Love Communicated and Demonstrated

Hebrews 12:1-4               Revelation 1:9-20                   John 1:9-13

Love Communicated and Demonstrated

Some of us may recall at least one experience of being separated, for a variety of reasons, from our loved one(s) for a time. The letters, telegrams, telephone conversations, emails, or WhatsApp messages were very dear to us as we freely expressed our longing and concern for those we care about, affirming them of our undying devotion and our unfailing commitment to our relationship. Writing and sending or receiving and reading (or even re-reading them years later) these messages allowed us to transcend our physical loneliness and gave us a sense of togetherness for a brief and magical moment.

God’s communication to us in the Scriptures is something similar…and, indeed, his words to the seven churches have all the elements of a concerned carer. Through these very specific “sermons” to seven specific churches, God wanted them to know that even though they might have felt separated from him the complete opposite was true. Not only was he present with them, standing, as it were, in their midst, but he was holding them all in his hands. And so the first lesson they had to learn from the outset, even before he addressed them specifically, was that they needed to regain a singular vision…that they needed to take their eyes off the world and troubles (tribulation) of the world and fix their eyes on Jesus, crowned with glory and honour and seated at the right hand of God as the universal monarch who presently rules and reigns over all things, having been given authority over all things in both heaven and earth. 

So, before we start examining each sermon written to each of the seven churches, we need to first examine the relationship that exists between God and his people. In the previous sermon we saw that our basic experience as believers in Jesus (just like John and the seven churches) is that in spite of the fact that we are in the world and therefore experience the troubles and tribulations that go along with its fallenness and brokenness, God is sovereignly working all things together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28) because we are in the kingdom of the one who is currently reigning to place all his enemies under his feet (1 Corinthians 15:24-25). We may be living side by side with the weeds but at the right moment, a moment known to God alone, those that are the enemies of God and of his people now will be uprooted and cast into the fire at the end of the age (Matthew 13:36-43).

And this should not be surprising to us who trust God’s Word, because in Proverbs 19:21 we read that although there are many plans in the mind of human beings, it is always the Lord’s purpose that will be established. God’s detailed and definite plan, a plan we may not always see clearly, cannot be thwarted by anything or anyone no matter how powerful or influential. Satan himself cannot stop the inevitable so how much less mortal humans?

All through Scripture we are confronted with a sovereign God who has chosen to bind himself in love to his people by means of a merciful, gracious, and irrevocable covenant. In the New Testament we are told that those who believe on the Lord Jesus and who align themselves with him by submitting to his Lordship, are the sons and daughters of God. In John 1:12-13, we are told that “…to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” 

Those who are in and remain in Jesus will endure to the end…we will overcome…we will persevere because we are kept in the same hands that initially saved us (John 10:28-30). As Paul told the Philippian believers, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Jude 24 tells us that God is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy…” 

This is why we must keep looking to Jesus, because he is the founder and perfecter of our faith…plus we have his example of endurance despite unbelievable suffering…he kept his eyes focussed on the joy that was set before him…that’s why he could endure the cross and despise the shame, because he knew that he would be seated at the right hand of the throne of God. So, we should consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that we may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:2-3).

That was the whole point of the book of Hebrews. Keep your eyes fixed on the world and its troubles and you will see only defeat. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and his triumph over the world and its troubles and you will see only victory. It is all a matter of focus…a singular vision. We are in the world, but we are also in the kingdom.

And as we are in the kingdom, we ought to be engaged in kingdom purposes. As Jesus said in John 20:21, “as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” Scripture calls us witnesses, ambassadors, and people who have been given the ministry of reconciliation. We are meant to be the light of the world. We have been instructed to make disciples of all nations by bringing them into his life and teaching them to obey all that he has commanded us. The normal life of a follower of Jesus is one of constant discipleship, always seeking to extend the borders of his kingdom as our first priority. 

But we cannot engage in kingdom work if our eyes are fixed on earthly things. If we have no idea about what God has done, is doing, and will do, we will not know what we are meant to be doing. Jesus only did what he saw his Father doing (John 5:19, 30; 6:38; 8:26) and therefore he spent much time in watchful and listening prayer before he started each day. 

As we read the Scriptures, we are often confronted with the difference between God’s ways and our ways. If you are sensitive to the Spirit, you will realise how far short you fall and how far off the mark you really are…and such a realisation brings about a crisis of faith. If this is the God I profess to follow, then something needs to change in my life. I must readjust my life to conform with him and his ways. This is far more than a simple “New Year’s resolution”. This must be an immediate and a sustained action on our part if we are to remain obedient to him. Nor is this a one-time event…it is a lifelong process of revelation, realization, readjustment, and repeat. 

The most important aspect to this progressive course of sanctification, is that we must learn to walk in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25); we must learn to walk in uncompromising obedience to his revealed will. The churches in Asia had heard and responded to God’s call through the Word preached to them. By doing so, they had entered into a covenant relationship with him and had embarked on a lifelong journey of positive progressive change through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. 

This is the basis for each of the seven sermons sent to the seven churches in Asia. The book of the Revelation is first and foremost a covenant document calling for ethical change. You see, prophecy in Scripture isn’t about predicting distant events for idle speculation or morbid curiosity or to tickle itching ears, but rather it is about calling people to live faithfully and ethically and biblically now.

In every sermon, each church is addressed individually so that Jesus might address specific issues peculiar to each local body. But then, from chapter 4 on, the Lord revealed to them collectively what was to take place shortly…soon…within that generation (Matthew 24:34). In Matthew 21:43, Jesus had predicted that the kingdom of God would be taken away from the unresponsive and unbelieving Jews and given to a people producing its fruits, both Jews and Gentiles. As we saw in the previous sermons, Jesus had warned those who judged him and murdered him that they would live to experience his judgement on them. He had told his disciples that his kingdom would have a global manifestation as he had been given authority over both heaven and earth. And the sign of this new-world order would be the destruction of the remaining vestiges of the old-world order, namely the Temple and the earthly Jerusalem.

It is interesting to note that the Early Church Father, Athanasius understood the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in AD 70 in this way. In his book, On the Incarnation, he wrote: “For it is a sign, and an important proof, of the coming of the Word of God, that Jerusalem no longer stands, nor is any prophet raised up nor vision revealed to them, and that very naturally. For when He that was signified was come, what need was there any longer of any to signify Him? When the truth was there, what need any more of the shadow?”  To them, as it should be to us as well, the destruction of the Temple and the earthly Jerusalem was and is a sign that in the heavenly Jerusalem there will be “no temple…for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22). The messiah whom they had rejected and crucified is risen and ascended and is enthroned in heaven as King and Judge of all.

The unbelieving Jews had forsaken their God and were persecuting his people, not just in Jerusalem, but throughout the Roman Empire. As we saw in the last sermon, the book of Acts recorded that in the 1st Century, prior to the great persecution under Nero in AD 64, persecution of Christians primarily came from or was instigated by the unbelieving Jews. 

Like Gomer in the book of Hosea, the Old Testament Bride had become the Great Whore likened in Revelation to Babylon (Revelation 17:5-6; 18:24; Matthew 23:34-39), Sodom, and Egypt (Revelation 11:8), all names of cities and places of wickedness and oppression from which God had rescued and redeemed his people in the past. Although the seven churches in Asia were experiencing persecution by the unbelieving Jews and would soon feel the full force of persecution by the Roman State, they would experience the victory of Jesus within that generation.

The forty years between the Ascension and the destruction of Jerusalem was a period of grace, of testing, of trial, of preparation, and finally of judgement. 

In the Old Testament, God would often give forty days or forty years as an opportunity for repentance, transformation, or mercy. For instance, God gave Noah 120 years (three sets of forty), to warn people about the coming judgement, before the flood came, lasting for forty days and forty nights (Genesis 7:4, 12, 17). 

Moses spent forty days and nights on Mount Sinai receiving the Law from God (Exodus 24:18; Deuteronomy 9:9). 

The spies explored Canaan for forty days, but Israel’s lack of faith led to forty years of wandering in the wilderness (Numbers 13:25; 14: 33-34). 

Elijah’s journey to Horeb took forty days and forty nights culminating in a humbled prophet (1 Kings 19:8). 

Jonah told Ninevah that in forty days, God would destroy the city, but the people repented, and God relented (Jonah 3:4). 

Ezekiel bore the iniquity of Judah for forty days, one day for each year of the siege of Jerusalem, as a warning and a call to repentance (Ezekiel 4:6). 

In the New Testament, the number forty appear far fewer times than in the Old Testament, but they are significant, nonetheless. Jesus’ 40 day long fast in the wilderness echoed Israel’s forty years wandering in the wilderness, as a redemptive echo, if you will, indicating a testing period and the beginning of messianic grace (Matthew 4:2; Luke 4:2).

Jesus appeared during the forty days between the resurrection and the ascension (Acts 1:3). This was a time of recommissioning and preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit in which Jesus, like God with Moses on Mount Sinai, gave the disciples instructions for the new covenant era. 

In his sermon, Stephen mentioned the fact that Moses was in the wilderness forty years before God met with him in the burning bush, again a time of preparation and humbling (Acts 7:30). But he also mentioned the forty years of wilderness wandering and Israel’s repeated failure to obey God as a prelude to his denunciation of the religious leaders and the Sanhedrin. “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As you fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

There were also forty years between the ascension and the destruction of Jerusalem in which the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere were repeatedly confronted with the message of salvation through Jesus alone. But instead of repenting and positively responding to the Gospel, they actively persecuted the followers of Jesus. 

But as the Lord graciously waited for them to respond, just as he did in the time of Noah, Moses, Ezekiel and others, the Christians suffered at the hands of the unbelieving Jews. But that would all soon come to an end. All that Jesus revealed to John in the Revelation would “soon take place” (Revelation 22:6) and the Church was to be ready for the “time was near” (Revelation 1:3). Some have dared to make these time indicators (soon, shortly, now, near, quickly, etc.) mean something that they do not, but that is simply not good exegesis.

John wrote to seven historical churches in Asia to admonish them not to give up or give in and to encourage them to persevere and to endure to the end and to overcome because their suffering would soon be over. But he did not extend an empty hand to them. In verses 17-20, John reminded them of the relationship they had with the one whom they hailed as Lord and King. 

He is the First and the Last, the one who directs and controls all things from the beginning to the end. 

He is the living one, the one who died and is alive again…the one who defeated death, who cancelled the record of debt that stood against us, and who disarmed the rulers and authorities, and put them to open shame, triumphing over them through the cross (Colossians 2:13-15. 

He holds the keys of life and death in his hands and therefore we need not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (Matthew 10:28). Rather, we should fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. It’s all a matter of focus, isn’t it? We must always remember that our decisions and our actions have eternal consequences. As we will learn in the sermons to the seven churches, compromise due to fear of persecution may result in judgement from one far greater than any earthly force.

Verse 19 gives us a rough outline of the Book of Revelation. Jesus told John to write the things he had just seen, the things that were current in the lives of the churches he would be writing to, and then finally the things that would take place soon after that.

But it is verse 20 that reveals most clearly the nature of the covenant relationship between God and his people. The word “mystery” denotes a hidden truth that is now revealed, so we don’t have to guess the identity of the seven stars or the seven golden lampstands.

The seven stars are the seven messengers or pastors of the churches. But wait, I hear you say, it says the stars are angels! True, but the word "angelos" can either mean a heavenly messenger (like Gabriel) or a human messenger (like John the Baptist) depending on the context. In Matthew 11:10 and Mark 1:2 the same word "angelos" is used to describe the ministry of John the Baptist as a human messenger. In this context in Revelation, I believe it seems prudent to translate the word as human messenger or pastor of the seven churches because there would be little point for John to write physical sermons to nonphysical or spiritual beings. 

But the point I would like to make here is that each messenger or pastor is in the hand of the Lord Jesus. However, as great an encouragement as this may appear to be, it is also an awesome thing to contemplate. I am in the hands of the Almighty God, and I represent him. If I represent him flippantly or falsely, I am in his hand, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the Living God (Hebrews 10:31). James tells us that not many of us should become teachers…for we know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1). So Christian leaders are warned and cautioned to present the Gospel message clearly and correctly. We do not have the liberty to proclaim what we wish or what society (or even the church community) may want us to proclaim. We cannot add to or subtract anything from God’s holy Word no matter what the reason might be. Moses, Jesus, and John tell us that those who do so will bring judgement upon themselves (Deuteronomy 4:2; Matthew 5:19; Revelation 22:18-19).

However, I must hasten to add that the hand of God is not like the hand of humans. God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and forgiving. When King David had sinned and was given the choice of judgment, his wise choice was to “fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man” (2 Samuel 24:14). Being in his hands is therefore both a caution and a comfort.

But being in his hands also indicates God’s divine protection. Jesus said that no one will be able to snatch us out of his hands (John 10:28). Paul shared the same confidence as he wrote in Romans 8:38-39: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And therefore we need not fear speaking the truth as human authorities are not able to take away what only God gives. Life and death are in his hands…and we are in his hands.

Here the Lord also revealed the meaning of the seven golden lampstands. They are the seven churches…but note that Jesus, like the Tabernacle in the wilderness, stands in their midst…in the centre. As we have seen before, the image of the lampstand recalls the presence of God in the burning bush, the pillar of fire, the Tabernacle, and the Temple. However, the prophet Zechariah indicated that this presence was the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit with us…no surprises then that when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, that he comes in the appearance of fire, but not one big pillar of fire resting on a tent or temple, but a fire that rests on each individual believer, uniting them into one spiritual building made without hands. 

As such, the Church in general is the recipient of the promise as well as the vehicle through which his powerful presence is made known. His flame is our flame…his light is our light…he is the light of the world, and we are the light of the world.

In Matthew 5:14-15, Jesus tells us that we “are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15). The function of the Church is to bear the light of Jesus in the world…that’s why John described the seven churches as lampstands. 

And herein lies the reason why we are in the world, even though we are not of it. We are to shine his light in the darkness…and we know the darkness will not overcome the light because Jesus has overcome the world, and the Spirit of God lives in us. But we must continue to walk in that light if we are to prove what is acceptable to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:8-14; 1 John 1:5-7)

In describing the churches as lampstands, John did not only reveal their function as bearers of the Light of Life, but he also disclosed their identity as light bearers. Without the Lamp…without the Light…without the fire…without the flame…the lampstand is nothing. Without Jesus…without the biblical Jesus, I might need to qualify…the Church is nothing. If we walk in darkness we are not of the light (1 John 1:5-7). 

So, the Lord not only revealed to the seven churches in Asia, that their pastors/leaders were in his hands, but he also revealed to them that he stood in their midst. He revealed to them their purpose and their identity. And now, in this light and on this general foundation, they would be ready to receive personal admonition and instruction.

Like the letters and emails and messages we send our loved one(s) to let them know that they are not forgotten…that they are loved and in our hearts. So Jesus wants us to know that he loves us and is with us despite the perception of neglect or desertion or disinterest. John and the seven churches he wrote to were experiencing difficulties and they were either tempted to compromise in order the avoid these difficulties or to give up in despair. But Jesus reveals that despite appearances, he held them in his hands and stood in their midst.

Think of a time when you felt so alone that it almost drove you to distraction…that you felt fearful…that you didn’t quite know what to do…that the future looked ominous. Perhaps you are in that place right now. I pray that Jesus will show you and cause you to know that you are actually not alone at all. That you are in the hands of Almighty God and that he is right there in the thick of it all with you.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2025