Revelation 1:4 John 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
Last week my wife was giving me by-weekly haircut and I was watching YouTube on my iPad. What else do you do when you are getting a haircut? There is a channel where they take the bust or portrait of an historical figures and recreate what that person actually looked like. They might take someone like Julius Caesar from some marble sculpture and gradually bring him to life with eyes in the sockets and color to the hair and cheeks. They have this person emerge in three dimensions, then they actually animate the person. You can see him smiling, talking, and looking left and right. It is an amazing thing. They do it gradually in steps so you can see what they are doing. I don’t know how scientifically accurate it is, but just from the visual, you can see the technology plausibly bring that person to life.
So, I was getting my haircut and watching this metamorphosis on George Washington. It was astounding! At the very end, they took this 3D George Washington from the garb of 1776 and put him in the garb of the Oval Office today, a blue suit, blue tie, and white shirt. You think, “Wow, that is what he would look like if he were in the office today?” It is amazing to consider George Washington alive today. Obviously, he is not, and it is hard to imagine that someone from that world would fit in anywhere, except in a museum, in our world today. It is hard to imagine someone from antiquity moving about the earth today, right now, present time.
Well, the Bible actually talks about someone who shows up centuries apart. I’m thinking of the angel Gabriel, a real angelic being. Gabriel’s appearances were several centuries apart. First, he showed up to Daniel in Daniel 9:21 and then seven hundred years later he shows up again in Luke 1:26. It is amazing that the same being could come to this earth and interact with people so many centuries apart. That is nothing compared to the timelessness and eternality of Jesus Christ, God the Son.
In Revelation 1, we are introduced to a world that is so foreign to us, dragons, fire, beasts, and all kind of odd and frightful things. But Revelation is first and foremost the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is not just the Revelation, revealing of what will be, but the revelation of the One Who is. Jesus is, was, and will be. You find that repeatedly in Revelation 1 and throughout the book.
In Revelation 1:4 it says, “John 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.” Later the Lord says, “I am Alpha and Omega.” Jesus is God’s first letter and God’s last word. He is the eternal. In verse 11, it says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.” So, Jesus is the eternal Son of God. In verse 5, He is called “the faithful witness.” In verse 8, He is called “the Lord, which is, which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” In verse 11, He is called “the first and the last.”
Throughout the many verses of this first chapter and the whole book of Revelation you find that He was, He is, and He will be. So, Jesus is all you will ever need. Do you know tomorrow? No. Do you know eternity from now? No, but Jesus does. So, I am to live in the grace and peace which the Lord Jesus grants. In verse 17 He says, “Fear not I am the first and last.” Jesus is all you will ever need.
In your life, you need different people for different times in your life. When a person is first born, they need a father and a mother, parents. Later on, you need a companion. I have a number of companions, but I have one wife and she is my companion. So, I had parents as a child and now I have a wife, a companion.
Then, at some point in life, you will need someone who can remember. There used to be a magazine called Reminisce. It had all kinds of photos from sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety years ago. A lot of them were rural scenes. This magazine was for people to remember. One of the lonely parts of growing old is that there is no longer anyone to remember. If you talk about something as you remember it, it is seventy years old. Everyone you are talking to is thinking about the way the thing you mentioned is now, and they are two totally different things.
So, in life you need a parent, a companion, and eventually someone who remembers. Well, Jesus is all of that. He was, He is, and He will be. He gives grace and peace, and He says, “Fear not.” I don’t know what the future holds, as has often been said, but I know who holds the future. His name is Jesus. He was, He is, and He will be.