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In our first text, the apostle John is in the worst situation of his life. He has been imprisoned for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is older now and his anointed ministry and many converts have marked him as a target for the Roman government that was now trying desperately to stamp out this "Jesus movement." History tells us that they boiled John in hot oil and that didn't kill him or put the Holy Ghost fire out in his life. So the Roman government did the next best thing: they exiled John to the little rocky island off the Grecian coast called Patmos. This was the place that the Roman government sent the worst of the worst prisoners. I want you to understand that John's stay (estimated by some scholars for about 18 months) on the isle of Patmos was not a vacation. He was probably not by himself but was surrounded by the worst of the worst of society. John was probably the only person there because of "preaching righteousness." Not only that, but it was the custom of the Romans to force the prisoners of the island to work in mines that were being dug deep into the solid rock base of the isle. Six days of hard and strenuous labor was followed by one day of rest. Many prisoners died because of the harsh conditions. Some lost their minds or even killed themselves because of the harsh environment. The island of Patmos was the worst possible place of John's time to live, nevertheless to try to be a Christian too. It was an absolutely horrible punishment, one that the Romans thought worse than boiling in oil. As history and scripture does not tell us the details about the horrific time that John spent there, we can only guess at how bad it really was but we know that he was there.

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Thinking about the isle of Patmos, makes me think back to last month, when my wife and I had the opportunity to spend some time in San Francisco. The highlight of our trip was by and far our visit to the famous island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay that was the sight of the famous Alcatraz prison. Today, the prison island has been opened for tourism and the tour is absolutely fantastic.

Alcatraz, you may or may not know, was fifty years ago the place where the worst of the worst of prisoners were sent. The island's nickname was "the Rock" and it is literally a big rock in the middle of the bay. It has sheer cliff sides and the water in the bay is so cold year around that without a wetsuit, a human can only survive for about 5 minutes before dying of hypothermia. On this "rock" was built the Alcatraz Prison which was a miniature city with a central cell-block building. Prisoners were in their cells for at least 22 hours a day unless they earned the right to work a job through good behavior. Each had their individual cell which was about 5 x 9 feet and had only shelf, a bed, a toilet, and a sink. If you were lucky, you had a second level block that could see sunlight through glazed windows. Silence was maintained except for your one hour of recreation a day. You were allowed one visitor a month that spoke and saw you through a thick, small window. Anything you did wrong ended the visiting privileges.

If you disobeyed the rules, then you were sent to "D block" which had slightly larger cells but which had an outside door that cut off all light. You would be kept in 24 hour darkness for periods of 4-7 days at a time until you had an "attitude change." Alcatraz was a horrible place to live and some prisoners went insane, and some committed suicide. Many died while trying to escape the "Rock." No one ever successfully did.

I am preaching about the Alcatraz because of it's similarities with John's situation on Patmos, but also because there were two things about the tour that made a distinct impression on me. The first was a comment from one of the former prisoners on the audio tour while we were visiting the "D block" about how he survived days of 24 hours of darkness. Frankly, I can't imagine being in darkness without any light whatsoever for 24 hours, nevertheless a week of it. This man said that he had certain things that he did to keep himself from going crazy in the darkness. He would take a button off of his shirt and throw in in the air and bounce it off the wall. He would then get down on his hands and knees and look for the button. He would then throw it again and spend hours doing this over and over again. He also said that if you concentrate really hard when you close your eyes, you can make yourself see a light. In the darkness, he would lay there and focus "on the light" and then would imagine that the light was a window to the world and so he would "go places" and "take trips" and imagine prettier things in his mind's eye while laying there in the darkness.

As I listened to this man's account of what he did as a human being trying to survive in the darkness, I couldn't help but think how fitting that people who live their lives in spiritual darkness do the same things. Those who have never experienced the light of Jesus Christ live their life constantly searching for something to make them happy in the darkness, and spend the rest of the time trying to turn the darkness into light and convince themselves that they really are fine living in the dark! But when you experience the life-changing power of the Holy Ghost, you have experienced the true "light of the world!"

The Jews didn't grasp the light that shone into their world, but there are a people today who have! Peter told the Apostolic church:

Hallelujah that we don't have to live in darkness in sin but serve a God that has called us out of darkness into a most marvelous light!!!

After our tour of Alcatraz, we went to the basement where it just so happened that we got to hear the speech of a man who had actually been a prisoner there! We listened spellbound with a few other hundred people of this man's story as a bank robber, and of the life of sin and crime that caused him to be sent to "the Rock." He briefly told about his life in the prison and then opened up the floor for questions. Someone asked him how he could return to the island after having spent such awful years there. He laughed and said that the time spent there caused something within him to want to change and so he looked back at it now as something that brought good in his life. Another person raised his hand and asked "Did you ever find Jesus Christ?" He smiled and said "that's what enabled me to change!" After his speech I went into the store and flipped through his biography and there he told about going to a church and repenting of his sins and then he had "a spiritual experience that let me know that I was born a new creature." He didn't go into details of what happened to him but I've a good idea of what he experienced!

Imagine my surprise to find out not only does this man and a few of the former guards come out regularly to the island and speak, but that there is a whole group of former inmates, guards, and their family members that meet every year at the island and talk about the "good ol' days!" It seems that even in the worst of situations and the darkest of times some people are able to flourish and to even grow for the best. There were some that lost their minds. There were some that committed suicide. There were some that lost their lives trying to escape and yet there were some that not only survived but that whose lives were changed for the better. Two men at least, survived and became better because of their ability to see the light in a bad situation!

And most people don't realize that the Apostle John didn't die on the isle of Patmos, but that he survived to go back and live the rest of his life as the leader of the Apostolic Church! And the interesting thing about it is that the book of Revelation is not the "book of John's troubles." In fact, we have to go to the Roman history books to find out just how bad Patmos was. I looked through a few biographies about people who stayed on Alcatraz and they were filled with the stories of their struggles and hardships, but John's book about the time spend on his island prison is quite different. In fact, his suffering or hard labor or conflicts and struggles are not even mentioned! In stead, we get from the island of Patmos a book whose full name is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ!" Where most men saw suffering and hardships, John saw Jesus in a way that He had never experienced before! The man who had walked beside Jesus during His earthly ministry, got a vision of Jesus that blew his mind on Patmos!

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I'm not here today really preaching about the effects of sin, even though sin can get you on a lonely island of captivity. But sometimes, we can be like John, and through simply obeying what we know to do that is right, and in our everyday living for God -- just serving Him faithfully -- we can find ourselves at a spiritual place that can only be described as unpleasant. Like John, you feel as if you having to work hard for nothing. You feel lonely and isolated from those whom you love the most. You feel as if the people around you don't really relate to you and they persecute you and put you through things that you never imagined that you would have to face. I've found myself on an "isle of Patmos" before where I felt like I had been deserted and that the work that God had called me to do was far away and that I was deserted and just struggling to survive spiritually. And sometimes -- like in John's case -- this place that we find ourselves in the spirit is in the perfect will of God! God could have prevented the exile, but He allowed it because it fit perfectly within His master plan! Sometimes the Bible calls it a "dry place," or "wilderness," and sometimes it refers to it as a "Patmos," or a "Golgotha." But whatever the name, you are going to experience some dry times in living for God and some times of testing and some times of isolation where your faith is severely tried.

That you must experience the valley and winter seasons in your walk with God is necessary to create in you the will of God. The scriptures say:

Paul told Timothy to be:

The fact that he said to preach truth "in season and out of season" proves to us that we will all have seasons in our lives! And so we will endure a winter time so that our roots have time to grow so that the fruit will not cause us to topple over in the summer and so that the storms of spring and fall will not hurt us.

But the point of my message today is not why you have to go to Patmos, but how to survive Patmos. I want you to survive the spiritually dry times of your life. I want you to make it through the winters and the valleys. Some Christians "lose their spiritual mind" during their stay on the spiritual place called "Patmos." Some walk away from God and commit spiritual suicide. Some die spiritually in trying to force by their own means a way out of their situation and thus take themselves out of the perfect will of God.

But there are some that are like the Apostle John who not only survive the island, but leave with a revelation of Jesus Christ that far surpasses even be an eyewitness of His earthly ministry! Unlike Alcatraz, there are many who escape the Patmos of their lives and escape with great anointing and revelation! The point is clear: if I must go through a time on Patmos, then I want to do it just like John! I want to leave closer to God than when I arrived! Not only do I want to not die there, but I want to walk off of Patmos, more blessed, and more anointed than I even imagined!

If I've got to go through persecution, then I want to be like Ezekiel. Let me briefly point out how similar the life of Ezekiel was to John's predicament. Ezekiel was taken captive with a large number of Jews by the Babylonians. He writes in the first chapter of his book that he was among the captives by the river Chebar in Babylonia. What he doesn't tell you is that the "river" Chebar was really a man-made canal that the Babylonian kings had built to connect the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. The children of Israel were not hanging out for fun at the river. They were not on the banks of the Chebar fishing and sunbathing. But they were actually being forced to dig, and build the canal, and then to maintain and dredge it. They were slaves in forced manual labor just as John was. And even though they were not on an "island" they were still in their "Patmos" situation, isolated from their comfort zone, in captivity, and in a bad situation.

And many of them gave up. There were many Jews who quit serving God during this time. We know from Ezekiel chapter 2 that these Jews by the banks of Chebar were not the best company because God told Ezekiel:

And so in the middle of this bad situation when many were backsliding, yet we find in Ezekiel quite the opposite! I'm not going to preach to you all of the book of Ezekiel today, but I do want you to notice the language of the very first chapter where Ezekiel is describing his situation. He doesn't mention the physical labor. He does mention that they are captives on Chebar, but then notice what he does mention:

While everybody else is quitting, Ezekiel says that the "heavens were opened" and "I saw visions of God" and then the word of the Lord comes to Him and then the "hand of the Lord was upon him" and then a great cloud of the glory of Lord and the fire of the Lord and a "wind" comes upon him! There was something about Ezekiel that in the worst possible time of his life, he is not only not quitting, but he is having revival! He is experiencing God in a mightier way that he has ever known!

So, if I have to have a "river of Chebar" experience, and if I have to go through "the isle of Patmos" then I want to do it like Ezekiel and John. I want to see the heavens opened and the revelatory visions of God. I want to see Him in a greater measure than I ever have before! I want to experience the glory and the fire and the presence of God! This the way to survive a down time! This is the way to survive Patmos!

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But what was the difference between Ezekiel and John and the rest of those prisoners? What was it that caused them to be able to go through their Patmos situation with victory and revival and revelation!? I submit to you the following 4 ways to surviving Patmos. Here are the three ways to face your river of Chebar experience!

1. Focus on the light and not on the darkness.

That man in the isolation cell of Alcatraz knew that if he allowed himself to be overwhelmed by the darkness, then he was finished. It's amazing that John never tells us of the details of the horrors of living on Patmos. Ezekiel never details the labor of the canal Chebar. But we do have chapter after chapter of God and of His Spirit moving and of revelation and of truth! They survived by not allowing themselves to focus on the darkness. The scripture says:

You trust in what you allow your mind to be "stayed upon." If you want the perfect peace of God, then you must learn to focus on the light of your situation and not on the darkness. Some people are always quick to tell you about how bad off they have it. They think about their situation constantly. In fact, they think of nothing else. And they repeat the stories of how bad it is. How many times I've had someone tell me of how impossible their situation is and then I hear them 10 minutes later telling the exact same thing to someone else. But they don't realize that their "constant telling" is what is causing the problem to grow in their mind. They are "magnifying their problems" and the more that they think about it and the more that they dwell on it, the bigger it gets!

But scripture says to "magnify the Lord!" We must get our mind on God and upon light and upon truth and let our mind be stayed upon the Word of God! I understand that there are times that you must talk about your problems even to the ministry, but what do you allow to "stay" on your mind all day?! Somebody needs to be remembered of the light and of the truth of God. Somebody needs to get focused on the goodness of God and what He has done for you. Focus on someone who is living victorious and get your eyes off of those who love darkness. Focus on the light. Hang out with people who are spiritually victorious. Hang out with people who are growing closer to Jesus Christ and are more spiritually mature than you are.

John said "I was on Patmos" but "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day." Despite his circumstances, John was determined to not miss an opportunity to have church! If you want to survive Patmos, then you'd better make coming to the house of God a priority! You'd better learn to get into the Spirit when you come to church! If you want to survive you've got to come hungry to every service for God to move!

Develop a prayer life on Patmos! Five minutes of semi-focused prayer is not going to get you into the Spirit and to the revelations that you need. And your prayer needs to be more than a beg session for relief from your problems. You need to spend time in devotion. You need to spend time in praise and worship. You need to spend time praying for others! In fact, the best way to focus on the light rather than darkness is to get a burden for someone else! Pray and fast for them. Be faithful as an example to them. John was praying for the seven churches back in Asia despite being on Patmos. In fact the first three chapters of Revelation is instructions to those churches. When you get concerned with the spiritual well-being of someone else despite your situation, you are growing close to getting the deep revelations of God! And more importantly, when you get a burden for someone else you are not only saving them, but you are "saving yourself" (I Timothy 4:16). By focusing on and studying to teach someone else the light of truth, you are getting your mind off of darkness!

2. Continue to allow God to change you.

Some people who are hurting throw up a defense and refuse to take correction. But it is interesting within the book of Ezekiel that God was also working on Ezekiel at the same time that he was prophesying. God was giving John direction for his own life and letting him know that his life and ministry wasn't finished yet on Patmos (Revelation 10:11). Don't fall into the trap when you are going through something in one area that you refuse to take correction in another area. The reason you might be on Patmos maybe for God to work on what you are fighting against! If you want to survive Patmos, we cannot use circumstances for an excuse as why we will not let God or His Word change us!

3. Don't stop praising God!

This is a biggie! The people surrounding Ezekiel didn't see visions or feel the hand of God upon their life. The main reason was that the book of Psalms tells us that they stopped praising God:

Their attitude was "how can we sing praises when we are not in a 'blessed' state!?" "I'm going through something preacher, you can't possibly expect me to worship God with everything in you can you?" But Ezekiel was still praising Him! Therefore God responded to the worshiper! Remember the story of Paul and Silas?

Maybe you are at your darkest "midnight." Maybe you are in a bad situation. Maybe you are in a place like Patmos spiritually. Don't ever forget: you praise your way off of Patmos! You worship your way out of prison! Your praise is your gateway into the supernatural! Your worship is your ticket away from Chebar into the heavenly realm!

{if needed, relate the story of Dorothy's praising God despite her husband's death. She is still living for God today because she didn't let the enemy take away her praise!}

4. Refuse to believe that it will always be this way!

Ezekiel, John, the man at Alcatraz, Paul and Silas, they all had one thing in common. They were convinced that they would not die in their situation and that things would get better! Ezekiel constantly prophesied that they would return to Jerusalem. John constantly spoke about Jesus' coming back and setting everything in order and winning the victory over all of His enemies! Paul and Silas got to thinking in that jail cell about the promises of God and realized that they couldn't die until God's will was finished! Some of you need to be reminded that the day is not over yet, the book of your life is far from being closed. The worst day of your life is only deadly if you become convinced that it will never change.

In Revelation 10, God made John swallow the book of the Word of God and then told him:

As this sermon enters into you today, somebody needs to remember that God still has a purpose for your life! There is prophecy yet to be fulfilled through you!

453 times. Did you catch that? 453 times the Bible says "it came to pass." Do you think God was trying to tell us something? Don't buy into the lie that things will always be the same or that you've reached a point of no return where things cannot get better for you. By yourself, that may be true, but you are not by yourself if you have your mind stayed on Jesus! Our God is able to take the worst possible scenarios and turn them around when people trust Him, and keep the faith, and stay faithful! He is a mighty, mighty God!!!

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What if everyone would go through their down times like this!? What if everyone would act like Ezekiel and John in their bad situations? How much of a black eye would that give the devil?!

But let me tell you the best part about surviving Patmos. That man who went back and gave that speech at Alcatraz, went back with joy and with laughter and he actually had fun in that prison. Why? Because he had already made it off of the island, therefore going back no longer bothered him. He was free of his situation and therefore return trips were nothing!

The best part about surviving your Patmos is that the devil can never use the fear of it against you again! When you've been through a struggle and survived, then if Satan or life threatens you with it again, you can laugh and say: "I've already survived that, another trip there ain't no big deal." It makes you stronger and more steadfast and more powerful in the kingdom of God!

Survive your Patmos, and it will become your greatest testimony!