And I think just for context and because it's such an amazing chapter, we will read the whole chapter together. Revelation chapter 22 and reading from verse one. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. and they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.

And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

And I, John, saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant. For I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God.

And he saith unto me, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, Come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

He which testifieth these things saith, surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Amen.

Here is another I Am statement from our Lord Jesus to add to the list of titles the Lord was pleased to take and use to describe himself. and to explain aspects of his work and reveal qualities of his character and his nature. And we've considered over recent weeks seven of these I Am titles from John's Gospel and now two from the Book of Revelation, also of course written by the Apostle John.

Jesus likened himself to many commonplace, natural things in order to help us understand him better. He said, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine.

Last week, we saw how in Revelation Christ calls himself Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last. Now, here in these final few verses of our Bible, the Lord Jesus again draws on this pattern of expression This time in a double I am. Example. In order to give us a clear statement of both his divine nature and his human nature. He tells us, I am the root and offspring of David. Then he adds, I am the bright and morning star.

And finally Christ announces his certain and imminent return to earth for his church and to judge the world in righteousness. Christ's words seem designed to provide a final glimpse in this final few verses of scripture, a final glimpse of Christ's glory before the scriptural testimony is sealed. And we are told, surely I come quickly. Nothing is to be taken from this book. Nothing is to be added to it. This is a sealed book in the sense of its comprehensiveness and its completeness.

And yet it is open to us to read and understand because the Lord Jesus Christ has revealed it to the churches. He tells us, surely I come quickly. Christ is coming back and that right soon. Eagerly, the church anticipates his return. Expectantly, we await the dawn of a blessed new age. And patiently, we wait until the daybreak and we watch as the shadows flee away.

Just before we speak about Christ's titles here in Revelation given under this I Am pattern, I want us to pause and note the simplicity by which the Lord identifies himself as the speaker and sets, as it were, our hearts on edge to hear his words. I'm sure you noticed it. It's so straightforward. He says, I, Jesus. I, Jesus. It is both a beautiful and a familiar introduction.

Not familiar in the sense that we have heard it many times before, but familiar in the sense that he is opening to himself, to his friends, who it is that is speaking. He is Lord, but he does not lead with his dominion. He's Christ, but he does not lead with his anointed primacy. He is Jesus, our familiar friend. He is Jesus, our elder brother. He is Jesus, our trusted companion. And it is as Jesus that he announces himself here to his church and people. Most assuredly, it is Jesus who is speaking.

Jesus who is God. because none but God can instruct angels and dispatch them to do his bidding as the speaker here has done. John, we know, is the writer of this revelation. He is the writer as a scribe. He is a witness. He is the recorder of what he has seen and heard. Jesus is the revealer. Jesus is the author. He is the subject and he is the discloser of the things which must shortly come to pass.

John, in the verses that we read together, makes reference back to the whole of the book. when he tells us, I, John, saw these things and heard them, and when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he, that is the angel, then the angel said unto John, See thou do it not, don't bow down and worship me, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God.

This was a wise and holy angel, who knowing only God may be worshipped, would not accept the worship of a man. This wise and holy angel that would not accept the worship of a man is the angel sent by Jesus who says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. So Jesus sent his angel. The angel revealed these things to John. John wrote them down for the testimony of Christ to the churches.

But the pattern or the testimony of Christ's divinity is not limited in what is said here to his having dominion over the angels. Another claim that the Lord Jesus Christ makes in confirmation is recorded here in the words that Jesus speaks. Jesus, the speaker, tells us more of himself. He is reminding us in speaking these I am statements, he is reminding us how blessed we are, how blessed the church is to know that the man who died for us at Calvary is God.

The man who died for us at Calvary is God. That a man who is God died in my place on the cross is what gives my faith substance and makes God's grace tangible and definite. The prophets The apostles could have spoken as they did for generations, for hundreds, for thousands of years of the grace and mercy of God, and we would have had to take it on trust as a promise that God was getting ready to do something. But we have seen, we have heard by the testimony of those who were present, John and the other apostles, that the Lord Jesus Christ God himself, come as a man, died on the cross to save sinners like us.

It is what gives our faith substance and makes God's grace tangible and definite. It is because Jesus is God and died on the cross for us that Paul could say, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Paul believed that Jesus was God and Paul had committed his soul and the souls of others into Christ's able hands.

When we come to preach the gospel, we don't preach what we must do to be saved. We preach what God has done for us, what God has done to save us, what he has done mercifully and lovingly by Christ's death on the cross for his people in our place. And Jesus reinforces that truth, that he is the God-man. He reinforces his divine identity by saying, I am the root and the offspring of David.

Now, think on that. Think on what it is he is saying there. Don't let that in any way confuse you. Just look at the words. They're not big words. They're simple words. I am the root and the offspring of David. That is an impossible claim except under the precise and unique arrangement of Christ's covenant role as the God-man.

Our Lord Jesus Christ may be said to be the root of David because he's David's Lord and head. in his divine nature. In a temporal, in an earthly sense, David had his being from the Lord Jesus. David existed because the Lord Jesus is the creator of all things. In a spiritual sense as well, David with all believers, with you and with me if we are believers, has his eternal life in the new creation, again made by Christ. And thus David may be said, really and truly, naturally and spiritually, to spring from the root who is Christ. Christ initiated that physical and spiritual, that natural and eternal life in David.

Remember what Christ said, I am the vine, ye are the branches. He was the root. He was the source. He was the initiator. And yet, too, under God's covenant agreement, Christ in his human nature was of the house and lineage of David. Christ came as the son of David in fulfillment of God's covenant promise that the Messiah would spring from David's seed. As God, Christ is the root of David. And as man, he is the offspring of David. And Christ's I am is a lovely statement of his divine and his human nature. So every time we read that little phrase, I am the root and the offspring of David, the Lord Jesus Christ is telling us that he was before David as the eternal God and creator of all things. And he was the offspring or the son of David in his manhood because he came in David's line and family.

but we're not done there. Because Jesus continues, not only am I the root and the offspring of David, I am the bright and morning star. And that's another lovely phrase that we can take and receive as the Lord applies it to himself. He likens himself to the morning star. The morning star that announces a new day beginning. The morning star that declares the retreat of the darkness of the night. Like the day star, our Lord Jesus Christ rises daily as the son of righteousness. Faithful and merciful to his people. our God-man mediator, announcing day by day our acceptance with God. The bright and morning star, here taken as a name by the Lord Jesus, a personal name by the Lord Jesus, I am the bright and morning star, is a beautiful picture of the Saviour and one that speaks forth Christ's inherent glory.

as that man, that man in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is teaching us by this phrase, of himself the eternal son, that is S-O-N, that he has condescended and likened himself to the sun, S-U-N, a created body. Christ has likened himself to the celestial body in order to teach us something of his character and nature. And we shouldn't think that that's aspirational for the Lord Jesus Christ. That is condescending for the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, he called himself a vine and he called himself a door and he called himself bread. Here he calls himself, or he likens himself to the bright and morning star. But all of these were lesser pictures of the glory of the infinite Lord Jesus Christ. And then, as it were, to gladden our hearts and uphold the comparison, he does indeed daily rise, shining brightly in our hearts with further gracious mercies for his chosen covenant people. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. What a beautiful picture this is that the Lord has taken to himself of being the bright and morning star.

Now, it seems of little importance whether an actual star is being referred to and referenced in the words of the Lord Jesus here in Revelation 22. He describes himself, I am the bright and morning star. And some have thought that the planet that we call Venus might be a candidate example as it rises before the sun at certain times of the year and shines brightly in the early morning. Alternatively, the sun itself, which is a true star, not just a planet. It's a true star with its own light. It's our star around which the Earth orbits. It's the brightest star to rise from the vantage point of Earth. And it vastly outshines all else for brilliance. to the point that that light, it removes all other star lights. The stars of the heavens all disappear in the light of the rising sun for its intensity and its glory.

Now as we've seen, in the Old Testament Malachi the prophet calls the coming Messiah the Son of Righteousness. Christ is the Son of Righteousness who rises with healings in his wings both for helpless sinners and for needy saints. And I like to think that while there might be some who have called the planet Venus the morning star, that actually it's the glory of the rising sun that is here being pictured as the Lord Jesus Christ.

Actually, the connection and comparison of a star to Christ has long been used by God the Holy Spirit to foretell the coming of our Saviour. We mentioned in the little note yesterday how Balaam the prophet in the Old Testament was hired by Moabite and Midianite people to curse the children of Israel. which he really, really wanted to do, but the Lord prevented him. Balaam, despite his best efforts to the contrary, could not resist blessing the Lord's elect, the church in the wilderness. I've always found Balaam and Balaam's history very intriguing. And I think there's an application in it. Anyone who tries to lay a finger on God's elect or voice a foul word against the precious church of Jesus Christ will have the Lord himself to answer to. They'll have to contend with the Lord. We don't have to fight our own battles. The Lord fights for us as he did for the children of Israel in the wilderness in Balaam's day.

Israel at that time was spread out, camped in the plain underneath some mountains, completely oblivious to the threat that was taking place against them on the mountaintops. But the Lord was guarding His own, well aware of all the schemes of devils and men against His beloved. So that in the end, Balaam confounded his paymaster, Balak, who sought to trouble Israel using this prophet for hire, this mercenary prophet. Balaam foretold the coming of a great and glorious king. and Israel's deliverance by an anointed messianic leader. He declared in anticipation of Christ that a star out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. And so he did. At Christ's birth, a star in the east which is where the sun rises after all, informed and directed wise men to seek Christ the King.

John the Baptist's father, Zacharias, described the Lord Jesus saying, the day spring from on high hath visited us. The day spring is the bright and morning star. has visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace. That is a beautiful picture of the salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for his people. Then at the Lord's dedication in the temple, old Simeon gave support to this theme of the star, saying, mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel. Simeon saw the child Christ, and he saw in that child the salvation of God for his people. Thus we see that Balaam's prophecy had been fulfilled and the light of the world was come, the sceptered king, to accomplish the salvation and deliverance of his people.

And yet there's something else here too that I think will encourage us. And I'm going to take a few moments just to share it with you. Because while the Lord gave us many I am sayings during his own preaching ministry, and granted many insights thereby into his person and work, he kept this particular I am saying for last. Like the good wine. And he bestowed it in a vision concerning the last things and the last times, linking it forever with his imminent return to earth. And there's a peculiar sense, I think, in which the term, I am the bright and morning star, anticipates a whole new order, something glorious and extraordinary. And while the references from Balaam and Zacharias and Simeon relate to Christ's first coming, here the Lord Jesus undoubtedly is turning our attention to his second coming and the glory yet to be revealed.

Paul tells the church of a glory that exceleth, And Peter speaks of the glory that should follow and the glory that shall be revealed. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the fullness of God's glory. Outside of Christ, there is no glory. He that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord. And sure as the sunrise, As certain as the rising of the bright and morning star, Christ is coming again to bestow glory upon his people. What a morning it will be when the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and the voice of the archangel with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. No more sin, no more pain, no more sickness, death, sorrowing, loss, regrets. We shall walk by the light of Christ's glory in a land where there is no night, nor any need of a sun. We shall dwell in streets of gold, bask in the warmth of his embrace, recline in the comfort of his presence. We shall sit on thrones in the shining city of his making. when once again the day spring from on high hath visited us.

Now in truth, I know very little about what heaven is going to be like. What is metaphor and what is reality remains to be seen. We do know that whatever God has in store for us, It is better than anything we can imagine in this fallen world.

One indication of what lies ahead is given to us near the start of this revelation of Jesus Christ, which John has written down and the Holy Spirit has preserved for us. In chapter 2, verse 28, Christ promises that He will give, listen, the morning star to all who hold fast in the faith until He comes. At the end of Revelation, He tells us, I am the morning star. At the beginning of Revelation, he has already told us that he will give the morning star to all who hold fast in faith until he comes. That is, he will give to them himself.

What is heaven? It is Christ giving himself to his church. It's a beautiful picture of the bride and the bridegroom and the consummation and marriage and that union. and joining that will take place at the marriage feast of the Lamb. But here it is, it sounds and it echoes and it re-echoes in all of these pictures that Christ will join himself inextricably to his people for all eternity. He will give to us that which he is himself. and the glory that is the morning star, the brightness that is the morning star will be ours.

He will give himself to his church and share with them his own royal inheritance and kingly office. We shall be kings and priests with him. We shall be enthroned with Christ and all the glory of the world and all the glory of Christ's covenant inheritance will become the glory of the church. We are heirs and joint heirs with him.

We have discovered then from Christ's other I Am sayings, how our Saviour was always ready to bestow his church with comforting and useful views of himself, drawn from the world around us and the natural order. Christ did that so that we, you and me, brother and sister, that we might discover more of his grace, more of his love towards us, more of his provision for us. And that we might, the more, realise and comprehend our common wealth in him and thank him for it. More, realise His care for us and our security in Him and thank Him for it.

We have great cause to exalt and glorify His name now on earth for what He has taught us. And we shall have great cause everlastingly in heaven to do the same. Christ is the brightness of his Father's glory and as we have seen, he will share that brightness with you and with me. This is the highest conceivable honour and it caps all those other things that are most glorious and desirable and most communicated to us in these I Am sayings of Christ, the things that He has promised.

Christ told us in these great I Ams that He is life and light, that He is resurrection and truth. He has promised us personal spiritual care and everlasting salvation. These all are ours in Him. And until He comes again, Christ's church, the Lord's people, have this promise. The Lord, whose return we await, shall visit us each day with faithful mercies necessary for our time and our circumstances. Morning by morning, with each new day, with each rising sun, new provisions will be supplied. He has promised that he shall rise daily in our hearts. He will comfort us as the bright and morning star. He will bless us as the son of righteousness. He will lighten our way and direct our path. He shall nourish our souls with spiritual bread, rejoice our hearts with the spiritual fruit of the vine. He will be to us an open door and lead us in the way that we should go. He will cause us to trust in him. who is the beginning and the end of our faith. He is our Saviour. He will be your friend.

Jesus Christ, in whom we trust, the great I Am. Amen.