Revelation Revealed Series

THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST [CHAPTER 2]

Revelation Chapter 2 pt 1

PASSOVER BLOOD IS OVER THE DOOR…..now it  is about removing the leaven.

Each of the 7 letters are made up of: An introduction, the state of the Church, and the promises to those who overcome. The present state has to do with “The things which are”. The promises with “The things which shall be after these.” The remainder of the vision, chapters 4-22, give the startling realities of the revealed future as it relates to these threats and promises to those of this and that present 2000 year old now closing Age. 

VERSE 1  John is directed to write unto the appointed Angel of Ephesus. That this Messenger may represent a human leader in every church is very possible, but additionally, is it so very difficult to imagine that as Angels were involved in man’s fall, that they would be charged with responsibilities in our reconstitution? What can be understood from Scripture is that Angels have always been very active in man’s history, from the Garden of Eden into future eternity. The World in general and specifically in the Church, or Body of people born again, have always had God-directed angelic authority involved, mostly invisibly in their affairs.

Abraham conferred with them; Daniel reveals an invisible battle within the heavenlies (not in Heaven, but in the first heaven just above the earth) between good and evil angelic forces. A battle that points towards that future all out war in that first heaven seen in Revelation chapter 12.

Jesus reveals they have much to do with children. And in administering His authority in the Earth, (Matthew 13:41), and after we die. (Luke 16)  The Book of Hebrews (chapter 1 verse 14)reveals there are multitudes of Angels appointed/commissioned as ministering spirits GREEK- because-of THE ones-beING-ABOUT TO-BE-tenantING ones-being-about to-be-enjoying-the-allotment of salvation.

Read Mark 13:34. It may give us a clue to their many duties. For they are the appointed watching “porters”. (Greek- doorkeepers) Here is a great example of that delegation of responsibility and authority to both the “servants” of the Lord, and to Angels of the Lord.  Much of answered prayers, such as “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil”,  are the “porters” guarding and directing our way in accordance with God’s directing Word to them.

To see Christ walking among the Candlesticks in the Holy Place, is to see Him in His Heavenly Sanctuary Ministry of High Priest typed by Melchizedek (Priest and King) examining and directing His Body here through revealing Words and in ordering earthly events accordingly.

It is well established here in chapters 2  & 3 that the Church and each of its members’ lives and future are not in the hands of some earthly ruler, but in their own and Christ’s.

VERSE 2   “I know thy works” is a statement used in most of the Churches.  An earthly judge might say: “I am acquainted with the facts of the case”. Here we see the thoroughness of the Heavenly Judge as He examines all our works, labors, and heart attitude. “You have been patient….labored for my name’s sake, and had not fainted… and thou canst bear those who are evil”….Scripture reveals to us we are not to judge those outside the Church, so this is the reference to their faithfulness to cull out the wicked from among them. [1Corinthians 5]

They tried the false prophets and found them to be liars.

VERSE 4 Jesus commends but we see He sets the bar high, He is looking for all leaven of soul to be removed. “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” The Lord is not satisfied with just our coming into saving knowledge of Him. He expects patience, love and for us to not only maintain but to progress in our works, and labor.  Jesus is jealous of our affections. The church and angel are called upon to repent in 5 out of the 7 churches, each for something different….cooling in love, entertaining false doctrines, evil acts, unwatchfullness, and presumptuous boasting.

The lampstands which Jesus walked among in the Heavenly Tabernacle represent an appointed faithful body of witnesses. The threat of not repenting was not eternal death, but their appointment would be removed and thereby they would lose the future kingdom position. 

VERSE 5 The threat was similar to that of Jews. They held the privilege and promise of a kingdom coming, but when God expected fruit there was none and their “candlestick” was removed. There was a time of comfort and solace and longsuffering for His appointed people, but then came the message of REPENT lest you lose what is yours. It was not a message of mercy or forgiveness, but a demand on a responsible group who should have been long since established and was found wanting.

The tenor of Jesus Christ’s Words to the churches is one of expectation for fruit, not a message of comforting mercy and grace. The Church had fallen from its high state of zeal and enthusiasm in the living faith of a  kingdom coming when Paul wrote to them, and now as Jesus addresses them, they are more or less just going through the motions in rote Christian ritual.

The Christian Church’s continuation was always tenuous as seen in Christ’s predictive Words of an end time coldness and faithlessness. [Matthew 24] Also Paul’s words of significance, found in the early church’s Gentile grafting in, but with warning….. God will extend His goodness toward thee… “if thou continue in His goodness (sustaining Divine influence) otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” [Romans 11:22] Here, in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, we see today practically fulfilled what prophetically Jesus and Paul had in view.

What is today’s experience is a presumptuous lukewarm church that would produce fruit without abiding. And there is the soon coming  “cutting off”, the loss being, that of what the oil for the lamp represented (Matthew 25), the future promised welcoming into the inheritance in His Millennial Kingdom in the first heaven above the earth. [Matthew 25] So as Jesus left the Temple at Jerusalem desolate (yet there was nothing that appeared different to the religious Jews), so it is with the non-repenting church of New Covenant believers who will hardly notice the passing away of their representative candlestick in Heaven.

VERSE  6 Whatever the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, it was particularly offensive to Jesus Christ, and he commended their hatred of it. It would appear that these are the signs of the beginning outbreak of false prophets and teachers among the Body predicted by the Apostles after their departure. [2 Peter 2:1] Maybe the reason for Christ’s particular pointing out here. 

VERSE 7 “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” Brings the content to the individual, as the Lord sees that the Church in general will shortly come to a ruinous state, so he addresses each saved individual that they might save themselves. [1Timothy 4:16]

What should be understood is that the corporate church is the appointed instrument by which God promotes Christ in the World. It is judged unworthy at last and its candlestick is finally removed in this era/dispensation, and its loss is the loss to all of the individuals comprising it, in that it would have synergistically produced fruit and that to their individual accounts. But as the threats relate to the individual members, they are to give account in the hereafter. So it is, Believers are divided up into two groups: Victorious Overcomers/conquering and those vanquished and overcome.

New birth opens the door to warfare with satan, his World, our fallen flesh. Victory is not to every believer but to those of special excellence of conduct developed through the trials and tests of life in Christ. The detection and resistance to all the frauds of satan, or any of the verities of temptations associated with the World and flesh, most notably the sufferings unto pain and death.  Jesus takes the position of God the Creator in that He now offers of the Tree of Life within the Garden of God. Where permission was withheld in the Garden of Eden, it is extended by Jesus Christ to the dwellers within the Heavenly New Jerusalem. [Revelation 22:14,19]

The tree is literal as is the Garden. The leaves are for the healing of those outside the Garden City. The tree’s fruit holds forth a mysterious promise of living in a perpetual state of being… “and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live fore ever…” [Genesis 3:22,23] The Paradise of God with promise of the Tree of Life, should be distinguished from the Paradise of Hades whereunto the one hung by Christ was invited in that “…..Today thou shat be with me in Paradise”. 

VERSE 8 “These things saith the first and the last”…..Jesus Christ declares Himself deity….which was dead, and is alive. He has passed through the state of death, recovered from it, and defeated it, making a way to rescue His from its eternal grip.

VERSE 9 Tribulation and poverty implies riches toward God. [Hebrews  10:34,35 Matthew 19:27-29] Pastors all over the earth would have better sheep if they were so conditioned.

VERSE 10 “these are the things that are…” In this dispensation, the deceived by satan, imposter Jew sets themselves against the Christian, and thereby against Christ Jesus. They blaspheme and persecute the Christian, joining forces with satan against Jesus. These are not true to their namesake, “Praise unto God” but are hostile to Him. Literally they are Jews, but had they been in God’s sense true Jews, they would/will have joined the Body of Jesus their Christ. The proof of a changing dispensation being seen in Revelation chapter 7 in the sudden and great acceptance of Jews in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

Satan the accuser then as now tempts Christ’s brethren. The accusation is like Job’s, accused insincerity. Now satan works day and night from the first heaven accusing and tempting Christians, and that to keep them from the crown of life…the FIRST RESURRECTION prize. [Philippians 3:11-14; Revelation 20:4-6; James 1:11] The prize that includes, for the faithful living at that time, their victorious ascension of catching up, into His present territory, and then subsequently his being cast down to the earth. (Revelation 12:12)

That is “The hour of the temptation that is about to come upon the whole habitable earth, to tempt the dwellers upon the earth.”  [Revelation 3:10] So the entire earth dwellers are soon to be tempted, upon his expulsion, as the church is in the last 2000 years, in fear of prison and death, they worship the Beast and his image and the consequences are horribly high, comparatively few upon the earth fail to resist and are condemned to hell.

VERSE 11  “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.”  The implication is that those who are overcome stand at risk of the threat of that place;  the Lake of Fire. The Second Death denotes the Lake of Fire. [Revelation 20:14] This implication aligns itself with other Scriptures. Note: We must make way for all Scripture to find and maintain TRUTH. “Fear not them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.”

With “Whomsoever shall confess me berfore men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven (resulting in the acceptance of an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ)….But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven.” [Matthew 10:32,33] In verse 28 was the warning of the Father being able to kill and cast the soul into Gehenna.

What is this but to warn the Believer it is better to suffer the worst at the hand of man than to fall under the severe judgment of God for our denial of Him. The implication of Revelation 3:10….. “I also will keep thee form the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world…” is two fold: One, that it is temptation so severe it is like none before allowed. Two, that had I not kept you, it would have been possible some of you would not have withstood.

WELL THEN IF YOU CONCLUDE AND CONTEND THAT GOD THREATENS BORN AGAIN BELIEVERS WITH THE SECOND DEATH / THE LAKE OF FIRE, THEN YOU MUST NOT BELIEVE IN THE ETERNAL LIFE ASSURANCE ……

BUT Scripture says: ”My sheep shall never perish.”  And so it does and so we also embrace its assurance of the Gift of eternal life. But Scripture is without contradiction….the Scripture just quoted should be rendered: “I give unto them (my sheep) eternal life, (something different than the overcomer’s crown of life), and they shall not perish for ever.” And lends itself so rendered to our further understanding. When the utterances of Scripture are liberated from the Religious mind, then a genuine setting along side for examination may occur, letting moral and spiritual principles freely develop. Truth then appears and gives rest and peace and inspiration.

Truth is found in comparing Scripture with Scripture. For example: On the one hand ,Jesus Christ the Teacher said to His followers: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom….” But on the other hand, He said to these self-same ones on another occasion, “Fear not them which can kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: fear Him which hath power after he hath killed, to cast into Gehenna; yea I say unto you, Fear Him.”  

The seeking Christian who then gives the Scriptures freedom to express both the positive results of overcoming and the true negatives of a Christian being overcome shall then rightly divide the Scriptures. And put such comparative, mostly rejected, Scriptures in their proper place and context such as, “The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an a hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Or another: ”Thou shat not come out thence, till thou hast paid the very last farthing.” For an overcome born again Believer to be consigned to the Second Death is the Scriptural reality, and for him not to remain there eternally is also a Scriptural reality.

VERSE 13: The epistle introduces satan’s seat, where satan dwelleth. He is not in hell, he is the prince of the power of the air. His place is in the heavenly realm, moving back and forth from the first heaven above the earth to the earth at his will as a roaring lion he seeks out his prey. [1Peter 5:8; Ephesians 2:2; 6:12] He has his own throne. The Church is not charged with overcoming his throne or his present position as god of this World. They are to overcome in it and help others to do so.

The ground of difference by which Jesus Christ judges between sound and unsound or guilty is; the unsound held to false doctrine, which our Lord is reproving. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DOCTRINES WE HOLD. The doctrines we embrace guide us to safe harbors or take us to shipwreck.

Moving to VERSE 26

“And he that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end I will give to him authority over the nations, and he shall tend them with rod of iron, as the vessels of earthenware are shivered; as I also have received from my Father.”

Here we find the end result of Jesus’ future coming to the earth, to both the Church and the World, He comes to recompense each “according to his works”. The works of Jesus Christ, having been settled as it relates to the unity of Believers, the focus then turns in these epistles to each of their works. Then differences come into view. These differences relate to standing with Jesus Christ at the end, in reward, reproof or punishment. To the victorious is granted authority over the nations. [Luke 19:17 with Revelation 20:4; 1 Corinthians 6:2,3] In its appropriate time. [1Corinthians 4:8-14]

The meaning of the promise is clearly that the Gentile nations are not renewed and Israel is the only righteous nation according to promise and the Bride by superior force shall rule over the nations. Justice will be swift and strong.

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