And we rejoice in who you are. We rejoice that we are not alone in this universe and that you have not left us alone even as you have created us. And we pray now that in these moments that this will be a time of renewal in our own walk with you, that you would encourage us even as you encourage us now with fellowship around the table and food provided again for us. So for all these things and the opening of your word, we thank you and pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. I think most of you know that this is the last of our we'll call it a pre Easter Thursday series. We're glad you've participated in it. Just a quick note about next week. The Wednesday lunches will continue, and there'll be a Wednesday lunch next week, but it being Holy Week, there'll also be a Monday-Thursday communion service at 7 p.m. on Thursday, and a Good Friday service that'll begin at 12.05, with the thought that that gives folks who work a few minutes to get there. And some of you from other churches may have services at your church, so that's what's taking place in our venue. Just a note about these Thursday series. This is the second one we've done. We did one in the fall and we've done one now and we think they've gone well. They certainly have expanded the opportunity for folks to be involved in the midweek lunch. I had someone today just say they work Wednesdays and the Thursday has given them a chance to come here. We have tried to schedule these during stretches of the year that history says more people show up. There is a track record that after Easter spring weather and other things seem to distract, so that's the reason we'll just continue with Wednesdays, but expect that in the fall we'll have another Thursday series. And just make note of that, and we'll certainly get the publicity out about that when we make absolute firm plans in that regard. But before Dr. Ferguson comes today and speaks about John the Apostle's last letter that he wrote, Let's stand and sing together the hymn that you find, Rejoice the Lord is King. was very good to see you again for this last Thursday. of our Thirsty Lunches and that being the case we are coming to the end of our little series, Read the Book, Now Meet the Author, The Story of John the Apostle and for our last meditation we are turning to the book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament and you'll find the passages there in the bulletin at this lunchtime from Revelation chapter 1. the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy. and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of kings on earth. To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood, and made us a kingdom, priest to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. And all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Even so. Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash round his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool. as white as snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his But he laid his right hand on me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades. Write, therefore, the things that you have seen, those that are, and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Well, in our church here, on Sunday mornings, we've been working our way through John's Gospel. On Wednesday lunches, we've been working our way through John's Gospel. On Thursday lunches, we've been working our way through John. And I have actually started dreaming now about the Apostle John, because we've been so immersed in his writings. One of the things that Jesus promised to his disciples in the upper room discourse was that when the Holy Spirit came to them, as he did on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to them, he would do three very special things for them. The first was that he would remind them of everything Jesus had already taught them. The second was that he would lead them into all of the truth. He would help them to understand the real significance of Jesus' identity and of Jesus' ministry. And the third thing that the Holy Spirit would do, Jesus said, would be that he would show them the things that were to come. And it's interesting that that Three kinds of literature. Three kinds of literature. And my guess is most of us, certainly since this is a Presbyterian church where sometimes among Presbyterians the book of Revelation seems a little scary, we like the Gospel of John, we love the letters of John, and Perhaps because we've met so many people who are absolutely sure they know what the book of Revelation means, we are not quite so confident about the book of Revelation. John saw this vision that he describes for us here, he tells us, when he was on the island of Patmos. And he was there for the sake of the Word of God, he says. He had been exiled to this miserable island of Patmos because of his faithfulness to Jesus Christ and the Gospel. And when we read the book of Revelation, I think there are two mistakes that we tend to fall into. The first is to say, John is an old man and he's been exiled and we tend to say, poor John. Imagine being faithful to Jesus Christ all these years and what you get for it is exile to this miserable barren island of Patmos. Now that's our first mistake because of course it was on the island of Patmos that John saw the revelation. It was, I think, worth going to Patmos to see the revelation. to see the vision that Jesus was giving to him. One of my friends was leading a tour of these seven churches of Asia and he did a preliminary survey. He went himself. It's always the best way to do it. If you're leading a tour, go yourself and make sure that everything is in order and I said to him are you going to take them to Patmos? He said well I thought about it but the people there said to me it will take you a day to get to Patmos it will take you a day to get back and these were the words that struck me when you get to Patmos there is nothing to see and I said to him immediately tell that one to the Apostle John when you get to Patmos for John there was everything to see. And he certainly, I have no doubt, would have said to us if we said, oh John, how awful for you to be sent to Patmos, I think he would have said, to see what I saw on the island of Patmos, I would be prepared to go again. But the second mistake we make, I think, is this. We get frightened of the book of Revelation. because perhaps other people have misinterpreted it to us, or perhaps because we lack the key to understanding it. The key to understanding the book of Revelation is this, every other book of the Bible, every other book of the New Testament, you hear with your ears. The book of Revelation, you hear with your eyes. You're not, in the first instance, so much meant to get caught up with the words, you're meant to get caught up with the pictures. Which is why, actually, I sometimes say to older people who say, I'm having difficulty understanding the book of Revelation, I say, well, go home and ask your children to tell you what it means. Because children are so much more used to looking at cartoons. I hope that's true. They're much more used to looking at cartoons, looking at picture books, than we sophisticated older people tend to be. And one of the great mistakes that sophisticated older people tend to make about the book of Revelation is to think that it's a book of puzzles rather than a book of pictures. And when we grasp that it's a book of pictures and that the big verb in the book of Revelation is not the verb listen and hear, but the verb see, we begin to understand that if we're going to see the book of Revelation, then we need to have the lenses and the spectacles with which we read the Bible ground to a prescription that really matches the book of Revelation. I've never forgotten as a youngster, I think I was 15, I remember one night I crossed town to hear this famous preacher I don't know who told me I should go and hear him but I went along to hear him and the place in which he was preaching was packed to capacity and he happened to be preaching on the book of Revelation and suddenly before my eyes locusts in the book of Revelation, this was the 1960s you understand, locusts in the book of Revelation turned before my eyes into Russian tanks marching upon Western Europe And I remember as a youngster staggering out of this place and people saying, wasn't that absolutely amazing? And I thought, yes it was absolutely amazing. But how did those locusts turn into tanks? Now you see, This is one of the primary mistakes people make about the Book of Revelation. If locusts turned into Russian tanks, then the Book of Revelation could have no relevance whatsoever for exiled John on the island of Patmos, could it? What use to him would it be that locusts turned into Russian tanks? And of course, history has demonstrated so often the folly of that kind of interpretation of the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is not a book of history written forwards. It's a book of pictures written to strengthen and comfort beleaguered Christians in the present. In the present. which is why, of course, every generation of Christian believers can see the way in which the book of Revelation applies to their time, to their lives, to their situation. This isn't, if I can put it this way, a crossword puzzle for armchair Christians to solve. This book is a book of pictures for beleaguered Christians to look at and to say, thank God for the message of the book of Revelation. I'll return to that just in a minute. What's the key to understanding the book of Revelation? Well there is a key and if I can put it this way, you need to turn this key three times in the door and the door of the book of Revelation will just fling open to you and you'll begin to see its message. Turn the key once And what you see in the book of Revelation is a church that is constantly under siege. A church that is constantly under siege. And the book of Revelation describes for us the different ways in this world the church of Jesus Christ will be opposed, attacked, undermined, and besieged in different ways by persecution. sometimes by very physical persecution, and there are elements of that in the book of Revelation, sometimes by intimidation. It isn't so much physical persecution, but sometimes political or certainly often social pressures that are brought to bear upon the life of the church that are intended to make the church conform to this world. John himself was writing from the island of Patmos precisely because he'd experienced that political, social intimidation and persecution and the thing that holds him strong as a Christian believer and we find this early on in the book of Revelation that he sees a door opening into heaven and he looks through the door and what does he see? He sees that the throne of heaven is occupied and that thereon sits the Lord of the universe. He understands that for his own time the throne of the universe is not located in Rome. but the throne of the universe is located in heaven and God is still on his throne working out his sovereign purposes throughout history and securing the church in history. Of course, it's really just the teaching of Jesus in pictures. I will build my church and the gates of Hades will seek to destroy it but they never shall destroy it." So John turns the key for us and we understand this is a message to a church that is opposed, persecuted, beleaguered. But turn the key again and we find something else running through this great vision that he has. Not only is the church beleaguered, but the church has a powerful enemy. The church has a powerful enemy. One of the things that emerges in the book of Revelation is that there is a story that has been moving on through history from the third chapter of Genesis from the promise that God gave in the Garden of Eden after the fall, Genesis 3.15, when he said, I am going to put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. That enmity will continue until it comes to a climax when the serpent will bruise the heel of the seat of the woman and the seat of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. It's a story of the violent opposition of dark powers against the kingdom of God. In the Old Testament it kind of emerges almost immediately in the story of Cain and Abel, doesn't it? And then it emerges in the story of Jerusalem and Babylon. And then it emerges in the New Testament church in the story of the Christian church and its Roman persecutors. And John is saying to us, and he does this with amazing skill as he records his vision, he's saying you need to understand that you can never understand the world simply by looking at it. horizontally. You can never understand the world simply by looking at it horizontally. But we do, don't we? The opinion leaders, the thought moulders we tend to follow are men and women who give a shrewd but entirely horizontal analysis of the world. I'm amazed how many people are caught up with that, even Christians caught up with it. You remember how the New Testament teaches at the end of the day, we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places. If I can put it this way, if we think that the enemy of the church is political, we are in our interpretation, sadly, superficial. And that's what the New Testament church needed to learn. This is why Jesus was giving John this revelation. It would have been so easy for John and the others to think if only we could get rid of Rome, then the church would powerfully advance. running throughout the book of Revelation where we are taught in a very vivid way actually in the twelfth chapter that the ancient serpent described in Genesis 3 has now through long experience grown into a dragon. Now don't children love that? You see that's how they can understand it a lot better than we tend to be able to understand it. They are familiar with serpents that turn into dragons. We are not. Except we had some of them as school teachers when we were young maybe. I certainly had a few. But you see what that picture is saying. is saying that that slithering little beast that was so deceptive in the Garden of Eden and brought down the man and the woman has as it were now devoured so much of this world that he's grown large into a great dragon and he has enormous power. And so John is learning that the Christian church needs to have an eye, not just to Rome and the opposition of Rome, but what the serpent grown into the dragon is going to try to do through Rome, intimidate the church and say to the church, we are bigger than you, we are more cutting edge than you, you're not relevant to our world. Now here's the question, where is the great Roman Empire today? while the kingdom of Jesus Christ expands to the ends of the earth, where are the Caesars today? And you look down through 2,000 years of history and you can ask the very same question about every empire that has arisen, the Holy Empire of the Middle Ages, the great Prussian Empire. the great days of the Habsburgs and the Burbanks, the great days, may I say it, of the great British Empire, whose boast was the sun never set on it. Where is the great British Empire today? It's nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. Men strutted the face of the earth, often in their enterprises actually as you read the history demeaning the kingdom of Jesus Christ and seeking to annihilate it and where are they now? You think of what has happened in other countries, think of what has happened in the USSR and all its intimidation of Christian believers in their weakness and poverty and where is it all now? and empires come and empires go. Find all these empires, the constant effort of the powers of darkness to destroy the kingdom of God. But do you remember how another New Testament author puts it when he says, we have received a kingdom, an empire that cannot be shaken. That's the message of the book of Revelation. Now I think it's understandable that Christians sometimes look for detailed ways in which the book of Revelation applies to today. We need to understand that its details apply to today, not because necessarily we are living in the last five days before Christ returns, but because its details apply to every day of the church's life. There is a marvellous passage in the middle of Revelation, in some ways the central chapter in the book of Revelation that speaks about Christian believers thus being assaulted and asks the question, how does the church stand? How does the church gain a victory? And we read these marvellous words in the middle of Revelation chapter 12, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb through their faith in Jesus Christ, by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, they were faithful to Jesus Christ in times of great difficulty because they loved not their lives to death. So this is a great word of encouragement to Christians who find themselves under pressure. But we need to turn the key in the lock one last time. Because while these two things are true, that the book of Revelation tells us that we live our Christian lives in a perpetual war zone, it's also true that the Christian church has a powerful enemy. The real key turn that unlocks the story of Revelation is this. that the Christian church as a powerful saviour. And the emphasis actually in the book of Revelation is both on the noun saviour and on the adjective, which is why the very first thing you see in the book of Revelation John is writing down these various letters, perhaps in a sense they are postscripts to these seven churches in Asia and then the vision really begins by him saying that a door opened into heaven and he saw one who was seated on the throne and he saw in the right hand, the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne, a scroll, the story, the unfolding story of God's saving purposes in the world. And he heard a voice that reverberated round heaven. Is there anyone who is able to break open the seals and open the scroll and unfold the history of God's purposes for his people? And all fell silent. Then he saw standing in the center of the throne a lamb that had been slain. But just before he saw that, he heard some words, these, Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah he has conquered and he is able to break open the seals and unravel the scroll there was going to be a mighty one who would be able to fulfill God's purposes for his people and as John kind of blinked and turned and looked at the centre of the throne expecting to see this lion-like figure, what he actually saw was a lamb standing as though it had been slain. A picture of the crucified and risen Jesus, wasn't it? as though it had been slain. Yes, it had been slain, but it was standing. It was Jesus crucified and raised in his mighty power, the triumphant lion who would fulfil all of God's purposes. And in a sense, that's the whole of the book of Revelation in one statement. The lion is the lamb who was slain. who is able to take the scroll, break open the seals and fulfil the purposes of God. That's why I say in some ways we need to sit down and read the book of Revelation to and with our 9 to 14 year olds and then say to them, can you just tell me what that book was about? and the chances are they'll say, Dad, Mum, it's simple, Jesus wins. Jesus, what a great thing to see when, like John, you feel that you're a Christian under great pressure. because he is a mighty Savior. Well, that's the Apostle John for the moment. Sometime soon we'll come back and have a whole series on the book of Revelation. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, How much we thank you today for your word and thank you as we've been thinking these weeks about the Apostle John and learned so much about him from your word. We think back to our first study and to the discovery that he was probably a cousin of the Lord Jesus, that his mother was the sister of Mary. that he must have known about Jesus many years before it dawned on him that Jesus was the Messiah, and that someone who knew Jesus so well should write of a vision that he had of Jesus in his sovereign and divine power and saving grace, how it fills us with confidence in the Gospel, that someone who knew Jesus intimately understood that he was none other than the Son of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Saviour who was sent as the Lamb of God to take away the world's sins. And we thank you that in times of stress and pressure in our own lives, we have the same Saviour, the same King as the Apostle John. Help us, we pray, to see Him, to trust Him, to love Him and to serve Him. And in that spirit, we pray, bless our day, that not only nourished by the good food we have enjoyed together and the company around the tables, but by the sense of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, we may live the rest of this day in great joy and comfort and for your glory. We ask it in His name. Amen.