Annual Sermons: Vol. 3 Sermon 11
Bob Marcaurelle Rev. 1:9-20
THE APPEARANCE TO JOHN ON PATMOS
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When we study the Bible, we study ourselves. These first century Christians who received the Book of Revelation from the Apostle John were very much like us. They had never seen the Lord face to face. They had heard of Him through the preaching of the gospel and responded by receiving Him as Savior and Lord. And then, like us, they learned that this did not mean that God would build a wall of protection around them and grant them immunity from the storms of life. In fact, the opposite seemed true, for their religion had brought them trouble. Their stand for Jesus was causing them to be bathed in a blood-bath of martyr¬dom at the hands of Imperial Rome. When John wrote this book he was a prisoner on the Island of Patmos. His people, the Christians on the continent, were being brutally tortured and murdered for their faith. John wrote during terrible times. He wrote against a background of blood, persecution, death, toil and tears as the iron hand of Rome sought to crush the Christian faith. The church met in secret. They met in the shadows of the catacombs, in the under¬ground sewers, in the darkness of night.
John’s heart went out to his people as they met in fear and many were tempted to doubt the faith they held and the Jesus Whom they had trusted. So John took pen in hand and wrote them a message of hope and faith and victory. The entire book of Revelation spells out the ultimate victory of the Kingdom of God, and here in chapter one, in this portrait of Jesus Christ, we have one vital part of this hope. John tells the people that the Jesus Christ Whom you trust, the Jesus Christ to Whom you have given your all, the Jesus Christ for Whom you may have to die, is the living Lord of Heaven.
This was no new truth but an old one. Yet old truth becomes dear truth when it is personally applied. John was only reminding them of what they already knew in order to give them a firmer hold upon it. The Jesus of history is the Lord of Heaven. Isaiah had said this hundreds of years before. He wrote in a similar context, as Chapters 40-66 of his book were written during the exile of Israel. The people had been dragged from their homeland and waited for the deliverance of God. Isaiah said in these chapters, “God is sending someone. He will be a Lamb led to the slaughter. He will die for the sins of His people. By His stripes we shall be healed.” (See Ch. 52-53.) And how did Isaiah introduce this suffering figure? With three pointed words, “Behold your God!” (Is. 40:10). There is the truth: The Savior of Israel is to be God Himself come down to man. Paul said the same thing. Writing from prison he spoke of Jesus “Who existing in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, emptied Himself. . .being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2). Jesus Christ in spite of our circumstances is the Lord of Glory.
This was the message that John wanted to deliver to his people. But he faced a difficult problem. If he wrote about Jesus Christ and like Isaiah, simply said, “Behold your God!”, he would bring down Imperial persecution both upon himself and his readers, because to affirm that “Jesus is Lord” brought suffer¬ing and death. So John chose to present his truth in a special kind of literature which used symbols and visions. This, although perfectly clear to his readers, would be unintelligible to the Roman authorities.
In their hour of desperation he pointed them to Jesus. In verse thirteen he says, “I saw. . .one like A SON OF MAN.” If you turn to the Gospels then you will find that this is Jesus’ favorite title for Himself. Then in verse eighteen John describes Him as one “who was dead and is alive forevermore.” Once this was done, John then drives home the central message of hope and comfort. The truth that this same Jesus is now the resurrected living Lord of heaven. He is on the throne, not Caesar. He proclaims the deity of Jesus Christ by describing Him with Old Testament terms and phrases which were used for God Himself. To the Roman authorities, these were just mysterious phrases, but to Christians, whose Bible was the Old Testament, this was an affirmation of Deity and Lordship. With every stroke of his pen John clothes the Lord Jesus Christ with the royal robes of God. “His head and hair were white, as white wool, like snow.” (In Daniel 7:9 that is a description of God’s voice.) “He had seven stars in His hand.” (Passages like Job 38:31 show us that the Old Testament as¬cribed the control of the stars to God.) “I am the first and the last,” said Jesus Christ in John’s picture. Now listen to Isaiah 44:6, “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and His Redeemer the Lord of hosts, I am the first and the last and besides me there is no god.”
In the darkness of the catacombs, in the filth of underground sewers, in the shadows of a thousand Roman nights, these phrases were searched by tired faces. These pages were held in trembling hands. These words sent the light of hope into the hearts of God’s people. It was a message from their beloved Pastor. It was a message from God. The Jesus Christ to Whom you have given your all, the Jesus Christ in Whom you have trusted, and the Jesus Christ for Whom you may be called upon to die is the King of heaven - the God of Glory. God’s message of hope is intended to give us songs in the darkest night. They didn’t have the Baptist hymnal back then but if they did, a truth like this would make them use it. Because of what God was telling them through this letter from their pastor, the darkness around them could be filled with a song like this,
Take the name of Jesus with you /
Child of sorrow and of woe,
It will joy and comfort give you
/ At the name of Jesus bowing,
Falling prostrate at His feet /
King of kings in heaven we’ll crown him,
When our journey is complete /
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven
Take the name of Jesus with you into the hospital. Take it with you. Into the grave. Take it with you. This text shows us we can take Jesus as. . .
I. OUR FELLOW SUFFERER (1:10-13a)
Exiled on Patmos John heard a voice but when he turned around he saw a vision. In the midst of the lampstands (v. 12), which John identifies as the church (v. 20), there stood one “like the son of man” (v. 13). . .”one who was dead but is alive. . .” This phrase “son of man” was our Lord’s favorite self designation. This title fell from His lips more than any other. And, oh, how many times He used it when speaking of His suffering and death. An example is Matthew 17:12 where Jesus predicted of the leaders, “. . .the Son of Man will suffer at their hands.” (See Mt. 20:18; Lk. 9:44; Mt. 26:2, etc.)
Jesus wept! Jesus suffered! Jesus was hurt! In other words, suffering Christian, Jesus knows what you are going through He has been there! He has been forsaken by friends. He has looked to God and asked, “Why?” He knew mental, physical and spiritual pain.
Christianity stands alone with its doctrine of a God who suffers with us. He may not deliver us but He joins us. The Bible says, “In all their affliction HE was afflicted” (Is. 63:9). When like Job we suffer the cruel blows of life and lie Paul the chronic burden of some thorn, what keeps us believing and loving and serving our Lord? The old rugged cross!
Dr. Paul Brand, a medical missionary, preached a great sermon to a small crowd. It was to a group of patients - lepers in Vellore, India. He looked at that mass of human suffering and tears came but words wouldn’t. Being a hand surgeon his eyes were drawn to their hands, twisted and drawn, with fingers missing, in what is called “the leper’s claw.”
He began to talk about hands and to relate how he judged people’s character and vocation by their hands. Then he began talking about the hands of Jesus. There were the chubby little fists of Jesus the baby. There were the slender hands of Jesus the young boy and the rough, scarred hands of Jesus the carpenter, bearing the marks of splinters and hammer blows. Then, when carpentry was put behind Him, there were the tender yet powerful hands of Jesus the teacher and healer that never refused to reach out to anyone however sick or sinful.
Then with deep emotions, Dr. Brand, looking straight at all those “leper claws” said Jesus’ hands reached the height of beauty when they were nailed to the cross. The surgeon said, “I am a hand surgeon and I know what happens when you drive a spike through a human palm. You cripple the whole hand.” Jesus, he said, identified Himself with suffering humanity. He endured poverty with the poor, weariness with the tired (and) clawed hands with you. At this the lepers stood up and raised those hands they always tried to hide. Brand had not given them a cure. He had given them a Person who knew and cared and would one day welcome them to His heavenly home and cure them of every hurt.
II. OUR FAITHFUL SAVIOR (13-20)
Jesus is with us not just as a fellow sufferer but as a faithful savior. He doesn’t just reach out, He REACH¬ES DOWN. With all the Old Testament pictures of God ascribed to Jesus (13-16), John lets us know the Son of Man is also the Son of God. He has pity, yes, but He also has power. Remember those Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace? Jesus, as the angel of the Lord, was with them. He walked upon the coals. He felt the heat. But He didn’t die with those boys and He didn’t let them die. But they were ready to die. They didn’t have a “deliver me and we will serve you” faith but a “we will serve you” to the death and through death. They told the King who gave them the option of bowing to his image or being thrown into the fur¬nace, “The God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace. . .BUT EVEN IF HE DOESN’T we will not bow down” (Dan. 3:17, 18).
Where do children of God get such bravery and such faith? 1. From Jesus’ Victory (17-18). We know we do not go TO our death but THROUGH our death. Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid. . .I am the LIVING ONE! I WAS DEAD BUT NOW I AM ALIVE FOREVER MORE.” (17-18). What can we endure that He has not already endured before us? We can share His AG¬ONY - no doubt about that. But we can also share His VICTORY - no doubt about that.
But our courage and faith also comes 2. From Jesus’ Authority (18b). Jesus said, “I have the keys of death and the land of the dead (Hades)” (18b). What does this mean? Two things. First, WE GO WHEN HE CALLS. It was my privilege to be in Dallas when Dr. W. A. Criswell told how his plane crashed in the Amazon jungle. Flying down river with a Wycliffe missionary pilot they made a dangerous “crossover” to another river. To go down during a crossover was to die because the dense jungle would swallow up a plane and make it invisible to searchers.
During the crossover the engine died. Dr. Criswell buried his face in his hands and prayed that he would die in the crash and not be injured to die a slow death. Suddenly the pilot said, “Look, there is a village.” Dr. Criswell looked and said it looked like a dime lying on the floor. There was no way that powerless plane could glide into it. Down and down they circled and the pilot said, “There is a stream!” Dr. Criswell looked and it looked like apiece of thread.
That little plane glided down and down and down and as if guided by the hand of God landed safely in the stream. In my library somewhere I have a picture of W. A. Criswell riding piggy-back on the native who took him from the plane. He didn’t even get his feet wet! That night, in that little village they held a prayer meeting. Dr. Criswell led them in singing and like any good Baptist sand “Amazing Grace.” Dr. Criswell said he had sung that song a thousand times before, but until that night he had never really sung the third stanza:
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come
Tis grace hath kept me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.
We go when He calls, and not until. And WE GO WHERE HE IS. Grace will lead us HOME. The key Jesus holds is the front door key to the Father’s house.
