Introduction

In this season of Easter we have been reflecting on how the light of Easter shines in our lives.  What does it mean for us to follow the resurrected living Christ?  On Easter we asked, “So What?  What Does it Mean that He’s Alive?”  Then we walked with Christ and the people on the way to Emmaus reflecting on their words: “We had hoped, but we have not seen him.”  Last Sunday we heard Jesus ask Peter and us, “Do You Love Me?”

My plan was to begin a series in June on the letters to the 7 churches from the first part of Revelations.  However, the Gem’s theme today is taken from the last of those letters, so we will begin today and start at the end.  It all begins in Revelation 1 where the Apostle John saw a vision of the resurrected, ascended Christ walking among the golden lamp stands that represented the 7 churches in Asia Minor.  More accurately they are cities or areas with many groups that together made up the church in that area.

What strikes us first is that in John’s vision there is no doubt that this is the  glorified Christ speaking.  He is the Lord addressing his churches.  John sees him (vs. 13)

“dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.  His head and air were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.”

In the pictorial power of apocalyptic literature John and his Lord want to get our undivided attention.  The words that come out of his mouth powerfully reinforce the picture and call us to our knees in worship: “Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One: I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever!  I hold the keys of death and Hades.”  Living with the resurrected Christ brings us to awe in worship.

The City

Jesus is identified to Laodicea with some interesting names.  He is the Amen.  Christ is the AMEN – (we say the word to mean, “so be it” or “it is true for us”) it is a Hebrew word that means foundation or the faithful one or the trustworthy one.  He is therefore the faithful and true witness – the revelation of God.  He is the very WORD OF GOD.  He is the ruler or foundation or first one at the creation of God.  This takes us back to John’s gospel: all things were made through him.  The images would have reminded the church at Laodicea of Paul’s words in Colossians about the eternal Christ, the 2^nd Person of the Trinity – which would have come to them given their location.

Of all the churches addressed in this first vision of Revelation, Laodicea was the richest, the most successful.  The city was a commercial center, noted for its black wool and carpets.  It also had a medical school, and it was well known for the eye salve called Phrygian ointment.  The Roman historian Tacitus writes that Laodicea was so rich that after an earthquake there they turned down aide from Rome.

An interesting thing about this city was that they had no local water supply. They had developed a stone aqueduct system to bring water from the hot springs of Hieropolis about six miles away (note map).  By the time the water reached the city is was tepid and had a bad taste.  As we look at the realities of the city and the detail in the letters it becomes very clear that though apocalyptic in style, these letter were written to specific churches and real people.

The Judgment of Christ

This is the last letter in the series of 7, and it is the most devastating statement of all the letters.  It seems that Laodicea is a church so self-satisfied that it is totally blind to its true condition.  It is so far from what it should be that Jesus stands outside, knocking for admittance to the lives of individuals who call themselves Christian.  Notice again, Jesus is outside.  That pictures should always challenge us.  We need him in here, inside.

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were cold or hot.  So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.”  The image of lukewarmness is so powerful and contemporary, because they knew from experience the reputation they had for nauseating water.  It is hard to imagine anything more devastating for a Christian Church than to hear the risen Christ say, “You make me sick You are just like your water.”  It is clear that as they were, they were unacceptable to God.  Jesus goes on to explain the reasons for their lukewarmness.

“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’  But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”  Financiers, physicians specialized in eye ailments, clothing manufacturers are among the most notable citizens of Laodicea; but poor, blind, and naked is the verdict on them and their church.  These were Christians who were so self-confident, so self-righteous, so impressed with themselves that they didn’t even see the deterioration in their spiritual life to the place where they were lukewarm, hollow shells doing church stuff without humility, without passion, without joy, without compassion, without Christ.

Standing outside the church Christ calls to them:  don’t you understand the true source of your riches, your clothing, and your sight?  “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”  (Notice all are images from the city and their prideful attitudes) They thought they were going to get security from their wealth.  They thought they are going to get beauty, importance, acceptance and grace from their black clothing.  They thought they are going to be healed by their physicians, but they remained insecure, broken, and spiritually blind while they told themselves they were wonderful.  One gets the impression here that what angered Christ was not so much their condition but that they were so satisfied with themselves.  It was their apathy.  Christian apathy disgusts Christ!

I am reminded of something I have struggled with and see almost every day in others.  Some of us are driven in our work or driven to be successful or driven to be the best at something so we get acknowledgement and attention from others so that we will feel worthwhile and valuable.   We end up feeling depressed and lonely because our work cannot give enough value to make us happy and content.  There is not enough popularity, not enough power, not enough success, not enough attention or love or pity, not enough narcissistic manipulation – not enough stuff external to us to give us a sense of value, contentment, happiness and joy.  It all falls short because the only real source for human value is the God who made us in his image and the Savior who redeemed us back to that image.  Here our spiritual life and physical life and emotional life all come together as one.  Once we claim that, accept it in faith, know it in Christ, then other gifts from him in our lives reinforce and strengthen us so that we are free – free to give, free to love, free to hold life loosely, free to feel compassion, free to be the ambassadors of Christ in other people’s lives.  Christ calls to us: Come, get from me the real gold that makes you truly rich, that buys clothing that surrounds you in love and acceptance, and salve that makes you see reality clearly.

And sometimes we just settle for what we get from the externals, just get really lukewarm about life, just self-satisfied in our lies to ourselves, self-centered and apathetic in our religion, and Jesus stands outside and calls and knocks and threatens to spit us out.  The only good thing that the church in Laodicea had going was their opinion about themselves, and that was false.

Jesus judged this church more harshly than all the others, but he doesn’t turn away, even though he expressed his disgust.  Affirming his love and call to them he said, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.”  Sometimes when we struggle – especially with our feelings and relationships and discontent and fears – we would do well to remind ourselves of this statement.  “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.  So be earnest and repent.  Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.”

The focus of the Gems study this year has been about how do we see lukewarmness? and what do we do about it?  One of the statements in their material says this: “Countering spiritual apathy, rejecting casual Christianity is desperately needed.  We live in a culture that has created its own version of faith – a faith that focuses not on God and what He wants, but on the individual – on me and my comfort and my wants.  It is imperative that we wake-up and pay attention to how our culture is influencing us.  We need to replace this lackluster faith with a vibrant passion and love for serving Christ.”  We need, according to the Gems theme, to feed the fire.

They studied symptoms of lukewarmness and spiritual disciplines to counter it.  The goal was to get the girls to sense Christ standing at the door of their hearts and calling to a deeper spiritual life, a more passionate love.  We hear Jesus telling us this morning to be aware of his love for us, to be earnest and repent – to evaluate our lives, our attitudes, our faith, and seeing if our self-confidence is really just apathy.  I think every one of us sense there are times in our lives when we need to earnestly review where we are at, and then repent by inviting him back in.  I would challenge you as I challenge myself today to overcome any resistance, denial or apathy and examine ourselves to see if Jesus is standing outside looking in and calling us.

As obviously frustrated as Jesus was with Laodicea and is with us sometimes, he calls to us with love and promises: “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”  Eating together, just like for us at an intimate dinner party – it is enjoying each other, it is sharing, it is communion with Christ, it is seeing him in the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine, it is intimate joy with our God.   And the promises keep coming.  “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.”  Here is the wonderful picture of victory.  We will be with him.  We have a seat reserved at the divine banquet and a seat reserved on the divine throne.

This letter from the risen Christ through John to the church at Laodicea ends with a formula statement.  You will hear it often in these passages: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  It means, pay attention!  This is important!

What do we do with all of this today?  We celebrate with the Gems, grateful for them and for their growth and study.  And their study challenges us to earnestly evaluate ourselves and repent of any lukewarmness we find in us and feed the fire.  In the promise to do that we bask in the love of Christ who calls us to dine with him and spend eternity with him.  We are challenged again with the reality of living with the resurrected Christ in this season of Easter.

We have been working our way through the seven letters to the 7 churches in the first vision of the book of Revelation.  Since we began with the last letter – the one to Laodicea, we are ending this morning with the letter to Philadelphia.  Last week we concluded by talking about the absolute necessity of continuing to be a Christ-centered church in a world that has many other agendas for us.  In the letter to Philadelphia we hear the living, resurrected, glorious Christ speaking to and attending to the needs of his church – in this case one that had little strength in itself.  Philadelphia was the smallest of the cities and the smallest church addressed in these letters.

THE CHRIST WHO SPEAKS AND EMPOWERS

In order to organize our thoughts around this message I would like to use the statements about who the Lord is, and relate that description to the situation in Philadelphia, to the opposition they were receiving, and to the realities of their faithfulness and Jesus’ promises.  This is a wonderful way to end our series – seeing the Christ who attended to the needs of Philadelphia and who attends to our needs.

1.         “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true.”  Who do we serve?  The Lord who is God: absolutely pure throughout, righteous, consistent, trustworthy, without deceit, and with perfect integrity.  Holy and true.  He is the one who knows us.  He knows our deeds.  He knew that the small church in Philadelphia hadlittle strength.   He sees reality clearly and without distortion.  This is the Jesus we are called to follow, to love, and to obey.

If you watch NFL football (and you may not this year), you may have seen a quarterback after a play has been run, standing with his finger in his ear hole of his helmet.  That may look a little strange, like many other things in football, until you understand that there’s a little speaker in his helmet.  An offensive coordinator is talking with him.  He sits high up in the press box where he can see the whole field and what everyone is doing.  He can see things people can’t see from the sidelines.  He can see everything the other team is doing.  All the quarterback has to do is listen to the voice in his helmet and follow it.  This picture of Jesus reminds me of that.  He is the one who sees it all.  He, as we shall see in a moment is the one who opens and closes doors.  He is truth and holiness.  He is the beginning and the end – Alpha and Omega.

That description stands in stark contrast to the people opposing this small church, people Jesus called “the synagogue of Satan.”   Philadelphia was like Smyrna in that they had to face opposition from the local Jewish population.  Of course “Satan” is the father of lies.  Unlike Christ, who is the truth, these people claim a lie; they claim falsely to be the holy and only people of God.  But they in fact were pseudo Jews.  Jesus promised that the people who were persecuting his church would be made to see the truth: that God loves his church. That truth will bring these people who claim God as their own to their knees.

2.         Who is this Christ who attends to his church?  He opens or shuts the doors of opportunity for this small but faithful church.  Let’s look closely at this intriguing passage about who our Lord is.  “These are the words of him who holds the key of David.  What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open… See I have placed before you an open door.”

These words come from Isaiah 22:22 where Isaiah prophecies for God that Eliakim, a faithful servant who exhausted himself for God’s people, will be given strength and authority.   He is the doorkeeper for God.  The verse says, “I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David, what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.”  He goes on to promise to make him a safe and secure person to hang on to.  This idea continues to grow throughout the rest of the book of Isaiah – the keys to the house of David – eventually come to mean offering entry into the kingdom, the city and the temple of God.  As it is picked up in the New Testament it is, of course, having the door opened for us to enter the kingdom of God.  The doorkeeper with the keys is the one who opens the door for us, or shuts us out.  The keys of the kingdom were taken from the priests and Jewish leaders and given by Jesus to his disciples.  (Mt. 16:19)  So Peter and his associates have the privilege of first admitting not only Jews, but also Samaritans and Gentiles, to permanent membership in the kingdom.

As we translate the whole history of the idea, as it developed in the Bible, the Lord we serve is the one who for Philadelphia and for us opens doors of opportunity for building his kingdom.  Jesus said to Philadelphia, “See, I have placed before you an open door.”  We sense that this church may be small and have very little influence and be seen as weak, but there was an opportunity that Jesus wass giving them.  He responded to the fact that they had little strength, but yet they had kept the faith, had not denied his name, have followed his word.

3.         This Christ who we serve will take this church and make it strong and secure.  That promise flows through this letter.  Christ is going to bring the synagogue of Satan to its knees before this church as they recognize that Christ loves his church.  In verse 12 he says that he promises those who overcome that they will be “a pillar in the temple of my God.  Never again will he leave it.”  The promise of security, stability, and permanence must have touched these people deeply.  Not only were they a small minority and subject to persecution from others, but Philadelphia was an insecure place to live.  It was the youngest of the cities.  People had to run from the city on the occasion of several earthquakes – and the one in 17AD totally destroyed it.

Philadelphia was a city with an insecure identity.   It had been named Philadelphia after its founder, then when Tiberius rebuilt it he renamed it Neocaesarea.  Then Nero changed the name back to Philadelphia.  Then Vespasian, the Caesar from 70 -79 named it Flavia.  It is kind of like, “Who are we this year?”  Jesus promised to those who are faithful and overcome, “I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name.”  They will have a name, an identity and a place that is secure.  This is forever.  They have an identity – a permanent name that identifies them with God.  They are safe.  They are known by their new name.

WEAKNESS IN HIS STRENGTH

The Christ we serve is holy and true.  He is the ones who holds the keys of David – opening the kingdom of God and the doors of opportunity for our ministry.   He is the one who makes us secure and gives us an identity.  He is the one who knows us completely and is not offended by our weakness.  (He doesn’t care if we are not a megachurch or if we have great power, he cares about our faithfulness.)  We sense the power of his words as they apply to us as well as Philadelphia 2000 years ago: “I know your deeds.  See I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.  I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and not denied my name.”  He is not offended by our smallness or weakness – even though he is the Lord of glory.  We are reminded here of the teaching of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.  “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Christ calls to you and me through this letter to Philadelphia.  He calls us to patient endurance.  He calls us to the courage to move through the open doors he offers open doors for wholeness and health, for ministry and building his kingdom.   He calls us to faithfulness – to keeping the main thing the main thing!.  I suspect there are more than a few of us here this morning who wonder how it all fits together, wonder how it will all end, who feel weak or confused or insecure.  We might be young parents trying to keep up with small children who sometimes run us ragged and we feel anything but in control.  Some of us struggle economically and we are feeling anything but secure.  We might be in relational pain, feeling anything but confidence and peace.  Some of us are facing serious health crises, and we feel anything but strong.  Some of us feel cultural pressures coming at us from every side – peer pressure, career, the media, political pressure, social pressure – so many things that want our attentions and to pull us away from being Christ-centered.  Some feel like they are in a hopeless and helpless place as we worry about family members who seem spiritually or emotionally lost.  We may be teenagers whose friends wonder why we just don’t give us all this religious stuff.  Some of us face constant temptations to give in to the destructive patterns we have known in our feelings and relationships, or there is constant pressure to give in to addictions that are destructive.  Some of us face moral temptations around our sexuality or fiscal honesty.  Some of us just want to escape or are tempted to be unfaithful to ourselves, to each other, to our mates, or to God.

This morning we need to hear the Christ who says: I know your deeds, your circumstances, your faithfulness.  And he knows when we have failed.  Jesus calls us back to patient endurance, to be faithful to him, to keep the main the main thing.  We are called to understand that in surrender to him when we are weak we are strong.  We need to hear Jesus say it to us very personally: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Do you, do I need to surrender to that grace this morning?

This morning is our time to embrace the Christ who addresses his church, to hear who he is for us:  he is the holy and true one.  He is the one who opens doors.  We prayed about Redwood and Jan shared with us this morning how he has opened doors in ways that are almost shocking to us.  He will open such doors in your life and in mine.  If you are one of us who is feeling weak this morning, look past the weakness now and find that open door.  It is there somewhere.  In the meantime he calls for patient faithfulness.  He is the Lord who makes us secure and gives us a new name – a new eternal identity as the sons and daughters of God who will spend eternity with him.  We have a new name.  We carry the name of God.  We are his people, co-heirs with Christ, ambassadors of the King,  WE HAVE A NEW NAME.   It is the name of God.  It is our eternal status.  Our Lord is the one who gives us security.  He makes us pillars in the temple of our God.

SUMMARY

In these letters we have seen the glorious, resurrected, Christ walk among his churches.  In these 7 letters we have heard him bless those who are faithful with promises specifically fitted to their situations and needs.  We take comfort from knowing that he knows us and knows our needs as clearly and completely as he knew theirs.  And we have been challenged – by the luke-warmness of Laodicea, by an Ephesus that had all the theology right but lost their love, by the faithfulness of a suffering people in Smyrna, by the compromises with immorality and idolatry in Pergamum, by the clever rationalizations and justifications and philosophical excuses for unfaithfulness in Thyatira, and by getting lost in culture and politics like Sardis.  We are challenged.

We end today by looking again at the Lord who walks among the candlesticks and knows [the Church] and every one of us completely.  We hear is call to faithfulness, to being Christ-centered, to every one of us to be Christ-followers with patient endurance.  I hope we can take in the comfort and the challenges of these letters.  I would encourage you to read back through these messages on our web site to sense again what it is like to stand in the presence of the Lord we serve.  The holy and true one says, THIS IS IMPORTANT, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.  Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.  Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.  Those who are victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out their names from the book of life, but will acknowledge their names before my Father and his angels.6 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Introduction:

We’ve been working our way through the letters to the seven churches in the first vision of Revelation – the risen, glorified Christ talking to very real churches each at a specific time and place.  We’ve reflected on Smyrna, for whom Christ had no criticism, only praise.  Then there was Pergamum and Thyatira – one under great pressure from the outside with the threat of persecution and the other being poisoned from within.  Now we approach Sardis – about 30 miles from Thyatira.  You see its location on the map.

Each church has been commended by Christ for their faithfulness and strengths.  What will he find to commend in Sardis?  Nothing.  This was the only church where there is no affirmation.  All regarded this as a flourishing, active, successful, vibrant church – all except Christ.  Of all the letters to the churches, this is the most difficult one, and the hardest one to preach on.  It forces us to examine some issues we would rather not look at.  We need to covenant to work hard at understanding this together because there is a lot that can easily be misunderstood and misinterpreted.

The City:

We have seen that in this vision each letter works off from the history and characteristics of each city.  Jesus threatens that he will come to Sardis like a thief, and they will not know at what time he will come.  This touched a part of the DNA of Sardis.  This city was thought to be impregnable by any army.  The citadel of Sardis was one of the best.  Twice in its history the people became so complacent and secure in the assurance that no one could possibly succeed in attacking them, that armies climbed their walls without anyone observing and conquered the city in the middle of the night.  This happened in 549 BC when Cyrus conquered them, and again in 218 BC when they were conquered by the Romans.  Then in 17 AD the city was destroyed by an earthquake and had been rebuilt into a highly prosperous city by Tiberius Caesar.  The fear of surprise attack remained a part of the city’s thought process.

Sardis’ prosperity was owed mostly to two things.  The first was that they were a trade center located at the intersection of 5 main highways – so traffic and trade were constant.  They were also known for dying high quality wool that was luxurious and very colorful.  In verse 4 Jesus said that a few people in Sardis had not soiled their clothes.  “They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.”  In Sardis the only people who dressed in white were those slaves who could not afford the colorfully dyed woolens of Sardis.  Here Jesus identifies the faithful, the worthy and the victors with purity and the poor.

Sardis was a wealthy city and beginning to decline in its importance by the middle of the 1^st century.  It had a large Jewish population that was so influential that Sardis was a place of religious freedom.  It appears that the various religions, including Christianity, lived side by side in peace and prosperity.

The Church:

So for the church in Sardis there was acceptance.  They were active in their community and apparently very alive.  There was no persecution, no external threats of any kind, and no danger of people being seduced by idolatry or the immorality of temple prostitutes.  It sounds like they had it made.  How is it possible that they had a great reputation, were active and alive, were involved with their city, and Jesus had nothing good to say about them.  He said: “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.  Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.”  What happened in the church in Sardis, and what do we have to learn from it? 

To answer that question, I believe there are two things we need to reflect on.  One is cultural and the second is theological.  This church was secure and complacent, like the city.  She was untroubled by persecution or heresy.   She became a part of her culture.  The values of the city became her values.  It was all pretty easy.  The big challenge in this rich city was to avoid hardship and fit in with the wealth all around.  Their place in the city became what consumed them.  They just totally fit in.  It was a great place to live and work and raise a family.  Why did they have to repent?  This is the central issue here. Why did they have to repent? Because the center of their faith, their lives, and their ministry was no longer Christ.  That is why he had nothing good to say about them. Their culture led them.  They listened to their culture about what was important and what they were supposed to believe.

What do we need to learn and be aware of here?  Is that a danger for us? Or for other churches in our culture?  We need to talk about this, but it is hard because I am sure that what I am about to say is going to be interpreted as political by some people.  It is not.  This is not about where a person’s party loyalties are.  All of this has become so explosive we can hardly have a conversation about it.  Which already says it may have become too important.  We do, however, need to do some clear thinking about our culture and our country.  The issue in a nutshell is that some churches have lost their way in this country because they believed the myth that this is Christian country and that we have a Christian culture.  And then like Sardis the culture was what they began to follow instead of Christ.  I am not saying it has happened here, but it is of great concern among Christian leaders across our country, and it has happened to too many churches.  Let’s make sure we’ve done some clear thinking about this.  Let’s back up and think about it.

It became very popular in the 19^th century to talk about America as a Christian nation.  There were denominations that even went so far as to identify America with the kingdom of God, others even called it the new Israel.  Now, it is true that some Christian values influenced the values of our country.  For that we are very grateful.  And the Bible is clear that we are to love and respect our country.  I hope we all do.  I know I am profoundly grateful for it.  However we need to be clear, this is not and was never intended to be a specifically Christian country.  We are built on the right to have religious freedom – for everyone, not just freedom for Christians.  This was not some experiment like Augustine’s City of God or Calvin’s Geneva.  We are Christians in a country that is built on the belief in religious freedom and has some Christian values, and many not so Christian values.  There have been individual Christian leaders, significant Christian influence, and there have been Christian communities: early on there were the Puritans, the Baptists and the Roman Catholics. There has always been talk of America being Christian, but since 9-11 and people’s fears and threats, it has constantly come to the fore.  The core value of our country, and we thank God for it, is liberty – freedom – the Bill of Rights.  The focus of loyalty is the nation.  The methodology is supposed to be democracy.  None of those things can or should be mixed up with the church of Jesus Christ – no matter how much we treasure them.  Our core value is carried in our purpose statement – to love God, and loving God means not only worship but caring for and serving each other, along with caring for and serving the world.  It is about being God’s people and servanthood.  The focus of loyalty is Jesus Christ.  He is Lord.  He is God.  He is sovereign.  He is King.  It is not a democracy or a republic.  What some have called American Civil Religion raises up some values we may cherish but it is not nor has it ever been Christ-centered.  Popular statements about the deeply Christian roots of our founding fathers are myth.  Most of them were deists – today we call them Unitarians.  In other words, they did not believe in the Trinity, nor in a God that was very involved with this world.  Thankfully they were influenced by some values we cherish, and we honor them for that.  Some of the confusion is the was people use the word conservative.  It is thrown around a lot, and the meanings have come confused.  A religious, Christian conservative is a person who believes the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.  That is Christian.  Political conservative means something else entirely.

OK, what is the point?  Sardis lost themselves in their culture – in its materialism, in its total loyalty to the city, in its pride in religious liberty – and they lost their focus on the Word of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.  The politics of the city became their religion, at least in the way they thought and acted.  When our politics become our religion we have created an idol.   Does this happen here?  We began together over a year and ½ ago saying this pulpit is Christ-centered, that we are a Christ-centered Church, that we are people who will do all we can to be Christ-followers,  and will stay that way. Still we ask, as we listen to our text, is there a danger of being led by our culture?  It has happened in many other churches.  Religious leaders across the country are beginning to raise the cry.  We need to hear the words of the living Christ speaking to Sardis.

The 2^nd issue is theological.  This letter raises a question in the disquieting element in the warning which has to do with the security of believers in their relationship to God.  This is a freedom text.  God’s gift of salvation is received and heard and is kept by the faith of repentance.  (3:3) It is clear that we are not kept in the book of life against our will.  What do we make of Jesus statement, “Those who are victorious will, like them, be dressed in white.  I will never blot out their names from the book of life, but will acknowledge their names before my Father and his angels.”  The implication is that those who are not faithful, who do not repent will have their names blotted out from the book of life.  Is this a statement that contradicts the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints?  First we need to see that this text in no way diminishes the authority and saving power of Jesus Christ.  Nor will the text allow someone the “cheap grace” of saying that it doesn’t matter what I do or believe, once a Christian always a Christian.  We need to hold the biblical tension: the all sufficiency of Christ’s forgiveness and the vital importance of repentance.  Repentance is our present reality.  Our salvation is a daily, living, dynamic relationship.  We never move beyond the need for forgiveness.  We live every day in that tension.  Only in retrospect or looking at a it from a little more distance can we articulate the perseverance of the saints with love, joy and gratitude.

It is clear here that the glorified Christ does not belong to the church as its possession but as its possessor.  In Matthew 10:32 Jesus said, “Whoever publically acknowledges me I will also acknowledge before my Father I heaven.  But whoever publicly disowns me I will disown before my Father in heaven.”  Here Jesus promises that those who repent and are faithful to him he will acknowledge their names before his Father and his angels.

We end with his statement that says – TAKE NOTE OF THIS.  THIS IS IMPORTANT.  “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  That was his call to Sardis.  It is his call to [the Church].  We affirm again today: This is a Christ-centered church with a Christ-centered pulpit, a Christ-centered ministry and we strive to be Christ-followers.  It is finally and ultimately about him, and his acknowledging our names to his Father.

As we mentioned last week, Thyatira is the 2nd of 3 churches that are being greatly tempted to compromise their faithfulness to Christ.  This letter is the longest of the “Letters to the Churches”,  and ironically, it is addressed to the smallest and least important city.  We are reminded that God, through John, is addressing the churches with strong language of encouragement and warning as they are facing opposition.  The word-pictures of Revelation make these addresses even more powerful.

The symbols of the introduction (vs. 18) provide a backdrop that we need to keep in mind as we study this passage.  There is great emphasis here.  This is not simply a message from the Apostle John, “These are the words of the Son of God…”

These are to be taken very seriously.  This is the only place these words are used in the book, it emphasizes the power, the majesty, and the authority of the person of Christ.  The Son of God “Whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.”  These images speak of the fact that he sees everything and that he is swift in response to what is going on in the church — with encouragement or the destruction of evil.  The image also point out that Christ is much greater than the sun-god, Apollo, whose temple at Thyatira was famous.

Christ first focuses on the positive.  This church has some wonderful characteristics.  “I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.”   These are very complementary things to say about a church.  This was a group of people who loved the Lord and had deep faith.  They demonstrated their love in action, service, and were patient in this love.  Even more surprising, because it so often happens the other way around in our experience, they were growing in these things so that they were more alive now than there were when young and new to the faith.  Isn’t it true that we would love to have these things said about us?  These are the characteristics we strive for as a church.

(vs. 20-21) Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.  I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.”

Who is Jezebel? We suspect that John is referring to a specific person who had a following in this church.  We noted that the church in Pergamum was being pressured from the outside – all the social/political pressure.  Here, where the church was noted for its growth and vigor the attack on this church was poison from within.  Remember, these were not churches as we think of them; that is, with a big building on 13th Ave. and one organization.  These cities addressed were centers, cities with many small groups that often met in homes.  They were usually supervised by one or more elders or pastors for the area.  She may well have been a leader of one or more of these smaller groups.  John’s reference is clearly to JEZEBEL, the wife of Ahab king of Israel, who brought the idols and prophets of Baal to Israel with her when she married Ahab.  In the Old Testament a reference to Ahab almost always has the added phrase, “the king who made Israel to sin.”  So it appears that there was someone, a powerful woman in this church, who was leading the church astray.

In order to better understand what was happening, it will help us to see Thyatira and what was happening there.  Thyatira was a rather small town, compared to the other cities addressed.  It sat as a protection, down the road from Pergamum.  It’s significance in history was mostly as a strategic military outpost and a commercial center.

Not being a cultural or religious center the church at Thyatira did not suffer from persecution from either local idol worship or from emperor worship.  It seems the problem was not persecution of the type we have seen in other churches.  Rather, Thyatira, as a commercial center, had very strong trade-guilds — more than any other city in Asia Minor.  Because of them, we would call this a very middle-class city.  These trade guilds were rather like labor unions with great political and social power.

For example, inscriptions have been found regarding wool workers, linen workers, makers of outer garments, dyers, leather workers, tanners, potters, bakers, slave dealers, and bronze smiths.

In order to do business in Thyatira, one needed to be a member of one of these guilds.  In order for a young person to acquire a trade he had to be a member of a guild.  The problem was that being a member meant being a part of a social grouping.  That meant trade guild meetings that began and ended with a sacrifice to idols, the eating of food sacrificed to idols, and probably drunken feasts that included a lot of sexual immorality.  There is a reality here that I suspect at some level we are all aware of.  The most subtle challenge to faith does not usually originate in public amphitheaters but in the daily places where we earn the money we need to live.  We confront pragmatic values.  What works for us?

Jezebel, the prophetess of Thyatira, evidently encouraged Christians to be a part of the trade guilds, rather than being poor and socially ostracized in the community.  She taught that it was OK to participate in these social activities.  The immorality mentioned certainly refers to being unfaithful to God, just as the Old Testament often speaks of Israel as being an unfaithful partner to God.

So we see a situation in which one powerful leader is leading the church astray.  Remember the wonderful things said about this church in the beginning, however they are being pulled.  Of course, her teaching created at least two groups in the church, which because of the situation was a division between the rich and the poor.

(Vs. 22-23) “So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of their ways.  I will strike her children (those who follow her) dead.  Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

This is one of those moments in which we see the intensity of the love of the Lord for his faithful people, and his anger at those who would lead them away from him.  In these words we can see the fire in those eyes.  His threats were very clear, and he intended to use them as an example to all the other churches.

The words of this last sentence are Hebrew idiom that is very graphic.  It says that this is the Lord who searches the kidneys and hearts of people.  In Hebrew psychology the kidneys were the seat of the emotions and the heart was the seat of the intellect.  Christ will judge the emotional and intellectual realities and respond in exact judgment to those who are outside of his grace.

That takes us to a second observation about these words.  We sense that Christ judges people with two different standards.  We all know that those who were faithful in Thyatira had sins and weaknesses in their lives, but they stand in the grace of Christ.  By leading his people away from him, those followers of Jezebel put themselves outside of that grace, so that now they were judged according to their specific works.  Be sure you see the difference.  This is a distinction that is very important for us to make.  When we talk about being faithful and obedient to the Lord there always seems to be someone who points out that they live under grace, not law or expectations.  That is what Bonheoffer would call cheap grace.  Yes, all of us who are giving our best to live under to live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ have sins and failures and lapses into self-centered behaviors.  As we become more aware of that we go to the Lord in confession, seeking the grace we live under.  That is very different from deciding we can walk with impunity in self-centered disobedience to him, all the while justifying it as if Jesus doesn’t care.  Notice, everyone here was calling themselves Christian.  Yet, they put themselves outside of Christ’s realm of grace and become enemies of the kingdom.  Then judgment is not about the cross, but Christ will just each work.  Then the consequences are ultimately suffering and death.

Verse 24 is again an affirmation of those who are faithful in Thyatira, people who had not allowed the promises of riches and security at the compromise of their faithfulness to Christ to entice them.  For them there is no judgment.

 (Vs. 24-25) “Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): Only hold on to what you have until I come.”

Christ has no other instruction for them other than to continue. To remain faithful.  The reference to the “Satan’s so called deep secrets”  is to some rationalization or justification for being a part of the trade guilds while claiming Christ at the same time.  I suspect we can immediately sense the power of any rationalization when the decision involves our financial welfare and the security and prosperity of our children.  It is not hard to be sympathetic with their dilemma.  Based on some other sources, this deep secret probably was an argument that went like this: the greater one’s sins are, the greater will be the experience of grace and forgiveness.  We do not miss the sarcasm about this being the “philosophical thinking of Satan” – here is the personification of evil.

In each letter, the promises to the faithful at the end fit their situation.  The faithful in Thyatira were poor and socially powerless. Here is the promise of the Christ who walks among the candlesticks: “To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations — “ They will rule like judges with absolute authority.  “Just as I have received authority from my Father.”

“I will also give him the morning star.”  This is most likely a reference to Christ himself.  Jesus says in Revelation 22:16, “I am the bright and morning star.”  Christianity is first of all a relationship with the one who gave us himself so that we can have life.  He gave himself to become incarnate at Christmas.  He poured himself out, says Paul in Philippians 2, so that he became a servant and was faithful to death for us, even death on the cross.  The morning star points to the resurrected Christ who is life eternal.

This letter gives us a description of a faithful church that is truly beautiful.  Here is a church whose deeds of love and faith, service and perseverance continue to grow.  We also hear the warning about rationalizing unfaithfulness, justifying having priorities like success, money, influence or social standing that are more important than our loyalty to Christ.  He is clear.  That is idolatry.  Let’s make this personal.  Are there rationalizations that justify Christians turning away from Christ now?  Are there voices that call us away from being faithful in love, faith, service and patient endurance?  Do we want to be a member of the club more than you want to belong to Christ?  Are there voices that  speak of the church just being about God’s blessings of health and wealth – not hard-won faithfulness?

May the Christ who walks among the lampstands that are the churches say to us: “I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.”

Last week we talked through Jesus’ reaction to the suffering in Smyrna, and we reflected on the suffering among us.  It was surprising when we tried to name most of the people in our church family who needed our intercessory prayers last Sunday evening.  The list was very long.  This morning we approach the letter to Pergamum.  Again, we understand this morning that we are dealing with apocalyptic language that was used by John to communicate with churches in a dangerous time of persecution.  The goal was to give encouragement, comfort, and correction to the churches of Asia Minor, using images and word pictures that would not be understood by their persecutors if this material fell into the wrong hands.

We are in the first vision of this book – a vision of the ascended, glorified Christ addressing the seven churches of Asia Minor and us.  Jesus says to us today: “Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!  I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

This letter to Pergamum is the first in a sequence of three letters.  The sequence is one that moves from people who are faithful but living close to the edge of temptation, to Thyatira being clearly seduced to Sardis that is all but gone in its failure to be faithful to the Lord.  Pergamum was a church flirting with disaster.  Listen to the words of Jesus.

“To the angel of the church of Pergamum write: ‘These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.’” (vs. 12)  There are many images in the Bible of God or Christ bearing a two-edged sword.  It is also used of the Bible itself – or the Word of God.  Here the image refers to God coming with encouragement or protection or judgment – depending on how they respond to his correction.  We noted last week that Christ came to Smyrna only with encouragement and praise.  Here we see both praise and warning.

(Vs. 13) “I know where you live – where Satan has his throne.”  Literally it says, “I full understand where you are dwelling.  I completely understand your situation.” “Yet you remain true to my name.  You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city – where Satan lives.  Christ recognized that they lived in an extremely difficult situation.  Life has been difficult for these people.  To get a sense of what Christ is talking about we need to dig a little bit into the kind of city Pergamum was.  (map)

1. John Stott says that if Ephesus was the New York of Asia, Pergamum was its Washington DC.  The Roman historian, Pliny, called Pergamum the most famous city in Asia.  It was a city that was known as an intellectual center.  They had a library of over 200,000 books at a time when books were copied by hand – one letter at a time.
2. Along with being an intellectual center, it was known as a religious center.  When Christ referred to the “throne of Satan” we suspect that refers to the fact that this was a place where the forces of false religions were gathered.  For example, it was a center for the worship of Asklepios – the Greek god of healing.  The temple had what we would call medical wards, a medical school, and the priests of this god.  People came from all over the Roman world to be healed.  Asklepios was called THE SAVIOR.  The emblem some of you have already guessed was the serpent – where the medical seal came from.  The sick stayed in the dark temple over night to be touched by one of the tame snakes of the temple.  The touch of the snake was the same as the touch of the god, thus bringing healing.  Given my feeling about snakes, I am deeply hopeful that Memorial hospital has moved significantly beyond that center of medical science.
3. Behind Pergamum was a large hill.  Dotted on this hill were temples to the Greek deities: especially Zeus and Athena.  But, the primary reason it was called the “seat of Satan” was that Pergamum was a huge center for Caesar worship.  It was a dangerous place for Christians to live.  It was the battle place between Caesar and Christ.  The constant question was: WHO IS LORD?  The battle raged between Lord Caesar and Lord Christ.  In this battle Antipas was put to death for refusing to say, “Lord Caesar.”  Most interpreters think that Antipas was the pastor or the bishop of Pergamum.  Tradition has it that he was put inside a hollow bronze bull and roasted to death.  He was a martyr like Polycarp who we talked about last week.  These men united the Christian community with their faithful commitment and courage.

Jesus Christ said, “I know where you live.”  And he praised them for being faithful, even when their pastor was killed for being faithful to Christ.  He commended them for being true to his name – LORD CHRIST, and not renouncing their faith.  By the very nature of these letters I believe Christ is offering this commendation to every church, every congregation who reads this letter and has not given in to the pressures of their culture but have remained Christ-centered in their worship and loyalty.  It is the affirmation to every Christian who has kept Christ first, knowing what is of most and of lesser importance.  Here we live in the smile of his approval – “well done, good and faithful servant and friend.”

Just as we soak in the affirmation, we also need to take in the warnings in this letter.  Are these applicable to us? Christ was very concerned about Pergamum because, even though the majority have remained faithful, they were living closer and closer to the edge, listening more and more to people who were constantly tempting them in a culture seething with political/ religious pressure and sexual immorality.  Jesus said, “You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam.”  Typically for this apocalyptic letter, John picks up Old Testament images to communicate what is going on.  The reference is to Numbers 23, 24, and 25:1-9.  Balaam tried to get Balak to curse the children of Israel for prestige and riches.  The people began to eat food offered to idols and the men committed all sorts of sexual immorality with the Moabite women.  In a nutshell, the teachings of Balaam brought dishonor on Israel and unfaithfulness to their God.  There was an element in the church at Pergamum which was bringing dishonor on the name of Christ by teaching compromise with political/religious pressure in order to escape persecution.  Along with that there was huge social pressure to go to feasts neighbors had.

Normally when a person sacrificed some animal in a heathen temple, only a very small, token part of the animal was burned – sometimes no more than a few hairs.  Then the priest got a portion and the rest was returned to the worshiper for a feast with his friends.  It was very offensive not to come to one of these feasts if a person was invited.  Some were teaching that they should go ahead and do this to keep the peace and avoid persecution.  The feasts also usually involved the temple prostitutes at the party.

The Roman, Demonsthenes, described the morality of that culture as well as the status of women, “We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure; we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation; we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately, and we have a faithful guardian for our household affairs.”  In other words, they had slaves to run things so they did not have to work.  They could play full-time. The danger in the church was a group of people known as Nicolaitans.  These people were Gnostics who taught that the physical was the source of evil, so it did not much matter what you did physically.  It was the spiritual that you needed to be concerned about because that is all God is concerned about.  Therefore, it was OK to go to those feasts, to give in to the pressures to fake Caesar worship, and to participate in sexually immoral behavior because that was just physical stuff that really didn’t matter – as long as you were spiritually OK.  It was a teaching to justify compromising behavior of all types.  It is kind of like doing what you want all week, just so you show up in church on Sunday – that is all that really counts.

These teachings and practices by some were beginning to sap the spiritual strength of the church as more and more walked closer to the line, and they were a scandal to the name of Christ.  While the body of the church remained faithful to the name of Christ, it tolerated those who shamed it.  The church was flirting with disaster.  The pressure was moral and religious / political – pressure to compromise, to accommodate.  The temptation was to move 2ndary things into primary position.  Jesus said, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  We would be refusing to listen if we didn’t ask is we too are pressured to walk close to the line, if we too flirt with disaster.

Where and how do we feel the pressure to compromise and accommodate and to put our loyalty to the Lord in 2^nd place?  There is pressure to compromise our moral values.  We hear almost daily about people who are thought to be models in our culture give who in to pressure to be immoral in their relationships, unfaithful in their marriages, and betray their commitments.  How many people push the limits without boundaries so they will feel better about themselves, flirting with sin and disaster – anything to feel desireable?  The temptations around pornography, probably especially for the men, are everywhere and easily accessed.  I honestly have been surprised how often this comes up in my ministry.  We let Hollywood influence us from how seductively we dress to a superficial sexual valuing of people, to relationships that are sexual without intimacy.  It is living life on the red carpet.  Many of us here this morning have access to a variety of drugs to use for our recreation from alcohol to pot to cocaine, etc.  We complain about our spouses and fail to do the work of creating the intimate marriages that God intended.  How many people are more passionate about their money and resources that about their faith? How close to the line are we walking? Are we, are you flirting with disaster?

In Pergamum the pressure of participation in other religions was social and political.  Failure to participate brought the threat of reprisal, rejection, slander, economic suffering and imprisonment.   For us it is less dramatic, but still powerful.  Maybe the most dangerous social/political pressure on us is to believe in American Civil Religion that calls itself Christian, is appealing in its conservatism and is moralistic about a couple issues, yet without being Christ-centered.  It is the appeal to put the important but secondary loyalty of patriotism with its hopes and dreams into first place, putting our Christ-follower values in second place.  Again the question, are we flirting with disaster?  What are we doing with the pressure?  Are we being thoughtful and loyal to the Lord?

Verse 16 says, “Repent therefore!” Literally, repent immediately.  “Otherwise I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.”  Christ threatens to come with that two-edged sword of judgment.

Finally, we come to the promises.  Pay attention says Christ, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

To him who overcomes – I will give some of the hidden manna.  The image is not perfectly clear.  I believe John picks up and stirs up several images to create a new one.  There is the manna Israel received from God in the wilderness; there is the bread of the sacrament and the feeding of the Word of God, and the opposite image of the pagan feast.  There were those in Pergamum who had been malnourished on the falsehoods of hatred, fear, selfishness, sexual narcissism, self-indulgence, etc.  They needed to repent, to turn around and be fed with the food, the manna, the bread of the health-giving gospel – the Word of God.

To him who overcomes – I will also give a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.  One of the key areas where white and black stones were used was for voting in a court of justice.  Receiving a white stone meant acquittal and a black one meant being judged guilty.   Also, a white stone with a name on it was given to a freed slave, it meant freedom and citizenship.  The image is clearly one of being freed from guilt, from the power of evil, and being a citizen in God’s kingdom – a person with a name of honor, given by God, designating him/her for eternal life.

The Spirit is speaking to the church.  We see the dangerous flirtation that was going on in the church at Pergamum.  We hear the warnings and the promises.  We cannot avoid, I think, some introspection.   Are we embarrassing the name of Christ with our attitudes and behaviors?  Are we in danger of our rationalizations, ready to embrace a Christ-less religion?  Are we willing to be judged by the two-edged sword of the Word of God.  The questions are unavoidable.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Three weeks ago we talked together about the letter to the church at Ephesus.  We saw a church that was faithful with all the theology, was orthodox, stood up for what was right, but lost its love for Christ and the resulting compassion for people.  We saw how relevant these letters are for us.  There is so much to learn from them.  We also noted how Christ’s threat for removing the candle of this central, most powerful church took place as the center moved to Rome and Constantinople, and eventually Ephesus disappeared completely.  That strikes me as amazing.  The Apostle Paul established Ephesus and stayed there three years later.  The Apostle John was there for many years.  Christian tradition is that he took Jesus’ mother Mary to live out the end of her life there.  How could a church with those influences fail?

John began his apocalyptic letter to the churches this way, (1:3) “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.”  These words were read in the 7 churches of Asia Minor at the end of the first century, and have been read in churches ever since.  Each church is called to “take to heart what is written in it.  Let’s hear Christ’s words to the church at Smyrna and to us:

Rev 2:8-11

“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:

These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. 9 I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.

11 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Those who are victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death.

Background & context

We noted that Ephesus was the 3^rd or 4^th largest city in the whole Roman Empire.  Smyrna was not far behind in size, wealth and significance.  Unlike Ephesus, Smyrna still exists today.  The modern city is called Izmir, and is the 3^rd largest city in Turkey.  It is located 40 miles north of what was Ephesus, a sea port on the Mediterranean.  Izmir also has an active Christian community – continued through all these years.  And it is still a small minority of people often under pressure.

Roman Smyrna was a fiercely patriotic city.  300 years before John wrote Revelation, in 193 BC, Smyrna was the first city in Asia to build a temple to the goddess Roma.  The city jumped on the bandwagon before Roman Caesars even declared themselves divine.  This was a proudly Roman City.

The local citizens enjoyed the peace and riches of Rome, and they responded with devotion and worship.  In John’s day, the Roman Caesar called himself “Savior and Lord.”  The  Caesars demanded that their citizens worship them as gods.  That meant a pinch of incense was thrown on the alter in the temple while saying “Domanie et Deus” – Lord and God.  For most of the people in the empire this was not a big deal.  They worshiped many gods anyway.  But for Christians and for Jews, this was idolatry.

There was a large Jewish community in Smyrna that had been there for a very long time.  They supported the empire with their taxes and gifts, and achieved enough influence to be exempted from worshiping the emperor.  They had made the kind of compromises with the religions around them that Jesus called them the Synagogue of Satan.   That community was vehement in separating themselves from the Christians who simply refused to worship Caesar.   They proclaimed only Jesus as Lord.  They  preached that Jesus was the Messiah that the Jewish scriptures pointed to.  So they were caught in the middle.  Christians were seen as traitors to Rome, and because of this they were also compromising the special exemption that the Jewish community enjoyed.  The result was the Jewish community did everything it could to separate themselves from the Christians.  So the Christians were under pressure and persecuted from both sides.

Jesus addresses his church

“To the angel (or messenger leader) of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.”  This is a letter of encouragement and comfort to people who were suffering.  As we go through the words of the risen Christ, we note that the other letters include his criticism regarding failures of the churches: Laodicea is chided for being lukewarm, and Ephesus for having lost its first love.  Each were told to repent or their lamp stand would be removed from among the churches.  There is no such criticism or threat here.

The Son of God, who knows suffering, comes to a people under great pressure by immediately assuring them that he knows the beginning and end of things.  He can see the whole picture.  He looks at people in a time of pain but is also being able to see the end of their pain.  He is at once the First and the Last.

“I know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich.”  Even though Smyrna was a very wealthy city, the Christians were poor because they were being pressured with prejudice and slander from both the Roman and Jewish communities.  They very likely faced prejudice, hatred, loss of business and loss of jobs because they were not on board with Roman idolatry.  It is even harder to be poor while surrounded by wealth.  The contrasts become oppressive.  We can imagine that a fiercely patriotic community would look down with suspicion and hatred on those who refused to acknowledge Caesar as god.

Jesus continues, “I know the slander of those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.”  Both “Satan” and “devil” are used in this passage.  They literally mean adversary and slanderer.  These Jews chose to defend their position by being adversary and slanderer against the Christian Church.             These Christian were rich in courageous faith, resisting and overcoming.  Jesus said to them that they are materially poor but they were rich in spirit, in faith, in devotion, in knowing the Christ who knows the beginning and end, the one who identifies with them because he suffered and died and rose again.  “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.  I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days.  Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.”

            What is he saying?  We hear his encouragement.  The statement about suffering persecution for 10 days means that it is for a limited amount of time, that God will stop it.  They need to be courageous and faithful because they are being reassured that God is ultimately in control and will put an end to it, and that God has guaranteed eternal life for them.  He said, “Be faithful even to the point of death.”

The church in Smyrna was so faithful that Jesus had no criticism of them.  But isn’t this the place at which we start lose touch with the letter.  We could identify with some of the struggle in Ephesus or the lukewarmness in Laodicea – but facing persecution?  Suffering?  Seeing our families suffer because of our faith and faithfulness?  We think about the persecuted church.  We have the candle up here.  We put the modern paraphrase of this letter in the bulletin to get us to think about it.  Still it doesn’t really compute for us, does it?  In this country Christians yell “persecution” if they are slightly inconvenienced.

Even then, we are not without suffering in our lives.  We are aware of suffering here.  How does that fit?  How do we begin to think about all of this?  Let’s reflect a bit theologically and ethically.  The first question is: where is God in all of this?  Christ seems to be saying that he is going to jump in at the right time – at the end of the symbolic 10 days – a definite, predetermined period.  God is ultimately in control, but is it God’s will?  Just saying, it is God’s will doesn’t really solve it for us, does it?

There are a couple levels to all of this – all of it surrounded by God’s grace; he is ultimately sovereign.  (repeat)  However, the first thing we see is that there are many events that happen in our lives that are “contrary to God’s revealed will – against what God wants and commands.”  The drunk driver who kills innocent by-standers or people in another car, murder, suicide, adultery, racism, crime – these acts of violence are against the revealed will of God.  “They are the result of the bad use of freedom which sours into chaos and menace.  The mystery of the real freedom that God designed into our human journey has made human evil possible just as that same mystery of design has made faith and hope and love possible too.” (The Communicator’s Commentary, Palmer, p. 133)

“However, evil has an even larger dimension than simply the bad choices that we make as human beings.  There is a cosmic dimension which this letter to the church at Smyrna puts in to sharp focus.”  It is not just people’s fault that we suffer diseases, etc. What about cancer?  What about Alzheimer’s? In Smyrna we see the result of people’s choices and “Satan” teaming up to persecute these Christians.  Again, what is clear here is that both are bounded by the greater boundary of Almighty God.  The Christ who speaks has the power over life and death.  He is the Lord – seeing the First and Last, the beginning and the end, and he gives the crown that is life.

“Don’t be afraid.”  But they had every reason to be afraid.  Poverty – prison – the arena – martyrdom. When we look at the suffering around us, even if not because of faith: cancers, broken relationships, degenerative diseases, strokes, disappointments, uncertain economic times with social and political reactions; do we have reason to be afraid?   In Smyrna they suffered with poverty, stolen businesses, imprisonment, even death.  We suffer with our broken humanity.  We want to cry out to God.  Why me?  Why don’t you do something?  Why do you let this happen?  Where are you?

Fully ½ of the Psalms in the Bible are laments – the psalmists crying out to God in their distress – hurt, angry, fearful.  At one point David cried out: What good is it if I die?  Will my dead bones praise you?  God does not resent our questions and understands our fears.  Still we hear the risen, glorified Christ reassure us.  “Do not be afraid.  The suffering will be for 10 days – a limited amount of time.  I am the one who died and is alive again.  I am the first and the last.  I will give you the crown of life.  No judgment – not even the 2^nd death will touch you.  Be faithful and overcome.”

            Be faithful.  Trust me.  Do not be afraid.  It will not always be this way.  When we ask all those hard questions in our suffering, the only answer is to be faithful and overcome.  There are no answers to “why” and “why me.”  Faithfulness tests our patience, our trust, our continued growth in surrender and faith.  When we are suffering, maybe even in our own depression or discouragement, if it feels like it is always going to be this way we sink into despair.  If we are certain there is light at the end of the tunnel, if there is hope, if there is something to hang on to, we can overcome.  We can trust.  We can be faithful – if just for today, one day at a time.  Life is difficult — it is not easy.

Jesus said, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”  And again he said that this is really important to hear: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  We note the plural, to all the churches – even to us.  The Apostle John who wrote this discipled a man named Polycarp.  Polycarp became the Bishop of Smyrna.  He served this church into old age, and was considered to be the father of the churches in that part of the world.  When he was in his late 80s he was taken by Roman authorities in Smyrna and brought into the city circus where Christians were tortured and executed.   We actually have manuscripts  from Roman historians on how this was done. The Governor interrogated him in front of the crowds and tried to frighten him into renouncing Jesus.  He threatened Polycarp with wild beasts and then with being burned to death.  Polycarp’s response became a rallying cry for Christians in the first century.  He said, “86 years I have served him [Christ] and he never did me any harm.  How then can I blaspheme him who saved me? Do whatever it is you are going to do.”

            His martyrdom had a huge unifying influence on Christians and his courage brought growth to the church in Smyrna.  The difficult truth is that we are to faithfully live our lives to the fullest, and at the same time keep the perspective that this is not all there is.  That is the panic in our society, isn’t it? People are grabbing for anything that will give them a sense that there is more joy or hope or pleasure or excitement.  They think this is all there is.  .

There are those who would have us believe that being Christian is all about prosperity, a pain-free life,  as if it is a life that God owes us.  The truth is that life is difficult and we are broken people surrounded by others who are less than honorable, and we live in a world distorted and broken by evil and the influenced by principalities and powers – that same adversary and slanderer that is evil in the world.  Our hope and comfort is not in a life of ease, but in the one who is First and Last, who died and is alive again, who is the boundary of grace around our lives, who will give us the crown of life.  To him we are faithful because he won the victory and makes us more than conquerors who overcome the sufferings of this life.

I know, some of you want me to end by telling you it will all be OK tomorrow.  We, after all are American materialist who believe in the dreams of prosperity, success and happiness.   The eternal Christ promises life beyond our dreams, and calls us to be faithful to him, to overcome for this time – sometimes one day at a time.  He promises that whatever our suffering, it will not last forever.  He promises the joy of life.  He calls us to overcome in our faithfulness.  Here is a trust and faith that is greater than our suffering.

INTRODUCTION

Our pilgrimage together over the last year and ½ has been a quest to deepen our spirituality.  Or to say it another way: our leadership has been encouraging us to explore our relationship with God.  Following that encouragement our worship themes began with looking at the foundations of the faith with the Apostle’s Creed.  Then we moved to Biblical Core Values – seeing that this is first of all about our submitting ourselves to God’s values.  We were all surprised how quickly this led us to being challenged to care for those in need if we are to truly worship God.   The Beatitudes led us further in our search for spiritual life in God’s kingdom, as did our study of the Lord’s Prayer.

Now we are moving to a new series: the letters to the 7 churches in Revelation.  Our goals are:

1. To open ourselves to yet another picture of the living, resurrected Lord in this season of Easter.
2. To hear him address some real spiritual issues in those churches in the 1^st century.
3. To take into ourselves what Jesus thinks is important in his church, especially at a time when we are so very influenced by what others think is important in the church.

Three weeks ago we began this series on GEMS Sunday as we followed their theme which was a part of the letter to the church at Laodicea.  We started with the last letter, hearing Jesus’ concern for a lukewarm church in which apathy had taken over.  This morning, before we approach the letter to Ephesus I would like to back up and begin again.

We read that the Apostle John received the visions that make up the book of Revelation while on the Island of Patmos, having been banished there by the Roman government.   These visions are apocalyptic literature – the literature of persecution and secrecy so that the Christians who read it would understand and be comforted and challenged, while others would only be confused by it.  It uses visions, symbols, Old Testament echoes and numbers which carry special meaning.  It is literature that can easily be misused by people who take it out of context and make it say what they want it to say.  We have just experienced that again with Harold Camping using Revelation as a mathematical problem to be solved by an engineer as to when the world will end.  Believe me, that was not the intention of this book.

John was writing to comfort, encourage, and challenge 1^st and 2^nd century Christians.  He pictured current and future historical events that demonstrated a huge battle between good and evil in the world, and God ultimately wins.  Here is the theme: Christ is Lord – not the emperor Domitian.  In John’s world of the mid 90s Domitian declared himself “God the Lord.” Every order from Caesar began: “The Lord our God commands…”  People who refused to worship Domitian were impoverished, imprisoned, or like John himself exiled to a work camp on Patmos.  Some were killed.

Domitian was the model in John’s revelation for the Anti-Christ.  John was writing to encourage Christians to faithfulness affirming that Jesus is Lord, and Jesus Christ will win.  Given their situation, John’s description of the Christ walking among the lamp stands that symbolized the churches, takes on even more power.  We read that:

• He looked like a man, the Son of Man – God in human form.
• He wore a robe with a golden sash – the clothing of a king.  This is Christ in glory, the Lord of Lords.
• This is a picture to create awe, communicating authority and power.
• His hair was radiant, bright, resplendent, glowing, as was his face – reflecting back to Daniel’s Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9).
• His eyes were sharp, bright, penetrating.
• His feet were dazzling, and his voice was like the sound of the ocean.

These are all pictures to create the feeling of awe in the presence of true divinity.  He owns the church.  In his hand he holds 7 stars – the angels of the 7 churches.  “Angel” here refers to messenger and probably means the leaders or pastors or ministers of the 7 churches.  The letters are also addressed directly to them.  They were to communicate to the churches the Word from Christ.

Christ’s mouth symbolized the power of his Word or Truth – a two-edged sword that cuts deep and pierces the very soul.  What John pictures with his words was the way he felt when he looked at and heard Jesus speak.  The Christians who received these writings would have understood.  This is the Lord of the Church.  He owns the church.  He holds it in his hand.  John was overwhelmed, and Jesus’ words reinforce the vision: “I am the alpha and omega – the first and last.  (first and last letters of the Greek alphabet)  “I was dead, now I am the living one who lives forever.  I hold the keys to death and Hades.”

All of this has a simple message.  He is the Lord of the Church.  He is the Lord of Ephesus and [the Church].  It is time again for us to be reminded of whose church this is.

COMMENDATIONS

Revelation 2:1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:  These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lamp stands:” 

Christ has some powerful compliments for the church at Ephesus.  (Vs. 2-3)  “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.  I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.  You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.”  WHAT A WONDERFUL THING TO SAY ABOUT A CHURCH — this church that was probably the center and largest group of Christians in Asia.  Hard work.  Faithfulness. Perseverance. Dedicated to the truth and the Word of God so that people who are false teachers are found out.  Enduring hardship and not growing weary.  How we want to hear Christ say this to us.

Ephesus was a sea port and the chief city of Asia Minor — one of the leading cities of the Empire.  You may recall that the Apostle Paul had great success there.  Ephesus became his home base.  He was there over three years at one time.  To this church he wrote the beautiful and powerful letter to the Ephesians.  Not only that, but the Apostle John was their pastor for many years.  I cannot think of a more powerful leadership team.  Ephesus was the center of the Christian church and the cultural center of Asia Minor – what we call Turkey today.

Ephesus had two major religious centers.  There was a very strong Imperial Cult there.  A temple was built in 29 BC to the Goddess Roma.  This was Domitian’s center for claims that he was the Lord God.  Julius Caesar was deified there.  So Christians, whose Lord is Jesus Christ, were under constant pressure.

You may recall that the worship of Artimis or Diana was also there.  In fact, the 2nd temple for Diana was then considered one of the 7 wonders of the world.  Paul was so successful there that the artisans creating little silver statues of Diana rioted because he was cutting into their business.  The followers of Diana had no trouble kneeling at the same time to Caesar.

The Ephesian church worked and toiled and patiently endured suffering because of their loyalty to Christ in the shadow of these temples.  They saw their pastor exiled to Patmos because he would not bow to Domitian.  It also appears that Paul’s and John’s teaching was effective because when some false traveling preachers came along, calling themselves Apostles, they were able to test them and find them to be false.  These people were loyal to Christ — not to be led astray.

A little later Christ also commends them for resisting the Nicolaitans.  Our information is sketchy about who they were, but it is suspected that they were people who were influenced by Greek dualism and abused Christian liberty to the point of compromising with the emperor cult and justifying all sorts of immoral behaviors.  We suspect they were people who claimed Christianity but did not have a Christian ethic.  Christ says he hates them and compliments the church for resisting them.

I am struck by the fact that all of these attributes are the product of informed faith.  The work, the patient endurance, the testing of false teachers, the loyalty to Christ comes from people dedicated to the truth of the Word of God.  Informed faith! They had been taught well.  They knew the Word of God.  This kept them going, kept them from becoming weary — saying, “What’s the use?”  They opposed immoral behavior. This certainly feels right to us.  Our goal is to have an informed faith that is Christ centered and full of the knowledge of the Word of God.

CRITICISM

All these compliments from Christ must have brought smiles of pride and self-importance.  “Isn’t this wonderful, we had it right.”  Verse 4 tells us that their problem was not their theology, it was their loss of passion.  “Yet,” says Christ, “I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”  What do you think that means?  They lost some of their sense of awe of the love of Christ for them.  They lost some of their deep involvement in worship.  The passion of their first love was gone.  After a generation or two, churches come to a great danger point of taking it all for granted.  It had become routine.  Church as usual.  Go to worship without expectation, without being moved by the gospel, without a sense of personal involvement.  This is church reduced to work, to ministry, to necessary attendance without personal spiritual growth and passion.  How often do we identify ourselves as people who grew up in the church — meaning — it was routine and taken for granted by us.

As a church, aren’t we about building the kingdom of God in our hearts and lives, in our community, in all that we do?  We are working with God, building an eternal kingdom.  It is like the construction of a building with all kinds of scaffolding on the outside — scaffolding to help the builders build — structures, ministries, officers, musicians, groups, classes, preachers, elders, deacons, on and on.  All of this building, all of this edifying and spiritual instruction is there to build the building that will be unveiled in all its glory by Christ.  But what if it is all just scaffolding?  What if there is no power, no real life, no heart?  What if faith is being replaced by something other than Christ?  What if it is doing all the right things without passion and heart?  The result is weakness, and ultimately it will all fall down, no real building at  all.  “You are loyal,” says Christ, “but where is the relationship, the love, the passion?”  Right rules, right theology, right leadership credentials, right worship, right ethics and no love, no passion, no joy – no grace.

What happens if we get it all right and nothing happens deep inside us where Christ wants to transform us with his love into people who are whole, healthy spiritually and emotionally and relationally?  What happens if it is all about doing the right things on the outside, adamant about correct theology and worship and church order and process, while we remain small on the inside – loyal to our private sins, self-centered values, secrets, and addictions?  What if it is all just scaffolding.    How often have we seen people and churches that are all about being judgmental and right and theologically pure and superior in their understanding yet unable to love? Unable to die to self for Christ?  Unable to show grace that can only come from being in the presence of the Christ?

Jesus called the church in Ephesus to remember where they came from, to remember and relive the passion of first seeing Christ on that cross and recognizing the love that changes everything.  Jesus called the church in Ephesus to repent, to turn it around and come back to the passion of receiving his love and giving that love to others.  How ironic that Ephesus lost its love in dead orthodoxy when the Apostle John had been their pastor for so long – the gospel of love writer, the writer of letters that extolled the love of Christ and how we need to share that.  Jesus called the church at Ephesus to return – to live in the grace they had been given.

Jesus said to his church – without relationship with me, without the grace that is the power of redemption, without love that flows from our relationship into everything you do, you are all scaffolding.  I will take away your lamp stand.  You will no longer have light to give because what you have is weak and distorted.  There is not the least evidence that the church did repent.

Turkey today has a population of about 30 million people, of which 99% are Muslim and less than ½ of 1% are Christian.  Ephesus and its church are gone.  The lampstand was removed and the new center of Christianity moved west to Rome and east to Constantinople.

But Jesus promised that all who do repent will experience the opposite of what happened in the garden of Eden.  To all who love him he will invite them into paradise to eat of the tree of life that Adam and Eve were banished from.  This letter ends with a formula:  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  It is a formula statement that says: PAY ATTENTION.  THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Christ still walks among the lampstands.  What does the Lord who knows us completely have to say as he looks at the way we live our private lives, the way we live our communal life, they way we are church?  Like the churches that received these letters, there would be many commendations here?  The question still keeps coming: would he see the love for him in my life, in yours that would make him want to invite us to dine at the tree of life?  What does the kingdom we are building look like under all the scaffolding of doing church?  What in your life/mine is scaffolding and what is real love?

The Revelation or the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ.  We talked last week about Apocalyptic literature as an attempt to portray a present historical crisis against the background of world history, and it is hidden in images as if the crisis were taking place in heaven or in a spiritual realm.  That present struggle is seen a a part of the age-long battle between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.

The Apostle John, as we have said, is writing to the churches about a present and coming persecution, probably beginning about 95AD when the Roman Emperor Domitian declared himself to be emperor-god, and systematically persecuted Christians for not worshiping him.  Of course, such a persecution carries the weight of being political traitors to the government.  John’s purpose in the light of this is to speak to the people about God and the testimony of Jesus Christ in this crisis.

1. Verses 9-11

By way of introduction to the first vision or series of revelations John shares while he is a political prisoner on the Island of Patmos.  Throughout we will find him attempting to comfort and encourage people who are suffering this persecution.  He himself is being persecuted, a political prisoner for his faith, an elderly man probably still being made to do forced labor in the quarries of Patmos.

John identifies himself as “your brother who shares with you in Jesus the tribulation, the kingdom, and the patient endurance.”  He ties these 3 together grammatically:  tribulation = ordeal or suffering; kingdom = sovereignty or reign of Jesus Christ, therefore the suffering has a purpose and royal dignity; patient endurance = not passive resignation but active and courageous endurance. In other words, John speaks of a courageous, dignified suffering, a suffering that does not give in to the indignities heaped upon these Christians.  It is dignified because Jesus is Lord and they belong to him, even though this seems like an impossible time.  He will use it for his purpose and his glory.  John and his people refused to kneel to the statue of Domitian in Ephesus.  It ws an act of loyalty to the Lord of the universe.

The vision begins: John was worshiping on the Lord’s Day – a reference to Sunday because the New Testament Church focused on the weekly celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection.  He says he was in the Spirit – he was experiencing spiritual joy and ecstasy.  This is not a dream that comes when one is sleeping, but a vision while one is awake.  John is ordered to write what he sees to the 7 churches.

I promised that we would look at some different ways of interpreting this letter of visions.  This list is seen in two different ways.  The first is the way we are going to understand it.  These 7 churches or cities are representative of 7 areas or groups of churches in Asia Minor.  In other words, these were real churches, or real areas of churches.  A second interpretation, especially among those who like to understand the Bible in terms of dispensations or separate periods of history, understand the 7 churches this way: (OVERHEAD)

            EPHESUS – the 1^st Century

            SMYRNA – period of persecution

            PERGAMUM – Age of Constantine

            THYATIRA – Middle Ages

            SARDIS – Reformation Era

            PHILADELPHIA – Time of the modern Missionary Movement

            LAODICEA – Apostasy of the Last Days

Note: There are some initially appealing things about this interpretation, and some serious problems with it.  For example, Sardis is described in Rev. as “more dead than alive,” which is an rather strange interpretation for the period of the Reformation.  There are others.  I believe in this case, given the historical context, we are talking about 7 churches in 7 geographical areas, along with the number 7 being the number that symbolizes the whole of the church at that time.

John’s introduction to his vision shares what he sees.  The more we just sit back and try to see some of these descriptions in our minds the more we will appreciate what we are studying.  This is a piece of biblical multi-media.  It is very visual.  John paints word pictures that he intended for us to visualize in our imaginations and sense the best we can their symbolic meanings.  We will take them apart, but we will miss some of the beauty and intrigue if we do not see them as pictures first.  Now we will take the symbols apart – and then put the picture back together.

1. “I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet”  This is a symbol of royalty, acclaim.  This is one of those symbols that will reappear.  Throughout the book there are repeated images pointing to the glory and dominion of Christ in contrast to the apparent vulnerability of the Christians.
2. “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me.  And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands…”  Later in verse 20 Christ clearly says that the 7 lampstands are the 7 churches.  Here is a central symbol throughout the Bible.  God is Light.  Christ is the Sun.  The church is the light-bearer.  The light is the Word of God.  (cf. John 1:1)
3. “and among the lampstands was someone like the son of man…”  This simply means that he looked like a man.
4. “dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest”  Both of these images are intended to convey a picture of a person of distinction, a person of authority and power.  This is the attire of the high priest.
5. “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow…”  Is suspect you immediately would identify this with dignity and wisdom, although in our time unlike any before it, the dignity, wisdom and respect of age seems to often lose out to the youth culture in which we would rather be young and beautiful than wise.
6. “and his eyes were like blazing fire” a picture of intense life, penetrating clarity of vision.
7.  “His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace,…”  Burnished bronze refers to something highly refined, perfected, beautiful.  There are several references here to Daniel and images of strength, very solid in its beauty.
8. “and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.”  This is an interesting symbol for a man who is on a small island in the Aegean Sea.  This is a reference to the voice of God.  In Ezekiel 43:2 we read, “and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east.  His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory.”
9. “In his right hand he held seven stars,…” Again, in verse 20 Christ interprets this for John as the “angels of the 7 churches.”  Some interpret this as a sort of guardian angel for each church.  I think it is the spirit of the church or it’s identity, the totality of what the church is spiritually.
10. “and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.”   This is a reference we would not immediately see.  A tongue shaped knife or sword was used by the Roman soldier as an offensive weapon – very sharp and capable of cutting a person in half.  This is about fear.
11. “His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.”  Again the image of light, the sun the source of light, light in all its strength and beauty.  No doubt this was a powerful image for a man stranded on a desert island in the middle of the Aegean Sea.

Having taken it apart, we have seen some of the symbols, but we have done it injustice.  Now lets read it again, and try to see what John saw.  Visualize it.  Feel it.  Here is the picture that Eugene Peterson sees:

I turned and saw the voice.      I saw a gold menorah (candlestick) with seven branches.

And in the center, the Son of Man,

in a robe and gold breastplate, hair a blizzard of white,

Eyes pours fire-blaze, both feet furnace-fired bronze,

His voice a waterfall, right hand holding Seven Stars,

His mouth a sharp-biting sword,  his face a summer sun.

What do you think they were called to experience with this picture in the churches of Asia Minor?  John’s reaction would be expected from any of us.  He fell down to worship and was as dead in his fear.  “Then he placed his right hand on me and said,…” Let’s especially note Jesus words.  These are words of comfort that will be repeated in this pastoral letter to the churches:

1. Fear not: this is the constant message to the churches from the one who loves them and is Lord.  Do not be afraid.  The Bible is full of this message.
2. “I am the first and the Last”  — the Alpha and Omega again, the one was before and outlasts anything that is happening right now.
3. “I was dead, and become I am alive for ever and ever!”  This is clearly the resurrected Christ speaking.  How important is this message in the face of suffering and persecution?
4. And even more important, “I have the keys of death and Hades.”  Hades is the place of the dead.  This says that Christ will free those who have died in Him.  He is the supreme Christ.

Again we are reminded that we need to see the pictures and feel the power of the message of comfort, hope, and encouragement.  Now lets take a moment, see the picture in our minds and hear Christ saying these words to us in whatever our circumstance is this evening.

Next time we will look at the first letter – to the Church at Ephesus.

Last week we began our study of the book of Revelation together by looking at some of the basic issues of interpretation; that is, how we need to understand this book in its context, then we need to interpret it in the context of the rest of scripture, and finally apply it to our situation.  We saw that to reverse the order leaves us the victim of all sorts of imaginative interpretations that probably have little to do with the truth communicated in the book.  We began by talking a bit about the character of this book, noting that it is a PASTORAL LETTER from John to his beloved churches in Asia Minor (Turkey) while John was a political prisoner on the island of Patmos.

Someone said to me, “That message was more like a lecture than a sermon.”  They were right.  It is so important for us to start right if we are to really understand what we are reading.  We need to understand the circumstances of John as his church faced persecution from Domitian, who made himself Lord and God, in direct contradiction to Christian belief that only Jesus Christ can claim that title.

Chapter 1:1-2 reads:

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants what must soon take place.  He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw – that is, the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ.

What is it about?  The words clearly indicate that a crisis is immediate.  It is the first systematic persecution by the Emperor Domitian, around 95 AD.  The Method that John will use is the apocalyptic method of seeing the action from a perspective of heaven.  An angel instructed John to communicate to his people in this way.  What is this book?  It is a witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ.  This tells us that we are to take this statement seriously, to have integrity with it, because it is the word of God.  The question we face is this: What is this creative Word of God saying to us at our time in history?  As we enter a new millenium?  What is God’s purpose for us today?  The challenge is to read, to think about it, to compare with the rest of the Bible, and to search out together that questions that are raised in our minds.

“Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.”

All of this leads us the question of how we are going to approach this book.  Very often people decide in advance what they are going to find, and thus find what they look for, rather than allow the book to speak for itself.  Some examples of approaches may help us be aware of the assumptions we begin with.

1. THE PRETERIST VIEW:  This is an approach that decides in advance that all of the book refers to events in the first century.  It begins and ends there.  Therefore, everything is totally accomplished in the past tense.  This, incidentally, is the most common approach to studying revelation.  The obvious problem with it is that it does away with the possibility of the prophetic method that takes present events and uses them to speak of future times.
2. THE HISTORICIST VIEW:  The book of Revelation points to all actual historical events which will be taking place from the end of the first century to the end of time.  This book is a forecast of the whole of human history.  The symbols are seen as an outline of the history of Western Europe until the coming of Christ.  We simply have to correctly identify the symbols wit the correct historical events.  Many recent authors have this approach.  The problem with this is that people look at current events and force symbols of revelation to refer to them.  It does not allow the book to speak for itself.  Frankly, it makes Revelation say a whole lot more than it was intended to say, ignoring the fact that it was given to those early Christians for their comfort and hope.  Is not this understanding that sees all of the significant things in the world happening around Western Europe a bit egocentric?
3. THE FUTURIST VIEW: This view maintains that apart from the first 3 chapters, the book is exclusively concerned about events at the end of time when Christ will return.  Of course, then it has almost no meaning for the original readers, and is really only relevant for the last generation of people before Christ comes.
4. THE IDEALIST or SPIRITUAL VIEW:  In the main, says this approach, the book deals with ideas and principles.  Few or no references in the book are about historical events.  It simply sets out the principles on which God acts throughout human history.  Thus it is relevant for the church of all ages.  Indeed, Revelation does show us some things about how God acts in human history, but does not this limit the book too much?
5. OUR APPROACH: Personally, I feel that taking any one view by itself closes some doors and predetermines what one will hear and see.  There are historical references to events in the lives of people for whom it was written.  These are the basis to go out from there and see the principles on which God acts throughout history.  This is a basic principle of interpreting prophecy.  From time to time we will compare interpretations coming out of several different groups.

We have one more question about background before we begin taking this text apart.  WHY IS THIS REVELATION BEING GIVEN?  WHAT IS IT’S PURPOSE?  They had the Old Testament, the Gospels, the Letters of Paul and John, why this?  Why couldn’t they get what they need from reading the scripture they already had?  Facing uncertainty, persecution for their faith, God is giving them a glimpse through the symbols, through a glass darkly (to use Paul’s phrase) into the greater picture.

My hope in studying is for that to happen to us: to see the greater picture.  The meaning of this is captured beautifully in a quote from John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress:

“Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where a fire was burning against a wall, and one standing by it was always casting much water upon it to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.  Then said Christian, “what means this?…. So he took him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hands, of which he did also continuously cast (but secretly) into the fire.”

Our perspective is to see what God is showing us behind the wall.

IN VERSES 4-8 OF CHAPTER 1 two things immediately get our attention.  We are immediately introduced to a symbol that God will use throughout this book, and we see that it is clearly a letter of comfort.

It is addressed to the 7 churches of Asia Minor.  Why just to 7?  There were many more churches than that in Asia Minor.  We see here a symbol used consistently in Revelation: the #7.  It is the number of wholeness or completeness.  In other words, it is addressed to all the Christians in Asia Minor.

The opening comfort and reassurance of this book is the greeting from the triune God.  When we are in any kind of crisis it is comforting to know that our God is not limited to this time and this crisis.  In this we are immediately told that this is about the perspective of eternity.  Lets try to hear the beauty of this address -–the wonderful statements about our God and his approach to us. 

1. Grace and Peace to you – grace, love freely given from God, and peace, shalom, quiet assurance, contentment in God’s embrace.
2. From him who is and who was  and who is to come.  This message is coming from God who is greater than the present circumstances, this is the eternal God, the one above all, the one who worked through history in the past and who holds the future, and who is here right now.
3. and from the seven spirits before his throne: again that number of wholeness or completeness, from all the spirits of the churches before his throne.  Again, this refers to the Spirit of God in fullness of power and authority and activity.
4. and from Jesus Christ – faithful witness = THE TRUTH; firstborn from the dead = THE RESURRECTED CHRIST WHO IS GOING TO TAKE US WITH HIM IN HIS RESURRECTION; the ruler of the kings of the earth – THE ONE WHO IS ULTIMATELY IN CONTROL.  “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him.”  (Phil. 2)

These statement cause John to break out in PRAISE!

-to him who loves us

-to him who has freed us from our sins by his blood,

-to him who has made us a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father,

TO HIM BE GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER!  AMEN!

He loves us, he has made atonement for us so that we could be free from judgement and guilt, so we could be forgiven, and he has made us into a community of people where he is the Lord, and we are servants who serve each other and our God – the children of God.  Jesus Christ did all of this and John is overwhelmed with the love involved here.  He has given us LOVE, FORGIVENESS AND A NEW IDENTITY.

Then, in addition to all of that, John says he has given us the ultimate hope.  Typical of Revelation, John sees the end of the whole thing with the victory of Christ and his people.  This statement is consistent with what Jesus said of himself.   John says, here is hope – LOOK UP, look past this moment and this struggle, look beyond:

Look, he is coming with the clouds,

                        and every eye will see him,

            even those who pierced him;

                        and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.

            So shall it be! Amen!

‘Mourn’ here refers to the lament that all people will have, that even in the joy of victory there is the reality of the pain that it was necessary for him to be killed for our redemption.

John is shouting at his readers.  “Keep faith.  Don’t give up!  Here is the comfort and the promise of vindication.  It would be foolish to give up your faith now!  Remember who he is.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come.”  He is the first – here before the creation of the world, and the last — here beyond its end.  He is the eternal God.  When it is all said and done, he is the one who has the power, not the people who are persecuting these Christians.  This is the Christ we serve, the one in whose power we go into our week and into the rest of our lives.  This is the Christ who loves us and holds us – in the face of difficulty, in the face of change, in the face of a world that does not know him nor does it know us.  Here is the comfort and assurance, no matter what we are facing today.  Here is the encouragement.  It is not about what we know.  It is not about our ability to figure out the future.  It is not our having some secret knowledge about what the future holds.  It is about who are God is.  This is the one for the whole book.

Next time we will look at the first vision.