The 7 Churches of Revelation

[king'sbloomingrose]

Letter to the Church at Ephesus:

This is a church in the midst of crass materialism, degraded animalism, base paganism, and dark heathenism. It is located at the city of Ephesus which was in that day contained the temple of the goddess Diana which is mentioned in Acts 19.

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;

Notice how He holds in His hand the church. It is under His control. He doesn't have that control now, but He did then. "He walketh" literally means that He is walking up and down. I believe He is still walking up and down in our day and that He is still judging the church.

He has 7 words of commendation for this church:

2I 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:

3And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

1. I know thy works. We need to understand that He is speaking to believers. The Lord Jesus does not ask the lost world for good works. For example in Titus 3:5 it says, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." And then in Romans 4:5 Paul says, But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Christ is talking to His own. After you are saved, He wants to talk to you about good works. He has a lot to say about this subject. In Ephesians 2:8-10 we read, For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9Not of works, lest any man should boast.

10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

Paul could write to Titus in Titus 1:16, They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. The Lord Jesus is saying to the church in Ephesus, as Paul had said, "be filled with the Spirit" (Eph 5:18) And paul went on to tell them what they could do as Spirit filled believers. And now the Lord Jesus commends them for their good works.

2. "I know thy labour" What's the difference between work and labor? The word labor carries a meaning of weariness. In the gospel record it says that Jesus became wearied with His journey. That was the weariness which Ephesian believers experienced. They suffered weariness in their labor for Him.

3. " I know thy patience" Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

4. "How thou canst not bear them which are evil." They would not endure evil men.

5. "Thou hast tried them that say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars" They tested everyone who came to Ephesus claiming to be an apostle. The would ask them if they had seen the resurrected Christ and they soon found out whether or not they were really apostles. If they were not they asked them to leave town. The Lord Jesus commended them for testing men, and I feel this is more needed today than it was even then.

6. "Hast borne...for my name's sake hast laboured." For His name's sake they were bearing the cross. They preached Christ. They believed in the virgin birth of Christ; they believed in His deity; they believed in HIS sacrificial death and resurrection. And they paid a price for their belief.

7. And have not fainted." More accurately, it is "have not grown weary." What does He mean by this? Earlier He said that they had grown weary and now He says they have not grown weary. Well, this is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith. I can illustrate it with what DL Moody once said when he came home exhausted after a campaign and his family begged him not to go to the next campaign. He said to them, "I grow weary in the work but not weary of the work." There is a lot of difference. You can get weary in the work of Christ but it is tragic if you get weary of the work of Christ.

These 7 words of commendation, which the Lord Jesus gave to the local church at Ephesus, also apply to the period of church history between Pentecost and AD 100, which the Ephesian church represents.

Now He has one word of condemnation.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

They had lost that intense and enthusiastic devotion to the person of Christ. It is difficult to sense the state to which the Holy Spirit had brought this church. He had brought this church into an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus. He had brought them to the place where they could say to the Lord, "We love you." This may sound like a very unimportant thing to us today, but their love for Jesus was very important to Christ. He was saying to the Ephesians, "You are leaving your best love." They hadn't quite departed from that love, but they were on the way. It is difficult for us in this cold, skeptical, cynical, and indifferent day in which we live to understand this. The world has intruded into the church to such an extent that it is hard for us to conceive of the intense, enthusiastic devotion the early church had to the person of Christ. They early church first went off the track not in their doctrine but in their relationship to Christ.

Ephesus was a great city and it had many attractions that were beginning to draw believers away from their first love for Jesus Christ. This was the church that became so potent in their evangelism in that area of about 25 million people that even the Roman emporors and the nobility of that day had an opportunity to hear the gospel. In that area there was such a mighty moving of the Spirit of God that it has probably never been duplicated since.

Every now and then we meet someone or read about someone who has had that close personal relationship with Christ. David Brainard, the missionary to the Indians in this country was such a man. He suffered from tuberculosis. He would travel to the Indians by horseback, and sometimes he would have a convulsion, vomit blood, become unconscious and fall off his horse. He would lie in the snow and when that happened, his horse learned to stay right there. When he regained consciousness, he would crawl back onto his horse and be on his way to preach to the Indians. As he went he would cry out, "Lord Jesus, I've failed you, but You know that I love You!" He had that close intimate relationship with Christ.

My friend, when your home life and church life become a burden, there is something wrong with your relationship with Christ. When you get that straightened out, other things will straighten out also. This is the reason that Jesus said to the Ephesian believers, " you are getting away from your first love, your best love." What is the solution for them?

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.

Remember. that is the first thing they were to do. Do you remember when you were converted? Do you remember what a thrill it was and what the Lord meant to you? Have you become cold and indifferent to Him? Are you in a backslidden condition? Remember. Remember where you once were. You can get back to the same place.

And repent. Believe me, Christians need to repent. We need to break the shell of self-sufficiency, the crust of conceit, the shiled of sophistication, the veneer of vanity, get rid of the false face of piosity and stop everlastingly polishing our halo as if we were some great saint. Repent! Repentance means to turn back to Him and it is the message for believers. How dare the church tell an unsaved man to repent? What he needs to do is turn to Christ for salvation. When he turns to Christ he will turn from his sin. ( 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 ) But the church needs to repent and that is the message they do not want to hear today. Remember, repent and turn to Him.

"Or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove the candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." Christ says that He will remove your lampstand. How many churches in our day have been practically closed. My friend Christ is still watching the lamps, and He doesn't mind trimming the wicks or even using the snuffer when they refuse to give light.

But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.

(I'll expand on this tomorrow) The church in Ephesus hated it. A little later on we will see that the church in Pergamos tolerated it.

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 tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

He that has an ear." This is what I call a "blood-tipped ear", which was the requirement for the OT priests. Not everyone can hear the Word of God. Oh, I know they can hear audible sound, but they miss the message. The Lord Jesus uses the phrase to alert dull ears. We learn from the gospel records that He often used that expression. He said that they have ears to hear but they hear not. Now He speaks to those with spiritual perception.

"let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the teacher of the church.

"To him that overcometh" refers to genuine believers, and we can overcome only thru the blood of the Lamb.

"will I give to eat of the tree of life." You recall that man was forbidden to eat of the Tree of Life after the Fall. But in heaven the no trespassing sign will be taken down, and all of us will be given the privilege of eating of the Tree of Life.

"the paradise of God" means the garden of God. Heaven is a garden of green primarily and is not just a place with streets of gold.

The church of Ephesus represents the church at it's best, the apostolic church.
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Copied from a sermon given by Dr. J Vernon McGee. I'll try to post about the other 6 churches as I get the time on another day.

[micah719]

The church of Ephesus represents the church at it's best, the apostolic church.

Hmmm, not so sure about it being the best one....was under the impression Philadelphia got that distinction because they had no condemnations. Good lesson nonetheless, thanks for this.