6. “ He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches” --3:22. What the Spirit said to these seven churches has spiritual application to all churches. The lessons may be summed up as follows: One: the Ephesian church was commended for an outward work and labour and patience, but were censured for having left their first love. By comparison with the Thessalonians--who were said (1 Thessalonians 1:3) to have had "a work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope” --it appears that the missing qualities in the church at Ephesus were faith, or fidelity, in works; and love, or deTHE votion, in labour; and hope, or expectation, in patience. Theirs was an external work, a servile labour, and an impassive hope. They had rejected false teachers and were doctrinally sound; they abhorred the libertine practices of Nicolaitanism, and were maintaining moral rectitude. But the Lord issued the irrevocable directive for immediate resolution to restore the missing qualities, under the pain of the withdrawal of divine presence. Two: The church at Smyrna had attained congregational perfection, for which they received divine approval, but no assurance for the suspension of suffering was given to them; rather, they were exhorted to maintain the same degree of faithfulness in martyrdom that they had manifested in life, and their vouchsafed reward would be the inestimable crown of life. Three: the church at Pergamos had theoretically rejected all forms of idolatry and pagan sensuality, but the harboring of libertines and idolaters within their membership would expose them to the Lord’ s declaration of war against these heathenisms within the borders of the church, Four: The church at Thyatira had been constant in the possession and practice of the virtues of charity, and service, and patience and works; but the purity of these qualities had been somewhat tinctured by their tolerance of certain wicked influences among them; nevertheless with divine approval of their constancy, they were exhorted to cling to the things that had been approved, with the promise of the Lord’ s presence in the time of tribulation. Five: the church at Sardis was reproved for the declension of spiritual life and were upbraided for general decadence; but they were extended probation under a mandate for rehabilitation. Six: The par-excellent church at Philadelphia was the object of full divine approval, in nothing blameworthy, and was given the Lord’ s guarantee of preservation and deliverance from the imminent period of tribulation, the reward for their devoted loyalty to his Word, and faithful allegiance to his Name. Seven: The church at Laodicea was the object of stern rebuke for their failure to evaluate the true riches, and their blindness to their own spiritual deficiencies, and were threatened with expulsion from all communion with Christ, if they further rejected his overtures; but he would extend to them opportunity to open their hearts to his entrance, and he would accept them in mutual communion and fellowship. This concludes the visional prologue, and with the fourth chapter the general apocalypse begins.