We are moving into Revelation 2, and we are looking at the seven churches of Asia which were in modern day Turkey. The book of Revelation obviously has a wider audience, including all Christians of all times, but these seven churches were the immediate audience.
So, there are seven churches here in this region. They were in close proximity, but they are very different. Every church here is very different, and of course that would be true of churches today. We have many churches in our Springfield area. Every church has its own personality and strengths and weaknesses. Some are very strong, and some are very weak. So, every church is different. As I read through these specific chapters about these churches, I often ask myself, what if the Lord was writing to our church, Southern View Chapel? If He were to take the time to write a message to us and write six to eight verses like He did to these churches, I wonder what He would say. I think He would point out some good things and some not so good things and some means of changing and so forth. Sometimes we are blind to our own concerns, our own needs, and our own areas of weakness. So, I wonder what the Lord would say to our church. With that in mind, we want to go into this humbly. We want to be looking at all the things we can learn from these messages to these seven churches. On most occasions, I’ll just do one church at a time. Maybe this time as we look at the very first one and set up the program so to speak, I will take a couple of days to look at Ephesus which is the leading church of this region. It gets a lot of play in the New Testament. We have a whole book of Ephesians written to the church of Ephesus. We have people like Paul and Timothy and others who have ministered there. It was a very powerful church. Paul spent three years at Ephesus teaching the Word of God and giving the gospel. From Ephesus, the Word of God spread through all regions, and it probably was the original church in the area and all these other churches founded based upon Paul’s ministry there at Ephesus. So, it is a very important church.
As we look at these messages to the seven churches, they break down into six divisions. Every one of them, more or less, follows this pattern:
Character of Christ: Christ is the one speaking and each message provides the descriptions or character of Christ that can be seen if we go back to Revelation 1.
Commendation: The church is provided a commendation as the Lord commends the churches for what they are doing well.
Condemnation: This is where the church is shown their errors within the church and the things that need to be changed.
Correction: Christ doesn’t just condemn them without giving them the solution. He tells them how they can change.
Consequence: After the church is told where their errors lie, and given their course of correction, they are given a warning of consequence if they choose to ignore the message given to them.
Challenge: Finally, the Lord gives a challenge to that church.
So that is pretty much the pattern we will be looking at each time. So, with that background, let’s jump into the message to the church of Ephesus . . .
