We have the answer to this in the last book of the Bible. Here is what we read in Revelation 1:1-3, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His SERVANT JOHN, who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to ALL THINGS THAT HE SAW. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear THE WORDS OF THIS PROPHECY and keep those things which are written; for the time is near.” This last great PROPHECY was given to the Apostle John while he was an old man (at the end of the First Century). The visions that he saw happened while he was imprisoned for His faith in Christ. John testified to this in verse 9, “I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

The visions that he saw were both glorious and solemn, for he was made to see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ AND also the holy judgments that will fall upon this ungodly world for their rejection of Christ. He was humbled when he saw the vision of Christ in 1:10-20 and “fell at His feet as dead” (verse 17). He was solemnized by seeing judgment after judgment (a series of 21 judgments recorded in chapters 6-18, culminating in the Revelation of Jesus Christ in chapter 19). At one point we read in 10:8-10, “Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, ‘Go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.’ So I went to the angel and said to him, ‘Give me the little book.’ And he said to me, ‘Take and eat it; and it will make you stomach BITTER, but it will be SWEET AS HONEY in your mouth.’ That I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter.” William MacDonald says this about those verses, “For the believer, it is SWEET to read of God’s determination to glorify His Son where He was crucified. It is SWEET to read of the triumph of God over Satan and all his hosts. It is SWEET to read of the time when the wrongs of the earth will all be made right. But there is a BITTERNESS also connected with the study of prophecy. There is the BITTERNESS of self-judgment which the prophetic Scriptures produce. There is the BITTERNESS of viewing the judgments which must fall on apostate Judaism and Christendom. And there is the BITTERNESS of contemplating the eternal doom of all who reject the Savior.” Yet in verse 11 John was told, “You must PROPHESY again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.” (which we see in chapters 11-22).

In closing, we often think of John as one of the chosen APOSTLES who accompanied the Lord Jesus in His itinerant ministry for over 3 years. He has been called the “Apostle of love” because of his love for the Lord Jesus and because he focused on the Lord’s love for him (he refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” in John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20, 24). He is also remembered for his zeal for the truth of the Person of Christ and how he boldly defended the truth of Christ’s Deity and perfect Manhood in 1st and 2nd John. Because of his love for Christ and his holy zeal for condemning those who had the “spirit of Antichrist,” the Spirit of God allowed him to live to a ripe old age so he could become the greatest New Testament PROPHET. There is no greater prophecy than what we see in the book of Revelation.  (DO)  (702.1)