Chapter two begins Christ's messages, or letters, to the seven churches. Here Christ is writing to the Christian church, symbolised by the seven churches, and being God you find that He is organised and that everything takes place in order. He writes in the same format/order to all seven churches.
The letters are each broken up into seven parts:
1. Greeting
2. Identification (Christ identifies Himself)
3. Condition
4. Problem
5. Counsel
6. Promise
7. Closing (sometimes the promise and the closing are switched around)
The number seven indicates completeness/perfection; hence there are seven churches and seven parts in the letter to each church.
Each of the messages to the seven churches has three applications:
1. To the local church – a message given to the literal church of that time.
2. To us as individuals – a message given to us as a people. Paul wrote 13 epistles or letters. Out of those 13, four of them are to individuals, nine to churches, and we read these letters to find guidance and direction in our lives. So if we read Paul's letters for guidance then why should we not also read Christ's letters, which means that the letters in Revelation apply to you and to me today, just the same as they did back then.
3. To the church age – a particular time period in the history of the church as a whole. We should not try to tie these churches down to exact dates, but only around these time periods.
These are personal letters that Jesus wrote, and He gave them to John to give to the Churches. Imagine having a personal letter from Jesus. Well, the Bible is one long letter to those that love and follow Him, and this was His counsel to them and to us.
The "Desirable" Church.
31 AD to 100 AD.
The early church age covers the period from around 31 AD to 100 AD.
The name of this first church, Ephesus, means "desirable". Ephesus was a lovely place to live and there was much about the church there that was desirable. Ephesus is on the Aegean sea, it had one of the best ports in Asia minor, ships came there from all over the world.
Now in this city they worshiped a goddess by the name of Diana, this is where Paul got into trouble because the silversmith there said that he was taking away their business by preaching about Jesus.
They believed that Diana came from Heaven, she was known as the "Queen of Heaven", and they worshipped her as a goddess of fertility, and they had a temple dedicated to her, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In fact there were two temples built, the first one was destroyed in 356 BC, which burned to the ground on the very day that Alexander the Great was born, and later when he came to age and power he offered to rebuild the temple of Diana, but they turned him down saying they would build it themselves, which they did. It was a huge temple, 442 feet long and 225 feet wide, it had 171 pillars in it which were 66 feet high and 7 feet in diameter and made out of marble that was yellow, red, blue and white, and some historians say that the mortar they used was made of gold.
They believed that Diana was the mother of God and worshipped her as such, and as Christianity became infiltrated by paganism, in 451 AD at the council of Ephesus they declared the virgin Mary to be the mother of God, hoping that they could combine their beliefs with those of the Christians, and this is where we get the Madonna from, who today is also called by some "Queen of Heaven". Remember it was because of this worship of Diana that they became upset with Paul. The theatre in Ephesus sat 25,000 people. They had large libraries and beautiful buildings. The temple of Diana was destroyed in 265 AD by the Goths and has never been rebuilt. Their candlestick was removed from its place and today there is no longer a port there, it's all filled in. God certainly removed their candlestick out of its place, as He said He would.
The work of the gospel at Ephesus was attended by wonderful people. Priscilla and Aquila were two of the first ones to work in Ephesus, and remember they also met and worked with Apollos.
This was the beginning of the church in Ephesus. Paul stayed and preached there for three years, and the church there grew tremendously. When Paul left, Timothy came and pastored the church, and in his old age John also took care of the church in Ephesus. Remember that Jesus committed His mother to John, so Mary too must have lived in Ephesus. These are just some of the people connected with the church there as it grew.
History tells us, and other books, that by the end of that first century there were 50 thousand believers in Ephesus alone. In Asia there were 70 million people that had accepted Jesus and were Christians. So this was a time when the gospel moved unbelievably rapidly across the world and thousands reached out and accepted Jesus as their Saviour.
Revelation 2:1 "Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write, 'These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.'"
Unto the angel - this probably means the minister, the leader of the church, which is why the leadership has such responsibility, because they are the ones many people look to for the truth. Although we should study and discover truth for ourselves, many don't.
Write - John is told to write these things so that the churches can read them, and these letters were then read out loud in these churches, and without doubt copies would have been made of the letter, of the things Christ had to say to them as a group of people.
We can see clearly that the One speaking is Jesus.
Candlesticks = Churches.
Messengers = Ministers/Leaders.
Christ here is dressed differently from a priest. The golden band around His chest shows that He was not only a priest, but also a king. Christ does not take after the Levitical priesthood but after the priesthood of Melchisedec, who was a priest-king.
The candlesticks that represent the church are candlesticks, not candles, therefore they do not have light of their own, just as the church does not have light of its own but only the light it receives from Jesus. We are to be lights, and God is waiting and willing to pour out His Holy Spirit upon us so that we might show Jesus Christ to those around us.
As Jesus walked among the candlesticks it depicts His care and concern for His people. It's good that it is Christ that walks among them and does not turn this over to man. Christ is the head of the church and He watches over it.Revelation 2:2 "I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:"
In every one of the seven churches Christ says "I know your works". This shows that Christ sees that they hate evil and that they laboured for the Lord, working for Him. Do we set time aside to labour and work for the Lord as they did? To work for the Lord takes patience, because God's timing is not always our timing, He does things on His schedule, not ours. We have to learn to wait on the Lord. Today, like then, there are often people who are claiming to be apostles of the Lord. How do you know if they are or not? Well, what they speak has to be in agreement with God's word, and unless you spend time in the word of God, how will you know if they are speaking the truth, and if you don't know then you are open to deception - by their fruits you shall know them.
Revelation 2:3 "And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted."
We too must labour for the Lord, there will be times when we get tired, when we feel we can't put one foot in front of the other, but don't get weary of serving the Lord - serve Him, walk with Him, follow Him. Paul, who spent time working in that church, understood that something was going to happen in Ephesus, as he was talking to the church in Acts 20, he says savage wolves would come among them that would not spare the flock.
This not only happened in Paul's time but in every age, over and over this happens in churches throughout the world, as the Devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
Revelation 2:4 "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love."
Here Jesus says, the worst thing is that you have left your first love. This has happened time and time again - a church is on fire, it brings people in, baptises them, and then the Devil comes in and causes something to happen which turns their attention away from what they are doing, and they start doing something else. Then someone in the church, maybe even a minister, will say, oh evangelism doesn't do any good, and they go out the back door faster than they came in the front door, no point in doing evangelism any more. The moment that happens, that church has lost its first love, and forgets what she is there for - nothing can be worse than losing that first love. The church is the bride of Christ, but if the bride has lost her love then there is nothing left in the marriage. She can say all she wants about the relationship, but if she has lost her love for her husband then it's over, it's ruined. To have lost your first love is a terrible condition.
Revelation 2:5 "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."
Jesus says, go back to your first works, repent from where you have fallen. It's hard sometimes to get that first love back if we have lost it, but Jesus says go back to your first works, and by doing so, we find the way to get our first love back. We must repent and do what Jesus has called us to do.
Do you remember giving your heart to Jesus and you knew that everything was right between you and the Lord, do you remember the love that filled your heart and soul? Do you remember the time when you were baptised and came up out of the water, the joy that filled your heart, that all your sins had been washed away because you were clean in Jesus Christ, the joy that filled your life. This is what He is talking about, this is what you and I must come back to, that experience, and do the first works.
Witnessing to all those around you about Jesus and what He had done for you, your first love, you couldn't keep quiet, you couldn't get enough of the word of God as He showed you new things from His word day after day, spending time in prayer talking to the Lord, and time just flew by, having a love that burns within your heart and soul, this is what God is talking about when He says do the first works. Now this does not come by feeling, it comes by getting back to the word of God, by spending time in prayer with Him, and as you begin to do these things that first love will come back and then will come the feelings.
People, individuals, you and I, need to take a good hard look at ourselves and understand where we have fallen. There is so much commercialism and distraction in this life that most Christians today have no idea what their condition is, and that they are in need of repentance, and they can't change and they can't turn around until they wake up to what their condition really is. We need to understand from where we have fallen and come before the Lord and repent, and then do the first works. Talk to the Lord about it and He will change your life and make you different. This is what He does, and this is what the church of Ephesus needed, and today we as a church need it desperately because most of us are lukewarm, certainly not on fire.
Revelation 2:6 "But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate."
Nicolaitans – who were they? Some say they were started by Nicolas who was one of the first deacons.
He was a Proselyte, which is one who has converted from one the religion to another. However we can't be sure of this, but what we do know is that the Nicolaitans believed that your spiritual condition had nothing to do with your physical condition, therefore, they believed that you could do anything you wanted to physically and that it would have no relationship to your spiritual condition, that fornication and adultery etc. had nothing to do with your spiritual condition.
This also went along very much with what was coming out of places like Alexandria and Rome, in which they were teaching Gnosticism - this took the word of God and lessened it, they took the teachings of Paul that preached Christian liberty, they took his teaching and turned it into a licence to live contrary to God's law.
Do we have this today? Yes its called antinomianism - this is where you can accept Christ but this has nothing to do with how you live after that - you can accept Christ and live like the Devil but still be saved. God's word does not teach this, and that was the problem. Christ said; I hate this doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
God gave us His law and this law is ten eternal principles that are to guide and direct our lives, and by our surrender to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives we are to live in accordance with God's law.
Jesus said I did not come to do away with the law but to live a perfect life in accordance with the law, that's what the word "fulfil" means, not to do away with, but to fulfil it.
The law of God is eternal, it's not going to change, and you and I must just put our lives in the hands of the Lord and trust Him, that He will live in us and help us to live according to His law.
Revelation 2:7 "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; ..."
Here Jesus says, listen to what I am telling you, because it's very important that you understand what I have to say, and in this case He gives His closing before He gives the promise, and now He gives the promise.
Revelation 2:7 "... To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God."
In every one of the seven epistles of Christ He says "I know your works", but He also says in these seven epistles "to him who overcomes". We must bring our lives into conformity with God's will, through the working of His Holy Spirit in our life, day by day growing in grace in the knowledge of the Son of God. And He says to the person that does overcome, "and I will let him eat from the tree of life".
You and I have the privilege of following Him and the privilege of eating of the tree of life today.
God's word, the Bible, is the word of life, this is the tree of life to you and me today. The same energy that created this world is the same energy that's contained in the Bible, and if you and I will spend time in it, it can be the tree of life to you and to me.
This is what God wants to do for each one of us.
All God's people will come and gather together to eat from the tree of life.
This is the message from God to the church of Ephesus.
"Sweet Smelling Savor".
100 AD – 323 AD.
This second church covers the period from around 100 AD – 323AD. It represents a period of time in the history of the church during which the church endured extreme persecution.
The name of this second church, Smyrna, meaning "sweet smelling savor", came from the name given to a plant, which grew about 6 feet high. The interesting thing about this plant was that the more it was crushed or beaten, the more fragrance it would release, which is very important in relation to this particular church.
The name also comes from the word Myrrh, and remember the wise men bought to the infant Christ gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. They bought Him gold because He was a King, they bought Him Frankincense because He was a priest and they bought Him Myrrh that was to anoint Him for burial because they knew that He would die. And Myrrh was used many times in the burial and embalmment of a person. So this church was to get its name from that aspect because, like the plant, it was to be beaten and crushed in order to release its fragrance.
The scriptures speak of Smyrna as a very special group of people. There is no reproof in Christ’s message to the church of Smyrna. Christ has reproof for all the churches except Smyrna and Philadelphia - for these two churches there is no reproof from Christ, so this is a very special group of people at a very special time. So we need to look very carefully at this church to see the parallels between this church and the way the church should be at the end of time.
Revelation 2:8 "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; ..."
Smyrna lies about 40 miles north of Ephesus on the Aegean Sea. As we learned, Ephesus had a wonderful port but is no longer there. Smyrna also had a good port, which is still there today, and ships still come there from all over the world. With the other churches that we will be looking at, there is not much left of them, but this is not the case with Smyrna. Today it is the Turkish city called Izmir.
This city was extremely loyal to the Roman emperor. Rome was everything to the city of Smyrna, they worshipped the emperor, in fact the Roman senate built a temple to the emperor Tiberius which was in Smyrna. We learned that in Ephesus they had a theatre that would seat 25,000 people, the one in Smyrna seated 20,000 people, so we see that these places were not little towns but large cities. In the middle of Smyrna was a mountain called mount Pagus, which was about 500 feet high, and on top of this was a temple. There was a row of houses that went all the way around mount Pagus and it gave the appearance of a crown, and so the city was referred to as the crown of Iona. The houses that were around this mountain and their streets were referred to as the golden streets.
What we need to understand is that Christianity was not favoured here, it was seen as a threat. We learned before that by the end of the first century there were 50,000 Christians in the city of Ephesus. In Asia minor at the end of the first century there were 7 million Christians, so Christianity was invading all parts of the Roman empire and this was seen as a threat to the empire and to its religion. So this city of Smyrna was not friendly toward Christians, and was actually doing all it could to wipe them out - this is what the Roman empire intended to do, it intended to wipe out Christianity. And every emperor from the time of Christ to 300 AD persecuted Christians, and this is why in this city the Christian people would suffer for what they believed, because the Roman empire was trying to get rid of them. And this is why the Christians that lived here did so at the peril of their lives.
Revelation 2:8 "... These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;"
Which was dead, and is alive - This is very important. He is telling the people who lived there with the risk of their lives being taken every day, (and this was not something they heard about or read about, that somebody was suffering persecution on the other side of the world) every day their own lives were in real danger.
So here Christ identifies Himself as the one who was dead and came back to life. He says to them; Trust Me, I can offer you life, what happens in this world and in this life is not the end. Unfortunately for many people today who don’t know the Lord, this life is all there is, but for the Christian there's a whole lot more, and Jesus said; I am living proof that there's something beyond this life.
Jesus says; I have been here, I lived here and died here, but I rose from the dead and you can count on the fact that I can raise you to life on the last day, you and I can base our faith on what He says.
So the church in Smyrna was a group of people that understood and accepted Christ, but also knew that in accepting Him it put their lives at risk. Now, we could compromise and live, and there are a lot of people today who are willing to compromise, but that’s not what these people were doing.
Revelation 2:9 "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) ..."
Jesus says I know your tribulation and poverty but you are rich, they may have poverty in this life but they would have assurance of eternal life, riches beyond compare.
Works – we learned before that the church of Ephesus had trouble with the Nicolaitans and their corrupted beliefs, and these beliefs came in and influenced the other churches, and the same corrupted beliefs influence us today. Many people today say that works don’t have anything to do with Christianity. Well, works alone certainly won't save us. But in every one of His letters Christ says; "I know your works".
Why were these Christians spoken of as evil doers? Well it was because they would not worship the emperor, they would not go along with that, they were actually going the other way, swimming upstream, not worshiping the emperor, not worshiping other gods, and this is what those pagans considered evil. But here Paul says; let your works speak of the life that you live, people ought to know you as someone who is good, who does good things no matter what - your works ought to glorify God.
There is no such thing as following Jesus without good works, the fruits of the Spirit, and if our lives are not producing such good works then there is something wrong. Good works always, always result in tribulation, because the Devil doesn’t like them, and it’s the Devil that causes these tribulations, not God. The Devil does not like the witness of a Christian life, and so he brings about tribulation.
The person that has never been afflicted in their life has suffered the worst affliction there is, for it is tribulation, even though we don’t like it and don’t want it, that is necessary to change us, and to change our character. Men are like rivers, if they follow the course of least resistance they wind up crooked, therefore we must learn to suffer as Christ suffered.
How many of us do this?
Remember Paul and Silas were singing in prison.
We need to learn to have this same experience. Any time there is tribulation it always produces poverty, because the things you have are taken from you, but the scripture tells us that poverty is not a bad thing.
How are you rich? Because your Father is rich, then you are rich! Just because we may not have all the things in this world that people class as riches, if you have God in your life you have riches untold. He goes on to say, I know those who profess to believe but don't.
Christ left Heaven and riches beyond anything that you and I can comprehend, He gave this all up and became poor so that we might become rich. We can see this clearly when we look around us, we see people who feel they have no need for God, they have all the comforts all the various entertainments etc. and they feel they are in control with no need for God. On the other hand in poor countries they flock to hear the word of God. You see poverty is not a bad thing, and we have to be willing to give it all up for something infinitely better.
We have to be willing to give it all up for the Lord, we cannot have this world and Jesus too, we have to make a decision, Christ or the world, we can’t have both.
We are rich in grace, in faith and patience, rich in meekness and humility, rich in courage and Christian fortitude, these are all fruits of the Spirit from God, that we can be rich in.
Revelation 2:9 "... and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan."
Blasphemy – This has to do with the covenant God made with His people.
At the time of the Smyrna church there were basically three religions – Paganism, the Jewish religion, and Christianity. The Jewish religion joined the Pagans in persecuting the Christians, so there were people among those in the church at Smyrna who said they were Jews but they really were not. Now they were Jews physically, but they were not what the scriptures counted as Jews spiritually. You see the Jewish people had made a covenant with God, that if they followed God, obeyed His Commandments and followed Him, then He would be their God and they would be His people. They had entered into that covenant with the Lord. So these people that professed to be Jews, He says they are not, that they are actually of the synagogue of Satan. But for the Christian; if we belong to Christ then we are Abraham's seed/offspring.
What is the promise? That you obey my voice and keep My Commandments, and I will be your God.
So for you and I as followers of the Lord, we come under that covenant, and that’s what He's talking about.
Revelation 2:10 "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: ..."
Notice Jesus did not say that we are not going to suffer, but He said don’t fear that which you are about to suffer. In John 6 when Jesus had fed the five thousand and He had crossed the sea and gone over to Capernaum, the Jewish people had followed Him and they asked Him how He got there. Jesus in the course of the conversation said; I know why you’re looking for Me, because you want bread for your stomachs. And they said; Well tell us what we have to do to believe you, and He said to them; To believe in Me you must eat My flesh and drink My blood. They said; what? Eat Your flesh and drink Your blood? They didn’t understand. He went on to say to them; The words I speak to you they are Spirit and they are Life, and they said; That’s a very hard saying! And many of His disciples walked with Him no more, in fact so many of them left Him that He turned to the 12 and said; Will you also leave Me? And Simon Peter said; Lord, only You have the words of life, to whom else shall we go?
The problem is that today there are so many Christians that are fair weather Christians, they want to accept Christ but they don’t want any hard times, no suffering or tribulation, and so they construct beliefs that are contrary to scripture, telling themselves that they won’t have any of that, because they are nothing but fair weather Christians, and this particularly applies to you and I today who are living right down at the end of time. We need to understand that we are going to suffer persecution, there is no question about that, this will happen to Christians in the last days, the question is, is our faith strong enough to stay with Christ? We must be willing to step out and take a stand for the Lord.
Back then the Roman Empire didn’t care who you worshiped, because they were polytheistic, they had many, many gods. What Rome was concerned about was that they had your allegiance, so they had a god called Romeadia, and once a year you would have to come and pick up some incense and drop it in the fire before this goddess, and say Romeadia and if you did that they gave you a certificate of allegiance to Rome. But the Christians were not willing to do this, so they took them to the arenas and made human torches out of them, and fed them to the lions, and that’s our heritage, that's what the word Christian means, and you and I must stand for our faith and for what we believe.
Tradition tells us that Polycarp ordained the apostle John as the Bishop of the church of Smyrna. Polycarp gave his life standing before the judge, as the judge asked him if he would renounce his belief in Jesus Christ, Polycarp said these words: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me wrong, how then can I blaspheme my King, who hath saved me?” And they burned him at the stake.
Christ in His message to Smyrna said they would have tribulation ten days. Here are just some of the martyrs for Christ during that period of time:
Polycarp - 158 AD
Justin Martyr - 165 AD
Irenaeus - 202 AD
Cyprian - 258 AD
Victorinus - 304 AD
These are just a few of the Christians who died during that period of time by the thousands, who gave their lives for what they believed.
Ten days of persecution. Now all the emperors persecuted, but the last one, Diocletian, was the worst, and for ten years from 303AD – 313AD he persecuted the church unmercifully, that’s why the scripture says for ten days - a day representing a year.
Revelation 2:10 "... be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."
Christ promises a crown of life to those who are faithful to Him even at the cost of their own lives.
We are given three things. We are given the gift of eternal life, which is free. We do not deserve it, we can do nothing to earn it, it is given to us from the graciousness of our Lord Jesus Christ and its free.
We are given a crown and our crown is given to us based on our works.
We are also given an inheritance.
The earth, given to us by our Father the King, and He is rich.
Revelation 2:11 "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death."
We have to listen carefully to these messages because there are great lessons in them for us today. We all face the first death, unless the Lord comes and redeems us before that time. The first death is not the worry, it’s the second death that we have to be concerned about.
This is the one that you and I do not want to be a part of.
The Lord Jesus Christ redeems us from that, that’s what He died for, so that there would be redemption from the second death.
Christ redeemed the righteous from the sting of death, we are not faced with that. In Jesus there is life, not death.
If we want life, no matter who we are, it is only found in Jesus Christ, it is not found in this world. All there is in this old world is death, but in Christ there is life, and life eternal.
We can have eternal life in Jesus, we may suffer persecution, we may suffer hard times or poverty, but there is life, marvellous life, in Jesus Christ.
"Height" or "Elevation".
324 AD – 538 AD.
This third church covers the period from around 324 AD – 538 AD.
During this period the severe persecution which the church had endured began to subside. This had the effect of compromise slowly beginning to creep into the church, and pagan beliefs and practices began to be mixed with the truth of God's word.
The name of this second church, Pergamos, means "height" or "elevation", and came from its location. About 50 miles to the east of Smyrna is Pergamos. As you get to Pergamos which is flat, all of a sudden there is a mountain that rises thirteen hundred feet straight up, almost perpendicular, and on top of that mountain was the city of Pergamos.
In the city of Pergamos they worshiped Rome as many did, they also worshiped Greek gods, and they had a temple there for the god Zeus which they worshiped. In that temple of Zeus they also worshiped the god Escapulus, the serpent god, and they had connected with this a school that practiced and taught medicine - they had the symbol of the serpent wrapped around the pole that we see for medicine today and that's where this symbol comes from, from the god Escapulus, which has been handed down to us.
In this city was one of the greatest libraries, which held over two hundred thousand manuscripts - it rivalled the great library of Alexandria in Egypt, so much so that Ptolemy the 5th was afraid that it was going to outdo the one in Alexandria. Now at that time people used papyrus to write on, which was made from the papyrus reeds in Egypt. Alexandria decided that it would no longer export these reeds and that way it would prevent the library at Pergamos from being a rival to Alexandria. But the people in Pergamos, because they could no longer get papyrus to write on, used very thin animal skins to write on, which was called Pergamos, but as time went on it became known as parchment, one of the best writing materials that exists today. These two libraries were rivals for many years until along came Mark Antony, who took the library at Pergamos and gave it to Cleopatra in Egypt and so the contest finally went to the library in Alexandria.
Revelation 2:12 "And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;"
Now the serpent God was worshipped in ancient Bbylon, but when the Meads and Persians conquered Babylon we find that the priests of Babylon fled to Pergamos. This resulted in the pagan gods and the associated pagan beliefs which had been worshipped and practiced in Babylon being transferred to Pergamos, which continued right on through to the Romans, and the Romans then worshipped many of these same pagan gods.
We have to cast away every thought that is contrary to the Word of God.
Christ has this two-edged sword for thrusting and cutting and sometimes this is not very pleasant because it requires that we must get rid of some things - it cuts them out of us.
The word of God is powerful. In the Bible is contained the same energy that was used to create the world, that's why the Bible, like no other book, can change our hearts.
Revelation 2:13 "I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth."
Once again God says; I know your works. He makes reference to the temple of Zeus – Satan’s throne, where the Satan god was, the serpent god. The Christians at this time were faced with severe persecution, a time when Rome had vowed that she would destroy Christianity, so these people were living in the midst of this persecution and there were all kinds of things there that were going on contrary to Christianity - heathenism, paganism, everything immoral, this is why Christ says to them; you are where Satan’s throne is, I know where you dwell. We read here of Antipas who was just one of the many thousands who were martyred for their faith there because they would not worship the Roman Emperor or the pagan gods.
Now when we read about Smyrna it said they would have persecution 10 days, and we saw that this covered the period in which the Emperor Diocletian persecuted the church for 10 terrible years. Well when Diocletian died in 331 AD, Constantine came to the throne. He could see that the Roman Empire was becoming Christian, because by this time almost half of the Roman Empire was Christian in belief and he could see that there was no use in continuing the persecution because the Christians were only growing, and so he stopped the persecution.
If you can’t beat them by persecution then you can try to beat them by popularity. So now with Constantine the church was in favour, no longer was there persecution. Constantine said that he had seen a cross in a vision, and he said he was going to become a Christian. We don’t know that he ever did, but he took his army out and marched them through the river and told them they had all been baptised and that they were now Christians.
Also in 321 AD he signed the edict of Constantine in which he took the day of worship for the pagans, Sunday, the day of the sun, Baal worship etc. and made it the day of worship for the Christians. And now you find that many of the rites and beliefs of the pagans begin to infiltrate the church. So all of a sudden you had baptised paganism. And the church, which before would not tolerate any of this and had been persecuted for it, which had stood up and said; no we won’t go along with this, it’s against the Word of God; now the church just got wrapped up in the arms of paganism as she reached out and took them into the fold. And Christianity then became the state religion. When we look back we can see the cause and effect:
1. Spiritual power causes persecution.
2. Persecution causes compromise.
3. Compromise results in
4. Apostasy.
This is how you and I as Christians are to live. The Word of God is to be our sword, our weapon, not guns or bombs but the Word of God, living our lives like Jesus Christ, submitting our spirit to His as He dwells within us.
Revelation 2:14 "But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication."
This is not talking about Balaam in flesh and blood, Balaam has been dead for over two thousand years, but you may remember the story of Balaam. Balak had hired him to come and curse Israel, he took him up on the mountain and they looked over the camp of Israel and he told him to curse the people, and Balaam had him offer sacrifices, and Balaam prayed, but instead of cursing them he blessed them. Balak said that’s not what I paid you to do, so he took him to another place and again showed him the camp of Israel, again they offered sacrifices and again he blessed them. So Balak took him to a place where he could not see the camp and again offered the sacrifices and said; now, curse these people; but he blessed Israel a third time.
Now when Balak found he could not curse them, he told Balaam; just go down and mingle with them, invite them into your camp and let them eat with you and dance with you, let them have a good time and they will soon worship your gods and become like you.
This was what the church of Pergamos was warned of, the doctrines of Balaam, they were being invited to partake of the pagan worship and all the things that were going on there. That was just what had happened to Israel back with Balaam and the same thing was now happening to the Christians in Pergamos. You and I today find ourselves in that same place, if we stand for what we believe then people accuse us of being intolerant, not sociable, and legalistic. But God says; stand, don’t give up your faith, follow what the word of God says. We are to do this in a kind, gentle compassionate way, but we should not let things change us, we should not compromise, but instead we should stand by Gods Word.
The problem they had in the church at that time was also the problem they had had in Jerusalem. This was what the council of Jerusalem was all about. The fact that there were some people that were willing to say; this is where we stand; and there were other people arguing against it. You had some of the Jewish converts to Christianity that were arguing for certain things, and so they had the council of Jerusalem, and when the council was over, this is the advice that they gave to the churches back then and to Pergamos which was also involved in this:
This was the problem they were trying to involve the people in, all of their pagan rites and sacrifices. You and I are in the world, there’s nothing wrong with that, but God expects us to be witnesses while we are here, and we need to ensure that the world is not in us. God has called us out, and we must walk with the Lord in what we do, in a kind and gentle way.
Revelation 2:15 "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate."
Now in the church of Ephesus we saw this doctrine about the Nicolaitans, this had invaded the whole country. Followers of the Deacon Nicolas, who taught that what you did physically had no effect upon you spiritually (a lot of this came from Gnosticism which had come out from Alexandria Egypt and Rome). And there were people in the church there at Pergamos that were going along with this. This also involved the belief that we have already seen called Antinomianism, which takes the law of God and says the gospel of Jesus Christ frees me from the law and I do not need to be concerned about keeping it, I am under grace and not under law.
However, Jesus says I hate this, because He Himself is the embodiment of God’s law, and you and I must be willing to walk in accordance to God’s law, we cannot tread it under foot. God makes it clear that the law is something that you and I need to keep and follow. And since the physical had no effect upon you spiritually, then you could do anything you wanted and it did not affect your salvation, so if I just accepted Christ I could live like the Devil and still be saved. But that is not what the scripture teaches, and unless Christ comes into our heart and changes us then there’s something wrong.
Let look again at the name of this church - Pergamos. It's formed from two Greek words:
"purgos" meaning "castle" or "tower", "exalted" or "lifted up" - the city and the temple was on a mountain that was thought to be impregnable and could not be taken.
"gamos" = marriage.
So we find that the name of this church meant "exalted or lifted up through marriage", so what we have here is a symbol of the union between church and state. This is where the state reached out and took the church in and they became married. Paganism has always been that way. The leader or Emperor was not only in charge of the state but also of the religion, and here the state had reached out and taken in the church and the state now is not only the political head but also the spiritual head, and this is what happened during the time of the Pergamos church. The state now looks to make religion more popular, and so you have the church infiltrated with all kinds of pagan beliefs and customs, and even to this day many, many things that are practiced by Christians have come about solely as a result of the infiltration of paganism into the church.
For example, forty days of Lent has come from the ancient pagan practice of forty days of weeping for the pagan god Tammuz - they just took a pagan custom and Christianized it into the church. What do Easter bunnies have to do with the resurrection of Christ? Well this comes from the worship of the pagan gods of fertility, and much more. Christmas, Valentines Day, on and on the list goes, and today people just accept these things as part of the Christian religion, which in reality they are not - you will not find any of these things in Scripture. You and I need to get back to the Word of God and follow what it says.
Revelation 2:16 "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth."
Jesus says change, repent, if you don’t I will fight you with the sword of my mouth, the sharp two edged sword, the Word of God. The Bible and its teachings has captured nations, it has changed entire countries, it is not just a history book or a book of literature, it is the divine Word of God, and this is what we must be willing to follow.
So we will be judged by this book, the Bible. If we have opened our hearts to the Lord and followed His word then we will be in good shape because Jesus will represent us, and if Christ represents us, then we can’t loose.
Revelation 2:17 "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."
We need to make sure that we understand what God is saying to us. Right at the beginning we saw that this was the Revelation of Jesus, His message to us through John. So, when it says hear what the Spirit says to the churches, who is it taking about? Well it goes straight on to say - To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. It is Jesus that gives us the Spirit, no one else, not a third person, but Jesus, He is that Spirit.
Now regarding the hidden manna, it says in 1 Corinthians 10:
The manna was bread, Angels food as it was called. When the manna fell it was early in the morning. When they woke up it was on the ground and they had to gather it because when the sun came up it melted.
The word of God, the Bible is manna.
That’s a promise, if we eat of the word of God we will not die, we must learn to eat the word of God, if we have time to eat then we have time to read God’s word. This is the hidden manna, the lifesaving bread of Heaven.
A white stone with your new name on it. Now, back then, that was the way the judges made decisions, if you were acquitted they put out a white stone if you were condemned it was a black stone, also the white stone had to do with the ancient Roman custom of awarding white stones to the victors of athletic games. The winner of a contest was awarded a white stone with his name inscribed on it. This served as his “ticket” to a special awards banquet. Jesus promises the overcomers entrance to the eternal victory celebration in heaven, the marriage supper of the Lamb.
You and I often don’t even know our own hearts but God does, He knows us better than we know ourselves, and to those people who walk with Him and obey Him and open up their hearts to Him and accept Him, He will give a white stone with a special name on that has to do with you alone that nobody else knows only you, because that will fit your character like nothing else you have ever known.
So let’s place our lives in His hands, let Him change us, make us different, let Him speak to our soul, that we may be a new person in Christ Jesus. This is what He wants to do for you and for me and He will bless us in a special way as we do so.
"Sweet Savour of Labour".
538 AD – 1798 AD.
This fourth church covers the period from around 538 AD – 1798 AD.
Thyatira was south east from Pergamos. Now Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamos were quite good sized cities numbering hundreds of thousands of people, and they had marvellous theatres and temples. But Thyatira is not like that, it sat out on the plain and most of the people that worked there were poor labourers, people that had little money and had to work hard day by day. The longest letter that Christ wrote to the churches was to this church of Thyatira, there was more said to them than anyone else, but we have less historical information on Thyatira than any of the other churches.
We know that it was not a large city, and from the excavations they have been able to do there it seems it was some kind of an outpost with stables etc. One thing we do know about it is that they developed the colour purple and we can see this from Acts 16.
Purple was a very hard colour to come by. Up until the time Thyatira developed this colour they were only able to get a few drops of purple from shell fish, but Thyatira developed the colour from the madder root. Most historians and theologians agree that the church in Thyatira probably had its beginnings with Lydia’s witness.
Revelation 2:18 "And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;"
Two things in this verse are different. It says; These things saith the Son of God; and this is the only place in the seven churches where that phrase "the Son of God" is used, in fact that’s the only place that phrase is used in the book of Revelation. Emphasising that He was the Son of God and that their worship needed to be of Him.
Now eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; this was particularly meaningful to these people because in Thyatira they had foundries where they produced brass, so they were used to seeing flames of fire as they made the brass. We learnt that this brass was a Corinthian brass which was made up of copper and gold and silver and was considered of more value than gold, and the refining of it was a very special process.
Revelation 2:19 "I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first."
Jesus says He knows their works, and really their works were quite good because He said you have service, faith, and patience. You will find that these were particular attributes, these attributes are talking about what the church members had there, they always go in pairs – love and service if you have love you will have service. If you love somebody is it hard to be of help to them, no, it comes naturally, its part of it. If you love the Lord then you will want to serve Him. Also faith and patience, if you have faith then you will have patience, you trust the person and it’s not hard to be patient because you believe in them, you believe that they will do what they say they will do. And these people in Thyatira had these attributes and Christ praised them for it, He said I know your works, and He comes back to this word works twice and talks about their works particularly.
Revelation 2:20 "Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols."
Now this cannot be talking about Jezebel in literal flesh and blood, because at that time Jezebel had been dead for around 1,500 years, but here Christ makes an application about her. Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, who teaches and seduces my servants to commit fornication (adultery), and to eat things sacrificed to idols. Now if it’s not talking about Jezebel in literal flesh and blood then how could they commit sexual immorality? It goes on to say...
Revelation 2:21 "And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not."
God says I gave her a period of time to repent but she did not repent.
Revelation 2:22 "Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds."
Severe warning - if they did not repent of their deeds then God would cast them into a bed (some versions say sickbed) and those that commit adultery with you.
Revelation 2:23 "And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."
Christ said He would give to each one according to their works.
Now this church age began around 538 AD. The Bishop of Rome at this time was Salivarius, he was a godly man, he loved the people and served the Lord, but he refused to go along with the Emperor Justinian in his battle with the Goths, and therefore Justinian wanted to replace him, and so when they got inside the city after one of their battles, Justinian had his general Belisarius get rid of Salivarius and replaced him with Vigilius. Now maybe Justinian never thought this would happen; but when Vigilius was made Bishop, history says that the Bishop of Rome stepped to the seat of Caesar and seized the sceptre, and all of a sudden you find that the church which had been favoured by the state, all of a sudden became the head of the state as well as the church, and this took place in 538 AD.
Now in the story of Elijah, God told him to go and see Ahab and Jezebel and tell them if they did not repent it would not rain for 3½ years. So Elijah went and told them that they must change their ways and repent (1 Kings 19) but they did not. So Elijah said:
And it did not rain as Elijah had said for 3½ years. Now the Bible tells us that Elijah had a nature like ours, which should be encouraging to us.
Elijah understood and followed the word of God.
God says we are not to have idols and bow down to them, we are not to put them in the place of God. He says He wants us to keep His Sabbaths and reverence His sanctuary, He wants us to keep His commandments and walk in His statutes. God said if we will do this then we will have rain in season. But what was Israel doing? Just the opposite.
Ahab had come to power, and any time in history when a man has risen to power like Ahab who led God’s people to turn away from the Lord, God has always had an Elijah. This is what it says about Ahab in 1 Kings 16:
So he turned from the god of his fathers and all the counsel he had been given and began to worship Baal and became worse than any of the Kings that were before him, he did everything contrary to what the Lord had asked of him, so Elijah was sent to tell him it would not rain.
But here in Revelation chapter 2 it can’t be talking about the literal woman Jezebel in flesh and blood, it has to be talking about something else. Let's look at the time she was given to repent.
How long did God give Ahab and Jezebel to repent? 3½ years. In Ezekiel 4 it tells us that a day in prophecy represents a year:
Now in a biblical year there are 360 days (Genesis 7). So if we take 360 days and multiply this by 3½, this gives us 1,260 days, or 42 months. So 3½ prophetic years equals 1,260 literal years, following the day for a year principle.
Now if you add 1260 years to 538 AD it takes you to 1798 AD - this was the period of time that God gave spiritual Jezebel to repent - we have just stated that this cannot be talking about the literal woman Jezebel in flesh and blood, but rather it must be talking about something else.
In the texts below you will see that a woman in Bible prophecy represents a church:
Jezebel represents a bad church, one that has turned from God's true principles. This is also a persecuting church and this church persecuted God's people ruthlessly during this period from 538 AD to 1798 AD - the period was known as the Dark Ages. The church which persecuted God's people during this period was Papal Rome. You can read about the atrocities commited by this church during the Dark Ages for yourself on many websites or by watching our videos on Daniel and Revelation.
I will kill her children with death - Literal Jezebel and her children were to utterly perish (2 Kings 9:7-9; 10-37; 10:1-28). So too it is with spiritual Jezebel and her children. Papal Rome calls herself the "mother" Church, and continually speaks of Catholics as her "children". She also speaks of the Protestant churches as her "duaghters", her wayward children who will someday return home, and when they do a hearty welcome awaits them from the "mother Church of Christendom". Thus all the religious systems or Churches that separated from the Papacy but still cling to her doctrines and practices, and who commit spiritual fornication with the kings and nations by uniting with them when opportunity presents itself, are her children.
All the churches shall know - So the doom of all the offenders would be known, or manifested, to all the Churches. But when will they know? At the time when the second death is inflicted upon this great whore and her children. This will be at the end of time when people from all ages will be able to see the judgment meted out on those who refused to repent of their abominations and chose the way of death.
I am He that searcheth the reins and hearts - God would have us know by the judgment on the whore Jezebel that He has an all-seeing eye like flames of fire, that searches the reins and hearts of men. There is nothing that is not disclosed to Him, we cannot hide anything from Him. He sees what we think we hide and he knows what we think we have covered (1 Samuel 16:7, Psalms 7:9, Hebrews 4:13).
Give unto every one...according to your works - Christ will reward every one according to the works that have been, both the righteous and the wicked (Psalms 62:12). This reward He brings with Him (Matthew 16:27, Revelation 22:12).
Now the opposite to a bad corrupt church is a pure church and Christ talks about the pure church as His bride:
In Revelation 12 we have a good woman – or a good church, but in Revelation chapter 17 we have a woman of a different nature, the scriptures describe this woman as a bad woman, and it tells of some of the things that she does and this is Jezebel, the same characteristics, and this is the Jezebel that’s being talked about here in Revelation 2:20. How does she commit sexual immorality? The book of James tells us:
When we do something to lessen the teachings of God’s word, when we go contrary to what the Bible says, that is spiritual adultery; we are adulterating the word of God. Secondly we are being unfaithful to the relationship, therefore, I am committing spiritual fortification. And Jezebel and Ahab were leading the people away from God’s word, not keeping His Commandments, not walking with Him and following Him and this is what they were doing that was classed as immorality, and in Revelation 2 this woman Jezebel, which represents the church at that time was leading people away from God’s word. And when a church says you don’t have to do these things and teaches contrary to what God’s word says, that is spiritual adultery, and God said that she was guilty of committing spiritual adultery.
The church had been accepted by the state, the state had opened its arms and made Christianity the religion of the state, and so the church took into itself all the beliefs and customs of the pagans and bought them into the church and baptised them and put them out as Christian rites and beliefs, and you find that the whole teaching of God’s word was adulterated and changed.
This cup in her had full of abominations – things like changing the Sabbath to Sunday, the Trinity, Holy Water, Sprinkling, Mass, Christmas, Easter; all those had their origin in paganism and were taken into the church and handed to the people as a Christian rite and a Christian custom, but God says this is contrary to My word, this is not what I want My people doing. There has to be a clear line drawn between the world and Christ, you can’t merge it, you can’t take in Balaam and the women of Moab and mix with them and still do what God wants you to do. You just cannot take in the world and all that it has and claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, they are not compatible, they will not fit one with the other, we have to be willing to stand on the word of God and not be moved from that point, and when we do that, then we are doing what God asks of us. This was a very, very hard time.
But God is merciful, long suffering, and He waited for this church to change for 1260 years, but she would not change the way in which she was going, and so we move into a period in history called the Dark Ages, also referred to as the Middle Ages. It's interesting that term "middle ages"is used, because this was the middle church of the seven. And when it talks about casting the children into a sickbed, this was a horrible time, it was unbelievable what those poor people endured and suffered during that time in history.
The gospel had grown and expanded so fantastically that by 500 AD the scriptures had been translated into over 500 different languages and it had spread across the world. But just 100 years after this there was only one language that the scriptures were written in that was available, all the others had been crushed, and the only language in which the scriptures were available to any man or woman was Latin, and the vast majority of people could not read Latin, and so the word of God was taken from the people and the whole world moved into the Dark Ages. One of the reasons this period of time was called the Dark Ages is because it was a time during which the word of God was supressed, it was taken from the people and chained up in churches, and so the word of God was not able to shed its light on the people - the absence of light results in darkness.
Now there were some believers that did not want to go along with the beliefs and practices of the apostate church, and so they moved out into the wilderness, into the mountains. These were people like the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Huguenots; they moved out and held on to what they believed, and the scriptures speak of that because it gives this counsel:
Revelation 2:24-25 "24 But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. 25 But that which ye have already hold fast till I come."
Here God says those of you who are willing to stand, and have not known the depths of Satan so to speak, hang on to what you have till I come - what a marvellous promise. Those people who stood up for God’s word, and many gave their lives for it, He said; just hold on.
Revelation 2:26-28 "26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: 27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star."
Hang on, continue to stay faithful and I will give you the morning star. A wonderful promise that God would give to His people. Jesus is this morning star.
The morning star tells us that night is ending, the day is coming, about to break. When Jesus through His Spirit dwells in our heart and we ask for His guidance, we can pick up our Bible and suddenly it comes to light, things that we have never seen before become clear and we can see and understand the wonderful revelation and promises of His Word.
When Jesus comes into our life there is no other like it, darkness dispels and love and light replace it. Nothing in this world compares to Jesus, He is altogether the light of this world and we can be illuminated by what He gives to us.
Speaking to the people of that time that had gone through the dark ages and faced so much He said I’m going to give you the Morning Star, and true to Gods word it begins to take place, in the fifteen hundreds. We have the Morning Star of the Reformation coming on the scene of action, all of a sudden the light begins to break, they begin to see things they had never seen before, those that had been in darkness now have hope.
Now you have people like Wycliffe who come along and begin to translate the Bible into the language of the people and this begins to bring back the teachings of God’s word and they begin to see the beauty of His word and what it has to say.
We fear today that many of us have lost the beauty of God’s word, we don’t see how wonderful it is and how beautifully the truths of God’s word all fit together. If we don’t see this then we are missing something that is very precious and real a priceless pearl. Wycliffe once again made Gods Word available to the people, and they tried to kill him, they arrested him and were going to burn him at the stake, but he died before they got him to the stake.
Then along came John Huss, he took the writings of Wycliffe and as he began to read them he could see things like he had never seen them before, and because he was faithful and preached God’s word and stood up and said this is what is right, they burned him at the stake.
His fellow companion Jerome stood up and said this is God’s word and they put terrible pressure upon him, they threw him into prison and treated him horribly and put him under such adverse conditions it is hard to believe. They told him he had to recant, and in a moment of weakness he did, but then when he thought about it he said I can’t do that, and he stood firm and they then gave him the same death they gave his friend, they burned him at the stake.
The morning star had risen, they had seen it and a few had caught hold of it and said yes, we are going to follow Gods Word and out of that the reformation began to take place. Along came men like Luther, who stood up and showed the errors of the church and said this is what God’s word teaches, and he nailed his ninety five theses to the door of the church.
Then came Knox, a great, great preacher standing for what God’s word says. Calvin teaching that God was a God of sovereignty and showing the nature of God. Then along came Zwingli and began to preach. These men were reformers, they stood no matter what and preached the word of God as the light of the reformation broke and moved across the world.
Revelation 2:29 "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."
This church of Thyatira went through a terrible period of time, a time that was dark, a time of no light, a time in which people were treated like animals, they were even referred to as animals. A time in which the Bible was taken and chained to library walls and the people were told that they were too ignorant to read it.
Today we are not treated that way, but we too have been so invaded by so much commercialism, TV invading our home, cares of the world, that we don’t have time for the Word of God. We don’t spend time in it, and although it has not been taken away from us, what difference does it make if we don’t pick it up and read it, if we just leave it laying there, if we don’t pick it up and read it and meditate on God’s word, then what difference is there?
If our life is no different than the person who doesn’t know Jesus, if someone can’t see by what we do that we are diciples of Jesus, if they can’t see a decided difference, then there must be something wrong. Others should see that we walk with the Lord and that He is all in all in our lives. Let the light that only Christ can give break forth into our lives today.