Honest Look at Catholicism - No.2 The Man With the Keys

Our reading from God's Word tonight is taken from the first chapter of the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 1, we're reading from verse 9. I, 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. On the Lord's day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said, write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me, and when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash round his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

In 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. When 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. I am the living one.

I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later.

The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Amen.

Jesus, you have known such suffering. You have known such tears and pain. For the cause of sinful man, you rose from death to life again.

He lives, he lives, Jesus Christ alive today. He lives, he lives, he's the truth, the life, the way. He rose from an earthly tomb, see where his body once lay.

Come rejoice with me, hallelujah, he's risen today. Jesus, now your death is over, may its memory still remain. Oh, we may forget that love that washed us clean from every stain.

He lives, he lives, Jesus Christ alive today. He lives, he lives, he's the truth, the life, the way. He rose from an earthly tomb, see where his body once lay.

Come rejoice with me, hallelujah, he's risen today. Jesus, help us live each day now, giving praise and thanks to you. Not just out of duty, but Lord, because our love is true.

He lives, he lives, Jesus Christ alive today. He lives, he lives, he's the truth, the life, the way. He rose from an earthly tomb, see where his body once lay.

Come rejoice with me, hallelujah, he's risen today. Jesus, take the lives we offer, though imperfect, let them be used by you for what you will. That others may come to know thee.

He lives, he lives, Jesus Christ alive today. He lives, he lives, he's the truth, the life, the way. He rose from an earthly tomb, see where his body once lay.

Come rejoice with me, hallelujah, he's risen today. He lives, he lives, Jesus Christ alive today. He lives, he lives, he's the truth, the life, the way.

He rose from an earthly tomb, see where his body once lay. Come rejoice with me, hallelujah, he's risen today. Revelation chapter 1, verses 17 and 18.

When 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.

I am the living one. I was dead. And behold, I am alive forever and ever.

And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Father, we offer these moments to you. And we pray that as we reach towards the end of this Easter day, that we might know again your voice by the power of your spirit speaking to our hearts.

And as scripture is unfurled, may we see no man save Jesus only. And make a right response to him and his claims upon our lives. And this we ask for his namesake.

Amen. One of the greatest experiences of my life, to which I look back with a great sense of joy, occurred some four or five months ago. I happened to be in the land of Israel.

And I had the supreme privilege of being invited to preach by what is known as the Garden Tomb, outside the walled city of Old Jerusalem. Indeed, just an hour or so ago, by telephone, I was in contact with the staff of the Garden, having heard of some of the problems that have occurred in Jerusalem during the last 24 hours, with apparently an American Jewish soldier running amok with a rifle in the holy sanctuaries of the Muslims. And I was concerned as to the safety and security of our folk out there.

And I gather, and I'm glad to say, that they are well. But my mind takes me back, not the unpleasant incident of today, but rather the privilege of being with that small team of people who try to minister the gospel of the Lord Jesus by showing people around the Garden area and explaining the significance of the resurrection. I'm told that today there were more than 3,500 people at the services held at the Garden Tomb.

But I look back also with a sense of humor, when on one occasion an American friend who I came to know out there received a telephone call from someone in Jerusalem who thought that they were going to add to the number of the evangelistic team that operates in the Garden Tomb. And the individual on the telephone said to my friend, I hear you've got a vacancy in the Garden Tomb. And he said, yes, and it's lasted for 2,000 years.

And it's the thought of the vacancy at the Garden Tomb that just fills my heart today with a sense of elation and praise as one recognizes that we serve a living Savior and we know His presence right now by the power of His Holy Spirit. And it is Jesus and a magnificent resurrection appearance in the form of the vision to which I direct your attention this evening. Blessing God for the mighty way in which He brought His Son back from the grave and praising Him for all the implications of that miraculous event.

We would know very little, I reckon, most of us about the Falkland Islands if it were not for the fact that the Argentinians have invaded that particular part of the South Americas. Neither would the majority of us know much about the insignificant island of Patmos were it not the fact that one of the most revered disciples of our Lord Jesus spent the latter part of his life there. I refer to John.

John was beloved of the Savior. The age John was incarcerated, imprisoned on the island as a result of his testimony for the Gospel of Christ. He was placed there by the Romans.

And magnificently, one day, on a Sunday, the Lord's Day, as John knew the power of the Spirit within his heart, he had an audience with Jesus Christ, the like of which there never was before and there never has been since. And in the graciousness of God, John was enabled, before he died, to write up that revelation. And we have it as the last volume in the Bible, the book that bears the name, The Revelation.

Now, what I want to do this evening is to content myself by explaining to you something of the significance, as it strikes me, of John's encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you got the scene in your mind? Here is an old man. He spent many a long year witnessing for the Savior.

He is now being punished as a result of his faithful adventures in the cause of Christianity. And standing before John, in the vision that he receives, is the Lord Jesus resplendent in all His power, in all His glory. There is poetry, there is metaphor, all mixed up by the artist John as he tries to describe, using words for his paints, something of the significance of that occasion.

And he tells us that when he saw the risen Lord Jesus, in all His power and in all His glory, John fell at His feet as though he were a dead man. And he heard Jesus speak to him in words that you have heard read twice already. Don't be afraid.

I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

And I hold the keys of death and Hades. I want to talk to you first of all about the claims which Jesus made, and then the office which He holds, and finally the action which He took towards John. Let's go through that verse of Scripture.

Here is Jesus speaking, the resurrected Christ, and here are claims that He makes. He says, John, don't you remember this? Let me underline this in your mind. I am the first and the last.

You say, what on earth does that mean? Well, when people saw Jesus in His earthly days, the time of His ministry in Palestine, they reckoned that though He was a man, He was more than just a man. Men teach as Jesus taught, only He taught better. Men eat, men walk, men sleep, men are fatigued, men need companionship, and all these things are seen in the personality of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But there is something about Jesus that is not explained in terms of Him just being a man. He is more than a man. He sleeps on a boat like ordinary men sleep.

But when the tempest is at its most intense, and when life is threatened, He is wakened, and He stands at the stern of the ship, and He addresses the winds and the waves, and He says, be calm. And the disciples respond, what manner of man is this? Man truly, He sleeps like we, but not man only, for He can do what we cannot do. On one occasion, He is brought in front of the Pharisees, these religious bigots who mock Him and scorn Him, and they try to teach Him theology, and He can outclass them all.

And on one occasion, He says, you know something? You believe that you're informed about Abraham, and you've got it right that you're children of Abraham. Don't you know before Abraham was? I am. And they recognized what He was trying to say, but they didn't fully comprehend its meaning.

How can you be older than Abraham? You don't look more than forty odd. But Jesus Christ, you see, was more than just a man. He was a God-man.

He was the first and the last, the Alpha and Omega, as the authorized version of the Bible puts it. He is the limitless One. He is the top and the bottom, as they would say, in the north of England.

All that there is to know about God is wrapped up in the life of the Lord Jesus. And this is what He says to the pensioner John on the Isle of Patmos. John, fear not, I'm the living One.

I am the first and the last. The Old Testament name for God was the living God. Why did they use such a phrase to describe Him? Well, you see, it caused by contradistinction the lifelessness of all the Old Testament gods as far as other nations were concerned to stand out.

The Amorites had their gods. The Philistines had their gods. The Phoenicians had their gods.

But the one thing that made the Israeli gods spectacular was that He was alive. He answered prayer. The prophets prayed, and flames came from heaven to lick up a water-drenched sacrifice.

They knew that theirs was the living God over against all the phony gods of the pagan communities. And Jesus, when He speaks to John, He says, I'm the first, John, I'm the last, and I am the living One, the living Lord Jesus Christ. And He goes on in His claims, and He says, I was dead.

Jesus John hardly needed any reminder, blessed Lord, of that. He knew that you were dead. He knew that you had been killed on the cross.

Or rather, He knew biblically expressed in an accurate way that you had given up your life. He knew that you had died through the awful death of execution, of crucifixion. And John is reminded of this by our Savior.

I am the living One. I was dead. Bertrand Russell said, when I die, I shall rot.

And that will be the end of me. Jesus Christ, however, goes on to say, over against modern philosophers, I am the living One. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

Whatever Bertrand Russell and some of the more modern scholars might cleverly say, this fact stands out paramount when you review the experiences of men and women down the centuries. The vast majority refuse to believe that death is the cessation of being. In other words, something lives on after the heart fails to support life as you and I now know it.

In the Lebanon, you will find some of the oldest skeletons that are known to be available, that can be seen today. And some of these skeletons are seen in a position where the knees are way up to the eyes, or what were the eyes of the human corpse. And they are settled, if you can imagine it, in an earthen shell, just like an egg.

And implicit within the burial format in Lebanon thousands of years ago was the thought that perhaps, somehow, a man might crack out of his eggshell as a chick cracks out of the egg that the hen has laid. The same idea in a more sophisticated fashion is seen amongst the pyramids. The method in which the pharaohs were entombed.

They had all their servants and lots of their gold and some of their furnishings in the pyramids as well. With this belief that somehow or other they would go on after death to experience another form of life. Now that was a primitive groping after a truth which becomes very evident in the Bible.

A truth that is illustrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when He says, John, I was dead. And remember this, John, if the Romans come along and they subject you to execution like I was subjected, remember that though I was dead, I am alive. And alive forever and ever.

And in my new life, John, you are involved. Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon. And he was able to demonstrate by his observations over against the fanciful wondering of many a young child that there isn't a man on the moon who was actually born there and lives there.

There's no life on the moon. We know that because Armstrong went there and opened up the way for others to go there and he came back and he gave testimony to his findings. And Jesus Christ in that respect is like Armstrong.

He goes out into death itself. And he comes back and he says, I am the first and the last. I am the living one.

I was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Remember that, John.

And anyone else who hears this revelation as you write it down, remember this, that Jesus Christ is the man who came back from the dead. Those were the claims that he made. But then, there is the office that he holds.

And I hold the keys of death and Hades. He's the janitor. The janitor is the man who holds the key.

A very significant office, particularly in medieval times. I've got many weaknesses. But if you were to ask my wife what is one of my main ones, it's this, I can't remember ever where I put my keys.

I lose them so many, many times. And we have to hunt our place from top to bottom sometimes to find them. It's amazing how easily I manage to lose keys.

Reminds me of a story that I told here some years ago, so long ago for most of you to have remembered. It's got a humorous touch to it. Of three Americans in New York City.

And they worked at the top of a block of offices. They were the 60th story up, one of the skyscrapers. And alas, there was an electricity failure and the lift wasn't working.

And so they had the only option of climbing up the flights of stairs. Like typical Americans, they analyzed the situation and decided what they'd do to encourage one another. And one fellow said, well look, you're a good singer.

For 20 flights you sing and we'll go up with you. Said to the others, I'm good at telling jokes. For the next 20 flights, I'll keep you happy by telling jokes.

And to the remaining fellow he said, look, you're pretty somber. By the time we get to the 40th, you tell us some distressing stories. So they went up, flight after flight after flight.

It got to the 41st story. And the man who had been asked to give depressing tales said, I've got the saddest one you've ever heard. They said, what's that? They said, the keys to our office I've left by the ignition in the car.

The Lord Jesus Christ says, I hold the keys of death and Hades. And blessed be God, we can say this, that the keys are in good custody. They will never be lost.

And these keys can operate on the part of any man or woman who by God's grace comes to the Lord Jesus Christ and confesses their needs of pardon and forgiveness. And our Lord Jesus Christ can dangle the keys and allow them to jangle in front of such a person and says, it's alright. I hold the key.

The key of heaven. The key of hell. The key of life.

The key of death. You see, Jesus Christ has all authority imposed in Him. He is the one who one day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess and recognize that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

It's Jesus who holds the keys. He has all sovereign power. Young person, He holds the key to your life, to your childhood, to your teenage days, to your middle years, to advancing years.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the man who holds the keys. And this is the claim that He makes. Our resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.

What do you do with keys? Well, what do you do with them on the natural level? You can open a door with a key. You can lock a door with a key. And this is what Jesus is telling John on the Isle of Patmos.

I have the keys of death and Hades. The keys of every man's future. And Jesus can open the door of eternal life.

We read in the Scriptures our Lord speaking of Himself. I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by Me.

Show us the way to the Father, Lord, says one of the disciples. Jesus says, Have I been so long time with you and you've never known Me? I've got the very key in My Father's house on many mansions. And the key has been entrusted to Me.

But who do you let in, Jesus? He that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out. Come to Me with your load of sin. Come to Me with all your disobedience and your past arrogance lay it at My feet.

Let My blood neutralize the consequence of your sin. And I'll turn the key and I'll open the door and I'll let you in. This I can do because I am the first and the last.

I am the living one. Once I was dead, but now I am alive and I'm alive forever and ever. And I am the janitor of heaven.

And by proxy, by virtue of saying that, He's the janitor of hell as well. Has that thought ever struck you? Who holds the keys of hell? The devil? Not a bit. The Lord Jesus Christ.

He can open the door of heaven and He can lock the door of heaven. And if you're outside the door, you're as bad off as were the people in Noah's day when God shut the door of the ark and no matter how noisy was their cries, they were not allowed into the ark which felt salvation and security. Our Lord Jesus talked about some who on the last day would cry, My Lord, Lord, open to us.

But He would say, Depart from Me, for I never knew you. When there was an opportunity for you to come and to recognize who I was and what I had done, you didn't take it. When you sat there in that tabernacle in Easter 82 and that man tried to tell you about the way of salvation, you laughed at the thought of me as the janitor of heaven and you went your own way.

And now the door is closed and it cannot be opened again. A gulf is fixed between you and me. You say, That's a somber subject, Mr. Sergeant, for an Easter Sunday evening.

My friend, it's a somber gospel that I preach in the name of God. Why did Jesus die? Because sin is a somber thing. Why was Jesus raised again? Because outside the resurrection power of Jesus, there is no hope for anyone in this world, let alone in this church this night.

But here is the man who makes his claims to be more than just an ordinary man, the Son of God, the God-man, the first and the last, the living one, he who was dead, but now is alive and he has the keys. And if he doesn't operate them on your behalf, then there's no hope. But mark this, he hasn't lost them, he hasn't misplaced them, and he knows how to turn the key.

But he requires by his grace your response to what he has done. For if you're outside, then you're locked outside of his purposes in time and in eternity. And that, in one ugly three-letter word, is hell.

The claims that he made, the office he holds, finally, the action he took. John says, When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me.

John says, When I saw Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God, I fell down and expired as though I was a dead man. I believe in praise. I believe in worship.

But I reckon that Mike Jenkins' quote from A.W. Tozer is a prophetic word that needs to be spelt over and over again. Young friend and older friend, never lose your sense of amazement and wonder in the presence of Jesus Christ, the holy, righteous Son of God. Says John, the beloved John, John of the gospels, John of the epistles, John of the faithful ministry, now incarcerated on the island of Patmos, when I was brought face to face with the living Christ, despite the fact that my sins had been forgiven, I fell at his feet as one dead.

And then, Jesus Christ engaged in an action. He touched him. He placed his right hand on me.

Do you know what the antidote is to feeling sinful in the presence of God? It's knowing the right hand of Jesus being placed upon you. That hand is not an ordinary hand. It has the mark of a nail in it When Jesus died on the cross, he was obviously brutally treated.

The hands of Jesus had been used before for healing the sick. On the majority of occasions, Jesus always stretched out his hand and he touched the leprous man or the man who was deaf or blind and he made men and women every whit hole. And John says, when I fell as dead at the feet of Jesus, he stretched out his hand, his nail-pierced hand, his right hand, the hand of ordination, the hand of power, the hand of authority.

In the non-sophisticated church that I was brought up in, bless God for it, the backwoods of the north of England, we sometimes used to sing because we weren't proud people. We used to sing a little chorus. Touch me again, Lord.

Touch me again. This moment I feel your presence so real. Touch me again, Lord.

Touch me again. Perhaps it wasn't as unsophisticated as maybe I just intimated. To know the touch of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the nail-pierced right hand upon your shoulder.

That's how relief comes. That's how the communication of the power of the Lord Jesus and the cleansing of His blood is applied to you. John falls at His feet as though dead, but Jesus raises him.

I want to be personal and ask you this quite simply in closing. On Easter Sunday evening, have you ever had an encounter similar to this one? Inasmuch as you have heard Jesus Christ speak to you, you're aware of your rottenness, you're aware of your sin, but you appreciate this, that Jesus has bled and He's died for you and that He has the keys of eternal life. Then why not respond to Him right now? As maybe He's made this word real to you.

Lord, take the key. Unlock the door into your presence, into your Father's house. Guarantee my eternal security as I confess what you did for me on the cross.

Lord Jesus, take that hand, that nail-pierced hand, that right hand, and place it on my shoulder and communicate your power to me and in the resurrection authority that belongs to you. Lord Jesus, make me every white hole, the man who came back from the dead. He's got the keys.

Ask Him to use them on your behalf. Let's pray. And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died for man, the creature's sin.

Blessed God, we thank you for our Savior, His life, His death, His mighty resurrection. We praise you. A man in the glory with the nail-pierced hands has the keys of heaven and in effect hell by His side.

Gracious God, may He use the hand and touch us. May He use the key and unlock the door of heaven and let us in this Easter Sunday evening. Amen.