A Surprising Island

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

We are opening up the scriptures together, turning to the book of Revelation. We’ve been working our way through Revelation, and we’re in chapter one. We’ve sort of gone through the greeting and the welcome that’s brought there by John from the Lord, and now we begin to get to the actual vision itself, and we’re introduced to the context from where this vision is found. We picked up in verse 9 last week, didn’t we? And we talked about the unity that we have together with John, and with the Church of Asia, as we are brothers and partners in the tribulation, and in the kingdom, and in the patient endurance.

And we’re gonna look at the rest of verse 9 through to verse 11 today. But let’s just read from verse 9 to the end of the chapter. It’s quite helpful. This is God’s word for us today.

“I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation, and the kingdom, and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write what you see in a book and send it to the 7 churches. To Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.’ Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. And on turning, I saw 7 golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands, one like a sun of man clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like white wool, like snow. 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 7 stars. From his mouth came forth a sharp 2edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on 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 have the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are, and those that are to take place after this” Uh, “To take place after this,” sorry. “As for the mystery of the 7 stars that you saw in my right hand, and the 7 golden lampstands, the 7 stars are the angel- angels of the 7 churches, and the 7 lampstands are the 7 churches.”

Amen, and may God bless His word to us. And as we come to consider it, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Father in Heaven, we thank you that we can gather together around your throne in order to hear your voice. Lord, we’ve sung your praises, we’ve 0 offered up our prayers like incense before you. You have called us to yourself and s- so now, Lord, as, as little children and as little disciples, we, we seek to sit under your teaching and to learn your way. We seek to hear your voice so that we can follow you. We seek to hear the bread of life so that we may eat and live forever. We seek the water of life so that we might drink and never thirst again. And so, Lord, in the preaching of your word, we pray that you would do all of these things and much more. That Christ’s word would bear fruit in our lives and in our hearts. Grant us faith to believe and hear. In Jesus’ name we say- pray, amen.

I’m sure you all know the saying, “If life gives you lemons, what do you do? You make lemonade, right?” It’s fantastic. W- What do you do when life gives you rocks? Or when people throw rocks at you? Or when life beats you down, twists you up, and spits you out the other end? The- there are some things in life that are far worse than lemons, right? And often, often life seems to give it to us. Don’t worry, Shona. Better to have a crying baby than a chirping cricket.

We are not dealing with small matters in the life of John. We’re not dealing with insignificant pains. We’re dealing with deep things. Trauma, pain, things that many of us understand. Many of us have been through experiences in our life that we could not define as lemons. but rather as bricks and rocks and stones that leave deep scars, and that in the moment leave one feeling broken and traumatized and like there is no hope for future life.

Well, our text this morning comes to us and meets us, meets us in that very moment with, with another perspective, with another perspective that we might see what John is going through as John tells us, and observe some lessons to grant us perspective for our trials, and to enable us today to look backward over a year and reflect on it from the perspective of God.

And so I want us to observe 3 things in this passage.

Firstly, our first thing to observe is providential Patmos, providential Patmos.

Uh, you need to put yourself in John’s shoes for a minute. That’s hard. They didn’t wear shoes back then, but you just have to try. Uh, back then, they wore sandals, so you need to put yourself in their sandals. John is a pastor, an apostle, an elder who loves the sheep. He has care of the churches. He’s the last apostle left. All of the rest have been put to death through various different means. Persecution is rife. It’s the 90s. Domitian, the emperor, has had enough, and he sees John as a threat ’cause he recognizes he’s the leader of the church, and if you wanna scatter a sheep, what do you do? You strike the shepherd. And so John is arrested. He’s taken away from the churches. He’s tried. Church tradition tells us, I think it’s Tertullian who says that he’s thrown into a pot of boiling oil and hops out unscathed. Uh, whether it’s true or not, I have no idea, but apparently that’s what ha- took place. And because they couldn’t burn him, boil him alive, they sent him to Patmos. And so off to Patmos he goes and leaves behind him, what? The church and the people he loves, and he’s exiled.

Now, you need to understand by exile, don’t think Alcatraz, you know, like he’s locked up in some prison somewhere. He’s on a remote island. It’s not an unpopulated island. There’s other people there. There’s little towns there. But it’s a common place that exiles are sent, so there’s probably a pretty mixed bunch of people on Patmos, right? There’s probably other Christians there, but not many. There’s definitely not a well-established church at this point, but John gets sent there. A- and ask yourself the question, how do you think John felt in that moment? What do you think went through John’s head? Do you think John thought, “This is a wonderful, good thing. What a wonderful providence. I’m sent away from the church, the last remaining apostle. I’m not there to care for my flock, which is suffering persecution, which is being afflicted and tried on every side, and I’m cut off from the people whom I love”?

Well, many of us know that feeling, don’t we? Would any of us have said, “This is a wonderful gift”? Did we not rather lament? Did we not cry out with sorrow and bitterness of soul? And I’m sure John did too. And yet, what he would find out is that this is indeed providential Patmos. He goes out to Patmos, and as he goes out to this island on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, in other words he didn’t do anything wrong, he just honored Christ, he honored Christ’s command, “He who acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father,” that we read in Luke. He, he honors that and he gets sent to Patmos Island. And what happens on Patmos Island? He gets the Book of Revelation, doesn’t he?

Now you gotta ask yourself the question, what would’ve happened if he didn’t go to Patmos? I mean, he would’ve been a blessing to the church, right? He would’ve helped the church and ministered to the church for the time when he was in Patmos, but we never would have got the Book of Revelation, and has it not been such a blessing to the church for 2,000 years? I mean, yes, it’s been controversial and sparked l- lots of debate, and, and causes no, uh, no small amount of disagreement among Christians, and yet is it not just such a wonderful book of encouragement to the church? A- As the struggling and sorrowful and persecuted believer is able to look and see that, that Jesus, the Lamb of God is upon the throne, and that Christ reigns supreme as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as we, as a struggling new little family, are now 2,000 odd years later digging into it and finding riches and treasures and spoil for ourselves, we would’ve missed out. We never would have got it had John not been sent to Patmos.

You see, God’s, God’s work in the life of John in sending him to Patmos was to bless John and to bless the people of God throughout the ages until the return of Christ. I love the way George Matheson puts it. George Matheson, the blind Scottish minister says, **”The, the place of your present suffering”—**think about John on the island. “The place of your present suffering is the seed bed,” you know, somewhere you plant seeds, “is the seed bed of your future glory.” So the present suffering you have is where seeds are planted so that in days to come, it will be a crown of glory for you.

And this is just a Biblical principle, right? Think about Moses. He’s, he’s trying to do the right thing in Egypt by killing an Egyptian guy and protecting the Israelites, and he ends up chased out of town, fleeing for his life, living in the wilderness by himself, shepherding sheep on a mountain, but what happens? He sees a burning bush, and he meets face to face with God. Or think of Jacob, who flees from his brother who wants to kill him, and has nothing except for a rock to lay his head upon to sleep, and he sleeps and he sees what? A ladder going up and down to heaven with the angels coming up and down, and he calls it Bethel. It’s the pl- it’s the house of God. He meets with God as his head is upon a pillow of stone. It’s the place of his suffering, and in years to come he returns there and worships God. And so too with our Savior, right? Christ who would enter the veil of tears, and sweat drops of blood, and weep all the way to Golgotha, and be nailed and crucified and die. Well, brothers and sisters, is Golgotha not the place of his glory? The very same garden that he shed the tears is the garden from with which he walked from the tomb. The seed bed of the suffering of Jesus Christ is his glory.

And by the word of God I can tell you the same thing is true in your life. And you may not have tasted it yet, but a day will come when you will. Maybe you’re, maybe you’re entering into or in the middle of intense suffering. Maybe it’s abandonment by friends, or the betrayal of a loved one. Maybe it’s the loss of a job. Maybe it’s financial ruin. Maybe it’s the, the pressure of the world all around you, just the reality of life, of trying to be a mom, or a dad, or a husband, or a wife, or a child, trying to find a job, will I get married, all of these difficulties sort of flood all around you and you feel pressured and pain, and you’re suffering and you’re sorrowful and you’re afflicted, and you feel like you’re forsaken. God assures us in the Isle of Patmos that all of these things will what? Work for our good.

Brothers and sisters, who of us, 2 years ago, had the idea of doing a church plant? I sure didn’t. This wasn’t on my horizon, but it was on God’s. None of these things are accidents in the hands of God. Remember what we sung? What e’re my God ordains is right. Which is what? Everything! There’s nothing He doesn’t ordain. The number of people in this room that will sign our covenant document is fixed in the mind of God from all eternity past, and so that should fill us with great confidence. God, brothers and sisters, is on the scene. So whether your suffering is Patmos Island level suffering, or whether your suffering is small, it makes no difference. Look to the Lord by faith, because He will, Romans 8:28, “Work together all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” That is a promise you can bank on.

And you gotta wonder. You realize John didn’t die on Patmos Island? You may not know that, but he didn’t die there. He returned to Ephesus after his exile, and he took up his work there again until his death. I want you to picture for a second that he returns to Ephesus, and he sits down in the church. You know, the letter’s been distributed, right? It’s gone around the churches, and there’s a copy there in Ephesus. And someone comes up to John the first Sunday and says to him, “John, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that you went to Patmos, that you were exiled.” What do you think John would say? “Well, I’m not. No, I had the time of my life. I mean, yeah, I didn’t enjoy being away, and I missed you all and all that, but did you read the book? Did you read the letter that I sent?” It was worth all of the pain. It was worth all of the suffering. And you could imagine maybe one of the elders there picking up the letter and saying, “I’m not sorry either, because we got this. I’m sorry you suffered, but I, I’m not sorry it happened, because God gave us this.”

And we can have that same attitude among us, can’t we? “I’m sorry it happened. I’m sorry for grief, I’m sorry for pain, but I rejoice in what God’s done through it.” And it enables us to completely change our heart attitude toward whatever we walk through, because we can simultaneously grieve and sorrow, and rejoice, for this is the day that the Lord has made. And we can pray for those who persecute us, and we can love our enemies, and we can turn the other cheek. Why? Because we know all of these things are providentially in the hand of God. It brings such comfort to know that our, our suffering is also providential Patmos.

But I want you to observe another thing that happened on the island, another thing that would’ve brought John great comfort in his sorrow, and that is a Spirit-filled Sunday, a Spirit-filled Sunday.

We’re told, have a look at verse 10, John said, says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.”

Now, you’ve gotta appreciate, w- we love coming to church, right? And sometimes maybe we don’t feel like it a little bit, and sometimes we’re tempted not to go. Sometimes, “Oh, I can’t be bothered,” so we don’t come. But generally speaking, we love coming to church. Well, generally speaking, no one loves coming to church more than the pastor does. And so you can imagine John really loved going to church, right? Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day, as he ministered as an apostle who had experienced the Ministry of Christ on the first Lord’s Day, on the first Christian Sabbath. You remember John at the end of the Gospel, Jesus appears at nighttime to who? The 12 disciples. On what day? Sunday. And so, on that first Sunday, John had sat under the Ministry of Christ, the shepherd, Christ, the shepherd of the sheep, Christ, the pastor, Christ, the minister, and he had said to them, uh, not He had said, “Peace.” He didn’t say, “Go in peace,” like I say. He said, “Peace. Peace to you.” Shalom.

And John loved church, but where is he now on the Lord’s Day? He’s by himself. It doesn’t say he was in the Spirit with another group of believers, and yet he is in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, isn’t he? By himself. And, and there’s a, there’s a commentator called William Hendrickson who captures this really beautifully, and so I just wanna read this to you. He says, as, as John’s on the island by himself, “Is John’s heart burning with eagerness to see his brethren? The mountains do not answer. The billows blooming upon the shore remain indifferent to his yearning desire.” You feel that pain of, of being away. Some of you know this. If you’re sick, if you’re unwell, or if you’re in hospital, or if there’s something that means you can’t gather, and this burning desire to be there, and yet everywhere you look, you see isolation. It’s like during COVID. Some of us felt that week after week after week of not being in God’s house until you feel this oppressiveness. You have to get out and be with God’s people, and that’s the frame of mind of John when we’re told, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.”

And so Hendrickson continues. He says, “But all of a sudden, the Earth seems to sink away under his feet. The horizon recedes. John’s soul seems to be liberated from the shackles of time and space. He is taken out of contact with the physical world around about him. He is in the Spirit. He sees indeed, but not with physical eyes. He hears indeed, but not with physical ears. He is in direct spiritual contact with his Savior. He is truly alone with God. He is wide awake, and every avenue of his soul is wide open to the direct communication of God.”

It’s a glorious picture, isn’t it? So what does it mean for John to be in the Spirit? And is it in the Holy Spirit, ’cause you’ll notice the ESV has a capital S? Or is it in the spirit, little S, like his own spirit? Like, was he within himself sort of welling up spirituality? Or was he experiencing some outer body experience in the Holy Spirit? Well, th- this phrase, “in the Spirit” has a lot of Old Testament roots. It’s used in Ezekiel. It’s used by Isaiah. It’s used by Daniel, and all of it to express a very significant event when God meets with one of His people face to face in order to communicate God truth. And they experience an intimacy and ecstasy of relational communion with God, which is above and beyond normal, and it all happens on Patmos Island. He enters into the richest fellowship of God possible this side of glory.

I mean, we all long for the day when we will see face to face Christ our Savior, right? When we will see the wounds on His hands, and the scars on His brow, and the wounds in His feet and side, when we will look upon Him in His resplendent glory. John saw that on Patmos Island. This is what is being described for us. And what’s really, really wonderfully helpful for us to see and recognize right now is that John is in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day in the midst of his suffering, regardless of whatever is going on around him. Though there is no church, though there is nothing else, what is he doing on the Lord’s Day? He is seeking the face of God.

Why is that important? Well, it’s important because if it’s truly necessary for John to be doing it on Patmos, how much more us in freedom? And so you might ask yourself the question, well, what’s meant by the Lord’s Day? It doesn’t say Sunday. And you’re right, it doesn’t. It could’ve been Jewish then. It could’ve been Monday through Friday. What’s the Lord’s Day? Isn’t every day the Lord’s Day? Now, the phrase is used repetitively in the New Testament through the Book of Acts. Was, actually, sorry, the, the phrase Lord’s Day is used twice. It’s a reference to the possession of the day by the Lord, and we know that the church acts and end of John gather together to worship God on the Lord’s Day, on Sunday. In the early church, about 50 years after this, the early church fathers will already be referring to the day of worship as Sunday. It won’t be called Sunday, of course, ’cause it’s Greek, so it’ll be Haléon Hémera. But it’s Sunday. Why? ‘Cause that’s the day of the rising, right? What does the sun do in the morning? It rises. And so on the first day of the week, when the sun arises, the people of God gather together to worship the Son.

And this is important for us. You see, John, in all of his pain, does the most natural and important thing for a believer to do. He honors the Lord on the Lord’s Day with all of his heart. And there’s a very important lesson here for us, and that is in order for us to have true spiritual blessing on, in our lives, so that we you know, this in the spirit type of fellowship and communion with God, Lord’s Day is absolutely an essential component. The celebration of the Lord’s Day is the centerpiece of the Christian life, and here’s the thing that you have to acknowledge and recognize. Fleshliness and worldliness has no part with spirit-filled communion with God. Face-to-face communion with God, where the world fades away and you are face to face with your savior, is never achieved through worldliness. And so to the degree that we separate ourselves from the 6 days together, and praise God, and set our face towards him on the Lord’s Day, to that degree, we will experience communion with God.

This is why throughout the church, up until around about the early 1900s, the Lord’s Day was always stressed to be sanctified. It wasn’t until the modern church that all of a sudden someone said, “You know what? It really doesn’t matter what you do on the Lord’s Day. You just spend it how you want. It’s your own day.” Because the church recognized it’s the Lord’s Day, which means he owns it. It’s his day. We’re, we’re borrowing it when we enter into it. And so we enter into it with our face towards him, and as we set aside the fleshly things, God invites us to enter in the spirit to worship him face to face.

And I tell you what, in all of the sorrow, in all of the suffering of the last year, the moment, and only real moment, of intense joy and bliss has been in the household of God. That’s just my personal experience, and my personal experience is worth absolutely nothing. But the Word of God is calling us into that. And hasn’t it been true for you? In the midst of your sorrow, you think to yourself, in the midst of your pain, you think to yourself, “It’s not worth it. I, I don’t wanna get out of bed, let alone go to church.” And you pick yourself up, and you drag yourself to church, and you drag your heels the whole way there. And the whole way there, you’re thinking to yourself, “Surely I can find a way to get lost so I can find my way back home again.” But you drag yourself there. What happens? By the time the Lord’s Day is finished, you say to yourself, “Man, I’m so glad I went. What a blessing. What a joy as God ministered to my heart.”

And brothers and sisters, if John Chapter 20 is any encouragement to us, let us not forsake the second gathering. You know, Jesus met with the disciples in the evening. He Himself sanctified an evening service. Don’t take that lightly. Thomas didn’t turn up on the first evening service, and he missed out on the blessing, and now he gets to be recorded as Doubting Thomas. Turn up, receive the blessing of God in the Spirit.

But there’s one more thing we must observe. So Is- Isle, Patmos, Providential Patmos, we see a spirit-filled Sunday for John, which brings him such comfort, and then lastly, we hear a volume- voluminous voice, a very loud voice.

John, being in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, you know, as Hendrickson describes it, right, everything begins to roll away, and, and he’s just face-to-face, communing with God. You can imagine him, can’t you? Bowed before the presence of the Lord. And then something wakes him up. Something awakens his, like, reverie, his reverence, his worship. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this before where someone sneaks up on you and gives you a massive heart attack? This happens to me reasonably frequently in my study. I, I’ll be in my study, and I’m just sort of, I’m just really focused and in the zone, and I’m working, and I’ve just, e- everything just zones out. I just lose track of everything around me. A- and my beloved wife, who walks around the house like a butterfly, sneaks into the l- and she’s trying to be kind, so she’s quiet ’cause she doesn’t wanna disturb me, and she walks in, and she says, “Hon.” And I go, “Oh! Oh!” And I have an absolute heart attack. “Oh! Oh. Oh, hi.”

This, this is the sort of impact that we’re getting given here, right? John is b- on his face, bowed down before the Lord, and all of a sudden, something like a trumpet blast erupts in the room. Well, outside, ’cause he’s in the wilderness, probably. Assumption, a cave. We’re told that a loud voice like a trumpet blasted around him. Now, important, it’s not a trumpet blasting, right? John doesn’t say, “I heard a trumpet blast.” That’s very different. “I heard a voice like a trumpet.”

Now, there are lots of trumpets in the Bible. You go through the Old Testament. Remember the Sinai? What happens? God invites the people to come and hear His voice, and the very first thing they hear is what? A trumpet blast. And several times in the Old Testament, a trumpet blast announces that God is about to declare something incredible, and it’s almost always judgment, or woe, or threatening. And so here now, as Christ comes to declare His revelation of judgment to John and to a people harassed and persecuted by the Roman emperor and the Roman world, a message of woe and judgment is coming, and so a trumpet blast sounds. But it’s not a trumpet blast. It’s the voice of one, like a Son of Man, verse 13. The voice of Jesus Christ.

And as this voice, like a trumpet, announces, it’s important that we recognize it, it doesn’t come like a mumble, right? It’s not J- John’s afterwards, he’s like, “I wonder if I heard him clearly? Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe I, maybe h- I heard something mispronounced, and he actually said something different.” It didn’t come as a whisper that John goes, “Could you please repeat yourself?” No, it was a clarion call. with authority and weightiness. I mean, we all know this, right? When Dad walks around the corner and he says, “Hey, kids, how are you?” Versus when he walks around to the kids and goes, “What are you doing?” You know as soon as that happens, what happens? We have a heart attack and you immediately wonder if you’re about to die. Well, th- this is the reality. Jesus Christ shows up on the Lord’s Day in his resplendent glory, that we will consider next week, and he proclaims wonderful things for the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the ages, and to John.

And John has the joy in the midst of his sorrow of hearing Christ’s voice again. It had been so long, hadn’t it? Like, can you feel for John and the disciples? They got to actually be face-to-face with their savior, got to walk with him and talk with him along life’s weary way. They heard him. They would have heard him tell jokes. They would have seen him cry. They would have seen the pained look upon his face when they hurt him. And yet, for 60-odd years, he had been gone. Physically, of course. But, oh, must have been a little bit like when Jesus hears When Mary hears Jesus say, “Mary. Mary.” John hears his Lord, his saviour, but not in a sweet whisper like to Mary, but in thundering power.

Brothers and sisters, it hasn’t changed. The same authoritative voice is heard proclaiming the mysteries of Christ, Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day. This is the wonder about This proclamation that comes forth and is recorded on the Lord’s Day echoes with the same authority every Lord’s Day until the return of Christ. And one day, he will return, and what will happen? The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised and the voice of Christ will be heard in judgment. But until that day, we gather morning and evening, Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day, around the face of the world, and the voice of Christ is heard.

This is why the hymnist can say, “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Come unto me and rest.’” He doesn’t say, do you notice, “I read the voice of Jesus say, ‘Come unto me and rest.’” He says, “I heard.” Why? Because through the preaching of the Gospel, he heard Christ himself. This is why John in Ro- Paul, sorry, in Romans 10, will say, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Christ.” Not hearing of Christ, as it’s translated in lots of Bibles, which is a bad translation. But hearing Christ, is the point. Because as the messenger of God under the authority of God proclaims the word of Christ, Christ himself speaks to us.

This is the blessing comfort for us, even as we gather here. That now because of God’s providence leading us here, the voice of Christ is trumpeted forth in the Te Hihī School, in a place where 2 months ago there was no word of Christ heard. And that’s an encouraging thought, isn’t That regardless of everything, in this community, from the beginning of August, the word of Christ went forth. What does that mean? Well, it fills us with confidence, doesn’t it? Because it’s not us and our words and our cleverness that needs to save Karaka, but it’s the word of Christ that comes in power. The same word of Christ that awakened John in his rev- reverent worship, erupts here and will waken sinners out of their slumber, will waken Lazarus, the dead man from the tomb, and the spiritually dead man from the grave today as well. And so we can come here by faith with confident assurance that as the word of Christ travels forth from this place, sinners will get saved and saints like John will get ministered to in their suffering and in their joy. What do we have to do? We just have to get them in here, right? It’s, it’s not brain science. Just get the lost to hear the word of Christ and plead with God to do the work of salvation.

Brothers and sisters, Patmos must have been a, a place of real sorrow for John, cut off from the people of God whom he loved. And yet do you think he regretted it? I’m sure there were days on Patmos Island where he was overwhelmed with grief and wanted nothing more than to return back to the people whom he loved. And we know that feeling, don’t And we can be honest about that feeling, and our heart can be honest with God about that feeling. This is not what we would have chosen, and yet we can look to God by faith, and we can see already what he’s doing in our midst day by day in the presence of God, and we can give thanks to him. We can declare by faith what e’er my God ordains is right. We can plead with him by faith, be still my soul. We can acknowledge God moves in a mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, and we’re gonna sing that in a second.

I think I’ve told you the mi- the story of this hymn before, but the story’s so worth telling, I’ll tell it again. William Cooper, a depressed man who tried ki- killing himself about 5 times, hired a taxi, it was a horse and carriage back then of course, but he hired a taxi and he asked him to take him to the bridge. Didn’t tell him why of course, but his plan was to jump off. He called up the taxi, the taxi arrived, he hopped in the taxi, and just as the taxi left, a thick fog descended upon his city. One that the taxi driver couldn’t find his way very easily, and the taxi driver got lost, and William Cooper being frustrated and depressed said, “Would you please get me there?” He says, “I’m trying. I can’t find my way. The st- thick fog is too thick.” So eventually William Cooper said, “That’s fine, just chuck me out here.” They chucked him outside of the taxi and he was right back outside of his house, and he walked inside and he wrote the words of this hymn God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep, deep in unfathomable minds, unfathomable minds, he works his wonders still.

This is our God, and that which he did for William Cooper, he will do for you and I.

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