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Scripture Reading: Rev. 2:1-7; 12:17b; 20:4, 6; 1 John 4:8, 16; John 3:16; 1 John 4:9; Rom. 5:5; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 2:4-5; John 1:12-13; 3:3-6, 29-30; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 7; Eph. 5:25; Rev. 21:9; Rom. 8:35-39; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 14:7-9; Rev. 2:10; 12:11; 22:17; Jer. 2:2; 31:3
In the first chapter we saw God’s economy and man’s failure. In this chapter we want to begin to fellowship concerning all of the things that we need to overcome.
In the seven epistles to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, there is not much concerning the overcoming of sin, self, and the world. Instead, the Lord stresses that we need to overcome three things, which I call three “isms.” Every “ism” refers to a religion. Throughout human history and even until today there have been three main religions, three “isms”—Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.
In the epistle to the church in Smyrna, the Lord referred to the “synagogue of Satan” (2:9). The synagogue is a strong sign of Judaism. Since the time that the Jews lost their temple and were scattered throughout the whole world, they began to worship God in places other than the temple. According to Deuteronomy 12, no one has the right to worship God anywhere except in the place chosen by God, the place where His temple was built. The temple could be built on the earth only in the place, in the very spot, that God had chosen. Jerusalem was the spot where the temple was built, but the Roman prince Titus destroyed that temple, not leaving one stone upon another stone (Matt. 24:2). The temple with the city of Jerusalem was thoroughly devastated in A.D. 70. Since then all the scattered Jews have worshipped God in their synagogues. Thus, the synagogues are strong signs of the Jewish religion. The Jews even refer to their synagogues as temples, but they are not the temple. Apparently those in the synagogue were worshipping God, yet the Lord Jesus said that the synagogues were not of God but of Satan. Judaism has been greatly usurped and utilized by Satan to damage God’s interest on the earth and to persecute and martyr many faithful ones (see Rev. 2:9, footnote 5, Recovery Version).
In the fourth epistle, to Thyatira, we see another “ism,” Catholicism. In this epistle the Lord referred to a woman by the name of Jezebel (v. 20). In Matthew 13 He spoke of a woman who mixed leaven with three measures of meal to thoroughly leaven it (v. 33). This woman in Matthew 13 is Jezebel in Revelation 2, signifying Catholicism.
We can see Protestantism in the fifth epistle, to the church in Sardis. The Lord told those in Sardis that they had a name that they were living, but actually they were dead (3:1). Protestant Christianity is dead and dying. Some may consider the reformed Protestant Church to be living, but the Lord said that she is dead. Hence, she needs the living Spirit and the shining stars (v. 1).
Later in this book we will see that these three “isms”—Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism—are the damaging factors on the earth to interrupt and to annul God’s interest. In the seven epistles to the seven churches, what the Lord charges us to overcome is mainly these three “isms.” These three religions were invented according to and based upon God’s holy Word, but all of them have deviated from God’s holy Word to become something different in nature from the church revealed in the holy Word. We all have to respond to the Lord’s charge to overcome these three religions.
Now we need to consider the history behind the formation of these three religions. In Genesis God created man in His own image and in three parts with a spirit, which is full of capacity to contact God, to receive God, and to retain God (1:26; 2:7). Then God placed man before the tree of life with the intention that man would receive Him as life (v. 9). But right away Satan came in, seducing Adam to take the wrong tree. That tree is the tree of death, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That devastated the very man whom God had created for His purpose.
Then this man, a corporate man that we call mankind, became altogether the flesh, full of lusts. This is clearly unveiled in Genesis 6 (vv. 3, 5-6). God could not tolerate such an evil world any longer, so He decided to judge the world by the flood. He charged Noah to make an ark for his and his family’s salvation from the damage of Satan (vv. 11-14). Then Noah became a new beginning for God. But later the descendants of Noah became one with Satan at Babel, which was full of idols (11:1-9). Thus, the man whom God had created failed utterly in fulfilling God’s purpose, becoming one with God’s enemy.
Then God came in to call another man by the name of Abraham. Through Abraham God gained a people whom He brought out of Egypt to Mount Sinai. There God gave them the law, the Pentateuch, through Moses. We may say that this was the origin of Judaism, the origin of the Jewish religion. It was founded absolutely according to God’s holy Word, but gradually the children of Israel became corrupted and rotten because they forsook God Himself as their source, the fountain of living waters. In Jeremiah 2:13, Jehovah said, “My people have committed two evils: / They have forsaken Me, / The fountain of living waters, / To hew out for themselves cisterns, / Broken cisterns / Which hold no water.” All the idols are broken cisterns, which cannot retain water. The two evils are forsaking God and joining with Satan in worshipping idols. These are the two evils that resulted in the failure of the people of Israel, who were the descendants of Abraham in an earthly sense as the dust of the earth (Gen. 13:16). God sent the Babylonians to come to devastate Jerusalem and the temple and carry the people away into captivity in 606 B.C. Of course, God brought a remnant of them back after seventy years to rebuild the temple (Jer. 29:10), but that recovery did not last too long.
The four Gospels show us how evil the Jewish people had become by the time that the Lord Jesus came. The entire Holy Land was full of demons. Wherever the Lord Jesus went, He confronted demons. The Lord Jesus appeared to the people of Israel as their Shepherd to shepherd them and even as their Savior to rescue them, but they totally rejected Him.
In Matthew 23 the Lord Jesus lamented over them and told them, “Behold, your house is left to you desolate” (v. 38). This indicates that they would be rejected by the Triune God. The Lord said that from that day the temple, which was the house of God, would no longer be the house of God, but “your house.” Then when the disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple, He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, There shall by no means be left here a stone upon a stone, which shall not be thrown down” (24:2). The Lord was predicting that the temple with the city of Jerusalem would be devastated, leaving not one stone upon another stone. This was fulfilled in A.D. 70 when Titus and the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem, shortly after the Lord had ascended to the heavens. That destruction was an unprecedented event in history. Josephus, the Jewish historian, spoke of the cruelty and slaughter inflicted upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem by the Roman army.
After this destruction by Titus, the Jews were scattered all over the earth. Since that time, Hosea tells us that the Jewish people have been “without king and without prince and without sacrifice and without pillar and without ephod and teraphim” (3:4). Among the Jews for nearly twenty centuries, there have been no kings, no princes, no prophets, no priests, and no sacrifices, because there have been no temple and no altar to receive the sacrifices. Hosea predicted that this time of desolation would last two days, or two thousand years (6:1-2). According to history, this period of two thousand years should begin from Titus’s destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. From that day until today among the Jews, there have been no kings, no princes, no priests, no prophets, and no sacrifices, nor have there been any idols among the Jews since that time. The Jewish people invented their way of synagogues to worship God, but the Lord referred to the synagogue as a synagogue of Satan.
Later, the church came into existence, but it was not too long before the church became worldly, married to the world. That worldly church eventually became the Roman Catholic Church at the end of the sixth century when the papal system was established and the pope was commonly recognized. This Roman Church is typified by the woman Jezebel in Revelation 2:20.
Now I would like us to read Revelation 17:16: “The ten horns which you saw and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked and will eat her flesh and burn her utterly with fire.” This verse was written at the end of the first century in approximately A.D. 90, but most Christians do not know that there is such a verse in the Bible. They do not know that the Lord Jesus sounded the trumpet seven times in Revelation for us to overcome, nor do they know what to overcome. My burden is for us to see what we need to overcome, and Revelation 17:16 will help us to see this. The ten horns in this verse are the ten kings (v. 12), and the beast is Antichrist (13:1-10). The harlot in Revelation 17 is the Roman Catholic Church (vv. 1-6). Antichrist is the head, and the ten kings belong to Antichrist, so they all agree to do one thing. They will hate the Roman Catholic Church and make her desolate and naked and will eat her flesh and will burn her utterly with fire. This will be the end of the Roman Catholic Church.
Antichrist will be empowered to be the last Caesar of the revived Roman Empire (see Rev. 17:10-11, footnotes 101 and 111, Recovery Version), and he will make a covenant with Israel for the last seven years of this age, but after three and a half years he will break this covenant (Dan. 9:27). He will rebel against God and persecute any kind of religion (2 Thes. 2:3-4). He will not allow anyone to worship anything or anyone but himself. Then with the ten kings under him he will desolate and burn the Roman Catholic Church. Revelation 17:16 makes us clear that at the beginning of the great tribulation of three and a half years, the Roman Catholic Church will be desolated and burned by Antichrist. This is not a spiritual burning but a physical burning. Not many know that there is such a verse in Revelation.
Recent statistics say that the Roman Catholic Church has fifty-five million members in the United States, nearly half of all those in Christianity. This shows us that millions have been deceived by Catholicism. They do not realize that what they are in is something false and even satanic and devilish. The main thing in Revelation 17 is that the Lord has fixed a day for Antichrist and his ten kings to desolate and burn the Roman Catholic Church. Revelation 2:24 tells us that the deep things of Satan are within this apostate church. This is satanic and devilish. The Lord will tolerate this up to the beginning of the great tribulation when the Roman Catholic Church will be terminated by Antichrist.
Now we have to consider today’s Protestant churches in the light of the divine revelation. The most significant thing in the Protestant churches is that they are full of nominal Christians, false Christians. In Matthew 13 the Lord used the tares to signify the false Christians. Among the fifty-five million Catholics and sixty-five million Protestants in the United States, how many are real believers and how many are false ones? In the true church, all are saved, blood-washed, Spirit-regenerated believers. Many in the Protestant churches today, however, are not genuine believers in Christ; instead, they are tares, false Christians. Concerning the destiny of the tares, the Lord said that they would be collected and cast into the lake of fire at the consummation of this age (vv. 30, 40-42).
In today’s Christendom there are the wheat, the real believers, and the tares, the false ones. While the tares and the wheat are growing together, they are difficult to differentiate. It is impossible to distinguish wheat from tares until the fruit is produced. The wheat brings forth yellow fruit, and the tares bring forth something black. Often it is hard to discern who is a real Christian and who is a false one in today’s Christendom. Concerning the wheat and the tares, the Lord said, “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Collect first the tares and bind them into bundles to burn them up, but the wheat gather into my barn” (v. 30). This will take place when the Lord Jesus comes back at the end of the great tribulation. The Lord will send the angels to bind all the false Christians into bundles, and they will be cast into the lake of fire (v. 42). In this way the Lord Jesus will clear up the mixture.
At the beginning of the great tribulation, Antichrist with the ten kings will devastate and burn the Roman Catholic Church. Then after three and a half years, at the end of the great tribulation, the Lord Jesus will come back and send His angels to bind all the false Christians and throw them into the lake of fire. These are the two endings of the two “isms,” Catholicism and Protestantism. This is not according to my idea or teaching, but this is the divine revelation, showing us how these two “isms,” Catholicism and Protestantism, will be ended. First, Catholicism will be ended by Antichrist in the middle of the last seven years of this age, at the beginning of the great tribulation. Then Protestantism will be cleared up by the Lord at His coming back.
The biggest devastation to Christianity is the tares. This is why many people in the world condemn Christianity. When you try to talk to them about Christ, they think that you are trying to get them to accept Christianity. They see the evils and hypocrisy in Christianity. But in the Lord’s recovery today we do not preach Christianity. We preach Christ. We desire only Christ, not any “anity.” We do not preach any religion. We preach only a living person, and this living person is Christ as the very God who became a man and died on the cross for us. We preach this One so that people will believe into Him for their salvation. We are not convincing others to believe and receive Christianity. We are telling people that they need Christ, the person.
We need to be clear about these three “isms” on the earth today—Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Judaism presently has about five million members in the United States. The United States has a population of about two hundred thirty million people, and over half of these are professing Christians in Catholicism and Protestantism. We need to realize that both Catholicism and Protestantism are condemned by God. One will be burned by fire on the earth, and the “tares” of the other will be burned by fire in the lake of fire. Therefore, we have to overcome the Jewish religion, the Catholic Church, and the Protestant churches.
Of course, there are a good number of saved, genuine believers in both the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches. But there is a mixture of saved ones and unsaved ones. Today in both the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches, many are real believers. This is why the Lord sounded the call for His people to come out of Babylon (Rev. 18:4). This calling tells us that the Lord does not feel good about His people remaining in Catholicism and Protestantism. This also shows that even the Lord Jesus admitted that there are real Christians in both the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches. Otherwise, He would not call His people to come out of Babylon.
Today the people of God need to overcome the three “isms” and come back to a unique, living, divine and human person. He is our Savior, our God, our Redeemer, our Lord, and our Master, and He has nothing to do with any “anity.” He has nothing to do with any religion.
The Lord charges us to overcome all kinds of religion, and in these seven epistles He also charges us to overcome some other matters. The first thing we are charged to overcome is the leaving, the missing, the losing, of the first love (2:4-5a). Many in Catholicism are absolutely for the Catholic Church, but they do not love the Lord or His holy Word. They do not say, “The Bible says...” Instead, they say, “The pope says...” or “The church says...” When they say “the church,” they mean the Catholic Church. This is why the Lord Jesus in Revelation 2 says that Jezebel calls herself a prophetess and teaches and leads His slaves astray (v. 20). This indicates that the Roman Catholic Church is a self-appointed prophetess, one who presumes to be authorized by God to speak for God. Those who are loyal Catholics respect only what the pope says, what the church says. They do not care for what the Bible says. This indicates that they do not have any love given to the Lord.
If we love someone, we surely want to hear his voice, his word. On the other hand, if we do not love a person, we do not want to hear his voice, his word. A number of Catholics are like this toward the Lord. They have Christ in name, but they do not have any personal affection or loving element within them toward Christ. It is also like this with the tares in Protestantism, who are not saved. They have no element of love toward the Lord personally.
I must testify that I love the Lord. I received the Lord sixty-seven years ago in 1925. After all these years, I feel that the Lord is still so intimate to me and that I am so close to Him. I do not care for any religion. I care for this dear One, this living One. Whenever I mention His name, I am happy. When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we should do is say, “O Lord Jesus. O Lord Jesus.” It is better to add, “I love You.” We should say, “O Lord Jesus, I love You. O Lord Jesus, I love You.” How intimate, how sweet, and how affectionate this is!
Our God, our Christ, our Lord, is not only loving but also very affectionate. He is full of affection. God has “fallen in love” with us, His chosen and redeemed people. If you say, “O Lord Jesus, I love You,” right away you will fall in love with Him. Quite often I would not do some things, not merely because they are not right or because I fear God but because I love Him. I would say, “Lord Jesus, I love You, so I cannot do this.” I just cannot do certain things, because I love Him.
We need to overcome the loss of the first love. The church in Ephesus was a good church. It was an orderly church and a formal church (Rev. 2:2-3). Surely, we would like such a church, but such an orderly church had left the first love (v. 4). The Greek word for first is the same as that translated “best” in Luke 15:22. Our first love toward the Lord must be the best love for Him. When the prodigal son in Luke 15 came back home, the father told the servants to bring the best robe. Best here means the first.
Now I would like us to consider what the first love is. Many Christians think that the first love is the love with which we loved the Lord Jesus when we were saved. I would not say that this is wrong, but it is not adequate. The first love, which is the best love, is much more than this.
The first love is the love that is God Himself. In the Bible we are told that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). In the whole universe, only God is love. The Lord charges the husbands to love their wives. But it is impossible for the husbands to love their wives in themselves because we are not love. There is only one person who is love—God.
God is not only the best but also the first. In the whole universe, God is first. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God...” This is the opening of the Bible. God is the beginning. God is the first. Colossians tells us that our Christ must have the first place (1:18b). He must have the preeminence. Christ must be the first. What is it to recover the first love? To recover the first love is to consider the Lord Jesus as the first in everything. If we make Christ everything in our life, that means we have overcome the loss of the first love.
We need to consider our situation. Is Christ the first in everything with us? The first item that we have to overcome is the loss of Christ as the first, as the best, as the real love. The failure of Israel was that they forsook God, the fountain of living waters, and the degradation of the church is the leaving of the first love. Actually, to leave the first love is just to leave Christ, not taking Him as the first in everything.
Christ should be first not only in big things but also in small things. When the brothers buy a necktie, they should give Christ the first place. If I wore a certain kind of tie in a very worldly style, I would not be able to speak for the Lord in my ministry. Even for the sake of my conscience, I cannot wear certain styles of ties. The sisters should give Christ the first place in the way that they style their hair. If the sisters give Christ the preeminence in the way that they style their hair, this means that they are taking Him as their first love. Sisters who have a worldly hair style do not have Christ as their first love. They are not giving Him the preeminence. We should give Christ the preeminence in the way that we dress and the way that we style our hair. When we give Christ the preeminence in everything, this is to recover the loss of the first love.
Some think that the first love was our love for the Lord at the beginning of our Christian life when we were saved. But when I was saved, although I was very grateful to the Lord, I did not have such a strong heart to love Christ as I do today. Sixty-seven years ago I was saved, and I loved the Lord Jesus—but not as much as I do today. Thus, the first love must be to have God, Christ, the Lord, our Master, as the first One in everything.
At times when I am getting dressed, I talk to the Lord by saying, “Lord, do You like this shirt? Do You like this pair of shoes?” Such a talk is very intimate with the Lord as the first love. To recover the first love is to give Him the preeminence in great things as well as in small things. The husbands should give Christ the preeminence in the way that they talk to their wives. We need to ask the Lord to forgive us for all the things in which we do not give Him the preeminence.
If we love the Lord Jesus in such a way and to such an extent, we will never stay in the three “isms.” We will never remain in any religion. We will love all the Christians, but we will hate any “anity.” We should love all the Christians, but we should hate the religions that they are in. Because the Lord hates these “isms,” we also should hate them. We should hate what the Lord hates (cf. Rev. 2:6).
The Lord said to let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest. Then when He comes back, the first thing that He will do is to send angels to bind up the tares in bundles and throw them into the lake of fire. The sons of the kingdom, the wheat, constitute the kingdom, whereas the sons of the evil one, the tares, have formed the outward appearance of the kingdom, which is today’s Christendom. The Lord hates this outward appearance, so we must overcome it.
We also need to overcome in the kind of ties we wear, in the way that we style our hair, and in all the small things. In all things we should give the preeminence to Christ. If we do this, our Christian life will be different, and our feeling will be different. Throughout the day we will be happy in the Lord. When we are joyful in and with the Lord, everything is pleasant. On the other hand, when we are not joyful in the Lord and with the Lord, everything is unpleasant. The enjoyment of the Lord as grace is with those who love Him (Eph. 6:24). Thus, the first thing that we have to overcome is the leaving of the first love. The leaving of the first love is the source of and main reason for the failure of the church throughout the ages.
In such a good, orderly, and formal church like the church in Ephesus, we need to first overcome the loss of the first love. The second thing that we need is to maintain the eating of Christ as the tree of life. It is in the epistle to the Ephesians that the Lord says, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7).
The Lord Jesus charged us to overcome the leaving of the first love and to maintain the eating of Christ as the tree of life. If we give the preeminence to Christ in everything and enjoy Him as the tree of life every day, we will be marvelous, overcoming Christians. When we enjoy Christ as the tree of life, we have the Paradise of God. The tree of life is first seen in Genesis in the garden of Eden. That garden of Eden was the paradise of God at that time. Today our paradise is the church life.
I have been in the church life for sixty years, starting from 1932, so I have much church-life experience. If you do not give the preeminence to the Lord or enjoy the Lord, even for a month, the church life may become an unpleasant place to you. Of course, you might not say this, but deep within you would think that there is not much good in the church life. Then the church is altogether no longer a paradise to you. But when you overcome the loss of the first love and maintain your eating of Christ, your enjoying of the Lord, right away the church life becomes paradise to you. Thus, our sensation and our attitude toward the church depend upon our situation. If we give the Lord the preeminence in everything and enjoy Him as the tree of life throughout the day, right away the church, regardless of its condition, becomes paradise to us. This is why the Lord says that we have to eat the tree of life in the Paradise of God.
Of course, the Paradise of God in Revelation 2:7 actually refers to the New Jerusalem in the thousand-year kingdom. If we enjoy the Lord in this age, we will be rewarded with the eating of the tree of life, Christ Himself, in the New Jerusalem as the Paradise of God in the thousand-year kingdom. We need to continue in the enjoyment of the life supply of Christ in the present church life so that we can be rewarded with the enjoyment of Christ as the tree of life in the Paradise of God, the New Jerusalem, in the millennial kingdom. In the New Jerusalem in its freshness as the Paradise of God, we will participate in full in the enjoyment of the rich life supply of Christ as the embodiment of the processed and consummated Triune God.
We need to overcome the leaving of the first love, to maintain the eating of Christ as the tree of life, and to shine forth the divine light as the lampstand (v. 5b). Love is related to life, and life is related to light. Love, life, and light are a trinity. If you make Christ the first in everything, you have love. If you have this love, you have life, and you will enjoy the Lord. If you have life, this life becomes light to you. The light of the lampstand, the church, shines forth corporately versus individualistically in the dark night of the church age.
If we are enjoying Christ as our love, life, and light, we will keep the testimony of Jesus as the shining of the lampstand in our locality (12:17b). We will testify of Christ’s person as God and as man and of Christ’s human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, descension, and second appearing. The shining of the light is a testimony. In every aspect of our daily life, we should be shining forth Christ. This shining is the shining of the lampstand.
We need to remember these four words that begin with the letter l—love, life, light, and lampstand. These four l words start with love. We must give the Lord Jesus the preeminence in every way and in everything to recover the first love. Then we will enjoy Him as the tree of life, and this life right away becomes the light of life (John 8:12). Then we will be shining in our daily life and corporately as the lampstand. Otherwise, the lampstand will be removed from us individually and from the church corporately. The Lord warned the church in Ephesus to repent and recover the first love for the enjoyment of Him. Otherwise, the lampstand would be removed from them. We need love, life, light, and the lampstand. Then we will be rewarded by the Lord with what we are and live in Him.
In the Bible the principle is that our reward is always what we are. What we are will become our reward. If we love others, our loving others will be a reward to us. If we honor our parents, our honor to them will be a reward to us. If we do not live Christ and behave in Christ in the church life, there will be nothing as a reward to us in the church life. Instead, because we do not live Christ, we may feel bitter toward the elders and toward all the saints. If we live Christ and behave in Christ, this living, this behaving, will become our reward. Then we will be happy in the church life. If today we take Christ as the first in everything, we will have love, we will enjoy Him as life, we will shine forth with Him as light, and we will become the shining lampstand as the testimony of Jesus. This eventually will become our reward not only in this age but even more in the coming age. In the thousand-year kingdom we will enjoy Christ as our reward in the Paradise of God.
