fish. It is a wonderful place, being in the church of Jesus, when the water is all filled up.
But when the water level is low, you see every human stump out there, every rock just jutting up. It is very hard to navigate around, and if you throw your line in the water, you probably get snagged on some kind of crud.
You know, the church only looks good when it is filled with Jesus. But poor old John is looking at seven churches where somebody pulled the plug out of the bathtub. You can see Jezebel sitting on a throne in Thyatira, the seat of Satan in Pergamum. I discovered what that was all about on this trip. That was an amazing thing in itself, but I will not go into it.
You can see people who were just as nasty as they were the day before they got saved. Do you know how terrible we look when the water gets low?
When Jesus is not filling us, covering us, you are just a nasty old stump, just like you always were. I am one of those old jutting-up rocks, with some sharp edges just waiting to lacerate your foot. This is what we are like without Jesus.
No wonder John is praying and discouraged and saying, “Well, Lord, I have walked by faith, and it has landed me here in exile. What do I do now, except trust You?”
As I was sitting there and thinking about it—there I was in Patmos, looking out over this great expanse—we just had a blessed time. We baptized two kids in the Aegean Sea there, two teenagers, and I got to do it. There were a hundred and fifty of us, by the way.
I had these two Chinese kids in there, and I held them in the Aegean a long time. I figured it was really holy ground; held them down in there. They got good and saved and wet.
It was a blessed time, and I am sitting there out there in Patmos, saying, “You know, God, what is the future of the church?” Even like the ruins out there, those seven churches are now in ruins. There is not a church in any one of those seven cities.
The Turks are not anti-Christian; they just close down all the churches. Although what used to be Greek Orthodox churches are now mosques, that is what they did. So you do not see a church. There are some Christians there, but they have to meet in houses and things. They are not allowed to build a building. But that is another story.
The whole point is, you cannot even see the church when you look on the coastline of what used to be Asia—not even there. I was saying, “Lord, yeah, sort of like our situation back home. There is crisis in every church. Or I go to Russia—there is crisis in Russia. The church is in crisis. What is Your response?”
That is when this came to me. What is the response of the Lord to crisis, to the lake being low? Here is what it is: it is always the same.
God the Father sees the state of His people, and He reacts—not with anger. Strange to say, that is how I would react. If I saw a church that is supposed to love Jesus in a low-ebb state with rocks and stumps, I think I would be mad. So be very thankful: not God. That is not how God reacts.
God the Father says, “The lake is low. The church is in crisis. Here is what I have got to do: unveil My Son more than ever before.”
What do we have to look forward to, my brothers and sisters? Some crises? Yeah. But that is not what we look forward to. Here is what we look forward to: there is going to be more unveiling of His precious Son than we have ever seen before.
Can you believe this? John loved Jesus. John lay on Jesus’ breast when Jesus was on earth. John knew all about Jesus, but he still needed to see more of Jesus than he had ever seen before. Here is where it happened.
You and I, you know Jesus, right? He is your best friend. I remember this book when I was in seminary. It was called Are You Walking with Me, Jesus? This man wrote a bunch of prayers: “Hello, Jesus, my old buddy pal. Let’s go for a run today. I wanted to talk to You.”
This was the way this guy was—very casual with Jesus, like He was some kind of buddy-pal friend. This guy has now since left the whole deal. He joined the God-is-dead movement, but let us not get into that.
What is God the Father going to do in light of the crisis before us? He is going to reveal more of His Son—but not as we have known Him before, in greater exaltation than we have ever seen Him before. Now, is that not something to look forward to?
Boy, John was in for a surprise that day. He fell down as a dead man in light of what he saw. He never knew Jesus was this powerful, this exalted, this high on the throne. He had never seen Him with eyes like fire, and the sound of many waters for His voice, and the fire and the bronze and the whole thing. What a picture of Jesus.
This is what we have in store for us. Do you want to see that? It will take you out. When we really see Jesus as He is, we fall down like a dead man—unless Jesus says, “Stand up, son. Do not be afraid.”
You are down for the count. The devil starts counting. He had John down for the count. He is on the island of Patmos. He is useless. Then Jesus shows up.
Why, He picked up that John, and maybe the book of Revelation is the most significant piece of ministry John ever did in his lifetime, because he unveiled things as they really were in the midst of a situation that looked rather grim.
We see—oh, what we see—this Jesus, the Son of God, in all His glory. So this is God’s reaction. This is God’s response. This is what we have to look forward to. I hope you brace for more of Jesus, because that is what we are going to see.
The thing, as I see it in the book of Revelation, there are three things that interest me about what happens when somebody sees this fuller revelation. Thank God, by the grace of God, every one of us has seen something more of Jesus, have we not? Thank God, we have more to see. You and I have a lot more to see than we have ever understood before.
We will be saying like John, “I knew Jesus, but I never knew Him like this.” A greater sovereignty, a greater glory—we have all this to look forward to.
The first thing is this: when God reveals more of His Son to us, it is not a more complicated, deeper revelation than we have ever received before. Actually, what it does is bring us back to square one.
When John saw Jesus, he came back to square one. I love square one. I like the beginning. I like the first works. I like the first love. I like remembering that He has washed us, that He has made us a kingdom of priests unto our God, and that He has loosed us from our sins. That is the beginning.
Do you know what happens when Jesus shows up? It cuts off all the complicatedness and gets us back right there to square one. Jesus is King, and Jesus is all, and Jesus is provision. That is all we need, to be flooded with Jesus. It is actually getting back to simplicity.
That is why a real revelation of Jesus is so therapeutic. Because, being men, we get complicated. Things get complicated. Our circumstances get complicated. Next thing we know, we do not know if we are going up or going down. We do not know how to unsnarl the whole mess. Then Jesus shows up, and the water rises, and there is no more mess.
Because He says, “This is all you need to get a hold of. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I have all the keys that you need. You just hang on to Me.”
Can you believe that? Can you believe that is the way God would take care of a mess? We want to unsnarl the whole thing. We take this big ball of string that we have tied together, by the way, and we say, “Okay, we can go this way. No, no, no, let us go this way.” But there are so many strings and so many ends, there is no possible way we are going to undo the thing.
But then Jesus goes up, and we go right above it. “Where is that ball of string?” Well, it is down under the lake. When the water goes down, we will find it.
But He brings us back to square one. Brothers and sisters, may the Lord reveal Himself to us in such a way that we can get back to square one:
This is what is so healthy to me when you look at this Scripture. When Jesus showed up, you cannot argue. There is no arguing with this Man. You just fall down on the ground. That is it.
Any argument that you and I can have—oh, we have reasons. I loved what Vern Fronti said this summer: “We have reasons, but no right.” Remember that? I love that, because I have a lot of reasons. Then the Lord shows up, and I have no more reasons.
He just says, “You follow Me.” It all goes back to square one again. “No, no, no, what about—?” “Follow Me.” So simple.
The Lord restores us in this aspect of His greatness. He relates Himself to each of these seven churches in one of the aspects of His revelation. John saw the whole picture, but to each of the churches, they all saw a bit.
In Revelation 2:1, it says:
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this.”
That is the part that Ephesus needs to see. If they can just see Jesus standing there, holding the servants of God in this hand and holding the church in that hand, all the problems of Ephesus are up. All they need to do is repent and come back to their first love. That is it. So simple.
The reality of Jesus brings us back to simplicity. I guess maybe I am getting too old to retain a lot of complicated thoughts, but it sure is redemptive to me to know that He says, “You know, I think it is a little bit easier to walk by faith than you have been thinking lately. Just trust Me. I am the One who overcomes, and you can overcome through Me.”
In Revelation 2:8:
“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this.”
That is just another aspect of who John saw in his vision, and it is applied specifically to Smyrna, where people were dying because of their witness for Christ.
And so on and so on we could go. All I am saying is, this revelation of His greatness brought them all back to square one. When we see Jesus, the lake fills, and all there is is Him.
If Ephesus returns to their first love, then all there is is Jesus. If Smyrna, who is getting killed for their witness of Jesus, turns and looks away to Jesus, the first and the last, who died and lives forevermore, they will also find that they live forevermore.
There is a necessity of seeing Jesus in a particular aspect for each particular church. All that will satisfy is this unveiling by the Father of the Lord Jesus.
That is number one: when He unveils the Lord Jesus, it brings us back to square one. There is John receiving these words and worshiping even in the midst of it: “Oh, the One who loved us and set us free from our sins, the One who made us a kingdom of priests.” That is who this revelation is all about.
Number two: one of the things that gets me about this unveiling that God the Father gives us of His Son is, when He unveils His Son, we suddenly see again this Son’s relationship to the full purpose of God.
We all believe that Jesus is the center of the universe. We believe that Jesus is everything. We believe Jesus is Lord and Jesus is King and everything like that. But here, just picture this: Jesus is revealed against the backdrop of everything else going on in the book of Revelation.
Not only does God reveal Jesus—praise God for that—but He shows you more. He shows Jesus in His glory related to God’s throne. Now, that is an eternal issue: God’s throne. The enemy is fighting against God’s throne. Jesus is sitting by the right hand of God’s throne.
When you see Jesus that way, there is that cutting off of the anxiety of our life when we say, “Well, I do not know what is going to happen with the sniper, or with September 11, or the Trade Center, or the future, but I know He is on the throne.”
What a salutary revelation that is. So it is not just that we see Jesus; we see Jesus related to the throne that cannot be changed, cannot be moved. It is there.
Then we see Jesus, this Lord, this fantastic exalted God, as the Lamb taking the scroll. Think about that. Did you ever have Heavenly History 101? I know some of you went to college and took History 101. You learned about Greek civilization. Heavenly History 101: here is the deal.
Jesus, the Lamb of God, took the scroll, and the rest of history is in His hands. The destiny of His people, the nations, the war with Satan—everything is sealed because Jesus has the scroll in His hand. He is unbinding the seals and loosening that thing because He is the One who now controls history. That is Heavenly History 101.
That makes Jesus even more wonderful, because He is not just isolated as some great monolith we worship. He is related not only to the throne, but He is related to the scroll of history, and He is related to the great conflict in the book of Revelation.
I remember the first time, in the Jesus People days—this was in 1972—I was living out near a university on Long Island. There were kids in this university who actually were in the coven dorm, I believe they called it, because they were all potential witches and warlocks. It was a whole dorm full of them back then.
Nevertheless, one of these warlocks was really interested in the book of Revelation because of the beasts and all this kind of stuff. The witches and warlocks asked me to lead a Bible study on the book of Revelation.
Of course, I preached the gospel about Jesus, and they hardly listened to that. Oh, they loved it when the beasts and the bowls and the fuming things were going on.
Back in those days, kids were really getting off on the book of Revelation. Even the Jesus People—the book of Revelation was it. That is why Hal Lindsey made his gazillion dollars. One book; all its hook was on the book of Revelation. Everybody was into it in those days. What an amazing thing.
But listen to this: there is a great conflict, right? How many of you read the book of Revelation and Jesus gets lost in the shuffle of the beasts and the Antichrist? “Who is the woman sitting on the—?” All this kind of stuff.
But this is the whole point. This whole thing shows Jesus rising up as the Warrior in the midst of this whole thing. He just comes up as the Warrior, and He goes, “The whole thing is over.” So much for dragons and beasts and bloody things. All of that is much ado about nothing, because here Jesus shows up.
At least it shows us something: my God has His Son on the throne, and He is the Warrior, the Word of God, who is going to take care of this whole conflict.
Now I can walk by faith in a way that trusts that He is on the throne and taking care of the conflict around me.
We are crazy Christians. I like people walking in a bubble, I swear. It is not like we do not get hit by some of this stuff that goes on. There were some precious born-again Christians who lost their lives in the Trade Center, so it is not like we get exempt.
But, in one sense, is it not amazing how there is like a bubble around us? The Lord really takes care of us. I feel that.
I need to feel that because my wife and I have just gone crazy. We are about to move into Manhattan. The Lord has led us to sell our wonderful suburban home in the middle of suburbia, with tweeting birds, and head into Manhattan, with tweeting horns from cars.
We are going in there, and I know that this is the land of the giants. That is where the giants are, you understand? This is where Satan is working. Principalities and powers love big cities, you know, and so they are hitting all over the top.
So what? My wife and I are going to go in there with a sword and take on the biggest principalities on the East Coast with my single sword? Forget it. I will get killed.
No, my wife and I are going in under the radar. We are going to get this apartment and start to, you know, tell Christians—whisper to them—“We are meeting at seven o’clock tonight,” so the devil does not hear. We will gather for a while.
If we can gather some saints together, you know what the Lord might make us do? You know who He might make us be? I do not know. Only God can do this.
But what if He made us as the sons of the tribe of Judah, who, like Caleb and his family, could stand up and say, “You know, the giants cannot have this city. This is Jesus’.”
I wonder. We need to be under His covering before we do some monkey business like that.
But if He is up on the throne, well, I reckon we will be able to break bread together in the name of Jesus and stand as brothers and sisters in New York City. That is a miracle. I mean, it is impossible. The principalities and powers have stopped that all these years in many ways.
Precious brothers and sisters are meeting in Queens, but I do not want to get into that. They join with me; I join with them. Let us see what the Lord can do.
All I know is I have taken a step by faith, and the Lord pushed me into the Jordan River, and I am swimming across. My wife and I tomorrow are moving to the other side, over to Manhattan tomorrow—from a nine-room house to a four-room apartment.
My wife is excited. Now, there is another miracle, but I do not have time to go there.
All I can say is, when we see Jesus not only exalted and before us as He really is, not only do we fall down dead in the light of His glory, but we also see that He is connected with the scroll of history and the great conflict. And, of course, at the end, the marriage.
This whole exaltation is all about marriage. A lot of marriage is going down around here these days. Well, I do not have time to dwell on that either.
But God’s full thought and purpose is all wrapped up in this One who is exalted and crowned. So necessarily—let us just say, you knew bad news was coming, right? Here it is.
God has a full thought about His church. Now you just know He is not going to be satisfied until we express that full thought: full of love, full of the Holy Spirit, full of the first works. You know He is not going to be satisfied.
Is it not wonderful how merciful Jesus was as He inspected each one of the seven churches? He even took note of the positive things they had done. Have you noticed that? Every one of these churches had a relative righteousness.
In other words, He says, “I know your works,” or, “I know that the second things you are doing are even better than the first ones.” He took note in each one of the churches of their positive qualities, and in some of them there was only about one, really. Then He noted them.
But then it is as if the Lord said, “But you know what? You know what I am doing? I am looking down on that earth. I am looking at the church. I am not looking for how many buses they have going out dragging people in. I am not looking for how many ministers they have on staff. Here is what I am looking for: bone of My bone, flesh of My flesh. I want Me. That is what I am looking for. I am not going to lower the standard.”
If we understand that, well, we know why the lake is rising and the lake is falling and the Lord is dealing. He is not going to settle for anything less than bone of My bone. “This is My wife.”
He will hold us to that because it all has to do with God’s full purpose for His Son. So when He shows up, that is why we feel killed.
When we realize, just in our individual life, when He shows up—I mean, imagine John, maybe the most faithful apostle. Of course, Paul—we could argue these things—but John was a wonderful brother, do you not think? When you read his books, I mean, this is a wonderful brother.
But when Jesus showed up, he was dirt.
“Oh, my preaching and all my time in the seven churches, and look at the state they are in.” Jesus says, “Look, look at this, John. Get up. Come on, come on. You are My buddy. Come on. I am going to show you some things.
“Here is the first thing I want you to see: see those seven churches? There they are. The devil does not have them. They are in My hand. That is the first thing I want you to see, John. Seven churches? Right in My hand. Nobody is going to take them out of My hand.”
You better believe it. Now John immediately feels encouraged. “Well, maybe I failed, and maybe I should have done more to keep Ephesus in first love and keep Jezebel off the seat in Thyatira. Maybe I should have done more. But you know something? I have got encouragement here because Jesus has those churches in His hands. Even if I am stuck on this island, that does not stop Jesus.”
You know, servants of God need encouragement too sometimes. Things look pretty bleak sometimes. You know what I am saying? People who serve the Lord in whatever way, sometimes you say, “Yikes, what is going on?” The Lord says, “Hey, hey, hey, looky up here. Come on, come on. Here we are. There you are.”
That is all the encouragement people need.
So when we see our Lord high and lifted up, we see Him in relation to this whole eternal plan that He has, including His marriage of His own that is found in the church.
The third thing that I note in this revelation of Jesus—and this is the one that, for some reason, is surprising to me in a twofold way—is this.
The thing about the book of Revelation, and one reason why it remains a closed book to a number of Christians—could I be honest? Christians write a lot of books about this. I think I have about nine commentaries myself. Seven of them are basically paperweights.
There is a lot of stuff in there and theories about what all the stuff in the book of Revelation means. You know what? These guys do not have the foggiest idea.
There are a lot of Christians whose whole ministry—the book of Revelation has fallen out of their Bible because that is all they ever preach on. Yet I begin to wonder sometimes whether they really understand what is in there. They do not see Jesus in it. They see all the other stuff—the beasts and the stuff and what countries they are. They have all kinds of theories.
But here is the deal about the book of Revelation which should challenge us this morning: in all the revelation of Jesus Christ, He only shows it to His bondservants.
Now you understand? Listen, there are a lot of Christians. Not all Christians have taken up the cross, denied themselves, and followed the Lord. Not all Christians are bondservants.
That does not mean full-time preachers. No, no, no, no, no. A bondservant is somebody who loves Jesus with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. A bondservant is somebody who has been captured by the grace of Jesus, and there is nowhere else you can go. You are caught. There is a boxer, and when you are caught, then He reveals Jesus in all His greatness.
There are many Christians—again, I am not trying to be accusative, and I am not picking out or mentioning any names—but there are Christians who are Christians but not bondservants. You know something? This book is closed. I am sorry.
Look what it says at the very beginning:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bondservants, the things which must soon take place.
God the Father gave it to Jesus to show to His bondservants the things which must surely come to pass.
Bondservants who love the Lord receive this consolation. People who do not love the Lord in that kind of way, that they have laid down their lives, all they do is read the book of Revelation and get more and more worried. “The end is coming. Oh, what is going to happen?”
So it is an interesting thing. The book of Revelation lays a trip on people who do not love the Lord, and it lays encouragement on those who are bondservants. Now which one are you?
Bondservants does not mean a person is perfect—not at all. As a matter of fact, here is the thing that to me is entrancing about this revelation.
It is almost as if Jesus comes intimately to His bondservants with all of their weaknesses and frailties and everything, but they love Him, and He reveals Himself to them.
John was only a sinful man who had been saved and was serving God. He was not perfect at all. But look how Jesus comes to him and says, “Stand up, My son. Let Me take you up and show you what is going to happen. You need a little encouragement out here on the island. Let Me show you what is about to take place.”
“Look up there—that beast and everything. Watch this. Where is the beast? Gone. Look at the saints up here worshiping and everything. Look at their worship. They never get tired. They never fall out of first love. Look at this. That is where it is going to be.”
John is taken on a tour of heaven. “No, look, look at this thing coming down. This huge city coming down. That is the Bride, what I am waiting for. Oh, what a day that is going to be.”
John sees all of this encouraging stuff. But somebody else who reads this book, or tries to read it, but does not love the Lord with all their heart—they do not see Jesus. “Oh, oh, oh, what is going to—what do You mean, the United States culture may fall apart? Our economy may go to bits. There may be some spewings of things from heaven down to earth, some tribulations we may have to go through. I want to be a Christian, but I want to make a million dollars. That cannot happen if Wall Street does not make it.”
But bondservants, who are slaves of Jesus, say, “Man, my only hope is King Jesus. That is Who I am counting on.”
Then God swings you up into heaven and says, “Look what is going to happen.” He swings you up into this scene, swings you up into that scene: “Look what is going to happen. Look at this. The whole thing is in Jesus’ hands. He is going to get the whole thing, and then He is finally going to sit on the great white throne. Oh man, then the deal is really going to go down.”
All the bondservants say, “Praise God.” I bet you when John got through writing down his revelation, he went around hopping a little bit. I bet he sang half the song we had up on the wall—in Greek.
Can you imagine how encouraging that is? Then he probably held out his hands after his revelation and said, “Hallelujah, Lamb of God, King of kings, Lord of lords. Do it even as You showed me. I am going to send this thing to the bondservants for the encouragement of their hearts as well.”
He writes this book, and now we have it in this big book, which some people just let dust accumulate on. But the bondservants get blessed.
Here is the thing that I see regarding just Revelation 1, 2, and 3: how much Jesus loves His bondservants. My, my, my. He would never abandon us or let us go without hope, without an answer.
You can be locked in a cave for your faith, but nobody can take the revelation of the exalted Lord Jesus. It is just going to be unveiled more and more. The more problems could be heaped on us, the more the unveiling will be the response of the Father.
So we have a lot to do here. We walk by faith, and we see a further unveiling. This is the life of a bondservant. This is your life; this is my life. This is what we have to look forward to.
Let us not be tried about it. Look up. Your redemption is drawing near. This Jesus—what a huge Person He is. He is huger than all of our smallnesses. We are all tiny mites compared to this One who is on the throne.
Yet, with all of our tiny-miteness, He picks us off out of the dust and says, “Stand up, My bondservant. Let Me reveal to you Who I am. Let Me reveal to you the whole backdrop of eternity. Let Me show you what is going to soon take place.”
So there I was out there on the Isle of Patmos, and I got happy. I got happy, because I saw, you know, Jesus has got the whole thing in His hands. He is working it out.
So what do I do? If I am going to be a bondservant, what should I do?
That is it.
I want to encourage you as well. The Lord wants to unveil Himself to us in wonderful ways. To those who really love Him, He wants to reveal His Son. This is our prize possession.
When you are praying, you say, “Okay, God, now I have got my list out. Here are the things I need.” Here is what you should say: “My list consists of: would You unveil Your Son for me a little bit more?”
I have a feeling if that happens, all the rest will take care of itself. We are given many things to pray about, are we not? We have many things to pray about—many problems, many personal needs, everything. Fine. It is all fine.
But I want my personal needs wrapped up in the fullness of Jesus. I want my trials wrapped up in the presence of Jesus. I want my move to Manhattan wrapped up in the presence of Jesus, because that is good enough for me.
If I still have problems, fine, but let it be wrapped up in the presence of Jesus. That is our reward. It is not the resolution of all of our problems, because once we resolve those, then we will make up other ones. We are full-time problem makers. So willful.
If He just said, “Ask Me and I will take away all your problems,” we would say, “Okay, this one, this one, this one, this one,” and He would do it. Then tomorrow you would still have a list. You would come up with some.
You would be like King David: “Now I am the king. I have nothing to worry about. They are peeling grapes for me. Everything is really cool. Let us see, I need a problem. Ah, Bathsheba.” He created his own problem.
So do we when we have no other problems to deal with. Thank God, you have got a couple of part-time problems, just so we can keep our eyes on Jesus.
Well, I think you get the point, huh? Yes.
The Father—I love this—the Father has things He likes to do. Of course, He can heal us. He can change us. He can take us to heaven. He can make us millionaires. He can do a lot of things. But He says, “Hmm, let us see what I want to do the most. I love My Son. I think I will reveal Him more.”
Who can He find who will see and hear His word? The Father reveals His Son to those who read these words, who hear His voice, and who obey.
Oh, Lord, we come to You. We want to be overcomers. We know You give us such a vision of Jesus so that we might be overcomers. Lord, could we just be real stingy and ask You for more?
Lord, I am tired of looking at the lake gone dry. We have got problems up in New York. Oh God, I wish we could squirt some water here and there and, I do not know, help the old stumps.
But Lord, would You just fill us with the presence of Jesus so that we do not see the stumps anymore? Oh God, even in my personal life, I am so sick and tired of trying to excavate rocks. Would You just fill me with Jesus so I cannot even see the rocks? I am so under the blood of Jesus.
Lord, would You just take our lives? We are poor, miserable, dry-bed reservoirs. Then You show up, and we are grace-filled, Spirit-filled, encouraged, hopeful saints, in love with our Lord.
Let this be our portion in these days of crisis. May the response to September 11 and the sniper and all things be: “Oh Jesus, praise God, You are on the throne. Today I walk by simple faith. Oh Lord, meet me there.”
We thank You for John. We believe he was so encouraged as he received this revelation. So may we, in these coming days, even today, see more of You that puts to death the reasons in us for anything other than responsive love and unself-conscious service for You.
We thank You, Lord. This is Your greatest gift to us, and we receive it by faith in Jesus’ name.