Will you please turn to the book of Revelation?
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show unto His bondservants, even the things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John;
who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein: for the time is at hand.
Yes, would you do that?
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 became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
And I fell down before his feet to worship him. And he saith unto me, See thou do it not: I am a fellow servant with thee and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: worship God; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, as we gather here in Thy presence, our hearts are full of gratitude. We thank Thee that, in these troublous days, Thou shouldst grant us this opportunity of peacefully gathering before Thee.
We thank Thee for all Thy love for us. Thou dost want to prepare us for Thy imminent return.
We look to Thee to speak to us this morning. May Thy Spirit speak directly to our spirit. Reveal Christ in us, that we may not only hear about the testimony of Jesus, but that we may have the testimony of Jesus.
We praise Thee because it is Thy desire that we should be those who bear Thy testimony. And, Lord, we cannot do it except Thou do it in us.
So this morning we want to open ourselves to Thee, that Thy word may fall into fertile ground, that there may be fruit unto Thyself. We want to give Thee all the glory.
We ask humbly in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, we thank the Lord for gathering us together. I often feel that, in such an hour, such a gathering is really the mercy of God.
I thank the Lord for giving this burden to the brethren concerning our theme: recovering the testimony of Jesus. This is the most vital and important theme in the Word of God.
It is our prayer that this may not be just a theme for our time together. This may be our life, our reality. It is not something for us merely to talk about.
We want to open our hearts to the Lord, that His Holy Spirit may send God’s word into the deep depths of our being, so that, by the grace of God, we may be among those who have the testimony of Jesus.
The responsibility that has been laid upon me is to speak about the declaration and recovery of the testimony of Jesus. In other words, I am supposed to lay the groundwork for our other brothers.
So this morning I would like to share with you, dear brothers and sisters, what the testimony of Jesus is, and to whom that testimony is entrusted.
When you turn to the last book of the Word of God, the book of Revelation, you find this term: the testimony of Jesus Christ. You also find the word testimony with the implication that it is the testimony of Jesus.
In the book of Revelation, this is repeated seven times. For instance, as you turn to this book, in the beginning it is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Here you find that the revelation of Jesus Christ is given by none other than God the Father. The Father gave that revelation to His beloved Son for His Son to pass on to His brethren, His bondservants.
You will find, in the very beginning, that He said, “to show to His bondservants what must shortly take place.” So it is given to Christ’s bondservants.
Are we not His bondservants, being redeemed by His precious blood? We are those who are bought with a price. We do not belong to ourselves; we belong to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
We are His bondservants. We have no right or liberty of our own. We have surrendered ourselves completely to Him. And it is to such a people that the revelation of Jesus Christ is given.
Here you find that John, having received such a revelation, began to testify of it. He “bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
In other words, the revelation of Jesus Christ is the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
You know, brothers and sisters, when we read the book of Revelation, probably our chief interest is in the prophecies in that book. I remember when I was a young Christian, how I spent time studying prophecy, because I felt prophecy was very interesting. I wanted to know what was going to happen. It really satisfied my curiosity. I wanted to know what God had revealed about coming events.
But, brothers and sisters, is that the real reason why God gave us the revelation of Jesus Christ?
If you read very carefully, you will find that God’s interest is not merely to tell us what is going to happen—coming events in the future that will satisfy our curiosity. There is always that temptation when you start to study prophecy: gradually, you become almost a prophet.
But this is not the reason why God gave us the book of Revelation. He reveals all these coming events for one purpose: to reveal Jesus Christ.
The whole book of Revelation tells us who Jesus is and what He is going to be. God’s purpose is to exalt His beloved Son. That is the purpose of the book of Revelation.
Indeed, the whole Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Our brother already mentioned last night that these sixty-six books of the Holy Bible seem to include so much, but simply put, they are just a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Because it is God’s eternal purpose. Even before the foundation of the world, even before there was time and space, God had already made up His mind. He made up His mind according to His good pleasure. There is something that pleases His heart most.
According to His good pleasure, He purposed a purpose. Then, with that purpose in mind, He began to work. He worked through time in order to accomplish His own purpose.
And His own purpose is none other than the revelation of Jesus Christ. He wants everybody to know about His Son. He wants us to know His Son as much as He is revealed. He wants to tell every one of us what is going to happen to His Son.
That is what the whole Bible is talking about. Lay hold of the Son, and the whole Bible is an open book. If we are bogged down with all the details, then we will be totally confused.
Revelation, being the last book of the Bible, is the summing up of all that has been revealed in the preceding sixty-five books. It is summed up with this term: the testimony of Jesus.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we can see very clearly that unless we know what the testimony of Jesus is, we miss the whole meaning of the Word of God.
And if our life is not governed by the testimony of Jesus, then our life is out of the will of God. The testimony of Jesus is to be our very life, and it is that which we testify before the world.
So it is intensely important, brothers and sisters, that we should know what the testimony of Jesus is.
Now, it is impossible to go over the sixty-six books of the Bible and try to tell what the testimony of Jesus is. So this morning we would like to choose one witness. Through that witness, we will see what the testimony of Jesus is.
Of the twelve disciples of our Lord Jesus, there is one who was closest to our Lord. He is the disciple whom Jesus loved. He followed the Lord Jesus from the very beginning to the very end.
He received much revelation from God, and what God revealed to him, he testified to us as the testimony of Jesus.
We remember that this disciple wrote one of the four Gospels: the Gospel according to John. Let us turn to John 1.
John wrote his Gospel beginning in this way:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made.
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
This is the beginning of everything. It is even before the beginning found in Genesis 1:1. Before the beginning of the heavens and the earth, before there was time, there was a beginning. And in the beginning was the Word.
As our brother has already explained to us, the Word here is the very expression of God. This Word was with God, and this Word was God. Not only that, but everything that was created was created through Him.
In Him is life, and life is the light of men.
Then in John 1:14:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
One day, in time, the Word became flesh. We all know that this is the incarnation. He came into this world, and He was full of grace and truth.
The apostle John said, “We beheld His glory.” Not merely did we know Him casually, but we really took notice of Him. We really studied Him. The more we considered Him, the more we saw that He had the glory of the Son of God.
And this you find in the whole Gospel of John.
Then, if you move to 1 John, the first epistle of John, you find from verse 1:
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life.
“That which was from the beginning” refers to His eternity. Before there was creation, He was already there with His Father.
“That which we have heard” refers to the Old Testament, because by studying the Old Testament, we have heard about Him.
“That which we have seen with our eyes” refers to the time of His incarnation. When He came to become a man, the apostle John was an eyewitness.
“That which we beheld”—many people saw our Lord Jesus when He was on earth, but they did not know Him. Here, however, you find some who really beheld Him, who really put their heart into searching. They found in that Man the glory of God, the glory as of the Son with the Father.
“And our hands handled” refers to His resurrection. After He was resurrected, you could handle Him; you could touch Him.
All this refers to one Person: He is the Word of Life. This is what you find in 1 John.
Then, if you turn to the book of Revelation, you find in Revelation 1:17-18 that John was exiled to the island of Patmos for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus.
The Word of God and the testimony of Jesus were worthy of a person’s suffering. John was willing to suffer exile to a desert island for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
It was while he was in exile that the Lord Jesus gave him what we call the Patmos vision. John knew the Lord so well. When our Lord was on earth, he was one who laid upon the bosom of our Lord Jesus. He was the one who drew out from the Lord the secret.
Yet on the island of Patmos, when that heavenly vision was revealed to him, he saw a revelation of our Lord Jesus that he had never seen before. He saw the Lord in glory. He saw the Lord as the great High Priest concerning His own church.
When he saw that vision, he fell down as dead. Then our Lord touched him and raised him up. Our Lord began to say something most important to him. This is what our Lord testified of Himself:
I am the first and the last, and the Living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
The Lord said, “I am the first and the last.” He is the first.
If you remember Revelation 1:8:
I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.
This is a description of God, and yet you find that the same description is proclaimed and claimed by the Son. He said, “I am the first.” He is the beginning, the beginning of all things.
This is the will of God. To put it another way, if anything does not begin with Christ, then it is something unworthy. Every beginning has to be Christ, and He has to have the first place in all things.
You remember Colossians 1:18. It tells us that it is the will of God that He should have the first place in all things. Everything has to begin with Him. Our life begins with Him. Everything that we do begins with Him. He must have the first place in our life.
This is the glory of our Lord Jesus. Now, this is not just a word; it has to be a reality, because this is a testimony we need to testify to the world: that our Lord Jesus is the first in our life.
Have we really considered this matter before the Lord? Is the Lord the first in our life? It is easy for us to say it, but is it a false testimony or a true testimony?
Can we stand before the Lord and say, “Lord, You are the first in my life”?
As we consider Christians today, how often in our lives do we put other things first before our Lord. We put ourselves first. We are our first consideration. Or perhaps it is our family, our future, or our own business that is first in our life.
Dear brothers and sisters, how this testimony tests us. Is Christ Jesus really the first in my life? This is the testimony of Jesus. If you really allow the Lord Jesus to be first in your life, then you have the testimony of Jesus.
It is true that you may suffer because of that testimony, but that is worthwhile. The word of the testimony is true.
If we really have such a life, the word of our testimony overcomes the enemy. You remember Revelation 12. Those overcomers among Christians overcome the accuser because of the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.
They testify that Jesus is first in their life, and their word is powerful. Their word shuts the mouth of the accuser.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the testimony of Jesus is a real thing. It has to be true in each of our lives. We need to take Him as the first in our life.
He said, “I am not only the first; I am also the last.” The last does not mean that He is the last one in my life.
It does not mean that I am first, my family is second and third and fourth, and the Lord Jesus Christ is last. No. The “last” here means that He is the end.
Everything has to sum up in Him. Everything has to have Him as the One who has the last word. To put it another way, He is the purpose of my life.
This is what our Lord Jesus testified of Himself, and this testimony is entrusted to us.
He is the Living One. This speaks of His essence: He is life Himself. In Him was life, and life was the light of men. Outside of Him there is no life. Outside of Him, everything is dead.
He is the Living One, and thank God, He lives in us. As we are living in this world, are we really living by His life?
What is Christian life? What is spiritual life? It is not how we live by ourselves. You may try to live the best you can, and you may appear to people to be most godly; but if it is from ourselves, it is dead work. Dead work is something we have to repent of.
Christ is our life. We have to live by His life day by day. Thank God, He ever lives, interceding for us unceasingly, that He may save us to the uttermost.
So, brothers and sisters, the most important thing in knowing Christ is to know that He is the Living One. How much of Him as life do we really experience?
Then He said, “And I became dead.” This speaks of His coming into this world. It is the strangest thing that the Living One became dead.
Why did He become dead? He was the object of life, and yet He came to this world and became dead. That speaks of His crucifixion.
He entered into death and robbed death of its power, delivering all those who, throughout their life, were under the bondage of the fear of death. That speaks of the finished work of Christ on Calvary’s cross.
No one could take His life. He said, “I lay down My life of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” He is the only One who entered into death and came out of death victorious.
Then He said, “Behold, I am alive for evermore.” This speaks of the present state of our Lord Jesus after He has accomplished the work of redemption. He has ascended on high, and He is living to the ages of ages because He has overcome.
He has the keys of death and of Hades. The keys of death and of Hades formerly were in the hand of Satan, the adversary of God. He used death and Hades to put people into bondage.
But thank God, the keys of death and Hades are now in the hand of the victorious Lord. Here you find a present ministry of our Lord Jesus to us.
He is now in heaven, but He is still busily ministering to His church. He is applying all that He has accomplished on Calvary’s cross upon each and every one of us personally, that we may live a victorious life, glorify His name, bear His testimony, and be those who bring back the King.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the testimony of Jesus, and this testimony has been entrusted to the church.
Now, if you return to the Gospel according to John, John 15, we are reading from verse 26:
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me:
and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.
After the last supper of our Lord Jesus with His disciples, He poured out His heart to His disciples. While He was talking to those whom He loved, He gave them a precious promise: the promise of another Comforter.
Another Comforter is One who is like Him. While He was with them, He was their Comforter. In other words, He was alongside them, and He took care of them.
But now He was leaving them. Yet He did not leave them as orphans. He said, “I go, but I will send to you another Comforter”—another Comforter who is like Me.
While I am with you, I can only be alongside you. But there is another Comforter coming. He will be in you, and He will never leave you. That Comforter is the Spirit.
When the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, shall come, what is His mission? The Lord said, “He shall bear witness concerning Me.”
The Holy Spirit came for one purpose: to testify to our Lord Jesus. He is, as it were, the custodian of the testimony of Jesus.
But there is something more. Our Lord Jesus has entrusted His own testimony to the Holy Spirit, and He said, “Ye also bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.”
That is to say, the testimony of Jesus is not only entrusted to the Holy Spirit, but it is also entrusted to the church.
You find this in the book of Acts. In Acts 1:8, before the Lord Jesus ascended, He told His disciples:
But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
He told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem. Naturally speaking, the disciples had seen our Lord Jesus risen from the dead, and now they were going to see our Lord Jesus ascend up to heaven.
Knowing all these glorious facts, they were most anxious to go out and bear witness for the Lord. They thought they were well equipped for that.
But strangely, our Lord Jesus said, “Wait. Go back to Jerusalem. Wait for the Holy Spirit to come. When He shall come, you will receive power, and you shall be My witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Thank God, one hundred and twenty of His disciples listened to the Lord. They returned to Jerusalem and gathered together in that upper room.
They spent ten days waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. They were not waiting passively. They waited because they gave themselves to continuous prayer with one accord.
When the day of Pentecost came, the Holy Spirit came down, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they began to bear witness.
Brothers and sisters, here you find the secret of fulfilling the mission of bearing the testimony of Jesus.
If you read the book of Acts, you will find how powerful and glorious their testimony was, and how successful the testimony of Jesus was.
Within perhaps thirty-seven years, the gospel had already spread all over to the end of the earth—not only in Jerusalem, but in all Judea, Samaria, and even to the end of the world as it was known at that time.
More than that, you find how those who believed in the Lord Jesus gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus. They continued steadfastly in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
How they loved one another. How they were delivered from their self-possessiveness. They began to live a way of life that had never been known in the world before.
Every people has its way of life. The Jews have their way of life. The Gentiles have their way of life. Every nation has its own way of life. But here you find a new, heavenly way of life that was never seen before on earth.
All the barriers and distinctions in this world were overcome. They overcame the distinctions of race. Jews and Gentiles came together as one. In this body there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither bondservant nor free man. They were all one in Christ.
How they exalted the Lord Jesus. Their way of life was the way of Christ, because Christ said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
You see the early church, how they really walked in this way of Christ. How could it be?
The secret is because the Holy Spirit was with them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. They were under the full control of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit is the power of God. He is the One who is able to bear the testimony of Jesus. How faithful He is. How glorious He is.
If we lean upon Him, if we are really under His full control, then it is “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.”
That is the secret of the church in the early days. They did not depend upon themselves. They were people just like us. They had their problems, and yet there was one thing that was really prominent: the presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst was so real and living.
He was in charge, and all these believers surrendered themselves to God. No wonder they were able to bear the testimony of Jesus.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is what you find in the beginning. The testimony of Jesus has been entrusted to the church, and the church is supposed to be responsible for that testimony.
That is what you find in Revelation 2 and 3. In Revelation 1, you have the heavenly vision. When you read Revelation 2 and 3, the vision descends to the seven churches in Asia.
You find at the beginning of every letter an introduction taken from that heavenly vision in Revelation 1. In other words, Christ has committed His testimony to His church.
Today, as the great High Priest, He ministers to the church. He is watching to see whether the church is able to fulfill His testimony.
He is well able to supply the oil. Through His discipline, the church is to be brought into the place where it is able to fulfill the testimony of Jesus.
These matters we will, by the grace of God, continue with later.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we do praise Thee that Thou hast revealed Thyself to us, and that Thou hast committed Thyself to us.
O dear Lord, we do confess that in ourselves there is neither strength nor wisdom to really fulfill what Thou hast entrusted. We trust Thy Holy Spirit to bring us into faithfulness.
Reveal Thyself to us, O Lord, and bring us into that submission to Thee, that we may be able to fulfill what Thou hast entrusted.
We want to give Thee all the glory.