Now would you turn, please, to Revelation, the
first and second chapters.
Seven stars, seven candlesticks.
And I read, in order that we can
have the context, beginning with the twelfth verse.
John, the revelator, is sharing with us what
he's seen and heard and experienced.
So, beginning then with the twelfth verse, let
me conclude with the first verse of the
second chapter.
And I turned to see the voice that
spake with me.
And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks.
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks,
one like unto the Son of Man, clothed
with a garment down to the foot, and
gird about the paps with a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were white like
wool, as white as snow, and his eyes
were as a flame of fire.
And his feet like unto fine brass, as
if they burned in a furnace.
And his voice as the sound of many
waters.
And he had in his right hand seven
stars.
And out of his mouth went a sharp
two-edged sword.
And his countenance was as the sun shineth
in his strength.
And when I saw him, I fell at
his feet as dead.
And he laid his right hand upon me,
saying unto me, Fear not.
I am the first and the last.
I am he that liveth and was dead,
and behold, I am alive forevermore.
Amen.
And have the keys of hell and of
death.
Write the things which thou hast seen, and
the things which are, and the things which
shall be hereafter.
The mystery of the seven stars which thou
sawest in thy right hand, and the seven
golden candlesticks.
Seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches.
And the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are
the seven churches.
Under the angel of the church of Ephesus
write, These things saith he that holdeth the
seven stars in his right hand, who walketh
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
This picture of our Lord Jesus Christ is
in striking contrast to the picture that we
have presented in the Gospels.
There we find him weeping at the tomb
of Lazarus.
We find him silent in the presence of
Pilate.
We find him bowing his back to the
cross and to the scourge.
We see him in the garden after his
resurrection, unknown, unrecognized, even by Mary who thought
that he was the gardener, and questioned by
his disciples as they walked with him on
the road to Emmaus.
Now the picture that we have given to
us here of the Lord Jesus Christ is,
I say, in striking contrast.
Some might say, and they have, that this
is not an accurate revelation, but it is.
For in the Gospels you have Christ as
he was last seen by men, before he
had taken his place at the right hand
of the Father.
And in Revelation you have the unveiling of
Christ as he is now, at the right
hand of the Father, with all authority in
heaven and earth in his hands.
And you wonder what kind of an appearance
the Lord Jesus at the right hand of
the Father has.
This is it.
When you think of the Son of God,
you do wrong if you think of him
as the meek and lowly Jesus there.
Everyone that prays visualizes.
You have to.
When you pray for the sick, if you
pray in faith, you visualize that person well.
If you pray for a need, you visualize
the need supplied.
If you pray for the change of character,
you visualize the person as they will be
when their character has been changed.
And when you pray to the Lord, somehow,
somewhere there is a mental picture of the
one to whom you are speaking, or else
there occasionally will be.
How do you see in mind's eye the
one to whom you are praying?
John has given us the picture of this
one, seated upon the throne, filled with glory,
standing in celestial splendor, before whose feet he
fell as dead.
But, oh, how tender, how loving.
John, who leaned on his chest.
John, who walked with him, the beloved apostle
and disciple.
Here is this same Jesus speaking, fear not.
And yet you ought to fear and not
fear.
Another of the paradoxes.
You ought to serve God with godly fear,
for our God is a consuming fire.
You ought to be so afraid of God
that you are afraid to sin.
But you hate sin, every kind, all kinds,
sin wherever it occurs.
You don't rightly understand God.
Unless seeing him and what he is, you
are afraid to sin and afraid of God
because of his holiness and because of what
he will do.
For, if you sin and are his child,
he will chasten unless you judge it and
forsake it.
And if you are not his child, it
is just another nail driving you to the
cross of death, eternal separation from God, binding
you to the doom.
For, if he sentenced his son there when
his son had your sin and that his
son might redeem you, you can understand what
your lot will be if you spurn his
son.
We ought to be afraid of God and
we ought to serve God with fear.
And you ought to realize that this lowly
Jesus that walked so humbly with men, the
Lamb, meek and lowly, has been exalted.
He is at the right hand of the
throne of God on high.
And this is what John saw.
You ought to worship him.
He is worthy of your worship.
You ought to love him.
He loved you first with measureless, boundless, everlasting
love.
You ought to pour forth your heart's adoration
before him.
You ought to obey him gladly because he
is worthy to be obeyed.
And there ought to rise out of our
hearts tonight an echo of that song of
the multitude that are washed, robed, swiped, gathered
even now in his presence.
If you hearken, perhaps even in your hearts
you can hear them as they sing the
song of Moses and the Lamb, unto him
who loved us and who washed us in
his blood and made us kings and priests
unto God.
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive riches and honor and glory and dominion
and majesty and power and praise now and
forever.
This is the one of whom we speak.
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
This is the one you serve, the one
whom you expect to meet, and the one
who will reward you for every deed you've
done in the body, whether it be good
or whether it be bad.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Now we find here in the sixteenth verse,
and he had in his hands seven stars
in his right hand.
This was part of the revelation of Christ.
He had there held firmly in that hand
of omnipotence seven stars.
Notice now in the twentieth verse the mystery
of the seven stars which thou saw'st in
my right hand.
The seven stars are.
We are concerned about these seven stars, what
they mean, what their significance may be, and
why he has three times mentioned it.
Well, actually a fourth, because in the first
verse of the second chapter, these things saith
he that holdeth the seven stars.
Four times now we have this statement, seven
stars.
What does it have reference to?
First, the right hand of a king, the
right hand of majesty, is the hand that
exercises authority, the hand that controls, the hand
that directs.
And so when he holds here in his
hands seven stars, he thus is affirming that
whatever these stars are, they are under his
direct control.
Now let's think for a moment.
Stars are light-bearers in darkness.
They themselves, unless we think of the planets
which are shined by reflected light or the
stars by their own, serve the same purpose,
really, that is to illuminate the darkness.
And so, said he, he holds here something
which is going to shine in darkness.
The sun is obscured, the sun is hidden,
and it's night, and he's holding seven stars,
light-bearers, points that are fixed, light that
is settled, and he controls them.
May I suggest to you that the Lord
Jesus Christ said, first, I am the light
of the world.
That light which shined in darkness, that light
which the Father gave to illuminate the stygian
darkness of the human spirit, had it not
been for the coming of Jesus Christ there
would have been no answer to the enigma
of life and the then tragedy of death.
But our Lord Jesus was the light that
came in and lighted a path out of
hell into heaven, for we were certainly doomed
to hell by virtue of all our rebellion
and crimes against God.
And he became the light, the light as
well as the way, the light as well
as the truth, yes, the light as well
as the life itself.
And our Lord Jesus then said, ye are
the lights of the world, the little lights,
the small lights that shine by light that
he gives.
Now he speaks of the stars, these that
are lights but are set by him in
places to guide, to direct, to illuminate in
darkness.
May I suggest to you that the stars
seem to me and to many others to
stand for, and he speaks of them, for
he says they are the angels of the
seven churches.
But that word angel is the word messenger.
Actually, it was an interesting thing.
We had the word malachia in the Arabic.
The malachias were the men that came around
and took the heavy loads on their back
and carried the mail and packages.
They were the messengers that we sent.
The word malachia is the word from which
we get our word angel.
They were the messengers.
They were the servants.
So he says these are the seven messengers,
the seven servants, seven translated into King James
English, the seven angels.
As I said, I'm suggesting to you that
these speak to us of those who ministered
for Jesus Christ in the churches to which
he's writing.
Those who were appointed by him to speak
for him and to teach the truth to
the congregations.
That the stars speak of those to whom
he has entrusted specific responsibility to teach and
to proclaim and to establish doctrine.
Now this is a solemn thing that the
Spirit of God has fixed for us here.
For he has said, be not many teachers.
I believe it's safe to say that you
have never heard me, from the time I've
been with you as your pastor, urge young
men to go into the ministry.
Now you say, why?
Well, there's only one reason.
I have seen too many young men in
the ministry because someone urged them.
I believe that when Jesus Christ wants to
put someone into the ministry, he is adequate
to speak to that person and make it
clear.
I believe that every Christian ought to be
wholly committed to the will of God.
It would be an utter contradiction to every
biblical principle that I hold dear and precious
if I were to give an invitation, say,
surrender yourself to the will of God in
terms of full-time service.
For I believe that every Christian must be
surrendered to the will of God, and if
he isn't basically in that principle of true
repentance, then he isn't Christian.
That the difference between a sinner and a
saint is the sinner lives to please himself
and the saint lives to please God.
A sinner is governed by his own will
and a saint is governed by God's will.
A sinner has committed himself to please himself
and a saint has committed himself to please
Jesus Christ.
And God has a plan for every Christian.
Every believer is in the body as a
member to the head.
I believe that every Christian is called to
full-time service.
Every Christian is called to full-time service.
Not in the sense, however, being supported by
a congregation necessarily, but in the sense that
whether a housewife with the tasks that seem
to be sometimes verging on drudgery or a
man working in the office or the factory
earning the funds for daily bread, these are
equally full-time service when one is there
in the will of God.
And if they aren't, they ought to get
into the will of God.
If you're not in the will of God
in what you're doing, you've no right to
do it.
I believe Jesus Christ is just as concerned
about the school that a teacher has and
the job that a clerk has and the
garage that a mechanic works in and the
factory that an employee has as he is
about a missionary or a pastor.
I cannot see in the Scripture any delineation
in these terms between secular and sacred.
In this sense, everyone is under thy direct
and immediate and, should we say, and thus,
then this is disobedience, complete control of Jesus
Christ.
Now, if you're there in this basic relationship
with him, it's a very simple matter for
him to say to you, this is what
I want you to do, and you'll know,
you'll know.
When God fixes the hooks of his purpose
in your heart, you'll know.
You won't know the way I know.
But if God has for you something beyond
that which you are now doing, you can
be perfectly sure of this, he will make
it clear.
What about missionary service?
I spent three years and four years of
my life going around the colleges and universities
and churches of the land, challenging young people
to go to the mission field.
And many responded, and many went.
And tragically enough, many are home with broken
hearts and broken hopes and traumatic experiences of
failure and grief that are heartache to me.
When the mission societies are to that place
where they can distinguish between those that are
there as the product of someone's challenge and
those that are there because of the leading
of the head of the Church, it may
be that someone such as myself could have
that ministry with freedom of heart and spirit.
But I would rather turn to you and
say there is a world out there filled
with sinners for whom Jesus Christ died, and
they ought to hear, and someone ought to
go.
Your life is his, is it?
You are abandoned to him, are you?
You are committed to his will, are you?
Then you are to look into the face
of him, of Jesus Christ, and say, Lord,
here am I.
Send me.
Have thy way.
Have thy will in my life.
But I would like to think that you
share with me at least some of this,
if you don't see it all, that when
you surrendered to Jesus Christ in repentance, you
have changed the government of your life from
your own two fists into those nail-pierced
hands, and that when you said, From today
on my purpose is to please him, you
meant it, and you intended that you would
please him however, wherever, whenever, in whatever manner
he wished or he chose.
This is what the scripture teaches in regard
to this commitment, an abandonment of every life
in the Church to the total sovereignty of
Jesus Christ.
He intends it to be that way, and
I believe that when this is operating we
will have no want of men to fill
pulpits and teach and to fill mission stations.
I believe that when you are in that
place of utter abandonment to the sovereignty of
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ has no great difficulty
in moving you into the—the geographical aspects of
the Christian life are the simplest to change.
It's the attitudinal aspects that are so difficult.
When he brings you to the place where
there is that total, that complete, that absolute
commitment to him, that utter, utter abandonment to
his sovereignty—now, I don't believe this has reference
to a few, to some, but to all.
I refuse to distinguish, because of the fact
that I cannot find it in the Word
of God, I refuse to distinguish in such
dichotomous terms as laity and clergy.
Now, I know we have those who function
in special relationships to a given congregation, but
may I make it perfectly clear to you
that the scripture teaches that there is really
one basic relationship to the Son of God,
and that is redeemed by his precious blood
and brought into union with him in death
and resurrection, brethren, filled with the fulness of
God.
He expects the same degree of abandonment on
your part as he does the missionary, the
same degree of fullness of the Spirit on
your part as he does the pastor.
No distinguishing levels.
You are to be united.
God has no stepchildren.
He doesn't have favorites.
You are to be in the place where
he puts you, in his vital, in his
precious, in his glorious relationship to Jesus Christ,
as anyone, anywhere.
Now when you are there, it is a
very simple matter for the head of the
Church to move you here, to move you
there, to put you into this ministry, and
to take you into that.
But this sovereign head of the Church holds
in his hands seven stars.
I believe that in his wisdom he has
chosen, through the ages past, even as at
the time that he wrote, those whom he
has entrusted with the responsibility of teaching and
preaching the word.
I would like to think, I would like
to believe, and I think perhaps you would
share with me, that the man who edits
this paper of which we are so concerned
for its extended ministry could be thought of
as a star held in the sovereign hand
of Jesus Christ, seeing as he waits before
the Lord and writing what he sees with
the courage to go against the stream of
his day and generation and say for Jesus
Christ what would be said and need be
said.
I wouldn't think of him in any unusual
sense.
I am sure that in this land of
ours there are scores of men who, though
they may not have the gift, do have
the courage and the stalwart faith and solemn
purpose and heartfelt dedication to Jesus Christ.
Any man anywhere that has been called of
him to stand as a spokesman, as a
teacher, as a preacher, as a setter forth
of truth, I think even in the twentieth
century as well as in the first, would
find something of the place that he has
held here in the right hand of Jesus
Christ.
Certainly no church should want a pastor or
anyone to preach for them that wasn't held
in that right hand, controlled by that right
hand, sustained by that nail-pierced hand, taught
by the one who holds them in his
hand.
Why would anyone sit?
Why would they listen?
Why would they think, unless this were to
be the case?
No, I would say, as best I can
see the word of God, that the star
is simply the one who is there as
the setter forth of truth under the control
of Jesus Christ in the darkness until the
sun himself shall come and spread the clouds
and be the light.
Till that time he will raise up through
the centuries to come as in the centuries
past should he tarry in his appearing those
who will stand for him.
Our hearts grow weary when we think of
the carnage in China.
If you did not read Lowell Thomas's article
in this current reader's digest of the Rape
of Tibet by the Communists, I suggest you
read it, read it and weep, read it
and grieve, and read it and pray.
And we see the church in China as
a light almost extinguished.
And all of us that have heard any
reports from that land cry out, How long,
O Lord Jesus, how long wilt thou let
thy travail in church go through the agony
of these hours of darkness?
But I know one thing, and I say
it with all there is in me.
If our Lord tarries a thousand years and
Communism ravages the earth till every land has
been destroyed by its venal influence, I assure
you this, the gates of hell shall not
prevail, for he holds seven stars in his
hand.
And there will be the witness to Jesus
Christ.
For he said, I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.
This man may go, and that may pay
with his blood, and the martyr's crown may
be earned by another.
But still the Son of God will have
the perfect number of those whom he uses.
He will raise up one and still another.
I think of the testimony in Ethiopia when
I think of the seven stars.
The missionaries of the Sudan Interior Mission went
into that country in 1938.
Oh, excuse me, 1928, and labored there for
ten long, wearisome years.
And when they left, they left about seventy
baptized believers in three areas, four that were
appointed to be pastors.
And when the invader came into Ethiopia, the
first thing that was done was to take
the pastors away from their churches and put
them into prison.
And now the young church was left leaderless.
What would they do?
There was one man that had labored as
a servant, a house servant for one of
the missionaries, as a translator, as an interpreter.
They hadn't thought that he was the stuff
that would serve as a pastor.
But the Spirit of God raised him up,
anointed him.
And when there was no one else, God
used him.
He called the people to gather, and they
would come at night down the ravines and
gather in a quiet place, in a cave,
a sequestered little valley, in a lonely hut.
He gathered in the elders.
They'd come in on Thursday morning, and they'd
read the Word and pray all day Thursday,
fast and pray.
And then on Friday, they'd study the Word
together and prepare their messages, for none of
them knew how to speak.
They had not been taught.
But after a day of fasting and prayer,
then there'd be a day of preparation.
And then on Saturday afternoon, after the midday
meal, they'd slip away, one by one, back
to their villages.
And then on the Lord's Day, they'd gather
the Christians for worship, and then they'd begin
to preach.
In 1938, the door closed, and we had
no further news from Ethiopia.
And I remember joining with others in prayer
that God would spare that church from extinction.
I asked one of the missionaries that had
labored in one of the larger areas, What
do you think we'll find when the door
does open?
He said, I think we'll find the church,
small but there.
Well, the time came when the back of
the invader was broken.
The British government called the missionaries and said,
Join us.
We're going down into the area where you
served.
And they went, fear, trepidation, for now, after
these years, they were to go back to
find whether anything survived.
They came to this one station, and they
saw some elders.
And behind them was a company of about
700 men.
Said, Who are these?
Oh, they're elders of the churches.
And in those six years of captivity, the
church had grown from 70 believers to over
20,000 baptized believers, with nearly another 20
,000 that were preparing for baptism.
From four churches to 70 churches, that right
hand held its star.
Nothing could extinguish it.
And then we notice here he holds the
seven churches, not in his hands.
He holds the stars in his hands, and
he walks in the candlesticks.
Now this candlestick is not to be confused
with the one in the tabernacle.
The one in the tabernacle, as you recall,
had a large bowl, and from it seven
branches.
But not this.
These are seven distinct, similar candlesticks, each placed
in its own ground and standing upon its
own basin.
Seven candlesticks.
And John said he saw the Son of
Man in the midst, walking in the midst
of the seven candlesticks.
If, as we've said, the stars are those
servants of God whom he calls to minister
to with blessing to the church, then the
church the candlesticks.
And what do we find?
We find that Christ is sustaining and directing
and dwelling in his church.
And furthermore, we find that Jesus Christ is
revealing himself through his church.
That this is the truth.
He is revealing himself to the church through
these whom he serves.
Think for a moment of the tremendous blessing
and heritage that we have with Martin Luther.
Oh, how your heart ought to thank God
in every remembrance of this dear man that
valiantly stood against his day and dared to
hazard the wrath of the invincible church.
We ought to think also with the same
deep gratitude to John Calvin.
I care not what your background may be,
but I trust that there is sufficient charity
of spirit that should your lineage be traced
to Calvin, you can look with deep gratitude
and thanksgiving to God who raised up John
Wesley.
And should your lineage be through John Wesley,
you can look to God with deep gratitude
for John Calvin and John Knox and realize
that each served well the Lord they loved
in the generation to which they were called.
But it's not just men that God uses.
He uses men to bless the church and
he uses the church to reveal himself.
The ultimate revelation of Jesus Christ does not
come through a man, either to preach or
to teach.
The ultimate revelation of Jesus Christ comes through
the church, the local church.
I believe in the local church.
I am so convinced of it that the
history of the church is a history of
repeated failures and blessings.
The Lord raises up a church, raises up
a testimony, raises up a ministry, and has
glory from it because of the dedication, the
abandonment, the obedience of one generation, of two
or three.
And all too often the history has been
that the third, the fourth generation have lost
the principles that were precious to the fathers.
It becomes formal, ceremonial, ritualistic, and dead.
What does Jesus Christ do?
Does he say the church has failed?
No.
He just does it all over again.
He may do it right there.
He may do it right in the same
building.
He may do it in the same place.
But it's always the church.
The unit that he works with is the
church.
It doesn't have to be an organization.
It doesn't have to be in a property.
The church is not an organization.
It's an organism.
It's a company of people that are banded
together by the Spirit of God in love
for Jesus Christ, in worship of the triune
God, and in mutual strengthening and encouragement and
in witness.
The church is a simple thing.
Two or three gathered together constitute the simplest
and most primitive form of the church.
It can be a larger company such as
this, with the necessity by virtue of the
company of officers, of elders and deacons, and
those entrusted with responsibility for fiscal matters and
organizational interests.
I do not believe that there is any
particular form of church which is the ultimate.
At least I do not know about it
at the moment.
I think that brethrenism on the one extreme
and the episcopacy on the other, and all
the forms that lie in between, are in
the same danger from the same source, namely,
becoming formal, losing vitality in spiritual reality.
I am told that there is nothing more
dead than a Plymouth brethren meeting when the
glory of Christ departs and the wonder of
the presence of the Lord is gone.
I am told by whom?
By those most loyal and zealous and earnest
brethren.
And I am told that there is nothing
more dead than the ceremony of the episcopacy
when the ritual of prayer is offered by
someone who does not understand or believe it.
And I have not had experience on either
of these extremes, but I have moved about
somewhat in the middle, and I can assure
you that there is no denominational protection that
can ensure the preservation of spiritual life.
And every church is subject to the same
kind of temptation, namely, to become ritualistic and
dead, and lose thus its light and lose
its place and lose its ministry.
Now our Lord Jesus has eyes as flames
of fire, and from these we discover that
he saw right down into the corporate personality
of each church.
And I wonder what that corporate personality would
be if he were to see tonight into
our hearts as a people here.
Each letter is a setting forth of that
corporate life that the group represents to him.
Each one is described as being under God
and thus seen by him, known by him,
judged by him, responsible to him.
Now our Lord Jesus has said that he
will reveal himself in the midst of the
church.
I believe that the history of the last
2,000 years, as far as the areas
and countries that have had Christian testimony are
concerned, can be written from the point of
view of its people, that you can
only understand the history of these last 2
,000 years by a Satanic plot to destroy
the effectiveness of the church.
Usually it's been destroyed by ceremonialism, by ritualism,
by doctrinal pollution.
But there have been groups that have held
doctrinal purity and simple ceremony and yet have
lost the blessing of God, because even in
this they've lost the sense of his presence
and their responsibility to him.
I think you can't understand nor explain the
conquest of Russia by communism apart from the
decadence and powerlessness and meaninglessness of the Orthodox
Church.
We are told that the land where the
Catholic regime is the strongest is the land
where Communism makes its most successful invasion.
In Western Europe we are most frightened by
the two nations which have the strongest Catholic
influence, namely France and Italy.
May I say that just to the degree
to which American Protestantism or Catholicism or any
other religion you wish loses its grip upon
the people, to that degree we become susceptible
to any other kind of an invasion.
It was Sorokin, the sociologist, that wrote in
one of his books in the late thirties
that the moment that religion becomes peripheral, that
is, crowded from the center out to the
periphery, out to the rim, if you want
to use the image of a wheel, the
moment it leaves the hub and goes to
the rim, that society has begun to disintegrate
and is susceptible to any type of vigorous
ideology that comes in where the idea and
the theories and the beliefs are still in
the center.
Now, beloved, you can be a member of
the Gospel Tabernacle Church of New York and
still, with all of our doctrine that we
love and for which we stand, with our
missionary program so dear and precious to our
heart, and still have a peripheral type of
religious experience.
What is the heart of your life?
What consumes you?
The glory of Jesus Christ?
The sovereignty of God's Son?
I think if I could listen to you
talk for twenty-four hours I could pretty
well say the depth of reality in your
experience.
What do you talk about?
Do you talk about Christ?
Do you talk about his word?
Do you talk about his truth?
You talk about what's important to you.
Now, unless Christ is in the center of
your life, unless he's there controlling and governing
and your whole life is lived out from
this center, then to the degree to which
the church is made up of people like
you, if this is your case, to that
degree the church has lost its light, to
that degree the church has lost its revelation
of Christ, and to that degree it's coming
under the judgment of Christ, because the church
is made up of people.
And the place where Christ is seen in
the midst of the candlestick is when the
members, those who compose the group, whether it
be large or small, are consumed with love
for Jesus Christ and are utterly committed to
him, absolutely abandoned to him.
And so when we stop to think about
it now, our Lord has revealed in this
that the church depends upon those whom he
holds in his right hands, who speak to
her in love.
Do you think that John wanted to write
to the church here and say, I will
spew thee out of my mouth?
He didn't want to do that.
But he was held in the right hand
of the Son of God.
And consequently, we are brought face to face
with this, that we must face what Jesus
Christ says to us.
And what is he saying?
Oh, I would to God I could bring
before you Martin Lloyd-Jones of England for
a three weeks or a month ministry and
let you hear what God is saying from
this man on the other side of the
water.
Every occasion possible I bring before you Dr.
Tozer and others through our missionary convention.
This past convention was a declaration from the
throne of God and the heart of God
that I've never experienced in twenty-five years
of ministry.
I've never heard such a total message with
every man speaking with anointed lips as this
year.
Never have I experienced such a thing.
And I believe that Jesus Christ is speaking
to the church again, seeking to get through
it a vehicle to reveal his glory.
Now, the church is true and pure and
blessable when it heeds what he says through
the stars, the messengers, those that speak to
it.
And the church, therefore, is to be where
the truth is.
You'll always find the church where the truth
is.
Now, this was the great conflict of the
Reformation.
The Roman Catholics said, the church is here
where we are.
We're the church and we tell you what's
true.
And Martin Luther turned it right around.
He said, no, you're not the church unless
you're where the truth is.
The church always is found where the truth
is.
And Romans said, no, truth is found where
the church is.
And this summarizes and epitomizes the conflict of
the Reformation.
The church is where the truth is, and
Christ is where the church is.
Now, this is the heart of regeneration.
The Roman Catholic Church still preaches salvation.
I've picked up their literature and read their
doctrinal dissertations on the new birth, and I
find absolutely nothing with which to disagree.
This is the difference.
The message is true.
The method is heretical.
And so only where the messenger, the malachia,
the tsar, stands for what Jesus Christ has
to say, can the church be what Jesus
Christ would have it be, and can the
church bear the light that Jesus Christ would
have it bear, and can he be revealed
through it.
Now, I make reference again to something that
came some days ago.
I've been reading again, and as I've told
you, shall continue, the life and work and
ministry of John Wesley.
And oh, how last Sunday night after the
service and several times during the week, my
heart has melted within me and on occasion
tears filled my eyes when I hear this
man saying the little group of twelve, the
class meeting, the larger group gathering on Friday
night nearest the full moon so they could
have the light to come and go by,
gathering there in love feast and worship and
preaching, and then when he had a church
that loved Jesus Christ with all their hearts,
and they would go to the common and
the open and stand there, and the people
would come from the coal mines and the
zinc mines and the factories and the mills,
and one of them, not always Wesley, but
often, would stand and speak.
Wesley says in his journal, it was as
though lightning struck them, and they lay upon
the ground.
What do you mean?
Oh, Jesus Christ had found the candlestick, and
he could be shown.
And Jesus Christ is looking for the candlestick,
the church, the people that are willing to
see him high and lifted up and fall
on their faces before him and utter absolute
abandonment to him.
And such a witness from such a church,
he can, he will, steal.
He's done it in the past, and he'll
do it again.
Revival, what is revival?
A revival is a normal church, a scripturally
sound church, a church that has the right
relationship to Jesus Christ and to each other
and to the world.
And when he can find a people like
that, Christ is willing to presence himself in
the midst of the people.
And when he does that, sinners will see
and fear be converted and come to Christ.
Seven stars, seven candlesticks.
He holds the stars in his hands, and
he walks in the midst of the candlesticks.
I wonder if he's walking in the midst
of this candlestick, this church.
Oh, let us meet him, that he may.
And if you're here unsaved, wait not for
that day, for it's Jesus Christ you believe
in, not us, not me.
And he's still mighty to save and strong
to deliver, and he'll meet your heart need
tonight.
And you needn't defer.
You fall before him.
Acknowledge your sin.
Confess your transgressions.
See his wounded side in the fountain of
blood that flowed from it.
Receive pardon, forgiveness, cleansing, eternal life.
But those of us that name the name
of Jesus Christ, let us fall at his
feet.
Allow him to purge us and cleanse us
and fill us with himself and put us
in the candlestick through which he can reveal
himself.
Seven stars, seven candlesticks, and Christ walking in
the midst.
Let us pray.
Amen.
How greatly, our Father, does our generation need
the revelation of Jesus Christ in his majesty,
in his glory, in his righteousness, in his
holiness.
They've heard so much of the platitudes.
They've heard so much of stereotype doctrine.
They've heard so much of axiom, words, and
they've seen so little of the glory of
Christ manifest in the candlestick, the lightbearers that
glow with the oil, incandescent with the presence
of the risen Christ, manifesting the holiness and
beauty and purity, the invisible light that sets
forth Christ and hides itself.
Oh, Father of our Lord Jesus, how we
ask thee tonight to make us such a
church.
We have above us thy word, the Lord
thy God, in the midst of them is
mighty.
We believe this is thy purpose for every
church and for this one.
We believe that only this revelation of Jesus
Christ in and through the church is adequate
to meet the need of our day, of
our weary, disillusioned generation that sees no relevance
in Christianity and sees no significance to church
and dares to echo the fact that religion
is but an opiate of the people and
has no vitality and significance.
Oh, God, wilt thou find in us a
people that thou canst bless and wherein the
Lord Jesus Christ can reveal himself in the
splendor of what he is?
And in this revelation of what he is,
there will be those smitten through the heart
by the revelation of what they are, see
themselves as sinners, monstrous rebels at war with
thee, and they'll fall upon their faces acknowledging
their crimes and their transgressions to receive pardon
and forgiveness and eternal life through faith in
thy son whose side was wounded, whose life
poured forth, that he might redeem lost men
such as we.
Father, we ask thee that there shall come
upon us a sense of thy holiness, a
sense of awe, a sense of fear.
And, grand Lord, that there shall come to
all of us a realization that if we're
Christians, in a day when the world's on
fire, there's only one proper attitude, a total
abandonment to all that Jesus Christ is in
himself and will be in us.
Then thou will call out those to go
forth from us as stars to shine in
darkness of Africa and India and China, and
stars to shine in their communities testifying to
the truth of all thou art.
Thou will do it, and we will be
that candlestick where we are, revealing the splendor
and glory of Jesus Christ.
Such a city of such awful need as
this deserves a church here on this corner,
in this dark place.
It's everything that thou didst intend thy church
to be.
We plead the precious blood of Christ.
We ask for thy working.
We pray, Lord, that the Spirit of God
will work with us during the days of
this week because of our willingness, because of
our waiting, because of our meditation, because of
the openness of heart and yieldedness of spirit.
May this be a week in which thy
glorious purpose is forwarded, when brokenness shall come
upon us and openness toward thee shall be
our part, and thou canst work that work
for which we groan, for which we wait,
yea, for which we thank thee in faith.
The revelation of Jesus Christ in our midst,
in his glory, for his name.
If you're here without Christ tonight, we invite
you to stay, remain where you are.
I wonder if there's an unsaved person that
by upraised hand would say prayer for me.
I know not the Son of God, and
I want to know him, and I want
you to remember me in closing prayer.
Would you put your hand up?
We'll see it.
Yes, I see your hand.
God bless you.
Savior.
Another?
Anyone?
For this one, our Father, whose hand is
raised, we pray.
O sovereign God, in all grace, work deliverance
in this life.
We plead the precious blood of Christ and
pray that the Holy Ghost will bring to
life in thy dear Son, in his name
and for his sake.
Amen.
Let us stand for the benediction.
Now unto him that is able to keep
us from falling and to present us before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
To the only wise God, our Savior, be
glory and honor, dominion and majesty now and
forever.
Amen.