OUR RISEN SAVIOR IS THE BEGINNING AND THE END
REVELATION 1:8—18 APRIL 27, 2003
REVELATION 1:8-18
8"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."
9I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11which said: "Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea."
12I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man," dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
17When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
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Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
For the next few weeks we will be looking at Revelation. There is a lot more in Revelation than what we can study in a few weeks, but it gives us an interesting taste of this last book of the Bible.
Christ is risen, He is risen indeed! That is the message of the simple truth and the powerful fact of Scripture that we hear on Easter and we will hear for the next few Sundays to remind us that every Sunday really is as important and as joyous and as certain as Easter Sunday—the Sunday of Resurrection. We turn to 2 PETER 1:19 where he tells us, "And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” If you have any doubts today, the Lord says, ‘Pay attention and the day star will arise in your hearts and drive out the darkness.’ We will see that comparison of light and dark quite a bit in today’s text. Today, we are reminded that our risen Savior is the Alpha and Omega. In other words, He is the beginning and the end.
OUR RISEN SAVIOR IS THE BEGINNING AND THE END
I. The end of all things evil
II. The beginning of all good
Revelation is a book not as mysterious as one might think. It is the revelation of St. John. In the first few verses that we didn’t read, he has his greetings and blessings to and for the believers. Then he gets right into the letters’ purpose. In verse 11 we read, a voice 11which said: "Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea." That was the purpose—there were going to be several directions for seven churches. These were early towns that had Christian churches in them.
John continues telling us, 12I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands. We come back to the word ‘seven’. Here the seven represent a lampstand for each church. Now, people put a lot of significance on numbers. The number seven we find in the Old Testament had a lot of meaning. It was God’s ‘covenant number’ where he made his covenant (promise) with mankind and always kept it. Some say seven represents the joining of God and man together in the New Testament—three representing God (the Trinity) and four representing man or the world. Three and four added up equals seven. But we cannot add any more or any less to the significance of these numbers. We simply do not know why God chose the number seven. If we wanted to say anything, we could say God liked the number seven. We see John’s revelation refer to seven time and again.
We’re going to back up a little bit. John has the setting here. He says, 9I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Now, John wasn’t there so the Word would be revealed to him. He was there because of his testimony. The church was under great persecution at this point in history. John was banished here so he couldn’t cause any more trouble, couldn’t preach to large groups of people. Patmos was a very small, rocky island. It was sparsely populated. It measured about five miles by ten miles, so it wasn’t very big at all. We have farms in our area bigger than that. John spent the rest of his days there. It happened that he was there for a purpose. He would receive this revelation from God.
He says, 10On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11which said: "Write on a scroll…” There we have the purpose and then this voice and thus we have the book ‘Revelation’. (Not Revelations but one revelation to John.) He writes what the Lord tells him to write. He is there because of evil. People didn’t want to hear the Word so they wanted to get rid of the Apostle, John, whom Jesus loved. It didn’t work because we still have God’s word today.
Evil is also all around us isn’t it? We cannot escape evil because Adam and Eve who lived in a perfect world did not escape evil. Satan tempted them and they gave in, now that was in a perfect world. It’s a lot harder for us isn’t it? You and I cannot escape sin…we are born with sin. We’re born into a sinful world and we have sin in our nature. We are told in ROMANS 5:12 "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned”. There is no escape—evil is all around us.
If we look at our life, we see time and again that we fall short of the glory of God. Time and again we turn away from God. Time and again we don’t say what He wants us to say, we don’t do what He wants us to do, and we certainly don’t think what we ought to be thinking all the time. Are we to throw our hands up in despair or are we to remind ourselves that our risen Savior is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end? He is the end of every evil. We read in Scripture, "He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. (That includes us.) The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work"(1 JOHN 3:8). We are not left to our own devices. We are not left to wallow in sin, despair and wickedness.
Instead, the Lord came and destroyed the devil’s work. He did it by His death and His resurrection. He did it by coming back to life. He did it for you and me and every believer. Now, Satan’s reign has ended. He still tries to tempt people. You and I have God on our side and our lives are changed. The Savior is the beginning of the end of everything evil because now His kingdom has increased. His believers go out with changed lives. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:5,6 tells us, "You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. (The devil.) So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled". That makes evil scatter, doesn’t it? Sure!
The Lord blesses you and me. You and I believe in the risen Savior, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. The Alpha and Omega (the first letter and the last letter of the Greek alphabet) that is our risen Savior, the end of everything evil and
II. The beginning of all good
At this point, John was going to be reminded of his earthly experience here on Patmos. John could have been standing there, living there, feeling sorry for himself and saying, ‘Lord, what have I done but preached your word? Here I have been banished to a God-forsaken island.’ It’s here on this God-forsaken island that John writes Revelation. 8"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." John was not alone was he? Who was with him? Who was going to speak to him? None other than the Beginning and the End, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty!
Remember then John turns around to see that voice, to see the seven golden lampstands. 13And among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man," dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. A sash, way up high, was a sign of nobility—here was the King of kings, the Lord of lords. 14His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. The holiness of the whiteness and the purity and the sinlessness, his eyes blazing like fire because they could look into the hearts of men. 15His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. (Again, the feet had power over His enemies and the power of His word like rushing waters.) 16In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. The double-edged sword is the word of God itself. We see here the seven stars. At the end of this chapter John calls them ‘seven messengers’ held in the right hand of God. That gave comfort to John, realizing he was a messenger held in God’s right hand, the hand of power. This was the Lord. John knew it.
17When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Again, scared stiff! Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. Remember last week, the angel said, ‘Do not be afraid.’ Remember last week, Jesus said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid’. Remember now Jesus has ascended into heaven at God’s right hand and now He appears to John and says, ‘Do not be afraid.’ Here we have the unholiness of John, in the face of pure holiness, Jesus. He was afraid. He trembled at the sight of the Lord. You and I would do the same. Jesus says, ‘Do not be afraid.’
I am the First and the Last. 18I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! Pity those who feel the Lord did not come back to life. Pity those who want to deny His resurrection. Listen to these words again. 18I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Jesus has the power over life and death, which is the beginning of all good. He is the Alpha and Omega.
When this world comes to an end, we will see the Omega, the End. At the end of our earthly life we will see Jesus in the end. How did this world begin? It began with the Alpha, with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, making everything out of nothing. They said, ‘Let there be’ and there was! The gospel of John tells us, "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men"(JOHN 1:3,4). God created light out of darkness. He created something out of nothing.
God created life, which includes you and I. He gives us light with the knowledge of salvation. What does that mean? It means He does not change because He cannot. God is always our constant in a changing world. It means, that though you and I sit in darkness and there’s evil all around the world and us is very dark with sin, which we are saved from that darkness. From COLOSSIANS 1:13,14 we read, "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins". Jesus has done it all by forgiveness.
Now our response if we stood before the Lord, we would fall down before the Lord trembling too, but our response because the Lord is with us, is to live a life of thanksgiving, not in darkness but in light. From EPHESIANS 5:8-10 we read these words, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.” Goodness, righteousness and truth are the beginning of all good. At the beginning of the world God creates everything. For believers the Holy Spirit brings faith into our heart. By faith we believe and understand how Jesus gives us forgiveness and we are saved.
Thank you, Jesus, thank you!! Our risen Savior is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and end. That is the certainty of our salvation. That is the joy of our Easter and the days after Easter and the days of our life.
Christ the Lord is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and end. His promise to us does not change because the Lord cannot change. "’Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the LORD, who has compassion on you"(ISAIAH 54:10). Our risen Savior is our Alpha and Omega, the end of everything evil, the beginning of all good…the end of mortality and earthliness and the beginning of immortality and eternity. Amen.
Pastor Timm O. Meyer
