A VOICE BEHIND
[p. 244] A VOICE BEHIND
Revelation 1:10 - 16; Isaiah 30:18 - 21
I am thinking, dear brethren, of ‘a voice behind’, spoken of in the first scripture, and again in the second. Two ideas are in mind, the one referring to servants, indeed to a great servant, the apostle John, but also John the prophet. The brethren will be aware, that he is directed several times to change his position; it is a common thing with the Lord’s servants to be directed to change their positions. The Lord was ready to change His after He rose from among the dead. According to Luke He was minded to go to heaven the day He arose; that is to change His position, but according to Luke’s second treatise He did not go for forty days after He arose, but in each case He was acting for Himself although entirely subject to the Father, in all things doing what pleased Him; as He said, “I do always the things that are pleasing to him”, John 8:29. So that His movements were perfect and pleasurable to God.
Now alluding to His going up, you will all remember that it is referred to early in Luke. “And it came to pass when the days of his receiving up were fulfilled”, Luke 9:51. The idea of His ascension was ever present with Him after it was made clear that He was rejected in this world. Going up would imply that love would be active in Him, and He was going to where it could act at its best; that is, in heaven. So He was carried up according to Luke 24, and according to Paul He was “received up in glory”, 1 Timothy 3:16; showing that the great objective was His ascension, not simply to be in heaven, but to administer from there so that His own might effectively carry on down here. So it is, that as to any movement the Lord would direct in any of us, he would have in mind that we might carry on His work, if [p. 245] not in one place, in another, but carry on successfully. So John here is carrying on; he is in the Spirit. Who of us can say much about that, as to what it is to be in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, or any day? The Lord may have to call attention to what is suitable to the Lord’s day, to show us how our minds should be taken up. John says, “I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet”, Revelation 1:10, and then in verse 12, “I turned back to see the voice which spoke with me; and having turned, I saw seven golden lamps”. The turning was an essential matter, and a change of position is involved. That is what I am thinking of; as to whether each is in the position in which he can serve the Lord best. There was no flaw in John’s attitude, he was still the beloved disciple, only here he is the beloved prophet. In a sense it is greater to be a prophet if prophecy is needed, and it was needed. It was a question here of revelation, “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen what must shortly take place; and he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John, who testified the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, all things that he saw”. Revelation 1:1,2. That is the general outline of the position.
Now in verse 9 of our chapter he is introducing himself to his brethren. It is one of the greatest thoughts. I had it today in coming into this room; it came into my mind, that it is the brethren’s time; a time for the local brethren and for some others also, as far as the room is capable of accommodating the brethren, they are here now. So it is a time to speak to one another as brethren. John says “I John, your brother”. Revelation 1:9. The minister is in mind here, but the minister is to be a brother. It is more important to be a brother than a minister. Ministers will cease in a sense, although there may be something of that nature above, but the brother will ever remain; it is not simply what he is here is a public way. The position of brethren is public; the word brethren would mean, that we are [p. 246] known publicly; we have a public position. There are at least some of them on earth, but “one is your instructor, and all ye are brethren”, Matthew 23:8. That is a public matter, and it is usually known where we are. The Lord insists that we should be known and that the mark of brethren should be upon us.
So John leads the way; “I John”, not ‘I, the beloved disciple’, but “I John”, one known by his name among the brethren. He lived longer than most of the early brethren, perhaps there was no one of his day better known. No doubt heaven had pleasure in his living so long, not that one would wish to live longer than the appointed span according to Moses’ word in Psalm 90, but one would wish to have all one’s faculties so as to serve effectively to the end, and then to be like Aaron, who went up to die accompanied by Moses and Eleazar. I am only speaking briefly as to this point, but with a view to stressing the idea of brethren. “I John, your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus”. Revelation 1:9. Many have been in tribulation and suffering of late, but not “in Jesus”. Wherever we are or whatever we are in we should be “in Jesus”. John says “Your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus”. Revelation 1:9. So that his position is very clear and very attractive too, that there was such a man on earth at that time, in apostolic times, who could characterise himself in this way and that by the Spirit of God.
Then he says “I became in the Spirit”. Revelation 1:10. He was not always in it, he had to return to ordinary affairs as we all do, but he says “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”, Revelation 1:10 meaning that he was alive to the importance of a selected day, a day definitely selected for the purpose, and that day was the Lord’s. It is called the first day of the week, too, in order to divorce our thoughts from mere authority and to turn them to the beginning of the time, of an era, of christianity, the greatest dispensation. We [p. 247] should get into that too, not only to be on the Lord’s day free of ordinary duties, but to get into the dispensation, the reality of it; to be in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, but also on the first day of the week, should be our concern. “And the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread”, Acts 20:7, that was the normal thought as to the first day of the week.
These things being so, we have the passage I have read in Revelation 1:10,11, “and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest write in a book, and send to the seven assemblies”. The idea of writing is introduced; that is to say, John is still to be occupied. But Revelation 1:12 says, “I turned back to see the voice which spoke with me; and having turned, I saw seven golden lamps”. I want to dwell on these things a little. The voice was to be seen. The suggestion is that the voice was the Person, and the Person was to be seen; but then John had to turn to see Him, showing that there was something that he had to attend to involving his responsibility, something that he had to do other than be in the Spirit. He had to turn. That is what I am dwelling upon, as to whether we understand the need of changing our position, whatever it may imply. Here the voice was from behind. You might say he was doing well when he was in the Spirit, in the isle of Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, but heaven and the voice had something else to think of, something else to do. So he turned to see the voice and says “I saw seven golden lamps, and in the midst of the seven lamps one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle”. Revelation 1:12,13. This is what he saw.
Now I want to point out, that it is the Lord, the Lord as John had never seen Him before, because he says, “when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead; and he laid his right hand upon me”. Revelation 1:17. Evidently he had never seen the Lord in this position previously. Dear brethren, is [p. 248] there not possibly a need of a change in any of us so as to see the Lord in a position in which we have not yet seen Him, and yet should see Him? That is where our peculiar responsibility attaches, and the need is great for the acceptance of responsibility. However perfect our service may be the need is great that we should change as the Lord directs. It says here “I saw seven golden lamps, and in the midst of the seven lamps one like the Son of man”. Revelation 1:12,13. We might say, Why did he not first see the Person whose voice was heard? That is not item one in the list of what the Spirit of God records here; the first is the seven golden lamps. The voice is not mentioned first; the prophet turns aside to see the voice, but what he sees is seven golden lamps. I touch on this, that we may search ourselves as to our thoughts about the assembly and the place it has with us, and see whether we are not making everything of the thought of Christ to the exclusion of the assembly; not that we should belittle Him, far from it, but at the same time nothing should becloud the assembly. If we understand what the assembly is to Him we shall not make the place we give to the truth as to Christ becloud the assembly. The first thing here in John’s vision is the seven golden lamps with the Lord in the midst of them, that is how we understand the truth. How few of those regarded as christians have any idea of the seven golden lamps; they are the first thing mentioned as seen.
I want everybody to look at this matter as to how the truth stands in his soul, I mean the truth set out here in the book of Revelation; it calls for investigation, searching, and it involves the visitations of Christ. He is moving about in the midst of the seven golden lamps. He began in Ephesus. If I am in Ephesus I must look into my heart and see what my motives are, for the Lord is coming to visit the saints and see how things are going. Samuel of old had a circuit, and the people trembled in the places when he came to them; it would be a searching [p. 249] time. When the Lord comes to a place it is a searching time. This visitation that John describes is a judicial one. It is right that we should speak of the Lord coming to us according to John’s gospel, but John’s gospel does not give us the judicial service of Christ. We need to be afraid of the Lord if things are not right. The description of Him here is, that He is “clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle: his head and hair white like white wool, as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as burning in a furnace; and his voice as the voice of many waters; and having in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword going forth; and his countenance as the sun shines in its power. And when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead”, Revelation 1:13 - 17. For the moment love was pent up. Revelation does not speak of the time of love; it is a time of judicial searching. We have to go back to the epistles and the gospels through the book of Revelation. It is the last word. The “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him”, Revelation 1:1, and it is signified to John. We say, Paul was the last word, but John had the Revelation, and it indicates that things were not right among the brethren. The Lord was obliged to give up His ordinary service for the moment, so as to visit the brethren, the assemblies, to see how they got on. When the time comes Ephesus is visited. So, dear brethren, the visitations of the Lord to ourselves are one of the most serious matters of the present time. I think it is in this the conditions of the Revelation are fulfilled, for it is the same John, who refers in his gospel to the Lord coming to His own.
The Lord appeared to John and he said, “I fell at his feet as dead”, Revelation 1:17, that is serious, for John was a beloved apostle. There is not the slightest evidence that John was out of the way at all, yet he had to turn back to see the Lord, not in heaven, but amongst the assemblies. It is as if the Lord would say, ‘I am still going on with [p. 250] the brethren, with the gatherings, but things are not right’. The Lord would say, as it were, ‘You may say that I come to you, but I want you to understand, that I have other garments than those I wear on the first day of the week, and I may have to come to you in those garments’.
John says, He was “girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle”, Revelation 1:13, meaning that His affections are pent up, for the girdle girt up hinders the affections flowing out. Then, “his head and hair white like white wool, as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as burning in a furnace; and his voice as the voice of many waters; and having in his right hand seven stars”. Revelation 1:13 - 16. He has these stars in His hand; He has judicial garments also, but He is thinking of the assemblies as well. It is a picture combining the judicial with the thoughtful love side. The Lord was saying, as it were, ‘Although I am in judicial garb, I am not forgetting things that are dear to you’. He says to John, “Fear not”, that is the most cheerful word so far. There is a man here who had to turn back and he tells us what he saw.
Further down he says, “And when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead; and he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not”. Revelation 1:17. So I would say to any servant here who loves the Lord and is engaged aright as John was, that there is nothing to fear. In pursuing righteousness, love, faith and peace, there is nothing to fear, we can go on happily and freely, but the Lord is saying, I have on a different garment, not the wedding garment. I have not on the garment of the upper room; I am amongst the assemblies nevertheless, and I want you to go on. So he says to John, “Fear not”. There is nothing to fear where love is, where righteousness, faith, love and peace are. They are things the Lord is set for, He died to establish them. If I am going on with these things there is nothing to fear. But if something has happened in another town, do not forget it. If the Lord has to put [p. 251] on His judicial robes to go to that town, let us not forget that town. We are to be universal in our outlook. What is wrong in this country is wrong elsewhere; what is wrong in Australia is wrong here; what is wrong in America is wrong here. The Lord is giving us to understand that He must keep His judicial garments at hand all the time. The idea of the wardrobe is common in Scripture; the keeper of the wardrobe, 2 Kings 22; the best robe for the prodigal son, Luke 15.
John sees that the Lord is in a judicial attitude, for He is “girt about at the breast with a golden girdle: his head and hair white like white wool, as snow”. Revelation 1:13,14. Now, although it is not causing me fear, because the Lord says “Fear not”, seeing that I have these righteous features, yet at the same time, I must take account of the seven assemblies. The Lord is interested in every one of them. We are too local, or even continental; the position of the assembly is universal. I have to keep the seven in mind, for what is there in any one of them is my business. Hence John had to turn back, meaning that he had other things to attend to. The voice was powerful, it was the voice of authority. We must not say, there is a bad condition in America, or the West Indies, or Australia, and that we are sorry for the brethren in these lands, but they went out there to make money, and that is what has happened. That will not do! That will not meet my responsibility. I want to stress that next. John had to turn back to see all this. He saw it and it affected him greatly: he fell at the Lord’s feet “as dead”, but then he hears that beautiful word “Fear not”, ‘You do not need to fear, John!’ As following the principles of 2 Timothy we do not have to fear; not that we do not fear on account of evil in the assemblies, but we do not have to fear the Lord. If I am following righteousness as calling on the Lord out of a pure heart I do not have to fear the Lord, I am pleasurable to Him. John was pleasurable to the Lord, but he had to turn back; it is [p. 252] mentioned twice in verse 12. He says, “having turned, I saw seven golden lamps”. Revelation 1:12. The vision was something that made him change his whole attitude. He would say, ‘I must take off my wedding garment for the moment and put on garments suitable’. If the Lord is dealing judicially I want to be with Him. I do not want the Lord only to wear the judicial garments. Indeed, the Lord would say, ‘You put yours on’. Sometimes we need them in the care meeting, and if the Lord indicates this we should be no different from the Lord in our garments.
The Lord says to John, “Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the living one”. Revelation 1:17,18. Scientists say all sorts of things, as if they only have understanding. Wisdom will not die with the scientific men. The all-various wisdom of God is in the assembly; so we need not fear what the scientific men say. The Lord says “I am the first and the last, and the living one: and I became dead”. Revelation 1:17,18 When the Lord died that was, before God, the end of man as he is in the flesh with all his science and pretentions. Where man’s wisdom is displayed is but the place of a skull. The Lord would say to us, “behold, I am living to the ages of ages”. Revelation 1:18. How the scientific men like to talk about ages, but the Lord says, “I am living to the ages of ages”. Paul says, speaking of God, “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus, unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”. Ephesians 3:21. We do not need to fear what men are saying. The Lord says, “I am the first and the last, and the living one: and I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hades”. Revelation 1:17,18. He has supreme control over all infernal powers. What can happen to us? Nothing but what comes from the Lord.
The next word to John is, “Write therefore what thou hast seen”. Revelation 1:19. I have already alluded to the writing, the precious pages of Scripture; they set our minds at ease as to everything. “Write therefore what thou hast seen”. Revelation 1:19.
[p. 253] The Lord is now telling His beloved servant to use his pen; and he could use it. Not that he was an accomplished scribe, according to man, but he became that in divine matters, some of the most marvellous writings in existence are the writings of John. The Lord tells him the order in which he is to write. “Write therefore what thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to be after these”. Revelation 1:19. So John had his work set out. The Lord is Himself making out the plan of the book of Revelation, it is not left to John to lay out. All the work the Lord gives us to do He lays out for us.
Now I must go to Isaiah. This is a very beautiful word in chapter 30, verses 18 - 21. I cannot say much because of the time, but it is another point of view from that of which I have been speaking. “And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you”. Isaiah 30:18. I am now speaking of the exercise of God’s grace. He is waiting to be gracious in all matters. What I am about to say is a balance to what I have already said; let us put them side by side. What John saw as he turned back, means that he was a faithful servant doing what is right, but he is to turn back to see what there is and that he is responsible for it. In Isaiah here it says, “therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you”. Isaiah 30:18. This is the word I would like to leave with the dear brethren in this town and district, this matter of grace, because it is the time of the throne of grace, not the throne of judgment. I would very earnestly desire that young men might be imbued with that thought of grace, for it reigns. You can insist on grace, however bad or wicked a man or woman may be, grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. The position is glorious. I bring this forward so that we might be balanced. The Lord in His dealings with the assembly, brings forward the failure, for the Lord is walking in the midst of it, but as well as that, He is exercising grace. His service of grace [p. 254] is overlapping His service of judgment. The book of Revelation runs on to what is going to happen after the assembly has gone to heaven, but it also overlaps the dispensation of grace. The Lord can change His clothes at any time in regard of any assembly or any saint where things are not right, but there is a balance to that in His service of grace.
The prophet tells us, “therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he lift himself up, that he may have mercy upon you; for Jehovah is a God of judgment; blessed are all they that wait for him”. Isaiah 30:18. He is waiting, and we are waiting for Him; that is the idea. He is ready to do things in grace. The word is, to those who wait for Him, “For the people shall dwell in Zion, at Jerusalem”. Isaiah 30:19. How glorious this is, and we should have in our hearts what corresponds in christianity. “Thou shalt weep no more; he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; as he heareth it, he will answer thee. And the Lord will give you the bread of adversity” (that is to be expected) “and the water of oppression; yet thy teachers shall not be hidden any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers. And when ye turn to the right hand or when ye turn to the left” (wherever you go, to school or business), “thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it”. Isaiah 30:19 - 21 There is a way! Christianity itself is the way. Mohammedanism is not a way, nor are many things one could mention, for there is only one way; that is christianity, in the true sense. “The way” is known in relation to the presence of the Holy Spirit on earth, Christ in heaven, and the assembly here. That is the way. That is what you hear spoken of behind you if you are turning aside. If things are not right you hear the voice behind you, and in it the Lord is saying to you, “This is the way, walk ye in it”; Isaiah 30:21; that way stands related to the things I have mentioned; the assembly is in the way. It is not John himself that is in mind, but the ordinary [p. 255] believer, those who are liable to fall and are falling. But a voice is to be heard to direct us to the way, and we are to walk in it.
I leave with you the idea of grace, how magnificent it is! “This is the way, walk ye in it”. Isaiah 30:21.