This afternoon we were considering some of the
Resurrection titles of our Lord.
I'm going to carry that a little further
this evening, and ask you to turn to
the book of the Revelation again, in the
first chapter, noting that
the Lord Jesus here presents himself as the
Living One who was dead and is alive
again, is alive forevermore.
In verse 8, I am the Alpha and
the Omega, saith the Lord God, which is
and which was and which is to come,
the Almighty.
In chapter 21, verse 6, and he said
unto me, there comes a past, I am
the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and
the end.
Chapter 22, verse 13, I am the Alpha
and the Omega, the first and the last,
the beginning and the end.
This then is a title of the Lord
in Resurrection.
He takes to himself the Omega, the Alpha
and the Omega.
I expect the youngest person here knows those
two letters are the first and the last
of the Greek alphabet.
The one is much like the first letter
in our own alphabet.
There it is.
The other is not a bit like the
last letter in our alphabet.
There it is.
Alpha and Omega, first and the last.
In every language there is something that corresponds
to an A and a Z, an Alpha,
Omega, a beginning and an end.
It does not matter how vast the language
may be.
It was told in China recently that there
are at least 11,000 characters in the
Chinese language.
There are more than that in the Greek
language.
But it does not matter whether we have
only a poor 26,000 English or an
11,000 or more in some other language.
Everything is bounded by the A, the Z,
the Alpha, the Omega.
You can't get anything outside of that.
All is within that.
Jesus says, I am the Alpha and the
Omega.
The Alpha and the Omega comprehend all speech.
There is no speech possible in any language
outside of what comes between those two letters.
All that can be said has to come
within their compass.
Nothing can be said outside of their compass.
Jesus says that of himself.
The Word of God tells us that God
has summed up all things in Christ.
That he is the fullness of God.
And what is more, it shows us that
God will never speak to anybody outside of
his Son, Jesus Christ.
He has bounded all his speech to man
by his Son.
He has made Christ the compass of all.
He has nothing to say and he will
say nothing outside of his Son.
No man cometh to the Father but by
me, said the Son.
And no one knowing the Father or the
Son except the Father, show him.
The apostle who wrote the letter to the
Hebrews began by saying, in old times, God
spake in fragments, in parts and in various
manners by different men of different times.
But at last he summed up all things
in his Son.
At the end, he has spoken unto us
in his Son, whom he appointed heir of
all things.
All that God will say and all that
God can say to us will be in
Jesus Christ.
I am the author.
The very first syllable, the very first syllable
of the knowledge of God is the knowledge
of Jesus Christ.
It begins with A.
It's the first list of a veil.
He has given unto us the Spirit whereby
we cry Abba.
Father.
The first syllable of the Christian life begins
with A.
Father.
We don't know Father until we know Jesus
Christ.
He it is that has revealed the Father.
The beginning of all knowledge of God as
Father comes to us through Jesus Christ.
Yes, he was right when he said in
his prayer, I have given unto them thy
name.
I have given unto them thy name.
And it was the name Father.
Do you want to know God?
Do you want to know him as Father?
Do you want to know anything that he
has to say to you to make known
to you?
Do you want to know all or any
of the vast wealth God would reveal to
you?
You can only know it in Jesus Christ.
You can only know it in him who
is the beginning and the end, the Alpha
and the Omega.
There is no knowledge without words made up
of letters.
And all the letters are between these two.
There is no knowledge that is knowledge indeed.
The knowledge which is life eternal except in
Jesus Christ.
This, this is life eternal that they might
know thee the only true God and him
whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ.
No knowledge outside of Christ.
And there is no communication from God outside
of Jesus Christ.
Set Jesus Christ aside and God is silent.
There is nothing to say to you.
You fail to give his Son his flesh.
God is just dumb.
You will never hear anything.
He will communicate nothing.
The more, the more you honour the Son,
the more the Father will come out to
you and communicate with you.
Secondly, Alpha and Omega not only comprehends all
speech, it comprehends all needs.
All needs.
You don't want anything outside of A and
Z.
Outside of Alpha and Omega.
You don't want to create any new letters
at all.
It's all there.
It doesn't matter what big words you use.
There are some big words.
Men seem to be making very big words
in these days.
Plenty of new big words.
Some of you get a bit upset at
big words when they use.
It doesn't matter how big the word or
how long the sentence is.
How great may be the utterance is.
You can meet the need of the biggest
word, the longest sentence and the fullest utterance
between Alpha and Omega.
For all these new big words, you haven't
got to create new letters.
They're all meant here.
We are told by the Apostle Paul that
in him, that is in Christ, all the
fullness dwells.
In him all the fullness dwells of wisdom
and of knowledge.
It was the good pleasure of the Father
that in him should all the fullness dwell.
We are very fond of that word, that
word opposed to the Philippians.
My God shall supply every need of yours
according to his riches in glory in Christ
Jesus.
Every need corresponding to, and can we fathom
this?
Can we compass this?
His riches in glory.
But every need according to that met in
Christ Jesus.
It's all we need.
All we need.
Alpha and Omega.
I said we may make great demands upon
the alphabet in trying to express new ideas,
fresh inventions and discoveries.
But no matter what the demands may be
of the growing language, the growing dictionary, you
never get the biggest dictionary in any language
that goes outside of A instead Alpha and
Omega.
That Chinese language which is indeed a Chinese
puzzle to us with all its numerous characters.
How comprehensive, capable of expressing ideas far, far
better than most languages, certainly better than our
language.
Capable of compassing a range of thoughts and
expressions far beyond us.
Yet it's all between a beginning and an
end.
You see what I mean when Jesus says
I am Alpha and Omega?
He's saying I'm all you need.
All you need.
You never can have a need, never can
invent anything for which I am not sufficient.
No situation can arise that exhausts me in
him all the fullness.
Well, I am Alpha and Omega.
Christ is the first and the last in
creation, so says the Word.
That letter to the Colossians to which we've
just referred at the beginning, the Apostle tells
us so clearly and precisely that in him
were all things created.
And that he was before all things.
The Apostle John tells us at the beginning
of his gospel the same thing, that in
him were all things created.
He's the beginning in creation.
In the letter to the Hebrews already referred
to right at the beginning, we are told
that the ages were created through him.
They came into being through him.
He is described in this book of the
Revelation, chapter 3 and verse 14.
These things that we are in, the faithful
and true witness, the beginning of the creation
of God is the Alpha and the Omega
in creation.
Here he is the Alpha, the very agent
and instrument of creation.
He was creation's design.
For all things were made to be a
temporal and material expression of spiritual and moral
realities in the Son of God.
If we had eyes and understanding to see
the deeper secrets of an unfallen creation, a
vast universe from the hand of God, we
should see in everything something that speaks of
the Son of God, his spiritual, his moral
character and his place in the system of
God.
He is the pattern of creation.
It is of him and for him, through
him and unto him, says the word, is
the Alpha and the Omega.
He is declared to be the completion, the
finish of the creation of God.
But that may not be very helpful to
us.
It is by way of putting the Lord
Jesus into his place.
But what comes nearer to us is this,
that he is the Alpha and the Omega
in redemption.
He is the first and the last in
redemption.
Look again at that letter to the Hebrews.
We have this familiar words which perhaps you
don't need to turn to in chapter 12
and in verse 2.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of
faith, the beginning and the end, the Alpha
and the Omega of redemption.
In the sense, Christ is the beginning of
redemption.
In this simple sense, there is no redemption
until we come to him.
Just as there is no speech, no communication,
no knowledge until we come to the Alphabet,
so there is no redemption until we come
to the Lord Jesus.
There is just nothing before A.
There is nothing before Alpha.
There is just where everything does begin.
What is true in language is true in
redemption.
There just is no redemption.
There is just no salvation until we come
to the Lord Jesus.
But when we come to him, there is
a new beginning.
That is the beginning of everything.
The beginning of a whole new compass of
possibility and range of communication and knowledge and
understanding and wisdom and pleasure.
I don't know whether you like words, whether
you like handling words.
A fascinating thing with me, I just revel
in words, probably some of you know, to
your affliction.
Words are a fascinating thing.
The more you know the history of words,
the source of words, the meaning of words,
the more and more deeply you can find
yourself engrossed with it.
Here, what a wealth there is, what a
wealth there is in Christ as the Redeemer.
When you take him as the beginning of
salvation, what a world opens up.
When you take him as the Alpha, what
a marvellous world opens up.
Pick up your dictionary.
Pick up Webster Unabridged.
It begins with A.
Oh, what a world.
What a world.
On and on and on, through the many
thousands of words in all their different shapes
and forms, what a world there is there.
I can't understand any person who can't revel
in a dictionary.
Yes, but you see what I'm getting at.
In this very simple way tonight, I'm saying
to you that when you come to Jesus
as the Alpha, a new and vast and
wonderful world begins to open up.
A world that you never thought of.
You never knew that word was in the
dictionary.
And it opens up something altogether new to
you.
It's like that with the Lord Jesus.
The inexhaustible world that opens up when you
come to the beginnings with him.
When he becomes your beginning, just like that,
wealth, riches of knowledge, fullness, possibility, all there,
just when you begin with A.
There's no end to it really.
No end.
Something more being added every year to the
dictionary.
It's like that in the Christian life.
Oh, I'm not exaggerating, dear friend.
I really am not.
I have no reason for exaggeration.
Why should I stand up here and say
a lot of things that are only words
and they're not true?
Not at all.
At any rate, my experience, my experience, through
all the years and in recent weeks in
the most wonderful way is that Christ is
inexhaustible.
He's just inexhaustible.
There's more and more and more coming all
the time that we did not know before.
But it all began when we began with
him.
It had a beginning.
And it's gone on and it's going on.
And it's going on for eternity because the
word says, I am his kingdom.
There is no end.
No end.
What a kingdom of fullness his is.
But you see, you have to begin with
him.
You have to make him your beginning before
you can have any of it.
He's got to be your altar.
But then he is your altar.
Yes, I say again, a new world opens
up.
A new fullness begins to disclose itself.
And such a fullness, such a fullness.
It's all in him as our redeemer.
You see, this is what we have here
in this first chapter of the book of
the Revelation.
The titles of the Lord are connected with
him in resurrection.
In resurrection.
And here we have words about what he's
done in redemption.
He's redeemed us unto God by his blood.
He has loosed us from our sins by
his blood.
He has made us a kingdom and priests
unto his God by his blood.
It's the work of redemption that has opened
up everything new.
Wonderful fullness.
He is the altar of redemption.
Christ is not only the beginning, he is
the beginner, says here the author.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter.
He is the beginner.
The one who takes this matter in hand
of beginning all over again and bringing us
into a world that we've never known before.
He is the beginner of it.
In his hands he does it.
He has taken the initiative, that's the point.
He has taken the initiative in our redemption.
So glad of that.
So infinitely glad of that.
All that may be said about our quest,
man's quest for God, man's search for God,
that's nothing compared with God's search for man.
What Jesus has come to reveal to us
and has revealed is that God is the
seeker.
God is the seeker.
Those wonderful and familiar parables and stories of
lost sheep and lost pieces of silver and
lost guns and lost people.
Yes.
They're all meant to show us that God
is the seeker, that the initiative is with
God.
The Son of Man came to seek and
to save that which was lost.
Yes.
He began this thing.
You and I would not be here tonight
if he had not begun it.
He said, ye did not choose me, but
I chose you.
And that's why we are here.
If we are here as those who belong
to the Lord, it is simply because he
sought us.
Whether we were seeking or not, he was
the seeker.
He began.
He was the beginner.
No one else can begin to redeem us.
No one else can save.
There is none other name given under heaven
whereby we must be saved.
Only his name.
There's no beginning of redemption without him.
Christ is the last.
The end.
The Omega.
In the sense that when he begins something,
he finishes it.
He says the word will perfect that which
concerneth us.
He who has begun a good work in
you will perfect it unto the day of
Jesus Christ.
He finishes what he begins.
And he himself, not only being the beginning
and the ending, but the beginner and himself
the finish.
God is working all things unto the end
that we should be conformed to the image
of his Son.
Christ stands, so to speak, right at the
end there.
And God is moving and working in us,
his people, in relation to that one that
stands at the end that we should be
conformed to his image.
And the servant of God cries, I shall
be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness.
It's that likeness which is the end.
The end.
Jesus is the end.
All things under heaven's government are working unto
conformity to God's Son.
One more thing.
Christ as Alpha and Omega makes sense.
I might have a tray with all the
letters of any alphabet jumbled up in it.
If I know what the letters are and
I know what I want, I can put
them in an order that they make sense.
They express exactly what I want to express.
They satisfy just exactly what I want to
know.
They make sense when they are put in
their right place.
All that comes between Alpha and Omega.
Forgive me for being so simple and elementary,
but you know, a lot of people can't
make sense of life at all.
And that's the trouble with a great many
people today.
They just cannot make sense of life.
The struggle of many is to try and
make sense of life.
What does it all mean?
What is the explanation of it all?
It's all a jumble.
It's all a confusion.
It's all an enigma.
What does it mean?
The world is in confusion.
Jesus makes sense of life.
He puts the jumble into an order that
is a description of a divine design, a
great purpose of God, an explanation of everything.
Yes, in Him we have the answer to
our life problems.
In Him we have the setting in order
of a life disrupted and confused.
Oh, is that not true?
Has that not been true of so many
men and women whose lives were just mixed
up and distorted and twisted and confused?
Without any seeming meaning or explanation at all,
any design or pattern, they couldn't make sense
of anything.
And they came to the Lord Jesus.
And then life made sense.
Then they began to realize what it all
meant, what they were for.
A design, a pattern came in.
That's what most of us can say here
tonight.
In the Lord Jesus we found a pattern
for life.
We found a design for life.
We have found a meaning in life.
We have found an explanation of life.
Yes, Arthur and Omega, all we want to
make sense.
And He does make sense.
He can bring understanding.
He can bring a clear pattern into life.
Let me repeat simply, there is no beginning
until you have your letters, your basic character.
There's no beginning and there will be no
sensible end at all.
Jesus justifies that need, a beginning and a
sensible end.
It leads somewhere.
When you and I have last reached the
end, the end in glory, it will be
a sensible end, won't it?
It will be an end that justifies everything,
that gives meaning to everything, that explains everything.
Why, why, the thousand why's of lifetime will
all be answered, all be explained.
Why this experience and that?
Why this sorrow and that?
Why this disappointment and that loss?
Why this strange way in our lives?
Why?
It will all be answered at the end
and Jesus will be the end.
Yes, it will be a sensible end.
We'll have nothing to quarrel with then and
we shall not have any quarrel with God
then because Jesus has put it all straight
and brought us to an end beyond our
expectations and certainly beyond our merit.
So we understand why in the Bible Jesus
is called the Word of God, the Word
of God, God's peace in him, by him,
always and only, finally in his Son.
But how does he speak?
How does he speak?
You say that's all very interesting, but how
does he speak?
After all, are we to hear with our
ears?
No, you come back to the context of
these titles and you find it is resurrection
like.
I am he that liveth, I became dead,
but behold, I am alive forevermore.
How does he speak?
How do we know him?
But how does he speak?
How does he speak?
You say that's all very interesting, but how
does he speak?
After all, are we to hear with our
ears?
No, you come back to the context of
these titles and you find it is resurrection
like.
I am he that liveth, I became dead,
but behold, I am alive forevermore.
How does he speak?
How do we know him?
How is life delivered from its tangle and
confusion and brought into pattern and meaning?
Because he becomes our life.
Because he makes us our takers of his
own written life.
Because he puts that life into us which
is an ordered life, which is a life
of wisdom and understanding, which is a life
not of confusion, but with a pattern.
It's a life power in us.
Oh, you say, how do you know?
Well, I just know in this way that
his life is within and that life within
is answering the question, is explaining things, is
giving meaning to life.
He speaks by life.
He speaks by giving us life.
While to natural ears life may be inaudible,
life is a very, very powerful speaker, you
know.
It is louder than words, much louder than
words.
Some poor, suffering child of God may not
be able to put it into words, but
you've only to be with them for a
very little time and by word it speaks
to you.
The very life that is in them speaks
far, far more strongly than words.
It is the life of Christ in us
that is the communication, is the explanation, is
the wisdom of God, the power of that
life working in us.
By that God speaks to us, answers our
problems.
So often you see the answer of God
to us is not in something that he
says, but in something that he does, and
what he does in a new touch of
life.
And strangely if we get that new touch
of life in our inner man, we cease
to worry about the problem.
The problem is solved.
We may not have got the answer to
our questions, but we've got the answer.
It's in life.
We're satisfied.
It doesn't matter about the problem now.
It's answered in this new touch of life.
Life is God's way of speaking to us,
and life is God's way of speaking through
us.
Many people may come into a meeting like
this, and they may not understand what on
earth you're talking about.
They might go away and say, well I
didn't understand a word, but, but there was
something there.
They may not be able to describe it
because they're not familiar with the alpha and
the omega, the language and the letters and
the phrases, but they say something.
There's something there that you feel.
You meet something that answers to something you
want.
Well if only they knew the letters they
would say, it's life.
There's life.
And that is the way that God really
speaks, you know.
I would sooner have it that way, wouldn't
you?
And the people should be able to understand
a lot of words and phrases and not
feel the impact and registration of power of
life.
No, better the other way around.
Better if both.
Better this way if we've got to choose
between it, but they go away saying, well
there's something there that you can't get away
from.
I can only say it's God.
And what they mean is, it's Jesus Christ
the living one.
That's how God speaks through us.
Oh may we be in this sense, the
voice of God, the speech of God, the
expression of Christ, who is the alpha and
the omega.
Shall we pray?