The Revelation of Jesus Christ is an unveiling and unfolding of who Christ truly is, not with new information but with a new perspective, as God gave it to Him to show His servants what must shortly come to pass. This prophetic book, which concerns the culmination of God's plan from Genesis to the end, reveals Christ as the ultimate steward, whose authority is expressed through humility and service, exemplified by His washing of the disciples' feet. The sermon emphasizes that while we are not responsible for our inherited personalities, we are responsible for transforming them through God's power, just as Christ, the steward king, will ultimately administer His kingdom. The opening chapter introduces the prophetic nature of the book, highlighting that 'the time is at hand' signifies a determined period rather than an immediate event, and it offers the first of seven beatitudes, blessing those who read, hear, and keep its words.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.32 → restored 4.08
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, 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 desk tonight not to wander. Incidentally, those aren't the only restrictions I have received because before I left home, my wife said to me, no, 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 the Revelation, chapter one, 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 is nothing lost here, nothing more should lie to them.
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 one of chapter one indicate to us, it concerns The whole book concerns the culmination of the project in the mind of the Spirit of God from the verse of Genesis through to the end. Because that has been God's object in the giving to us of this word. Through various circumstances, exigencies, considerations, and people 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 Gospel. 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're 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, steward of the mission.
the father had entrusted to him. And in a 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, when Zechariah's word shall be fulfilled, there shall be one king over all the earth, and his name the only name, it will be as a steward.
According to what you recall reading in First Corinthians chapter fifteen, 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 have 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, 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 personalities. 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 badly 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, five hundred 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. When 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 faith 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 don't 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, a little fellow, four years of age, and we'd have a sister up 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 fifty-five, she still looked like thirty-five, and no lines in his face whatsoever, and nice ready confidence, and, of course, you know what happens. She's nearly always taking her to be his mother. And that's a very difficult thing for a wife to have happened to her. And 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 the 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, call me by name. Mrs. So-and-so she 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, or 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 dislovering. 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 swallowed by some act or word.
A few minutes. So if you notice in John chapter thirteen, in the upper room, he's sitting with his typhus and says, Jesus, knowing that the Father put all things into His hands, they decided to have your garments. He drove himself with a towel, got a basin of water, They're down to Washington side of the street. 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? His service and humility. Didn't you say in chapter seventy, As thou hast given him authority over all flesh?
Why? That he should give. turn a light as many thousand even gave. So the expression, the true expression of authority is seen in the humility of service. It is going to be the steward king in the thousand years yet to come. Now the opening words of our chapter here says, God gave unto him and his 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's no restriction upon this word, his servant. He is the subject of the revelation.
He is the spirit 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 of the unveiling of himself in the light we have never seen before.
Perhaps I've never even drenched. 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 it be the hundred and forty-four thousand, the elect of a coming age, or whether it be 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 to serve. Then it stands to show the things which must shortly come to pass. Therefore, you will 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 twenty-two. 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 dawned and caught into heaven, when the door was 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 much shortly or quickly comes 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, this precursor, the book of Daniel, you recall that Daniel used an expression frequently, and it's the time of the end, or the end... time. 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 discover that when we were to come and look at the church and start it. These periods, these times have been determined.
Certainly God has a plan for each of us, doesn't He? He has time. for each of us. He has kind for each of us. Chapter twenty of John, you remember the Lord is walking beside the sea of Galilee with his own and he speaks to Peter and he tells them by what death he should glorify God. And Peter says to the Lord as they're walking along and he looks behind them and he sees John come in and he says, and what shall this man do? We have a much nicer expression in Spanish than that. He has to take. 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, 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 thirty-three years, I will. Well, we would have thought many times, wouldn't we? If I suggest to 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 that the Lord Jesus ever said, I will. And this is one of them. If I will, that he should tarry till I come, what is that to be? The times and the seasons are not for you to decide. It would be my will that decides the times and the seasons about others. And isn't this characteristic of us? We're always like 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, it's 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 nine, unto what the child is born, unto what the son is given. The time was at hand when that happened. But the very next thing says, and the government should be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor.
Might He go off the everlasting pause of this to be. 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 Diego forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. The end was cross.
What did the mother think? What did the mother... How did the mother's heart understand this? Bringing in her ears, those thirty-three plus years... The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. This is the end. The cross. So we have other examples of that as well. You remember Isaiah chapter sixty-one, quoted by our Lord in Luke chapter four, 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. set it loose, those who are bound, so on.
He goes on to say, to preach the acceptable year of the law, the year of Jubilee, and the vengeance of our God. These are put together in Isaiah chapter one. The Lord separates them, doesn't he, in Luke chapter four? The acceptable year of the Lord, 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 of vengeance of our God. So there's two thousand years at least between these two things but there's only a conjunction and 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 servant Joel. 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 is described for us, particularly in the epistle to the Hebrews, the last verse of chapter one, are they not all ministering spirits? Sent forth the minister to serve for those who shall be theirs 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 accidents. That they do that, I have no doubt. Some have 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 service for them to do. I'm not sure if there would 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-Meyer-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. He was a man of unusual, excuse me, sterling character, a very admirable person, very, very few people. I judged that ninety-five percent of the people who had contact with him here, since he came, 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 to the Lord. Service in the Gospel, away 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 self-effacing 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. did a lot of visiting around the lodge for others very active men mentally and physically at eighty six almost eighty seven years of age and went into his room sat down picked up the missions magazine talked to a 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 answer himself went in and found him dead in the chair and uh...
i was very much impressed i was honored to conducted 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 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 he was reading and I knew by the time I had said that three times There were a number of them in the audience who would say, why, this brother gave saying, they come here. There was one special friend that sat there. But I suggested to the audience that day that I was not mistaken when I said, they come here.
Who was it carried the beggar in whoever has to lose him? Who was it swept Elijah into the glory? To whom did the Lord refer when he said about the rich men in Luke chapter twelve, 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 for it.
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 the evening time, to about eight trilogies that we have in chapter one. Now trilogies, you all know, they're 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... and blooms so profusely in the month of May and carcass all the grounds of the forest and the good plant with its beautiful white foliage. 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 ideal on 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 already 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 starts to come up a little bit around the two logs and she'll say to me, did you put three logs on? No, I just have 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, boom and unfold, 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 laws on the flyer to make it go? Well, it's a good thing for her husband to ask her 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. Here's the first one. Verse two, John bore record of the word of God. That's the source of the revelation of Jesus Christ in its expansion from Daniel and other books.
And of the testimony of Jesus Christ. That covers a wide field, doesn't it? There's testimony in life when he was so misunderstood, so despised and rejected of men. 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 them 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 were forty-four visions. in the book of the revelation that John saw. That's really a very great number, isn't it? Vision. 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 and Matthew chapter seventeen, after they'd seen the transfigured Son of Man. Remember what he said to the disciples?
Tell no man the vision. 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 read it, and they that hear, the words of this prophecy, and teeth.
There's a trilogy again, isn't it? Blessed is he that read it, and they that hear it, and those who keep those things which are written therein, but the time is at hand. It is a prophecy. This is one of seven Beatitudes of the book of the Revelation. There are seven. This is the first one, and 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 twenty-two, 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. He goes, 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 you for the love of our glorious Lord. We often think Jesus loves even these. We thank you for the unchanging nature of his faithfulness. We thank you 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.