This part of the Holy Scriptures has a peculiar and touching claim on the attention of every Christian. No other part of Scripture comes to us in quite the same way. It is the "Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him". God gave this revelation to the glorious anointed Man at His own right hand; it is His revelation. It treats of matters which are thus manifestly of interest to God and to Jesus Christ, and which therefore cannot fail to be of profound interest to His servants. For it is in the character of servants, or bondmen, that we are here shewn "what must shortly take place". This book is for saints viewed as in responsible service, caring for the interests of their Lord.
This may well raise the question with each one as to how far we are truly in this character. The indisposition of many to consider this book is probably traceable to the fact that we are so little in the true attitude and spirit of bondmen. There is a tendency with us all to seek our own things, not the things of Jesus Christ, and when this is so we are hardly true bondmen.
John refers to himself here, not as an apostle, but as a bondman and a brother. He was one of a suffering
company: "your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus". It was to a man suffering for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus that this revelation was communicated, and he made it known to those who were partakers -- at any rate, in measure -- of the same kind of suffering. If there were more fidelity there would be more suffering, and this book would be more appreciated. It has been observed that in periods of the church's history when there have been special pressures or persecutions, as in times of martyrdom, the saints have turned with peculiar interest to this book, and have derived distinct comfort and support from it.
Where there is a desire to connect Christianity with this world, and to think that things here are improving, one can understand there would be a lack of interest in this Revelation. Persons having such desires would not care to face the fact that the world system is coming under judgment. The whole course of things here is wrong, and must be set aside to make room for something else. The churches (assemblies) have failed, and departed from the character in which they would have been true light-bearers, in suffering witness to a rejected Christ; and the world in every phase is a scene of moral disorder. This is the true character of things here, and it is clearly set forth, with all its consequences, in this book. To look at such things in the fear of God involves serious exercises, which many are reluctant to face, and this may be one reason why this book has been so neglected.
But, in truth, it is a most encouraging book for all who fear God and who love our Lord Jesus Christ. For it shews the ultimate triumph of God over every
form of the power of evil. It shews the character of that power, and all that it will issue in, but it shews it broken and set aside to make room for "the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ" (Revelation 12:10). Its scope is very wide, for it shews how all things in the moral universe are to be dealt with so as to establish eternally the glory of God, and the full blessing of man, recovered through redemption -- whether it be the church or other families of the redeemed.
In this book we are taken into the divine confidence at a peculiar moment. Christ has been manifested in flesh; He has been to the cross to accomplish redemption; and now as a risen Man He has gone back to heaven. The church -- left here to be His witness in the time of His rejection -- has failed. Now what will happen? We are told here "what must shortly take place", and if we aspire to be confidential servants we shall take the deepest interest in the communications. Hearts touched by the love of Jesus Christ, and by the way that love expressed itself in death, and by the consciousness of the wonderful position in which that love has set us as priests to His God and Father, must take a deep and intelligent interest in all that He has to communicate.
"The time is near". We are apt to put these things off in our minds to a somewhat distant future, but the Lord would have them near, and in reading this book the Spirit brings them near to us. Then the reading and hearing the words of this prophecy are in view of the things written in it being kept. The things written are of great value and are to be treasured; they are not matters for idle curiosity. Special blessing is attached to reading, hearing, and
keeping them. And for those who find themselves, as we do, in the conditions of the last days it is essential that we should have the serious exercise which such a book produces, and also the comfort and establishment which it affords. These are days when nothing but a good and divine foundation will preserve us from being shaken. Amidst the insecurity of things here, this book would connect our faith with the stability of the throne in heaven and of Him who sits upon it, the One "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty". This gives security from perturbation of mind in the midst of all the tremblings and shakings here.
One important object of this book is to preserve saints from becoming earth-dwellers by connecting all their hopes and expectations with heaven, and by leading them there in spirit even now. There is much here for the heart as well as the conscience. What could be more encouraging than to see the possibility of being an overcomer even in the midst of assembly failure and departure? And then, as we pass on through the book, to see different families of saints coming into view, called by divine grace and sustained in divine witness amidst terrible and appalling conditions, is most stimulating to faith and love.
John is very interesting as a representative man. The Lord said of him, "If I will that he tarry till I come", and he represents what remains to the end. The first phase of the church's history stood connected with Jerusalem and Peter's ministry; the second phase was connected with the results of Paul's labours and ministry; and the third with John's. In the early chapters of the Acts Jerusalem was the centre, but the seventh chapter brings into view what has
been called "the new metropolis". Jesus was at the right hand of God, and from thence He called another apostle and gave him a distinctive mission, and the result of Paul's ministry was that local assemblies were formed far and wide in the Gentile world. What this phase of things resulted in historically we may see in the second epistle to Timothy, and in Revelation 2, 3, we also see the failure of the assemblies as set here in local responsibility. But after all the failure John looks up with undimmed freshness of affection at the end, and says, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus". He shews how the Spirit and the bride say, "Come", and how the heavenly city will descend having the glory of God. He represents those holy and living affections which can be sustained all through in spite of church failure, and which can be found at the end in full response to the love of Christ -- the Coming One. I trust we cherish the thought of being found here in such affections. They will not secure us a great place in this world; instead of expanding here we shall probably get more and more circumscribed. We may have to be content with a Patmos, but we shall be happy there if, like John, we have clear vision of all that is shortly to be brought in by our Lord Jesus Christ.
This book is addressed to "the seven assemblies which are in Asia", and those assemblies are seen as seven golden lamps in the midst of which "one like the Son of man" walks. These assemblies are viewed as representing all the assemblies, seven being a number suggestive of completeness. But it is the assemblies viewed in their responsibility as light-bearers, and as subject to the scrutiny of the One who is seen and heard as taking account of their moral
state, commending all that of which He can approve, and expressing His judgment of that which is displeasing to Him.
In the first chapter we have conditions which, if maintained, would have preserved the assemblies from failure. Keeping the things written would have marked true bondmen. Every needed divine support and consolation would have been found in the rich supply of grace and peace from the eternally existing One upon the throne, and from the seven Spirits, and from Jesus Christ. The dependent affections of the saints would have been connected with divine fulness of resource, and engaged with a supremely worthy and blessed Object. One, too, who awakens by the sense of what He has done for us in love the responsive affections and praises of every heart that knows Him. "To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father: to him be the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen".
It may be noted that the Spirit is not seen here as the one Spirit in relation to the one body, but as "seven Spirits"; that is, He is presented in the diversity and completeness of His actings for the effectuation of God's sovereign will.
The vision of the One in the midst of the lamps was such that it caused John to fall at His feet as dead. In the service of such an One there could be no power or ability of any kind save what came from the strengthening touch of His right hand. All else had to find itself in the place of death. There would then be material suited for divine witness. The seven lamps are "golden", which suggests what is divine in character -- the fruit of divine grace and
working; no other kind of material would be suited to sustain divine light in witness here. Then to realize the nearness of the Lord as walking in the midst of the seven lamps, with His eye constantly upon them, would preserve the holy sense of responsibility to Him who, though unseen, is near to take account at every moment of how that responsibility is being carried out. Had these things been maintained in power in the souls of the saints they would have been preserved from the elements of defection.
The Lord Himself is seen as "the faithful witness" in verse 5. There could be no true thought of witness save as seeing it first in Him, and we see it there without flaw or failure. How perfectly did He witness to all that God was in grace to man, and to all that Man was as entirely according to the mind and pleasure of God! Now He is "the first-born from the dead" -- the Risen One, outside everything here. And He will soon be manifested as "the prince of the kings of the earth". We confess Him as "King and Sovereign even now"; we confess His title while He is still the rejected One.
The moment this great and glorious Person is mentioned it calls forth an outburst of praise from every heart that knows Him. "To him who loves us", etc. There is an overflow of praise to Him, and then a solemn testimony about Him. "Behold, he comes with the clouds", etc. The world has not done with Him; they may think they have got rid of Him, and act as if they had, but they have not. "God ... now enjoins men that they shall all everywhere repent, because he has set a day in which he is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed, giving the proof of it
to all in having raised him from among the dead" (Acts 17:30, 31).
The position in which John was found is very suggestive of the place in which true testimony is found at the present time -- that is, during the church period. He was a prisoner in a bleak and sterile island "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus". The testimony of Jesus is found in suffering and reproach, and in an outwardly restricted place. We may see the same thing in the case of Paul; his most mature years were spent in prison, and it was when there that the testimony came out most distinctively, and the ministry was richest. Both Paul and John were very much restricted outwardly. If things are popular it is a pretty sure sign that there is a large proportion of the human element in them. It is wholesome for us to consider this. And opposition to the testimony, and reproach in connection with it, are now found within; that is, from those who bear the name of Christians. Those who do not value, and move with, light which God may give, become adversaries to it, and there is a good deal of opposition of a subtle character.
But in the restricted place John got compensation in the way of divine communications, and we should be exercised not to miss these. It is through conflict and difficulty that the truth is brought out; every spiritual gain has to be fought for and suffered for. Everything that has been recovered in the church has been won through conflict and suffering. Take the Reformation: we have the fruit of it now, but it was a great battle. And the truth of Christ and the assembly, which was restored during the last century, came out in the face of tremendous
opposition. The truth has always to be bought; and when bought there is the danger that it may be sold for something much less valuable.
The kingdom is marked at the present time by tribulation and the exercise of patience. Those who will live godly in Christ Jesus suffer persecution. By-and-by we shall serve God in a scene of glory, but now we are called to serve Him in tribulation and patience. We cannot expect to avoid suffering if we realize that the whole tide of things here is opposed to the character and rule of the kingdom in which we are partakers. When saints are bright they get tribulation in some way, and it tends to make them brighter still. The more you rub good metal the brighter it shines, and opposition and difficulty bring out the reality of divine witness in saints.
John "became in the Spirit on the Lord's day". He was entirely abstracted from what was merely natural, or of the mind and thought of man, and absorbed in a special way with spiritual things. It is interesting to see that, though he was alone so far as we know, the Lord's day was marked by this abstraction, which would imply some peculiar enjoyment of spiritual privilege. The Lord's day here spoken of is the first day of the week -- a very special day in Christianity. The week is a divinely marked period of time; it goes back to creation, and has its place in all dispensations; it is part of the original divine ordering of things. The sabbath was the last day of the week; God blessed it and hallowed it, because that on it He rested from all the work of creation, and He would have it hallowed by His people; one great controversy which He had with them was that they did not keep it. But the
hallowed day now is the first day of the week; that day has been marked off from all the other days as the one on which the Lord rose from the dead, and He claims it for Himself. Hence we find that on two succeeding first days of the week the disciples came together, and the Lord came into their midst (John 20), and at a later period the saints came together to break bread on that day (Acts 20:7). It is a day peculiarly characteristic of Christianity, and marked by special spiritual privilege, and its being the first day suggests that it is intended to give character to the six days that follow.
Though John was probably isolated from his brethren he was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day", and engaged with spiritual realities outside the whole course of things here. But while in this state of abstraction he heard behind him "a great voice as of a trumpet". He was called back, as it were, for a time from the peculiar spiritual privileges which lie in the Spirit, and which would normally be in his thoughts as connected with "the first day of the week". He was called back from these things to view the assemblies as set here in responsibility to give light for God. And to see in their midst One who was taking account of their state, and expressing His judgment as to it.
The light would shine as God was really known in grace, and as the saints were in the shining of Christ. Their relations with one another as walking together in truth and love and holiness and unity, in complete separation from the world, would be such as to support the testimony of divine grace, and to preserve true witness to a rejected Christ. And the Lord is in the midst of the lamps to see how this character
is maintained or in what it is departed from. How solemn is the thought! He is seen in judgment -- judgment in the sense of discernment -- discerning everything according to God. He is "girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle"; His affections are under restraint; they cannot flow freely in nourishing and cherishing, for much that is under His eye calls for rebuke and discipline. He is considering what is due to Himself and to God. "His head and hair white like white wool, as snow", suggests maturity in judgment. "His eyes as a flame of fire", speak of penetrating discernment; nothing in the inmost depths of our being can escape the scrutiny of those eyes. "His feet like fine brass, as burning in a furnace"; wherever He treads, as He walks in the midst of the golden lamps, everything is tested according to what "our God" is as "a consuming fire". How searching the heat of that holy fire! Who can abide such a test? "His voice as the voice of many waters"; a voice, indeed, "full of majesty". "And having in his right hand seven stars"; He asserts His title and ability to hold every responsible element in the assemblies in His right hand; only as being there can it be rightly directed or sustained. "Out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword going forth"; every convicting word in prophetic ministry which brings home to us our true condition is the action of that sword. "His countenance as the sun shines in its power"; the full revelation of God, effulgent in Him, is the light in which the church is blessed, as viewed on the line of privilege. But it is also the light by which the assemblies are judged on the line of their responsibility. The effulgence of God has shone forth in the Son, and the church's privilege
is to be "filled even to all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:19), so as to set Him forth adequately here. And if the Lord takes the place of judging amidst the assemblies He must judge according to the full divine thought of the assembly, and what it is here for.
It would be well for every Christian to see the Lord in this character. John had known Him in other ways; in the attractiveness of His walk as the Lamb of God; in all the varied blessedness of the ministry in word and deed which flowed out of that fulness of grace and truth which resided in Him; in the service of His love when He had stooped to wash His disciples' feet; and in those intimacies of holy affection which made him so conscious that he was "the disciple whom Jesus loved". He had known what it was to lean on the breast of Jesus. But when he saw Him in the midst of the golden lamps he fell at His feet as dead.
I think this is an experience which, if all had gone through it, would have preserved the assemblies from defection; it is what each individual needs to pass through in order to be an overcomer. It is the learning in His presence that all that is of the flesh, and according to man after the flesh, is brought to the nothingness of death there. We then realize that everything that is of ourselves has to be rebuked and refused, and that we can only be for the Lord as under the strengthening of His right hand. We have to learn that "without me ye can do nothing". We may learn this in nearness to the Lord, in the searching light of His presence, or we may learn it through practical failure or inward declension. It is happier, and the lesson is more deeply learned, if we learn it
with Him. If I have to fall at His feet as dead, it is that He may become practically to me the first and the last, and the living One.
"He laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the living one: and I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hades". It is as much as to say to the one who is at His feet as dead, "All that I am is for you; I became dead because that was your place, and I took it in grace for you; but now I am alive to be your strength and the Source of everything for you".
We have to learn death on all that is of ourselves that He may be all to us. Have we learned that there is not a bit of anything that has divine value save as we derive from Christ? That is how proper material for the candlestick comes in. Paul had the consciousness of utter weakness in himself, but he boasted in it that the power of Christ might tabernacle over him. The right hand of Christ speaks of His power, which becomes available to us through the Spirit given. It is only as we are under the touch of His right hand that we can be overcomers. We see the effect of being there in John and in the other apostles. None of them departed from first love; they were sustained in freshness and spiritual energy to the very end of their responsible course. The letters of John and Peter and Paul, near the end of the course of each, shew them with undiminished affection and energy, strengthened and sustained by the right hand of Christ's power. The same power was available for others, and if it had been utilized there would have been no breakdown in responsibility. Thank God it is still available for all who call on the
Lord out of a pure heart, so that such may be found overcomers even in a day of general defection.
The importance of verse 19 has often been dwelt upon as giving a clear division into three parts of what John was to write. "What thou hast seen", is recorded in chapter 1: "the things that are" are the assemblies on earth -- the church period -- as addressed in chapters 2 and 3: "the things that are about to be after these" are things to take place when the assemblies are no longer found here; these things follow from chapter 4 onward.
Finally, we are told that "the seven stars are angels of the seven assemblies; and the seven lamps are seven assemblies". The angels of the assemblies represent that in each which can be addressed as having responsibility. It is not any special individual in each assembly, for Scripture gives no hint of one individual being put in charge of an assembly. Elders, bishops, or overseers, are always, I believe, when mentioned in relation to an assembly, spoken of in the plural. There is no suggestion of one bishop in any assembly. The angel of the assembly would appear to be a symbolical person representing the responsible element; for what is written to the angel does not refer to the works or state of any one individual. Though the personal pronouns "thy" and "thou" and "thee" are used, the references throughout are clearly to the works and state of the assembly.
"Stars" are heavenly luminaries, and in this there may be a suggestion of those who are set in the assemblies to give light. If we view them thus it is important to see that their place is in the right hand of the Lord. He alone is entitled to hold them, and to dispose of them as He will. But if we view the
stars as representing symbolically those who are in the place of light-givers it involves a very serious consideration. It would shew that those who take the place of giving light become, in a sense, responsible for the moral state of the assemblies. The thought of this would make all ministry a very serious thing, for it is really a bringing to bear of divine light in view of a moral result in those who are ministered to. In a general way the state of the assemblies would be the product of the character of the ministry. A legal ministry would produce a legal state; a carnal ministry could only produce fruit after its kind; a spiritual ministry of Christ would produce spiritual results. The general state more or less takes character from the ministry. The thought of purity was very prominent in connection with the candlestick in the tabernacle. It was called "the pure candlestick", and it was to be made of "pure gold", and the oil was to be "pure oil olive". The enemy's effort all along has been to bring in elements contrary to this holy purity, and to lower the tone of the church's testimony by introducing in ministry what was of the mind of man and not of the Spirit of God and not after Christ. Responsibility attaches to the assemblies as a whole, but it attaches in a special way to those who take the place of having light, and of bringing it to bear upon others. It is a blessed thing to bring an influence to bear upon others which is spiritual and of God, and in keeping with the purity of the candlestick. But it is an intensely solemn thing to be influencing others in a way that tends to departure from Christ, and to the lowering and corrupting of what is of God in the souls of His people. A serious exercise as to this would have had a preservative
effect, and it was probably with a view to producing such exercises that responsibility for the moral state of the assemblies is seen to attach in each case to the angel. The angel represents the responsible element, and there can be no doubt that this is found chiefly with those who influence others.
Few chapters in Scripture are more important than Revelation 2 and 3. They give the Lord's estimate of what He sees in the assemblies. That word, "I know", is repeated many times. There is much in the christian profession that is a vain show, but there is One who can say, "I know"; He knows the state of every assembly and of every individual.
The way in which the Lord presents Himself to each assembly is that which, if spiritually apprehended, would be a corrective of the departure seen in each, or would furnish support to the overcomer. To Ephesus He presents Himself as "He that holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lamps". It is only as the stars are held in His right hand that assembly responsibility can be carried out. It can only be carried out by those who have found themselves as dead at His feet, but who have known the power of His right hand upon them, and who are held and sustained by the strength of that hand. If the responsible element in the assemblies had gone through John's experience in
chapter 1, and been maintained by the strengthening of His right hand, all would have been well. There must be the complete setting aside of man in the flesh; God does not propose to set up that man in responsibility. In the epistle to the angel of the assembly in Sardis the Lord speaks of Himself as "he that has ... the seven stars". They are no longer said to be in His right hand, but He has them; He lays claim to them; He holds them still to their responsibility though they have departed from the conditions in which alone it could be carried out. But here the responsible element is seen in its normal place; His right hand alone can hold it so that it shall shine according to His pleasure. It is probable that in the assembly at Ephesus the responsible and light-giving element was getting away from conscious nearness to Christ, and was no longer held and sustained by His power alone. Hence He presents Himself to that assembly as holding the stars in their true and normal place in His right hand.
Then He is not only "in the midst of the seven lamps" as in chapter 1: 13, but He "walks" there. There is a circle on earth where the Lord is in movement, and His movements can be discerned by those who have eyes to see them, just as His voice can be discerned by those who have an ear to hear. The Lord is not moving among the nations yet, though God overrules all things even there, but He moves, He is in activity, in the midst of the assemblies. Ecclesiastical historians take account of the movements of men in the assemblies, and a sad record it is. But how deeply interesting would be a true history of the movements of the Lord in the midst of the assemblies! We know a little of those movements,
through His grace; we shall know the whole story soon in courts above.
The seven lamps are "golden"; they represent the assemblies as in responsibility here, but viewed as the product of divine working and characterized by what is of God -- the presence of the Spirit and the activity of the divine nature. These things constitute the "golden" character of the assemblies. It is only as having this character that they are qualified to maintain Christ here in testimony during the night of His rejection. If practically they cease to have this character, and do not repent, their place is forfeited, and the lamp will inevitably be removed; it has ceased to serve the purpose for which it was set there.
It is well to get at the outset the divine thought attaching to the assemblies in their responsibility here. It helps us to form a true estimate of the departure which has taken place. The presence and activity of "first love" are essential, so that if that is gone the position of the "lamp" is forfeited. This epistle to the angel of the assembly in Ephesus is one of the most solemn and searching parts of the New Testament Scriptures, for it shews that if the assemblies get out of vital touch with Christ everything which is essential to the true character of the "golden lamps" is gone. As to outward faithfulness everything was right at Ephesus, yet it was a "fallen" assembly. Things with us may appear to be all right outwardly, but if we have lost contact of heart with the living One so that what we do is not the result of living impulse from Him, its true value for His heart is gone. "I have against thee that thou hast left thy first love".
The Lord commends all that He can, as we see in verses 2 and 3. They laboured, they did not tolerate evil, they tested that which came to them with great pretensions and found out its true character, they had endured and borne for His Name's sake without wearying. He knew how to value all this, but it did not satisfy His heart, nor was it in itself sufficient to sustain the "golden lamp" character. Their first love had been left. "First love" is a thing which we ought all to be very much exercised about; we may never have known what it really is. It is not merely "first" in point of time in the soul's history, but "first" in quality; it is the same word as "the best robe" in Luke 15 and is frequently translated "chief". "Thy first love" is not the brightness and zeal which may often be found in a young convert, but it is love of an assembly character. It is what marked the company. My impression is that "first love" is that character of love to which Christ gave impulse amongst His own at the beginning. He said, "A new commandment I give to you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves" (John 13:34, 35). It is this which would have really given them the "golden lamp" character during His absence. It is the result of coming under the powerful and personal influence of His love.
The assembly's "first love" was when the Head was held in affection, and the saints abiding in Him were engaged in activities to which His love gave impulse. I think it would be the result of that blessed state which is presented in the form of prayer in Ephesians 3:14 - 19. "That the Christ may dwell, through
faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love, in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God".
It must have been beautiful under the eye of the Lord to see a company "holding the truth in love" and growing "up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ: from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply, according to the working in its measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love" (Ephesians 4:15, 16). I think that gives the character of "first works" which go along with "first love". First works are not what men can take account of; a "joint of supply" does first works. Joints are hidden things but very effectual in their working. "First works" result in knitting together; it is the activity which draws saints into contact with one another, and overcomes all hitches and jars which interfere with the harmonious working and building up of the body. It is great divine favour -- though it is very humbling -- to see what the assembly was in first love and first works. There were living impulses from the Head pulsating through the body here, and resulting in knitting together and building up in love. The assembly has left its first love and is fallen, but it is still possible for us to hold the Head and to grow up to Him, and to get supply and impulse from Him. And every member of the body with an impulse from the Head can do first works. And as saints have nourishment ministered to them, and are knit together in love,
there may be found even in the closing days a measure of return to "first love". The call to repentance leaves the door open for this, and one cannot doubt that the Lord is working to bring it about.
We may have a good deal of light, and yet not have it livingly connected with Christ; He may not really be dwelling in our hearts through faith. It is very suggestive that this state is brought before us in Ephesians 3 not as true of the saints, but in the form of prayer. This should guard us from any kind of assumption as to it, but should lead us to pray. For the Christ to dwell is not merely a transient thing. I think, as a matter of fact, we get touches and tastes of what is infinitely precious, but one longs for more spiritual steadiness and constancy! How one loves that expression of J.N.D.'s -- "the constant mind"!
When the assembly got away from her first love she ceased to do the first works, and the Lord had to say that if she did not repent He would remove her lamp out of its place. It was no longer answering the purpose for which He had set it there. It is very solemn to consider that the assembly was "fallen" even before Paul and John departed to be with Christ, and long before there was any outward break-up.
Whatever the works of the Nicolaitanes were they were not "first works", and they were hated by Christ. They have been commonly held to be a fleshly abuse of grace, but it may suffice to see that what Christ hated the angel of the assembly in Ephesus hated also. The assembly in Pergamos had those who not only did the works, but who held the doctrine of Nicolaitanes; if things are allowed in practice that displease the Lord, the next step is that they may
become characteristic of what is held as doctrine. Evil is thus systematized and propagated.
There can be no doubt that the seven assemblies here addressed were representative of all the assemblies. Seven is the number of mystical completeness. No Christian could suppose that Christ's concern about the assemblies was limited to those found in a province of Asia Minor, though they were taken representatively. Nor is His interest limited to assemblies existing in the apostolic age. We are still in the time of "the things that are"; and therefore we may expect to find in these seven epistles that which will cover the whole of what may be called the assembly period. But one's exercise is to look at them in their moral bearing.
It is to be noted that the Lord addresses the angel in each assembly, and what He says is a formal and public declaration of His estimate of the state of each. But in each of the addresses there is a call of a more limited character -- a voice to the individual -- "He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies". This is an intimation to all whom it may concern that the Spirit has somewhat to say to the assemblies as well as the Lord, and the one who has an ear is to hear it. I do not believe there has ever been a moment since Pentecost when the Spirit has ceased to speak to the assemblies. He has given utterance to that which was needed at the moment, whatever aspect of the truth it might be. This was by revelation in the early days, or by the inspired writings of the apostles. But since the completion of the canon of Holy Scripture He has spoken by calling attention in varied ways to that which met the defect, or supplied the lack of the time being by presenting what
was of Christ, and bringing out spiritual wealth from the divine treasury. The manifold grace of God, and the unsearchable riches of the Christ, and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in the mystery of God have thus been presented to the assemblies from time to time. How deeply important that we should have an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies today! The state of each individual is tested by it. If we do not hear what the Spirit says we shall not be in communion with His present activities, and this is a very serious loss.
Each of the addresses emphasizes a character which may attach to the individual saint -- "him that overcomes". It is always open to the exercised individual -- the one who has an ear -- to hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies, and it is always possible for the faithful individual to be an overcomer. What encouragement there is in this! It opens the door -- and keeps it open -- for each loyal heart to be in accord with the mind and activities of the Spirit in spite of surrounding conditions in the assemblies. And it sets before each loyal heart the path and prize of the overcomer. Who would not covet to tread that path and to win that prize?
I believe the overcomer in each assembly is the one who apprehends and appreciates Christ in the character in which He presents Himself to that assembly. The Lord provides the remedy for each form of defection in the way He presents Himself, so as to make the one who appreciates Him an overcomer. If I want to be an overcomer I must pray much that I may apprehend and appreciate Christ. This involves conflict because there are great powers always at work to hinder it, and to move saints' hearts away from Christ. I
cannot follow Christ and appreciate Him without being assailed by the enemy. But there always has been, and always will be, that in Christ which would make the one who truly apprehended it an overcomer. If we are preserved, we are "preserved in Jesus Christ" (Jude 2). It is good to see the preservative power there is in Him.
"To him that overcomes, I will give to him to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God". The assembly had left its first love; it had ceased to hold fast the Head; and though many spiritual activities remained they had not the character of first works; they did not get their impulse from living contact of affection with Christ as Head. But the overcomer in such a state of things would be marked by cherishing the thought of Christ as Head, and he would not be content with anything that did not flow livingly from Him. The whole body, and nothing less, would therefore be before him in connection with the thought of supply and increase. He would be exercised to be a "joint of supply", and to work in his measure as "one part" of that body which works for itself increase "to its self-building up in love". The prize of such would be "to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God". He would enjoy, and be sustained by, those twelve fruits which speak of perennial satisfaction, and of varied perfections which minister gratification to every form of spiritual desire; "in each month yielding its fruit".
What a picture of the life of the holy city do we find in those words -- "In the midst of its street, and of the river, on this side and on that side, the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, in each month yielding its fruit"! The street of the city speaks of its movement
and activity; the river speaks of the Spirit of God as the blessed current of its life subjectively, pure in crystal brightness; but in the midst of both the street and the river is the Tree of life. Every movement in that city centres in Christ; He gives impulse to everything there. And He is in the midst of the river too; the very Centre of all that quickens and gladdens, of all the Spirit's flow in the heavenly city, even as He is the Theme of the Spirit's ministry and testimony here below! And He is not only "in the midst", but "on this side and on that side". It suggests that whichever way you look you see the Tree of life there, and it yields its fruit perennially. Each month is but an opportunity to taste some new refreshment and delight in Christ. The spiritual year yields one blessed satisfaction after another in the enjoyment of the varied fruits of Christ. To eat of that Tree is the prize of the overcomer. Nor can we doubt that though this rich reward has its full outlook in the future it brings some of its blessedness, even in the promise which sets it before us, into the present experience and joy of the overcomer.
To the angel of the assembly in Smyrna the Lord presents Himself as "the first and the last, who became dead and lived". How suitable is this character to an assembly marked by tribulation, poverty, suffering, and death! For if in the assembly in Ephesus we see indicated the spiritual decline which became evident even before the apostles departed, we may discern in what is said to Smyrna the Lord's
regard for His saints as persecuted and suffering. There was, as we all know, a time of intense persecution, and it tended to spiritual wealth, so that the Lord could say, "But thou art rich". I do not doubt that the sufferings of the saints stayed the progress of decline, and brought out for the time a true spirit of fidelity. In presenting Himself as "the first and the last" I think the Lord suggested to their hearts His ability to carry them through everything, while in saying that He "became dead and lived" He showed how He Himself had gone the way that they were treading, and could therefore be sympathetic with them in it.
"A synagogue of Satan" stands in very pointed contrast to the assembly of God. It refers, no doubt, to those who claimed to have some divine status as in the flesh, and who railed at believers in Christ. Much of the opposition and persecution of early days was instigated by the Jews, who were not indeed Jews in any spiritual sense (see Romans 2:28, 29), but had become "a synagogue of Satan" -- adversaries of all that was of God. It is well for us to realize the severity of this designation, for if it had become true of those who were literally the seed of Abraham, how much more is it true of those who under the christian name take up things in the flesh! The cross has brought man after the flesh to an end in holy judgment before God, and the Spirit has been given to maintain that judgment in the hearts of saints. There could be nothing more offensive to God than to bring back, as it were, before Him, the man whom He has utterly condemned. It is from those who do so that the greatest hostility to what is of God comes. "First love" would hold everything in living connection
with Christ the Head, but departure from that leads to giving man after the flesh a place. And when that is set up formally, and in an ordered way, it becomes in God's sight "a synagogue of Satan". It is referred to again in the epistle to the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia, where it would appear to designate those with fleshly religious pretensions who are found opposed to those who keep the Lord's word and do not deny His Name in the closing hour of the assembly's testimony on earth.
The assembly in Smyrna would suffer, some of them would be cast into prison, and they were exhorted to be faithful unto death. The Lord does not hold out to them any prospect of present deliverance, though even in such circumstances it is a great comfort to see that the power of the devil is strictly limited. "Ye shall have tribulation ten days". Christ is supreme over all the power of evil. He may suffer the enemy to afflict His saints for ten days with a view to their purification and His testimony, but the time of persecution and pressure is limited. No hostile power could make the tribulation last eleven days when He has said ten! It is a great comfort to saints in any time of special pressure to remember this. The consciousness of His power is a great support; it is there even if He allows things to go to the extreme length of martyrdom, which is what is meant by being "faithful unto death".
At such a time His power is manifested in an even greater way morally than if He intervened to stop the suffering, for it comes out in the way He sustains His persecuted and martyred saints. It has been known in days of persecution that saints were disappointed when they were reprieved. Some very touching
letters of the martyrs were written by those sent back to prison to their companions who had been sentenced to the stake. They manifested real sorrow as feeling deprived; for the time, of the privilege and honour of suffering death for the Lord. In some cases they had afterwards the privilege which they coveted. It shews the power in which the Lord can succour and sustain what is of Himself even under the extreme violence of the adversary. In this connection it may be well to remember that in many cases those who spoke very confidently before they were tested failed when the persecution touched them, but those who had been timid, and had feared lest they might fail, were often the ones to go through triumphantly. Nothing will really carry saints through such testings but the strength of the Lord.
"The crown of life" is the glorious answer to martyrdom here, and "he that overcomes shall in no wise be injured of the second death". Such might appear to have death for their portion, but they would be found invested with the distinction of victorious life. They would truly "reign in life".
Satan works on two lines of opposition to God; one is violence and the other corruption. They are really his only two lines of action. We see the former in Smyrna and the latter in Pergamos. The Lord introduces Himself to the angel of the assembly in Pergamos as "He that has the sharp two-edged sword". The assembly had lost the power to discriminate
and to divide between things that differed. "The word of God is living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and penetrating to the division of soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is not a creature unapparent before him; but all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4:12). If this assembly had really been under the action of the word of God it would have kept their from dwelling "where the throne of Satan is". There was a measure of faithfulness, and the Lord took account of it, and especially of one faithful witness who was slain amongst them, but in general the assembly was found in the position of dwelling in the world. This came about when the world-powers took up the profession of Christianity, and became the patrons of the church instead of her persecutors.
The Lord spent His first night on earth in the manger connected with an inn; He spent part of His last night in an inn also. (The word "guest-chamber" in Luke 23:11 is the same as "inn" in Luke 2:7.) He was ever true to the Stranger character, and He brought the one whom He blessed "to the inn" (Luke 10:34), and expected to find him there when He came back. If the church had remained in "the inn" -- if she had retained the character of a heavenly stranger -- she would have proved divine resources and care, and there would have been no admittance of the doctrine of Balaam and of the Nicolaitanes.
For it is at this point we find those in the assembly holding corrupt doctrines. Not that these corruptions were universal as yet, but they were there. The
Lord discriminates between the angel and the corrupters; "I will make war with them with the sword of my mouth". What is contemplated here is not only evil practice, but corrupt teaching; it is in each case "doctrine"; it is evil systematized and taught. There began to be teaching in the assembly that was idolatrous, and led to unholy association with the world, and that introduced what was positively hateful to Christ. What a contrast to this do we see in Jesus as the Blessed Man of Psalm 16! He was "not of the world", and He was absolutely separate from all that was idolatrous. The way to escape from the influence of Balaam is to be under the influence of Christ. The enemy is ever seeking to seduce the people of God, and to get them to feed on that which pertains to his system, but the antidote to all this is to have Christ before us. He has been here in the presence of seduction and opposition, and in every detail He was entirely for the will of God.
The reward of the overcomer in Pergamos is to have "the hidden manna". This would have reference to what Christ was here, but viewed as "God's treasured store", kept for the generations of His people. It is the abiding memorial before God of what was once in the wilderness. One in whom the grace of heaven came into contact with every circumstance of wilderness life. Now it is all treasured in the golden pot in the ark of the covenant -- the reserved and hidden memorial of a life that was morally out of heaven.
It is very blessed to see that in a day of public departure -- for the assembly dwelling where Satan's throne is, and tolerating corruption in doctrine, is
clearly public departure -- there is set before the overcomer that which is hidden in the secret of God's presence. Such a promise calls every faithful heart away from the public character of things in the assembly -- now marked by departure and corruption -- to that which is hidden in the sanctuary. No one will prosper spiritually, or be in communion with God, who allows himself to be influenced by what goes on publicly in a worldly and departed assembly. The hidden manna suggests something which is really a secret from the many. Do we covet this? What do we know about "the hidden manna"? Have we really a secret of delight with God in all that which He treasures of what Christ was here? We sing sometimes of
What is public even in a spiritual way -- meetings, ministry, etc. -- will not keep us, or even help us much, if we have not our own secret communion with God as to the preciousness of Christ. The hidden life is of the deepest importance, and yet how often it is neglected!
To appreciate truly and delight in what God appreciates and delights in one must be on the same line morally. If I am a lawless person I shall not appreciate obedience. If I am characterized by pride and vanity how can I appreciate lowliness? If I am haughty and overbearing I do not appreciate meekness and gentleness. Christ can only be truly appreciated in a nature kindred with Him. So that what we delight in we really are. If you knew what my heart delighted in you would know me. It is as having Christ before us that we become overcomers;
then the overcomer gains more of Christ; there is growth.
And thus, Thy deep perfections,
Then there is the "white stone". This, too, is of the nature of a personal secret, for on the stone is written a new name "which no one knows but he that receives it". It is the consciousness of the Lord's approbation -- a secret between Himself and the faithful heart. There could be nothing sweeter for a true heart than this, and it encourages one to go on, whether in the face of opposition or seduction. Antipas was a faithful overcomer, slain on account of his witness for Christ, and no doubt he had the "white stone". We are often weak because we are not sure of the Lord's approval; we are not near enough to Him for Him to give us the "white stone".
Would you not like to have such a distinct character under the eye of the Lord that He could give you a name? I believe He gives a name to every overcomer. It does not matter much if people call us names, but it is surely of deep interest to know what the Lord calls us! He surnamed Simon, Peter; James and John He surnamed Boanerges -- Sons of thunder. And the apostles seemed to have followed the Lord's example when they surnamed Joseph, Barnabas -- Son of consolation. We all have names in relation to this world, but each overcomer has also a name in relation to Christ -- a distinctive character owned of Him, for it was He Himself who imparted it. The Lord loves
to tell us what He appreciates in us. We see this in the Song of Songs, in those passages where the Bridegroom speaks to the heart of the bride of all the beauty that He perceives in her. And we may see the same thing, in principle, in the way the apostles spoke simply and freely of the features of spiritual beauty which they discerned in the saints. They delighted to dwell on such features. But the name written in the white stone is not spoken publicly; it is a personal secret between the Lord and the overcomer. It is the consciousness that He has given us that which He can approve, and that it marks us under His eye. It does not elate us to know it, but it becomes a secret and powerful source of encouragement, strength, and affection.
It has often been pointed out that in the addresses to the four last assemblies the call to the one that has an ear to "hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies" comes after the promise to the overcomer, intimating that only the overcomer would have an ear. Then the Lord's coming being spoken of to Thyatira, Sardis, and Philadelphia, while Laodicea is warned of utter rejection, indicates that these four assemblies represent conditions which go on to the end of the present period.
To the angel of the assembly in Thyatira the Lord presents Himself as "the Son of God, he that has his eyes as a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass". We see in this His Personal dignity, and the penetrating nature of His scrutiny, and that He moves
in the assemblies to search and test "the reins and the hearts". One can understand the Lord taking this character in relation to such an assembly.
In Ephesus, though there was as yet no public defection, under the Lord's eye first love had been left; then in Pergamos there was public departure -- the assembly dwelling in the world and having corrupters within; now in Thyatira we find Jezebel permitted and those in the assembly who were her children. The different stages of departure, and the increasing inroads of evil, which succeeded each other in the history of the assemblies, are thus clearly seen as discerned by the Lord.
But even in an assembly where gross corruption was permitted there was that which the Lord could commend. "Love, and faith, and service, and thine endurance, and thy last works to be more than the first". One delights to think of the personal devotedness found in many saints during what are called "the dark ages". Many whose writings, or portions of them, have been preserved to us evidently loved the Lord and laboured for Him; and probably the vast majority of devoted ones left nothing to perpetuate their names, and never got a place in church history. The Lord could recognize even in such an assembly as Thyatira a remnant who were not Jezebel's children, nor personally corrupted by her teaching, and His consideration for them is very touching. "But to you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine ... I do not cast upon you any other burden; but what ye have hold fast till I shall come". He takes account of them as having that which was of divine value, and which was to be held fast till He should come.
Their love, faith, service, endurance, and increasing activity in works were the evidence of what was in their "reins and hearts".
But along with this fruit of divine grace (every feature of which the Lord loves to recognize and approve, wherever it may be found) there was a condition of things which can only be regarded as appalling. "Thou permittest the woman Jezebel". To recall the history of that "cursed woman" is to be filled with horror at the thought of such a person, typically, being permitted in the assembly. She was the daughter of an idolatrous king of Sidon, and through her influence Ahab became a servant and worshipper of Baal, and "did more to provoke Jehovah the God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him" (1 Kings 16). She was the active promoter of idolatry in Israel, for 850 prophets of Baal and of the Asherah ate at her table. She would have killed Elijah the prophet of Jehovah; she brought about the martyrdom of Naboth because he would not surrender the God-given inheritance of his fathers; and she was the prime mover and instigator of the greatest wickedness ever known in Israel. "Surely there was none like to Ahab, who did sell himself to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, Jezebel his wife urging him on. And he did very abominably in following idols" (1 Kings 21:25, 26).
Nothing could be more solemn and terrible than that such a woman should be permitted in the assembly, and that she should be there as professing to speak for God; "she who calls herself prophetess, and she teaches and leads astray my servants to commit fornication and eat of idol sacrifices".
The lesson is written large and plain in these
epistles to the assemblies that what is called the visible church -- the public and responsible light-bearer in the world -- cannot be trusted as affording any security for souls, or for truth and holiness.
To how many millions even yet the church's teaching and sacraments appear to have divine authority and to afford divine security! How many think that what the church permits in the way of teaching and practice must be right! How needful for such to consider that when the Lord addresses the assemblies He speaks to Ephesus as fallen, to Pergamos as dwelling where Satan's throne is and as having corrupters of doctrine, to Thyatira as permitting Jezebel with all her abominations, to Sardis as having a name to live and yet dead, to Laodicea as about to be spued out of His mouth! In short, the public body of christian profession is seen to be marked by extreme unfaithfulness, and by the toleration and teaching of everything that is abhorrent to the Lord. So that nothing but judgment, and utter eventual rejection by Him, awaits it.
At this point the Lord turns from the public body, after giving it the most solemn warning of inevitable judgment, and addresses Himself to "the rest who are in Thyatira". The definite owning of a remnant by the Lord is, in a way, the disowning of the public body, and this is a very solemn consideration, for it is something like the removal of the candlestick. But there were those whom He could distinguish as having that which had divine value, and they were to hold it fast, not until Jezebel repented -- for that she would not do -- but "till I shall come". The coming of the Lord, would alone terminate the necessity for holding fast and overcoming.
There is an obvious connection between the fornications and idolatries taught by Jezebel, and the fornications and abominations of the great harlot in chapter 17. There we find that the kings of the earth had committed fornication with her. She had sought by her corruptions to get influence and power in the scene where Christ had but a cross and a grave. For the church to want political power in the world that rejects Christ is the most monstrous thing conceivable, and yet to what an extent this unfaithfulness prevails! Many who would denounce the claims of Rome are eager to get, and hold, as much political power as they can; though we may recognize that the Protestant churches have departed from the truth rather by seeking the support of the secular powers than by seeking to dominate them.
The church's place was to be true to Christ, and to maintain undimmed in testimony the light of God revealed in grace in His Son. But this would have been the testimony of a heavenly stranger not seeking influence in the world system, but delivering souls from it. For that which should have been the suffering witness to a rejected Christ to be found in a place of glory and authority in a world which still rejects Him is the complete reversal of all that the Lord intended. The Son of God, as seen in Psalm 2, will have the nations for His inheritance, and the ends of the earth for His possession. He will break them with a sceptre of iron; as a potter's vessel He will dash them in pieces. But that is in a coming day. There could be no greater travesty of the truth than for the church to be in public honour where Christ has suffered and died, and no greater deception for the world.
Christ Himself is the Morning Star of the day of
glory, and He is given in that blessed character to the overcomer in Thyatira. The day of glory will come, and then the overcomer will have "authority over the nations"; he will reign with Christ when Christ reigns, but while Christ suffers and is rejected it is his privilege to share that suffering and rejection. The Morning Star is not Christ shining in public and manifested glory; that is connected with the rising of the Sun of righteousness. The Morning Star is Christ unseen by the sleeping world, and unknown by the corrupted church -- occupied in glorifying herself where Jesus had the cross -- but cherished in the affections of the overcomer as the Harbinger of the day of glory.
The overcomer is taken up with all that is coming. He knows its character and he delights in its blessedness because the Day Star has arisen in his heart. All that he has learned and known in Jesus is going to shine forth and irradiate the earth with its glory. Think of what will mark that coming day! The reign of God's Anointed, under which all lawlessness will be judged and banished from His kingdom, and righteousness and peace established. The assembly, His bride, the subject of His love (in which He gave Himself for her, and sanctified and cleansed her by the washing of water by the word) presented to Himself a glorious assembly with no trace of imperfection or decay upon her, reigning with Him to shed abroad in beneficent influence all that she learned of Him by the Spirit while He was hidden in the heavens. The effulgence of God as revealed in His beloved Son shining forth in the assembly as the holy city. All this is present to the affections of the one who has the Morning Star.
Some features of the night would have been ever present if the assemblies had remained faithful, but there is the sad additional element now of assembly corruption. But what cheer and joy to the overcomer, amid the surrounding darkness, to have the Morning Star! The assembly in Thyatira may be regarded as in the darkest hour of the night, but at the darkest moment Christ becomes to the faithful heart the bright Herald of the coming day.
"The Son of God" known in the affections preserves His saints from the idolatrous influences of Jezebel, for He is "the true God and eternal life". "The Morning Star" carries the heart away from any thought of present world glory, and centres its desires and hopes in the Coming One who will bring in the day of glory. To know Christ in these two characters marks the overcomer in Thyatira. And we need to know Him thus to be preserved from the elements of departure and corruption that are seen there. For our hearts are naturally prone to idolatry, and to seek some place or glory in the world. Indeed there is not an evil in christendom that we cannot find the germs of in our own hearts. It is possible to denounce the full-blown development of these evils in the historical church without really judging that in ourselves which is their secret root.
All these evils come from the allowance of the man after the flesh. This gives place to that which Satan can work on, and to which he can present seductions which are suited to what man is naturally. There are influences which appeal powerfully to the religious sentiment of the natural man, and we are all liable to give some place to that kind of thing. But if "the Son of God" is before us we have a Man of an
entirely different order in view, One out of death, and able to quicken others so that they live spiritually in association with Him, and are not of the world even as He is not. Then "the Morning Star" arising in the heart connects the affections with all that belongs to the coming day. And this is deeply essential if we are to be preserved from the ten thousand subtle moral influences that belong to man's day.
In presenting Himself to Sardis as "he that has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars", the Lord asserts the power which He possesses -- a power adequate to bring to pass all that is pleasurable to God -- and also that every responsible and light-giving element in the assemblies is His, and therefore that He alone is entitled to order and dispose of it as directly subject and responsible to Him.
"The seven Spirits" are seen in chapter 1 as "before his throne", and in chapter 4 they are seen as "seven lamps of fire, burning before the throne". The throne represents God's sovereign power, the glory and honour of which He must eventually receive, for all things subsist and have been created for His pleasure. And the "seven lamps of fire, burning before the throne", speak of a power that is adequate to secure a perfect response in light, and in holy judgment of evil, to all that the throne required.
But this will be brought about, as chapter 5 tells us, on the ground of redemption, and when the Lamb is introduced "the seven Spirits of God" are seen as His seven eyes "sent into all the earth".
This is an evident allusion to Zechariah 3:9; Zechariah 4:10. When Zechariah prophesied there had been an intervention of God providentially to deliver His people from Babylonish captivity, and the assembly in Sardis had been the subject of a similar intervention. The gross corruptions and idolatries permitted in Thyatira are not found in Sardis. This in itself suggests some divine intervention, and at least a measure of divine deliverance. But if we read the post-captivity prophets -- Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi -- who give us what the returned people "received and heard", we find that while Jehovah called them to devotedness to His house it was to be taken up in the light of Christ, and of His Spirit remaining among them, and of the latter glory which would fill that house. He would have had them to pass beyond what was outward and providential whether Cyrus, Darius, Zerubbabel, or even the temple they were re-building -- to be engaged with all that He would establish in a coming day by Christ and in the power of the Spirit. He laid before Joshua the high priest a Stone upon which were seven eyes. He would, in figure, engage him with Christ as the Foundation upon which all His pleasure could rest, and the One marked by perfection of intelligence with regard to it. Perfect discernment with a view to the ordering of all things according to God's pleasure, and particularly the temple and the holy service, are suggested by the seven eyes. And His word to
Zerubbabel was, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts".
How enlarging would all this have proved to them, and how it would have preserved them from the lifeless formality and Pharisaism into which all soon fell! Through lack of remembering how they had "received and heard" and keeping it and repenting, they lost everything vital, and fell into such a state of unwatchfulness as to be quite unprepared for the coming of Christ. So that when His birth was spoken of by the magi it not only troubled Herod, but "all Jerusalem with him". He truly came upon them as a thief, and they did not know the hour of His coming. And this resulted in their house being left to them desolate, and eventually in the wrath coming on them to the uttermost.
It is solemn to see how history repeated itself in the assemblies. Even though a great deliverance was effected at the Reformation, and escape given from many idolatries and corruptions, and a certain "name that thou livest" attaches to the reformed churches, they are really characterized by lifeless forms, and by the progressive decay -- even to the point of death of such things as were of God. The assembly in Sardis is marked by the failure to do works that are complete before God, by forgetfulness of what has been received and heard, and by unwatchfulness as to the coming of the Lord. Such is Protestantism, as to its general state, under the eye of the Lord. And who cannot see how true is the indictment? An open Bible, and much truth from God -- for He speaks of what had been "received and heard" -- does not ensure spiritual vitality. It is a wholesome warning for us all, It is not what I am in profession, or even
the "name" I have with others, that has value, but what I am in spiritual vitality. If this is lacking there is no completion of one's works before God, and even what remains of that which was originally of God tends to die.
The Lord presents Himself to this assembly as having the seven Spirits of God. He has every power that can bring about a spiritual result. All that will be accomplished in the earth when righteousness covers it, and the will of God is done on earth as in heaven, will be accomplished by Christ in the power of the seven Spirits of God. But all the power which He will exercise in a coming day to bring about such public and universal results is His today, and He is exercising it on behalf of His saints, though in a hidden way, so that only faith can recognize it. In presenting Himself to Sardis as having the seven Spirits of God the Lord indicated that He had plenitude of power and intelligence to bring about the setting up of that which would really be for the pleasure of God. If the reformers of the sixteenth century had taken due account of this they would have been preserved from looking to the world-powers for patronage and support, which only had the effect of putting the world-powers in a place of authority over the church. This is nearly as lamentable as for the church to assume to exercise authority over the world-powers.
Then the assertion that the Lord has "the seven stars" is a reminder that He alone is entitled to order and control every responsible and light-giving element in the assemblies. If this had been seen clearly it could never have been admitted that kings and rulers should appoint to office in the church, or that congregations even of believers should choose their own
pastors and teachers. The gifts in Ephesians 4 are given by the ascended Head for the body universally. In 1 Corinthians 12 gifts are set by God in the assembly. Ability to edify the assembly must be God-given, and when it is given it becomes the assembly's privilege to recognize it and profit by it. But where a human order prevails there may be much divine gift that is not available because the established order gives no room for its exercise. What men call order is often really confusion in a divine sense, because it does not recognize the sovereignty of the Lord, or the operations of "the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each in particular as he pleases", nor is it the order of the assembly of God as we see it in Scripture.
The effects of the human appointment and ordering of that which can only be rightly appointed and ordered by the Lord are manifest on all sides. Where such conditions obtain, the inevitable tendency is to drop into lifeless forms, and even that which remains of what was originally of God gets weaker and weaker so that it is "about to die". In presence of such conditions can we wonder that there is but a name to live? Or that unwatchfulness as to the coming of the Lord is everywhere found?
Only under the direct authority and control of Christ as Lord will responsibility be carried out according to His mind, and His service go on in true co-operation and co-ordination as one whole. "There are distinctions of services, and the same Lord" (1 Corinthians 12:5). The carnal mind would regard Paul and Apollos as two, and would make choice between them; one saying, "I am of Paul, and another, I of Apollos", but the Apostle insists that "the planter and the waterer are one". Each is serving "as the
Lord has given to each", and under His administration each (in the measure which divine sovereignty allots to him) contributes to one whole. Each has his own gift and service from the Lord, and his direct responsibility to the Lord, but he is called to serve in harmony with all other service which is being carried on under the same Lord. So that in the Lord's service there is individual responsibility without anything like independency.
There is also local responsibility, for each "star" has its local place, but there can be no local independency if "the same Lord" has the seven stars. No principle can be rightly applied locally that it would not be right to apply everywhere; so that local responsibility must be carried out in view of what is universal. Everything enjoined on "the assembly of God which is in Corinth" was also obligatory on "all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ". What a wide outlook this gives us, even while dealing with what seems to be merely local! True assembly thoughts and exercises can never be limited to what is local. They always take account of what is universal.
The due recognition of the Lord as having "the seven stars" would put every responsible element in right relation and subjection to Him, and would preserve it from any merely human arrangements or ordering. And each service taken up, whether by individuals or by saints viewed as in local responsibility of assembly character, would be carried out in harmony with all other service under the same Lord universally. How this would deliver from all personal and ecclesiastical independency! And it would also exclude all narrowing influences such as are connected with what is merely local, national, or sectarian.
However favoured we may be spiritually we have to take heed that things do not become formal or decadent with us. There is always that tendency, and it has to be watched against. He says, "I have not found thy works complete before my God". Nothing but completeness will satisfy Him, nor will it really satisfy those who love Him and care for His interests. Hence Epaphras prayed for the Colossians that they might stand perfect and complete in everything that was God's will. And Paul prayed for the Philippians that they might be "complete as regards the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ, to God's glory and praise". There can be no relaxing of purpose, vigilance, or prayer, or our works may be found incomplete before God. There has been a beginning with many of us, but not a sufficient following up of spiritual exercises to bring them to completion. There is great danger in this, for if things are not pursued to completion they ever tend to decline.
The assembly in Sardis is marked by incompleteness; A measure of light, and a measure of divine deliverance, but nothing in regard to Christ, or the Spirit, or the assembly worked out to its proper result before God. How easily may any of us fail in like manner! The Lord gave much that was precious to Sardis. Much light was given at the time of the Reformation and afterwards, but it was lost in great measure by the attempt to adapt it to the world and by settling down in worldly associations. "A name that thou livest, and art dead", is a reputation without spiritual vitality. To each assembly the Lord says, "I know thy works". He knows our words, and what doctrines we hold, but He takes account chiefly of what holds us; He looks
to see how things work out practically with us. The result in light-giving is what He is concerned about.
Satan is always trying to catch the people of God and draw them into worldly associations. If saints mix with the world they do not sanctify the world, but they defile their own garments. The result of worldly associations is that the confession of Christ has to be given up, for it will not be tolerated in the world. A confessor of Christ must be a separate man. He believes on the One whom the world has rejected; he watches for His coming again; and in the meantime confesses Him. His works, his watchfulness, and his confession all flow from affection for Christ. Such a one will be confessed by Him before His Father and before His Father's angels. He may have to suffer and bear reproach now, content to walk under the eye of the Lord and have His approval in secret. But by-and-by he will have public acknowledgment. You need never fear that anything in your public or private history that has been pleasing to God will be overlooked. Nothing that is of God can ever be lost; it is eternal in its very nature. So "he that does the will of God abides for eternity".
"But thou past a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy". "A few names"; that is, the Lord takes account of them personally by name. Amid general decline and unwatchfulness they have preserved purity in their associations -- practical separation in heart and life from the world. They will walk with Him in white, as worthy. How blessed to walk even now in suitability to Christ, so that to walk with Him in white is
but to continue in scenes of unsullied purity a similar character of movement!
The reward of the overcomer in Sardis is threefold. The "white garments" are the appropriate recognition of the character of his walk here. As marked by unworldliness and the moral features of Christ, he would know reproach here, for his walk and deportment would condemn the lifeless and unwatchful professors around him, and awaken their enmity. But his reward is to be "clothed in white garments". The "white stone" of chapter 2: 17 is private and personal, but the "white garments" are public recognition -- the Lord putting forth as approved by Himself those who "have not defiled their garments".
Then "I will not blot his name out of the book of life". The book of life is an ancient book, for names were written in it "from the founding of the world" (Revelation 13:8); that is clearly connected with God's purpose and counsel. But the working out of that purpose must be through suited moral conditions, and it is in reference to this that from of old the thought of blotting out has been connected with God's book. Moses, in a wonderful moment, said, "And now, if thou wilt forgive their sin ... but if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book that thou hast written. And Jehovah said to Moses, Whoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book" (Exodus 32:32, 33). And we also read, "Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous" (Psalm 69:28). It is the record of those who are "written among the living", but there is the solemn possibility that names which were once enrolled there may be blotted out. If it turns out that there is no vitality in a man his name may be
removed from the register. Indeed, the very fact that it is the book of life suggests that a living character must attach to those whose names are in it. If it becomes manifest that persons are not characterized by life their names may be blotted out as no longer entitled to remain on the register.
Finally, the overcomer's name will be confessed "before my Father and before his angels". It is to be noted that He does not speak of confessing him before the world, who might not have known much about him, but before His Father, who had seen everything in secret (Matthew 6:6), and before His Father's angels, who had been observant of all his ways, and had noticed even such details as whether a woman was sufficiently in the truth of headship to cover her head when she prayed (1 Corinthians 11:10). How strikingly does this speak of the spiritual vitality and intense reality which mark the overcomer!
May none of us miss the solemn lessons connected with the Lord's words to Sardis, or be found lacking in the characteristics which mark the overcomer there!
No part of Scripture could be more encouraging and stimulating to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, and desire to cherish His interests at the present time, than the epistle to the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia. It shews that the Lord intends to have under His eye at the close of the church's history on earth something quite different from the corruptions of Popery, or the lifeless formalism of Protestantism, and in marked
contrast to the lukewarm and boastful condition seen in Laodicea.
There is a remnant in Thyatira, a few faithful individuals in Sardis, and the possibility of some individual hearing the Lord's voice, and opening the door to Him, even in Laodicea. We have seen in Sardis indications of revival corresponding with the movement which we speak of as the Reformation. But Philadelphia speaks of a further revival. Not merely a correction of gross abuses, but a return to the original spiritual features of the assembly. For to keep the word of Christ and not to deny His Name, to know His love, and to keep the word of His patience is really to have the spiritual features which marked the assembly at the beginning. And these features are seen here as held in "the love of the brethren" -- Philadelphia means this -- and having the approval of the Lord.
That there have been remarkable spiritual movements within the last hundred years will not be questioned by any whose ears and eyes have been open to what the Spirit has been saying and what the Lord has been doing. Those movements have had in view the bringing about such spiritual conditions as are seen in Philadelphia. I do not pretend to say how far that end has been reached, or in how many of the saints; probably only in a partial way as yet anywhere. But I have no doubt that the Lord is working in thousands of hearts with this end in view. If this is the distinctive character of what He is doing at the present moment, it claims the attention and profound interest of every heart that loves Him. None of us, surely, would like to miss the peculiar privilege of the great spiritual revival which Philadelphia indicates! We have often heard of evangelical revivals, but what
comes before us in Philadelphia is the fruit of what may be called a church revival. If we consider the features of assembly revival which are here presented to our view we may discern how much -- or how little! -- that revival has reached our hearts in divine power.
We have seen already how important it is to observe the character in which the Lord Jesus presents Himself to each assembly, for it is the spiritual apprehension of Him in that character that enables one to be an overcomer. To Philadelphia He presents Himself as "the holy, the true", and as having "the key of David". It is what He is personally, and His acting for the assembly. To have Christ before us as "the holy, the true", is to be apart in spirit from every element of corruption or formality. It is to be engaged with One who is of an entirely different order from the man who admits such elements. One absolutely apart from any trace of what is defiling, God's Holy One.
He knew no sin, yet was He made sin for us that God might be glorified in His holiness; and now as risen and ascended He is "the holy"; no moral stain can ever be found upon Him. He ever was personally without stain, but He is "the holy" as having taken up the question of man's sinful state as in Adam, and removed it sacrificially in His death. He was forsaken because God was holy (Psalm 22:3) when He was found vicariously in the place of the defiled and sinful man, and in His death the history of that man has been ended before God. Anything that gives man in the flesh a place -- even in his best and most attractive form -- is contrary to divine holiness. The sanctimoniousness of the flesh often passes for holiness, but it is quite another thing to be in Christ Jesus -- the
risen and heavenly Man -- and to have Him made unto us holiness. Any true desire amongst Christians for holiness or increased devotedness is an exercise produced by the Spirit of God, but the movements in this direction at the present day often stop far short of the divine thought. People can have what they call "holiness by faith", and yet go on with many things which are contrary to the truth, and which really give man in the flesh a place. But God would have us to see that man condemned and set aside in judgment in the death of Christ, and that a risen and glorified Man is "the holy", and that we are in Him and have His Spirit so that we may come out here as having the moral features of a new and heavenly order of man. This detaches us completely from self as a centre, and connects us in mind and affection with Christ in heaven. We then begin to realize that the saints are "one body in Christ" for the expression of Christ down here. In the light of this how could we go on with any religious order or system which gives man in the flesh a place? In taking character from Christ, and being formed in Him -- formed in the divine nature -- we get holiness by love. And as saints take this up together in the love of the brethren there is that under the eye of the Lord which has the original features of the assembly. There is something which has true assembly character.
Then Christ is also "the true". The assemblies have proved themselves untrue; they have not maintained the character which attached to them as "golden lamps" set to shine in witness here. They have not been genuinely even what they have professed to be. But Christ is "the true". Whatever character attaches to Him, whatever office He fills, whatever
service He renders, whatever He presents Himself as being or doing or saying, Godward or manward, that He is in the fullest and most genuine sense. He is the true Light, the true Bread, the true Vine, the true God, the true Witness. He is the absolute embodiment and expression of all that is blessed, whether it be on the side of revelation, or on the side of response to revelation in a Man. In whatever character we think of Him -- and how innumerable are the forms of love, wisdom, grace and power which He wears! -- He is the full setting forth of that character.
All God's thoughts of blessing for man are set forth in Him. We do not need to go outside Christ for anything. He is made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness and redemption. All is seen in Him without defect or diminution. He is "the true". And consequent upon His death, and His being glorified, we have His Spirit so that we may consciously know and enjoy what is true in Him, and be found in moral correspondence with it down here, and that this may mark us in the relations in which we stand as loving the brethren.
"He that has the key of David, he who opens and no one shall shut, and shuts and no one shall open". This is clearly an allusion to Isaiah 22, where under figure of Shebna and Eliakim is set forth God's utter rejection of man after the flesh, and His causing all that is glorious to be found connected with Christ. As to Shebna, all his activities in the house only resulted in his having a sepulchre there -- the evidence that he was under death. "Behold, Jehovah will hurl thee with the force of a mighty man, and will cover thee entirely. Rolling thee up completely, he will roll thee as a ball into a wide country: there shalt thou
die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, O shame of thy lord's house!" No more striking figure of utter rejection can be found. But there is One of whom Jehovah speaks as "my servant", who has the key of the house of David upon His shoulder, and who opens and shuts so that none can reverse what He does. He is a throne of glory to His Father's house, and He sustains all the glory and vessels of that house. And even He after the flesh must go -- as intimated in verse 25 -- that He may take all up, and hold it abidingly as the Risen and Heavenly One.
To Philadelphia He gives "an opened door, which no one can shut, because thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name". The "works" of Philadelphia have a very precious character, for they are all directly connected with Christ. They consist in keeping His word, not denying His Name, and keeping the word of His patience. The fact that these things are kept is the evidence of power. It is not power that makes a show in the world; the Lord speaks of it as "a little power"; but it is spiritual power exercised in the cherishing of that which is infinitely great and precious, and that in which all assembly testimony consists.
His "word" is the expression of Himself, and in that the Father is revealed. He came into the world to declare God, and none but the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father could do that. Then His "name" suggests that He is personally absent; He is no longer here, but is a glorified Man in heaven. It is everything to cherish that Person, to cherish the revelation of God in Him, and all the precious and holy features of that Blessed Man. It is really to
know Him that is from the beginning, and there is nothing beyond this; it is the joy of "fathers" in the family of God (1 John 2). Though He is no longer here personally He is here in the confession of His Name by the brethren who love one another. The test of everything in word or deed or spirit is, Does it express Christ? Is the love that binds us together as brethren the very love to which He gave impulse at the beginning? "A new commandment I give to you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). Whatever is contrary to this is a denial of His Name. Our self-seeking, our sectarian narrowness, deny that Name; they do not confess the absent One, or maintain Him here in testimony; they are unworthy of saints. We are to walk together in the love of the brethren confessing His Name -- bringing that Name into evidence by the holy love in which we walk together. This is true assembly character, and assembly testimony.
Then He can say, "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience". The whole story of His rejection by the world is wrapped up in that word. His rights have all been refused Him here, and He sits at God's right hand until His enemies are made His footstool. He is waiting in patience to have His rights and glory in another day, and His saints in Philadelphia are marked by keeping the testimony of His patience. They will not reign as kings where He is despised and rejected. They leave the politics of the world to those who are of it; they wait for the One who will set aside the whole present political system of the world by His own power and kingdom in due time. They own the powers that be as ordained
of God, and are in submission to them, but they cannot take part in ruling where Christ is rejected. Nor can they help on things which are on the line of giving Christianity a place of honour in the world. As companions of Christ's rejection they look to be found in the place of reproach here. And they will escape the hour of trial that is coming. The world hopes that things will get better; politicians labour to bring about improvement; but the saints know that what is about to come is an hour of unprecedented trial "upon the whole habitable world, to try them that dwell upon the earth". The Lord spoke of it very distinctly. Those that dwell upon the earth will have to learn by terrible experience the instability of all things here; everything that they trust in will be overturned. The events of recent years have shewn how little confidence can be put in the stability of things here. What will it be in that fast-approaching moment when the hour of trial really comes, and the power of evil breaks forth in its full manifestation? The assembly will be kept out of that hour of trial, for she will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air before the great tribulation. And in the meantime saints, as keeping the word of Christ's patience, are kept out of the turmoil and instability that mark the political world. Their trust is in God amidst wars, revolutions, and the angry contentions of selfish and ambitious men. Their hope as to things here is the appearing of Christ.
"Behold, I have set before thee an opened door, which no one can shut". Those who have the Philadelphian characteristics will not be stopped in their service or testimony, though having no human influence or support, and no human organization to
promote success. The synagogue of Satan is plainly hinted at as the great opponent of this assembly, even as it had been of the assembly in Smyrna. It is those with earthly religious pretensions, authority derived from tradition, and exercised through formal ordinances. The Lord says that they lie. The severity of this description should be well weighed; comment upon it is needless. All such will be caused to come and do homage before the feet of those whom they have despised and opposed, but whose way they have not been able to close. They "shall know that I have loved thee". It is the assembly's sweet portion and joy to be loved by Christ. He "loved the assembly and has delivered himself up for it, in order that he might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things; but that it might be holy and blameless"(Ephesians 5:25 - 27).
"I come quickly". People say, How could it be "quickly" when nearly 2000 years have intervened? Such do not understand the language of love. It was "quickly" to Him -- ever near to His affections; and He would have it to be "quickly" to the affections of His saints. He would not have us to be, like those of old, counting long periods of prophetic days or years to His coming, but ever having it in our hearts as "quickly".
The "crown" is the distinction and glory which saints have as cherishing Christ and His thoughts of the assembly. There is an unremitting effort to take it, and it is needful to "hold fast". Religious literature is often very subtle and ensnaring, and many suffer more loss than they are aware of by reading it.
Keep yourself in the atmosphere of Scripture, and feed on spiritual ministry. I remember when newly converted coming to the conclusion that it was well to read the best that is available, and I commend this as a good principle to young believers.
There is an overcomer even in Philadelphia. Whatever character an assembly may have, overcoming is always individual. This requires individual energy in spiritual affections. It would be a very great privilege to walk with saints who had truly Philadelphian character, but we should have to recognize that each one who had this character was individually an overcomer. No matter how spiritual the persons may be with whom I walk, I can only have the Lord's approbation and reward by being an overcomer myself. It requires individual overcomers to hold together in the love of the brethren the precious things which we have spoken of. And this is Philadelphia. It is a condition that can only be maintained in the energy of spiritual affections to which Christ is pre-eminent, and by which the assembly, and all that relates to it, is cherished because it is the subject of the love of Christ, and all is held in the love of the brethren. It is an exercise for us all -- for all saints as to how far we have this character. But at any rate we can allow our desires to be formed by this precious utterance of our Lord, and we can pray that it may increasingly characterize us as seeking to walk with our brethren in truth and love.
The reward of the overcomer in this assembly is very precious. "He that overcomes, him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more at all out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the
new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name". Notice the four-fold repetition of "My God". It is the anointed and glorified Man who speaks, of whom it is written that "the head of Christ is God" (1 Corinthians 11:3). His delight will be to make the overcomer a conspicuous and abiding ornament -- like the Jachin and Boaz of Solomon's temple -- in that heavenly shrine where there is holy intelligence of the mind of God, and where "everything saith, Glory". It is what the overcomer is morally now. As having found his strength in being established by God in Christ and anointed, he is marked by spiritual intelligence and stability. He stands firm in that holy temple where all is made known that is covered by the word "mystery" -- so characteristic, in its different connections, of Paul's ministry. He will have his abiding place as a pillar in that shrine where
"And I will write upon him". We are accustomed to think of Christ as the Apostle -- the great Speaker -- but He is also the great Writer. Saints are even now the epistle of Christ, and He is writing upon the fleshy tables of their hearts, in principle, what He will write upon the overcomer. "The name of my God". It is God revealed -- we may reverently say as Christ His beloved Son knows Him that is being written now in the affections of saints by the skilful hand of that Blessed One. What is spoken by Christ is the revelation presented objectively to men, but what is written by Him is the revelation made good in human hearts subjectively under the effective
operation of His hand. It is written that it might be "known and read of all men" -- that saints might appear before men as having the true knowledge of God in their hearts, because it has been written there by Christ. They thus become the tables of testimony here. The Name of His God will be written by Christ on the overcomer in his glorified state. He will display publicly in the overcomer those impressions of His God which as the great Writer He delights to imprint in a living and indelible way in the affections of His saints.
"And the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God". God revealed as the Son knows Him must be, as it were, the first line of the divine writing; it is primary and fundamental. But the second line, if we may so say, is concerning the assembly. How Christ loves to write in the affections of His saints now what the assembly will be as the city of His God! The new and holy and heavenly vessel in which the glory of His God will be displayed! That city will be the pure and transparent shrine of divine glory in the world to come and throughout eternity. The overcomer will have its name written upon him by Christ; the renown and glory of the city of God will be read upon him in a peculiar and distinctive way. It is a wondrous honour to come even now under the impression from the hand of Christ of what the assembly is in her divine and heavenly dignity and glory. And do you not think that it is a peculiar satisfaction to Christ to find overcomers today on whose hearts He can write what the assembly is as the city of His God? While so many even true believers think hardly at all of the assembly, and
so many in christendom connect the thought of the church with a great corrupt profession which is in God's sight Babylon, it must be a pleasure to Christ to write -- as it is indeed an honour to the overcomer who is counted worthy to have written upon him by Christ -- what the assembly is in her true character and glory as the city of His God. The effulgence of all that God is, shining forth in the accomplishment of the purposes of His love in that city for which Abraham waited, and in which will be found the answer to every spiritual desire that was formed by divine working in the spirits of just men in ages past. They will find all that they longed for in that city, and though not forming part of it, their blessedness will be found in relation to it, "God having foreseen some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us" (Hebrews 11:40).
That city will come down out of heaven having the glory of God to be the connecting link between heaven and earth in the world to come, as we see in Revelation 21, and what it will be in displayed glory is what it is morally now. It is not future to the faith and affections and spiritual intelligence of the saints, for we are said to "have come ... to the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22). To do so must be to turn one's back for ever on the corrupt city which is in evidence here, the city which is marked by the glory of man -- Babylon!
"And my new name". Christ has a Name of gracious power in relation to what is old. For example, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins"(Matthew 1:21). "Him has God exalted by his right hand as leader and saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of
sins" (Acts 5:31). He can meet divinely all the need of fallen and sinful men, and it is His renown to do so. But that is not what is written on the overcomer; it is His "new name"; the renown that attaches to Him in relation to what is new! This book speaks of "new Jerusalem", a "new heaven and a new earth", "all things new", Sin and death have come in here, and made things old, but Jesus has a Name in relation to what is entirely and eternally new. He has already brought in a company of brethren after His own order, and many sons for God, and He will be the Centre and Sun of a universe of bliss where no trace of evil will ever come. It is His distinctive glory to be the Accomplisher of all the Father's eternal purposes of love. And when every trace of that which became old by the entrance of sin has passed away, the new, which had its origin in God's purpose before the foundation of the world, will remain. And all that Christ is in relation to what will be eternally new is set forth in "My new name". It will be written on the overcomer, so that it may be read in him in a distinctive way.
The epistle "to the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia" shews that the Lord contemplated a distinct revival at the end of the history of the assembly on earth. There was a measure of revival in Sardis, but it goes much farther in Philadelphia, and restores to those who have -- through the Lord's grace to them -- "a little power" the precious spiritual features which marked the assembly at the beginning. There is individual faithfulness, but there is something more. There is a binding together in the love of the brethren. And I believe the grace of the Lord is active at the present moment to bring this about. It is
the greatest comfort and encouragement to think of it.
It is open to all saints to consider that we have reached a time in which the Lord is moving, and the Spirit is speaking, with a view to things being found in Philadelphian character. In a day of much weakness it would ill become any saints to assume to have that character. It would be better to leave the determination of this to Him who says, "I know thy works". But if we recognize that there is such a phase in church history as Philadelphia, coming in after Sardis and continuing to the rapture, it might well be our earnest prayer and purpose of heart that we might answer to what is said to that assembly.
If the Lord is moving to bring this about in His grace we may be sure that it is in love to all His saints, and that He would have all to appreciate His movements, and to follow them. It is for all saints to see that they do not lag behind in Sardis if the Lord is leading on to Philadelphia. For if we do not move with Him we may possibly fall into that last terrible phase which is set forth in Laodicea. Lukewarm and boastful, but with no place for Christ, and about to be spued out of His mouth.
Christ is everything to Philadelphia, but He has no place in Laodicea. The presentation of Himself is encouragement and stimulus to Philadelphia, but to Laodicea it is rebuke. Philadelphia is the product of a spiritual ministry of Christ become formative
through self-judgment and the exercises of intelligent affection. This gives the knowledge of Christ in His relation to the assembly and to all things, and of the assembly in its relation to Christ. But Laodicea is marked by indifference to Christ, and self-sufficiency. It is the closing phase of church history, and its characteristics are widely discernible today. So that it is most important to apprehend Christ as He presents Himself to this assembly. It is what the Spirit would bring before the christian profession in a special way at the present time.
He is "the Amen" -- the establishment and confirmation of every divine thought and purpose. There can be no development, no advance upon Christ; He is God's last word. All the Fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, and the saints are filled full in Him. We must remember that the Colossian epistle was to be "read also in the assembly of Laodiceans" (Colossians 4:16). That epistle, if engrafted in the souls of the saints, would have preserved them -- and will preserve us -- from the state into which Laodicea fell. The test and exposure of every corrupting influence is that it is "not according to Christ" (Colossians 2:8). And in the new man "Christ is everything and in all" (Colossians 3:11). All departure is really a turning away from Christ. When people first admit the principles of the world -- legality, philosophy, etc. -- the enemy persuades them that they are getting something additional to Christ; it is a bitter lesson for a soul to learn, that for the sake of worthless things it has really given up Christ. To add anything to "the Amen" is really to lose Him.
It is the time of witness now, and everything that God is witnessing is embodied in Christ. A risen and
glorified Man is "the faithful and true witness". The fact that He is in heaven witnesses that He died here, and His death witnesses the total ruin, and setting aside in judgment, of man after the flesh. But the fact that HE died is the perfect and blessed witness of the love of God.
Now Man is in the presence of God for God's delight, according to His eternal purpose. God's thought for man, and the full measure of His grace to men, are set forth in a glorified Man in heaven. He is preached as glad tidings -- the faithful and true Witness of what is in the heart and mind of God. God would have us to pass over from all our ruin and condemnation in Adam to the blessedness and acceptance of the glorified Man! All true witness -- whether individual or assembly witness -- is presenting in testimony what He is. The church should have been faithful and true, the continuation of Christ here in witness. She has utterly failed, but Christ abides faithful, and the ministry of Christ brings hearts back to Him as the true Witness of God, and of all that has value before God. It is to be preserved in witness, and an assembly that fails to do so will inevitably be utterly rejected -- spued out of His mouth as nauseous to Him.
He is "the beginning of the creation of God". It changes the whole outlook of the soul when Christ is seen to be the Beginning of God's creation. It is not that Christ comes in subsequently to remedy what
has failed, but He is the starting-point of all that God has ever done or will do. He was the Beginning of the creation of Genesis 1 -- the One from whom all derived being, and it came into existence that it might be the sphere of His glory. Whatever element appeared in God's ways -- promise, sacrifice, resurrection, government, the kingdom in Israel or in mystery, the church, the world to come, eternal purposes unfolded -- Christ was "the beginning" of all. Nor do we understand any part of it until we see this. If He is "the beginning of the creation of God" it involves that all that follows must take character from Him. And eventually everything will disappear from the creation of God that does not take character from Christ. The Colossian epistle presents Him as "the beginning" in relation to "the body, the assembly" (Colossians 1:18), as "firstborn from among the dead", the One who will have "the first place in all things". What a setting forth of Christ is this to an assembly like Laodicea which gives Him no place!
A lukewarm state is nauseous to the Lord. It is neither the "cold" of no profession at all, nor the "hot" of hearts that truly love Him, and that love one another with a pure heart fervently. It is a state that unites boastful profession with real indifference to Christ, and in which there is not a single thing that has divine or spiritual value. Lukewarmness is a special feature of the closing phase of church history, and it is a danger against which we ever need to watch and pray. We have to discern and judge what is Laodicean in ourselves. It is possible to have intelligence of Scripture, and a large measure of outward correctness, without that heat of spiritual desire and affection which is agreeable to the Lord.
Possibly none of us are as "hot" as we might be. We may well pray, as we sometimes do: -
"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and am grown rich; and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art the wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked". She speaks of herself and not of Christ -- a sure sign of spiritual decay, And she claims to be rich -- to have acquired wealth -- so as to be self-sufficient. It is her own estimate of her endowments and resources, but an altogether mistaken one. She may be rich in the intellectual culture of her ministers, and their ability to decide which part of Scripture is inspired and which not, or whether any of it is! Rich, too, in the architectural beauty of the buildings in which her congregations gather, and in the attractiveness of her services, and in her ability to present what meets the tastes of natural men, and gives her influence over them. But what has she spiritually? Judged by every standard of spiritual value she is "the wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked". Such is the Lord's estimate of this assembly. She has not Christ; He is outside.
But He gives her counsel. "I counsel thee to buy of me gold purified by fire, that thou mayest be rich". To buy of Him is a personal transaction with Christ. All of true value must be acquired and possessed through exercise, and from Christ alone. "Gold purified by fire" would be all that is of God in Christ,
made available for men through sin having been judged in the sufferings and death of Christ. This is true riches, and a solid ground of boasting. (See 1 Corinthians 1:30, 31.) Paul in Philippians 3 is an example of one who was set to buy "gold purified by fire". He had parted with all that was once his trust and boast, as in flesh, that he might acquire CHRIST as his gain, and might be "found in him, not having my righteousness which would be on the principle of law, but that which is by faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God through faith".
"White garments that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be made manifest", speak of the moral characteristics of Christ as that with which the saints are to be invested. The vain-glorious pretensions of the flesh are spiritually "nakedness" and "shame". But the fruit of the Spirit of Christ being possessed is that lust and pride and self-sufficiency are judged, and such qualities as obedience, meekness, lowliness, kindness, longsuffering, come into evidence. These are "white garments"; they are the moral features of the heavenly Man as they come out in the circumstances of the saints on earth. Clothing is that in which we appear before others. They are the fruit of Christ being in the saints.
Then the power of spiritual perception is a great necessity. So He counsels Laodicea to acquire "eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see". Ananias was sent to Saul "that thou mightest see, and be filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 9:17). He was henceforth to see things in an entirely new way -- to have the vision of the Spirit, if we may so say. In Laodicea there is boasting is the abilities of
the human mind; its competency to judge of things is assumed and gloried in; but the Holy Spirit is ignored. There is no spiritual perception save by the Spirit. John says to the "little children" in the family of God, "Ye have the unction from the holy one, and ye know all things ... and yourselves, the unction which ye have received from him abides in you, and ye have not need that any one should teach you; but as the same unction teaches you as to all things, and is true and is not a lie, and even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in him" (1 John 2:20, 27). This anointing is indeed "eye-salve", and none but the Lord can supply it.
It is very striking that the Lord should speak of His love to such an assembly as Laodicea. "I rebuke and discipline as many as I love; be zealous therefore and repent". He speaks as a Lover still, but it is love that cannot be complacent; things are such that His love can only be active in the way of rebuke and discipline. It is a solicitude over the assembly in its last stage of failure similar to that which yearned over Jerusalem in its last day (Matthew 23:37, 38). Happy are those who discern His rebuke and discipline! Amid boastings and self-sufficiency they discover that all is really wretchedness, misery, poverty, blindness, and nakedness. Intellectual culture, modern thought with its unblushing infidelity, the bringing Christianity into line with all man's ideas of progress and world-improvement, are wretched and comfortless things indeed to a conscience that has learned under the rebuke and discipline of divine love that man after the flesh is an utter moral ruin, or to a heart that has got the feeblest conception of Christ as "the Amen, the faithful and true witness,
the beginning of the creation of God". They are worthless because they are not Christ, and they exclude Him. In Laodicea the door is closed, not upon philosophy and vain deceit, the teaching of men, or the elements of the world, but upon CHRIST. He is outside.
But how sweet to the heart that has learned to value Christ to hear Him say, "Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me"! This is the Lord's position and attitude today in relation to a profession which is characterized by the boastings of man in the flesh. He is still faithful to His own love; He still rebukes and disciplines in a thousand ways; and it is not simply that He knocks once or twice and retires, but He has placed Himself at the door and continues knocking, and He will do so until that moment when the catching up of the saints will involve the utter rejection by Him of Laodicea.
An opportunity is afforded still for any one to hear the Lord knocking and His voice. Where there is spiritual vitality it will respond; His rebuke and discipline will be recognized, His voice heard. The work of God in souls comes to light in that way. If any one desires to have His company, and opens the door, He says, "I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me". The Lord would thus separate morally each responsive heart from an assembly that is rich without Him, and that does not want Him. The Lord sups with such an one; He enters sympathetically into all his exercises, and makes him conscious that he is thoroughly known, and that every spiritual desire in his heart that has Christ as
its Object, or that has found its satisfaction in Christ, is fully and deeply appreciated by an Eternal Lover.
But there is more than this! "He with me". The Lord delights to bring such a heart into the communion of all that He desires and cherishes. To sup with Him would indicate sharing His thoughts and interests in the intimacy and confidence which is the portion of a friend (John 15:13 - 15). "All things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you". He loved to manifest the Father's Name to the men which the Father gave Him out of the world. They were those of whom He could speak as "My brethren", and to whom He could send the message, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God". To sup with Him would surely be to be brought into the communion of what is in His heart in regard to the assembly which He loved, and for which He delivered Himself up. So that the individual supping with Christ would not remain individual as to the scope of his thoughts and affections, but would have his heart expanded into the width of the interests and affections of Christ.
John is very individual, but no one emphasizes more than John love to one another, love to the brethren, and the family links and affections of the children of God. The more we enjoy individual privilege in having the manifestation of Christ, and supping with Him, the more we shall value those spiritual links that bind us in holy affection to the brethren. We come individually into the light of what pertains to the saints collectively and corporately as the house and family of God, as the body of Christ, as the temple. The assembly is still here, and faith holds to this in spite of all the feebleness
and scattering that have come in. So that individual faithfulness, and the enjoyment of individual privilege, can never lead to isolation or independency, but to the increased appreciation of every link which we can take up with our brethren that is in keeping with the truth of the assembly.
The promise to the overcomer in Laodicea is the only one which contains any reference to the Lord's own pathway. "I also have overcome". It is as though the Lord would retain Himself in a special way in the view of the overcomer. Almost His last word to His own before going to the cross was, "In the world ye have tribulation; but be of good courage; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). He never gave place to any principle that is found in operation in the world. When the ruler of the world came he found nothing in that Blessed One; there was no point of moral contact between Christ and the world.
It is as having been the Overcomer that He has sat down with His Father in His throne. He is not yet on His own throne; He is waiting for the moment when His foes will be made His footstool; but in the meantime He is with His Father in a place which bears witness to His Father's appreciation of Him as the Overcomer. And in the coming day when He sits upon His own throne in the kingdom He will give to the overcomer to sit with Him. The world which Jesus overcame was the Jewish world -- the world of profession and self-righteousness, but of unreality, where every divine witness was persecuted. It was in almost the last day of the nation's history before the wrath came upon them to the uttermost. The overcomer in Laodicea is in the last day of the
christian profession; he is surrounded by lukewarmness, boasting, and indifference to Christ. But Christ is to him "the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God", and he has clear in his vision the coming kingdom. In that kingdom he will sit with Christ in His throne.
We must keep in mind that this book is divided into three parts. It was said to John, "Write therefore what thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to be after these" (Revelation 1:19). The things which John had seen are in chapter 1; "the things that are" refer to the assemblies -- the church period. This was present when John wrote, and it still continues. Then there are "the things that are about to be after these"; chapter 4: 1 connects itself with this by the twice-repeated, "After these things". We do not find the assembly on earth after chapter 3, but we see divine grace and testimony in other companies of saints who will be found here after the assembly has been translated.
Chapters 4 and 5 come in as introductory to the properly prophetical part of the book. The first verse of chapter 4 is most important. John saw "a door opened in heaven", and heard a Voice which said, "Come up here, and I will shew thee the things which must take place after these things". John was to look at things from heaven, and it is from that standpoint that saints of the assembly view prophecy. It is this which makes the difference between Revelation
and Daniel, though there are, of course, certain points of contact between them. Daniel -- the representative of an earthly people -- had visions by the rivers Ulai and Hiddekel, but John is the representative of a heavenly company, and he is called to "Come up here".
The church will be actually in heaven after chapter 3, and to look aright at chapters 4 - 19 we must be spiritually there. The Lord would call us up there in spirit now, so that we may look down upon the earth as the scene of prophecy from a point outside it. He would not have us to be occupied with prophecy from an earthly standpoint. Many interpreters of this book have not gone up there, and they have been largely occupied in trying to fit past and current events into prophecy. Every one knows how they have succeeded! If you read this book to discover what will happen to England, how certain wars will terminate, and so forth, you are not likely to get much light. But if at the outset you respond to the invitation, "Come up here", you will get great illumination. Heaven is our true place; the assembly is found here in witness for the moment, but she belongs to heaven. It is as she takes her true place as belonging to heaven that she gets understanding in regard to other families.
Then there is another thing essential to clear vision of "the things which must take place"; John says, "Immediately I became in the Spirit". The heavenly position must be accompanied by a state in keeping with it. To become in Spirit is to be abstracted from all activity of the human mind, and to be in a region where every thought and feeling is of the Spirit. It is a privilege within our reach. A brother well known in the ministry of the word said, "As soon as I find my mind working when reading Scripture, I
close the book!" A right standpoint and a right state are necessary if we are to profit by this revelation. We need to look at things from the standpoint of heaven, and to be "in Spirit". This is really to anticipate the rapture in mind and spirit. It will preserve us from being earth-dwellers, and from the influence of the human mind. Surely each saint should covet this.
We need to apprehend what John saw: viz., "a throne stood in the heaven". Sin's confusion is here, and it has not been publicly interfered with by God since the flood, save in such exceptional cases as that of Sodom and Gomorrah. The heavens do rule, but it is in a hidden way. It has been said that God is behind the scenes, but that He moves all the scenes He is behind. Faith knows this, and is kept quiet in the presence of empires overturned and lawlessness abounding. The power of the throne protects the saints so long as their witness here is needed, but it has not yet asserted itself in a public way. Psalm 110:1 describes the present interval. "Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put thine enemies as footstool of thy feet". Nearly two thousand years of Christ being despised and rejected here have passed, but the throne stands unmoved in heaven; there is no perturbation there. The One upon the throne is sitting, and round the throne are seated twenty-four enthroned elders. In view of His purposes of grace God has borne long with the wickedness of men, but the throne will assert its power when the appointed time comes, and it is now close at hand. God is going to bring in the Firstborn into the habitable world. In the meantime the elders are in repose -- in restful accord with the throne, and with Him who
sits upon it. It is our privilege to be there in spirit now.
The One sitting upon the throne was "like in appearance to a stone of jasper and a sardius". It is God known in His glory as it will shine forth in the holy city (chapter 21: 11), and in the building of its wall, and in the first foundation of its wall (chapter 21: 18, 19). It is all that which has been obscured by the entrance of sin and death into the world. If men judge of God by the present state of the world, as if He were to be known by what is seen there, we cannot wonder if they come to entirely wrong conclusions. For we see every kind of evil, innumerable forms of sorrow and misery, wicked men prosperous and the righteous suffering, wars desolating, and death passing upon all. It is true there is a witness to the goodness of God in the sunshine and the rain, and in the productiveness of the earth furnishing food for man, but even the Providence of God is often mysterious. There is no public administration of God's throne. There could not be in a fallen and sinful world without judgment coming on all. In the wisdom of God it is a time of longsuffering that men may have opportunity to repent, and that by the gospel of His grace those may be called who shall be joint-heirs with Christ, but who in the meantime suffer with Him.
The jasper and the sardius speak of what God is as He is known in relation to the throne in heaven before that throne makes its power and character publicly known. It is known to the one who comes up to heaven and is found in the Spirit. It is made known for faith in the gospel which reveals the righteousness of God in perfect grace to men, and in connection with which the principles of His government have
come clearly into view (Romans 2). It will shine forth in "the holy city, Jerusalem", in "crystal-like" clearness. There will not be a shade of obscurity, not a trace of dimness, then. What God is will shine forth in His glorified saints, made the righteousness of God in Christ, and He will be publicly vindicated in the scene where He has been so long slandered and blasphemed, and where the very fruits of man's sin, and His longsuffering in regard to men, have seemed to obscure His true character, and the principles of His government.
I think one can understand why the wall of the holy city should be jasper! It is what God is, as known in relation to the throne, that will safeguard that city, and for ever exclude from it what is common or what makes an abomination and a lie. And one can understand, too, why the first foundation should be adorned with jasper! Man's great cities have no moral foundation, and therefore the cities of the nations will fall. I have often thought that this world is like the vale of Siddim -- "full of slimepits". You cannot build securely on slime! Abraham looked for a city which had foundations, and nothing but what is founded in righteousness will stand. The kingdom of God is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit", so that those who are in that kingdom walk in accord with what will characterize the city, and with Him who sits on the throne in the heaven.
Then the "rainbow round the throne" carries the mind back to Genesis 9; it speaks of God's faithfulness to His covenants and promises. I do not know how many promises there are in Scripture, but God is faithful to them all. In the public course of events it
might seem that His promises had failed, for Israel is scattered; the answer to the glowing picture of her future glory in the prophetic word seems as far off as ever, and all creation groans still under the bondage of corruption. But the throne in heaven is encircled by the sure token of God's faithfulness, and it is known there with abiding certainty that it will yet be said in the fullest possible way that "there has not failed one word of all his good promises".
The promises of God have come in as the divine answer to successive developments of the power of evil and its results. Whatever form of evil made its appearance here God met it by a promise to bring in on His part a corresponding good. The promises fall largely into three classes. The first has to do with the power of Satan; of this class Genesis 3:15 is an example. The second stands in relation to all the rebellious pride of man's heart, and the confusion which results from it. Genesis 12:2, 3 belongs to this class. The third comes in to meet the demonstrated inability of man after the flesh to hold anything for God. 2 Samuel 23:1 - 7 would illustrate this. The world to come under the Son of Man will be the fulfilment of every promise, and the complete vindication of the faithfulness of God. But His saints know His faithfulness today; they see the rainbow round the throne in heaven. Our place is to rest in His faithfulness, and, not get occupied with events on earth.
The first movement towards the fulfilment of prophecy will really take place in heaven. It will be the rising up of the Lord Jesus from His Father's throne to receive the church. If we want to see the first move we must keep our eye on heaven, not on
events here. That current events are all being overruled in view of what God has in His mind is most certain, but God would not have His people occupied with them as fulfilling prophecy. To get thus occupied is really to be distracted from what God is doing at the present time in the assembly. If we are in the calm certainty of the mind of heaven we shall in spirit be sitting -- like the elders -- instead of being restless, and perturbed by political movements in the world, or excited by foolishly imagining that they are going to bring about any divine result.
The twenty-four enthroned elders are a priestly and royal company. Their number alludes, no doubt, to the twenty-four courses of the priesthood instituted by David (1 Chronicles 24). It is the whole priesthood represented by the heads of each course, and probably includes Old Testament saints as well as the assembly, all having been caught up in glorious bodies at the rapture. It is instructive to note that they are seen as a complete company around the throne in heaven before one of the seals is opened. Indeed, it is characteristic of this book that before each series of judgments begins we are shewn that God secures His elect before we see the judgments which will fall upon the sphere where their testimony was rendered. The different companies of saints have different places assigned them by the sovereignty of God. The elders are seated in heaven before the seals are opened (chapters 4 - 6). The bondmen of God from the sons of Israel are sealed, and the great crowd which no one could number from the Gentiles are seen before the throne before the trumpets are sounded (chapters 7 - 9). The hundred and forty-four thousand bought from the earth are seen with the Lamb upon mount Zion,
and those that had gained the victory over the beast are seen upon the glass sea before the bowls are poured out (chapter 14 - 16).
This is in keeping with the ways of God in all ages. Noah and his house were secured in the ark before the flood came. Lot was taken out of Sodom before the overthrow of the guilty cities. The firstborn in Israel were sheltered by the blood of the lamb before judgment was executed on Egypt. Israel was saved, and on the wilderness side of the Red Sea, before the hosts of Pharaoh perished. The remnant according to the election of grace from amongst the Jews was brought into the assembly before Jerusalem was destroyed.
The fact that the glorified saints are seen as "elders" would indicate that they are viewed as having matured experience and intelligence. It has often been noted that they can explain things. (See chapters 5: 5, 7: 13). The Old Testament saints had much experience of God's ways, as they moved in the pathway of faith in the light of the world to come, and those ways have been recorded that we might be enriched by their experience. It is said of Israel, "Whose are the fathers" (Romans 9:5), and if Israel had "the fathers" we have them too, to profit by their wealth of experience, and to acquire our own in the light of theirs. I think "his ancients" in Isaiah 24:23 is much the same thought as the "elders". It speaks of those who, through thousands of years, have waited for God's glorious world to come, and have suffered for it, and have passed out of this world in the faith of it. The kingdom in glory will be taken up before them. They will be spectators of its glory, and will have their own glory in it too; we see them here as enthroned
and crowned. It is the divine answer to a long course of endurance and suffering in faith.
The "lightnings, and voices, and thunders" (verse 5) which proceed from the throne shew the peculiar character of the time that is in view from Revelation 4 - 19. It is not like the present time when God is speaking from the mercy-seat, declaring His righteousness in grace, and all is in man's favour -- a throne of grace. There is a different character of things at once when the church has been translated. But it is clearly not yet the millennium, when "a river of water of life, bright as crystal, goes out of the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Revelation 22:1). Chapters 4 - 19 come between, and are characterized by those preparatory dealings of judgment by which the scene will be cleared of all that is evil in view of the establishment of the kingdom in power. Even the Spirit of God takes a judicial character here as "seven lamps of fire, burning before the throne", reminding us of how God will cleanse His people "by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning" (Isaiah 4:4).
The "four living creatures" (verses 6 - 8) are very intimately connected with the throne -- in the midst of it and around it -- and they are "full of eyes, before and behind" and also "within". They have, symbolically, fulness of intelligence as to the actings of the throne, and inward discernment as to the character of Him who sits upon it. As seen in this chapter they are ceaselessly engaged in ascribing holiness to Him. In chapter 6 they call the four terrible horses and their riders to "Come" to inflict progressive sufferings upon men, and a voice in their midst announces famine. In chapter 15 one of them gives "to the seven angels seven golden bowls, full of the fury of
God". So that they act in a twofold character. Godward they "give glory and honour and thanksgiving to him", and they fall before the Lamb. And when the myriads of angels acclaim the worthiness of the Lamb, and every creature ascribes blessing, and honour, and glory and might to God and to the Lamb, they say, "Amen". Then they have also an executive function in regard to the judgments of the throne, and in this they are characterized by strength, firmness, intelligence, and rapidity of movement, set forth in the lion, the calf, the face of a man, and a flying eagle.
The elders worship God as Creator, in the intelligence that all things exist and have been created for His will or pleasure. "Glory and honour and power" are ascribed to the Creator. The last verse of this chapter is important as giving the scope of what is in view in the Revelation. We shall find in this book, as we might expect, special dealings with those who have come in a special way into contact with divine testimony. But all men everywhere are God's creatures, and all have had testimony of some kind, and will come under God's dealings. What joy it is to see that God created all things for His pleasure, and it is impossible for Him to be finally robbed of His rights in regard to creation! This is celebrated in heaven while man on the earth is saying "No God". We are called to go up to heaven now in spirit, and to be in concert with the theme of heaven's worship. To give glory to God as Creator, and as the One for whose pleasure all things have been created, is not a low or limited note. It brings the whole "wide creation" into view as standing in relation to "him that sits upon the throne". Psalm 148 strikes a wonderful note of praise which will yet vibrate through all
creation from angels at the top to creeping things at the bottom.
The throne speaks of the absolute supremacy of God. It is well known in heaven, if not on earth as yet, that "God sits as Sovereign on the throne". He is worshipped and glorified by those actually in heaven, and by those in spirit there, as the Supreme Creator before a single movement of the power of the throne has been manifested on earth. The throne ensures that that for which He created all things will be secured; His pleasure will be brought about in the wide creation. Whatever happens, this must be the ultimate issue of things. The coming in of sin is not alluded to by the elders in their worship here, though the character which the throne takes in this chapter supposes its presence. The elders know all about that, but what prostrates them in worship is that God has created all things for His will. This utterance is the foundation of the whole book; all that follows in this book is the necessary consequence of chapter 4: 11. God's will must prevail in the wide creation. This necessitates the "restoring of all things, of which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since time began" (Acts 3:21).
If God's will is to prevail in blessing in a creation devastated by sin it necessitates the most wondrous actings of divine love and mercy in redemption and reconciliation. This we shall find celebrated in heaven in the next chapter. It is the ground of all blessing for every family in heaven and earth that is named of the Father. But that which is lawless, and will not come into reconciliation, must pass away in judgment. The solemn judicial actings seen in this book -- whether corrective inflictions with the possibility
of repentance in view, or the final judgment of the wicked -- are the actings of the throne to enforce what is due to God as celebrated in chapter 4: 11. All the companies that are seen in blessing throughout this book, and their praises, are secured by sovereign love and mercy upon the ground of what is celebrated in chapter 5. So that these two chapters give the key to all that follows.
The holiness of God which the living creatures are absorbed with, and His rights as Creator which the elders celebrate, necessitate that judgment must come on all that opposes His rights or is contrary to His nature. But, then, there is another thing. Redeeming love has come to light in the Lamb, and on that ground infinite blessing can be brought in, whether for heavenly families or earthly, or for the wide creation. The elders know God and His blessed will; they understand that the Lamb of God is the Taker away of the sin of the world. They know the wide scope of that verse, "so that by the grace of God he should taste death for everything" (Hebrews 2:9). It is much wider than "every man". The very Person "by whom also he made the worlds" has tasted death for everything. Is it not wonderful that we belong to that company which is represented by the elders? God would give us the knowledge of this, and form us in the intelligence that we see marks them. We are not yet actually in heaven, but we are privileged to be there spiritually, and to be in accord with heaven's worship and praise. To glorify God as Creator, and to know that His will must and will prevail throughout creation, is profoundly blessed. None but the "elders" -- the saints of the assembly -- really do so at the present time. There are sweeter notes connected with family
relationships and affections, and we may be sure the elders know sonship in the full height of its blessedness. But they are seen here as falling before Him who sits upon the throne to do homage to Him as Creator, and as linking all created things with His pleasure. It is our privilege to do so even now.
We have seen in chapter 4 the throne in heaven, and the glory and faithfulness of Him who sits upon it, and that all created things are for His will. Now a book is seen on His right hand, which I take to be the record of what God purposes to bring about so that His will may come into evidence in the very scene where lawlessness has been.
The book referred to in Psalm 40:7 and Hebrews 10:7 is different. What is in view there is that the sacrifices which were offered according to the law entirely failed to give God pleasure, or to establish His will in the blessing of man. He had innumerable thoughts of blessing. "Thy thoughts toward us: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee; would I declare and speak them, they are more than can be numbered" (Psalm 40:5). Another Psalm says, "But how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand" (Psalm 139:17, 18). All those precious thoughts were written in a book, and on the roll of it was written, "Lo, I come to do, O God, thy will". Every line written in that book depended on Christ for its effectuation; He stood engaged to
bring all to pass. It was not a sealed book, for God would have men to know His blessed will, and the One who came to give effect to it. It was no question of changing the conditions here, but of bringing to light the will of God, and His numberless thoughts of blessing, not in public manifestation, but in the way of testimony. See Psalm 40:9, 10. That is the present character of divine acting; the book of Psalm 40 is the book we have to do with at the present time.
The book in Revelation 5:1 stands in relation to another dispensation. It has to do with a time when God takes in hand to bring about His will in this world. The fact that there is a book written indicates that God has definitely and formally committed Himself to what is written. He has put it, if we may use the language of men, in black and white. There can be no reversal or change. Then its being "written within and on the back" conveys the thought of great fulness, for it was not usual to write on both sides. And, finally, it was "sealed with seven seals". God has a will as to the earth, His purposes are all written, but they have not yet been opened up, or brought out in a public way. The scene before us brings out very strikingly that only ONE is worthy to do that. The time when He will do it is now very near.
Verse 2 is a challenge to the universe. "Who is worthy to open the book, and to break its seals?" God would have every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, to face this question. The elders know the answer to it, but John as the seer does not, and he weeps much "because no one had been found worthy to open the book nor to regard it".
There are widespread hopes in the world of a good time to come. People have vague ideas of a time of universal peace and happiness, and I suppose that these may have been gathered, in part, from Scripture. But how few connect these ideas with the thought of God having His rights here, which is essential to such conditions! The world has had an opportunity for thousands of years of learning that no one has been able to bring in conditions here which would be in accord with the will of God, and which would secure peace and happiness for men.
One might well weep to see mighty monarchs, great statesmen, and all the best of the sons of this world, proving one after another their inability to open the book, or even to regard it. Do you think there is a great leader of men anywhere able to look at the will of God in regard to the earth, as we may see it in Scripture, with the slightest hope of being able to bring it to pass? No, he would say, it is a hopeless impossibility.
How many people have given their money, and their sons and brothers, in recent years in hope that the world was going to be reconstituted! Have they not had to realize that it was all in vain? Do you think there is a thoughtful person in the world who does not feel like weeping today? God has allowed every class of men to be tested as to their ability to put things right. Absolute monarchy, the rule of the nobility, the rule of the middle classes; and the rule of the working classes will have its day too. All these and different combinations of them, have been and will be tried. Each class thinks it could do better than the others, but all alike fail because they cannot deal with the root of the mischief.
Then some have thought -- chiefly by a perversion of Old Testament scriptures -- that the church would eventually bring all under divine influence and would be found worthy to open the book by means of the gospel, so that God's world-kingdom might be brought in that way. But, as we have seen in previous chapters, the church has proved herself an unfaithful witness. She has not maintained her own testimony. Instead of setting the world right she has become herself the subject of divine judgment.
After all man's attempts to improve things by legislation, education, and moral and religious influences of many kinds, there is an increasing feeling of insecurity. Instead of the world getting better, thoughtful persons are beginning to realize that it is like a city built on a volcano which may burst into eruption at any moment.
It is good to be an elder! The Christian, instead of being behind the times, as many suppose, is really very much in advance of the times. He knows all the evil that is developing, and will develop, here, but he also knows the ultimate issue of things in God's complete triumph. The elders do not weep, for they are in the secret of God, and one of them said to John, "Do not weep. Behold, the lion which is of the tribe of Juda, the root of David, has overcome so as to open the book, and its seven seals".
There is One whose supremacy cannot be challenged by any when He rises up -- "the lion which is of the tribe of Juda". The lion is "mighty among beasts, which turneth not away for any" (Proverbs 30:30); it has been connected with Judah since Jacob's prophecy in Genesis 49. David is the king of God's choice -- the one marked by victorious power over all
his enemies. "The root of David" suggests that every promise of royal glory in the earth had its root in Christ. It was from Him that it sprang in the mind of God; and He is the only One competent to give effect to those promises. He became "the offspring of David" that He might take all up in Manhood, and give effect to it.
He it is who "has overcome so as to open the book, and its seven seals". That word "overcome" contains volumes. I have no doubt it refers to the work of the cross as that which annuls "him who has the might of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14); and in which principalities and authorities were spoiled (Colossians 2:15). In the place where every evil power was found in array against God and against His Christ He overcame. It was such a victory as was never gained on any other battle-field, for
He "has overcome" by going into death. "Sin, death, and hell are vanquished". Viewed as enemies opposed to all that is in God's thought for man -- they are overcome. Sin cannot hinder, for it has been removed in sacrifice. Death has been annulled by One going into it upon whom it had no claim. And the powers of evil, which would have used man's envy and wickedness to blot out in the death of Christ all that was of God when it appeared in grace amongst men, have been defeated. For that very death has brought God in, and made Him known so that the works of the devil might be undone in men's hearts. He "has overcome", and that has established His
worthiness to open the book. What He has done for sinful man is celebrated in verses 9, 10. But in verse 5 it is the victorious Lion overcoming every power that is adverse to God. Of course, as John learned immediately, the Lion is also the Lamb, the One who has redeemed to God by His blood, and He is worthy to take the book, and to open its seals, on that ground also.
But as having "overcome" He is entitled to lay His hand on everything that is hostile to God, and to set it aside by power so that God's will may be brought in where all the lawlessness of man has been. His having "overcome" gives Him title to deal with all evil; His having "redeemed" gives Him title to secure for God "kings and priests" who will reign with Him over the earth when all that is evil has been set aside.
The Lamb stands "as slain" in the midst of the throne. How affecting is this! It is the One who has suffered, even to death, in doing God's will who is entitled to take up all that will in relation to the earth, and to bring it into effect. He has "seven horns" -- perfection of power -- "and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God which are sent into all the earth" -- probably answering to the sevenfold qualification for government seen in Isaiah 11:2.
He comes and takes the book. The One who could open the book of grace in Luke 4 is worthy to open the book of God's will as to the earth in Revelation 5, and to give effect in power to all that will. It involves in result "the restoring of all things, of which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since time began" (Acts 3:21). The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fall before the Lamb,
"having each a harp and golden bowls full of incenses, which are the prayers of the saints". It is the Lamb -- the once-slain One -- whom they worship. It is the hand once nailed to the cross that takes the book. The One who died will have the kingdom and dominion. Everything that rendered His death necessary -- lawlessness, lust, Satan's power -- will be set aside. He would not have died to bear the judgment of these things, and then leave them permanently to defile God's creation. So that the opening of the seals brings judgment. God begins to deal definitely with things as they are here in this world, and His judgments begin to be realized as abroad in the earth.
The saints are delivered in grace from the dominion of sin. Men are not shut up hopelessly under the power of evil now; they may go out from the sphere of judgment through the door which the death of Christ has opened. If people fall under judgment it is because they have despised the way of escape which has been opened. I believe there will be the consciousness in all who come under judgment that they might have escaped.
The "harps" which the elders have are, I think, suggestive of their personal praises. The "golden bowls" contain the prayers of saints still on earth after the church has been translated. The elders are a priestly company in heaven, but they are sympathetic with the exercises and prayers of saints still suffering on earth. They identify themselves with those prayers as they fall before the Lamb.
It is ever God's way to produce exercise and desire in His saints with regard to what He is doing or about to do. The saints on earth after the church has gone will realize as no saints ever have before what a scene
of moral disorder this world is. For divine government, which has been such a check on the lawlessness of man since Noah's day, will no longer restrain. There will be a dominant power, but it will be Satanic in character, and not like the powers that be today, which are ordained of God. It will make war with the saints, and overcome them, and it will have authority over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation. See chapter 13: 1 - 10. Under such circumstances how terrible will be the suffering of saints! Many of the Psalms give expression to their experiences and exercises. They will look for judgments on their enemies and persecutors, for the time introduced by the Lamb taking the book and opening its seals is a time of judgment. The Spirit of Christ in the saints today is a Spirit of intercession for all men that they may be saved, because it is the day of salvation. But the Spirit of Christ in the saints in that coming day will put them in harmony with what God is about to do in dealing with all that is evil here by "the thunder of his power". And the elders in heaven will be sympathetic; they will carry before the Lamb the prayers of the suffering and martyred saints on earth.
Then the new song which they sing is not as to their own redemption, but it is the celebration of the worthiness of the Lamb to take the book and to open its seals, "because thou hast been slain, and hast redeemed to God, by thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and made them to our God kings and priests, and they shall reign over the earth". It contemplates the blessed fact that in the midst of wrath God remembers mercy (Habakkuk 3:2). He will still have in those terrible coming days
His elect and redeemed ones, secured in the value of the blood of the slain Lamb, made kings and priests to Him. God will see to it that there is a witness right through to redemption by blood, and to the Lamb as slain. Every persecuted and martyred saint will be a witness to Him; as the judgments come one after another, in ever-increasing severity, there will still be in each saint a testimony that there is such a thing as redemption by blood, and that those who have been sinful men can be with God in the value of it. But each saint will be a witness, too, that the obduracy and wilfulness of man as utterly apostate from God is proof against every testimony which God can present to him, so that judgment is inevitable -- strange work though it be to the blessed God. Nothing could be more solemn than to consider that the worthiness of the Lamb to take the book and to open its seals lies in the fact that He has been slain, and has redeemed to God by His blood! He has died to redeem. Divine love could go no farther. If lawlessness will not yield to such a testimony it must be broken by a rod of iron.
The saints in view here as redeemed are not those who go through the tribulation to enjoy millennial blessing on earth. For those who do so will not reign; they will be reigned over. But these "shall reign over the earth". It refers to those who will live and reign "with the Christ a thousand years". See chapter 20: 4 - 6. It is true of all saints who will be raised or changed before the millennium that they are redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb, and that they will "reign over the earth".
The "new song" awakens universal acclaim. The "myriads of angels, the universal gathering" (Hebrews 12:23),
"ten thousands of ten thousands and thousands of thousands", ascribe worthiness to the Lamb. The elders strike the note, but all created intelligences around the throne take up and prolong the strain. Then the vast harmony overflows the bounds of heaven, "and every creature which is in the heaven and upon the earth and under the earth, and those that are upon the sea, and all things in them, heard I saying, To him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, blessing, and honour, and glory, and might, to the ages of ages". This evidently anticipates the final issue of God's ways, when everything that hath breath will praise Him. It is the grand climax reached at the end of the Psalms.
The Lamb taking the book is the pledge that all will be brought to pass that is for God's pleasure in His creation. Judgments will have to come in to give effect to that pleasure in a scene where lawless wickedness is rising to a head preparatory to its being broken for ever. But heaven looks beyond the judgments to the reign over the earth of those redeemed by blood, and it celebrates the worthiness of the Lamb. The unrivalled honour belongs to Him alone. The whole creation which "groans together and travails in pain together until now" will be "set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:21, 22). This chapter carries us in anticipation to the blessed day of creation's liberty when, instead of a universal groan, there will be "blessing, and honour, and glory, and might" from every creature to Him that sits upon the throne and to the Lamb. It is the final result; God's complete vindication and triumph in the creation where sin has wrought its havoc. "And the four living
creatures said, Amen; and the elders fell down and did homage".
When the Holy Babe was born the heavenly host celebrated the full result of His coming into the world. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men". In like manner when the Lamb takes the book the full result of His doing so comes before the mind of heaven. The fact that the first move on God's part has been made is the sure pledge to heaven of the accomplishment of all. There may still be on earth that darkest part of the night which precedes the dawn. Heavy clouds may still hang over a world where apostasy is reaching its climax. But the vision of heaven is filled with the worthiness of the Lamb, and looks beyond the darkness to "the light of the morning, the rising of the sun, a morning without clouds, when from the sunshine, after rain, the green grass springeth from the earth" (2 Samuel 23:4).
God has given this revelation that we may look at creation's future in the vision of heaven, and "boast in hope of the glory of God".
The chapters which we now enter upon -- 6 to 19 -- give us much detail as to what will occur between the close of the church period and the introduction of "the fulness of times" which we speak of as the millennium -- the thousand years of Revelation 20:4. We should value the favour in which God has taken us into His confidence as to the future. It is intended
to have a sanctifying effect in separating us even now from all that is so soon coming under divine judgment. And it is also intended to develop in our hearts a sympathetic interest in the saints who will be found in witness here after we are gone. God's work in them, and their faithfulness under tremendous pressure, has a voice for us. The church will be kept "out of the hour of trial which is about to come upon the whole habitable world to try them that dwell upon the earth" (Revelation 3:10). We shall not be in the great tribulation, but we may have to face increasing difficulties in the last days, and there is great comfort and moral support in seeing how God can and will secure His saints and sustain them even in a much darker and more terrible time than our own. No doubt this book will be of immense comfort to the suffering saints after the church is gone.
The opening of the first four seals will be followed by certain events not unlike things which have been previously seen in the history of the world. They may surpass in intensity anything that has yet taken place, but they will be similar in character. A great conqueror first appears, who achieves success by the ability to strike at a distance through the air; he has a bow. Then when the second seal is opened one comes who has a great sword, and he takes peace from the earth; men slay one another. He is followed by one with a balance, and a voice in the midst of the four living creatures speaks of food at famine prices. "Do not injure the oil and the wine" seems to suggest that the poor will suffer most under this infliction, as is always the case in famine. Those who can get luxuries do not feel it so keenly as others. Then a pale horse comes when the fourth seal is
opened whose rider is Death, and hades follows with him. He has authority given "over the fourth of the earth to slay with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and by the beasts of the earth" -- what God calls, "My four sore judgments" (Ezekiel 14:21). All this would correspond with Matthew 24:6 - 8.
There are often foreshadowings of prophetic events before the actual fulfilment. God allows things to take place which indicate the character of what is about to come on a much greater scale. But whatever correspondence there may be between events that happen now, and those of which prophecy speaks, we must beware of thinking there is anything more than an analogy. The fulfilment of Revelation 6 and the following chapters belongs to a future day when the church period is over.
From what John saw when the fifth seal was opened we learn that God will still have saints on earth at the time to which this chapter refers, and that they will be the subjects of persecution and martyrdom. This corresponds with what the Lord said in Matthew 24:9. People think that the world is too advanced in liberal sentiment ever to tolerate persecution again! Just as they thought before 1914 that arbitration, treaties, alliances, and understandings between nations had made war almost impossible! But war with all its desolations came, and persecution of saints will come, probably on a scale more dreadful than the world has yet seen. The terrible visitations following the opening of the first four seals will not affect men in the way of humbling them and turning them to God. They will slay His servants who have His word, and who hold the testimony.
"I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held". This is of deep interest, because it shows that God will secure something for Himself still after the assembly has gone. Christ having come in, there will never be a time when He is not maintained here in testimony until He appears in glory. This world will never be a scene of universal grief for God; He will always have Christ under His eye in some family of saints. For every family named of the Father will be marked by the love of righteousness and the hatred of lawlessness, and this is Christ characteristically. He was slain for the word of God, and for the testimony, and the saints referred to in Revelation 6:9 will follow in His steps. Think of the pleasure God will have in them! The bringing of different companies of saints into view is specially found in connection with the opening of the seals. The administration of the Lamb secures this; it is the precious and widespread fruit of redemption.
God will have a people prepared to take up His testimony here after the assembly is translated. When God was about to bring Christ in He prepared a company to receive Him. When He was about to send the Spirit and to form the assembly He prepared a company for that great new departure. And when the removal of the assembly, which is the vessel of testimony today, calls for a new family of witnesses, He will prepare those who will be ready to step into the gap. The rapture of the church might be used to bring at once into evidence a new body of witnesses for God. We know from 2 Thessalonians 2:7 - 12 that these will not be from amongst those who have heard the present truth and have not believed it, nor
received the love of it, but have found pleasure in unrighteousness. Such will come, by the just judgment of God, under the power of the lawless one who is to be revealed. They will believe what is false, and be judged. How far persons in Christendom have come under the guilt of not believing the truth is known only to God. Many who live in nominally Christian countries may never have heard the gospel of the grace of God or any true preaching of Christ. But there is no "larger hope" for those who have heard, and have not believed.
We can see much "working of error" today. Spiritualism, Theosophy, Christian Science, and many plausible perversions of Scripture by which millions are being turned from the truth. It is a time of many antichrists, and we know thereby that it is the last hour. To value "the word of God" and to hold His testimony in presence of such conditions will become increasingly difficult. The first intimation as to saints who succeed the assembly in witness here is that they are a persecuted and martyred company. Their souls are seen underneath the altar; they have "been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held".
It may be remarked that this book is largely built up on the types of the tabernacle or the temple. The elders "round the throne" would answer to the holiest. The white-robed multitude of chapter 7 stand "before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple, and he that sits upon the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them"; this would answer to the holy place. Then another company of overcomers stand "upon the glass sea" (chapter 15), which evidently answers to the laver in the court of
the tabernacle. And the souls of the company seen when the fifth seal is opened are "underneath the altar". But, while observing this as an important feature in the structure of the book, we must be careful not to get these things before the mind in a material way. God presents to us under these figures great moral conceptions, and He would give us spiritual perception of what is conveyed in them.
Souls "underneath the altar" are in the place of the ashes. It suggests that they have been offered as burnt-offerings. Christ has been found in them morally; they have been marked by identification with the word of God, and by holding His testimony, and they have been slain for it. They form the first group of martyred saints after assembly testimony is over, but they will not be the last, for "it was said to them that they should rest yet a little while until both their fellow-bondmen and their brethren, who were about to be killed as they, should be fulfilled". I believe God would have us to be intensely interested in those who will so soon succeed us in holding the place of testimony here. One of the great interests of this book is to see the various companies of saints that appear in the scene. We see the features of Christ, and of "the testimony of Jesus", as they are maintained right through by God's election and power in different families of redeemed ones.
There will be a great activity of sovereign mercy after the assembly is gone, and before the kingdom is established. We see this very plainly in chapter 7. We are not shewn in this book how these different groups of witnesses are called or by what means God effects His work in them. We may gather this, in some measure at least, from other
parts of Scripture. For instance, it would appear from Matthew 6:6, 23 that there will be a special testimony to the lost sheep of the house of Israel which will not be completed until the Son of man be come. And from Matthew 24:14 we learn that "these glad tidings of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole habitable earth for a witness to all the nations, and then shall come the end". This testimony will be rendered in such conditions of the world, and in such persecutions, as are in view in Revelation 6 - 19, as we may see by comparing the scriptures. In this book we find the product rather than the process of divine working. Certain things which are going on now may have in view the preaching of the glad tidings of the kingdom in a future day. I refer particularly to the widespread circulation of the Scriptures in almost all languages of the earth. It is bringing some light as to Christ before all nations. If the assembly were translated today there would be a good deal that God could use as preparing the way for succeeding testimony to all nations.
God will secure a continuation of Christ in testimony here right through. The sweet savour of Christ will be before God in those who cherish His word, and who hold the testimony. But it will call forth relentless enmity on the part of "them that dwell upon the earth", and the saints will be martyred. They will be, as it were, offered on the altar of God. Not, of course, in any way as atonement, but as suffering to death in obedience and testimony. There will be a sacrificial sweet savour for God in their death, but so far as man is concerned their blood will call for vengeance. Hence the cry, "How long, O sovereign ruler, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge
our blood on them that dwell upon the earth?" The marked contrast between this and Luke 23:34 and Acts 7:60 makes clear a change of dispensation. We are here on ground familiar in the Psalms, but not that of the present period, which is one of grace to all.
The "white robe" given to each one of this company seems to indicate a personal consciousness of divine approval -- a special compensation accorded them during the interval of waiting for their public recognition in the kingdom.
The opening of the sixth seal is followed by a great upheaval, and the subversion of order and authority. The sun, moon, and stars are figurative of rule (See Genesis 1:16 - 18) in various degrees of dignity -- supreme, dependent, and subordinate. And the removal of mountains and islands indicates the unsettling of all that has seemed stable and abiding. Men do not realize that the stability of things in the world -- politically and commercially -- is only maintained while God pleases to maintain it for the good of His saints and of His creatures. So long as the assembly is here prayers will be continually ascending "for all men; for kings and all that are in dignity, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety and gravity" (1 Timothy 2:1, 2). I gather from this that God will, in answer to the prayers made in His house, maintain government in the world so long as the assembly is here. I believe that the saints -- though they take no part in the politics of the world -- are the most important factor in the maintenance of order and government. Their prayers are much more effective than votes. Everybody is beginning to feel that there are great forces of lawlessness ready to break out, but God will maintain in government
a restraint upon those forces so long as the assembly is here. Kings and rulers owe the stability of their position to the fact that the people of God are praying for them. But when the assembly is gone, government will no longer be divinely supported, and the terrible disorder and anarchy that follows the opening of the sixth seal will come. We do not need to go outside Europe to see what it means for the sun to become black, and the moon as blood, and the stars to fall! God allows coming events to cast their shadows before them as a warning to men if they will but heed.
Under the inflictions which follow the opening of the sixth seal the conviction will be brought home to men that God and the Lamb are acting in wrath. What a solemn thing for Christendom, where God has so long been made known as a Saviour God! It is not that "the great day of his wrath" will have actually come; but it will have come in men's guilty consciences. It is often so even now when dreadful catastrophes occur; the thought of God's wrath rises in men's minds. Man has a conscience after all; no power of Satan can take it quite away. And man's conscience is ever a witness on God's part against him.
This chapter shews how God will secure vast companies of saints for Himself even in tribulation days. It is a great comfort to see that He will allow nothing to interfere with His purpose to have an immense
company both from Israel and the nations. It will be a time when universal judgments will be imminent -- "four angels standing upon the four corners of the earth" -- but even God's judgments will be held in check until His bondmen are sealed (verse 3).
We see here in a wonderful way the diversity and far-reaching character of God's ways in blessing. Paul said "I bow my knees to the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named" (Ephesians 3:14, 15). The Father is going to have many families, and every one of them will take its character from Him. He will put an impression of Christ upon each family, and hence there will be a unity of character between all the different families which will occupy the different abodes in the Father's house. Whichever family we look at, we see features which correspond with those which the Father is imprinting on saints of the assembly today. To observe this is one of the most instructive objects to have in view in reading this book.
"Another angel ascending from the sun-rising, having the seal of the living God", speaks of what is connected morally with a new day. The Sun of righteousness will not yet have risen, but the living God will put the impress of the day that is about to dawn upon the forehead of His bondmen. In the midst of surrounding darkness they will be publicly marked by traits which belong to the coming day. "The seal of the living God" -- the very title speaks of His activities and energetic working -- will ensure that moral features which are of the day will be found in them vitally. The difference between saints of this day and of that have often been considered -- we have noted it in chapter 6: 10 -- but we have
much in common with them. 1 Thessalonians shows how saints of this period have "turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God", and that they are "sons of light and sons of day", and are therefore to put on "the breastplate of faith and love, and as helmet the hope of salvation". The assembly is today the sealed company amongst whom God's activities are known, and in whom are seen, by His operation, the features of "the day". God delights to produce those features in His saints in the midst of present darkness.
The sealed bondmen in Revelation 7 are "out of every tribe of the sons of Israel"; it is not two tribes now, but the whole twelve. Their number is not necessarily a literal number; it is symbolic of completeness in an administrative way. The fact that Dan is omitted would indicate, I think, that Israel is viewed here with the element of idolatry and apostasy eliminated, so that they can be truly "bondmen of God" and serviceable to Him. It is an elect Israel, for it is twelve thousand "out of" each tribe, and it is seen in moral completeness for administration here. God will begin His work again with Israel, and will use them in blessing among the nations. They will "sow beside all waters" (Isaiah 31:20), and the fruit of their sowing follows. For it is "after these things" that John saw the "great crowd, which no one could number, out of every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues". We see here first an elect company out of every tribe of the sons of Israel, and then an innumerable multitude blessed out of the nations. Christ will be known as God's salvation to the ends of the earth even in that day.
I do not think God is presenting to us the millennial
result exactly, though what we see here may reach on to that. But he is shewing us, through the vision which John saw, what will be secured for Him before the millennium. In the millennium Israel will have the land, and Dan will have his portion in it with the other tribes (Ezekiel 48). But here it is the moral side that is presented; how God will work in an election from the twelve tribes during the time of judgment and tribulation, so that He will have an Israel, purged from the element of apostasy, which He can use administratively towards the nations in the way of testimony. They will be marked vitally by the features of the coming kingdom before that kingdom is established, and God will use them in announcing the kingdom to the nations.
Then a vast Gentile multitude is found "standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palm branches in their hands". They are seen before the throne as approved and victorious, and with a loud voice they ascribe "Salvation to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb". It is a mighty host of Gentiles who have found salvation during tribulation days, and who appear before the throne to give God and the Lamb the glory of it. It is a note of praise such as could not be raised by those who have only known millennial conditions. They are viewed as those who come out of the testing, but they have been in it, and they found salvation in God and the Lamb while they were in it. They come out of it and are before the throne as victors. I do not think "before the throne and before the Lamb" means that they are in heaven; it is rather where they stand morally as victors. Any saints martyred during the great
tribulation -- and there will be many such -- will have a heavenly place. Those preserved right through to the establishment of the kingdom will have blessing on earth of a peculiar character. But it seems to me that the point here is that after all the testing -- however it issues -- they are before the throne as victors, having become such through finding salvation in God and in the Lamb.
The presence of such a company before the throne causes all the angels and the elders and the four living creatures to fall on their faces before the throne and worship. To witness the triumph of God on such an immense scale where the concentrated forces of evil have had to be encountered in their fullest development and energy, leads all heaven to say, "Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and strength, to our God, to the ages of ages. Amen". Surely our hearts add even now their glad "Amen!"
John's interest in this great company was stimulated by the enquiry of the elder as to who they were, and whence they came. He could only answer, "My lord, thou knowest". And he was told, "These are they who come out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb". What could be more cheering to faith than to see that there will be so much for God even at such a time? No other scripture that I know of tells us of this great multitude, so that this vision is of peculiar interest. It is they who have washed their robes. The act indicates the cleansing of themselves externally -- our robes are that in which we appear before men -- that is, of their ways and associations. Robes washed and made white in the
blood of the Lamb intimates that they have not only known the redemption value of that blood but that they have applied it in practical cleansing to their ways and associations. They have held themselves practically as a redeemed people. Washing in water would be moral cleansing -- the death of Christ known in the soul as cleansing from the man after the flesh with all his defilement, so that saints may be consciously apart from that man. But washing robes in the blood of the Lamb would rather be that saints realize that they have been redeemed by that blood from the whole power of evil here, and they apply that practically to their ways and associations. They are exercised that there should not be a spot on their robes of the evil from which they have been redeemed.
It is instructive to see that when they speak for themselves in verse 10 they ascribe "Salvation to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb". They gratefully own their deliverance as being entirely God's salvation. But when the elder speaks of them he speaks of what they have done -- the exercises by which they have cleansed themselves practically and externally as knowing themselves to be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb from all the evils which surround them. The washing of robes is their side, that they may be in practical keeping with redemption, and that they may carry themselves as those who own the Lamb's rights acquired through redemption.
To see all this in such companies of saints suggests an enquiry as to how far we are in correspondence with their faithfulness today? We are not in the great tribulation; our testings are not nearly so severe as theirs will be. But as having the Spirit we
carry God's mark in a scene of abounding evil, and it is intended to be plainly manifest that we do so. We, in our time of witness, are to be marked by purity and victory -- the evidence of the power of divine salvation from all the evil around us. And it is for us, too, to wash our robes -- see chapter 22: 14 -- to keep our ways and associations unspotted by the evil of the world, as holding ourselves redeemed from it by the blood of the Lamb. It is our privilege to come out as distinctly from the evil of the world in our day as they will in theirs. It would be sad, indeed, if we, with a higher and more blessed calling, and a richer and deeper knowledge of God, did not equal them in faithfulness, purity, and separation. Or if, practically, we were found carrying the emblems of defeat -- as overcome by the world -- rather than the palm branch of victory.
The faithfulness of this great multitude will have its sure answer and recompense, as faithfulness ever does. They will serve God "day and night in his temple". The phrase "day and night" implies in Scripture unbroken continuity, whether in time conditions or in eternity. (See Luke 2:37; Acts 26:7; Revelation 20:10). "His temple" is not the millennial temple of Ezekiel 40 - 46, for "no stranger, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter" into that sanctuary, and this is a Gentile company. "Temple" is used here, I believe, as very often in Scripture, in a moral sense, as indicating service in priestly nearness and intelligence. God will "spread his tabernacle over them"; they will be in a peculiar way under His protection. "They shall not hunger any more, neither shall they thirst any more, nor shall the sun
at all fall on them, nor any burning heat". In contrast to all this "the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them, and shall lead them to fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes".
It is sweet to think of so vast a multitude coming out of the great tribulation to have this peculiar place and blessing with God. For theirs is not the public and universal blessing of the millennium, but an inside place in the temple, and as overshadowed by God's tabernacle. They are shepherded by the Lamb, and led by Him "to fountains of waters of life". They will be caused to know the very springs of life; not merely earthly blessing in its fulness, but spiritual springs in the knowledge of God. It is precious to know that the Lamb will have such a flock to shepherd, and such a blessed service of love to render that flock. Many scriptures speak of Israel's blessing in the world to come, and of the blessing of the Gentiles in the kingdom when the nations will be healed by the leaves of the tree of life, and will walk by the light of the heavenly city. But I do not know any other scripture which gives us what we have in Revelation 7 -- a Gentile company with such a peculiar place of temple service Godward, and a special leading by the Lamb "to fountains of waters of life". One can understand how a chapter like this will comfort and support faithful saints in tribulation days, giving them as heavenly light what soon will be their part. I have no doubt that, while in the tribulation, they will anticipate in spirit what is here presented, and they will know God as the One who will very soon "wipe away every tear from their eyes".
The whole of this chapter is most comforting and establishing to us in view of the rising tide of evil around us. It assures us that God will secure an immense result for His own pleasure in the very darkest day of the world's history. He will have those then who carry His mark, and who will go through, and come out of, all the tremendous pressure of the power of evil spotless and victorious. His salvation will be with them, and they will work out their own salvation through much personal exercise and suffering. It is for us to do so today. We are not in the great tribulation -- and, through infinite mercy, we never shall be -- but all the principles of evil that will come out in full bloom then are working in the world today. It is for us to find salvation in God and the Lamb, and to wash our robes.
The opening of the seventh seal is followed by "silence in the heaven about half an hour". It is something like the "Selahs" which we find in the Psalms; a solemn pause indicating the momentous character of the subject in hand and its demand for the quiet consideration of heaven. It ushers in a new series of judgments, which follow upon "the prayers of all saints" being presented at the golden altar before the throne. No doubt the Angel who stands at the altar is Christ, and He has much incense by which efficacy is given to the prayers which He presents. "All saints" on earth are praying -- it is the only hint of what they are doing while the first
six trumpets are sounded -- and their prayers are being presented by Christ as the Angel-Priest at the golden altar before the throne. We have seen in chapter 6: 9 that there will be saints on earth who will have the word of God, and will hold the testimony; from chapter 7: 14, we learn that there will be others who will wash their robes; and now chapter 8: 3 indicates that they will all be marked by prayer. These features are of deep interest, as shewing how different families of saints are morally related to each other. For they are features which mark saints of the assembly today.
But when we consider the character of their prayers -- which we may learn from the answer given in the sounding of the trumpets -- we see at once that God's ways will have changed. The prayers will be no longer, "Lay not this sin to their charge", but will be a cry to God to come in and set aside by His holy power all the lawlessness which robs Him of His pleasure in men, and is destructive of all true happiness for men. It is the happiness of the saint that he has been brought, by infinite mercy, into subjection to God; he can therefore truly say, "Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done as in heaven so upon the earth". But saints now are in communion with God's longsuffering patience and grace, knowing that it is the day of salvation. But then the saints will understand that the time has drawn near when God will deal in judicial power with all that is evil here, and they will be in accord with what He is doing. They will pray in communion with the mind of God at the moment. And the judgments come in answer to their prayers, just as sinners are converted and blessed today in answer to the prayers of God's people.
The altar at which the Angel stands is the brazen altar -- the place where the sweet savour of Christ came out sacrificially when He was found in the place of sin and death! -- and it is from the fire of that altar that He fills His censer and casts it on the earth. The prayers of the saints are presented at the golden altar, which is where the fragrance of Christ as the Living One is before God for His saints. He sustains them in an intercessory way in all His own sweet odour and acceptability. The Angel is seen in relation to both altars. Both have been available in grace for men, but they both necessitate that what is not in keeping with them must eventually go out in judgment if it does not go out under the sway of grace. The fragrance of perfect obedience, and of perfect devotedness to the will of God, has been found here in Christ, and He has died so that men might learn the blessed will of God as the source of infinite good. But if Christ has been offered to establish the will of God it is impossible that what He suffered for can be allowed to continue indefinitely.
The Lord Jesus standing at the altar suggests that the time has come when His death will have its answer in a public way. There has been a long period of divine testimony during which men have had the opportunity of repenting in the light of what has been displayed in Christ and in His death, and of being delivered from lawlessness in the way of infinite grace. But if lawlessness does not yield to the testimony of divine grace in Christ it must go out in judgment. Its judgment in the coming day is as distinctly the answer to the cross as all the wealth of blessing is today. It is not possible in God's universe that lawlessness can escape destruction. His people
are being "salted with fire" now; grace is reigning in the way of bringing men to self-judgment in the light of Christ and of His death. The fire of the altar is being cast into men's souls now that they may judge themselves, and turn to God in repentance, and find that He is a Saviour God. But Revelation 8 speaks of a time when the fire of the altar will be cast on the earth, and all that is lawless will come under judgment.
In connection with the opening of the fourth seal we find inflictions on "the fourth of the earth". But when the trumpets are sounded what is characteristic is that they bring inflictions on "the third part". It is touching to see that, even when acting in wrath God remembers mercy (Habakkuk 3:2). He gives evidence of what His heart desires even while doing "his strange work" and performing "his unwonted act" of judgment (Isaiah 28:21). He does not at once act universally in His visitations, but moves from stage to stage in such a manner as to give opportunity even yet to the greater part of men to repent when they see His dealings with others. The fact that it is recorded that "the rest of men who were not killed with these plagues repented not"(chapter 9: 20) shews at least that they had had opportunity of doing so, and that the possibility of such a result had been in view. It is an affecting testimony to the compassion of God, as well as a sad witness to the obduracy of man's heart. God's thought for man is that he should repent and be blessed.
It may be well to remark here that of the various divine actings brought before us in Revelation 6 - 16 the opening of the seals takes the first place, not only in the order of presentation but morally, for it is of
primary importance that faith should recognize the power and title of the Lamb to deal with all things so that the will of God may be established here. It will be a great stay for saints of that day to know that events which issue in such tremendous overturning are the result of the Lamb's actings in heaven, and that they have in view the bringing to pass within a brief time universal blessing. The trumpets of the seven angels follow -- a seven-fold testimony to the consciences of men in a solemn series of inflictions which have as their end the completion of the mystery of God. Then the bowls are the outpouring of the fury of God upon what is apostate and openly rebellious. Not its final destruction, but inflictions which will make manifest during its continuance that it is the subject of divine wrath.
The first four trumpets bring inflictions upon the earth, the sea, the fountains of waters, and the heavenly luminaries. These four things embrace the whole of the conditions in which man is set as a creature, and they are figurative of the whole system of things in which men live. The earth is the place where man flourishes "like a green tree in its native soil" (Psalm 37:35) -- striking contrast to the one who can say, "I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God" (Psalm 52:8) -- and where "all flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass"(1 Peter 1:24). God will bring destructive influences upon man's prosperity here. Then the sea speaks of the masses of mankind (chapter 17: 15). "As a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea". The casting down of some great power, which has become itself a subject of divine judgment, will be caused to affect the mass of humanity in such a way
that a great part of the life of the world which is dependent on international conditions and commerce ("the ships") will perish.
Then when the third angel sounds, "There fell out of the heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters". This seems to be a moral influence which embitters people as moving together in certain directions -- "rivers" -- would suggest this -- and which affects the sources from which men draw their life morally. It is "a great star"; some influence that appears to men to bring light from above; but it is really "wormwood"; it embitters everything that it comes in contact with. We can see that there are many different "rivers" in the world today! Different classes of men moving together in certain social and intellectual channels, and with certain definite objects in view. And we can hardly be blind to the fact that it would not be difficult to embitter the different classes against one another. "The fountains of waters" represent the sources of thought and feeling, all that forms the moral springs of conduct. When this "great star" falls these will be greatly embittered in a large part of the earth. The result will be -- not happiness or prosperity for any class, but moral death.
The fourth angel sounds, and the third part of the sun, moon, and stars is smitten. All that has been in the place of rule as divinely ordained is darkened. I think this indicates a change in the character of government. Instead of being in favour of righteousness, as all government is in principle today, it will cease to be divinely supported, and will become morally darkened. Authority will become arbitrary
and unjust, and increasingly marked by oppression and mercilessness.
At this point there is a break, dividing the first four trumpets from the last three, and calling attention to the inflictions which would come when the three last trumpets were sounded as more to be dreaded than those which had gone before. "And I saw, and I heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to them that dwell upon the earth, for the remaining voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound".
When the fifth angel sounded, John "saw a star out of the heaven fallen to the earth; and there was given to it the key of the pit of the abyss. And it opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace". Here we get another star fallen, and it lets loose upon men influences even more terrible than the star Wormwood. For in this case they emanate directly from the pit. It is something far deeper than the embitterment of class feelings and antagonisms; these are, in a sense, natural to men. But the locusts which come out of the smoke of the pit are supernatural tormentors who bring such misery upon men that they seek death, but "shall in no way find it; and shall desire to die, and death flees from them". These are spiritual powers of evil coming from the abyss. God allows the power of Satan which has at first been received and welcomed by men, to become their scourge. It
is so with all evil teaching. There is something fascinating about all false doctrine. To the natural mind it seems to be more powerful and attractive than the truth. This is conveyed in the locusts being "like to horses prepared for war; and upon their heads as crowns like gold, and their faces as faces of men; and they had hair as women's hair, and their teeth were as of lions, and they had breastplates as breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to war". All is impressive, attractive, and overwhelming in its apparent power of conviction. Men who have turned away from the truth eagerly accept it, and prefer it to the gospel, but when received it becomes a scourge -- darkness in the heart and terrible oppression in the conscience. "They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and their power was in their tails to hurt men five months". It is not the first appearance that torments men, but the after part. One has known of terrible instances of people who have adopted teachings which had their origin in the pit, and who have come into an agony of remorse which could not be relieved. Persons have told me they would give anything to get rid of teachings which they had imbibed, but which had now become agony to them. I think this is a foreshadowing of what will be general in a more terrible way when the fifth angel sounds. All the things that men are playing with today -- Theosophy, Spiritualism, Christian Science, Astrology, the Occult in many forms, the superstitions of the heathen world -- will exact a terrible penalty when God allows them under Apollyon to become retributive. The king of these locusts is "the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew, Abaddon, and in Greek
he has for name, Apollyon". Both speak of him as the destroyer. The name being given in both Hebrew and Greek would seem to suggest a warning to Hebrews as well as Gentiles, and the suitability of this appears when we see that the trumpets bring Palestine and Jerusalem into prophetic view again, as we shall see in the next two chapters.
It is blessed to see that the men with the seal of God on their foreheads escape this fearful infliction (verse 4). They will be sustained by the intercession of Christ at the golden altar, and their prayers will go out of His hand before God with much fragrant incense. Every one of them will know something of the value of the blood of the Lamb, God and the Lamb will be their salvation, and they will know -- from this book, if not otherwise -- that Christ appears before the face of God for them. What is of Apollyon will be kept out of their souls because what is of God is cherished there. They will know something of what the smoke of the incense means that is going up with their prayers out of the hand of Christ before God. It will tell them of all His fragrant perfections as before God for them, and in the light of this what comes out of the smoke of the pit will have no attractions for them, and therefore its sting will never torment them. And this is true, in principle, of saints today. If we have an imprint on our souls, by divine grace, of Christ, and of the features of the coming day of glory to be ushered in by His rising as the Sun of righteousness, we shall neither be impressed nor attracted by what comes from beneath. It can only deceive those who have nothing better by which to measure its value.
We must remember that all this is judicial. Many things which are the sad evidence of man's depravity,
and of Satan's power over him, are in themselves judicial. They are really judgments from God upon a state of heart which does not honour Him. Such a thing as Mahometanism, coming in on countries where Christian light has been, is really a judgment from God. Superstitions which bring men's consciences into bondage to what is evil, and oppress their hearts, are often of this nature. Such things as materialism on the one hand, or spiritualism on the other, come in where men have turned from divine light. If people turn from Christ, who is the Truth, it need not be wondered at if they are found wandering in a labyrinth of error in which they weary themselves in heart and mind. The materialist of yesterday is today the disciple of weird mysticism, tomorrow he will be deceived by the antichrist, and will worship the beast.
Though Satan's power will be in these inflictions, and the state of man's heart and will exposed by them, they are the judicial acting of God. Hence all is measured and limited; it is all under control, and cannot break its bounds. Whether it be the scope of the inflictions -- "the third part"; or the duration of these special torments -- the twice -- repeated "five months"; all speaks of a sovereign power that, while it makes use of what is evil in its inflictions, holds everything under its own control. What a sense it gives us of the absolute supremacy of God!
When the sixth angel sounds his trumpet, a voice speaks "from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God". It is an answer to the prayers which have been presented there by the Angel Priest. The saints on earth have understood that the time has come in the ways of God for the eastern question
to be finally settled by the fulfilment of the prophetic word in regard to Immanuel's land and the city of the Great King. Their exercises will be like those of Daniel in the ninth chapter of his prophecy, where he says, "I Daniel understood by the books", etc. I have no doubt they will understand "by the books"; they will have Daniel and the Revelation; they will know where they stand in the seventy weeks, and that the time is at hand; that the mystery of God is just about to be completed. With deep humbling and confession they will own their sin, but will cry, "Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord hearken and do! defer not, for thine own sake, O my God! for thy city and thy people are called by thy name".
The fact that the voice speaks from the horns of the golden altar suggests that it is in answer to the prayers of saints that "the four angels which are bound at the great river Euphrates" are loosed. The mention of the river Euphrates is a geographical index; it shews that the eastern world comes into view as the source of divine judgment; perhaps as the subject of it also. Under the sixth seal men are represented as using language which seems to suggest Christian knowledge, for they speak not only of Him that sits upon the throne, but of the Lamb. But the sounding of the sixth trumpet brings the east into view, and the things mentioned in chapter 9: 20 - 21 are such as would be found in the heathen world, as well as in corrupt Christendom. The heathen world is apostate from God, and will be judged as such. The whole population of the world stood round Noah's altar in Genesis 8 with a knowledge of the true God, and the fact that idolatry soon came in proves that "knowing God, they glorified him not as God
... they did not think good to have God in their knowledge" (Romans 1:21 - 32). "In the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God ... there shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress, on every soul of man that works evil" (Romans 2:5, 9). The heathen will be subjects of judgement in that day as well as those who have been in outward relation with God.
The infliction in this case is a host of two hundred million horsemen. The number of them is emphasized; "I heard their number". It is a vast number of agencies connected with four angels "who are prepared for the hour and day and month and year, that they might slay the third part of men".
A parenthesis comes in here (chapter 10 to 11: 14) between the sounding of the sixth and seventh trumpets, just as chapter 7 comes in between the opening of the sixth seal and the opening of the seventh. In each case we are taken aside from the course of judgments which is in progress to see divine actings connected with God's people and testimony. Before the beast and the false prophet are presented in their terrible activities of evil, and before the outpourings of wrath connected with the bowls, the divine side is seen in the action of the "strong angel", and in the testimony of the witnesses here.
The "strong angel" is the Lord in angelic form; He comes down clothed with that which speaks of divine glory, and with the token of divine faithfulness
upon His head. The undimmed effulgence of God in His face, and His feet as pillars of fire. Wherever those feet go there must be the judgment of evil according to divine holiness. And He has "in his hand a little opened book".
We may gather what the "little opened book" is from the fact that John -- the representative here of those who should be vessels of prophetic testimony -- had to eat it up, and that it was in his mouth sweet as honey, but bitter in his belly. It is an "opened" book; its contents are known prophecy, not matters sealed up; it is what is referred to in verse 7, "as he has made known the glad tidings to his own bondmen the prophets". And I apprehend it is a "little" book because it refers to things as being taken up in exercise and testimony by His witnesses rather than to the public result in the kingdom. "Little" is characteristic of the time of witness, not of the time of manifestation. It refers to what will be taken up in testimony by the witnesses of chapter 11. It is sweet in the witness's mouth to taste all that God will do in restoring the kingdom to Israel, but what bitter inward exercises it entails as he is made to feel his own condition, and the condition of those who should have been God's witness on the earth.
The "strong angel" comes down to claim everything for God, and to swear "by him that lives to the ages of ages ... that there should be no longer delay; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound the trumpet, the mystery of God also shall be completed". It is a prophetic vision giving assurance of divine triumph for the comfort of saints in view of the darkest days of all.
"The mystery of God" is, I believe, that for thousands of years He has not taken His great power here. He has allowed evil and lawless men to continue their course, and to gratify their lusts and ambitions. People have even questioned whether there is a God when they have seen what they judged to be great evils allowed to go on unchecked! God has been going on in longsuffering -- in view of His purposes of grace and blessing for men -- but He has ever given testimony by His prophets that He would come in to deal with all evil presently. It has been "the glad tidings" all through the ages from Enoch's day (Jude 14) that God will eventually have His way; He will publicly set aside evil and establish good. "Mystery" in Scripture does not mean something inexplicable, but something known only to the initiated. There has been, in men's account, a long delay in bringing to light publicly the principles of God's government, but when the "strong angel" speaks there is to be "no longer delay". God does not bring in judgment until man's iniquity is full. He said to Abram -- "The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Genesis 15:16). God will wait until the sin of man comes to a head in open defiance of Him by the beast and the antichrist, and then He will judge it all and take to Him His great power and reign.
The taste of what God is going to bring in is sweet to the one who eats it, but it entails much bitter exercise, for it involves the discovery and judgment in himself of all the principles of evil which work in the flesh. There is not an evil in the world which renders it the subject of divine judgment of which the root and germ does not exist in the flesh of God's people, and it is a moral necessity that they should
discern and judge it there. They judge themselves, and therefore they are not judged; the divine end is reached with them morally. What an inward bitterness it will be for the remnant of Israel when they eat the book. It will be sweet to taste that Christ is about to appear to subdue all their enemies, to set aside all idolatry and lawlessness, to fulfil every promise as to Israel's glory, and to reign before His ancients in glory. But when they eat this they will have to recall their own breaking of the law and despising of the promises, their idolatry and their rejection of Christ, their long centuries of unbelief of the testimony of the Holy Ghost. If you want to see something of the inward bitterness which they will have, read Zechariah 12:10 - 14.
Their exercises are prefigured prophetically in the "great bitterness" which Hezekiah passed through when he discovered that death was upon him. How can a people who are themselves under death become the living to praise Jehovah? It can only be by the resurrection power and quickening of God, and they will have to learn in bitterness the absolute necessity for this. Isaiah 36 to 39 is an important section of the prophetic word as shewing three distinct exercises through which the remnant will have to go. They will feel all the power of the external enemy set forth in Sennacherib, and will be cast upon God for deliverance from him. Then they will have to face the deeper lesson of chapter 28 in discovering that death is upon them, and that God alone can undertake for them in their extremity. And then they will have to learn and judge all the Babylonish elements that are in their own hearts (2 Chronicles 32:31), that they may turn from these things, so that
God may truly have all the glory of the wonder that will be "done in the land". All these experimental discoveries of their own weakness will be essential to their learning God's deliverance. It will be through these very exercises that they will learn to appreciate Christ.
In principle we have the same kind of exercise. If God enables us to feed on His thoughts and will as expressed in Christ it necessitates self-judgment. If we do not apply the truth in self-judgment we fall into Satan's hands. Peter had a marvellous revelation from the Father, and another from Christ, but he did not apply those revelations in self-judgment, so he became almost immediately the mouthpiece of Satan. The same man who in human sentiment would have turned the Lord from the cross would afterwards deny Him. But the inward bitterness had to come, for he was a true saint, and when it did come he went out and wept bitterly. We do not get anything really of Christ without a corresponding bitterness of self-judgment. People sometimes say, "What a nice word we had!" But if we really eat the word it comes home to us and searches our hearts. The true value of ministry can be measured very much by the exercise which it produces; the practical displacement of self by Christ is never brought about without this.
John was to prophesy, and he had to learn experimentally the effect of that prophecy. The prophets all had to go through similar experience. Think of what Isaiah went through and Jeremiah and Ezekiel! They had to learn what the state of the people was to whom they prophesied, and to enter into it as feeling it with God. They had their own personal
part in it also, for they could not dissociate themselves from the state of the people; faith never could. See how Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel took up the state of the people, and identified themselves with it before God! (chapter 9 in each book). The only one who can prophesy is the one who feels with God, and who has himself the exercise which his prophesying is intended to produce. But this inward bitterness -- this true spirit of self-judgment -- sets God free to make known what is before Him for His pleasure and testimony. Such can measure the temple, and the altar, and the worshippers. The effect of inward exercise as to God's mind -- though self-judgment ever goes with it -- is that we are qualified to measure things by a divine standard. These are great moral principles which have their application as much to us as they will to the remnant in a coming day. When the truth works through self-judgment -- and if it works at all it works thus -- it leads to the setting aside of our natural thoughts, feelings, and likings, and we begin to take account of God's things according to divine measurement.
It is the privilege of faith to take account of what is on the earth for God at any moment. John being called to "Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship in it", is evidence that even in that day -- the very darkest moment of the world's history, the last half-week of Daniel's seventy weeks -- there will be something on the earthCHAPTER 2
EPHESUS
SMYRNA
PERGAMOS
"... the blessed secret
Of His preciousness to Thee". (Hymn 277) "Yet sure, if in Thy presence
My soul still constant were,
Mine eye would, more familiar,
Its brighter glories bear.
Much better should I know,
And with adoring fervour
In this Thy nature grow". (Hymn 51) THYATIRA
CHAPTER 3
SARDIS
PHILADELPHIA
"Radiant hosts for ever share
The unveiled mystery". (Hymn 74) LAODICEA
"Love that on death's dark vale
Its sweetest odours spread;
Where sin o'er all seemed to prevail,
Redemption's glory shed". (Hymn 235) "O kindle within us a holy desire,
Like that which was found in Thy people of old,
Who tasted Thy love, and whose hearts were on fire,
While they waited, in patience, Thy face to behold". (Hymn 194) CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
"By weakness and defeat
He won the meed and crown;
Trod all our foes beneath His feet,
By being trodden down". (Hymn 24) CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11