In the Spirit — Paris Reidhead

Christ as He Appears Today

In Christ as he appears today, Revelation, the first chapter, will give this testimony of an eyewitness. The Apostle John describes to us exactly what he saw, and we are prepared to accept his testimony.

I would like to ask you what would have happened if you had been with John on the island of Patmos on this particular Lord's Day. What would have been your response? Would it have been that you too were in the Spirit, and in the Spirit you would have seen and understood what was said?

Or perhaps it would have been in your case as it was with those that accompanied Paul, all they did was suppose or surmise that it had thundered. And thus it is in my mind this evening to ask you, what does it mean when you hear the words, in the Spirit?

I was in the Spirit. This we hope to find out. This we will see as we proceed with our study. Now what John saw, and what we are about to consider, was not a transient thing, not just something that happened and ceased.

It was a transient revelation, however, of a permanent reality. He saw the Lord Jesus Christ as he is. That is why I have dared to say the Lord Jesus Christ as he appears today. He is the unchanging, the unchangeable Christ.

And what John saw then, he is now. Now remember this. First we will get acquainted with the one who had this vision. Verses 9 and 10 of the first chapter of the book of Revelation. I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

I, John, such a frank, such a specific designation, ought to settle always forever the author of the book and the testimony of the one we have here. This is the very same man who was with James, mending the nets, the day Jesus Christ called him.

The one that leaned on Jesus' bosom the night that he had instituted the Lord's Supper. The one who beheld him after his resurrection. I, John, this one who had walked with the Lord Jesus Christ for three years of earthly ministry, now brings the authority of a personal witness.

This is what he's seen, this is what he's experienced, and he is putting his whole life and reputation on the line for the truthfulness of what he states. I, John, who also am your brother. He isn't separating himself by some vast gulf saying, I'm here and you're there.

Your brother, brother in sin, for he too was in need of salvation. Nothing could meet the need of John's heart but the cleansing blood of an all-sufficient Savior. I, John, your brother, under the sentence of death, condemned with you.

But I met Jesus Christ, I saw him, I beheld him. It was on that day that I heard John the Baptist say, Behold the Lamb of God. I am your brother now through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, born into the same family, partaker of the same grace, washed in the same precious blood.

Whatever age, whatever period, down across the centuries, this ever will be read, and every one in which it has been read, John has identified himself with us as one of the heirs of salvation and one who is dedicated to seek to his serving the Lord Jesus and thereby to glorifying him, your brother.

John as a Companion in Tribulation

And then notice he doesn't stop there, but your companion in tribulation. Your companion in tribulation. John had been tested, he'd been persecuted. The record tells us. How many of you have Foxe's Book of Martyrs?

Perhaps I'd better ask how many of you read it, if you have it. So many books, you know, grace our shells and disgrace our minds because we fail to appropriate them. Have you read Foxe's Book of Martyrs?

Oh, I'd urge you to do it real soon. And let something of this testimony of these who love not their lives unto death lay hold upon you. I, John, your brother and your companion in tribulation. I've mentioned it several times recently, how John had been sentenced to die and spared and delivered.

And then he said, I was, for the testimony of Christ, exiled to the island of Patmos. Reading of this just this week, I have been reminded that Patmos had mines, lead mines, and the exiles often were forced to work as slave laborers, mining lead.

We have no evidence that John was engaged in such servitude. But by the same token, we have no proof that he wasn't. And so if you wish, you can imagine John, the elderly one that worked with the Lord, toiled at drawing fish from the Sea of Galilee, now is there taking his place in the morning with the other slaves, exiled to the island of Patmos.

These were noble men often, tribunes, senators, wealthy men that have been put in this place, thus confined and protected, sort of a devil's island to the Roman Empire. And John is there. And he says, your companion in tribulation.

I know what it is to suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ. Your companion in the kingdom. You see, when Jesus Christ takes us, he not only receives us in terms of forgiveness for a heavenly kingdom, but right then and there he translates us from the kingdom of this world into his own kingdom.

The kingdom of God is in you. In this sense, that when Jesus Christ owns you and possesses you, you are the extraterritorial rights of the sovereign Son of God. And in you he has a place where his banner fries and where he rules.

So the kingdom of God is in you. The kingdom of God is not in meat and drink, but it's in righteousness and in peace and in the joy of the Holy Ghost. He says, your companion in the kingdom. Then your companion in the patience of Jesus Christ.

Generally speaking, when the word patience is linked with the name of Christ, it is that patient waiting for him to return. John was with that company on the Mount of Olives the day when our Lord was caught up by a cloud.

John heard the angel say, this same Jesus shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go. And so he says, I am a companion in the upward look, a companion in the anticipation that the Son of God is going to come, cleaving the clouds to gather to him his own.

I am a companion in the patience of Jesus Christ. So this gives us some little insight as to the man himself. But then we ought to consider the source of his certainty about the vision. I've mentioned in the past John of Roysbrook, this dear man.

And if you want a book that will really bless your heart, get his Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage. I'm sure the bookstore will do it for you. It's hard to read, but oh, it's so lovely if you can take the time to do it.

But John is telling us now that he's had a vision. Do you believe in visions? Well, it depends on who it is that has it. Some people, they came to me and said they had a vision. All I'd say is, well, mm-hmm.

With somebody else, it's another matter. It depends on the man. It depends on the person. It depends on how they live and walk. Old Uncle Bud Robinson said, I don't care how you hop, how high you jump when you're happy, just so you walk straight when you come down.

And the vision, this is important. Don't make indifference. Sure, I believe in visions. I don't even believe the same Jesus is able the same way to speak as he has in the past. But I tell you, I want to know the character and the conduct and the attitude of the person that has it.

I, John, he's walked steadfastly for all these decades. 990 A .D., 95 A .D., possibly 98 A .D. The Lord Jesus left, went back to heaven 30 A .D. That means that John has been walking with, alone for 65, 68 years.

Now, when this man has a vision, you better pay attention. Better pay attention. When he speaks, it's a different matter. Not just some enthusiast, but this is someone that knows the Lord. And so in the 10th verse he describes how it came about.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, waiting, worshipping in the Spirit. What does this mean, in the Spirit? Well, it does, it means not necessarily that he was in a state of ecstasy, but he was walking in the conscious fullness of the Spirit.

He was aware of the Spirit's presence, and he was withdrawn, recollected. I love the way the Quaker writers in other days have spoken of recollection, recollecting. You know, we get so scattered. Our minds, our attitudes, our enthusiasms, our zeals, all get outside.

And the ancients talk about being recollected, calling in, calling in your thoughts, and calling in your emotions, and calling in your fears, collecting them. And then in the inner sanctuary, the Spirit, the secret of the Lord, is in the sanctuary, and you are the temple of God, and the place that God speaks is here.

Now, in the heart, in the inner man, when he says, I was in the Spirit, I believe that he was just quietly there, not in some ecstasy in which he was physically guided. That isn't it. Withdrawn and quiet, just happily and humbly and sweetly in fellowship with the Lord.

And he said, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. He remembered this, the Lord's day, the first day of the week, waiting. Perhaps it could have been he was in chains. Perhaps it could have been he was mining, for there'd certainly be no regard for the Lord's day in a Roman mine.

But isn't it true that chains do not a prison make? And John could be in the Spirit on the Lord's day. He said, I heard a voice as of a great trumpet. I heard a voice. You know, he wasn't a stranger to this voice.

He'd heard that same voice before. For he could recall the day that he'd seen one standing on the shore of Galilee. The boat was in against the shore and tied to the little wharf. He's out there sitting, weaving and mending the nets.

And he hears a voice, John, come, follow me. And he heard a voice, but he recognized the voice. For he tells us who spoke. He tells us that it was the voice of the one who said, I am the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega.

This is the voice of Christ, a voice that John would recognize. But notice something. He says, the voice was behind me. This gives us a little insight into John's character. The voice was behind me. I think we're to see this in the manner in which I'm about to present it and have presented it.

Living Faithfully in the Present

First, it was called to my attention, to our attention, by our brother Bok Singh when he was here two years ago this month. Perhaps this very same night. Do you recall how it was when he told us that John was looking backward to the good old days?

In the Spirit meditating on the days as he'd walked with Christ and the days of the early church and when he'd been with the other apostles? Oh my, how prone we are to this. How often all of us do. To make a distinction between the sweetness of the memories of yesterday and the glorious privileges of today and the victories of tomorrow requires wisdom indeed.

How is it that we can take all the value and the meaning and the sweetness from the past and yet turn that all to good account for the present and use the past and the present as the resources for the future?

Unfortunately, too often people sit in the present, lose all interest in it in a sense, and oh, this is an endemic disease in America. I think you could almost call it Americanitis, this inflammation of the human spirit that loses the meaning of the present.

A child goes to high school and he works so hard to graduate with honor so that he can go into college, so that he can work so hard to graduate with honor so that he can go into graduate school, so that he can graduate with honor so that he can get a job and get a promotion.

And all of his life he's like someone running uphill inside of a squirrel cage. He's just going, and nothing gives any pleasure. The high school diploma didn't give any pleasure because the college diploma loomed ahead.

And the college diploma didn't give any real pleasure because there had to be graduate work before he could go on, perhaps. And that didn't give any real pleasure because now he had to put his training to work and secure a standing in his field.

And so it's a constant climbing. And then, of course, the whole of life is wished away in this anticipation. I've suffered from it from my earliest day. I think we that were the children of the Depression, who saw everything around us disintegrate, and weren't old enough to meet it as adults and just were young enough to feel the terror of it, have particularly strong emotional problems in this regard.

Because we remember how jobs disappeared, and poverty, and seeing strong men stand in line to get a box full of grapefruit and some butter and carry it home. It was a terrifying experience. And to have it happen to your own family as it did to many my age, and you look back on it as youngsters then.

And so constantly pushing, constantly climbing, keep ahead of this thing. This is a tragic thing, because this is the day the Lord has made. We are to rejoice in it. Now, this is life, right now. We're always getting ready to live.

Always. We're going to be supremely and sublimely happy in some beautiful tomorrow. Of course, when tomorrow gets here, this isn't quite the day. It's got to be pushed further ahead. In all our lives, we're pushing this day when we're going to take time to be friends, and take time to pray, and take time to live life to the full.

Always pushing it ahead. Oh, it's a disease. But there's another disease almost as bad, and that's the disease of looking back to yesterday. Time has made all the unpleasant parts of it disappear, and you were so happy to get out of it when you were there, and now that you're out of it, it looks so beautiful, and you just think, oh, this was it.

Now, this is what John is suffering from. He's an old man. It often comes with age. I'm beginning to find out that we sort of lived our life, and what can these youngsters do coming on? How are they going to be able to handle the problems we've failed?

Things are just going to get worse and worse, you know? And John is sitting there in exile, thinking of those churches, and those boys that he had to spank, and had to discipline, and now they're the pastors of the churches in Asia Minor, and they're the ones carrying responsibility and leadership, and he's looking backward, and he hears a voice behind him.

He's looking back toward the good old days. Oh, I'm mad at the good old days. They weren't good enough for the people that were in them. They were still looking at the good old days. They didn't even know they were good.

Did you know that these are the good old days for our great-grandchildren? Honestly. These are the good old days for them. And they weren't good enough for them, and now we look back and say, oh, wasn't it wonderful, wasn't it?

This is what John is doing. I believe, in spite of all that he has and all, he's looking backward. And he hears a voice, but he hears a voice behind him. You know, you may find that the beauty is in the past, but the Lord has a more wonderful future than the past has ever been.

I absolutely refuse to believe that for the child of God that walks in obedience to his Heavenly Father, that the best is behind us. I can't believe it. Now, if you go into sin and disobedience and rebellion against God, believe me, the best is behind you, because there's going to be severe chastening in the future.

But if you love God and your heart is abandoned to him and your purpose is to please him, the blessedness is in the head. It's in the future. The future is just as glorious as God is great. It's just as bright as he is able.

Now, when I say future, I'm saying the future not in terms as material terms. It may mean that all of us go into concentration camps or persecution. I'm not talking about sensual comfort when I'm talking about blessedness.

I'm talking about the only thing that counts to a Christian, and that is the glory of Jesus Christ. I refuse to believe that Jesus Christ got all the glory he wants yesterday. I think that he's waiting for you and for me today to meet him on his terms and bow before him and surrender to him and that he will do something for us and our children that will bring that glory to him that he yearns for.

John heard a voice behind him, but we find in verse 12 that he said, I turned to see the voice that spake with me. He heard the voice and he's overwhelmed by it and he listens. What is it that we hear him say?

What is this does John hear? I heard a voice behind me saying I am Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. Who is this one? He's the one who says before me there was nothing, after me there will be nothing.

All things are by me. All things consist in my power. I am the creator and the sustainer of the universe. I am the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. God is speaking. This is how he chooses to identify himself.

And God says to John, I am using you as the vehicle of blessing to the churches for which you're concerned. I believe that every one of us that are in the will of God and filled with the spirit of God and walk in obedience to the word of God will be to the blessing of the church.

The Church as Christ's Instrument

The church is God's instrumentality. The church is God's method. The church is God's program. And now John is on the island of Patmos alone with the Lord and the Lord says to him, John, I am using you to bless the church and everything that God does through us will be for the edification, the exhortation and the comfort of the church.

I love thy church, O Lord. Do you love the church so much that you can't harm it, you can't hurt it, but you can only minister in longing prayer for it? Do you love the church, the body of Jesus Christ?

If you do, it's going to make you exceedingly sensitive. John loved the church. And if you read over here in his little letters in 2nd Epistle, the elder unto the elect lady and her children whom I love in the truth, the elder unto the well-beloved gay as whom I love in the truth.

How great is his concern for the church? How deeply does this apostle of love minister to the church? And now he finds the Lord saying to him, what thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia.

I want you to be the vehicle of blessing. I want you to receive this message from me and pass it on to them and thus they are to receive it as from me through you and find it binding upon them. The message is from Christ, this one who is the first and the last, this one who has supreme authority.

He's the one that's speaking, but he's speaking through the apostle. And he is speaking in such a way as to bring blessing. Now we've considered the one who saw the vision and the ones for whom the vision was intended.

Now just let us give ourselves to the one that is seen in the vision. Verses 12 to 19. I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. The first thing John saw was a representation of the church under the emblem of the seven candlesticks.

The church, I say, the church is represented by the candlesticks because the light of the candlestick is not from the candlestick. It's from another source. It's simply sustained by the candlestick and revealed by the candlestick.

And the church has no power in itself. All of the light that comes through the church is from the presence of Christ. And thus the candlestick becomes a very effective and appropriate representation of the church.

The church is represented as holding forth that light which is found in the person of the Son of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is represented as confining the revelation of himself to his church. I want you to get this point.

There are people who talk against the church and who criticize it. They should criticize everything that hurts it and injures it, but they should always do it in love. You know, maybe when your child has a mosquito on his forehead you want to brush it off, but friend, don't take a hammer to do it.

Don't kill a mosquito with a baseball bat. You'll succeed in killing the mosquito, but your baby may be pointed-headed all his life and injured and twisted and warped. And this is what I think so often happens when people come and they criticize the church and they bruise it and they hurt it and they injure it.

No, no. No, no. You can't do that and not get into trouble with Jesus Christ. He loves his church. He loves his church. There may be the necessity from time to time to take a stand against that which is wrong.

We're to stand for the truth. We're not to be swept about by every wind of doctrine, by cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love. Always to speak the truth in love.

And this is where the Lord Jesus shows himself. He shows himself through the church. Now the candlesticks are made of gold. This reveals to us the purity of the church. It is to be pure. If we're to show forth his light and we're to be the revealers of his character, there must be purity.

And I submit to you that in a sense the church is no more pure than you are if you're part of it, because you're part of the candlestick. And it's therefore imperative that everyone that has been binded together by the Spirit of God at any church, and you are here tonight, though you may never have been here before, but if you are here in Christ for this gathering, this time you constitute part of a unique group.

We'll never be together again the same way we are now. We're here as a company of people, and I would believe supernaturally, sovereignly banded together. Let it be understood that this church of which we're a part now is no more pure than you are.

If you have unconfessed, unforsaken, unforgiven sin in your life, then the gold is filled with dross to the degree to which you are filled with sin. Therefore, we are to have consciences void of offense toward God and toward man, because we're part of the church, the candlestick that reveals the glory of Christ.

The gold had to be put on the fire, and it had to be melted, and then the dross would rise to the surface and be scraped and drawn away, and then it was pounded, shaped, and molded in order for it to be a candlestick.

The gold, of course, also speaks to us of the fact that the church is without price. He purchased it with his precious blood. And again I come back to you and say that all of God's method is the church.

All of God's program is the church. Now, how do I use it? Do I use it in the sense of a society, such as the Christian Missionary Alliance? No. Do I use it in the sense of the Methodist Church, a great denomination?

No. What do I, what do I use? How am I thinking when I use the word church, so we understand each other? I'm thinking of that local company of believers that ought to be banded together by the Holy Ghost.

One mind, one heart, one spirit. This local group of believers is the church of which we speak. There's a church at Ephesus in Smyrna in Pergamos. Didn't say the church is in Ephesus, because you know this, that if you wish to speak of New York City, every member of the body of Christ in New York City is a member of every other member of the body of Christ.

Do you understand that? And let me repeat it. Every one in central midtown Manhattan that's a member of the body of Christ is a member of every other member of the body of Christ in the same geographical area.

Now, unfortunately, the body of Christ has been divided into a myriad of fragments and in a sense the Lord does not have a church in New York. If we could see what God sees, we would have to view that in any geographical area, every member of the body of Christ is a member of every other member.

And in a sense, our fellowship ought to be on that level, on the geographical level. I am not optimistic enough to believe that it will come by any engineering or programming or machinations of men. I don't expect it to come that way, but I refuse to change my thinking because it's scriptural that in any geographical area, every Christian is a member of every other Christian.

Now, we're split four ways from Sunday. Three hundred and twelve Protestant denominations, and probably all of them have their representation here in Manhattan. But at Ephesus there was a church. At Pergamos there was a church, the church at Thyatira.

Not churches, the church. Now, there may have been many groups, but they met on a geographical area on the basis of their proximity to each other. One day, perhaps, the Lord will bring it back that way.

I hope so. I trust so. But in the meanwhile, if we can't deal with the ideal, if we can't have that which is absolute in its scriptural perfection, then let's understand this, that wherever you meet a Christian, whether he wears your brand name or not, if he's in Christ, he's part of you.

You're members of the same body. And for this reason, I caution you against speaking ill of bodies, of any groups where God may have some of his children. I hate to find people speaking ill of the society of which I am a part, the Christian missionary alliance.

Occasionally I find people speak in great derision and great contempt of us. I don't think we deserve it. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's honoring to the Lord. I think it grieves the Holy Spirit.

But you know something? I think he's equally grieved when we speak in derogatory manner of other groups as such. I don't think we should do that. I think we ought to recognize that God's poor, poor sheep have been gathered in a myriad of places and scattered, but they're still his sheep.

His body isn't as he wants it. Someday, let's believe and trust he'll bring it together. But right now, let us, joined one to another by the Holy Ghost, so live in abandonment to Jesus Christ, so walk in the fullness of the Spirit, so live manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, that Jesus Christ can have in us a vehicle to manifest himself as he wishes here.

This is what we find his saying now. Christ was in the midst of the candlestick. He is revealed through the church. That's why the satanic effort has always been directed toward the church. The enemy has bruised it.

Satan has tried to infiltrate it, to corrupt it, to hurt it, to injure it, and has found every possible means that he could to do it. But nevertheless, we know that he said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And when we stand on the victory of Calvary and lock the gates to the enemy, then at least for the working out of his purpose locally here, he can do that. It's in the church that Jesus Christ is manifesting.

I'd rather be speaking to a company of people here or in any other city, in one sense, one final sense, than to speak to 5 ,000 people if they didn't represent a church. That's why I'm never troubled about the size of the congregation if that congregation consists of responsible people that are joined to each other in a testimony.

Let me explain why. You get 10 ,000 curious, 10 ,000 seeking entertainment, 10 ,000 that represent every kind of group, and you communicate to them they're not capable of taking that truth and implementing it and putting it into a testimony, bringing it to life.

But if we can get a group of elders and deacons, a church, and get that church to lay hold of truth, and get that church to walk in truth, then through that church, Jesus Christ can have custodians of truth that he can bless with it.

And I would rather get a group of 10 people that are a church, part of it, leaders of it, and talk to them than 100 people that are from 10 churches and have no particular interest in the custody of truth.

Now of course, this involves something else. You get a church, and if they don't take the responsibility to truth, then you might as well be speaking to the fenceposts. But if you can have a church of men and women that love Jesus Christ, that are joined together by the Spirit of God and give to them the revelation of God.

This is what John is doing. Send the message to the church. Send it to the church. I'm going to use them, I'm going to bless them. Everything that he does, he does for the church. Everything he does, he does through the church.

It's his unit of operation. When the church becomes unblessable, when it comes to the place that the Lord has to wash his hands of it, he casts it out like salt that's lost its savor to be trodden underfoot of men, and then he just starts over again.

But you can absolutely predict what Jesus Christ is going to do until he comes again. The unit he's going to work with is the church. Should it be that this church that has such a remarkable history and such been so blessed of God should, in some unthinkable, impossible day, come to the place where they close their heart to the will of God?

The only thing it means that Jesus Christ is going to do it over again somewhere else, that's all. But he's set the church as the unit. That's why I don't like men that, for instance, take the message of healing and make and exploit it around their ministry.

Now I believe that Jesus Christ is healer and that he heals, but I believe the place for this truth is in the church. Not in some man using it to exploit and develop and build his own personal ministry.

I believe it's in the church. I believe the unit of evangelism is the church. I believe the place of comfort. I actually would go so far as to say that I believe that the unit of relief of the poor is the church and care for the young is the church.

I think all of these other agencies that have been raised up of necessity, the Gideons and the Christian Businessmen and the YMCA and all the long list of auxiliary agencies, exist because of the failure of the church.

That the unit God's ordained and the unity employs is the church. I'm church-centered in thinking because it's the unit that God has established. There are only two agencies, two units, two organizations that God's ever started and that he has blessed.

The first is the home. He started that, and the second is the church. And we've started a myriad of other agencies and groups and societies and organizations, and they all represent the failure of the home to be what he intended it to be and the failure of the church to be what he intended it to be.

Well, let's keep this here. This is what he's showing. Now, whatever the vision is, it's going to have its purpose for blessing the church. Take this message to them. Carry this word to them. Write it, put it in a book, and send it to them.

The Glory and Authority of the Son of Man

What was it that he was to write? Write what you see. And what did he see? He saw one in the midst of the candlesticks like unto the Son of Man. Jesus Christ was seen. And he wants the churches to know that the place of his revelation is there in the church.

And he wants the churches to know the kind of a person he is. So the first thing John saw was that the Son of Man was clothed with garment down to the foot. Here was the robes of a prince. Here were the robes of majesty, the robes of splendor, the robes of authority.

And he stands before John now with this insignia of all of the authority in heaven and earth that's been committed unto him. I saw him with a robe down to his feet. It speaks also of the robe that he wore as our high priest, for he is there with the priestly garment.

Righteousness and honor, mercy and truth robe him. And he is to be seen now as this one that is there robed down to the feet. Remember how they stripped him of his garments and left him in shameful nakedness and buffeted him and beat him and bruised him.

And in humility they scourged him and then took him to the cross, that most ignominious and shameful of deaths. John said, you tell the church that you saw me in a robe, a robe, not one of pilots cast off robes, not something that's been patched together, but that you've seen me in the robe of majesty.

Then he said, you tell them that you saw me girt about with a golden breastplate, a golden girdle. This belonged to the high priest. It speaks to us of Aaron who had the breastplate on which were inscribed the names of the twelve tribes.

And it tells us that Jesus Christ is there with a golden girdle, a golden breastplate. And he is ready for his work as redeemer and mediator. You tell them at Thyatira and at Pergamos in Philadelphia that when you saw me, I not only had on a robe of majesty, but I had on the golden breastplate and I have their names over my heart.