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Scripture Reading: Rev. 2:8-13, 17b; 3:1-5
In the previous chapter we saw that we need to be those who overcome the loss of the first love by giving Christ the first place, the preeminence, in everything. The loss of the first love is seen with the church in Ephesus. There are four main points in the Lord’s epistle to the church in Ephesus—love, life, light, and the lampstand (Rev. 2:4-5, 7). Love, life, and light are actually God Himself. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), God is life (John 5:26; 14:6a), and God is light (1 John 1:5).
Actually, the Divine Trinity is love, life, and light. The Father is love, the Son is life, and the Spirit is light. The Father is the source as love, the Son is the course as life, and the Spirit is the flow as light. The Gospel of John says clearly, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (1:4). Then the Lord said in John 8:12 that He is the light of the world and that whoever follows Him shall have the light of life. The Bible eventually reveals that the Father is the Son (Isa. 9:6), and the Son is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). This means that love is life, and life is light. Love is the source, life is the course, and light is the shining out to reach us. These are three aspects of one person. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one, so love, life, and light are one. We enjoy the Son as the divine life, the eternal life, the uncreated life, through the Spirit as light, and we touch the Father as love by the Son as life. The Triune God is love as the source, life as the course, and light as the flow to reach us. Every day and even every moment we are under the shining of the light, which means that we are under the reaching of the Triune God for our enjoyment. When we overcome to return to Christ as our first love, we will enjoy Him as life and will shine forth the divine light as the lampstand to keep the testimony of Jesus (Rev. 1:9; 12:17) in our locality.
We have some hints about the overcomers in Paul’s writings, but only the apostle John in the book of Revelation speaks directly concerning the overcomers. We have seen that the book of Revelation covers two main things—the overcomers and the New Jerusalem. The overcomers issue in the New Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem is the consummation of the overcomers. The overcomers are precious stones, precious material, built together into a house, and this house is the consummation of all of the precious stones, the precious material. The house is the consummation, the building up, of all the precious stones.
In the beginning of Revelation the Lord is calling for this precious material, for the overcomers. The Lord’s calling in Revelation is not for being saved but for becoming an overcomer, a precious stone for God’s building. The overcomers are the believers of Christ transformed into precious stones for the building of God. According to Revelation 2:17, every transformed believer as a white stone will bear a new name. This new name is the transformed name of a transformed person. In Revelation 2 and 3 the overcomers are not yet, because the Lord is calling for them. Through the centuries, in the period of time from Revelation 4 through 20, the Lord has gained and is gaining a number of overcomers.
In this age the overcoming believers must pay the price to be built up together into one. There should be oneness among the saints and among all the co-workers. The Scriptures show that eventually there was no building between Paul and Barnabas. They were together for a while, but after the conference in Jerusalem in Acts 15, there was a great split between Barnabas and Paul (vv. 35-39). Apollos was another problem. Paul told the Corinthians that he had urged Apollos to come to them many times. No doubt, the Corinthians were in desperate need, so he wanted Apollos to visit them, but Paul said, “It was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity” (1 Cor. 16:12). By this we can see that Apollos was not one with Paul. But Paul and Timothy and Titus were one. When Paul told Timothy or Titus to go, they went. When he asked them to remain, they remained. But between Paul and Apollos there was not such a pleasant oneness; there was a big shortage of being built up.
Thus, we can see that between Paul and Barnabas there was the lack of building, and between Paul and Apollos there was also the lack of building. If we consider the situation among Christians today, we will see that no one is built up with others. Everyone is independent. The big speakers in Christianity build up something for themselves, but who is built up with others? To receive Christ as life for our regeneration is the initiation of our Christian life. To grow in this life is the second step. Then by this growth, we are transformed. After being transformed, we have to be built up together. This building is the consummation.
In this chapter we want to cover the three crucial points concerning the overcomers in the epistles to the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamos, and the church in Sardis. The epistle to the church in Ephesus covers the overcoming of the loss of the first love. In the previous chapter we saw the spiritual interpretation of the loss of the first love. To have the Lord as our first love actually means that we take our Lord as the first. We have to give Him the preeminence in everything. In everything He is the first. If we are not making Him the first in everything, we do not have the first love.
To have the first love is to give the preeminence, the first place, to the Lord Jesus in everything, even in all the small things. When the brothers buy a tie, they need to give Christ the preeminence. When the sisters go shopping, they need to give Christ the first place. When the Saturday edition of the newspaper comes out, some sisters like to read it to find all the sales in the department stores. To have this practice means that they do not give the Lord the preeminence. They do not let the Lord have the first place in their shopping. If we need something, we should go to the store to get that thing and nothing else. The sisters need to overcome the temptation of the department stores.
With the church in Ephesus, the Lord reveals that if we are going to overcome all the situations and be a real overcomer, we have to give the Lord the preeminence in everything. Then we will be ones who enjoy the Lord as the tree of life. First, we have love, and then we have life. Then corporately we will be the lampstand shining forth the divine light. Thus, we will have the four l’s—love, life, light, and the lampstand. This is the revelation in the first epistle, which is to the church in Ephesus.
The second epistle is written to Smyrna. This epistle reveals that we need to overcome persecution, comprising tribulation, poverty, trial, imprisonment, and the slander of the deformed religion of Satan (Rev. 2:9-10a). Smyrna basically shows us only one thing—persecution. Do we love the Lord? Do we give Him the preeminence in everything? If we do, we must be prepared for persecution.
Persecution will come to us from many directions. Persecution may come to a brother from his wife. When he did not love the Lord as the first item in everything, he had no problem with his wife. But when he began to love the Lord by giving Him the preeminence in everything, his wife noticed that he was different. Now her husband was giving the preeminence to someone else besides her.
In my hometown of Chefoo, we had a brother who was working in the Chinese customs office making good money. He was very worldly, and his wife was very happy to go along with him in their pursuit of worldly amusements. One day, however, he began to love the Lord, giving the Lord the preeminence. He gave the Lord the first place in everything. That was a big change with him. As a result, the wife became very unhappy because her husband no longer desired the things of the world.
Because this brother had such a positive change toward the Lord, he wanted to invite some brothers to his home for fellowship. He told his wife that one evening he would invite a few brothers to their house for dinner. I was one among these brothers. We all went happily to this brother’s home for fellowship. When we sat down to eat, his wife served us with cold leftovers. The brother felt so bad about this that he was moved to tears. Instead of being affected by the situation, however, we all partook of the food set before us in a joyful way in support of our brother. This brother suffered much persecution from his wife because of his decision to make the Lord first in everything.
Some parents persecute their children because of their children’s love for the Lord, and some children persecute their parents because of their parents’ love for the Lord. The mother-in-law may persecute her daughter-in-law for loving the Lord. This is why the Lord said that a man who puts Him first will have enemies from his own household (Matt. 10:36).
The persecution revealed in the epistle to the church in Smyrna comprises tribulation, poverty, trial, imprisonment, and the slander of the deformed religion of Satan. The deformed religion of Satan was the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9). At the Lord’s time and at the early apostles’ time, the synagogues of the Jews had become in the eyes of God the synagogue of Satan.
According to history, the saints during the time of Smyrna had tribulation for ten days (v. 10). As a sign, the ten days here indicate prophetically the ten periods of persecution that the church suffered under the Roman emperors, beginning with Caesar Nero in the second half of the first century and ending with Constantine the Great in the first part of the fourth century. Roman history tells us that the Roman Empire had ten periods of time to persecute the Christians.
We may feel that unlike the saints in Smyrna we have a good government today, but persecution can come to us from many other directions. Thus, as the loving seekers of Jesus, we must be prepared to suffer. The martyrs for Christ can be martyrs physically. Paul suffered such a martyrdom (2 Tim. 4:6). Many of us, however, may not suffer a physical martyrdom but a psychological martyrdom or a spiritual martyrdom. The aforementioned brother who was mistreated by his wife was surely a martyr under her persecution. He used to come to us for fellowship, and we tried our best to support him and comfort him. In a very positive sense, he was a martyr for the Lord’s interest; he would not change in his feeling for the Lord, and he has never changed.
Even among the elders in the church, there may be the experience of martyrdom. One brother among the elders might be very strong and controlling. He may be a good brother who loves the Lord and the church, but he controls the other elders. The other elders may feel that they cannot function under such a brother, and they may want to resign. Someone may ask them, “Don’t you love the Lord? Don’t you love the church? Don’t you have a loving care for all the saints?” They would say that they do, but they find it unbearable to serve under such a strong brother. But if these brothers resign, this means that they resign from martyrdom. Thus, they are missing the opportunity to be martyred, an opportunity that may never return in their lifetime. How good it is for these elders to be martyred under a strong brother who is like a dictator!
In 1935 and 1936 I was assigned to the work in northern China. The elders in the church in Beijing could not get along with one another. They frequently wanted me to come and help them. I spent two or three days to fellowship with them, and they felt that their problems were solved, but a week later they called me again to come and help them because they still could not get along. These elders had the opportunity to be overcoming martyrs in the church life.
When the apostle Paul asked the Lord three times to remove the thorn from him, the Lord’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:9). The Lord allowed the thorn to remain with Paul so that Paul would be able to enjoy the Lord as his all-sufficient grace. Sufferings, trials, and persecution are often ordained by the Lord for us that we may experience Him as grace. Hence, in spite of Paul’s entreaty, the Lord would not remove the thorn from him.
We do not need to travel all over the earth to experience suffering and persecution. There is persecution for us to experience in our local church. There is a narrow door at the front of the church life, but once we make the choice to enter into the church life, there are no “back doors” and no “fire escapes.” In a sense, all the saints in the church life become our persecutors. When we initially came into the church life, everyone was pleasant to us. That was our church life honeymoon, but the honeymoon does not last long. After we have stayed in the church life for a number of years, we realize that the Lord uses nearly all the saints to deal with us.
Some saints told me that they could not bear to stay in their locality and that they wanted me to help them choose a better place. I always say that the best place is the present place. No place is better than the present place. Many saints eventually were convinced by me. They realized that they should not move to another locality according to their personal preference. If they move to another locality according to their choice, the place to which they move will eventually be worse to them than the place from which they came. In the church life we cannot avoid “persecution.”
We need to overcome all kinds of persecution by being faithful unto death, not loving our soul-life (Rev. 2:10b; 12:11b). Then we will be rewarded with the crown of life (2:10c), and we will not be hurt by the second death (v. 11).
Now we come to the church in Pergamos (v. 12). History tells us that the church during the age of Pergamos became altogether worldly. The Greek word for Pergamos means “marriage” (implying union). This indicates that the church in Pergamos became one with the world as in the union of marriage. The church in Pergamos married herself to the world. This marriage took place when Constantine welcomed Christianity as the state religion in the first part of the fourth century. The Lord charged the saints to overcome in such a worldly situation. If they would overcome, He would give them to eat of the hidden manna (v. 17).
When the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, God fed them for forty years every morning with manna in a public way. But Moses was also told to take some manna, put it into a golden pot, and place this golden pot in the Ark within the Holy of Holies for a memorial before God (Exo. 16:32-34). In Revelation the Lord promised the faithful saints in Pergamos that if they would remain faithful, He would give them to eat of the hidden manna, which signifies that Christ as the special portion allotted to the saints becomes a hidden portion to the faithful ones.
When we are being persecuted either by our parents, by our relatives, by the elders, by the co-workers, or by the dear saints, and we would not resist or resign but would remain with and in the Lord in this situation, the Lord Jesus will be the hidden manna to us. A particular portion of Christ, a special portion, will be our hidden manna. This special portion will become our support and our strength. How can we endure suffering and live in a situation in which no one else can live? We can endure because we daily enjoy the Lord Jesus as a special portion, the hidden manna.
The Lord also promised the faithful ones at Pergamos that He would give them a white stone on which a new name is written (Rev. 2:17). If we do not follow the worldly church but enjoy the Lord in the proper church life, we will be transformed into stones for the building of God. There are millions of Christians today, but it is difficult to see any one of them built up together with others. We are not built up with others because we all have our peculiar traits. This is why there are many separations and divorces among husbands and wives. The husband and wife cannot be built up together because of their peculiar traits.
In like manner, we cannot be built up together in the church life because of our peculiarities. We all have our particular, peculiar traits. This is why we need to be transformed. It would be helpful for us to sing the following hymn (Hymns, #750) on transformation with our heart and with our spirit.
We need such transformation. Then we will no longer be natural, and we will be able to be built up together. God desires a house, not individual pieces of material. God wants all the individual material to be built together to be His house, to be His Body. Therefore, today our urgent need is to be transformed.
The Lord promised the overcomers in Pergamos two things: first, the hidden manna for their support and supply and, second, a white stone, indicating that they will be the material for God’s building. In our natural being we are not stones but clay. Because we received the divine life with its divine nature through regeneration, we can be transformed into stones, even precious stones (1 Cor. 3:12), by enjoying Christ as our life supply (2 Cor. 3:18).
When Simon came to the Lord, the Lord immediately changed his name to Peter, which means “a stone” (John 1:42). In the four Gospels Peter was a difficult case among all the disciples. He was very peculiar, but the Lord dealt with him to get him transformed. In his old age he said in his first Epistle that we are called to be living stones to be built up into a corporate priesthood, that is, a corporate building as God’s spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:5). This is what God desires.
Today the Lord has put us in certain circumstances so that we can learn the lessons of transformation. In the church life we should not have any choice, nor should we try to initiate any change. We should remain where we are to suffer joyfully so that we can be transformed. Then we will no longer be men of clay but stones, even white stones. Being white indicates that we are justified by the Lord and approved by Him, that He is happy with us. When we are transformed, we can be properly and adequately built up with others. This is what the epistle to the church in Pergamos shows us.
The Lord’s word to Pergamos indicates that we need to overcome worldliness in a church that is married to the world, where Satan administrates on his throne and dwells for his possession (Rev. 2:13). To overcome such worldliness is to hold fast the name of the Lord and not deny the faith concerning the Lord (v. 13). If we are faithful to overcome, the Lord will give us to eat of the hidden manna (Christ for our particular nourishment), and He will give us a white stone (for the building in the Body of Christ), upon which a new name is written (according to our new experiences of the particular Christ), which no one knows except he who receives it (v. 17). God’s work of building the church depends on our transformation, and our transformation issues from the enjoyment of Christ as the hidden manna, our life supply.
Now we come to the church in Sardis. The church in Sardis signifies today’s Protestant churches. The Lord said that those in Sardis had a name that they were living, but in actuality they were not living; they were dead and dying (3:1-2). This indicates that, on the one hand, they had died, but on the other hand, their death had not been completed. This is the situation in today’s Protestant churches.
About two years ago a number of leading ones in the denominations in the United States considered a proposal to evangelize the entire world. However, they concluded that they did not have the manpower, the personnel, to do it. According to recent statistics, there are approximately sixty-five million Protestant believers in the United States, which is more than one-fourth of the entire population. Even though the Protestant churches have sixty-five million Christians, they said that they did not have enough manpower. This is because in today’s Christianity there is no developing of the saints’ gifts in life, but there is an annulling, a killing of death, of the functioning of the members of Christ’s Body.
In a big denomination, only the pastor and his few assistants and helpers are active. All the rest of the members are considered as laymen. They have been busy with their occupations all week, so on the weekend they like to come to the Lord’s Day morning service to rest. All of them are accustomed to coming on the Lord’s Day to hear a knowledgeable, eloquent, and attractive speaker. They think that this is reasonable. Such a practice, however, kills the spiritual functions of all the attendants. This is why the Lord has led us in these recent years to promote all the saints prophesying (1 Cor. 14:3), speaking for the Lord.
According to God’s ordination, the practice of the church life is not with one man speaking and the rest listening. The church practice is what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 14. In this chapter he says that we can all prophesy one by one (v. 31). We must pray that the Lord will develop our capacity, our ability, to speak for Him. All of us should be living members of Christ seeking to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord in the church meetings for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ (v. 4b) in a living way. We should by no means be dead and dying. We may not be able to give a long message, but at least we can speak for the Lord for three minutes. We should seek to excel for the building up of the church (v. 12).
Today’s practice of one man speaking and the rest listening makes the church not only dormant but also dead and dying. Only a minority are working in today’s Christianity; the rest are dead and dying. We need to practice the church meetings according to what is revealed in 1 Corinthians 14. Verse 1 says, “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” Some opposers have said that 1 Corinthians 14 was not written to all the saints but to a group of prophets. But verse 1 shows us that this chapter was written to all the saints. We all have to pursue love, we all have to desire earnestly spiritual gifts, and we all have to especially desire to prophesy.
If we do not speak for the Lord, this is a loss to ourselves, to the church, and to the Lord’s interest on the earth. The more we speak, the more we will have to speak, and the more we will receive to speak. When we speak in a meeting, that meeting will be wonderful to us. The meeting was good to us because we spoke. But if we do not speak in the meeting, that meeting will be a poor meeting to us. The meeting was poor to us because we did not speak. When we prophesy, we edify ourselves, we perfect others, and we build up the Body of Christ. If one hundred saints are meeting together on the Lord’s Day, and thirty exercise their spirits to speak for the Lord, this meeting will be very refreshing and living. This kind of prophesying will make the church living in every way through every member.
In the past seven and a half years we have been stressing that we need to take the God-ordained way. We need to rise up to practice the New Testament priesthood of the gospel, preaching the gospel by visiting people regularly to get people saved. Then all the time we will have new ones baptized into the church life. If we practice the priesthood of the gospel, the entire church will be active and living.
Then we all have to bear the burden to feed the young ones, to nourish the new babes in Christ. If we labor in the Lord according to His ordained way, we will not have the time to gossip. We should not be the “information desk” of the church life. Instead, we should speak for the Lord by speaking the gospel to sinners, by speaking the nourishing word to the young ones, by speaking to perfect the saints, and by speaking to build up the Body of Christ.
We surely do not want to be in the condition of the church in Sardis. We want to be living and active in gospel preaching, in nourishing the new ones, in perfecting the saints, and in prophesying to build up the Body of Christ. We need the new ones in the church life. We need to nourish the new ones until they become remaining fruit in the church life. Then we should speak in the meetings, which sets up a pattern for all the young ones to follow. Children learn how to speak from their parents. The church must be like this. Then from generation to generation all the young ones will grow and be perfected to do the work of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers (Eph. 4:11-12). This will make the church very living, active, functioning, and working according to the Lord’s desire.
Thus, we have seen that we need to overcome persecution, to overcome worldliness by being transformed, and to overcome spiritual death by being living. We should be ready to suffer any kind of persecution. We also are destined to grow that we might be transformed to be built up. Furthermore, we have to be living. When we sing, we should sing livingly. When we pray, we should pray livingly. When we preach the gospel, we should preach livingly. Everything we do in the church life should be living.
I hope to see such a scene in the church life. When we come to the meetings of the church, we should not wait for the elders to begin the meeting. Anyone can open up the meeting. We can begin the meeting by singing a hymn or by praying. This proves that the church is living. If we are waiting for the leading ones to begin the meeting, this shows that the church is dormant, dead, and dying. Actually, the meeting should begin from our homes. When we are eating dinner, we can sing a hymn together, pray, and fellowship with one another. Then as we are driving to the meeting, we should continue to exercise our spirit to sing to the Lord, pray to Him, and praise Him. When we come to the church meetings in this way, this is a strong sign that the church is living. We are not dead, but we are in resurrection, speaking for the Lord in a living way to build up His organic Body.
