The ground of controversy between John and his persecutors was “the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ.”  Of these he “bare record.” (v, 2.) “This,” say most expositors, “was the cause of John’s banishment.”  This unguarded language confounds the difference between a cause and an occasion.  John had given no cause of banishment to his enemies.  The true cause of their hostility was their hatred of the “word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.”  For these John contended earnestly, as Jude enjoined; (ver. 3:) just as Paul and others were “bold in their God to speak the gospel of God with much contention.” (1 Thes. ii. 2.) We have here the standing ground of strife between the believer and the infidel; between Christ and Belial, between the church and the world.  There is a divine hand interposed all along in this warfare, and the conflict will terminate only in the extermination of one of the parties. (Gen. iii. 15; Rev. xx. 10.)

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

Ver. 10.—­The beloved disciple had often “tasted the good word of God,” while the bosom-companion of Christ in the time of his ministry on earth:  His “heart burned within him.” (Luke xxiv. 32.) Especially had this been his happy experience on the holy Sabbath.  Now that his condition is solitary, being by violence “driven out from the inheritance of the Lord,” (1 Sam. xxvi. 19,) his gracious Master favours him with a special visit.  Did he not say to his disciples while he was yet with them,—­“I will not leave you comfortless?  I will come to you.”  (John xiv. 18.) The Comforter was promised to supply the want of the Saviour’s bodily presence, (v. 16,) and now John is “in the Spirit,” and it is “the Lord’s day,”—­the Christian Sabbath.  We may well suppose this disciple never was happier, no, not when he was “leaning on Jesus’ bosom.”  He would not now envy the emperor or any of his persecutors in all their outward peace and prosperity.  He was in an ecstasy,—­“whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell:”  but his soul was susceptible of the impressions of Christ’s love, and of the intimations of his sovereign will.  “Shall I hide from Abraham the thing which I do?” (Gen. xviii. 17.) “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos iii. 7.) John does not boast as Balaam,—­“falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:”  yet he heard and saw as distinctly and clearly as if his perceptions had come through the medium of his bodily ears and eyes.  “He heard behind him a great voice as of a trumpet,” not to alarm, but to engage attention.

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.