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THE ISLE OF PATMOS
©
Carlos Padilla, August 2016
The place of the
revelation of Yahshua - Jesus Christ to John. The place of captivity of the
apostle who was with Jesus since the beginning of His ministry, and by His
side in the Holy Supper. The beloved disciple. But the reason for us to
focus our attention in Patmos if far deeper that the story of the life of
John. Our attention is going to focus in the meaning of being in Patmos and
the experience for a Christian, but not before a short look at the place and
its history. Patmos will become to us a reference of the spiritual stage
that we must have in our deep relationship with Jesus Christ. If you want to
come to Patmos, in spirit, keep reading.
SHORT HISTORY
OF PATMOS AND STRATEGIC LOCATION
Patmos is one of the twelve islands of the Aegean sea known
as the Dodecanese. Patmos was a place of pagan worship to Greeks and Romans,
converted by the Romans into a prison and exile island, a place of forgetting,
where those who entered would loose all hope to leave from there. However,
according to historians and tradition, John was set free at the end of his life,
John returned to Ephesus, current Turkey, where he pastored the church until his
death, when very old.
The location of Patmos is located in the centre of the bay
that Greece forms with Minor Asia, today Turkey, in the Aegean sea. The seven
churches to which John refers to in Revelation or Apocalypse 2 and 3 are right
in front: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and
Laodicea. All of them located in Minor Asia -as we can see in any of the many
maps, in your Bible, in dictionaries or in the Internet- to the east of Patmos,
making an inverted U, being the last church located towards Jerusalem. All these
churches are close by and in the centre of the churches founded by Paul and
other apostles. This geographical location had at its time the suitability to
take the book of Revelation to those congregations, but latter, the Church saw
and sees today that the message is not limited to some contemporary
congregations with John, but they represented the character of the Church, and
of the Christian along history, until the return of Jesus Christ-Yahshua.
Let this point warn every Christian and every church and
congregation –no matter which denomination–
to look themselves in the mirror of the seven churches and confront with their
spiritual reality, the warnings and the blessings of there messages for
spiritual growth, fruit of the Revelation of our Lord in the captivity of John
for us.
JOHN IN PATMOS
John was in the Isle of Patmos when he received the
Revelation of Apocalypse. According to the Text in the Bible transcribed by
John, in Revelation 1:9: "...I John, who also am your brother, and companion in
the tribulation, and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the
isle that is called Patmos, for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus
Christ."
John, not only received a strong message for the seven Isles
that he pastored and even would pastor, but he saw the prophecy of the future,
the world of the end of time –to which our
world looks more alike every time– the
coming of Christ, the final judgment, and how today's world was taken away to
establish the Kingdom of God, saw the life in that Kingdom, the new world full
of justice, peace and love of God. John heard the voice of Jesus Christ talking
to him, revealing the marvels of God for us. But the secret of John, and and
possibly one of the reasons why God chose John to give him Revelation was his
great love for God, for Jesus when He was here, and even though called "son of
thunder" for his great love for people. Love is the key and the central subject
in the first of the three letters of John the apostle: "...Beloved, let us love
one another; for love is of God... ...Herein is love, not that we loved God, but
that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1John
4:7-10.
TO PATMOS IN SPIRIT
The experience of Patmos, or other similar ones in spiritual
intensity have been, and are experimented by Christians in situations of great
persecution, or of exile, of or isolation, as we read about John, in Revelation
1:9. John was there exiled by order of the emperor Domitian, a very relevant
fact of the level of testimony to which John had given, to the point of reaching
the emperor, not a mayor, nor a king of any Roman province, but to the most
powerful man on earth or his time. "...for the Word of God and for the testimony
of Jesus Christ." Revelation 1:9. We, in the same way will find a similar
intimacy with Christ when we are compromised with Him and under persecution, for
the same cause, something shared by every true Christian along history.
However, if the world is drowning us, and our own life keeps
us captives, we cannot bare witness because priorities change. The solution is
prayer, fasting, relationship with brothers, good works, a combination of things
which form the Christian life. Let us not find ourselves making bricks for
Pharaoh, building the great work of the world, but working for Christ, the
Church and for those who do not know God.
In Christian life we can go to other spiritual places before
going to Patmos, like Peniel, (Genesis 32:22-32) where Jacob fought the angle
until he obtained the blessing of God, or to
Gethsemane, (Matthew
26:36) where Jesus prayed so intensely till his sweat like drops of blood in His
intimacy with the Father, the place of the culmination of the ministry of
Christ-Yahshua, previous to the Cross and the resurrection, where He talks to
the Father until he drank the glass of the new covenant. And other places that
only each Christian in Christ will know.
These experiences follow the fruits of the spirit of the
Words of Jesus in John 15:5 in such a way that we may live in a way that we may
come to Patmos: "...I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me,
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do
nothing."
The Christian may be in the intimacy of Christ, as were the
apostles in the transfiguration. Sinai of Moses to receive the Code of the Law
is far behind. Another deeper is to go to offer Isaac from the eyes of Abraham
in obedience and love for God. But Patmos does not come if there are no fruits,
for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 1:9.
If you have already been to Patmos, you will know that God
has revealed the direction of your life, have received the Light of God to light
your way to Christ, for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Now don't faint and wait for the fulfilment of His word for your life. If the
message, even though you may think it takes long to come, has come out of your
private Patmos and believe that it was truly the Word of the Holy Spirit talking
to you, it will be fulfilled with out a doubt. If you have not been to Patmos
yet, but desire it, stop by the Gospel of John, chapter 15.
Read Revelation, because as it stands on the first chapter,
verse three: "...Blessed is he who readeth, and they that hear the words of this
prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein; for the time is at
hand." Amen.
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