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.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest, write in a book and send it to the seven churches: unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
And I turned to see the voice that 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.
Write therefore the things which thou sawest, and the things which are, and the things which shall come to pass hereafter;
the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks are seven churches.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for another opportunity to meet together in the name of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask You to quicken Your Word to our hearts, that we may not merely hear Your Word but may see our lives in its light.
We submit ourselves to You and ask that Your Holy Spirit would do the work You desire. May everything be for the glory of Your Son. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Brothers and sisters, we are living in a day when everything that belongs to the old creation is being shaken. Only that which is of the new creation will remain forever.
It is therefore essential for us to have a heavenly vision. Without that heavenly vision, we will not be able to distinguish what is of the old creation from what is of the new creation. We will not be able to see what can be shaken and what cannot be shaken. Nor will we be able to let go of that which can be shaken and lay hold upon that which cannot be shaken.
Without the heavenly vision, we will not have the strength to press on toward the goal. It is therefore of extreme importance that we have the heavenly vision and obedience to it.
That is the burden we have during these two evenings. We have considered the vision given to the apostle Peter and the vision given to the apostle Paul. This evening, we would like to share together concerning the vision given to John the apostle.
Even though we find three different visions given to three different apostles, we see that the vision is one. All these visions are stages of the same heavenly vision.
Peter laid the foundation. Paul built upon that foundation. John brings it to consummation.
The vision given to Peter began with the revelation from the heavenly Father that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. By confessing Him as such, we become living stones. Upon this rock, Christ builds His church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
In Matthew 17, our Lord brought Peter, James, and John to the Mount of Transfiguration. There Peter was given a vision of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the kingdom in which Christ is King.
In the kingdom of God, our Lord Jesus is supreme. Moses and Elijah are not His equals. It is the will of God that we should see no one but Jesus only.
Brothers and sisters, do we see our Lord Jesus as King? Have we submitted ourselves to Him completely? Do we see no one but Jesus?
The vision of the kingdom is connected with the building of the church. With the building of the church, the kingdom is brought from heaven upon earth.
Finally, Peter saw a great sheet let down from heaven, containing all kinds of living creatures. Through this vision, Peter was shown what is included in the church of God. Salvation is from the Jews, but salvation is not only for the Jews. The middle wall of partition has been broken down.
What God has cleansed, let no man call common. We receive all whom the Lord Jesus has received. This is the fellowship of all God’s people.
The Lord apprehended Saul on the road to Damascus. In that heavenly vision, he saw the universal Man. The Head is in heaven, represented by the risen Lord, while the Body covers the whole earth and includes all believers, the followers of our Lord Jesus.
Jesus is Lord over all. Our responsibility is to yield ourselves completely to Him and to His will.
The vision continued into the city of Damascus. There Paul met a disciple named Ananias. His eyes were opened, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he was received into the fellowship of the local church.
How is the universal church built? It is built through the building up of the local churches. The Lord builds His universal church in many localities, through many generations, by building the church locally.
The church is not merely an idea. It is lived out by brothers and sisters in a locality. We are to receive one another, identify with one another, be one, love one another, and call one another brothers and sisters.
Paul could say, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” in Acts 26:19.
The vision given to John is recorded in Revelation 1:1-20. John was exiled to the island of Patmos for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus.
John was among the first to follow the Lord Jesus. In John 1, when John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” two disciples followed the Lord. One was Andrew, and the other was John himself.
John was very close to the Lord. He was the disciple who leaned upon the Lord’s breast. He also lived longer than the other apostles. Peter and Paul were martyred, but John evidently ministered from Jerusalem to Ephesus and cared for the churches in Asia Minor.
During the reign of Emperor Domitian, John was arrested and exiled to Patmos, a rocky island in the Aegean Sea. Most likely, he was sent there to perform slave labor in the mines.
John was exiled for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus. In that context, the Word of God refers particularly to the Old Testament—the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms—which prophesied concerning the coming Messiah.
The testimony of Jesus is that the Lord Jesus came into the world, accomplished the work of salvation, rose from the dead, and is Lord over all.
The apostle John preached the Word of God and testified concerning Jesus. This was the work of all the early apostles. They used the Old Testament to prove to the people that Jesus is the Messiah, and they preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus, John was sent to Patmos to labor in the mines.
Most likely, John was free from labor on the Lord’s Day. One can imagine him sitting upon a rock and looking across the sea toward Asia Minor, where the seven churches were located.
He had ministered to the churches and cared for them, but now he was on an island and could no longer shepherd the flock. His heart was still with them. He must have been thinking about the churches in Asia and wondering what had happened to them.
Then suddenly he heard a loud voice behind him, like the sound of a trumpet. He turned to see the voice that spoke with him.
Brothers and sisters, John had been looking across the sea. He was thinking about the churches with his mind and feeling for them in his heart. But the voice came from behind him, and he turned.
He was not to look merely at the physical condition of the land or at the outward state of the churches in Asia. He was to receive a heavenly vision.
When John turned, he saw seven golden lampstands. In the midst of the seven golden lampstands was One like unto a Son of Man.
The Lord Himself explained the mystery: the seven lampstands are the seven churches. The lampstands represent the churches in Asia.
There were more than seven churches in Asia at that time. For example, there was also a church in Colossae. Yet the Holy Spirit selected these seven churches as representative churches.
Every local church is represented by a lampstand. There was a church in Ephesus, and before God it was represented by a golden lampstand. There was a church in Smyrna, and before God it was represented by another golden lampstand.
No matter what the condition of the seven churches in Asia may have been, before God they were represented as seven golden lampstands.
This is most significant. When Moses built the tabernacle, God commanded him to make everything according to the pattern shown him on the mountain. One of the vessels in the holy place was the golden lampstand.
In the tabernacle there was one golden lampstand with seven branches. It spoke of unity. But in Revelation there are seven separate lampstands, because each local church is directly responsible to the Lord.
Before God, the church is a lampstand.
The church is not the light. Christ is the light. He said, “I am the light of the world.” The church is the lampstand that holds up the light.
The church is a means to an end. It is a vessel that holds the light and bears the testimony of Jesus.
This is very important. In the tabernacle, most of the furniture was made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. The ark was made of wood and overlaid within and without with gold. The altar of incense and the table of showbread were also made of wood overlaid with gold.
But the lampstand was made of pure gold. There was no wood in it.
Wood represents human nature, while gold represents the divine nature. The church is composed of people like you and me, and yet in the sight of God the church is a golden lampstand.
This means that all that belongs to Adam, to the flesh, and to the old creation must be dealt with by the cross. Only Christ and Christ alone remain. It is gold; it is pure gold. There is no wood in it.
The church is not an organization. It is an organism composed of believers in the Lord Jesus who gather together in His name.
But the reality of the church is Christ. The church is Christ in you and Christ in me, with all that is merely of man taken away.
The lampstand was made of one talent of pure gold. It was not cast into a mold. It was beaten and fashioned into its beautiful form.
In the same way, the church is not built mechanically. The old man, our own opinions, our own preferences, our own wisdom, and our own strength must be dealt with.
Even the life of Christ within us must be formed. It is still gold, but it must be beaten into shape. Brothers and sisters, this is why we need to go through things together.
You cannot find a church without problems. But as we go through difficulties together, we are like gold being beaten and formed. Finally, there is a beautiful and exquisite lampstand, a work of God.
The church is the house of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, as stated in 1 Timothy 3:15.
The lampstand has a base and a shaft. In this way, it illustrates that the church is to uphold and bear the truth.
The branches of the lampstand were made with cups, knops, and flowers shaped like almond blossoms. The almond is the first flower to appear in the spring, and it speaks of resurrection.
The church is filled with the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus. The knops speak of the abundance of life, and the flowers speak of the beauty of the life of Christ. There is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as described in Galatians 5.
The church is a golden lampstand, full of the life and beauty of Christ, and it holds forth Christ as the light of the world.
When we look at the churches on earth, we often see many shortcomings. Even in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, the condition of most of the churches was not very good.
But before God, the church is a glorious thing. What measures the success or failure of a church on earth? It is not numbers, enthusiasm, or outward activity.
God’s measure is this: How close is the church to the golden lampstand? How much in the church is purely Christ?
That is the measure of the success or failure of the church on earth.
John saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands there was One like unto a Son of Man.
The lampstands form the background. Christ is the center of the picture. God does not want us to make the church the foreground. The church is there to make Christ more manifest and more prominent.
John knew the Lord very well. He had leaned upon the Lord’s breast and had been close to Him. Yet when John saw the Lord in this vision, he saw Him in a very different manner.
He saw the risen and ascended Lord in heaven. He saw the Lord as the great High Priest.
When our Lord was on earth, He was the Apostle sent by God. But now, in heaven, He is the anointed great High Priest of the church.
What is our Lord doing today? He is walking in the midst of the seven lampstands. Like the high priest tending the lamps in the tabernacle, He is caring for the light of the seven golden lampstands.
If a lamp was dim, the priest would supply more oil. The Lord is attending the lampstands in order to maintain the testimony of Jesus.
The Lord was clothed with a garment down to the foot, and He was girded about the breasts with a golden girdle. The garment speaks of righteousness. He is the Righteous One, our Advocate before the Father.
The golden girdle across His breast speaks of divine love and sympathy. He is full of divine love and sympathy for us. He never gives us up.
His head and His hair were white as wool, white as snow. He is full of wisdom. His eyes were as a flame of fire. He is full of discernment. Man looks upon the outward appearance, but He looks into our very hearts.
His feet were like burnished brass, as if refined in a furnace. They speak of judgment. His voice was as the voice of many waters.
In His right hand He held seven stars. The right hand speaks of power and supply. He supplies those who are responsible for the churches.
Out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword. His words are full of authority. His countenance was as the sun shining in its strength, full of divine beauty.
Thank God, we have a great High Priest. He is not only the High Priest for each one of us individually; He is also the great High Priest of the church.
He is there to recover the church to His original intention. Our Lord never gives us up. He is doing a work of recovery.
The Lord is calling for those who overcome. In every circumstance, there will be those who respond to the Lord as He reveals Himself to them. They will not be disobedient to the heavenly vision.
These are the overcomers. Through the overcomers, the Lord will obtain His glorious church. This is the consummation of the heavenly vision.
May the Lord have mercy upon us. What we see on earth may often discourage us, but God has shown us what He sees. This is our faith, and it enables us to press on toward the goal.
Heavenly Father, we thank You. Even though we may fail, and even though the church on earth may appear weak and imperfect, You never fail.
You have apprehended us, and You will never let us go. You will continue to recover us until Your work is done, Your purpose is fulfilled, and Christ is glorified.
We praise You that You have never given us up and that You continue Your work, not only in us individually but also among us together.
Lord, once again we humble ourselves before You. Work in us and among us until Your work is done, Your purpose is fulfilled, and Christ is glorified. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.