Now, good evening to you all.
Let's turn, if you will, please, to the
book of the Revelation, chapter 1.
And I would like to read with you
tonight some of this chapter together.
We shall start at verse 1.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to show unto his servants things
which must shortly come to pass.
And he sent and signified it by his
angel unto his servant John, who bare record
of the word of God, and of the
testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things
that he saw.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that
hear the words of this prophecy, and keep
those things which are written therein, for the
time is at hand.
John to the seven churches which are in
Asia.
Grace be unto you and peace from him
which is, and which was, and which is
to come, and from the seven spirits which
are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ
who is the faithful witness, and the first
begotten of the dead, and the prince of
the kings of the earth.
Unto him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in his own blood, and
hath made us kings and priests unto God
and his father, to him be glory and
dominion for ever and ever.
Amen.
Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye
shall see him, and they also which pierced
him.
But all kingdoms of the earth shall wail
because of him, even so.
Amen.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the endings of the Lord which is, which
was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
I, John, who also am your brother and
companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and
patience of Jesus Christ, whose name in the
islet is called Patmos, for the word of
God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's
day, and heard behind me a great voices
of a trumpet saying, I am Alpha and
Omega, the first and the last, and what
thou seest, write in a book, and send
it unto the seven churches which are in
Asia, unto Ephesus, unto Smyrna, unto Pergamos, unto
Thyatira, unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto
Laodicea.
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 girth about the breast with
a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were quite like
wool, as quite as snow, and his eyes
were as a flame of fire.
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, 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 felt 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 because 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 my right hand, and the seven
golden candlesticks.
The seven stars are the angels of the
seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou
sawest are the seven churches."
Now, I hadn't actually planned on reading the
whole chapter with you, but once you get
into it, it's very difficult to stop.
I want to pursue with you this evening
the subject that we began on this evening,
the trilogies in particular of Revelation Chapter 1,
the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And by doing so, I shall endeavor not
to wander.
I'm trying hard, have you noticed?
I was thinking what would be a good
trick would be to put one of those
little chains hooked on the one side, and
you could bring it around behind the preacher
and hook it on the other side of
him, and then he just couldn't go anywhere.
That would hold him in, at any rate.
And speaking of that, I only once saw
some kind of a remedy of that nature
that was supplied for people who come to
the Lord's Supper on Sunday morning late.
Now, I don't suppose that happens here, but
in many of the Latin American countries where
I am able to frequently visit, we have
that difficulty.
It's part of their culture never to do
today what you can put off to tomorrow,
never arrive on time if you can arrive
late.
So, they nearly always arrive late.
Anyone who works in Latin America would tell
you that.
And on one occasion, I was in the
Dominican Republic for a five-day congress, as
they call it there, and I went to
the oldest assembly in the capital city, Santo
Domingo, and when I walked in the door,
I was surprised to see on the far
side of the wall a thick rope, a
rope of almost an inch in thickness, in
diameter, and it was hanging on the hook
on that side of the wall.
And I just caught a glimpse of it
as I walked by, and wondered what it
was, and then I noticed that most of
the folks arrived on time, which is very
unusual.
But, I soon discovered why they all arrived
on time, because when the clock struck the
hour, one of the elders who was standing
at the back went over and unhooked the
rope from that side, and pulled it across,
and hooked it on the other side, and
anybody who arrived after the hour had to
sit behind the rope.
They were not allowed to break bread.
That's the only time I've ever seen in
a Latin American congregation, and I have seen
a good number of them, the problem solved
by keeping people from arriving late.
It didn't actually work a hundred percent, but
it did work a hundred percent as far
as the separation was concerned.
They just were not allowed to cross the
line or cross the rope after the time
had come.
So, I got to thinking this would be
a good thing for these wandering creatures up
here.
You could put a chain like that and
hook it on either side of them, and
then Brother Stewart wouldn't have the problem with
the microphone that he had with me the
first time I was here.
So, I want to continue this evening with
the trilogies.
We've been speaking about the trilogies of chapter
one.
You may find eight, you may find nine,
you may find ten, according to the manner
in which you separate them.
The first one we have right in the
early part of the chapter where we read
the first paragraph, in fact, and it says
in verse two regarding John and his stewardship
that we were mentioning, he bore record of
the word of God that's the first thing,
and the testimony of Jesus Christ, that's the
second thing, and of all things that he
saw.
So, there's a trilogy, three things in one.
Then the next one comes in verse three,
blessed is he that readeth, and they that
hear the words of this prophecy, and keep,
another trilogy, reading, hearing, and keeping, those things
which are written therein for the time it
has had.
I was noticing today when I was thinking
about this in connection verse two, John bearing
record of the word of God, and of
the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all
things that he saw.
Now, it has been sometimes suggested that we
have here John's writing in the gospel.
You remember he starts off something along that
strain, the beginning was the word, and the
word was with God, and the word was
God.
The word became flesh, verse 14, and he
dwelt amongst us full of grace and truth.
And then the second thing we have here,
the testimony of Jesus Christ, and that has
been likened to the subject of the epistles
of John, when he spoke and speaks to
us so clearly regarding the various attributes and
presentations of our Lord, he who came to
destroy the works of the devil, he who
came to take away our sins, he whom
the Father sent to be the Saviour of
the world, he who is coming again, when
we see him we shall be like him,
or we shall see him as he is.
And so that has been likened to the
second of the first trilogy here, the testimony
of Jesus Christ, and then of all things
that he saw concerning the rest of the
content of the book.
But I was noticing as well that farther
down in the chapter, in verse nine, we
have that John was a brother and a
companion in tribulation in the kingdom and patience
of Jesus Christ.
Again, we have a trilogy.
He was in the islet of Cob, Patmos,
on account of the word of God, and
on account of the testimony of Jesus Christ.
He was a prisoner, as you know.
He was exiled.
He was sent away to the isle of
Patmos as a criminal.
The infamous and notorious place where the criminal's
blood was shed upon the craggy rocks of
Patmos, where they worked in quarries and so
on.
And John, as an Egypt man, is sitting,
and I judge he was sitting on one
of these crags of the isle of Patmos,
and I think perhaps he was looking towards
the west.
He was looking towards Rome.
You see, he had been exiled because of
the testimony of Jesus Christ, on account of
his proclamation of the word of God.
He had paid a price for this, and
the reason why I suggest to you that
he was looking west is because Rome had
exercised her imperial authority.
The prophets were all gone.
He only is left.
They have sealed their testimony with their blood,
and John now is sitting on that lonely
island in the Aegean Sea, and he is
spending the last of his days, possibly in
his early nineties at this time, because of
the testimony that he has borne to Jesus
Christ.
It reminds us a little bit of Paul's
expulsion from Thessalonica.
You remember he was expelled, and the charge
laid against him politically was that he said
there was another king, Jesus, and that was
political heresy.
Thessalonica was a city under not only Roman
domination, but it was called a Roman city,
and so he was not allowed to say
in a city of that kind, it would
be political heresy to say that there was
another king, and not Caesar, and that is
one Jesus.
So, John here has borne testimony to our
Lord himself in his proclamation of the word
of God, and he has paid a price
for his testimony.
He's been banished, he's been exiled, and he
is to die in that lonely, sorrowful place.
Well now, from his day until our day,
and even included in our day, those who
have lived godly in Christ Jesus have suffered
persecution, and our brethren and sisters in other
lands, as some of you will know and
be very conscious of, even today, are paying
a price for their testimony and for the
word of God, which they prize, which they
teach, and which they constantly read.
Let me tell you another little story of
an incident that happened when we were in
Cuba just recently.
My younger son and I, we went to
Cuba, as I mentioned to you the other
night, and just before we left Cuba, a
number of years ago, I married a young
couple over there, and when we went back,
they had had two sons.
These two sons now were married, and they
met us at the airport when we landed,
and they said, you must come at one
point in your visit and have dinner with
us.
So we said we would.
Well, we went away down to Pinar del
Río, in the western part of the country,
and then we came back to the towns
of Gabriel and La Salud, and one evening
in the meeting, this brother, Daniel, came to
me, and he said, you remember what you
promised me at the airport?
And I said, what was that?
He said, you promised that you would have
a meal with my wife and me while
you were here.
So I said, very well, when would it
be?
And he said, well, we're only a night
or two left, so we chose a night.
We went over there for supper that night,
and his mother and father, whom I had
married 30 years before, were there, and also
his brother and his wife.
And after the meal was over, we're standing
outside before we went to the hall for
the night meeting, and we're chatting away, and
Daniel said to me, I'd like to tell
you what happened to me after you folks
have gone.
Of course, my brother and I were born,
and I chose a university career, and I
was going through university, and I was three
years into my course, my university course, and
then I was caught reading my New Testament.
At least, I was denounced, I was reported
for reading my New Testament.
And so the head of the operation where
he was, the university, called into his office,
and he said, it's been reported to us
that you're reading a Bible.
And he said, yes, he is reading a
Bible.
He said, well, where is it?
He said it was in his room.
He said, well, go and bring it.
So, he went and brought his New Testament,
and he demanded it, and he confiscated it,
and as a result, he was thrown out
of the university.
His career was ended.
His calling was finished.
They sent him out into the farms, into
the country, a number of miles from his
hometown, to raise chickens, from the third year
of university, for raising chickens.
And it was all because he was found
reading his New Testament.
So, he said, I must tell you what
happened.
When I got out raising chickens, he said,
my girlfriend, Christina, she started writing me letters.
One occasion, she got permission to come and
visit me on the weekend, and when she
came to visit me, I said to her,
Christina, I want you to do something for
me.
We can't see each other very infrequently, but
I want you to do something for me.
When you write me a letter, I want
you to begin the letter as you have
been doing, but after you write that first
part, then he said, I want you to
write me the first chapter of the Ecclesiastical
Romans.
And he said, the next letter, I want
you to do the same thing, but write
me the second chapter of the Ecclesiastical Romans,
and in your third letter, I want you
to write me the third chapter of the
Ecclesiastical Romans, and just continue on doing that.
Now, if you get to the end of
Romans, and I hope to get more than
16 letters from you, then he said, I
want you to start at 1st Corinthians, and
I want every letter for you to send
me a chapter out of 1st Corinthians.
Now, don't forget, when you start these letters,
don't just be thinking of the chapter you're
going to write.
You write me that first paragraph that you
always put in there.
I want that first paragraph.
Don't forget the first paragraph, and in case
you don't know what the first paragraph is,
I shall just leave that until the time
when you're following along, too.
Now, he said, you'll be sure you'll promise
me to do that, so she said she
would.
So, he told me the story.
He said, every letter I got from Christina,
I got a chapter of Romans, and so
she finished Romans, and she started in 1st
Corinthians, and then she went right through 1st
Corinthians, all the first 16 chapters of 1st
Corinthians, and then she started in 2nd Corinthians,
and I got all of 2nd Corinthians, and
I got all of Galatians, and I got
all of Ephesians, and I got all of
Philippians.
And one day, the foreman called me in,
and he said, you know, there's some comments
going around here that you're a bit tocado
a queso.
That means, you know, you're kind of hushed
in the head, and he said, you must
be because, well, because of what?
He said, because when everybody else has finished
the day's work, and they've gone to bed
to sleep, and they're caught, he said, you
sit up reading those letters from your girlfriend.
He said, you're always reading these letters.
You must be off your head, or you're
dreadfully in love, whatever it is.
He said, why would somebody sit up every
night of the week, after they've done a
hard day's work, reading their girlfriend's letter?
Man, you know what she's going to say.
Well, he said, I just like reading your
letters over.
I like to do that after work is
over.
He said, what he didn't know was I
was studying the Scriptures.
And he said, I lost my university career
because I was reading my Bible, but I
got most or a lot of my New
Testament back again in Christina's letters.
So, he said, I spent my evening hours
reading the Scriptures, and then I spent the
daytime when I was working, meditating, and going
over what I was able to read of
the Scriptures.
So, she put the Bible together, a good
part of the New Testament together for me.
And all of the years went by, he
was out there for some time, and then
finally he was released.
And he came back to his town, and
back to Christina, and I'll tell you what
he did when he came back, right?
No, no, some of you are looking very
blank with innocent faces.
Well, he married the girl.
What did you expect him to do?
And she was standing there beside him, and
they had a little girl, two years old,
when I was there.
And he said, this is my, and then
Ewen says, this is my scribe, this is
the lady.
But no, he says, no, I've got a
problem.
I said, what's your problem?
He said, my problem is that I want
to teach the Scriptures in the assembly.
But you know, we have some older men
here in this assembly, and he said, they
tell me we don't want the exposition or
the teaching of the Scriptures.
We want the Gospel.
Just preach the Gospel.
That's all the world needs, and that's all
we need.
So, just preach the Gospel.
And he says on the beat, I don't
have any ambition to preach the Gospel.
He said, I've spent long months studying the
Scriptures.
And he said, I feel, in my heart,
I want to teach the Christians the doctrines
of the Scriptures.
But the older brethren don't want me to
do it.
Now, what do I do?
Well, what was I going to say?
You can't tell a young man to rebel
against the authority of the oversight, can you?
And I said to him, Daniel, there's one
thing you must remember.
He was terribly frustrated.
And by the way, I should tell you
that at the conference we were attending that
weekend, I heard him speak.
And my judgment unquestionably, he is by far
the best teacher of the Scriptures in the
country, in the various assemblies there.
So, I knew how he was feeling, and
I knew he was in a very difficult
situation.
And I said to him, Daniel, just remember
that for 30 years, these older men have
kept this assembly going.
Now, you must take that into consideration.
I know how you feel.
I know what you want to do.
I know what your first love is.
And I said, God has prepared you for
this, and I'm sure the assembly needs what
you can give them.
And he did have an opportunity at the
conference, as I've said.
And I said, God will open the door
for you.
You just wait till the opportunity comes when
the Lord has given you this in these
unusual and unexpected circumstances, the knowledge of the
Scriptures, as well as the ability to expound
the Scriptures, you just wait, and the Lord
will provide the opening for you to do
that.
But, you see, he had paid a price.
He lost his university career, but he got
a career that he never would have got
in university, and that is to be a
very able teacher of the Scriptures for the
saints there.
And, of course, that was a higher calling,
really, wasn't it?
Now, John has paid a price.
He's on the Isle of Patmos because of
his testimony concerning Jesus Christ, because of his
faithfulness to the Word of God, and he's
going to pay a price, finally, with his
life.
Now, let's look at some of these things
that I want to notice with you regarding
some of these trilogies.
We go down to verse 4.
John said, The seven churches were in Asia.
Grace be unto you, and peace from him
which is, which was, and which is to
come.
Marvelous bit of the ending.
Now, we wouldn't have said it that way.
I'm sure you and I wouldn't have.
We would have said, Peace, grace unto you,
and peace from him which was, and which
is, and which is to come.
But that's not the way he said it.
He said, Grace and peace to you from
him which is, and who is he which
is.
You'll notice in the tenses of these expressions
he's heard, he always is.
There is no time that embraces him.
He is the Eternal One.
He is the I Am.
Exodus chapter 3, the burning bush.
Whom shall I send?
Whom shall I say has sent me?
At most God said, Tell them the I
Am sent you.
But they won't believe me.
Tell them that the I Am that I
Am sent you.
Not I Am that I was not, not
that I am that which I shall not
be, but I Am that I am.
Ever, always, eternally, the I Am.
He lives.
The marvelous thing about our Lord, I believe
that the verse has been quoted here already
this week from Hebrews 13 and 8.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, forever.
As he was, he is.
As he is, he shall be.
That's why if we walk with the Master
through the Gospels, we get to learn him
not only as he was, as he is.
And when we come into the epistles, we
not only learn now who he is and
where he is, but we learn what he
is and will be when we see him.
We'll be in our terms, in our conjecture
of time.
When we see him, he will be the
unchanging one.
As I have known him here, I will
know him there.
As I learn of him here, I will
know whom I'm going to meet there.
This is the marvelous thing about it, isn't
it?
Changeless, ageless, the one who always is.
That is what provoked the ire, the wrath
of the Jewish leaders when our Lord was
here.
So many times in the Gospel by John,
he said, I am.
I am.
Not I will be the light of the
world, not I will be the bread of
life, or not that I am the bread
of life but will not be the bread
of life.
He always is what he said when he
was here.
I am.
He still is, my friends, the light of
the world.
He still is the true God.
He still is the Eternal One.
And so, John says that he's writing to
them from him who is, ever is, and
in that sense never was, but always is,
and in that sense never will be, because
he is.
Now, that's difficult for us to understand, isn't
it?
Because we relate everything to time.
We go back in our minds to the
creation.
We go back to the time when space
and matter and time began, and we can't
go beyond that, because our minds can't embrace
anything beyond that.
We can't conceive of anything beyond space, matter,
and time, because we are space creatures.
We are creatures of matter, we are creatures
of time.
That's our world.
These are our boundaries.
But here is one who is outside and
beyond all the boundaries of time.
He is what he ever was.
So, he says, from him who is, and
then he goes on to say, and which
was, but he ever was what he is.
So, I'm to understand, when I consider the
revelation of Jesus Christ, I'm to understand one
who doesn't know mutation, who doesn't know development,
who doesn't become something that he wasn't, because
he ever was as he ever is, and
then he is the one who is the
coming one.
One of his titles, particularly in the book
of the revelation, is he's the coming one.
He's always coming.
It is difficult for us to grasp this
sometimes.
You remember Enoch, the seventh from Adam, as
Jude tells us, he looked at the world
around him, and he saw the violence and
crime and destruction and devastation around him, and
he said, the Lord has come with ten
thousands of his states.
The Lord is come, but he hadn't come,
had he?
No, and he hasn't come yet, as far
as we're concerned, to execute judgment.
But Enoch, as Hebrews 11 and 6 says,
believes that God is, and he that comes
to God must believe that he is.
Because Enoch believed that God is, he said
he's come.
There's no question about it in Enoch's mind.
Because the world was in the state it
was, and because God is in his character,
in his person, in his justice, in his
righteousness, then Enoch says he's come with ten
thousands of his things, especially his judgments.
Now, we say, well, but Enoch was, he
was certainly convinced that God is, and because
he was convinced that God is, he was
convinced there had to be a time of
judgment.
And I think that's good for us in
understanding the world in which we're living in
today.
David, don't drop your voice and don't mutter.
We look around the world in which we're
living, and we are at times devastated at
all the injustices of the so-called justice
system, at all the unreliability of the promises
of men, and all that which is supposed
to be is not, and the facade behind
which so many live, and the lack of
reality, and the outbursts of the disintegration of
society as we know it, and the crumbling
and deterioration of all that which was, we
felt, standards ensured.
Now, they tell us, of course, there are
no absolutes.
Did you ever hear a more ridiculous statement
than that?
It's an absolute statement saying there are no
absolutes, but that's what they're telling us.
That's what the intelligentsia are telling us, the
university profs.
They're saying there are no absolutes.
Well, that's an absolute statement, isn't it?
And, it's absolutely ridiculous to say there are
no absolutes.
How can you make a statement like that?
How can you make an absolute statement saying
there are no absolutes?
It's astounding modern intelligence and technology.
So, here we are.
We're living in a world where everything is
crumbling around us.
There's no point of reference.
There are no standards.
Relativism has brought us into absolute chaos.
There is no morality.
Morality is something that must be defined by
an objective, authoritative source that demands the right
to mandate concerning a man's character and conduct
irrespective of social trends.
That's what morality is.
But, relativism has told us that no one
has the right to mandate regarding anyone's character
or conduct, and social trends dictate what our
conduct shall be.
Then, there is no morality.
It's merely convenient.
It's the individuality of personal convenience.
That's all it is.
We're living in that kind of world.
But, we believe that God is because He
is because Jesus Christ is.
The Lord has come in thousands of His
saints, and such was the confidence and the
surety and the conviction of Enoch, believing in
the midst of all that turmoil and chaos
and disaster, that God is.
The Lord rewarded him.
He just took him away home to heaven.
He was not where God took him.
You know, it says, by faith he was
translated.
I can understand very readily some of the
marvelous things that are attributed to the heroes
of the faith in chapter 11.
By faith, Noah moved his spear-building ark.
By faith, Abraham went out, not knowing where
he was going.
By faith, Moses endured, as seeing him was
invisible, not hearing the wrath of the king.
I can understand those things being the product
or the result of faith, but tell me
something.
A man is translated by faith?
By faith, Enoch is translated.
He should not see death.
So, we're waiting for the fulfillment of the
promise of Him who is.
Unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable.
He is the one who is.
He is the one who always was.
There never was a time when He wasn't.
We're on a talk within the boundaries of
time, and He is the one who is
coming, and who is constantly coming.
So, he says, from Him which is, which
was, which is to come.
Now, there's a trilogy here.
Let me note the three things.
First, you have the salutation from Him, from
Him which is, which was, which is to
come.
And then you have the second part of
the salutation from the seven spirits which are
before His throne, and then you have the
third part of the salutation which makes the
salutation a trilogy, and from Jesus Christ who
is the faithful witness, and the first begotten
from amongst the dead, and the prince of
the kings of the earth.
I would like to notice with you some
of these things.
Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness.
We were speaking the other evening about stewardship,
the stewardship of testimony, the stewardship of the
trust of the word of God which is
given into our hands, the stewardship of all
that He has bestowed us with, and endowed
us with.
Here is the faithful witness.
Here is the one who in himself knows
no equal when it comes to the faithfulness
of his witness.
This is the one who is also included
in the salutation, and John writes from Jesus
Christ who is the faithful witness.
John himself has been up to this point,
and will be, with the visions that are
entrusted to him, a faithful witness.
You remember about Paul writing to Timothy, he
talks about the good confession which Christ made
before Pontius Pilate.
Our Lord knew no variation, no wavering, no
defecting in the service of his witness.
The pathway which the Father had outlined for
him, he never deviated from it, he never
swerved from it, he never changed his circumstances
when he could have.
If thou be the Son of God, command
that these stones be made red, forty days
and forty nights, nothing to eat and nothing
to drink.
With a wild beast tempted of the devil
for those forty days and forty nights, and
now at the close of them he is
hungry, his body is reacting to the fasting
of forty days and forty nights.
If thou be the Son of God, who
heard it said at the river Jordan, lift
this thy beloved son in whom I am
well pleased.
He comes to him in the wilderness, in
his emaciated state, in his weakness of body.
When an angel had to come and minister
to him, he says, if thou be the
Son of God, command that these stones be
made red.
He had the power to do it, he
could have done it very readily, he needed
the red.
But, it was the Spirit of God that
carried him into the wilderness, and it was
his Father that planned that experience for him,
and he would not alleviate the situation by
his own ability to do so when it
was not the Father's time.
He was the faithful witness, and all the
way through his earthly pathway, he was constantly
the faithful witness.
I came down from heaven, he said, not
to do mine own will, but the will
of him that sent me.
The doctrine that I teach is not my
doctrine, but he taught me.
Marvelous, isn't it?
That's worth pondering, isn't it?
He taught me.
The Lord is the faithful steward to what
his Father taught him.
He is the faithful witness in his ministry.
He was the faithful witness in his weakness,
in his lowliness, his humility, and that last
interminable night, and those six trials that he
went through, the last night and morning of
his life, he was the faithful witness.
When there was a time when he could
have defended himself, he lifted not his hand.
When he stood in the presence of Herod,
who longed to see him, because he had
tried to stultify his conscience by saying God
had raised John the Baptist from the dead,
and he was eager to see him, and
now he has him, and he's asking things
of him, the Lord answers him with a
dignity of silence.
There's a dignity in silence that's difficult for
some of us to learn, isn't it?
He was faithful in the presence of the
Sanhedrin.
Until they put him under oath, he had
no defense of his own.
We adjure thee by the living God.
We put thee under oath by the Christ,
and he said, we've said it, and hereafter
I say unto you, you shall see the
Son of Man sitting on the right hand
of power, and coming in the clouds of
heaven.
We're going to come down to that shortly,
aren't we?
In verse 7, coming with the clouds of
heaven.
I want to notice with you, when I
come to that point, it says every eye
shall see him.
Let me just suggest something to you right
now.
Jesus, standing in the presence of the high
priest, when the high priest said that thou
tellest if thou be the Christ the Messiah,
he said, you have said it, and I
say unto you, you will see the Son
of Man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
You will see it.
Where's the high priest now?
Where's the Sanhedrin tonight?
Where are they going to be when he
comes with clouds, and every eye shall see
him?
Where will they be?
Well, you see, that's probably poetic, or metaphorical,
or something to say.
No?
Let me suggest to you that when the
Lord told the high priest that night, that
agonizing long night of his sorrow, his suffering,
when he was finally battered, and bruised, and
beaten, and led out to the cross, when
he said to the high priest, I say
unto you, you will see, I believe, and
I can only tell you that I believe
it, but I do believe it nevertheless, and
I suggest it to you, when God brings
him back in majesty and power, and every
eye shall see him, he's going to open
the gates of Hades, and let them see
him come.
He will do it.
There will not be a living creature anywhere
in the universe that doesn't witness the glory,
and the majesty, and the power of the
one who stood that night, seemingly a helpless
prisoner in the hands of his cruel murderers.
They'll see him come.
Every eye shall see him.
He was the faithful witness at all times,
and then, what else does it say?
He was the first begotten from amongst the
dead.
The only one that ever stepped into the
dynasty of death, and defied the monarch.
The only one who never laid down his
arms in the presence of this death watch.
This one, as Romans chapter 3 and 6
tell us, had rained from Adam to Moses.
Death rained, and here someone comes in to
this empire, this empire of death, where the
monarch sits upon the throne, and every king
abdicates to him, and every general lays down
his sword, and every politician gives up his
post.
They've all got to yield to him, to
the imperial majesty of death.
Someone comes in, steps into his kingdom, and
what does he say?
He that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die.
And they said, how can you say if
someone believes in you they'll never taste of
death?
That's exactly what he said.
They shall never taste of death.
Who could say that?
The one who became here the first begotten
from amongst the dead, the one who wrested
the scepter out of the hand of this
undeposed monarch for all these centuries, tore his
kingdom, burst the shackles of his prison house,
and stepped out in the glorious triumph of
the resurrection morning, the first begotten from amongst
the dead.
He was one of them, as we read
farther down in chapter one.
He became dead, but now he's the first
begotten from amongst the dead, and because he
is that, my friends, everything as an animal
died in Christ, all shall be made alive,
and every last one in the grave shall
hear his voice and come forth.
It's on chapter 5 and verse 28, isn't
it?
There'll be no place in all the universe
of God, this vast ever-expanding universe, there'll
be no place where the voice of the
majesty of him who was the first begotten
from the dead will not be heard.
They shall respond, they must come forth, because
he deposed the monarch, he destroyed his kingdom,
and him who had the power of death
was destroyed at the same time, and we
who all a lifetime were subject to bondage
because of the fear of death, he set
us free, gloriously free.
He's the first begotten from amongst the dead,
and then I must close.
I'm over time on this one, but I
have a minute on that one.
I'm going by that one tonight.
He's the prince of the kings of the
earth.
I like to look at this in various
ways, but just let me say to you
that the prince, we speak about a prince,
he is a prince of a man, don't
we?
He is a prince of a man.
He's the prince of the kings of the
earth.
He is the most handsome, the most majestic,
the mightiest of them all.
He is supreme amongst all the potentates of
earth, but he is the heir as well.
He is the heir of all the kingdoms
of the world, and of all the worlds
of his kingdom, he's the prince of the
king of the earth.
So we pray.
Our Father, we thank you tonight for him,
the vision of whom fills our hearts as
we sit together and sing crown him Lord
of all.
There's a name we love to hear, we
love to speak his word.
We would rather have Jesus than anything this
world affords today.
We thank you for his beauty.
We thank you for his strength.
We thank you for his nearness.
We rejoice in him.
This evening as we close our service and
close the activities of the day, we bless
thee for the vision, the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
Amen.