wildernessVoice

Okay, so I am still trying to complete my section on Revelation 4:1-11. All of the parsing, etc. is done. But come on, when you’re dealing with creatures with eyes all around, it’s hard to simply blits through it. I find my mind being exercised in a way that makes it tough to concentrate. Perhaps this is primarily due to the coding work I’m trying to work on in my “other” life. For anyone who cares, I’m finishing up some drivers for a highly modified Linux-2.6.16 kernel. Then I have some application work on top of that work. And on and on. Since most of the readers of my blog are non-technical, I’ll let this level of details stand. Feel free to ask more questions if you happen to be an exception.

So, when I finished getting the new site up and running and fixed all the broken links to the Revelation study, I realized I had never done a summary post for a couple of the earlier sections. I’d like to eventually get all of the study covered via this type of post, in addition to the detailed pages where I break things down verse by verse.

Without further delay, let’s look at a church that appears to be misunderstood. Let’s look at the church at Ephesis. This once mighty church is addressed in Revelation 2:1-7 by Christ.

Now, when I previously lived in the fundamental Baptist circles, I use to get quite annoyed whenever someone would come and use this particular passage of scripture for his message. Why is that? Primarily because this passage is typically used as a spring board or as a battering ram for messages concerning Soul-Winning.

You see, most folks, when they recall this passage, they remember the rebuke these elders received for having left their first love. They typically don’t even cover the other verses leading up to this, so it’s tough for them to forget the context. They never had it.

As is customary for all of the individual church addresses in Revelation, this letter is addressed to the elders of the church. And while the contents of the letter were intended for its specific audience, the letter was to be included in this book for all of the other churches to also read. This is important for us for numerous reasons, though I’ll only elaborate on a couple.

Popular teaching has taken these addresses and turned them from literal to allegorical. In other words, they’re not viewed as literal commendations and rebukes to several churches, but as vague descriptions of various church ages. And based on these teachings, the common view is that we are currently living in the Laodicean age. What a bunch of garbage.

These are in fact literal addresses as I’ve already said and as the Lord declared. Hey, don’t believe me, but you better believe Christ or re-check your salvation. They’re important to us because they provide examples of churches that understood doctrine and applied it accurately, as well as churches that didn’t quite understand and made various blunders. As such, they help us to remove some of the guess work in terms of interpretation of imperatives and prioritization of our work here.

John is of course the scribe and messenger of this message and he begins in verse 2 with an understanding of this church’s circumstances. “I know your works, and your hardships, and your perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate foul ones; and put to the test the ones alleging to be apostles and are not, and found them liars.”

Let’s back up just a tad to cover a few basics. Who does this church belong to? Christ, right? And what did the Lord tell his disciples was “the great commandment”? They were to love the Lord God will all their heart, soul, mind and spirit. And do you recall what was the 2nd greatest commandment? That’s right. We’re to also love our neighbor as ourselves. But who else are we to love? After all this covers quite a bit. In other passages, we’re told to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. And these are our brothers in the local body as well as within the universal church. We’re to love all of the children of God. And there’s one more… We’re to even love our enemies.

Now that we’ve got those basics covered, let’s go back to verse 2. Christ empathizes with them. After all, so much wonderful doctrine has come out of the letter from Paul to this church, and it wasn’t in the form of rebuke. So, Christ is giving acknowledgement of this. And he acknowledges their perseverance in doctrine, in the faith, and their subsequent distaste for anything contrary.

But this last phrase should catch our attention. He also notes that they put certain people to the test, who were calling themselves apostles. Hmm. Sounds noble enough. Right? Well, if we peruse the rest of the verses, we find a call to remember where they ran a ground (v.5). Now, the fact they’re not around any longer might suggest they didn’t quite catch the hint tossed to them.

Now, remember how we were discussing that these letters were to be made public? There’s pretty good reason for, and not just for our sake. If the elders in Ephesis had considered what took place at Philadelphia, they’d have seen some commonality. “Behold, I will give up from the synagogue of Satan the ones saying themselves to be Jews and are not but lie. Behold I will make them in order that they will come and bow down before your feet and that they might know I, I loved you [Rev 3:7-13].”

In both cases, they had those walking amongst them professing to be believers, professing to be teachers of God’s truths. But do notice the difference in their actions towards these folks.

Those in Philadelphia held to the truth and never departed from it. And they had some form of power within them, though we’re really not told what it was. Personally, I do believe they exercised prayer for their enemies and for such false teachers. And perhaps this is the power referred to. As a result of their walk, Christ promised to take matters into his own hands. He promised to make them to bow down and to know of his love for them.

Now examine the actions of those in Ephesis. What did they do? Sure they kept to doctrine. But then they sought out these individuals with the purpose of exposing them. And they succeeded didn’t they?

Here’s the deal. As joint-heirs with Christ, we have a wonderful inheritance and truth. And we’re to be faithful to this truth at all costs. Likewise, we’re to expose error, false doctrine and heresy. We’re even told to mark certain individuals who preach such things.

Now, Paul dealt with such practitioners of false doctrine in his letter to the Galatians. He proclaimed that such individuals were even accursed. But that’s about it. He spends the rest of his time proclaiming what is sound doctrine and not going around naming each false teacher. I would imagine the folks in Philadelphia did much of the same.

One of the problems I have witnessed amongst some of the reformed churches, that’s almost the polar opposite of what I’ve seen amongst many of the fundamentalists, is a complete lack of love and compassion for one another, for anyone outside the local body, and for those in their community. Now, I’m not for a second trying to suggest that the “love everyone at the expense of sound doctrine” practice is any better. It yields its own poisonous fruit. But we manifest our faith in our love for one another and for others. And loving is not the same as tolerating and condoning. But our responsibility is to hold and proclaim truth. And we only have credibility within the world when we discharge such responsibilities in the context of that love, which can only come from a regenerated life.

Let us keep this in mind and learn from the example of this once mighty church. Let us lovingly exhort and admonish one another. And let’s never have an excuse for showing hatred towards anyone. After all, we are not Christ and are thusly incapable of practicing such in righteousness.

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