“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’
It will help, as we begin to study the letters to the seven churches, to remember the analysis of the book suggested earlier (see Notes for Tuesday 17th). The first three chapters together form one picture of the entire period from Christ's first coming to His second. This alone should be sufficient to show that these letters cannot be confined in their meaning to John's day only, but have wider application. This is confirmed by the repetition at the end of each letter, 'He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches' - each message was to be heeded by all the churches.
One necessary preliminary consideration in a study of these letters is to ask why they stand at the outset of the prophecy. Their significance is surely this: The unfolding drama of the conflict between the Church and the world, between Christ and Satan, indicates increasing intensity and pressure, tribulation indeed. The first need therefore, as we have already indicated, is a word to the Church, and in that word Christ stresses the things that will prove fatal in the Church's life, and also these qualities and characteristics that will enable her to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. One commentator puts it thus: 'John is about to tell of the coming persecution, and to comfort the Church with the assurance that Christ Himself will protect and deliver it. But something is needed on its own part. It must be inwardly sound, free from all erroneous belief, immovable in its fidelity. In the latter portions of the book the Church is regarded simply as the Church, the people of Christ over against the heathen empire. In these introductory chapters the Church is contrasted, not with the surrounding world, but with its own ideal. It must be a Church in reality as well as in name, or in the dreadful trial that is coming it will break down'.