Due to the fact that our studies have been a verse by verse exposition of those Scriptures that deal with the seven ages, we have not set forth a continuous historical pattern of the church as much as we ought to have done. It is, therefore, our purpose now to take this chapter, and beginning with the Ephesian Age trace through all ages the church and her history as given to John by the Spirit of God. We will not be adding new material as much as correlating what we already have.
From our studies we have already learned that much of the Revelation is totally misunderstood because we have not formerly known that the `church' spoken of and spoken to in this book does not refer to the pure `ekklesia' the `elect', the `body of Christ', the `bride', but it speaks to the entire body of people who are called Christians, whether they be true or merely nominal. As all Israel is NOT Israel, so all Christians are NOT Christians. Thus we learned that the church is made up of two vines, the true and the false. The two vines are motivated by two kinds of spirits; one has the Holy Spirit while the other is endued with the spirit of antichrist. Both claim to know and be known of God. Both purport to speak for God. Both believe certain very basic truths and differ on others. But since both bear the name of the Lord, being called Christ-ians, and by such name-bearing obviously claim a relationship to Him (God calls it marriage), God now holds them both responsible to Him and therefore speaks to each.
We further learned that these two vines would grow side by side until the end of the ages when both would come to maturity and both be harvested. The false vine would not overcome and destroy the true vine, but then, neither would the true vine be able to bring the false vine into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
We learned the most amazing truth that the Holy Spirit could and would fall upon the unregenerate false vine Christians and manifest powerfully in various signs and wonders, even as Judas had a definite ministry in the Holy Ghost though he, himself, was pronounced to be a devil.
With these principles in mind we start to trace the church through the various seven ages.
The birth of the church was at Pentecost. As the first Adam was given a bride fresh from the hand of God and was undefiled for a brief span, so was Christ, the last Adam, given a bride pure and fresh at Pentecost; and she remained separate and undefiled for some time. "And of the rest durst no man join himself to them" (Acts 5:13) and "The Lord added daily such as should be saved." Acts 2:47. How long this continued we do not know, but one day even as Eve was tempted and seduced by Satan, so the church was contaminated by the entrance of an antichrist spirit. "And this is that spirit of antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come and even now already is it in the world." 1 John 4:3. And Jesus said concerning His bride in that first age, "I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent." Revelation 2:4-5. The church was in that first age already a 'fallen woman.' As Satan had gotten to Eve before Adam, even now had Satan seduced the church, the bride of Christ, before the 'marriage supper of the Lamb.' And what specifically was in her midst that caused the fall? What but Revelation 2:6, "THE DEEDS OF THE NICOLAITANES." Already that first age had turned from following the pure Word of God. They turned from God's demand of a church absolutely dependent upon Him (depending entirely upon God to fulfill His Word from start to finish apart from human government) to Nicolaitanism, which is organizing a human government within the church which as all governments do, legislate for the people. They did exactly what Israel did. They took the expediency of human government instead of the Word and the Spirit.
Death had entered. How do we know? Do we not hear the voice of the Spirit raised in that first age for all who will hear, as He is calling. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life in the paradise of God." The church had already imbibed too deeply of the tree of death (or the denominational false vine) whose end is the lake of fire. But there are no cherubim with flaming swords to guard the Tree of Life now. God does not now depart from the midst of the church as He departed from Eden. Oh, no, He will ever be in the midst of His church until the final age. And until that time He calls to all to come.
Now please let us be careful here. This message to the angel of the church which is at Ephesus is not a message to the actual local Ephesian church. It is a message to the AGE. And that age had in it the seed of truth and the seed of error exactly as set forth according to the parable of the wheat and the tares. The church ages is the field, and in it are wheat and tares. The false church organized, humanized the government and the Word, and fought the true Christian.
Tares always flourish mightier than wheat or any other cultivated plant. The tare church grew rapidly in this first age. But the wheat church was flourishing also. By the end of the first age the deeds of the Nicolaitanes were flourishing in the local false vine churches with increasing attempts to spread their influence further than their own body. Its influence was felt upon the true church for men like the venerable Polycarp were calling themselves bishops with a reference to that title which was not inherent in it according to the Word. Also in that age, the true church had lost its first love. That love was typified as the love of bride and groom at their marriage and early years of wedded life. There was a cooling of that complete love and abandonment to God.
But notice. Revelation 2:1 describes the Lord Jesus as in the midst of His church and holding the messengers in His right hand. Because this bride has fallen, because the church corporate is now an admixture of true and false, He does not leave it. It is His. And according to Romans 14:7-9 that is exactly right. "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." On the cross He bought the WHOLE world of people. They are His. He is the Lord of the living and dead. (As pertaining to ownership, NOT relationship.) And He walks in the midst of that body that has within it life and death.
What was planted in the first age will develop in the second age and in all other ages until it comes to maturity and harvest. Thus in the Smyrnaean Age we expect an enlargement and enlightenment of the church corporate's history through a revelation of the Spirit.
In this age the hatred of the false vine increases. See, they have (Verse 9) separated themselves from the company of the true. They went out from them. They were liars. They called themselves what they are not. But did God destroy them? No. "Let them alone and both will go to the harvest."
"But Lord they should be destroyed for they are destroying Thy people. They are killing them."
"No, let them alone. But to My bride I say, `Be thou faithful unto death. Love Me even more.'"
We learn in no uncertain terms that this false vine is the vine of Satan. Their gathering is of him (Satan). They meet in the Name of God and lie that they are Christ's. They preach, they teach, they baptize, they worship, they partake of various rites given by Christ to the church, yet they are not of God. But since they say they are, God will hold them responsible and in each age He speaks of them and to them. They remind us exactly of Balaam. He had the prophetic office. He knew the proper approach unto God as demonstrated in the sacrifice of the clean beasts. Yet he was not a true WORD PROPHET for when God told him not to go to honor Balak with his presence he sought to go anyway for he was motivated by his lust for gold and prestige. So God let him go. The perfect will of God gave way to the permissive will of God because of the "heart desire" of Balaam. God actually said, "Go ahead." Did God change His mind? No sir. God had His way regardless of Balaam going. Balaam did not annul the will of God. God had His way regardless. It was Balaam who was the loser for he by-passed the Word. And today we have that very same thing. Women preachers, organization, false doctrine, etc., and people worshipping God, manifesting in the Spirit and going right on as did Balaam, claiming that God has spoken to them even when the commission received is opposite to the revealed Word. And I will not deny that God spoke to them. But it was just like when He spoke to Balaam that second time. As He knew that Balaam wanted his own heart desire above the Word and He gave it to him, yet all the while in the end having HIS OWN way; even so today God tells folks to go ahead in their own hearts' desires for they have already rejected the Word. BUT THE WILL OF GOD WILL BE DONE REGARDLESS. Amen. I hope you see this. It will not only clear up much of what is seen in all ages but it will especially help in this last age which has so much manifestation and external blessings when the whole period is so against the `Word- Revealed-Will' of God.
If ever an age received a message loud and clear, this age did. It was, and is, that Old Testament truth, "The son of the bondwoman will distress the son of the free woman until the son of the bondwoman be cast out." That lets us know that the hatred and blasphemy of Satan against the true Christian will be vented through a group who are nominal, false Christians, and this will increase until God uproots that false vine at the end of the Laodicean Age.
The third age revealed by the Spirit of prophecy that the worldly church would adopt Nicolaitanism as a doctrine. The separation of the clergy from the laity grew from the Biblical truth of the elders (shepherds of local flocks) ruling the flock by the Word, to the `deeds of Nicolaitanes' wherein the clergy set themselves in ranks one over the other, which un-scriptural formula then evolved into a priesthood that placed the clergy between man and God, giving the clergy certain rights all the while denying the laity their God-given rights. This was usurpation. In this age it became a doctrine. It was established in the church as the assured word of God, which indeed it was not. But the clergy called it the Word of God and therefore the doctrine was antichrist.
Because human government is politics pure and simple, the church became involved in politics. This involvement was welcomed by a dictator- emperor who joined church politics with state politics and by force established the false church (Satan's false religion) as the true religion. And through various edicts by various emperors we find the false church with state power destroying the true vine even more avidly.
Sad to say the true vine was not exactly immune to this doctrine. By that I do not mean that the true vine ever did establish the Nicolaitane ideas as a doctrine. Far from it. But that little worm of death kept sucking at the true vine hoping that it might fall. Even within the true church, men whom God had called as overseers were holding that title to mean a little more than just a local responsibility. It was not the clear understanding of Paul that existed in the church at this time. For Paul had said, "And they glorified God in me." No matter what authority Paul had, he kept the people looking to God from Whom is all authority. But the clergy was always looking to Divine Leadership PLUS HUMAN, and thus in giving honor where honor was not due, we find that the true church was spotted with humanism. With Nicolaitanism established - apostolic succession - placed ministers - pastors voted in, etc., it was only one step for the false church to proceed to Balaamism. The second step to the `depth of Satan' was now in full progress.
This second step was the doctrine of Balaam, (described in Revelation 2:14) wherein Balaam taught Balac to stumble the children of Israel by a 'united meeting.' There the guests would do two more things contrary to the Word of God. You will recall that Balac needed help to keep his kingdom. He called on the most dominant spiritual figure of his day, Balaam. Balaam gave the advice that trapped and destroyed Israel. It was, first of all, to suggest that they all get together and talk things over, and eat together and get things ironed out. After all, understanding each other goes a long way. Once you accomplish that you can go from there. The next step would be worshipping together, and of course, a little pressure from the host usually makes the guests go a lot further than they intended. Now that didn't only happen back there to God's church of the Old Testament but it happened to the church of the New Testament, for there was an emperor, who like Balac needed help to secure his kingdom. So Constantine invited the nominal Christian, First Christian Church of Rome, to help him get the Christians behind him, as they were a very large body. The outcome was the Nicene Council of 325. There the Christians, both true and nominal, came together at the invitation of Constantine. The true Christians had no business even going up to the meeting. In spite of all Constantine could do to unite them all, the real believers knew they were out of place and left. But to those who remained, Constantine gave of the state's treasury along with political and physical force. The people were introduced to idol worship and spiritism, for statues with names of saints were placed in the buildings and the people were taught to commune with the dead, or pray to saints which is nothing more nor less than spiritism. For the food that man truly needs, even the Word of God, they were given creeds, and dogmas and rituals which were also enforced by the state, and above all they were given three gods with the triple compound name of the One True God, and water baptism in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ gave way to the pagan baptism of three titles.
The real believers ought not to have gone there. They had already lost much truth, and now they, too, would lose the understanding of Godhead and forfeit names for titles in water baptism.
Now watch this doctrine of Balaam most carefully. Notice above all, that it is the deliberate maneuver of a corrupt clergy to bind the people to them, by leading the people deliberately into the sin of unbelief. The Nicolaitane doctrine was the corruption of the clergy as they sought political power amongst themselves, while Balaamism is the subjection of the people to their system of creed and worship in order to hold them. Now watch this carefully. What was it that bound the people to the nominal church and thereby destroyed them? It was the creeds and dogmas formed into church tenets. It was the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. They were not given the true food, the Word. They were given the food that came from idol worship, Babylonian paganism wrapped up in Christian terminology. And that very same spirit and doctrine is right amongst all Protestants and it is called DENOMINATION. Nicolaitanism is organization, humanizing the leadership of the church, and thereby deposing the Spirit. Balaamism is denominationalism which takes the church manual instead of the Bible. And right to this hour, many of God's people are caught in the snare of denominationalism and God is crying to them, "Come out of her My people, lest ye be partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not her plagues." You see they are ignorant. But if the rapture should take place at this moment, ignorance would be no court of appeal from the judgment of God for being in the wrong ranks.
For the clergy to organize themselves with one rank over another until they are finally headed up by a president is a manifestation of the antichrist spirit, regardless of how wonderful and necessary it may seem. It is nothing but human reasoning taking the place of the Word. And any person who is in the organized denominations is right in the midst of an antichrist system. Now let me say this and make it very plain. I AM NOT AGAINST THE PEOPLE. I AM AGAINST THE SYSTEM.
With a state and church union the stage has been set for the Dark Ages. And indeed for about 1000 years the church went into the depth of blackness, knowing the depths of Satan. When any religious people embrace both Nicolaitanism and Balaamism, and have the political, financial and physical power to back it up there is only one direction they can go. That direction is right into the Jezebel doctrine. Now why do we say this? Because as we pointed out in the study of the fourth age that Jezebel was a Sidonian, the daughter of Ethbaal who was king priest to Astarte. He was a murderer. This woman married Ahab (King of Israel) for political expediency. She then took over the religion of the people and murdered the Levites, and erected temples wherein she caused the people to worship Astarte (Venus) and Baal (Sun god). She formulated the teaching and made her priests teach it, and they in turn made the people accept it. There you can see exactly what the nominal church was in the Dark Ages. They left the Word of God entirely except for names and titles of Godhead and a few Scriptural principles. They twisted what they did take out of the Bible by changing its meaning. Their college of bishops, etc., wrote vast treatises, their popes declared themselves infallible and said they received revelation from God and spoke as God to the people. All this was taught to the priests who through fear made the people believe it. To dissent was death or excommunication which might be worse than death. It was now the church with the assured voice that took over, and wild with power they drank the blood of the martyrs until the true Christians were all but exterminated and there was hardly any Word left, and little manifestation of the Holy Ghost. But the true vine struggled and survived. God was faithful to the little flock and in spite of what Rome might do to their bodies, Rome could not kill the Spirit within them, and the light of the Truth shone on, backed by the Holy Ghost and power.
This is a good place to make an illuminating observation. Look. The deeds and doctrines of the Nicolaitanes, the doctrine of Balaam, and the teaching of the false prophetess, Jezebel, do not constitute three spirits or make three spiritual principles. These three are but the various manifestations of the same spirit as it goes from depth to depth. What it all is, is the antichrist spirit of organization in its three various stages. Once the clergy separated themselves and organized themselves they oppressed the people by leading them into, and binding them to organization also. This organization was based upon the creeds and dogma which they taught the people instead of the pure Word of God. Ritual and ceremony was given an increasing part in worship, and soon this whole system was a militant and diabolical power that did its best to control all through the persuasion of discourse or literal force. It received its energy from its own false prophecies and not the Word of God. It was now absolutely antichrist though it came in Christ's Name. 7ch052.htm