Alliance Witness, 1969.05.14, P. 3-5.

LET ME BEGIN by asking two questions.

First, who is speaking in these letters? They are called “The Lord’s Letters,” and therefore it is the Lord who is speaking. But Revelation 2:7 says, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Who is speaking, then, the Lord or the Holy Spirit?

Both. On the one hand we have the Lord’s words, objective truth. On the other we have the voice of the Holy Spirit in the application of that truth.

The second question is, To whom were these letters addressed? seven churches? Yes, but they were addressed to the churches through the “angels” or messengers of the seven churches. There is a personal nature about these letters. Every messenger was both to receive and to pass on the message.

Failure is a tragic word in the task of carrying out God’s plan of salvation for the human race. As we study the failures of the seven churches we are reminded of our own shortcomings. We are humiliated before God. We cry out for mercy.

The Lord deplored situations found in most of the seven churches. Let us deplore what the Lord deplored. The Lord was dealing with real issues here.

The word “repent” is used eight times in these letters and we cannot turn a deaf ear. At a most critical time in the history of Israel, Daniel wept, fasted and confessed before God the sins and failures of his people. God heard his prayer and revealed His plan. At a turning point in the history of the Chosen People, Nehemiah wept and mourned and fasted and confessed the sins and failures of Israel. God heard his prayer and moved mightily to bring His people back to their fatherland.

No one can deny the fact that we are standing at a crossroads in the history of the church. Perils and challenges dwarf everything in the past. Maybe we need more weeping and repentance and confession. We can hear these messages from the Lord much better if we are in a repentant frame of mind and heart.

What were the failures of the seven churches?

First was indifference-the sin of nonaction. The Lord said to the Laodicean church, “Thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot.” Lukewarmness is a spiritual condition in which neither the emotion nor the will is affected by conviction. No action or urgency is involved. No stirring of the heart, no tears, no emotion, no excitement, no compassion, no commitment, no adventure-nothing outside the comfortable armchair of tradition. Lukewarmness and indifference are essentially the same. Indifference always avoids involvement, commitment and cost.

In what contrast was the Lord Jesus Christ. He is called the “Amen, the faithful and true witness.” He was absolutely honest about His saving mission, so much so that He gave His life. He witnessed even unto death. How different the Laodiceans! Nonaction is the worst form of denial. By inaction we deny what we believe.

The real difficulty with the Laodiceans was that they were not 100 percent indifferent. They had some concern and involvement and they were satisfied. Our problem today is not with utter indifference. That would be easier to solve. Our real problem is the ease with which we engage in the supremely urgent task of evangelism.

While men and women are perishing without the gospel we seek no new and more effective methods of evangelism. While opportunities are fleeting away we adapt ourselves only slowly to new situations of fruitfulness. An indifferent person does not care whether many or few people are saved.

There is a popular concept in evangelical circles that needs re-examination. We often say, “We leave everything with the Lord after we have done our duty; we do not worry about the results.” This notion is deep-rooted and it has its justification, but it is one-sided. Weaknesses in our human nature cause us to use it as an excuse, with the result that we no longer aim for success at any cost.

No businessman takes that attitude. He does not say, “I shall open my shop on time and people may come in and buy whatever is here. I have done my duty and I won’t worry whether I make money or not.” On the contrary, he feels there is no limit to what he should do to make money. He is never satisfied without making money because he is never indifferent to money.

The Lord prayed in John 17:4, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” This is the Lord’s good example for us.

A second failure of the Asian churches was their orthodoxy without life-the tragedy of an unfulfilled name. “Unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; …I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead…I have not found thy works perfect before God” (Rev. 3: 1-2).

The church in Sardis had a name of being alive, but in reality it was dead. Alive in the estimation of man, it was dead in the sight of God. In all probability the Sardis church carried on many activities, had an efficient organization, regular services, fluent prayers.

Visitors may be impressed by all the outward manifestations of your church, but God is impressed only by the reality beneath the surface. Only the inner life can satisfy Him. Only those outward activities which are tangible pulses of invisible spirituality interest God. Jesus comes to the fig tree for fruit, not leaves. “Leaves only” are tragic words.

The form of godliness without power is dead, worship without spirit and truth is dead, giving without love is dead, program without the Holy Spirit is dead, oratory without unction is dead, the letter without the Spirit is dead, and a name without reality is dead. Concern and compassion for the unsaved are sure signs of spiritual life. A church preoccupied with regularities but without an evangelistic outreach is just as surely numbered among the dead.

The word “perfect” in Revelation 3:2 can he translated “fulfilled.” The verse means that their works were not fulfilled in the sight of God. In a word, the church in Sardis had an unfulfilled name.

I have discovered that many Chinese who learn English mix up the words “evangelical” and “evangelistic.” I think it is a good mistake. When we stop being evangelistic we stop being truly evangelical. If we keep the name of evangelical and do not evangelize, we have an unfulfilled name. We take pride in the name “evangelical,” but may God help us to live up to our name! Orthodoxy without life is a great tragedy.

The third failure concerned an alliance with error-intellectual apostasy. Part of the Christians in the churches at Pergamos and Thyatira had associated themselves with customs and practices connected with pagan worship. Prostitution, fornication and impure gaieties were associated with temple worship in that part of the ancient world. Satan was behind these evils, wielding his power through superstitions and moral corruptions to enslave people.

Under the pressure of religious persecution and the seduction of licensed lusts, some clever and carnal minded leaders in those two churches devised a new scheme of religious philosophy. In order to justify and facilitate their participation in temple festivals, they tried to persuade Christians to think that they could take part in pagan practices without really harming their Christian life. These theories must have had an intellectual appeal because they were called “deep things.” But the Lord says that they were prompted by Satan. He calls them “the deep things of Satan” (ASV).

These religious theories in the Pergamos and Thyatira churches must have had strong points in order to be persuasive. In all probability they had intellectual appeal, the support of current secular philosophy and some reasonable religious facade to gain the approval of the more serious Christians. Satan knows when to make concessions and how to bar- gain. In the same way Jezebel persuaded the people of Israel to join in Baal worship. Today it would be called religious syncretism, and we must guard against it carefully.

Under the guise of scholarship theological errors are creeping into Christian churches. They are supported by popular secular forms of thought, militate against Biblical authority and undermine basic doc- trines of historic Christianity. These theories may contain some real value, but we must not be blind to the more important hidden issues basic to our Christian faith.

A fourth failure of the churches was complacency-the luck of spiritual vision. The Christians at Laodicea were not only indifferent; they were complacent. The Laodicean church said, “I am rich… and have need of nothing.”

Complacency is involuntary, and to cure it we must remove the causes. The Lord says their complacency came from a lack of spiritual vision. “Thou art…blind,” He said. “1 counsel thee to buy of me…eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see” (ASV). The Greek word translated “blind” includes also the idea of shortsightedness. Lack of vision causes complacency.

Our attitudes and feelings are largely determined by the direction in which we look. When we look at the people inside the church we may feel good. “There is a big crowd in my church. We have a good-sized congregation. We have done quite well-as a matter of fact, very well.” But if we look at the masses outside the church we realize how little we have done and how much still needs to be done. All complacency is gone; our hearts become heavy.

It has been said that in the United States it takes six clergymen and one thousand laymen to win one person in one year’s time. That is the rate of church growth. In Asia, Christians comprise, on the average, just one percent of the population. The job of evangelism is simply not being done. We fall prostrate before God, plead for mercy and strength and rise with a new dedication to evangelize. An internal revival in the church is absolutely needed for an effective evangelistic outreach.

There was a fifth failure. It was a preoccupation with the material a secularized church. Its thinking was basically materialistic. It evaluated everything by material standards. The Lord wanted to restore the divine perspectives.

The Lord’s message for the Laodicean church throws important light on our predominantly materialistic age. Christian theology has been greatly influenced by secular theories which have led some church leaders in the direction of a social and materialistic interpretation of the gospel. We concur that human life is a combination of body and soul, that the needs of the body should be taken care of, that social ills which adversely affect man’s morality need to be cured, that verbal witness alone is not enough. All of these are scriptural concepts.

But the basic problem is one of priority. The Great Commission is still the supreme mandate for all Christians. Our primary concern is still the restoration of man to fellow- ship with God through Jesus Christ the Son. Personal conversion is still the main task of the church.

There was yet a sixth failure: the loss of first love-diminishing dynamic power. The Ephesian church had lost its first love for the Lord.

There are two interpretations of “first love.” One places emphasis on time. It understands “first love” to be the love that the Ephesian church had during its early history. The other interpretation places emphasis on quality. It understands “first love” to be the best love which the Ephesian church had for the Lord. I think both are true with the Ephesian church. Their first love in time was the best love in quality.

First love is selfless love; first love is sacrificial love; first love is fellowship love; first love is pure love; first love is enjoyable love. Miss Margaret Clarkson interprets the Saviour’s commission so well:

So send I you to labor unrewarded,
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown.
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing-
So send I you to toil for Me alone.

So send I you to bind the bruised and broken

O’er wand’ring souls to work, to weep, to wake,

To bear the burdens of a world aweary-

So send I you to suffer for My sake.

So send I you to loneliness and longing, With heart ahung’ring for the loved and known,
Forsaking home and kindred, friend

and dear one-
So send I you to know My love

alone.*

All this is impossible without first love. the dynamic power in sacrificial evangelism. The loss of first love necessarily results in diminishing dynamic power. It slows down evangelistic efforts.

In judgment the Lord removed the Ephesian candlestick. The church lost its privilege of shining for the Lord. For the Pergamos and Thyatira churches judgment was a direct cause-and-effect retribution: the bed of adultery would be a couch of illness.

The failures of Christian churches have often become their own curses. Many of the troubles and trials that churches have gone through are their own handiwork. Their misdoings have turned out to be their own undoings. God is not mocked. We reap what we sow.

The judgment of the Lord came to the Laodicean church in the form of chastisement. It was a sign of His love: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (3: 19). Let Christian churches today be sensitive to the loving chastisement of the lord and “repent” and “be zealous.”

原載於《今日華人教會》13期，1979年1月，頁40-42。　
［本文獲世界華福中心授權轉載］

我在研讀「使徒行傳」的時候，發現在使徒時代教會的歷史中，有十二個危機；每一個危機，在神的恩典之下，都變成神的子民的祝福。這發現對我來說眞是寶貴，美好到幾乎不敢信以為眞。

我們的時代，是大危機的時代。今天，願我們也依循昔日幫助初期教會渡過危機的那些基本原則，來渡過我們不同的危機。如果我們研究歷史，並且眞的明白歷史，就常常會使我們更明智。求聖靈光照我們的心思意念，好讓我們研讀這卷書的時候，眞能從中獲益。

請讀經文：徒二41-47；四32-35。

大體而言，使徒時代教會的成功，僅繫於一個重要的問題：她的誕生，是像今天一般教會一樣，由一班被救贖的分子烏合而成，抑或是以一個緊密的基督徒羣體出現，彼此以愛相繫，聯合起來作見証，在緊密的團契中生活，甚至一同用膳，絕對的忠於同一位基督？面對這兩條可行的路線，初期教會的領袖們在神的帶領下毅然選擇後者，效果至鉅。

使徒時代教會的基督徒，變賣他們所有的財物，集中一切資金共同生活，你以為這是偶然的嗎？絕不！事實上，這根本是他們的生命線！我相信，他們若不凡物公用，把數以千計的生命不可分地聯繫起來，形成一個堅強的聯合陣線，以表明他們對一個共同的目標絕對的效忠，他們就不可能抗禦那加諸他們身上巨大的壓力。在神的帥領之下，這種力量的高度集中，是初期教會在增長和拓展上所絕對需要的表現和能力。

這就引起一個我們今天要面對的重大問題。我相信，就在目前，我們亟需要一種「羣體神學」，或用更符合聖經的字眼來說：「國度神學」。大體而言，基督教是在個人主義的路線上發展，而悽然缺乏適當的羣體生活、羣體見証和羣體動力的觀念，結果造成教會的貧弱和疲憊。回到聖經中教會生活的形態，此其時也！

在舊約聖經中，先知們在神的默示下所憧憬到未來那榮耀、理想的生活，是一種國度的生活，或羣體生活；在這國度裏，神的旨意得實現，神的榮耀也透過祂選民的集體生活得彰顯。神沒有揀選一個人，卻揀選一羣人，作為祂向世界的代表。

在新約聖經中，主自己宣講神國的福音，而不是被救贖的個人的福音。被贖的個人的福音，和被贖的子民國度的福音，兩者之間眞有天壤之别。主所講關於天國的教訓，竟佔馬太福音三分之二的篇幅，這就足以證明主强調被贖的子民集體的生活，多於強調被贖的個人。這強調是深具意義的。我們絕不應把重點從這個移到另一個。

使徒保羅教導說，教會是基督的身體；至於基督徒，作為身體的肢體，就有「肢體生活」，亦即集體生活。教會是從世界「召出來的羣體」。

保羅也叫教會做「新人」，卻含有集體的意義（弗二15）。他告訴我們：每一個基督徒單獨是一個新人（弗四24），但整個教會集體而言也是一個新人。我們應緊記個别的新人若沒有羣體的新人的團契，而想在這世界中活出新的生活，是很困難的。基督徒的生活基本上是團契的生活——縱的與神團契，橫的與其他基督徒團契。表達這眞理最强而有力的一句話可能就是：「一個基督徒等於沒有基督徒。」這句話或許說得過份一點，但內中肯定是有眞理。意思是說：當基督徒生活沒有了團契，在實質上就沒有了眞實性。教會存在乃因五種目的：敬拜、教導、事奉、見証、和團契。這是教會生活的基本道理。

神是一位聖潔三位一體的集體的神。祂是單數地複數，也是複數地單數。這一位集體的神，也有一間集體的教會；這教會是既有神性又有人性（由祂復活後永在的身體所代表）的集體的基督集體的身體。基督這集體的身體，又有一個集體的遠景，就是由集體的羔羊的新婦美麗地象徵的身份（啟廿一2）。保羅告訴我們，每一位基督徒，就個別而言是基督的新婦（林後二2），但集體而論整個教會是基督的新婦（弗五32）。因此，基於這些，神的計劃不只是一個個人救恩的計劃，雖然個人救恩是集體救恩必經的步驟，而集體救恩是神在救贖中的行動最終的目的。

顯然，對於神為人所預備的救恩計劃的集體特性，我們的教會在過去沒有適當的教導。因着這缺欠，我們的教會大體上都離棄了這個聖經的形態，竟追隨了強調個人價值的路線。結果，我們的教會就四分五裂，以個人為重，以致失去了應有的能力。

矛盾的是，倒是教會的異端集團，最能善用羣體動力，例如摩門教、「神的兒女」、文鮮明的統一教等。幸好，我們也能在正統派的圈子中列舉一些曾透過集體功能去發揮能力的團體，如華人教會中的「小羣」運動、中國大陸上的「耶穌家庭」、北美的「耶穌子民」、印度的Bhakht Singh運動等。

在這些例子中，所謂細胞團契，小組動力，或小組交往，都一直扮演重要的角色。可是，在現代歷史中，倒是共產份子最廣並最善用羣體動力；他們在中國大陸上洗腦和動員的成功，其基本因素正在於此。但從歷史而言，使徒時代的教會卻最先應用這偉大的策略，並且獲得驚人的成功。

我們很高興看到最近有一些以教會的「肢體生活」為教會增長方法的教訓。但今天在我們的教會中，大致上對聖經集體主義的觀念，仍需恢復了解和應用。這觀念的拓展，和教會團契生活的提昇，對基督的福音，將會有莫大的助益！