Join us for a journey through Revelation’s Seven Churches, and discover how these prophecies have been fulfilled through the ages. This book contains amazing prophecies, revealing the end of the world and our only Hope – The Ultimate Sacrifice.

<p>Join us for a journey through Revelation’s Seven Churches, and discover how these prophecies have been fulfilled through the ages. This book contains amazing prophecies, revealing the end of the world and our only Hope – The Ultimate Sacrifice.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Empower Missions

Christian Hjortland

Revelation’s Seven Churches- Part 1

We're gonna spend 2 classes on this 1 and hopefully we will have some time in then.

We'll try to keep up the tempo so we may not have time to look at exactly all the details, but we are gonna look at the 7 churches.

So let us start with a word of prayer again Father in heaven I just pray that you may be with us now another hour will you speak to our hearts and give us understanding and more knowledge and help me to give the right words in Jesus name amen okay so in chapters 2 & 3 we have the 7 churches of Revelation and in verse in chapter 1 verse 11 I think we read this it says saying I am Alpha and Omega, this is Jesus speaking, the first and the last and what thou seest write in the book and send it to the 7 churches which are in Asia unto Ephesus, unto Smyrna, unto Pergamos, unto Theodora, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

So here you have the 7 churches and In the following verses what what do John see when he turns?

So in verse 11, we see this and in verse verse 12 and 13, he's turning to see who spoke to him.

Yes Did you want to say something Talika?

And so we are in the sanctuary, as we saw, we are in the sanctuary, in the holy place of the sanctuary.

And then in verse 20, in verse 20 it says, the mystery of the 7 stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, because we saw this earlier in verse 16 also.

The 7 stars are the angels of the 7 churches.

And the 7 candlesticks, which thou sawest are the 7 churches.

So if the lampstands are representing the 7 churches and Jesus he was walking among them what does that tell you?

You see, we are talking about, we have literal churches with these literal names that these letters were sent to, but we will also see that this, each of them are representing a part of the Christian history.

So if Jesus is walking among this candle, this lamp stands, what is that telling you?

He's in the midst of his churches and he's showing his relation to his people and the community he desires to have with them.

And he knows their true state and he has things under control.

So he's watching, is the light still burning in this lamp?

Is the light still burning in Philadelphia?

In Greek it's I don't know exactly if I pronounced it correctly but like Agelos or Agelos that means that can mean it yes it means messenger messenger and pastor can also mean You will see in the rest of the book of Revelation it's obviously meaning angels.

But here, why would Jesus tell John, hey send this send this to the angels of the churches?

Why would Jesus ask John to send these words and share them with angels?

And earlier in the New Testament you can also see that this is referred to, this word is used for people, messengers.

So I believe that this is referring to the elders of the churches, the leaders of these churches in this context.

I mean Jesus has these messengers, these elders in his hand that represent these churches.

Here is a map where you see the different churches.

You see the mark here with the church where they were physically lying.

I mean, this area had Ephesus, and then they have Smyrna, Sardis, Theatira, Pergamum, Philadelphia, Laodicea here.

We will not take so much time to look more this map.

So this is basically, I mean you see the Turkey here, right, this is Turkey.

And there you have Rhodes, belong to Greece, and Greece here.

Okay, so now you at least have an idea where, approximately where these churches were.

Because we'll take a little bit look at, you know, the historical church and the prophetic message to the time period.

Eloy, she says this in Acts of the Apostles, page 585.

The names of the 7 churches are symbolic of the church in different periods of the Christian era.

The number 7 indicates completeness and is symbolic of the fact that the messages extend to the end of time while the symbols used reveal the condition of the church at different periods in the history of the world.

It fits with the different times of the Christian era.

So the description of Jesus that we found, we have read part of it in chapter 1, you see several of these things repeating to different churches, and it's very appropriate for each church, the characteristics that he give of himself, because Jesus is speaking in the whole chapter 2, whole chapter 3 in my Bible I see it in red so it's all red so and the message that he gives to the churches is it can be positive characteristics, rebukes, counsels, and finally a promise.

This is not true for exactly all the churches, not all of them have all of this.

For instance Laodicea, Not really anything positive there about the church's condition.

If you're gonna give a rebuke to someone, if you feel God is calling you to give a rebuke to someone, how would you do it?

What do we need to give a rebuke to someone for it to be successful?

That's very important, very foundational.

If someone does not have confidence in you, do you think it will help if you just go and tell them, you know what, these clothes that you have on, they're inappropriate.

So, you can think of it as, I've been trying this myself, giving a rebuke like a sandwich.

You start with something positive as you share with this, talk with this person.

I mean obviously you should know, I mean if it is a person you know from before, that of course helps a lot, but start with something positive, I mean it's always good.

And then comes the rebuke, and then you can end with something positive again.

I mean, if God calls us to rebuke, I mean, because you will see here, he's sharing, the most churches, he's sharing something positive.

Okay, so as we look at these churches, we can learn several things.

We can learn some history, you know, what's happened, some historical background.

We can learn what was specifically about this period of church history.

And we can also learn from their spiritual condition and needs and apply it to our lives.

So I hope you can see this in these churches, these things as we're gonna study, because we can learn several things.

So we have the first church in chapter 2 is the church of Ephesus.

It says, I'll start reading from verse 1.

To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, this thing says he who holds the 7 stars in his right hand who walks in the midst of the golden lampstands.

Okay so this is the Church of Ephesus And we know that the Church of Ephesus, Paul, he was here several times to help this church.

And by the way, it means, Ephesus means desirable.

And this was a leading city of the Roman province of Asia, and then it became its capital.

And so Paul, he went here several times, as I said, you can read about it in Acts 18 and 19.

And actually as a result of Paul's work things really started to happen there in the Christian world and it really spread.

And 1 of the results I would just like to read it from Acts 19, verse 10.

It says, and this continued by a space of 2 years, so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.

Tradition says that it was John, the disciple John, that was the leader of this church.

And this was kind of the central location of Christianity became in Ephesus.

And so it's quite understandable that the spiritual condition in this church would be representative for the rest of the church at this time.

So an approximate time, when I give the times here, it's approximate.

I mean just so we get an idea of approximate where you are in history.

So the churches, the 7 churches are not time prophecies, so I'm just putting them, you know, so we know.

We can call this the Apostolic period from about, yeah, AD 31 to 200.

We see Jesus, we saw in this verse that he physically walked with his church in the beginning.

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Revelation’s Seven Churches- Part 1

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