Follow The Lamb Wherever He Goes

Revelation 14:4-5 says, “It is these who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found. For they are blameless.”

Heather and I have found that sometimes it is harder as opposed to easier to follow the Lamb wherever He goes. He went to the cross. Have we followed Him there? As Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

As the Apostle Paul said, “I die everyday” (1 Cor. 15:31). No doubt, to follow our Savior as Lamb Who was slain means continually following Jesus to the cross “everyday.” 

Why must we follow the Lamb to the cross everyday? Because Jesus as our Lamb who was led away to slaughter was crucified for our sin, and I’ve found that the reason that we must follow the Lamb to the cross everyday is because of that same purpose: we are still sinners in need of our Savior.

When I follow the Lamb to crucifying circumstances, it reveals my self dependent levels of sin, kills them and creates renewed trust in God. Therein lies the purpose of following our Lamb to the cross everyday.  

So why can’t following the Lamb wherever He goes be a more fun and lighthearted exercise? Why must it be so painful? The gospel includes both the death and resurrection of Jesus. So why can’t we just follow Christ the Lamb in the second half of the Gospel: to resurrected life? 

We do, but the resurrection of Christ must come through the cross of Christ first. It did for Christ and it must for us too. God knows this and I’m coming to learn this too. In order to follow Christ the Lamb into glorious eternal life, we must first follow Him through a crucifying death over and over again, hence the reason for why Paul says, “I die everyday.” He was “following the Lamb wherever He went.” 

I think that  2 Corinthians 5:7-11 defined the reason that cruddy circumstances breeds sweet success. Again, Paul writes, “but we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ALWAYS carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” 

I think that 2 Corinthians 5:7-11 describes what it means in Revelation 14:5 when it says about these people who follow the Lamb wherever He goes that no lie was found in their mouth, they are blameless.

Practically, what does that mean for a Christian to follow the Lamb wherever He goes to a blameless point of God Himself being able to say that no lie was found in their mouth? 

I think that it means, Christians are honestly blameless when they are honest about the spiritual  tension that they face in life. Christians are honest when we talk about our tension of trusting the Lamb that we follow when He leads us to tough situations. 

Christians are honest when they say, “it’s hard to follow the Lamb wherever He goes. There are some places that He leads me to that I don’t want to go, like He leads me through ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ Well I would just prefer that He leads me around that and keeps me by the streams of water and green pastures (Ps. 23).” 

Christians are honest when they say, “I’m a jar of clay right now,” which in the context of 2 Cor. 5:7 means a vessel used for holding trash. Nevertheless, the Christian who is blameless goes on to say “but this is to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” A Christian is honest when they follow the Lamb wherever He goes because they believe that following Him wherever He goes will break out into glorious life on the other side, even if it means going through death and pain to get there. That was the way of Christ and it must be the way of us. Therefore, in the middle of hard times, the blameless Christian can honestly say, “I feel like scum right now but that is to show the divine power of Christ to remake and transform my ashes back into beauty.”

Furthermore, a Christian is blameless and honest when they can say with their tongue to others, “I’m afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair.” That’s how Heather and I feel right now: perplexed at how much seeming misfortune God has brought on Heather’s life, frustrated at times, really discouraged at other times and sometimes mad, but not driven to despair because we have God’s glorious hope and because we have this treasure in jars of clay. We focus on God’s Treasure of Jesus, not our jar of clay. The more brittle our clay body becomes, the more that God’s surpassing power can be seen because we no longer have this thick wall of health to hide Jesus behind but like a translucent piece of glass, we give the glorious light of Christ a more visible outlet to be able to shine through us. 

Therefore, the honest Christian is one who can honestly say, “I don’t have my life all together, I’m not a polished Christian. I’m like a rusty Christian…a jar of clay. I’m a fragile Christian too. I feel like hard circumstances such as chronic diseases or surgery gone wrong threaten to break me apart. It’s a wonder that they don’t, but the reason that they don’t is because I HAVE THIS TREASURE IN MY JAR OF CLAY and He who holds all things together is holding me together. I have been filled in Him.” 

So then, the Christian Who is dishonest and not blameless is the one who says, “my Christian walk is easy. Faith in Christ is just so easy. Following Jesus my Lamb just feels so wonderful all the time. I don’t ever find it hard to trust God. It just comes naturally to me.” 

That’s not an honest Christian. That’s a hypocrite. 

Don’t hear me wrong. Sometimes it does feel easy to trust God. Sometimes it is very pleasant to follow our Lamb to where He takes us because He leads us to some wonderful places! But He also leads us to some terrible places too and it’s at those locations where we have trouble trusting our Shepherd Lamb. 

It’s interesting that towards the end of  Revelation 14:12-13, it calls for an endurance of the saints, that is, for those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes and for those who have no lie found in their mouth.

Why would these Jesus, Lamb of God followers need endurance? They need endurance to keep their faith in Jesus in the midst of Him leading them to death. In other words, followers of the Lamb need endurance because following Jesus is tough. 

Therefore verse 13 says, “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from how on.”

So you see, Revelation 14 is saying that those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes follow Him to death, and that’s not easy! 

My wife and I feel these verses from God being ever so slightly exposited in our life right now. 

God has led Heather to chronic lyme disease. He recently led Heather to receive oral surgery that cut out 3 different mouth infections that were festering in her mouth. 

As a result of this hopeful surgery it seems like Heather has more problems than solutions now. She can’t feel 1/4th of her tongue. Actually, she can feel it but only like it’s burning. Add to that, Heather can’t open up her mouth wide enough to even be able to eat a sandwich. We’re told that this could be permanent. 

This is maddening and frustrating. It’s disheartening too. We’ve experienced our fair share of tears. While we understand that we should trust God, at times we just don’t want to trust Him because we want what we want. We don’t want what He continues to give us. 

Nevertheless, we are determined to follow the Lamb wherever He goes and use this valley in order to speak with a blameless mouth that says, “friend, we don’t have it all together. Friend, we find this hard. Friend, we wish that our Great Shepherding Lamb wouldn’t lead us to where He just led us! But friend, we will continue to follow our Lamb because He is our Friend and He is our Savior.” 

Indeed, we are perplexed at the sour scenarios that our Lamb of God leads us to at times, but we are not driven to despair because we serve a Lamb Who was driven to ultimate despair for us so that we don’t need to be crushed with eternal despair. Not only that, but Jesus walked out of the grave into a glorious new life for us. Therefore, so will we. 

Therefore, Heather and I can say, “we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…” 

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.” -Romans 11:36