First Love Relinquished
We read this address to Ephesus with feelings akin to those in which we read the solemn question addressed to the man in the garden, “Where art thou?” It is the death-knell of the pillar and ground of the truth. “These things saith He that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.” Oh, what maintaining and sustaining power there was in Him, if they had but kept close to His holy Person! Nothing else had been needed on their parts. “As the Father hath loved Me, and I also have loved you: abide in My love. If ye shall keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” This is how He had plighted His troth to her for whom He was in a few hours to lay down His life; and His parting request was, Abide in My love. He had been faithful unto death, in death, beyond death. He abideth faithful. He is the faithful and true, and He comes to say that she has left her first love.
First works gone too! No wonder! Works apart from Christ have no value in themselves. It is only as they spring from a real, constant, devoted, personal affection to the adorable Person of the Lord, that works have any divine meaning at all. It is His Person alone, that can call forth any kind of work that He can own. “Except ye abide in ME, ye can do nothing.” It was entirely of His grace when things were bad beyond retrieval that He gave a glimpse of His beauty to Philadelphia, shining from heaven upon her in her filth and rags, as He did to Saul in the filth of his righteousness, and making her to hear His faithful voice after eighteen hundred years, saying, “I have loved thee.” Yes, every step of that weary journey, every moment of that dreary interval, has He been waiting, watching, and expecting. All for her sake who soon forgat Him! Oh, He is a faithful lover. He could have taken His great power and reigned long and long ago. He could have gathered Israel and fulfilled all His gracious promises to Abraham, His friend; but His heart would not consent. He would wait for her. His love had been stronger than death for her: His patience should be stronger than death also―it should outlast all her departure. If He had waited for Rachel seven years and been disappointed, He would wait seven years more, but He would not give her up. He has let out the secret of His love to Philadelphia in telling her she had kept the word of His patience. Mark it well―not that she had been patient, but that she had believed (kept the word of) His patience. Shall we ever grasp the extent of His faithful, patient, abiding love? Never. But it abides; and although He has thus to remind her of her departure, see how love imputes everything it can think of to her advantage, even patience twice cited: “For My name’s sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.” Who that has got a heart divinely stirred, can fail to recognize His intense affection, notwithstanding His eyes of fire pierce her through and through as to the weakened spring that will ultimately ruin her outward testimony to His name?
And remember. He does not say I have “somewhat.” The Holy One tones down nothing. The “faithful and true” never compromises faithfulness and truth. He tells her what He sees, and we know His record is true.
Tribulation. Poverty.
He who is the first and the last has in His own person, experienced every kind of suffering it is possible for His saints to endure, even unto death! If they are faithful unto death, He who has passed through death, and is now the Living One, will give to them the crown of life.
“I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty (but thou art rich).” What a contrast to Laodicea, who says, “I am rich”; but of whom the Lord says, “Thou art poor”! It is only through the same kind of poverty as “His poverty” that we can be accounted “rich.” “Ye know the grace,” do you not? (2 Cor. 8:99For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)).
Their afflictions were threefold; personal― for the persecutions wore them out with suffering; relative―they had to endure the spoiling of their goods; religious―Babylon came in with her blasphemous doctrines to heathenize Christianity, and to foist a heathen priesthood on them under the guise of Judaism. This is what is meant by the term “Synagogue of Satan,” “They say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie.” It was not simply the mistake of men who would confound or mingle Christianity with Judaism, from not knowing the distinctive character of each in the Word; it was Satan using Judaism as a blind, to introduce heathenism, which worships himself. It was an old device. Moses set up―by the word of the Lord―a serpent of brass. When it had served its purpose, Satan got hold of it, and it had to be destroyed as Nehushtan, for the people were burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:55He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. (2 Kings 18:5)). It is just the same today; hence the allusion to the synagogue of Satan to Philadelphia. In the Jewish ritual of those who sport with Popery, what more common device than a cross? This is the essential sign of heathenism, and was never a Christian symbol. Constantine introduced it when Pagan Rome became Papal Rome. Its signification to the heathen was male and female element in deity; it is found on Phoenician monuments 1600 years before Christ; it was the monogram of Osiris and Jupiter Ammon; it is marked on the garments of the Egyptian priests, and on the calves of Thebes. The Assyrians used the Maltese form of cross. It may be seen in the British Museum on Samei Vul, king of Assyria, B.C. 825. God uses Satan’s power, acting through the world’s hostility, for two ends, first, to exercise the divine life in a saint; secondly, to hinder further departure from the Lord. How wondrously was Satan used of God for blessing in Job’s case! Paul gets a messenger of Satan, that Christ’s grace and power may rest upon him. God may use Satan as a rod, too, but he cannot touch a hair of the head beyond what is allowed.
Deceit and violence are Satan’s methods (Ps. 72:14). These will characterize his dealings in the Crisis week. In this church he tries violence, reserving deceit more particularly for the next.
The ten persecutions, occupying 250 years, A.D. 64 to 313, were under the ten emperors, Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus, Severus, Maximin, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian. It was under the last that the grand effort of Satan was made to exterminate truth, Christians, Scriptures, everything bearing Christ’s name. A supreme effort was made to wipe it out of existence. For ten years this bitterest of all bitter persecutions lasted, and for a moment success seemed assured, for medals were struck to celebrate it. But Galerius, son-in-law of Diocletian, and the moving spirit of most of this wickedness, died by the hand of God in fearful tortures in the manner of Herod, confessing at the last his mistake, and asking forgiveness.
False Doctrine. Gnosticism.
Pergamos means “a tower.” After Babylon ceased to be a world-power, the secret societies holding direct communication with the powers of darkness transferred their operations into other lands, one outcome of which was the establishment of Buddhism. But the headquarters of the system was at Pergamos. Hence the expression “Where Satan’s throne is.” The Chaldean Priest-King, Attalus III., bequeathed his titles to Rome, but the conditions could not be fulfilled. At length Julius Cæsar, being both Pontifex and Imperator, Babylon became identified with Rome, and has remained so to this day. Pergamos―the strong citadel of Satan, stands in contrast to the Lord, of whom it is written, “Thou hast been a refuge for me, a strong tower from the enemy” (Ps. 61:3).
It was under this era that the Church was taught to regard the conversion of the world as the realization of the Millennium. At the same period heathen festivals were associated with Christian events. Dec. 25th was the heathen celebration of the birth of the Sun-god. The Gnostics were unwearied mediators between Paganism and careless Christianity; their object ever was to divide what was divinely joined, or to blend what was divinely separated. They divided the divinity and humanity of Christ; they blended Christianity with Judaism or the world. The Lord speaks to this church as “He that hath the sharp sword with two edges,” for it is only by the Word of God that these perversions of Satan are dealt with.
The Lord appreciated the fact that notwithstanding they lived where Satan’s throne and dwelling were, they held fast His name, and did not deny His faith. Antipas had even died rather than relinquish it.
Nevertheless, it is a fearful thing to listen to the seductions of Balaam. The Lord may cause trial to purify His saints, but He never brings evil doctrine to tempt them. Satanic subtlety took the place of persecution, which had failed, and the effort was now to associate Christians with the world, so that they might come under its judgment. Balaam is when the natural man comes in to deal with the things of God. God may use a man in a certain way, as He did Saul, as He does even Satan; but the end is always disaster to those who are ministered to. The natural man cannot lead to God, whom he does not know for himself. His object, too, is gain for himself, not gain to others solely.
“So also thou hast them that hold the doctrines of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.” If Balaam destroys by bringing in the world, Nicolaitanism uses the flesh in us in like manner. Nothing is more common in us all than to make the very privilege of the position which we as Christians occupy, to give a warrant or license to take liberties. Instead of having more freedom, more independence of judgment, because we are Christ’s; we are, on the contrary, to use our freedom and liberty the more in subjection to Him. To connect fleshliness with spirituality is lawlessness of the worst kind. The lawlessness of the natural man is lawlessness before God; the lawlessness of the Christian is lawlessness to Christ. Can Christ do other than hate that?
“Repent,” He says; I will come to you quickly, if you do not; I will make short work of it with you; I will fight against you with the Word which ought to be your comfort and joy.
Popery. Mystic Babylon.
Thyatira is Christianity heathenized. In her the Church, the bride of Christ, finds a correlative in the harlot, Satan’s counterfeit. Hence she stands in the midst of the seven. The first three culminate in her; the last three spring from her. She is the embodiment of the first three by the following process (1,) Decline from the Person of Christ; (2,) Synagogue of Satan; (3,) Throne of Satan; (4,) Idolatry. From her springs (5,) Death with a name to live; (6,) Out of death God raises a people for His Son; (7,) The residue is spewed out. The last four, therefore, go on to the end (the Crisis), but with this distinction: Thyatira is judged as the Church, the idolatrous outcome of Satan’s power and religion when the Lord was lost sight of. Sardis is judged as the world, from which she differs nothing but in name. Philadelphia God’s resurrection out of the dead for the glory of Christ, is rapt up into heaven out of the way of judgment, while Laodicea is terminated as a vomit to express what can be only so expressed. If we grasp therefore, what Thyatira is in its own and two previous aspects, it is entirely Satanic, and is really Satan’s harlot put forth to travesty Christ’s bride. No wonder, then, that mystic Babylon, as representing Babylon in the Church aspect, gets such a prominent place in the judgments of the Apocalypse; city Babylon being the world aspect of this monster machinery of iniquity. The name “Thyatira” means “One unwearied in presenting sacrificial offerings.” In her, Satan has found his masterpiece of insult to the ONE offering. In respect to worship, she is Satan’s synagogue. In respect to power, she is Satan’s throne. The Son of God judges her.
There was considerable devotedness in the Middle Ages, spite of darkness; those who loved the Lord were characterized by much self-denying service.
Thyatira, by Jezebel, became really heathen, though retaining Christianity as a cloak. Jezebel was not a daughter of Abraham, but a princess of idolatrous Tyre, of a family infamous for cruel savagery, and devotion to Baal and Astarte. Her father was a priest of Astarte (Venus). The Gnostics brought in these Pagan abominations, in which sorcery and witchcraft were not wanting.
Jezebel is a large advance on Balaam doctrine, and really the result of it. Here a Pagan prophetess is found committing fornication with Christ’s servants, and bringing forth children of adultery. Idolatry becomes rampant, and the depths of Satan in full exercise. “And I will kill her children with death.” Sardis is a proof of it. “And all the churches shall know,” for all, or nearly all, have put priesthood, under the guise of ministry, between the soul and Christ. God having taught the saints that they are one with Christ, whoever puts anything between―law, priesthood, philosophy―virtually denies the truth of Christianity. He who trieth the reins and hearts will apportion to each their share in this complicity with evil. Thyatira really closes the public history of the Church. Philadelphia is no return to anything. It is God’s sovereign grace witnessing of what has been departed from.
Form Without Power.
Sardis begins quite a different phase of things from Thyatira, though sprung from it. “Sardis” is a Lydian word signifying “newborn,” or “renewed.” It may thus convey the aspect called the Reformation, which was a loud protest against Popery, and so far a great good. But there was no coherence, no holding the Head (Christ), now that the false head (the Pope) had been relinquished. And so a multitude of sects sprung up, each finding a guiding power in a minister, instead of the guidance of the Holy Ghost. And so, Christianity became a powerless name, inert, dead; for if not a witness of Christ, What? Hence Sardis is judged as the world; Thyatira as the Church.
“The seven Spirits of God” refers to the Spirit of God’s fullness of power in His various perfections, not only in the external Church, but in the world. “The seven stars” as that which represents the external Church belonging to Christ. Sardis put them, as it were, into the hands of the powers that be, or worse still, made the Church itself the possessor. Confidence should be in what Christ is for the Church.
“A name that thou livest.” A religious reputation is one of the worst evils which can befall a saint, especially if, laboring devotedly, he is found gathering a circle round himself. Christ is the only true object to gather to, and it is a solemn consideration that all work that does not gather to Him is only dead work. His glory, His interests, His people, His coming, His kingdom, His God and Father; all these have in them vitality to the one ministering them, as well as containing vitality for those ministered to.
The respectable religiousness of Protestantism may pass muster with the world, but before God it is dead.
Great as the ruin is, the remedy would not be found in despair, but in watchfulness, to strengthen the things that remain, ready to die; like plants neglected, and left without water. With God all things are possible, and obedience to the direction here given leads to Philadelphia. It is just like the revival in Israel in the days of Josiah. It was not something new brought in, but the strengthening of what was possessed but had been forgotten. This is what follows:
“Remember.” Remember what? What you have received and heard. Go to the Word; hear what God says. Never mind what man has made of it, but get the real thing, pure at the Source; and, having got it, HOLD IT FAST at all costs, and act upon it. This is to repent. But suppose you will not exercise the watchfulness here suggested, what then? You will be treated as the world. He will come upon you as a thief. He tells you so here, to warn you; for it is a terrible warning. There is another terrible warning to Laodicea, about their nakedness being exposed; and, solemn to say, He seems further on to couple them together. Listen to His voice just after three unclean spirits have gone out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet: “Behold, I come as a thief” [Is that to Sardis?] “Blessed is he that watches” [Is that to Sardis?] “and keeps his garments, that he may not walk naked, that they may not see his shame” [Is that to Laodicea?] The rapture will have taken place long before this Revelation 16:15,15Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. (Revelation 16:15) but how remarkable that these words should be uttered then. When are they fulfilled? And why warn Sardis and Laodicea in these words?
Love to the Person of Christ
Philadelphia is a special blessing to meet a special need. It is when the world and the church have arrived at a state of felt darkness, that a few are raised up to be a testimony. Light in the Lord to those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Philadelphia means “brotherly love,” but love to brethren, on Christ as a center; and with those who keep His word, and do not deny His name, is the only real Philadelphia.
“He that is holy, he that is true,” is the only standard by which a true estimate can be formed.
Christ, personally ruling the affections of the heart, causes light to the soul.
When we get the Spirit’s testimony to Christ, the heart clings to Him; and having found Him in the Word connected with all that is holy, all that is true, yea, that He is the holy One, and the true One, one is satisfied. Having Him that is from the beginning, development is not needed.
It gives wonderful confidence to know that He holds the key. None could shut out His testimony, none can shut out ours while He holds the key and sets before us the opened door; for we cannot open one ourselves, any more than one could be shut which He has opened.
That which characterizes the saints of this church is the written Word of God bringing Christ’s character and name as truth and holiness into the heart, and thus (walking in fellowship with “Him that is holy and Him that is true”) they are safe.
“I know thy works.” Nothing to remark on this. He would have said something had it been necessary.
Is Christ’s approbation sufficient for me, and sufficient to govern my conduct?
“Lord, ‘tis enough; I want no more.”
Weakness without reproach from the Lord, is better far than the gifts at Corinth, with blame for not knowing how to use them aright.
His strength is made perfect in weakness, but weakness without God becomes unbelief.
When Christ was on earth, every one sought to shut the door on Him; Pilate, Herod, scribes, Pharisees, and the whole nation. Christ, like Philadelphia, was in the midst of an order of things once instituted by God, but that had utterly failed.
“Little strength,” but in connection with the Source of all strength.
God answers our weakness according to His own strength.
“I” will make them know that I have loved “THEE,” both specially emphatic in the Greek. Happy to be thus honored by having our name linked with His!
“The synagogue of Satan” is a religion of the flesh that rests in outward things, works, ordinances, and the like.
Keeping the word of Christ’s patience is what characterizes Philadelphia.
Keeping the word of His patience preserves from the temptation of these perilous times, neither is the coming hour of temptation fen those whose citizenship is in heaven, from whence they are looking for the Savior. This is for earth dwellers, who share the earth’s punishment, and who find the earth too sore a torment to cling to any longer “I come quickly.” Aye do, Lord, and give the grace to hold fast for Thee; for our crown is Thine! “A pillar in the temple of MY God. The name of MY God. The name of the city of MY God, New Jerusalem, that cometh down out of heaven from MY God, and MY new name.” Could He give more? Yes, He gave HIMSELF.
Self-Complacency
The Church having failed to add yea and amen to God’s provision of grace, Christ becomes the Amen.
The Church also having failed to be the witness of the Christ of God, as revealed in the Word, Christ must supplant it with His own testimony as the Faithful and True.
The Church also having failed to exhibit His prerogative as Head of the New Creation, losing sight of “the beginning.” Christ takes up that title in respect to it.
“Neither cold nor hot.” Negativeness; Christianity with a Christ of man’s imagination; not the Christ of God. No fault humanly, but not right divinely. Had been fervent in spirit, but now cooling down through philosophy and vain deceit. Better be nothing than present Christ falsely. Better to quarrel with Peter than to dissemble with him.
The corruption of the best thing is the worst of corruptions. Nothing on the face of the earth so opposed to God as professing Christianity.
“I will spue thee out.” This should come home with more sorrow to the heart than the judgment of Antichrist himself, because here it is Christ expressing His loathing, His disgust, His abhorrence, of that which has professed to stand in connection with, and as representative of, Himself. There is a solemn word in Leviticus 18:28,28That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. (Leviticus 18:28) where Israel is warned that the land should spew her out, as it had spewed out its inhabitants before her.
It is final and complete judgment, no escape whatever; and the reason is plain. Antichrist has no place but by perversion of the truth. There must come a falling away first, before the Man of Sin is revealed. A falling away is not from error, but from truth, Apostasy is from doctrines of Christianity; there is nothing else of God to apostatize from.
Man’s estimate of himself: Rich; increased with goods; needing nothing. God’s estimate: Wretched; miserable; poor; blind; naked. True riches, gold tried in the fire; durable clothing, white raiment of His provision. But the eyes must be divinely prepared to see what is divine. Human intelligence in the things of God is the most disastrous knowledge. It not only falsifies what is true, but it gives fallen man a standing that he can accept, a religion that involves no sacrifice of self, and becomes no sacrifice to cast off.
“As many as I love.” Ah, blessed Lord, that is where Thine heart is. Having loved Thine own that were in the world, Thou lovedst them unto the end. Chastening and rebuke are but proofs of Thy love. Couldst Thou have Thy people unlike Thee? unfit for Thee? unworthy of Thee? and Thy return so near, too! No wonder Thou art urgent on them. Haste thee, escape, O Lot, “I cannot do anything till thou be come thither.”
“Be zealous therefore, and repent.” Not only repent, but do your diligence about it. Say not, There is plenty of time; say not, There are so many friends to leave who are orthodox, and therefore all right. See you not an alarming portent? Do you not see that the door is shut, and that the Lord and Master is outside the house? He reminds you of the fact; He says He is standing there and knocking, that He may remind you. It will be too late if yet remain longer. Hear, and obey.