In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: Chapter 1, we've come as far as verse 9. That's where we'll pick up this morning. Let's pray as you're turning there. Father, we thank you for your word. Chapter 1, as we come now to the instruction part of it, we've already gone through the prologue and the introduction, but now as we come to the meat of it, as we begin our journey now through the informative part of this book, Lord, speak to our hearts.

Chapter 1 is very exciting to me because it begins with the revelation of Jesus Christ, that we would see him as he is currently, not as the babe in the manger or the Lamb of God with the marks of slaughter hanging on a cross, but as the lion of the tribe of Judah. No wonder at the mention of his name, demons tremble and Satan flees.

Lord, help us as we look at these things this morning to get a good understanding, to wrap our minds and our hearts around what you are and what you look like in your glory. We pray these things in Jesus' name, and all God's kids would say, amen.

Pray for my allergies. They are really bothering me, and I'm just fighting a head cold. But Revelation chapter 1, verse 9, now we come to the meat of it. So often as we're going through the year, we come to Christmas. We just came out of that season where we have the nativity scene, this baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. We have the wise men coming there, which didn't come for two more years, but we have them there in the nativity scene. It's not real accurate, but they're there. Then you have that imagery of this child, this innocent child, this harmless child.

Aren't you glad that he came in that way? Because we can relate to that. If he would have come like we're going to see him now, presently in all of his glory, nobody would have approached him. We're going to see that this morning. But that's the God we're going to stand before. That's our Lord and Savior we're going to see this morning.

Then as we move through the year, we come to Resurrection Sunday where, again, we honor our Lord, but we recognize him not as the babe in the manger, the God-man, Emmanuel with us. Now we have this imagery of this lamb that was slain, this sacrificial lamb with the marks of slaughter upon him, bruised and beaten.

The Bible says at that moment, Satan thought that he had defeated, he had destroyed, he had thwarted the plan of God. Nothing was further from the truth because after the resurrection, the Bible says that Satan, if he would have known what he was doing, would have never done it. But now we come this morning to the most important part of his ministry. We're going to see him like he is currently, presently, as the lion of the tribe of Judah.

As we look at verse 9, it really begins the part of the instruction of this book. We saw the prologue, the first three verses last week, and then the introduction from verse 4 to verse 8. But as John now begins to record this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he begins with "I, John." We know who's writing this book. Can you imagine? John was about 17 years old when Jesus called him to be a disciple. He was the youngest of all of the others.

What we know now is he's probably in his 90s at this moment at the writing of this epistle. He has served the Lord for over 70 years. He's seen the church's inception. He was probably there on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was being poured out. He was certainly there when Jesus was being crucified. He was there when the sky turned dark in midday and the clouds formed.

He was there when Jesus cried out to the Father, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." He was there in the early parts of Jesus' ministry when he saw all of the miracles and even seen the dead being raised. He watched Jesus call Peter out of the boat and walk on water. He was there when the 5,000 were fed with a few loaves of bread and a few fishes. He was there when the leper were healed. Now he's lived a long old life and he's coming to the end of it, but God is not done with him yet.

This new generation of Christians, and especially pastors, they think that the old guys don't have anything else to offer. It's kind of like move out of the way and let us take over. We're full of vim and vigor, we've got vision, but you don't have wisdom yet. Wisdom comes with age. Wisdom comes with walking with Jesus for a good long time. It breaks you, it forms you, it molds you, it creates genuine worship in you.

There's something about having walked with Jesus for a good long while. I'm only 50 years in the faith. John is over 70 years in the faith. John, when he begins 1 John, tells us "that which was from the beginning, which we saw, which we heard, which we handled, the word of life." As he moves down through that first chapter, he's reminding us what he saw when he first came to Christ at 17 years old.

At this same age, this epistle probably written after Revelation, John says "and that which I heard is still ringing in my ear." From the moment you accept Christ, are those words still ringing in your ear? Are you still fervent in your relationship? Has your relationship cooled? Have you bought into false teaching? That's what's before us in this church and what's going on at this time.

When we get to the seven letters to the seven churches, the first thing that Jesus does as he begins these letters is rebuke the church. Before he even get into him judging the wicked, he addresses his church. As we're going to see next week when we get into the first of these churches, which is Ephesus, he has to tell them, "You might have everything in form and fashion going on in your church that should be, but you left your first love." Don't ever do that.

We just came out of the book of Jude and it says, "Keep yourself in the love of God." John has credibility. John has wisdom. John has the benefit of hindsight. He can look back and he can see all the way through how God has been faithful. This is important because this is really his introduction. He says, "I, John, who am also your brother."

John wants us to understand that the church has a connection. There is a bloodline that runs through all of us, and it is the blood of Jesus Christ. We are connected in a way that you need to understand. You and I are connected in a way that even our earthly family isn't if they're not saved. There is an intimacy, there is a connection. We are in the same foxhole together fighting the same enemy, and there's a bonding that takes place there.

For years, as a world history teacher, one of the things that really intrigued me was World War II and just all the things that went on. But what also interests me is the bonding of those men. Even the men that married wives afterwards, their wives would say they are actually closer to those that they served in the foxholes with than they are even with us. Something transpired there.

They would say things like, "It wasn't that we were fighting for our country. That was in the background. But what was in the foreground is that we loved each other and we were fighting for the man next to us." We're in a foxhole. We're in a battle and we're away from home. John would say, "I have your back, you have mine. We're brothers. We are a band of brothers."

He who this day sheds his blood with me in this battle... sometimes it feels like you're shedding your blood, doesn't it? We're going to see that in a few moments. Sometimes it feels like you're dying when you're fighting these spiritual battles and you're sharing your faith and you're standing firm for the truth. He who sheds his spiritual blood with me is my brother and will always be my brother.

One of these times on the other side of this thing, we're going to rejoice together. I hope we don't have to reminisce about the battles because I don't even want to talk about them anymore. I just want to say, "Isn't Jesus good? We made it." But you're my brother and companion in tribulation. I love in the Latin Vulgate this word for tribulation is "tribulum." It is an instrument that you drug across the ground to break up the soil.

What he's saying is in this life we're going to have tribulation. Jesus said that. I don't know where we get this thought in the modern church that things should be easy, that we should be in health and in wealth and we should just sail through this life at ease because the Bible knows nothing of that. The Bible calls us warriors, soldiers. It talks about a spiritual warfare that we're engaged in.

It talks about armor that we're to put on. It talks about the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they are mighty in God to the pulling down of the strongholds. This is not a cruise ship. This is a battleship, and it's all hands on deck. We are engaged in something here and, again, it can be rough. Jesus said in this life you're going to have tribulation, but be of good cheer because you have already overcome because I have already overcome.

You're more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ. The battle has already been won. We're not fighting to win a battle, we're fighting from a position of victory because the battle has already been won. We're just going through the motions. Sometimes I think that we're like Jehoshaphat. You remember when the armies of the enemy of Israel came against and camped outside there away from where Jehoshaphat was ruling.

They began to pray and fast, and the Lord said, "The battle doesn't belong to you, Jehoshaphat. It belongs to me. Now here's what you do: you put your worship leaders out front." I think that's always a good idea. Just put them out front and then go worshipping me. When they arrived at the enemy's camp, they had slain each other. They were slain, and it took them three days to pick up the spoil.

We're going to read this morning that when Jesus comes, there's something that comes out of his mouth, and one day it will slay the enemies of the Lord. We just get to observe those things. Isn't that amazing? He said, "I, John, who also am your brother, am your companion in this tribulation and in the kingdom."

We are kingdom people. Our citizenship already exists in heaven, to whence we are looking for our Lord and Savior to come for us because when he comes, we get a body like unto his. We're going home to our Father's house. We are citizens of that place. We are brothers and sisters of Christ that one day will inherit the kingdom of God. We're going to be on the other side of this thing and the very first thing we do is we sit down and we break bread together.

Jesus is there and God our Father is there and the flame of fire of the Holy Spirit is there. That's why we fight the fight that we fight because we're kingdom people. We're not of this world; we're just pilgrims, we're just sojourners, we're just passing through. John would remind them as he begins this letter, "We're brothers, we're companions in tribulation, and in the kingdom, and we are also together in this patient waiting for the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

The word for patience there, if you don't mind marking up your Bible or if you've got your pad and pen out, is "hupomonē." Patience doesn't mean that you're sitting in an air-conditioned car outside of someone's home and you've got the leather seats that are heated. I find out that these new cars, Doug and Dusty when they rented a car to come here, it has a big screen where you can put on a fire, like a crackling fire.

They were showing us that we took them to breakfast on Friday. Doug was saying the seats massage you. They're not just heated, they massage you. You can turn the air conditioning on, you can put on your big screen right there on the dash this crackling fire, and you can sit outside somebody's home and you can wait for them. Maybe they're running a little late, maybe they haven't got their makeup down just right. You're just waiting, but it's so cool to wait in a $100,000 car.

This is not that word for patience. This word for patience is that when everything in your life is coming unglued. You're in the car and the fire is not on the screen, it's in the car. The motor just blew up and there's flames all around you and the electrical system of the massage has shorted out and you're being electrocuted. This is this word.

Our faith is so strong, our commitment so deep, our relationship so vibrant and so real that come hell or high water, we're going to go through this because we've heard the call of Jesus and it's enough. It's enough. We long ago sacrificed our lives and gave them to the Lord, so we can be patient in tribulation waiting for Jesus to come.

He said, "I was there on this isle called Patmos." Patmos is interesting. It's about 25 miles off the shore of Turkey. It's about five miles wide and about 10 miles long, and it was basically a solid rock that was just kind of jutting up out of the sea. It was a colony for prisoners. Domitian, when he could not boil John in oil, when he could not martyr him that way because John wouldn't boil, God's protection was upon him, became so angry that he exiled him to this island.

What you've got to understand about this island is it's a quarry. It's manual labor. You're out there, you've probably seen some of those commercials where you're breaking big rocks into little rocks with a hammer. That's what John would have had to be doing during the day at 90 years old.

We know even to this day it's a cold, damp, dank island. There is no comfort there. There's no wood on the island, so whatever you had to use for a fire to warm you had to be imported. John at 90 years old, exiled to this island doing hard manual labor, and we know from Eusebius, one of the church historians, that he was exiled for about 16 months on this island before Domitian released him from his exile.

We know when he's released, he goes to where Polycarp is there in Ephesus. Polycarp was the pastor of Ephesus and the bishop of Smyrna, and there John lives out his life in that place. There he pens first, second, and third John, and probably the Gospel of John. Revelation probably came first, which is very interesting because the place that John when he leaves Patmos to go to is Ephesus. Ephesus is the church that the Lord had him write to first. I just find those things interesting.

But there is a sanctified loneliness now. Last living apostle. Peter's already been beheaded. I mean, Paul's already been beheaded, Peter's already been crucified upside down. All of the other apostles have been martyred: some skinned to death, some shot through arrows, some thrown from the roof, some drugged behind chariots. They're all dead. They all were martyred for the cause of Jesus Christ, and John is the last.

He's outlived all of his friends, all of his companions, outlived everyone who started in the ministry with him. They call him "The Elder." When you said "The Elder," you knew who you were talking about because he's an old guy. Average age at this time is between 40 and 50 years old; he's 90.

Now God has him on this island for a reason. I would offer for your consideration: how many have ever felt isolated? How many have ever felt alone? Even in a crowd, you can feel alone. Not a bad place to be. I think more refining, more maturing, more character-developing happens to you in what I call that "sanctified loneliness," in those times where God gets you off by yourself where there's no other distractions so that he can speak to you.

This letter of Revelation was so important because it is the revelation of Jesus Christ that God had to get John alone on this island without any distractions so that he could literally appear to him, take him out of his timeline into eternity and show him the things that are going to come, and then put him back in and say, "Write these things, John."

Sometimes God will have you in those places of sanctified loneliness for a distinct purpose. Stop complaining about it. In fact, I've learned, and it's a learned thing to be content in whatever state I find myself in, but I've also learned that the most important time in my life is when I'm all alone.

When I go to the mountains and I spend a couple days just alone with the Lord, because my relationship is clearer, my ears are more attuned, my eyes are more open, my heart is more receptive. Those are the times when God can speak to me. Those are the times when he can correct me. Those are the times when he can literally form my heart in the fashion that he wants it to be formed. I find that is the time where I am the clay and he is the potter and he's doing a very profound and prolific work in my life. It's not when I'm around everybody. It's not when I'm in the ministry. It's not when I'm around the multitudes.

We see this as an example in the life of Jesus. Often he would leave his men, he would leave the ministry, and he would leave the multitudes to go up into the mountains and spend time with his Father. If Jesus, God in human form, needed that time away, that time of sanctified loneliness to reconnect with the Father, what do you think we need?

God, we're going to see in a moment, has exiled him, not Domitian. God exiled him on that island. The very next word tells us that. He says that as he is our brother, our companion in tribulation and waiting for the kingdom and the patience of the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, "I was on this island called Patmos." Notice the next word: "for." It's causative. He's going to tell us this is why he was exiled to this island.

This is why he didn't boil in oil. This is why he didn't die a martyr's death. God had a purpose for him. God had a reason for him. God had to exile him where there was no other distraction so he could do the work that God had set his hands to do. He said, "I was there for the word of God."

There are Greek scholars who argue over this. Some will say, "For means he was there for the word of God because he wrote the word of God, he wrote Revelation, so he was there to write Revelation." Others will say, "No, he was there because he wouldn't compromise the word of God, because he stood as a faithful witness." When Domitian couldn't silence him, when he couldn't martyr him, when he couldn't control him, when he couldn't stop him, he exiled him out there on that island where there's nobody around. Which is true. Both are true.