Revelation chapter 22, a title
to our lesson this morning, faithful and true sayings. Here we're
in the last chapter of the book of God. John's vision of Christ,
the whole word of God is going to end with eight faithful and
true sayings, a gracious call, and then a solemn warning. That
seems to me. Everything God has to say to
man is found in this book. God chose to end his book, to
end the revelation of his son with these three things, these
eight faithful sayings, a gracious call and a solemn warning. Seems
to me like they're mighty important to study, aren't they? God chose
to end his word with these things. And this morning, I want us to
look at these faithful and true sayings. The first one is this. This is a faithful and a true
saying. The Bible is written to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse six of Revelation 22. And he said unto me, these sayings
are faithful and true. Here are eight faithful and true
sayings. And the Lord God of the Holy prophet sent his angel
to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be
done. Now this is not only referring
to the words of this last chapter of Revelation, the book of Revelation.
although that's true, but it's referring to the whole word of
God. Now the Bible was written by many different men at many
different times in history. Most of them never knew one another.
Yet when you read the Bible, it sounds like the writers, sounds
like the writer of Genesis and the writer of Revelation were
sitting in a room together comparing notes, but they never knew each
other. They lived at very different
times in history. And all these writers, although
they mostly did not know one another, they all wrote of the
same subject. They all wrote of one person,
the Lord Jesus Christ. They wrote that Christ is our
righteousness. Christ is our sanctification.
Christ is our redemption. Christ is the lamb. Christ is
the way, the truth, and the life. It's all, they all wrote of Christ.
Some of them wrote of the promises. of Christ, that Christ was coming.
Others wrote to show us how every promise of God is fulfilled in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Every word of this book is all
written about the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you read some passage
of this book and you don't see Christ as the primary subject
I promise you, you've missed it. I promise you, you have.
You just keep reading and keep looking at and keep asking God
to show you what is the primary meaning of that verse, because
I promise you the primary meaning of it is Christ. All these men
who wrote the scriptures, they wrote just one message. They wrote that salvation is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not write to tell us
how to live better in this world. They told us how to be saved
from it. They didn't write to tell us how to have a more rich,
full life in this world. They wrote to tell us how to
die, how to die in Christ, how to die in faith in Christ. Look
at Psalm 138. Most people, especially in our
neck of the woods here in the Bible Belt, most people would
agree that this is a holy book. But here's my question. What
are we to do with it? If this is a holy book, what
are we to do with it? Well, we're to reference it.
And we reference this book by obeying its single command to
believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 138 verse
two, I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name
for thy loving kindness and for thy truth for thou has magnified
thy word above all thy name. Now, if almighty God has magnified
his word above his name, how much should we magnify? How much
should we reverence it? How much should we reverence
it by obeying it? This book that's written of Christ
is a powerful book. It's a powerful two-edged sword
that at the same time, one edge kills the flesh, the other edge
gives life to the soul. Every time God gives life, spiritual
life to his people, he always uses this book, this powerful
life-giving book to do it. James wrote, if his own will
begat he us, how? With the word of truth. This
book is to be referenced. Oh, it's a true and faithful
saying. It's written to reveal the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then what are we to do? Brethren, let's see Christ in
his word. This is a faithful saying. This book is written
to reveal Christ. Then let's see Christ in his
word. All right, here's the second faithful and true saying. God
uses men to preach His Word. The Lord gave His Word to His
prophets and His servants to preach. The beginning of verse
16 says, I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you
these things in the churches. God uses men to preach Christ
to His people. He sends men to preach the gospel
so that Christ will be exalted and so that His people will be
saved. So they'll be fed, so they'll be edified and comforted.
Now this is both amazing and it's humbling at the same time.
God uses men, men of clay. He uses them to declare His Son. God uses men to preach His Word. God could audibly speak to men,
couldn't He? He's done it in the past, but
that's not what He does now. He uses men. God could send a
cherubim to preach the gospel to men. You imagine if a cherubim
showed up here this morning We'd all be on the edge of our seat
to hear what that cherubim has to say, wouldn't we? Want to
know the truth of the matter? If God sends His servant to us,
He'd send him to tell us something better. A sinner saved by grace
can tell us something better than a cherubim. That's right.
And God uses men to preach His gospel so that it will be clear.
Salvation's got to be by faith. If you're going to hear the gospel,
You're going to have to humble yourself to hear it from a man.
That's right. You're going to have to humble
yourself to hear it from another sinner saved by grace. And I
tell you something else. If you're going to preach it,
God's going to have to humble you. Humility is involved in this thing of
salvation. God's going to humble a sinner before he saves him.
If you ever think you need to be humble, just try preaching.
God will humble you. He'll humble you. And he does
it that way so that salvation is by faith. It's not by being
impressed by the messenger. If God's going to save you, you're
going to be impressed with the message. You're going to hear
past the man and you're going to hear God speak from his word.
That's just the way God's pleased to do things. Please God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's a faithful
and true saying. God uses men to preach his gospel. If God and his mercy is pleased
to let us know one of them, what should we do? We ought to pray
for faith to believe his message, because God's going to speak
to us. He's going to do it through one of his servants, preaching
his word, declaring his son. All right, here's the truth,
the third faithful and true saying, you and I are sinful men and
women. Look at verse eight. 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. Now the Bible was written by
men. They actually put quill to paper
and wrote the Bible. But the Bible is not the thoughts
of men. The Bible is not a story that men made up. The Holy Spirit
is the author of the Bible. The Spirit moved the apostles
and moved the prophets to write this Word. He's dictating to
them. This is not their thoughts and ideas. This is the Word of
Almighty God given to us by the Holy Spirit. If men authored
this book, what we would do is we'd hide the flaws of its main
characters so the main characters would be admired. But when God
wrote his book, he didn't do that, did he? No, he dealt completely
honestly with us in the word, in God's word. We see the faith
of Abraham, don't we? But we also see the weakness
of Abraham. We see the sin of Lot, but we also see the righteousness
of Lot. We see David, the man after God's
own heart. And we see David, a man in his
sin. We see both the foolishness and
the wisdom of Solomon. We see the boldness and the cowardliness
of Peter. And God does it that way so that
we'll not admire those minor characters. Those men are minor
characters. God does it that way so we'll
admire Christ. He's the major character of this
book. And even in the Apostle John, and he did not cover up
his reaction here. By his reaction, we see this
idolatry. Something as ugly as idolatry
is alive and well in the hearts of saved people. Even the beloved
Apostle John, the one who leaned on the Savior's breast, fell
down to worship at the feet of this angel, giving him a revelation
of Christ. All throughout gospel, I mean,
that's not the only place. You go to many, many, many places.
that drives home the point in God's Word. You and I are sinful
men and women. And the reason that showed us in God's Word
over and over and over and over again, I'll give you four reasons.
First is to show us our sin and our depravity and our need of
Christ. It's not just John's need of
Christ. It's not just Peter's or Lot's
or Abraham's. No, it's to show us our need
of Christ. That we must be born again. I
must be born again. Secondly, God drives this point
home to us. We are sinful men and women to
show us that salvation has got to be by grace. It can't be by
grace. It's got to be by grace. Thirdly,
he does it to show us this. If we're going to have any righteousness
at all, it's Christ. He's the only righteousness a
sinner can ever have. He keeps driving this point home
to us that we're sinful men and women to force us to keep looking. It's not just that I looked one
time. No, it's to force us to keep looking and keep depending
on Christ for all of our salvation. To keep depending on Him all
the way to the end. How many times in your experience
have you grumbled and murmured and complained at God's will?
You just get sidetracked, you get off on something you ought
not be getting off on in your mind and then the Lord brings
it back to you. brings back His mercy, His grace,
who He is, that salvation is by grace, that God's on the throne,
that He's the one ruling and reigning, and He never made a
mistake. And you think, oh, I'm so ashamed, I'll never have to
learn that lesson again. See how quickly you have to learn
that lesson again. You know why that is? So that
we learn to keep depending on Christ. Never to depend upon
the arm of the flesh. That's the only way a sinner
can be saved. All right, here's the fourth faithful and true
saying. God is the only object of worship. Verse 8, I, John,
saw these things and heard them. And when I heard and seen, I
fell down and worshiped before the feet of the angel that showed
me these things. And he said unto me, See thou do it not.
For I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren, the prophets,
and of them which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God. Look over 1 Thessalonians chapter
5. Worship God. Now we do, we love God's servants
for the work's sake. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 12. Paul says, we beseech you brethren
to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord
and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for
their work's sake and be at peace among yourselves. Now we should
be thankful for God's servant who works hard in study and in
prayer and works hard in the study to be able to show us Christ
from the scriptures. Now love him, admire, honor him,
but don't go any further than that. Don't put him on a pedestal
because that won't be fair to him or you. Worship God. Worship God. That's what we ought
to do. Worship God. If you find one
of God's servants, that's what he wants you to do too. He wants
you to worship God. The point of this ministry, for
me and you both now, this is the point of this ministry, is
for people to worship God, to know and worship God. God's preacher,
he's not better than anybody else. He's not better than the
people sitting in the pew. All he is, is a signpost. That's all he is, is a signpost
pointing to Christ. Then what's our responsibility?
Our responsibility is to read that signpost and do what it
says. and go to Christ, flee to Christ. In John chapter one, there were
two disciples of John the Baptist. I would imagine they'd been with
him for a pretty good while. And they heard John the Baptist
say, behold, there he is, the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world. And you know what those two disciples
did? They left John and followed Christ. They did what the signpost said.
I promise you nothing thrilled John the Baptist more than that.
that they left him and followed Christ. When those men came to
him trying to make him jealous, they said, well, the whole world's
following after this one. You introduced him, he wouldn't have
a ministry if you didn't introduce him, John. You're the one that
got him his start, and they're all leaving you and going to
him. And John said, good, that's good. He must increase, and I
must decrease. Look over at Hebrews chapter
13. Here's what every one of us should do. Hebrews 13. Verse 7. Remember them which have the
rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose
faith follow, considering the end, the goal of their conversation. Now, what's the goal of their
preaching? Verse 8, here's their goal, Jesus Christ. The same
yesterday and today and forever. Be carried away with him. Don't
be carried about with diverse and strange doctrines. Be carried
away with Christ. Because he is the only object
of worship. And here's where true worship
is seen. It's in the heart. It's worship that's bowing to
Christ, bowing to his will, bowing to his way, his rule. It's reverencing him. It's giving
him praise and glory that's due unto him. No matter what he does with me,
no matter what he does with me. Remember that leper? He must
have been somewhere close enough to hear the Lord's what we call
the Sermon on the Mount. And that moved him. Moved him
to come to Christ. And he ran to him and fell down
at his feet. Scripture says, worshipping him. He's full of
leprosy. And he's worshipping the Lord.
Before the Lord ever did anything for him. He didn't know if the
Lord would do anything for him. We know that because he said,
Lord, if you will, you make me clean. But whether you do or
not, I'm worshiping you. I'm bowing to you. I'm not trying
to solve this problem. I bow to your will and I'm worshiping
you, waiting on you to do what needs to be done because I'm
totally dependent upon you. That's worship. This is a faithful
and true statement. Almighty God is the only object
of worship. Then let's be sure of this, that
the sole reason for our meetings here is to worship the Lord. Let's be sure. I know it's my
responsibility to preach the gospel, but it's yours to support
it and to take care of things here so that everyone who comes
here can worship the Lord and not be distracted by some dumb
thing we're doing, but that we worship the Lord. All right,
here's the fifth thing. This is a faithful and true saying.
God's word is to be declared. Verse 10, Revelation 22, And he sayeth unto me, seal not
the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at
hand. Now the word seal means to keep
it a secret. The angels told John, don't keep
this a secret. Don't keep the message of scripture
a secret because you fear men or you fear how they'll react.
But you simply faithfully declare, preach the word, Paul said, whether
it's in season or out of season, no matter what's going on, you
preach the word. Declare the message of this book.
And the message of this book is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the only message that God will use to save sinners. You know,
our prayer is that God would save his people. The only way
he's going to do it is through the preaching of this book. It's
our prayer that God would feed and comfort the hearts of his
people. But the only way that's going to happen is through the
preaching of this book. And we're to do it urgently,
urgently. because the angels at the time
said, hey, we're going to do it urgently. God's word is not
to be explained. Who can explain God? We're not
trying to try to explain it. We're just to declare it. Even
though the natural mind can never understand it, the Holy Spirit
will give faith to believe it and faith to understand it. He's
the only one who can. So we're not to try to make it
understandable to people. We're just to declare it. The
Spirit will give faith. And we're not to try to make
the word more appealing to the flesh so the flesh will believe
it. This I can promise you, the flesh will never believe this
book. Never. So if we would change this book,
change the message of it so that it would be appealing to the
flesh and the flesh would believe it, we've changed it into a lie.
And nobody's ever saved through a lie. Not one sinner has ever
been saved by a lie. Ever. We're just to declare the
Word of God and the Holy Spirit will apply it to the hearts of
His people. Just declare God's Word. It will never return unto
Him void. It will always accomplish His
purpose. Then God's Word is not to be
debated. It's to be believed. Even if I can't understand it,
we're not to sit around and debate God's Word. We're to believe.
Just believe. And that's what God's servant
will do. He will faithfully declare the Word of God. Now, I said
the words not to be explained. God's servant declares the word
of God. He explains the word. He explains the meaning of the
passage of the text. But in doing that, what he's
doing is declaring the truth of the text. And he declares
the truth of scripture. He leaves me alone with God,
just declaring the word of God. This is a faithful and true saying.
Almighty God has given us his word to declare. Brethren, let's
be faithful to do that. Let's be faithful to declare
the word of God. Let's be faithful to continue
to support the gospel so that it will always be boldly and
clearly declared from this place. All right, here's the sixth thing. This is a faithful and true saying.
This is sobering now. We will spend eternity in the
exact same state in which we die. Verse 11. He that is unjust,
let him be unjust still. 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. Look over
Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Ecclesiastes 11. So here's one
of those things, you know, you'd think that these two men were
sitting in a room and comparing notes when they wrote these things.
But Solomon and John never met one another, but they said the
exact same thing. Ecclesiastes 11 verse 3. If the clouds be full of rain,
they empty themselves upon the earth. And if the tree fall toward
the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth,
there it shall be. However we die, that's the state
in which we will spend eternity. You know, we talk about the day
of judgment. We kind of compare it to us if we have to go to
court. You know, in our system, if you go to court, the judge
is going to hear both sides and make a decision. Well, the day
of judgment, there's not going to be any decisions made by the
judge of all the earth. All Christ the judge is going
to do in that day of judgment, he's just going to reveal the
character of every defendant and announce their guilt or innocence. That's not going to be a thing
decided at the day of judgment. It's already been decided. He's
just going to announce the guilt or innocence of every defendant.
And man is unjust when he dies. He's going to spend eternity
unjust. To be unjust is to be guilty
of sin before God. If we have to stand before God
in our failed obedience to keep the law, then we're going to
spend eternity unjust, spend eternity being punished for it,
separated from God. To be filthy is to be defiled
by sin. I try to remind us of this all
the time. Sin is not just breaking the rules. It's not just a violation
of the rules. Sin is filthy. If we really knew
the filth of our sin, the sight of it, the smell of it, the feel
of it would turn our stomach. Just all be so awful. And that's
the nature. All of us are born with a filthy
nature. And if we die filthy, it's to
die, not being washed in the blood of Christ. And we'll spend
eternity being cast out because we don't have the white wedding
garment of Christ's righteousness. Verse 15 tells us this is the
filthy nature that will always be outside of God's kingdom and
God's presence. For without those that stay without
the city, their dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers
and idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. That's filthy. And if we die in that, that's
our nature. Now, if we're honest, that is, aren't all those descriptions
are descriptions of our nature. If we die in that, that's the
way we'll spend eternity. Filthy, never having opportunity
to be cleansed. But there is a way to, there's
some, somebody's going to die a different way. There's those
who are unjust, those who are filthy, but somebody's going
to die in righteousness. If you die in righteousness,
you'll be righteous. Let him be righteous still. To
be righteous is to have no sin. To have no sin. Now Sean, somebody's
going to die that way, aren't they? Somebody is. Well, the
only way sinners can die in righteousness is to be justified by the obedience
of Christ. To have His obedience be our
obedience. That's what verse 14 says. Blessed
are they that do His commandments. Well, who's the only one that
ever did God's commandments? The Lord Jesus Christ and everyone
who's in Him. Those people may have the right
to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the
city. To have no sin is to have Christ as our righteousness.
And if we die in Christ, then we're going to spend eternity
with Him because we're righteous. God will never have reason to
cast us out. Somebody's going to die in holiness, and if they
die in holiness, they'll be holy still throughout all of eternity.
Now, to be holy is to have a holy nature. There's a whole lot more
than having a legal, right legal standing with God is to have
a holy nature received in the new birth without holiness, without
a holy nature. No man shall see the Lord. But
with holiness, we have a holy nature. There's going to be an
eternity to be spent with the Lord and the beauty of holiness. And that holy nature is what
is the creation of the Holy Spirit in the new birth. And when a
sinner is born again, our flesh is still always going to be flesh.
I always think of this. Someone comes and asks to be
baptized. The Lord has revealed himself
to me. The Lord saved me. And I'm always so delighted. I just,
oh, so happy, so thankful. But it's always in the back of
my mind. Now your troubles have started. Now you've got that
civil war going on within you. The flesh is always going to
fight against the spirit. The spirit always against the
flesh. The flesh is always going to be the flesh, but the spirit
will always be the spirit. And when this body dies, we're
going to lay this body down in the ground and it's going to
decay and go back to the dust from which it was made. But the
new man, he's not going to the grave. He can never die. That
new man is going to be separated from this body of flesh and he's
going to go be with the Lord. And when Christ the Savior returns,
We're going to be reunited with our resurrected body. But that
body is not going to be raised like it was buried. No, it's
going to be raised a holy body that's a fit dwelling place for
that holy nature, that holy soul. And that's exactly how we will
spend eternity with the Lord. The beauty of holiness. This
is a faithful and true saying. We die unjust, we'll be unjust
for eternity. If we die in the filth of our
sin, we'll be in the filth of our sin for eternity. And brethren,
nothing ought to make us seek Christ more urgently. Oh, how
we need Him. If you die without Him, you'll
spend eternity without Him. But this is also a faithful and
true saying. If you die in Christ, you'll always be in Him. And
that gives us the confidence to keep looking to Him, to keep
depending upon Him, to keep waiting on Him to come again, to gather
us to Himself. No matter how much of our sin
we see, if we're in Christ, we're righteous and holy. And that
gives us the confidence to wait on Him, to rest in Him. All right,
here's the seventh thing. This is a faithful and true saying.
Christ is coming quickly. Verse 12, And behold, I come
quickly, and my reward is with me to give every man according
as his work shall be. He says the same thing in verse
7. Behold, I come quickly. He says it in verse 20. Surely
I come quickly. Amen. So be it. He's coming quickly. Here's why we urgently preach
the gospel. Because Christ is coming quickly.
He died and he ascended. He rose again. He ascended back
to the Father 2,000 years ago. That's a long time, you and me.
But it's just about two days ago to God. It's just about Friday.
A thousand years is a day into the Lord. The Lord is coming
again quickly. That he's either going to return
to this earth a second time quickly. It could be in the next minute.
Or he's going to come and call us home quickly. One way or another,
every one of us soon, soon is going to see the Lord. And why
wouldn't he come back quickly? Why wouldn't he? The salvation
of his people is accomplished. All he's doing is waiting to
call all of them to him, and he's going to come. And when
he comes and we see him, we'll be like him. What a day that
will be for everyone who believes Christ. And that's why the believer
can say, even so come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly so I can leave this
place and go be with you in righteousness and holiness. This is a faithful
and true saying. Christ is coming quickly. Believe
me, that's written for your comfort. No matter how hard the journey
gets, you keep looking for Christ. He's coming quickly. No matter
how dark the night, no matter how dark the trial, no matter
how heavy the burden, it's going to be over quickly. He's coming
again. All right, here's the eighth
thing. This is a faithful and true saying.
We can't say this often enough, I don't think. Christ is all. Verse 13. I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Now you know
this, Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega
is the last one. From first to last, Christ is
all. From first to last and everything
in between. The whole alphabet of God is used to spell out one
message. Christ is all. The whole alphabet
of God is used to spell out the person of Christ, the work of
Christ, the glory of Christ. The salvation's in Him. Everything
God has for a sinner is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
first and the last, Alpha and Omega. That's a faithful and
true saying. Christ is all. What should we do? Well, God's
given us any sins. We're going to seek Christ urgently.
We must have Him. We must have Him because He's
all. And if we don't have Him, We don't have anything. But if
we have Christ, we have all things. See, this is written as a warning
to those who do not believe, but this is written as a comfort
to God's people. A revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's all. We have him. What we got to worry about? We've
got all things. All right. Lord bless you.