It is wonderful to be here in this place and to receive the ministry we have been receiving in these days.
Please turn to Revelation 1. We want to read the same section we read last night, where John saw the vision of the Son of Man in glory, standing among the lampstands and ministering to His church.
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, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, 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 midst 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; 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.
And 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.”
Now turn to Zechariah 4, where there is a similar vision. Let us read the whole chapter.
Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and roused me, as a man who is awakened from his sleep.
And he said to me, “What do you see?”Then I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it, with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps which are on the top of it; also two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on the left side.”
Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?”
And the angel who was speaking with me answered and said, “Do you not know what these are?”
And I said, “No, my lord.”
Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.
“‘What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the topstone with shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’”
Also the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.
“For who has despised the day of small things? But these seven will be glad when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel—these are the eyes of the Lord which range to and fro throughout the earth.”
Then I said to him, “What are these two olive trees on the right of the lampstand and on its left?”
And I answered the second time and said to him, “What are these two olive branches which are beside the two golden pipes, which empty the golden oil from themselves?”
So he answered me, saying, “Do you not know what these are?”
And I said, “No, my lord.”
Then he said, “These are the two anointed ones who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth.”
And then, just a few verses from Ephesians 1.
For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
We will stop at that point. Let us have another moment of prayer.
Our Lord, we come before You to speak of things regarding the end times. We realize that without a spirit of wisdom and revelation, we will not understand the things to be spoken.
How we thank You that Your plan has been a mystery through the ages, but has been revealed through Jesus Christ. We ask that You would open to us this plan as we come before You tonight.
O Lord, we thank You for this message in these days of Your soon coming. We want to be those who are waiting, watching, and faithful.
Lord, we ask that Your Spirit would not only teach us the truth of Your Word, but stir up our hearts with a deep longing for Thy second coming. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Before we begin sharing on tonight’s topic, I would just like to share my wider burden.
Brothers and sisters, by the grace of God, I was saved in 1964 by a precious denominational gospel church that preached the gospel, and I got saved.
Probably greatly because of the influence of my father-in-law, who recently passed away, I began to witness with him. He taught me how to witness. I do not know, I got kind of stoked up, and the next thing you know, while I was still in college, I started preaching a little bit. There were these little churches that needed fill-ins, you know.
The next thing you know, I felt some kind of call on my life to be a minister. So I went to seminary after college and was ordained as a minister. After being ordained, I went out to serve in churches and also became a missionary, as it were. I was serving, preaching, reading the Bible, and testifying about who Jesus was as best I could, as one who loved the Lord.
It was almost ten years as a Christian, and six or seven years as a minister, before I had any idea of God’s eternal purpose. I had no idea what the testimony of Jesus was all about.
Not knowing these things, I unwittingly did some good things and some bad things. You know, when you do not know God’s plan and God’s way, you pretty much work out your own way. I had a way that used all the wits, humor, and manipulation I could possibly use to build the church.
I am very thankful for the brothers and sisters I met who led me to that fateful year. It was 1975. I came to my first Christian Family Conference in Richmond, and I heard things that I had never heard before.
But it changed my life. It gave me an understanding, at least in some small way, and a desire to be one who was part of God’s work, recovery, and purpose in these last days.
That moment our brother spoke about so wonderfully this morning may come very soon. Some will be snatched from the earth. There is really nothing more that needs to happen before that day.
Despite my failings and, well, just who I was, something rose in my heart that made me want to be one of those who would be ready for that great snatching away.
I did not even know about this thing, this rapture. That is another thing. I cannot tell you about all the things I did not know; it would take me too long.
But what I do want to share with you, and the reason I am speaking tonight, is this: I believe that if we are to be in sync with what the Lord is doing in these last days, we must have revelation.
Last night I tried to share something of the revelation of the testimony of Jesus. Tonight I want to share the revelation of the recovery work of the church in these last days.
The reason I stress this matter of revelation, even as I did last night, is that I believe this revelation is a necessity; it also becomes the release of grace to begin moving in that vision. In other words, we have to see before we can go that way.
We are gathered here tonight, and I am sure that almost everybody here could truly say, without apology, that you love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Otherwise, I do not know why you would be here. These are awfully long lectures for somebody who is not interested.
But I believe you are here because you love the Lord. I always have the burden, when I look over such a vast group like this, that there may be a number of people here who were just like me for the first ten years of my Christian life. I had no idea of these matters of revelation until somebody showed me these things.
That is why I have this desire to share on the matter of the revelation of this recovery work of the church. I hope the prayer in your heart is that, if you are one of those Christians like I was in those early days, the Lord will open your eyes.
I was just so glad I was saved. I was preaching and knew I was going to live a happy life. I had a good wife, a bunch of kids, and a car. I mean, what else do you need? I thought life was just going to get better and better.
I had a hard time understanding the trouble I went through. I did not know the Lord had to sanctify me and do all these things. We did not use the word sanctification.
We were talking in the prayer time before this, and one brother mentioned Brother Tozer, that wonderful prophet and speaker of the twentieth century. He had a book—and it is in the bookstore, by the way. I guess that means it will be flooded now, Mac; everybody will try to get the book.
One of the chapters is titled, “The Remnant: Strange Teaching.” When Max saw that, he thought, “Oh, I had better open that up, because maybe he has some strange idea about the remnant.” But Tozer simply said that the remnant has become a strange teaching to vast Christianity. They have no idea about the remnant.
Brothers and sisters, let me make a statement. If you are not part of the remnant, if you are not part of those who see what the Lord is really after, then that snatching moment may find you unawares.
Again, I am not trying to scare anybody. It is not even based on how much knowledge you have. It is based on how you are walking before the Lord. You can be a young Christian and be one hundred percent for the Lord, and you will be snatched away, I am convinced.
But you can have been in the Lord a long time, and if we do not know what He is doing today, we may find that we are really out of step with His plan for His people.
When we share these great matters, and when I share tonight about the Lord recovering His church in the last days, we immediately enter into things that need revelation. One of the great revelations we must lay hold of is the fact that the Lord is in sovereign control of history, of His church, and of all things.
This purpose that He has planned is described in Ephesians 1:10: in the fullness of times, He may sum up all things together in Christ. The machinery has begun for gathering all things under Christ, in heaven and on earth.
Those of you who know Romans 8:28 and quote it all the time—sometimes in the slang, “It’s all good,” which is not what it says at all—are aware that the very next verse says that those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
You are in a conforming process right now. There is a moving beyond even our understanding in the depths of our lives. The Holy Spirit, in His tremendous working, is bringing all things under the headship of Christ, even as we speak. It is toward God’s purpose and His final end. It is toward that New Jerusalem we heard spoken of before.
Do you know that is going on?
When I finally began to see some of these things, the problems coming about in my life suddenly began to make sense. The Lord was not as concerned with my comfort as He was with my character. He was working on me and giving me a hard time in order to sanctify me and shed from me some things that needed to go.
One revelation often missing in the house of God is this: the Lord is absolutely sovereign, and He is determined to do His will. He is going to do His will.
He will have a bride for His Son. He is determined that the latter glory will be greater than the former glory.
He has determined to recover whatever has been lost—not merely taking it back to its original state, but heightening the recovery by so much more of the measure of Christ and His mercy being found in these things.
Whether it is Israel He will recover, the church He will recover, the kingdom He will recover, or creation He will recover, He has decided to recover these things and make them better than they were in the original. His Son will be so much more intrinsically involved in all of these things.
He will have a church that holds the testimony of Jesus and holds it on this earth in every age as a testimony of the defeat of Satan.
He has decided to use redeemed, imperfect human beings as part of this plan. We wonder why on earth God would use us to accomplish something so vast, perfect, and wonderful. But the Lord is sovereign. He has determined it. He will do it.
This is the challenge that meets us today. When we look at the church today, I do not know how you want to define it. Some people seem so glib about it, as if the way the church is is okay.
I do not know whose definition of the church you hold, but I know this: people who really love the Lord feel that the church has fallen into great confusion.
Without going into all the doctrines that have been lost—or, even worse, the reality that has been lost—just take one matter: the oneness of the church. It is in such division today that many people who really love the Lord say, “The church is in ruin.”
It is not as though the Lord did not tell us these things. Even in His parables of the kingdom, He spoke of the fact that the kingdom as it appeared on earth would start out looking good. But things such as the leaven of our flesh, the power of human machinations, and kingdom building would come in and distort the kingdom.
Tares would come in among the wheat and cause things outwardly to fall into disarray, confusion, compromise, and coldness.
When we look at the church today, we have to decide what the Lord wants to do about it. We need to understand what He is planning to do about it. Otherwise, I suppose many people just give up on it. They say, “Oh well, I will just go to some church nearby where somebody is preaching pretty well and they have good music. That is good enough for me.”
But many of those who really love the Lord have searched the Scriptures and have been disheartened by the ruin of the church and the long decline seen in the church.
When you read of the seven churches in Revelation, you sense aspects of compromise and the world having come into the church. That is absolutely devastating to anything that could be called the testimony of the Lord.
If you are of the opinion that the church is in ruin, I think you have a valid point. But if we say that the church is in ruin and beyond recovery, then I think we are those who do not know either the Scriptures or the power of God.
Our Lord does not call on a remnant to be faithful when it is all in vain. Our Lord does not promise those who are faithful a reward and then tell a lie.
Our Lord did not waste time going to the church of Ephesus after a whole generation had passed and they had fallen from some of that original life they had, if He thought it was beyond repair and beyond recovery.
Our sovereign God is on the throne. When He determines to recover His church and have a testimony of Jesus on this earth, He will do it.
To believe in the recovery of the Lord’s testimony in these last days, when we see the present state of things—or even the state of things in our own lives—we need a revelation of the sovereignty of God. He has spoken it, and He will do it.
That brings us to where we were last night. I wanted to share a vision of recovery, even as we saw it in Revelation. John, there in exile on the Isle of Patmos, saw a vision of recovery that gave him a way forward.
He saw before him a glorified Son of Man, the Priest ministering to His church, with absolute confidence in His own ability to bring that church into full brideship and readiness.
In John’s vision there was not only the Lord, glorious before him, but the church as seven golden lampstands. He saw a spiritual reality of the church that perhaps he had lost sight of amidst the outward appearance of the church: golden churches, worthy of the priesthood of the Son of God.
Thirdly, he saw in the right hand of the Son of Man these angels, held in His hands by the Lord in order to speak prophetic messages and pass on the burden of the Lord to the various churches.
I want to look at these three aspects of this vision: the lampstands, the Son of Man in glory, and the angels, in hopes that we can see something of this revelation as John saw it.
First, we come to the golden lampstands that encircled the Son of Man. As we read in Revelation 1, when John turned to see the voice speaking to him, the very first thing he saw was the seven lampstands. He saw that they were encircling this glorious Son of Man.
Now, as soon as John saw that vision—remember, John saw this vision of Jesus Christ himself—he must have remembered the vision of Zechariah because of the similarity of the context.
Zechariah also had a vision of a lampstand, and it came in a time of recovery of the house of God. There is a connection there. There is something that applies.
Zechariah was a young prophet, and he came back with the remnant that returned from Babylon specifically to build the house of God.
When they returned, these people had sacrificed everything to come back to Jerusalem and build the house of God. With all the resources, faith, and determination they could muster, they first built an altar and sacrificed. Then, by the grace of God, they built the foundation for what would become the house of God.
But as soon as the foundation was completed, they were absolutely stopped by the enemy. Hostile surrounding neighbors sent word to the king, and the king sent back a command: the work ceased.
The people of God were in a dilemma. “What are we going to do? Our whole reason for coming back to Jerusalem was to build the house of God, and now we cannot build it. The government will not allow us to build it. What are we going to do?”
At that stage, they stopped building. They started building their own homes and tilling their own fields because they just did not know what to do.
Zechariah was one of them, and he had the same burden: “What do we do? We came to recover the house of God. How do we do it? What do we do? We need understanding. We need revelation.”
They needed a lampstand because the lampstand always speaks of light—revelation and understanding of the way forward. Zechariah was asking, “What should we do, Lord? What can we do?”
Then he saw the revelation: the lampstand, the two olive trees, and the angel standing by to explain what was going on.
Of course, he knew what a lampstand was and what olive trees were, but he did not know what it meant. So he kept asking, “Lord, what do these mean?” The angel kept saying, “Do you not know what it means?”
Sometimes we are a little spiritually dense. Zechariah saw it, but he could not make any sense of it. So the angel said, “All right, I will tell you what it means.”
Now I am going to tell you what I think the angel was saying, so you can get a double translation here—out of Hebrew and into Condonology.
Basically, the angel said, “Do you not see what this is? This is the testimony of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel has begun the work. Zerubbabel is going to finish the work, and there is no mountain that can stop it.”
What a testimony. When Zerubbabel begins, he will complete. The topstone will be put in place with shouts of “Grace, grace to it!” O mountain, what are you? You are nothing before Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel started, and Zerubbabel will finish.
But it will be done not by might nor by power. Zerubbabel will not put on his royal robes, raise up some kind of small army, and attack Persia. No. “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord.
By interpretation, that means: in the secret place, the Lord will give the saints a sense of enabling. He will give them spiritual courage and spiritual energizing, and they will simply begin to build. They will build by the working of the Spirit in their lives.
And so it was. O, the testimony of Zerubbabel. As soon as Zechariah spoke those words, the people were encouraged, and they began to build because of the Word of God. Is that not wonderful?
Now I understand the lampstand. I see what this means: it is the testimony of Zerubbabel.
Let us go back to John. There he was on the Isle of Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I have to believe that our dear brother was burdened.
As he was on the island, perhaps he received reports of problems, decline, and division in the churches of Asia Minor. With his spiritual perception, he had sensed the decline and had probably spoken to it while he was there. But now he was on the Isle of Patmos.
Adding to the problems was not only that he was out of the picture, but that the other apostles of the original twelve, and those who had been there at the beginning, had pretty much died off. Who would carry on this whole work? Besides that, the persecutions were becoming more severe.
I believe that, in the same sort of way, John was before the Lord saying, “Lord, how do we go forward? How does the recovery go forward? How can Your testimony remain among the saints in this very difficult time?”
Then he turned and saw the testimony of Jesus. He saw those seven golden lampstands, and he saw the Son of Man standing in the middle.
I do not know whether we can understand without having seen this revelation ourselves. But when John saw Jesus as he had never seen Him before—full of glory, full of confidence, full of power—everything changed.
He spoke, and words came forth from His mouth like rolling waters and a sharp two-edged sword. His eyes were burning with fire. This was not merely Jesus meek and mild. This was more than Jesus, Lamb of God. This was Jesus, all-powerful Lord of lords and King of kings.
When John saw Jesus standing in the midst of the golden lampstands, he saw that Jesus would recover His church.
That may sound very simple, but men usually think they are responsible for it. If the church is going to be built, if we are going to handle the problems, then, “Okay, men, time for one of those grueling men’s meetings. Let us get together. Let us try to do this thing. Let us try to figure it out.”
But no. John saw the lampstands and the Lord Himself ministering among the lampstands. If we do not take anything else away from that vision, I think John not only fell down as dead, but in another sense let go of all the worry.
When you see that the church is in the Lord’s hands, you let go of all the worry. Then, in resurrection life, you just do what you are told.
There are many elders, brethren, and workers who are really worried about what is going to happen in these last days—people’s hearts growing cold, decline, and all these kinds of things. We need this revelation of a Lord of glory who is well able to handle whatever needs to be done.
Before we talk further about the Lord, who is central in the whole matter, we must look at this lampstand and ask, “What are these lampstands in terms of the church?” Jesus explained at the end of Revelation 1, “As for the lampstands, these are the seven churches.”
We need to understand what this means. Let me preface it by asking you: How do you see the church? What is your definition of the church?
By revelation, John understood that the church is a golden lampstand. The church in Ephesus was a golden lampstand; all the way to the church in Laodicea, it was a golden lampstand.
He saw something that needed interpretation, but what he saw was this: to God, the church in spiritual reality is a golden lampstand.
Regardless of how you and I see it, let us talk about the Lord’s definition for a moment. This is what the Lord says the church is.
Here are seven golden lampstands, each holding the lamp of Jesus—the testimony of Jesus, as we spoke about last night. In those seven places there were seven golden lampstands and a lamp of the testimony of Jesus within each of them.
What does this golden lampstand mean, and how does it define the church? The Lord is saying that the church is of the very character and nature of God. That is to say, it is the life of the Lord Jesus—the gold. That is the spiritual reality of the church.
We may see wood, hay, stubble, and other things. But do you know something? God sees the gold of the church.
If you go back to Exodus 25, where the original lampstand was built for the tabernacle, it speaks of this character and definition of the lampstand.
Their bulbs and their branches shall be of one piece; all of it shall be one piece of hammered work of pure gold.
Then you shall make its lamps seven in number; and they shall mount its lamps so as to shed light on the space in front of it.
Let me make four comments about the description of the lampstand.
First of all, the lampstand was made entirely of gold. That is the spiritual reality of the church. What does that mean?
The foundation of the church is Christ. The head of the church is Christ. The body of the church is Christ.
It is Christ in you and Christ in me. Stephen has a very complicated mathematical formula—I am not even going to go into it—but simply put, the church from the bottom to the top is Christ. It is Christ’s life in you and me. That is the church as God sees it.
We were formed out of Christ. As our brother shared this morning, the water and the blood came out of His side. That is what the church is. It is all of gold.
Do you hear any wood in there? Is there any hay or stubble in there? It is all of gold. That is the vision of the church John saw.
Furthermore, it was all of one piece. I have never seen an artisan working in gold do something like this, but evidently they took a bullion of gold, a little ball-peen hammer, and different pieces of equipment and started banging that thing out of one piece of gold—not nineteen pieces soldered together.
Do you not see the church? It is absolutely one. There is no division in the spiritual reality of the church. It is made of one piece, out of one life, bound together and united in spirit.
Third, here is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is hammered work. You and I could say, “Oh yeah, well, that is us.” But all it means is that the Holy Spirit knows how to take that bullion, shape it, bring it out, make these branches, and construct the whole thing by hammering and hammering and hammering.
He does not hammer hard because gold is malleable—just like you. Oh no, I am sorry, just like Christ in you.
He is hammering and hammering. I wonder how long it would take to hammer something like that out. O, the skill of such an artisan.
The Holy Spirit has done exactly that in Ephesus, Thyatira, Smyrna, and Sardis. He has taken a single lump—Christ—and hammered out by the Holy Spirit this beautiful lampstand, all of one piece.
The fourth thing is that the branches were decorated with buds and almond blossoms, which are a sign of resurrection life. The whole thing speaks of resurrection life. This is the church as it is seen and portrayed here.
We might say, “All right, this is the spiritual reality up in heaven.” No, it is not. It is a spiritual reality in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira—and, wait a minute, even Laodicea.
How could there be a golden lampstand in Laodicea? We are talking about a spiritual reality that requires us to look beyond merely the outward thing, which is what we so often do. We are stuck looking at the outward and do not see the inward spiritual reality.
I do not believe we can be shaped and hammered cooperatively with the Holy Spirit until we have seen the benchmark: the spiritual reality of what the church is.
If you see the pattern, if you want to put it that way—if you see the reality—then we can be shaped into it. But if we do not know the reality, then we can be banged and twisted in any kind of way.
By the time I got out of seminary, if you had asked me about the church, I could have defined it theologically, ecclesiastically, metaphorically, pragmatically, doctrinally, and theoretically, because I had read Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Church Life.
I could have defined the church in all those ways, but I had never seen the church as God sees the church.
That is what happened in that fateful year of 1975. I came and heard the ministry in Richmond, worked with the young people, and all that kind of thing. I left the conference and went home.
Then, by the grace of God, one day I was reading my Bible, and the Lord opened my eyes. I saw her—the most beautiful church: one, glorious, in tune with her Bridegroom, pure, and functioning.
But actually, the truth of the matter is, I saw Him first. When you see Him, you see her. I saw the glorious Lord.
It took a psychosomatic toll on my life. I got sick for a while because, you see, I was a pastor. By that I mean I was the head of my church.
Then, when I saw the church, I was decapitated in a nanosecond.
When I saw the glorious Lord, I saw Him ministering to His church. He loved to minister to His church, and He was not sweating as I always sweated. He was not worried, because He and the lampstand were in complete correspondence. They were absolutely one.
He was trimming, firing up, giving fuel, and speaking about things. But there was love going back and forth because He was in control, and the lamp was responding. I saw the church like that. I am telling you, I got so spoiled.
I ended up resigning that little church and my ministry because I had no idea that was God’s reality. I had just been living in my reality.
My church was a nice little interdenominational church. We had some charismatics and some non-charismatics. They were Bible-oriented. We did not have any name; we were just Christians.
I did everything I possibly could to make my church a great imitation of His church—except I was in control of it.
Well, I went through a process. It was at that time I wrote the chorus some of you sing: “Give us vision of the beauty of the Lord.”
I cannot say I did not go through a tough time; I did. But I went through such a time of realization. It was such a time of grace, almost like being caught up into heaven. I saw something so pure that it took me a while to know how to work with reality again—with brothers and sisters who were not quite gold yet.
But the simple thing is this: in that moment, God put me on the gold standard.
Here in the United States, we used to have a gold standard for our dollar. We had to have all the gold in Fort Knox to match the amount of currency we were producing. Now our currency is based on imagination.
So the church, for many, is built on imagination. But unless you see the gold standard, you are satisfied. If you see the gold standard, you cannot be satisfied.
Everything we do has to move toward the gold standard, or it will not last—no matter how creative, imaginative, novel, or whatever it may be.
Do we see the gold standard? That is the spiritual reality of the church. That is the revelation the Lord is trying to recover. We cannot recover if we do not know what we are recovering to.
Once we see the gold standard, we understand that the Lord looked at the church and saw the gold standard. With those fiery eyes, He saw every fault and everything in it, but He knew what to do because He saw what the reality was.
It is a question of our entering in. I am not asking you to have a holy dissatisfaction with the church. I am asking you to have a revelation of the gold standard.
Then our holy dissatisfaction with the church no longer becomes a matter of blame, where we blame denominations, blame this person, or blame that person. No, no, no. When you see the gold standard, there is nobody to blame. You fall down on your face and say, “Lord, if You are going to shape me into that, then please speak to me by Your Spirit.”
The golden lampstand is wonderful, but the second aspect is the glorious Lord standing in the midst. There is no golden lampstand without the Lord in the midst, and when the Lord is in the midst, you can see the golden lampstand.
When Paul saw his great heavenly vision on the road to Damascus, he did not merely see the Lord; he saw the Lord and the body of Christ. It caught him.
The principle is the same in the Old Testament. The glory of God appeared to Abraham and sent him out. Abraham went out looking for a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.
When did he see that city? When he saw his Lord. As he went from place to place—whether in Egypt, Shechem, or wherever—he had the gold standard. “No, no, no, this is not the city. It does not have those foundations. Its Maker and Builder is not God.”
Abraham had a benchmark in his search and in his sojourn.
Dear brother and sister, no matter how young or old you are in the Lord, I hope you come to a place where the Lord can open your eyes. With a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of your glorified Lord, may you see the church in all her beauty.
What a beautiful church. Then see the Lord there in the midst, all-powerful and working there in the lampstand.
For me, it happened this way: when I saw the church as the lampstand, nobody had to tell me to repent. It was so obvious.
When the Lord has to tell His church to repent in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, it is because they have lost some of that spiritual reality of who they are in Christ. They are settling somehow for less.
When Jesus came to earth, He bore testimony of God and testimony of man. As He walked around in the Gospel of John and encountered individuals, they repented. Why? Because when they saw Jesus, they saw what a man was really meant to be like.
Even the hardened sinners—the woman at the well—when she saw Jesus, His purity, compassion, love, and self-giving love, she immediately saw what a person should be like. “Not the way I am—not bitter, full of hate, prejudice, and guarded. Look at that Man. Look at me.”
That is all it takes to repent. All you have to do is see Jesus as He really is, and you see what man is. Then we see what we are doing, and we repent.
Before I was saved, I was reading the Gospel of Luke because I attended a school that required us to read the New Testament. I had never read it before.
One day, as I was reading the Gospel of Luke, Jesus stepped off the page. I saw Jesus, the Son of Man. Nobody had to tell me to repent. I only had to know that He had an interest in me.
My, my, how beautiful Jesus is. When we see Him, we repent.
When we see our Lord as able to handle all things concerning the recovery of the church, we repent. Workers repent. Elders repent. Deacons repent. We have gotten our hands mixed up in so much stuff that actually hinders the glorious church from coming into being.
The Lord shows us these things, and we repent. We stand before the Lord of glory. What a glorious vision that is.
We cannot spend time looking at every detail in Revelation 1, but we have read it so many times. Let me say a few things.
He came before John and said, “John, stand up. This is not a matter of you dying; it is a matter of you living in resurrection life. Now listen: I am the Alpha and the Omega. Do you think I can complete what I started, John?”
“John, I was dead, and now I live, and I live forevermore. I hold the keys of Hades and of death. Do you think Satan can prevent the recovery of the church to pure gold?”
What could John say? When you see the reality of Jesus—who is all-powerful, omniscient, omnipotent, loving, and caring for His church—is there anything that can stop Him?
When you see His eyes, fire-piercing and penetrating, able to see everything we try to hide, there is no hiding before our Lord. There is only, “Lord, You found me out,” and then taking the life of the Lord and allowing Him to turn us into gold.
The Lord was looking around, ministering to the churches. The fact that He was walking in their midst implies that He was busy among the churches—looking, talking, and examining.
We want to move on to the third aspect: the angels. That is always a lot of fun. But before we do, one more thing.
How do you think John’s fellow bondservants reacted? These were those whom he described as fellow partakers in tribulation, the kingdom, and perseverance—fellow bondservants who held the testimony of Jesus.
When John saw this vision and wrote it down, he had to send it over to Asia because he was still in exile, as far as I know. He sent this revelation, this Book of Revelation as we call it. How do you think his fellow workers responded?
I will define a bondservant as anybody who really loves the Lord, has experienced tribulation and consolation, and has persevering faith. How do you think they responded?
I believe there were shouts, praises, glory, blessing, renewed faith, and new vision. John said, “You know what I saw? I turned, and I saw.”
You and I see a book that has been around a long time with a black cover. But when it was first sent to these people, they had never heard this before.
John was saying, “You know Jesus, whom I have known all my life, dear brothers and sisters? I saw Him in a new way today. It liberated me and helped me see. Jesus is opening the scrolls of the destiny of the universe. Jesus is working on each of the churches to bring it to recovery. He can do it.”
“I saw this about the church.” I bet half of those bondservants, just like John, had forgotten the gold of the church and saw more of the trash, until their vision was realigned to the spiritual reality of the Lord.
The glorious vision of Jesus is the center of everything, including the fact that He held angels in His right hand. How vital it is for the church to have men and women who have been laid hold of by God, given vision and a burden to speak the heart of God to His church.
This whole prophetic dimension is essential. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Brothers and sisters, it is wonderful that in all our assemblies we have brothers able to teach Bible truth, share the gospel, and bring an inspiring message when we break bread together. But we still need angels.
We need those who can share the Lord’s heart, those who can open our understanding to what the Lord is doing, what the Lord is about, and what the Lord sees.
These angels, just as in the case of Zechariah, are interpreting what the Lord is revealing. The angel had to explain to Zechariah the things that were going on.
The church, as it holds the testimony of Jesus, will have its supply of angels.
John, concerned about the loss of the other apostles and perhaps his own soon demise if the Lord did not return, must have wondered how this recovery could continue. How would the church be ministered to if he never got out of exile? Who would share the truth with these churches?
How wonderful to see that in the Lord’s glorious hand, He had laid hold of some messengers. He would use these messengers to speak with the various churches.
Of course, answering the question of who these angels are can only get me into trouble. There are great differences of opinion. Some believe there is an actual angel—not a human being, but an angel—over each of the seven churches.
Frankly, I hope there is an angel over each church. In every place we meet, I hope there is an angel over us, because we need all the help we can get.
But I am constrained to believe that these angels, being held by the Lord, are not non-corporeal angels, but men who have been laid hold of and dealt with.
Some interpret Revelation 2 and Revelation 3 as the Lord speaking to the angels of the churches rather than to the churches themselves. I will leave that aside; I do not go along with that. But these are men who have been laid hold of by God to recover and speak of the testimony of Jesus in the midst.
Let me put it on a broader scale. Every great recovery of God throughout the centuries in His church has had an angel. There has been a man who saw something.
He went through a process in which the Lord dealt with him and brought him into some measure of reality regarding the thing he spoke about. Then, as he spoke, something happened.
As Luther spoke, chains fell off. As John Wesley spoke, sanctification became a living reality. As Zinzendorf spoke, the church was baptized in love.
There was an angel necessary to share the heart of God with the people, and in the midst of that there was recovery.
When we look at it on that large scale, we usually see that one man was raised up. But there are several things to say.
First, if the Lord lays hold of an angel, that person never thinks he is an angel. He is simply somebody to whom the Lord has given a burden.
Second, there are actually many other angels in the midst as well, perhaps just as faithful, although their names have not been attached to a movement.
Whenever you read the history of any great recovery—whether the Moravians, the Wesleyans, or the Brethren—some names immediately rise to the top because these men received special revelation that brought recovery to the church.
But the fact of the matter is that there were other brothers, very faithful brothers. The Lord was showing Himself to them also, and they were sharing as well. These are angels.
Can we say there is one angel for each church? In this case, there are seven angels for the seven churches. I do not think we should make a fixed rule about that. I am not talking about there being a pastor for every church; that is how some people interpret it. I do not agree with that.
But I do believe this: the Lord wants to speak His heart to every church that holds the testimony of Jesus. We must find the prophetic burden of the Lord in our assembly, whether it is brothers together, a few brothers, or one brother.
Frankly, throughout my Christian life, and especially after those first ten years, angels have come to me in a book and on a tape. I would not rule that out.
Perhaps there are small assemblies that do not have any particularly prophetic ministry in their midst. But I tell you what: if you have a heart for God, you will find God’s burden.
I am very thankful for the Christian Testimony Ministry website. Whenever I want to really think about something, I will get T. Austin-Sparks. He speaks so slowly I can take a nap between the words.
But listen: that man was an angel. That man is still an angel. He speaks even today because we have access to things like that.
This is not a parade of angels. It is simply to say that part of the recovery work involves prophetic ministry: the Lord laying hold of some who can speak in that prophetic ministry.
How we need to pray that the Lord would raise up men who can speak with this kind of heart that brings about recovery.
What a wonderful work of recovery. Even with the angels, we must still say that it is the Lord who sovereignly recovers His church by His own ability and by His various means.
How do we usually see it happen? Looking at it on a large scale, there are four steps to recovery. How can the Lord recover, even in these days—perhaps very soon before the snatching away of those ready for the Lord? Until that time, how can we be faithful?
The Lord is looking for those who see the gold standard and travail for the Lord’s revelation and reality to come to the church. There is a travailing in prayer for the revival of His people.
The church gets to such a low ebb that I find my own heart praying for revival. When I think of New York City and the churches there, I pray, “Lord, bring revival. Just revival.”
Revival is where the spiritual water level rises. People begin to see again what holiness is, righteousness is, love is, and forgiveness is. There is revival among the people of God.
It always starts with the church. People who have held differences for years are reconciled. They repent of things that have left them in compromise, return to holiness, and the Lord revives.
Out of travail, the first step comes: revival. The second step comes in the midst of revival, when the angels usually rise up.
In their speaking, they find a new aspect of reality—or no, not new. They recover an aspect of reality in the body of Christ: something lost, something obscured.
Whether it is sanctification, justification by faith, or the power of the Holy Spirit, they lay hold of something true—an aspect of the life of God that is true. Something specific is recovered in that period of time.
Then the water level goes down, as it inevitably does in a revival. But as it goes down, there are some: a remnant, those with vision and those with heart.
When the level was high, they saw something. They saw something pure. They saw something real.
So when the water level goes down, you find these people gathering together as one. They understand something new about the Lord, while also laying hold of all those things from the past.
It is wonderful to read the history of revivals and recovery. Often recovery is not spoken about, but when true revival comes and the waters recede, you find companies of God’s people who have seen something higher, deeper, and more wonderful.
Often they have experiences similar to those seen throughout church history: recovering love of the brethren, recovering prevailing prayer, and other matters that become lost in the compromise of church life.
May we pray with travail. May the Lord bring revival. May the Lord bring His voice in revival to show us something.
I still believe personally two things. I am through, by the way. This is it.
First, there is still more to be recovered. Of course, the problem is that we do not know what it is until the light shines on it and we see what it is.
Second, I believe personally that, if the Lord tarries, it is time for another reviving and for the recovery of something more.
When I look over the history of things and see the time sequence, there has been a generation since the last moving of recovery that I am aware of here in the United States. I wonder whether the time is not soon when the Lord will revive His church again.
But when He revives His church, do not just swim up in the waters, have a good time, and then let the waters go back down. When the waters go back down, we think, “Oh well, now we are okay.”
But no. When the waters rise high, we realize the Lord wants to deal with foundational things that need to be recovered.
May we find ourselves, if He tarries, in a time of reviving. We have so many precious young people who love the Lord more than you old folks and I ever did when we were their age.
I wonder whether their cry will not reach up to heaven, and whether the Lord will not grant them mercy so that they can say, “I have seen the testimony of Jesus over His people.” Would that not be wonderful?
“I have been part of the life of the church that was golden. I have touched it. I have seen it.”
O, may that be the reality in our midst. But it comes in revelation. It comes when we see, as the Lord wants us to see, His church bought with a price and being perfected as a bride for the Bridegroom.
May the Lord help us, give us vision, and give us travailing and prevailing prayer, that the Lord might show Himself again before He gathers us to Himself.
Lord, that is our prayer as we come to You tonight. We thank You so much for Your love for us and Your care for Your children.
We thank You for our young people. Lord, they are such a blessing to see. Would You place a burden in their hearts, even as You did in young Evan Roberts when he was just a young boy, to pray for revival among Your people and in his country?
Lord, bend us and bring about Your presence in revival.
Lord, we thank You for Your precious Word. Help us to see You high and lifted up. Help us to see Your church as You define it, and not as we define it.
Give us eyes to see the spiritual reality, that we may find ourselves, by the Spirit of God, being hammered into conformity with that which is Your desire. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.