The blessing is that there are facets of
the character and person of the Lord Jesus
that we may imitate, that we may be
like him.
What I'm concerned with this evening, that is,
if you're not weary with these geometry lessons,
these triangles, you know, they say it's the
strongest geometrical form is the triangle, and we're
looking at the trilogies of Revelation chapter 1.
What I'm concerned with this evening, however, goes
much farther, much beyond what you and I
can ever be like in relation to him.
Let's look again at chapter 1, if you
will please, Revelation chapter 1, and I wish
to begin to read from verse 8.
I know many of you are aware of
it, and I am acutely conscious of it
at the same time, that the contents of
this chapter are unattainable as far as we're
concerned at the time we have together in
making an analytical study of it.
But I want to make some extracts tonight
from this chapter 1, starting with verse 8,
and it concerns the person of our Lord.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and
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, was in the isle
that 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 voice
as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha
and Omega, the first and the last.
Now, let's look down at verse 12, and
I turned to see the voice that speak
with me.
Now, that's a remarkable expression, isn't it?
I turned to see the voice.
You remember it is said about our parents,
our first parents after the fall, they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in
the garden in the cool of the day.
John heard a voice, and he turned to
see the voice that speak with me.
I think I did not complete my suggestion
to you the other evening, that John was
looking westward, and I suggest that to you
because not only had he himself fallen under
the power of Rome, which lay to the
west of him when he was on the
isle of Patmos, but the other apostles as
well had fallen to the power of Rome,
his nation was in subjection, and his nation
was finally to be almost obliterated by the
aggressive advance of the Roman armies.
So, it seems to me that he's sitting
on one of these outcrops of craggy rock
on the isle of Patmos, and he's looking
towards the west, because when he turned to
see the voice, he's looking towards Asia Minor
and the seven churches of Asia Minor.
Therefore, this voice seems to me it turned
him completely in his perspective of that which
was occupying his mind at the time.
How often that is true of us.
We are concentrating, we are concerned, we are
considering some difficulty, perhaps a major feature, the
advance of immorality and injustice and crime and
violence and so on in our society, the
distortion and disintegration of all that we have
held to be dear, and we're concentrating our
minds upon this, and I hope we may
hear a voice tonight.
And as we turn to see the voice,
because this voice is not abstract as is
a voice, may we see what John saw.
And being turned I saw seven golden lampstands,
and in the midst of the seven lampstands
one like unto the Son of Man, clothed
with a garment down to the foot, and
girt about the breast 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 for evermore.
Amen.
And have the keys of hell and of
death.
I wish to look with you this evening
at another of the trilogies of chapter one,
and we have them here in verses 8,
11, 17.
I am Alpha and Omega, that's the first
one.
The beginning and the ending, saith the Lord,
that's the second one.
And then in verse 11 he says, I
am Alpha and Omega, the first and the
last.
And again in verse 17, 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 for evermore.
Now, some of the translations that you have
will not be as I read them to
you from the...
Well, as I sometimes tell Brother John Milton
Mills, I've increased with him a number of
times.
You know, Brother John, every time he gets
up to speak, he always says, Now, if
you notice any difference, I'm reading from the
1901 version.
So when I follow him, although generally he
makes me go first, I say to him,
Now, if you notice any difference, you folks,
I'm reading from the only authorized version to
be read in churches.
And just a wicked little smile comes over
John's face as I say that.
I don't know if some of you must
know John Milton Mills from Goldsboro, North Carolina.
And we certainly appreciate Brother John.
So, if the translation which you have does
not conclude everything I read...
By the way, I did read from the
King James Version, and I hope you understand
that clearly.
A little lady came to me after a
meeting one night, and she said, Brother Adams,
why did you talk about the Russian secret
police?
And I said, I didn't talk about the
Russian secret police.
She said, You did so.
I heard it myself.
It's marvelous what can be heard from what
is said.
And she said, No, I know you did.
I heard you say it myself.
And I said, Well, what was it I
said?
She said, You were talking about the KJV.
I said, Ma'am, I said the KJV.
It doesn't happen to be the same thing.
Now, turn over to Chapter 22, if you
will, please, and let me give you this
trilogy of couplets.
A trilogy of couplets.
The last chapter of our book, and verse
12.
He says, That's the first couplet.
The beginning and the end.
That's the second couplet.
The first and the last.
That's the third couplet.
So we have a trilogy of couplets.
Which is most interesting, isn't it?
So, I think you'll find that in all
your translations.
Chapter 22 and verse 12.
And so I'm just as fine in the
reading as I have given it to you
tonight from the KJV.
I am Alpha and Omega.
When I was considering a little while this
afternoon these three couplets, this trilogy which I
want to leave with you tonight concerning the
person of the Lord Jesus, I felt very
inadequate to handle this.
What do you say when you have three
couplets given to you concerning the Master such
as these are?
It seems to me it's something that's beyond
the reach not only of our intelligence, but
the grasp of our hearts, and certainly the
expression of our lips.
The unexcelled glory, the incomparable majesty, the inexhaustible
excellency of this glorious person who shines so
brilliantly out of the pages of the book
of the Revelation, and particularly chapter 1.
He is the Alpha and the Omega.
Now, you all know, of course, that the
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek
alphabet, and Omega is the last letter of
the Greek alphabet.
Every language has its alphabet.
In English we have 26 letters, in Spanish
we have 27 letters, and other languages have
a varying number of letters.
But in the Greek alphabet, these are the
two letters which include all the other letters.
The Alpha is the first letter, the Omega
is the last letter.
The Lord says, I am the Alpha and
the Omega.
Now, letters are to compose words.
Of course, letters by themselves mean nothing to
us, especially if they are in a heterogeneous
collection and scattered amongst themselves.
But the Alpha and the Omega embrace all
the letters of the Greek alphabet.
Therefore, everything that can be said in Greek
must be said with or between these two
letters, the Alpha and the Omega.
Letters are for words.
Words are vehicles of expression.
The expression is the result of the motions
of the heart.
So, that's how we use words.
And our Lord, when he says he is
Alpha and Omega, he is encompassing, he is
embracing all knowledge, all wisdom, all expression of
anything that can be said between the Alpha
and the Omega.
We all have our thoughts.
Many of them are private.
A lot of them, it is well that
they remain that way.
But no one knows what we are thinking,
that is, generally speaking, until we express these
thoughts.
Now, little children learn, of course, that mothers
have eyes in the back of their heads.
But husbands have to learn a few things
along that line as well.
I remember some time back, my wife said
to me on one occasion, she said, I
don't think you should do it.
And I said, Do what?
She said, What are you going to do?
I said, I haven't said what I'm going
to do.
She said, I still don't think you should
do it.
I said, How do you know what I'm
going to do when I haven't said what
I'm going to do?
She said, Do you think I've been living
with you this long and don't know you
yet?
I said, All right then, since you know
so much, tell me, what was I going
to do?
I shouldn't have said that.
She told me exactly what I was going
to do.
Now, that's very unsettling, living with a person
that knows what you're going to do before
you've said what you're going to do.
And yet, we're constantly moving in the presence
of one who even goes beyond that, doesn't
he?
But he knows our thoughts, our inmost thoughts.
But how are we going to know his
thoughts?
By the words which he has left for
us.
And all knowledge concerning himself is going to
be compressed for our assimilation between the Alpha
and the Omega.
And there is nothing beyond that.
He embraces, he encompasses everything that is going
to be expressed about God for us.
In the beginning was the Word, said John
when he wrote his Gospel.
In the beginning was the Word.
So if God is going to make himself
known, and he delights to do that, if
he's going to express himself for our benefit,
for our sake, then he is going to
do it in him who is, and always
was, the Word.
For in the beginning was the Word.
And this mysterious, I say, this unknown, this
incomprehensible Triune God is going to be expressed
through him who is the Word.
And in the beginning, that's what he was.
And in the conclusion, that's what he will
be.
He is the Alpha.
He is the Omega.
He is the sum and substance of everything
that can be said about God.
And so the official to the Colossians, Paul,
tells us that in him are hidden all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
There are various fields of knowledge, of course,
about which some of us know nothing, including
myself.
There are fields of knowledge which intrigue us,
and yet we know very little about it.
Astronomy, for example.
I'm intrigued by astronomy.
And, of course, you have to look up,
don't you, to understand astronomy.
I was walking down the streets of Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island, back in the year 1942,
I think it was, with Ernie Sprint, one
of my colleagues of early days, long gone
to be with the Lord.
And Ernie was always up to any and
every occasion.
And we're walking down the street together, he
and I.
We used to go to a restaurant in
the center of the city of Charlottetown every
day.
There was one luxury we afforded ourselves, where
we were living in a third-floor little
attic.
We were sitting on orange crates, and we
had two orange crates for a table, and
we were making our breakfast and our supper.
But we went to the extravagant extent that
every day at noon we went down to
Milton's Old Spain restaurant, and we bought our
meal.
And we used to get soup, and we
used to get meat and a couple of
vegetables, and a piece of pie for 25
cents.
That reminds some of you of the old
saying, Well, we used to do that.
And so we're walking down the street one
day, Ernie and I, and as we're walking
down the street I was, I don't know
what I was thinking about, but anyway, I
saw a quarter in the gutter.
So I stopped and picked it up, and
I showed it to Ernie.
It was a whole meal, you see.
I showed it to Ernie, and I said,
Look, look what I found.
If you didn't live all the time with
your head in the air, you might find
something, too.
And Ernie quickly replied, he said, Well, you
may look down for your money, I look
up for mine.
Well, in order to understand the immensity of
this universe in which God has placed us,
we have to look up, and it intrigues
me.
And any time I read some new conclusions
that the astronomers, the psychologists, and the physicists
are coming, arriving at through their study of
our universe, I'm fascinated by it.
But there's no knowledge even there beyond this
person.
He embraces it all.
That's the idea of it.
He's the Alpha, and he's the Omega.
He includes everything.
He is beyond all knowledge.
He contains it all.
He's the Alpha and the Omega.
And in our understanding of God, and in
our appreciation of who our Lord, our glorious
Lord, is, we go through the scriptures, and
we're constantly coming across something that is a
fragment of the Alpha and the Omega.
And it's marvelous, isn't it, to see these
glimmerings, these gleamings, these rays of light that
come shining out to us from the pages
of Holy Scripture.
He goes on to say, I'm the beginning
and the end.
The beginning and the ending.
Now, some scriptures will come to your mind
as soon as you read something like that.
He was always the Word.
But there was a time when this world
of ours had a beginning.
He had no beginning, as we were commenting
the other night.
For there was nothing antecedent to Him.
But there was a time when these things
came into being.
And as John 1 again says, all things
were made, or came into being, by Him.
And without Him, there was not one thing
that came into being.
He was, and is, the beginning of it
all.
He is the One from Whom everything emerged,
and there was nothing outside of Him that
has come into being.
Marvelous thought, isn't it?
Eye-hits in the beginning.
We go back again in our minds to
the epistles of the Colossians, in particular chapter
1.
You remember, Paul comes to that marvelous statement,
which he gives to us as well in
Ephesians 1, that in Him we have redemption
through His blood.
Who is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation?
The firstborn of all creation.
For in Him, not by Him.
In Him were all things created.
Now, Paul uses three prepositions here, and they're
very interesting.
Let me just pause a moment to draw
your attention to them.
He starts off by saying, in Him were
all things created.
Whether they be visible, oh, pardon me.
In Him were all things created, whether in
the heavens or on earth.
Now, just keep that in mind, first of
all.
In Him were all things created.
The things in the heavens, and the things
on earth.
Then he goes on to say whether they're
visible or invisible.
Many things to us are invisible.
Even though he says in 2 Corinthians chapter
4, we're not looking at the things which
are seen, but the things which are not
seen.
So, he says there are things visible, and
there are things not visible, or invisible.
And then he does a very strange thing.
He says whether they be thrones, or principalities,
or dominions, or authorities.
Now, when I come across something like that,
I immediately am arrested.
I stop and say, why did he say
that?
Why didn't he say angels, cherubim, seraphim?
Why didn't he say the human family, the
man and the woman?
Why didn't he say the beasts of the
field, the fowls of the air, the fish
of the sea?
If he's going to detail or enumerate some
of these things which he has made, visible
and invisible, in the heavens or on earth,
why does he say thrones and dominions, principalities
and powers?
Why does he say that?
When he's talking about him being the firstborn
of all creation.
Then he goes on to say this.
Yes, I know.
I'm often told I ask more questions than
I answer.
Well, I've got to do something to keep
my audience awake, I understand.
Then he says all these things were created
in him.
He is the source of everything.
There was no material outside of him.
There was nothing outside of him.
Everything that was created was created in him.
He was the depository, if you will.
He was the source of everything, and from
him all energy was emitted that brought matter
into being.
Yes, everything was in him.
Nothing was outside of him.
That thrills me to think that.
I look at all these worlds, these planets,
and you know what the astronomers say about
our sun.
They say it's a spotty little star in
the backwaters of an insignificant system which is
part of an inferior galaxy.
So, if you thought we were something, there
you have it.
And now they're telling us there's more than
a million galaxies, and now they're telling us
that the universe is expanding faster than light
can travel, so we're never going to find
the end of this universe of ours.
That's the latest conclusion of the world's most
renowned physicists.
So, the universe is a marvelous thing, but
listen, it was all in him before it
ever came into being.
He says, I'm the beginning.
I'm the beginning of the creation of God.
That, by the way, is his introduction of
himself to the church at Laodicea, and I
suggest to you there's another thought behind that.
And then Paul goes on to say all
things were created through him.
Now he uses another preposition, a preposition of
instrumentality.
He says everything was created in him.
It all came out from him.
It's hard for us to conceive the magnificence,
the splendor, the majesty, the glory of this
glorious person who is our Lord Jesus Christ.
But then, when it came into being out
of him, or it was in him, how
did it come into being?
Through him.
All things were created through him.
He is the one who brought it into
being.
It was all in him, and it came
into being by his power, by his control,
by his action, and his activity.
And then he goes on to use another
preposition still, and he uses a preposition.
It was all created unto him.
Everything is for him.
Isn't that marvelous?
All things visible and invisible in the heavens
or on earth were created in him.
All these things were created through him, and
all things were created for him, unto him.
Everything goes to him.
God has appointed him, Hebrews 1, to be
heir of all things, by whom also he
framed the ages, made the worlds.
Everything is for him.
When you see nations grasping for territory.
When you see the migrants, you know, neighbors,
you see the migrants over an inch of
property.
Know your fences on my property.
And how much is it?
Well, it's a good inch over.
You'll have to move it.
And you see nations striving and struggling for
a piece of land here and a strip
of dirt or desert somewhere else.
And we individually too.
And what's it all for?
It's all futility, because everything is for him.
For thy pleasure they are and were created.
They came into being for him.
He's heir of everything.
We who are tenants of hovels for a
day.
Everything is for him who's the heir of
the universe.
He says, I'm the beginning.
And he says, I'm the ending.
I was thinking of this as well in
connection with that word in Hebrews chapter 12.
Looking off unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of faith.
Who is the one who designed the pathway
of faith that you and I have to
live today?
Who is the author of faith?
Who is the architect of this lifestyle that
we as Christians live?
For not only, as you know from Romans
1 and 17, did we begin to live
by faith.
But you know from Galatians chapter 3 we
continue to live progressively by faith.
And you know from Hebrews chapter 10 that
we are preserved in anticipation of the Lord's
return by faith.
Those three quotations from Habakkuk chapter 2.
This pathway of faith, sometimes we get a
little irked by it.
We're held in by it.
We would like to do something different.
We would like to calculate.
We would like to plan, to devise, to
scheme, to order.
And God brings us back to by faith.
The just began by faith.
The just go on by faith.
The just are preserved by faith.
Those are the three quotations, aren't they?
Romans 1, Galatians 3, and Hebrews chapter 10.
Who's the designer of this?
He who lived by faith.
His was the pathway of faith.
He was subject to everything that his father
had planned for him.
He never deviated.
He was never frustrated.
He never was anxious or irritated by anything
that happened.
He walked by faith.
He was the author of that.
He is the leader of the pathway by
faith, if you prefer that interpretation of the
word.
Not only so, but he is the consummator.
He is the conclusion.
He is the finisher of the pathway of
faith.
He is the end of our pathway of
faith.
The same blessed person who is our Lord
Jesus Christ.
He says, I am the Alpha and the
Omega.
I am the beginning and I am the
end.
And then let me come to the last
of the couplets in this trilogy.
I am the first and I am the
last.
Besides me, and remember Isaiah says, we have
a quotation from there here, there is none
else besides.
I am the first and I am the
last.
This will bring into our minds various aspects
of our Lord's offices as well as of
his work.
He is the first in preeminence.
He is the beginning of the creation of
God.
He is the firstborn, which is a title
of eminence, as you know.
And as Colossians 1 tells us again, it
was God's plan, as it is, that in
all things he should be the preeminent one.
He is the first.
He is unexhaled.
He is unequaled.
He is unsurpassed.
He is incomparable.
He is the first.
And that is the first.
He is the one who opens the book
of the Revelation and closes the book of
the Revelation.
He is the one whose hand is upon
the control of everything that is going to
happen in the book of the Revelation.
He is going to start after chapter 1
with the messages he sends to the churches.
And we don't have time this evening because
I want to get on tomorrow night with
something a little further on.
I'm going to surprise you tomorrow night.
I'm going to move out of chapter 1.
Don't be startled, and I hope you can
take it as a surprise.
Now, there is a paragraph here in chapter
1 that we don't have time to consider,
but that majestic splendor of himself as he
appears walking in the midst of the lampstands
over Asia Minor.
Caesar's on the throne in Rome.
Son of man is still moving in the
midst of the lampstands in Asia Minor.
John's 90, 92 years of age.
The prophets, the apostles are all gone, and
many of his contemporaries are all gone.
And the church is coming into a time
of unparalleled persecution.
And all the days of the cruel infamous
Nero are lying just ahead.
And John turns to look, and there is
something that God is thinking more about than
he is about Rome.
And here is someone upon whom the eye
of the seer is to be fixed, rather
than upon Caesar over there in the west.
And he sees the son of man, and
he gives to us a detailed description of
our Lord as he saw him, and all
these various details from his hair to his
head to his eyes to his mouth, and
then his countenance, his face, and his speech,
and the garment that he wore, and the
girdle with which he is restrained.
All these things give to us wonderful details
about himself in relation to the seven churches.
And as you go through the study of
the seven churches, which I'm sure you must
have done here at Park of the Palms,
many times perhaps, or various times, then we
discover that the Lord takes up the details
of chapter one, and he presents himself to
each church in keeping with the condition of
the church, and that specific detail of the
manifestation of himself.
So, he doesn't give you what he is
to me.
He isn't necessarily to one assembly what he
is to another, because he presents himself in
the characteristic of his own person, in keeping
with the condition of the assembly.
And that's exactly what he does through chapters
two and three.
But when John sees him in this unparalleled
majesty, nature withers in his presence, and he
falls at his feet as dead.
What a strange thing, isn't it?
Or is it?
It reminds us of Daniel.
You remember when Daniel saw those visions, we
were looking at some of the visions of
the Old Testament, when Daniel saw those visions,
and even in the presence of Gabriel, nature
of the human withers, and gets weak, and
falls.
And John says, I fall at his feet
as dead.
And he put his right hand upon me
and said, what John had written before more
than once, that he said, Fear not.
Fear not.
I am the first and the last.
I am the living one, he says.
So the man who falls at his feet
is dead.
Fear not.
I am he that liveth.
I am the ever-loving one.
I was dead.
That little expression in Romans chapter six has,
I don't know if it's baffled me, but
it has made me to wonder many times,
when Paul is talking about the slavery of
sin and the liberty of righteousness, and he
talks about death being the consequence of sin,
and then he speaks about our Lord having
been raised from the dead, dies no more,
and this is the word, death has no
more dominion over him.
And the word is lordship.
And I ask myself the question, how was
it possible that he who is the author
of life could die, and then that it
might be said that death had dominion over
him?
Death came by sin.
And he did no sin.
In him was no sin.
He knew no sin.
And yet he was made sin for us.
Please don't change that parallelism, will you?
He who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him.
And if you say of sin offering, to
my mind you spoil the grammatical construction and
the thought, the passage.
It is a parallelism.
He became what we were in order that
we might become what he is in the
state of righteousness.
He was made sin for us.
And we come over to the epistle to
the Hebrews, chapter 2.
You remember it just said there, We don't
see all things put under man yet, but
we see Jesus, who was made for a
little while lower than the angels, crowned with
glory and honor, with what in mind that
he might taste death for all creation.
I noticed the order of that one time,
and it drew my attention.
We see Jesus, who was made for a
little while lower than the angels, crowned with
glory and honor, that he might taste death,
or for the sufferings of death.
This was the honor that was conferred upon
him.
This was the glory that was his.
He was to come and take the place
of the last Adam, the second man, who
was to take the place of suffering, the
sufferings of death, and submitting himself to the
authority of death.
Sin shall no more have lordship over him.
You remember the angel in Matthew, chapter 28,
said to the women, Come see the place
where the Lord lay.
Now, no man's lord in the sepulcher.
For all our arrogance and boastfulness, and for
all our pride and all the authority that
we believe we have at times, no man
has any authority in the grave.
We lay them down, as Paul says, in
dishonor.
It's a dishonorable thing for a person to
die.
Why?
Because God made man to live.
We saw him in weakness, because he succumbs
now to death because of sin.
But, he says, Our Lord, who was tasting
death for all creation, because the children were
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself
likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that had the
power, the authority, the dominion, the control of
death, and deliver them who through fear of
death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
And the angel said, Come see the place
where the Lord lay.
No man's lord in the tomb.
No man has any authority in the grave.
He might say, My Lord, on earth.
He might say, Yes, sir, and so on
and so forth.
But when you lay him in the grave,
his authority is gone.
His lordship is over.
But here's one who was Lord in the
grave.
Come see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly and tell the disciples and
so on.
So he says to John here, I am
he that lives.
I was dead.
I became dead.
And now I'm alive forevermore.
So, Christ having risen from the dead, dies
no more, says Paul.
Death has no more dominion over him.
He destroyed that kingdom once and for all.
And he's delivered us from the fear of
entering into that.
And I know we Christians are very human.
We're very natural.
And when it comes to facing the enemy
that shall be destroyed last of all, we
still at times shrink from it.
And yet, the scripture is clear.
The scripture is clear.
That we have been delivered from this bondage
of constant fears of that which is coming.
Pardon the personal reference, but my wife said
to me a little while ago, my wife
comes up with some unique things.
Mr. Tate, Mr. Philip Tate, said to me,
just a short while before he died, we
were talking together on the phone.
I mentioned Mr. Tate to you the other
night.
And my feelings about him and his sterling
character.
So uncompromising in integrity he was.
So self-effacing.
He said to me one day on the
phone, he said, you know brother Adams, I
hold your wife in the highest esteem.
She's a most remarkable lady.
He said it.
I didn't.
And I said to my wife one time,
I'm going to mention that sometime.
She threatened me with death if I did.
I will slay you if you ever mention
what he said in public.
One day, does this go on Tate?
Whatever happens, make sure it doesn't get to
Unionville, won't you?
Just make sure.
I would like to live a little longer.
She said to me one day, we're talking
about separation.
When you get to be our age, you
think about it, and some couples do and
some couples don't.
But we've talked very frankly about it.
And how we get along, how the one
will get along, or when the other one
goes first.
So she said to me, we're talking about
that, and we're talking about the rapture.
Driving into the city of Toronto one day
from where we live, we're driving along, and
I said to her, you know, I don't
know what I'll do if you go first.
I was serious.
There are times when I am.
And I really meant it.
I said, I don't know what I'll do
if you go first.
And she said, I don't think you need
worry.
I said, why?
She said, we're going together.
Oh.
I said, you have some inside information on
the rapture?
She said, no, it's just the way you're
driving.
Laughter So I slowed down and paid more
attention to my driving.
But anyway, we were talking about the rapture,
and we were talking about possible separation by
death, and she said, and she really, I
should be accustomed to things she says, but
this caught me unaware.
She said, I hope I'm not here for
the rapture.
Have you ever heard anybody tell you that?
I have a lot of people saying, I
hope the Lord comes tonight, and I say,
I wonder what kind of mess we're in
right now.
But did you ever hear anybody say, I
hope I'm not here for the rapture?
So, I called my compañera, and said, oh,
why would that be?
Well, I realized that if I'm here when
the Lord comes, and the church, the saints
are raptured to glory, I'm going to miss
something.
I will consider myself cheated.
I said, cheated?
She's dead serious.
Much more serious than her husband.
And, did I mutter there?
Well, anyway, I said, what do you mean
you'll be cheated?
She said, if we're taken up from here,
caught up, changed in the moment, twinkling of
an eye, so long, caught away to be
with the Lord, if that happens to me,
I won't experience death.
Therefore, I won't experience resurrection.
I'll never have those experiences.
And I'm going to feel cheated if I
don't have those experiences.
It must be a very singular thing to
die.
And then, oh, that thrill, when he who
has the keys of death speaks, and out
of the graves, from the bodies of his
own, reunited with the Spirit, for them that
sleep, in, with, by, Jesus, thus will God
bring with him when he comes.
Then, of course, the body will rise to
meet that Spirit that comes with him.
And she said, if we're here when the
rapture takes place, we won't know, we'll never
know, we'll never get to know what it
was like to die.
And we'll never experience what it would be
like, resurrection.
Well, she floored me on that one.
But she was dead serious when she said
it.
I haven't thought the thing through that far.
I am he that liveth, and I was
dead, and behold, I'm alive, he says, forevermore.
And listen to his absolute sovereignty.
He said, I have the keys of Hades,
and of death.
And the ultimate destiny of all spirits, and
the ultimate destiny of all mankind, is in
the hands of the nails of the cross.
The keys of Hades.
Remember the Lord said in Matthew 16, I
will build my church, and the gates of
Hades shall not prevail against it.
What have the gates of Hades got to
do with the church?
A whole lot.
But what have the gates of Hades got
to do now with the retention of the
bodies of those who have gone?
Their power is going to be broken.
It is broken.
And he who has the keys of Hades
will open the gates of Hades.
And the spirits of all the dead, of
all ages, of all the millennia past, and
of all nations, and kindreds, and tongue and
people, are going to rise, my friends.
For he said himself in John chapter 5,
indeed, all that are in the graves shall
hear his voice, and shall come forth.
Number 29 gives us the division of that
great resurrection, as we have it in Revelation
chapter 20.
He holds the keys of Hades in his
hands.
These demonic spirits, these angels bound with infernal
change, these malicious, malignant, evil ones who are
seeking the destruction of man and the deposition
of God, these are under his control.
Fear not, John.
Fear not.
I am the first and the last, and
there is nothing beyond me, and there is
nothing beyond my control.
I have the keys of Hades, and I
have the keys of death.
And out of the graves shall rise the
dead of all ages.
But what are they going to do, my
friends, when the heaven and the earth have
fled away?
They're going to stand before the face of
him whom we know, in whom our hearts
have rested, who has said to us, Fear
not.
I am the first and the last.
When we come to the church at Sardis,
and this I must quote, when we come
to the church at Sardis, he presents himself
to the church at Sardis as the first
and the last.
Why does he do that?
Because they're going to get thrown into prison,
and they're going to have persecution ten days,
and men are going to be put to
death.
But what's greater than that?
He who is the first and the last.
Fear none of those things which thou shalt
suffer.
I am the first, and I am the
last.
And there's nothing beyond his control, and nothing
happens to his people that doesn't come as
a direct result of his sovereign will.
Earth, heaven, and Hades are all subject to
him.
Men, angels, and demons are all subject to
him.
Fear not.
Shall we pray?
Our Father, we acknowledge how little we know
of this glorious person.
Jesus, our blessed Lord, the one who went
into death for us, who has made sin
on our account, who destroyed him that had
the power of death, and he, death by
dying through, the one who lives and is
alive forevermore.
Because he lives, we shall live also.
And all the events of this earthly experience
of ours, and all that happens to us
in our frail mortality, we acknowledge comes under
his control and his guiding hand.
And for this, we give thee our grateful
thanks this evening.
Command us to be in his blessed and
glorious name.
Amen.