Can't Shut Up ...

My silence is more terrifying to me, than my words.  I know there are times when we are supposed to be quiet, or reverent (whatever that is), and I am not talking about those times.  I am talking about those times when the touch of the Savior is kept locked up behind my tongue like the gold at Fort Knox.  This world aches for an end to pain, an end to suffering.  Yet for fear, for embarrassment, or perhaps worse, because we do not really know the touch of the Savior personally; when the opportunity presents itself to share our testimony – we keep silent.  It is then that our silence speaks volumes.  Who is Jesus anyway?  How real is Jesus anyway, at least how real is He to you?  My mom would have plenty to say.  She has her entire life.  It’s like you can’t shut her up.  Is she right all the time, no, far from it.  But if you even show the slightest hint you want to talk about Jesus; you might as well sit back, put your seatbelt on, and prepare for a long flight; because she has no intention of letting you out of this conversation, until she has shared just what Jesus has done for her.  The answer, to how real Jesus is for her, will be definitively answered.

A lot of our parents feel this way and talk this way.  And we know they are not always right.  But mistaken words can be corrected.  We can be taught over time by Jesus if we just let Him.  So even when the words come out wrong in our earlier life and seem to get better over time: it is not an excuse, not to speak at all.  It is just a little humiliating that our earlier certainties, were so wholly undone, by the Lord of Love over time.  What I say then might be wrong.  This is perhaps particularly true when I try to tell you about the Bible.  But where it comes to what Jesus has done for me personally, that is another matter.  Because it is truly personal.  It happened to me.  Jesus did what He did, for me.  After those kinds of encounters, it is hard not to share them.  Even when the “before” picture looks so horrible to me, as compared with the “after” picture my Lord has created for me.  When that touch becomes real to you, when it becomes personal to you – it will break you.  It will break the pride in you, the apathy.  It will turn you into my mom who just can’t shut up.  It will make us all simply too eager to share what is real to us.  This does not negate the power of the Word.  But it does amplify it through the lens of Jesus Christ when He touches your life and makes it so wonderfully better.

This leads me to wonder, does the cat have my tongue?  It’s a silly expression I know, but the sentiment is just as silly.  What on earth could keep me from talking, from sharing, when the opportunity presents itself?  You don’t need to be some sort of angry Christian, carrying an angry placard, marching at a mall and pushing your views into someone else’s face, in order to really share your testimony.  If that is your testimony, it is a poor one.  Demanding the reform of others while you still sit comfortably in your own sins, is not the mark of a true Christian, it is the slogan of the enemy of Christ.  Transformation of the heart does not happen on the demands of others.  It only happens as we submit ourselves to Jesus and allow Him to remake who we are from the inside out.  That pathway to transformation leads to personal testimony, a method I have personal experience with, though have not perfected yet.  But it takes me back to the “cat / tongue” question.  Perhaps better stated by Luke, the “pig / tongue” question.  For there is another reason one might keep silent, that is far more terrifying than kitties with tongues, more akin to pork over tongues.

Luke writes to his friend Theophilus of a certain man unable to speak his testimony.  Not because he was mute, or physically disabled, but because he was possessed of demons and no longer in control of his tongue or his faculties.  And this poor man was not afflicted of only one demon but of many.  I begin to wonder did this poor man even know this process was taking place?  Did it begin with silence in the face of opportunity?  Did one particular sin drive him down this path, perhaps serially addicted to it, like so many men of our generation as they face the proliferation of porn over the internet.  Did the repeated indulgence of this one pet sin, refusing to yield it to God to transform and take away, lead to the introduction of a demon in the body of the man.  This would only compound the problem, and perhaps lead to the introduction of other demons looking for a human host home.  Was he aware, and chose to be powerless to it?  Or was it a gradual surprise, that robbed him of control, long before he knew it was missing.  In either case, silence was one terrifying outcome of these events.  No more could this man express his own belief in God, as now hope was gone as well.

Luke picks up the story in chapter eight of his letter, beginning in verse 26 saying … “And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee. [verse 27] And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs.”  Here is the picture of depravity that Satan and his hoard would lead us all to.  This man was naked, the remnants of broken chains still mark his hands and feet.  He lives in no home, for his demonic fury and depravity has driven him to live only in the tombs awaiting the dead and graveyards where they are found.  The human mind fears the dead, so finding a monster near where the dead are gathered is a no-brainer for Satan.  Any person passing this sight would quickly find themselves the victim of a naked man bent on doing perversions upon them.  A demonically strengthened man able to break the chains the entire nearby townsmen set upon him.  After their failure to restrain this monster, the townspeople simply gave up, and kept away from where he resides.  But for some unexplainable reason this man seeks out Jesus, the demons were unable to prevent that.

Luke continues in verse 28 saying … “When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. [verse 29] (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.)”  The demons knew immediately who this was.  They recognized Jesus as the Son of the Most High God.  Jesus was real to them.  In addition, this was not to be a fight between themselves and Jesus.  If they for a minute thought they had a chance against Jesus, they would have immediately ganged up on Jesus and tried to overpower Him with their numbers and with all their satanic fury.  But demons are only fallen angels that chose to listen to Lucifer instead of to trust God.  And all creation knows its Creator.  It would have been as if ants try to overpower the elephant’s foot.  No contest.  With a mere thought, Jesus could have wiped out all of them.  They lived in terror of that kind of power.

But it was worse for them.  Jesus is also the personification of Love itself.  For a creature so consumed by evil to stand so close to the source of all love, was itself a level of torture the demons could not stand a minute against.  This too, is where the path of Satan leads.  To the total absence of love of any kind (other than for self, if you can call that love).  To see the True Love of the universe, and remind them of their years standing in bliss, in His presence, eager to serve, and made fulfilled by that service, was overwhelming the demon’s minds.  They begged not to have to be there, or be tortured by their own memories of a perfect love they now despised.  They knew their time with this human host was at an end.  They had no idea where they might be sent.  And they did not want to come out of this man and be forced to lay dormant, perhaps for years, before the next willing participant would cross their paths.

Luke continues in verse 30 saying … “And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. [verse 31] And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. [verse 32] And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. [verse 33] Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.”  Legion for they were many.  Yet many demons had no power in the slightest against Jesus.  They did not want to be sent to the deep, perhaps the bottom of the ocean six or seven miles down.  Instead they preferred to go into the a herd of many swine feeding nearby.  Pigs will eat pretty much anything.  They are unclean as meat goes.  So it is interesting that in the heart of a Jewish nation, a herd of many swine would be found nearby.  Traditionally Jewish believers would not so much as touch a pig, let alone tend to them, and keep them.  But Jesus suffered these demons to go to the pigs, and they took the silence of this poor man’s tongue with them when they went.  But all of these events did not go unnoticed.

Luke continues in verse 34 saying … “When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country. [verse 35] Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.”  The keepers of the pigs freaked out, and went and told the entire town and nearby countryside what they saw.  This man was a monster who had plagued their area for a long time, so everyone had heard of him, and knew which area to avoid him.  But they all come to see if what the pig keepers had said was true.  And it was.  Jesus was real.  He was really there.  And this now former demoniac was sitting clothed mind you, at the feet of Jesus, and in his right mind.  No chains needed.  What kind of power over a legion of demons could do this?

Luke continues in verse 36 saying … “They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed. [verse 37] Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again.”  The people knew Jesus was real, but then took Jesus for something worse than a legion of demons, they took him for Satan.  The people of this town had priests.  Their priests of God had failed where it came to this man.  So the people figured God would not help the man.  That only leaves one power sufficient enough to order around a legion of demons.  Jesus was real.  But perhaps Jesus was a dark power none of these people ever wanted to be in contact with.  So in great fear, they beg Jesus to leave and sail away.  Jesus does not go where He is forbidden to go with respect to human hearts, so he prepares to leave.

Luke continues in verse 38 saying … “Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying, [verse 39] Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.”  The now former demoniac wanted above all else to be the next disciple of Christ.  He would have followed Jesus anywhere, with a faith forged in the freedom from horror no human hand could ever have freed him from.  Jesus was real.  This poor man knew that above anyone else.  This poor man saw what it was like to have your mind made free from the devil and his overwhelming control of who you are.  What was torture for demons, was life and light itself to this man.  He wanted nothing more than to be with Jesus and follow Him anywhere.  But Jesus had something greater in mind for the newly minted disciple.  Jesus wanted him to evangelize the entire area with … a great doctorial thesis on the interpretation of Old Testament scriptures … no … how about an angry placard that reads “this could have been you” … no … instead with the personal testimony of what Jesus did for him personally.  It would be the personal testimony that would work.  A lecture on Old Testament scriptures, this man was likely unqualified to give.  Nor would that have made the impact of what his own personal testimony did instead.  This did nothing to negate the word.  It simply amplified it through the lens of Jesus Christ.

Think about it.  How does salvation work?  That is, how are you to be made free from your sins?  Not just forgiven mind you, but made free from ever being controlled by them again.  That is something this now former demoniac had personal experience with.  He came to Jesus.  Jesus drove the sin out of his mind and body and heart.  Jesus freed him from his sins, otherwise he would still be naked, and out of control.  He had no power to free himself.  Nor did any of the local priests and rabbis.  But one encounter with Jesus, and demons go running to the pigs, and then to their doom.  This man was made free from Satan himself, from the very hoards of Satan, by simple words from the mouth of Jesus Christ; who the demons recognized as the Son of the Most High God.  If Jesus were just a “good” man, or a mere prophet as Islam would allege, that demon army would have torn him up.  If Jesus were just another angel like themselves, they would have taken the odds and let the warring commence.  But against God?  There was no contest to be made.  The demons were defeated.  This is how salvation works.  By turning to Jesus and submitting the whole of who we are to Him to be remade by Him however he sees fit.

And after this; the pigs no longer held this man’s tongue.  You could not shut him up.  Jesus was real, He still is.  This encounter was real.  His testimony was real.  And so he went around the entire region testifying as to the power of God, and the Love of the Son of the Most High God.  Can’t shut him up.  No one could.  No one tried.  His testimony was personal, powerful, and blessed by the Holy Spirit.  And his evangelism was very effective, so that the next time Jesus would pass this way, things would be different for his reception in the region.  My silence offers little.  My preaching may offer even less.  But I hope my testimony carries with it, the power of Jesus Christ made real to me.  In this I hope my words carry His love, even if I sometimes jumble them up, or state them poorly.  Each day, I find some new aspect of His love for me.  That is something I believe is quickly turning me into my mother, becoming harder and harder to shut me up.  And maybe that is a good thing.

 

The Apostles of Christ ...

One could say the “Apostles of Christ” begin in the aftermath of Jesus Christ.  The writers of the Old Testament all had a direct connection with Jesus Christ through the means of prophecy and vision.  But they all lacked the history of His life.  They knew Him but only through the means that a prophet can know God, through inspiration.  And finding other people/prophets with similar experiences was going to be rare.  The Apostles of Christ had this same means of inspiration, but it was buffeted by the deeds, and witnesses, and stories of Jesus that were common in the first century after the ascension of Jesus Christ.  Imagine being a writer, and on your journey of mission, encountering another person who had a direct exposure to Jesus.  You would not be alone in talking about Him, you would be in a crowd of witnesses.  Everyone from young children who may have sat on His lap, to those whose bodies were fully restored because they did nothing but touch the hem of His garments as He walked by.  The Apostles would apt’ly be called prophets, but they lived in an age, where exposure to Jesus was not just a rare thing, it was a more common thing.

In our first volume of “A Second Look”, we studied the authors who had direct personal experience with Jesus Christ.  Those authors included Jude and James (likely His brothers as well as disciples).  They also included John (the beloved), Peter (the little rock), and Matthew (the former tax collector).  Between these men the story of the gospel was told very well.  However, while the story of our salvation is a great start, the story of our evangelism would seem to follow next.  It is the chronicles of that evangelistic message of the early Christian church, where the letters of the Apostles seem to add great context to our doctrines and understanding of God.  We will begin our study of this next phase of the work, with the author Luke (the physician).  Luke wrote another version of the gospel, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and with ample second-hand testimony by others who witnessed it.  Luke then went on to write the next chapter “The Acts of the Apostles” meant to show how the work would spread across the region.  During his travels with fellow apostle Paul (formerly Saul the Pharisee); it is believed Luke likely wrote the book or letter to the Hebrews. 

Understand that there is absolute unity among the disciples and apostles in pointing the new believer to Jesus Christ.  But beyond that, philosophy, perspective, education, and personal histories are all different.  Different parts of the body of the church, that present different attributes, each important, and each part of the Mosaic that makes up the body of Christ (His church).  There were no entirely separate denominations in these early days.  But there was a rift coming, between what the church would become in Rome, and what the church remained in the rest of the world.  Luke and Paul traveled together through much of these early evangelistic missions.  But that does not make them identical twins in what either wrote.  How could it?  Paul was a former Pharisee.  Luke was a current physician.  Both educated, but Luke was a gentile.  Both were converts, but both came from a completely different upbringing.  Just like all the others.  Jesus did not pick 12 men, then later 70 more disciples, as well as the women He invited to carry the gospel, because they were all cookie cutter images of each other.  He picked them for their diversity.  And He intended for them to cover each other’s weaknesses, and nuture each other’s strengths.  One body made of different parts.

In the end, most all of the passionate followers of Jesus, did not die deaths from old age, in comfort.  They died martyr’s deaths before their time, because of the fury of Satan against Jesus and His church.  Jewish persecution mounted the first attacks.  Which was followed by Roman persecution in the later years.  The early Christian faith was not born in a time with no opposition, but perhaps in a time when opposition was at its greatest.  Yet the ones who seem to have known Him best died these deaths and did not keep silent.  For a knowledge of Jesus does not inspire silence in us, but demonstrations of love in us, even to those who would name themselves our mortal enemies.  If today, we call ourselves Christian, yet pray for the death of our enemies, perhaps it reveals just how little we truly know Jesus Christ.  Perhaps instead we should take a second look at what has been written and see if we can find insight, that Jesus will lead us to find.  For now, let us put away our preconceptions, and read as if it were the first time, what has been preserved through miracle for us to freely read.

 

Revelations: Church of God Revealed ...

Revelations of Jesus Christ began after his resurrection from the grave, not only in the book John would write on the topic.  To have Jesus Christ revealed to the world, and to His own church, was something both were in desperate need of, as are we today.  The book of prophecies and visions John would pen are often studied today with a focus on predicting latter day events, or for studying the history of political power in the world over time.  But these ideas, while present, are not supposed to be the key message revealed in this text.  Jesus Christ is.  The book we find most difficult to understand was first and foremost intended to be a book that revealed Jesus Christ more fully to the world.  This should be the first goal in its study, not a by-product of what is found within.  The Pharisees had already proven the point to John throughout his gospel to us, that interpretation of scripture without Christ, leads to an improper understanding that will allow those who claim to be the leaders of God’s church, to kill God Himself, in order to maintain their incorrect understandings, and their leadership over the people.  It is always Satan’s kingdom that craves power and subjugation, and God’s who wishes only the freedom to love others and find joy in the loving.

Jesus had a humble birth in this world, though He was honored as a King.  He grew up in the trade of a carpenter in a region not known for anything holy.  He ministered for three and a half years and revealed the will of God His Father on earth to show love to all He encountered.  He died and was raised from the dead.  After this, his physical appearances were limited.  The nature of Christ that was the Son of God was not something readily apparent in the life He lived upon earth.  But this nature was the more important one, and was the one which John would focus on now.  Christ was no longer in this world.  He had ascended back to the side of His Father.  He was home.  And the home He went to, was something none of us understood, or knew anything about.  The whole of the Old Testament pointed forward to His first appearing and hope of a Messiah.  There were some scattered prophesies about heaven and the ultimate restoration of God’s Kingdom past the end of time.  But the majority of the Desire of Ages was to see our hopes fulfilled in His first ministry to us, that of Messiah.  But now, Messiah had come and gone.  What was left to write in the New Testament was about the new hope and new focus of Jesus we would need to know.  It had come time, to reveal to the world, what was coming, and a new Revelation about the nature of Christ as God, not merely as the son of Man.

This effort would be even less appreciated by the remaining Jewish leadership.  It was bad enough to have to contend with the Man Jesus Christ.  But now to have to see His Divine side revealed was not an idea they relished.  In addition, John would be describing what God is like.  John would describing the Only God, the real God, this God which does exist, as opposed to all the prior deities that lived in pagan forms of worship, now revealed to be false.  In the book of Revelation, as is consistent with the entirety of scripture, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit would be discussed and revealed as working in concert for our salvation.  These three who were united and one in the mission of our redemption would be fully discussed.  There would be no mention of Diana, or Zeus, or Apollo, or Odin, or Thor, or Buddha, or Mohammed, or a Great Spirit, or Druid Nature worship, or any other form of past or present alternatives to the truth of Jesus Christ.  There were no other Gods, despite what Satan had propagated into the various forms of worship around the world.  And so in the revealing of Jesus Christ, would also come the unmasking of His enemy.  All of the false forms and false gods that have in common the worship of self; would also be revealed, in contrast to the revelation of the truth and life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ as our God would be revealed to us.  John would in the course of this new book reveal to the best of his ability what God looked like, in the form of God, rather than merely in the form of Man.  John would write about concepts that would be hard for man to understand.  For any finite being, would find it difficult to put into words something that knows no limits.  But the messages intended for John to reveal to us had an author.  As John opens His book of Revelations, he begins with attributing where the source of these writings would originate from.  Not from his imagination as many would like to believe, not from hallucinations induced by hunger or non-ideal conditions of the Roman prison colony at Patmos where he had been banished to, after the Romans failed to kill him boiling him in oil.  No, the source of these revelations had a home as he would begin to describe in chapter one, and verse one … “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:” - Notice first, that God the Father was the author of these revelations.  God the Father gave these messages to Jesus Christ, in order that Christ could reveal them to His servants (angels and men), about what was to shortly come to pass.  In this designation of time, there is an urgency, and an immediacy that argues that this message will have relevance in the timeline of the readership.  Christ then sends the message to John via an Angel tasked to take it to him.  The progression of the message begins with God the Father, is passed to God the Son, and is delivered to John via an Angel tasked with its delivery.

John continues in verse 2 … “Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. [verse 3] Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”  John recorded the word of God, not his own inclinations, or his own ideas, or his own interpretations of what was revealed, but rather, just as it was delivered to him.  In this book to follow would be the testimony of Jesus Christ.  Everything that John saw, he would transcribe to print.  And so, John offers the reader the idea that just in the reading he will be blessed.  For again the time is at hand, the meanings contained in this book are both prophecy, and currently relevant.  They have meaning both here and now, and in the near future.  John tells us, that the same words may be interpreted in more than one way, but continued to remind us, that all meanings must be derived in the context of a revelation of Jesus Christ.

With this opening, John sets the stage of where the message comes from, and to whom it is being delivered.  He continues in verse 4 … “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;” - John opens with a message for 7 key churches, that are located in Asia.  Notice first these churches do not include the countries of Rome (Italy), or Jerusalem (Israel).  They are in Asia, or plainly stated the rest of the world.  The message or revelation of Jesus Christ is no longer just to be offered to the traditional descendants of Abraham.  The revelations of Jesus Christ as God, are to be freely available to His followers around the world.  The number seven denotes perfection in the kingdom of God, it is a form of symbolism to signify to us, a state of perfection that exists in a universe we have little understanding of.  So when John opens his greetings, He is in effect, saying He is greeting the perfect church of the real God, Jesus Christ, those who follow the Truth and the Life.  He does not include in this greeting, other churches, other gods, or even traditional descendants of Abraham.  Followers of Christ alone, can be included in the church of God.  A failure to recognize Christ, by definition excludes one from membership in the church of God the Father.

Next John reveals in this first greeting an aspect about God which finite man has a hard time understanding; that God exists outside of what we understand about space and time itself.  John uses the words … “from him which is (present tense), which was (past tense), and which is to come (future tense)”.  Christ existed before His human origin, and before our creation, and before our understandings of the big bang, and before anything we call a start of time or space.  As God, Jesus Christ exists in the present, in our reality, in the space and time we call “now”.  And as God, Jesus Christ will exist in the future, past our own deaths, past the death of this world, past any boundaries we could imagine in time or in space.  This idea makes time irrelevant where it comes to describing God.  Jesus, for our purposes, has no beginning, nor does he have any end.  He exists past both of those conventional ideas we are bound by.

Next John offers us the location that this message came from the throne of God.  He further clarifies that there are 7 spirits who are before His throne.  Seven being a symbolism for perfection, this implies that the perfection of the Holy Spirit is before His throne.  John’s use of the words “and from” state that the greetings of Grace and peace are joined by the Holy Spirit as well to the church of God the Father.  John continues in verse 5 … “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, [verse 6] And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”  John further states his greetings are joined by Jesus Christ as well.  He then begins to describe Jesus as being the faithful witness.  In this Christ was a faithful witness to the will of God, the love of God, and the law of God.  Christ was forever showing the love of God to us, and telling us that in each and every miracle, His Father’s will was fulfilled.  Jesus is further described as the “first begotten of the dead”.  In this Jesus’s resurrection offers us hope that because of His gift, we too can be raised from the dead.  Not just from our physical state but from the dead of a life of selfishness, chained to self-service, this is a state He can raise us from as well.  The leadership of Christ is to be above the kings of this world, even kings are to owe their service to Christ. 

John then states that what Christ has done for us, is to turn us from the slaves of self-service, into kings and priests unto God His Father.  We join with God in serving others, and in so doing we become kings of service, and priests of service, all for the benefit of others – just as Christ has done for us.  We are not to be glorified or worshipped, but instead our service and our love to others will be His glory.  John rightly attributed glory and dominion for ever to Christ alone.  Just in these first few verses, John inexorably ties Jesus Christ to God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit.  It is impossible to claim to worship God the Father, if one denies His Son, or His Spirit.  The 7 churches are not perfect because they commit no sin, or need no savior; instead they are perfect because they acknowledge their need of Jesus Christ as their only hope of being saved from the slavery of self.  Modern day Muslims, and Jews, still claim to serve the same Father God we Christians do – but they deny the divinity of His son – and in so doing keep themselves from being identified with the source of their salvation.  This choice of separation leaves them with no-one to break the chains of their selfishness, and offer them the life God so longs to see them live.  His door stands open, but their denial of His Son, leaves them no savior to save them from themselves.  It is not enough to worship only part of God, we must accept the whole of God if we are to see the Truth, and experience His Life.

John continues with the message of God the Father in verse 7 … “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” – Perhaps ironic that in the seventh verse is the most important point of the entire book – Jesus Christ will be returning to this earth.  Further the manner of His return is described, He will be coming with clouds, and every eye shall see Him.  The return of Christ is to be from the sky, in like manner as He ascended.  And His return is not to be a secret, but one that will be witnessed by the entire world.  It will be seen also by those who pierced Him.  This could be both spiritual (those who deny His divinity, or deny their need of Him to save them from themselves), or it could be literal if those who were responsible for His death are raised to see His triumphant return, to finally and fully know the proof of what He had told them, and what they knew in their hearts to be true, but would not accept to be true.  All kindreds of the earth shall wail, implies that in every people of every land, there are many who do not wish to see Him return.  They are more happy with their lives as they are.  They do not wish a change.  They do not wish His freedom.  To see the Truth of His returning is to recognize their lives will not be allowed to continue indefinitely in the evil they have embraced.  But even so, Amen, even so, John wishes for Christ to return.

John continues to write the message He has heard, the revelation of Jesus Christ from the Father God Himself as he continues to describe Christ  in verse 8 … “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”  First, as has been the case all along, Christ is the Alpha (or the genesis or beginning) of our salvation.  He is also the Omega (or ending, or finisher) of our salvation.  We are saved because He loved us before we knew Him.  We are drawn by this love to Him.  We are granted the freedom to decide whether to accept this love or not.  And having accepted, it is by the power of His love, that He changes us from who we were into who He intended us to be.  The Father again identifies Christ as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending of our way of salvation.  He again states that our concepts of time do not apply or constrain God, He is beyond them.  And finally, He states the Truth that all power is in the hands of God and Christ.  He is the Almighty.  There is no limit to the power within Him.  He is able to save us, from what we are powerless to save ourselves from. 

This revelation of what God is like, what Christ is like, in the form of God was stunning.  Then and now, the idea the God is beyond our ideas of time, is hard for us to grasp.  But then and now, the idea that Christ is powerful enough to save us, and is the main point in the true religion of God is consistent throughout the entire Bible.  Here John affirms it once again.  What has changed between the Old and New Testaments of Christ, is that one pointed forward to His mission as Messiah.  And the other points forward to His mission as God and Redeemer.  The church of God has been identified as belonging to the rest of the world now.  It is not constrained by the history of Judaism.  Nor is it tied to the power of the Roman empire.  It is not bound to political power, or historical bias, it belongs to those who see the need to be saved from themselves by the power of Jesus Christ. 

False gods have been eliminated.  And self too has been denounced.  In these texts of revelation of Jesus Christ, is found no reference to how we save ourselves, either on our own, or in partnership with Jesus.  We have no role in that other than to accept His gift of our salvation.  Jesus is identified as Alpha and Omega, not man, not self, not us.  This revelation was hard for former Jews to accept, it is no less difficult for us today.  Too many wish to take the reins in their own salvation, too many wish to keep some measure of control in how they are saved, and in so doing keep self at the center of their purported “Christianity”.  They leave Christ to the side, and continue to rely on self, and on their own actions to validate their salvation.  Instead of finding the true change that full submission brings.  In this, they would find actions natural, instead of labored.  They would find rest, instead of burden.  But to find it, they must join the true church of Christ, and follow Him, not themselves.

And this was only the beginning of the revelations John was to reveal …

 

Awesome Symbolism (witness number nineteen) ...

There was an important reason why Jesus referred to Himself as “the Light of the world”.  For without Him, we are all blind.  For those who seek truth in Christ, the miracle of the healing of the man who was born blind can find equal relevance in our own spiritual experiences.  Those of us who believe we do not need to be led to truth, that we already have a good enough grasp on the scriptures, and a superior interpretation of them, find ourselves much like the Pharisees who preceded us.  At the end of John’s gospel account chapter nine beginning in verse 39 we find Christ speaking to those who were a witness to the faith of the recently healed blind man in the divinity of Christ.  Jesus says to those there … “And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”  Those of us who “think” we see fine, are to discover we are truly blind.  Those of us who realize we cannot see anything until Jesus shows it to us, are to discover we will finally be made to see.  We are made blind by our arrogance and pride, even if that is founded in our ideas about scripture.  We are made to see, when we are willing to forsake our own wisdom and begin to trust in His.

This was the contrast of the formerly blind man standing before Jesus, and the Pharisees who refused to see the Light of Christ.  They respond in verse 40 … “And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?”  This was a rhetorical question in their minds, for from their perspective, no one had a better grasp on scripture or the law than themselves.  They did not anticipate His answer in verse 41 … “Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”  It was NOT the lack of knowledge that caused the Pharisees to remain in their sin.  It was their arrogance in assuming they needed no help with their sin from Christ.  In effect, the Pharisees were comfortable with the idea, that the forms and traditions of their worship were enough to save them.  They could basically save themselves.  They needed no help from a Messiah.  The help they were looking for was not of a spiritual variety, it was of a political one.  They yearned for a strong leader who would blaze the trail of freedom from their heathen Roman oppressors.  They did not think of themselves as blind to truth or salvation, instead they thought they knew everything they needed to know about those topics.  Christ could keep his spiritual ideas about reliance solely on Him to Himself.  Now if He had had something to say on ousting the Romans, they would have been all ears.  But our ideas of God, and what we want from Him, are often not what His ideas are, or what He wants for us.  So to clarify the mission of the Messiah, and dispense with the false leaders who had come before and would come again, Christ decides to tell them in story, why He is there.

Jesus begins his sermon in verse 1 of chapter ten of John’s account … Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. [verse 2] But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.”  Soon Jesus would identify Himself as the door.  In these passages Jesus declares, that there is only one way in and out of the sheepfold.  It is THROUGH Christ.  Attempting to gain passage by another route, say, by the strength of our own ideas, or by assuming our own “spirituality” or “goodness” warrants a position in the flock absent Christ for example:  these methods reveal only our own motives.  They do not entitle us to be in the flock, they actually make us dangerous to others who are there.  Those who enter by the strength of Christ are those who “should” be in the number.

Jesus continues in verse 3 … “To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. [verse 4] And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. [verse 5] And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.”  Jesus tries to show the difference between Himself and those others who might “claim” to be the Messiah.  Those who seek truth, find it in Jesus.  They realize the only way their tattered lives can ever be remade is through the power of Christ.  As such, they only want Jesus to be their shepherd, because they have found relief in no other way, including in trusting their own abilities.  Thus they crave the voice of Jesus to lead them.  When others come and try to get these sheep to follow, the sheep realize there is no truth in those voices, there is no redemption in them, and they wish only to follow Christ.  Here Christ is trying hard to reveal to those there that He is THE method of their salvation.

And why choose sheep to represent us?  A sheep is not a fierce some creature.  They are not particularly bright.  They make mistakes, get lost, and would starve if not taken care of.  They are easy prey for wolves.  From the perspective of the wolf, it is easy to count sheep.  To those Christians who believe it is their right, and their duty, to defend themselves against the enemy, even if those means include weapons and deadly force; I ask, are you the sheep, or the wolf?   We were not meant to combat Satan.  We are outmatched.  It is no contest.  It is ONLY our Shepherd who can defeat our enemy.  It is our trust in Him that sees us delivered.  It is not our making or gathering of new sheep weapons that will save the day for us.  Wolves will always defeat sheep if there is no shepherd around to save them.  This is how evil works, in nature, and in us spiritually.  Our enemy is superior to us, yet tells us, if we just work hard enough, we can defeat him.  He tries to get the sheep to think they are strong enough, tough enough, and determined enough to defeat the wolf by their sheer power of will.  In this is the perversion of the gospel – that we only need Christ to forgive us when we err, not save us from the erring.  Satan’s entire system of deception is to get us to take our eyes and focus away from Jesus and put it on ourselves.  This is how the Pharisees were blinded to Christ.  They chose to trust in their own understanding and not be humbled before God.

John notes in verse 6, that the audience there did not understand what Christ was saying.  I would venture because our first response to being referred to as sheep is not a pleasant one.  If we are going to be associated with animals we prefer a much more majestic or fierce creature.  But sheep?  Ouch.  So Jesus must try to explain again, He continues in verse 7 … “Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. [verse 8] All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. [verse 9] I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”  It is only by Christ that we are provided for, both physically and spiritually.  We are fed, both our daily bread, and our daily spiritual growth, by following only Christ.  It is only THROUGH Christ that we can enter safely, and remain safely in the flock without being a danger to the others there.

Imagine for a minute what heaven would be like to a rapist who had never been reformed.  All around him are the most beautiful women, perfect in every way.  All of them are loving, caring, attentive, and eager to serve.  None of them pose a threat, none are violent, none have weapons of self-defense or need of them.  How hard it would be for the wolf to roam the streets of heaven being tempted to defile every single woman he comes across.  Wondering if he could do these acts of violence in secret, or in darkness, and remain undiscovered; fearing that God might see him and cast him out.  Heaven would not be heaven for such a man; it would literally be a place of torture.  Forbidden fruit all around him, intense desire to dominate, but no ability to execute and remain undiscovered for it; this is the situation non-Christ centered religions and ideologies would have you accept.  Those who do not accept that it is Christ who remakes the rapist into a new creature who no longer wishes to ever hurt another again, and wishes now only to serve and love all; offer no way to achieve this transformation other than the power of their corrupted minds and will.  Muslins believe that God forgives.  But they offer no method of transformation outside of the will of man.  Eastern religions teach that enlightenment is achieved through introspection, not through submission to Christ.  Atheism would have us believe that our instinctive desire to preserve our social order could one day result in a lessening of violence despite all the facts that point to the contrary.  And even some Christians, cling to the ideas that they need not submit to Christ to be remade, they can do it for themselves.  But for the rapist who knows he cannot change himself, there is only one who can.  The point of the story of Christ, is the recognition of this need.

Then Jesus says something truly stunning as in verse 10 He continues … “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”  The unreformed lead a tortured existence of pain and death.  They cannot help but to wish to please self.  If this means they must steal to do it, then so be it.  How often have you taken something, perhaps even something very small, that did not belong to you?  How many rationalizations do you make to “justify” your appropriation?  We remove a pen from the bank and say to ourselves, they are rich and can easily replace a pen.  Or if it is from an employer, we just say to ourselves that this is simply part of our compensation for working so hard.  After all, the bank and our employers wish us to write things down that they will use for their benefit. 

Or perhaps it is simply how we fill out our timesheets, adding a few minutes here and there, or rounding things up just a bit to make a little extra – rationalizing that we work harder than those around us in the same amount of time and therefore “deserve” a bit more than they do.  We get to a point, where we stop thinking about what we take, as being a theft at all.  It is simply normal behavior for us, the right and wrong of it, have long been decided in our favor.  If evil only stopped at thievery perhaps it would not be so bad.  But evil does not stop at this kind of rationalization.  It is degenerative.  What I steal today, I must protect tomorrow.  If that requires killing, so be it.  If I cannot have it, then nobody can, if I must destroy a good thing to keep others from enjoying it, then so be it.  And thus evil reveals itself as nothing but pain and death, a tortured existence that is not truly worth living, and would not be wanted if sentenced to be lived out in immortality in this condition.

But contrast the nature of evil, with the desires and mission of Christ where He says … “I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”  He is here to make HOW we live, something more than it is today.  A life in Christ is a life worth living.  It is a life that does not cause pain to others or to me.  It is a life that lived out in immortality would be worth living.  And this is NOT just a future promise.  It is an IMMEDIATE one.  Our lives can be made different today as we submit them to Jesus to be remade.  The whole goal of God was eliminate the pain and death that comes from evil from within us.  The pain we cause when we learn to steal and not even regard it as stealing, is something we do not need to suffer from for yet another day.  It is something we can bring to Jesus and leave in His hands to be reformed.  We do not need to struggle every day pitting our knowledge of good and evil against our inherent nature and desire to choose evil.  We need only submit to Christ, our desires, our will, and our decisions, and allow Him to change HOW we think, WHAT we want, and then what we do will follow.  This is the Life that Christ longs to introduce to us.  He longs to offer us a different life.  Here and now, not just in a place we call heaven; this offer was meant to be taken up on today.  We can be something more.  We can be someone different than who we were.  We can be new creatures, if we but let Christ re-create us as He wishes.  What a precious promise and reason for His visit to our world.  He comes to offer us Life, a real life, not this thing we have grown accustomed to, but something entirely different, new and wonderful.  This is the entire mission of the Messiah.

Jesus continues in verse 11 … “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”  He is trying to warn those who hear Him there, that there will be a personal cost to Him, to achieve our redemption.  He must die, taking our place, in order that the punishment of death we have embraced is met on our behalf.  He does this willingly.  This is how far Love will go, to save the object of its affection.  This is the contrast between God and what it means to love others more than self; and Satan who demonstrates where loving self first will lead.  God, who is love, and has done nothing but love us, will now go so far as to take on the punishment we deserve, so that we will not suffer it.  Forgiveness itself is an act of love in the face of evil.  We do not deserve forgiveness we deserve punishment and retribution for the pain we cause to others and ourselves, but forgiveness offers us no punishment, it is love in the face of our evil.  This is the contrast between the nature of Love and the nature of evil.  Evil would demand evil for actions it does not enjoy.  Love offers love even to those who have never earned it and will never deserve it.

As for these other pretender Messiah’s who may come answering the desire of the people to be redeemed of Rome, but offering no way of real redemption Jesus continues in verse 12 … “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. [verse 13] The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.”  The Messiah the Pharisees were looking for could never be the true one sent from God.  For at the end of the day, those who seek self first, seek to preserve self at all costs.  Political leaders have no problem having others die for their cause.  They have no problem keeping themselves alive, even if others must die for them to do so.  The contrast of those who seek only power, and He who seeks only to offer us life are so outlined.  He would lay down His life for us.  Those other pretenders would be only all too happy to avoid even the risk of losing their own lives, and if we lose ours, so be it.

Jesus repeats his mission in verse 14 … “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. [verse 15] As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  He again states that despite what reputation the devil would have us believe about God the Father, it is God the Father who works in concert with Christ for our redemption and restoration.  This is a mission of ALL of the Godhead.  Our Father God is every bit as interested in our redemption as is our Creator God His Son Jesus Christ.  It is not the revelation of Jesus that all of the sudden changes the mind of God His Father about our redemption.  It is the revelation of Jesus that shows us that our redemption was ALWAYS the first concern of His Father God and Himself.  Every story in scripture, even every story in the Old Testament that we may not fully understand, was designed to show us the redemptive desire of our God, not the image of a righteous punisher in chief.  Here is Christ on earth, stating personally what He knows to be true, because He has heard it first hand from the mouth of His Father, in conversation between them we would never know.  This is Jesus definitively stating that His Father is consumed with our redemption and restoration.  They work as one in this.

Then in verse 16 come perhaps the most beautiful words in the New Testament for me personally, as I am not of Jewish decent, or was present at the time of this sermon.  Jesus continues … “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”  Praise God, the mission of the Messiah was not just confined to the people He stood before on that day.  The mission was greater than for just those of Jewish decent, and was greater than for just those who share my particular doctrinal interpretations and values.  His mission was to redeem and restore the world.  Jesus Christ would be the uniting method of ALL of our salvation.  There is nothing to separate us from our home with Christ, except our stubborn determination to reject the re-creation and new life He offers us.  “One fold” not many.  “One home” with Christ, not several.  We are One family united in Christ, for only through Christ might we become the new creations He intends.  It is not our interpretation of scripture that unites us, but instead the method of our salvation.  “One Shepherd” not many.  “One Shepherd” not his surrogates.  We are not to follow other followers of Christ, but to follow only the One Shepherd Himself.  We do not find truth in each other; we find it alone in Jesus.  We can reflect the love of Christ to each other as we allow Him to teach us how to love.  But this does not mean that the source of truth moves from Christ to His followers who have learned how to love.  The source remains the source, it will always be Jesus.

It is fine to notice and admire the sacrifice that some of the great followers of Jesus have made to attempt to promote His love and His faith.  But these patriarchs from Adam, to Noah, to Moses, to David, to Peter, to Martin Luther, to Billy Graham, to your local pastor or spiritual teacher – all may have made contributions to the kingdom, but none are to be your shepherd.  For there can be only one true Shepherd as there is only One fold or home of His children.  We are ALL to find our salvation, our redemption, our re-creation, only in the person of Jesus Christ.  It is our distinct privilege that John recorded these words, that the Lord preserved them, that we have a Bible in which we can find them, and take them into our hearts.  For it is “we” who are those sheep of another fold; it is “we” who are to be included in His great number.  No matter where we were born, or when, or how we have been taught, salvation and life itself are ours for the taking through the gift of Jesus Christ.  It is not even our pain and past that keeps Jesus away from us, He longs only to take away our pain, and give us a real life in its place.  This text is a singular promise upon which we can have hope.  For out of the mouth of God, came the words directed at you, that you too, are to be saved under Christ.

Then Jesus states to the crowd the difference between Himself, the true Messiah, and those who would claim that title as well in verse 17 … “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. [verse 18] No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”  Only Christ could both lay down His own life, and take it up again.  Think of it, He was going to die, but here He states none of us could actually kill Him.  He must lay down His own life.  He must give it up Himself, a free will offering, a free will gesture, in order for us to be redeemed.  Only God the Father could give Jesus the power to both lay down His life, and having done so, to take it up again.  Others could come claiming to be the Messiah, some might even be willing to die for their cause.  But none of the pretenders could ever call themselves out of their own graves back to life again.  Only the Son of God could do this, because only He had received this commandment or ability from His Father; again showing the unity of Father and Son in our work of redemption.

The response of the Pharisees in attendance was only a continued blindness.  They knew the reality of our mortality.  They knew that no-one had ever come back from the dead to life again.  So for Jesus to claim that this was something He alone could do, was just crazy talk to them.  In verse 19 they responded … “There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. [verse 20] And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? [verse 21] Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?”  The problem the Pharisees faced were not as much the words of Christ, as the deeds of Christ.  Jesus had made the blind man to see again, an act of love the devil had never performed.  This miracle stood in the face of their ideas.  It substantiated a connection between Christ and God.  At the very least, it made Christ a prophet in the traditional sense.  But any connection to God, removed the power of the Pharisees over their religious flock, and they meant to hold the role of shepherd for themselves.  Do we offer the same response?

When Christ speaks to us that we cannot save ourselves; that we must submit our will to Him, not just to fight harder not to sin on our own – do we call it crazy talk?  After all, my nature is to express my sin, in whatever form it takes.  The only reason why I do not sin more often than I do today, is because of the small measure of self-control I exert over it right?  You are asking me to give up fighting.  If I do that, I will go hog-wild on the sin thing without any restraint.  Because, really, what is going to stop me, if I give up trying to stop myself?  But Jesus asks us to trust Him, in spite of what we know about ourselves.  He is not offering us an excuse to sin more; He is offering us a way to sin NO more.  Submitting our desires to Him, allows Him to remake the things we want.  When we want something else, we pursue that thing, not the old thing we used to want, and perhaps find we no longer want.  When we submit our decisions to Him, we give Him the freedom to make other choices on our behalf.  Doors open and close and we simply walk through them, instead of trying to pry ones open that should be closed, or slam the ones that we were supposed to be entering in.  When we submit our will to Christ, we acknowledge that He alone can remake the “who” of who we are into what He intends instead of what we have done with it.  We begin to think differently.  We begin to see truth.  We begin to understand.  And most importantly, we find we are no longer sinning that old sin, and cannot explain why, because we did nothing to see it removed – Christ did.   Is this just crazy talk, or does it work?  Christ says it does, how will you respond?