0974. The Overcomers at Ephesus

The Overcomers at Ephesus

"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God" (Rev_2:7)

To grasp the full meaning of the promise to the Ephesian overcomer we must note four things.

1. The vision of Christ as He appears to Ephesus. "These things saith He that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, Who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." Christ is represented to the Church at Ephesus, as the ever-present One. He is the One Who is keeping tryst. "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them."

2. The vision of the Church forgetting the One Who is walking in her midst. "Thou hast left thy first love." There was Christ, but Ephesus was too busy to walk with Him and to talk with Him. Alas, how often is Christ, the neglected, the forgotten Christ. We work for Him but we do not walk with Him; we talk much about Him, but we do not talk to Him.

It might be said of many churches; "He was in the church, and the church was made by Him, but the church knew Him not; He came unto His church, and His church received Him not."

3. The vision of threatened disaster–"I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick." God is just in all His judgments, as well as faithful in all of His rewards. Before we read of the reward to the overcomers, should we not consider the loss to those who are overcome?

A church cannot ruthlessly isolate the Lord Jesus without reaping what she sows.

In Romans 11 we read a solemn warning that is apropos. "The branches were broken off" * *. "Thou wert grafted in" * *. "Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee."

God spared not Israel when she obeyed not the Lord; neither will He spare the church under like conditions. Where is Ephesus today? Her candlestick is removed, her testimony is gone.

4. The vision of the overcomer. This is not addressed to the whole church but to the individual–"To him that overcometh." Overcometh what? The lure of labor, and the fidelity to the faith that permits one to lose the love for Christ.

Illustration: A foreign missionary secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention told me one day, "I am so busy in the labor of love and in pressing the cause of foreign missions that I haven't taken the time to pray." He felt that, in the many clerical tasks that pressed upon him in his work and in his labor and patience, he was forgetting his first love. There is need of caution just here. We must be overcomers. We must not wear out the shoe leather that spells service for God, while we save the knee leather that spells fellowship with God.

Let us now note the promise to the Ephesian overcomer: "I will give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.

(1) The mind at once rushes back across the intervening ages to the Garden of God, called Eden. It was there that God placed the man whom He had created; it was there that God walked with man and talked with man. In Eden we have a vision of "our first love." What hallowed relationship was there?

In Eden we have the Tree of Life, the central glory! What glorious food! The Tree of Life, the harbinger of life and joy and gladness was there.

(2) The mind leaving Eden which Adam lost, passes through the millenniums past and then through the millennium to come, and presses its way into Paradise restored. There the overcomer finds all that was lost–it is restored again." He who overcomes; he who, 'mid many works and labors and 'mid much contentions for the faith, keeps tryst with Christ, and forgets Him not, will walk with Him within the city walls. He will be restored to a union and a communion with God the Father and with God the Son such as only comes to those who overcome. He will walk with God as Adam walked, and he will have the Tree of Life.

Salvation is by grace apart from works, but overcomers are enriched with joys and added grace which belong to them alone.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR