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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF
The Rev. Frank R. Luckey

THE LETTERS OF
CHRIST

By
CHARLES BEOWN
Minister of Ferne-Park Baptist
Church, Hornsey, Bng.

"OINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS

F&3

Jig P«ar gftweaba
In Salem Chapel, Yobk

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PA GE
I. The Letter to Ephesus, - - 9
II. The Letter to Smyrna, - 29
III. The Letter to Pergamum, - -47
IV. The Letter to Thyatira, - - 64
V. The Letter to Sardis, - - 80
VI. The Letter to Philadelphia, 98
VII. The Letter to Laodioea - - 113

PREFACE
The writer of the following pages
desires to acknowledge with gratitude
the help which he has received in their
preparation from the following writers : —
(1) Professor Eamsay in the " Letters
to the Seven Churches," an
epoch-making book ;
(2) The Rev. C. Anderson Scott, M.A.,
in "The Century Bible," on
Revelation ;
(3) Dr. Milligan in " The Expositor's
Bible " on Revelation ; and
(4) Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, in a
little book on the Letters.
There is nothing more necessary to
be said by way of preface beyond this —
that the preparation of these pages
has brought much profit and joy to
the writer, and that they are sent

PREFACE

forth in the humble hope that they
may be helpful to many students of
this wonderful last book of the New
Testament.

Chough Hill,
March, 1909,

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS
Rev. ii. 1 — 7.
This is the first of the seven letters
to the Churches in Asia. These letters
are different from any other of the New
Testament letters. They do not claim
to be from John to the Churches though
the whole book is so described, chap
ter i. 4. They claim rather to be letters
of Christ sent through His servant.
Then they are all bound up in one book ;
that is, each letter will go to every Church
so that the Church at Ephesus will read
the message of the Lord to the Church
in Laodicea and the Church at Smyrna
that to the Church in Sardis, etc., and
undoubtedly they will be read by other
Churches in Asia which the seven here
represent, for there were many other
Churches in Asia. Colossse was one of
9

10 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
them. Paul wrote a letter to Colossse,
and at the end of it he said, " When this
epistle hath been read among you, cause
that it be read also in the Church of the
Laodiceans, and that ye also read the
epistle from Laodicea."
The probability is that the seven
Churches named belonged to the principal
cities in Asia, that each was the centre of
a district, postal or commercial, and
would form a rallying point for the
Churches of its district, where on im
portant occasions the representatives of
the Churches could meet. Moreover,
Ephesus, the first city to be named, was
not only the principal city in Asia at that
time — a thriving busy seaport town, and
the centre of the worship of Diana, where
stood her temple, one of the seven
wonders of the world — it was also the
gateway to the Asian province, and
the port at which the Roman governors
entered. Any messenger going to Asia
from Patmos, or from Rome, would
naturally land at Ephesus, and what
is more, if he kept to the great trade

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 11
routes, he would come to the other cities
mentioned here in the order in which
they stand, Ephesus first, Laodicea last,
thus making a circle and returning to
Ephesus. Ignatius, who wrote a letter
to this Church, referring to those who
passed on their way to Rome to suffer
martyrdom calls Ephesus "the passage
way of those who are slain unto God."
So in the natural order of things
Ephesus stands first on the list. You
remember the history of the Christian
Church within the city, that Paul
preached there on his way to Jerusalem,
leaving behind him Priscilla and Aquila.
Apollos, the eloquent, succeeded him.
Paul returned again and was allowed to
preach for three months in the synagogue,
afterwards for two years in a hired build
ing called the school of Tyrannus. Sub
sequently Timothy became the pastor of
the Church, and he seems to have been
succeeded by the apostle John, who,
according to tradition, spent many years
in the city, and died there. So it
is to this city and to this Church of

12 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
considerable standing that the first of
the seven letters is addressed.
Note how it begins— with a description
of Him who sends the letter, a description
which repeats two characteristics which
John had observed in the vision of his
glorified Lord. Each letter begins with
a description of Christ, and, though there
is some similarity between the opening of
the Ephesus and the Sardis letters, each
differs from all the others. But if you
take the seven descriptions of Christ in
the letters, you will get the whole of the
description which John gives in chapter i.
We may be sure that there is something
in such description appropriate to the
condition of the Church to which it is
sent. The message to Ephesus is from
" Him who holdeth the seven stars, and
walketh in the midst of the seven golden
lampstands." It has to do, therefore,
entirely with the Church's function as the
transmitter of light and its connection
in this respect with its Lord, who is at
once the source and replenisher of its
light.

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 18
Now let us see what he has to say
of this Church.

There are two whole verses filled with
thingB set down to its credit. " I know
thy works, and thy labour, and thy
patience." Do not the opening words at
once remind us of Paul's words to the
Thessalonian Christians, " remembering
without ceasing your work of faith,
labour of love, and patience of hope."
We see at once how eagerly the inspired
writers — representing the mind and
method of Christ — seize upon everything
that is good in those to whom they write,
and set it down first. But do you not
see another thing in these words ? They
are the same words as those used by
Paul, but there is a difference, and the
difference is significant and important.
Here we have works, labour, patience,
that is all. There we have work of
faith, labour of love, patience of hope.
It is very significant that the words that
are left out are vital. The husk is there,

14 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
the kernel is gone ; the body is there, the
spirit has fled ; work, labour, endurance
are there, the spirit which first prompted
and inspired them is no longer. But we
may go on. " Thou canst not bear evil
men." There is signified a jealousy for
the morals of the Church, a determination
that no evil liver should bring stain and
disgrace on its fair name. There was
a high moral standard in the Church,
far different from the standard which
apparently prevailed in Pergamum.
Whoever the evil man might be, whatever
his standing in the city, or his wealth,
the Church could not bear him, and if
we knew all the truth about Ephesus,
we should discover doubtless that the
Church prided itself on its lofty moral
tone. Nor was it the moral purity of the
Church alone that was jealously guarded ;
its theological and doctrinal purity was
equally protected. There passed through
Ephesus, as the gateway of the province,
travelling teachers — and some of them
yvere pretenders — anxious, for their own

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 15
ends, or for sectarian and ecclesiastical
reasons, to exploit and make gain of the
Church. But on whomsoever they might
impose, they had no chance with the
Ephesians. They submitted all the
would-be teachers who appeared to so
severe an ordeal that impostors were
detected. Keen eyes and ears for heresy
had the members of the Church at
Ephesus, and they are commended by
the Lord for their zeal, for the purity of
the Church, and for their faith.
Then, again, the Church could endure
and bear. It had almost fiery zeal for
truth and purity, intolerance for evil men.
And there went along with this the
steadier qualities of endurance. " Thou
hast patience and didst bear " even with
out growing weary — "for My name's
sake." The third verse does not say what
was borne ; whatever it was, it was for
" the sake of the name," and it would
probably be reproach and suffering,
injustice and disability. These had been
endured with no sign of giving in or giving
way. Refusing to tolerate moral evii

16 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
within its own borders, it endured the
long strain of evil put upon it for the
sake of Christ, and showed no sign of
weariness. Firmly loyal to conviction
the Church had Btood through the
storm. And, still further, passing for a moment
to verse 6, there is one other thing to be
set down to the credit of this Church.
" Thou hatest the works of the Nieolai-
tans." They were one with their Lord
in that. What the Nicolaitans were it is
impossible, definitely, to say. Probably
people who introduced into the Church
some dangerous form of heresy which
permitted the practice of immorality,
and the Church at Ephesus had set its
face fiercely against the works of these
people. Well, my brethren, we have there a
list of excellencies for which any Church
might well be thankful, and one would
almost say of which any Church might
reasonably be proud. Work, labour,
patience, intolerance of evil, zeal for
truth, hatred of impurity, fidelity to

THE LETTEB TO EPHESUS 27
principle amid suffering and reproach.
What a list of virtues and achievements,
far more and longer than those of any
other Church mentioned, and they are
all gladly noted by the Lord of the
Church. And you wbuld say — if you
knew of such a Church to-day — that
considering the surroundings in the
midst of which it stood, it was a moral
miracle, and as near perfection as any
human community could be.
n.
The astonishing thing therefore in this
letter, and the part of it that would take
away the breath of the members when
the message was read, is that such a
Church as this, with all these undeniable
and commendable virtues, should be
spoken of as a " fallen Church " ; that a
Church that had lifted its head proudly
among the Churches for its purity and
zeal and fidelity should be regarded as a
Church that had need of repentance and
humiliation before God. And yet that is
2

18 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
the language of the letter. It reveals
our Master's methods. He will set
everything down to our credit that can
be set down. And He will set it down
first. But He will set down the other
things also. The blacks as well as the
whites, as Rutherford would say. You
know your failing, my brother and sister,
in this respect. You love to be told of
your virtues — it encourages you, you
say — but you cannot bear to be spoken
to of your failings, and when you are
sharply reprimanded for them, you feel
like throwing all excellencies to the winds
and becoming reckless. You know how
we resent being found fault with, how we
tend to satisfaction with ourselves and our
children and our Church, and we almost
hate people who dare to say " but," when
the praises of our children are sung. And
then you know on the other hand there
are some people who see in you and your
Church and your family nothing but the
fault ; they have always their finger on
the defects, and never say a word about
the good which you know to be there. Be

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 19
sure that our Lord will deal faithfully
with all there is in us. He will tell us
to our faces of the good, and then of the
bad. He enumerates the virtues of the
Ephesian Church, and then says "But."
I know all that is good, " but " — and what
a " but " it is ! how it arrests our atten
tion and causes us to listen ! " But
I have against thee" — much for thee,
this against thee — " thou didst leave thy
first love." There are three verses of
virtues, there is only one brief line of
defect, no multiplying of words, but
you may be sure that it would be the
one part of the letter that would linger
longest in the mind and memory of the
Church. And now will you observe on what our
Master lays stress, here and always. It
is on love. That is the vital thing ; not
correctness of opinion' and belief, nor
contention for the same ; not zeal for the
purity of the Church, You may have
these and pride yourself on them. You
may pity the laxity of modern people.
You may denounce the heresies of your

20 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
time with a very sharp tongue, and be
reckoned a pillar of orthodoxy. But if
behind and through all this there be not
love, the heretic you pity and blame
may be more Christian than you. One
recalls the immortal words of Paul in
1 Cor. xiii., " If I speak with the tongues
of men and of angels, and have not love,
and if I have the gift of prophecy, and
know all mysteries, and have all faith,
and bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and give my body to be burned and have
not love, it profiteth me not." I am
struck with this feature in the Ephesian
letter. They could hate, but they had
forgotten how to love. And I am im
pressed with the fact that a vast amount
of work can be done without love, all the
things, in fact, mentioned here. I can
preach, and you can teach, and we can
all give, we can contend for truth and
purity, and make a most brave show,
and all the time the vital element may
be lacking.
What is more, love can be lost — that
is perfectly clear. We are not dealing

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 21
here with people who had never loved,
but who had gone back on their love and
gone away from it, we do not know when
or how. Probably, gradually, impercept
ibly : they had been so busy working in
the world and in the Church, that they
had neglected the cultivation of this most
precious grace. And, my brethren, it is
the danger of our time, and the weakness
of our time. There is no lack of work
being done of one sort or other, but there
is lack in our modern Christian life of
that personal love for Christ which glowed
in the breast of Paul and John, of Samuel
Rutherford and John Bunyan, and of the
saints of a century ago. We are correct,
but we are passionless. We do not realise
what Christ has done for us, and what He
waits and yearns to do for others. The
glories of our Redeemer, the bliss of
belonging to Him, the thought of what
we owe to Him, these do not cause our
hearts to break forth into rapturous and
exultant thanksgiving and gladness as
they should. Material abundance has
blinded the eyes of some of us to the

22 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
value of spiritual things. The things of
this world are the things that evoke our
enthusiasm. We ought to listen to a word
like this and ask, Lord, is it I ? Com
paring my past with my present —
thinking of my life when I was first
brought to Christ — how I loved my
Saviour, was never absent from the
services of the sanctuary, never neglected
my Bible, enjoyed my prayer, kept watch
over my spirit ; so felt my indebtedness
to Him who had delivered me from
eternal death, that to serve and give was
the greatest privilege and joy. Can I say
that it is so with me now ? Is it not true
that the responsibilities of life, its
struggles, its disappointments, its hon
ours, its advancements, have crowded
out love ? I have a far greater opinion
of myself and my importance than I used
to have, but have I lost my love ? No one
can read a message like this without
searching his own heart, and it would be
the greatest blessing if every member of
this Church would do it. For here is a
whole Church that has declined. We may

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 28
help each other to lower the spiritual
tone of a whole community, and deterior
ate all together. " He that hath an
ear," do not let him close it, "let
him hear what the Spirit saith unto the -
churches." m.
Suppose an honest opening of our
hearts should reveal the fact that we had
suffered this loss. What then ? First,
there is hope : the case is serious, but if
it be taken seriously there may be re
covery. The failing can be corrected,
the enthusiasm revived. There are three
counsels given. The first is " remember."
If some of us would let memory take us
by the hand to-day and lead us back to
the time that is gone, it might lead to
the greatest personal blessing. Then
" Repent," which does not mean sighing,
and grieving over declension, but turning
right round. And the third counsel is
" Do the first works," which is really
beginning again to cultivate the life for

24 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
Christ, to do all things for His sake, to
glorify him, to learn of Him how to live
and to live to Him.
But if not, what? It is easy to see
that the situation is critical, there is an
alternative to repentance and a new
beginning. Things cannot remain as
they are. Here is the alternative. " I
will remove thy lampstand out of its
place." Professor Ramsay takes a less
serious view of this warning than some
have taken. He shews how in a quite
remarkable way Ephesus had been a city
of change — it has occupied three different
sites at least, and now the modern village
stands on the earliest site. The gulf —
which was a great inlet of the sea — is now
a broad level valley, and the harbour
from which St. John was deported to
Patmos, a reedy marsh. The very land
scape has changed. To move the lamp-
stand from its place would be like shifting
the site of the city, and perhaps the
scattering of the Church to begin its life
somewhere else over again. It may seem
presumptuous in a simple man like the

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 25
speaker to differ from so profound a
scholar as Ramsay. I have mentioned
his statements that the facts which he
mentions may be known. But I am
bound to confess my failure to see how
they mitigate the seriousness of the
warning. To remove the lampstand out
of its place must mean that the place
which knew it then would know it no
more. . And the most natural interpre
tation is, that if the lampstand ceased to
fulfil its function, which was to give light
to the city, to fling abroad the light of
love to God, to the brotherhood, to men,
it would pass away. Useless in Ephesus,
it would be useless anywhere ; it would
cease to be one of the lampstands amid
which the Son of Man walked. A light
might spring up in another place, as
when the Church, ceasing in the East,
sprang up in the West. But the Church
there would cease, as indeed it did. I
know of few more serious reflections than
that which comes to me from the perusal
of this warning. It may explain — if we
only got to the root of things — the decay

26 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
and disappearance of some Churches in
London. You say people worked and
worked until they lost heart. Perhaps
they lost love ; and failed to see that it
is not work that keeps a Church alive,
but our fellowship of love with Christ
and with men, the abandonment of life to
His control. I recall some words of the
Master in the days of His flesh and put
them by the side of these, applying them
to the individual. "Every branch in me
that beareth not fruit He taketh away."
It is a word of warning for every disciple
to lay to heart.
The message to Ephesus does not end
with a warning, but with a promise. It
is couched in terms that meet us often
in this book : — " To him that over-
cometh." What is there to overcome in
a man who has lost love ? Pride, reluc
tance, self-sufficiency, the world that*has
gained on him, himself. But he can do
it by the grace of God. And even the
man who has lost his love and the Eden
of bliss that it made for him, may come
back and eat again of the tree of life.

THE LETTER TO EPHESUS 27
You know that trees were worshipped in
Grseco-Asiatic cities, and the belief was
widely entertained that the tree was a
kind of intermediary between the humam
and the divine, that the life of a man
was supposed to be connectedwith a tree,
coming from it and returning to it, and
there maybe something in the illustration
to suggest that eating of the tree of life
would be feeding upon the Divine power
and nature. Or, better still, that a man
who had repented and overcome, fighting
his way back by persistent faith to the
position which he had lost, would come
back into the Eden which he had lost,
the place where God walked and talked
with man. His life would not then be a
life of work and labour and patience, of
detecting evil and fighting against it,
merely : but a life of blissful fellowship,
out of which all these would easily spring.
He would partake daily of that which
would renew his life and make him strong
for service. His flickering light would
be kept steady and strong by the ministry
of Christ to his own soul.

28 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
This is the portion of all who repent
and do the great work of believing
on Christ. It may even be the por
tion of those who have lost their love.

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA
Eev. ii. 8—11.
The letter to the Church in Smyrna
stands almost alone. The city itself lay
north of Ephesus round a bold head
land, and on the shore of a deep gulf
or inlet of the sea. It disputed the
claim to be the chief city of the pro
vince, Asia, with Ephesus andPergamum,
as perhaps Glasgow would dispute with
Edinburgh the claim to be the chief
city of Scotland. It was as wealthy and
flourishing as Ephesus. But I do not
suppose that the Christian Church in
Smyrna would have entered for a moment
into a contest with the Church in Ephesus
for the claim to be called the principal
Church. It had not the history of the
Church in Ephesus, nor had it the same
list of achievements. The word "works"
is omitted from the Revised Version for
the simple reason that it is not in the
29

30 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST -
oldest MSS. It was interpolated by
some copyist later on, who, either
thought that the Church at Smyrna
should have the credit of "works," or
who followed slavishly the greeting
of the Lord to most of the other
Churches ; but we may be sure that the
Revisers are right. And the inference
that I, at any rate, draw, is that there
were no works to chronicle. A "¦work"
is a finished product, like a building,
or a mission, or a project, and my sug
gestion is that the Church in Smyrna
was too poor and too oppressed and per
secuted to carry out any great schemes
and plans. It had had all its work to
keep itself alive and to keep itself to
gether. The first word of Christ to it,
therefore, is " I know thy tribulation and
thy poverty," and these are mentioned
first probably because the Church felt
them most keenly. Trouble and poverty,
how often they are keenly felt by the
saints of God, what a barrier they seem
against what we call Christian work.
How they thrust us back frpm doing and

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA 31
giving. And the Church at Smyrna was
a poor Church, a very poor Church ;
the word poverty has in Grimm's Lexi
con as its primary rendering "beggary,"
destitution; and that was the thing
about the Church at Smyrna that the
Lord notices first — that and its trouble
were its chief characteristics. Poor and
despised it was ; and it was no honour,
probably, in the Christian world, not to
speak of other society, to belong to it.
Very often, may be, the members of the
Church at Smyrna looked with envious
eyes to Ephesus in the south, or to
Laodicea in the east, who was saying, " I
am rich and increased with goods, and
have need of nothing."
There is much in this letter that will
not apply to this Church ; but there are
many Churches of our own faith to
whom much in it would apply. I know
something about poor Churches. I
visit them often, and I know how they
look with envious eyes towards such a
Church as this. I know about the village
manse on the bleak hillside, with its

82 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
keen struggle to provide the bare neces
saries of life ; the brave woman within
doors who performs the miracle of
making the meagre income stretch over
the needs of the year — who shares her
husband's toils and anxieties and sor
rows. I know the little meeting-house
which the wealthy pass by.
I know the social obloquy which still
rests on the Free Church minister and
his little flock in many parts of rural
England, and how often only the poorest,
most insignificant, and despised care or
dare to belong to the little conventicle of
dissenters. And I know how difficult it
is to keep the heart at its best under
circumstances such as these, to feel that
the work is of the first importance when
it is a momentous consideration whether
a new bench can be bought, or a new
stove, or a door may be, painted. And
when I see such people as I saw in such
a building recently, with their trusted
pastor and leader, when I have heard
their responses in prayer, and seen the
light that never was on land or sea on the

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA 33
faces of hard-working men and women,
I have thanked God for these little
companies of people gathered throughout
our land, and one has seemed almost to
hear the words of the Master to His
Church, " I know thy tribulation and
thy poverty — but thou art rich." Hath
not God chosen the poor of this world
rich in faith ? One thanked God
for the privilege of ministering to
such. But there are everywhere individuals to
whom such a message * as this would
come with power. People in tribulation
and poverty who are thrust back from
doing what they would, and giving what
they would. Tribulation, pressure from
without, and straitened means within;
serious and pressing and wearing anxie
ties. And it is something to hear the
Master say, as assuredly we might if we
heard all, "I" know thy tribulation and
thy poverty." That is to say, " I know
the things that hinder, that cripple,
that paralyse the otherwise willing
nand." 3

34 THE LETTERS OF OHltlST
" All I aspired to be
All men ignored in me,
That I was worth to God."
And it is a still greater thing if we can
hear Him say "But thou art rich"; what
a different " but " from that to the Church
in Ephesus. There it was — " I know
thy works, &c, &c, but I have against
thee." Here the little conjunction ushers
in a most illuminating sentence. It is
the one word of commendation spoken
to this Church which receives no word of
blame ; and it is enough. He says it and
there is no revoking of His estimate!
I suppose a part of the tribulation of the
Smyrnasans was the blasphemy of the
Jews, which does not mean cursing God
but reviling and libelling man, and the
unmistakeable import of the passage is
this : the Jews in Smyrna were the bitter
opponents of the Christian faith and were
falsely accusing them. It is quite likely
indeed that the Jews were the instigators
of the persecution of the Christians in
many places. And it is most interesting
to remember that it was in this city that

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA 85
Polycarp, the disciple of John, suffered.
martyrdom, -and that in the account left
us of his martyrdom we are told that it
was the Jews of Smyrna who were most
eager in collecting faggots for the burning
of this aged saint, who refused to save his
life by renouncing his Lord. There is
also peculiar force in this passage when
we remember that He from whom it
came knew, not as one who watches
merely, but as one who had passed
through poverty, tribulation, the reviling
of His countrymen who delivered Him
into the hands of the Gentiles.
For the rest it is instructive to note
that the people who behave thus forfeit
their nationality. They say they are
Jews, they are not : " he is not a Jew who
is one outwardly, neither is that circum
cision which is outward in the flesh, but
he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and
circumcision is that of the heart, of
the spirit and not of the letter."
And the men who can revile and
libel the followers of Christ have lost
the spirit of the covenant and forfeited

36 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
all their inheritance. They are the
synagogue of Satan, for they are doing
his work, and we belong to him whose
work we do. The man who does the
devil's work may be called a Christian.
He may light the fires of persecution
inflamed by what he calls zeal for the
truth, but all the time he is the servant of
Satan and to his synagogue he belongs.
II.
One of the striking things about this
letter is its indirect but certain teaching
on the subject of a malignant spirit of
evil and his power to injure Christian
people. He can work through the Jews
for the reviling of the Christians and
through the Empire for their martyrdom.
" The devil is about to cast some of you
into prison and ye shall have tribulation
ten days " — a definite and short period,
which will come to an end.
The obvious agent in casting them
into prison was the Roman Empire and
Emperor ; the divinely inspired message
says it is the devil — who is to be permitted

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA 87
to reach these people through the Emperor
and for their physical hurt and torture.
But what a declaration this is coming to
these people from their Master. You
would have thought that when He said
«' I know thy tribulation and thy revilers,
&c," He would have gone on to say
" And I will smite them with helplessness
and deliver thee." But He does not. The
outlook is as gloomy as it can be. They
are about to suffer more heavily than ever ;
their enemies are apparently to prevail.
They are to be cast into prison ; and let
us remember that the Roman Empire did
not imprison for punishment as we do.
They would not burden the state with the
support of a number of prisoners. Every
man who was in prison was there either
awaiting his trial or his death. His trial
would end in acquittal ; or scourging, or
fine, or exile, or death. And the irresis
tible inference to be drawn from verse ten
is that some of these poor, struggling
much maligned Christians would be called
upon to seal their testimony with their
blood. " Be thou faithful wnto (not until)

38 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
death " is the message, not merely through
tribulation and poverty and slander, but
up to the point of dying. So that Christ
draws near to this Church as He draws
near to some of His disciples to-day with
this message, " Thou art about to suffer."
As to the problem that may not be capable
of being unravelled, it is perfectly inex
plicable ; there is no other way, no other
way that God can take to the ultimate
righting of things, no other way to the
crown of life; " you must suffer," is His
message, " or else be unfaithful." There
is no other way to escape suffering save
by being untrue, and the message is, " Be
thou true and let the devil do his worst."
There can be no doubt that the crdwn
of suffering came to these people through
their refusal to obey the law. Allegiance
to Christ their only Lord forbad their
obedience to the law which commanded
them to worship the Emperor as the
genius of the spirit of Rome. If Polycarp
had consented to do it he would have
saved his life, and he could not. And these
men were the pioneers of the men who

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA 89
have continued until now, who refuse to
render to Csesar the things that are God's,
and who when the law meddles in matters
of faith and worship say, we cannot obey
it. It is a terrible reflection that the
influence of the devil can work through
synagogues and states ; but apparently
it can, and when it does the faithful are
bound to become passive sufferers.
III.
Now note what our Lord says about
this suffering ; the whole of the letter
bears on it.
They are not to be afraid, to shrink and
blench from the fearful ordeal. It is
Spartan counsel that He gives. But
there it is. He is no soft and indulgent
leader who would melt the waxen hearts
of men. " The thing to be dreaded,"
He seems to say, " is not suffering but
untruthfulness." You can see the end
of suffering, you can never see the end of
being untrue. All suffering for truth's
sake, for a noble principle, ends in light,
light to the sufferer, light to those who

40 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
come after him. Moreover, Death, the
shadow feared of man, is really not to be
dreaded. It is not death to the faithful.
Our Lord's reference to Himself standing
at the head of the letter is full of meaning.
" I am the first and the last." Before
your enemies, I was, and after them I
shall be. They come and work their will
and go. I remain, and thou, if thou art
faithful; and if they do their worst they
do but bring us together in a Bweeter
union. Then "I became dead and lived."
This sentence is remarkable, and is not
adequately rendered in either of our
versions. "I became a corpse, and yet I
lived ; " not merely lived again, but lived
in spite of death. There is power in this
reference. The Smyrnsean Christians
would remember how the Lord became
dead. The betrayal, the arrest, the trial,
the mocking and reviling and scourging,
the thorn-crowned sufferer led to the
awful agony of the Cross; they had
heard the story of it all, but that
physical part was not death. So, the

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA 41
executioner's sword, the blazing faggot,
the still ashes, the torn and lacerated
and motionless frame, these are not
death. They seem to be, but Jesus said,
" He that believeth on Me shall never
die. If any man keep My sayings he
shall never see death." There is a
death that hurts, of which this violent
death is a type. He that overcometh
shall escape it and know nothing of its
horrors. There is another reference.
There was a time when Smyrna seemed
to be dead. Six centuries before Christ
the Lydians captured the city and
destroyed it, and it was 840 years before
it was reconstituted, and yet the historian
says it never died, its ancient spirit
existed in the villages into which it was
scattered. It seemed to be destroyed, it
was refounded in greater splendour than
in former times, has lived on and
flourished, and is to-day the one great
and flourishing city in that part of Asia.
Things are not what they seem. The
Church that seemed to be poor is rich,
and the Church which said " I am rich "

42 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
was declared to be poor and wretched,
blind and naked. The man who seems
to be dead is living, not only in another
world, but in this, where the influence of
his fidelity will live and work on for
many generations. And the man that
seems to be living and prospering is in
God's sight dead while he lives. The
man who is faithful to God can never
be killed. " The world passeth away
and the lust thereof, but he that doeth
the will of God abideth for ever."
There is a reference to Smyrna's
history in the words Be thou faithful,
which every Christian in the city would
understand. In the days before Rome
became an Empire, while it was yet a
Republic, and before the Eastern cities
had learned that Rome was the supreme
power in the world, Smyrna had taken
sides with her against Carthage and
the Seleucid Kings. And in those early
days, during one of the Roman wars, a
Smyrnsean assembly, hearing of the dis
tressed condition of Rome's army, stripped
off their own clothes and sent them to

THE LETTER TO SMYRNA 43
the soldiers. And in the days of Rome's
greatness the city which had taken her
side in earlier days was not forgotten,
but was known as the faithful. What
the city had been to the State, that
the Church is urged to be to her
Lord. There is another probable reference.
Ramsay tells us that the situation of
Smyrna is extremely beautiful. He calls
it the city of life, and its life and bright
ness are the characteristics that impress
a visitor at once. It has been likened
in shape to a glorious statue sitting
with its feet in the sea. Until within a
few years the hill into which the city
runs back, and which may be likened to
the head of the statue, was crowned
with the ruins of what had been a
magnificent and apparently impregnable
castle. It was called the garland or
crown of Smyrna and one of its great
teachers besought the citizens not to be
satisfied with a crown of buildings, but
to strive to have as its crown pure,
patriotic, just and good men. These, he

44 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
said are the true garland of a city, its
prize, its mark of supremacy — not stone
walls, but true and pure citizens.
The crown of life may mean many
things. It may mean life in abundance,
or life that resists all attacks, as the
castle on the hill Pagos resisted attacks
and defended the life of Smyrna. Ful
ness of life and life for evermore it
means, and the best and richest prize
of life. And it is laid up for the
Church in Smyrna, the highest reward
that heaven has to give. Only one thing
can keep Smyrna from the crown, viz.,
the unfaithfulness of Smyrna, nothing
else. This poor struggling, persecuted,
despised Church, wearing here the
crown of sorrow and suffering, would
come, not to heaven, as I take if, but to
the supreme joy of it. Not to life, but
to the very crown of life ; not to the city,
but to the supreme height of the city.
Were they faithful ? We do not know.
We know that Polycarp was, in the year
155 ; we may hope and believe that others
were. At any rate this is significant;

THE. LETTER TO SMYRNA 45
Ephesus threatened with the removal of
the lampstand, has become an insignifi
cant village. I do not know whether there
is a Church in it. Smyrna is a city of
250,000 inhabitants. It has suffered
much from many invaders, and has
endured the cruelty and greed of many
conquerors, but it has arisen brilliant and
strong from every disaster. So has the
Church within its walls, and three-fourths
of Smyrna's population is Christian. It
is called by the Mohammedans, who
number less than one-fourth of the
population, "infidel Smyrna," and so it
seems likely to remain.
It would seem as if, not in heaven, but
on earth also, the crown of life is given
to the faithful. That the influence of
fidelity to Jesus Christ and conscience
is immortal. That the man who suffers
for the little while, who endures loss and
wrong for the sake of Christ, missing
the prizes of this world, its money and
honour and applause, receives a richer
meed. Meanwhile, He whom such souls
serve stands near at hand to say, "I

46 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
know it all, trust me, be faithful. A little
way only canst thou see. I who see all
declare that all is well to the faithful
heart. Well now and well for ever."
Not one word of blame has the Lord for
this poor Church. It has His com
mendation and promise of immortality.
May a like reward be ours.

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM
Eev. ii. 12—17.
Fifty miles north of Smyrna, as
Smyrna was fifty miles north of Ephesus,
stood the city of Pergamum. Not on
the coast, but fifteen, miles inland. Its
situation was superb. It stood on an
enormous rocky hill, and the first
exclamation of Ramsay when he saw
the magnificent sight was ¦ " A royal
city." And a royal city it had been.
Its history reached back to the beginning
of life in Asia. For a century and a
half it had been a kingdom — the Perga-
mene Kingdom ; in 33 b.c. Attalus
had bequeathed it to the Romanr,, who
had made it the capital of the Prryir.ce
Asia. In the day when this lettei r,ewe
to the Church, the city was declining
and was in danger of being eclipsed by
Ephesus and Smyrna. But it was stiU
the official capital. All this has to di
47

48 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
with the letter to the Church. The
aspect of our Lord which is turned
towards the Church is that of authority.
" He that hath the sharp-pointed two-
edged sword " — the sword used in the
Roman army, and not the scimitar of
the East — the man who bare the sword,
was the man who wielded the power of
life and death. The sharp-pointed
Roman sword with the two edges was
the symbol of authority. Official
rescripts would come from Rome to
Pergamum, and through Pergamum to
the rest of the province. It was the city
of authority. And to the Church in it
an authoritative message comes.
And the Church had had a hard time
of it, that is quite evident from the
letter. So hard a time that, like the
Church in Smyrna, there are no works
mentioned. Just as the most prominent
thing, the first to be remembered, in
Smyrna was its poverty and trouble, so
the first thing to be realised by anyone
who thought of the Church in Pergamum
from outside, as John thought of it in

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 49
Patmos, was its difficult situation — right
under the shadow of the imperial power.
The official seat of Roman authority was
there. The men who wore the sharp-
pointed two-edged sword went past the
Church; and the Pergamene Christians
saw every day the frowning walls of the
Roman garrison, official residences, and
court of justice. And it was a desperate
business to be a Christian in Pergamum
and to keep a Christian Church to
gether. A struggling Protestant Church,
say, in the city of Brussels or Rome ;
a Baptist or Primitive Methodist Church
in a very small English cathedral city, is
not expected to have great works to
show. You do not expect to find palatial
buildings and great public esteem and
the company of the rich and powerful
there. And there is great significance
in the greeting of Christ to this Church :
" I knoiv where thou dwellest ; I take
everything unto my account." Locality
has much to do w,ith a Church's life.
There are some neighbourhoods where
it would be a mystery if the Church were
4

50 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
not thriving ; things go on automatically.
The people who want to attend your ser
vices are at your very doors. People
willing and able and eager to work are
at your hand. There is money and
talent and energy and character, and the
minister finds himself surrounded by
such a body of officers and so numerous
and intelligent a congregation, that
everything calls out the best in him,
and all his utterances are enhanced in
value by the atmosphere in which they
are spoken. And the man knows that
he often gets honour that is not his
due. There are other localities where it is
almost a miracle to find a thriving
Church, and where a Church with great
works to show is an impossibility. The
congested centres of our great cities, the
dreary and monotonous streets from
which the well-to-do people have moved
away, where people have the heart taken
out of them by the squalor of their sur
roundings and the awful struggle for
existence, where poverty and vice reign,

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 51
and an indifference which nothing seems
able to pierce. That and the stagnant
village from which all the young and
eager life is drained away and only the
stolid and unenterprising are left ; where
there is a dearth of workers and never
the inspiration of numbers ; where
there is social scorn for the members of
the Church, and sometimes persecution ;
where the name of " Church " is denied,
and the bitterest sectarian spirit rules
outside, and arts of the lowest and most
contemptible kind are practised to pre
vent the people from following their
convictions and to stay the progress of
the little community. And in each case
and to each one of His disciples the
message of the Lord would be: "I
know where thou dwellest," thou in the
favoured place, and thou in the midst
of struggle; thou with the favouring
winds filling thy sails, on an open sea;
and thou in the midst of rocks and
mists, with the storm beatmg down
upon thy prow. I know, and judge and
expect accordingly.

52 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
" Thou dwellest where Satan's throne
is." It was a wonder that there was a
Christian Church in Pergamum at all,
when you consider all things. Whatever
Satan's throne may mean besides, and it
may likely imply that Pergamum was
the seat of some cult of evil practice,
there may be some reference to the cult
of iEsculapius, the god of medicine, with
its inquiry into and discussion of the
secret springs of life, some foul and pol
luting influence which emanated from
Pergamum. The probability, however,
is that the chief reference is to the
Roman Government, whose local throne
was in Pergamum. It seems a bold
thing to identify the throne of Rome with
the throne of Satan. Practically the
same thing is done in the previous letter
(v. 10) : " The devil is about to cast
some of you into prison," unquestionably
means that they are to be immured by
order of the Government. And there
was something worthy of being classed
among the deep things of Satan in the
policy of Rome. In Pergamum stood the

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 58
Temple of Augustus, built a hundred
years before this letter. It was the chief
centre of the worship of the Emperor,
which was now demanded of the citizens.
A refusal to worship was interpreted as
a proof of disloyalty to the throne, as
refusal to obey a single law has often
been interpreted. It was an abominable
regulation, which brought the Christians
under a charge of treason, for no people
were more loyal to the throne than they.
To bow to the statue of the Emperor
would be to compromise their loyalty to
Christ, and they had refused. They
were grossly misunderstood, and falsely
accused, and they had been compelled to
suffer. Antipas, for the crime of being
a Christian, had fallen a martyr, and he
was probably the representative of many
others who had fallen. And there was
no knowing who would be accused next,
who next would be called out and com
manded to worship the Emperor and
called a law-breaker and charged with
disloyalty to the throne, and fined or
exiled or killed for treason. And in the

54 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
midst of all this peril and wicked mis
representation the Church had remained
faithful. There is manifest delight ex
pressed in the words " Thou holdest fast
My name," and even in the hottest trial
" didst not deny my faith." The ex
ample of the Church and the commen
dation of the Lord, who never loses
sight of any good thing, should prove
an immense encouragement to all who
are serving Christ in difficult places, and
whose loyalty is bringing them into
trouble. We need not be afraid of hard
names, nor complain of a little misunder
standing and misrepresentation. Above
all, these must not be allowed to drive
us from our firm loyalty. Woe to the
man, whatever he gains by it, who is
driven by the shadow of threat or danger
from the position of fidelity to conviction
and to Christ ; and blessed he who re
mains faithful. The pleasure of the
Lord is with him, and with a sympathy
which is worth more than all the favour
of the world He is saying " I know where
thou dwellest, and that thou art faithful."

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 55
II.
It is extremely significant that con
cerning this Church that had suffered and
had clung to principle the Lord is troubled.
Its fidelity is the first thing He sees,
but not the only thing. You cannot live
on one virtue alone, especially if there
is something that is inimical to virtue
allowed side by side with it. When shall
we understand that in the Church of
Christ you cannot balance a wrong against
a right and say that the one compensates
for the other, or that one may grow up
unnoticed, or remain because the other
is there. We have to do with One who
is filled with a passion for perfection.
" A holy Church without spot or wrinkle
or any such thing " is the demand. So
while He is merciful on one side, He is
unyielding on the other. And He says
to this Church, " But I have a few things
against thee." He calls this Church to
repentance. It is true the Church as a
whole has not gone astray, but the whole
Church is charged and called to repent
on behalf of some who are allowed

56 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
within its borders. And what is the
matter with these people ? They hold
the teaching of Balaam. You remember
the history of that strange and unhappy
man. How Balak, King of Moab, a
believer in charms and incantations, had
summoned him to come and curse Israel,
sending messengers with rewards. It is
clear from the remarkable narrative that
Balaam wanted to go for the sake of the
reward. He started, and on the way was
reproved by the ass that he rode on, and
alarmed by an angel. He wanted to
return, but was bidden to proceed, when
to the amazement of the man who had
hired him, from whichever point of view
he took him, he blessed instead of cursing
Israel. That is generally all that is
remembered about Balaam. People
forget that his dead body was found
after a battle, and that he died fighting
in the ranks of Israel's enemies. Then
in the same chapter (Numb, xxxi.)
which tells that significant fact there
is this further passage, "These (i.e.,
the women of Moab) caused the children

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 57
of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam,
to commit trespass against the Lord in
the matter of Peor." And the matter of
Peor was this (Numb. xxv. 1, 2) — the
people of Moab, on the advice of Balaam,
had successfully enticed the people of
Israel to their licentious feasts with
which unclean and abominable practices
were connected, and it had been done
under the counsel of Balaam who could
utter some of the finest sentiments and
was supposed' to be a prophet. Here,
then, was the peril of the Church at Per
gamum. It allowed people who taught
the doctrine of Balaam, which was that
the people whom God had blessed, who
were His elect, could do no wrong and
could presume upon their covenant rela
tion to God. It was Antinomianism that
was being taught and practised by a
minority of the Church at Pergamum.
In what way it was practised we cannot
tell. It could scarcely have been that
they were engaging in the worship of the
Emperor. On that point they were firm
as adamant ; it may very well have been,

58 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
however, that in some other directions
they were being plied by people within
their own borders to mitigate the rigour
of their life by mingling with the people
of the city in some of the practices which
were contrary to the pure teaching of
Christ and hateful in His sight. The
argument might well have been : We have
declared our Toyalty to Christ by refusing
the nation"! ritual. That is beyond
question therefore. Now, surely, if we
are not to be cut off from society alto
gether we may allow ourselves licence
in this direction or that. And it may be
that this minority were allowing them
selves, and counselling others, to par
ticipate in practices of Pergamum which
were even worse than the bowing, with
mental reservation, in the temple of
Augustus. One or two points emerge from this
reference. One is that the life of a
Christian should be all of a piece, loyal
to Christ in everything. Brave and
resolute to the point of suffering in
refusing compliance with a wrong law

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 59
or custom and never vituperative and
abusive to those who are the cause of
your suffering. Separate from the world
in steadfast observance and maintenance
of the ordinances of religion, in refrain
ing from questionable amusements and
entertainments, and also separate from
the world in the method of conducting
business, -being free from the grasp
ing, the hardness, the unscrupulous-
ness, the greed and meanness, that
bring more discredit on the faith than
error in creed. In public and private,
on Sundays and week-days, in work
and in play, in matters ecclesiastical
and domestic, let a man be loyal to
Christ. Another point is that there may be
more danger from within than from with
out. The Church in Pergamum was in
greater peril from a few people within
than from the Roman Empire. " I am
afraid of my friends," said a prominent
politician recently," not of my opponents,"
and the Church has had occasion to be
afraid of its friends, the people who have

60 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
crept in and brought their worldly ways
with them and who are tolerated because
they are agreeable or clever, or good-
natured, or rich. It is not the persecutor
from without that the Church has most
to fear, but the unworthy liver within,
the slack, unprincipled, convictionless
man whose influence is devoted to
obliterating the lines which rrlust divide
the believer from the unbeliever, the
pleasures of the sense from those of the
spirit. III.
Thirdly, we consider the charge of the
Lord. The first part of it refers to this
evil-working minority, for so I understand
the word "repent," and the alternative is,
" I come to thee quickly, and will fight
against them " — not against thee — " with
the sword of my mouth." Which seems
to say, " If you do not deal with these people
I shall," and the way to deal with them
would probably be to openly repudiate
their practices instead of smiling upon
them. And the unmistakable conclusion
is that it is better for the offender

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 61
himself thatyou should dissociate yourself
from his practice and express your dis
approval, than, by weak compliance,
allow him to come under the judgment
of Christ. To be silent concerning a
thing you know to be evil, for the sake
of keeping a friend or the peace, may be
the greatest unkindness to him as well as
a general injury. To openly blame and de
nounce the evil may save a soul from death.
The letter closes with a wonderful
promise to him that overcometh — not
merely the threats of evil by his fearless
ness — but its allurements, by his con
stancy. He is to eat of the. hidden manna.
The phrase may have a reference to the
secret and mysterious pleasures to be
learned in the practices of Pergamum, or
to the tradition which existed among the
Jews, that the ark in which the pot of
manna was would be discovered when
the Messiah came. It certainly means
that he who will be loyal to Christ,
though he may have to forfeit the gains
and pleasures and honours by which the
children of the world live, shall have food

62 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
to eat that they know not of, and be sus
tained by the hand of God, Who in the
secret of His presence feeds and satisfies
the faithful soul.
The white stone with the name written
on it has come in for a great deal of dis
cussion, and no one can dogmatically
assert what it means. We have to think
of the usage of the times. A white stone
was given in token of acquittal in a court
of justice. A stone with a device on it
was given to ensure admission to certain
banquets or meetings. And yet again a
stone inscribed with certain characters
would, in popular and Eastern supersti
tion, like the fabled lamp, serve to open
closed doors and keep safe the person of
him who could understand it and would
secure him entrance to Paradise. The
custom is probably used here as an illus
tration. The white stone indicates purity.
It symbolises the power to summon to
the side of him who possesses it, not
sprite or ginn, but the heavenly Friend
and Paraclete. There is a secret of the
Lord imparted to those who have not

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM 63
defiled themselves with the doings of this
world, a language which they alone can
speak, and which cannot be imitated. A
true shibboleth which no man can say who
has not been taught by the Spirit of God,
a password into the heavenly Jerusalem
and the innumerable company of angels
and the bliss of the redeemed. And the
reality which lies beneath the figure
of the white stone with the name on it,
is the white soul made and kept clean by
the energy of the blood of Christ and the
power of the Spirit of God, on which soul
God has written the name of ownership
which the world can neither read nor
understand.

THE LETTERS TO THYATIRA
Rev. ii, 18—29
We have here the middle letter of the
seven to the Churches in Asia. It is
the longest, most obscure, most difficult.
Eirst, because we have no history to
guide us. Unlike Ephesus, Smyrna and
Pergamum, Thyatira has no history.
We have been pursuing our way north
from Ephesus to Pergamum. Now we
turn south or south-east and" find all
the rest of the Churches in that direction
until, when we are at Laodicea, we are,
exactly east of Ephesus. All that we
know of Thyatira is that it was famous
for its manufactures; that Lydia, the
merchant woman, the seller of purple,
whose heart the Lord opened like a
spring flower, came from there. As for
the town itself, it lay in an open valley,
with no natural defence of hills, and
needing a strong garrison to defend it.
64

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 65
Whether Lydia had anything to do with
the starting of the Church is a matter of
pure conjecture. The aspect of our Lord
which is turned towards the Church,
therefore, must be regarded in its refer
ence to the Church alone, and not with
regard to any historical or political
feature of its life. Observe that He is,
to this Church, the Son of God.- There
is the note of Divine authority, He hath
His eyes like a flame of fire, which
description is to be taken with verse 23,
" I am He who searcheth the reins and
the heart," which is not to say merely
that He sees and searches out everything,
but that there is something terrible in
His aspect and His revealing vision of
that which is wrong.
His feet are like unto burnished brass
is an indication of strength and firm
ness, and these in Action. Holiness,
omniscience, power, attributes or charac
teristics calculated to inspire with awe
those who discerned them. And these — ¦
let it never be forgotten — are permanent
characteristics of Christ. Say all that
5

66 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
you can about His gentleness, His
humanity, His compassionate mercy —
and no one can say too much, and no
one saw these more clearly than the
human author of these letters — but we
have studied these letters and the whole
book so far to very little purpose if we
have not seen the Kingly Christ glorious
in majesty and power, and unyielding in
His demands for purity ; with a regal
authority of holiness which is never to
be trifled with, and which has its side
which is truly terrible towards the wrong
doer. There are people whose concep
tion of Christ would be that He sees all,
but is so soft with pity that He passes by
wrong with a gentle reproof and remon
strance. They have made to themselves an
image of Christ with its feet of crumbling
clay when the execution of judgment was
in question. It is not the figure of the
New Testament. His eyes can not only
search all : they can blaze with indigna
tion, not merely at the wrong of the
world, but, first of all, as this letter proves,
against evils that are tolerated in the,

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 67
Church and in the hearts of Christian
people. But before we come to that —
I.
Note that He sees all that is good in the
Church, and sees it first. Precisely what
we saw in that case of the Church in
Ephesus we see here. There are works
in the Church which are altogether
pleasing to Christ, and works that would
satisfy most of us ; and then there is
that which spoils everything. Every
thing in these letters forbids our taking
a one-sided view of our Christian life,
which we are continually prone to do.
You must not only cite those things that
you have. You must remember the
things which you have not, the gaps and
omissions in the lives of many of us are
enough to condemn us in the sight of our
Lord, and we must take into account the
things of the opposite sort which are
continually dividing and distracting and
weakening the supreme purpose of life,
and reducing our efforts to perfect impo-
tency. What, for example, could be

68 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
more delightful than verse 19 taken by
itself. Read it carefully ; it is one of
the most charming pictures in the whol«
of this series of pictures. There are works
as there were at Ephesus. But there is love
behind the works, which there was not at
Ephesus — the grace which God delights
in, which our Lord and His apostles
insist on. It was there in Thyatira, and
faith was there. If you like, fidelity,
which is always an essential part of
faith, faith in God and in men, and
faithfulness towards both, the trust and
love which make a happy Church and a
happy Christian life.
Then there is ministry, or service, a
word from which our " deacon " comes,
and which stands for service of each
other in lowly and helpful ways, each
seeking not his own but the other's good,
the ministry to the poor and sick which
indicates genuine kindness of disposition.
Once more, there is patience, the
power to endure and to continue, the
quality of steadfastness which holds on,
in spite of provocation or difficulty ; holds

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 69
on in faith and love and service through
the dark night and the stormy day.
And finally you have an augmenting
Church the very opposite of Ephesus in
this regard. No decline here, no
dropping off in weariness, but an in
creasing vigour and activity and useful
ness. Now if we could only cut this
letter in two, what a satisfying and
charming picture we should have. But you
observe that Christ does not stop there,
because that is not the whole, and you
must have the whole. " All things are
naked and open to the eyes of Him with
whom we have to do." And the whole
point of this letter is that you may have
all these excellencies in a Church or a
character, and then have that which
sullies, and if it be not amended will
ruin them all. n.
So to this Church Christ says "But
I have against thee," and then follows
a passage which amazes you by its
revelations. These very people about
whom all these delightful things have

70 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
been said are being led into sins from
which we recoil with loathing, and they
are tolerating within the borders of the
Church the person whose teaching is
leading to the sin. And their tolera
tion of the evil is the point of the Lord's
rebuke " Thou sufferest the woman
Jezebel." It would be very interesting
to pursue the enquiry as to who precisely
" Jezebel " is. To begin with we may
assume that it is a name borrowed from
the Old Testament and given to describe
the influence which was being wielded
in the Church in Thyatira. We all know
what Jezebel of the Old Testament
was : that she influenced her husband to
do many wicked thing's, but chiefly that
she came into Israel from Tyre, and
brought her religion with her, and
succeeded in setting up the worship of
Baal side by side with that of Jehovah.
She had no objection to Jehovah, but
only to the monopoly, the exclusive
claim set up on the part of Jehovah by
His servants the prophets, and Jezebel
is one that calleth herself a prophetess and

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 71
teacheth. There appears to be no reason
why we should not think of a woman in
the Church at Thyatira (it throws indirect
light on early Church history) who pro
fessed to have revelations from God — a
woman of strong character — who was
allowed to be one of its teachers, and
whose strong influence was drawing the
members of the Church to take part in
the feasts which were a prominent feature
of the life of Thyatira. Trade guilds,
political clubs and similar societies would
begin their gatherings with an act of
idolatrous worship, and end in a feast
with wine and dancing and revelry of
a licentious and immoral character.
According to verse 21 there had been
some dealing of Christ with this person,
some pleading and remonstrance, and
much longsuffering, and she had become
hardened in her determination to pursue
her own course and had refused to
repent. The awful judgments of verses
22, 23, are pronounced not on the Church
but on this person, and those who
associated with her in her sin and her

72 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
bold disregard of the pure law of Christ.
The point, however, to which I return
in our text is that grave fault of the
Church " Thou sufferest the woman
Jezebel." Note the exact word, not
co-operation but toleration, a false
toleration from a Christian point of
view. No word is more capable of
being mis-used than the word toleration.
There is a toleration that is a sin as
truly as there is a bigotry which is a sin
in the sight of God, and there is a holy
intolerance. Let me say about this unholy toleration
in Thyatira that it is apparently a defect
of the quality of the Church. Compare
for a moment the case of the Church in
Ephesus. " Thou canst not bear evil
men. Thou hatest the deeds of the Nico-
laitans," but " thou didst leave thy love."
There was the defect of the Church's
quality. The quality was a rigid
determination to have no evil within
its borders, and everything hardened
into that and all tenderness was lost.
Now here is a Church that has the

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 73
love and the tender ministry and lacks
the balancing quality which makes love
perfect — of intolerance towards evil. Is
it not one of the weaknesses of to-day.
We deplore the bigotry and narrow
exclusiveness of a former time. Let us
remember that there is an exclusiveness
which must belong to the Church of
Christ, an exclusiveness which declares
that it will have no compliance with that
which is opposed to the pure and perfect
law of Christ, and which strikes at His
supreme authority in the soul and in the
Church, and let us determine — would
God that we would all do it — to exclude
from our own lives everything that
weakens or slackens the regal nature
of His claims.
You see the situation in Thyatira.
The Church was capable of great and
beautiful things, and then was allowing
to operate within its own borders an
influence entirely destructive of the
good things, and which would soon
make them impossible, influences incom
patible and antagonistic. It was not a

74 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
matter of teaching only, it was a matter
of daily practice. What a lesson there
is here for the Church and the Christian
of to-day. For your fashionable mood of
to-day is tolerance, good-natured toler
ance. And it is very easy to admit thatinto
a Church, in your very desire to be com
prehensive, which will spoil your finest
work, and make it impossible. And you
may allow that in a Christian home,
through sheer good nature, which will
drive out the spirit of devotion and
seriousness. And you may allow that
in a Christian life which simply nullifies
and makes void all your best spirit and
endeavours. It may be nothing like the
gross evils into which some of the Thya-
tiran Christians were being led. It may
be nothing worse than levity, and yet it
may drive away effectually every serious
and sacred thought.
It is to be feared that there is a pro
cess of building up and pulling down
going, on continually in some lives.
People are submitting themselves to two
sets of influences which are mutually

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 75
destructive. They come here to-day and
are subdued and softened. They go
to-morrow to the theatre with its ques
tionable play, or the midnight dance with
its immodest dress, and the good that is
here gathered, and the very taste for
prayer, is simply destroyed. Nor is it
in amusements alone. It may be in
sensational and unwholesome literature.
It may be in business practices which
bring the excitement of gain, but which
will not stand the test of the teaching
of Christ, and which pervert and injure
the soul that allows them, and which
sweep out of it that sweet seriousness
of holy desire, that tender compassion
for the poor and sorrowful which should
ever be in the Christian heart. There
is some amount of discussion on the
meaning of the deep things of Satan of
verse 24. It probably refers there to
Gnosticism, an unwholesome desire to
pry into the secrets of the origin of life,
and an indulgence in unwholesome
pleasures. But it occurs to me that one
of the deep things of Satan is, not to

76 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
set us directly against religious observ
ances, but to persuade us to set up in
our lives or to allow there, that which
will simply make ineffective the religious
act. I take for example the season of
Christmas, and the close of the year. No
season is more conducive to . serious
thought on the trend and quality of
life, and we seek that thought many of
us, and are much impressed — and then
we give ourselves to excitements, the
indulgence of mirth and jollity, so that
every serious consideration is swept out
of our breast. It is so easy for us to
attempt to keep contraries and opposites
in our nature, and to foster one thing
which destroys the other.
m.
1 cannot deal with the judgment of
the Lord on Jezebel, saving to say that
it is to be of an awful character, of a
like nature with her sin, and is to fall on
all who have become her victims, and
have suffered themselves to be led astray.
There is a faithful remnant in Thyatira,

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 77
and the Lord, who searcheth the hearts
and reins and giveth to each according
to his works, sees and singles them out,
and upon them He casts none other
burden than that which they have —
which probably is that they keep the
old apostolic decree to abstain from
things offered to idols and from fornica
tion, along with their love and faith and
ministering, i.e., that they keep them
selves pure in body and in soul, pure
and separate from contamination with
an unclean world in spite of the reproach
of narrowness and bigotry which may
be cast upon them — and they are to hold
fast until the Lord come. Then the
mystery will be cleared, and the re
proaches of men will melt away for ever
in the approval and blessing of the Son
of God.
In closing, may I say a word on the
benediction pronounced on him that
overcometh. For one thing, it precedes
for the first time in the letters, the words
"He that hath an car," etc., and this
order is preserved in all the letters that

78 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
remain. For another thing, something
is added to the overcoming, viz., the
keeping of the works of Christ, probably
in opposition to the works of Jezebel,
which are to be repented of (verse 22).
Overcoming includes the seductions
within the Church and the reproach
which comes through keeping the works
of Jesus — the temptations which come
from the avowedly bad and from the
apparently good. To those who overcome
such temptations two things are pro
mised. First, authority, of which the
Roman Empire was a type to some, but
more surely the eternal power of the
Lord Jesus. Second, the " morning
star," the new light which should
break upon the world with the coming
Kingdom of Christ. For both passages
refer to the Son of God. The whole
passage declares, He that keepeth
my works to the end shall share my
glory. The promise is identical with
that to the Laodicean Church. He that
overcometh shall sit with me in my
throne. And the promise is the more

THE LETTER TO THYATIRA 79
significant, placed alongside the solemn
warning of the letter.
The people who partake of the works
of Jezebel will share the judgments which
fall on Jezebel. Being within the Church
will neither save her nor them. They
who keep the works of Christ, excluding
from their lives the works which destroy
these, will be partakers of His glory. I
will give unto each of you according to
your works.
Let us watch and pray, brethren, that
the works of our lives may be Christ's
works, that there may be given to all of
us a holy intolerance of all that is
opposed thereto, and that we may be kept
pure and loyal to Him until the end,
that so we may help to bring in His
glorious and everlasting kingdom.

THE LETTER TO SARDIS
Rev. iii, 1 — 6
The letter to Sardis is so full of matter
for consideration that it will be extremely
difficult to compress it into the space
available for us. It is in some respects
the most striking in the series. To begin
with the description of Christ is most
remarkable. Generally in these super
scriptions He is represented as being
clothed with wholly Divine attributes,
here there is a blending of the Divine
and the human — " The seven spirits of.
God" indicate the perfection of the
Spirit's presence and operation. On the
other hand the seven stars (ch. i. 20) are
the angels of the seven Churches, mean
ing probably the sum total of the life of
the Churches, their peculiar charac
teristics, or, as you would say, their
genius or spirit. Each letter is addressed
to the angel of the Church. Both these
80

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 81
are in the possession of Christ, the angels
of the Churches with their frailty and
imperfections, and then the divine power
in its perfection. He mediates the one
to the other. Which is the same thing
as saying that those who really believe
on Him receive the power and fulness of
the Spirit both in His cleansing and
sanctifying influence.
We pass on to the description of the
Church in Sardis, and we may remember
that Sardis like Pergamum had been a
royal city ; that it was the capital of the
ancient Lydian Kingdom ; that here
Croesus the rich ruled ; that it stood on
what was apparently a solid rock, on
three of its sides sheer perpendicular — a
natural strongh old therefore. A fact which
needs to be borne in mind in the con
sideration of the latter part of this letter.
For the Church here, as a Church,
Christ has no word of praise or com
mendation. It is severely condemned.
There is nothing said about the toleration
of the Nicolaitan or any other heresy.
In three awful words — two in the original
6

82 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
— its description is given. " Thou art
dead." When you have said that you
can say nothing more. A dead Church,
you would say, is a Church which has
ceased to operate. But I suppose a thing,
or at any rate a society, which has ceased
to live may exist. A thing, or a creation
even, that is dead has not of necessity
disappeared ; its form may remain and
there may be a semblance of life in death,
even as there may be a semblance of death
in life. There are certain conditions in
which it requires an expert to say
whether a creature or a person is living
or dead. And the Church in Sardis
seemed to be alive, and there was a point
of life in it — a faithful few who had not
defiled their garments, of whom we shall
come to speak later. Indeed, the verdict
of Christ on the Church would have
surprised everybody who only knew the
Church from the outside. " Thau hast
a name that thou livest." That was the
bitter irony of the situation, the Church
had " works " and it had a reputation.
It was what some people would call a

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 83
" live " Church. I must allow myself
the liberty, under the term " Thou hast
a name that thou livest," to imagine
that there was plenty "going on " in the
Church, that its congregations were
crowded, that its buildings were appro
priate, that its offertory was large, that
its ritual was pleasing, and that if there
had been daily newspapers in that day
in Asia Minor with editors hungering
for copy, there would have been many a
paragraph in them describing the doings
of the Church in Sardis and the utter
ances of its minister, and " Sunday
Mornings in Asia " would have included
a glowing column on Sardis.
Influential people in the well-to-do
city were in the membership of the
Church, and they would see to it that as
far as the externals of the Church were
concerned nothing should be lacking.
You are forced to the conclusion, as you
read the message of Christ to Sardis,
that the real condition of a Church may
be the exact opposite of its reputaticn.
That a, Church may live for the purpc-se

84 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
of making an outside reputation. That
a minister may strive to do that which
will strike the imagination of the looker-
on rather than that which will approve
itself unto God. That a Church may
appear from the outside to be flourishing,
and within may be hollow and dead like
a tree that will keep its green long after
it has lost its heart. One of the things
to be guarded against by a Church in
these days of religious newspapers is
that of living and working for an outside
reputation. One of the things to be
sedulously cultivated is the habit of sub
mitting everything that belongs to a
Church's life to the searching judgment
of Christ. You are forced to the con
clusion that much in a Church, which
may seem to men to be life, seems to
, Christ to be death. And it would not
surprise me to be told that the Churches
in London which figure most largely in
the newspapers are precisely not the
Churches in which the greatest volume
of spiritual energy is to be found. For
spiritual energy is an incalculable

THE 'LETTER TO SARDIS 85
quantity which rather escapes the mea
surement of the journalist.
"I have found no works of thine
fulfilled before my God," is the further
complaint of Christ respecting this
Church, and I call your attention to the
serious nature of this statement. " I have
found," gives an irresistible notion of the
works having been closely scanned by
Christ, and that every one of them has
been found defective on inspection.
"Weighed in the balances and found
wanting," might have been written on
all the numerous activities of the
Church in Sardis. The closing words
of the sentence are also profoundly
impressive. "Before my God, I have
found no works of thine fulfilled," i.e.,
judged by God's standard there was a
fatal defect about them, and the con
clusion is they had not been done as
unto Him and under His eye. In the
sight of men the works had been done,
and by the standard of men they would
have been passed, but they had not been
fulfilled " before my God."

86 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
The impression which remains on my
mind, after reading this charge and
complaint, is the solemnizing impression
of One who looks carefully into the
works of a Church and the works of
our individual Christian lives, and that
therefore it would be the part of
wisdom for us to look into them.
We cannot \ afford to go on from one
year to another without looking into our
works and our ways. There is no
commercial concern in this world that
prospers, that is not in all its depart
ments carefully examined periodically.
Nothing that prospers is allowed to drift
dreamily on. And we are not wise to
allow a Church to go on, or a life named
by the name of Christ to go on, without
periodical and thorough and searching
examination. How much of the work
of your life will bear rigid scrutiny?
How much of your doings is worthless, a
mere waste of time, and room, and
energy, with no real profit in it for
yourself or others? How many of us
are turning our schooltime here into

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 87
playtime, and trifling away splendid
opportunities for learning of God and
serving men ?
The questions will force themselves
upon one's mind, as questions to be
asked of each man's heart to-day in the
light of this letter. Are my works,
any or all of them, fulfilled before my
God ? My Sunday - school teaching,
preaching, visiting, my work in school
and office — is it done as in His sight
and as unto Him? And is it fulfilled
— done with redundant thoroughness,
rounded out to completeness? And a
question which lies behind that is, Am I
really living the life, or have I only
the name ? It is quite possible that in
every other respect the people composing
the Church in Sardis were alive — alert
at business; excited in pleasure. On
the spiritual side they were dead — no
response to spiritual appeals. And that
is precisely where many Church members
are to-day, and it is well for each of us
to ask, Is it I ? Established in Church
connection but having no vital union

88 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
with Christ. Observing certain forms
but strangers to the reality which should
underlie them. Moved and excited
greatly where money or purely physical
comfort or pleasure are in question,
unmoved save to a certain measure of
impatience by purely spiritual interests,
and incredulous altogether on the subject
of spiritual joys. Thou hast a name
that thou livest. Church member, com
municant, believer, Christian. The name
is all. You have no interest in Christ's
kingdom, are doing no hand's turn for its
extension, making no sacrifice, simply
living to please yourself. So was the
Church in Sardis. So it may be with
some of us. II.
Observe that there is even hope for
such a condition as this. There is the
most severe reprimand imaginable, a
most deplorable condition described ; but
in the valley of Achor there is a door of
hope, a way from the death into which
they have drifted, back into life again.

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 89
Our Lord wounds only that He may heal.
Here is the first step indicated, " Be thou
watchful," which may with equal truth be
rendered "Wake up," become wide
awake, spiritually. Be spiritually what
you are commercially, alert men to see
and seize every possible advantage. A
great deal is said by our Lord and His
Apostles on this matter. One of the
words which came often to His lips was
" Watch." " What I say unto you, I say
unto all, Watch." Watch and pray, live
the vigilant life. And it was one of
Paul's favourite counsels, " Let us not
sleep as do others; it is high time to
awake ; awake thou that sleepest and rise
from the dead." The whole line of counsel
indicates a fatal possibility of dreamily
drifting, of becoming the subjects of a
spiritual paralysis which steals over the
faculties of the soul ; of losing the con
sciousness of God, and of the real entity
of the spiritual life. There are a thou
sand things about us every day to induce
spiritual slumber ; we have yielded to
it, and we must arouse ourselves and

90 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
shake it off, and resist its insidious
approach. " Strengthen the things that remain " is
the next step. It is difficult to see what
remained unless it were the forms.
Everything else seems to have gone, and
the suggestion that they are to be
strengthened is highly significant.
Suppose only a form of prayer is left,
that when you kneel at night or bow
here, it is little or nothing more than a
formality, what then? Drop the form
some would say. This counsel is the
opposite — do not drop the form, but
strengthen it by seeking to get back the
spirit and power ; the stubborn persist
ence in the forms may help to bring back
the spirit. Keep on at your family
worship, your private prayer, your
Christian work, not in the same way, but
with more ardour than ever. To break
the form may be to lose the last shred
and fibre of life.
The next step is "Remember," the
same counsel that was given to the
Ephesian Church. Only here the

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 91
memory is to exercise itself with what had
been received. What was it ? Forgive
ness : the blotting out and remission of
the guilt of sin. "He hath forgotten
that he was cleansed from his old sins,"
says Peter of a certain kind of person, and
with it hath forgotten the price at which
he was redeemed from eternal death.
That, however, is only a part ; there would
follow knowledge of Christ, joy in the
Holy Ghost, Divine forbearance and
grace, great and wonderful opportunities
of service, and much more.
"And how thou didsthear." Doyounote
the suggestion, at least, that these things
lay in the past ? That the Church had
left off to receive and to hear as it used ?
It had become much engaged in making
a reputation, and in many forms of useless
activity, but it had ceased to sit at the
feet of Christ, to hear His word, to receive
of His fulness. Its ears were dull with
spiritual slumber, and in its activity it
had become a law to itself, and had lost
the habit of consulting His will. And
the whole counsel is summed up in the

92 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
last word of it, "Repent." Stop the
drift, change the current of your living.
There is the possibility for every man
who knows that his life has gone wrong.
A hard possibility often, involving an
agony of struggle, but a possibility even
for what is described as a dead Church.
III.
For you will mark in the third place
that there is a bright spot in Sardis. A
corner of real life in the great envelope of
apparent death. Jewels among the dust.
And He who saw the death saw the life
also, and marked the faithful few and
made them immortal. It is worth our
while to observe that one can be faithful
among the faithless. You live in a hard
place, my dear young brother, where it is
a desperate business to keep a clean heart
and clean lips. You do not live in so bad
a place as Sardis, and He who kept the
remnant there undefiled can keep you ;
and I pray every day that He will keep
you true, and keep you bold and un
ashamed. They have not defiled their

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 93
garments. That is a hint of the cause of
sleep and death in Sardis. It was a city
notorious for its licentiousness, its fleshly
indulgence of various kinds. There is
nothing so surely conducive to spiritual
slumber as bodily indulgence, not of the
gross and revolting kind merely, but of
the more refined. And there were a few
who had been kept pure. It can be done,
there is power sufficient. It is being
done. Nothing lifts up my heart more
than to know that in school and office,
and in foul surroundings, there are those
who keep a pure heart.
And these people had not left the Church.
They might have done. If they had
been of the " stand aside, for I am holier
than thou " temper they would have done.
They would have formed a little com
munity of their own and shaken the dust
off their feet against the offending Church.
The probability is that they were quite
unconscious of their spiritual superiority
to their brethren ; for real spiritual
superiority is ever unconscious of itself,
dwelling as it does so near to the eternal

94 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
purity of Christ. And it is at least
possible that if we could have found these
people we should have discovered that
'they had far less notion of their own
perfection than the majority of the
Church had of theirs. IV.
I come in the last place to the con
sideration of the future, certain on the
one hand, possible on the other, as it is
sketched for these people. For the-
faithful few there is the certainty. Their
future will be an expansion of the present.
" They have not defiled their garments.
They shall walk with me in white."
Christ with them now, and therefore they
are kept. They with Him hereafter, their
purity eternally assured in the city into
which nothing that defileth can enter.
The hunger for goodness perfectly
satisfied. Like Him with whom they
walk. The significant thing is that the same
blessed possibility is held out to every
member of the Church in Sardis. " He

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 95
that overcometh." It will be a fearful
warfare, but it can be accomplished. The
dry bones can be made to live and can
stand on their feet an exceeding great
army. He that overcometh— whoever
he may be — shall thus be arrayed in white
raiment and his name shall be heralded
in the presence of the high court of
heaven. But there is another side which must
not and cannot be overlooked. Suppose
the counsel of Christ be not laid to
heart nor acted upon by this Church!
Suppose that to this message, as to so
many others, it turns a deaf and dead
ear ! Suppose it fail to watch and
remember and repent ! What will
happen ? Take two passages in the
letter. " I will come on thee as a thief,
&c." — what does that mean ? The city
of Sardis stood on what appeared to be
an inaccessible rock. Save at one point
where an isthmus of land connected it
with the valley it seemed impregnable.
And that point was guarded ; there
soldiers kept their watch while the city

96 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
slept. But twice in the history of Sardis,
in the dead of night, at the spot where
men slept in fancied safety, an enemy had
climbed up the face of the rock where
there was a fault in it and it had been
lost. So in some mode of judgment
Christ declares that He will come to the
unrepentant and dead Church. The
thing that is dead cannot remain to
pollute the atmosphere.
The second expression is "I will not
blot out his name," &c. What is the
obverse side of that ? Surely this, that a
man'sname may be blotted out of the book
of life as the name of a criminal is deleted
from the burgesses list of a city. There
is nothing more startling and appalling
than the possibility declared in Scripture
that a man may lose his standing in
Christ. How is it done ? By yielding to
sin. By indulging the body and neglect
ing the soul. , My New Testament is an
unmeaning book to me if it does not teach
that I who preach to others may become
a castaway. An unspeakable awe gathers
over my heart as I read the quiet words

THE LETTER TO SARDIS 97
of Christ, " Every Branch in me that
beareth not fruit He taketh away," and
as the picture rises to mind of Him, who
died to redeem, blotting from the book
of life the name that He wrote there
because the man has drifted down to
spiritual death. There are two possible
goals: Walking in white'; blotted out
of the book of life. Which shall be
ours?

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA
Rev. iii. 7—13.
The city of Philadelphia was a city
founded by the old Pergamene king
dom. It derived its name from Attalus
the Second, who earned the title Phila-
delphus by his loyalty and devotion to
his brother Eumenes. A memorial of
brotherly love and fidelity was this city,
and the Church within it was conspicuous
for its fidelity. There is no heresy in
it. Nothing is said of the Nicolaitans
or of those who hold the doctrine of
Balaam. It was not a great and pro
sperous Church like Ephesus, nor had it
a great reputation like Sardis.
" Thou hast little power " is the com
ment on its condition. But it had been
faithful : " Thou didst keep My word and
didst not deny My name." It is one of
two Churches concerning which there is
no word of blame or reprimand from the

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA 99
lips of the risen Christ. And there is
far more of positive and emphatic
approval than in the case of Smyrna,
the other Church which is not blamed.
Unmixed unreserved commendation is
the characteristic of this letter, altogether
refreshing is the reading thereof.. " I
have loved thee " is the frank confession
ofi the Lord to this Church. The
description of Christ is not, as in some
of the letters, a contrast to the condition
of the Church, but is in accord with it,
a faithful Lord to a faithful Church, a
holy Lord to a pure Church. The only
point of contrast seems to be between the
weakness of the Church and the power
of Christ. " Thou hast little strength."
I am " He that hath the key of David
(symbol of authority), that openeth and
no man shutteth, and shutteth and none
shall open," and the weak Church is allied
with the strong Christ in the terms " I
have loved thee." I.
It is very interesting to trace the
points of similarity between the Church

100 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
here and the Church in Smyrna. Not
only are both free from blame, a joy to
the Lord — a Church may be either a joy
or a pain to Him — but both are weak,
with no outside reputation. That is
significant. The letter to Sardis taught
us that a Church that has the greatest
reputation outside may be most dead in
the sight of Christ. And a Church that
has no reputation, no wealth, no imposing
array of figures, may be the Church
which is altogether satisfactory in the
sight of Christ. The last things to boast
of for a Church, the last things to rest
in and be satisfied with, are wealth and
numbers. The first things to seek and
to rejoice in are holiness, spiritual life
and vigour, fidelity in all things to the
person and work and word of Christ.
"Thou didst keep My word, thou hast
not denied My name," is high com
mendation to come from the lips of
Christ. It is^not a little significant that
the Churches that are poor and weak are
the Churches that are faithful, and in
which Christ finds His greatest joy.

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA 101
And the fact forces one to make the
inquiry, Is it possible that, with
Churches as with individuals, prosperity
is apt to steal the heart away from Christ ?
that abundance breeds spiritual careless
ness and laxity ? Is it possible that our
Lord looks down to-day with more com
placency and joy on a little company of
simple people, labouring men and farmers,
shopkeepers gathered in some unadorned
conventicle on the country hillside,
strangers to worldly pleasures and excite
ments, than on some crowded well-dressed
congregation meeting in its well-appointed
'sanctuary, proud of its building, its
music, its ministry, its social position,
its wealthy members, its work, itself ?
No one can say that it is so, but at least
it may be. It may be that there is
nothing but the realised presence of
Christ, and here is everything but that,
and we know which is the one thing
needful. The next point of similarity between
these two Churches is in their trial.
They are both troubled by the Jews. It

102 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
is not alone the Pagan community that
harries them, but those who call them
selves God's chosen people. It seems
a strange thing, but it is true that
there have been no more bitter perse
cutors in Christian history than the
Jews — pioneers in the terrible pathway
they were — and none who in their
turn have been more bitterly perse
cuted. We know how they pursued
St. Paul with fiercest hatred, and both
in Smyrna and Philadelphia they had
been apparently the chief foes of the
Church. And there is a most significant note
relating to them and to the Christians
in this letter — a most solemn and in
structive note. To begin with they are
called the synagogue of Satan. The
synagogue is literally the assembly, the
congregation ; they met professedly
to worship the God of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob. And it would
appear from the phrasing of this letter
that a congregation meeting to worship
God may be captured by Satan and

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA 103
made the agent and instrument of his
designs. If that be true of a congrega
tion met to worship God, it may be
equally true of a congregation met to
worship Christ. Perhaps people are
nowhere more off their guard than in
church, and nowhere more disposed to
easy assurance ; and there a spirit that
is worldly and sensual and devilish may
spring up and prevail.
Then there must be observed the
forfeiture of privilege by the Jews and
the bold transference of all that to the
Christian Church. There seems to be
something stern almost to fierceness in
the words, " They say they are Jews and
are not, but do lie," which seems to say,
you are no longer a Jew when you forfeit
the spirit of the Jew. And you are no
longer a Christian when you abandon
the Christian attitude. It is the spirit
that makes the Jew. And it is the spirit
that makes the Christian. " As many
as are led by the Spirit of God they are
the sons of God," and " if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of

104 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
His." He may call himself what he
will. " I will make them to come and
worship before thy feet, and to know
that I have loved thee," is a mixed
quotation from the ancient prophecy
concerning Israel, and is one of many
proofs in the New Testament that the
great prophecies which Israel forfeited
may be claimed and realised by Christian
people. Once again the message of
warning stands out in letters of light
There is no position that cannot be
forfeited. The promise which God
makes to His elect people, Jew or
Christian, can only be realised as the
conditions are fulfilled. Be unfaithful
and the fulfilment will pass from you
to another. You are safe neither in
synagogue or church, but as you guard
your soul and keep humbly and rigidly
in the pathway of obedience. All that is
possible to you in Moses or in Christ
may be forfeited by unfaithfulness and
disobedience. Let these lessons be
written on our hearts.

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA 105
n.
There are points of instruction next
from the natural history of Philadelphia.
There is an hour of trial to come upon
men, in the midst of which this Church
will be guarded. According to Ramsay,
Philadelphia lay in a volcanic region, and
there were periodical disturbances which
imperilled life and property. During
one of these waves of convulsion houses
would be wrecked, treasure would be
lost, and life would be destroyed. Often
when such a trial was expected there
would be a great exodus from the city
itself, and people who had fled in nervous
panic would live outside the city in huts
and booths until the shocks of earthquake
were past. It is this that is probably
referred to both in the " hour of trial "
and " the pillar of the temple to be removed
no more," of which we read in the
gracious promises of this letter. As
though a man and his possessions were
kept in steadfast security unharmed in
an earthquake, so in the trials which are

106 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
to break on the other Churches this is
to be kept secure. " In the hour of trial
I will keep thee."
It were well just at this point to
trace the fulfilment of this prophecy in
the after history of the city. I am not
able to say how this Church fared in the
great persecution, but it is interesting
to remember that in the last great
struggles of the Turk for the supremacy
in Asia Minor this city was the very last
to surrender. " Its inhabitants rose to
such a lofty pitch of heroism, and dis
played such qualities of steadfastness
and endurance that even Gibbon is
roused to admiration.* For a century
at least it stood alone, a Christian city,
a free, self-governing city, as though
protected by an unseen power against
the Turkish might that ruled all the
surrounding land.
There are two other points in the
natural history of Philadelphia to which
reference is made in the letter — (1) The
open door. The allusion is doubtless to
* Ramsay.

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA 107
the natural situation of the city. It was,
as you would say, the key to a large
district lying north and east of it, which
it commanded ; and in the days of its
political predominance it was expected
to play the part of a missionary city in
spreading the Greek language and Roman
customs among the Asiatic towns. Now
by its very situation the Church had
before it an open door, a great oppor
tunity of which no man could deprive it,
to spread the Gospel in the district
commanded by the city. This oppor
tunity and the power to embrace it was
probably the crown which it was to hold
fast, and which no man was to be allowed
to snatch. The other point from its history
is connected with the promise of the new
name (ver. 12). After the earthquake,
a.d. 17, the city, out of gratitude to
Rome, built a temple to the Emperor,
and took his name, and was actually
called the New Ccesarea. And the
promise is that if the Church be faithful,
if it enter, as I take it, into the open
door, if it still hold fast, then it shall

108 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
have an experience differing from the
city in many respects and analogous in
a glorified manner in others. In a time
of peril it shall be kept in safety, its
needs shall be supplied, stability and
permanence shall be granted to it, and
a new name shall be won. So far from
being oppressed and trodden under by
the Jews, it shall be reverenced. For
weakness there shall come power, and
for defeat victory, while it shall be
obvious to all that upon this Church
the loving favour and honour of God
abides. in.
The question remains : What lessons
are there in this ancient message to an
Oriental Church for a Church existing
in this Western land at the commence
ment of the twentieth century ?
There are two things that stand out
conspicuously from the letter. The first
is the open door ; that our Lord seems to
say is the reward of fidelity. The Church
has kept the word of Christ, and has not

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA 109
denied His name. The reward for that
is a door set open by Christ ; an oppor
tunity for service, and more than an
opportunity, an invitation indicating a
Divine intention. The personal pro
nouns are to be emphasised. I have set
before thee a door opened. A definite
work lying before the Church which it
alone can do.
It is the way God rewards fidelity, not
with rest and ease, but with greater
service. A great claim made on a
Church, a great demand, indicates the
Divine favour and pleasure. There
could be few sadder things predicated of
a Church than that God had no other
door open for it. No fresh work, no new
sacrifice, no more land to be possessed.
One might speak generally of doors
that are open to the Church, set open
by God's providence. The door into
heathen lands, with still the old
watchword ringing in our ears : Go
ye and make disciples of all the
nations. The door of influence in
the government of the affairs of this

110 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
nation. If we would have the wrongs
redressed of which we complain ; if we
would do something to defend and deliver
our beloved land from the dominion of
the papacy which is slowly but surely
winning its way amongst us ; if we would
aim a blow at the drink traffic; if we
would preserve to our children inviolate
the freedom of faith and conscience
which is ours ; if we would bring nearer
that religious equality which is our right,
an opportunity offers at this crisis which
we should eagerly seize and conscien
tiously use, and which may not return
to us again.*
For individuals among us doors are
being opened by God : in business, in
our home life, in Christian work, in
personal character. There are reforms
to be wrought, things that are at loose
ends, chaotic conditions to be reduced to
order, doors to reconciliation, to holier
living, to a more diligent cultivation of
our spiritual life. For myself I would
* Preached on the eve of the General
Election,

THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA 111
regard every call to a higher and more
strenuous endeavour as a proof and
token of Divine favour, and would pray
for eyes to see the door and for strength
and wisdom to press into it. For
strength is needed. There is some
thing to overcome, even in this Church
in Philadelphia — obstacles to be sur
mounted, obstructions lying in the path.
" A great and effectual door is opened
unto me" wrote Paul, "and there are
many adversaries." And we may be
sure that where there is an open door
there will be difficulties, always some
thing to overcome. But no difficulty
and no adversary can prevent the
earnest and trustful heart from entering
the doors which God sets open.
Because the promises are sure, because
doors that are not attempted have a way
of automatically closing, and oppor
tunities that are abused are withdrawn,
let us pray for grace to enter manfully,
fearlessly, trustfully every door that God
sets before us, avoiding doors of self-
pleasing worldly allurement, entering

112 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
God's doors that we may live to His
glory, and may have written upon our
service and ourselves His own name of
ownership and habitation, and may be a
people among whom He dwells and on
whom His name is called.

THE LETTER TO LAODICEA
Rev. iii, 14—22
Granted that these are the words of
Christ, the risen, living, all-seeing Christ,
and not the mere fruit of any human
brain, they are among the most solemn
and searching words in human language.
Of all the letters to the seven Churches
this is the saddest. It is also in some
respects the most surprising, both in its
severity and its tender beauty.
Speaking generally, we observe that
there is no word of commendation in it.
That is true of the letter to Sardis so
far as the Church is concerned. But in
Sardis there are individuals who stand
out to claim the "well done " of Christ.
The gloom of death which hangs over
the Church is relieved by points of light
and examples of life. There are fair
flowers on the dust-heap in Sardis. In
Laodicea there is no redeeming feature,
8 113

114 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST

not a streak of light relieves the gloom,
the condemnation is unqualified.
See with what authoritative term? this
letter is prefaced. He who sends it is
the Amen, the Verity, who says what
will be, whose word no man disannuls
or alters. He is " the faithful and true
witness," who says nothing which He
does not know and mean, nothing to
raise false hopes, or false fears. He is
also the beginning of the creation of God;
not the first of God's works, but the
spring and fountain of His creation ;
without whom " was not anything made
that was made." It is impossible to
believe that any man who could write
the latter part of this letter — least of all
the Apostle John — could write so august
a prelude as this to any composition of
his own. That were blasphemy of
which he or any other man were incap
able. I stand in the presence of the King
and Lord of the Church, and take this
declaration with due reverence from His
hand. I look at the Church in Laodicea,
that rich and busy city, in the light

THE LETTER TO LAODIOEA 115
of His knowledge, and ask what lessons
His message has for us in these days. I
remember His terrible rebuke of the
Church, and seek the cause.
I.
And first I observe that there is an
absence of gross evil in the Church.
There is no Nicolaitan heresy, no woman
Jezebel with her vitiating and ruinous
influence, no scandalous immorality, no
glaring departure from the truth. A
Church in which if you were looking for
obvious and positive blots you would
find none. But on the other hand, no
positive good, no zeal, no enthusiasm
Colourless, passionless, insipid, was its
life. " Thou art neither cold nor
hot," neither one thing nor the other.
a Church whose Christian character must
be painted in neutral and negative tints.
I have been unable to resist the im
pression, as I have pondered over this
description, that it covers accurately a
considerable amount of the life which is

116 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
in and around our Churches at the
present day. We have escaped from
the coarse and gross vices which too
often disfigured the fair fame of our
Churches in a past generation, when it
was common, as many old Church books
will testify, to expel people every year
for drunkenness and immorality. We
have escaped also in large measure from
the bigotry and intolerance of that time.
But we have lost also that zeal for the
Kingdom, the spiritual passion, the
specific Christian fervour of an un
worldly sort which characterised the
saints of a past day, and there is danger
of our losing entirely the separate spirit,
the aggressive spirit ; danger of our for
getting that the Church of Christ is mis
sionary and propagandist in character.
We are interested in spiritual exercises
and enterprises, barely interested in
some of them, but still interested. We
like very well to go where they are
spoken of. But they are not matters of
supreme interest to us. The things that
stir our pulses and awake our ardour, that

THE LETTER TO LAODICEA 117
we most of all delight in, are not these,
but other. We would not have our chil
dren grow up irreligious— that were a
reproach to us ; but neither would we
have them whole-heartedly and enthusi
astically Christian — caring nothing for
the pleasures of the world, passionate in
evangelistic zeal, on fire with love for
holy things. We would not have them
cold, sceptical, unbelieving, godless ;
but we would not have them hot. We
want them to have the name Christian,
but it is not certain that we desire them
to live in accordance with that descrip
tion of Him of whom it was written,
" The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me
up." It is quite right, doubtless, that
there should be such people, and we can
admire them — at a distance ; but we do
not want them too near us. And we
have no ambitions in that direction for
ourselves. Do you not think, brethren,,
that we are fashioning for ourselves
to-day a Christianity that simply aims
at being mild and offenceless, moral,
respectable, and nothing more ; a

118 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
Christianity without a cross in it, with
out any heartache for the sins and sor
rows of the world, whose highest am
bition is to do no harm, thai has no
service for others in it, and no capacity
for sacrifice ; a religion that will mildly
wish well to the cause of the Redeemer of
men, but will never shed a drop of blood,
nor suffer the slightest inconvenience for
the world's salvation ? Are we not losing
sight of the great word of the Master,
" If any man will come after me let him
deny himself and take up his cross" ? I
do not think that the best friend of the
Church of Christ to-day could, say that
it is hot, on fire with the passion for
holiness, and with zeal for the conver
sion of the world. It would be truer to
say of multitudes in the Church that
they care very little whether the lost
and miserable are saved or not. They
have plenty of money for other pur
poses, but next to nothing for this. This
is not the thing that excites them, that
moves their heart to its depths and causes
the face to light up with interest, but

THE LETTER TO LAODICEA 119
some personal gain or pleasure, some
physical or social or political pleasure or
gain. I tell you, brethren, that of all
the dangers to the Church of Christ
pointed out in these seven letters, the
Laodicean danger is for us the most real
and imminent, the most to be watched
against and dreaded. It is the danger
of the barren fig-tree, the fruitless
branch, and the useless life.
II.
Observe, secondly, that along with
this condition goes self-complacency and
satisfaction. It is noteworthy that the
two Churches which are most con
demned are the Churches which are the
most content. Sardis had a name while
it lived, and you may be sure that it
had propagated the name itself and
pointed to it with pride. And Laodicea
said, "lam rich, and have gotten riches,
and have need of nothing."
Doubtless this language refers in great
part to the outward prosperity of the
Christians in Laodicea. They shared the

120 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
great wealth of the city. In the year 60
it had been practically destroyed by
earthquake as Philadelphia had. But
its citizens had refused an imperial
grant to retrieve its fortunes, and had
repaired the ravages out of their own
ample resources.
Indeed, the characteristic of the city
was its remarkable power to manipulate
all things to its own temporal advantage.
Ramsay calls it the city of compromise,
standing to gain from every party, catch
ing the wind from every point of the
compass, and making the best, in an un
desirable way, of both worlds. And the
Church had caught the spirit of com
promise, it had avoided extremes, and
was on good terms with everybody, and
most of all with itself, for it had prospered
outwardly, and why should not a pros
perous Church, like a prosperous man,
be proud ? Has it not as good a right ?
And will it not fall into the snare unless
it set a double watch upon itself ?
It is the harmless, respectable moral
man who is often the self-sufficient man.

THE LETTER TO LAODICEA 121
Proud of his honesty, his industry,
his respectability, what does he want
more ? And perhaps it is just this
smooth and sleek self-complacency
in the Church at Laodicea which
leads our Lord to say, " I would thou
wert cold or hot." Better the coldness
of the pure outsider than this tepid,
useless, self-satisfied temper. There
would be something to lay hold of there
and to shake a man by, some sense of
wrong, or need, or folly. " I would thou
wert cold or hot."
He seems to say that there may be
more danger in a condition of harm
less morality, or of merely nominal
Christianity, than in open and avowed
neglect or hostility. The prodigal may
get before his moral and heartless
elder brother. Here is the startling
word of our Master, " Verily, I say unto
you, publicans and harlots go into the
Kingdom of Heaven before you."
You will observe further that this con
dition of self-complacency is at the same
time a condition of fatal self-delusion.

122 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
"Thou knowest not that thou art the.
wretched one." There could scarcely be
a greater contrast than that displayed
in verse 17, between what the Church
thought of itself and what Christ
saw it to be. As you read it you say
self-delusion could no further go. And
what an appalling consideration it is that
the estimate of Christ is the true
estimate, and that of the Church the
false ! And what a more appalling con
sideration it is that . such an estimate
might be true of some of us ! And what
an urgent and imperative counsel this is
to strip ourselves of our robes of self-
righteousness and discover our defects
and get acquainted with ourselves before
it be too late ! III.
Note the attitude of Christ towards this
Church. You will have already observed
its severity. There is nothing like it in
the whole of the letters. It simply means
that the fruitless, tepid, useless, self-com
placent temper, with no harm in it, no
good in it, named with His name, is

THE LETTER TO LAODICEA 123
intolerable, loathsome. You say the
same thing when you declare that you
are sick of a certain theory, or practice,
or. excuse. You regard it with revulsion,
and you will have no more of it. And
the gentle Christ can say this, the
faithful and true witness who raises no
false fears in the breast. It is possible
for a Christian, for a disciple, not through
vice or gross wickedness, but from sheer
uselessness and self-satisfaction, to be
wholly offensive to Christ.
But you will have observed further
that this is not the whole of His attitude.
The message is not a final pronounce
ment of judgment.
The accurate rendering of the phrase
indicates an intention rather than a fiat,
a warning rather than an irrevocable
sentence. Indeed, I know of nothing more
wondrously beautiful than the descrip
tion of our Lord in His attitude to the
Church at Laodicea, nor do I know of
anything more luminously instructive.
In verse 19 He bids the Church become

124 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
what it is not. " Zealous " comes from
the same root as " hot," and He throws
open the door of opportunity to the
Churchin that word. But the great word is
in the former part of that verse, the word
" love." Of that Church, whose spirit He
declares He loathes, He says in effect, I
love thee. It was what the pure-hearted
King Arthur said to the fallen queen
Guinevere as she grovelled at his feet.
" I loathe thee, and I love thee," and it
was the ray of hope for the Church at
Laodicea, and it is the only hope for us
all. I love, and therefore I rebuke and
chasten. Mark further, He stands at the door.
Ah, how many sermons have been
preached from this text, and how many
doors have been opened by its moving
appeal. It was at once the Church's con
demnation and its hope. All the sadness
of its lukewarmness lay in the fact that
He was outside, had been crowded out
by worldly compromise and by material
good. All the hope of the Church lay
in the fact that He had not gone away.

THE LETTER TO LAODICEA 125
And why was He there, and why did
He send this sharp letter, and why did
He lay bare the fatal defects of this
Church? Why did He say "You are
supremely wretched " ? It was neither
for exultancy over its defects nor for
condemnation, but for .healing and
amendment. There are local touches in
the words — the gold refers to the vast
banking interests in Laodicea and offers
by contrast the treasure of spiritual
character; the "white garments," by
contrast, to the glossy fabrics woven from
the black sheep of the district ; and the
eyesalve to the famous remedy for
ophthalmia made within the city. And the
whole passage means the Lord wounds
that He may heal, and strips away the
tawdry rags of self-satisfaction that He
may cover with the robe of His righteous
ness, always coming that He may give.
And what a significant picture it is.
" I stand at the door and knock." You
know what He has said, "I have the
keys of death and of Hades." " These
things saith He that openeth, and no

126 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
man shutteth." It is this same august
Person who says, "Behold, I stand and
knock." It not only speaks of the
condescension of the Son of God, it
speaks also of the responsibility of man.
Possessed of all power, there is one door
that He will never force open, and that
is the door of a human soul. The
fastening is on your side, and you can
keep Him out if you will ; and if He is
without it is your doing and not His, it
is because you will to have it so.
Note how He seems to turn from the
Church to the individual. " If any man
hear my voice." There may be such a
thing as a whole Church repenting at
once. - It is very unlikely. Generally
such things begin with an individual and
spread by contagion. The way to get
the door of the Church open and its
interior life flooded with the glory of
Christ's presence, is to open the door of
your own heart, which perhaps you have
never fully done. You have much to
overcome before this can be done, pride,
reluctance, desire for worldly pleasure,

THE LETTER TO LAODICEA 127
strong temptation. The hinges of the
door are rusty, you are half afraid of
Him who stands without. To put your
whole life at His disposal, to let Him
arrange things for you, is more than you
have courage or faith for. If we only
knew it it would be the opening of the
door to the purest joy and blessing.
What does He speak of to those who
overcome and open the door ? A supper
and a throne. A supper : to partake of
a common meal means that fellowship
with Christ to which we are strangers.
He will take what you have to offer,
will sit at the table of the pauper, will
take what love you have and what
purpose and what desire and what
strength, and while He sits there in
benediction will do with it as He did
with the lad's loaves, and multiply your
poor graces.
And not only a supper but a throne,
which means that you may go forth
from the hour of blessed fellowship so
strengthened as to fight and to become
more than conqueror through Him who

128 THE LETTERS OF CHRIST
has loved you ; that you who admit the
Lord to your inmost thought as Saviour
and Friend will be exalted to share His
complete triumph. These are not mere
dazzling theories, they are magnificent
possibilities, brought to the door of every
Church, of every life, even the Church
and life of which Christ is outside.
These are the things which the Spirit
saith to the Churches ; to every tepid,
half-hearted, half- willed, half-consecrated
Christian ; to every one of us who is
a stranger to communion with Christ
and to spiritual joys. The supper, the
throne, may be ours ; the bliss of fellow
ship with Christ, the sure hope of
immortal triumph, may be not a glorious
dream but a blessed reality, not a hope
of the heart but a fact of the life. May
the Lord incline our ears to hear and
give us grace to open our hearts to
receive what the Spirit saith, and Him
whom the Spirit reveals !

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