THE OVERCOMERS CHAPTER THREE

THE OVERCOMERS

CHAPTER THREE

TO OVERCOME PERSECUTION, WORLDLINESS, AND SPIRITUAL DEATH

In the previous chapter, we saw that we need to be those who overcome the loss of the first love by giving Christ the first place, the preeminence, in everything. The loss of the first love is seen with the church in Ephesus. There are four main points in the Lord’s epistle to the church in Ephesus—love, life, light, and the lampstand (Rev. 2:4-5, 7). Love, life, and light are actually God Himself. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), God is life (John 5:26; 14:6a), and God is light (1 John 1:5).

Actually, the Divine Trinity is love, life, and light. The Father is love, the Son is life, and the Spirit is light. The Father is the source as love, the Son is the course as life, and the Spirit is the flow as light. The Gospel of John says clearly, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (1:4). Then the Lord said in John 8:12 that He was the light of the world and that whoever followed Him would have the light of life. The Bible eventually reveals that the Father is the Son (Isa. 9:6), and the Son is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). This means that love is life, and life is light. Love is the source, life is the course, and light is the shining out to reach us. These are three aspects of one person. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one, so love, life, and light are one. We enjoy the Son as the divine life, the eternal life, the uncreated life, through the Spirit as light, and we touch the Father as love by the Son as life. The Triune God is love as the source, life as the course, and light as the flow to reach us. Every day and even every moment we are under the shining of the light, which means that we are under the reaching of the Triune God for our enjoyment. When we overcome to return to Christ as our first love, we will enjoy Him as life, and will shine forth the divine light as the lampstand to keep the testimony of Jesus (Rev. 1:9; 12:17) in our locality.

We have some hints about the overcomers in Paul’s writings, but only the apostle John in the book of Revelation speaks directly concerning the overcomers. We have seen that the book of Revelation covers two main things—the overcomers and the New Jerusalem. The overcomers issue in the New Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem is the consummation of the overcomers. The overcomers are precious stones, precious material, built together into a house, and this house is the consummation of all of the precious stones, the precious material. The house is the consummation, the building up, of all the precious stones.

In the beginning of Revelation, the Lord is calling for this precious material, for the overcomers. The Lord’s calling in Revelation is not for being saved but for becoming an overcomer, a precious stone for God’s building. The overcomers are the believers of Christ transformed into precious stones for the building of God. According to Revelation 2:17 every transformed believer as a white stone will bear a new name. This new name is the transformed name of a transformed person. In Revelation 2 and 3, the overcomers are not yet because the Lord is calling for them. Through the centuries, in the period of time from Revelation 4—20, the Lord has gained and is gaining a number of overcomers.

In this age the overcoming believers must pay the price to be built up together into one. There should be oneness among the saints and among all the co-workers. The Scriptures show that eventually there was no building between Paul and Barnabas. They were together for awhile, but after the conference in Jerusalem in Acts 15, there was a great split between Barnabas and Paul (vv. 35-39). Apollos was another problem. Paul told the Corinthians that he had urged Apollos to come to them many times. No doubt, the Corinthians were in desperate need, so he wanted Apollos to visit them, but Paul said, “It was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity” (1 Cor. 16:12). By this we can see that Apollos was not one with Paul. But Paul and Timothy and Titus were one. When Paul told Timothy or Titus to go, they went. When he asked them to remain, they remained. But between Paul and Apollos there was not such a pleasant oneness; there was a big shortage of being built up.

Thus, we can see that between Paul and Barnabas, there was the lack of building, and between Paul and Apollos there was also the lack of building. If we consider the situation among Christians today, we will see that no one is built up with others. Everyone is independent. The big speakers in Christianity build up something for themselves, but who is built up with others? To receive Christ as life for our regeneration is the initiation of our Christian life. To grow in this life is the second step. Then by this growth, we are transformed. After being transformed, we have to be built up together. This building is the consummation.

In this chapter we want to cover the three crucial points concerning the overcomers in the epistles to the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamos, and the church in Sardis. The epistle to the church in Ephesus covers the overcoming of the loss of the first love. In the previous chapter, we saw the spiritual interpretation of the loss of the first love. To have the Lord as our first love actually means that we take our Lord as the first. We have to give Him the preeminence in everything. In everything He is the first. If we are not making Him the first in everything, we do not have the first love.

To have the first love is to give the preeminence, the first place, to the Lord Jesus in everything, even in all of the small things. When the brothers buy a tie, they need to give Christ the preeminence. When the sisters go shopping, they need to give Christ the first place. When the Saturday edition of the newspaper comes out, some sisters like to read it to find all of the sales in the department stores. To have this practice means that they do not give the Lord the preeminence. They do not let the Lord have the first place in their shopping. If we need something, we should go to the store to get that thing and nothing else. The sisters need to overcome the temptation of the department stores.

With the church in Ephesus, the Lord reveals that if we are going to overcome all the situations and be a real overcomer, we have to give the Lord the preeminence in everything. Then we will be ones who enjoy the Lord as the tree of life. First, we have love, and then we have life. Then corporately we will be the lampstand shining forth the divine light. Thus, we will have the four “l’s”—love, life, light, and the lampstand. This is the revelation in the first epistle, which is to the church in Ephesus.

I. TO OVERCOME PERSECUTION, COMPRISING TRIBULATION, POVERTY, TRIAL, IMPRISONMENT, AND THE SLANDER OF THE DEFORMED RELIGION OF SATAN

The second epistle is written to Smyrna. This epistle reveals that we need to overcome persecution, comprising tribulation, poverty, trial, imprisonment, and the slander of the deformed religion of Satan (Rev. 2:9-10a). Smyrna basically shows us only one thing—persecution. Do we love the Lord? Do we give Him the preeminence in everything? If we do, we must be prepared for persecution.

Persecution will come to us from many directions. Persecution may come to a brother from his wife. When he did not love the Lord as the first item in everything, he had no problem with his wife. But when he began to love the Lord by giving Him the preeminence in everything, his wife noticed that he was different. Now her husband was giving the preeminence to someone else besides her.

In my home town of Chefoo, we had a brother who was working in the Chinese customs making good money. He was very worldly, and his wife was very happy to go along with him in their pursuit of worldly amusements. One day, however, he began to love the Lord, giving the Lord the preeminence. He gave the Lord the first place in everything. That was a big change with him. As a result, the wife became very unhappy because her husband no longer desired the things of the world.

Because this brother had such a positive change toward the Lord, he wanted to invite some brothers to his home for fellowship. He told his wife that one evening he would invite a few brothers to their house for dinner. I was one among these brothers. We all went happily to this brother’s home for fellowship. When we sat down to eat, his wife served us with cold leftovers. The brother felt so bad about this that he was moved to tears. Instead of being affected by the situation, however, we all partook of the food set before us in a joyful way in support of our brother. This brother suffered much persecution from his wife because of his decision to make the Lord first in everything.

Some parents persecute their children because of their children’s love for the Lord, and some children persecute their parents because of their parents’ love for the Lord. The mother-in-law may persecute her daughter-in-law for loving the Lord. This is why the Lord said that a man who puts Him first will have enemies from his own household (Matt. 10:36).

The persecution revealed in the epistle to the church in Smyrna comprises tribulation, poverty, trial, imprisonment, and the slander of the deformed religion of Satan. The deformed religion of Satan was the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9). At the Lord’s time and at the early apostles’ time, the synagogues of the Jews had become in the eyes of God the synagogue of Satan.

According to history the saints during the time of Smyrna had tribulation for ten days (v. 10). As a sign, the ten days here indicate prophetically the ten periods of persecution that the church suffered under the Roman emperors, beginning with Caesar Nero in the second half of the first century and ending with Constantine the Great in the first part of the fourth century. Roman history tells us that the Roman Empire had ten periods of time to persecute the Christians.

We may feel that unlike the saints in Smyrna we have a good government today, but persecution can come to us from many other directions. Thus, as the loving seekers of Jesus, we must be prepared to suffer. The martyrs for Christ can be martyrs physically. Paul suffered such a martyrdom (2 Tim. 4:6). Many of us, however, may not suffer a physical martyrdom, but a psychological martyrdom or a spiritual martyrdom. The aforementioned brother who was mistreated by his wife was surely a martyr under her persecution. He used to come to us for fellowship, and we tried our best to support him and comfort him. In a very positive sense, he was a martyr for the Lord’s interest. He would not change in his feeling for the Lord, and he has never changed.

Even among the elders in the church, there may be the experience of martyrdom. One brother among the elders might be very strong and controlling. He may be a good brother who loves the Lord and the church, but he controls the other elders. The other elders may feel that they cannot function under such a brother, and they may want to resign. Someone may ask them, “Don’t you love the Lord? Don’t you love the church? Don’t you have a loving care for all the saints?” They would say that they do, but they find it unbearable to serve under such a strong brother. But if these brothers resign, this means that they resign from martyrdom. Thus, they are missing the opportunity to be martyred, an opportunity which may never return in their lifetime. How good it is for these elders to be martyred under a strong brother who is like a dictator!

In 1935 and 1936, I was assigned to the work in northern China. The elders in the church in Peking could not get along with one another. They frequently wanted me to come and help them. I spent two or three days to fellowship with them, and they felt that their problems were solved, but a week later they called me again to come and help them because they still could not get along. These elders had the opportunity to be overcoming martyrs in the church life.

When the apostle Paul asked the Lord three times to remove the thorn from him, the Lord’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:9). The Lord allowed the thorn to remain with Paul so that Paul would be able to enjoy the Lord as his all-sufficient grace. Sufferings, trials, and persecution are often ordained by the Lord for us that we may experience Him as grace. Hence, in spite of Paul’s entreaty, the Lord would not remove the thorn from him.

We do not need to travel all over the earth to experience suffering and persecution. There is persecution for us to experience in our local church. There is a narrow door at the front of the church life, but once we make the choice to enter into the church life, there are no “back doors” and no “fire escapes.” In a sense, all of the saints in the church life become our persecutors. When we initially came into the church life, everyone was pleasant to us. That was our church life honeymoon, but the honeymoon does not last long. After we have stayed in the church life for a number of years, we realize that the Lord uses nearly all of the saints to deal with us.

Some saints told me that they could not bear to stay in their locality and that they wanted me to help them choose a better place. I always say that the best place is the present place. No place is better than the present place. Many saints eventually were convinced by me. They realized that they should not move to another locality according to their personal preference. If they move to another locality according to their choice, the place to which they move will eventually be worse to them than the place from which they came. In the church life, we cannot avoid “persecution.”

We need to overcome all kinds of persecution by being faithful unto death, not loving our soul-life (Rev. 2:10b; 12:11b). Then we will be rewarded with the crown of life (2:10c), and we will not be hurt by the second death (2:11).