“Do Not Be Afraid!”
Revelation 1:17-19
World events seem to crowd in upon us. Tragedies, catastrophes, and crises seem to descend upon us without any let-up. All too often when we turn on the news we hear of another terrorist attack, like the one that killed 200 people in Madrid, Spain just over a week ago. Violent crime is turning our inner-cities into ghettos of fear and anger. Pornography and obscenity are infiltrating our homes and seeking to undermine basic family values. In some places in this country, county courthouses have more applications for divorce on file than applications for marriages. Every day thousands, literally thousands, of unborn babies are senselessly slaughtered; young ones who are offered up as sacrifices to a false god whose name is “choice”. Renegade judges have embroiled our country in a controversy over what constitutes marriage, is it really just one man and one woman? It seems as if Satan is having a heyday, it seems that he is having his way with this world. No wonder many people are asking, "Is anyone in charge? Is God really in control of the events of today? If He is why doesn’t He do something about it?"
It might surprise you to know that we are not the first generation to ask these questions. In fact, the Apostle John, in the 1st century, may very well have asked similar questions. John was the last of the apostles. By the time he had reached eighty years of age, all the other apostles had been martyred for the cause of Christ. When the Emperor Domitian came to the throne of Rome, John was serving as the Bishop to the church in Ephesus, but he was immediately exiled to Patmos, a little barren island in the middle of the Aegean Sea. He may have thought he was doomed to live out his days there, without ever again being allowed to preach, or travel, or minister. Those were the days when Christians were being persecuted all throughout the empire. They were being thrown to the lions; they were being bound up in animal skins and thrown into the sea; they were being ground up in millstones; they were being used as torches to light public gatherings. Domitian had ordered that Christians had to make a public stand as to whether they would say, "Jesus is Lord," or, "Caesar is Lord." If you got the wrong answer you were tortured and then you died a painful death.
Now, in the midst of that outbreak of persecution, John was worshipping the Lord on his little island prison, when suddenly, the Holy Spirit gave him a vision of Jesus. Although it had been sixty years since he had seen Jesus in the flesh, John knew who He was. Yet Jesus was different, John had never seen his Lord this way before. This is Jesus in all of His risen and ascended glory. This is the Son of Man shining forth in all the brilliance of God’s own power and might. And John writes,
“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, "Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I hold the keys of Death and Hades."
These words of Christ spoken to John in the 1st century are also spoken to you and me today. Jesus said, "Fear not. Don’t be afraid." These were words of comfort and reassurance that John needed to hear. These are words that you and I need to hear as well. Especially in these days when many Christians take a look at the world around them and are very much afraid.
When Jesus said these words to John, the first thing He meant was, "Don’t be afraid of me." John was afraid of Him. He fell flat down on his face as though dead. This is what happens when sinful people come into contact with a Holy God. It happened with Moses, it happened with Joshua, it happened with Isaiah, it happened with Ezekiel, it happened with Zechariah, it happened all throughout the Scriptures to many people, and here it happens to John. The first thing Jesus does is He reassures John, saying, "Don’t be afraid." By this he means that John has nothing to fear; God is our friend, not our enemy; he is for us, not set against us. This is true, it’s true for John, it’s true for us as well. But it is only true because of what Jesus had accomplished by His death and resurrection.
Sinful people like you and me are, as Paul writes in Eph 2:3, “by nature objects of wrath” Without faith, we are blind, dead, enemies of God. I saw an artist’s rendering of this once and it has stuck with me ever since, to illustrate the point that sinful humans are by nature blind, dead, enemies of God. He drew a skeleton, standing upright, with some of the tattered grave clothes still hanging from its bones; dead. The skeleton had a blindfold wrapped around its eye sockets; blind. In the skeleton’s hand was a sword, and it was shaking it toward the heavens; enemies of God. That graphic said it all. That’s who we were before God chose us. Without God, that’s who we are. This is a very clear picture of the Old Adam that is in all of us. The sinful nature that is continuously at war with the Holy Spirit. It manifests itself in our daily lives, it shows itself when we commit open acts of rebellion against our God. When we imagine we are the masters of our own destiny, when we stubbornly choose to ignore the parts of God’s Law that are inconvenient, and when we intentionally disobey hoping that God isn’t looking; it is that sinful, dead, blind, condemned skeleton within us waging war with the God who loves us. This rebellion is doomed to fail. If we persist in this insurgence unchecked, we have every reason to be afraid of God. For He is a God of justice, and He will punish sin.
But this is not the future of those who have faith in Christ. For in Christ our punishment has already been administered. The price for sin has been paid for. Instead of receiving the judgment we deserve, we have received grace and love that we could never in a thousand lifetimes earn for ourselves. Because this is true, we don’t have to be afraid.
In these two verses, Jesus gives three reasons why we are not to be afraid:
First, he says, "I am the First and the Last." Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the A and the Z of life. He always has been, he is now, and he always will be. And it is this eternal Son of God who has promised to be with us every day of our lives. He promised in Deuteronomy 31:6, “Never ever will I leave you, never ever will I forsake you.” He repeats the negative four different times so that we might be reassured that we are never left alone; that through all the circumstances in this life He is with us all the way. Because of this promise we can say with the psalmist, “The Lord has helped me, I will not be afraid.” Psalm 118:6
The second reason we are not to be afraid is:
"I am the Living One; I died, and behold I am alive forevermore."
This is the message of Easter. Jesus himself said in John 14:19, "because I live, you shall live also." That is what rips the stinger off of death, and gives us a future that’s secure. One of these days you and I are going to die. That’s reality. That’s what being a sinner has earned us. Paul says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” A wage is something you earn. It’s something that you deserve. You and I have earned death through our own sin. And don’t be deceived, sin never forgets pay up. The second half of Romans 6:23 says, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Unlike a wage, a gift is something that you did not earn, something you cannot earn. A gift is given freely out of love. The gift of God given freely out of His love is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Good Shepherd chapter of the Bible, John 10, in verse 28 Jesus says , “I give my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” The same nail-scarred hand that reached out to comfort John in this text, the powerful right hand of the Son of Man, is the hand in which your eternal future securely rests. It is this same loving hand that will hold you when you die. IT is those loving hands that will hand-deliver you to the paradise that has been prepared for you in heaven. And there is nothing in all of creation that can change this reality or alter His promises. Let those words of Christ ring true today, “Do not be afraid.”
The third and final reason Jesus gives for us not to be afraid is, "I hold the keys of Death and Hades." There are no enemies left standing, through His resurrection Jesus conquered them all. Jesus said, “I hold the keys to Death and Hades.” Now would be a good time to ask the question, “What does this mean?”
It means this; because of His victory over sin and death and Hell, he now in control of it all. When you hold the keys, it means that you have power and ownership and authority over what the keys open. For example, the dealership doesn’t give you the keys to a car until you have bought it. Same is true with realtors, until you sign the dotted line on the mortgage papers the house isn’t yours, but as soon as you have purchased it, the keys are all yours. See what I’m getting at? Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection He hold the keys. He signed on the dotted line with His own precious blood. What did He buy? Your life and mine, that’s what it means to be redeemed, it means to be, “bought back at a price.”
What do keys do? Well, they have two different functions. Either they lock things up, or they unlock something that was sealed shut. Christ now has the authority to lock up in Hell, for all eternity, the devil, his evil angels, and all those who rejected Him and refused His gracious gift. He also has the power and the authority to unlock the doors of heaven. Doors which were once sealed to sinful human beings, have now been flung wide open to receive those who have their sin washed away in the blood of the Lamb of God.
How can we be sure this is for us? How do we know we are truly forgiven? Don’t be afraid. Hear the words of your Lord from John 5:24,
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my Word, and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life. He will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death into life.”
Many a dying Christian has pillowed his head on that promise. So can you. Do not be afraid.
With these few words spoken to John, Jesus has given us enduring comfort and reassurance for our lives as well. These words ring down through the centuries, beyond the grave, from Heaven itself, to tell us, "Don’t be afraid of what you have to go through in this life. You do not have to worry about the trials and troubles that may come. Your past, your present, and your future are in the hands of Him who died and rose for you.”
So whenever the troubles of the world creep in around you, don’t be afraid. Whenever it seems as though Satan is just having his way, don’t be afraid. Whenever you are tempted to despair over your own sin or the sins of others, don’t be afraid. Remember this: There is Someone in charge -- God really is in control of the events of today -- and He has done something about it -- He died and rose again, and one day soon He will return to claim His own. Because of that, your life, your death, and your eternal future are safe in the palm of His almighty hands, Jesus hold the keys, don’t be afraid. Thanks be to God.
***Special thanks to Ray C. Stedman for the invaluable help his sermon entitled, "Who’s Minding the Store?" was in the formation of this sermon.***
