Will you please turn to the book of Revelation?
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
And I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing upon Mount Zion, and with Him a hundred and forty and four thousand, having His name, and the name of His Father, written on their foreheads.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpists harping with their harps.
And they sing as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders: and no man could learn the song save the hundred and forty and four thousand, even they that had been purchased out of the earth.
These are they that were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were purchased from among men, to be the firstfruits unto God and unto the Lamb.
And in their mouth was found no lie: they are without blemish.
Let us have a word of prayer.
O Lord, we do pray that Thou wilt open heaven and lift us up in our spirit, that we may come to Thy very presence and behold Thy glory.
O Lord, speak to us in the very depth of our being. Let us hear Thy voice. Let us see Thy beauty. Draw us, that we may run after Thee.
We commit this time into Thy hands and trust Thy Holy Spirit to grant us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of God. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Our time together in the morning is all on the key to Revelation. We find that the key to Revelation is in the spirit of Revelation, not in the letter of Revelation. Because the letter kills, and the Spirit gives life.
Here we are, bogged down with all the letters of this book of Revelation. We will find ourselves greatly confused. There are so many different ideas, different interpretations, and applications, and we will be lost.
But if we go into the spirit of this book of Revelation, then the Spirit is life, and the Spirit is what? Because in Revelation 19:10, it really tells us the key to this book:
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
What is the spirit of prophecy? What is the spirit of Revelation? What is the spirit of vision? It is the testimony of Jesus. It testifies to our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we believe Revelation, being the last book of the Bible, is really the concluding, consummating, summing up of all the revelations that God has given concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, in all the preceding books, and then brings it into fullness.
If we centre our attention upon the revelation of Jesus Christ in this book, then, when we are studying this book, He will give us new, fresh, living revelation of our Lord Jesus.
Some of these matters we may find already prophesied in the Old Testament. Then we find some that are completely new, fresh, concluding revelations of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is the prayer of our hearts: that through this book, we may know Christ in a fuller way. And knowing Him is eternal life.
In our first session, we mentioned the revelation of Jesus Christ in relation to the church. There we find our Lord Jesus, after He ascended on high, after He had finished His work on earth as the Apostle of our confession, in heaven beginning to be our royal High Priest.
He ministered in the true tabernacle, not made with hands. So in the first chapter, we find that the apostle John saw that vision: seven golden lampstands, with One like unto the Son of Man standing in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. This is a picture of our Lord Jesus as the royal High Priest, the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
There He is ministering to His own church. There He is building His church. We already mentioned that when our Lord was on earth, in view of Calvary, He told His disciples:
Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
But it was after He had ascended on high, and on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down, that one hundred and twenty believers, gathered together in prayer for ten days in one spirit, were baptised into one body. That is the beginning of the church on earth.
So we find that the work of our Lord Jesus in heaven, based upon His finished work on earth, is the work of building His church. He is ministering to the assemblies that gather together all around the world through all the centuries. He ever lives to make intercession for us, and He is able to save us to the uttermost.
In spite of what we may see in ourselves and around us, there is one thing that is sure: we may fail, but He cannot fail. He is still ministering. He is still serving, building His church, until finally He will have for Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
So I believe that if we can have a revelation of Jesus Christ as the royal High Priest ministering to the church, that will give us great encouragement. He will take away all our disappointment, and we will be encouraged to press on, knowing that He will have His own church.
Yesterday morning, we fellowshipped concerning the revelation of Jesus Christ in relation to the world. In other words, we find that the redeeming work of our Lord Jesus is not limited to men.
Now, of course, men will be the very centre of His work of redemption. But we have to remember that with the fall of man, there is the fall of the world. The whole world entered into corruption, entered into vanity, and fell into the hands of the enemy of God’s purpose.
He organised this world to oppose our God. He is the god of this world, and he is the prince of this world. So the work of our Lord Jesus is not only to save us, the apple of His eye; at the same time, even the world that fell into vanity, He will restore all things back to the feet of His beloved Father.
In heaven there is another scene, the scene of His ascension. There you find One, a Lamb standing as newly slain, standing before the throne of God His Father, standing in the midst of the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures.
He came forward and took from the hand of God His Father that book which is the title deed of the world. Brothers and sisters, God is the Creator. He is the Owner of the world and all the things that are in the world.
He commissioned man to have dominion over the things of the world, to rule the world for His sake, to subdue all things unto the feet of God. That is the commission given to man. But man fell.
When man failed, the trust, the rulership, as it were, the management of this world, fell from the hand of man into the hand of Satan. So you must remember: Satan does not have the ownership of this world. God never gave up His ownership.
What Satan had was that he took from man that dominion, that governing, that rule which God had commissioned to man, into his own hand. So he was a usurper. Yet he occupied this world. He ruled over this world. He thought it was his own, but it was not his.
One day, thank God, our Lord Jesus, as the Lamb newly slain, standing in His resurrection and ascension—the Lamb upon the throne—will take that title deed from the hand of God His Father. He is the One who is worthy.
Then He began to open the seals, to reveal the plans of God, to take that which belongs to God. This is the work of our Lord Jesus in heaven.
Thank God, one day the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is towards the end of this age.
Why is it so important, not only to God, because the world belongs to Him and should return to Him, but also to us believers? It is important because when we look at the things happening around us, I think everybody seems to have a sense that the end is approaching.
When you see all the things happening today, as the Bible says in Luke 21, when people see all the things that are coming, they are frightened to death. They do not know what they should do.
But this is not true with believers. When we see all these things happening, the Bible says, “Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.”
We thank God that all these things are not accidental. Even though we find Satan trying his best to resist giving up his kingdom, and therefore there are so many wars and rumours of wars, tribulations, and all these sufferings going on in this world, yet we know that our Lord Jesus is executing His Father’s will.
He is taking the world to return it to its real Owner, even His Father. So, brothers and sisters, the Bible tells us, do not be discouraged. Do not be frightened. Things will get worse. Things will happen that we could never even imagine.
But thank God, we know Who has our back. We know Who is managing all the affairs of the world until Satan is completely defeated and the kingdom of God shall come.
So this revelation of Jesus Christ as the Lamb upon the throne gives us assurance, gives us confidence, and gives us hope.
Now this morning, we would like to consider the revelation of Jesus Christ in relation to the overcomers of the church. This will cover from chapter 1 through chapter 19.
Brothers and sisters, you know that in Old Testament times, the glory of God appeared to Abraham, and through Abraham He called out a people unto Himself. He brought His people out of Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai.
At Mount Sinai, He said:
If ye will keep My commandment and My covenant, I will make you My people out of all nations to be Mine. Ye will be a nation of priests, serving Me.
God redeemed a people to Himself, and He committed Himself to them. At that time, the whole world was worshipping idols. These people were so redeemed that they were the only people in the world who worshipped the one, only, true God.
They had His law, His covenant, His tabernacle, and His temple. The name of God was entrusted to them. God revealed Himself to these people. God committed Himself to the people, that they might be His testimony to the world.
But unfortunately, we find how the children of Israel rebelled against God again and again, until the nation was destroyed, the temple was destroyed, and the people were taken into captivity in Babylon.
But that does not mean that God had lost His testimony upon this earth. We find that God has a strategy whenever His people fail. He has a strategy, and we call it the remnant principle.
In the Old Testament, you find that even though the children of Israel as a nation were destroyed, God’s name, as it were, was no longer known on the earth. During the days of captivity, He was called the God of heaven, not the God of heaven and earth. Why? Because He had no testimony upon this earth.
But thank God, after seventy years of captivity, a remnant returned to Jerusalem. Even though the majority settled down in the land of captivity and enjoyed themselves even in captivity, there was a remnant—fifty thousand people altogether.
The Spirit of God stirred them, and they returned to Jerusalem, to a ruined place, to rebuild the temple, that God might have a name upon this earth. This is the remnant of the whole nation.
You remember that when they returned, the first thing they did was to build the altar. When they built the altar, they built it with twelve stones, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. So that is the remnant principle: when man fails, God continues to have His testimony on earth through a remnant.
You remember Ezra 9:8. Ezra prayed, “In Thy mercy, Thou hast given us a remnant.” We are a remnant.
Even when you come to the book of Romans, because the children of Israel rebelled against God, that nation was temporarily set aside, and God began to look upon the Gentiles. But that does not mean that God’s promises to Abraham and God’s promises to Israel were finished.
Now, even today, there are some people who believe that the church is the new Israel, so that the church has taken over all the covenant blessings God promised to Israel. I will not fight about this, but so far as my little understanding is concerned, I feel that God, Who promised Abraham, will always keep it.
He will never alter it, change it, or transfer it to somebody else. So even though Israel was temporarily set aside, in Romans 11 the apostle Paul said that this does not mean Israel is finished, because he himself was an Israelite. There is a remnant according to grace.
One day all Israel will be saved at the coming of the Lord, and you will find that all the promises God gave to Abraham will be fulfilled literally.
So in the Old Testament you find that this is God’s strategy. He knew how untrustworthy men were. But even though men might fail Him, He had His way of recovering all things.
When you come to the New Testament, thank God that we are living under a new covenant. It is a covenant of grace.
We are today the people of God. Israel was the people of God, but the earthly people, the physical people. We are the people of God, the spiritual, heavenly people. God has a covenant with us.
Our Lord Jesus, in saving us, has committed His name to us. He has committed Himself to us. In other words, the revelation of Jesus Christ is given to the church. Because He reveals Himself to the church, to us, He has committed Himself to us, and we have a responsibility to be His testimony in the world.
That is what you find in the very beginning. When you open the book of Acts, in the beginning, when the church was first formed on earth, beginning with one hundred and twenty believers, the glory of God was with them.
On one day, three thousand were added to that church. They all continued faithfully in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. You find that the glory of the Lord was with them. The presence of the Lord was so living.
If there was anything wrong, immediately you found discipline coming from above. They had problems, but all these problems were opportunities. When the problems were solved according to God’s wisdom, you found the church began to grow.
In the church at Antioch, the believers were first called Christians. In other words, people looked at these people, the world looked at these people, and found that they were so different.
Some may have been Jews before; some may have been Gentiles before. Yet they walked together in a way totally different from the world. They did not walk as Jews any longer. They did not walk in the manner of the Gentiles any longer. Together they walked in the way of the Lord, a totally different way of life.
It was not something forced upon them. It was something coming out of them. The presence of the Lord was with them, and it was so real. That is what the church ought to be.
Our Lord Jesus is the Overcomer. You remember in Revelation 5, when the voice went out, “Who is worthy to take the book and to open the seals?” There was no one in heaven, on earth, or underneath the earth.
Yet you find that the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome. Therefore, He is worthy to take the book, to open the seals, and to execute it.
Brothers and sisters, the first man, Adam, failed. When the first man was tempted by Satan, he failed. When man failed, the world that God had entrusted to his management fell with him.
But then God had His second Man. The second Man, the Word, became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth. While He was on earth, He was tempted just as we are, yet without sin.
After He was baptised, especially, you find that the enemy tempted Him in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, and tempted Him with everything with which man could ever be tempted. But the Lord Jesus overcame Satan and all his temptations.
Throughout His life, you find that He overcame prosperity and He overcame adversity. When people tried to lift Him up, He went to the mountain and prayed. When people tried to persecute Him, He willingly suffered. He overcame all the temptations and trials of this world.
He was a perfect Man. He had a will as we do. Now our will is a fallen will, but His will was an unfallen, perfect human will. In other words, if He willed to do anything on His own, He did not sin. Now, if we do, we sin. But He would not act on His own at all.
Throughout His life, He overcame Himself as a Man. He would never speak anything out of Himself. He would never do anything out of Himself. He would never go anywhere at His own timing. Throughout His life, He denied Himself and obeyed the Father.
He was a perfect Man. He overcame the world. He overcame Satan. He overcame sin on the cross. He overcame even Himself as a Man. He is the Overcomer, and because He is the Overcomer, He is worthy to execute God’s will concerning this world.
So, brothers and sisters, we who believe in the Lord Jesus are supposed to be overcomers. You remember 1 John 5. It is said that those who believe in the Lord Jesus as the Son of God overcome the world. What makes us overcome the world? Even our faith.
We who believe in the Lord Jesus are overcomers. We are born overcomers because we receive an overcoming life. The life of our Lord is within us. That is speaking individually.
When you speak of the church, you find that the church is the church triumphant because of the victory of Christ. Our Lord Jesus has overcome all the principalities and authorities. He has made a show of them on the cross. He cast out the devil. He has overcome, and we enter into His overcoming.
So the church on earth is supposed to be the church triumphant, overcoming sin, overcoming the world, overcoming self and the flesh, overcoming the enemy and the evil forces. That is the church.
Thank God, in the beginning the church was the church triumphant. As the church followed Christ, the church lived victoriously.
But we human beings—the flesh—there is no good in it. Even with all the goodness, the salvation, the provisions, and the light that God has given to us, whenever something comes into our hands, we quickly spoil it.
When you come to 1 Timothy, written probably around the sixties, Paul said, “What is the church?” The church is the house and pillar of truth. It is the church of the living God. It is the great mystery of godliness. That is the church.
But by the time you come to 2 Timothy, you find in 2 Timothy 2 that the apostle Paul said there is a great house. In the great house there are vessels unto honour and vessels unto dishonour, vessels of gold and vessels of clay.
If you sanctify yourself from being a vessel of dishonour, then you will be fit for the Master’s use. In other words, even towards that time, in the late sixties, you find that the church had gradually, gradually departed from Christ.
You know, when you depart from Christ, you depart from victory. The church had gradually, gradually departed until, at that time, the church had become a great house full of mixture. There were vessels unto honour and vessels unto dishonour, wooden vessels, earthen vessels, golden vessels, and silver vessels.
The call is out: if you sanctify yourself—in other words, if you are not willing to be a vessel unto dishonour, a base vessel, but you truly desire to be a vessel to honour the Lord—you can do it. You can sanctify yourself, set yourself apart from what is of man, what is base and mean, and seek the Lord and become a vessel of honour, serviceable to the Master’s use.
So you find that this idea of the remnant begins to appear in the New Testament with God’s own people, with the church. God uses a new term. It is no longer called the remnant; it is called the overcomer. But the idea is the same.
When you come to the book of Revelation, which is towards the end of the first century, you find that the call to overcome came into the church.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He called for disciples. Those who believed in Him, He called to follow Him. But now you find that He calls His disciples—He calls His church—to overcome. Why is it so? It is because of the general declension among God’s people.
Even though God’s people are saved, they are saved by grace, but they did not go on with the Lord. As our brother mentioned, they did not grow up. They did not mature. They remained as babes. They still lived according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit.
Because of this, they were being overcome instead of being overcomers. So here you find, in the last days, that the call of God to His people is the call to overcome.
Brothers and sisters, we are living in a day of declension. We are living towards the end of it. The call that came from the Lord at the end of the first century has continued until our day.
When you read the seven letters to the seven churches in Asia, those were our Lord’s letters to His church at the end of the first century. He wrote these letters to the church as a whole, but at the end of every letter He said:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. He that overcometh—
At the beginning of each letter, you find a description of the Lord Himself. In chapter 1, you find a full vision of our Lord as the royal High Priest. Then, when you come to these seven letters, you find that each letter receives, as it were, some of the revelation of the Lord Jesus in the first chapter.
In other words, our Lord has committed Himself to the church. To each local assembly there is a measure of His revelation, a measure of His commitment, a measure of the testimony that we should maintain for Him.
When you put the whole church together, there is a full revelation of Jesus Christ and a full testimony, because the church is one. But in each assembly, you find that every assembly is special. No assembly has everything. Every assembly has a particular commitment based upon revelation.
He reveals Himself, and in the measure of His revelation there is a measure of commitment. That is the measure of our testimony to the world. So you find that each letter begins with a revelation of Himself to that church.
Then He follows as the royal High Priest, looking into the golden lampstand, looking into the condition of that particular assembly, to see whether He can find Himself there. He has revealed Himself to that local assembly; now He comes to find Himself in that local assembly.
He comes to see whether that assembly is faithful to the revelation of Jesus Christ, whether that assembly responds to His revelation, and whether His revelation becomes their vocation. They live it out as a testimony to Christ Jesus.
Sadly, when our Lord Jesus came to the church, He could hardly find Himself.
There is a true story about A. J. Gordon. He was a pastor of a church in Boston. He loved the Lord, and their assembly was blessed by the Lord.
One day, when he went to the pulpit to preach, before he started to preach, while he was sitting in the pulpit, he saw a stranger walking in. An usher ushered the stranger to a certain seat.
Somehow, the stranger attracted the attention of A. J. Gordon. So when he started his sermon, all the time he was thinking, “Who is that stranger? I would like to know him.”
He decided that, as was the custom of the pastor, after the sermon was finished, he would go to the door and greet everybody. He wanted to greet that person. But when he went to the door, that person was gone.
So he asked the usher, “Who is that person?” And she said, “Don’t you know Him? It is Jesus. Jesus has come to church.”
A. J. Gordon became so convicted. “What will He think of my sermon? What will He think of the pipe organ? What will He think of the choir? What will He think of all these things? Will He approve? Will He be happy? Or will He be unhappy about it?”
That changed A. J. Gordon completely. Now, brothers and sisters, do not think that Christ will not come to us. He may be here. What will He think about us?
You may have all the good things, commendable things, religious things. In every church, you find that the Lord saw all these things. But these are things, not Himself, not His revelation. What He is looking for—nothing can satisfy Him unless His own Self is in His people.
When He came to the church at Ephesus, He found all these good things: work, labour, knowledge, truth. Yet He could not find Himself as the first love.
He is to be loved with all the heart, mind, and strength. That love was not there. The work was there, the labour was there, the endurance was there, and the knowledge was there. But the Lord was not there first.
When you come to the church in Smyrna, He encouraged them to be faithful unto death. They had been tested, but they would be tested ten more days, and they were exhorted to be faithful even unto death.
Why? Because He is the One Who died and rose again. That is His revelation. That is what He is. He wants His church to be what He is.
When He comes to the church in Pergamum, He finds that in the beginning they were faithful, but now they were departing from the truth. He looks for truth, because He is the Truth.
When you come to the church in Thyatira, He finds that there is a depth of Satan there. They have lost the simplicity that is in Christ. He looks for that simplicity.
When He came to Sardis, He found that there was a lack of living faith. In name it was alive, but in reality there was no life there. Yet He is alive.
In Philadelphia, thank God, He could find Himself. He saw brotherly love. They had not denied His name, and they had kept His word of patience. You know, this is the day of patience, the day of waiting.
In Laodicea, He found there was no reality. Everything was superficial. Everything was something other than Himself. There was no spiritual reality. He was outside the door, knocking.
So, brothers and sisters, that was the condition of the church at the end of the first century. But thank God, even though the majority had failed, there was a remnant. There were the overcomers of the church.
They were those who had ears to hear what the Spirit said to the churches. They responded.
If you read this book of Revelation, you will find throughout these chapters that you can see overcomers of the church throughout the centuries.
For instance, if you go to Revelation 7, you find a multitude, countless people there. Revelation 7:9 speaks of a great multitude which no one could number, out of every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.
Now, who are they? If you read Revelation according to the time factor, they are the overcomers of the church from the second century up to the time approaching the return of the Lord.
Therefore, you find a great multitude which no one could number. Thank God for that, brothers and sisters. Throughout the centuries, from the second century to the twenty-first century, in every century God has not failed.
God’s people have failed, but our Lord has not failed. He has had overcomers throughout the centuries, a great multitude which cannot be numbered.
When the church departed from the truth and from faith, there was always a small number who remained faithful to the Lord, faithful to the revelation of Jesus Christ, following the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
They have their robes, white robes washed by the blood. You know, they are not people superior to other believers. But one thing they have: they know the preciousness of the blood of the Lord Jesus.
They are not perfect. They have their failures. But they came through them and were washed with the blood. They maintained a living relationship with Christ.
They accepted the ministry of Christ to them. They drew near to Him, and He saved them to the uttermost.
If you turn to Revelation 12, chapter 12 is a vision. You find a vision of a woman in travail, and then you find a red dragon waiting there before the woman. That dragon is not interested in the woman at that time. He is interested in that which is in the womb.
Now, of course, people have different interpretations. I am not trying to force my interpretation upon you, because the letter kills. We just want to get into the spirit of it.
Suppose we say that this woman is the church at the end time—that is, at our time. Satan is not interested in the church at the end time, because it seems he knows the church can do nothing to him. The church is so weak, so depleted, so degenerated. Apostasy has set in already.
So he is not concerned about the church anymore, but he is concerned about that which is in the womb. In other words, the church is travailing. We are being shaken, as our brother mentioned. The church is travailing, and travailing is to produce. It is not just suffering.
Thank God, we are in the day of great shaking. Everywhere you go, in every gathering of God’s people, you find shaking there, shaking to the very core of it. You think that the whole thing will just break up. But no, God is bringing forth a man-child: the overcomers at the end time.
Because the man-child is a collective person. When you read on, you find that they overcome the accuser because of the blood of the Lamb, because of the word of their testimony, and because they love not their lives even unto death.
The overcomers of the church will fulfil the mission that Christ has given to the church. But they do it not for themselves; they do it for the whole church. They are the firstfruits.
See, all those who overcome by the blood of the Lamb are not perfect. They have their failures. But they come to the Lord and receive His ministry, and He saves them to the uttermost.
They have the word of the testimony because they are the ones who have the testimony of Jesus. They keep the testimony, and they voice it. They do not love their soul-life even unto death. They follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
You know, this is the welcoming party for the return of the Lord.
We are not waiting for death. We are waiting to be taken. That is our blessed hope.
Then you find in Revelation 15 another vision:
I saw as it were a glassy sea mingled with fire; and them that come victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name, standing by the glassy sea, having harps of God.
Now these are the overcomers in the great tribulation. Even in the great tribulation, there will be overcomers. They refuse to have the number of the beast upon them. They refuse to worship the idol, the beast. They are martyred, and they are the overcomers even during the great tribulation.
So all through the ages, you find that God still has His overcomers who carry on the testimony of Jesus.
The reason why they overcome is because Christ has overcome. Brothers and sisters, we can never overcome by ourselves. But if we follow Him, trust Him, and receive His supply and His ministry, we are more than conquerors.
So may the Lord—