DID YOU HEAR?

As you know, you have three sets of ears. But what you may not have heard is that not everybody knows how to use them. You don't have to be deaf to not hear - you just have to not listen. Even though many people have ears on the sides of their heads that are in reasonable condition, they may not use them particularly well. This is called selective hearing. But selective hearing not only effects the outermost ears, it can effect a person's inner ears as well. 

¶ Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded
Proverbs 1:20-21, 24

Our second set of ears are not really "ears" because they involve our eyes as much as our ears. Hearing what someone is really saying requires seeing, looking, noticing, asking, and remembering. 

¶ Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
James 1:19

Even though we all have these second ears, it takes practice and training to learn how to use them. It seems that women are more adept at this form of listening. But when a man is introduced to his second ears it opens up a whole new way of seeing the world to him. It helps him to understand what his wife has really been saying to him. This is one of the most components in pre-marriage counselling when a couple is introduced to the five levels of communication (which start with clichés, then secondly facts, and so on). When we get to Level 3 communication, we introduce a new set of listening skills to the couple. This is a three stage process of listening. Stage 1 is "Active Listening". Stage 2 is "Reactive Listening". And Stage 3 is "Responsive Listening". Each stage is sequential. That is, you cannot do Stage 3 listening unless you've done Stages 1 and 2. This is one of the most difficult phases of the pre-marriage preparation for a couple. It requires learning to hear what they previously thought was criticism as heart. Reactive listening involves posture, mood, engagement, and openness. Have you ever tried to tell someone something they just wouldn't hear? Do people find it difficult to be frank and open with you? If you learn to be a positively reactive listener (give verbal cues that you're listening, smile with your eyes as they talk to you, don't interrupt them, don't be defensive, thank them for the courage and willingness to share with you) you may well find that more people want to talk with you.

And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Mark 7:35

HEAR HEAR

What stops us from hearing with our first two sets of ears? Even though your physical ears work adequately, you can zone out and not hear what someone is saying to you (this is a common complaint that wives have with their husbands). We might have a lot on our minds. We may be stressed. We may be disinterested. Even though someone is talking clearly and directly to us, we may not be hearing them. Listening with your first set of ears requires concentration and this requires practice. 

Even though we hear the words and sentences of the one talking to us, we can still mis-hear or even not hear what is really being said. This requires what we call in pre-marriage counseling, Level 3 hearing. This is where you begin to listen to other person's heart. In the West we automatically correlate heart with emotions. But in the Ancient World, the heart was where the mind resided. Often times someone is sharing their heart when they sound opinionated. It's easy to hear arrogance and miss that they are telling you they trust you enough to share their opinion with you.

But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?
Matthew 9:4

Hearing someone's heart does not come naturally. It might be possible to develop it without some training, but like anything learned the hard way, it would have to be learned the hard way. You could start by asking the one talking to you things like, "Help me to understand what you're really saying." "Are you saying...?" By restating to someone what you heard them say you are learning how to hear with your first two sets of ears. It's with your second set of ears that you hear and take note of what someone isn't telling you. These ears are used to hear hesitation. These ears are used to detect sadness, loneliness, excitement, fear, or care. But we all have a third set of ears.

HEAR HEAR HEAR

If our first two sets of ears require training and practise, our third set probably does as well. These are our spiritualears. We all have them - not just 'religious' people. I'm a professional communicator. I spend my life communicating with people. Despite it being my profession and despite how hard I work at it, I am still not heard by some. Even though I am speaking clearly and even though there is nothing obstructing the sound of my voice from being heard, and though my language and vocabulary are quite understandable, people still misunderstand me at times and therefore do not truly me. Successful communication involves two dynamics: what is communicated and what is communicated. To put it another way- what is intended to be communicated, and what is actually communicated. 

It is one of the most profound truths a person can experience. God speaks. You don't need to take a seminar on hearing from God because when God speaks to you the way we see Him often speaking to someone in the Bible, He was clearly heard by those He intended to communicate with. This was almost always at moments of 'Redemptive History' (those moments involving people and actions which played an indispensable role in God saving the world through Christ). Most of the fellowship that people enjoyed with God was generally far less dramatic and usually subtle. I suspect that most of the fellowship between people and God during Bible times is not described in the Scriptures. 

And you said, 'Behold, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live. 
Deuteronomy 5:24

We have recently been reminded that Daniel and all the wise men of Babylon faced imminent death - unless one of them could tell Nebuchadnezzar his dream and its interpretation. When Daniel heard of this dire situation he asked his three friends to pray for him. He then went into deep prayer, seeking God for revelation. (God normally 'speaks' by revealing insights, or illuminating His Word, see 1Cor. 14:26, 30; 2Cor. 12:1.) 

"Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."
John 8:47

People who say that when God speaks there is always absolute clarity and certainty about what God has said, also say that there is nothing a person can do to be more aware of what God  is saying. But there too many injunctions in the Scriptures to seek the Lord for this to always be the case.

But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 4:29 

¶ I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.Psalm 34:4 

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hebrews 11:6

It is with our third set of ears that we hear God. For most of us, our biggest challenge will be learning how to use our first two pairs of ears. (It's uncanny how many people improve their spiritual ears after they've learned to use their first two pairs of ears). In the meantime, if you want to develop your spiritual ears, learn what the voice of God sounds like. Reading the Bible, attending worshipfully to the public preaching of God's Word, and regularly fellowshiping with fellow believers in an intentional small group, all help our spiritual ears to discern the voice of God with our spiritual ears. Do you hear me?

If anyone has an ear, let him hear:
Revelation 13:9

Ps. Andrew

THUS SAYS THE LORD

What is God saying to His Church today? Even this question is controversial. For the ultra conservatives, God does not speak because He has spoken through His Word. For the ultra-charismatic, God is continually speaking it's just that people can't hear Him unless they learn how to listen. Balance is not the goal here - truth is. What is God saying to His Church today? Not what do you reckon - but what is He saying?

But God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it.
Job 33:14

WHAT GOD IS SAYING

The New Testament extols the gift of prophecy (Rom. 12:6; 1Cor. 12:10; 14:6; 1Tim 4:14). It is listed as a gift of the Spirit which should not be despised.

Do not despise prophecies
First Thessalonians 5:20

Utra-Conservative Christians may attempt to make this verse mean "Biblical" prophecies. But Paul's comments to Timothy about the prophecies made over him with the laying on of hands rule out such a narrow interpretation of Paul's use of the term.

¶ This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare...Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.
First Timothy 1:18; 4:14

Many Conservatives argue that when God speaks it is undeniable and unmistakeable. This sounds reasonable. After all, if the Sovereign God determines to speak surely He will be sovereignly be heard? Many Charismatics, however, argue that God is speaking almost continually and most people don't listen therefore God's voice is not heard. Both camps can find Scriptures to support their views. It seems that the Conservatives have a point that God is not always speaking. There are times when God is "silent". The Psalmistfelt God's silence.

¶ To you, O LORD, I call;
my rock, be not deaf to me,
lest, if you be silent to me,
I become like those who go down to the pit.
Psalm 28:1

If you have struggled to hear God, the Conservative knows why. There are times when He is silent, they tell us. But the Charismatics challenge us not to become spiritually complacent. God may not be speaking all the time, but He is probably speaking to us more than we realise. Not everyone recognises God speaking to them.

"Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven: "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him."  Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not mine.
John 12:28-30

God speaks again and again though people don't recognise it, we read in Job 33:14. What is God saying today? The Conservative is right when he says God is adding nothing to His written Word. That is, God is saying nothing today that He hasn't already said in His Word. But the Conservative is forgetting the Scripture's injunction to "earnestly seek to prophesy" (1Cor. 14:1) and to "not despise prophecy" (1Thess. 5:20). Despite their claims that God only ever spoke supernaturally through such human means as prophecy until the Canon of the New Testament was completed, history and human experience does not support their claims. The record of Church History is peppered with examples of God's people who heard God and declared not just Canonised Word but also His prophetic word.

The Conservative and the Charismatic should meet for coffee. It's not middle ground we're after. Rather, we want to discard false assumptions whether they be Conservative or Charismatic and conclude coffee by coming away with the truth that they both see. I think this might look coming away from that coffee break with a greater appreciation for the unique authority of God's written Word as the highest authority for faith and conduct. But I think we would also come away with an unclogged spiritual ear where we become open to hear the "whisper" of God.

Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his power who can understand?"
Job 26:14

What is God saying to His Church today? As I listen for the voice of God in its manifold and various manifestations I hear God saying, "Brace yourself!" "Stand firm!" My mind races when I hear the Spirit speak this. I wonder if the Spirit is calling us to remain faithful to the Gospel once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3) because we are now facing cultural, commercial, and statutory pressure to abandon it? I wonder if its a call to stop a decline in love for the Lord - a call to return to a passionate "first love" commitment of absolute obedience to Christ?

We should be a people who are familiar with the voice of God by becoming familiar with the written Word of God where we hear His voice to us. But we should have ears that hear what the Spirit is saying to us. This Sunday as we gather could you offer yourself to the Spirit of God to be used as an instrument of His voice? When you pray about your contribution to our assembly this Sunday, could you please begin praying that God will give you ears to hear? If you have not been freshly filled with the Holy Spirit, can you seek God for a fresh filling so that the Spirit's audible gifts might be evident in your life? By doing this we have a better chance of answering the question, What is God saying to the church today?

'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'
Rev. 2:29

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 25

Day 25

Revelation 18:1-24

“Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!”
Revelation 18:20

The age old question, “Where is God when it hurts?” is answered here. In the midst of all the evil and suffering that these first century believers were assaulted with, their inevitable sense of divine abandonment must have been palpable. We are no less subject to this as well. Things go bad for us. When assumed that since we had given our lives to God that He would - He must - assure that things go well for us! But then life happens. We are subject to such futile things as opposition, strained relationships, sickness, loss, tragedy (Romans 8:20). But God never lets such futility go too far or for too long. Such things are designed to prepare His children for their glorious eternal destinies and through their persevering faith in God in the midst of these trials they are to reveal to the world the glory of God. 

The rejoicing charged here is not over the demise of their persecutors but over their vindication for declaring with their lives and testimonies that Jesus Christ was Lord. The instrument of demons had paraded as the holy instrument of God and saw their war against Christ’s apostles and prophets as doing God’s will, but God Himself would have the last word!

Let God have the last word in your life. Remember, many of the first century apostles and prophets laid down their lives in their attempts to reach out to the persecutors. They were honoring their Lord’s injunction to do so. So should we today. If we took this more seriously, we might find that increasingly our message about culturally sensitive matters may well be increasingly vindicated as well.

Andrew Corbett

www.andrewcorbett.net/e-books

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 17

Day 17

Revelation 11:1-14

[Rev. 11:1] ¶ Then a measuring rod like a staff was given to me, and I was told, “Get up and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and the ones who worship there. [Rev. 11:2] But do not measure the outer courtyard of the temple; leave it out, because it has been given to the Gentiles, and they will trample on the holy city for forty-two months. [Rev. 11:3] And I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth. [Rev. 11:4] (These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.) [Rev. 11:5] If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and completely consumes their enemies. If anyone wants to harm them, they must be killed this way. [Rev. 11:6] These two have the power to close up the sky so that it does not rain during the time they are prophesying. They have power to turn the waters to blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague whenever they want. [Rev. 11:7] When they have completed their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war on them and conquer them and kill them. [Rev. 11:8] Their corpses will lie in the street of the great city that is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was also crucified. [Rev. 11:9] For three and a half days those from every people, tribe, nation, and language will look at their corpses, because they will not permit them to be placed in a tomb. [Rev. 11:10] And those who live on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate, even sending gifts to each other, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. [Rev. 11:11] But after three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and tremendous fear seized those who were watching them. [Rev. 11:12] Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: “Come up here!” So the two prophets went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies stared at them. [Rev. 11:13] Just then a major earthquake took place and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. [Rev. 11:14] ¶ The second woe has come and gone; the third is coming quickly.

The world rejoices at all the wrong things and despises the things that are worthy of rejoicing. The Lord reigns, the Psalmist declared (Ps. 97:1) so the earth should rejoice. But it’s precisely because the Lord reigns that the wicked don’t rejoice! Instead, they rejoice in doing what God has forbidden (Prov. 2:14). 

Believers are told to rejoice with those rejoice (Rom.12:15) but all too often we find it difficult to rejoice for those who are doing better than us. Rejoicing with and for others takes humility and humility is one of the crowning virtues of a mature believer. This is perhaps why the New Testament stresses rejoicing as a Christian discipline to be developed. “Rejoice! Again I say, rejoice!” wrote Paul to the Philippians (Phil. 4:4).

The world rejoices when it seems like the Church has failed. But we shouldn’t. When a brother in Christ publicly fails it should cause us heart-ache, not to rejoice. 

What are you rejoicing about at this point in your life and walk with Christ? Do you rejoice that the Lord reigns? Do you rejoice when a brother in Christ whom you don’t like, fails? Knowing what to rejoice over and what not to rejoice over may well be one the clearest indications to others of what is truly in your heart when they see you rejoicing based on what you know to be right and good.

Andrew Corbett

www.andrewcorbett.net

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 13

Day 13

Revelation 7:9-17

[Rev. 7:9] ¶ After these things I looked, and here was an enormous crowd that no one could count, made up of persons from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb dressed in long white robes, and with palm branches in their hands.  [Rev. 7:10] They were shouting out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”  [Rev. 7:11] ¶ And all the angels stood there in a circle around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground before the throne and worshiped God,  [Rev. 7:12] saying, “Amen! Praise and glory, and wisdom and thanksgiving, and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”  [Rev. 7:13] ¶ Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes—who are they and where have they come from?” [Rev. 7:14] So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! [Rev. 7:15] For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them.  [Rev. 7:16] They will never go hungry or be thirsty again, and the sun will not beat down on them, nor any burning heat,  [Rev. 7:17] because the Lamb in the middle of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Far from the feared demise of the Church, a grand vision of Christ’s triumph bursts onto the visionary stage. Not only would the Church survive, it would succeed! In the end, no-one will be able to number those who have joined it. Birthed (as what some have dismissed as) a sect of Judaism, the truth now gloriously unfurls that it is not a deviation from the spiritual lineage of  God’s  people - it is the continuation of it! 

Even today it may look like the Church will soon falter and wither, but John sees that it shall instead be comprised of people from every nation, tribe and language! It is no mere institution these spiritual refugees have joined - it is to Christ! He had become their food to quell their hunger. He had become their drink to quench their thirst. He had become their shelter to cover, protect, and secure them. And ultimately He would wipe away every tear from their eyes! But more than this is depicted here in a little expression too easily missed. They will be enjoying the full sanctuary of Christ while holding "palm branches". It was ancient Israel's greatest victory against all natural odds that saw the walls of Jericho (the "city of palm trees") come crashing down as the Hebrews marched around them waving "palm branches". Forever after this, palm branches became the symbol of divinely-aided victory to God's people. The were boldly embossed on the Temple walls to remind Israel that with God's help victory was theirs. John reports that in the end, faithful followers of Christ will be holding palm branches!

Today, we should continue to serve Christ (especially in Missions activities) with both passion and a Biblically informed confidence. William Carey was someone who did just this. His counsel to us is- “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God!”

Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 10

Day 10

Revelation 3:14-22

[Rev. 3:14] ¶ “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write the following: ¶ “This is the solemn pronouncement of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation: [Rev. 3:15] ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! [Rev. 3:16] So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth! [Rev. 3:17] Because you say, “I am rich and have acquired great wealth, and need nothing,” but do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, [Rev. 3:18] take my advice and buy gold from me refined by fire so you can become rich! Buy from me white clothing so you can be clothed and your shameful nakedness will not be exposed, and buy eye salve to put on your eyes so you can see! [Rev. 3:19] All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent! [Rev. 3:20] Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me. [Rev. 3:21] I will grant the one who conquers permission to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. [Rev. 3:22] The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

The Laodicean church had become like its famous lukewarm water. They weren’t totally against Christ - but neither were they totally for Christ. Yet interestingly, they still had works for Christ to speak of. Sometimes those who are busy for Christ are the ones most susceptible to forgetting about Christ!

What was the cause of the Laodicean’s spiritual indifference? Alarmingly to us Westerners, it was their prosperity! They had need of nothing. They had gold, fine clothes, and good health. But they were spiritually bankrupt, naked, and blinded. Christ summoned them to repent from their life of ease and receive His discipline. The other churches had to overcome adversity in order to fully follow Christ. But the Laodiceans were the most pitiable because they had to overcome their apathy induced by comfort, prosperity, and good health. While they may have thought of themselves as blessed by God, Christ’s shocking words to them revealed that they were the ones most missing out! It wasn’t their gold that made them “rich” - it was Christ’s “gold refined by fire” that could make them truly rich. Of all the messages that Christ gave to any of these Turkish churches, surely this one is the most unwelcomed by today’s Western Church. We have generally committed the same error as these dear Laodiceans. We have confused devotion to Christ with deeds done for Christ. We have confused material provision with the material of God’s riches. We have duped ourselves into thinking that “good” health means we are spiritually fit. And despite our natural obesity we are actually famished.

Against this plight, Christ offers us a real meal if we would but respond to His knocking at our doors and open ourselves up more fully to Him (vs 20).

Andrew Corbett

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 7

Day 7

Revelation 2:18-29

 [Rev. 2:18] ¶ “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write the following: ¶ “This is the solemn pronouncement of the Son of God, the one who has eyes like a fiery flame and whose feet are like polished bronze: [Rev. 2:19] ‘I know your deeds: your love, faith, service, and steadfast endurance. In fact, your more recent deeds are greater than your earlier ones. [Rev. 2:20] But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and by her teaching deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. [Rev. 2:21] I have given her time to repent, but she is not willing to repent of her sexual immorality. [Rev. 2:22] Look! I am throwing her onto a bed of violent illness, and those who commit adultery with her into terrible suffering, unless they repent of her deeds. [Rev. 2:23] Furthermore, I will strike her followers with a deadly disease, and then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts. I will repay each one of you what your deeds deserve. [Rev. 2:24] But to the rest of you in Thyatira, all who do not hold to this teaching (who have not learned the so-called “deep secrets of Satan”), to you I say: I do not put any additional burden on you. [Rev. 2:25] However, hold on to what you have until I come. [Rev. 2:26] And to the one who conquers and who continues in my deeds until the end, I will give him authority over the nations– [Rev. 2:27] he will rule them with an iron rod and like clay jars he will break them to pieces, [Rev. 2:28] ¶ just as I have received the right to rule from my Father—and I will give him the morning star. [Rev. 2:29] The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

It’s not the usual picture of “Jesus meek and mild” that we now find speaking to the Thyatirans. This Jesus has eyes of fire. This Jesus may surprise you. The following introductions with this mostly unfamiliar Jesus may be awkward because we live in an age where culture celebrates their sexual ‘freedoms’ and objects to anyone who dares call them “immoral”. But this is what Jesus did in addressing this church. 

Here we find Jesus warning. Most warnings announce dire consequences. And these divine warnings are no different. But what might stun most modern readers is the nature of what has enraged Christ. For the most part, Materialism has conquered Western culture. Materialism says that we are just molecules and atoms - “We’re meat from the top down!” they assert. But Jesus says otherwise. Materialists regard sexual activity only as a physical activity. But Jesus says otherwise. Of course you don’t have to be a Materialist to be immoral. Some of these Thyatirans had somehow managed to merge their Christianity with sexual promiscuity - and now Christ was warning them. 

To be a follow of Christ today is no less challenging than it was for those of Thyatira. We too have much to conquer. But we too are offered the prize of receiving the Morning Star (an allusion to the glory awaiting the faithful in the Resurrection). We would do well not to trifle with Christ’s warnings to be holy and especially when it comes to morality.

Andrew Corbett

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 3

Day 3

Revelation 1:9-20

[Rev. 1:9] ¶ I, John, your brother and the one who shares with you in the persecution, kingdom, and endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus. [Rev. 1:10] I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day when I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, [Rev. 1:11] saying: “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches—to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.” [Rev. 1:12] ¶ I turned to see whose voice was speaking to me, and when I did so, I saw seven golden lampstands, [Rev. 1:13] and in the midst of the lampstands was one like a son of man. He was dressed in a robe extending down to his feet and he wore a wide golden belt around his chest. [Rev. 1:14] His head and hair were as white as wool, even as white as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. [Rev. 1:15] His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.  [Rev. 1:16] He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword extended out of his mouth. His face shone like the sun shining at full strength. [Rev. 1:17] When I saw him I fell down at his feet as though I were dead, but he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid! I am the first and the last, [Rev. 1:18] and the one who lives! I was dead, but look, now I am alive—forever and ever—and I hold the keys of death and of Hades! [Rev. 1:19] Therefore write what you saw, what is, and what will be after these things. [Rev. 1:20] The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

The Apostle was having to endure tribulation on account of the Word of the Lord. Sometimes believing what God’s Word says attracts the ridicule of our society. It’s far easier to believe and be a witness within the four walls of a church building on a Sunday than it is to believe God’s Word in the marketplace and bear witness to the testimony of Jesus through the week. John experienced exile to Patmos for a time.. We too might experience social exile if we dare to stand up for the Word of God. 

John was to write to the 7 churches of Turkey. While it is true that there is one Universal Church to which all who are Christ's are connected, it is equally true that an authorised local congregation of believers is a “church” and should not be regarded as of lesser significance than the Universal Church to which it belongs and represents.

It was on “the Lord’s Day” that John was “in the Spirit”. The early Church referred to the first day of week, which Christ rose from the dead, as “the Lord’s Day”. Thus, one of the greatest proofs of the physical resurrection of Christ has now been invested into Sunday- that an entire community of converted Jews who valued Saturday as the Sabbath would immediately transfer its significance to Sunday despite their rich cultural attachment to Saturday! It was on this newly significant day that John was as we should be: in the Spirit.

It was with John’s focus on the local church, on Sunday, in the Spirit, that he received the grandest vision the Bible gives us of Christ. The All-Conquering Christ not only rules the world, He guards and guides His Church- He is in the midst of the lampstands. What we will read later is that some groups claim to be a church, when in fact Christ has long since removed their lampstand.

 Andrew Corbett

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 2

Day 2

Revelation 1:4-8

At a time when Christians were experiencing anything but grace and peace, the former Patmos apostle reminds his beloved Turkish churches that could enjoy both. And on the chessboard of Empire politics where these beleaguered Christ-followers felt like pawns in an un-winnable game, this Son of Thunder casually pulls out the only possible check-mate: Jesus Christ is King of Kings. It may look like Caesar is Lord, but let me show you what you may not be seeing...

This revelation through John reminds his intended audience that the opposition they faced from Jerusalem (and soon, Rome) would soon be dealt with. To the Romans who ruled the world John now presents Christ as the Ruler. To the Jews who stewarded the Covenant and the Priesthood, Jesus is presented as establishing a New Covenant and new Priesthood and a new Kingdom

If you belong to Christ you are not a second-class citizen but a New Covenant Priest. If you are under the domination of a foreign power, you are not powerless, rather you are kept by the One whose dominion will last forever.

Rome boasted about it’s glory. But Rome’s glory faded within a few centuries. Christ’s glory will have no end! The Jews boasted that they worshiped under an open heaven yet they had rejected the One whom Heaven opened up to send to them. Now, John reports, all the tribes of the Land will see the One they pierced coming in clouds of judgment (note how the Old Testament uses this expression in Isaiah 19:1).

If you read Revelation looking for predictions of the events of our times you will miss the beauty, the majesty, and the glory of the One it revealed to a Church on the brink of extinction and how it must have given them hope to hold on. Read it how they read it and you too will be filled with a similar hope.

Andrew Corbett

Revelation Daily Devotional - Day 1

Day 1

Revelation 1:1-3

How often we miss the obvious! Children can't find their school shoes. Husbands can’t see where the milk is in the refrigerator. Granddads can’t find their missing spectacles. And many readers of The Revelation fail to find the first five words of this Book. 

From the Second Century on, the first five words became like the school-shoes in the wardrobe or the milk on the top shelf, or the spectacles on the head. Somehow, they were lost even though they were there all along,

The revelation of...not “the end”, not “the destruction of the world” but: Jesus The Christ. These first five words are among the most important words in these 404 verses of The Book of Revelation.

He sent His angel to John to speak to the churches. Why didn’t Christ merely appear directly to each of the churches and give His message for them directly to them? As E.M. Bounds has noted: “God’s methods are men.” Perhaps to keep us humble, God’s ordinary means of speaking to His people is through His chain of authority. Christ > Angel > John > Church. How much we may miss of God’s Word to us because we reject His appointed authority over us and especially His pattern of using others to speak to us?

Yet for those who do receive God's Word - there is a promised blessing - especially for those who read it out loud!

Father,  as we embark on this 30 day journey together through Your Revelation to us, help us to see from Your Scriptures who Jesus really is. May Your Word be opened up to us by Your Spirit so that we grow in our awe of the risen victorious Lord of Glory. And as we gaze into Your Written Word may Jesus, Your Living Word work a transformation in the deepest recesses of our souls. Amen.

Andrew Corbett