The seven Churches of Revelation The Seven Churches of Revelation
The book of Revelation is a book of the Bible that is easily misunderstood. There is a lot of people who have a desire to study it, yet are also intimidated by the prophecy in it, understandably so. This study will not cover the entire book of Revelation, but instead just two chapters, two and three. These chapters are letters that have been written to seven different churches that are in Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey. The human author that penned the book of Revelation, and thus these letters is the Apostle John.
The Apostle John had been exiled to an island called Patmos by the emperor Domitian after other attempts to kill him. While on this island he received a vision from the Lord Jesus as recorded in chapter one and it told to write everything down. Because of his obedience, we have the book of Revelation today.
Revelation 1:19 Therefore write what you have seen, what is, and what will take place after this.
Everyone gets caught up in the “what will take place” portion of this book. Everyone wants to know how this story ends. Before Jesus gives us the ending of the story, he sends a letter to these seven churches. I believe that we can learn a lot from what these letters have to say.
The first of the letters is written to the Church of Ephesus. Ephesus is a big city with a lot happening. It is said the be the mother church of the seven. All seven of these churches are on the same Roman road and are given in order. The city itself is home to the temple to Diana, a false god with temple prostitutes.
We know a little more about Ephesus than the other churches simply because of the prominence that is has in the new testament. The Apostle John was a Pastor of the church in Ephesus as was Timothy. Paul wrote a letter the church, Ephesians. Paul also wrote the letters to Timothy while he was pastoring there. It is believed that John wrote his three letters there as well. With all of this, we can see why this church might be the first of the seven letters.
As we go through these letters, we will see somewhat of a pattern. We will see some combination of a commendation, rebuke, solution, consequence, and a promise.
The commendation will state something that the church is doing right or well. A strong point that the church has. the rebuke is something that the church is not doing well at, or something that it needs to fix. The solution is how to fix the rebuke. The consequence is what will happen if they do not listen and institute the solution. The promise is what will happen if they listen to the warnings they are receiving.
The Church of Ephesus
The church of Ephesus is one that we can relate to. There is a lot of idol worship with the temple to false gods. There is a lot of false teachings. John in his letters from Ephesus warned about the gnostics. People that believed that God was separate from his creation, would not enter it. These were false teachers that were leading people away from the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
This was not a one time thing. There was not just an instance where somebody taught something that was incorrect. This was a battle that the people of this church faced for years and years. I can see how this might harden their hearts a little.
We can understand this. We are constantly bombarded with lies today. We hear things like your truth, my truth, your facts or my facts, as if truth and facts are just opinions now.
We have teachers of the Bible that do not believe the Bible. There are pastors in the United States that do not believe in the inerrancy of scripture. That teach that the Bible can be used a moral guide, but is not without error and delivered down from God. We have a lot of loud voices with big names that teach taking scripture out of context to make a point. They will preach a sermon on a topic, and use a verse to back up what they believe to be true or what they are teaching, instead of teaching scripture and allowing it to influence what we believe.
This can all be exhausting and quite honestly, get on your nerves and make us cranky christians.
Revelation 2:1–7 (CSB) 1 “Write to the angel of the church in Ephesus: Thus says the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands: 2 I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. 3 I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet you do have this: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Our deeds do not save us, even if those deeds are standing for Jesus Christ. We must love God and love people.
Commendation – Resilience
Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. it is a toughness. It is the ability to return to where you were, back to normal, after you face something difficult. Think of a rubber band. What is the purpose of a rubber band? To be stretched, wrapped around something, but that once you are done stretching it, to go right back to normal.
For a church to last, to remain healthy regardless of all the troubles that it may face, it must be resilient. We have established that the church in Ephesus, like us today, have been battling a lot of false teachers and false prophets.
Revelation 2:2–3 CSB I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. 3 I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary.
Revelation 2:6 CSB Yet you do have this: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
The one who holds the church in the palm of his hand, knows what they have been going through. Think for a moment of the church in the United States. Every once in a while I hear people complain about the things that we are going through in our society. Complaining about the threats to the church. I am not saying that we do not have any, but in comparison to the rest of the world, we are spoiled. That being said, we do have our own challenges. But there is a promise in this commendation, God sees the battle and the resiliency that we have fought.
The writer gets specific, God sees their works, their labors and their endurance. It is important to understand what that means. Not only that God sees, but what it is that He sees in them. He sees their works or their deeds. Meaning, God sees what it is that they have been doing, the actions that they have been taking to stand for the truth. He knows. He doesn’t only know the front that is put out there. He knows how much this church has had to battle. This is not just the strong front that they portray. God knows the true battles that they have had.
God knows their labors. In our english language you might take that as the same thing, but it is a little different. This word translated labor means difficulty. God knows not only what they have been doing, but how difficult it has been where they are. God knows how difficult that we have it in our country. This is so encouraging. A false teaching that is out there today is that if you are experiencing difficulties, then God must not be in it. That only if things are going well, they are easy, then that must be the way that God wants me to go. But I am pretty sure that is how Jesus described the road that led to destruction. It is wide and there are a lot of people on that path.
God knows their difficulties. But God also knows the endurance they have had while going through these difficulties. They have continued on, speaking for the truth. they have continued with the work, even in the difficulties to test the false teachers and false apostles. This is something that God commends them for. That they have persevered, and not grown weary facing all of these false teachers.
Think about what it is that they are fighting. They are fighting the lies that false teachers have been teaching in their community and maybe even in their church. They even “hate” the Nicolaitans. This is a group that we do not know too much about. Many commentators believe that this group taught that it was okay to take advantage of the grace of God and commit sin. Think of the temple, with its temple prostitutes. That adultery and sexual immorality would be okay in worship so that God’s grace could abound. This is a sad view of God. One that the Ephesians hated, as does God.
We must be resilient in standing for the truth. But you cannot and will not stand for the truth if you do not know the truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth. This can only happen by studying the word of God daily. Reading it, applying it, and teaching it to others.
But this is all worthless if we do this in the wrong attitude. If we do this, stand for the truth, speak out against the lies, but with the wrong attitude, we are just a clanging symbol. Standing for the truth without standing in love means we are standing with a godless attitude. God is love.
Charge – Abandonment
To illustrate resilience, we looked at a rubber band. How it will come back to normal after being stretched and wrapped around something. We have a rubber band that has been stretched around a deck of cards. Actually it is about three or four decks of cards. This rubber band has been on there for so long that it doesn’t really go back to its shape. It still works. It still wraps around the cards and holds them together. But it does not go back to the same size that it did before.
The Ephesian church is charged with abandoning their first love, and it is interesting how this is phrased.
Revelation 2:4 CSB But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.
You have abandoned the love you had at first. The NIV says forsaken and all others use the word left or abandoned. I find this interesting because it is not something that was lost. Imagine if the word lost had been in there. It would not be their fault.
Typically you do not lose something on purpose. I can feel the uneasiness at the thought that they purposely abandoned the love they had at first. This is what the text says. You have abandoned, you have left the love you had at first. this means that it was a choice. Now maybe it was not seen as a choice, maybe it wasn’t as simply as I am leaving this. But we, especially in the world that we live in today, can understand how one decision here and another decision there can leave us so wrapped up in making sure that we are right that we are not doing it out of love.
The idea around this greek word translated, abandoned, is to move away from. Commentators differ on what they are moving away from, their love for God, or their love for people. Not saying that they do not love God any longer, but they are not standing for the truth based on their love for God, but simply based on being right. Maybe it was their love for people that the got away from. The church in Ephesus fighting for the truth among all the false gods and immorality in their city, instead of desiring to see everyone saved and come to know Jesus, they wanted to show them they were wrong. That is the difference between loving and not. According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, love does not keep track of wrongs.
I happen to believe that both are right. They are no longer motivated by their love for God or for the people. They do not have the right purpose in mind. It has turned into a selfish battle.
It seems like things continually come down to the heart’s motivation. You can do the right actions but with the wrong motive. See Jesus and the sermon on the mount, lust in the heart is adultery, hate in the heart is murder. Fighting truth without love is sinful. So what is our test. Are you motivated by love. Are you motivated by the love of God, that he has for you and you have for him? Are you motivated by the love you have for those you are standing up against. Not fighting to prove them wrong, but to win a brother?
If the answer to either of those questions is, “No,” then a corrective action must take place. Remember, the church could say that their motivation is pure, but this letter is coming from the one who knows. So, they must, we must take action.
Corrective Action – Remember, Repent, & Restart
We have all seen ministries that have been going on in churches for a long time and they simply go through the motions. It is not that it is not a good program, but that they have left the reason behind why they started and now they are just doing. If you try to stop that program, you might get in big trouble from some, we have always done that.
Revelation 2:5 CSB Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Look closely at this verse. Playing with the words a little, we have to make sure that we see what it does not say. It does not say, “Continue in what you have been doing and find the reason behind it.” Why doesn’t it say find it, because you did not lose it, you left it. Instead, it tells us to remember, to repent and restart or go back a do what was done at first.
So lets dig a little bit deeper. First, they are to remember. Jesus is calling on the church to remember where it was they began. Remember the intimacy they had with Christ. The desire that they had for others to have that same intimacy. You see, love motivated everything that they were doing. A love for God and a love for people. If we abandon that, then we are just doing for ourselves. They had a love for Jesus. A heartbreak for all the people that were in their city that did not know Jesus. For all of the lost souls that would go to the temple and worship the goddess Diana. Are we motivated by love in the serving that we do? We must go back to the beginning and find the love we had at first.
Second, Jesus calls on them to repent. This should be what we are know for, a repentant heart, not a proud heart. They need to repent that they were more worried about being right then they were loving people. This is really hard to talk about with everything going on in our country. Everything is a political battle now. You cannot have an opinion on something without it sparking a political debate. We must repent. Repent that we have made politics into a god. Repent that we take pride in standing a shouting down other people. Repent that we have abandoned the love we had at first and run to a place of hatred for those who do not agree with us.
Third, he tells the Ephesians to restart. Do the works you did at first. We are all created for good works. Paul told the Ephesians, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10) This is an important verse to understand why you are here. You want to know your purpose in life as a Christian? Ephesians 2:10 is it. You are his workmanship. I believe that the word translated in this verse is only found in one other place in the new testament. That is Romans 1:20 “20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” It is that word made. The word means that you were created with a purpose. That purpose is to point to the creator. It is not just the creation as in nature that is to point to God, but you, believer in Christ, saved and redeemed. You have been created for works that will point people to Jesus.
How are you doing in that? Yeah, me too. We need to remember where we began, repent that we have abandoned that love we had a first and restart the works that point others to Jesus.
There is a single word that is used for this process. That word is called revival. The consequences of not reviving the church will be removal of God’s spirit from that church, but if the church is revived, they will eat from the tree of life.
Consequences – Removal & Reward
Revelation 2:5 (CSB) Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
What is the lampstand? This is important to know, especially if Jesus says that he will remove it if they are not repentant. Revelation 1:20 (CSB) The mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Many take this to mean that God’s spirit will now longer be with the church. We have a twisted idea of what makes a church “alive.” Many will say that about our church, Faith Fellowship Church. They say that because we have a lot of kids in our church. That because there are so many kids, the church feels alive. The amount of kids you have in a church does not make the church alive. It can be a sign of its health, but they do not make the church alive. Many will talk about attendance. If you have a crowded sanctuary, you church is alive. Again, it may be a sign, but it is not what brings life to a church. There are a lot of churches that have thousands of people in them that are dead. They do not preach life because they do not preach the gospel.
The life and death of a church is actually determined on if the Spirit of God is there. It is God who gives life to a church. The other measurements are so that we can see the life of the church. But they do not bring life by themselves. They are drawn in by the Spirit.
If we are not repentant, the Spirit will not be present in the church. If we do not have the Spirit of God with us as a church, we are just “doing” church for ourselves. I cannot bear the thought of that happening.
So what does this mean for us? We, as individuals, must remember the love we had a first. We must be people of repentance. We must get back to serving the Lord in love and doing the works that we did at first. If we do this as individuals, then we will begin to do this as a body. By doing this, we will be permitted to eat from the tree of life.
Revelation 2:7 (CSB) “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
The one who conquers does not mean that we win. That we have overcome those who disagree with us, or that teach a false gospel. Jesus has already overcome all of those things. Conquering means that we have gotten back to our first love. That we are living for Jesus in a world that is screaming out for us not too.
Those who conquer eat from the tree of life. We see the tree of life in a couple primary places. Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve have sinned, God says that they must leave the Garden so that they will not eat from the Tree of Life. The other is found in the book of Revelation. After all has been said and done and we are dwelling with the Lord for all of eternity. I cannot wait. Revelation 22:1–3 (CSB) Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb2 down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, 3 and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him.
Study Questions
Do you feel the need to be right?
What makes it hard to love the people that disagree with you?
How did you come to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
What were the feelings you had toward Jesus? Towards the lost?
The word abandoned indicates that we did not lose anything, but left something. Looking back, can you see times in your life when you have walked away from God? How did you get back?
Does eating from the Tree of Life excite you? Why?
No Model Pastor 