Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro*

Can you believe we are about to do our final Encounter today?

We have been looking at various encounters for almost three months now.

But my prayer is that this series will be dynamite underneath us to propel us into greater depths and deeper waters with the Lord in the future.

Actually all encounters we may have with the Lord on earth are just trailers for the biggest encounter of all time---the main event---still to come!

He is coming on the clouds!

And all those who are Heavenborn will be Heavenbound!

So to conclude here, I thought it would be appropriate to look at an encounter in the Book of Revelation.

By the way, it is not Revelations, but Revelation, which means “uncovering.”

Many have avoided this book because either they are scared to read of the end of the world or simply because it seems to be a mystery book filled with riddles.

Someone has said that the devil keeps people away from Revelation because he doesn’t want people to hear of his doom and have hope.

John himself says that reading, hearing and keeping this book brings a blessing (Rev.

1:3).

Actually the book of Revelation is the only book in Scripture which promises a direct promise of blessing!

Isn’t it sad that the one book that promises a direct blessing to all those who read hear and follow it should often be left unread!

A lot of people have made their study of Revelation into creating a calendar.

However, in Rev. 1:3, we learn the primary purpose of this book is not to create a calendar, but to create your character.

It was written to encourage persecuted Christians to persevere because Jesus Christ is coming to judge and to reign.

After Good Friday, it’s Resurrection Sunday!

A Sunday is coming!

But you have to hold on and you have to stay faithful.

The reason why such encouragement was needed was due to the severe persecution of Christians about 100 AD.

In fact, “the Roman emperor Domitian called himself ‘savior’ and ‘lord,’ claiming divine worship from Roman citizens.

He hated the Christians, whose worship of Jesus used these same words, so he persecuted them.

He may have been the direct cause of John being exiled to the island of Patmos.”[1]

Some of the forms of persecution used included “exile, imprisonment, social ostracism, slander, poverty, economic exploitation, violence, and the constant threat of judicial action.”[2]

Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, scorned Christianity as a “depraved and extravagant superstition.”[3]

Religiously, Romans accused Christians of atheism, because they did not worship their idols, but an invisible God.

They were also accused of practicing cannibalism (because they misunderstood what communion meant).

Socially, they caused controversy when they taught that all men were created equal, making the socially elite very uncomfortable.

Economically, Christians made the priests, merchants and craftsmen even more uncomfortable as they taught idols were works of men and worthless causing them to lose business.

Even if there were any natural disasters, they blamed the Christians for their lack of worship to their pagan gods.[4]

The church was also struggling.

At least one pastor in Pergamum was killed (Rev.

2:13).

The churches struggled with lack of love for the Lord, toleration of sin, wrong doctrine being taught, lukewarmness and compromise.

Not much has changed don’t you think?

Right in the middle of this was John the Apostle.

He was the last remaining apostle.

He met Jesus when he was around 20 years old, followed Him closely for 3 some years, became a major leader in the church and now after all his companions were dead, he was in his 90s and final days.

He himself has stood faithful for this long, but at the time of the book of Revelation, he too was banished to an island called Patmos.

It has been almost 70 years since Jesus rose from the dead.

With the apostles dead and everyone struggling, the church desperately needed a word from the Lord.

They needed an encounter with the Lord.

You see, you can never have enough encounters with the Lord.

Even John at age 90 or so, still needed an encounter.

Today, we are going to look at a passage found in Rev. 1:9-20, but we will focus primarily on the encounter itself, which is found in Rev. 1:12-17.

Hey, have you ever wondered how Jesus looks like?

I know we have lots of European paintings and pictures of out there and I will avoid my soapbox on what I think of them here, but in our encounter today, we have really the only description in Scripture of the portrait of Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, it is laden with symbols.

Let’s first look over very briefly the context in Rev. 1:9-11.

Look at Rev. 1:9.

John begins by identifying himself for the third time already (Rev.

1:1, 4).

Notice his humility.

Interestingly, he has never mentioned his name in either his gospel or his letters until now.

He does not call himself an apostle or one of the three closest if not the closest disciple ever lived, but a brother and partner in the tribulation.

Wow! He’s been walking with the Lord for 50 years and in his 90s he sees himself as someone who is a fellow-struggler, sharing in the sufferings of God’s people.

Notice also his heavenly mindset.

John sees this suffering as part and parcel of being a follower of Christ.

This is why he says it is /in Jesus.

/Persecution and perseverance through it is what it means to belong to His Kingdom and to belong to Jesus.

If they crucified our Lord, will they do anything less for His followers?

He sees the suffering but notice also mention of the kingdom and patient endurance.

It may be hard to feel like you are in God’s Kingdom and reigning victoriously when you are being persecuted, but that does not lessen its truth and one day they will experience it completely, if they patiently endure.

He says he was on the island of Patmos.

Patmos is a barren, volcanic island in the Aegean Sea, at its extremities about ten miles long and five to six miles wide.[5]

It was a common place for Romans to send their criminals.

He remained there in exile until Domitian’s death in ad 96.[6]

But John’s crime was preaching the Gospel.

The terms “word of God” and the “testimony of Jesus” are synonymous.

There is no preaching the Word of God without talking about the Son of God right?

Look at Rev. 1:10.

This is awesome!

You can bind up the man of God and throw him in some remote island, but you cannot bind the Spirit of God or the Word of God.

God can turn prison cells into praise cells!

John says he was “in the Spirit.”

This must be some sort of visionary experience, beyond the experience of the human senses and the natural.

In other words, he wasn’t thinking or imagining this in his mind.

He had an out-of-body experience.

He says it was on “the Lord’s day,” which probably means it was on a Sunday, the day Jesus resurrected.

And as he is transported in this vision, he hears a loud voice like a trumpet.

Sometimes Hollywood messes with our view of Heaven.

They picture it as this quiet place where you sit on your cloud and you float away, strumming your harp.

But here this is one of almost 20 references in the book of Revelation to a loud voice[7], and each time it is to announce something significant that is about to happen.

Heaven is pretty noisy!

Here Jesus speaks to John and tells him to write what he’s about to see to seven major churches in Asia Minor.

These key churches were selected because they were all postal towns and in a circular fashion, a messenger can get these letters out quickly and efficiently as possible (see map).

Some church fathers said that John was there for 18 months and would have been there longer if Domitian was still alive.

Now we get to the encounter itself.

What we learn from this encounter is Jesus Christ’s seven-fold present ministry to His people and then we will talk about our response to Him by looking at John’s response.

Let’s go through them now.

Seven descriptions are given, which give us five words of comfort Jesus gives His people:

*I.

I am present among you (Rev.

1:12-13, 20).*

The first thing John sees someone in the midst of seven golden lampstands.

According to one commentator, the “lampstand was not a candleholder but a stand on which lamps were set.

The lamp was normally an oil lamp with a single hole through which the wick protruded.”[8]

Lampstands, are a picture of the church, which gives light in a dark world.

Thankfully, this is one time where we get the interpretation of what the lampstands mean.

Don’t you wish all of Revelation was like that?

We know from Rev. 1:20 that these seven lampstands represent the seven churches to whom he is writing this letter.

Remember the church is struggling and asking, “Where are you Jesus?”