Alliance Witness, 1969.07.09, P. 7-9.

THE LORD has never given His church any task to do which is beyond possible success. Every commandment implies strength and power for its necessary performance. “As thy days, so shall thy strength be” (Deut. 33:25).

The resources which the Lord made available to the seven churches of Asia Minor continue to be adequate provision for the need of His church today. What were those resources?

There was, first, the sharp sword with two edges.

Christ Jesus is described in Revelation 2:12 as having a “sharp sword with two edges.” In Ephesians 6:17 the Word of God is called a sword. In Hebrews 4: 12 the Word is described as sharper than a two­ edged sword. It is effective and powerful.

God says, “My word … shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isa. 55: 11). In a wider sense, the Word of God is equated with the gospel.

Paul declared, “The gospel … is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). He had unlimited confidence in it. He did not trust in his own learning or ability or eloquence. He called himself an earthen vessel. The treasure was the gospel.

Paul showed his genuine confidence in the power of the gospel by preaching simply, employing no “excellency of speech or of wisdom” (1 Cor. 2: 1). He believed that it was the gospel itself, applied by the Holy Spirit to the hearts of men, which could change lives.

We have our resource of efficiency right in the gospel itself. We believe and act on the belief that the gospel, when received and rightly understood and applied, is sufficient   to meet all the spiritual needs of man.

Down through the ages thousands and thousands of Christians paid a great price, often life itself, to preach the gospel because they had absolute faith in its power and efficacy. The fact that the gospel has been received all over the world and that millions of lives have been changed by it is justification of our confidence in that gospel of Jesus Christ.

But we must note that when the gospel is falsely understood or partially applied, or when it is adulterated with human teachings, it does not produce the expected results. All spiritual potential is inherent in genuine conversion, but the convert needs the light of the Word of God. Just as the small child needs guidance, so does the convert.

Personal conversion, resulting from the full acceptance and application of the gospel, must be kept in the very center of everything we do in our evangelistic witness. We reaffirm our absolute faith in the power of God to save, to lift, to transform, to reform in an age of substitutes for the true gospel.

The church had also the seven Spirits of God as its resource.

The Holy Spirit occupies a prominent place in these letters of the Lord. At the close of every letter the voice of the Holy Spirit applies the Lord’s words to the Christian hearers. In addition, the Lord describes Himself as the One who has the “seven Spirits of God” (Rev. 3: 1), indicating that the Holy Spirit is the remedy for the lack of life in the church at Sardis.

The “seven Spirits” is a special designation of the Holy Spirit in reference to His sufficiency, His power and His perfection of ministry. The Holy Spirit is the absolutely indispensable resource of the Christian church.

The Holy Spirit had a place which was unique in the life and ministry of our Lord when He was here on earth. He figured prominently in the apostolic church, as the Book of Acts testifies. And He has a prominent place in the true church today.

Of the fifteen most important events in the history of the apostolic church, as recorded in Acts, the Holy Spirit played a leading role in practically all of them. Most had to do with evangelism. In fact, the supernatural sign of     speaking with tongues, which accompanied the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, was itself a clear and divinely appointed indication that the purpose and the work of the Holy Spirit is to equip the church to take the gospel to all races and nations where different tongues are spoken.

The Lord Jesus called the Holy Spirit the “promise of my Father” (Luke 24: 49). He also referred to Him, in effect, as the good Gift (Luke 11: 13). On another occasion He said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12). Although at the time His disciples did not understand His statement, they later realized that He was referring to His church which, empowered by the Holy Spirit, would do greater works than He Himself had done during His ministry on earth.

Moreover, the Lord called the Holy Spirit “another Comforter” (John 14:16). The word “another” indicates that the Holy Spirit was going to be to the disciples all that Jesus had been to them previously. He was to be another “All-Sufficiency” to them.

Jesus’ final command to His disciples just before His ascension was to “tarry… in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). The Lord committed to His followers the task of evangelism, but clearly and emphatically He told them that they had power to fulfill this Great Commission only when they had received the power of the Holy Spirit. “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me… unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The Holy Spirit has empowered the church to produce fruits in evangelism. Witness the five thousand converted under Peter’s preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit. And the over one million converts in West Polynesia from 1811 to 1907. Or the fact that during the first eighty years of evangelistic work in Burma there was the equivalent of one new convert every three hours around the clock 365 days a year and that one in ten became an active worker for the Lord. Or the history of the Fiji Islands in the nineteenth century when James Calvert, who went there to bury eighty human victims of a cannibal feast, stayed fifty years and founded 1,300 churches.

The Holy Spirit empowered the church to stand true to the Lord in times of persecution. The Holy Spirit empowered the church to give sacrificially. The Holy Spirit is the greatest resource we have for our task of evangelism.

Not only does the church have the sharp, two-edged sword and the seven Spirits of God, but its resources include the overcomers and the “seven stars.”

“He that overcometh” (Rev. 2:11) refers to the best portion of Christians in the seven  churches. They were the faithful, obedient, fruitful members, the pillars, the hope and the living resource of the household of God.

It is true that the Holy Spirit is the great resource of the churches, yet He must have channels for His power men and women “meet for the master’s use.” The Lord is counting on His people to evangelize this world. He has no other plan. Methods   and techniques and media of communication are important, but without the dedicated man they will be of little consequence. If men fail, evangelism fails.

Usable Christians are the heart of effective evangelism. They are hearts beating with zeal and dedication; a dead heart is of no use. However superbly organized a movement may be, it is bound to fail without fully dedicated people.

There is important truth in the statement that “men look for methods but God looks for men.” There were men and women in the Ephesian church who toiled for the Lord and kept doctrinally pure. Men and women in the Smyrna church were rich in spiritual things and were faithful unto death. Some in the Pergamos church, Antipas among them, witnessed with their blood. There were men and women in the Thyatira church who were strong in grace and increased in good works. There were those in the Sardis church who walked with the Lord in white garments in spite of the generally dead condition of the church. There were men and women in the Philadelphia church who entered an open door in obedience and faith in spite of their limited strength. There were the resource people of the day. They were the indispensables.

“The seven stars” (Rev. 2:1) were the leaders of the seven churches. They were in the right hand of the Lord. The Lord kept them, provided for them, controlled them, used them. They were key persons.

It is a great comfort as well as a great challenge to be in the right hand of the Lord.  It is a privilege indeed to know that all our needs will be provided for if we seek first His righteousness and His Kingdom. Yet what a responsibility is incumbent on a leader! May God grant that every leader is indeed in God’s right hand, ready for His use.

But there was one further resource: The First and the Last.

The Lord thus designated Himself in Revelation 2:8 and indicated that He was the Alpha and Omega, the Author and Finisher, the Creator and Destination.

Jesus Christ is the all-sufficiency of the church. It is He who “walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks” (Rev. 2:1), making abundant provision for the church’s need. We have a glorious, victorious Lord! Our cause can never fail because it is the cause of Him who is Alpha and Omega.

This One in the midst of the candlesticks rekindles our first love when we lose it.  The Holder of the seven stars lifts us up when we are downcast and refreshes us with His provision. The First and the Last will finish what He has begun through us and carry our mission for Him to a triumphant completion. He who was dead and is alive understands our weaknesses and problems and will help us through. He who has the sharp sword with two edges provides us with His Word as the criterion for all doctrine.

As Son of God and only qualified Mediator between God and man, He bestows on us full grace from that efficacious office. He whose eyes are a flame of fire and whose feet are fine brass detects all impurities and purges His church. He who has the seven Spirits of God continues to breathe His life into His church. He who has the key of David opens a wide door for us that no man can shut. The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God can justly demand the first place in His church and fulfills His headship by making avail­ able to the church all His riches.

This is the Lord of the seven churches. This is the Lord of our churches today. We fall prostrate before Him in adoration and trust and dedication.

Our hope is as bright as the promises of the Lord. The promises to the churches are concerned with the end of time and the future life. We look forward to partaking of the “tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7). We look for deliverance from the “hurt of the second death” (2:11), to the joy of receiving the “hidden manna” (2:17), to the “white stone” with a new name written on it (2:17), to the privilege of ruling with the eternal King (2:26), to the glory of walking with the Lord in white garments (3:5), to the honor of being pillars in the temple of God (3: 12), to the favor of dining at the table of the Lord (3:20).

These are real and precious promises. They have both a future and a present significance, inasmuch as our future life is not isolated from the fruitage of this life.

What we are and what we have done here on earth have much to do with our life in heaven. There is a continuity of fruitage between the two. We can say that he who over­ comes begins to enjoy these promises in this life, which is only a foretaste of the perfection awaiting him.

The coming of the Lord is explicitly announced or implicitly stated five times in these two chapters. The second coming of the Lord is the blessed hope and consummation of the church. Everything is leading to that glorious event. The prophets foretold it, the Lord Himself confirmed it and repeated it, the apostles proclaimed it and we, following them, preach it, live it, hope it and rejoice in it.

Biblical evangelism is filled with significance in view of the second coming of the Lord. The church is not doomed to failure. It is promised a glorious consummation when her warfare is completed in the coming of the Victorious One!