December 22 Daily Devotional

Revelation 1

We remember the apostle John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” When John was an old man, he was banished “for the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ” to the island of Patmos, located in the Aegean sea not far from Ephesus. While on this lonely little island the risen Savior appeared to him. As he was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” he heard the voice of his Lord. He turned and he saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of them “one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”

When John saw his Lord in all this splendor, he fell at his feet as dead. Then he felt the right hand of the Lord laid upon him, and he heard his voice, saying, “Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches … I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”

John obeyed the Lord’s command, and he wrote what he saw in his exile—the great visions full of grotesque symbolism—to the seven Asiatic churches. The special messages contain cause of appreciation as well as grounds of rebuke; they exhort the congregations to repentance, earnestness and steadfastness. The visions of John deal with the life of the militant and the triumphant church. In his visions we see the mighty conflict between truth and error, between the forces of righteousness and the forces of evil, between Christ and Satan. Through various disasters-earthquakes, famines, invasions, wars-the apostle on Patmos sees the Kingdom of God move forward to the ultimate triumph. The final consummation of the plan of salvation takes place in the second coming of Christ, the final judgment, and the appearing of the new heaven and the new earth.