Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. This is study #34 of Revelation, chapter 1, and we are going to be reading 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.

We have been discussing the *patience* of Jesus Christ, as John is writing under the inspiration of God, and he says he is our "brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ."

We saw in Luke 21:19 where the Lord says, "In your patience possess ye your souls," and that is really saying "in Christ" is where our salvation lies, the salvation of our souls. You know, the Bible says God is *love*. The Lord Jesus Christ is *faith*. Whenever the Bible speaks of saving faith, it is referring to the faith of Christ, and not our own faith. It also calls God the "God of patience" in Romans 15:5:

Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:

God is a God of love, and He is a God of *patience*. It also tells us in 2Thessalonians 3:5:

And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

Now, here, the King James translators really took some liberties with the Greek text. It should not have been translated as "into the patient waiting for Christ," but it literally should read "into the patience of Christ." There is just that same word *patience* that is translated as "patient waiting," and it is "of Christ," not "for Christ." So, here, it is "into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ."

That is where each child of God is, and here we see the Lord is directing the believer's heart *into* these things: into God's love and into His patience. And, so, that is how it is that we can be *patient*, as God is trying His people at this time, and He is trying us to see if we will endure to the end.

And what is it we must endure? We must endure the doctrine of the word of God, the truths of the Bible. We have to patiently wait on the Lord, and not leave or turn from the things that we have learned at this time. He has entrusted to our care to be "stewards of the mysteries of God," and that phrase in 1st Corinthians 4 relates to the spiritual information that God has opened up at the time of the end, as the Scriptures were unsealed, and the Lord taught us many things.

Now, when individuals begin to doubt the time line and they begin to doubt the end of the church age, and so on, these truths that the Lord taught us are being unraveled; and from there, they go on to doubt other things that we learned and they are not being faithful stewards of the mysteries of God. They are not holding steadfastly to these things that the Lord thought so important that He sealed them up until the time of the end, and then unsealed them at just the appropriate point in history, the final time of the end, in order that His people might be blessed all over the earth.

So it is not a little thing at all to turn back, and to go away from these things, and to deny them (after having received them), so we are called upon to endure the faithful, truthful teachings of the word of God, no matter what pressure is put to bear upon us; and you can believe that pressure is being placed upon us to deny these things, to recant, and to turn from these faithful teachings of the Scripture.

It is the whole point, really, of God leaving us here; that is, to see if we will continue to trust His word. After all, the Bible says that "His sheep hear his voice." God's people know what they heard. They realized that God's methodology of "comparing Scripture with Scripture," and making things harmonize to such a degree, so that we know this is the word of God. And we have followed this methodology for years and years and years; God's people followed them for centuries, and we are following the same methodology at this time that has taught us these things. So to deny these teachings is to deny the proper methodology of God regarding how we approach the Bible, and of looking for deeper spiritual meanings, and it is to deny the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven."

Remember, Christ spoke in parables in order that it be given to the elect to be able to understand these mysteries. And to them that are not of the kingdom of heaven, it is not given that they understand them. So the Lord would have us to patiently endure at this time and, of course, He will keep His people "in the patience of Christ."

Really, what is being tested, what is being tried, is to see if the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ dwells within us and, if so, "in Him we possess our souls;" we will have patience, we will wait upon Him, we will continue to endure all the way to the end, because God will make sure of it. He will not let us go astray. He will hold us, "steadfast, unmoveable," as it says in 1Corinthians 15:58:

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

That applies to doing the will of God, as He moves in us "to will and do of His good pleasure." We are to be unmoveable and steadfast in that. And, of course, doing the will of God would include holding tightly, faithfully, to the teachings of the word of God, and not departing from them, and not running away from them, in order to avoid the test that God is putting us through.

Some people are going back to church, or they are returning to former doctrines and teachings, and saying, "No man can know the day and hour, actually. We were wrong about that." No, we were not (wrong). God revealed that May 21, 2011 was judgment day and, therefore, we did know the "day and hour" of the judgment of God.

But as far as the "patience of Christ," we are to wait upon God. You know, the word *patience* is translated as "enduring" in 2Corinthians 1:5-6:

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.

The Greek word, here, "enduring," translated in our English King James Bible, is the identical word that every where else is translated as "patience," and that is partly what is in view. We are to "endure" whatever may come, and wait on the Lord patiently.

And if it turns out that we do endure to the end, then we will find we have the "patience of Christ." Christ is in us. Yes, we have *patience* because *patience* is a person; it is the Lord Himself.

But if we do not endure to the end, as Matthew 24:14 says... Remember right before that verse and what it says there? The context is established by God, as the period of the great tribulation and this Day of Judgment, and it says in Matthew 24:12-13:

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Actually, I think it is over in Mark 13 that gives us a little bit more information, in Mark 13:13:

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

And here we are, and the world has a very low opinion of the believers due to the May 21, 2011 proclamation. The church has an even lower opinion of the believers. Even those with whom we might previously have found some consolation and companionship, of fellowship in understanding these things from those that were once with us in proclaiming these things, also have a low opinion of the true believers that continue to hold to them. We can see why God sa"ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake," and it most certainly is "for His name's sake," if we hold onto what the Bible is saying"But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."

I know it is not a very pleasant idea to be tried and tested and, yet, this is what the Bible teaches. We do not have to hold on with "white knuckles." That is not the idea. God will hold us. He will keep His people on the proper course and He will make sure that we endure; He is the one that will bring this to pass.

Let us go back and continue 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, 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.

Now the word *isle* is the same as *island*. It is translated, for instance, in Acts 28:1, where it speaks of Melita or Malta, and there it calls the island Melita, and that is a translation of the same word. So that is the option for the translators, and they can use the word *isle* or *island*.

John was in the isle that is called *Patmos*, and *Patmos* is only mentioned here in the Bible. You will not find this word anywhere else. It is a transliteration of the Greek, and we are not given any help by the name itself. That is, when we look up the word *Patmos*, we do not see that it means any certain thing, or at least anything we are aware of or that we can understand, at this point. So it is a word that we lack understanding of, and of why God tells us that John was on this island.

I know we could turn to theologians and commentaries, and they would tell us a whole lot about Patmos, where it is located, and why John was there: they say he was cast off to that island, banished by the Roman emperor towards the end of the first century A.D., but none of that information is in the Bible. It is interesting to discuss it, but it is not something we can learn anything spiritual from because it is not found in the word of God, so we are just going to move on. If God wanted us to learn more, He would lead us elsewhere in the Scriptures to teach us these things (or whatever He wanted us to learn), so we are going to leave it for now, unless we learn something further in the Bible itself.

So John was in the isle that is called Patmos "for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." The reason that John was on the island of Patmos was to receive the word of God, and however he got there is really not important, from God's perspective: God moves and orchestrates events, and He directs the course of men, saved and unsaved alike, and He causes things to happen according to His will. So the Lord orchestrated the events in John's life to arrange for him to be on this island at this particular moment in time, in order that He could give him this divine revelation from the mouth of God; so John was there "for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." And that is basically saying the same thing; they are synonymous statements.

It is really a wonderful look into how God gave His word to men, as He used prophets of old to record His holy word, His divine revelation, and here He is speaking to John, or giving him a vision and John will later write these things down. And so we have the Book of Revelation; we have a part of the Bible that comes directly from God.

It says in 1Thessalonians 2:13:

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

Here, God is declaring that this word, the Bible, is not the word of men, but in truth, in fact, indeed, it is the word of God. "It is my word," God is saying, "I am the one that said everything that is recorded in this Book, the Bible." He is giving us a glimpse. We have an opportunity to look, in a very direct way, at how God did this, as He is recording the events that we are finding in the Book of Revelation, as He is moving the Apostle John to write down these things.

Let us move on to Revelation 1:10:

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

Here, again, as we found already, we have to look closely and carefully at the Greek text, because there are often things that God has hidden there. And, here, where it says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," there are a few individuals that look at this phrase, and they believe that this is saying, "I was in the Spirit on the day of the Lord." You see, that would give it a completely different connotation, because the language of "the day of the Lord," is the language of judgment day. The only way we can discover if this is the correct translation, or not, is to turn to the original text.

And, when we do, we find that this is actually a very good translation, except for one thing: where it says, "I was in the Spirit *on* the Lord's day," the word *on* is the identical Greek word that was translated as *in* earlier in this same verse where it says, "I was in the Spirit," so it should say, "I was in the Spirit in the Lord's day."

Now this final phrase "the Lord's day" is where the idea comes from that it should be translated "the day of the Lord," and, actually, I do not think it should, because it says in 2Peter 3:10:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night...

Now, here, we have that construction, "the day of the Lord," and it is speaking of judgment day, which we are presently in. This verse is written with the Greek genitive case, and the word *Lord* (kurios) with that kind of an ending, is a genitive ending, and it should be translated *of*, "the day *of* the Lord." That is correct. Or in 1st Thessalonians 5:2:

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

Again, the Greek genitive case is used, and it is a proper translation to translate it as "the day of the Lord," because that is how the genitive case should be translated.

But, in our verse here in Revelation 1:10, we do not have the word *Lord* written in the genitive case. It is actually in the dative case. "I was in the Spirit in the Lord's day," and so we do not get the genitive from the case. But the Greek word used here is Strong's #2960, and it is a form of "kurios," but it is a form that is only found two times in the New Testament: once, here, and the other place is in 1st Corinthians 11:20:

When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.

Now, notice, again, that here it is the apostrophe *s*, as though it is belonging to the Lord, "to eat the Lord's supper," not "the supper of the Lord," and it is also here in Revelation 1:10: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," that which belongs to the Lord. And, so, I think that this is a correct translation, except for the word *on*. It should be translated, "I was in the Spirit in the Lord's day." The King James translators did a good job on this verse, other than that one little word, *on*, which should be translated *in*.

But we will discuss this, as we continue on in our study in the Book of Revelation, when we get together in our next Bible study.