It was the Lord’s day, that is, the first day of creation. It was the first day of the week. It was the day of Christ’s resurrection. It was the day the church remembered, there were many appearances of Jesus when they were gathered in upper room on the Lord’s day. It was the day when God’s people would come together to break bread in the sacrament. It was the day when they would come together to give their tithes and their offerings. It was the day when the church would be together as a church, as Paul says in First Corinthians 11, to hear God’s word, just to enter into its sacrificial life together and to enjoy God’s presence.
It was the Lord’s day. It was a Sunday, in other words. The Christian name for Sunday is found very early on in the pages of the New Testament. And outside the New Testament, there’s a document known as the Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles, it’s also known by the name the Didache, being dated by modern scholars to belong to the middle of the first century, and it reflects how Christians saw the Lord’s day from the beginning. It reads like this,
“But every Lord’s day you do gather yourselves together and give thanks, after having confessed your transgressions, now your sacrifice of praise may be pure.”
It seems that this Christian description of Sunday as the Lord’s day was in common usage by the middle of the second century, so that Justin Martyr, for example, can refer to coming together on the Lord’s day, meeting together, having the Scriptures read and taught, giving thanks, confessing sin, enjoying the communion service, baptisms taking place. Sundays, the Lord’s day, was the time for Christian worship.
John tells us it was the Lord’s day. But John was not able to be a church this Sunday. He was not able to come together with the saints as a church. He was shut off, excluded from the breaking of the bread, the holy communion. He was outside of the assembly of the saints; he could not be with his brothers and sisters in Ephesus where he had so long lived and served. Instead, he is far away, banished to Patmos, this little island about ten miles long by six miles wide, about 40 miles southwest of Ephesus. Sent there, we’re told, by Ignatius, by the emperor Domitian. He was in exile from his church, from his people, excluded from the sacramental life of the family of God.
But in these verses we have read together this morning he introduces himself to us and to his readers. And I want you to see very, very simply this morning, that John writes, first of all, he writes as a Christian. He writes as a Christian, do you notice that:
“I, John, who am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and in the patience of Jesus Christ.”
Revelation 1:9
Your brother. He doesn’t appeal initially to his credentials as an apostle of Jesus Christ, the beloved disciple as he’s called in John’s gospel, nor as an elder. Rather, he begins with what he shares with his readers, and with you and I today, he is our brother. This is what we share together by being in Christ. We have been adopted into God’s family. We have received God’s Holy Spirit as the spirit of sonship, the spirit of adoption. We have become spiritual siblings in Christ. Back in verse 1 of this chapter, he had referred to our relationship to the Lord and called us servants. Now he refers to our relationship with one another and he calls us siblings. He is our brother.
But he’s also our partner, our partner. That’s the meaning of that word – companion. There it’s literally the Greek word, is the word “koinonia.” He is a fellowshipper. We have in common something that he’s going to describe for us. We share in something together. All of those words: in common, and share, and fellowship, and partner translate this same word, this word “koinonia” in the Greek. But what is it that we share together in as God’s people today? Well, follow the line of this verse as he teases out what it is we share.
As Christians we have fellowship together in tribulation. We have fellowship together in tribulation. Those are his words: your brother and companion in tribulation. And this idea of sharing in trouble is something you’ll find over and over again in the New Testament. You find the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians and saying, thanking them for their share or fellowship in our sufferings. He writes to the Philippians and he says,
“that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, that I may share in his sufferings.”
Revelation 3:10
And he goes on to thank the Philippians, that it was kind of you, he says, to share, that is, a fellowship in my tribulations. This word “trouble” or “tribulation” is a word that Jesus used. He used it precisely in this way when he promised the church,
“in this world you will have tribulation.”
John 16:33
Now this word “tribulation” in the New Testament refers to pressure brought upon the church by the hostility of the world. This pressure is an ever-present reality throughout the entirety of church history, though it shows itself in multiple forms. In the actual visible life of the church tribulation is a fact of life with which we have to cope as God’s people.
We have fellowship in tribulation, and we have fellowship in the kingdom – the kingdom that comes about from our being in Jesus. The kingdom is what distinguishes Jesus’ people from the world. In the Heidelberg Catechism, when it’s talking about the Lord’s prayer and it’s asking what is that second petition of the Lord’s Prayer mean when it says, “Your kingdom come”:
“Your kingdom come, that is, rule us so by your word and Spirit that we may submit ourselves more and more to you, preserve and increase your church, destroy the works of the devil, and all violence that would exalt itself against you, and also all wicked counsels devised against your holy word, till the full perfection of your kingdom take place, wherein you will be all in all.”
Heidelberg Catechism
The kingdom is the reign of God over our hearts and minds till increasingly we as Jesus’ people think the way Jesus thinks and do what Jesus says. That rule within us is to get wider and wider as God gathers his church from all across the world and men and women, boys and girls are brought into the kingdom of Christ under his Lordship, under him as King, saying, “Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The kingdom of Christ. We are members of his kingdom. And our lives on earth are therefore to be shaped by his rule. This kingdom is central here because if it wasn’t for the kingdom of God and our part in the kingdom of God, we would have no trouble from the world. On the other hand, if it wasn’t for the power of the kingdom we would not be able to endure the trial and the tribulation that comes from the world. Mentioning the kingdom here is to remind us that we are still locked in a struggle, and that struggle will remain throughout church history until the kingdom comes when the king comes in all his glory and splendor.
So we share in tribulation, and we share in the kingdom, and we share in endurance, in endurance. The word patience is used here, but it’s perseverance – patience in enduring something and keeping going on, keeping on in the Christian life. Now this book of Revelation is the final call to the church to endure the tribulation that will come about as a result of the kingdom.
I said this will last throughout the church age, the great tribulation that we read about in the Bible is great not for its intensity, but for its length. It goes on a long time. It is the constant of church history. It is the constant experience of the people of God that they will encounter trouble – tribulation – throughout this age until in the end there will be triumph when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and delivers the kingdom up to God the Father. He will be triumphant over death, and hell, and Satan. Somebody’s put it like this,
“Endurance is the spiritual alchemy which transmutes those who share in the tribulation into members of the kingdom of God.”
Now this endurance and the suffering of trouble in our Christian lives, these are all not negative things, totally negative things. We tend to shrink back from them we tend to think and talk as if the very worst thing that could happen to the church in America today is that powers would turn against us. But listen to the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 5, he says this,
“Tribulation produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope that is in Christ does not put us to shame.”
Romans 5:4
It will never disappoint us; it will never let us down. The writer to the Hebrews puts it like this,
“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”
Hebrews 10:36
So trouble and tribulation are not odd things in the Christian life. They are part and parcel of the Christian life. And if you and I in our lifetime have been spared some of the trouble and tribulation that goes along with being a Christian, then we can be grateful for that, but we should not be surprised, as Peter tells us, when we find ourselves overtaken by tribulation or trial or trouble of any kind.
It is the norm of what it means to live for Jesus here below. So this tribulation this kingdom and this endurance all come to us because of Jesus Christ. He says the tribulation, the kingdom, the patience of Jesus Christ. If it wasn’t for our place in Jesus Christ, we would have no trouble. There would be no kingdom, there would be no need of endurance.
Here Jesus Christ is now described in his human nature, as and in his human experience, because as someone has put it:
“The whole life of the Christian, whether she suffers, or reigns, or endures, is in union with the life of the Incarnate Son.”
The writer to the Hebrews urges us to “run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus.”
Why do I look to Jesus? Because he knew tribulation, because he endured tribulation, and because he sought the kingdom of God. Listen to what he goes on to say, “Jesus… who endured the cross.” That was the tribulation.
“Jesus endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne.”
Hebrews 12:2
That is, the kingdom in heaven, the kingdom of God. So this simple name, Jesus, makes us think about Jesus in his life here on earth and now in his eternal throne in glory, while we his people endure tribulation waiting for the kingdom to come. That’s what it means for John to be a Christian.
Then, secondly, we read that John writes as a prisoner. He writes as a prisoner. John is one of us, and he tells us he was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. So when we meet John as he’s writing these words, he has been stripped of all his rights, stripped of his privileges, stripped of his possessions, and he’s been exiled into this tiny island. Jesus had carried John there into tribulation along with him. That that’s the flow of these things – the tribulation, and the kingdom, and the patience of Jesus Christ, that belong to Jesus Christ, and therefore that go along with being Jesus’ people, Christian people.
John would have echoed the words of Samuel Rutherford to the people of his day he was in prison in Aberdeen. His people were being persecuted for their faith, and Rutherford wrote this:
“God has called you to Christ’s side, and the wind is now in Christ’s face in this land.”
Samuel Rutherford
And you actually really need to be in Scotland when there’s a gale force wind coming off the North Sea, and it’s got you right in the face and you’re in Saint Andrews and you’re trying to play golf against a total storm – which is how golf ought to be played, and which separates the men from the boys – to capture the allusion that Rutherford is making here.
“God has called you to Christ’s side and the wind is now in Christ’s face in this land, and seeing that you are with him, you cannot expect the lee site or the sunny side of the hill.”
Samuel Rutherford
If you’re with Christ, there will be tribulation. That’s what John had learned. And John had been torn away from his life and had been banished to this penal colony as a result. Now, we ask the question why was he there, and he answers the question. He was there on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Now why did that get him into trouble? Well, if you glanced earlier on in the chapter, right at the very beginning of the chapter, he tells us about these two things. He tells us that in his life he had born witness to, given testimony about, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Now he could have believed in these things without giving testimony to these things. He could have believed in the word of God in the testimony of Jesus and being quiet about it. That is precisely, by the way, what the world system today would like us to do. It would like us to stop being public about what we believe. The world is quite happy with you being nice, and with you being kind, and with you being generous to charities. The world is perfectly happy for you to be a law-abiding citizen as we all should be, and by the way we should be nice and kind as well. All of those things are good things for us to be. But the world is not going to take notice of those things, because the world is law-abiding, the world can be nice, people in the world can be as generous to charities as Christians can be. Perhaps not to the same degree, but nonetheless they can be. But being nice and kind and being law-abiding are nothing to do with our Christian witness.
You see this word “witness” or “testimony,” same word. This is a legal word. You don’t give testimony by walking into a courthouse any more than you give testimony to Jesus by walking into a church building. You’re bearing witness, giving testimony, when you’re on the stand, and you’re being questioned, and you have to say what you know. You are giving witness, you’re giving testimony, when someone asks you what you believe, and you open your mouth, and you tell them what you believe. Witness is about what you say, not about what you do. It’s about what you say to people about what you believe as a Christian person.
That’s what John had done. He had given testimony about the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, and that’s what got him shipped off to Patmos. He wasn’t there as a traveler and a tourist. He was there on account of what he had testified to. He had spoken about the gospel of who Jesus Christ is. He is the Word of God.
“In the beginning is the Word, and the Word was with God…
John 1:1, 3, 14
and all things were made by the Word, and nothing was made that hadn’t been made by the Word…
and the Word was God…
And the Word became flesh.”
That was John’s testimony to the Word of God. He who is the Word of God. And he’d given testimony to the testimony of Jesus, that is, what Jesus had said. So what John is talking about in what he says about Jesus is that he is the eternal substantial Word of the Father. That he is the king, the only king, and head of the church. That he is our priest who opens the way to God. He is our prophet who speaks the Word of God into our lives, and he is all of this to his church in the world.
And this implies that our primary, our fundamental allegiance as Jesus’ people is to King Jesus. Now there’s a sense in which that’s why we have the first amendment. It’s a recognition that here we are a peculiar people, with peculiar religious practices, in which we acknowledge the leadership of someone other than the state in which we live, but we are protected by the state in which we live because we give to the state in which we live the loyalty, our human loyalty, we pay our taxes, we give respect to those who deserve respect in our society. We do that and we do that wholeheartedly, and we seek the benefits and the blessing of the land in which we live, and the people of this land in which we live. We do that with full hearts, but we also have this other part to our lives. We live in these two kingdoms: one is the United States of America, which blessedly and happily isn’t a kingdom anymore, but anyway, and we live under the rule of King Jesus. And every day we have to negotiate life in both kingdoms.
But where push comes to shove, when it comes down to the issue of where my primary loyalty lies as a Christian that we have to say this: it lies with King Jesus. And that’s precisely what got John into trouble. So that was why some people bristled when a public official was doing his job, and that was he was laying down some guidelines and giving some advice to us as to how to behave and what to do and so on. We recognize his right and responsibility indeed to do those very things. That wasn’t the issue. But when he went beyond that, and he made this comment: “You Christians believe God is everywhere, and that you can pray to him anywhere. Therefore you don’t need church.”
He was going above his pay grade right there when it comes to that subject. We don’t recognize that authority, all the other areas we do, but not in that area. Jesus says we need church. And King Jesus comes first. The sacramental, covenantal people of God is where our hearts belong.
But John’s story reminds us of how tentative our Christian position is, how fragile is the peace that we enjoy. And yet it also teaches us that through hardships and pressures brought against the church, Christ himself by these would have us to know that his kingdom is not of this world.
Now we worry about this, and we wonder about the irritations of life and the things that come across our path. Perhaps we worry about being isolated as John was, about being forcefully removed from the communion of the saints. And yet I want to say to you even that isn’t the end of the world.
Many of you watching this haven’t been back in person to church, and you’re sharing with us in our worship here and you’re enjoying being able to be with us virtually and to watch this. But many of you because of your age or pre-existing conditions are feeling isolated. It isn’t the end of the world. John was in Patmos, and he wrote the book of Revelation. Paul was in prison, and he wrote the books of Philippians and two letters to Timothy. Martin Luther in fear of his life had been spirited away and was being hidden in Wartburg Castle, and he wrote, he translated the entire bible into German, and not only gave Germany the Bible, but actually gave Germany the language it still has to this day. And Samuel Rutherford was in that prison in Aberdeen, and from that prison he wrote his famous letters that are still blessing the church today. Because God can use his people, even when they’re in tribulation, even in isolation. God can use his people to bless his church.
Banishment and imprisonment can lead to the public good of the church, because in that we can cultivate an intimate and sweet fellowship with the Lord Jesus himself. Peter, who would know this, writes if you are reproached or insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Well, John writes then as a Christian, he writes as a prisoner, and thirdly, John writes as a prophet. John was in Patmos, but he goes on to say these words:
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.”
Revelation 1:10
I’ve said the Lord’s day is Sunday, it’s the day the Lord Jesus rose. It’s the day of his vindication. And though John would have loved to have been with his church that day, worshipping and assembling with them, although he would have missed his church family at Ephesus, and being with them was not to be, he was in the Spirit, he says. Now the Holy Spirit’s been introduced to us already in this first chapter. He’s been described there as the seven spirits of God. We noted that the number seven in the book of Revelation, which is a book of symbols, symbolizes the perfection the fullness seven days that God created the world. It represents the fullness of the divine Spirit in relation to God the Father, to the Son, and to the church’s mission to the whole world.
But wherever in Revelation the Spirit is just mentioned in those two words “the Spirit,” it inevitably refers to his way with the Christian prophets of the churches. All the references to the Spirit concern, in various ways, the Spirit’s inspiration of John’s prophecy. Bauckham of Cambridge University spent some time teasing this out. He identifies that John tells us twice that he was in the Spirit, in chapter 1 and in chapter 4, and then twice we’re told that an angel carried him away in the Spirit or by means of the Spirit. Those references make it clear that he is referring to the divine Spirit as the agent of revelation of the visionary experience that he’s having. It puts John alongside people like Ezekiel. Ezekiel writes this then,
“The Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great earthquake saying, ‘Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place,’ and then the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, the hand of my Lord being strong upon me.”
Ezekiel 3:12-14
In other words, John is describing, as Ezekiel is describing, a preternatural experience, a supernatural experience, a visionary experience. And it happens to him, if you read the book of Revelation, at strategic places. It begins in chapter 1 on Earth among the churches. In chapter 4, in heaven before the throne of God it happens. Before the story of Babylon and then before the story of new Jerusalem.
The Holy Spirit, in other words, is active throughout the book of Revelation leading the church into all truth as Jesus said he would. The Apostle Peter sums up the experience of John when he says this:
“No prophecy ever was produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were swept along by the Holy Spirit.”
2 Peter 1:21
Or even clearer from the Apostle Paul, he writes this in Corinthians:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, nor the heart of man has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9
These things God has revealed so what eye hasn’t seen, ear hasn’t heard, no one has ever dreamt up; God has made them known through the Spirit. How does he do that? Because the Spirit searches the depths of God. No one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God, because he is God. Now we have received the Spirit who is from God, and now we understand the things freely given us. By God you can understand Revelation because the Holy Spirit will help you to understand the book of Revelation.
Now let me pause for a moment here. What John is describing here is not an ecstatic state. There is nothing morbid or pathological happening to John, rather this is a supernatural intervention, a miraculous action of God while John was wide awake and fully conscious. He is being transported into a new dimension. His mind is clarified and elevated beyond its normal capacity. This is no self-induced trance. This is not like the vision of the clairvoyant. John is fully conscious. Throughout this book you’ll see him, in his reactions to what he hears. He hears, he sees, he feels, he tastes, he turns, he falls prostrate. Like Isaiah the prophet:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up.”
Isaiah 6:1
And what John receives by way of divine revelation is the word of God directly to the people of God. It comes to us today as it came to those early churches that heard it.
“If anyone has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”
Revelation 2:7
This is all what Jesus prepared us for in John chapter 16,
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for whatever he hears he will speak, he will declare to you things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
John 14:13-15
In the book of Revelation, we see the Holy Spirit at work doing precisely that. Here’s John writing as a Christian, John writing as a prisoner, and John writing as a prophet. And this is where we’re going to leave John this week as the things of earth and time recede. The physical and material world in which he is living in at that moment, as you and I are right now, gives way to a reality, the sight and sound of a reality, that is invisible and intangible to us right now, but is there, nonetheless. He is in the Spirit, able to see and to hear things that no eye has seen, and no ear has heard. John is alone on Patmos with God.
Brothers and sisters, in the midst of our disturbed lives during this pandemic, take the opportunity to spend time alone with God. Take the opportunity to seek his face. Say with the psalmist,
“Your face, O Lord, I will seek.”
Psalm 27:8
And then burrow in, burrow into the Bible, and let it minister to your heart and your mind until heaven breaks upon your imagination and joy comes in the morning.