The book of the Revelation, chapter 1, verse
1, Revelation of Jesus Christ, which
God gave him, verse 4, John, to the
seven churches which are in Asia, verse 10,
What thou seest write in a book and
send it to the seven churches, unto Ephesus,
and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto
Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and
unto Laodicea.
Chapter 2, to the angel of the church
in Ephesus write, These things saith he that
holdeth the seven stars in his right hand,
he that walketh in the midst of the
seven golden lampstands, I know thy works, and
thy toil and patience, and that thou canst
not bear evil men, and it is try
them which call themselves apostles, and they are
not, and it is find them false.
And that thou hast patience, and didst bear
for mine name's sake, and hast not grown
weary, but I have this against thee, that
thou didst leave thy first love.
For remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,
and repent, and do the first work, or
else I come to thee, and will move
thy lampstand out of its place, except thou
repent.
But this thou hast, that thou hatest the
works of the Nicoliteans, which I also hate.
He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith to the churches.
To him that overcometh, to him will I
give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the paradise.
We have been led at this time to
be occupied with revelation, or the unveiling of
Jesus Christ.
We began by taking note of the fact
that this book, which has that as its
title, and which has that as its very
comprehensive content, is the book which reveals Him
inclusively, comprehensively, as coming forth at last
to settle all those issues which have been
underlying the spiritual conflict of this universe all
through the ages.
There has been a mighty conflict in process.
This earth has felt its repercussions.
All that has been taking place here has
been related to a great conflict in heaven,
and the issue which has been in all
that long-drawn-out and many-sided conflict
none other than the issue of God's intention
as to the government of this earth from
heaven.
His purpose in the first place concerning His
Son as the appointed Lord of Lords, King
of Kings, Supreme Ruler in heaven and earth.
And in the second place, the eternally chosen
or elected vehicle of that government, what we
now know as the Church.
These two things as two parts of one
have been back of and the occasion of
all this tremendous swirl and welter of conflict
through the ages.
And this book is the revelation of Jesus
Christ coming out to settle that issue once
and for all and finally.
And in this book we see the processes
of that settlement.
How it is headed up in different connections
and relationships.
A steady, progressive movement until at last kingdom.
The kingdoms of this world are the kingdom
of our Lord and His Christ.
The issue is settled and He is established
with His Church as forever in an unchallengeable
supremacy.
Well, that is the revelation of Jesus Christ
in very few words.
In our former three sessions we have been
considering the introduction to that.
First in noting how everything in this book
is consummatory.
It gathers up everything from the beginning of
the Bible all the way through.
In its some 400 allusions to the Old
Testament.
It is very comprehensive and quite clearly it
is the bringing of all that to consummation.
And then we went on to contemplate the
two aspects of the Lord Jesus as presented
in chapter one as foundational to all that
is to follow.
First of all His personal victory.
I am he that liveth.
I became dead.
Behold I am alive unto the ages of
the ages.
I have the keys of death and of
Hades.
His victory.
And we spent quite a lot of time
seeing what that victory was and how it
was.
And then we went to the second aspect
of this foundation.
His person.
That is His character.
This matchless description of Himself which we had
in chapter one.
And we saw that it is upon the
basis not only of what He has done
but of what He is in His intrinsic
character, nature and worth.
That He has the right to decide anything.
To judge either church or nations or the
devil himself.
His authority is based upon what He is.
His real character.
And that is always a law with God.
And power rests upon what a person is
more than what a person does with God.
Matter of authority, of dominion, of government, of
any kind of trust and responsibility always depends
upon the character of the person or the
persons in view.
With the Lord Jesus that is perfectly evident
that He triumphed because of what He was
and therefore He is in the right of
judgment of all others because no one can
ever point at anything in Him that Satan
could encamp upon.
And say that is a contradiction.
Well again we spent a long session on
the character of the Lord Jesus and the
challenge of that character to everything.
But when we have said all that we
can say and a great deal more could
be said about chapter one, all that is
but preparatory to what follows, it is as
though the Spirit of God had laid down
a foundation for everything now that is going
to transpire.
As though He had said now this is
our ground for everything and of everything.
It is upon that and from that that
we move to everything else.
Notice that the first movement of the Spirit
here described symbolically as the seven spirits of
God.
The meaning for that which we may consider
at some time is the Holy Spirit undoubtedly
in seven fold expression.
It is the Holy Spirit moving in the
first place toward the Church.
To deal with the Church inclusively and comprehensively
upon the basis that He Himself has laid
down.
That is a thing that we must bear
in mind and which will become more and
more apparent as we go on.
Now if chapters two and three which contain
this first movement to the Church, if these
chapters have any relation to our own time
Then dear friends, surely with them we are
in the presence of the most solemn and
the most momentous issues.
What is taken up in the first place
where the Church is concerned is nothing less
than the very testimony of Jesus itself in
this universe.
Testimony of Jesus that is the supreme and
the ultimate thing for all history and for
all realms.
Have you seen what that testimony is?
The absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in every
realm.
That is the testimony of Jesus.
And that matter is the first thing that
governs the Spirit in moving toward the Church.
We will see that more fully as we
go on.
Then of course there follows quite clearly by
the patent conclusion that has to be drawn
the Church's responsibility for that testimony.
It is not something that is detached and
unrelated, abstract and apart in itself.
The Church was chosen in Christ Jesus before
the foundation of the world to be the
vessel and the vehicle of the testimony of
Jesus.
And so what is here in the second
place is the great and honorable responsibility of
the Church in relation to the greatest issue
in this universe.
The divinely appointed place for Jesus Christ in
the whole system.
And these two things lead on as is
made perfectly clear to the ultimate government of
the world from heaven by Christ through the
Church.
Those three things are not small things.
If that is what is here, then I
am justified in saying that when we begin
with this first movement of the Spirit to
the Church, we are faced with the most
solemn and momentous matter.
And taking it with all our human insignificance,
smallness and weakness, all that we are that
we would not be and are not that
we would be, we are a few of
the Church.
Therefore we must not think too objectively at
this time, but when it says Spirit sent
to the Church, the Spirit is speaking to
us here in this place concerning these very
matters in this time.
Well, what is here then is for the
enlightenment of the Church as to the meaning
of things that happen.
Dear friends, things are happening and things are
going to happen.
That is what it says right at the
beginning.
Things are happening and things are going to
happen.
We are in the midst of these happenings
now.
There are movements of tremendous significance, very portentous
in this creation with an impact of spiritual
forces upon this earth.
And a lot of things are happening and
a lot of developments are in process.
We shall see more and more of these
things happening.
The important thing is that we understand the
meaning of these happenings.
It is a tremendous thing to understand what
is happening to us, conscious that things are
happening to us, maybe happening to us spiritually,
in our own spiritual experience, life, conscious of
being taken into and through things that are
difficult to bear and to understand.
We don't know what is it that is
happening to us.
Why are we involved in this stress, this
pressure, this strain, this tension, this conflict?
We are really God's people going on with
God, putting Christ in His place?
We are involved in something, every one of
us personally.
It strikes upon us, individually in some way
or ways.
It strikes upon every relationship of our lives.
It strikes upon our families, upon our homes,
upon our businesses.
It strikes upon our relationships with other believers.
It strikes upon the whole question of spiritual
fellowship.
Strikes upon the work of the Lord.
Strikes upon the local companies.
Yes, things are happening.
It's like that.
We are involved in something.
There are big spiritual movements on foot.
I repeat, it is of tremendous importance that
the people of God know the meaning of
what is happening, why we are passing this
way, what the Lord is trying to do
with us, what the Lord means by what
is taking place.
Yes, it's tremendously important that we have understanding
of these things.
These things will happen.
That is what is here in these messages.
The Lord is moving in, so to speak,
and is bringing everything to some particular issue.
That's a very impressive thing, you know, that
the Lord seems to be concentrating upon one
specific issue.
I don't know how you felt when I
read again that first message to the Church
of Ephesus.
Tell you how I have felt as I
have read it?
I've read it.
I know thy works, thy toil, thy
toil, and thy patience, that
thou canst not bear evil men.
Destroy them which call themselves apostles.
They are not.
Thou dost find them false.
Remember, this same writer, John, who had responsibility
in the Church of Ephesus, had written in
his letter, Beloved, try the spirits, for there
are many false prophets gone abroad.
Try them.
They had done it.
Thou hast tried them which call themselves apostles.
They are not.
Thou dost find them false.
Thou hast patience, and it's there for my
name's sake, and hast not grown weary.
What more do you want, Lord?
What more can you ask?
If you want more than that, you are
very exacting.
What can you expect of any more than
that?
What are you asking for?
Is that how you feel?
You have to react like that in order
to get to the heart of things.
All that, Lord, all that.
We've given you all that.
You've got all that.
And that means a lot, you know.
It means a lot for any church in
a day of persecution, especially, as in this
case, you've got all that.
What more do you want?
What more can you have?
And with all that, you come back and
say, with all that, I'm on the point
of removing your lampstand out of its place.
There's something with all that which, not being
present, does not justify my preserving you as
a vessel.
That's terrible, isn't it, in one way?
That would drive us to our knees.
What is it that, with all that, is
essential to our continuation as vessel of the
Lord?
You have to come back to that before
we are finished.
I say it's important that we understand why
such people can be dealt with by the
Lord in condemnation yet, in correction, with
an effort, by encouragement and confirmation to get
that something else.
Is that essential?
Dear friends, there is one thing that surely
such a contemplation and consideration will bring home
to you and to me.
And that is that the Lord is never
satisfied with the comparative.
He must have the absolute.
The Lord will never, ultimately, ultimately settle down
to accept something good.
Something good.
He's going to have the best.
A church may be good in many respects.
A group of the Lord's people may have
many commendable things.
Even the Lord commends.
But in the final analysis, His attitude is,
a good thing with many good things is
not what I set out to have.
At the beginning, I set out to have
something not good, but the best.
Not comparative, but absolute.
Not partial, but complete.
That, I say, is the conclusion to which
we are driven.
If we read this right, we have to
decide that.
Now then, here we have to answer one
question.
Do these messages to the seven churches in
Asia have an application to the church today?
Of course, there are these schools of interpretation
to which I referred earlier.
I'll not even mention their technical name.
But there is the one school that holds
and concludes that what is here in this
book was confined to the time of its
being written.
It was just a matter of contemporary history.
It had to do wholly with the churches
in Asia as they were at that time.
And all this was contemporary history.
Very well.
If so, it may be interesting to read
it.
Know what happened and how things happened.
Don't get over all the difficulties that way.
There is the next school that interprets all
this as having commenced in apostolic times, late
apostolic times, and being spread over to the
time of the coming of the Lord.
That is, that all these seven churches are
like seven phases of history which fill up
the big gap between the two comings of
the Lord.
All right?
We are not going to argue about that.
And then there is the third school which
holds that it all belongs to the end.
To the end of the age and afterward.
All this is going to come up as
the day of the Lord draws near and
going to be all cleared up and settled
in the last phase of this age.
And then what follows after.
I would say here that not by way
of convenience or compromise, I'm thinking that they
all hold truth.
They all hold truth.
And they all hold error.
Or, if that is too strong a word,
they all hold weaknesses and flaws.
But I'm not going to discuss them.
That is not the point at all.
What I'm after is this.
If this is the word of the Lord,
if this has come from God, if this
is the word of the Holy Spirit, you
can confine it to no particular time.
It arranges all time in the principles which
it embodies.
You are not dealing here finally and ultimately
and conclusively with anything that belongs to any
one fragment of time.
You are dealing with the thoughts of God
which govern all time.
And wherever and whenever you have those things
that are found in these churches which are
condemned by the Lord at any time in
history, they are still condemned.
Condemnation does not belong to any one place
or one time.
They are principles of universal application.
And where you find and whenever you find
that which the Lord here commends and is
seeking to have, that is an eternal something
which encompasses all time.
And I hold that as the answer to
all interpretations that we are not dealing with
mere history and localities and phases in time.
We are dealing with eternal principles.
And I am certain that that is the
sum of the significance of this book.
As we have pointed out, it goes right
back to the eternal counsels of God and
what took place then.
He decided.
And what has been disputed and challenged and
fought over through all the ages and now
on the threshold of the ages of the
ages, it is that that is being settled
as much in Ephesus as anywhere else.
And the same everywhere else as in Ephesus.
These are no issues for some period or
some place.
We are in it as much as ever
Ephesus in apostolic time.
This is to us because the word of
the Lord is forever.
He speaks and when he speaks he expresses
an eternal life and a universal life.
Well now, this book clearly encompasses all time,
past, present and what there remains of the
future.
And it does so in one inclusive respect.
This issue of the utterness, the utterness, not
the comparativeness, not the partial, this
issue of the utterness, the utterness, not the
comparativeness, not the partial, the utterness of the
place of the Lord Jesus.
That was the issue for Ephesus, no doubt
about it.
We'll see that as we look in to
this message.
You see, it is the full revelation of
Jesus.
The full revelation of Jesus.
This is no partial revelation of him.
He's here in fullness and that's the challenge.
Churches, times, are not being challenged upon something
about Jesus.
Some, even through part of Jesus, challenges upon
the fullness of Christ.
The fullness of Christ.
That's the issue.
And that is where we are in this
book.
So I repeat, if you will sever me,
that this book holds principles for all time.
Now then, to Ephesus.
He's heading up, we have said, to a
final conclusion, all these outstanding questions, controversies, through
the ages, he's heading them up at last,
saying, now we're going to settle this.
And settle it forever.
And where does he begin?
He begins with the Church.
Rightly so.
It's in the right order of God to
begin this with the Church.
He cannot pass to the nations, call them
to account until he's dealt with the Church.
He cannot even dispossess the evil powers of
their place and cast them out until he's
dealt with the Church.
Tremendous principle involved in that.
Without giving mystical interpretation to this, and this
is not my intention at all because I
believe this is historic in the widest sense,
nevertheless the principle does apply in this way.
That you and I will never see the
evil powers and the evil one cast out
of our realm while there is something wrong
with us before the Lord.
Isn't that true?
If he has some rightful foothold in us,
no hope of his being cast out.
You've got to take the ground from him
before you can do that.
That is true in principle.
Dealing with any life where Satan has really
got power, you've got to get down to
know why he's got the power in that
life.
If there's something there that is of himself,
it's got to be removed before that life
can be saved.
That is the meaning of our Lord's own
words, the prince of this world cometh to
me and hath nothing in me, hence the
prince of this world is cast out.
See the basis.
It's like that.
And that is what is here.
How can you deal with the world in
judgment or with the great kingdom of Satan
which will be dealt with in the third
place until the church is...
Because presently it will be the accuser of
the brethren who is cast out, but that
will not happen until the ground of his
accusation has been dealt with in the brethren.
You've got that?
His is not official power.
His is not just objective power.
His is spiritual power.
His strength and his hold rests upon a
condition.
Simon, Simon, Satan hath obtained thee by asking
that he may sift thee as wheat, but
I have prayed for thee when thou art
turned against strength and thy brethren.
Why did Satan have his request granted to
sift Simon Peter as wheat?
And he did it Mark 2.
He did it very thoroughly.
Why?
Because the Lord saw there was something in
Simon Peter that had got to be sifted.
That Satan had a right over.
And so the Lord dealt with that and
you have an authoritative Simon Peter after that.
Man in spiritual ascendancy indeed who cares for
neither men nor death.
That was not the original Simon Peter.
You see the working of this law.
Power rests upon character and so if the
church is God's eternally chosen vessel for the
administration of the kingdom of God by Jesus
Christ, it's got to come to a spiritual
position which justifies that government, that control.
Hence the Lord must begin with and be
thorough and exact with the church.
Not just accept good things, but sit down,
sit down.
So the ultimate issue is bound up with
these messages, no less an issue than that
which we have called, dear friends, we have
called the wonder and amazement of it.
It's perhaps by familiarity lost some of its
impress upon us call into fellowship with Jesus
Christ to take the place that the principalities
and powers and world rulers of this darkness
now hold.
Not so difficult to understand if you think
about it.
This world is governed spiritually.
No doubt about that.
It's a spiritual government that's behind all that's
happening here.
Even men who make no profession for ever
of being spiritual, even in any particular sense
Christian, never give us anything to indicate that
they are born again people and know the
Lord.
Nevertheless they see, they see through, and they
know that there are forces of evil behind
the movements in this world.
They say, they speak of it as that
evil thing, that evil thing.
They know, and so it is.
Back of all this, there is spiritual government
of this world, the world rulers of this
darkness.
What a rich, full phrase that is.
Where is it coming from?
Principalities and powers and hosts of wicked spirits
in the heavenlies?
The ultimate vision of God's purpose realized is
the church in the symbolic presentation of the
new Jerusalem heavenly city.
Taking that place, occupying that place, so difficult
to move in our minds from a literal
symbolism to a spiritual meaning.
That's what it means.
Church is a heavenly body with a heavenly
calling to occupy a heavenly position for heavenly
government with Christ in the ages to come.
And if I have not misread my Bible,
that is what the church is called to
and that is what we are called to?
And you cannot have such a calling and
such a vocation, such a divine intention without
the Lord being very exact.
Very exact.
And as I say again, being unprepared to
accept what is comparative.
Well, here we have the seven messages, and
I haven't got to Ephesus yet.
But here we have then the sevenfold symbolism
and representation and it's that we must note
first of all.
Seven churches in Asia.
Yes, but there were plenty more churches in
Asia beside these seven.
All the churches in Asia are not mentioned
when you mention these seven.
The others all right.
They did not need to be mentioned.
Nothing wrong with them.
They're all right.
That's what it means.
Why select these?
Why select just seven?
Well, because seven is always a representative number,
that's all.
Seven is the number which symbolizes spiritual completeness.
It represents spiritual completeness of fullness.
And so seven here selected are just lifted
out, so to speak, to be representative of
all others and the whole church.
And what the Lord says to the seven,
he says to the whole.
It is here a representation of the whole
church.
That is all that is meant by selecting
seven to embody a complete expression of spiritual
principle.
Is that clear?
If that is true, then it's more than
for Asia.
It is the whole church.
And what was in Asia, inside of Asia,
in these seven, is only taken as a
kind of sounding board or platform for the
church universal at all times.
These are united in the right hand of
him that walks up and down in the
midst of the golden lampstand.
United in his right hand.
Who holdeth in his right hand.
You notice.
Who holdeth in his right hand.
The seven.
Well, the right hand is another symbolic idea.
It's the place firstly of honor and then
of authority and then of strength.
He holds all there in his right hand,
in his authority, in his strength.
The word hold is used here, or holdeth,
is a very strong word in the Greek.
It's different from other words which mean just
to have.
Here it's what we might call who has
a grip on this.
He's got a grip on this.
He is in charge, in possession.
He has not let go what he intended
here.
He is not regarding this loosely, carelessly, indifferently,
weakly.
This whole matter of the testimony of the
church and the churches is with him something
very definite, very positive.
He holds in his right hand, for his
honor, the golden lampstand.
The golden lampstand.
That is essentially a divine idea and as
we, I think, earlier said, gold in the
Old Testament is always the symbol of that
which is most precious amongst metals.
You speak of gold there, you always have
the idea that something that counts.
Here it's in the churches that which is
precious to him, that which is precious to
God, that which is of intrinsic value, that
which is incorruptible.
We've tried to set this forth in a
fuller way in a book, The Gold of
the Sanctuary, but that is it.
What is he after?
What is his thought about the church and
the churches?
What is his thought about us as companies
of the Lord's people?
What is it?
His thought is that there is where we
are, or there ought to be where we
are, something of transcendent preciousness to himself and
to the Father.
Something of real value.
Real value.
It's that that he's after.
These symbolic representations of lampstands of gold is
simply this here and there in the intention
of God shall be a representation and an
embodiment of that which is supremely precious to
God.
If it's like that, if it's like that,
well of course that will explain a very
great deal why the enemy would like the
fine gold to become dim.
Why the tremendous conflict for the purity of
any corporate expression of the church.
It's purity to corrupt, to corrupt.
It's one of the things the Lord is
dealing with in the churches.
To corrupt, to spoil and mar the fine
gold.
To rob the Lord of the preciousness.
Oh let us be very much given to
this, brethren and sisters.
See to it that so far as we
are concerned we take this responsibility.
I'm not one of those who can conclude
that the angels of the churches are the
single ministers of the church.
Don't believe that because it contradicts so much
that is in the New Testament.
But I believe that the angel of the
church is simply the principle or the focal
point of responsibility.
We are all responsible people in the church
and we're all called to take responsibility for
the church.
And so I say the Lord help us
everyone to take responsibility where we are and
where we are concerned to see that there's
something precious for the Lord.
That our gatherings and our companies are not
just preaching places, teaching places with a lot
of truth and head knowledge of divine things
but really in character there's something very precious
to the Lord.
It could be said that there's something there
that is very precious to the Lord.
If that were spoiled, if that were lost,
something of real value to the Lord would
go.
It must be like that, dear friend.
Very practical but you see this is what
the Lord is after.
The intrinsic value, not the comparative value, not
the size of things at all, not what
is external but the intrinsic value, the gold
refined in the fire, that which is precious
to the Lord.
Seven golden lampstands.
Lampstands, that is a better translation than candlesticks
because a candlestick burns itself away or the
candle burns itself away.
The lamp, it burns by a supply, an
endless supply from outside of itself.
However, that by the way, the function of
the lampstand, that's the point, what is it?
Of course, obviously it is light by the
Holy Spirit.
Let's qualify that.
It is light but it is light by
the power, the illumination, the energy, the resource
of the Holy Spirit.
A Holy Spirit testimony in every place where
there is a company, small or large, of
the Lord's people.
Light in that way.
I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough
although it seems so obvious.
But this ought to really concern our hearts,
really be a burden on our hearts.
That where we are as the Lord's people
together, however few, people can see Christ, people
can really see Christ because we are there.
Isn't that touching and challenging?
Just a matter of seeing the Lord Jesus.
Not seeing a lot of people going to
meetings in a certain place.
Hearing them sing and wondering what's happening amongst
them.
But, you meet those people, you meet more
than those people.
If you have any idea of God at
all or what God ought to be like,
if you have any information as to God's
character, nature, you see it, you meet it
with those people.
You've got it right in your very presence.
That's the way it is.
That is the essential function of the Lamb.
It is not an ornament.
It's not a cold dead something.
It's not a form and a shape.
It's a living life.
A living.
That is what the church is here for
and the churches are but local representations of
the church.
It is that there, where the Lord's people
are, that is where what is Christ is
found.
Just what is Christ.
Yes.
These are the seven golden lampstands.
I must stop there, I think, before we
come to Ephesus after all.
But that is enough to search our hearts.
It begins to show us, it begins to
lead us to this thing that the Lord
cannot do without.
He cannot do without.
With all the works, the labor, the patience,
and all the conscientiousness and integrity, all the
hatred of evil men, all the testing of
people's professions, judging whether things are right or
wrong.
All that, some intrinsic value, which is more
than all, without which the Lord cannot be
satisfied and the vessel is not justified in
its continuing very solemn thought, that is.
May the word this afternoon provoke us to
this.
And I would close here this part by
saying again that as with Ephesus, so with
us all, there can be no substituting of
something good for the best.
I'm sure that searches us here in this
place.
Maybe a lot of good things.
We may be wanting a lot of good
things and doing a lot of good things.
But remember, there is a full thing for
which God brought us into being.
A full thing for which he brought us
into being.
And he will never, never allow anything less
than that to pass with him, to hold
to that at last.
Why did I bring you into being?
This or that or something else, quite good,
yes, nothing wrong with that at all, quite
good.
But is that all?
Is that all?
That is interrogation here.
Repent and do the first words.
And we shall have more light on this
as we actually look into this message for
church in Ephesus.
The Lord hold our hearts.