Revelation 1:9-20

Revelation 1:9-20

Basis to Believe

God’s Help for the Troubled

I.                God gives a word to the troubled (9-11)

II.             God is in the midst of the troubled (12-16)

III.           God is the victor of the troubled (17-20)

When do we need faith?

When things need to get better, faith is needed.

When things seem so unsatisfying, faith is needed.

When things in the physical seem bigger then life, faith is needed.

When we want to get to where we are at, to some place greater that we can’t reach on our own, faith is needed

Where is God when things get tough?

Does God want us to believe?

1 Timothy 2:4; tells us that it is God…

who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

God is not hiding Himself, it is like confusing evolution with creationism, as someone once said…

There is no more reason to believe that man descended from an inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage.

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925)

With eyes to see and ears to hear we can see that God wants to be known.

God has made it clear to the way of eternal life, for He has spoken…

1 John 5:11

And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

1 John 2:25

And this is the promise that He has promised us--eternal life.

God has a revelation for us!

Revelation 1:9-20;  “Basis to Believe”

We cry out, give us something, that I might believe, well let’s see what God gives us.

And God gives us…

I.               A word to the troubled. (9-11)

John Milton has said…

Apt words have power to assuage

The tumors of a troubled mind

And are as balm to fester’d wounds.

John Milton (1608–1674)

V. 9:

John writes to the churches as one who has paid the price of exile for his faithfulness in proclaiming the word of God.

John can fully understand the difficulty in which they find themselves in that he is a participant with them in the tribulation that accompanies the Christian faith.

Brother and companion (commitment to a common goal) removes artificial barriers of position and status.

John 16:33, Jesus says

“In this world you will have trouble”

2 Timothy 3:12

“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”

Acts 14:22

"We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God."

The end time will only be an intensification of what is already taking place.

With suffering, John joins kingdom and patience. “Kingdom” refers to the coming period of messianic blessedness, and “patience” is the active endurance required of the faithful. The order of the three is instructive. Since the present is a time of suffering and the kingdom a period of future blessedness, believers must during the interim period exercise that kind of patient endurance which was exemplified by Jesus.

V. 10:

There is no possibility of misunderstanding the command because the voice is as clear and unmistakable as the sound of a trumpet.

The scene is reminiscent of the giving of the Law at Sinai in Ex. 19:16: “So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled”[1]

V. 11:

The voice was surely that of God, identified as “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last” (1:11), terms with which we have become familiar. And though the Godhead is implied, we’ll see that John saw Jesus when he looked (1:12).[2]

These seven churches were chosen because they were located in the key cities of the seven postal districts into which Asia was divided. They were thus the central points for disseminating information.

The seven cities appear in the order that a messenger, traveling on the great circular road that linked them, would visit them. After landing at Miletus, the messenger or messengers bearing the book of Revelation would have traveled north to Ephesus (the city nearest to Miletus), then in a clockwise circle to Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

Copies of Revelation would have been distributed to each church.[3]

Each church is troubled and needs a word from God.

Troubles are a lot like babies—they grow larger if you nurse them.

But the word of God provides a cure for them, that we will have peace in spite of them.

John 14:1

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.

John 14:27

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

We have a basis to believe because God gives us a word to the troubled.

And those that are troubled are His!

Have you heard the comforting words of Jesus.

God gives us…

II.           A view of His splendor. (12-16)

Rainbow

When you look at a rainbow you look at the big picture first. You don’t dissect it right away at least; you want to catch it in its entirety. And that is what John is giving us in these verses, for behold the entirety of the Lord is beautiful.

Having described the circumstances in which he received it, John then related the vision itself. This revealing and richly instructive look at the present work of the glorified Son of God discloses the Lord Jesus Christ’s constant ministry to His church.[4]

God’s splendor is revealed in the midst of His church.

We will see first that God delivers His church!

V. 12-13:

From Rev. 1:20, we learn that the lampstands signify the seven churches to whom the letters are addressed. The purpose of the church is to bear the light of the divine presence in a darkened world (Matthew 5:14-16).

Failing this, its reason for existence has disappeared (cf. Rev. 2:5).

Philippians 2:15;

that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,

They are golden because gold was the most precious metal.

The church is to God the most beautiful and valuable entity on earth—so valuable that Jesus was willing to purchase it with His own blood (Acts 20:28).

Seven is the number of completeness (cf. Ex. 25:31–40; Zech. 4:2); thus, the seven churches symbolize the churches in general. These were actual churches in real places, but are symbolic of the kinds of churches that exist through all of church history.

In the middle of the lampstands John saw one like a son of man (cf. Dan. 7:13)—the glorified Lord of the church moving among His churches.

Jesus promised His continued presence with His church.

In Matthew 28:20 He said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” 

Matthew 18:20 promises Christ’s presence during the difficult work of confronting sin in the church. On the night before His death, Jesus promised His disciples, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:18, 23). Hebrews 13:5 records His promise, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”[5]

Christians do not worship a well-meaning martyr, a dead heroic religious leader. The living Christ indwells His church to lead and empower it. Believers personally and collectively have the inestimable privilege of drawing on that power through continual communion with Him. The presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in His church empowers it, enabling believers to say triumphantly with the apostle Paul, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).[6]

Midst      

Daniel 3

He is not an absentee Lord. He is an abiding presence and personality … Unless Christ is in the midst, the church is dead and shorn of power. This vision was of special significance and comfort to those churches in the scenes of blood thru which they were called to pass.

Next: christ intercedes for his church

clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. (1:13b)

The first thing John noted was that Christ was clothed in a robe reaching to the feet (cf. Isa. 6:1). The word translated robe was used most frequently in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe the robe worn by the high priest. While Christ is biblically presented as prophet and king, and His majesty and dignity emphasized, the robe here pictures Christ in His role as the Great High Priest of His people. That He was girded across His chest with a golden sash reinforces that interpretation, since the high priest in the Old Testament wore such a sash (cf. Ex. 28:4; Lev. 16:4).

The book of Hebrews says much about Christ’s role as our Great High Priest. In 2:17–18 the writer of Hebrews says, “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.”

In Hebrews 3:1 he refers to Christ as the “High Priest of our confession,”while in Hebrews 4:14 he reminds believers that “we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.”

In Heb. 7:25our Great High Priest is “able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them”

His offering was infinitely superior to that of any human high priest in Heb. 9:11-12: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption”

The knowledge that their High Priest was moving sympathetically in their midst to care for and protect His own provided great comfort and hope to the persecuted churches.[7]

Christ purifies His church

The New Testament clearly sets forth the holy standard that Christ has established for His church. “Therefore you are to be perfect,” Jesus commanded, “as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul wrote, “I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.” He reminded the Ephesians that “Christ … loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25–27). In Colossians 1:22 Paul explained that Christ “has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” Peter reminds believers that God expects them to “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’ ” (1 Pet. 1:15–16).

To maintain that divine standard, Christ will discipline His church (Matt. 18:15–17; John 15:2; Heb. 12:5ff.)— “It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17).

John’s description of Christ’s head and … hair as white like white wool, like snow is an obvious reference to Daniel 7:9, where similar language describes the Ancient of Days (God the Father). The parallel descriptions affirm Christ’s deity; He possesses the same attribute of holy knowledge and wisdom as the Father. White translates leukos, which has the connotation of “bright,” “blazing,” or “brilliant.” It symbolizes Christ’s eternal, glorious, holy truthfulness.

Continuing his description of the glorified Christ, John noted that His eyes were like a flame of fire (cf. 2:18; 19:12). His searching, revealing, infallible gaze penetrates to the very depths of His church, revealing to Him with piercing clarity the reality of everything there is to know. Jesus declared, “There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (Matt. 10:26). In the words of the author of Hebrews, “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13). The omniscient Lord of the church will not fail to recognize and deal with sin in His church.

That Christ’s feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, continues the obvious sequence by making a clear reference to judgment on sinners in the church. Kings in ancient times sat on elevated thrones, so those being judged would always be beneath the king’s feet. The feet of a king thus came to symbolize his authority. The red-hot, glowing feet of the Lord Jesus Christ picture Him moving through His church to exercise His chastening authority, ready to deal out remedial pain, if need be, to sinning Christians.

It is the Lord’s love for His redeemed sinners that pursues their holiness.

christ speaks authoritatively to his church

and His voice was like the sound of many waters. (1:15b)

When Christ spoke again it was no longer with the trumpetlike sound of verse 10. To John, His voice now was like the sound of many waters (cf. 14:2; 19:6), like the familiar mighty roar of the surf crashing on the rocky shores of Patmos in a storm. The voice of the eternal God was similarly described in Ezekiel 43:2—yet another parallel affirming Christ’s deity. This is the voice of sovereign power, the voice of supreme authority, the very voice that will one day command the dead to come forth from the graves (John 5:28–29).

When Christ speaks, the church must listen. At the Transfiguration God said, “This is My beloved Son, … listen to Him!” (Matt. 17:5). “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,” wrote the author of Hebrews, “in these last days has spoken to us in His Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). Christ speaks to His church directly through the Holy Spirit-inspired Scriptures.[8]

christ controls his church

In His right hand He held seven stars … the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, (1:16a, 20a)

As the head of His church (Eph. 4:15; 5:23; Col. 1:18), and the ruler of the “kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son” (Col. 1:13), Christ exercises authority in His church. In John’s vision, Christ is holding in His right hand the seven stars (cf. 2:1; 3:1), identified in verse 20 as the angels of the seven churches, which symbolized those authorities. That He held them in His right hand does not picture safety and protection, but control. Angeloi (angels) is the common New Testament word for angels, leading some interpreters reasonably to conclude that angels are in view in this passage. But the New Testament nowhere teaches that angels are involved in the leadership of the church. Angels do not sin and thus have no need to repent, as the messengers, along with the congregations they represented, are exhorted to do (cf. 2:4–5, 14, 20; 3:1–3, 15, 17, 19). Dr. Robert L. Thomas notes a further difficulty with this view: “It presumes that Christ is sending a message to heavenly beings through John, an earthly agent, so that it may reach earthly churches through angelic representatives” (Revelation 1–7: An Exegetical Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 1992], 117). Therefore, angeloi is better rendered “messengers,” as in Luke 7:24; 9:52; and James 2:25. Some suggest that these messengers were representatives from each of the seven churches who came to visit John on Patmos and take the book of Revelation back with them. But since Christ is said to hold them in His right hand, they were more likely leading elders and pastors (though not the sole leaders, since the New Testament teaches a plurality of elders), one from each of the seven churches.

These seven men demonstrate the function of spiritual leaders in the church. They are to be instruments through which Christ, the head of the church, mediates His rule. That is why the standards for leadership in the New Testament are so high. To be assigned as an intermediary through which the Lord Jesus Christ controls His church is to be called to a sobering responsibility (cf. 1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9 for the qualifications for such men).

christ protects his church

and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; (1:16b)

The Lord Jesus Christ’s presence also provides protection for His church. The sharp two-edged sword that came … out of His mouth is used to defend the church against external threats (cf. 19:15, 21). But here it speaks primarily of judgment against enemies from within the church (cf. 2:12, 16; Acts 20:30). Those who attack Christ’s church, those who would sow lies, create discord, or otherwise harm His people, will be personally dealt with by the Lord of the church. His word is potent (cf. Heb. 4:12–13), and will be used against the enemies of His people (cf. 2 Thess. 2:8), so that all the power of the forces of darkness, including death itself (the “gates of Hades”; Matt. 16:18), will be unable to prevent the Lord Jesus Christ from building His church.

christ reflects his glory through his church

and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. (1:16c)

John’s vision of the glorified Lord of the church culminated in this description of the radiant glory evident on His face, which John could only describe as like the sun shining in its strength. John borrowed that phrase from Judges 5:31, where it describes those who love the Lord (cf. Matt. 13:43). The glory of God through the Lord Jesus Christ shines in and through His church, reflecting His glory to the world (cf. 2 Cor. 4:6). And the result is that He is glorified (Eph. 3:21).[9]

I like what Dietrich Bonhoeffer says…

God is the beyond in the midst of our life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945)

We are given a view of His splendor.

And last, God gives us…

III.        A reason to worship. (17-20)

Raymond C. Ortlund has said of worship that…

Worship is the highest and noblest act that any person can do. When men worship, God is satisfied! And when you worship, you are fulfilled! Think about this: why did Jesus Christ come? He came to make worshipers out of rebels. We who were once self-centered have to be completely changed so that we can shift our attention outside of ourselves and become able to worship him.

Worship through:

            Fear

            Assurance

            Duty

1:18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

Jesus endured a painful death for his “faithful witness” to God,38 but then God raised him up to eschatological life. Where Christ once was, John’s readers are now. The suffering Christians of Asia may be facing death,39 but John lays before them the certainty that—like Jesus—they will be raised up to victorious new life.

Why will they escape from death? Because Jesus holds “the keys of death and Hades.” In Hellenistic mythology, “Hades” was the grave, the place of the dead. It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Sheol.” Even if John’s readers are dragged before the authorities and put to death for their faith, Jesus has the power to unlock the gates of the grave and set them free—forever.[10]

[1]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (42). Chicago: Moody Press.

[2]Fogle, L. W. (1981). Revelation explained (35). Plainfield, N.J.: Distributed by Logos International.

[3]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (42). Chicago: Moody Press.

[4]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (43). Chicago: Moody Press.

[5]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (43). Chicago: Moody Press.

[6]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (44). Chicago: Moody Press.

[7]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (44). Chicago: Moody Press.

[8]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (47). Chicago: Moody Press.

[9]MacArthur, J. (1999). Revelation 1-11 (47). Chicago: Moody Press.

38 See the comment on “the faithful witness” in verse 5.

39 See Part IV.B.3 of the Introduction: “Persecution Related to Emperor Worship in Asia Minor.”

[10]Davis, C. A. (2000). Revelation. The College Press NIV commentary (122). Joplin, Mo.: College Press Pub.