Revelation: Looking At Jesus First
Introduction
Revelation 1:9-20
Revelation 1:9
I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
John identifies himself with those he is writing to in two ways. First, he calls himself their brother. This is a term of endearment. We call each other brother and sister because of the affection that grows out of our common experience of knowing Jesus as our Father and Elder Brother.
He also calls himself out companion in three things:
Tribulation. This word means to pressure and distress. It means discomfort in this present world. John understood that the Christian walk is one that has many trials. It is not all a bed of roses. Jesus promised that in this life we would experience tribulation (John 16:33). It is a promise that we do not have to declare or claim. But, Jesus did not stop there. He went on to say that we should not fear because He had overcome the world! He will invite the churches in the Revelation to overcome as well. He does not expect us to do it on our own!
Kingdom. John saw beyond the here and now. If our hope is only in this world then Paul said, we are of all men most miserable. But, there is a coming kingdom. A kingdom where there will be new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21; 2 Peter 3:13).
Patience. In order to endure the tribulation and arrive at the kingdom, it takes patience. Patience is the ability to endure difficulties without allowing those things to destroy you. We are facing shifts in our world. We have all been affected by covid. Our nation seems to be crumbling before our eyes in many ways. We face pressure and tribulation on every side, but we have the patience of Jesus Christ! He is not going to leave us or forsake us! The fruit of the Spirit is patience (Galatians 5:22-23).
John saw his visions while he was on the isle of Patmos. It is a small volcanic island. It is a tiny place. Some believe it was a penal colony. Christian tradition says that John had been banished to the island because of his preaching. He preached anyway. He was a witness anyway. There are some things that we must speak and be no matter what the world around us does or says. No matter if the world accepts or rejects us.
John's goal was not to be rejected. Don't make that your goal. He wasn't trying to pick a fight. He was just being faithful to the message and life that Jesus had given him. We should too.
Revelation 1:10-11
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
As we mentioned in our first sermon on Revelation, John came to be in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. There are members of our congregation who cannot physically be here today for various reasons, but I know that as they tune in online that they are experiencing the power of God's Spirit as well. John is our brother and companion in the normal things of life and the kingdom. If he was able to enter into the Spirit, God invites each of us to join Him.
He heard a voice behind Him. The voice was loud and startling to him. It got his attention. Remember not to put God in your box. He seems to usually speak to us in the still small voice, but if He wants to He can speak loud.
C. S. Lewis wrote: “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
When creation is groaning as it is now as we experience the vanity of the fall through wars and failed governments and disease, it causes us pain. Last year, as I struggled with covid-19 there was a moment when just wept. A few weeks ago as I watched the funeral of a young man whose life had been taken by covid-19, I wept. It hurt. Pain insists on being heard. Could it be that God is trying to arouse us from our sleep?
The Voice was like a trumpet, a megaphone. The Voice declared, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last." The Voice was reminding John, the churches that he wrote to in the first century, and us that He was there at the beginning of everything and He will be there at the end. He is the Author and Finisher of Faith. The good work that He began in your life, He will bring to completion!
Then the Voice commands John to write to the seven churches. That message is the message that we have in the book of Revelation.
Revelation 1:12-16
Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.
John wanted to see the Voice. When he turned around the first thing he saw was seven golden candlesticks. At the end of our text, we are told that these seven candlesticks represent the seven churches in Asian minor that John writes to. The reality of life is that when God is speaking to people the first thing they see when they turn to see the Voice is the church. This should bring us to a place where we want to make sure that we are what God wants us to be for their sake.
"and in the midst of the seven lampstands..." The church is where Jesus chooses to be. He doesn't have to. It is His choice. He declared, where there are two or three gathered together in My Name, there am I in the middle of them. Jesus is here in the middle of this! Notice where Jesus is. He is in the middle of the seven candlesticks. By His Own sovereign design, Jesus has chosen that the place where He wants to dwell is in the middle of His Church. These churches are not perfect, but that is where He is. He is the One Who sanctifies the Church. It is His Presence that makes the churches holy.
Like the ground where the Angel of the LORD dwelt in the bush became holy, the church is made holy by the nearness of Jesus.
"One like the Son of Man" The title Son of Man is Jesus's favorite designation for Himself in the Gospels. It speaks first of all to His Humanity. Never doubt that Jesus was fully and completely Human. He knows our frailty and finitude intimately. Yahweh's favorite title for the prophet Ezekiel was son of man. Some translations render it "mortal." While Ezekiel was experiencing his visions of the chariot of God, the LORD kept reminding him of his own mortality. Another place that the Bible uses the title son of man is in Psalm 8 where David asks, "what is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you visit him?" The phrase son of man is "bene enosh." It means a weak and frail child of Adam. Jesus became what we are and He knows our frame from the inside out and even after walking through the lows of human life and ascending up where He was before, He took His Humanity with Him. The title Son of Man also speaks of a Heavenly figure that we read about in Daniel 7. David said that the LORD had given dominion to humanity over all of creation. The writer of Hebrews applies this to Jesus (Hebrews 2). He is the true Son of Man! He has conquered all. Even our fiercest enemy, death! Daniel pictures this Son of Man as coming with clouds and Jesus applies this language to Himself when He is standing before the Sanhedrin at His trial (Matthew 24:30). He is the true Human! Being human is not a bad thing and Jesus shows us what being truly human looks like! Our goal should not be to be less human, but more human!
John sees Jesus wearing what seem to be priestly garments. The white robe that reaches down to His Feet represents the Righteousness of Jesus. The golden band is very similar to the ephod that the priests wore. Jesus is our High Priest. The writer of Hebrews says that He is always alive to make intercession for us!
Not only does Jesus appear to John as a Son of Man, but the description of Him having "His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire" is a depiction of Yahweh Himself as described by the OT prophet Daniel (Daniel 7).
Jesus is both the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man. He is both God and Man! His white hair represents the eternality of God. His flaming eye, the searching stare of God. God does not see as men see. He looks upon the heart!
His feet are like fine brass burning in a furnace. Brass is a symbol of judgment in Scripture. Later, John will speak of Jesus treading out the winepress of God's Wrath by Himself (Revelation 14:19). His feet are feet that have walked faithfully through trials and the feet that will one day trample the enemies of God and man fulfilling Genesis 3:15 to the fullest!
In His right hand are seven stars. These seven stars represent the seven angels to the seven churches. The number seven is the number of completeness. God holds the leaders of the churches of all ages in His Hand. He holds the spirits of the churches in His Hand. The right hand is the place of power. Any power that the church has is the power that has been given by virtue of Whose Hand we are in! The best place we can be is in His Hand. He is the Potter and we are the clay! When the LORD spoke to Jeremiah through his watching of the potter making a vessel on the wheel, the text says that the vessel was marred in the hand of the Potter (Jeremiah 18). God spoke and said, I can make this vessel into another vessel. you are not too messed up for God to finish what He started in your life, just stay in His Hand. Stay in the middle of the candlesticks with Him. We are all on a journey towards perfection, and we will get there if we will just stay in His Hand!
His Voice was like many waters. The Voice that was like a trumpet now sounds like many waters. The majesty of rushing waters like those of Niagra speaks of raw power. The LORD's Voice is overwhelming to John. His Voice is the Voice that speaks worlds into exisence. His Voice can carry away your issues today! Many waters may also speak of the reality that God can speak our language. It is no accident that when God fills people with the Holy Spirit they speak in languages they have not learned before (Acts 2; 10; 19). He can speak to us in whatever language. God's language is not Hebrew or Arabic or English. He speaks them ALL. God wants you to understand Him and He will accommodate you where you are! The nature of Christianity is to be translated! God wants to speak to you! Will you listen?
Out of Jesus's Mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword. His words are words that will destroy His enemies and ours. Isaiah 11:4 speaks of the Messiah striking His enemies with the rod of His Mouth. Paul sees Jesus coming and destroying the antichrist with a word (2 Thessalonians 2:8). This imagery finds its fulfillment in Christ!
Jesus's face is shining like it did on the Mount of Transfiguration and as it did when He met Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus (Matthew 17; Acts 9). There is a glory shining from Him that is overwhelming. And John's response is the same as the men of God throughout the Bible when they encountered the holiness of God.
Revelation 1:17a
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead...
Isaiah 6. Isaiah pronounces woes upon his fellow Judeans in the first five chapters of his book and then sees a vision of the glorified Christ and cries, woe is me, I am a dead man, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the middle of a people of unclean lips. He realized that he was a brother and fellow companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. There is nothing like a revelation of the Holiness of God to wipe away all of our self-righteousness.
Luke 5. Peter had watched Jesus teach and obeyed the Teacher out of respect when He ordered him to launch out into the deep for a large catch of fish, even as he protested that they had toiled all night and caught nothing. When he obeyed, he caught more than he could contain. He fell at Jesus's knees saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man."
There is something about the Holiness of God that both repels and attracts us. Left to ourselves we could never approach the throne of God because It is Holy. He is the Ancient of Days, but...
Revelation 1:17b-19
But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. 18 I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.
Here Jesus reminds John of Who He is to Him. His Hand is so large that it can hold the constellations with all of their glory and splendor and size, yet He lays that same hand upon the One who had laid on His chest at supper sixty years before. He reminds Him that although He is powerful and Holy, He is also tender and gentle.
His words are "fear not..." These are words that John needs to hear at the beginning of his visions. Fear not! These are the words that the church at the end of the first century needed to hear as they lived on the cusp of great persecution and tribulation! Do not be afraid! These are the words that we need to hear as we face covid-19 and the delta variant and the lambda variant and wars and rumors of wars. As we face the loss of loved ones to a dreaded plague. Fear not! He is laying that powerful but gentle hand upon you this morning and speaking those same words to you, "Fear not!"
His admonition is rooted in His identity. The reason we should not fear is because of Who He is. He is the One Who spoke to Isaiah and told Him that He was the First and Last, that here was no god formed before Him (Isaiah 43:10)! And this very same God, the Holy One of Israel goes on to say, "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death." Jesus says fear not because He is alive. If we are in union with Him through the new birth, we will live also! He was dead, but He did not stay dead. The reason that He descended to the dead was s that He could arise with the keys to death, hell, and the grave. And now He is alive forevermore! Jesus is alive!
He says, "John, I am about to show you what is about to happen now and what it typifies for the eschaton. But, before I do, look at me!"
Too many of us are looking at the things happening around us in the world rather than looking unto Jesus! Our faith is rooted in the Identity of the LORD Jesus Christ! Let's look at Him!
