Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. This is study #35 of Revelation, chapter 1, and we are going to be reading Revelation 1:10:

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

We discussed this verse some in our last Bible study, and we were looking at the phrase "on the Lord's day," and we saw how the word *on* is normally translated *in*, and *in* is a better translation. The word *Lord's* is Strong's #2960, which is found two times in the New Testament. It is a form of "kurios," but this particular form of "kurios" has to do with something that belongs to the Lord, so it is an apostrophe *s*, "the Lord's day," the day that belongs to the Lord.

Now even though this is not the same construction as other places in the Bible that refer to the "day of the Lord," it is possible that the Lord's day, here, does refer to the "day of the Lord," because the day of the Lord would also belong to the Lord. But it is not the same, typical language or pattern that God uses when He speaks of the "day of the Lord."

So we really have two options, and I am not sure which one is to be understood, but one is that it is referring to the day of the Lord, or it is the Lord's day, judgment day, and that is an option; and that would mean that the entire Book of Revelation, the divine revelation being given to John by God, is set in the context of judgment day itself; that is, this could be looking ahead, and God could have brought John, in a vision, to the Day of Judgment, and in that setting, revealed the whole Book of Revelation to him. That would make certain other things in the Book more understandable, such as references to "coming quickly," and so on, because it is all set in the Day of Judgment itself. That is one possibility.

The other possibility is that John was in the spirit "in the Lord's day," and that is indicating a day that belongs to the Lord; it does not mention Sunday, in particular, or the Sunday Sabbath, and we really do not find this kind of language describing the Sunday Sabbath. But it could be possible that it is referring to that one day of the week which God has set apart as a day for our benefit, the Sunday Sabbath, and that day belongs to the Lord. So, that would mean, historically, that John was on the island of Patmos on the Lord's day, on the Sunday Sabbath itself, and that is a possible explanation.

But, right at this time, I am not sure which it is, so we will just keep both of those options open for now.

We did not talk about the first part of Revelation 1:10, where it says, "I was in the Spirit..." Obviously, since John was receiving these words directly from God, we realize that it is referring to the Spirit of God coming upon him to reveal these holy things to John, but, nonetheless, the phrase "in the Spirit" does identify with something else we find in the Bible, in Romans 8:7-9:

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Here, the language of being "in the Spirit" refers to salvation. When a person becomes saved, they have the Spirit of Christ indwelling them and, so, they are "in the Spirit." Anyone who is not saved is "not in the Spirit," and does not have the Spirit of Christ in them.

We know that John was a true believer. There is no question about that; all the evidence in the Bible points to that and, yet, not every true believer is visited (as John was visited), and given this type of divine revelation. That indicates that John being "in the Spirit" was something more than just salvation, and it has to do with the special visit of God during that time that God could visit people, before He completed the Book, the Bible. And now, actually, was the time of the final completion of the word of God; after giving John all these visions, and all the information that is recorded in the Book of Revelation, the Lord closes the Book, so this encounter with John, this giving of the word of God to him, is really extremely special and of the greatest importance, because after hundreds and hundreds of years (from what we can tell, about 1,500 years since the Lord began to move men to write down the words of His communication, and to record them in a Book, the Bible), the Bible was being completed. Revelation would be the sixty-sixth Book and last Book of the Bible; the Apostle John was greatly blessed to be the recipient of these holy words of God and also to be witness to the completion of the word of God, so that the Bible could now be one Book, one complete Book, that was God's word to mankind.

Let us go back 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,

John is giving us the historical record of what happened on that day, nearly 2,000 years ago, when he was on the island of Patmos. He heard behind him a great voice, as of a trumpet, so God came from behind him, and spoke with a great voice that sounded like a trumpet.

Now the Greek words for "great voice" are significant, because the Greek word translated as *great* is *megas*, and the Greek word that is translated as *voice* is *phone*, and right away, I am sure you recognize our English word *megaphone*, when we put those two words together, and it comes right from the Greek language. We can picture very vividly someone at a rally where there are many people and he wants to be heard over the crowd, and he takes a megaphone to his mouth and begins to speak, and it amplifies his voice so that all the people in the crowd can hear him. It becomes a "great voice," and that is exactly the idea of these words, the words of the Lord; and that is exactly who it is, we will see in the next verse, by the language "I am Alpha and Omega." It is the Lord Jesus who is speaking, once again.

The words of the Lord are like a "great voice." They are amplified. They are pronounced and they are heard above all and, so, John hears this "great voice, as of a trumpet."

Now let us go to Matthew, chapter 24, and I just want to make this connection, because whenever we can tie words together it eventually will help us, maybe not immediately, and that is why we take notes, and we jot things down. We jot something down now, and another time we jot something down as we are led back to that verse with another word, and then things can "click" and we can begin to learn what God is saying.

But in Matthew 24 (this is after the tribulation, and the description of the sun being darkened, and "the sign of the Son of man" appearing, and what we also read earlier in Revelation 1, "the tribes of the earth mourning" when they see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory), and in Matthew 24:31:

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet...

Let us stop there. The word *great* is *megas*, and the English word *sound* is a translation of the word *phone*. They are the same two words that we have in our verse in Revelation 1:10. It is *megas phone*, "with a great sound" (or voice) "of a trumpet." And we also have the trumpet, here, just as we do in Revelation 1:10. I am not going to try and link these verses together, but we do have similar language, similar words, that are used, and it is just good to note that for the future.

Now let us go back to Revelation 1. John heard behind him a great voice (*megas phone*) "as of a trumpet." The voice of Christ is likened to a trumpet. If we look at Revelation 4:1-2:

After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit...

So, there, we have John again "in the spirit," and he hears a voice talking with him that sounds like a trumpet. Again, this is the voice of God, the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. His voice is likened to a trumpet.

Again, this is helpful information. It does not necessarily help us too much with our present verse, but just noting that can help us later in our study when we get to the point in the Book of Revelation when there are seven trumpets that begin to sound. Now we can make identification and understand, "Well, the trumpet sounding relates to the voice of Christ, and Christ's voice relates to the word of God." It helps us when we think of the "last trump" that will sound, and how that must identify with the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the last bit of His communication, or the last sounding of the word of God.

Now we are going to move on to the next verse in Revelation 1:11:

Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last...

Once again, the Lord Jesus is letting us know who it is that is speaking. It is the same identification as verse 8 of this chapter: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord." Here, "I am Alpha and Omega," and this is the second of four times in the Book of Revelation that Jesus refers to Himself as "Alpha and Omega."

And, if you remember, *Alpha* is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and *Omega* is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and there are 24 total letters. So after *Alpha*, if we go twenty three letters after it, we come to *Omega*, and the number *23* relates to the end, as God often links *23* to a period of judgment or great tribulation, and so on. But we have discussed that recently, so we are not going to spend too much time on "Alpha and Omega."

But let us look at the next phrase: "the first and the last." Now this is similar to "the beginning, and the ending," but it is saying it in a different way. The *first* is referring to the Lord's preeminence, that He is before all things. And the *last* also refers to the fact that He will destroy this world, that this world has an ending.

It had a beginning, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that began it. He is the Creator. He spoke and brought the world into existence, and gave life to all creatures, and maintained that life throughout the history of the world. But comes the point, comes the time, when the Lord will end this world, and the Lord Jesus Christ will also perform that; He is the one that will destroy the world and universe, and this whole creation, and all of the unsaved along with it. So He is spoken of as being "the last."

It says in John 12:48:

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

We find "the last day" identified with the end of the world, with the final day of existence for this world, when there is time no longer, and everything ceases. Of course, in one sense, we have entered into the "last day" because this is "judgment day," (singular), and that is how God refers to it, and yet it is a prolonged period of judgment, the duration possibly being 1,600 days. And, so, the *last* of the 1,600 day period would be the "last day," and it so happens that that day identifies with the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and the phrase "the last day" is also used in association with that feast.

Let us just look at one other verse concerning "the last." It says in 1Corinthians 15:51:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Here, the word *last*, which identifies with the end, is used in conjunction with the *trump*, as we saw the trumpet is referring to the voice of Christ, but the Bible speaks of seven trumpets that must sound, and God does say in Revelation 10:7:

But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound...

(That would better be translated "about to sound.")

...the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

Notice in 1st Corinthians 15:51, "Behold, I shew you a mystery," and the "mystery of God" is that hidden information that God has placed in His word, which only He can reveal to His people, as He opens up the eyes of our understanding to see these things, and to comprehend them.

It is God's plan to continue revealing truth during the day of judgment, as we have seen in previous studies, we have gone to several verses, where the Lord speaks of judgment day as a day of revelation. He is completing the *mystery*, and when we get to the point where the trumpet is about to sound (where the trumpet has been put to the lips and the trumpeter, who is God Himself, is about to blow), then the "mystery of God" is finished, and there is no more revelation to bring, and the only thing left is destruction of this earth.

Now, going back to Revelation, chapter 1, and it says in Revelation 1:11:

Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

Here, the Lord is instructing God what to do. Here is John's role in receiving the word of God: "John, what you see, write in a book, and then send it to the seven churches." This just gives us further insight into the Lord's methodology of moving prophets of old, and instructing them on precisely what they were to do, and how they were to do it; and here God is telling John to "write it in a book," and that Book is the Bible, and as John was writing down these things, He was adding to the Bible. The Bible was not yet completed; soon, the entire Book of Revelation would be delivered to Him, and then God would say in Revelation 22, the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, in Revelation 22:18:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

It is just not the Book of Revelation. Of course, no one was to add to the Book of Revelation, but it is the Bible itself that is the Book, as Revelation is part of the Holy Canon, all sixty-six books of the Bible. No one, now, when the final words of Revelation were given, were to "add to this book" of Revelation, or to the Bible itself, because it is finished. It is the last Book of the Bible.

Now let us just look at a couple of verses before we finish tonight's study. It says in

Jeremiah 36:1-2:

And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from JEHOVAH, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.

And we find here that God is giving almost identical instructions to Jeremiah as He did to the Apostle John. Jeremiah was moved by God to record these things (along with Baruch, who was his scribe), in the sixth or seventh century B.C., hundreds of years before John would be given very similar instructions by the Lord when the Book of Revelation was completed.

God is the "same yesterday, today, and for ever." He dealt with men over hundreds and hundreds of years, in order to give His word, His holy inspired, God-breathed words, to us in this Book, the Bible, and that is exactly what we have in front of us as we are studying. We are blessed and privileged to study the word of God that was given to John, and now is given to us.