<TITLE>12. Par 78-83</TITLE>L-78 Now. Now, we get to the Isle of Patmos now to get started, the 9th verse. First place we want to say it's... The title of this is "The Patmos Vision." It took place in A.D., between A.D. 95 and 96. The place was at the Isle of Patmos. Its location is thirty miles off of the coast of Asia Minor, west, opposite of the Ephesian church, in the Aegean Sea bordered by the Mediterranean. That's the position where it's at.
Think. Now, a little island sets thirty miles off the coast of Asia Minor, in the Aegean Sea. Just opposite of the church of Philadel--or the church of Ephesus, where the first message was given, where John was pastor at that time. In other words, looked right back to the east and he was looking right straight at his church, from where he was at. And the first message was to his church, that represented a church age.
All right, the vision was given to Saint John the Divine, who was the pastor of the church at Ephesus at that time.

L-80 What condition then was this hour? Where was it and what condition? All right. It's knowed in history as a rocky island full of serpents, scorpions, lizards, and so forth. It's thirty miles around it and full of rocks. And it was used in the days of John, as a Alcatraz, a place where the Roman emperor's empire exiled criminals, real bad criminals, that they couldn't keep them in jail and so forth, they put them out there on that island to die: let them stay there until they were dead.
Question: The reason why John was there. A godly man, a righteous man, a man of good reputation, good character, never in trouble, why was this man there? The Bible said, "For the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ."

L-82 Now, we got the setting: The Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, thirty miles off the coast, approximately thirty miles around it, rocky, full of lizards and scorpions and so forth, and used for a prison house like Alcatraz is. They get a prisoner they can't keep in prison here, they... So such a horrible criminal, they put him out on Alcatraz.
And now they took this sainted John the Divine, the last of the disciples, and the only one who died a natural death... John, before going to the island was accused of being a witch, and was boiled in a vat of grease for twenty-four hours without scorching him. You can't boil the Holy Ghost out of a person...?... It's fire Itself. Boiled him for twenty-four hours in a vat of grease, without any harm. And said, the reason the--the Romans give, that he was a witch and bewitched the grease. What the carnal mind can think of.

L-83 Now, you see, when they call us mind readers, and fortunetellers, and Beelzebub, do you see where that old spirit come from? But you see where the real Spirit come from? It's the church age. See? Twenty-four hours, boiled him in hot, bubbling grease and never even touched him. Oh, how God garrisoned him in Him with His Holy Spirit. His work wasn't finished.
They put him on the isle for two years. And while God had him out there alone to himself, he wrote the Book of Revelations as the Angel of the Lord revealed it to him. And then as soon as that was over, he come back to homeland, and pastored the church in Ephesus, and died, and was buried in Ephesus: John the Divine.


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