According to Revelation 1:11, the book was written to seven congregations in Asia, modern Turkey. For 2,000 years scholars have wondered why such an important message would be sent to these churches since they weren’t even the most important of their day, let alone now.

True, Ephesus was a leading city of the time, but the church there was small and so were the others. Why wasn’t the book written to the Church in Rome, for example? Surely the Lord knew that Rome would be the capital of Christianity for much of church history, the perfect addressee for such a timeless message. Or how about Jerusalem, where the Church was born?

Four Levels of Application
The answer lies in the realization that the letters of chapters 2 and 3 have a representative as well as a specific purpose. They can actually be read with four levels of application. The first level is historical. These seven churches really existed and each was experiencing the particular problem to which the Lord referred as He dictated the letters to John. Second, since all the churches were to read all the letters, the letters were also admonitory to all. Third, since both the challenge and promise with which each letter ends are personal rather than corporate, the letters were for individuals as well as congregations. And fourth, read in the order in which they appear they outline church history and so are prophetic. They chronicle the gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy. (Daniel 9:24-27)

The Lord began each letter with a different one of the 24 titles that are used to describe Him in the book, and the title He selects gives a clue to the letter’s theme. The name of each Church also contains a clue. Each letter can be divided into seven parts, the Lord’s title being the first one. Then come a commendation, a criticism, an admonition, a call, a challenge, and a promise. Two of the seven letters, Sardis and Laodicea, contain no commendation, and in two, Smyrna and Philadelphia, no criticism is given. Pergamum has no admonition, but has two criticisms. In the last 4 letters the challenge and the promise are reversed.

I’ll dissect each letter into its component parts as we go. And since I visited the sites of each of the seven churches a few years ago, I’ll include a personal note or two as well. With that, let’s get started.

To the Church in Ephesus (Rev 2:1-7)
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

Ephesus means darling, or beloved, maiden of choice. Ephesus represents the 1st century church.

(Title)These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.

In using this title the Lord identifies Himself as the One who came to visit John, the One with authority over the Church, and the One to whom the Church owes affection as well as allegiance.

(Commendation) I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

The Church in Ephesus had worked tirelessly to remain true to His Gospel.

(Criticism) Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

Already the church had become so busy in its service to the King that it had forgotten about the King! The relationship He sought was turning into another religion.

(Admonition) Remember the height from which you have fallen!

How many times have we heard friends comment about the “good old days” when they were new believers? How exciting and emotional it was, and how quickly our prayers were answered? The Lord wants us to stay that way.

(Call) Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Here’s the remedy. Go back to doing what you did at first. Remember when you couldn’t get enough of the Bible? When you showed up at church half an hour early, just because you loved being there, and didn’t want to leave when the service was over? How you kept up a running conversation with the Lord that began when you woke up in the morning and didn’t end till you fell asleep at night?

The Nicolaitans were a heretical sect that advocated a blending of pagan customs, like eating food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality, into Christian worship. There’s only One worthy to receive our worship, and worshiping Him is the Church’s primary purpose.

The lamp stand is identified in Rev 1:20 as the church, so removing it means removing the church of Ephesus. Though the ruins of Ephesus are extensive and impressive, requiring most of a day to see, when we were there a few years ago we found only the faintest traces of a 1st century church in Ephesus.

(Challenge) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Reach up along each side of your head. Do you have ears there? Then this letter was written to you. Though the letter to Ephesus describes the Apostolic era, the church struggles with the same problems today. The church as a whole is too distracted with programs and plans, your congregation is too busy implementing them, and you’re too busy helping. We’re human beings, not human doings, and once we’re saved being with the Lord in fellowship is our life’s purpose.

(Promise)To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

Because of the emphasis on good works and programs in the church today, many who call themselves Christians, and rightly consider themselves to be hard working members of their congregations, have never taken the time to meet the King they claim to serve and receive the pardon He purchased for them with His life. How shocked they’ll be to hear Him say, “I never knew you. Away from me you evil doers.” (Matt. 7:23)

To the Church in Smyrna (Rev 2:8-11)
“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:

Smyrna means crushed. It comes from the same root word as myrrh, an embalming spice that releases its aroma when crushed. Smyrna represents the 2nd and 3rd Century church that suffered intense persecution.

(Title) These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.

The emphasis in the title is obvious, overcoming death.

(Commendation) I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

The first to persecute the church were Jews. Polycarp, the most famous of the early martyrs was the Bishop of Smyrna and was burned at the stake there at age 86.

(Admonition) Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days.

From history we know the ten days refers to the reigns of 10 Roman Caesars, covering a period of 250 years.

(Call) Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

There’s no promise of deliverance, only of reward in Heaven. The stories of believers’ grace in the face of death while ingenious and diabolical methods were employed to exterminate them as a form of public entertainment have achieved legendary status.

(Challenge) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Many of us in the west have never faced serious threats on account of our faith, but world wide the number of known Christian martyrs has averaged from 100,000 to 150,000 per year for the last 10 years.  Their number will only grow as the End draws nearer.

(Promise) He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.”

The old adage goes: Born once, die twice. Born twice die once. It’s the second death that you have to watch out for. It’s the permanent one.

Today a prosperous city called Izmir, third largest in Turkey, stands where ancient Smyrna once was. An incident that clearly displayed the Lord’s sense of humor, while emphasizing the point of the letter, happened as we drove through the city. We saw prominent signs on a freeway exit just outside Izmir pointing to Smyrna and thinking we had found the ancient site, I quickly pulled off. But at the bottom of the short exit ramp was a T intersection with no indication as to which way we should turn. And there were no more signs pointing the way to Smyrna. After an hour of driving back and forth searching in both directions, I gave up and drove on. I didn’t get the point till later after describing the event to our Turkish travel agent. He told me the sign points to where Symrna was. There’s no trace of Smyrna today. The church of Smyrna is in heaven.

To the Church In Pergamum (Rev. 2:12-17)
“To the angel of the church in Pergamum write:

Pergamum means mixed marriage and represents the merger of pagan and Christian practices in the 4th century when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

(Title) These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.

In Hebrews 4:12 the double-edged sword is used to describe God’s Word, the source of Truth.

(Commendation) I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives.

With the establishment of Baghdad as the major distribution center between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea following Alexander’s death, Babylon had gone into decline so the original mother/child cult religion moved its headquarters from there to Pergamum. (It eventually settled in Rome.) The reference to Satan’s throne there shows the true source of this false religion.

(Criticism 1) Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality.

These were actual physical sins in the time of Balaam but here are mentioned in the spiritual sense.  Idol worship can be anything you venerate, whether a false god or part of creation or material possessions.  When intended symbolically, as it is here, sexual immorality stands for the worship of another god.
(Criticism 2) Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

These pagan practices crept into the church at Pergamum, just as they had in Ephesus.

(Call) Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

The truth of the Gospel has always been the best defense against the cults.

(Challenge) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

There are still plenty of idols in the church. Maybe you parked yours in the parking lot, or shaved its face this morning, or keep it in a bank downtown.

(Promise) To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

Just as the black ball was a vote against someone, a white stone was a sign of trust. When an important businessman had to complete a transaction in a distant city, he didn’t travel there. It was too dangerous. Instead he sent a trusted servant empowered to act on his behalf. The servant carried a coin like form of identification made of baked white clay. The seal of the businessman being represented was pressed into the clay as was a secret name, known only to the other party in the transaction. By the presentation of the white stone, the servant authenticated himself as being entitled to all the rights and privileges of his master. In this way, our Lord Jesus will identify us as being entitled to all the rights and privileges due Him, when we enter into the Presence of our Father in Heaven.

Our Lord instructed the Disciples to take the Church into all the world (Matt 28:19-20), but in Pergamum the world came into the church. In the 4th century the Edict of Milan made Christianity legal and ultimately the official religion of the Empire. When that happened, pagan festivals became Christian holidays. The Feasts of Saturnalia and Ishtar became Christmas and Easter. This explains why such pagan symbols as the Yule log and evergreen tree, which symbolized the sun dying and being born again at the winter solstice, are associated with Christmas, while fertility symbols like rabbits and eggs are connected with Easter. Ishtar was the Babylonian goddess of fertility.

The impressive ruins on a hill 1000 feet above the surrounding valleys near modern Bergama are markedly pagan with remains of great temples to Roman gods and emperors but only faint traces of the church that was there.

Children Of A Mixed Marriage
It’s my belief that the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamum have all disappeared, symbolically and in reality. But the marriage of Christian beliefs with the pagan religion of Pergamum produced 4 offspring that all survive to this day and are represented by the four remaining letters. We’ll cover them next time.

Prologue
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw – that is the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ.  Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it, and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. (Rev 1:1-3)

It was 95 AD, over 60 years since Jesus had walked among His people. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed, leaving the Jews defeated. Paul was dead, beheaded in Rome nearly 30 years earlier. Peter had been crucified there about the same time. Of all the disciples only John was still alive. He had written his gospel and his 3 letters sometime earlier, and had served for a time as the Bishop of the church in Ephesus, having moved there with Mary, the Lord’s mother, about the time of the Temple’s destruction in 70 AD.

It’s not that the Romans and Jews had left John alone. Tradition has it that several times they’d tried to kill him, even throwing him live into a cauldron of boiling oil, but the Lord had prevented it, fulfilling His promise of John 21:22. (Responding to Peter’s question about what would become of John, Jesus had said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?“) Finally the Romans had exiled him to Patmos, a prison colony off the coast of modern Turkey, thinking they had heard the last of him.

But the Lord had other plans, and appeared personally to John, commanding him to write one final letter and send it to seven churches in Asia Minor. As an old man at the end of his life, John was about to undertake one of his greatest challenges. After writing the Revelation, he died of natural causes in about 100 AD.

By the way, your Preterist friends have had to give the book an early date to get around verse one because they contend that it was all fulfilled by 70 AD, but they needn’t have bothered. In the first place the later date is pretty well established, but the word translated soon or shortly actually means quickly or rapidly and describes the speed with which events will unfold once they begin, not their chronological nearness to John’s day.

Greeting to the Seven Churches
John, to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us to be a kingdom (or kings), and priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.  So shall it be. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev.1: 4-8)

Of the 404 verses in the Book of Revelation, 278 are taken from the Old Testament. In fact, Esther is the only Old Testament book not directly quoted. So it’s not surprising to find these Old Testament constructions like him who is and who was and who is to come and the seven spirits who are before his throne. The first is an approximate translation of God’s name and the second is a name for the Holy Spirit, literally the seven-fold Spirit of God. We’ll see plenty of these through out the book, and in chapter 19 we’ll see the untranslated Hebrew word Hallelujah (it means praise the Lord) used four times. It’s the only place it appears in the New Testament. In fact the Revelation has so many Old Testament nuances that some believe that John was actually translating from Hebrew into Greek as he wrote.

The phrase Alpha and Omega comes from the first and last letters of he Greek alphabet and refers to God the Father and recalls His claim to Israel. “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior. (Isaiah 43:10-11) Jesus will later use the phrase of Himself.

Vision of the Son of Man
I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.  On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea”(Rev. 1:9-11).

By this command it’s clear that John is actually going to witness some events that the Lord wants him to document and then distribute to the seven churches he has named. Some contend that John saw all this in a vision on one Sabbath Day, while others say he was actually transported through time to the Day of the Lord. I lean toward the latter.

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance (Rev. 1:12-16).

Though the man speaking to John was clothed in light and had a distinct otherworldly appearance, John recognized Him. He had seen Him looking like this once before, on the Mount Of Transfiguration. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. (Matt. 17:2) It was the Lord!

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead,  and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

“Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. The mystery of the seven stars that 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 (Rev. 1:17-20).

In this way, the Lord divides the Book John will write into three sections. The things John has seen, contained in chapter 1, those that are, which will fill chapters 2 and 3, and those that will take place after this, chapters 4-22.

The fact that the Lord is seen standing in the midst of the seven lampstands indicates His direct involvement with the church.  Holding the seven stars in His right hand speaks of the intimate relationship He has with its leaders. Whether you see them as the pastors or as angelic overseers, He’s got them in the palm of His hand.  The number 7 figures prominently in the Book of Revelation. In fact, before we’re finished we’ll see it used 52 times. And isn’t it interesting that 5 plus 2 equals guess what? Seven!

The Lord’s use of first and last here recall the two most important steps in the process of product development.  The Greek word translated first is protos, from which we get prototype. A prototype is the original. It sets the standard to which all subsequent copies are compared to make sure they conform.  Paul wrote, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). When we’re perfected we’ll be exact copies of our prototype, the Lord, and that’s the way God already sees us (2 Cor. 5:17).

And the word for last is eschatos, the superlative, the perfect example, the highest and best that can be achieved. Though we’re destined to look like Him and act like Him, we can never be Him.

And so ends chapter one, but we’re just getting started. There’s plenty more to come.  See you next time.