Revelation 1:9-20
All right, let us hear God’s
word together. This is Revelation chapter one, beginning at verse
nine. And this is John the apostle,
John the beloved disciple. And he says, 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 seven 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 seven golden
lampstands. And in the midst of the lampstands
was one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with golden
sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white
like wool, as white as 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 seven
stars. From his mouth came a sharp,
two-edged 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. As for the mystery of the seven
stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels
of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven
churches. Amen. This is God’s holy, inspired,
and inerrant word, and we trust it to be true. Jesus told his disciples in the
upper room, as he was preparing himself to go and to suffer and
die for the work of redemption, he told his disciples, in this
world, you will have trouble. Now that sort of flies against
the prosperity theology we hear today, right? In this world,
if you make good choices, in this world, if you believe in
yourself, in this world, if you, what is it, girl, wash your face?
Isn’t that the latest? In this world, if you believe
in yourself, you will have no trouble but prosperity. Well,
that’s counter to what Jesus says. In this world, you will
have trouble. The book of Revelation is written
to those of us who remain on earth who have not yet made our
way to heaven by death or by Jesus’ second coming. I was reading in this week’s
edition of World Magazine that came out. I made mention of it
this morning about the church in China. There is a particular
church in this latest edition of World Magazine that has been
targeted since December. It’s been closed down. They cannot
have public worship. And so it wasn’t enough for the
Chinese government just to close down this church. They pursued
them to the homes where they were having house church worship. And since December, they have
been bused to police stations. They have arrested, they have
detained church members as young as two months old, all the way
to the elderly. Over a hundred people have been
detained and some are still in prison. The ones who are not
still detained, the ones out of prison, out of jail, have
been harassed. A journalist who was also a deacon
in the church has been exposed and he has been jailed for speaking
against the state. There have been harassments by
the officials there against people in all sorts of ways. And just
as we send out church updates, their church does the same. Now
ours are somewhat lighthearted. We need to pick up trash because
the roofer’s made a mess, right? We’re having a work day. We need
to plant some flower bulbs. We’re having a young at heart
on Tuesday or something of that nature. Well, this is their church
update here. Even though we are struggling
with the unbearable weight of harassments, surveillance, threats,
and humiliation, as soon as we remember that this is a way of
being imprisoned with those in prison, heavenly joy rises up
within us. And along with this note from
the church, there was reference made to the chapter of the seventh
chapter of Revelation, verses nine through 17, where the saints
of God are in heaven. They are clothed in their white
robes of righteousness and around the throne of glory, they worship
God. These Chinese brothers and sisters,
they understand something that we probably do not. In this world,
you will have tribulation. In this world, you will have
trouble. and their experience of it is
great, but they are using the book of Revelation as it is meant
to be used. It is to encourage the saints
who are behind, who are still on earth. and catch a glimpse
of what is true in glory and what will be true in God’s eternal
kingdom. And so John writes the book of
Revelation. He puts together what he sees
and at the command of Christ, it is put into scripture. We
know the wonderful A phrase from Peter’s writings. Holy men of
old were moved along by the Holy Spirit. They wrote down the things
which are for our instruction and for our benefit. And so we
have before us the book of Revelation. But what are we to make of chapter
one, verses nine through 20? Well, I’ve titled this message
for tonight, Jesus and His Beloved Disciple. It’s a visit. It’s
a visit again between the beloved disciple John and Jesus. But this time, John is an old
man, not a young apostle. This time, Jesus is not earthly
ministry Jesus. He’s heavenly reigning and ruling
Jesus. John, an old man, and Jesus,
the exalted Christ. They get together, as it were,
on the island of Patmos. Chapter 1 verse 9 says this,
I, John, your brother, he’s speaking to us, your partner in the tribulation
and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus,
was on the island called Patmos on the 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 seven churches,
to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira,
and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. So here’s John as an old man,
and he has become at some point in time, he’s in his 90s, he’s
become the Bishop of Ephesus. Now you remember the church at
Ephesus. The apostle Paul planted it.
They get a letter, the letter to the Ephesians. And then in
Paul’s prison time, he sends Timothy there. And Timothy becomes
the minister at Ephesus. And now John, the apostle, an
old man, is the pastor there. And he is on the island of Patmos.
It’s a prison island. He’s on this island, exiled. And notice what he says on account
of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. How many of you want
to find yourself someday in prison because you’re a Christian, because
you’re a Christian minister, because you’re being faithful? It’s it’s coming our way. I was
reading another account in World Magazine of Christian Liberty,
a man in the Mall of America in Minnesota. was asked by another
person, are you a Muslim? And he said, well, I used to
be, but I became a Christian. I became a Christian, I was persecuted
in my own country, and so I fled, and now I’m a US citizen. I came
here as a refugee, a Christian refugee, and now he is a pastor
in the United States. And this person was asking him
these questions, and it became known to a third person who said,
you’re proselytizing, and you’re doing it in a private place,
and so the security guards from the mall They detained him and
they escorted him out of the mall, and they have now banned
him for one year from this mall for having a religious conversation. It’s headed our way, but John
is on the Isle of Patmos, a prison island, because he’s been a faithful
minister. And Jesus appears to John at
Patmos. It’s the first appearance of
Jesus on earth, at least, since his ascension. He wants to speak
to John. He wants to encourage John. He
wants John to write down what he sees and communicate it to
the seven churches. And when he speaks of the seven
churches, he is speaking to the church as a whole, the perfect
number. And we’ll see in the weeks to
come, as we study these seven letters, we’ll see that he has
praise for these churches, but he also has rebuke. He has exhortations
for these churches, but also promise. that he wants to speak
and give a message to the seven churches or his complete church
on earth. And so here we have Jesus. We
have the risen and exalted Christ and John the apostle, the writer
of the gospel, the writer of the three epistles, and the writer
of this book, Revelation. I want you to notice a couple
of things John says about himself. He says, I, John, your brother.
He doesn’t say apostle. He doesn’t say the bishop. He
doesn’t give his titles and his credentials, which we would probably
be very likely to do. He simply says, I’m your brother. And then he also speaks of himself
as a partner, a partner in the tribulation. And then he refers
to himself as a laborer in the kingdom. and the patient endurance. He’s a fellow countryman, a fellow
laborer in the gospel of God and the work of the kingdom.
He speaks of patient endurance through tribulation. We must
endure to the end. Somebody has said in recent years
something like this. In America, when persecution
hits, the church will scatter. Not the real church, but the
gathered church. And those who are left will be
like John, willing to suffer, willing to die, willing to be
imprisoned, willing to endure and to be long-suffering for
the sake of the gospel. The ones who gathered, like Jesus,
remember Jesus had crowds? They followed him, they went
with him, but when the going got tough, what did they do?
They scattered and only a few stayed. And so we must take encouragement
here to stick to the work of the gospel, stick to the work
of the kingdom. We must have patient endurance
in Jesus. What about Patmos? Here is the
place where Jesus visits with John. This is where John writes
this letter this epistle this apocalypse. It’s a. island 40
miles southwest of Miletus. You start reading your Acts and
Apostles and look at your map, you’ll see where Miletus is.
It’s a harbor for Ephesus. It’s about six miles by 10 miles
in size. It’s rocky and it’s volcanic
and hilly. If any of you ever hear the little
phrase, he was exiled to a deserted island, well, here’s a picture
of that. He was exiled to a deserted island.
Prisoners were put there. He was there because he served
God and not Caesar. He was not there for church planting.
He was not there for mission work. He was not there on business
of the government. No, he was there because he was
imprisoned. And so here is John meeting Jesus. Now, what do we
see about Jesus? Enough about John for a moment,
enough about this rocky island called Patmos. What do we see
about Jesus? Well, if you pick up in verses
10 and 11, John says, I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day. I’ll stop there for just a moment. This is the only mention of the
Lord’s day in the New Testament. But what does our theology often
say? We were talking this morning
in Sunday school, a new member’s class, about faith and practice,
what we’re to believe and how we’re to live. So we have this
practice in our Christian faith that we honor the Lord’s day.
We remember the Sabbath day as God did in creation. We keep
it holy. We rest. We don’t work. We worship. We
come to church. We’re with other Christians.
And here’s John on the Isle of Patmos. Probably not a gathered
church, but what does he do? He takes some time away. He keeps
the Lord’s Day. What a good example to us. In
the times when we can’t providentially be with God’s people in God’s
house, we can still honor the day. And I’m not suggesting at
all that you say, well, do that playing golf or whatever. There
are times when we are in the hospital. There are times we
are homebound. There are times when we are sick. There are times
when we can’t make it to church. And here John says, I’m in prison,
but in the Lord’s Day, I was in the spirit and I heard behind
me a loud voice. like a trumpet saying write what
you see in a book and send it to the seven churches and then
he lists those seven churches and one of the things you’ll
notice as we make our way through the book of revelation is there
are lots of pieces of language phrases and allusions to the
old testament we read a little bit ago ezekiel 43 and i think
you noticed there’s some similarity what’s seen and what’s heard,
the voice of many waters. There’s lots of similarities
and allusions and references to the Old Testament. But here’s
Jesus coming to speak to John, and we pick up in verse 12. He
says, I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and
on turning, I saw seven golden lampstands. And you get to the
end of chapter one, it tells you what those lampstands are,
the church. Sometimes we, pray that God will keep us faithful
in our witness, that we will be a true lampstand. And we’ll
see in a couple of weeks when we get to the seven letters to
the seven churches, one of the threats that God gives to the
church is, if you don’t do what I ask, he says, I’ll remove your
lampstand. Makes you wonder, I don’t mean
this in a judgmental way, I guess it is judgmental, but you’ll
get what I’m saying. How many people are doing church?
but there is no flame on a lampstand burning for God. It’s interesting
to think about, isn’t it? But we are, as a church, a lampstand,
a light. And he refers to the churches
here as the seven golden lampstands. In the midst of the lampstands
was one like a son of man. Where is Jesus? He’s in the midst
of his churches. We think, oh, he’s off in heaven.
Oh, he’s distant from us. No, he’s right in the thick of
it, friends. We just don’t see it. We don’t remember it. We
don’t keep it in our minds and hearts. What does this son of
man look like? He is clothed with a long robe
and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head
were white like wool, as white as 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 seven
stars. From his mouth came a sharp two-edged
sword and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.”
Could you imagine seeing this? Could you imagine experiencing
this? Could you imagine what it would
be like to bump into the risen and exalted Jesus and to see
this wonderful picture? Well, we get the appearance Christ
and there’s there’s no way to do it justice, but just to walk
our way through it There is a there is an inadequacy of the human
language to describe Christ There’s a inadequacy of of our minds
to be able to perceive and to understand It can only be told
to us with what we call it in our English grammar similes metaphors
like and as and Is it literal? Is it figurative? And one of
the things we notice is that the surroundings of Christ are
described first. He’s surrounded by the golden
lampstands. He’s surrounded by his churches. And then it describes Jesus like
a son of man in the midst of the church. You have language
from Daniel, language from the prophecies of the Old Testament. Jesus is the light, he is the
bright one, he is the son of man, the Messiah, he is the king
of the kingdom of eternity, and Christ is walking among his churches. This is the picture. You know,
sometimes we’re critical of this church and that church, and we’ve
just watched the United Methodist and their assembly, and we’ll
have our assembly this summer, the PCA will have theirs, and
other churches, they’ll have their assemblies, and all the
chitter-chatter will be, who’s faithful? Who’s doing the right
things? Who’s going liberal? Who’s staying
true to the Bible? Well, that’s all well and good
for us to judge, isn’t it? But here we get a picture of
Jesus walking among his churches and he is judging us. That’s
a little bit more fearful to me than it is to have other people
judging us. And it says Christ is walking
among his churches and we’ll see that he will reprove and
encourage, he will praise, but he will correct and he will warn
and he will issue promises. He’s wearing a robe. He’s wearing
a white linen robe that goes down to his ankles, a golden
sash. He’s dressed like the priest
of the Old Testament. He’s dressed as the great high
priest who ever lives above to make intercession for us. He is dressed with dignity. He
is dressed with clothes of a high standing. His hair is white,
a sign of wisdom and that demands respect. Some of you get a little
worried about your hair. Some of us less worried because
it’s disappearing, but you color your hair, not Jesus. It’s white. It’s a sign of wisdom. It’s a sign of one who is worthy
of respect. His eyes are flaming eyes. Maybe some of your parents told
you when you were little, they can see everything. They can’t,
but Jesus can. His eyes are flaming. They can
penetrate it. Echo of Hebrews 4.12, the word
of God is living. It’s active. It’s a double-edged
sword. It pierces to the joints. And to the Ameros, if you look
over at chapter two, verse 23, it says, and I will strike her
children dead, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches
mind, I am he that searches heart, and I am he who will give to
each of you as your works deserve. Christ is walking among his churches,
judging with his eyes that can see everything. You know, just
a few moments ago, we mentioned in our recitation of Lord’s Day,
was it 35? 36 from the Heidelberg Catechism,
we mentioned that we should be careful about using the words
that speak about God. I don’t know if y’all have seen
this, but I think it’s a Dodge truck commercial. And it says
the truck is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Now, trucks
are powerful. They can tow lots of weight. But it’s not all-powerful.
It will break down at some point. And there’s only so much it can
tow before it breaks down mechanically. So it’s not all-powerful, what
they say it is. It’s all-seeing because it has cameras all around.
OK, fine. And it’s all-knowing. It has
the onboard computers. It knows when you need to brake
and when you need to do whatever. But you see, what they’ve done
is they’ve attributed god-likeness How about a truck? And then we
come to words like this and we wonder why we’ve lost amazement.
Because we’ve used words about God to describe something made
in Detroit. And so we ought to be careful.
This goes on to speak of Jesus. He has feet of polished wood. brass, glorious feet, ruling
feet, feet that when they are placed upon your neck will command
submission. His voice is like the voice of
many waters. Can’t you think? Can’t you think
John has been sitting there on the coast with the water beating
against the rocky banks and it’s deafening. You’ve been to the
coast, maybe you’ve been to the coast where there’s a rocky shoreline
and not just the lapping water on sand, but it’s loud, it’s
noisy. You think of those folks on that
Norwegian cruise line that have been rescued in recent days. They do not like the sound of
many waters. It has terrified them. Well,
that’s what God’s voice does. It is mighty. It is loud. It is noisy. In his right hand
are seven stars. the angels of the seven churches. Why in his right hand? Well,
it’s a place of power. And we understand God is the
ruler. He’s the king of his church. He sends, he upholds, he has
authority over his church and he will not forsake his messengers. He has a face that shines like
the sun. Don’t you think John in his old
age has a precious memory of the Mount of Transfiguration
where he had experienced the glory of Almighty God before? What does this description of
Jesus do? Well, first of all, it puts Jesus
front and center. He is front and center in the
book of Revelation. and also is his power, his majesty. And
it should inspire in us awe and terror, for he is the Holy One
of Israel.” And what happens to John when he sees him? It says in verse 17, when I saw
him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Several years ago, I think
it’s been at least 15 years ago, at one of our general Synod meetings.
It was decided by whoever was the moderator at the pre-Synod
conference, where some gather beforehand to hear good teaching.
It was decided, we’ll show an example of what high church looks
like, and then we’ll show an example of what low church looks
like. And so the person, I felt really
bad for him, but he was the example of Lowe Church, seeker-friendly
church. He stood up there in jeans and
a T-shirt, and he used PowerPoint, and he was cool and hip and with
it. Well, the first problem was the
PowerPoint broke. And if the PowerPoint broke,
that meant his message broke down. And it went on and on. It was really sad. It was really
awkward. It was really painful to get through. And it was really
sad because we came to hear something, and we couldn’t hear it because
the technology broke. I had a teacher in seminary who said, if the
electricity’s out and you can’t have church, there’s a problem
with your church. And he’s right. But the other
message came from one of our older and more esteemed ministers,
and he preached on Revelation chapter one, verse 17. I can remember it. I can remember
the power and the authority and the work of the Spirit as he
preached on, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though
dead. And the sermon, the service,
which this man presented to us was full of reverence, full of
awe, full of glory and grace. And what a contrast it is. And I don’t say this to put down
one set of people and to lift up another, but that is in a
sense what I’m doing. When we take God seriously, others
will too. One of the comments we hear over
and over from folks who visit here is this, you take worship
seriously. That’s a compliment. That’s something
for which we ought to be very proud because every time we come
into the presence of God, we ought to feel like John. When
I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But look at the
tender mercy of Christ. He laid his right hand on me
saying, fear not. I am the first. I am the last.
I am the living one. I died and behold, I am alive
forevermore. I have the keys of death. I have
the keys to Hades. You know, a lot of people say
something like this. We want people to come to church
and we don’t want to offend them with sin. We don’t want to confront
them about their unholiness and on and on they go. Well, that’s
not really the answer. The answer is something more
like what John experienced. We want to be confronted by our
sin. We want to be confronted by our unholiness and our unworthiness. And then we want the right hand
of Jesus placed on our shoulder and for him to say to us, fear
not. I have died. I have paid for your sins. You
are cleansed. You are washed. You are worthy
because I am worthy and I have passed that on to you. So what is the message of the
risen Christ? What is the message of the Holy
One of Israel? What is the message that John
is supposed to give to his churches? Well, it’s simply this. that
Christ, the risen and exalted Lord, is with his church in the
midst of tribulation, persecution, and uncertainty. It doesn’t matter
what goes on in the world around us. What is taking place in heaven
is firm and fixed. And that’s the reality that we
need to latch our minds and our hearts onto as we live life in
this fallen world and as we wait for our heavenly calling to be
made complete. So let’s pause and pray together.
Lord, bless us with encouragement from your word. May we see what
is firm and fixed and final, and may it give us peace in this
topsy-turvy world. May it give us certainty in the
midst of tribulation, hardship, and persecution. We especially
this night think of our brothers and sisters who around the world
are enduring hardship, hardship that we know not, and we join
our hearts, we unite with them even now in our prayers and pray
that you would come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, make all things
new and make it bearable for these your saints who suffer
for your namesake. Hear us now as we pray in Christ’s
name, amen.