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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea, God's Word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ Back to the Bible for the way of life
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welcome to this period of Bible study. If you have your Bible close at hand, you might turn to Revelation 2. That is where we're going to pick up our study for this period of time, and we are thankful for this opportunity to engage in a period of Bible study looking at what God's Word has to say to us and for us. If you have questions about this program, this episode, or other lessons that we've presented, or anything that we've said, or the resources we've provided, we invite you to reach out to us at Back to the Bible Podcast. You can also reach out to us on our Facebook page or email us through backtothebiblepodcast.com and we would look forward to hearing from you. Our study of the book of Revelation has come to chapter two, and I think sometimes maybe we consider chapter two and three to be the easiest of our study when we look at the Book of Revelation because the they are written to specific local churches and they have specific things that they are calling those local congregations to either turn away from or to continue in or to start doing. And I think that in that way these seven letters here in chapters two and three are very familiar to us in that we've seen other things like that in the New Testament. But I think we should say a couple of things about these letters to these seven churches. First, I think the whole book is for these seven churches initially, of course, they're for all Christians at all times, and there are lots of benefits that we get from studying them. But I think we should understand and I've emphasized this before, and it may sound redundant, but I'll emphasize it again, that this whole book is a letter to churches in the first century on the western part of the what is today Turkey, the Asia Minor territory. These revelations were given to them in order for them to listen, to read and respond to. And another thing is, is that these seven letters that are written to the churches are intended to have relevance for everyone. Specifically. So I know that the letters are written to the church at Ephesus or Smyrna or wherever the letter was sent to. But at the end of every letter, or right near the end of the letter, for example, in verse seven, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. That is the message from for all of these churches is for whoever has two ears on the side of his head and is ready to pay attention. If you can hear the message to the church at Ephesus and Smyrna and Thyatira and Laodicea and Philadelphia, if you can hear those letters, if you can hear those messages, then they are for you to pay attention to. Whoever has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. I think that's a very helpful passage because I think we would say the same thing about all of the letters that Peter and Paul and John wrote to the churches and the other letters that we have in the New Testament. So when we look at these letters, we need to see them as directed to these local churches in order to have valid and clear understanding. But we also need to see that there is a message that we can all draw out from it. And that's what we would talk about when we talk about the Book of Revelation. We would say, yes, we need to see it written to these seven churches. Yes, we need to see it with a message relevant to them in the first century in their location and area. But we need to hear the message as well. Let me also say that these letters to the seven churches in chapters two and three have a similar pattern. And one writer described it with several Cs. And so that was helpful to me. So you have the church that is identified to the angel of the church in wherever the church was, the congregation there. And then you have a description of Christ. And Christ is going to be described as the one who then he is going to speak to them. Now, in the message to the church, there is going to be, with the exception of two churches, there is going to be a commendation. So the church is addressed, Christ is described, and there is a commendation given. The only two that are left out of having a commendation that is left out of having something good said about them is the church at Sardis, which will be the fifth letter, and the church at Laodicea. Nothing is commended in those congregations. Then there is a condemnation, or at least we might say a criticism. And that is true of every church except two. And the second church that we're going to look at, Smyrna, and the sixth church that we're going to look at, Philippines, Philadelphia, don't have any critical things or condemning things said about them, but those are the exceptions. Then there is a correction. Now, of course, the churches that aren't condemned aren't being corrected in the same way, but they are told to hold on and to be faithful and to hold fast. The ones where something critical is said There is a call to repent or to hold to the standard that had been given to them. And if they don't, there are consequences. Now, this is not said about the church at Smyrna, and it's not said about the church at Philadelphia. But the message is, if you don't make the correction to the criticism, if you don't correct what you are being condemned for, then there will be a consequence. And so then comes the call, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And then at the very end of the letter, there will be a challenge to the one who conquers, to the one who overcomes, to the one who responds appropriately. And there is a promise that is made. Now, I'm going to put a chart up on the screen if you're able to watch this on video, and it will be in rather small font. But I just want you to see that this pattern applies to all of the letters for the churches, the church, Christ, commendation, condemnation, correction, consequence, call and challenge. Now, that's significant because it helps us to break down the letters. Let me also say this about the letters as a whole. I think sometimes we come to these letters and we think, well, these will be easier because these are messages directly to churches without all of the revelation language. But I don't think that that's true, because when we read about who Jesus is and when we read about what they will receive, we get a lot of that very similar language that we have through the rest of the book. In fact, I think we will see echoes of almost all of this language through the book. As we look at the letters, especially in the way that Jesus is described, it will echo a lot of what we hear in chapter one. And then when we look at the reward or what the promise to the one who overcomes, we will see a lot of that echoed at the end of the book and throughout. And so it's very important, I think, that we consider that. So on the whole, the letters to the churches perhaps have more clarity, but that doesn't mean that there's not some of the apocalyptic language. That takes us some more time to consider the symbol and the language that's being used. That is more than just normal communication. And so we need to pay careful attention to that. Now, let me say this as kind of a summary of all of these, and we're going to look at each letter to each congregation. But because the revelation as a whole was written to these churches, we need to understand what is being said to them. And think about what each congregation was like. And that will help us to consider how each church would have responded to each scene that we read about in the Book of Revelation. So we should consider how a particular message would strike a struggling but faithful church. We should think about how each scene would strike a lackadaisical church. We should think about how each image and each picture and each lesson in the book would strike a church that was tolerating or even promoting idolatry or immorality, or a church that was guilty of just going through the motions. We're going to see those kinds of congregations presented here. Revelation 12 is a message about suffering and persecution. Chapter 17 will talk about who will be victorious and who will be on the Lord's side. Come. And I think that reading it from perhaps the perspective of the church at Philadelphia might give you a very different perspective than reading it as the church at Sardis. Are you a church that is faithful but struggling, or are you a church that's rich from appearances but faithless in reality? That will change how you look at each message. And let me say that I think by considering how. How a church would have received it is the very best way to make application. I think if we understand what the message was to them first, then we can make proper application for ourselves. So take the time to note the common elements of the letters, and then as we read the letter, ask this question. When we talk about each chapter or each scene or each section, think about how would the church at Ephesus respond to that? How would the church at Philadelphia respond to that? And so on. Now, when we look at these churches, I'm going to put a map up on the screen if you're able to watch. These churches are seven churches of Asia. Now, we don't know all about all of these congregations. In fact, some of them. This is the only place we have those congregations mentioned in the New Testament. We do have reference to Laodicea, and we have a lot of reference to Ephesus. Ephesus, the first church mentioned here, is discussed in Acts chapter 19. And it might be that as far as churches that we have written to and from material, Ephesus might really be near the top of the list as far as that goes. We have the letter to the Ephesians. We have Paul writing some of his epistles from Ephesians. From Ephesus, I should say we have Timothy is at Ephesus when Paul writes those letters to him. We have this letter here. A lot of content in or from or to or about the church at Ephesus, we also have Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. When you look on the map, you can see that as John writes to them and he is writing to them in kind of a clockwise rotation of those congregations within Asia. We know that there were, at least at some point, other congregations there in Asia, on that western peninsula that goes out into the Mediterranean and into the Adriatic Sea, the Aegean Sea. When we look at those churches, we know the church at Colossae was there. And we don't have a letter written to them in this place. We have a letter written to them in another place. We know another letter was written to Laodicea, and maybe that was one of the letters that had been passed around. We have reference to it in Colossians chapter four. So we don't know a ton about all of these congregations. Ephesus would be the one we're most familiar with. But we do know where Asia was, and we know where these churches, where the towns that these congregations were located in. We know where they were on the map. So what I want to do is I want to look at each letter and I want to consider them as we go. Let's start by looking at the letter to the Ephesians. This is Revelation 2, verses 1 through 7. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write, this is what the one who. Who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands says, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot bear with those who are evil. And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles. And they are not. And you found them to be false. And you have persevered and have endured for my name's sake. You also have not grown weary, but I have this against you that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first. But if not, I am coming to you, and I will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. So here Jesus, through John, sends this message to the church at Ephesus. Now notice how Jesus is described here. Jesus is described as the one who holds seven stars in his right hand and is walking among the seven golden lampstands. Now, that echoes what we just read at the end of chapter one in verse 20, that he had seven stars and he was walking among the seven golden lampstands. Now, why was this significant for the church at Ephesus? Well, I think it connects to the first words that he says to them specifically. I know Jesus has these seven stars in his right hand. These are his angels, these are his messengers. He has messages and he's ready to send them. And he is among the seven golden lampstands. The seven golden lampstands represents each one of these churches as it stands on its own. And Jesus is there right in the middle of them. Jesus is right in their presence, and he has a message with ready to send. I think that phrase there in verse two, I know was to strike right to the heart of the Ephesians, because on the outside there were a lot of things that you could see and maybe even what we would say, some of the internal things you could see that Jesus is saying, these are quality. But there's something that perhaps would have missed the human eye that Jesus is able to speak directly to because he says, I know. Now, how does he commend the church at Ephesus? Notice what he says in verse two. He says, I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance, and that you cannot bear with those who are evil. And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. And you found them to be false. And you have perseverance and have endured for my name's sake. And you also have not grown weary. I think as far as descriptions for a local church goes, that is really high praise. That is the kind of commendation you are looking for from the Lord. And what we see here is that Ephesus is given that commendation. They are working, they are being faithful in their commitment. I love it that there are some who are calling themselves apostles. They are claiming to have apostolic authority, and they are coming and they are saying untrue things. And the Ephesians are applying the test of faithfulness to them and finding them to be false. They have the truth, they know what the truth is. And they hear these apostles, so called, coming and preaching to them. And they are found to be frauds, they're found to be fakes. They're even persevering and enduring through whatever difficulties they are having to face. And they're not weary. And yet they are criticized, they are condemned because they have left their first love. Now, what does that mean, that they've left their first love? I take it to be that their zeal and their passion and their commitment and their devotion to the Lord was just not what it had been. Now we know that the church at Ephesus was warned about dangers that were coming. In Acts chapter 20, Paul meets with the elders of the church at Ephesus, and he meets them at Miletus as he's making his way back to Jerusalem. And he tells them that they need to be on the guard because there are going to be wolves from their own midst who are going to come in and who are going to try to do damage to wreak havoc among the flock that God had made them shepherds over. So how did he want to protect them? How did he entrust them the care and the provision that they needed? He said in verse 32, and now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. He told the elders in the church at Ephesus that false teachers are gonna come in and try to wreak havoc on the flock. And the standard that they could apply in order to grow, to be built up, and to find an inheritance was God's word that Paul had revealed to them. And so the Ephesians had the information they needed to do right. He says, remember, from where you have fallen, look back to that place where you once were and repent and. And do the deeds you did at first. Now, I love this idea that's presented here. Ephesus was not totally faithful in chapter 2 and verse 5. Ephesus was not meeting the standard that God had called them to. But that didn't mean the story was over. There was an opportunity for what we might call restoration. Not the idea that God's church was broken and it had to be brought back, but that the Ephesians have departed, that they have fallen from where they should have been. And restoration would mean restoring themselves to the standard that God had given them. Now, if they don't do that, Jesus warns that I will take the lampstand out of its place unless they repent. And I think the idea there is that Jesus is saying, if you don't get a hold of this, if you don't get this right, this identifier of you as a church that belongs to me will be removed. Now, the church at Ephesus may have gone a long time believing that they were still in right condition with the Lord, they may have identified themselves as belonging to Christ. But if they didn't have their issues worked out, not just getting doctrine right, not just getting false teaching called false, not just making sure that they were going through a lot of effort, but if they didn't get their devotion to the Lord, if they didn't get back to their first love, then they would not be a church that belonged to Christ. They wouldn't be identified as such in his mind, which is the most important recognition. But they did have this. They did hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. Now, we don't have a lot of information about who the Nicolaitans were and what they were involved in, but John writes Jesus saying, I also hate their deeds. He hates what the Nicolaitans are doing. And so the fact that the Ephesians hate that is a great starting point. So he needs to pay attention. The church there needs to pay attention. And what I love there is that in chapter two and verse seven, he says, if you overcome, if you conquer, I will give you the paradise in the paradise of God, the tree of life. Now, we're not going to flip over there right now, but when you go to chapter 21 and 22 talking about God dwelling among men, there's the promise of access to the tree of life. I think there would be blessings that would come, that would be connected to the blessings that God would give us right now, if the Ephesians were going to be able to conquer, if they were able to overcome the challenges that they were facing. But I think that's just a preview of the blessings that are coming in eternity for the congregation and the people who are a part of that congregation, who are faithful to the Lord and who take seriously his calls to repent. Now, if I was going to summarize the message to Ephesus in just a short phrase, I would say, jesus knows they've left their first love and they need to repent. One older preacher came to where I was holding a meeting and basically did a sermon on chapters two and three in one lesson. And I'd like to take some more time with it than that as we go through on this program. But what he did was he considered whether or not the Lord would say something similar to us as a congregation, whatever congregation you're a part of. What would he have to say to the church where you're a member? Would he say, boy, you got the doctrine right, but you don't have the love and the zeal and the passion and the devotion that you once did. But here's the point that I want to make, is I think that our local churches ought to be under consideration. But I want you to consider yourself. Because the only way a local congregation is a church that's made up of people who are devoted to doctrine but not committed to their first love is because there's individuals who are in that congregation who are committed to doctrine but have left their first love, or individuals who are willing to persevere but have lost some of that zeal and devotion. And so we need to consider ourselves personally. If Jesus was writing a letter to us, would he have called us out like he did the Ephesians? Now, there will be other churches, I think that will look very zealous but will not have a concern for doctrine. And that's not right either. Notice that the Lord's desire is that they meet the standard in every way in doctrine and in devotion. Now, we have just a few minutes. I think we can take the time to consider the church in smyrna. In verse 8, Jesus speaks to the church at Smyrna and says, this is what the first and the last who was dead and has come to life says. I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you in prison so that you will be tested and you will have tribulation for 10 days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will never be hurt by the second death. I think that you can see a theme in this letter. How does Jesus identify himself here? The one who's from the beginning and the end, the first and the last, who was dead and has come to life. He has pointed to his resurrection life here. Now, why would that be relevant to the church at Smyrna? Well, think about how they are described. They are a church who is suffering. They're in tribulation. And verse 10, they're going to suffer even more. That the devil is going to be going directly after them, that they're going to have to be faithful there. They're going to have to consider their faithfulness even until. Until death. And I want you to consider the challenge or the reward that Jesus points to at the end of the letter. If you overcome, you'll never be Hurt by the second death. I think if I was summarizing the letter to Smyrna, I think I would talk about that their faithfulness now is in anticipation of resurrection life. Then, in view of the Jesus who was raised from the dead, so he says there are that this church looks poor. He says, I know that you are impoverished. I think they economically, socially, physically, in their status, I think they were poor. They were impoverished, but in parentheses, my text says, but you are rich. They were rich in the ways that mattered. They were rich in the ways that counted. Now, there were those who were saying they were Jews, but they were not. I wonder if these people may actually have been ethnic Jews, but were not living like people who had been called to be God's holy people. Or maybe these are people who were preaching Judaism and imposing Gentile Judaism on people, and maybe that's who they were themselves. Really, what they were is they were a synagogue of Satan. They were people who were representatives of the devil's work, and they honored him in their efforts more than Jesus. And so what Jesus says to them is, is. He doesn't say, it's all right, all your suffering is going to get better. He says, you're going to have to suffer it for even more. You're going to have to suffer it for 10 days. And this is a great place to see. This is a direct, straightforward letter to the church at Smyrna. But the message here is that that's going to be a complete period of time. It's going to be a total amount of time of persecution. Some of them are even going to die. But notice what he says. If you are faithful until death, I don't think that means just be faithful till you die. I think it means be faithful even if it kills you. You'll get a crown of life. Now, how is it that they can. That they can count on the fact that Jesus will fulfill his promise to give them a crown of life? Well, it's because he is the one who has come to life after having been dead. He is the one who can say, you will not be hurt by the second death. He who overcomes will never be hurt by the second death. This echoes what Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 10, that you don't have to fear the one who can only hurt the body, kill the body, but you do need to fear the one who can kill both body and soul or destroy both body and soul in hell. That is, with Jesus on our side, we don't have to fear this death that we're facing. But if we're on the opposite side of Jesus, we not only need to fear this death, but the one that is coming now. Notice that nothing is criticized in Smyrna, nothing is condemned. That doesn't mean that they didn't necessarily have problems. But there wasn't anything that the Lord saw fit to carry, to point out, to criticize here. And so if we summarize the message of Smyrna, this is a struggling physically, struggling economically, maybe struggling socially, but thriving spiritually church who needed to make preparations for the difficulties they were going to have to face. What if that letter was written to the congregation you're a part of? How would you respond to a message that says things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, but if you're faithful, you'll get the crown of life? How would you respond to that message personally? Would you be ready to face whatever comes, to be faithful to Jesus all the way through to the end, in view of the resurrection, in view of the crown of life, in view of the fact that you don't have to fear the second death? Well, our time is used for this period of study. And until next time, we bid you a pleasant good day.
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Back to the Bible Let it be our plea. God's word alone are authority Every word, every step in the name of Christ Back to the Bible for the way of life.