Wys Ch Seven.churches

8/11/2019 Wys Ch Seven.churches

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The Seven Churches Of Revelation

ByVance Havner


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The Seven Churches Of Revelation

A Series By Vance Havner

Table Of Contents

1. Repent Or Else, An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. Ephesus: The Church Of Lovelessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3. Smyrna: The Persecuted Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

4. Pergamos: The Church Of Laxity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

5. Thyatira: The Church Of Liberty And Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

6. Sardis: The Dead And Lifeless Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

7. Philadelphia: The loyal Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

8. Laodicea: The Lukewarm Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Related Articles included in The Seven Churches Of Revelation:

9. Unto The Angel Of The Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

10. If Any Man. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

11. What Is A Great Church?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

12. Jesus Is Lord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47


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1. Repent or Else!

An Introduction

(Revelation 2:5,16)

THE LAST word of our Lord to the church is not the Great Commission. The Great Commissionis indeed our program to the end of the age but our Lord's last word to the church is "Repent." That

was.. His command to five out of seven of the churches in Asia and that proportion still holds five

out of seven Christians and churches today need first of all to repent.

The present religious world is marked by three movements. There is a wave of religious interest, a

wave of mass evangelism and a wave of church activity. But none of these, nor all of them put

together, add up to revival within the church.

There is a wave of religious interest. National organizations sponsor "Back-to-Religion" campaigns.

Civic groups put on "Go-to-Church" drives. I visited a church that was observing "Go-to-Church

Sunday." (I had always thought any Sunday was "Go-to-Church Sunday.") Books are being written

by the dozen based on the Gospels, the early church, the Roman persecutions. Certain Bible

characters have "made Hollywood." I notice that when I mention such characters nowadays a lot of

people look intelligent who hadn't done so before-and they haven't been reading the Bible, I fear.

Editorials on Christianity appear along with liquor ads in the same periodicals. Auditoriums are

crowded to hear religious ragtime and gospel boogie. Politicians take time out to say a good word

for God.

People are talking religion but many of them are not willing to face the cross of Christ and all that

it means for the saint as well as the sinner. Like those who stood at the cross long ago, they say, "Let

Him now come down from the cross and we will believe Him." They are willing to accept the joy

and peace that salvation brings but they are not willing to admit that they are sinners and build their

hopes on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Sometimes it is a fad, like reducing or

antiques. We should buy up whatever opportunities it affords but of itself it does not mean revival.

There is a wave of mass evangelism. We thank God for it. It sends a backwash of blessing into the

churches, for church members are converted and sinners are saved. It is part of God's program, and

a great part; but the extensive movement needs to be joined with a corresponding intensive

movement in the local churches. Both are set forth in the Scriptures. Our Lord preached to the

multitudes and He made disciples out of a handful. There must be the double movement, for either

without the other is incomplete.

Let me illustrate. In a city-wide campaign some members of a certain church are stirred and

awakened; some are saved and others brought to a new experience, of dedication. They return totheir church where most of the members, the officers and workers, have not been moved at all. These

awakened members are like hot coals in cracked ice the church has had no revival and is in no

condition to receive them. It is like putting a new baby in a refrigerator or, as another has put it,

turning a newborn child over to someone who, however well-intentioned, lacks the love of the

mother who gave the child birth. Moody was asked, "Would you put live chicks under a dead hen?"


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True church revival is where the church hatches aid mothers her own chicks. It has been said that

it is hard to win to the church those not won through the church.

The proper combination is a local church aflame with revival sharing in mass evangelism. When Mr.

Moody held his great campaign in Boston, Dr. A. J. Gordon was being used of God to revive

Clarendon Street Baptist Church. Moody's evangelism poured new members into Gordon's church

and gave it a "blood transfusion" but at the same time, under Gordon's leadership, the church was

being readied to nurture the converts.

The ideal is to have the local church be the center of evangelism. The Welsh Revival was an

awakening within the churches that spread from church to church. Today we are seeing God work

in great meetings. It has been pointed out that the movement is from evangelism to revival, that it

is aimed at the outsider and does not dwell on the need of Christians, for that is not its mission.

Along with mass evangelism we still need to see a movement from within the churches. Evangelism

is not revival. There are local and occasional revivals, of course, but no general and genuine

repentance leading to a clean break with the world, the flesh and the devil.

There is a wave of church activity today but that is not revival. Church membership, church building,church attendance and church work are at an all-time high but the morals of the country are at an all-

time low. That does not make sense. Churches are busy but so were the churches in Asia, yet five

of the seven needed a revival. When church membership grows statistically but the church members

do not grow spiritually in proportion, that is not revival. The greatest need of the church today is not

more members, more buildings, more money. The supreme issue is not even missions or evangelism.

It is repentance and revival.

It is regrettable that the words "revival" and "evangelism" have become synonymous in our thinking.

They do not mean the same thing at all. Evangelism is the proclamation of the gospel in order to win

the lost. Revival is a work of the Spirit among God's own people whereby they get right with God

and with each other. It is sometimes said that there is not much in the New Testament about revival.One would not expect to find much in Acts. They did not need a revival they had a "revival!" The

normal New Testament Spirit-filled church is in the Acts. But in the first three chapters of Revelation

we have the church in need of revival. Strictly speaking, revival is an Old Testament term: "Wilt

thou not revive us again," "Revive thy work, O Lord." The New Testament word is "Repent."

Revivals should not be necessary. God intended that His people should grow in grace without

periodic spells of backsliding and repenting. But so long as we have such a malarial brand of

Christianity, a fever and a chill, a fever and a chill, we shall need revivals. Nor is a revival a mere

emotional upheaval. The way out of a stupor is not by getting into a stew. God does not intend that

we live in a fever of excitement all the time. The farmer must break up his fallow ground, but if he

did only that he would never plant or cultivate or reap. Surgery may be necessary at times but it isnot normal to live in a hospital. What we call revival is simply a return to normal New Testament

Christianity. Most of us are so subnormal that if we ever became normal we would be considered

abnormal!


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Revival means self-examination on the part of Christians repentance, confession of sin,

renunciation of sin, restitution, submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, separation from the

world, and being filled with the Spirit. Finney says, "Revival is the renewal of the first love of

Christians, resulting in the conversion of sinners to God. It presupposes that the church is back-

slidden and revival means conviction of sin and searching of hearts among God's people. Revival

is nothing less than a new beginning of obedience to God, a breaking of heart and getting down inthe dust before Him with deep humility and forsaking of sin. A revival breaks the power of the world

and of sin over Christians. The charm of the world is broken and the power of sin is overcome.

Truths to which our hearts are unresponsive suddenly become living. Whereas mind and conscience

may assent to truth, when revival comes, obedience to the truth is the one thing that matters."

Too many "revivals" begin with the assumption that the present church membership is in good shape.

That is usually wide of the mark. Some hold that the regular activities of the church will take care

of the spiritual needs of the members. They should but one needs only to take a good look at the

average membership to be cured of that illusion. Others fear that setting a high standard for church

members will frighten away some prospects. It might. After the death of Ananias and Sapphira, the

superficial dared not join the church; multitudes believed and were added to the Lord.

The church needs time out to tune up. We are so busy building a bigger orchestra that we cannot stop

to tune our instruments. What good is a big orchestra if two-thirds of the members never show up

for practice or else are off key when they perform? We are too busy chopping wood to sharpen the

axe. Just as we are often too busy to have a physical check-up, so the church is often too occupied

to submit to spiritual examination. Yet we never needed one more. We never need to go to the

mourner's bench more than when we feel least like it. We are lengthening our cords without

strengthening our stakes. Our intensive program must match the extensive. We must improve the sort

while we increase the size.

We need to face the Christ of the Candlesticks, the Lord of the Lampstands, calling the church torepentance. Too many Christians have an incomplete and inadequate vision of dur Lord. You will

remember that Rip Van Winkle awoke from his long sleep to find that times had changed. When he

went to sleep, King George III was the ruler of the American colonies. When he woke up, George

Washington was President of the United States. Unaware of all that, Rip began to whoop it up for

the King and got himself into trouble. He was yelling for the wrong George!

Some today are trying to follow a Galilean Teacher but a lot has happened since Jesus walked on

earth in the days of His flesh. Calvary has taken place and the resurrection and Pentecost. We are not

dealing now with only a meek and lowly Jesus going about doing good, with nowhere to lay His

head, and upon whose breast John laid his head. That chapter is past. We are dealing now with a

crucified, risen, ascended, glorified and comin Lord with His countenance as the sun, His eyes likefire and His voice like the sound of many waters, and before whom John fell as dead.

In the Gospels we have Christ, the Example (and that is important for if we are to walk as He

walked, we must know how He walked). In the Acts we have the Christ of Evangelism, the complete

gospel message. In the Epistles, we have the Christ of Christian and church experience. But in the

Revelation we have the Christ of Revival and the Coming King who will return to destroy the


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powers of evil, put the devil out of business and reign forever. And while He still says, "Come unto

me and I will give you rest," and while He still says, "Go ye into all the world," His last word to us

is a call to repentance.

A lot of Sunday-morning Christians, who want to sit with folded hands and listen to a mild discourse

on the Teacher of Galilee, need to be aroused from their stupor by a vision of the flaming Christ of

the Candlesticks. Eight times in these messages to the churches He says, "He that hath an ear, let him

hear." Eight times in the Gospels He says, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'" Some of us have

ears... period. "Hearing we hear not." We sit at church looking but not listening. God grant us ears

to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches! And eyes to behold the Lord of the Lampstands

bidding us "Repent ... or else!"


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2. Ephesus: The Church Of Lovelessness

"... thou hast left thy first love." (Revelation 2:4)

EPHESUS IS THE only one of the seven churches of Revelation concerning which we have much

scriptural information and that is recorded largely in Acts, chapters eighteen through twenty. Paulvisited the city first with Priscilla and Aquila and left them there. Later the eloquent Apollos came

to Ephesus preaching the baptism of John. Aquila and Priscilla heard him and of course they

discovered that he had an incomplete and inadequate message. However, they did not stamp out of

church in a huff and label him a modernist. They probably invited him to go home with them to a

chicken dinner. (You can do a lot with a preacher after a chicken dinnerl) Anyway, they straightened

him out so that he began to preach the gospel.

Later Paul returned to Ephesus and preached in the synagogue for three months. But soon opposition

began. Paul wrote concerning Ephesus: "For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there

are many adversaries" (I Corinthians 16:9). Opportunity brings opposition and it took three forms

in Ephesus. First, there was a hardening of heart among the listeners. The same sun that melts icealso hardens clay and the gospel either humbles or hardens the human heart, so a preacher should

be prepared to expect both. Paul moved over to the school of Tyrannus where he taught for two

years. He carried on a threefold work. For a living he made tents. He "reasoned," that is, he was an

apologist as well as an apostle; his message was ". . . repentance toward God, and faith toward our

Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). And he taught from house to house, warning everyone night and

day with tears, so he was a pastor.

Soon the opposition took a new form. This time it was an old trick of the devil, imitation -- "If you

can't beat them, join them." Some Jews tried to cast out demons in the name of Jesus. But the demon

said, "Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are ye?" The devil is probably saying that to a lot of

modern exorcists who are trying to produce gospel results without gospel power. These imitators atEphesus took a beating at the hands of the evil spirit instead of defeating himand any man who

tackles the Adversary without the power of God will fare no better.

Out of all this there came a revival. All the elements of a true awakening are here (Acts 19:17-20).

Fear fell on them all. The name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. Many professed believers, who had

been mixed up with these black arts, confessed and made a clean sweep of everything. Judgment

began at the house of God. It would be about the same thing if some modern church members would

own up to dabbling in seances and dark magic. Many of the spiritualists also came clean and about

ten thousand dollars' worth of bad books were burned in public. A revival always produces a bonfire

and if we really had such a revival in our churches it would take a forty-acre field to accommodate

the tons of books, magazines and all other paraphernalia of the devil that would go up in smoke. Nowonder we read next, "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." God's word always

prospers when an awakening like that hits town. Indeed, during this two-year ministry of Paul, all

Proconsular Asia was evangelized. That included all the territory of the other six churches in

Revelation, so everything began with this mighty work in Ephesus.


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The opposition took a third form. Ephesus was devoted to the worship of Diana and there was a big

business of making silver shrines for this goddess. Paul preached the gospel and when the Ephesians

became Christians, they had no further use for silver shrines for Diana. That stirred up Demetrius,

the silversmith, who called all his fellow craftsmen together and threw the whole city into an uproar.

We read that "there arose no small stir about that way." Here was a spiritual awakening that stirred

up the devil because it hurt the devil's business. I am afraid of any religious movement that does notarouse the bitter opposition of entrenched evil. You will remember that our Lord once cast the

demons out of a man and the demons entered the hogs. The hogs committed suicide and the hog-

owners asked Jesus to leave the country. When the power of God casts out the devil, all hog-owners

whose business is affected will raise a protest. A real revival today would cause a commotion in the

traffic of evil. The liquor business, for instance, would suffer. Of course the liquor business is not

exactly hog business but it is swill business.

I would remind you, however, that Paul did not shake Ephesus by lecturing about Diana. He

preached Jesus Christ the Lord and when people came to know the Lord they had no further use for

Diana. That principle still holds, although manychurch members dont illustrate it well these days.

When Paul left Ephesus there was a growing missionary church there. Thirty-odd years later our

Lord calls it to repentance. It was still a remarkable church but it needed a revival. Someone has said

that the church today does not need efficiency so much as "Ephesiansy," meaning the truth contained

in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. But there is a Second Epistle to the Ephesians here in Revelation.

By now Ephesus needs a revival and our Lord tells them three things. He tells them what is right in

the church, what is wrong in the church, and what to do about it.

He begins with commendation because He always commends where and when He can. He says, "I

know thy works ...": Ephesus was a working church. "I know ... thy labor ...": it was toilsome work.

"... and thy patience...": they did not go by fits and starts, but were persistent. ". . . and how thou

canst not bear them which are evil ...": the church used discipline. Ephesus was a wicked city andthey did not let bad men corrupt the church from the outside or the inside. They knew that they were

as sheep among wolves (Matthew 10:16) but they were also on guard against wolves among the

sheep (Matthew 7:15). Paul had warned the elders of Ephesus: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves,

and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of

God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall

grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise,

speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20:28-30). He anticipated trouble

from without and within so the church was forewarned and forearmed.

"...and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars." The

church had dealt with evil doctrine and had refused to let false teachers poison the membership. The

church has a right to screen out the bugs while it lets in the light. We do that in our houses and we

should do it in the house of God.

Again our Lord said, "And [thou] hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored,


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and hast not fainted." They had been faithful to the Lord in a hard situation and had not grown weary

in well-doing. A lady complained to her maid, "You are so slow. Don't you ever do anything fast?"

"Yes'm," she replied, "I gits tired fast." We faint easily in the Lord's work and say, "Behold, what a

weariness is it!"

What a church was Ephesus with all this to its creditl Could anything possibly be wrong? Yes, andafter telling them what is right with them, our Lord tells them what is wrong: ". . . thou has left thy

first love." He had told His disciples, concerning the last days before He returns, "And because

iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold" (Matthew 24:12). Abounding lawlessness

and abating love! What could describe better this present age! Lawlessness does not merely exist,

it abounds. It is more extensive and more excessive. This generation loves everything but

righteousness and fears everything but God. Juvenile delinquency, broken homes, crime waves,

anarchy in art, music, literature, world-wide communism-if Paul could write long ago that "the

mystery of lawlessness doth already work," what would he say today! Only the restraining power of

the Holy Spirit in God's people keeps lawlessness from totally engulfing the world and, once the

church is removed, you might as well try to dam up Niagara Falls with toothpicks as to hold back

the floods of iniquity from completely submerging mankind.

In the midst of abounding lawlessness, love abates. In fact He really says, "The love of most, of the

majority, will grow cold." And Ephesus, for all her works and toil and orthodoxy and discipline and

perseverance, leaves her first love. He did not say, "Zeal shall wax cold." Ephesus had plenty of zeal.

A man may give his goods to feed the poor and his body to be burned and have no love. Our Lord

did not say, "Doctrine shall grow unorthodox." It has, but that was not the trouble at Ephesus. One

may be as straight as a gun barrel theologically and as empty as a gun barrel spiritually. In fact, it

may be that in their very opposition to evil men and false teachers these Ephesian saints had left their

first love. Our Lord commended them for the stand they had taken against the deeds of the

Nicolaitanes which He said He also hated. But so often it turns out that fundamental and orthodox

Christians become so severe in condemning false doctrine, gnashing their teeth at every sniff ofheresy, that they end up without love. One may do a right thing in a wrong way. The same Paul who

wrote, ". . . though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel . . . let him be accursed,"

also wrote the love chapter to the Corinthians. Unless we can get that combination we shall be

theological Hawk-shaws and doctrinal detectives, religious bloodhounds looking for heretics but

with hot heads and cold hearts.

Moreover, Ephesus proves that religious activity without love calls for repentance. I have wondered

what would be left nowadays if we eliminated from our church work all that is not the spontaneous

expression of our heart's love for Christ. Deacons and Sunday school teachers and choir singers

should ask themselves, "Why do I do what I do in church? Because I ought to do it, because

somebody has to do it, because I was chosen to do it?" If the love of Christ is not our compelling

motive, God will not accept our service.

And we preachers had better ask, "For all my labor and perseverance and orthodoxy and

condemnation of evil, is it the love of Christ that constrains me?" If not, then all eloquence and


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prophecy and knowledge and faith and benevolence and even martyrdom are dust in a windy street.

What is this first love? It is the Christian's early love for Christ. The believer is married to Christ

(Romans 7:4). Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "... I have espoused you to one husband, that I may

present you as a chaste virgin to Christ ..." -- that is Corinth or Ephesus or any other church at its

beginning. Then he added: "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his

subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" -- there is Ephesusor any church without its first love. Nowadays the marriage relationship does not mean as much as

it used to and neither does the Christian's relationship to his Lord, so the home and the church both

suffer. There are Christians and churches that boast of being mature when really they are spiritually

frostbitten. We have developed a prejudice against feeling and emotion until amens would be no

scarcer if they cost a hundred dollars apiece -- and the real truth is, we have left our first love. Our

theme-song ought to be:

Where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord?

This accounts for a lot of church troubles. When we love the Lord we love the brethren. When we

break up the fallow ground of our hearts we uncover roots of bitterness. Paul wrote, "Love thinketh

no evil," that is, love does not keep account, does not keep books, of every little slight and hurt andcriticism. Some Christians grow ulcers and bring on nervous breakdowns and live at high tension,

harboring resentments that fester and poison body, mind and spirit. They need to return to first love

and have a book-burning like the one they had at Ephesus in the early days.

But love for the brethren, love for the church, love for church work, all grow out of love for the Lord.

We talk much about church loyalty while we beg and coax and almost bribe church members to

come to church. People go where they want to go. Where their hearts are their heels will follow.

Deeper than church loyalty there must be Christ loyalty and that must grow out of love to Christ. The

Lord of the Lampstands, the Christ of the Candlesticks is asking, "Lovest thou me?" We are not

ready to feed the sheep until we love Him. Hudson Taylor said the primary qualification for a

missionary is not love for souls, as we so often hear, but love for Christ.

There is a reckless enthusiasm about first love. It is not cold and calculating. A young lover buys his

sweetheart a gift he cannot afford. When you were a young Christian you could not do too much for

the Lord. Like the poor widow at the treasury, you wanted to put in everything. Mary of Bethany did

not count the cost of that high-priced perfume. Only Judas grumbled about it. He would, for there

was no love in his heart. There are church Scrooges who are always afraid they will overdo it, who

never give a dollar without wanting to sing, "When we asunder part it gives us inward pain." They

complain that they cannot figure out their tithe. If it was coming their way, they'd figure it out!

I am glad my mother didn't say, "I can't afford to sit up all night with this sick child. It might

endanger my health!" I am glad my Lord did not say, "I cannot afford to go to the cross." True love

and first love are not stingy and when your heart is filled with it, nobody will have to beg you to

serve God.

So our Lord stands among the churches and what He wants most is our love. Without that, all our


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orthodoxy and church work can never satisfy Him. He stands now as He stood in that great church

at Ephesus and He tells us, as He told them, what to do. Remember, repent and repeat. Let us

remember how we loved Christ as young Christians when we were the happiest people in the world,

before we met too many Bible scholars and saw too many church members! Remember our

sweetheart love for the Lord before it degenerated into cold orthodoxy and mechanical church work.

Let us repent, turn, confess, go back and ask God to fill our hearts with the love of God shed abroadby the Holy Spirit. Let us repeat, do again the first works as we used to do when our orthodoxy was

the hot faith of a loving heart and our church work was a labor of love and not just labor.

We preachers need to remember that all these messages of our Lord to the Asian churches were

given first to the angel of the church, the messenger, the pastor. We need to recall our first love,

when we were converted, called to preach, when we were in our first pastorate, before we had seen

so much evil and had been disappointed in men we once respected and had the Spirit quenched in

us until our consecration threatened to become cynicism. Many preachers do not need a new church

or a new degree-we have more degrees now than we have temperature -- so much as a refresher

course in our Lord's three R's.

There is one more R: "Or else I will... remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

It is revival or removal. With every one of these five churches it is a matter of Repent or else -- and

the else is judgment. With Ephesus it meant removal and I have seen many a preacher, many a

Christian, many a church disapproved, on the shelf, no longer usable.

God help us to remember, repent and repeat, that there may be revival and not removal!


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3. Smyrna: The Persecuted Church. . . but thou art rich. . . ." (Revelation 2:9)

THE MESSAGE TO Smyrna is the shortest of all the letters to the seven churches. Its four verses

are all-comprehensive, however, for it begins, "These things saith the first and the last..." Our Lordis going to bid them, "Fear not," so He begins by saying in effect, "I was here before there was

anything to fear and I will be here after all the things you fear have passed away." He is Alpha and

Omega -- and all the alphabet between!

He says further that He is the One "which was dead and is alive." He is not the One who was alive

and is dead! That is true of Mohammed and Buddha and every other religious teacher; but our Lord

is not in that category for His tomb is empty.

To the saints at Smyrna the Christ of the Candlesticks says, "I know thy ... tribulation..." These

Christians had a rough time of it. This "tribulation" does not mean the common trials to which all

flesh is heir. Some dear souls think they are bearing their cross every time they have a headache. Thetribulation mentioned here is trouble they would not have had if they had not been Christians. It is

the consequence of their identification with Christ. What do we know about that today? Our word

"tribulation" carries the idea of a beating. We use the term often nowadays: "He took a beating."

Have you ever "taken a beating" because you are a Christian?

Then our Lord adds, "I know thy ... poverty..." The Smyrna Christians had been persecuted by the

Jews who had in turn incited the pagans against them. Their property had been confiscated. They had

"suffered the loss of all things" and had taken cheerfully the spoiling of their goods. And they were

reviled: "... I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are [of] the

synagogue of Satan." Our Lord said, "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,

and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake" (Matthew 5:11). You will noticethat there are two qualificaticas to this reviling: it must be false and for His sake. A lot of things

people say about us are true! And it must be because of our identification with our Lord.

Tribulation, poverty, reviling -- such was the lot of the saints in Smyrna. But there is a little

parenthesis that speaks volumes, "but thou art rich." Laodicea was a poor rich church. Smyrna was

a rich poor church. Better be a rich poor church than a poor rich church. They said that Laodicea was

rich when it was poor, that Sardis was alive when it was dead and that Smyrna was poor when it was

rich. There is a lot of difference between saying we are rich and being rich. The rich farmer was a

fool in the sight of God. No man is any richer than his soul. "As thy soul prospereth" is God's

standard. "The soul of prosperity is the prosperity of the soul."

Our Lord's word for "rich" in this passage is the source of our word "plutocrat." These Smyrna saints

were the Lord's plutocrats. They were rich in the eyes of Him who, though He was rich, for our sakes

became poor that we through His poverty might be rich. Smyrna had no money in the bank but plenty

of treasure in heaven. Now of course a church is not rich spiritually because it is poor materially.


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Some churches have no treasure either on earth or in heaven! But we must be poor in spirit, as

though we had nothing, willing to lose it all for Christ's sake if need be. Not every Christian is called

upon to sell out and follow Jesus, as was the rich young ruler, but he should be willing to do it, to

regard all that he is and has as the Lord's. He is not his own but is bought with a price and "to have

is to owe, not own."

It is not easy to preach on Smyrna nowadays. The average American congregation is in no mood to

appreciate such a church. In a day of quick prosperity and give-away shows, it is not easy to interest

a well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed Sunday morning crowd in the Smyrna brand of loyalty. We

are more like Laodicea, rich and increased with goods and needing nothing. It does not cost much

to be a Christian now. We sing about the reproach of the cross and hurry home to a big dinner and

TV. What have we given up for Christ? Besides, everything is measured in terms of success and

prosperity these days. We are not interested in what it costs to be a Christian but in what we get by

being one. "What shall we have therefore?" is the big idea, not "Such as I have give I thee."

I am often amused and amazed at the way we equate Christianity with success, popularity and

prosperity. We may not admit it but we use the same old gauge the world uses, except that weemploy religious language. It would appear that "gain is godliness" with us in spite of Paul's formula

that godliness plus contentment equals prosperity. In spite of everything, a Christian in a Cadillac

is regarded as more favored of God than a saint in a jeep. We could read again to great profit James'

exhortation about the snooty usher who led the millionaire to the best seat in the house while the

brother from across the railroad tracks was relegated to Standing Room Only.

In this day of "Health, Wealth and Happiness in Ten Easy Lessons or Money Refunded," Christianity

has become to many simply a better way to get rich or have a big time. We would make a bellboy

of the Lord and a Santa Claus of the Almighty. Such fads, we are told, do a lot of good but maybe

don't go far enough. I don't want to start out with anybody who is not going all the way! We are not

here just to be happy or a success. We are here to glorify God -- and that may involve sickness aswith Lazarus or even death as with Peter.

The saints at Smyrna had not been given a pep-talk on "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

They had no testimony on "How Faith Made Me Mayor of Smyrna." They were not promised

deliverance from tribulation, poverty and reviling. In fact, the worst was yet to come. Death lay

ahead, martyrdom, as with Polycarp, who died there sealing his testimony with his own life. Our

Lord's silence in this letter is eloquent. He does not explain why they must suffer so. His brief

message leaves so much unanswered. God can trust some saints with silence. Like children we are

so inclined to ask "Why?" But if in your case there are leaden skies, no explanation, no deliverance,

remember Smyrna. You will not be loaded with more than you can bear. Adversity is not always a

mark of God's displeasure. No church suffered more than Smyrna, yet He said, ". .but thou art rich."

To these suffering saints the Lord of the Lampstands has two words of admonition: "Fear none of

those things which thou shalt suffer. . . . Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of

life." Not fearful but faithful! Faithful not merely until death but unto death, to the dying point. Here


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is a note that is lost today. We are so busy making the saints comfortable and happy that we forget

how little the New Testament says about all that. It is easier to lecture on "How I Affirmed Faith

Three Times Before Breakfast and Became President of the Company Before Forty." It does not

always work out that way. More than one Christian has been passed up because of his convictions

while some back-slapping worldling was promoted. More than one true preacher has been shunted

to a hard-scrabble circuit while politicians who couldnt preach for sour apples has been elevated totop man in the synagogue. It pays to serve Jesus but not in the coin of this realm every time. It did

not pay John the Baptist, James, Stephen or Paul. It did not pay the heroes of the last verses of the

eleventh chapter of Hebrews. It did not pay Smyrna at any cashier's window on earth. The Laodicea

crowd fared well but they nauseated the Lord while the poor saints of Smyrna were His plutocrats.

This does not mean that adversity is necessarily the hallmark of godliness. But loyalty to Christ at

any cost is. In the case of Smyrna the cost was tribulation, poverty, reviling. They were precious in

the Lord's eyes, not merely because they were poor and persecuted but because they were faithful to

the point of poverty and persecution and even death itself.

All this sounds terribly out-of-date now. Christians are not supposed to run into trouble today. We

are diplomats, not soldiers, and we specialize in liaison, not loyalty. Nowadays we are expected to

get along with everything and everybody, including the devil himself. It is the era of the oblique, the

age of indirection, and we cultivate the "Art of Almost Saying Something." Head-on collisions are

to be averted at all costs. The saints in Smyrna were old-fashioned. They should have had a summit

conference with the Jews and a Panmunjom with the pagans. Better make a few concessions, appease

a little, and save one's hide! We are doing that today with communism at the cost of our moral

integrity. And we are doing it with the world, the flesh and the devil at the cost of our spiritual

integrity. But, "...whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it" and we may not save our hides.

The Smyrna Christians did not escape the first death but they were promised deliverance from thesecond death, the lake of fire. We are terribly afraid of the first death these days but if we feared the

second death as we fear the first we might have a revival. We fear those who can kill the body but

not Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Our greatest problem is not atomic but

Adamic and our greatest danger is not the first death but the second. The Smyrna believers could

have compromised with Jews and pagans and saved their property and lives but some things are

more precious than life itself. Such Christians need no revival. They have the very essence of revival,

loyalty to Christ at any cost.

The scarcest article today is plain faithfulness. "Good and faithful servants" are at a premium.

Multitudes receive the Word with joy but when persecution arises because of the Word they are

offended because they have no root in themselves. One little taste of what was regular fare at Smyrnaand they show up in their true colors. There is nothing Hollywood about old-fashioned, in-season-

and-out, feel-like-it-or-not dependability, but God has a lot to say about it. A Smyrna Christian, true

to Christ whatever happens, is a plutocrat in the eyes of the Lord.

We may not be called upon to die for Christ. There would be quite a thinning out of church members


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if we were. It is not the same thing as singing:

Faith of our fathers, holy faith,

We will be true to thee till death.

We may never be martyrs but we can die to self, to sin, to the world, to our plans and ambitions. That

is the significance of baptism; we died with Christ and rose to a new life. But do we consent to that?

Are we willing to be God's corn of wheat to be planted where He wills? Can we honestly say,

"Whatever the cost, by the grace of God, I will not fear but will be faithful to Christ, come what

may"?


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4. Pergamos: The Lazy Church

"...thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam..."(Revelation 2:14)

PERGAMOS WAS a wealthy, fashionable city of temples, a medical center dedicated toAesculapius, the god of healing. It boasted a great library, second only to Alexandria. It was devoted

to emperor worship and Caesar was its god. But there were some faithful Christians there and one

of them called Antipas had suffered martyrdom for his faith.

Pergamos was such a wicked city that our Lord called it the place "where Satan's seat is" and "where

Satan dwelleth." But that is a good place for a church. The gospel light needs to shine in a dark place.

"... They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick" (Matthew 9:12). So we read that

Pergamos was not only the place where Satan dwelt but our Lord said to the church there, "I know

where thou dwellest." The devil was in Pergamos but God had His pinch of salt in all that corruption.

He knows where we dwell. That has its sobering and searching side, for if we are living where weought not He knows about it and we had better get up and get out. On the other hand, God knows

our circumstances. There are many saints living in homes where it is not easy to be a Christian.

There are faithful believers who must work where they hear men and women blaspheme God all day

long. Some are invalids, often tempted to give up the good fight. You are saying, "Preacher, it is easy

for you to tell us all that but you do not understand how it is with me." But there is One who does

understand and He says, "I know where thou dwellest."

But this was spoken to a church and our Lord begins His message with a threefold commendation:

"I know thy works ... thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith. ..." Would that He

could say that of every church! "You are a working church; you are true to the name of Christ; you

are loyal to the faith." That is a lot to say but a church can have all that and still need a revival. I'veheard it more than once: "This church is all right; it is sound in the faith and hard at work." So was

Pergamos and yet our Lord said, "Repent ... or else."

What was wrong? "... thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam." There were Balaamites

among them and while the church as a whole did not believe nor practice the doctrine of Balaam,

she allowed in her fellowship those who did. Our Lord distinguishes between the church and these

Balaamites: "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the

sword of my mouth." But it is the church that He commands to repent. The trouble at Ephesus was

lovelessness; at Pergamos it was laxity. They were trying to be broad-minded and tolerant toward

the Balaamites when they needed to use discipline.

What is Balaamism? We go back to the Book of Numbers to read the story of Balaam (chapters 22-

24). Balaam is one of the strangest of Bible characters. Speaking of him, Spurgeon quotes

To good and evil equal bent,

And both a devil and a saint.


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Joseph Parker called him "the Simon Magus of his day." MacLaren wrote: "Balaam tried to make

the best of both worlds, so he ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds." We never get away

from Balaam in the Bible for at the very end of the New Testament we are still reading about the way

of Balaam, the error of Balaam and the doctrine of Balaam. He had unusual gifts and uttered some

of the most eloquent things in Scripture. But he wanted to be true to God and at the same time rake

off some dividends on the side. He had his price. Balak, King of Moab, hired Balaam to curse Israel.Balaam tried three times but wound up blessing Israel instead. Then he decided that if he could not

curse them he could corrupt them. So he advised Balak to set a trap by inviting the men of Israel to

the sensual feasts of Baal-Peor where they fell into sin with the daughters of Moab (Numbers 25:1-

3;81:16). As a result God slew twenty-four thousand Israelites and Balaam was slain (Numbers

31:8). He had said on Pisgah as he surveyed the tents of Israel, "Let me die the death of the righteous,

and let my last end be like his"; but God did not grant that request. Balaam was willing to die the

death of the righteous but not willing to live the life of the righteous.

Balaam probably encouraged the idea that since Israel was God's covenant people, they could do as

they pleased and nothing could harm them. In the church at Pergamos there were some who held that

one could be a Christian and live like the world. That was dangerous doctrine in a wicked city where

Satan dwelt and it led to fornication and eating things sacrificed to idols. The church at Jerusalem

had taken a stand on that long before and Paul had dealt with it at length in his letter to the

Corinthians. He took up these same twin evils and ended by saying, "... if meat make my brother to

offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend" (I Corinthians

8:13). There were Balaamites in the church at Pergamos who saw no harm in mixing with the sinners

and sharing their heathen practices. "When in Rome do as Rome does. After all, we are under the

blood and we will die the death of the righteous whether we live the life of the righteous or not." It

is what we now call Antinomianism, turning liberty into license.

We never had more Balaamites in our churches than now. We call them "worldly Christians." BillySunday used to say, "You might as well talk about a heavenly devil." They argue from half a verse

of Scripture, "All things are lawful for me ..." and never add the rest of that statement. "All things

are lawful unto me but all things are not expedient ..."; they do not help me on my way. "... all things

are lawful for me, but 1 will not be brought under the power of any"; some things will enslave me

for even a hobby can hobble me if uncontrolled. "All things are lawful for me but all things edify

not," they do not build me up. These Balaamites never subject their habits to this threefold test of

expediency, enslavement and edification. They will agree that "The Lord knoweth them that are his"

but they do not like what follows, "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from

iniquity" (II Timothy 2:19). Christian people do not live any old way. The Lord's sheep hear His

voice and follow Him. The man who makes sinning his business has neither seen nor known God

(I John 3:6). The Balaamites who ask "What's wrong with cards?" for instance, might as well ask,"What's wrong with meat offered to idols?" If they would take the time to read the eighth chapter of

First Corinthians and substitute "cards" for "meat," they might get their eyes opened for the principle

is the same not only concerning cards but any other practice of the world.

The other evil mentioned here is fornication and it too has not disappeared from the church. Too


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many church members are living in rioting, drunkenness, chambering and wantonness for us to pass

over all this in our preaching as though it did not exist. There are sensitive parishioners who resent

it when the preacher calls on Pergamos to expel the Balaamites but who can at filth and obscenity.

God help them to see the Lord of the Lampstands with His sharp, two-edged sword saying, "... I ...

will fight against them with the sword of my mouth."

Here is where the church comes in. You will notice that our Lord said, in effect, to the church at

Pergamos, "If you do not deal with these Balaamites, I will." Nothing so besets us today as false

tolerance. We have gotten the notion that it is noble and Christian to put up with Balaamism and

poison the life of the church. It is the sin of laxity, allowing a condition to exist that should be

corrected. We sin when we tolerate what God condemns and look some other way instead of dealing

with it. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil..." -- not tolerate it. We are to abhor that which is evil,

not put up with it. We are to abstain from every appearance of evil, not give it a chance to grow. We

are infested with worldliness and we should guard the church against whatever may infect it. "... a

little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." We must regard the rights of the church as well as those of

the individual. Sometimes we become sentimental about offending one person and so sorry for him

that we risk the health of a whole church. It is possible physically to lose one's life by refusing tohave one diseased part of the body removed. Something similar is possible in a church. And don't

forget that "one bad apple can spoil a barrel of good apples."

It is not good for the offending individual to harbor him in his sin. Paul sentenced the immoral man

in the Corinthian church to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit might be saved in the

day of the Lord Jesus. Paul's main objective was not to punish the man but to save him. He was not

out to get rid of him but to reclaim him -- and he did. Churches used to discipline their members both

for the welfare of the delinquent and the church. We endanger both now by doing nothing about it.

I was pastor for five years of the oldest Baptist church in the South, organized in 1683. I used to look

over old church records of a hundred years ago. They excluded members in those days but usuallythe next few pages of the record would reveal that the erring member repented and was reinstated.

We do the Balaamites harm, as well as ourselves, by a false tolerance. They imagine that they are

safe when they really await the judgment of our Lord with His two-edged sword. If we dealt with

them they might judge themselves so that they would not be judged. We boast of accepting the New

Testament as our rule of faith and practice. Nothing is plainer in the New Testament than what to

do about worldliness -- but we do nothing about it.

The spirit of Balaam gets into many a church and religious body in many ways. Balaam tried to stand

in with God and at the same time collect a reward from the ungodly. Many a church, like Balaam,

offers fine prayers on Pisgah on Sunday morning but is not above striking a deal with Balak on

Monday. No wonder somebody wrote:

They're praising God on Sunday;

They'll be all right on Monday,

It's just a little habit they've acquired.

Abram would not let the King of Sodom reward him lest he say, "I have made Abram rich." Today


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the church takes money from strange sources and lets the devil subsidize the work of God. Nor can

all the eloquence of Balaam cover it up.

The essence of Balaamism is worldliness, Christians and churches mixing in unholy fellowship with

this age. It is a very popular doctrine nowadays that one can be faithful to the Master and also flirt

with Moab. But the Scriptures ask, "What concord hath Christ with Belial?" There can be nosymphony between Christ and Belial -- and none between Christ and Balaam! Any church of the

Pergamos sort needs revival but it will never have revival until it repents of false tolerance and does

something -- about worldliness. That is just what most of them will not do for they wish to be

popular. When will we learn that a true Christian and church cannot be popular with this world?

You cannot be a Christian and a Balaamite. You cannot sing, "There is no other way but the way of

the cross," if you are unwilling also to sing, "Then I bid farewell to the way of the world." You

cannot take your stand "beneath the cross of Jesus" if you are not "content to let the world go by."

You cannot properly "survey the wondrous cross" and not sacrifice "the vain things that charm you

most" to His blood. You cannot sing, "My Jesus, I love Thee" and mean it until for Him all the

follies of sin you resign. You cannot sing from your heart "Whiter Than Snow" if you are unwillingfor the Lord to "break down every idol, cast out every foe."

The Lord of the Candlesticks stands among the churches now and whether we practice Balaamism

or tolerate it, He commands us, "Repent ... or else." "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit

saith unto the churches ..." (Revelation 2:7).


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5. Thyatira: The Church Of Liberty

. . . thou sufferest that woman Jezebel. . . (Revelation 2:20)

THYATIRA WAS A center of trade, especially in royal purple. Lydia, who was converted under

Paul's ministry in Philippi, was a woman of Thyatira and a seller of purple. Thyatira was noted forits trade guilds. The coppersmiths had a guild, the dyers had a guild, whatever trade one belonged

to had a guild. These guilds were connected with the heathen religions and pagan feasts which were

so immoral that no Christian could afford to compromise his testimony by mixing with them.

Our Lord begins His message to the church in Thyatira with commendation as He did with Ephesus.

And again we feel like saying, "What a church!" The Christ of the Candlesticks credits them with

love and ministry to others and faithfulness and patience. He adds something which He did not say

to Ephesus: "... and the last to be more than the first." They were making progress; it was a growing

and going and glowing church. What more could He ask? Yet they needed to repent. If we had

visited Thyatira, we would not have said they needed a revival. But our Lord knew what was wrong.

He always does. I preach in churches week after week. I do not know what is wrong with them. I do

not need to know. I do not want anyone to tell me what is wrong. Ive learned long since that if the

Word of God is preached in the Spirit, God will so apply it that people will think somebody told the

preacher what was wrong! Its the Word of God applied by the Spirit doing the work, not the

opinions of the preacher. Every conceivable church trouble and the remedy is covered in these letters

of our Lord in Revelation.

What was wrong at Thyatira? Our Lord does not generalize, He particularizes: "... thou sufferest that

woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit

fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols." Nathan said to David, "Thou art the man." Israel

was defeated at Ai because one man, Achan, had gone wrong, and there was no victory until he wasdealt with. Paul pointed out one offending brother in the church at Corinth. He could have said,

"There are so many good people in Corinth, we will skip this case." But of course he knew nothing

about such optimistic positive thinking in those days. Would you return to a dentist who told you,

"Yes, you do have one bad tooth but you have many good ones and I am going to pass up the ailing

molar and shine up the others"?

"That woman Jezebel" sounds frighteningly personal and specific nowadays. Who would dare to

"name the trouble" in Thyatira in this era of sweet tolerance?

Who was this Jezebel? Our Lord used an Old Testament name to describe the troublemaker in

Thyatira. The Old Testament Jezebel was, of course, the notorious wife of Ahab, king of Israel. She

was the daughter of the king of Tyre and Sidon, a Baal-worshiper. After she married Ahab she set

up the worship of Baal in Israel and later her daughter, Athaliah, married King Jehoram and

corrupted Judah in the same way. Jezebel was one of the cleverest and most dangerous women in

history. She persecuted the prophets of the Lord, and murdered one hundred of whom were hidden

in a cave by Obadiah. She threatened Elijah and scared him so badly that even that rugged champion

of righteousness fled for his life and under a juniper in the wilderness asked God that he might die.


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A good woman is the best thing on earth. Women were last at the cross and first at the open. tomb.

The church owes a debt to her faithful women which she can never estimate, to say nothing of the

debt we owe in our homes to godly wives and mothers. But an evil woman is the most dangerous

thing on earth. It is highly significant that so many false religions and modern delusions were begun

by prophetesses. Not only do false teachers "lead captive silly women," but silly women prophetesses

lead many astray.

Whoever this Jezebel of Thyatira was, our Lord says that she was a prophetess, she claimed

inspiration and some new revelation; she "taught and seduced" Christians to commit fornication and

eat things sacrified unto idols; and she dealt in "deep things of Satan," some highbrow philosophy

from the world of darkness, some "ism" of the devil. In Pergamos the trouble was Balaamism. In

Thyatira it was Baalism. There was something mysterious and high-sounding about it and it appealed

to some of the Thyatira Christians just as some present-day isms attract some church members. We

have a lot of people who will not believe the plain Word of God but who will fall for any ism with

doublejointed words that nobody can pronounce, much less understand. There is some truth in such

heresy, of course; there has to be enough to hold the lies together. We used to have an old clock that

wouldn't run and it was right two times every day. The Word of God is right any time of the day!

Jezebelism is very popular these days. Jezebel is often very charming, for even Satan is disguised

as an angel of light. She may sound very intellectual and cultured and refined and it may seem most

unchristian to oppose her. Sometimes she teaches a Sunday school class or sings in the choir. She

takes a very lofty view and ridicules what she calls literalism and legalism among old-fashioned

Christians. She advocates instead a liberalism that leads to libertinism. She would mix the altar of

Baal with the worship of Jehovah, the mystery of iniquity with the mystery of godliness. She thinks

a Christian can belong to all the clubs of this age and attend its pagan festivals. She believes, for

instance, that a "converted" night-club singer can keep on singing in night clubs if she will end each

program with "I'd Rather Have Jesus."

There is nothing new about Jezebelism. It has been with us from the beginning and is responsible

for all the mixture of paganism and Christianity in Romanism as well as in our Christmas and Easter

celebrations. It has so permeated our religious life that a lot of dear people are horrified if it is

pointed out, for it is often accepted as part of our religion. It hates prophets and when Elijah stands

on Carmel and calls for a showdown, Jezebel would like to murder him on the spot.

Any philosophy that makes it easier to sin is of the devil. Some church members boast that they have

grown out of their narrow views into a broader outlook. Some call it a "mellowness" of spirit. A lot

of things, however, grow mellow just before they spoil. It is very significant that the situation in

Thyatira was the very opposite of that in Ephesus. In Ephesus they were very orthodox and on their

guard against false doctrine, but they had left their first love. In Thyatira they had love -- there wasplenty of Agape among them --but they were so sweet and pleasant that they tolerated everything,

including Jezebel. It seems to work out that way to this day. Conservative, fundamental Ephesus

becomes belligerent instead of militant and loses her love contending for the faith. But Thyatira, for

all her love, develops a pleasant amiability and wants to get along with everything and everybody

including the devil himself. In such a church Jezebel has no trouble setting up an altar to Baal.


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Jezebelism led to spiritual adultery and we need to beware today of any teaching that makes God's

people unfaithful to Him. He is a jealous God. Throughout the Bible He uses the marriage

relationship to set forth the union of Himself and His people Israel in the Old Testament and that of

Christ and the church in the New. In either case He calls unfaithfulness adultery. In Jeremiah He

says, "Turn, O backsliding children, for I am married unto you..." The book of Hosea is built on this

theme. In the New Testament we read that the believer is married to Christ (Romans 7:4). Paul wroteto the Corinthians, "For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one

husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" (II Corinthians 11:2). And James puts

it bluntly: "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity

with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4).

When we marry, we take vows and assume responsibilities and make promises. When we confess

Christ as Savior and Lord, we do the same thing. There are church members aplenty who would not

think of being untrue to their marriage vows but who have no conscience about their vows to Christ

and the church. They would have all the privileges of the gospel with none of the responsibilities.

That is why they prefer preachers who offer much but demand little of prospective disciples.

We need to sing with fresh meaning "O Jesus, I Have Promised," and especially that verse:

O let me feel Thee near me,

The world is ever near;

I see the sights that dazzle,

The tempting sounds I hear:

My foes are ever near me,

Around me and within;

But, Jesus, draw Thou nearer,

And shield my soul from sin.

The trouble with the Christians in both Pergamos and Thyatira was that they put up with Balaamismand tolerated Baalism instead of standing with the Lord in direct opposition. They probably thought

they were exercising charity and forbearance but they were terribly mistaken. Today we are living

in a tragic hour when getting along with everything and everybody is the accepted policy in both the

nation and the church. Peaceful coexistence with communism, for instance, an impossible idea of

the communists themselves has drugged the free world. We have weakened our moral integrity by

stooping to recognize godless anarchy. We have conferred dignity on criminals and given demoniacs

the status of honorable men as though there were any honor among thieves. We are under an

hypnotic spell and morally paralyzed by the notion that compromise and appeasement can buy peace

and security. Our will to resist has been numbed. It is impossible to get along with evil or live at

peace with iniquity unless we pay their price. There can be no Panmunjom with demonism, no

Thirty-eighth Parallel with lawlessness.

In the religious world the same delusion prevails. Christians cannot peacefully coexist with the

world, the flesh and the devil, with Balaam and Jezebel, with worldliness and false doctrine. We

cannot tolerate what our Lord condemned. Somehow the idea has gotten around that it is unchristian

to take a stand against heresy. Some of us need to read the New Testament again. Dr. J. B. Phillips


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says that the New Testament writers condemned false teachers and that it may strike us at first as odd

and even unchristian. Paul wrote, ". . . If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have

received, let him be accursed"; and what he is really saying is, "Let him be damned." We are told to

reject a heretic after the first and second admonition (Titus 3:10). Even the loving John forbade

hospitality to false teachers lest we be partakers of their evil deeds (II John 10, 11).

One reason why Balaam and Jezebel are making such headway in churches today is that so many

have the notion that it is noble and Christian for the church to take under her wing all shades of

doctrine in an all-inclusive tolerance. It is not unchristian to oppose heresy. It is unchristian not to

oppose it. Our Lord hated the doctrines and the deeds of the Nicolaitanes and if we harbor and

protect them, we stand with them and not with Him. We are not to leave our first love contending

for sound doctrine as Ephesus did; but neither are we to leave sound doctrine under a mistaken

concept of love.

The early church knew nothing of modern "tolerance." They knew that Satan was often disguised

as an angel of light and they were not for playing ball with mock angels. According to the modern

policy of sweetness and light, our Lord should never have denounced the Pharisees. Paul would

never have differed with Peter at Antioch. Page after page of the New Testament would never have

been written, nor would Martin Luther have ever disturbed the status quo of Romanism.

The churches of Pergamos and Thyatira were Get-Alongers and they tried to adjust to the situation

instead of adjusting the situation. We follow in their train today. The voice of the prophet is silenced.

Elijah no longer stands on Mt. Carmel saying, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" We have

avoided a showdown by working out a mixture of both opinions. We have become thermometers

merely registering the prevailing temperature of the times instead of thermostats in touch with a

greater power by which we change the temperature of the times!

The Lord of the Lampstands threatened Jezebel and her crowd with severe judgment: "Behold, I will

cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repentof their deeds." If He takes that attitude toward such evils, how can we be tolerant of them?

To the true believers in Thyatira our Lord said, "But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as

many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will

put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have already hold fast till I come." To all

Christians today these are our orders. Do not be led astray by siren voices, new isms and

"revelations." Beware of people who think they have seen visions when they have only had

nightmares. Do not be hoodwinked and taken for a ride and sold down the river by new "trends" and

"approaches," popular de luxe brands of Christianity streamlined to suit a generation that cannot

endure sound doctrine. We have but one responsibility: "none other burden" but to hold fast the old

faith till Jesus comes.

This is Jezebel's day but our day is coming: "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto

the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the

vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give

him the morning star." The Morning Star is the Lord Himself. He is not only our Rewarder, He is


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our Reward. Do not let any stars down here beguile you, movie stars or any other. Fix your eyes upon

the Morning Star and seek to turn many to Him that you may shine as the stars forever and ever. It

is a day of stars and we hitch our wagons to many unworthy satellites. Some are wandering stars to

whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. We have a Star, a finished work and a finished

revelation. Let us hold them fast and hold them forth till Jesus comes!

Until He comes we are not left without chart or compass. We have a Book. Sometimes air pilots

must fly by instruments when they cannot see. God's people go by faith and not by sight. When

everything else fails and we cannot see our way, we can still mount up with wings as eagles and fly

by the instrument of the Word of God.

Many years ago, in an old-fashioned camp meeting, the minister closed the service late at night and

started on foot to where he was staying quite a distance away. It was before the day of flashlights and

he did not have a lantern. An old farmer saw his predicament and gave him a flaming pine torch. "It

will see you home," he assured the preacher. But the minister was dubious. "But what if it goes out?"

"It will see you home."

"But what if the wind blows it out?"

"It will see you home."

"But if the rain puts it out?"

The old farmer spoke with finality he knew the enduring qualities of a pine torch.

"IT WILL SEE YOU HOME." And it did.

Long ago my Christian parents placed in my boyish hands the Word of God. They assured me that

it would be a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." There were later years when I almost

doubted it. I feared that the storms of life might extinguish it. I wondered whether it would hold out.

I was tempted to try some of the fancier flashlights of modern make. But I have long since ceased

to fear.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come;

'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far. . . .

And grace and the Book will see me home.

And I am resolved to hold it fast till Jesus comes!


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6. Sardis: The Dead And Lifeless Church

". . . thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead." (Revelation 3:1)

OUR LORD has no commendation for Sardis as a church. He has praise for a faithful few but to the

church He says, "... thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." We are not to get the impressionthat Sardis was a defunct affair with the building a wreck, the members scattered, the pastor ready

to resign. It was a busy church with meetings every night, committees galore, wheels within wheels,

promotion and publicity, something going on all the time. It had a reputation of being a live, wide-

awake, going concern. That is, it had such a name in Sardis. It had such a name among the brethren

and in the neighboring churches and at headquarters. But it had no such name with the Lord. He said,

"... thou ... art dead."

The organism had become a mere organization. Sardis was dead but never would have admitted it.

After Samson lost his power we read that "he wist not that the Lord was departed from him." He

said, "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself." How much of our religious activity

today is Samson shaking himself, going through his calisthenics, and unaware that the Lord has left

him!

One night at prayer meeting a discouraged church member stated his request in the presence of the

visiting minister: "Pray for us here. The blower is still blowing but the fire is out!" The blower was

blowing at Sardis but the fire was out. It was known as a live church but it needed a revival. A lot

of "live churches" today, dead in the sight of God, need to repent.

The Christ of the Candlesticks states the trouble at Sardis thus: "I have not found thy works perfect

before God." That is to say, they were doing plenty of things but nothing was fulfilled, carried out

to its true meaning, nothing reached its real objective. They prayed but they did not get through toGod in their prayers. They worshiped but it rose no higher than the roof. They sang but it was just

singing, not the incense of heart praise to God. They gave but it was "vain oblations."

Isaiah lamented in his day, "... there is none ... that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee [God]..."

We are stirring up ourselves aplenty in church these days. We never had more "rousements." The big

churches do it by stepping up their activities. The little churches across the railroad tracks go into

sanctified epilepsy. But we are not stirring up ourselves to take hold of God. We are not getting

through to heaven with our works. Going to church is a good thing if we meet God there. Worship

is a good thing if it is in spirit and in truth. Tithing is a good thing but the Macedonians first gave

themselves to the Lord and it is possible to be Pharisees boasting, "I give tithes of all I possess,"

giving God a dime of our dollar and an hour of our day on Sunday but never giving Him ourselves.Our Lord was not preaching on tithing when He said to the Pharisees, "... these ought ye to have

done, and not to leave the other undone." He was majoring on "the weightier matters of the law,

judgment, mercy, and faith," and He made it clear that if we do not major on them, all our tithing is

worthless. Prayer is a good thing, but if we regard iniquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear us.

Faith is a good thing, but it has no virtue save as it connects us with God.


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Now Sardis engaged in all these things but fulfilled none of them. There was form but no force. It

was "faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." There was a form of godliness without the

power thereof. This does not necessarily mean formalism. A church may be very informal and yet

have a form of godliness. It is a form of godliness when it is merely a front, a facade, with everything

in the show window but nothing in stock.

The Lord of the Lampstands does not tell Sardis to give up these things. He says, "Be watchful, and

strengthen the things which remain..." In other words, make them mean something. Put breath into

these dry bones, meat on the skeleton. All that you are doing is good if you complete it, put life into

it, carry it out to its full objective. Sometimes churches try to achieve this purpose by eliminating the

choir or dispensing with collections or disposing of the deacons. That is not the way to do it. All

these things have their place but we must make them mean what God wants them to mean.

If we had visited Sardis they would have shown us how well fixed they were. They would have

boasted of their large membership, their finances in good shape, every organization functioning, a

mighty program of activity. But while the membership was growing the members were not growing.

There was quantity without quality. The salt had lost its savor. They had a name to be alive but weredead.

Recently I visited a famous spring where thousands of gallons of purest water gushed from a

mountainside. Nearby there was a public fountain but when I tried to get a drink I found the fountain

was out of order. It looked like a fountain, it had the name of a fountain, but there was no water.

With all that water around me I could not drink because the instrument provided to dispense it was

not functioning. And many a church, for all the grace of God that is available, is a dry fountain. It

has the name of a church, even the name of a live church, but it is dead.

The church at Sardis needed to repent, to confess its deadness, to put away sin, to be filled with the

Spirit, to put life and meaning into all these things they were doing. All of their work was but thestriving of the flesh. They were not channels of the power of God.

Some of us remember the old mills operated by a water wheel. A creek emptied onto the wheel and

the wheel set the mill in motion. Suppose the miller should come down some morning and find only

a trickle of water because the stream was dogged. How foolish he would be to try to turn the wheel

by his own strength! But he could use his energy to good advantage up the creek clearing out the

obstructed channel. So often in the church we toil in our feverish strength to make the wheels go

around when we should instead spend that time moving the hindrances and keeping our lives open

to the flow of God's Spirit.

Our Lord says further to the church at Sardis: "Remember therefore how thou hast received and

heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and

thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. " Here again it is a matter of "Repent ... or

else" -- and the "else" is, "I will come as a thief." How different from other promises of His return!

There is a note of warning because Sardis is not ready for His coming. Here is a good test for any


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church or Christian: How does the prospect of His coming make you feel? Do you dread it or do you

welcome it? Some say that all we can do is to be ready. But the early Christians were not only ready,

they were expectant. I do not find much of that today. Do we "love His appearing"? We believe it

doctrinally but does it thrill us, motivate us, so that we purify ourselves because He is pure? When

He says, "Behold, I come quickly," do your hearts respond, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus"?

Then the Lord of the Lampstands has a good word for the faithful few: "Thou hast a few names even

in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are

worthy." "A few even in Sardis!" Many churches are like an ailing lung with only a few cells doing

all the breathing. The real life of the church is in a few faithful people who keep it from being an

animated corpse.

God is in the Remnant business today. He always has been. He is not converting the world, He is

taking out a people for His name. And in almost every church there is a remnant, a Gideon's Band.

You will remember that Gideon's army was reduced from thirty-two thousand to three hundred, when

the careless and cowards had been eliminated. That sort of screening would leave about the same

percentage today! Malachi thundered against the evils of his day and most of his listeners answered,"Wherein have we done these things? You are scolding us; we haven't done anything wrong." But

there was a remnant: "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." Any Sunday

morning in church it is easy to distinguish the Whereinners from the Remnant.

God works through what one of our leaders used to call the Master's Minority. The hope of revival

lies with that few. But even they need to beware of the peril of becoming Pharasaic, a "holier-than-

thou," snooty, self-righteous clique, mistaking separation from sinners for separation from sin. The

best people need to humble themselves and pray and seek God's face and turn from their wicked

ways. The revival under Hezekiah began with the leaders in the top brackets.

Our Lord works with a few. Where two or three gather in His name He is present. If two shall agreeon earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them of the Father in heaven. One

shall chase a thousand and two shall put, not two thousand, but ten thousand, to flight. If any

dedicated nucleus in any church started out each winning the one next to him and that new convert

winning another, by simple arithmetic we know that the church building would not hold the increase

within a few weeks.

But this dedicated remnant in Sardis had a distinguishing characteristic: "Thou hast a few names

even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments. .." They had kept themselves unspotted from

the world. Having the promises they cleansed themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,

perfecting holiness in the fear of God. They named the name of Christ and they departed from

iniquity. Our righteousness is Christ Himself but we have responsibility to keep our garments clean.

Our own self-righteousness is as filthy rags, but while the believer is clothed in the righteousness of

Christ he is not to be so smug in his standing that he forgets to pay attention to his state.

In a hospital operating room everything is spotless. The surgeons, nurses, instruments must be clean


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because they deal with infection. We live in a world infected and infested by the microbes of sin, and

we who bear the vessels of the Lord must keep ourselves clean, and for the sake of others we must

sanctify ourselves. Suppose doctors and nurses said, "We are medical ministers by position; we do

not need to bother about our condition"? Too often Christians, all of whom are God's ministers, take

pride in their position but do little about their condition.

There are also some who, while they do not spot nor stain their garments in gross iniquity,

nevertheless do not walk in white. They walk in gray. Somebody has said that morally and spiritually

black and white have become a smudge of indefinite grey. Grey is the color of compromise - -it is

neither black nor white. It is a very popular color nowadays in the realm of religion. Grey is also

suitable for a funeral but it is poor garb for a Christian. Our garments should be neither spotted nor

gray. We should walk in white down here that we may walk with our Lord in white hereafter.

Some of us are trying to rally a Redeemer's Remnant, a Masters Minority, a Few in Sardis. It is not

popular these days. Strait is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life and few there be that find

it. Will you be one of that faithful few?


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7. Philadelphia: The Loyal Church"...thou bast kept the word of my patience. . . : ' .(Revelation 3:10)

THE CHURCH AT Philadelphia, like the church at Smyrna, was not bidden to repent. They had

much in common.

The Lord of the Lampstands begins His message by announcing Himself as "... he that is holy, he

that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and

no man openeth."

That takes us back to Isaiah 22 where God's prophet thundered against a certain official named

Shebna. He was a politician and a crook, feathering his own nest, and God threw him out with a

vengeance and in his place installed Eliakim, of whom He said, "And the key of the house of David

will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall

open." Eliakim thus prefigured our Lord, who is the one and only rightful heir to the throne of David.

"... the government shall be upon his shoulder ... Of the increase of his government and peace thereshall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with

judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever ..." (Isaiah 9:6, 7). It was the message of

the angel to Mary: "... the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall

reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:32, 33).

Over the dying Savior on the cross hung the inscription: "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews."

Indeed He was and is the King of the Jews. The key to the house of David is His. By law, by lineage

and by the eternal will of God, Jesus is the heir to the earthly, visible, actual throne of David. Until

He reigns, God's chosen people can have no true head. Christ alone has the keys to David's house

and when He shuts it, no man can open.

He is the Keeper of the Keys. He has the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the keys to God's presence,

the keys to eternal life, the keys to the storehouse of divine truth, the keys to heaven. He has the keys

to all our circumstances. Paul called himself "a prisoner of Jesus Christ." He has the keys of hell and

death, as He declared at the beginning of His messages to these churches (Revelation 1:18).

He has the keys to the doors of Christian service. He says to the saints in Philadelphia: "I know thy

works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it. ..." Paul spoke of open

doors in Ephesus and in Macedonia. Laodicea is the Church of the Closed Door but Philadelphia is

the Church of the Open Door. Between the resurrection and Pentecost we read that the disciples were

"behind closed doors for fear of the Jews." Much of the church is behind closed doors for fear today

-- and before closed doors too, in China and elsewhere. It is a day of closed doors but our Lord is the

Christ of the Open Door. When the church repents and obeys Him she will be the Church of the

Open Door.

Every one of these letters in Revelation is addressed first to a minister, the "angel" of the church, and


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the message to Philadelphia particularly has a message of encouragement to preachers. We ministers

sometimes forget that our Lord runs the preaching business. We are tempted to pull wires and do a

little "politicking" and we try to slap backs and "know the rig

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