(Revelation) Revelation 1:19-2:29 — Zac Poonen

Revelation as a Revelation of Jesus Christ

Let's turn to God's Word. We turn today to Revelation, and Chapter 1, and Verse 19. In our last study last week, we mentioned that the first paragraph of Revelation, the first three verses, are verses that we must bear in mind throughout our study of the book.

And there we saw that it was primarily a revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the testimony of Jesus Christ, Verse 2. And it is given for us to obey, Verse 3, more than to understand. Understanding is not necessary for obedience.

For true obedience to God, we can obey even without understanding. When God gave a command to Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, He never gave them any reason. It is only the rebellious spirit in man that desires to know reason.

The trusting, childlike heart, it is enough to know that God has said. And so, the whole Word of God has been given to us for obedience, primarily. So we approach this book with the same attitude. And we turn to Revelation 1, 19.

The Threefold Division of Revelation

Last week, we considered the vision of Jesus Christ that John had, a vision that floored the Apostle John. He fell like a dead man, we read in Verse 17, and the Lord lifted him up and told him,. And then the Lord Jesus speaks to the Apostle John in Verse 19 of Revelation 1 and tells him what we can call a threefold division of the book of Revelation.

You see, we don't have to divide the book of Revelation because Jesus Christ, our Lord, has done it for us in Verse 19. He has said there, this book, or what I'm going to tell you, John, is divided into three parts.

And the three parts are, first of all, write, therefore, the things which you have seen. That is, what you have already seen. Beginning at Verse 10 of Chapter 1, he's seen the vision of Jesus Christ. The first part of the book of Revelation is the vision of the crucified and triumphant Lord.

Triumphant over sin, hell, death, the grave, and now having the keys and having all authority. We have to begin there. If we don't begin there, we can get a bit frightened as we go through the book of Revelation and also as we go through life on earth in general.

So that's the first part, and that's the most important part. Then we come to the second division of the book of Revelation, and that's described here as the things which are. That means the things which are now existing.

And that applies to this entire period from the day of Pentecost, from the time that John saw this vision, on till almost the end of the age. And that is described for us in Chapters 2 and 3. And the third division of the book of Revelation is described in Verse 19, Chapter 1, as the things which shall take place after these things.

Now, how do we know that the third section begins at Chapter 4, Verse 1? Because Chapter 4, Verse 1 begins with this phrase, After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.

That's the same phrase in Chapter 1, Verse 19, what will take place after these things. So it's pretty clear from comparing Chapter 1, Verse 19 with Chapter 4, Verse 1, that the third section of the book of Revelation begins there in Chapter 4, Verse 1.

So therefore we conclude that the things which are relate to Chapters 2 and 3. And Chapters 2 and 3 are basically the messages to seven local churches in an area called Asia Minor, which is now called Western Turkey.

The Seven Stars and Seven Lampstands

And these seven churches are pictured in Verse 20. It says, Chapter 1, Verse 20, As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels.

Now the word angel in the Greek language is a word which can also be translated as messenger. And in fact in one or two places in the New Testament it is translated as messenger. So we could correctly read it as the messengers of the seven churches.

And this seems to teach that among the elders in each local church, usually among the elders, one person among the elders was usually the one who was gifted with the word in each local church, according to God's original intention.

And that one is called the messenger of the local church. And this messenger is likened to a star. And the thing we saw last time also is the star is held in the hand of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ our Lord holds in His hand the messengers whom He has appointed in each local church.

And that is why when those messengers get up to speak God's word, they speak with the authority of God behind them, because Jesus Christ is holding them in His hand. There is a sense in which He holds all believers in His hand, but in a special way, His messengers.

And the seven golden lampstands are the seven local churches. And we mentioned last time that all these seven churches did not become one denomination. There was no such thing as denominations according to God's will in the first century.

Denominations are the work of man. It is the principle of the business world, the principle of Babylon, that has come into the Christian church. And it is not according to the word of God. Each church God intended to be a local church.

Each was a separate lampstand. In the Old Testament, they had only one lampstand. The Jews had one lampstand with seven branches, and all the Jews were one people with one high priest, one central king, one central coordinating authority.

But in the New Testament, there is no such thing as a branch of a church. Each lampstand is independent. This local church, for example, can never have a branch anywhere else in India or in the world, not even five miles outside Bangalore, if we stay according to the word of God.

Each local church is directly under the headship of Jesus Christ. That's why we see not one lampstand with seven branches, but seven separate lampstands. It's very important for us to bear this in mind, because there's a lot that depends upon it.

For example, false doctrine spreads easily when seven churches are in a denomination. But because these seven churches were separate, you find some of them were infected, but others were not. It's like infection in a system.

If it spreads in one place, it spreads all over. But if each is a separate system under the headship of Christ, one can be protected even if another one twenty miles away is corrupt. And that's what we shall see as we look through the seven churches, that they're also different.

The Church as a Lampstand of Light

Right. The other thing we see is that these churches are represented by lampstands, which means the main function of the church is described as giving light in a dark world, not a decoration. What is the purpose of a lampstand in a room?

It's not a decoration. It's a sad thing when a church becomes a decoration. The only purpose of a lampstand is to give light. When it stops giving light, it has ceased to fulfill its purpose. And when a church has stopped to give forth the light of God in the midst of a dark world, the light of purity in the midst of sin, the light of love in the midst of hatred, the light of the revelation of God in the midst of idolatry and darkness in the world around, it has ceased to fulfill its function.

When the church does not stand as a light like that, even if the church is still doing so many other things like running hospitals, running schools, doing a lot of good social work, but if it has stopped showing forth the light, and what is that light?

That light is God's word. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. The church's main function is to hold up the word of God. Social work and all that is absolutely secondary. The church is a lampstand.

Let's never forget that. Now we come to chapter 2, verse 1. There are seven churches mentioned in chapter 2 and chapter 3, and at the end of the message to each of the churches, we find this phrase, chapter 2, verse 7.

For example, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to what? We can say to all the churches. In other words, even though this particular letter, chapter 2, verses 1 to 7, is addressed to the messenger of the church in Ephesus, or to the church in Ephesus, yet it is a message, according to chapter 2, verse 7, for all the churches.

Now the apostle Paul, in the New Testament, has written letters to seven churches. To the church of the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians. So there we see the apostle Paul, he wrote letters to seven churches, and they are messages to all the churches in the twentieth century.

In the same way, the same Lord who gave a message through the apostle Paul to seven churches in that first century, has also given, through the apostle John, a second set of messages to seven churches, which are also meant to be messages to all the churches in these twenty centuries.

And that's why the number seven is a number of perfection. It applies to the whole world. Now, in these letters to the churches, we find Jesus Christ fulfilling his function, which we read in chapter 1, verse 5.

Christ the Faithful Witness

You know, the first thing mentioned about Jesus Christ in the description of Christ, in chapter 1, verse 5, is what? He is the faithful witness. Or, in other words, like a modern phrase, he tells it like it is.

He tells us exactly what he thinks of us, without touching up the photograph in any way, telling us exactly because he's got eyes like a flame of fire that sees through and through. He loves fervently, but he tells us exactly what we are like.

Where there is cause for appreciation, he appreciates. Where there is cause for rebuke, he rebukes. He is the faithful witness. And it's very important for us to see Jesus Christ like this, as one who sees us through and through.

Generally speaking, most Christians like to think of Jesus Christ as one who is more like a grandfather. See, a grandfather is not usually a faithful witness to his grandchildren, because he only gives them gifts and does good things and says nice things to them.

He doesn't rebuke them or spank them or any such thing. But Jesus Christ is not like that. He's a faithful witness telling us the truth. And he does it in love. And so we find, to all the churches, he who has eyes like a flame of fire sees through and through and tells the truth.

And each church is addressed in a special way. We read here in verse 1, to the messenger of the church in Ephesus, the message was first of all directed to the messenger, that was to the leader of the church there in Ephesus, and through him to the whole church.

And what was it? The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who holds the messengers of God in his right hand, and who walks among the seven churches. Why does he walk among the seven churches?

Because he's always examining. And we said those seven churches represent every local church across the face of the earth in all these 20 centuries. We can say Jesus is always moving around, examining.

We can be sure that Jesus Christ is moving around this church and other churches that call themselves by his name, examining everything to see if it measures up to his high calling. And what does he say?

He says this, verse 2, I know your deeds. He certainly does. We can't hide anything from him. And he's saying this in appreciation. The first thing is appreciation. So one mark of God's love for us is that he always appreciates us before he criticizes us.

Now men are not always like that. You may suddenly hear a criticism from a man who's never bothered to appreciate any good thing in you. And that's a sad thing. That shows that we haven't understood much about divine nature when we are quicker to criticize something in someone and are not quick to appreciate.

That's something we can learn from the Lord's message to these seven churches that even where he has something to criticize, he always finds something good to say where there is something good to say.

And that's a wonderful lesson for us to learn. If we want the life of Jesus in us and to partake of the divine nature, let's learn even where somebody is wrong to appreciate what is good. Yes? To appreciate what is good.

And so he begins with appreciation. And that's something we can bear in mind in another way also that it's good to have a certain rule to live by in our life that we should never criticize anyone whom we have never appreciated at any time.

Because appreciation forms the proper background on which we can write the blackboard, on which we can write the words of criticism. And they are more likely to be accepted. Verse 2. I know your deeds, your toil, your perseverance.

You cannot endure evil men. Do you see their good qualities? They were slogging away for the Lord. They were persevering. They didn't give up. They were very careful not to allow evil men to get into their midst.

That means people who were corrupt and who brought worldliness and sin into their church, they could not endure them. They disciplined them. They kept the church pure in life. And not only that, they kept the church pure in doctrine as well, we see here.

You put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. And you found them to be false. Now that teaches us that there are more than twelve apostles. Now many people think there are only twelve apostles, the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Those were the twelve Jesus chose when he was on earth. But by the time John wrote this letter, the other eleven had died. John was the only one alive. So what is the need to test a person whether he's an apostle if there were no other apostles?

There are other apostles. Jesus Christ appoints apostles. And even in the twentieth century, throughout the years, Jesus has given to some the ministry of an apostle. Like he gives the ministry of prophet, shepherd, teacher, and evangelist as well, according to Ephesians 4 verse 11.

So this church didn't... But you know, there's something we can learn here also for the days in which we live. There are some people, many people who call themselves apostles who are not apostles. So we shouldn't swallow every fellow who comes along and claims to be an apostle.

Most of them, many whom I've met, are false apostles who claim to be apostles. So this church tested these people who call themselves to be apostles, and they were very forthright. They told the man to his face, sorry, we believe you're a false apostle.

There was no diplomacy and speaking nice things. They were straightforward and upright when it came to false doctrine, when it came to evil men. And verse 3, you have perseverance. That's repeated twice.

Here's a church that really slogged away. And you have endured for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. What a wonderful church. A church which was toiling, persevering, keeping away evil men, keeping away false apostles, purity in life, purity in doctrine.

Perseverance again, enduring for the name of Jesus Christ and not growing weary. You would think this church has got everything. There are people who feel that if you've got purity in life, purity in doctrine, we've got everything.

Ephesus and the Loss of First Love

But the Lord says to this church and to the messenger who was the leader of this church, but I have this against you. And it's a pretty serious charge. It's a very serious charge. You have left your first love.

What that means is you don't love me fervently as you did in the beginning. Secondly, it also means you don't love one another as fervently as you did at the beginning. That's the charge. Oh yes, you're keeping your thought life pure, you're not gossiping, you're not backbiting, you're keeping your speech pure, you're righteous in money matters, you're paying your income tax properly, you're not allowing evil men to come into the midst, you're keeping your doctrine pure, but that fervency of devotion that you had for me once upon a time.

Remember the days when you were converted first. What devotion you had to Jesus. It's all dried up now. Now you're going through a routine of going to meetings and reading the Bible and activity. All good.

But that fervency of devotion to Jesus has gone. It has dried up. It's like a wife who's lost her love for her husband. That's the picture used. The bride and the bridegroom. Church and Christ. It's like a a wife who did everything in the house out of fervent love for her husband.

Used to cook the food and wash the clothes and look forward to her husband coming back from office and really love him. Five, ten years later she still cooks the food and washes the clothes and everything.

But it's not. It's just a routine. She's not eagerly looking forward to her husband anymore. All the activity is there. And the Lord says what do you think I have been united to you for? Is it just to cook my food and wash my clothes?

I want your devotion. I want your devotion first. You have left your first love and also your fervent love for one another which you once had. Once it was your boast that you loved one another so fervently and you stood out among the churches.

The church that fervently loved one another in the midst of so many other churches where they didn't love one another. But now that love has grown cold. It is. You've left. You haven't given up your doctrine.

You haven't given up your personal purity of life. But you've given up your first love. Is this a serious thing? Yes it is. In fact it is so serious verse five that he says you've got to remember from where you have fallen.

You have fallen. Can you imagine this is a fall? We think a man's fallen only when he's committed adultery or started going to the cinemas or gambling or drinking or something like that. No. He's fallen.

Blessed are we if our conscience is so sensitive that we recognize that when we lose that fervency of devotion to Jesus Christ and that fervency of love for one another we have fallen. We certainly have.

He who has a year verse seven let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches to all churches in all twenty centuries that when you lose your love you've virtually lost everything it's so serious that you've got to repent.

The middle of verse five. Repent that verse which we preach to the unbeliever in the gospel meeting. You repent Jesus says to the people in the church he says you repent first before you tell all the other people around you to repent.

Repent of that lack of love you had for one another. That lack of love for me and for your fellow believers and do the deeds you did at first. That means your works must once again spring out of love.

In other words the motive with which you are doing all these deeds and perseverance and toil is more important than the deeds themselves. And we shall discover in the final day when we stand before the Lord that the motive with which we served him was much more important than our service itself.

And what is going to be the punishment if the church and the leader of the church does not repent? Here it is. Else I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand out of its place. The lampstand is the church.

The Lord says I will remove this lampstand out of its place means as far as I am concerned from heaven the Lord says you will no longer be a church. But of course you will have a board outside saying the first church in Ephesus or something like that and people will still come to your meetings but as far as God is concerned He says I will no longer consider you to be a church in my eyes.

I will remove the lampstand for what sin? For what sin? For their loss of love. Blessed is the church who realizes the seriousness of it. Brothers and sisters when a local church keeping purity and doctrine and all the other wonderful standards against sin and all that loses its fervency of love for Jesus and loses the fervency of its love for one another it is in great danger as far as God is concerned of ceasing to be a church in His eyes.

That's something very important for us to bear in mind. Verse 6. But He says you've got some good qualities you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans which I also hate. Now there is no other verse in the scripture which tells us what the Nicolaitans were or who they were or what their doctrine was or what their deeds were.

So in the absence of any particular verse that teaches us what exactly they did and taught we have to try and understand it from the meaning of the word Nicolaitan. Now this is a Greek word the New Testament was first written in Greek and the word Nicolaitan is a combination of two Greek words that word L-A-I-T is the word from which we get the English word laity laity means the ordinary people Nicaeo means to conquer and it means to conquer the people the common people.

So we see that here in this church towards the end of the first century was the beginning of a certain evil seed an evil seed of certain people in the church who wanted to dominate the others a sort of special priestly class who were going to be priests in a special way in which the other believers were not going to be priests and there around 100 A .D. we see the origin of this wretched system that has led to a distinction between certain people as priests and certain people as not priests certain people as pastors and certain people as not pastors certain people as reverends and certain people as not reverends.

It began there but the Lord says you hate the deeds of those people and I also hate them. That type of desire to dominate others is something which God hates because it is like making a special mediatorial class of people a special class of people who are mediators between Jesus Christ and the common people.

It is as though Jesus Christ 1 Timothy 2 .5 who is the one mediator between God and men is not enough. We want to add a second mediator in between. Now we know that the Roman Catholic Church has got this teaching which is completely false of Mary being a second mediator between Jesus Christ and us.

But I tell you a lot of Protestant churches and Pentecostal churches have an equally false teaching when they have a pastor who has to find God's will for you. What is he? He is a sort of a second mediator too sure.

That is this Nicolaitan class of people who want to be a little above the others and don't allow the other people to come directly to Jesus Christ the head in a local church. Jesus Christ wants everyone to have a direct connection with him.

God has given different gifts in the church to teach to evangelize to be prophets and all that. But none of them must come between the individual believer and Christ. That is the thing which Jesus hates.

When a man tries to come between another soul and Jesus Christ in any way in dominating him in some way or making him dependent on my prophecies or any such thing. Jesus hates it. Let's never forget that.

And that desire to dominate others sometimes it can be through money. There are many western organizations Christian organizations that control people in India. With money God is not enough. Jesus is not enough.

You also need my money. You are dependent on me and you listen to what I say if you want to survive. Jesus hates that we are never to dominate others with our gift or with money or any other way because Jesus has called every one of us to be servants.

And is there somebody who is very great in the church then he must be the servant of all Jesus says so Jesus hates those who are Nicolaitans and he says as far as you are concerned you hate them in the church.

In Ephesus they were not there they were driven out. He says he doesn't say they were there in your midst but they were there in some of the other churches and he says you have kept them out and I am very proud of you for that verse 7 he who has a year let him hear what the spirit says to all the churches.

Now all the things we have just considered is what the Holy Spirit is saying to all the churches in every century. But he also recognizes one very important thing that out of all the people who are sitting in each church they will not all have a year to hear.

It's not that they are deficient in hearing and are deaf. No but that they don't have a spirit that's willing to do what God wants them to do. They want to have their own way. That's what it means. But the one who has a year to hear the overcomers to him who overcomes I will grant you eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.

Smyrna: Faithfulness Through Suffering

And so we see here that in the church there is a group of people who are called the overcomers. These are people who have conquered these things that we see are where the church comes short of God's standard.

For example in the midst of the church in Ephesus the overcomers would be those who keep their love burning in the midst of all the other people who have lost their love. In a local church where we find people are going down from God's standards there must be a group of people who stand for God's standards who keep their love burning.

Those are the overcomers who overcome sin who overcome this losing of the first love and keep it burning. And so we see that right through the seven churches Jesus Christ is dealing primarily with the overcomers.

Revelation chapter 2 verse 8 to 11 is the message of the Lord to the second church. Now out of the seven churches there are only two churches against which the Lord has no charge at all no rebuke. One is this church in Smyrna and the other is another one called Philadelphia which we'll come to later on.

But this church in Smyrna is a wonderful church. There are many good things and not one single bad thing spoken about this church. Notice what he says the first and the last the one who was dead and the Lord says I'll tell you what I think about these so-called believers who oppose you.

They are a synagogue of Satan who said that Jesus doesn't use strong words. That Jesus doesn't give strong messages. Imagine calling a group of believers a synagogue of Satan. Boy that's strong stuff.

If some preacher preached that today we'd call him un-Christlike. Well Jesus himself is un-Christlike. From that point of view we've got a wrong idea of Jesus. It's another Jesus here is the one who says here is a church that's suffering that's poor but it's spiritually rich but it is slandered.

And this wonderful phrase which we find many times coming in the word of God do not be afraid. Wonderful. I really believe more than anything else we need to hear that word of Jesus for the coming days.

Do not be afraid. I want to tell you my dear brothers and sisters what I have observed in many many believers. I would say in most believers there is a spirit of fear. Many believers even believers who have an understanding of the new and living way have not been freed from the spirit of fear and the spirit of timidity.

Fear of Satan fear of the future fear of human being fear of various types of people and fear of fellow believers also and if we do not radically work out our salvation with a true godly fear and trembling from this fear I want to tell you we will never be able to be what God wants us to be on earth.

There is a song that we sing Lord help me to be on this earth. What you want me to be I will tell you very clearly you will never be what God wants you to be unless you completely get rid of the spirit of fear and timidity.

We got to fight it. Particularly the fear of people. For example very often the spirit of prophecy in the church is restricted by the spirit of fear and timidity. I believe that in many churches where God wants to move powerfully the spirit of timidity and fear comes upon people and the devil fools him that that's humility.

And then fear of the future fear of what people are going to do to you and harm you. And if you witness for Jesus what will happen. Why do you think there are so few believers who are willing to be bold witnesses for Jesus Christ in their office and in their factory.

They're afraid they won't get their promotion. They're afraid in various ways to let other people know that I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ what is it. Even people who say they are baptized in the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues there's a spirit of fear that grips them.

They're very bold in the church. Like Peter in the midst of the other disciples he could say oh if all men deny you I will not deny you but let him get into the midst of unbelievers. And even a little servant girl is enough to keep this mighty fisherman's mouth shut.

And so it is with many believers who sit in their offices and nobody in that office knows this person is a wholehearted disciple of Jesus Christ. Why is that true in your case my dear friend. Then I just want to say it is the spirit of fear.

I don't want to say this to condemn you. I just want to say that God doesn't want you to live under that bondage. He wants you to be free. He wants you to be free. I know what it is like. Because I've had that spirit of fear.

Myself and I. Thank God Jesus has freed me from it. We are to be.

Bold to let everyone know that we are disciples of Jesus. And if we suffer for it it's worth suffering. For that that's the best thing worth suffering. For don't be afraid what you're about to suffer.

That's a word we need to hear. Behold the devil is about to cast some of you into prison. Yes some of you will be put into prison. That you may be tested. But even that prison will only be used by God to test you.

Wonderful that God can use even an imprisonment to test us. And you will have tribulation for 10 days. So we see God allows us to have tribulation. God doesn't protect us from suffering. There is a false gospel that's going around the world nowadays which teaches that if you really have faith you'll never suffer anything.

I want to tell you that's a lie because Jesus Christ suffered more than anyone else the apostles all suffered. There's a false gospel that goes around saying that if you if you have faith you'll become rich.

That's a lie. Because Jesus wasn't rich. Paul wasn't rich. Peter wasn't rich. They had more faith than any of us sitting here or any of the other other fellows who speak about that today. No you will have tribulation in the world you will have tribulation.

Jesus said that in John 16 verse 33. In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. So we shall have difficulties in the world. Those who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

But notice the restriction there you will have it only for ten days. The Lord says I'm in control of the knob and I know when to turn it down and I know when it's when to bring it down to zero. I am in control.

And even when you go through that tribulation and you're in prison I am going to put a time limit to it. Praise God for that that Jesus Christ has. Jesus Christ puts a time limit on our suffering. He will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability but with the temptation will give us grace to overcome it.

So that's a wonderful thing there that he puts a time limit on that tribulation. And he says you've only got to be faithful. Be faithful unto death even if you have to die for it. Be faithful. My dear brothers and sisters if we are not willing to boldly proclaim Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord in our office and factory today how will we stand up for him in the day of persecution.

Will we really confess it boldly when we are concerned about a little thing like a promotion or little reproach from some fellow in the office we really need to be ashamed of ourselves a little more in this area.

Be faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life which is far better than any earthly promotion. He who has a year. Not everybody has a year to hear. This people are still interested in their in the honor of men in their earthly promotions and so many things like that all right.

You can go your way. But the few overcomers he who has a year to hear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. There is a first death and there is a second death.