This is the second book

Perfection in Christ Jesus

Often I think of the portrait of our Lord Jesus as in the first chapter of The Revelation, to enjoy something of the vision the Apostle John had of The Master, the one while on the Isle of Patmos, so let us proceed

With some folk the book of Revelation is known as The Revelation of St John the Divine', this is not correct, as in the first verse we are told it is The Revelation of Jesus Christ'. I do fully understand that the title Jesus Christ is Biblical but I personally do not like its connations. Some unbelievers use our Lord's name to give colour' to their speech so they think, they take His name in vain, therefore we will give The One who has redeemed us, His full title our Lord Jesus Christ' and this name speaks His Deity, as much as we humans can understand it

Now let us unpack this title, the word Lord' is drawn from the Anglo Saxon's, it means ruler and governor, in usi�ng the name Lord, this meaning is being implied, yes as we fully believe in our God through our dear Lord Jesus, He indeed is, or should be our Lord, the ruler and governor of our lives. We are told in Scripture, in Acts that, In Him we live, move and have our being', so everything in our lives should be relative to The Master and we know from Colossians that, In all things our dear Lord should have the pre-eminence' - has He? Frances Ridley Havergal wrote:

Take my life and let it be,

Consecrated Lord to Thee.

Take my moments and my days,

Let them flow in ceaseless praise

Take my love, my Lord I pour

At Thy feet its treasured store:

Take myself, and I will be,

Ever, only, all for Thee

With the word Lord' we must reach back to the Old Testament to understand it more fully, it has often been used in translating from the Hebrew word YAHWEH'. The meaning of this title is not clearly understood, but the scribes of old had such reverence for their God tha(c)t when it came to writing the name Yahweh, they would put down the stylus that was being used and pick up a special one only for writing this word, indeed such was their veneration for our Lord, that some of the Jews would not even pronounce this name, even going to a point when they forgot how to say it

Then comes the name Jesus', this speaks of Him in His humanity. Jesus was the name the angel informed Joseph, that the babe Mary carried was to be called. This name in itself, pointed to Calvary because, with Jesus being the Son of Man, He went through His work for us on The Cross, Cecil Frances Alexander wrote:

There was a green hill far away

Outside a city wall,

Where our dear Lord was crucified,

Who dies to save us all

We may not know, we cannot tell

What pains He had to bear;

But we believe it was for us

He died and suffered there

Now the name Christ' means the anointed, prepared and equipped One,� Our Lord Jesus was anointed by our God before the foundations of the world were laid, He was prepared to come into time, fully equipped in His body, mind and spirit to do the work for His Father, to bear the penalty of my, of our sins on The Cross

So The One, who the book of the Revelation is all about, The Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, He was and is the ONLY begotten Son of the Father and although our God is the Lord God Almighty yet we can address Him as our Father, indeed that is the way in which our dear Lord Jesus has taught us to call Him. As our Loving Heavenly Father' He knows all about us in every way, He cares for us but that does not go far enough, He loved us so much that He gave His ONLY Son, His only BEGOTTEN Son, that we might be redeemed - what a Father God we have!

Abba Father, we approach Thee

In our Saviour's precious name,

We, Thy children, here assembled,

Access to thy presence 'claim.

Soon, before Thy throne assembled,

All Thy children shall proclaim,

Glory, everlasting glory,

Be to God and to The Lamb

The Revelation, as we have it in Scripture, was written by the Apostle John while on the Isle of Patmos, being there because he proclaimed God's truth that is in Jesus, as he ministered to the fellowships in Asia. The authorities took John at the age of just over ninety, from his friends and family and placed him at Patmos. This island was not for pleasure but a slave labour camp. John did not have many comforts, his food was not very good and he was an old man, now if we had been in those sort of circumstances we would have complained about the lot and because we are British we would have moaned about the weather, but not John. Just for a moment look at what he bore record of, it was to The Word of God and the testimony of Christ Jesus', he spoke of nothing else, what 'a lovely man he must have been, having a deep understanding of our Lord, no he went beyond that, Jesus loved John and he reciprocated. So John was on Patmos for The Word of God and the testimony of Christ Jesus', there in the circumstances which he found himself in, for that purpose. Now let us apply this teaching to ourselves, as you we consider our lives. Where we are at this moment, wherever that might be and in the position we currently find ourselves in, we are there for the same reason, for The Word of God and the testimony of Christ Jesus', verily, verily, I say unto you, you and I are where we are now, in the Patmos' that our dear Lord has placed us in for THE WORD OF GOD AND THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST JESUS'

We will now consider the actual vision John had of our Lord Jesus, in this we see His attributes of Deity, we can grasp something of the glory of our Lord Jesus, we will consider f some of the distinctive marks of His glorious character, it all goes beyond perfection if that is possible. With the nine points that we are to consider we must understand them from the thinking of an Eastern person. Regarding these nine matters I am going to prefix them all with the word PERFECT

We are first of all told that, He had a garment down to His feet', this was a kingly gown, it covered His whole body and He had round His breast a golden sash, now this to the Eastern mind would spoken of His PERFECT AUTHORITY. It was the gown of The King and I like to think it was blue, you could also tell the standing of a king in society by the quality of the material the sash was made of, our Lord Jesus had a golden sash, what higher value could you get than that? He is indeed the King of kings and Lord of all and we worship Him. With His authority, we k�now from the words of the commission in Matthew's Gospel, there it is recorded that He gave authority and power in heaven and earth, He commanded His eleven lads that the gospel was to be preached, that believers were to be baptised in the great name, the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and this work was to continue through the dispensation we are living in at this moment in time. It all was began' by our blessed Lord Jesus as taught in The Acts and He has honoured us to continue with the work during this time. This period is The Dispensation of The Grace of our Lord Jesus' as the church of God, the church militant, moves forward like a mighty army, proclaiming the gospel of our Lord Jesus and will continue to do so until the consummation of the ages

Now consider the authority of our Lord Jesus as seen in Luke's Gospel with the son of the widow from Nain, he was dead, this lady had lost her husband, now the other bread winner had gone, what a s

tate she must have been in. There was the funeral procession, this was stopped by Jesus, He only spoke the word arise' and the lad got up and was back to normal - what authority and power Jesus had! You will also note the words that were spoken about our Lord Jesus in Matthew's Gospel, we are told, That He spoke as One with authority and not as the scribes', yes He had on Himself, in the vision we are considering, a garment down to His feet with a golden sash and this spoke of His PERFECT AUTHORITY. I also like to think that in the vision John had of our Lord, He had in His hand a sceptre, that which He holds as He is King of kings and Lord of all, I quote Scripture where it says in Genesis, The sceptre shall not depart out of Judah, nor the law giver from betw�een His feet, until the Shiloh come and unto Him shall the gathering of the peoples be', the Shiloh in this quote was our Lord Jesus Christ. The kingly sceptre passed from generation to generation UNTIL the Shiloh came, no longer was it necessary for it to be passed down as Jesus was the King of kings and Lord of all. Our Lord should also be King of our lives, the words of the hymn by Wendy Churchill are:

Jesus is King, and I will extol Him,

Give Him the glory, and honour His name,

He reigns on high, enthroned in the heavens,

Word of The Father, exalted for us

In the vision we are told that the sash was around His breast, being in this position it spoke of His PERFECT LOVE, our God SO loved the world that He gave His ONLY begotten Son and His was perfect love, not desiring anything for Himself but that we might be cleansed of our sins by His precious blood, His life giving. Also that we might have peace with our Father �God and in our Lord Jesus our eternal destiny is sealed. For all this, He loved us so much that He gave of Himself, even to the death of The Cross and He, the Lord of life and glory, went through The Cross to the wonder and glory of the resurrection on the third day - what a Lord we have!

In the vision John had of our Lord Jesus we are told that, His hair was as white as wool, as white as snow', this spoke of His PERFECT HOLINESS. The vision Isaiah had in the temple as Isaiah records it, when the angelic beings cried holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts', what effect did it have on Isaiah, he recognised his uncleanness. We look at the record in Hebrews, words spoken about our dear Lord Jesus, we know that, We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmity, but was in all points tested as we are, yet without sin', our dear Lord Jesus is the one without sin, the impeccable Christ, the holy One, yes indeed His ha�ir was as white as wool, that was not enough, it was as white as snow, indicating His PERFECT HOLINESS

The next point in the Revelation we observe is that, His eyes were as a flame of fire', what would this mean to the Eastern mind? This spoke of His PERFECT KNOWLEDGE. Because of who He was and is, He knows everything, He can see right into our minds, He knows what you and I are thinking at this precise moment, if not, He is not God the Son. With the woman at the well in John's Gospel, our Lord asked this lady to call her husband, she told Jesus that she did not have one, but our Lord Jesus knew all about her. Jesus told her that what she said was true, but He knew that she already had five, indeed the one she currently was living with was not her real husband, yes our Lord had eyes as a flame of fire, He knew all about her. Then we have just a few words about our Lord as in John's Gospel where it says that He knew what was in 'man', yes our Lord knows all about every circumstance of our lives, all its ups and downs and He is with us, helping us through, as we follow in The Master's foot steps, He has PERFECT KNOWLEDGE

In the vision we now see that, He had feet as fine brass, as if' they burned in a furnace' denoting His PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS. Metal was put into the furnace to burn all the dross metal away, our Lord Jesus had no dross metal' in His life, He was the perfect One, the One without sin, the impeccable Christ, so His feet were as if' they had been burned in a furnace, He had no dross metal' at all to burn away. Our Lord Jesus always lived a righteous life, continually doing that which was correct, when asked about taxes He told His disciples to catch a fish, in it would be found a coin with which to rightly pay the authorities, yes He always did that which was in order

We now have the words that His voice was as the sound of many waters' speaking of His PERFECT POWER.� When thinking of this, my mind always goes back to the tragedy in Lynton & Lynmouth many years ago, when all the flood waters went rushing down to the sea, the waters powerfully moved forward, buildings, bridges and cars were swept into the sea. What power there was - our Lord's voice was as the sound of many waters. When the man came to Jesus about his son who was an epileptic, our Lord only spoke the word, that is all He did, there was power within the word to accomplish that for which it was sent, the lad was made well again.. In the incident in Mark's Gospel about the storm at sea, our Lord was resting in the boat, there was a great storm, the disciples cried out to Him, Carest Thou not that we perish', our Lord Jesus rose, just spoke the word, what power there was, did not the disciples say after this incident, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the waves obey Him?'. Yes He had PERFECT POWER

We are now told in the text that, H
�e had seven stars in His right Hand', now to the Eastern mind to have something in ones right hand would mean it was in PERFECT CONTROL. Let us clearly understand that everything, yes everything is in the perfect control of our great God, Calvary was not outside His plan. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told that the death of our Lord Jesus was in, The determinate counsel and fore knowledge of God', our loving heavenly Father was not at panic stations at The Cross, it was all in God's controal and through it He redeemed us to Himself, He has everything in His hands, in His PERFECT CONTROL. I remember many years ago hearing a choir made up of folk from Korea, they sung so well those lovely words, He has the whole world in His hands, He has got you and me in His hands'. Yes in those hands, the hands that flung stars into space, the hands and arms that were wrapped in swaddling clothes as He lay in The Manger, the hands that were placed on the head of that young child, maybe Peter's son, as He said, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, for of such is The Kingdom of Heaven', thoseu hands in which our lives are held, those blessed nailed pierced hands, marks which are still in His eternal being, this in itself teaching that His salvation is for all time. Every situation in your life and mine is in The Master's right hand, in His PERFECT CONTROL

We are almost at the end of this vision and we are told that, Out of His mouth went a sharp two edged sword', this indicated His PERFECT TRUTH, our Lord Jesus always spoke the truth in love, He was not economical with it. We are told in Hebrews, That the word of God is living, powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit', yes He spoke the PERFECT TRUTH in love - what a God we have!

Finally we are told that, His countenance was as the sun shineth in all its strength', showing to the Eastern mind His PERFECT MORAL GLORY. Our Lord always di�d that which was right, with Him there was no shadow of turning. Our Lord Jesus Christ could not be less than perfect in everything that He did because of who He is

Now when John had this vision of our Lord Jesus what effect did it have on Him? In the next verse we are told, He fell down at His feet as dead', John lay prostrate. As I understand this, it means That all his natural abilities became ineffective', this is worship. Let me now clearly state and I know you will understand, John did not fall backwards and start to giggle or make animal noises, he fell down prostrate at His feet as dead, but our Lord had the situation in His perfect control, He laid His right hand, yes His right hand upon John saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last, I am He that liveth and was dead and am alive for evermore, Amen and I have the keys of death and hades'

John had a wonderful vision of our blessed Lord Jesus, he recognised his own unworthiness and worshippe�d, please understand that was his mission and should be ours, to worship, our dear Lord delights to have His people gather to Him in worship. That is why the Children of Israel were taken out of Egypt, to do sacrifice unto the Lord', when Abraham moved forward in his travels, one of his first tasks as he moved forward towards the desired haven, was to build an alter to the Lord. Our loving Heavenly Father, our Lord God Almighty desires most of all, for us to worship Him in Spirit and in truth, that is our first mission, our worship should be with joy and thanksgiving, remember Jesus went to the synagogue, As His custom was'

What a Lord we have, He is all perfection, such a Lord, perfect, risen, righteous, controlling now and coming again, so may our minds revere, hearts trust and spirits worship and this is what our Father God desires from you and me, more than anything else, the worship of our redeemed hearts, this is our mission. let us clearly understand this

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This is the second book