The Unveiling of Jesus Christ

The Unveiling of Jesus Christ By Paris Reidhead* Will you turn please to the 1 Chapter of Revelation. I am reading beginning with the first verse of Revelation, Chapter 1. This is a tremendously important book that has been long neglected, and I must confess that I may be one who has neglected it. John promises blessing to those that read it, and therefore I propose that at least for several Sunday evenings we will be studying and reading from the Book of Revelation, asking God to minister to our hearts through it. “1The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to shew unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John: 2Who bare record of the Word of God, and of the Testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. 3Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. 4John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before His Throne. 5And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own Blood, 6And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” Just by way of introduction, certain basic truths which we have read, which are obvious, but which none the less need be emphasized. First, you will notice the spelling of this title. It did not say Revelations, as so frequently you hear the Book pronounced the book of Revelations. It is not. It is The Revelation. The Revelation given by the angel to John concerning Jesus Christ. And the first word, the first statement rather in this first verse is, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Thus we anticipate that the theme and subject of this Book will be the Son of God, and will not be horsemen and plagues, but it will be Jesus Christ. It is always important that we should understand the purpose in the author’s writing. There are a great many details that could themselves become ends, unless one knows the purpose. So whatever you read in this Book, you know that the theme is the revelation of Jesus Christ. The word Revelation is apokalupsis, and it means unveiling, or the uncovering, or the disclosing. Perhaps the picture that we would have in mind of this word is a great sculptor that is commissioned to give to the Community, to the City perhaps, work that commemorates the death of the soldiers in war, or some event of progress in the life of the Community. He works in his studio, and finally, under cover and canvas and so on, the work is placed in the Park on the proper pedestal, but it is not unveiled. And they have the Mayor and the City Officials, and the public gather. The dedication is made. The artist, the Sculptor is presented, and then there comes that moment when the workmen take the rope or the ties, and there is the apokalupsis, the unveiling, the uncovering, and the disclosing. That is what you have in this word in the Greek. The idea is, something that has been hidden, or imperfectly seen that is now unveiled. And so it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it is not redundant. What you have in this book, perhaps you have nowhere else in the Book. You have it intimated. You have it suggested. But this is the Revelation of Jesus Christ in His post-resurrection and post-ascension glory. It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ as He is now. Presumably the reason that it was given was that as the Church drew away from the time of His ascension, there would be more and more speculation as to what kind of a person He was, and how He looked, and in what state He was at the present, and therefore God saw it wise and right that there should be an unveiling, a partial unveiling of Jesus Christ as He is now, and as He will be unveiled. So it is thus the discovering, or the revealing of the Lord Jesus in His present state and His present glory, as well as that future unveiling that will come to various people in various conditions, that has not yet happened. The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him. Jesus Christ, the Name is the Name of His Incarnation, the Name of His humility, if you wish. “Thou shalt call His Name Jesus.” (Matt. 1:21) That Holy Thing that was born of Mary. It is a wonderful Name. How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ears. We love the Name of Jesus. But it is still the Name that He was called as a little lad in the streets of Nazareth, and in His home. I remember on 7th Avenue in Minneapolis one day, driving around the curve, and I was just amazed to found that someone had the temerity to put the name on his door, Jesus So-and-So. I could not believe it. I was quite offended until I realized that this is a common name, and it was as many of the Old Testament names, a name which included some idea of God. We would say Jesus because of the Greek derivation. The Hebrews would say Joshua, or essentially the same word. Jehovah-Savior. Now Jesus. In I John 4:2 we read, “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus is come in the flesh, that Jesus is God come in the flesh.” For God became flesh and dwelt among us, and that God who became flesh was called Jesus, for He should save His people from their sins. This is the Revelation of the man, that walked, that grew tired, that had no place to lay His head, that went out into the Garden when all of His disciples went to their homes and to the homes of their friends, that sat there till the morning dews settled upon Him, because no one invited Him to go to a home, and there was no home of His own. And this is the One who was tempted, and tested, in all points such as we are, the one who was acquainted with our griefs, and bore our sins, and died for us. This is Jesus that is being revealed. This is man that stood there while they scourged Him, and while they buffeted Him, and while they pressed the crown of thorns upon Him. It is the Man, that walked, and ministered, and lived, and died. This Man who was God who became Man, and yet perfect Man, though very God, very God and very man, Jesus, the anointed, Christos. This was the Messiah. This was the one around whom all the promises of the Old Testament gathered. And so when John says, The Revelation of Jesus the Christ he is saying, He is the One of whom the prophets spoke. He is the One in whom all the hope of Israel rested. He is the only One that can bring Life to the dead, and bring forgiveness to the wicked and the guilty. He is the Anointed One, the Christos. This is Jesus Christ that is being revealed, and shall be set forth in that which is to follow. And God gave to Jesus Christ a Revelation concerning that long before He became flesh. Jesus Christ is God. This is the Testimony, that He is God. But as man, He had this Revelation of what was to be. And so, just as a revelation was given by God to the Son concerning those things that were to be, so He, to whom the revelation was given, passed it on to us, to show unto His servants, we who are His slaves, the things which must shortly come to pass. He said, A servant does not know what his Lord doeth, but you are not servants. You are friends. And you know what I am going to do. I do not want you to be in darkness. I want you to know. And so the Lord Jesus Christ will take those who trust Him and love Him, who are His bond slaves, and He will share with them that which the Father has shared with Him, and He will do it by an Angel through John. This is what we have in that first verse. John who bare record of the Word of God and of the Testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. The year this is written is probably, most likely, 96 A.D. Now remember that our Lord was born, according to the calendar, which would make this 96, our Lord was born 4 B.C. Now that is strange, is it not? But the calendar was so changed that you cannot say that our Lord was born in what you would call 1 A.D.. It was 4 B.C., because of an error that was made in calculation. So that would mean that John is writing one hundred years after the birth of Christ, or 70 years after the ascension of Jesus Christ, (well actually 67 years and some months after the ascension of Christ). Is it not marvelous that God did allow one man to reach this point? Seventy years-in that time it would have been three, nearly four generations figuring 20 years to a generation...three and a half generations of people. And John is the young man that was on the ship with his brother James when the Lord called him. And John is the young man who impetuously entreated his mother to speak in his behalf, “Let James sit on your right hand and John on your left.” John is the young man that leaned on Jesus’ bosom. Probably, very likely, he is the young man whose cloak was caught and who had to flee away naked when they came and took the Lord, for John forsook Him. No man stood with Him. And John may have been one of those two on the road to Emmaus. We do not know. We do know that he came to the empty tomb and looked in, with Peter running impetuously passed him and into the tomb. John stood there and saw the grave clothes lying as though they were wrapped around a body. They had never been unwrapped. That is the miracle of it. They were just lying there, as though still encasing a body, but collapsed: and the body had passed through them, and the napkin that covered the head was right where the head would have been, but there was no head underneath. John looked in and saw the collapsed grave clothes. And then John was one who saw the Lord, beheld Him, was with Him, and was there throughout each occasion of meeting. And now John has had the privilege of living 67 years after the ascension of Christ. And John says, “I bear record of the Word of God. I know. And of the Testimony of Jesus Christ. I am telling you. I have stood for this, and of all the things that he saw.” (Rev. 1:2) How gracious God was to allow John to live past the normal period of his life, an aged man now, probably 100 years old. But he has all of this that God has allowed him to see, and that now permits him to share. And remember this. John was not there naturally. Now James was beheaded. John has lived to a ripe old age, past the average age, even in that day. All the other Apostles are dead. All have died violent deaths. Well how did John escape? He did not escape. History tells us that the man who wrote this, who recorded it for us, was captured and tried in Greece by the Roman authorities there, and was sentenced to die by being boiled in a cauldron of oil. The day came for the sentence. He was placed, according to the records and the tradition into that cauldron of boiling oil, but whereas it had been tested for its temperature and was capable of causing death, John was placed into it, and was brought out unharmed, instantly, miraculously delivered so that there was no effect. Now Roman law made it that one sentenced for a crime, and having that crime executed, could never be tried for the same crime again, and could never have the sentence repeated. And so John was not forced to some other death. He had survived, but he was no longer welcome. And so he was exiled to the Island of Patmos, where we find him saying that I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. In the Island of Patmos, for the Word of God, and for the Testimony of Christ. Now this is John. And he is testifying of the Word of God that was explained to him by the Lord Jesus. He is witnessing of what he saw the Lord Jesus Christ do, and what he himself experienced. This third verse is a precious verse: “Blessed is he that readeth.” I am of the same opinion that my friend Robert Walker, who is the Editor of Christian Life Magazine, that American Christians probably buy more books and read fewer of them than any other company of Christians on the face of the earth. I would not be surprised but what all of you could drop your head just a little and close your eyes a trifle at the books that you bought with every good intention. I do not recall just who it was, but one of the Presidents of Harvard University said, “If you will read 15 minutes a day something worthwhile, you will become ultimately an educated person.” I believe that it is imperative that we read. The only means by which we can understand, converse with men long dead is through that which they have written. I think that if you have deprived yourself of the blessing of reading good books you are impoverished indeed, and I do not know to what degree you read. And if you find difficulty in reading yourself because of weakness of your eyes, the suggestion I make is that you get someone to read aloud to you. In fact, I would encourage every home to read aloud for periods, and encourage you to read aloud to yourself, and to someone else. It is a very, very profitable thing. I think that we could say, Blessed is he that readeth (period), that is if you read something worthwhile. There is that which will defile undoubtedly. But the reading of the Word, the reading of literature, the reading of the Alliance Witness will bring blessing to your life. But the only Book in all the world that I know of where God Himself promises special blessing for the reading is the Book of Revelation. I do not know of any other book where God commits Himself in contract form, saying that if you read this Book, and hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, you will be blessed of God. And for this reason I would urge you to read it. I wish every one of you would read it before the week is out. I wish you would read it again and again. I know what is going to trouble you. You are going to get hung up on a horn somewhere. That is what will happen. You will get caught on a horn, and you will say. Well what does this horn mean? And then you will put the Book down. Look just do not try to swallow all the horns. I tell you, just leave them there. They are there. Do not worry about them. And toes. Do not worry about toes either. And scorpions with tails. Do not try to understand everything you read. You read, and you will be amazed at how much you will understand of the moral quality and teaching of this Book. And there are some things you will never understand. But that is all right. God promised blessing if you read it, and would hear what you could hear, and keep what you heard. You know a lot of people tell you they have trouble with the Bible. They do not understand it. I do not believe that. The trouble with them is that they do not obey what they do understand. That is right. If you read this, and you just obey what you do understand, and do not worry about what you do not, and you will be a better person before the week is out, because God has promised blessing to those that read. Now notice the address. John to the Seven Churches which are in Asia. We are going to study those churches in considerable detail, and it was this study of these churches which moved me to come to this wonderful Book. “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you.” Inevitably God’s desire is that we should comprehend Grace. Grace is His free and unmerited favor. Grace is that which God had in Himself toward those that deserved nothing from Him but wrath, and in whose behalf He moved in love to bring blessing. Grace. Grace. This which is only found in the heart of God and experienced only because there is God with such a heart. If anyone is ever gracious in that deepest meaning of the word, it is because he himself has known grace. But grace is manifested not only in the fact that God let the sun shine on the just and unjust, and let the rain fall on the wicked man’s field, and kept air in his lungs, and kept life to his body, and protected him and gave him government to watch over him, and give him a land and place in which to live in some measure of freedom. It is not only in this Civic grace, or common grace, that we see God’s grace, but that ultimate revelation of God’s grace, when God Himself became flesh and dwelt among us. The Lord Jesus Christ stripped Himself of all of His royal insignia, and became man. You cannot comprehend such a cost. I have in times past used an illustration of a person who is well, identifying himself with a leper, and giving his health to the leper and taking the leper’s sickness. I suppose this is a mild illustration of grace. But mild. Because you carry in your body incipient death, and with every breath you breathe it is nearer death. Every pulsing of your heart. And so for you to die a few years earlier is just a few years early. But here is Eternal God, eternal God, God the Son, who has had no contact with sin, nor with the results of sin in humanity, who voluntarily takes a body like your body and a nature like your nature and becomes found in your fashion with all the appetites you have, and capable of being tempted in all the areas that you were in order that without sin He might die under your sin, and for you sin. This is what is in the word, Grace: Jesus Christ, becoming what you were so that you could become what He is. And this is the divine order, Grace and Peace. And there will never be peace until you know Grace. That is why the Scripture says, “There is no peace sayeth my God to the wicked.” (Isaiah 57:21) And when you look outside and see unregenerate, apparently having fun, living in their lust and their immorality and their thievery, and their lying and all that characterizes the life of the modern pagan, you say, “My, they must be having a good time.” No. God says, They are not having a good time. He says, To the contrary that the Wicked are like the troubled sea which casteth up its mire and its dirt. And there is the double flow. There seems to be the flow of pleasure on the surface, but then somewhere underneath there is the backflow that catches and takes the residue of sin and tosses it up into the conscious again; and just as the sea will get the mud and the dirt and the filth that is there, and cause it to boil up. Years ago my father took (My boy is here and he will be after me. It will be all right.) But my father took my brother and me fishing. In front of the dam, at Rock Rapids on the Mississippi River, near Minneapolis. We went out on the ice breakers and sat there and dangled our line, tied around our finger, through the slats in the ice breaker and caught little Rock Bass. And we were all very delighted with these Rock Bass until something happened. I do not know what caused it. But all of a sudden we looked out and saw the boiling spots on the water. And they came nearer and nearer. And we saw sludge and mud, and mud, and filth, and all we could think of was that this was the picnic table where out fish had been eating. And the fish did not look nearly as good when we saw where they had been. And if I recollect correctly we just turned the fish pail over and let the fish go back home. We did not want to take them home with us if that was where their home was. And it gave me an illustration of the casting up of mire and dirt, that is boiling up. Now you see, that is what happens to the wicked. There is no peace, because God wrote His law on the human heart. God inscribed what is right on the human conscience. And deep down in every human spirit, there is this awareness of God, and this awareness of right and wrong. So what has to happen for a person to live in sin is this, that with his intellect he has to set up a countercurrent: It is right to lie. It is right to steal. It is right to lust and to commit immorality. And so he gets a current and tries to get where the current is flowing. And so the current begins to flow this way, and he gets in it. And he is caught along with it. But there is another current flowing another way. And there is the current of revelation. There is the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world. There is this deep undercurrent that is flowing in his personality. It is wrong to lie. It is wrong to steal. It is wrong to commit adultery. It is wrong. It is wrong. It is wrong. And the top current is flowing this way. It is all right. Everybody does it. It is modern. It is the day. It’s.... And then the other: It is wrong. It is wrong. It is wrong. And the two currents meet. And in that meeting, there is the boiling. And ultimately it comes up to the surface, and to the top. And there is no peace until there is grace. For it is grace that washes away the stain of sin, and sets the current of the conscious in the same direction as the current of the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world. Grace and peace are from Him, and only from Him. And no one is ever going to know peace... Psychiatry has gotten probably the best business in all the world, because it has developed techniques which give a temporary relief and which, because they have no answer to the stain and the guilt of the conscience, and they have no way to take the spots out of Lady Macbeth’s hands, and leave them there — no way to cleanse the stain of sin, — Psychiatry and the techniques of it which are valuable adjuncts if they can lead to some permanent cleansing and release of the spirit. But they have the best business in the world, because it can be constantly repeated over and over and over and over and over and over again, because there is no answer. Grace and peace are from Him. Arnold Williamson, one of Pastor friends out in Lynbrook, Long Island, was very well taught in much that has to do with Pastoral Counseling, in Psychiatry, was talking to one of the outstanding Psychiatrists out on Long Island about what our message is, that no one can really know God savingly until he knows himself completely, and that God demands that we understand the worst about ourselves when we come to Him, and that God has made provision to cleanse us from the worst, and not just whitewash that, and that the only way to really begin with God is to come knowing all of ones sin and all of ones uncleanness, and all of ones stain, and all of ones vile past, and bring it to God in an open declaration, and an outpouring of confession, knowing that God does not love one one bit the least because He knows all there is to know that is bad about you. And when the Psychiatrist heard that he said, “You know. Your office ought to be right next door to mine. And when I have got them to see themselves I ought to send them in to you to have you help them do something about it. I can get them to see what is there, but I have not any answer for it. But you have an answer. Why did not I understand that.” This is not what the churches say. This is not what they mean. I have not heard this. But this is what God’s Word says, that the person comes to Jesus Christ broken. And I think that one of the great calamities of easy believism in the 20th Century is this, that we have let people recognize that they were sinners without getting them to recognize their sins. The old Brush Arbor down South —You know, everything good is not north of the Mason Dixon Line, by any means. There are a lot of things down there we had, you do well to get, including Corn Bread and Fried Chicken. You would just be well off if you had some of the things that are common down there. But one of the things that God used was the old Brush Arbor Meetings. Split a log in two, put it up on a couple of stakes, and have a meetin’ for about four weeks, between the time you laid the corn by and the time to harvest. And they would come. And in those old days, Peter Cartwright and... — Oh they were giants in the land in those days. None of these little pea shooters, you know, that get up there and spit alliteration at people. That was not it. These were men that thundered out on the righteousness of God, and the heinousness of sin, and then the only way you could ever be saved was to break before God and leave your sins and come to Christ. Some old mountaineer, bootlegging, whiskey making, ruffian, shoot to kill, they let sit there until the Spirit of God broke open his filthy heart, invitation be given, he would come and throw himself across the split log altar; people would gather round him, and say, “Oh now, Bill, tell them everything. Tell them everything.” And the fellow would put his head back as though he were calling hogs on a mountainside, and he would scream out to God about his lying, and his stealing, and his fighting, and his whiskey drinking, and everybody knew it anyway. He was not breaking any news to anybody. He had lived with them, you see. But you know what happened. Here in the midst of his people, he opened his heart and he got all that sin that had been buried there, those deep pockets of infection, they all broke open. And he left them all out. And then they, after he had finished with everything, telling it all, then they would say, “The Blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses Bill from all sin.” When Bill met Jesus Christ, he was a new creation. And there were not any deep pockets of infection lying down there. It was all broken. That is why some of you have not found peace, because you have never broken before God. You have forgotten that God is going to love you just as much. He knows the worst about you. You will not shock Him when you tell Him what He has known all the time. Everything you ever did you did in the presence of God. Grace and peace from Him. He loved you when He knew the worst about you. Grace and peace from Him. Which is. He is alive now. Which was. He is the eternal God. Which is to come. He is the everlasting Father. And it is going to be always. Never change. And from Jesus Christ, who is the Faithful Witness, and the first begotten of the dead, the Prince of the kings of the earth. Is not that a wonderful exaltation of Jesus Christ? Let me read it to you. Faithful Witness. He said, “I only speak those things that My Father commands Me. I do not speak of Myself. I speak as I receive commandment of the Father.” He is a faithful Witness. Remember that day in John 6 when He had a large crowd. Everybody likes a crowd. Do not let anybody fool you. And the Lord Jesus did, too. He had them there. He had a large crowd. And they said, We are your disciples. We are your disciples. He said, Oh, is that so. Yes. Now if you will just do one more miracle, then you really have got us. Do something like Moses did. Moses brought bread down from Heaven. You do that. Then we will be yours, and we will never leave you and go to anybody else. You know there is a sort of commercial disciple outfit. You put in your order, and you can get as many as you want, if you are willing to do it. And they were sort of around there, wondering now whether we have got the right man. And so, the Lord said, Well, wait a minute. I am the Bread that came down from Heaven. If you eat Me, you have life. If you do not eat Me, you do not have Life. Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. We are not cannibals. No! He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood hath Life, everlasting Life. And he that does not, has not Life. And they looked at Him and said, Now listen, Mister. You have gone too far. We do not understand that. We are willing to be your disciples, but when you talk about eating your flesh, and you talk about drinking your blood, it is too much for us. We are through. And that day, His whole congregation got up and walked out. Well, sort of discouraging, is it not? Yes, Sir. I think of Martyn Lloyd Jones in England, who followed G. Campbell Morgan in Westminster Chapel. He had been saved through Dr. Morgan’s ministry. And he began to preach. He was a Puritan, born out of due season, a great man. If I ever have the opportunity of bringing him to New York, you can be sure you will have him. And Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones took the Pastorate, and he began to preach.... the Sovereignty of God, the Glory of God, the Majesty of God, the Nature of Repentance, the Lordship of Christ. And the Congregation, dwindled, and dwindled, and dwindled, and dwindled, and dwindled; and one Sunday morning in a Church that seats eighteen hundred, he had sixty people. And he preached the same thing he had preached. Well, there was not anybody else to go. That is what the Lord Jesus said that day. “He said, Will you go away? Peter looked up and said, To whom shall we go, Lord? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” (John 6:67,68) And they did not go. And they stayed. He is a faithful Witness. Martin Lloyd Jones was a faithful witness. Then they began to come, and they began to come, and they began to come, and they began to come, and pretty soon they had the first balcony; and they continued to come. Then they had the second balcony, and they continued to come. And on Friday night he had eight hundred and nine hundred and a thousand people for a Bible Study at which he spoke an hour, and hour and twenty minutes. What was it? His faithful witness. The faithful witness. The Lord Jesus said, God gave Me a message to give and if nobody hears it, I still have to give it. He is a faithful Witness. And this is what the Lord Jesus wants you to be, a faithful witness to Him. Now He is the first begotten of the dead, the Prince of the kings of the earth. Now notice. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own Blood. I have been hoping that as I spoke this evening, someone hear would say, I am the person you are talking about. I see myself, defiled within and without. I have seen myself unclean in thought and imagination and heart. I have seen myself worthy of nothing of God’s wrath and anger, because I have not only sinned against my own conscience. I have sinned against light and truth. I deserve nothing from God. God be merciful to me a sinner. Now if you are prepared to come the way of the hypothetical Bill that I talked about, through with your sin, finished with it, to throw yourself across the Rock, Jesus Christ, This One who is the first begotten from the dead, — if you are willing to fall on the Rock and be broken, to acknowledge that from now on Jesus Christ is to be the Lord of your life, that your crime heretofore was that you were God, playing God in your life, ruling, choosing, governing, for which you now repent, and you purpose to please Him, that you are willing that He shall govern and lead, and rule as long as you live, then I have good news for you. I can say to anyone in the Name of Jesus Christ, that if you will come to Him, confessing and acknowledging all your crimes and your sins and your uncleanness, if you will come to Him, admitting what He knows, and disclosing what He has uncovered, if you will come to Him just as you are, but hating what you are, and feeling about it the way He feels, that He will wash you from your sins in His Own Blood. This is the Gospel. —That Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, and that He was buried, and that He was raised again the third day according to the Scripture. Unto Him that loved us, washed us in His Blood. Am I speaking to someone tonight that came in with a mountain of guilt? with a load of uncleanness? with an awareness that you are estranged from God, and separated from God? that if you die as you are, you will of necessity be in Hell forever? And should it be that by some chance God does not have a Hell, that you are in such a moral state, that He would have to make one to accommodate you, because with a heart such as your heart, you could not go to Heaven. Then I submit to you that if you are prepared to come just as you are, with all your guilt and all your uncleanness, with all your stains, and defilement, just as you are, but hating what you are, and renouncing what you are, and taking sides with God against yourself, and purposing that as of now Jesus Christ shall govern and rule, and lead in your life, then I have the authority in His Name to say that He will wash you from your sins in His own Blood. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. 1 In dream Satan came to Martin Luther, that leader of the Reformation. This being Reformation Sunday, it is the more appropriate. In dream and vision burdened, Satan came to Luther. You are a man of many sins. Your life is foul, vile. How dare you lead this people? How dare you claim to know the truth? How dare you preach in Jesus’ Name with a background such as yours, and a past such as yours? - livid with sin! And to Satan Luther said, Yes, you are right. He said, Would you write my sins on the wall. And in the vision, Satan inscribed the sins that he knew were there. Then in the midst of it, Luther said he interrupted him...Put sins down that Satan even had not accused him of. Things he knew were true. And finally he said, Are there any more? And Satan said, No. Anymore? Not a one that I know of. And Luther said, Nor do I, but is it not a list. And there the wall was covered with the record of his sins. And Satan looked at him and said, How dare any one with such a list of sins as this dare to preach? dare to speak? dare to lead? Ah, said Luther, There is one thing you have forgotten. Over them all, across them all write these words: The Blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Unto Him that loved us, washed us in, from our sins in His own Blood. I know this, that if you will come and confess with your mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in your heart that God hath raised Him from the dead — when He died for you under the load of your sin — God for Jesus sake, will wash away your sin, and make you every wit whole. —That you can stand before Him as clean as Jesus Christ is righteous as His Son. Hear it now. And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own Blood. Perhaps I am speaking to someone here tonight. Maybe you are even a Church member, but you do not have peace with God. This deep stream is casting up mire and dirt. Perhaps I am speaking to someone that knows that you have never been born of God. Or someone that knows that you are a child of God, but sin has come into your life. Oh, do your first works again; break before Him, confess your sin, and know the cleansing of the Blood. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own Blood. Let us pray. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. Oh precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. Am I speaking to someone tonight that says, “Yes I have stain. I am a professing Christian. I know Jesus Christ, but sin has come into my life. It has separated. It has grieved. It has burdened. And I want to be clean. I want the Blood to cleanse. And I am raising my hand as an indication of my need and asking for prayer. Would you be the one to whom I am speaking, to whom this invitation is given? Thank you, I see it. God bless you. Yes. I see it. God bless you. Another, anywhere. You can put them down now. Another? I am a Christian, but sin has come into my life, and I want cleansing. I see it. God bless you. Yes. Another? Anyone? Anywhere? Anyone? Anywhere? Christian? Sin has come in; I hate it, and I want to be clean. Pray for me. Another that I would ask is, Yes, I know I am not saved. Oh, how I want the Blood to cleanse. How I want to have peace. I want to have the eating cancer out. Pray for me. I want to know this cleansing of the Blood you have spoken about. Would, I you raise your hand? Anyone, anywhere? I am not saved. Pray for me, that I might know the cleansing of the Blood. Put your hand up and take it down. We never embarrass you here. We just help you. Anyone? Anywhere? A conscience defiled, a heart that is burdened, trying to forget, and you cannot put it away. You cannot wash it out. Oh, I would give anything if I could have my purity back as a child, spotless conscience, clean. I would like to be clean. I am not saved, but oh I want prayer. I want what you are talking about, the cleansing of the Blood. Pray for me. Would you put your hand up? We will see you, and we will remember you in prayer. Anyone? Father, Thou knowest the hearts behind the hands that have been raised, and the hearts of the unsaved that are here, that need the cleansing of the Blood. Oh how we wish we could go and sit where they are, and for them break and bend, and 1 Words & Music: Robert Lowry, in Gospel Music, by William Doane and Robert Lowry (New York: Biglow & Main, 1876) confess their sin, and come to the foot of the Cross, and take cleansing and forgiveness. We that have come that know the joy and peace the Blood brings, oh what we would do Lord. Anything, if we could do it for these. They must for themselves, however. And so we plead now that in this evening that there will be some who will lay hold of this...This of the testimony of the faithful Witness, the first begotten of the dead, the One through whom grace and peace comes, Jesus Christ, who loved us and washed us from our sins in His Own Blood. Hear us, Lord. Make it real. Make it wonderfully real in some heart tonight. For Jesus sake. Amen. In closing just one or two verses of that wonderful hymn we sing so often, and so meaningfully, “Just As I Am Without One Plea” But That Thy Blood Was Shed For Me, that Thy Blood was shed for me, and that Thou bidst me come to Thee, Oh Lamb of God I come.2 And anyone who would like prayer is invited either to come to the front and wait for a moment and we will go with you into Wilson Chapel, or go directly to the rear to Wilson Chapel. We are here to help you, to meet with you, to pray with you. And so we will stand and sing in closing 107. Shall we stand. * Reference such as: Delivered at The Gospel Tabernacle Church, New York City on Sunday Evening, October 30, 1960 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1960 2 Words Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871; Music William B. Bradbury, 1816-1868

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The Unveiling of Jesus Christ

Paris Reidhead

Paris Reidhead (1919 - 1992)

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