The letter to the church at Ephesus--2:1-7. 1. “ He that holdeth the seven stars . . . who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks” --2:1. The text says, these things saith he, not John, not the Holy Spirit, not God, but Christ Himself, the Head of the church, to whom was given all authority, and who, as Paul wrote to the same Ephesian church, was made “ the head over all things to the church.” 2. “ I know thy works” --2:2. The works here mentioned were not described as either good or bad, but simply works, and it rather refers to the divine omniscience of Christ than to the character of the works mentioned; that nothing escapes his eye or his attention-- he knows the works of every church of his own, of which he is the head. 3. “ Thy labor and thy patience” --2:2. These words set forth the active and the passive sides to the relationship between the church and its divine head. The use of the word works would indicate that which is outward; but labor is a deeper word, it is underlying, a working at the price of toil. And patience denotes the inward grace of faithful continuance and endurance. Hence, the active and the passive elements in the life a church. 4. “ Thou canst not bear them that are evil: and thou has tried them” --2:2. This is a retrospective reference to a crisis in the Ephesian church, to an experience of the congregation somewhere in the past. The evil men were detected, convicted and expelled. 5. “ Which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars"--2:2. The teaching of these pretenders was found to be false when tried, as John had exhorted the members of the church to do in respect to the claims of strolling teachers. It is good advice to follow even today. The imposters were tried by what Paul and John, the inspired apostles, had taught the Ephesian church in their own labors among them. It connects with Paul’ s own charge to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:29, warning them against the “ wolves that would enter in” among them. What Paul said there that would occur, Jesus said here that it had occurred. It is also retrospective of the reason why Paul left Timothy in Ephesus, as mentioned in 1 Timothy 1:3 : “ As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.” Here is the evidence of the necessary inference that the other apostles were living at the time John composed Revelation, as has been previously mentioned, for on no other supposition could such a claim by these imposters have even appeared plausible. Doubtless the men who made this claim, like most promoters of religious cults, appeared as wise and venerable persons in outward mien and manner; and they carried weight and influence enough to set up such a claim, and to make it so effective as to precipitate a crisis of such proportions that required the action of a trial for their conviction and expulsion. It was not a mere passing incident, but of sufficient importance that it rated the mention in this message of Christ to this church. This reference has a signal place in the cumulative contents of book bearing out the claim of its early date.