Revelation 2

v1-7: Our Saviour “is intimately present and familiar with his churches. He knows and takes notice of their state” and “takes pleasure in them.” Although He is in heaven, He “walks among his churches on earth, noticing what is wrong in them and what they need.” One of the things that grieves our Lord is when He sees His people “grow negligent and cold toward him, and he will use one way or another to make them aware” of this. Our affections towards Christ “will decline and cool unless great care is taken… to preserve them.” The wonderful promise to those who stay faithful to Christ to the end is that they will receive “perfection and confirmation in holiness and happiness in the Paradise of God” from Christ.

v8-11: “Jesus is the first because all things were made by him, and he was before all things with God and was God himself. He is the last because all things are made for him and he will be the Judge of all.” Jesus “was dead, and by dying he purchased salvation for us. He is alive, and by his life he applies this salvation to us.” If we want to be faithful to Him, we “must expect to go through many tribulations,” because the Devil “stirs up his instruments, evildoers, to persecute the people of God.” But we do so knowing that He takes particular notice of all our troubles, and will ultimately “save all his faithful servants.” They will not experience the second death, “this harmful and destructive death,” an eternal death, “to die and to be always dying.”

v12-17: Pergamum “was a place where Christ had called and constituted a Gospel church, making the word effective by the preaching of the Gospel and the grace of his Spirit.” This church “was infested with people with corrupt minds, who did what they could to corrupt both the faith and lives of the church.” Christ took “notice of the trials and difficulties this church” experienced. “Just as our great Lord takes notice of all the advantages and opportunities we have for duty in the places where we live, so he also takes notice of all the temptations and discouragements we experience from the places where we live, and he makes gracious allowances for them.” Let’s heed the warning given to the church at Pergamum, that where there is corrupt doctrines and corrupt worship in the church, it often leads “to a corrupt way of life” and how it is dangerous “to continue in fellowship with people who have corrupt principles and practices.” These things are “displeasing to God, drawing guilt and blemish on the whole community.” If we sin as a church in this way, it is our duty to repent as a church. “Those who sin together should repent together.”

v18-29: Jesus’ “eyes are like blazing fire, signifying his piercing, penetrating, perfect knowledge, a thorough insight into all people and all things.” He has “infallible knowledge of human hearts, of their motives, intentions, spirits, and attitudes, their conformity merely to custom, their indifference, their secret inclinations to agree with idolaters.” He is looking to see in His people a growing conformity to His character, and “it should be the ambition and passionate desire of all Christians that their last works may be their best works, that they may become better and better every day, and best at the end.” So that we don’t tolerate the teaching and actions of false teachers, and instead hold firmly to our faith, Jesus lets us know of His intention to bring about their destruction, and an end “to all the temptations of his people” and to “all difficulties and dangers” which we face. “We should all give our attention to the promises as well as to the commands that Christ delivers to the churches.”