Thank you so much. Several years
ago, I asked Brother Tim James to sing in the church where I
was working in Winston-Salem, and that's the song he sang,
Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted. And it was a blessing then and
a blessing now. Thank you so much for that. Turn
with me to the book of Revelation chapter 1. Revelation chapter
1. Any number of titles I could
give to this message, but I'm going to entitle it the first
and the last. Because our Savior is first in
all things. He's last in all things. and
he's everything in between. If I ask you, what is the singular
theme, subject, and message of the entire Bible, how would you
respond? And I would hope you would say
something like this. The singular theme and subject
and message of the Word of God is the person, the offices, and
the work, and the majesty of the Son of God. This is indeed,
as you know, I hope you know, this is the hymn book. It's a
book about hymn. There are three great subjects
dealt with in the scriptures, creation, all things that were
made, divine providence, all things being directed to the
end that God has ordained, and then salvation or grace. And in creation and in providence
and in grace, Learn this, Christ is all. He's all in creation
because He made all things. Without Him was nothing made
that was made. He governs all things. He's directing
all things to the end that He Himself determined. And He is
all in salvation. He's all to be known. He's all
to be worshipped. He's all to be trusted. He's
all to be delighted in. And to know the subject of the
Bible is to know the subject of the
book of the Revelation. It is the revelation of Jesus
Christ. It is not the revelation of Saint
John the Divine. I don't need Saint John the Divine
to be revealed to me, but I do need the Lord Jesus Christ to
be revealed to me. This is a revelation of the majesty
and the glory of our Savior. In fact, John, right almost from
the beginning, seeks to magnify our Lord Jesus with a wonderful
doxology. You say, Jim, what does the word
doxology mean? It's simply a hymn of praise
and adoration. And John does that. Look here
at verses 5 and 6. Well, I'll even read verse 4. 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, in other words, he's the
great I am. And from the seven spirits which
are before his throne, where is he seated upon 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." Now watch what he has
to say about our Lord Jesus. Look at this doxology. Look at
these words of praise and adoration to our God and Savior, Christ
Jesus. He says, "...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, to this
Savior, to this Redeemer, be glory and dominion forever and
ever. And He says, Amen. So be it. So be it. The book of the Revelation
is not a book to satisfy your curiosity about what's going
to happen in the end times. And most people, that's about
all it is. They get so interested in various
little details within the book of the Revelation, and they miss
the one who is the object that John is writing about, the one
John is pointing to, the Lord Jesus Christ, and they're more
interested in what's happening with the dragon or with the monsters
that are set forth in the book of Revelation, and they miss
the message. Don't miss the message. It's
the same message as the other 65 books of the Bible. It's the ministry and the mission
and the person and the offices and the grace and the blood and
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as you read
through the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ, you will not
go wrong if you keep that always in your focus. The book of the
Revelation is the book about the victorious Savior. I read a story about every Saturday
night these fellows would get together and play basketball,
and the janitor of the school He would let them in, and then
he'd sit over in the corner reading his Bible until they finished. And when they finished, then
he would cut the lights out, lock up, and leave. And one night,
one of the—and these were younger fellows that played basketball.
And one of them walked over to him afterwards and said, what
are you reading there? He said, I'm reading the Bible. He said,
what part of the Bible? He said, I'm reading the book
of the Revelation. He said, well, are you getting
anything out of it? What does it mean to you? And
he said it kind of with a bad attitude. And the man said, I'll
tell you what the book of Revelation is about. Jesus is going to win. Jesus is going to win. That's
about as good a summary of the book of Revelation as you can
get. I've got several books and two
or three of them are really good on the book of Revelation, but
that's a good summary statement of the book of Revelation. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
victor. And you know, we read in Romans
8 that we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Our Lord is the victor. He is
the conqueror. The theme of the book of the
Revelation is the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ and His
church. over the dragon who is Satan
and all of his fiendish, hellish demons. It is quite simply our
Lord Jesus is the victor. He's the conqueror. You say,
what's the Savior doing today? He's bringing to pass everything
that was ordained before the world began, everything that
was predestinated. Our sovereign Savior, having
finished the work of redemption, God exalted Him to be the King
of kings and the Lord of lords, and He's directing everything
to the goal that He Himself has ordained. The purpose of God shall not
fail. Let all the demons that Satan
can muster join with him in opposition to the purpose of God Almighty. That purpose cannot be defeated. Because the one who is bringing
the purpose of God to pass is our sovereign Savior, our Redeemer. At no point in man's existence,
let me back up a little bit. At no point since Satan came
into existence has the purpose of God ever been in jeopardy. Though all of the evil powers
of hell itself gathered together in one against the Lord Jesus
Christ and that purpose of God Almighty, nothing can interfere
with, nothing can frustrate that which God has purpose to do and
He's purpose to do everything. Never fear. Never fear as you
see the opposition against the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Never fear, never even entertain
the thought that somehow or another things are not gonna work out
in fulfillment of what God has purposed. Everything that God
has designed to happen is going to happen and he shall be glorified. We're on the victory side. We're
on the conqueror's side. The title of the book is The
Revelation of Jesus Christ. Revelation, it means the uncovering, the
unveiling, the manifestation, the total disclosure The making
known of that which was concealed is the appearance of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The word that you hear quite
often today, apocalyptic, well, literally, that comes from
the word revelation. And like everything else that's
in the Bible, man doesn't give it the proper definition. You'll hear people talk about
the weather or storms or wars and they say it's very apocalyptic. Really? What is being unveiled? What is being discovered? What
is being made known? What is being manifested? That's
not what revelation means and that's not what the apocalyptic
means or the apocalypse. The world misuses the word like
they always misuse the word of God. It is a revelation of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what the book is about. In this book, are there words
of destruction? Yes. but they're also words of salvation. And as far as the destruction
goes that is set forth in the book of Revelation, it's the
Lord Jesus Christ who brings about the destruction. But they
leave that out. You see, the world is ever endeavoring
to leave our Lord Jesus Christ out of language, their vocabulary,
and from the things that are going on in the world. An NFL quarterback, I don't know
what he believes. Hope he believes the gospel.
But last weekend, I watched the end of this football game, and
the winning quarterback was interviewed by a newscaster. And the very first words that
came out of his mouth were these. First of all, I just want to
give all glory and praise to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I don't know what he believes.
I don't know that. But you know, that part was left
out From then on, every time they broadcast his words, they left
that first part out because the world hates the Lord Jesus Christ. They didn't want you to use his
name. I got news for them. His is the name above every name. And He is the one before whom
all men and women will bow someday. He's not pitiful little Jesus. He's the sovereign Lord of glory. and you'll confess and acknowledge
that he's the Lord of heaven and earth, you'll either bow
in this life and acknowledge that in this life, or you'll
be forced to acknowledge it at the judgment, and then the Lord
Jesus Christ gonna cast you into hell. He's not a sissy. He's not the
man upstairs. He's our Lord and Savior about
whom this whole book is written. And by the way, it isn't the
book of revelations. It isn't the book of revelations. It's one revelation with many
aspects. He's revealed in many ways, but it's just one revelation
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now you need to understand how
significant this book was when John wrote it by divine inspiration,
oh, in 90 or 95 AD. Those who believe the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace, that is the redeemed church of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that church was the object of severe persecution
throughout the Roman world. You know, we take for granted
that we're going to be able to meet in this comfortable building. and meet without any opposition
from government or from the enemies of the gospel that we can meet
in peace. But we better not take that for
granted. I'd be thankful. In the purpose of God, it seems
like the privileges that we have enjoyed are slowly being eroded. in this country take nothing
for granted. Because you see, back the first
century believers, they didn't have the kind of freedoms that
we have. They were threatened. The least
little thing that happened, bad weather, flood, drought, Too
much rain, the least little thing that happened. You know what
they said? Blame it on the Christians. Let's burn them at the stake
or throw them in the lion's den or something like that. Let's
make cheap entertainment out of them. We'll put them out here
in this great outdoor theater. Turn the lions loose on them. We haven't suffered, you know,
and I, hey, I'm thankful we haven't, but others have. That's why Paul,
Paul wrote in the book of Hebrews, and he says there in chapter
12, and you know at the end of chapter 11, chapter 11 of Hebrews
being like the faith's hall of fame, some people call it, And
it gets toward the end of chapter 11, talks about those who sealed
their faith with their blood. And then there were some believers
apparently who were kind of moaning and groaning in that day. And
Paul writes and he says in the 12th chapter, you hadn't suffered
under blood yet. Don't go, let's not go moaning
and groaning about things. We ain't suffered under blood.
We don't even know what suffering is. And I'm thankful. But I'm sure I take it for granted
too. But these people didn't. These
people didn't. The enemies of the gospel back
in the first century were many. They tried to drown out the voices
that preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who preached
His bloody sacrifice and His perfect righteousness that you've
got to have to be accepted before a holy God. And the fact of the matter is,
the seed of the serpent, the enemies of the gospel, have always
sought to destroy the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Cain slew Abel, as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, as Esau hated Jacob, so the world
has always set itself against the Lord Jesus Christ and his
church. That's the way it was in the
Old Testament. That's the way it was in our
Lord's days when he walked on this earth. That's the way it
was for the rest of John's life up into the end of the first
century. You see, the world is opposed to the gospel. The world
isn't opposed to religion. But they hate salvation by free
grace. They hate salvation by the work
of one man who's the God-man. They hate who he is. They deny
what he did. And anybody who preaches Jesus
Christ as the sovereign king, who preaches salvation according
to God's sovereign saving mercy to the world, that's a terrible
person. The world wants nothing to do
with us. Don't be fooled." He said, but they seem so loving. Well, they are to their own kind. Paul talked about the offense
of the cross, and that offense has not lessened through the
years. Thankfully, God providentially
restrains the world from exercising violent persecution against the
saints of God today. But we must never imagine that
the persecutor's heart is changed. It isn't changed. And he will never change. unless
the Lord does to the persecutors, the haters of the gospel, what
he did to Saul of Tarsus. And you see, there's no heart
too hard. There's no man too arrogant. There's no self-righteous person
too proud in their ways but what God can't knock the props out
from under them and bring them down to the dust of humility
to the feet of the sovereign king, our Lord Jesus Christ. When the first century was drawn
to a closed persecution against the church and against the kingdom
of God was rampant, and severe. Believers were looked upon with
utter contempt. And they were accused of the
most horrible things imaginable. Everything was their fault. And beloved John, John who loved
to lean his head upon the Savior's bosom, who referred to himself as that
disciple whom Jesus loved. He's 90 years old. And they arrested him because
of the gospel he preached. And they exiled him to a rocky
island off the coast called Patmos. And that's where Rome sent their
prisoners to bust up rocks for Rome. And here's a 90-year-old
preacher, and they sentenced him to hard labor on the Isle
of Patmos to shut him up. And yet, they really couldn't
shut him up because it was while he was on the island of Patmos
that the Lord gave him the book of the revelation. The revelation
of the glory and the majesty of the Son of God. And throughout
this gospel age, our Lord is continually revealing himself
to individuals. Not to a whole mass of people
at one time, but to a sinner here and a sinner
there and a sinner over here. Our Savior is revealing His sovereign
saving mercy to them and revealing to them something about the glory
of His person. And if we ever have a revelation
of the glory and the majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ, here's
what's going to happen to us like what happened to John. Look
at verse 17. And when I saw him, he saw the
glorified Christ. Now we're not going to see him
in a vision. But as we see Him in the Word of God and as the
Spirit of grace gives us understanding of who He is, John says, when
I saw Him, I felt that His feet is dead. You're not going to
be talking about Jesus as your good buddy. You're not going
to be saying, oh, He's my co-pilot. You see who he is in his majesty,
in his glory, in his sovereign authority, you'll fall before
him as a dead man too. And when you do, then you'll know something about
the grace of his right hand of mercy. Verse 17. As it were saying unto you, fear
not. Don't be afraid. You know, there are two kinds
of fears. One kind, the Lord says don't have it. There's another
kind that's good. The fear of the Lord. That's
good. It's the beginning of wisdom,
right? It's the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning of
knowledge. That's good fear. But to be fearful
of anything or anybody else, that's bad. That's bad. Fear the Lord. Fear the Lord. Well, John's on this island. Well, what awful, awful crime
did he commit to be put into solitary confinement on the Isle
of Patmos? Well, he says in verse 9, I,
John, who am also your brother, and companion in tribulation,
and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle
that is called Patmos, and here's the reason, because of the word
of God, and because of the testimony of Jesus Christ, because I told
people who Christ is. What an awful crime. To tell people who the Lord is.
Why that's a preacher's job. To preach who Christ is and what
he did and why he did it and where he is now. And they said, we gonna put you
away. Nobody will ever hear you preach
again. John gave an accurate report
of the person of Christ, who He is, God and man. He gave an
accurate report of the work of Christ. He redeemed His people
by His substitutionary sacrifice. He gave an accurate report of
the mission of Christ to save His people from their sins. He
gave an accurate report of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
because without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sins. He gave an accurate report of the righteousness of
Jesus Christ, because without that righteousness, which was
obtained for us by His death upon the cross of Calvary, without
that righteousness, we remain unrighteous and unacceptable
to God. And he gave an accurate report
of the exaltation of Jesus Christ and the enthronement of Jesus
Christ. See, other saints of God were
suffering, and John was not exempted. He suffered as well. And God
inspired him to write this book. Notice some things about our
Savior. Let's go all the way back to
the beginning, and I won't hold you too long. Let me just tell
you a few other things here about this one who's the first and
the last. Look back in verse five. Show you three interesting truths
here. 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." First of all, he's a
faithful witness. I'll tell you what that tells
me. He's the prophet. That's who he is. He's the prophet.
He's the prophet that Moses spoke of and wrote about in the book
of Deuteronomy. He is that prophet. He's the
Word of God. He's the spokesman for God, and
he's the preacher for God. He's the prophet. He came to
reveal the will and the mind and the purpose of God. He came
to reveal the Father. In fact, if you want to know
what the Father's like, study Jesus Christ our Lord. He said,
I and my Father are one. Philip said, would you show us
the Father and then we'll be satisfied. Christ said, Have
I been with you this long? And don't you understand, Philip,
he that hath seen me has seen the Father? He's the faithful witness of
who God is. He's the faithful witness of
what we are. Oh, he witnessed us to our condition
before God. Diseased, lame, blind, Deaf? Dead? He's an accurate witness. And he's not only the prophet,
but watch this, and the first begotten of the dead. If he's
the first begotten, if he's the first one to come back from the
dead with a glorified body, that means he died. Why did he die? Because he's the priest who offered
the sacrifice to God. And the sacrifice that he offered
to God was the sacrifice of himself. He's the priest. He's not only
the prophet, he's the priest. And he's the prince of the kings
of the earth. He's the king. There he is in
his threefold offices. Prophet, priest, and king. He's
the faithful witness. He's the first begotten from
the dead. He said, I have the power to lay down my life. I
have the power to take it again. First begotten of the dead. And
he's the prince of the kings of the earth. By virtue of his
finished work of redemption, the God-man, our mediator, has
been made the sovereign monarch of the universe. And you can
fuss about that, you can refuse to believe that, but he's your
sovereign Lord, no matter what you say and no matter what your
attitude is. And for whatever purpose he made
you, you will fulfill his purpose because he's the Lord and you're
just one of his lowly servants. I don't know too much about chess
played A little bit. We got one of our young men of
our church. He's quite a chess player, but
you know, you got the king and the queen and the bishops and
the rooks, is that what they're called? And then you got the
pawns. We're just pawns. We're just
little pawns. And I tell you what, he moves
us across the board as pleased as him. Even the heart of the
king is in the Lord's hand as the rivers of water, he turneth
it withersoever he will. Don't you worry about anything.
There's a sovereign ruler governing all things. Go home, go to sleep
and rest, don't worry. It's all, everything's good.
Everything's good because our savior is good. He's good to
his people. And he's ruling all things. He's the prince of the kings
of the earth. And he loved us with an everlasting love, and
he washed us with his blood. And John says here in verse eight, he hears the Savior say, I'm
Alpha and Omega. Here's what that means, he's
the beginning and the end. It's like us saying, A and Z. Christ is A and he's the Z and
he's everything in between. He's the beginning and the ending.
He began everything, he's gonna end everything. And from the
beginning, he ordained everything all the way to the end. That's
what Isaiah said. He's the one which is and was
and which is to come, always the Almighty. Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, today and forever. And then John hears in verse
10, he hears a voice behind him. Oh, the voice of the Son of God. His voice is the gospel. My sheep
hear my, what's the word? Voice. My sheep hear my voice
and I know them and they follow me. And this gospel of redeeming
grace, this gospel of good news, Christ died for the sins of his
people and purged them away and brought in everlasting righteousness. This gospel is the voice of God
and maybe, just maybe, you'll hear his voice in this message. He says, I'm Alpha and Omega,
I'm the first and the last. He's first in the Bible, he's
last in the Bible. Say, really? Yeah. In the beginning,
God created the heaven and the earth. There he is, he's first.
And he's the ending. Read Revelation 22, 20, and 21. Behold, I come quickly, he says. John says, even so come, Lord
Jesus. He's the first and the last. First means highest, he's the
highest. And last means made the lowest. Made lower than the angels for
the suffering of death. And John says in verse 12, he
said, I heard that voice and I turned to see the voice that
spake with me. He said, I saw seven golden candlesticks. That's seven churches. And the
seven churches of Asia Minor, that's typical of the one true
church of our Lord Jesus Christ in the various conditions that
she goes through throughout this gospel age. He says, in the midst
I saw the Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the foot.
There's his righteousness. and gird about the paps with
a golden girdle, the belt of authority. His head and his hairs
were white like wool as white as snow. He's the ancient of
days. His eyes were a flame of fire. You can't hide anything from
him. His feet likened to fine brass as if they burned in a
furnace. His voice is the sound of many
waters. And he had in his right hand,
and John explains this at the end of the chapter, he has his
preachers. And he always has just enough. Somebody was remarking about
John being in prison. I got thinking about it. If they were putting preachers
in jail today who preached the gospel of God's free and sovereign
grace, it wouldn't take a big jail to hold them out of them.
And that's a sad fact. It just won't take many. I watched
a little bit of some preacher on television this afternoon.
Boy, was she something else, I'll tell you. She had all the answers to the
wrong questions. I can't find people who are asking
the right questions. Can you? It's kind of hard to
find. Out of his mouth went a sharp
two-edged sword. That's his word. It cuts going
and coming. And his countenance was as the
sun shining in its strength. And that's when John reacted
as he did. The Savior said, fear not, I'm
first and the last. Told him that again, I'm first
and the last now. I'm the beginning of everything,
I'm the ending of everything. He said, I am he that liveth,
I was dead. Christ died for our sins according
to the scriptures, but behold, I'm alive forevermore, amen. And he says, I'm the owner of
all things, because I've got the keys. I got the keys of hell
and death. Now you write these things in
a book and send them to the seven churches. Oh, this is our glorious
Savior right here. Y'all, as you leave tonight,
you who are the people of God, go forth rejoicing in our majestic,
wonderful, marvelous King. The Lord Jesus Christ. Let's
sing a closing song, shall we? Get your psalm books out, let's
see what number we got here. If I can find this number, it's
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, 204. Hymn number 204, Turn Your Eyes
Upon Jesus, the glorious Savior. Let's stand and sing. Oh, so are you weary and troubled. No light in the darkness you
see. There's a light for a look at
the Savior. and life more abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will
grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and praise Through death into life
everlasting We pass and we follow in prayer
Over us in the war at dominion Or more than conquers we are Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look
full in His wonderful face And the things of earth will grow
strangely dim In the light of His glory and
praise. His word shall not fail you,
He promised. Believe Him and all will be well. And go to a world that is dying
His perfect salvation to tell. Turn your eyes on Jesus Look
up in his wonderful face And think