It was the “Lord’s Day,” says John.  He alone, and at this time only, uses that name with which we have become familiar, though it may have been in common use among the early Christians.  It meant much to John, even more than to us.  It was a reminder of the day when he looked into, and then entered, the tomb of his Lord, and believed that He had risen from the dead.

His meditations may have been aided by Old Testament Manuscripts, his only companions; especially that of Daniel, in which it is claimed “the spirit and imagery of the Book of Revelation is steeped.”

What a contrast there was between the peaceful waves of Gennesaret, creeping silently upon the sandy beach of his childhood home, and the breakers dashing upon the rocky coast of his exile abode in his old age!  How suggestive of the calm and turmoil of his life!

[Illustration:  SMYRNA Old Engraving Page 233]

But his musings were suddenly broken by “a great voice, as of a trumpet,” giving a command—­“What thou seest, write in a book.”  He says, “I turned to see the voice that spake with me.”  He beheld his Lord in greater grandeur than he had seen Him on earth, even on Hermon.  As he gazed upon the divine figure he must have exclaimed,

    “Can this be He who used to stray,
     A pilgrim on the world’s highway,
     Oppressed by power, and mocked by pride,
     The Nazarene, the Crucified!”

We do not wonder that he says,—­“When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as one dead.”  So had Paul done when the Lord appeared to him at Damascus.  John adds, “He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Fear not.”  The words seem almost an echo from the Holy Mount,—­“Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.”

The command to John was renewed, to write—­of things which he had seen, and what he was yet to behold.  The early Christians called him the Eagle, meaning that of all the sacred writers he had the loftiest visions of divine truth.

John’s writings are of three kinds, the Book of The Revelation of the secret purposes of God; his Gospel; and his three Epistles or letters.

Although The Revelation is the last of the books of the Bible, it is probably the first of those by John.  It contains messages from the Lord in Heaven to the seven churches in Asia, which we have mentioned, concerning their virtues and their failings.  To each was given a special promise of reward to those who overcame sin, and were faithful to Christ.  From this Revelation of John we get our imagery of Heaven, helping us to understand something of its glory.