Dennis Tuuri

is the resurrected servant. The sermon text for today is Revelation 1 beginning at verse 17 and reading through verse 20. Please stand for the reading of our King, the command law. Revelation 1 beginning at verse 17.

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead, and he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, fear not. I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore. And have the keys of hell and of death. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter, the mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

Let us pray through song that God would by his holy spirit illumine this text for understanding that we might live out in the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ the remainder of our lives.

This text should be pretty familiar to those of us who’ve been at RCC for any length of time. It is frequently used. This text is a call to worship, a call to confess our sins, and also as the assurance of forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ for reasons that will be clear—made clear, hopefully, again today in this sermon. As we work our way through this text, I have just a series of four observations on this text that I want us to consider today.

Hopefully you will be as excited as I am to understand the basic message of this text: the movement of life for us personally, corporately, and for the world. The movement being from death to life, death to resurrected life. It is the core of our Christian faith that this text addresses today.

Now, first of all, as this verse begins in verse 17, we read that when John saw the Lord Jesus Christ, he fell at his feet dead. This is in response to the revelation of Jesus Christ. We said that the book of Revelation is—to be clear—it is not to be a difficult book to understand. It says in the very first verse that it is a revelation, an uncovering or revealing of something. It’s not supposed to be tough. It’s tough for us because we’re not that literate biblically, and it’s also tough probably because the church may still be relatively young. That’s another subject. But in any event, we said this book is to be a revelation, a making clear of certain things.

And preeminently, we said from verse one that it’s a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we’ll see again today in this text that doesn’t just mean it comes from him. It means it has to do with the centrality of him in the context of its message and specifically his death and his life and his working in the context of history.

So in response to the revelation of Christ, John dies. And specifically here now, we’re talking about the revelation of Christ to John who was in spirit on the Lord’s Day and the Lord Jesus comes to him. He hears a voice, essentially a trumpet voice, and he turns to see and he describes for us this image of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is, first of all, a response to that. So we want to look at that again by way of review.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve spoken on this text, so it’s good to review it. And I gave you an awful lot of information—three pages of outline, if I remember correctly—and I hope you keep some of those things because two of those charts could be very helpful as you mature in the Lord. And I think it drew together some major themes of scripture relative to this important text before us.

But in any event, let’s review briefly what this image of the Lord Jesus Christ was that John is responding to. We saw, first of all, that as he turns, he saw seven golden candlesticks. These were the watcher trees, the almond tree candlesticks of the Old Testament in the context of the holy place. There was a single candlestick, sevenfold. This is all talked about in the Old Testament, and that’s the meaning of it in the New Testament as understood by relationship to that.

So in the midst of these seven candlesticks, or watcher trees, one like unto the son of man, relating back of course to Ezekiel and also relating to the prophecies in Daniel. That he is clothed at the garment down to the foot and gird about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like snow and white like wool as snow.

I want us to review as we think of John’s symbolic death at the presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s think a little bit about these seven attributes again. Now this is what we did a couple of weeks ago, but let’s try to burn, using fire and imagery, it into our hearts of who this is and think about what would our response be to see this image of the Lord Jesus Christ, understanding as John did the significance of this imagery and its relationship to the entire revelation of Christ in the Old Testament as well as then his death and resurrection, which John knew physically about in his life.

Well, first of all, this image of the Lord Jesus Christ—his head and hair are combined together into an image. They are pure. They are white like snow, white as wool. And we’ve said that brings together several images. First of all, the head and the hair being combined together, and then the last of these seven images, the strength of the sun, the last of the sevenfold description of Christ, brings to mind the Nazirite warrior of the Old Testament.

This is the ultimate Nazirite, who is the ultimate warrior bringing about holiness in the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. But we’ve said that also in this image clearly is a reference to the Ancient of Days. In Daniel, the Ancient of Days—the throne is set up. The one like unto the son of man comes to the Ancient of Days, receives rain. So the Father is part of the image here. Jesus’s hair is turned white, not black anymore. It’s getting lighter. My hair is turning lighter. As you get older, many men’s hair turns gray and white. That’s not a bad thing. It shouldn’t be covered up. It shows the perversion of our culture that we want to cover up signs of maturity and age.

The Lord Jesus is the ultimate maturity here. He’s the ultimate Elder of elders as it were. His hair isn’t gray. It isn’t part white and part black. It is totally white. And his hair is totally white as an image also from the book of Isaiah of his moral purity. So it’s mature holiness that’s being portrayed in this first reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is our response to the ultimate moral holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ coming face to face with us in Lord’s Day worship? As we come before God and contemplate his moral purity, his absolute, no hint of dark, no hint of gray, his moral purity—what’s our response?

We think of our lives and we think of the impurity of our lives. We think of the sins we’ve committed. We know that we’re not morally upright and pure in all things, certainly not in all of our actions. But even if our actions mostly conform, certainly in our thought life we have trouble. And certainly with our tongue, we do not always minister grace to one another. And we’re not morally pure in our tongues, are we?

Boys and girls, men and women, presented with a glimpse of the moral purity of the Lord Jesus Christ—absolute conformity to the law of God in action, word, deed, and thought—what’s our response? Well, hopefully it’s like John’s. We’re going to fall down as dead before him.

What’s our response to Jesus? Also here is the picture of the Elder of elders. What’s our response to authority in our lives? And I want to talk to you now mostly young men. We had a council meeting Friday night, and Deacon Lawrence brought a passage of scripture including the admonition in it that the younger are to submit to the elders in the context of the church. And it doesn’t just mean there the office known as elders. It means the men, the older men in the church.

Young men, as you’re growing up—we got a lot of teenage men, teenage boys now becoming men. We’ve got guys in the midst of becoming teenagers. We’ve got some that are now into their twenties. What is your response to the men of this church? Do you submit to them? Do you look at their lives and want to emulate their maturity? Or are you affected by the spirit of our age to a certain degree that mocks the authorities in the land and disdains one’s parents?

Boys, think about your relationship to your dad. I don’t care what he’s done wrong or what he’s done right. He has been placed there as an image of God before you. And do you submit to him? Do you try to learn from your father? Do you have reverence for him? You’re to do that. And what is your relationship to the older men in this church, to the fathers in general in this church?

Are you trying to look at them? Are you trying to learn from their wisdom? Well, you know, I know that you are. And I know that to some degree you aren’t because we’re not perfect. We have sin mixed in. And I know a different one of you—it’s going to be different. Some of you are doing pretty good respecting and honoring your dad and the other elder men at church. Some aren’t.

Well, presented with this picture of the Elder of elders, young men, I hope you think about the requirements of moral purity. And I hope you think about the need to be submissive and learning from the elders in the church. And I hope this brings a degree of conviction to you for your shortcomings. If we don’t have conviction about our shortcomings, we’re not going to grow in grace. You’ll never get there if you don’t come to confession first.

So hopefully our response to the moral purity and to the ultimate authority, the Elder of elders, the Lord Jesus Christ, the whiteness of his head and hair, the ultimate Nazirite is: we have sinned. If you’re a wife, I’ve sinned. I haven’t honored the elder in my home, my husband. If you’re a child, I’ve sinned. I have not honored the elder in the household. I have not honored the elders in this church the way I ought to have done.

Hopefully we see that first. But then he goes on to say that Jesus’s eyes are flames of fire. His eyes will burn a hole right through you. His eyes discern things about you. Everything you’ve done this past week—your failures of speech, your failures of action. The Lord Jesus saw every bit of it. His eyes were like flames of fire going everywhere. He doesn’t miss a trick here. He sees.

What’s our response? Well, boy, you know, I think about this thing I’ve done wrong. I think about the way I yelled at the kids or the way I didn’t even talk to my kids and instruct them the way I should. We see that the eyes of Jesus Christ seeing us, and it brings us to confession of sin again. It brings us to a humility before God. I’m sorry for what I’ve done this past week.

You see that presentation of the ultimate discernment of Christ, and we should fall on our faces. Not only that, but of course, he’s the exemplar. He’s the standard of our eyes. We are lamps. That’s what he tells us here—the mystery of the seven lampstands. We’re supposed to be bright light into the world. Have we looked upon things with the searing heat of Christ’s holy eyes? Or have we looked upon things that are unholy and taken delight in the unholy things we look at?

Yeah, Job made a covenant with his eyes that he wouldn’t look upon a maid. He saw the problems with that, not just because it’s a bad deal and could end up in trouble, but because he wanted purity before God—that he wanted his eyes to be discerning elements given over to the service of Christ. And he didn’t want to defile them with images that weren’t proper to look upon.

What of our eyes looked upon and delighted in terms of that was evil this past week, this past month? More than that, were our eyes like flames of fire—not just avoiding impurity, but searching it out in our children, in our lives, in the various spheres of influence we have, trying to get rid of it?

Well, we burn things up on the altar. Remember the image here is the tabernacle. Jesus is the temple, the tabernacle, the holy of holies. That’s where the fire starts when the Sabbath, when the sacrificial system of the Old Testament is set up. The fire starts in those eyes and shoots out to the altar and burns up that sacrifice. It’s the picture of progressive holiness in the world. And we’re to be that.

And what can we say about this last week? Present him with the image of the Lord Jesus Christ that his eyes see things in a holy way—to desire not just to not engage in unholiness, but to burn it up, to discern it, and then take the message to God. Remember, we’re watcher trees, almond trees of the Old Testament. We’re the tabernacle, we’re the lampstand. The lampstand was made after an almond tree specifically—it says that in Exodus. And we’re supposed to see things not just to have intellectual curiosity, but to talk to God about them.

What did we see this last week in our workplaces, in our homes, in our culture around us that we said, “That is bad,” and we’ve taken the message back to God and said, “Please change this in the context of our world. We see this, Lord God. We want holiness in the land, and we see unholiness”?

Well, when we see the image of the Lord Jesus Christ and his discernment, his holiness, his righteousness, his view of all things, that should make us ashamed of our sinful actions and deeds. And when we see that his sight reaches down into our attitude, into our hearts, we should feel great conviction before God for this past week. And when we see that standard is the way we’re supposed to look at things and change the world around us, and then we say we didn’t do that very much this last week—didn’t pray like we should have prayed, didn’t see the way we should have seen—we fall down before Jesus Christ as John did, hopefully, and we’re dead before him.

The scriptures go on to say that John saw his head and hair white like wool and white as snow and eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like burnished brass burning in a fire. What’s been our response to the fire of trials and tribulations this past week, this past month, maybe this past year in your life? Did you grumble and dispute, or did you burn forth and shine forth as those legs, heated with fire, glowing and established on the earth?

You see, the fires, the tribulations, are how God makes us better. And so often we kick against it. We try to pour water on that fire. We don’t want the fire. But instead, we should be like Jesus. The trials and tribulations make us shine the glory in the context of our world. And as we’re presented with this image of Jesus and reminded, later on, that those legs bring the fire of heaven to earth again, we must say: When we walked around, did we walk in terms of holiness? Did we walk in terms of thankfulness for the trials and tribulations? And did we let ourselves shine forth into the world, dispelling darkness? Or did we fail to walk at all, or did we walk into unrighteous places, or did we walk covering up the holiness, the fire that’s supposed to shine forth from us?

And too often we do that. And so we fall down before Jesus the way John did and say, “Forgive us, Lord, for our failure to shine forth brightly in the midst of trials and tribulations. Forgive us, Lord, for looking upon things we shouldn’t have looked upon, and for not looking upon unholiness with a view to getting rid of it, and for not praying to you about the things we saw. And forgive us, Lord, for our failure to be submissive and honoring to the authorities in our country, in our families, in our church, and in our state. Forgive us, Lord, for our lack of moral holiness and purity.”

And then the voice of Jesus—the central part of the image—his voice like many waters. And what were your voices like this last week? Did they shoot out bile? Were they like those opening mouths that all men are, apart from the rejuvenation of the Lord Jesus Christ and his transformation, an open sewer instead of that living water coming out? Did you spew forth death? You had bad breath this last week.

Remember, we said the voice of many waters. It’s related to us. The revelation says that it’s like a multitude of people—a multitude of messengers, angels in the Old Testament, people in the New Testament, that speak forth that have the voice of Christ. That’s why his voice is like many waters, cleansing and purifying. Out of your bellies is supposed to come rivers of living water.

What did you do with your voice? Did you use it to curse in an improper way, or did you use it to bring blessing, to minister grace to your brothers and sisters? How did you use your tongue? Children, talking to your brother and sister this last week—did you yell at them? Did you make fun of them? Did you make cute little barbs that hurt them? Or did you just keep your mouth shut? Either way, it doesn’t work. Whether you’re using it improperly or not using it properly, it’s sin in God’s sight.

He says that our tongues are supposed to minister grace. You know, you get old, you think, “Well, I can be pretty smart about this. I just won’t talk much. Everything will be okay. I won’t be in trouble with God.” No, your tongue is supposed to be speaking. You’re supposed to be ministering grace. It’s wrong to use it incorrectly. It’s also wrong to stop it up—it’s like stopping up the river and not allowing the town to have water. No.

Do a belly check. I don’t mean the kind of belly check I do every day trying to lose weight. Out of our bellies, the scriptures say, are supposed to flow rivers of living water. How’d you do this last week? Did you minister grace? Did living water come out of you? Did your tongue act like the Lord Jesus’s tongue, the voice of many waters?

No, we didn’t. All too often we stopped it up or we spewed out bile instead of cleansing, pure, crystal clear water. And so we see this image of the Lord Jesus Christ and like John we say, “We’re undone. Can’t measure up. Got to die.”

You go on. Jesus says that out of his right hand, the vision is that he has seven stars, out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance shone as the sun and his strength. You get the picture as you meditate upon what these images are. We should be like John.

Did we try to hold people together? Did we try to be cohesive, producing unity of the brothers? And we engage in acts either of omission or commission that split people apart. Fathers, I sent some of you this email about how, years ago in Los Angeles—not Mexico, but in a Mexican area, years before it grew up—the historical accounts are that every morning as the morning star rose, I don’t know what time it comes up in LA at that time of history, but in any event, the fathers would rise up. The morning stars in their households—and they’d sing hymns to God of praise as a way of waking the family up.

What a beautiful picture of what fathers are supposed to be—holding the seven stars. Is that we’re governing and controlling the lights in their household? And we, when measured against that, we fall far short too often, don’t we, dads? We’re not showing that direction, guidance, leadership, showing our children in word and example and in actions how to worship God in all things.

So we don’t feel too good as we come to this image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder as John sees this image? Forget the spectacular vision of it. Look at what it means. The spectacular vision that can be overcome, but the depth of the meaning—I believe—is what drove John to his knees before the Lord Jesus Christ. He falls down as a dead man.

And if we see Jesus properly—what these attributes mean—every Lord’s Day when we come forward, we’re going to say, we’re not just going to, you know, repeat the words liturgically, formally, correctly; we’re going to feel it from our hearts. “Lord God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” We’re going to fall down at his feet. If not literally in the place we have here to worship, in our hearts we’re going to die.

Now that’s part of what’s going on here. But another part of what’s going on here is, remember, the correlation to Genesis. And I’ve got these verses on your outlines. John dies like Adam dies, so to speak. He goes through this symbolic death and resurrection the way Adam did as well.

Look on your outlines and see the correlation. I’ve made this out before, but Genesis 3:8. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool, in the cool. That word “cool” in the King James version is “spirit,” the same word “wind, spirit.” They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden.

They’re created and they’re supposed to attain to Sabbath Day enthronement. They’re supposed to attain to God’s blessing upon them as he comes to be with them in the spirit on the day when God particularly comes to meet with his people—the day of Sabbath rest and enthronement—and they have sinned. Their first day—many commentators think their first day—they sin right out of the chute, as it were. And so when God comes and they hear the voice of God in the cool, in the spirit of the day, the day of evaluation, they, in the midst of the garden and the trees of the garden, they hide.

Correlations are going to talk about kings of the earth hiding amidst the rocks, saying rocks hide us from the wrath of the lamb. Man, aware of his sinfulness, dies, hides, does something to keep away from the presence of the one with whom we have to do.

Now see the correlations to Revelation 1. These verses we’re dealing with: John was in spirit on the day, on the Lord’s Day, in the cool of the day. There is John, and he heard behind him the voice of the Lord coming in the context of the day of evaluation, as the voice of a trumpet. And he sees in the midst of the seven candlesticks, these watcher trees, one like unto the son of man.

You see, he’s in the garden. He’s in the garden of trees, and he’s heard the voice, and he’s in the spirit on the day. He’s just like Adam. God wants us to think that way, folks, because that’s what’s going on here is a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came as the second Adam. The scriptures are quite clear about that. Jesus did what he was supposed to have done.

Remember, we said that part of this image of Christ is that he’s girded about the chest, not the waist. His work is finished. He’s come to total maturation as man, as the second Adam. He, on the Lord’s Day, has accomplished for himself Sabbath enthronement. You see, he’s done it all. And as a result, he sits enthroned at the right hand of God.

And John, like Adam, recognizes that in and of himself he’s sinful. And he doesn’t meet the test. In fact, he doesn’t even come close to meeting the test. If we remember, the test is this image of Christ—we will not confuse ourselves that somehow we come close to personal holiness and righteousness. We don’t meet the test. So like Adam, John dies.

John does not attain in his own person what Jesus has obtained—Sabbath enthronement. Jesus finished his task. Hebrews says that he finished his task and he’s entered into Sabbath rest, as it were. The rest prepared Sabbath rest for us. We still are moving toward our rest. But Jesus has done the work that was presented before him, and we’ll see this in a little bit. But on the basis of that work, God has given him a name above every other name.

Now he sits at the right hand of the Father and he rules over all creation in a way that is different from the reign of Christ—although it was eternal, of course—but now Christ, having come in the flesh, has perfected humanity. He is eschatological man. He brings humanity, as it were, to its completion. And he brings humanity in him into Sabbath Day enthronement.

John doesn’t meet the mark. Jesus does.

Okay. So first of all, then, in response to this image of the Lord Jesus Christ, John dies. Our response should be to confess our sins before the one who now sits and reigns with all authority, the Lord Jesus Christ, on the basis of his work. But it doesn’t end there because John resurrects. John rather is resurrected by the Lord Jesus. Jesus resurrects John, and he laid his right hand upon me, saying, “Fear not.”

Fear not. Now, you don’t tell you don’t say “fear not” to someone who’s not fearful. So there is implied in this the appropriateness of a proper sense of fear before the Lord Jesus with whom we have to do. Okay. I mean, one of the indictments against our day and age is that we think somehow we don’t have to fear Jesus. We’ve so dumbed down the image of our Savior that we come forward and think he’s privileged just to get the worship from us. Yeah, we made it today. You know, we’re good for doing that. We’re not fearful at all that he’s not coming when he calls, and we’re not fearful when we get here all too often. Too bad for us. You’re supposed to be.

John is pictured here as, you know, a pretty good guy. Now, this is John—this is the beloved one, right?—who knew the Savior closely, was loved by Jesus in a particular way apparently that some of the other disciples weren’t. I don’t know how that works, but the scriptures say it. And still, John, represented with this image of Christ, represented to him, falls down as a dead man. And Jesus raises him back up saying, “Fear not.”

Fear is appropriate. We should teach our children to fear God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But it’s also appropriate that we fear not. Jesus comes to us and is always putting us at ease about the appropriate fear we have. Now, if he comes to us and we don’t fear, he’s going to say, “Fear.” He’s not going to say “fear not” until we’re fearing. You see, because if we’re not fearful, then we’re headed to damnation.

But Jesus says to those who properly fear him, who properly evaluate themselves according to his standard of his humanity, he says, “Fear not.” The most oft-repeated commandment in the New Testament is “Fear not.”

Well, we’ve seen this image of Christ and how it should drive us to our knees. But remember that image before we got to those sevenfold attributes of Christ. It began with when he turns around and sees Christ in the midst of the lampstands. He has a robe on, and he’s girded about the chest with a golden girdle, as it were, a golden belt. Remember, that’s the high priest. That’s the temple, and he’s finished his work as our high priest. That’s why we don’t have to fear—because he did his work as our high priest.

So the very image itself of Christ up to this point with John is totally consistent with what Jesus now tells them: “Proper of you to fear, but now fear not, because my work has been completed for you and for the elect. I brought you into peace with God through my work.” Hebrews 2. For as much last week, you know, Mark gave an excellent sermon. “Why are you fearful?” Jesus tells the disciples.

Well, the scriptures tell us that fear comes from our, uh, fear has to do with the power of death. Hebrews 2, we read: “For as much that as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

If we do not grasp, appropriate the release from death of our Savior that he has accomplished for us, then we’re going to, through fear of death, cling to life sinfully. So it’s very important that we recognize we ultimately are not fearful because Jesus has paid the price, our death, that has driven us through fear of death into bondage to sin.

You see, it’s a very important part of counseling our children to righteousness—the appropriation of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from an appropriation of the atonement, we are left with—whether we’re fully aware of it or not—bondage through fear of death.

Now, we never fully understand or appropriate the atonement until our own death. So we’re perfected in Christ. But what this means is that each of us must struggle to remind ourselves that Jesus tells us, and as I said, his most oft-repeated command to us in the New Testament: “Fear not. I’ve taken care of death. You know you’re a sinner. That’s good. Know now that I’ve redeemed you—released you from that sin. That’s better.”

See, the Westminster Catechism—what’s the chief purpose of man? Most people know that answer: Glorify God and enjoy him forever. And this church, you know, we probably use more often than that the Heidelberg Catechism, question two: “What three things do you need to know to live and die happily in this comfort?” And it’s a real good question to remember. The answer is three things.

The first: How great my sin and misery is—to be fearful before God, to fall down dead like John—three things. First is two-fold. Okay. How many things you need to know? Three things. The first: How great my sin and misery is. But then the second: How I am redeemed from all my sins and misery. And that leads to the third: to be thankful to God for such redemption. Okay. So that’s what this is about: Fear not. You’ve been redeemed from all your sins and misery.

Now Jesus raises John back up with his right hand. Okay, it says “right hand.” It’s important to know that. Why? Well, his right hand is the one that contains the seven stars. John’s the star. John’s one of these bright shining images of Christ in the world. That’s part of what’s going on here, I’m sure, for us to make that correlation. You don’t want to push the illustration too far, but it seems like the stars that those the stars that are held by Christ’s right hand—that right hand of God upon his elect—keeps us as well.

We’re in his grip. A saint once told me she saw this in all her letters that way: We’re in his grip. We’re made secure and safe by God through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember we talked about the perseverance of the saints, the preservation of saints by God the Father and the Son, with the reference on your outline from John chapter 10: “Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” We’re in Christ’s hand.

But the right hand is also the right hand of rule and authority. Now understand this: Jesus comes. He lives for thirty years. He dies on the cross. He’s finished his mission. Where does he go? Where does, where is Jesus preeminently to be understood as at right now, children? Where’s Jesus? Not primarily in your heart. He is in your heart through the spirit. He sits at the right hand of the Father. Why? He’s exercising rule. He’s got the authority and the maturity of the Ancient of Days. Now he’s exercising rule at the right hand of the Father.

Where are we? Well, according to this, if we’re like John, we’re at his right hand. You see, you got the Father, son sitting at his right hand—son sitting here at his right hand is his bride. You see, John is resurrected, brought back with the right hand of power, that John might reign as the bride of Christ in the context of his life.

You see, so what we can’t do in and of ourselves—move to Sabbath and enthronement, to rule and authority—Jesus accomplishes for us and gives us in this picture in Revelation 1 of who we are in Christ. So this revelation and unfolding of who Jesus is the right hand of the Father reigning also shows us—it’s a revelation of us in Christ—and it tells us that we’re at the right hand of Christ exercising rule and authority. We attain to Sabbath Day enthronement as kings and queens because of Christ’s attainment.

You see, you see how that works? Very important to understand this. And we’ll see this again reiterated as we go through the rest of this text.

Now, we practice this liturgically every Lord’s Day, don’t we? This is one of the verses we’ve read because this is one of the many places of scripture. I’ve listed some other places on your outline where liturgically the worship of the church is that we’re called in.

So we have a formal call to worship. John heard the trumpet, and we come forward, and as we think of who’s called us, we fall down and confess our sins, and he raises us back up to life, and we praise his name for what he has accomplished in us. Okay? So you’ve got call and confession, absolution and praise. That’s what’s going on here. That’s what’s going on in the heavenly worship. We’ll see in chapter four and five of the book of Revelation, if we get to it, or you can read it. Same thing’s going on.

And I’ve given you these other scriptures where throughout the scriptures this is the pattern for worship. The Daniel passages, particularly important, because as the right hand of the one with whom Daniel had to deal with raises him up, he’s called beloved twice in those passages—just like John is the beloved of the Lord. Daniel sees the image of Christ, no strength left, dies, raised back up, given strength, and set on his feet to give he have a message.

Isaiah goes before the living God. He sees the throne room of God. Woe is me. I’m a dead man. Can’t make it. And then what happens? The angels take the coals off of the altar fire, representative of the work of Christ, apply it to Isaiah, cleansing his profession, raising him back up to strength, that he might take a message for God out. Ezekiel—same thing. Gets caught up into the throne room of God. He’s going to be ordained to go forth to the people of God, telling them about their sin. And he dies, and he’s raised back up by the hand of God.

You see, this is the pattern: Death, resurrection, and then God’s messengers sent out into the world.

Now, this isn’t just supposed to be what happens on the Lord’s Day. This prepares us for the work of the week. I’ve thought liturgically about the Genesis machine, the Genesis project. I always think of this old Star Trek movie where they had this Genesis machine and it would go to a dead planet and it would set up this matrix, and this matrix would then produce life in a very fast way all over a dead planet. That’s kind of a nice picture of what God does for us.

Worship ordered and defined by God’s word—that’s why it’s important to do worship as much as we can according to what God’s word tells us—becomes the matrix by which we live out our lives. Because this is where, in its heightened sense, we die and are born again. Now, I know that’s a one-time occurrence as we come to salvation in Christ, but it’s not just a one-time occurrence. We’re going to look at verses here. We’re supposed to mortify the flesh. We come forward, just as John was born again already, but still he falls down like a dead man and he rises back up—because he’s going to rise up stronger. He’s going to rise up a newer man. He’s going to rise up more empowered to do God’s work. He’s going to rise up as one more enthroned, as it were, in the context of his work for Jesus.

And so we practice this every Lord’s Day.

Now, it doesn’t work. It’s not magic. It’s not an incantation. It’s not something if you come here and just say the words you’re going to get better by the end of the day and you’re going to go into the week better. No, that’s not the way it works. And it’s not a necessary thing either. I mean, if people don’t know that this is the way worship is to be conducted—primarily through call and confession and absolution—but still, if their hearts are sincere in what they’re trying to do, they’re trying to obey God as much as they can in worship, they’re going to get strengthened as well.

But it’s best to conform it to the pattern because it helps our minds and our spirits to understand what’s going on. Liturgical formalism is not what I’m talking about. But I am talking about conforming our worship to this image given to us in Revelation 1 so that we can understand, cooperate, and grow the faster with that matrix being set in place of the death and resurrection and service that God calls us to every Lord’s Day.

This is it. This is the pattern for our lives. As I say, we’re supposed to worship in spirit and in truth, not in mere liturgical formalism. In fact, if all we do is come here and do the right words and say the right things, and our hearts are far from God, we’re going to have more condemnation than the church down the street that hasn’t thought about this stuff at all and just comes forward because they love Jesus.

Why? Because more knowledge, more information that’s correct biblically, makes us under greater responsibility to use it correctly. Okay? So be fearful next Lord’s Day when you come. If you just mouth the words, you’re under greater condemnation than, you know, if you’d gone someplace and didn’t even use what we think is a more biblical approach toward what worship should be. Okay.

So John dies, John is resurrected, and that resurrection, seeing light again, of the Adamic work of the Lord Jesus Christ, brings John as well into Sabbath enthronement. History moves to the establishment of the bride, the church, John representative of it, at right and throne at the right hand of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Third, Jesus’s words reveal him as the one who has through death and resurrection become the ruler of history. Now, look at on your outlines, I’ve given you these couple of verses here with the order in which I think liturgically they’re best portrayed for us.

There’s a series of three statements, and you may not think this at first. I don’t know if this is completely correct or not, but I think it’s right. I think this is the right way to read it. “I am the first and the last. I am he that lives. I was dead. I am alive forever. And I have the keys of hell and of death.” Okay. And that correlates so that Jesus is first in the sense of his death. Okay. And he is the last in the sense of being alive forevermore. He is perpetually alive forever and ever. And he is he that liveth. The third statement in the first clause—meaning that he is the one who is alive, not just in a state but actively doing things in the context of the world.

He is the active one who is alive in creation. Correlates to him having the keys of hell and of death. And that correlates to the third stroke, the third portion of the script, the this section: “Write the things which thou hast seen about the death of Christ. The things which are: Jesus is alive, and the things which shall be hereafter: Jesus’s aliveness has to do with his use of the keys.” What’s going to happen in Revelation, and what’s going to happen in its correlary history from the book of Acts, from 30 to 70, is Jesus is going to be using those keys. He’s going to be alive in the sense of being active in the affairs of men. You see, he reigns. Things change. He’s going to use keys. He’s going to close up some things. He’s going to unleash other things. He’s going to make things change in the context of the world then. And he is doing it now because he’s alive forevermore.

But notice the process here. What’s being stressed is the movement in terms of Jesus. This is a revelation of him and about reality. The movement in terms of Jesus is death to life and then work. Okay? It’s death to life. He rules in the context of history by means of first his death and resurrection.

Turn to Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 through… “In the form of God, thought out robbery to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men.” Incarnation, of course, is being spoken of here, being found in fashion as a man. “He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore—wherefore? Why is wherefore? Why is it therefore? Why is it there?” It’s there because it’s following up what’s being talked about here, the incarnation of our Savior and his death on the cross.

“Then wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of the glory of God the Father.”

Okay. So Jesus moves from death to life, and that is the basis for his resurrection, his finished work on the cross. His resurrection is now working itself out in his use of the keys in terms of his being the one who was alive and active in the context of history. Jesus Christ is the content of the revelation. What John will write—Revelation, really simply—is about the fact that the one who died and was raised up is now active in the world and working out his enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and primarily through the enthronement of the bride at his right hand, and working through his church to change the world. That’s what it’s about.

You see, Jesus—last point. Jesus’s words reveal the church, through her death and resurrections, are his agency of rule in history. His agency is rule. Now, we’re told that our death and resurrection isn’t a one-time experience. I’ve got verses there for you. The mortification of the flesh—put these things to death. It says, “Put the flesh to death continually.”

Let’s read a couple of those. Romans chapter 8: “If the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, live after the flesh. If you live after the flesh, you shall die. But if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Okay?

So you have a commandment in the context of your life to mortify the deeds of the flesh. The deeds of the old Adamic nature—not physical flesh—is what means the old Adamic nature. Not supposed to do those things. Supposed to put those things to death, that you might be resurrected to do things in the context of the spirit.

Colossians 3: Same thing. “If you’re risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. Right hand, rule, and authority. Death, resurrection, right hand. We’re moving from death—mortification of the flesh—alive to the spirit, which results in empowerment for rule in the context of the world and making things change.

“Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth. For you are dead, your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ appears, you also shall appear. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil, concupiscence, covetousness, which is idolatry.” See, mortify these things. Put them to death. Act actively work against those deeds of the flesh and actively live in the context of the spirit.

Galatians 5: “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust.”

Ephesians 5: Why don’t you turn to Ephesians 5 here. Starting at verse three: “Fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, let it not be once named among you as become saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. See, dying to these things, living to these things.”

“For this you know that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Death, resurrection, Jesus, the brightness of his countenance. We’re light in the Lord.”

“Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret, but all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light. For whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest, resurrection. Arise from the dead, those dead actions of the past, and Christ shall give thee light, and you’ll shine his light in the world.”

“See then that you walk circumspect, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understand…”