REVELATION – a letter to the churches
Of all the books of the bible none is more misunderstood and more avoided than the book of Revelation. Some will say the book of Revelation is so filled with mystery & symbolism how can we know what to take literally and what to view as symbolic? What is a Child of God to do with this book? Well, the answer is simple. Read it!
2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Let’s start with a simple question: Is Revelation scripture? Yes! Therefore Revelation is profitable for doctrine. There are teachings in this book that God wants you to know. If a believer goes through life ignoring the book of Revelation he or she will not be thoroughly equipped.
If you had to go through life blind or deaf, if you were missing your arms or your legs you could survive, you may even achieve great things but it would be that much more difficult. To ignore Revelation and end times prophecy is to be spiritually and doctrinally deficient and even though a person may get by they will be missing something that God has declared valuable.
Before we began to read from chapter one let me point out a few things. First of all the book is called REVELATION, not Revelations (plural). Revelation means an “uncovering” or an “unveiling”. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ, that is, what was hidden is now being revealed. It is revealed to the Apostle John on the Island of Patmos towards the end of his life somewhere around the year 90-95 A.D. You have heard the word apocalypse? Apocalypse is the Greek word that means Revelation.
REVELATION 1:1-8 --- Preach!
In chapter 2 The Lord tells John to write letters to the 7 churches which are in Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey. The first letter is written to the church of Ephesus which was only around 50 years old give or take – The Lord says to them “I have this against you that you have left your first love (2:4)” He tells them they must repent or else their lampstand would be removed - in other words God will bring an end their church.
Have we lost our first love? Have we continued to grow in the faith or have we become sidetracked by the things of this world. If you’re not as close to God as you once were that means somebody has moved, and we can be sure it wasn’t the Lord.
However Verse 7 says - He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God”
If they were willing to hear the voice of the Spirit and if they overcame they would most certainly enter into Paradise.
The 2nd letter was written to the church of Smyrna which was suffering great persecuting from the Jews. The Lord refers to those doing the persecution as being part of the “synagogue of Satan”. They say they are Jews but they are not. It wasn’t that they were not Israelites according to the flesh but that they made themselves enemies of God by persecuting the Lord and His Church.
This church is encouraged in that although their suffering would be great it would be brief and if they were faithful until death they would receive a crown of life. Verses 11 says “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death”
We here in the United States simply do not know what real persecution is, Millions of Christians have suffered and died for their faith and they remained faithful unto death! We simply don’t know what that’s like but one thing remains true both for us and for them – a believer must remain faithful. If a person falls away from the faith it only proves they never had a true saving faith to begin with.
The third letter was written to the church at Pergamos. Pergamos was known as a compromising church, there were those in it who gave themselves over to worldly pleasures, a preoccupation for wealth, sensuality and self-indulgence. Someone might say but aren’t these things always a temptation – to individuals maybe but for a church to have this as their reputation tells a lot about where they stood spiritually and what was worse they used their liberty in Christ as an excuse, of course their liberty quickly turned to license.
This is most certainly an issue that we face in America today, I had one former Pastor challenge me after I made the statement that Christians ought to try to obey the 10 commandments. He said “what do you mean ‘try to obey the commandments’. I was surprised he would argue the point after all we both agreed nobody is saved by keeping the commandments, we have all sinned, we cannot quote unquote “keep the law” that’s why Christ did it for us – so we understood all that but when I say we ought to try and keep the commandments I mean if you find somebodies wallet on the ground you should give it back to them without taking all the cash out.
If somebody asked you to attend a service up at the Peace Pagoda you’re not supposed to go.
If you’re ever tempted to commit fornication or adultery – God says don’t do it! You know who came up with the phrase “rules are made to be broken?” Satan came up with that 6000 years ago and he tricked Eve into believing him.
One of the things that we see in these letters is that although there may be warnings and strong rebukes God always, LET ME REPEAT THAT, GOD ALWAYS IS WILLING TO show grace to those who repent and ask Him for forgiveness.
In verse 18 a letter is written to “the angel of the church in Thyatira”. The word for angel means messenger and although it means Angel in the normal sense that you would think of “an angel of God” in the context of these letters most commentators believe the messengers or the “angels” are the Pastors of these congregations.
Things may have been bad in the church of Pergamos but things were worse in the church of Thyatira. Let’s read verses 19 & 20 I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first. 20 Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
These verses are somewhat difficult to interpret but a few things are clear. First of all this church had some good things going on in it, they had many good works of love, service and even faith but they allow that woman Jezebel to teach and seduce the people.
Jezebel was the wicked wife of King Ahab who ruled over the Northern Kingdom of Israel in Old Testament times. She has always been associated with wickedness and idolatry and up until recent times a sexually immoral woman was often times referred to as being “a Jezebel”.
But Jezebel had been dead for many centuries and the way its written here it seems to be referring to an actual female individual who was preaching and teaching false doctrine in the church. I read an article a while back written by a local female minister in the Franklin County Area and in the article she was BRAGGING, LITERALLY BRAGGING about how her denomination was the first to ordain woman into the ministry. She went on to say how they were the first denomination to ordain homosexuals into the ministry as well as being the first to officiate gay marriages.
I want to be as gracious as I can when I say this but I see some connections here. Also let it be understood when a church strays from Biblical truth you have to ask where does it end?
The fifth letter begins in chapter 3 and it is written to the church in Sardis. The Lord says “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive but you are dead”. What does the Lord mean? They were a church, a church is to be made up of baptized believers who having saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This church may have appeared to be alive but it wasn’t. They may have been baptized, they may have professed faith but God knows the heart and the Lords conclusion is that this church was filled with unsaved people.
I don’t care what church it is you’re talking about, Independent Bible believing, Baptist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian – whatever! Any given church is likely to have some unsaved people on the membership role. How can that be? Well it was a problem back then and it is a problem now, in fact now rather than a church having mostly believers with a few unbelievers it is common to see churches with mostly unbelievers and maybe there are a few believers mixed in but when a church is made up of mostly unbelievers there is a name for it. It is a dead church!
Some folks today have a totally distorted view on what makes up a dead church. They think a living vibrant church is a church where people get excited, they jump up and down during the worship service, they express a wide range of emotions during the music, people are always yelling out Halleluiah! There is nothing wrong with that necessarily but sometimes people think that if people are reserved, if you’re not jumping up and down or rolling around in the isles YOU JUST AINT GOT THE SPIRIT!
How can you determine if a church is a living church? Is the gospel preached? Are the fruits of the spirit being displayed LOVE, JOY, PEACE, LONGSUFFERING, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULLNESS, GENTLENESS AND SELF CONTROL. Jesus said “By their fruits you shall know them”. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit, exhilaration and hysteria are not.
The next letter starts in verse 7 and it is to the church in Philadelphia. Most of you know that Philadelphia means the city of brotherly love and this ancient city certainly had that. Jesus said in John 13:35 “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” And in John 14:15 If you love me, keep my commandments
The Church in Philadelphia is referred to as “The Faithful Church” The Lord says in Revelation 3:10 Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. When Christ comes He will take those who are faithful to Him so that they will not have to endure the hour of trial which seems to be a clear reference to the great tribulation.
Many commentators believe that these 7 churches represent different ages of the church for example the 2nd letter to the church of Smyrna represents the church in the first few centuries when they faced heavy persecution by the Jews and the Romans. The first study Bible ever given to me was the Scofield Study Bible and in the notes concerning the dead church in Sardis (for example) it points to the Catholic Church in Rome during the Reformation. Whether Scofield (who preached here by the way, many many years ago) whether he is correct in his assertions is a subject of much debate but I have to say I do see some of the parallels.
One thing many if not most evangelicals agree on is that we are living in the last age which is representative of the church of Laodicea.
REVELATION 3:14-22 - Preach!
God gave us the book of Revelation to read, so that we can know that although we may have to face many battles, the war has already been won. We know how things turn out in the end! Isaiah 46:9-10 Remember the former things of old,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,
