Audio Transcript

For me, the most anticipated message of the year from John Piper comes in his annual message at the Passion Conference in early January. This year, in Atlanta he preached on Revelation 13 in a message titled “The Beast, the Book, and the Beauty of the Lamb.” He did not disappoint. The entire message is worth listening to, and you can find it on our site. Here is a clip of him explaining his greatest fear, his greatest hope, and his greatest delight — all in the context of understanding what it means that Christ died for us and that our names are found in the book of life.

There are three purposes.

1. What does it mean for you personally? Did you see yourself there? What does it mean for you that the Lamb was slain in the mind of God in eternity past?
2. What does it mean for you that you were purchased in the center of history?
3. And what does it mean for you that you will be singing if your names are in the book?

Three things.

Behold Your God

First, your name is in the book so that you will see the glory of the Lamb. Seeing the Lamb as beautiful is the great vocation of the Christian. This is the fountain of all the godliness in your life: seeing the Lamb as supremely beautiful and satisfying and compelling. The devil knows this, and that is why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “[Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”

This is the most terrifying thing in the world to me: that people I love (or I, myself) may be so blinded by the devil that they look at Jesus, and he is not beautiful. He is not their treasure. Money is their treasure. Videos are their treasure. Making grades are their treasure. Their boyfriend is their treasure. That, to me, is the most terrifying thing in the world. Death is not terrifying. To be so deceived that you can’t see Jesus as the treasure of your life — that is the most terrifying thing. The great first decisive result of being in the book is that Jesus is beautiful to you. You see him for who he is. That is the effect of being in the book.

• So the risen Lamb says to us in Revelation 1:18, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore.” See. It is a command.
• In Revelation 5:5 the elder says to John, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah . . . has conquered.”
• In Revelation 22:7 the Lamb says, “Behold, I am coming soon.”

See, I am alive. See, I conquered. See, I am coming. Do you see? To be in the book is to see. And then in Revelation 1:14–16, he tells us what he saw when he looked at the risen Lamb.

His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

The first and decisive effect of being in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain is that you see the Lamb as supremely precious — more than anything else in your life. Do you?

Die Humbly and Happily

Second, this means that, since your name is in the book, you will live and die humbly and happily to show that Jesus is more precious than life. So I am moving from seeing to showing. The first effect of being in the book is that you see. The second effect of being in the book is that you live and you die humbly and happily in order to show Jesus is more precious than life.

If your name is in the book, your calling is not to stay alive but to stay in love. Death is a small thing compared to hell — a very small thing. So many today are trying to figure out ways to keep themselves alive: “We are going to take them out before they can get to us.” If you are in the book, that is not your goal. The purpose of being in the book — of being known, appointed, loved, purchased, singing — is not to keep yourself alive but to keep yourself in love with Jesus, to love Jesus so much nothing, not even death, will stop it.

This is the Spirit that must run in our day. We are ready to die for the world. We don’t kill for the world; we die for the world. That is what Christians do. We keep ourselves in love. We don’t keep ourselves alive.

Make Him Look Good

Third, by your life — humble, happy — and by your death — humble, happy — the Lamb is seen to be more precious than anything. Isn’t that the way it works? If you can die happily in fellowship and security with Jesus, you make him look really good, really precious. But if you are saying at any cost, “You are not killing me,” what does that show? You are just like everybody else. That is what it shows.

The world will not rise up and say, “Tell me the reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). They will know where your hope is. It is in your holster. That is where it is.