Heard the word of prayer.
We thank You, Lord, for the privilege of gathering together in Your precious name, for the privilege of worshiping You, Lord, our Lord, Savior, and King. And Lord, indeed, what we just sang is our prayer: that we may see You and become captives of You, Lord.
So, Lord, we entrust this time to You. We pray that You would be in this time, Lord, sovereignly, and that Your Holy Spirit would be in charge of the whole time, revealing Yourself to each one of us.
We entrust this time to You, even as we sang yesterday, Lord, that You may take the bread of life and give it to us. Lord, You are the only One who can do that. And we all come to You as those who have in ourselves almost nothing, Lord. Yet we present it to You and pray, “Lord, would You give of Yourself to each one of us this morning?”
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
I would like to read a couple of Scriptures this morning, starting from our theme verse in Revelation 1. Would you turn there with me?
I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
And the dragon waxed wroth with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed, that keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus.
Here is the patience of the saints, they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Now turn to 1 John, the first epistle of the apostle John. We want to read a couple of verses in chapter 5.
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him:
he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar;
because he hath not believed in the witness that God hath borne concerning His Son.And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
He that hath the Son hath the life;
he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.
Just a little parenthesis: that word witness is sometimes translated as testimony. It is the same Greek word. Some English translations have “witness”; some have “testimony.” So, the one who believes in the Son of God has the witness, or testimony, in himself.
Now turn to the Gospel of John. We want to read two verses in John 20, the last two verses of the chapter.
Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book:
but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing ye may have life in His name.
Finally, we want to read the other theme verse for this conference in Hebrews 12.
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.
Several of the things I have in my heart to speak this morning, I realize, have already been touched upon by other brothers. That is kind of to be expected when you speak on the fourth day of the conference, so no surprises there.
Still, we would like to go over these things, perhaps from a slightly different angle, trusting that the Lord, by His grace and by the Holy Spirit, can make this not merely a pointless repetition, but something through which He can cause us to see more clearly and especially to enter in a deeper measure.
As you may suspect from what we read and from the theme of the conference, what is in my heart for this time is to consider together this little phrase that we find in Revelation: the testimony of Jesus.
This conference is about passing the torch of the testimony. By now, it should be clear to us that we are talking about the testimony of Jesus. This phrase, of course, is found in Revelation, and we would like, by the grace of the Lord, to consider it together in the Scriptures we have read.
I have to confess that I had prepared an opening question, and our brother Stephen already used it. But what was strongly in my heart as I prepared for this time was this: if we are talking about passing the torch of the testimony, and we are not absolutely clear about what this testimony is, what are we passing on?
That should be obvious. Yet, if you are anything like me, we have the capacity sometimes to miss things that are obvious. If we are really going to pass the testimony of Jesus—the torch of the testimony—we must be absolutely clear about its essential nature. Otherwise, perhaps something will be passed that is not quite what the Lord intended. There will be some loss in the process.
So that was the opening question in my heart as I meditated on this matter: What is the essential nature of this testimony that we are called to maintain and to pass on? What is this testimony of Jesus?
Before I go there, two preliminary thoughts came to my heart that I feel are important to mention. They concern that word testimony, sometimes translated as witness.
If you are talking about testimony or witness, it is implied in that word that a firsthand experience has happened. It should be obvious; however, I feel it is in order for us to remind ourselves of it.
A testimony or a witness implies that some sort of firsthand experience has happened. To state the obvious, if you read about a crime in the newspaper, you can rest assured that no judge is going to summon you to court to witness concerning that crime, because it was not a firsthand experience. You only read about it.
So this whole matter we are talking about—and this has been a recurring thought, message after message—is not merely knowledge that we acquire or teaching that we receive. It is a firsthand experience.
There is, however, a difference in spiritual matters. Suppose, by means of a simple example, that you are standing at an intersection and happen to see a car accident. By virtue of having stood there and seen it, you are qualified to be a witness. That is true in the legal, natural realm.
But in spiritual matters there is something different. When the Bible speaks of testimony, the implication is not merely that you were an incidental witness. It is not simply that you happened to have a firsthand experience of something that did not touch your heart.
This matter of testimony in Scripture implies not merely firsthand experience, but a firsthand experience that affects you in the deepest possible way. It is a life-captivating experience—not just firsthand, but firsthand in a way that arrests your heart.
It is quite interesting to me that, in the theme verse in Revelation, John writes:
I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Brother Sparks wrote something about this verse that touched me. It is interesting that in almost all of his writings, the apostle John conceals his name. In the Gospel, we find “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” and we have to do our homework to see that he is John. Somehow, he hides his name in the Gospel and in the epistles.
But then we come to Revelation, and John says, “I, John, was in the isle of Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” Do you see how completely John is identified with this matter, the testimony of Jesus?
It is almost as if he is saying, “The testimony of Jesus is what gives meaning to my life. The testimony of Jesus is the reason for me being here. The testimony of Jesus is something for which I am willing to pay a price.” Here he is, on the island of Patmos, because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
So, when we speak of the testimony of Jesus, yes, it is a firsthand experience, but it is much more than that. It is a firsthand experience that arrests your life, gives meaning to your life, and makes you willing, because of what you have seen, to pay a price and give your life to that testimony.
“I, John, because of the testimony of Jesus.”
I have not yet defined the essential nature of the testimony of Jesus. These are simply thoughts that we need to keep in the back of our minds as we explore the matter.
What is the essential nature of the testimony of Jesus? One wonderful thing to me, as I was studying and preparing for this time, was to realize more clearly than ever that the word testimony, sometimes translated as witness, is a word the apostle John uses in a very special way.
If my counting was correct, in John’s writings—the Gospel, the epistles, and Revelation—you find that word used eighty-three times. That is roughly half of all its uses in the New Testament. To me, that was amazing. It gives the impression that this word is always in John’s mind as he writes: testimony.
In 1 John, I feel we have a very direct definition of what this matter of testimony is. We read 1 John 5:11:
And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
There it is. What is the essential matter? What is the crux of it all?
And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
Immediately, John gives a second verse explaining the first. It is not that God has given us life as a thing in itself, nor that the Lord Jesus has communicated to us something separate from Himself. After stating that God has given us life and that this life is in His Son, John says:
He that hath the Son hath the life.
Do you see the matter behind the testimony? It is not life as a thing, or merely as an experience. God has given us the Son. In the Son—in this glorious Person who was given to us—is life, eternal life.
The testimony is this: God has given us life, and this life is in the Son.
Sometimes, if you are like me, we can be rather dull or slow in understanding spiritual matters. I thank the Lord because we have a picture of this matter of testimony. In the epistle of John, we have direct language defining the testimony: life in the Son. You have the Son; you have life in Him. That is the testimony.
But thank the Lord, because in Scripture we also find a picture. There is that famous proverb: a picture is worth a thousand words. Because we are often slow in grasping spiritual matters, the Lord has left us with a wonderful picture of what the testimony is: the Gospel of John.
It is interesting to notice that John’s first epistle closes in almost the same way as the Gospel. The conclusions of both writings have almost exactly the same thought structure.
In 1 John, after speaking about the testimony, John concludes:
These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.
Then, in the Gospel, at the conclusion of John 20—before the appendix of chapter 21—John says:
But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing ye may have life in His name.
Do you see the correspondence? “These things are written”; “these are written.” Believing; believing. Life; life. The thought structure is almost the same in both endings.
But in 1 John you have the word testimony, while it is not used in the same way at the conclusion of the Gospel. Instead, you have another word that is virtually equivalent: signs.
John says, “These signs were written.” In 1 John he is speaking about testimony, but in the Gospel he says that these signs were recorded. What is a sign?
A sign is not quite the same as a miracle or a wondrous act. A sign implies something more. There is an act being done, no question about it, but a sign implies that there is a lesson beyond the act being performed. The sign points to something greater than itself.
Sometimes we read the signs in John merely as wonderful acts that the Lord Jesus performed to meet the need of the hour. Yes, that is true. The Lord Jesus did meet the need of the hour in a wonderful way. However, the signs are much more than that.
They point to something much larger than the action being performed. If you will, the signs are a testimony to a Person. They reveal this Person. They reveal His character, His dealings with us, and His work in our lives. They are the testimony of Jesus.
We do not have time to go into detail concerning all eight signs recorded in John, but I would like to give a few pointers. There seems to be a common pattern behind all of them.
In every sign, there is either a situation of lack—something missing—or something that speaks of human weakness, limitation, or infirmity.
Think of the first sign the Lord Jesus performed: the wedding at Cana, where He turned water into wine. Do you see the lack there? They are at a wedding, and suddenly the wine runs out. That would have been a complete disaster and a shame for a wedding in those days.
The wine ran out.
Or think about the sign in John 6. There is a great multitude—five thousand men, besides women and children. The Lord asks how they are going to feed them. Andrew says, “There is a lad here, who hath five barley loaves, and two fishes: but what are these among so many?” Do you see the lack? Do you see that something is missing?
Of course, we know how our Lord Jesus feeds that multitude. Or consider the last sign in the book. Peter and seven other disciples labor all night trying to fish, and at the end of the night they have caught nothing.
Lack. Then, with one word from our Lord—“Cast the net on the right side of the boat”—they catch one hundred and fifty-three great fishes.
There are, in a sense, two categories of signs. In some, you see lack in the foreground. In others, you see human limitation, weakness, or infirmity.
In John 5, there is a man who has been unable to walk for thirty-eight years. In John 4, the son of the royal official is dying with a fever. In John 11, Lazarus dies, and our Lord Jesus—the One who is the resurrection and the life—raises him.
The background of all these signs is either lack or limitation. Yet in every one of them, our Lord Jesus—the One to whom the signs testify—is the One who reverses the situation and changes everything.
As I meditated on these matters, what came to my heart was that all these signs, in one way or another, are a contrast between what we are in ourselves—our natural lives—and the life of the Lord Jesus that has been given to us.
What are we in ourselves? Limitation and weakness. This is not a matter of low self-esteem. It has nothing to do with that. It is simply the nature of human life. At the end of the day, it is either lack or limitation.
How different is the life of the Lord Jesus: abundance, life. The witness is this: God has given us that life, the life of His Son. His Son Himself is to be our life. That is the witness, brothers and sisters—the testimony of Jesus.
The signs testify of this Person. In that sense, they speak of the testimony of Jesus.
A testimony or witness attests to the veracity, or truthfulness, of a matter. If you are summoned to court as a witness, it is because you are qualified to testify concerning the truthfulness of the matter in question.
The word of God tells us that this is the testimony: God has given us that life, the glorious and abundant life of His Son. In ourselves there is limitation, emptiness, vanity, and infirmity. That is what we are. Yet God has given us another life—the life of His Son—to be our life.
But is that true in you? Is that your daily, habitual experience? Are you drawing on the riches of that life which has been given to you?
The fact that we came to the Lord one day is so wonderful. I trust that most here, when they believed in the Lord Jesus, experienced something of that life. However, do we realize that, in a sense, that is only the beginning?
Now we have the daily, wonderful privilege of experiencing how rich this life is—how wonderful and how full it is.
Throughout the Gospel of John, alongside the signs, there are direct statements pointing to this life. Consider John 1:
For of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace.
This is the life in the Son. Or consider John 6:
I am the bread of life.
The thought is that when you eat of Him, there is satisfaction.
I really felt, as I prepared and considered these things, that to speak about the testimony of Jesus is to speak about the vastness and immensity of our Lord Jesus and Savior.
But the question for all of us is this: is it true in your day-to-day life? I am not asking whether it is true in a wonderful week like this. Thank the Lord for weeks like this, when we feel, “Wow, it is like heaven on earth.” Thank God for that.
But I am not asking whether you feel it only in a week like this, or even every Sunday when we gather together, break bread, and remember our wonderful Lord. Is this true in your life on a daily basis?
One of the eight signs in John seems to point exactly to this: the testimony is not something sporadic. If you have ever come to the Lord and believed in Him, surely you know at least once in your life how wonderful He is—how He took your burdens away and forgave all your sins.
But have you continued in an ever-increasing, never-ceasing experience of this wonderful Lord?
I feel this is at the very center of the Gospel of John: all these signs pointing to this Person given to us, all these signs encouraging us. John says at the end, “I have written these signs that you may believe, and believing have life in His name.”
The signs are there testifying: yes, He is that One, and He is for you—for you to experience, for you to have this testimony in yourself.
But the question remains: is this true in your life? Not merely as a matter of doctrine, not merely as something to which we all agree—sound and biblical truth—but is it a reality, especially from Monday to Saturday?
I feel that is where the trouble often is. Not Monday to Saturday in this wonderful week, mind you, but Monday to Saturday when we are back in the places where we live. Are we experiencing the riches of our Lord Jesus?
To speak of the testimony of Jesus is to speak of His vastness, greatness, and immensity.
Consider again the first sign: our Lord Jesus turning water into wine. The master of the feast testified concerning the quality of the wine.
There is a wonderful contrast between two wines. The first wine ran out, and that is exactly like our natural life. I do not care how capable or intelligent you are, or how many degrees you have. Sooner or later, you will experience that your natural life runs out.
If you have doubts about that, just go to a cemetery. It should be obvious. I am not speaking only of the temporal aspect. I am speaking of Ecclesiastes—its assessment of our natural life:
Vanity of vanities.
One day we experience this life, this better wine. The master of the feast testified, “Every man setteth on first the good wine; and when men have drunk freely, then that which is worse: thou hast kept the good wine until now.”
Besides the superior quality of this life, there is also its immensity. How much of that better wine was supplied that day? There were six waterpots filled to the brim with water, and our Lord Jesus produced the best wine from them.
If you do the calculations, it was somewhere in the range of one hundred and fifty to two hundred gallons of the best possible wine. What does that speak of but His fullness?
For of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace.
Consider the feeding of the five thousand. I find that title a little misleading, because it must have been the feeding of twenty thousand at least, once women and children are included. But I digress.
It is not merely that each person received a ration, a little portion just sufficient to keep from fainting. There is that wonderful sentence in the Gospel of John: each one ate as much as he wanted.
What does that speak of but the One who is Himself the bread of life? How much of this bread are you experiencing? Just a little ration? Just a little portion, while we go through life murmuring, “Oh, how hard it is”?
They ate as much as they wanted.
Again, consider the last sign. After a whole night of fruitlessness, there is a transition into one hundred and fifty-three—not merely fish, but great fish.
Do you see the stamp over the whole Gospel? The fullness of this Lord. The testimony of Jesus is not merely that He was given to you, but the greatness of the One who was given to you.
I know we are considering the writings of John, but I hope you will not be angry with me if I borrow a thought or two from Paul. Do you remember what Paul says to the Corinthians?
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.
Think of the old creation. We are on this little planet Earth, but in our galaxy there are billions of stars, and our galaxy is one among billions upon billions of galaxies, each with its own billions of stars. How vast is this old creation?
But if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation—a whole new universe. Unlike this old creation, there is no corruption there. It is life, and life abundant.
Brothers and sisters, how can it be that we are so often content with just ten square feet of this new creation in Christ, when there is a whole universe of Him to be experienced?
When you have Jesus—when you have that firsthand experience that arrests you—how can you not be arrested? How can you not say, like the master of the feast, “Everything else is bland, really, but this is the best”?
And it is not merely a trickle, a few drops. It is abundance.
Brothers and sisters, this is our wondrous calling. This is the grace of our Lord Jesus: to redeem us and call us to bear the testimony.
There is one more thing I want to say about this matter of testimony. Of course, the word implies something expressed, proclaimed, or declared. But we need clarity that before the aspect of expression or declaration, there is something deeply embedded in testimony.
Did you notice the wording in 1 John 5:10? At first glance, it sounds like strange language:
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him.
Perhaps we might expect John to say that he who believes can give the testimony, proclaim the testimony, or declare it. But the wording is different:
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him.
This is not to exclude proclamation or declaration. There certainly is such an aspect in Scripture. But before that can happen, the testimony has to be in us.
Is this testimony arresting you? Is it being deeply incorporated into your life?
Brother Sparks has another wonderful sentence on this matter. I wish I could read the quote, but I did not do my homework. Here is a paraphrase: a testimony is someone who becomes the embodiment of what he is testifying of.
Is this happening in your life? Are you so occupied with this wondrous Lord who was given to you, in whom you were placed? Are you so in love with Him that you are becoming the very embodiment, the very personification, of this testimony—the testimony of Jesus?
It is not merely a matter that we experience sporadically, here and there. The implication is that it is a continuous, ever-increasing experience of the Lord Jesus.
Remember again the feeding of the five thousand. When the Lord later declares, “I am the bread of life,” what is the Old Testament background? It is the manna.
The Lord says that it was not Moses who gave the true bread out of heaven; it is His Father who gives the true bread. In other words, what happened in the wilderness—the manna given to the children of Israel—was a type, a picture of the reality that came in Christ.
But here is the question: how often were they meant to gather and eat that manna? Once a week? Once a year at a wonderful conference?
Oh, brothers and sisters, it is our privilege that our Lord Jesus has been given to us to be our daily life—every single day, every single moment.
This is the testimony of Jesus: an ever-increasing, never-ceasing experience of our Lord Jesus.
We have mentioned some things about the epistles and the Gospel of John. I want to mention one or two things from Revelation itself.
Our brother Stephen already mentioned the picture, or symbol, of testimony found near the beginning of Revelation, in chapters 2 and 3: the seven lampstands.
It should be obvious that a lampstand is a symbol of testimony. It is a stand for a lamp, and through it light is diffused.
A lampstand is not there merely for itself—not merely as a piece of furniture or decoration. It is there to hold the lamp so that light may be diffused.
This is the picture of the church. The church exists to be the testimony of Jesus. The church exists to express the Lord Jesus as the vessel through whom the Lord Jesus—and nothing else—is diffused and expressed.
What I have emphasized in John and in the epistles is perhaps the individual aspect of this testimony. When we come to Revelation, the emphasis seems to be corporate. The lampstand is not merely an individual believer; it is a corporate testimony.
Scripture includes both aspects. There is an individual aspect, and there is a corporate aspect. As we read in 1 John 5:
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him.
It does not get more personal than that. There is personal experience and personal testimony. Yet that is not the end or the goal of the testimony. We experience it so that there may be a corporate testimony.
Consider the experience of Peter in Matthew 16. He receives revelation from the Father:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
In response, the Lord Jesus says:
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.
There is something very personal. The name Peter simply means a stone. Through revelation of the Lord Jesus, through experience and testimony, Peter is becoming a living stone.
But the goal of a stone is not to be a stone by itself. The Lord does not simply want a collection of stones. The goal is that Peter may be built upon the rock of the Person of the Lord Jesus, together with other living stones.
Do you see the two aspects? There is an individual aspect of testimony that must be in each one of us, leading to something corporate. The goal is never merely individual.
However, the individual aspect is an absolute necessity. We cannot hide in the multitude, as we often try to do. No. He who believes has the testimony in himself, and then, together with others, there is a corporate testimony: a lampstand.
The lampstand has an Old Testament background. The picture comes from the lampstand that the Lord instructed Moses to make as part of the furniture of the tabernacle.
There is one sentence about the construction of the lampstand that is amazing in connection with this matter of passing the torch of the testimony. Here is the lampstand, the symbol of the church, the picture of corporate testimony. When the Lord gives Moses the instructions, He says:
See that thou make them after their pattern, which hath been showed thee in the mount.
At the end of all the measurements and specifications for how the lampstand was to be constructed, the Lord says, “Moses, see that you do everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.”
Do you know how many times that phrase is repeated in Scripture? I am remembering our brother Lance, and something I read in one of his messages. He said that whenever something is repeated in Scripture, we should pay attention because it is foundational. I think he was right.
This phrase is repeated five times—three times in the Old Testament and twice in the New Testament. It speaks either of the lampstand itself or of the tabernacle of testimony:
See that thou make them after their pattern, which hath been showed thee in the mount.
Brothers and sisters, when it comes to the corporate testimony of the Lord Jesus—His corporate expression—we are not left at liberty to do whatever seems best according to our own judgment, convenience, or circumstances.
We must see that everything is made according to the pattern shown on the mountain.
When I read the New Testament, it seems that the pattern of corporate testimony is everywhere. Read your New Testament again.
The oneness of the body of Christ appears repeatedly. How many times in the New Testament do you find the expression “one body”? At least ten times. One body. One body.
Another part of the pattern is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. All natural distinctions are eliminated in Christ, in the new man. This is the testimony that the church should express.
Another matter is the universal priesthood of all saints, with which this conference began. Our Lord Jesus has bought us by His precious blood, and He has made us kings and priests.
There is no special class that has a monopoly on the service of the Lord. All are kings and priests, and all, by the Holy Spirit, are to serve God in the body of Christ.
Do you see the pattern throughout the New Testament?
There is a danger here. We may all agree with the pattern. We may accept it as a matter of truth or doctrine. Yet, all along, we may tolerate things in the way we gather that contradict this pattern and hinder these realities from being expressed.
Brothers and sisters, how we need to go back to the word of God and see the pattern.
I hope no one misunderstands me. I know very well that there is a danger of taking these things and trying to apply them in a technical or mechanical way. I am not suggesting that for a second.
But oh, that in living union with our Lord, and in real fellowship with one another before Him, these things might be considered before Him.
We are speaking about the lampstands represented by the seven churches in Revelation. There is one of those seven churches that satisfies the heart of the Lord. To her there is a word of praise that seems unique among the seven. Of course, I am speaking about Philadelphia.
What is that special characteristic? There are several things, but I want to mention one. The Lord repeats concerning that church:
Because thou didst keep My word,
and didst not deny My name.
And again:
Because thou didst keep the word of My patience.
Do you see what can satisfy the heart of the Lord? I do not think they kept His word in a merely technical or doctrinal way. Oh, they kept His word in living union with the Head.
See that thou make them after their pattern, which hath been showed thee in the mount.
There is one other thing I would like to say from Revelation. The expression we read in Revelation 19 is, to me, jaw-dropping. It is really amazing:
For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Often we may think that the main point or theme of Revelation is a sequence of events. That is how we sometimes equate prophecy in our limited understanding.
But what is said at the end of the book is very different. What is prophecy all about? What is the spirit of prophecy? What is the essence of prophecy? It is not merely the sequence of events.
All the writings of John, including Revelation, seem to revolve around the testimony of Jesus. Someone may say, “No, hold on. Revelation is prophecy.” Yes, it is prophecy. But what is the spirit of prophecy? What is the essential matter that the Lord is really after?
For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
It seems to me that once the Lord obtains the testimony of Jesus in a company, everything else follows. All the sequence of events falls into its right place.
Our brother Stephen mentioned another matter that was in my heart. I want to mention it briefly in connection with this. Remember the vision in Revelation 12.
There is a man child taken to the throne of God. If our understanding is correct, the woman represents the church at large in the last days before the coming of the Lord. The dragon is set against that man child.
What is the characteristic of that man child? I think the last verse of the chapter gives us an important hint. Once the man child is taken to the throne of God, the dragon turns against the rest of the woman’s seed.
The rest of her seed keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus. The implication, to me, is that the man child was first among the descendants in whom the testimony was truly obtained, settled, and established.
Once that testimony is there, everything follows. They are taken to the throne; Satan is cast down to the earth. Once the testimony of Jesus is obtained, everything follows.
For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
I would like to say one more thing, by way of beginning to conclude—whatever that means.
If you paid attention to the Scriptures we read this morning—whether Revelation, the epistle, or the Gospel—besides the matter of testimony being present, there is another word that is key to the testimony of Jesus. Did you notice it? It is the little word faith—believing.
I am not a speaker, in case you did not realize that. I wish I had a better way to convey these things. But there is one sentence in Revelation that to me is amazing and eye-opening.
Throughout Revelation, two things are paired: the word of God and the testimony of Jesus; the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus. This occurs five or six times.
But then, in Revelation 14, something varies slightly from the pattern. We read:
Here is the patience of the saints, they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Something seems to stand out. The word of God and the testimony of Jesus; the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus; and then suddenly, the commandments of God and faith in Jesus.
When I read that, I strongly suspect that the Holy Spirit has left something standing out for us to notice.
The testimony of Jesus and faith in Jesus are not equivalent terms, of course. However, they are absolutely related. There is no way for us to have the testimony of Jesus in us, to experience it, or to have it incorporated into us, except by faith.
Did you notice this in the passages we read in John?
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him.
Faith leads to the testimony. Think also of the Gospel:
But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing ye may have life in His name.
The signs—the testimonies concerning the Lord Jesus—were written so that we might believe. Believing, or faith in Him, leads to an experience of His life.
There is no way for us to experience the testimony of Jesus except by faith. And by faith, I do not want to give the impression that faith is a spiritual virtue that we must develop, or some spiritual muscle that we must flex.
Oh, faith is simply laying hold of who He is, taking Him at His word, and trusting Him.
In Hebrews, the two ideas are again paired: testimony and faith. Where is testimony there? It speaks about a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.
That refers, of course, to the previous chapter—Hebrews 11—where we find the catalogue of Old Testament saints who are witnesses to us. Somehow, they carried the torch of testimony and handed it to us.
But how did they do that? What was their secret? Reading answers the question, does it not?
By faith Abel…
By faith Enoch…
By faith Noah…
By faith Abraham…
By faith, by faith, by faith. This great cloud of witnesses somehow experienced the Lord by faith. By faith they touched this testimony, and they passed it to us.
As the conclusion to that, the writer to the Hebrews tells us that we are to run the race. Then there is that wonderful sentence at the beginning of Hebrews 12:2:
Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.
I want to say one thing, brothers and sisters. It seems that we often misunderstand the central point of faith. I certainly cannot produce faith by myself. I do not know about you, but I suspect it is probably the same for you.
Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances—personal things, family matters, work, or the age in which we live, the fourth watch of the night that our brother opened this conference with—and it seems almost impossible to go forward.
But then there is this little phrase that connects everything together:
Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.
It seems to convey the thought that when we look unto Him, faith springs into existence. I cannot produce it. No way.
When we look unto our Lord Jesus, He is the beginning of that faith and the finisher of it. When we turn our eyes unto Him, the impossible happens.
Our brother Chip shared last night about Peter’s experience. Is that not exactly a testimony to this?
Here is the Lord Jesus walking on the sea. Peter and the disciples are afraid and tired, though there is a little security that the boat can offer.
Then Peter sees the Lord Jesus. As he sees the Lord, the amazing—the impossible—happens. He says, “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee upon the waters.” The Lord Jesus says, “Come.”
It should be obvious when we read the story that, as Peter walked on the water, his eyes were fixed on the Lord Jesus. It is not explicitly stated in the text, but it is clear. He is speaking to the Lord Jesus; ordinarily, when we speak with someone, we look at that person.
Peter says, “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee upon the waters.” As he walks toward the Lord, he is looking at Him, and he walks on the water.
Then, all of a sudden, what happens? He turns and says, “Oh, what am I doing here? There is a wave coming against me. The wind is so strong.” When his eyes are off the Lord Jesus and on something else, he begins to sink.
Do you see Hebrews 12? Looking off unto Jesus.
I do not know what the winds are in your life. I know some of the winds in my life; some I do not even know. But one thing is sure: if our eyes are turned away from everything else unto Him, that is the secret of walking with the Lord and experiencing this testimony of Jesus.
May the Lord encourage us.
Lord Jesus, we commit these words back to You. We pray that the Holy Spirit would somehow touch each one of our hearts afresh, Lord, that we may see something more of You—something more of this One who is so full of grace and truth.
Lord, may we be arrested by such a vision and run the race before us with endurance, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
In His precious name we ask. Amen.