What a marvelous introduction for my message to
you tonight.
As I stand behind this microphone, I am
conscious of the fact that I have been
duly instructed, lectured, threatened, warned, and a number
of other things, what's going to happen to
me if I wander.
So I am bound by the chains of
obligation to this death tonight not to wander.
Incidentally, those aren't the only instructions I have
received because before I left home my wife
said to me, now, don't drop your voice
at the end of a sentence and don't
mutter.
So if you see me wandering, please stand
up and wave your hand.
If you catch me muttering, stand up and
put your hand behind your ear because I
don't want to receive the judgment that's going
to be passed upon me if I do
either of these things.
Turn with me, if you will, please, to
the book of Revelation, chapter 1, in order
to begin our evening subject, The Revelation of
Jesus Christ.
I am just hopeful that we may get
some visions of God in the morning, in
the morning sessions, and if the Lord would
have blessed our meditation in the evening, there's
nothing lost here, nothing more should lie than
consideration of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Most of you are acquainted with the fact
that this word, Revelation, consists of the meaning,
at any rate, of the unveiling, the unfolding,
the disclosure, the discovery of Jesus Christ.
As the opening words of verse 1 of
chapter 1 indicate to us, the whole book
concerns the culmination of the project in the
mind of the Spirit of God from the
first of Genesis through to the end, because
that has been God's object in the giving
to us of his word.
Through various circumstances, exigencies, considerations, and peoples that
have come across the page of scripture, we
are moving towards this climactic and glorious end,
the revelation of Jesus Christ.
God is interested in giving to us, his
people, now in our day, as he will
to the whole world, to the universe at
large in a coming day, an unveiling of
who his son really is.
Now, this implies, as well, the fact that
we are going to discover some things new
regarding our Lord, although I do frequently say
that the book of the Revelation actually is
not composed of new revelations.
It is a complementary book, as most of
you know, to the books of Daniel and
Ezekiel, as well as the prophecies of others
of the Old Testament.
But it is a new angle, a new
viewpoint, a new perspective that is given to
us concerning who our glorious Lord is.
We have discovered him in the Gospels.
We walked with the Master through the hills
and the paths and the roads of Judea
and Galilee.
We have listened to something of the glorious
statements that are made by the apostles subsequent
to his death and resurrection.
And now we are coming to a new
look at him, a new light, which the
opening words of this verse present to us.
The unfolding, the unveiling of Jesus Christ, it
says, which God gave unto him.
He is not only the subject of the
book, he is the steward of the book.
It was something which God gave to him.
Our Lord, when he was here, was a
steward, a steward of the mission which the
Father had entrusted to him.
And in the day that is yet to
come, which we speak of as the millennial
period of his kingdom, he will continue to
be a steward.
Now, all God's servants are not sons, but
all his sons are steward-servants, and our
Lord himself is the example par excellence of
the steward.
God has given to him and entrusted to
him various works, various capacities, various unfoldings of
himself.
So, when he was here in his lifetime,
he was a steward in the days of
his humility.
When he comes to reign as the glorious
King, and Zechariah's words shall be fulfilled, there
shall be one King over all the earth,
and his name the only name, it will
be as a steward.
For you will recall reading in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15 how when the end comes, the
Son will deliver the kingdom up to the
Father, the end of his stewardship of earthly
administration.
We're living in days when we're very conscious
of the disaster, the tragedy, and the travesty
of human administration.
Man has conclusively and consistently been proven to
be a failure when it comes to administration.
Each of us has been made stewards of
certain tasks, certain objects, and certain missions to
perform.
We are stewards of ourselves.
We're responsible to God for what we do
with our own spirits, our own tongues, our
own minds, and our own bodies.
And I sometimes tell the young folks at
any rate, and I suppose those of the
joy club, you know, the just older youth,
would mind being reminded of this well, that
we are not responsible for the personality we
have received.
We are not responsible for our personality.
And how distinct are our personalities?
And all of us have very undesirable and
disagreeable characteristics that we have inherited.
I often say, if I knew where I
got my personality from, which uncle on which
side, I would have sent it back to
him long ago.
But we're saddled with it, and we're not
responsible for what we are by nature or
by birth.
I was reading an article just recently how
that there are, I think it is, 500
people involved in the composite of a personality
going back just three generations.
So, we have received this from our fathers,
and our uncles, and aunts, and forefathers, and
grandparents, and so on.
And it is sometimes very lamentable, isn't it,
that we should be born with a personality
such as we have?
And people say to me at times, I
know I've seen you somewhere before.
I generally answer them, well, that's unfortunate, but
I realize that it's inevitable, because if I
had another face, I wouldn't come up with
this one.
And that's the way it is with our
personalities, isn't it?
That we're saddled with it.
Now, what we are responsible to God for
is what we do with it.
And what we do with it, certainly the
scriptures teach us, is our responsibility to the
extent that there is such a thing in
the New Testament as the transformation of personality.
Other things you can't change.
We try to at times.
Physically, we do various things with it, and
we shape it up, and mold it, paint
it, and decorate it, and powder it.
I don't know what all we're going to
do with it.
Try and make it look a little different
than Tesla, but we can't do very much
with it.
In the long run, I was just thinking
when I was sitting here, of a little
fellow, four years of age, and we'd have
a sister at home, from the time she
was just a young mother, became very wrinkled
and very lined in her face.
So much so that her husband, who was
just the opposite, very boyish looking, when he
got to be 55, he still looked like
35, and no lines in his face whatsoever,
and nice and ready, confident, and of course,
you know what happens.
She's nearly always taken for to be his
mother.
That's a very difficult thing for a wife
to happen to her.
One day she was out with a little
fellow that she was taking care of over
the weekend, and they're walking down the street,
and a little guy looked up at her,
and he saw this line face, and he
kind of wrinkled his brows a bit, and
he said to her, calling her by name,
this is what he said, Have you ever
heard of oil of olay?
What?
She was very conscious of her problem, but
there's nothing she can do about it.
Now, when it comes to our personality, this
is totally different.
We are responsible for our personality.
God has given us the means by which
all the disagreeable and undesirable characteristics of our
personalities may be transformed under the operation of
him who is the spirit of liberty, or
the Lord where the spirit is Lord.
There is liberty for the transformation of personality,
but we are stewards of other things as
well.
However, our Lord here is made a steward,
and in that coming age of a thousand
years, he is going to continue to be
a steward, as he will continue to be
a servant.
One of the things that amazes me is
that when he, emptying himself, took upon him
the nature of a servant, he became what
he never could be.
He never could serve, he had to be
served, for he was disobedient, and now he
becomes a servant to serve.
You'll have noticed in connection with that, when
in the Gospel by John we read about
the Lord having total control, absolute authority, all
power given into his hands, and immediately followed
by some act or word, a few minutes.
You'll notice in John chapter 13, in the
upper room, he's sitting with his disciples and
says, Jesus, knowing that the Father put all
things into his hands, laid aside his elder
garments, curbed himself with a towel, had a
basin of water, and got down to wash
his disciples' feet.
When did he do that?
When he knew that the Father had put
all things into his hands.
What is the ultimate expression of absolute authority?
It's service and humility.
Didn't he say in chapter 17, as thou
hast given him authority over all flesh, why?
That he should give eternal life, as many
as thou hast given him.
So, the true expression of authority is seen
in the humility of service.
He is going to be the steward-king
in the thousand years yet to come.
The opening words of our chapter here say,
God gave unto him, as a steward, to
show unto his servants, this is the task
of the steward, to show, to manifest, to
reveal unto his servants the things which must
shortly come to pass.
You will notice there is no restriction upon
this word, his servants.
He is the subject of the revelation, he
is the steward of the revelation, and he
is the summation of the revelation.
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
The God has imparted to him, I know
there are several ways to interpret this expression,
the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Is that the genitive of possession?
Does that mean it was given to him,
it was his revelation, or does it mean
it was the revelation of himself, objectively?
What does this mean?
Well, it means all three things.
Certainly it was his because it was given
to him, God gave it to him, and
then it concerned him because it's the unveiling
of himself in a light we have never
seen before, perhaps I've never even dreamt of,
and so he is to show, he is
to unveil in turn to his servants, or
his bondservants.
And who are these?
Well, if we start with John the apostle
in chapter one, we move to the servants
of the churches in chapters two and three,
and then we move on to those who
will be living in the age subsequent to
the church age, and this revelation of himself
is directly in relation to the people to
whom it is committed, whether it be to
the servants of the churches, or whether to
be the 144,000, the elect of a
coming age, or whether to be the great
tribulation, or whether it's to be finally in
his glorious kingdom.
This unfolding of Jesus Christ is total, it
is universal to all who are his servants.
Then it says to show the things which
must shortly come to pass.
Therefore, you'll understand by this expression immediately the
book is prophetic, things which must shortly come
to pass.
And we have in this opening chapter, don't
we, in verse three the word prophecy, the
words of this prophecy.
It is a prophetic book, and that word
prophecy comes up again in the last chapter,
in chapter 22.
So, from the beginning to the close, the
book is prophetic.
It is looking forward to things which are
to develop, and certainly when we come to
chapters two and three, you will know that
it's the unfolding of conditions which were to
develop in the churches, and in the church
age.
In that sense, it was very definitely prophetic.
And then when dawn is caught up into
heaven, and the door is opened in the
beginning of chapter four, then there's an unfolding
of that which is prophetic regarding the earth
scenes as well.
So, he was to show unto his servants
the things which must shortly come to pass.
Now, this sometimes is confusing to some, which
must shortly or quickly come to pass.
Let me drop you down to the close
of verse three, where it says, the time
is at hand.
What does this exactly mean?
The time is at hand.
When we read the book of the Revelation
in the light of that which precedes it,
its precursor, the book of Daniel, you recall
that Daniel uses an expression frequently, and it's
the time of the end, or the end
times.
And I believe that's exactly what we have
here, the time.
The specific time, not something which is instantaneous,
but something which is specifically designed and determined.
It is a period of a certain duration.
We'll discover that if we were to come
and look at the church as it started.
These periods, these times, have been determined.
And certainly God has a plan for each
of us, doesn't he?
He has time for each of us.
He has times for each of us.
In chapter 20 of John, you remember the
Lord is walking beside the Sea of Galilee
with his own, and he speaks to Peter,
and he tells him, by what death he
should glorify God, and Peter says to the
Lord, as they're walking along, and he looks
behind him, and he sees John coming, and
he says, and what shall this man do?
We have a much nicer expression in Spanish
than that.
In other words, what about this man?
What about John?
You have told me when I will die.
You have told me how I will die.
But now, what about this man?
And the Lord says to Peter, if I
will, have you noticed how many times in
his life the Lord Jesus said, I will?
You and I are saying that constantly.
We're always expressing our own will.
How many times do you suppose the Master
said when he was here for those 33
years, I will?
Well, we would have thought many times, wouldn't
we?
If I suggest you there are only five
times, it would have surprised you.
He was the willing, obedient, subject servant.
He was not here to express his own
will.
I came down from heaven not to do
my own will, he said, but the will
of him that sent me, and on very
particular and decisive occasions does the Lord Jesus
ever say, I will?
And this is one of them.
If I will that he should carry till
I come, what is that to be?
The times and the seasons are not for
you to decide.
It will be my will that decides the
times and the seasons about others.
And isn't it characteristic of us?
We're always wanting to know what is going
to happen to the other man, and sometimes
ourselves as well.
But someone else, why should this happen to
me and it doesn't happen to them?
Why is there such a divergence and diversity
of experiences amongst the Lord's people?
What's over and above it all?
Why is this?
And the Master says, I retain and reserve
to myself the right to determine the times
and the circumstances of each of my servants.
So, it's a period that is determined, is
defined, is decided upon, and that's what we
have here.
The time is at hand, the time of
the end, and that's what the book of
the Revelation really is concerned about.
The period of the churches, and then that
which follows.
This is decidedly the time of the end,
or the end time, and that which preceded
it now must give place to this.
And if we don't see the distinction between
what went before and what is now, and
between what is now and what is coming
after, then we enter into a lot of
confusion, don't we, in our understanding of the
scriptures.
So, the time, he said, is at hand.
This expression at hand, I suggest to you,
is proximity.
It's proximity contextually, but not necessarily chronologically.
For example, Isaiah chapter 9, unto what a
child is born, unto what a son is
given.
The time was at hand when that happened,
but the very next thing says, and the
government shall be upon his shoulders.
His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, and
mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of
Peace.
Of the increase of his government and kingdom,
there shall be no end.
Upon the throne of David to establish it.
Now, do you see how the scripture sometimes
puts things together contextually that are very divergent
chronologically?
The child was born, the son was given,
but the government's not upon his shoulder yet.
Mary must have wondered oftentimes in her life
experience with her son, the words of Gabriel,
the Lord God shall give unto him the
throne of his father David, and he shall
reign over the house of David forever, and
of his kingdom there shall be no end.
And the end was brought.
And what did the mother think?
What did the mother think?
How did the mother's heart understand this?
Bringing in her ears those 33 plus years,
the Lord God shall give unto him the
throne of his father David, he shall reign
over the house of David forever, and of
his kingdom there shall be no end.
This is the end of the cross.
So, we have other examples of that as
well.
You remember Isaiah chapter 61, quoted by our
Lord in Luke chapter 4, in the synagogue
at Nazareth, when he said the spirit of
the Lord God is upon me because he
has anointed me to preach the gospel to
the poor, to announce liberty to the captive,
to set at loose those who are bound,
and so on.
He goes on to say to preach the
acceptable year of the law, the year of
jubilee, and say, Vengeance, our God.
These are put together in Isaiah 61.
The Lord separates them, doesn't he, in Luke
chapter 4.
The acceptable year of the law, he said,
this day is this scripture fulfilled in your
ears.
But, he did not continue and conclude the
sentence, and add, and the day, Vengeance of
our God.
So, there's 2,000 years at least between
these two things, but there's only a conjunction
and an end in between them in the
original passage.
So, I think that's what we have here,
the things which must shortly come to pass.
And, as we read on, he sent and
signified it by his angel unto his servants
all.
I made a little, I gave you a
little story this morning, and it intrigues me
no end, and someday I'd like to handle
it as a subject, and that is the
ministry of angels.
Some of us have the idea, I know,
that angelic ministry, as it's described, described for
us, particularly in the epistle to Hebrews, the
last verse of chapter 1, are they not
all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to
serve for those who should be heirs of
salvation, concerns only physical preservation.
I don't think the scripture will support that.
I don't believe that even the New Testament
will support that, that all angels do for
us, for you and for me, today, is
physically preserve us from some tragic or fatal
accident.
That they do that, I have no doubt.
Some of us, perhaps, have had very vivid
and long-remembered experiences of that kind, but
I do not believe that encompasses or includes,
and certainly doesn't conclude, all the ministry of
angels, for God has various services for them
to do.
I'm not sure if there will be anyone
here in the audience this evening who knew
Brother Philip Tate of Paraguay.
I did meet some folks here this morning
who were from that area of Canada, Ontario,
rather, in the Wallenstein, Myra, Hawksville area, where
he was very well known.
But Brother Tate spent the last five or
seven years with us, living in Bethany Lodge,
in Unionville, and he was a man of
unusual, excuse me, struggling character, a very admirable
person, very, very few people.
I judged that 95% of the people
who had contact with him here, at least
since he came to Southern Ontario to live,
didn't know hardly anything about this man's character
or his life work.
Sixty-seven years, almost, I think a month
and a half short, of his service in
the Lord, service in the gospel, way up
from the inner reaches of the Amazon River,
through all the countries of South America except
two.
A man whose energy and activities embraced three
continents, and yet he was a very stealthy
-facing man, very quiet man, nothing ostentatious about
him at all.
And he came out of the dining room
at Bethany Lodge just a week and a
half or so ago, went up to his
room, as he was accustomed to do, he
did a lot of visiting around the lodge
for others, a very active man mentally and
physically at 86, almost 87 years of age,
and went into his room, sat down, picked
up the missions magazine, talked to the lady
on the phone, about an hour later one
of his special friends opened the door to
go in and visit him when he didn't
enter and stopped in and found him dead
in the chair.
And I was very much impressed, I was
honoured to conduct his funeral service and I
was very much impressed the way the Lord
gently took him home.
And I felt very deeply this conviction.
And I mentioned two or three times in
the funeral service how they found him in
his own room, they found him sitting in
his own chair, they found him doing his
own delightful task of Jewish reading.
And I knew by the time I had
said that three times there were a number
of them in the room.
And I knew by the time I had
said that three times there were a number
of them in the room.
But I suggested to the audience that day
that I was not mistaken when I said
they found him.
Who was it carried the beggar into every
household?
Who was it swept Elijah into the glory?
To whom did the Lord refer when he
said about the rich man in Luke chapter
12, this night do they require of thee
thy soul?
There's a ministry of angels perhaps which we
do not yet fully realize.
How does the spirit be transported from the
body to glory, to paradise?
Does it travel on its own or does
the scripture give us reason to believe that
there's an escort coming for the saint when
the master calls him?
Here is an angelic service that we have
in connection with revelation.
Who was it later on in the book
of the revelation disclosed to John some of
the things that he had difficulty understanding?
So, for the ministry of angels, let's move
on.
He sent and signified it by his angel
and through servant John.
Who bear record of the word of God
and of the testimony of Jesus Christ and
of all things that he saw.
I would like to draw your attention, if
I have time, in our meditations in the
evening time, to about eight trilogies that we
have in chapter one.
Now trilogies, you all know, are just a
grouping of three things together.
The provincial emblem of the province of Ontario,
which I am a native, is the Trillium,
the flower that blooms so profusely in the
month of May and carpets all the grounds
of the forest with this beautiful white foliage.
The Trillium, three.
Nathan Woods wrote a book one time called
The Secret of the Universe, and if any
of you have read it you will know
that he builds his whole book around the
principle that three is the number of the
universe in the representation of the Triune God.
My wife has her own little idea along
that line.
She tells me that in order to make
a wood fire go you have to have
three logs on it, and as we build
wood fires a lot in our cabin that
we have up in the Great Smoky Mountains,
she sometimes will say to me, now don't
forget to get three logs.
And very husband-like, you know, I come
in and get the kindling all ready and
put the paper and the kindling, and I
put two sticks on the top of it,
and I light it up and the kindling
burns down, and then flames perhaps come up
a little bit around the two logs, and
she'll say to me, did you put three
logs on?
No, I just had two.
Well, you should put three.
Well, but look, there's room for the draft
to come up between the two logs.
Why do you have to have three?
Well, just put three on.
So, also, automatically, as all husbands do, I
went and got another stick, and I placed
it on top of the two, and would
you believe it, the fire caught fire!
And I said to my wife, what scientific
explanation can you give me that you have
to have three logs on a fire to
make it go?
Well, it's a stupid thing for a husband
to ask his wife for scientific explanation.
She says, I don't know the explanation, I
know it works, so do it!
What else do you need?
A trilogy is a group of three.
Now, we have about eight trilogies in this
first chapter, chapter one, and here's the first
one.
Verse two, John Boehr record of the word
of God, the source of the revelation of
Jesus Christ, in its expansion from Daniel and
other books, and of the testimony of Jesus
Christ.
Now, that covers a wide field, doesn't it?
His testimony in life, when he was so
misunderstood, so despised, and rejected as man.
Testimony.
Remember what Paul said to Timothy about he
who bore the good confession before Pontius Pilate,
and he never said anything, until finally he
asked him if he was a king or
not.
Whose testimony before Herod was the dignity of
silence.
The testimony of Jesus Christ.
Then, on finally to this book that we
have before us here, and of all things
that he saw.
There are forty-four visions in the book
of Revelation that John saw.
That's really a very great number, isn't it?
Visions.
When I was speaking to you this morning,
I perhaps did not suggest to you, but
when we talk about visions of God, we're
not necessarily talking about things visionary, as we
understand the word.
We understand the word visionary to mean something
that is nebulous, or abstract, or ephemeral, something
that is uncertain, something that is not concrete.
But you'll recall when our Lord came down
from the mountain in Matthew chapter seventeen, after
they'd seen the transfigured son of man.
Remember what he said to the disciples?
Tell no man the vision.
What was the vision?
It was a glimpse of the central figure
of the kingdom yet to come.
A man transfigured, man in glory, around which
everything will gather, and to which everything will
look.
The vision was the vision of the Christ.
So, when we're talking about vision, we're not
talking about something mystical, something that God reveals
to the heart, reveals to the soul, and
the means by which we get to know
him.
Time is gone, isn't it?
All right, let's look at verse three, and
then I shall be gone.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that
hear, the words of this prophecy, and keep.
There's a trilogy again, isn't it?
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that
hear, and those who keep those things which
are written therein, for the time that it
has.
It is a prophecy.
This is one of seven Beatitudes of the
book of the Revelation.
There are seven.
This is the first one.
The last one comes in the closing chapter.
In fact, there are two in the closing
chapter.
When it comes to something similar to this
one, when we come to chapter two, there's
nothing said about reading, and nothing said about
hearing.
Here we have the person who reads is
blessed, the person who hears is blessed, and
the person who keeps the prophecies is blessed.
When you come to chapter 22, it says,
Blessed are they who keep...
No reading, because you've already read through it,
you see.
No hearing, because you've already heard it.
When you come to the close, then the
only thing left is to keep it.
Blessed are they who keep the words of
the prophecy of this book.
And, in closing, how do you keep the
prophecies of the Revelation?
We keep them by living constantly in the
light of them, in the reality of them,
and in anticipation of them.
Let us pray.
Our Father, we commend us to Thee at
the close of the day.
We thank Thee for all we have heard,
seen, and engaged in today.
We thank Thee for the love of our
glorious Lord.
We often sing, Jesus loves even me.
We thank Thee for the unchanging nature of
His faithfulness.
We thank Thee for the blessed privilege of
remembering Him as we did this morning, and
for fellowshipping together, because we have done it
all, in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Amen.