For each of the churches, one of the characteristics of the Living Lord Jesus is particularly applied... In Ephesus He is the one who walks among the candlestands and holds the seven stars (1. 12f, 16) In Smyrna he is “The First and the Last, who died and came to life again” (1. 17f). In Pergamum he “has the sharp, double-edged sword” (1. 16) and in Thyatira his “eyes are like blazing fire and feet are like burnished bronze.” (1. 14f)
So in this “Healthy Church” journey, we want, first of all, to discover how the character of Jesus – the glory of who he is and what he has done, already revealed to us in the Word – applies to our own particular situation. This has to be a Biblical and Jesus-centered journey.
And Jesus has something to say to his Church!
“I know your deeds!” Jesus says to five out of the seven Churches. To one he says “I know your afflictions and your poverty”, and to one he says “I know where you live”. The risen Lord Jesus knows all about us. He knows about our challenges, our struggles and limited resources. We don't need to tell him about that. He knows about our context: “I know where you live”. He knows Rosyth; he knows about the Dockyard, about Sky and Marine Harvest; about our schools about what mums talk about in the playground, about the pubs and clubs, about Foodbank, about poverty, about the people who have money to spend.
Christ knows our challenges and context, but he also knows our works. He knows about our conduct. It is his finger we need on our pulse; and remember that for five out of the seven churches, (that's 71%) the issue was not their challenges or context but their works. So let's be prepared to hear what the living Lord Jesus Christ will say about our works, about our conduct. Let's not blame our challenges and our context, when he problem may be our conduct: what we do and how we do it. As we take the “healthy Church” journey, we are doing so because we need to hear from someone who knows – we want to hear what Jesus thinks of us. It is very easy to deceive ourselves, to be blind to our own weaknesses. We need to hear from Jesus about how we are doing!
And Jesus has something to say to his Church!
At the end of each message to each local Church, there is the same refrain: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches!” What that means is this: these messages which were addressed to these specific churches, are for all of us – the seven, remember, represent the whole church in the whole world for all time. So as Churches and as individuals in our churches (some of us are visitors) we need to hear what the Spirit is saying!
Jesus has something to say to his Church today!
And in Revelation 2, the issue is how the churches deal with the challenges posed by the world they live in. We will look in a bit more detail at each of the churches in a moment. But first, the teaching of the Nicolaitans, is mentioned twice. What was that? It was, like the “error of Balaam” and the teaching of the “woman Jezebel,” the idea that it was OK to join in fully in pagan society, no matter how idolatrous or debauched it might be. After all, Paul had said that false gods are not gods at all. But Paul was talking about buying “meat offered to idols” from the butcher's shop, and it seems that the Nicolaitans were saying it was OK to go the the pagan sacrifices. But it wasn't OK, because the gods of Greece and Rome were not gods but that didn’t' mean they were nothing – they were demons.
Ephesus was the biggest city in the area. It had its powerful temple of Artemis: remember from Acts 19 the slogan “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians”? So things could be tough for Christians there. The Church there was planted before Paul came, and had seen a revival when the work of God threatened to change the very structures of the local economy. They knew from the start that God was bigger than any other “god.” They had seen Jesus triumph over idols and were kind of hard-wired to be against any compromise with paganism. They had shown patient endurance, and perseverance under stress, and they hated the wrong teaching of the Nicolaitans.
But that had lost their first love for one another. Their hatred of wrong teaching had very subtly morphed into a hatred of “wrong people” and a hardness towards one another. And as a result, Ephesus gets the severest judgement of any of the seven churches: “unless you repent, I will come and take away your candlestick – your light will go out.” Where the church loses its first love, and stops actively showing that love to one another, the lights go out: the church ceases to be a real church and eventually ceases to function at all. As we struggle to get things right, in terms of how we live in our world, unless we love one another, we are nothing.
Smyrna had been a pro-Roman city for two hundred years or more – so was fiercely loyal to the Emperor; and it had an large Jewish population. John speaks about “the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.” He was referrign to the local Jews and, like Paul, understood that to be a true Jew was about having the heart to follow Jesus as Messiah. As a result, there were reasons why Christians might be under threat there. Looting by hostile mobs, and finding it difficult to get work because of anti-Christian discrimination, could well have caused poverty for the Christians in Smyrna.
Yet the Lord Jesus says, “know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich!” The Lord knows our circumstances, our challenges, the specific opposition the church faces in our time. And he knows how “limited” our resources are. Yet he says “you are rich”. In the midst of the confrontations and complications of life in a wee church in a wee town in West Fife, and of witnessing for Jesus in secular Scotland, it's tempting to focus on the opposition and the poverty. We need the Spirit of the Lord Jesus to show us the areas in which we are rich!
Pergamum was not such an important trading city, but it was the capital of the Roman province of Asia. As a result, it was a centre of emperor worship. Remember we learned last week about Domitian's claim to be “Lord and God”? Worshipping the emperor became a test of loyalty to Rome – so Christians were immediately at risk! Teh could't call the emperor “lord and God”. Pergamum also had a temple to Asclepius, the god of healing, and had a college for medical priests. So the Lord says “I know where you live – where Satan (the spiritual force behind the Roman empire) has his throne!
The Pergamum Church was hanging in, faithful in trials; but there were some who followed wrong teaching. The “teaching of Balaam” was the same as the teaching of the Nicolaitans, all about compromise – the idea that you could be a Christian yet go to the pagan temple and join the crowd for the sacrifices there. How we interface with the secular world, is a big issue – maybe the main issue for lots of us as individuals. When is it right to be part of a secular organisation, and when is it wrong. Should I go to my mate's stag night? Should I repost that thing on Facebook? Should I watch that TV programme, or go and see that film? Those who compromise the truth of God's word to fit in to our pagan society, will come under God's judgement. God wants us to be there, in our world, in mission. But as we become embedded in our world, we need to eb different.
Thyatira was only a trading city – no government centre, no great temples. There, the Church was hard-working, persevering, and slowly improving. But as a trading city there were a number of “trade guilds” – kind of like lodges, that you had to belong to to carry on your trade, and where pagan sacrifices, and long, drunken dinners were common. All sorts of immorality could take place at these meals. Now some in Thyatira were “tolerating the woman Jezebel” a false prophetess whose influence, like that of Jezebel of the Old Testament, was encouraging God's people to worship idols. She was bringing these messages – supposedly from God – that suggested it was OK to go to these dinners and take part in the immoral behaviour. She even had the cheek to say this was “Deep teaching” but the Lord says “it's deep teaching from Satan”. She may even have become the leader of the church and possibly even exercised a wider ministrym, maybe becoming one of the “false apostles” in v. 2.
A number of years ago Richard Foster wrote a book called “Money, Sex and Power.” He identified that these are major drivers in fallen human lives and it seems these were the things that drew Christians to take part in the trade guild feasts. When someone claims to be bringing words from God's spirit, but is encouraging God's people to indulge these three powerful drivers – someone claiming the Holy Spirit's anointing while encouraging people to dabble in false religion – you have the same evil spirit at work. The Lord says he will judge the false prophets and their followers.
Jesus has something to say to his Church today!
Within his revealed character there is something relevant to every church. If we are to be a healthy Church we need to reflect his character – sacrificial commitment, holiness, courage and love. He knows about our challenges, our context and our conduct. We can kid ourselves about how we are doing – but he knows. Jesus has something to say! He who has an ear. Let him hear.
© Gilmour Lilly September 2015
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