J Philip Bible Readings

⁹ I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. ¹⁰ I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet ¹¹ saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”

There is a multitude of circumstances through which we pass in our Christian experience which, although outwardly very different from John's, constitute a common ground between him and ourselves - the trials, the temptations, the pressures and distresses of life. Thus John can say to us as he said to those of his own day, 'I am your brother and companion', and this entitles us to apply his resources to our own needs. What in fact did John do? He recognised that as a believer he partook of two lives, and he allowed the one to have complete ascendency over the other. 'I was in Patmos' he said, but added 'I was in the Spirit'. There was an unseen world alongside his visible experience of exile and imprisonment, more real and more vital by far, and this hidden life, and his participation in it, transformed and transfigured his whole situation. This is a very practical issue. It is open to us to brood upon our life in Patmos, turning it over and over in our minds until we become completely immersed in it, and embroiled in an ever-darkening depression. But John challenges us to lift our eyes to what we are in the Spirit, and remember our position in Christ, and insist upon being what we are. It is then that His mighty voice breaks into the darkness with love and power, reminding us that He is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last (Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet), that is to say, any and all tribulation through which we may pass as believers is bounded on every side by the living Christ. He is there before it begins, and He is there after it is over. 'John', says the living Christ, 'you are in Patmos, but Patmos will have an ending, and when it has ended, I will still be the same. Every Patmos is bounded by My everlasting arms'.