The Letters to the 7 Churches - Part II
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Last week we started our 3 part series studying the letters to the 7 churches in the book of Revelation.
We spent most of our time in Chapter 1 getting a good background on the book of Revelation that will help us each week as we read new letters.
If you missed last week, go check out our website or Facebook and you can watch the message and get caught up
There were a couple of important things that we learned last week that I do want to highlight again for you this morning
We learned the key to the entire book of Revelation is in Rev 1:19
19 Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.
The things which were (past) -> Chapter 1
The things which are (present) -> Chapters 2 & 3
And the things which will be (future) -> Chapter 4-22
We are currently living in the Chapters 2 & 3 era, also known as the church age
We also learned that we can apply each of these letters in 4 different ways
These were real letters written to actual, physical churches back in the day
They were also written for 7 primary types of churches that exist today
They are for 7 different types of Christians
And they represent 7 primary periods in church history
Each letter has a similar format
Intro
A picture of Jesus from the vision John had in Chapter 1
A commendation - praise for what they’re doing right
Condemnation - Jesus pointed out where they are missing the mark
A command
A promise to those who overcome
We studied the first letter as well - the letter to the church in Ephesus
This church was known as the loveless church
They had a lot of works, they were serving the Lord and laboring for Him
But that labor, that work, was done w/o love
Jesus told them they had left their first love
The historical period of church history that Ephesus represents is the Apostolic Church
This was the church of the apostles from 30-100 AD
It was marked by a time of great works & signs & expansion, but a struggle with false teachers and legalism
Intro
This morning, we’re going to look at our next 3 churches - the letters to the churches at Smyrna, Pergamos, and Thyatira
They cover a very large portion of church history, and they deal with a lot of different topics and issues that we can all search our own hearts over
Smyrna - Revelation 2:8-11.
Verses 8-11
The first church we read about is the church in Smyrna
Smyrna is the only one of the 7 cities that is still in existence today - the modern name is Izmir in Turkey (Turkey’s 3rd largest city)
Evidence of 3,000 + years of history as a city
The city was founded by the Greeks, destroyed by Cyrus the Great and the Persians, rebuilt by Alexander the Great, and then became very loyal to the Roman Empire
While Ephesus was the political capitol of the area of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey where all 7 of the churches existed), Smyrna was the commercial capitol
It was a port city that sat at the end of a river, so all the commerce from the communities of the Hermus River valley would flow through Smyrna to the Aegean Sea and eventually the Mediterranean
It was on the direct trade route from India to Persia to Rome
It was a very wealthy city, business and trade was an important part of that society
Smyrna was also very involved in the worship of false gods
They once had a famous street that had temples to the Greek gods of Apollo, Zeus, & Aphrodite to name a few, but at this time they had moved beyond the worship of pagan gods
Different than Ephesus where we studied last week that they had one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, a temple to the false goddess Artemis
Instead, Smyrna was all about worshipping the Roman Emperor - Caesar
They got to build the first ever temple to Emperor Tiberius Caesar in 23 AD
They were a leader in Imperial Cult movement of the time which deified Roman emperors and required sacrifices in honor of the emperor or there would be consequences
William Barclay would write that, “Emperor worship had begun as spontaneous demonstration of gratitude to Rome; but toward the end of the first century, in the days of Domitian, the final step was taken and Caesar worship became compulsory. Once a year the Roman citizen must burn a pinch of incense on the altar to the godhead of Caesar; and having done so, he was given a certificate to guarantee that he had performed his religious duty. All that the Christians had to do was to burn that pinch of incense, say, ‘Caesar is Lord,’ receive their certificate, and go away and worship as they pleased.”
This idol worship was extremely important in regards to business and trade if you wanted to have a piece of the great wealth that was in the city
Many Christians said no to this cultic worship, and suffered persecution for it
Historically, this letter represents the time in church history known as the Persecuted Church
From 100-312 AD, this was the time of probably the most intense persecution of the church ever
It was illegal to be a Christian - just identifying as a follower of Jesus would get you thrown in jail at the very minimum
One Roman emperor during this time, Diocletian, tried to wipe out the Bible from the face of the earth
He led a violent effort to do these public burnings of scripture - but he did not succeed
This was the era that so many Christians met their death in an amphitheater being fed to the lions while the crowd cheered on
Other Christians were crucified, tortured to death, covered with tar and set on fire, boiled in oil (as they tried to do to John), and burned at the stake (like Polycarp, the famous disciple of John, was in Smyrna in 156 AD).
I read that one church historian estimated that there were ~5 million Christians martyred for their faith during this time period
Even with all of the persecution, it was an era marked by immense growth of the church, and the proliferation of scripture with so many manuscripts being written down to give to others to read
So with that in mind, let’s read this letter in more detail
Verse 8
Jesus starts off with His introduction to Smyrna, then calls back to the vision John had of Him in Chapter 1
He reminds the church that He is the First and the Last, and that He was dead but came back to life
He reminded them as the First and the Last, only He is the true eternal God, not the Roman emperors the rest of the city worshipped
And by telling them that He had died but then came back to life, it was a great encouragement in the face of persecution that the God that they served had the power even over death
We serve a living God who, as we learned last week, walks in the middle of His churches
Sometimes Christian we need to remember this truth. We can walk around in this state where we treat God like He’s this ancient old man sitting on His throne that is out of touch with what’s happening in today’s world
Our God is alive! And He stands in the midst of His church, and He wants to work in His church
Verses 9-10
Here Jesus gives His commendation - His praise for what they were doing right
They were working for the Lord
Jesus sees those things that are done for Him, even if the world around us doesn’t know it or doesn’t care
3 But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
They had gone through tribulation
We just learned how both the church of Smyrna at the time of this writing had faced economic persecution, and the church era this letter represents would go through intense persecution
And they were poor
This shows that many in the church in Smyrna were not sacrificing to Caesar, they were choosing to forgo their economic benefit in order to follow Jesus
We see that today in the news, that some Christian business owners are making choices to stand for their faith instead of caving into the pressure of the world
It can be so easy to just put that pinch of incense on the altar, get your certificate, and go on with life. I mean, it’s the responsible thing to do, right? You have to put food on the table, and a roof over everyone’s heads, and buy new shoes for the kids like every 2 months it seems like cause they grow so fast.
This may not be fun to hear, but maybe God is challenging you right now over a decision like this. Maybe you’re in a position where something at work or in your business is compromising your faith, and you have a choice to make. You can throw that pinch of incense on and not make waves and just go on like normal, or you can be bold and make a stand for the Lord.
What I do know is that God sees that, and He honors that
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
The Christians in Smyrna did this and were considered rich. Not with material things, but with spiritual blessings
This church also endured the false teachings of the Judaizers who tried to mix the law and grace and taught people that they couldn’t be saved just by God’s grace, they had to keep the OT law
Jesus says those Judaizers were a synagogue of Satan
Jesus doesn’t stand for those who pull His people away from Him. That’s why it’s so important that we’re in our Bibles, rightly diving the word of truth so we can tell what is true from what is false.
Jesus then gives His command to the church - don’t fear the persecution that is coming
First notice that He skips any condemnation - Jesus doesn’t have a single bad thing to say about this church
He doesn’t tie faithfulness to Him to an ease of life - that’s how America views Christianity many times
We should be like the seed in the parable of the sewer that has deep roots, so that when persecution and trouble comes, we don’t wither under the heat
Jesus says not to fear the persecution that is coming
The devil might have his day and throw some of them into prison for a short time, but God says to not be afraid
Now there’s a lot of debate over what the 10 days in vs. 10 refer to
Some say it speaks of 10 waves of persecution under 10 different Roman emperors, starting with Nero in 54 AD and ending with Diocletian in 305 AD
Others say its an expression of speech and symbolizes a short time - life on earth is short in light of eternity
Whatever it refers to, we know that if we are faithful to endure persecution on earth, Jesus has a crown of life waiting for us as a reward - eternal life!
Verse 11
Here’s that phrase again we studied last week, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
We need to have an open ear to what God is saying to us!
And finally Jesus gives the promise to those who overcome - that they will not be hurt by the second death
Those who remain faithful to walk with Jesus even in the face of persecution, will not be hurt by the second death
The second death is hell, the lake of fire described in Rev 20-21, the final eternal destination of those who don’t commit their lives to Jesus
This church probably has the least amount of application for the church in America
We might experience some persecution, loss of friends/relationships, economic struggles, school struggles and kids, and things are getting harder, but we don’t see even close to the same thing the Christians of this time saw, or even what many of our brothers and sisters in Christ see today in the middle east or eastern Europe or Asia.
If you want to learn more about that, read Foxe’s Voices of the Martyrs, or subscribe to the Voice of the Martyrs magazine at persecution.com
Next comes the letter to the church in Pergamos
Pergamos - Revelation 2:12-17.
Verses 12-17
Pergamos was the northernmost city of the 7 churches, and it was a powerful city that was a major cultural center during this time.
It sat at the top of this mesa 1000 feet above the surrounding valley.
Pergamos has a lot of pagan worship with all kinds of temples and shrines to false gods in the city
Many of those pagan worship practices involved images of serpents
One temple in particular was to the Roman god Asclepios, the god of healing and knowledge
People would come from all over to be healed of their afflictions, and they’d sleep in the dark temple
There were snakes in the temple, and if a snake slithered by and touched you, it was considered a touch from the gods themselves
Historically, this church represents the time period known as the Compromising Church.
It covered a time period from 312 AD to 600 AD, a time frame that you and I would know better as the development of the Roman Catholic Church
In 306 AD, Constantine became the emperor of Rome and in 312 AD he stopped the persecution of Christians that had been going on and removed all of the penalties that existed for being a Christian.
He claimed to be a Christian himself and the Roman government started to give a lot of money to the church and support the church
Many pagan temples were given over to Christians, with stories of the names of false gods being chiseled off their statues and the names of early saints being written in their place
But what started to happen was this mix of Christianity and paganism, and many pagan practices began to get introduced into the church.
The worship and eventual prayer to Mary started during this time, as well as praying for the dead, worshipping and praying to other saints and angels, division of the priesthood from the people including different dress so they’d stand out, replacement theology got it’s start which considered that God had rejected the nation of Israel and would only deal with the church, and the doctrine of purgatory.
The church went from being under extreme persecution but having extreme growth and being on fire for the Lord to being slowly watered down and compromised.
Once again, let’s go back over the letter in more detail
Verses 13-14
Jesus reminds them that He was the one with the sharp two-edged sword
Last week we were reminded of Hebrews 4:12 as we read the description of Jesus in Chapter 1
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Then He highlights the things this church is doing well
Their works - third church in a row this is said of. They were working for the Lord and He saw that
He commended them for working even though it was a tough place - they lived where Satan’s throne was
As Pergamos had many temples and shrines dedicated to the worship of false gods, this pagan worship saturated their culture.
And especially with all of the imagery of snakes in that pagan worship (snakes = Satan in the Garden of Eden), I’m sure it felt to those Christians in that city that they were living in Satan’s own throne room
For this time frame of church history, with the Roman empire starting to take over the church, the church was literally existing in evil places, whether it be Rome (the capital of so many Caesars who demanded to be worshipped) or the pagan temples that the churches began to take over
No matter the culture, these Christians were still working for the Lord
An encouragement for us, it doesn’t matter you setting at work, in your family, in your circle or community, even if it feels like your surrounded by so many non-Christian co-workers or family members that hate when you talk about Jesus, you keep being a light.
God sees your works, just like He saw what this church was doing, and He is pleased by it just as He was pleased with them
They held fast to His Name
Interesting that during this time in church history, the Council of Nicea was held in 325 AD
This Council is huge in Christian history in that there was this controversy about the deity of Jesus. There was a contingent that was growing in the church that tried to claim that Jesus was a created being instead of God from the beginning. This council rejected that false doctrine, and settled that Jesus is God, and created the Nicene Creed which many of us know today
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God....by whom all things were made....He suffered, and the third day He rose again, ascended into heaven....And in the Holy Ghost.
This council held to the Name & deity of God when it came under attack.
They held to their faith even when there was persecution
Jesus highlights Antipas who was a faithful martyr in the city of Pergamos
Church history tells us Antipas was the first martyr of Asia Minor and was boiled to death during the reign of Domitian before John wrote Revelation.
But the church also had many things it was not doing well
Verses 14-15
This church was getting infiltrated by false doctrine big time. Two specific examples are given here
They held to the doctrine of Balaam
To understand this, you have to go back to your OT to the book of Numbers. You can read Chapters 22-25 for your homework this week.
When the Children of Israel had spend enough time in the wilderness, they started marching toward the Promised Land
Balak, king of Moab (neighbor to what would become Israel) was very afraid of what would happen to him and his nation.
So he called Balaam, this prophet of God, and tried to get him to curse Israel.
Balaam was a very greedy man, so even though God told him not to go, he eventually went but God wouldn’t let him curse His people
But Balaam did tell Balak to stumble the children of Israel by intermarrying and introducing their idols and sexual immorality into the culture, something God had forbid His people to do.
So while God’s people couldn’t be attacked from the outside, they were brought down from the inside by this idol worship and sexual immorality
The church during this portion of history Pergamos represents had just come through this big wave of persecution where the devil tried to stomp out Christianity by attacking it from the outside.
But he switched his tactics and instead tried to bring the church down from the inside by getting it to marry itself to pagan worship.
For us, we need to be so careful to not try and intertwine other things into our walk with God, or try to have a faith that’s half on the fence, half in something else
We can’t try to bring a bit of eastern mysticism, or spiritualism, and throw in a little Karma and call it Christianity.
That’s how we become watered down, how we fall when we don’t stand on the whole council of God and nothing but the whole council of God
They also let the Nicolaitans start to take over
Remember last week, the Nicolaitans started to establish this priestly order where to communicate to God, you had to talk to the priest first
To the Ephesian church, God said He hated that doctrine, b/c it got in the way of a personal relationship with each and every one of us
Here, the church in Pergamos had unfortunately adopted that
We won’t spend any more time on it as we studied it last week, but don’t ever follow a man or woman, follow after the Savior
Verse 16
Here is Jesus’ council - repent
This church had become compromised and had brought so much of the world into it that it was losing its effectiveness, was causing people to stumble and sin, and was separating people from directly communing with God.
We should be so careful that we don’t leave too much room for the world in our lives or in our church that we become watered down, ineffective, and we cease to cause people to commune directly with God
You can look at so many churches and denominations that look and sound just like the world around it, instead of being the city on a hill, the light shining in the darkness for the Lord.
We just talked about this with our high school group on Wednesday night on attributes of a disciple of Jesus, and one of those things we talked about is that you should be bold in living out your faith, it shouldn’t be a surprise to the people around you that you are a Christian.
Your heart should be so full of the Lord that there is no room for the world.
Verse 17
Here’s that command again, listen to what Jesus is saying!
And if you do and overcome the sin of compromise, Jesus promises hidden manna to eat, and a white stone with a new name written on it
Manna from heaven (ancient sopapillas) was physical food given to the Children of Israel when they wandered the wilderness after Egypt, but it represents or is a typology of spiritual food/sustenance that we receive from the Word of God
So the promise is that God will sustain us
The white stone’s meaning is less certain.
Some commentators say it represented acquittal in court, while others say it represents an invitation to be admitted to an event, or that it even symbolized friendship or alliance.
Whatever it was, we get this picture of acceptance into God’s family.
Alright, just enough time for our last letter for this week
Thyatira - Revelation 2:18-29.
Verses 18-29
Thyatira was the smallest and least significant of the 7 ancient cities of this time.
It was originally founded by Alexander the Great, and during this time, it was a normal, everyday city, nothing special about it
It was a very prosperous city though. It specialized in the textile industry, especially selling purple cloth (purple was a luxury item), and pottery
There were also many different trade guilds that were there (think labor unions, only on steroids); in fact an incredibly high number of trade guilds for the small size of the city
To be in a trade guild was very important to businesses. If you refused to join a guild, you could lose a lot of business.
But these guilds had dinners with food sacrificed to idols at the temple to Apollo (son of Zeus, considered the “son of god”), and the Imperial Cult (the worship of Roman emperors) was also prominent in the guilds
And if you joined a guild, but refused to go to these ceremonies, you risked being kicked out of the guild and back in the same situation as not joining it in the first place
The period in church history that this represents is a time period from 606 AD to today’s time
It’s the Roman Catholic church from the dark ages to today
With our previous church, Pergamos, we saw the development of the Roman Catholic system starting with Constantine and how they started to compromise in their faith and introduced pagan worship practices into the church
At this point, the introduction of false teachings and corrupt behavior starts to go full bore.
Some of the biggest things that happened during this time were the crusades which killed between 1 & 9 million people in the name of God, selling indulgences so people could “buy” their way into heaven, the expansion of the Bible to include apocryphal books (which the early church did not declare as canon and did not include them as inspired by God), and finally the Bible being forbidden for the common person, only priests could read it (this lead to the persecution of John Wycliffe in the 1300s who was trying to translate the Bible into the language of everyday people to read).
Jesus has some praise for this church, but He also has a lot of correction for them for how corrupt they had become.
Verse 18
Our description of Jesus here is interesting because He calls Himself the Son of God.
In Chapter 1, He is described as the Son of Man. Now both are essentially interchangeable and speak of Jesus’ deity as the Messiah. But what is interesting is that to join a trade guild in the city of Thyatira, you’d have to attend events in the temple of Apollo as we discussed. The Greeks considered Apollo the “son of god” as he was the son of Zeus, but Jesus here reminds His church that He is the true Son of God.
Verse 19
This church is commended for doing a few things right
They had works and love.
Many great service organizations have come from the Catholic church over the years. Many hospitals, orphanages, and missions have come from that movement and made great impact for God.
Jesus commends them for their growing works - they were doing more and more for Jesus over time
You see that in history, and this was true of the church there in Thyatira.
They didn’t just settle of “that’s good enough”, they kept giving, kept serving, kept seeing how they could minister to others.
Our church here at Calvary is continuing to grow, and we’re continuing to add more and more studies and events and ministries.
Doing announcements each week, it’s been such a blessing to me this year to have to announce so many different things that are happening. Discipleship classes, women’s events/service projects/studies, parenting studies, financial peace, MOPS, there’s always something going on here.
And that takes us, the church body, to come alongside the work God is going and say, “Yes, I want to help in that area” or “I see a need, can I step up and help here?”
We’re kinda maxed out on what Eric and the staff here can handle. He’s the only one who is full time, and the rest of us have full time jobs outside the church.
So it’s such a blessing to have others come and say they want to serve and to lead so that our church can continue to grow in works and reach more people for Jesus
But for the church in Thyatira, Jesus has a lot more negative to say about it than positive
Verses 20-23
This church had allowed a false prophetess, refereed to as Jezebel, to come in and pull the people away from Jesus because of her false teaching.
In the OT, Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab, the most wicked king Israel ever had.
Jezebel brought the worship of the false god Baal into the nation of Israel and all of the sinful practices that came along with that mentioned here, and tried to get Elijah killed many times
In Thyatira, there was someone who was bringing false teachings that told people it was okay to join these trade guilds and to go to the festivals at the temple to Apollo and participate in everything the guild was doing because you have to put food on the table, right?
And it was causing God’s people to sin (“seducing My servants”). They weren’t resisting the temptation to compromise like the church in Smyrna
God had shown His mercy toward her (“I gave her time to repent”) but she had chosen to keep doing the same thing
God is so merciful with us. We do so many things that are undeserving of His love, and we can get stuck in our sin, and all the while God is merciful and is patiently waiting for us to repent.
For Jezebel though, her time was up. She had not repented and God is still just and has to deal with the sin
And Jesus has some harsh words for her - He will cast her and those committing spiritual adultery with “her into great tribulation unless they repent”
Those who hold to this false corrupt teaching and aren’t born again will go into the Great Tribulation that starts in Chapter 4 of Revelation, a future time where God will pour out His wrath on an unbelieving world
And yet His mercy is still there - “unless they repent”
9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
Verses 24-29
Jesus then tells those in Thyatira who had not compromised their faith to “hold fast” - stay the course, don’t give in!
There’s a promise behind it - to those who overcome Jesus will give the power over the nations, and the morning star
Power over the nations speaks to the promise that we get to rule and reign with Jesus one day. Revelation 20:4 speaks on how believers will rule and reign the nations with Him during the 1000 year reign after the Great Tribulation and His second coming
The morning star is a reference to Jesus Himself from Revelation 22:16.
The greatest reward they could get is eternal fellowship with Jesus
And finally, we see the command, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”
Let God’s word penetrate your heart. If you see areas of your life that resemble any of these churches, follow the command of Jesus.
If you’re compromising your faith and letting the things of the world infiltrate in and water down your faith, repent of that
If you’re allowing false teaching to pull you away from what the Word of God says, turn back to God and His word
And if you feel you’re the only faithful one at work or in your family, hold fast and remain faithful, and be an overcomer
Pray