This is the undeniable testimony of John. He saw Jesus, he walked and talked with him. He witnessed firsthand who Jesus was – the Son of God. John saw this, not only in his the Messiah's actions of healing the sick, but in what he did to the hearts of the people he came in contact with. Jesus changed lives, he set them free from sin and shame, just as his Father had sent him to do. And the Revelator experienced this in his own life; he knew the power of the great Deliverer.
It is the stuff of folk lore and old negro spirituals. The deliverer coming to a lost a dying people under oppression. Freedom on the horizon, the dawning of a new day with chains loosened. We don't talk like this anymore, but does it make it any less true? We don't understand the idea of being rescued, not because we're free but because, like the Children of Israel in Egypt, we are content in our slavery. But oh how desperately we need Him! Christ came that we may have life and have it to the fullest, and that looks a lot different from what we've chosen for ourselves. Life is hard, there are trials and temptations, and Christ came to deliver us from all of that, and to lead us out in victor. We are called to place our hope in him and to live in the freedom of his grace, because we need Him and He has come to save us.
To close, I'm reminded of something Mitch McVicker once said: “The psalmist says, the wicked are gonna have affliction. The next sentence, the godly are gonna have affliction. Gosh, do the math - affliction is gonna be there. It's a part of life. I guess the question is, are we gonna allow it to consume us or are we gonna let the Lord use it to make us and work on us and turn us into the people He would have us become? So we are all gonna go through rough, tough, hard times, but remember you are being made... You are being made. And in the midst of whatever we come up against, there is rescue... there is deliverance, not because of us, but because of the deliverer.”