Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. This will be study #31 of Revelation, chapter 1, and we are going to be reading our verse in Revelation 1:9:

I John, who also am your brother, and companion in 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.

Again, we see that John is the individual God is using to record these things. God brought him to this island of Patmos, and showed him these glorious visions of things to come, of wonderful truths coming directly from the mouth of God.

Notice that John is a true believer; he is someone who was a sinner that God saved, and the Lord greatly blessed him by allowing him to be an apostle, and to have a close relationship with Christ Himself. So he enjoyed a very blessed life, but a very difficult life, also, and that is normally the case for the true believer in this world.

It is rare when a believer is able to go unscathed and to travel untouched by the spiritual forces that afflict and cause tribulation for the child of God in this life. John was no exception. He certainly experienced many trials, and, here, he is speaking to you and to me and to all of God's people who would ever read these things, and he is speaking to us as a brother: "I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ."

John is our brother, if we are truly born again, if we are one of God's children; then he is a child of God and we are a child of God. This is why Christians use this kind of language of *brother* and *sister*, and so on. Jesus explained that whoever, does the will of my Father, is my brother and sister and mother, and that is referring to the spiritual family of God.

We are adopted into that family; God has redeemed us and saved us, and He has brought us as adopted children into His royal family, so that we have relationship with God and He is our Father; we have relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and He is our husband and we are His bride. He is our brother, as I said before, and whoever does the will of the Father is His brother; and we also have relationship with one another, we have a brotherhood of men and women that are the children of God. We are of the same family of God.

Now this is a great blessing for those of us who maybe do not have a large earthly family, and maybe we just have a little family of physical relatives, and we enjoy them; but God has greatly expanded our family, when it comes to the spiritual realm, to include a great many people.

You know, true believers do enjoy one another. We do love to find other true believers, others who know the same things, the same truths that we have learned from the Bible. It is a wonderful blessing when we can get together and we can share things of God, the things of the Scripture, and we can talk the same language. We have a sort of intimacy through the language of the Bible, where we can understand the teachings and the spiritual things of the Scripture.

We could say the same things to other people, even many professed Christians, and they would not have a clue; they would not know how to have a dialogue with us to discuss these things. But when we talk them over with a brother (someone who is a true believer), and God has opened up his eyes as well, we almost feel as if this is a "long lost relative" that we now have communion with.

So, here, God is moving John to write that he is our brother and "companion in tribulation." Now the word *companion* is translated as *partaker* in Philippians 1:7:

Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace.

The word *partakers* is this same word as *companion* and we are partakers, along with John, along with the people of God down through history, we are partakers in tribulation. It is not something that just you or I, or another (person) today are experiencing for the first time, and no one else has experienced this. No. John knew all about tribulation in the first century A.D. God's people have known all about tribulation at any point in history.

Just think of Daniel in the lion's den. Did he know of tribulation? Yes, he did, because for the word's sake, and for the sake of doing what is right, and just, and good, he would not deny, and he must continue to pray to God, no matter the consequences. This was something he would not give up. He would not seek to please men, in order to save himself, but he continued to pray, knowing that a law was passed that if anyone offered up prayers to anyone but the king of the Medes and the Persians, they must be thrown to the lions.

And Daniel continued to do that, and, so, for the sake of his relationship with Christ, with eternal God, he suffered tribulation and affliction, and God, of course, rescued him out of that. It is the same all through history: for the sake of God's word, the people of God endure hardship. For instance, it says in Matthew 13, where the parable of the sower is being explained, in Matthew 13:18:

Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.

Now, here, God is telling us the reason why His people will have tribulation. Jesus made that statement in John 16, verse 33, "in the world ye will have tribulation," but in that verse He did not tell us why. Here, in Matthew 13, in this parable, Christ is explaining why: that when tribulation or persecution ariseth "because of the word." That is why we experience tribulation; it is why God's people always, throughout history, have experienced tribulation for the sake of God, for the sake of His word; and you cannot separate one from another; God and His word are synonymous, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh.

We can be sure, and it is a guarantee, that if we identify with the word of God (if we believe it, if we trust it, if we proclaim it, if we share it), we can know for certain, as a result, there will be tribulation or persecution arising because of that word.

This has always been the case, and people will not admit to this, normally; those that come after the true believers, and begin to trouble them, and to pursue them, do not admit to it being because of the *word*. They have their other reasons, that is for sure. They have their justifications for why they are doing the things they are doing, but the fact is that if we are a child of God, and if we are carefully making sure that we are being faithful in the things we share from the Bible, there will come tribulation or persecution because of it.

It also says in 1Thessalonians 1:6:

And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost:

Here, the word *affliction* is the same word *tribulation*. The word in our verse in Revelation 1, verse 9, is the word *thlipsis*, and it is a common word throughout the New Testament for *tribulation* or *affliction*. It is the same word translated as "great tribulation," (that is *megas* for *great*, and then *thlipsis* for *tribulation*). And, here, God is saying, in 1Thessalonians 1:6, "And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction" (or much tribulation), "with joy of the Holy Ghost." You see how "receiving the word" goes hand-in-hand with "much tribulation?"

You can get along fine (any of us can), and we know how to do it; just go ahead and go back to the world; go back to being about your business in the world, and forget all about the Bible, forget all about the Lord Jesus Christ, and, sure, you will get along fine, normally. Of course, you will still have trouble in the world. No one escapes trouble in this world, but you will not have spiritual trouble with the world. You will not have a spiritual battle, or spiritual forces, coming against you. That only happens when someone is involved with the word of God, the Bible. So, yes, anyone can avoid those spiritual struggles and battles by just simply leaving the word of God.

Of course, that is impossible for the child of God to do because we are being drawn by the Lord Jesus Christ, in an irresistible drawing that we cannot resist. We cannot turn. We cannot go back. He has the "words of eternal life." There is no place we can go. And, now, today that is truer than ever. We cannot go to the world. The child of God cannot go to the church, because the church is part of the world. The child of God has nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, but only to God, and to the word of God, the Bible.

Nor would we, we would never want to go back to those things. We should not even look back, or even take the slightest glimpse behind us. We should continue forward because, in reality, there is nothing back there; there is nothing in the world that is of any value, of any substance, or any good, for any person. It is not even good for those that have never left it (that remain in it) and it will finally be their doom, their destruction, and their ruin.

There is nothing worthwhile in this world at all. No matter how the world tries to cover up that fact, it remains the truth. The world is a vain and empty thing apart from God. It is only God, and only His word, that has true value and purpose and meaning, and has real substance. That is why the believer holds onto it. That is why we cannot let it go, because the Lord will not let us (go), and we recognize the great treasure that God has given to us, that He has placed in our possession, an incredible, abundant wealth, that is so much more than all of the world's treasures, all of these earthly things that will some day rust and corrupt and be destroyed, along with this world and all the unsaved people themselves.

So, yes, we experience affliction and tribulation for the "word's sake." That is something we cannot avoid. "It is through much tribulation," the Bible says, "that we must enter into the kingdom of God."

You know, it says something very significant in 2Thessalonians 1:4:

So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

Is that not an incredible statement by God? He sees. He recognizes the difficulties. He knows what is happening in each of our lives. He sees our trials, and knows our troubles and our struggles. He is aware of the tears that have been shed, of the souls that have been cast down, of the heads that have hung low. God sees all these things. It is not as though He does not care. It is not as though it is of no value to Him that we suffer in this life.

The Lord does care. He counts every tear. I think the Bible says something about "placing them in a bottle." God knows everything about us, and He is concerned about every moment that we might be grieved and we might be sorrowing. The Lord does know these things, and He does have concern about these things, but He also knows that these trials and tribulations, these present afflictions, will not be for ever. He knows that "there is an end" to all of these struggles. There is a time when they will conclude, when the things that trouble us will cease from their troubling, and we will no longer experience affliction or tribulation, for the word's sake, but we will enter into the glorious Kingdom of Heaven.

God is aware of this, and He sees that day coming. He knows full well that He will wipe away the tears from off the faces of all His people. Once He does that, and when those tears are gone, and we are no longer crying, and there is no more pain, nor death, nor sorrow, and when God brings that day to pass, it will never return. And, so, the Lord looks upon us now, and He sees the suffering of His people, and the persecutions and tribulations that they endure, and it is nothing but a "manifest token of His righteous judgment." It is, in fact, an evidence for the truth of the word that we hold to.

If it were not true, if the words of God were just some fantasy, if it were not, in fact, reality, and if it were not the thing that it says it is, then the world would not care about it at all. There would be no spiritual battle involved with these things at all, but it is a "manifest token of the righteous judgment of God," and it is something that His people, the saints of God, experience, and it is a small thing to experience, is it not, in order to enter into eternity, into Heaven itself?

You know, it says in 2nd Corinthians (and this is one of those wonderful places in the Bible that really help us in our struggles, in our tribulation), it says in 2nd Corinthians 4:15:

For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Here, God is basically summing up our affliction, and He is saying it is a "light infliction," an easy burden. Remember, that is what the Lord Jesus Himself said in Matthew 11:28:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Now, what is that yoke, and what is that burden? That burden is to carry the word of God in this world, to identify ourselves with it, to not deny it, to not turn from it, to not hide the word when others are looking our way, but to embrace it, to cleave to it, and to proclaim it and share it, no matter what others may think. They may despise it, and many will. They may mock it. They may revile us for holding to it. The world will do all these things, and more, and they will speak evilly of us because of it.

And, yet, it is any easy yoke and a light burden. It is a "light affliction" because it is only a moment. It is only a temporary thing, and then we will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, into eternity future, and (we will) enjoy all the wonderful blessings of eternal life.