Revelation 2:11

¹¹ He who is able to hear, let him listen to and heed what the Spirit says to the assemblies (churches). He who overcomes (is victorious) shall in no way be injured by the second death.

·         Even with the church of Smyrna Jesus never tells them that He has given them a spirit of faith and power not to fear, 2 Timothy 1:7. I hope you see what is actually being said to these two bodies of believers so far? There were in all likelihood, several truly saved people in each of these churches. These saved believers had the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. Jesus was confirming to these people what they probably already knew and He showed them what would happen. So when John wrote: endure to the end, they rejoiced, because they knew that Jesus would cause them to endure until the end. They had seen physical examples and heard personal testimonies of Jesus doing it for His children. The leadership of the churches may have been failing, but the true body of Christ endured, they endured because they were called and chosen before the very foundation of this world, and they received their crowns of life before they ever even had life! Our Father knows the beginning and the end and He knew His children before we were even in our mother’s wombs, Galatians 1:15. 

·         Our Father is no respecter of persons, Acts 10:34. I honestly believe that throughout every age, Jesus always shows His true chosen ones what is going on. He will use whatever means needed to get through to us. Let’s face it, we are all different, we’re like snowflakes, we are all made of the same things and yet each of us is unique. Jesus knows this and He knows how to deal with each of us; just as our head knows how to deal with the heart or the hand. We are every bit as much Jesus’ friends as the Apostles were. So if Jesus told them what was going on, He will tell us.

·         But when He, the Spirit of Truth (the Truth-giving Spirit) comes, He will guide you into all the Truth (the whole, full Truth). For He will not speak His own message [on His own authority]; but He will tell whatever He hears [from the Father; He will give the message that has been given to Him], and He will announce and declare to you the things that are to come [that will happen in the future]. John 16:13

·         The second death is a reference to those who are cast into the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20:11-15. Those who are cast into the Lake of Fire are those people who have committed Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the only unforgivable sin, Matthew 12:31. Jesus is writing to the leaders of these seven churches. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit seems to be a sin that can be committed by leader of a group of believers who teaches and attempts to lead the group to trust in their own power or something else's power and not the power of the Holy Spirit working through them. This is why Jesus told the leaders of the Israelites that it would be better to tie a millstone around their necks than to teach a little one to stray, Matthew 18:6. The Bible also teaches us that teachers will be held to a higher standard, James 3:1. Jesus never really threatened the common people, yet He repeatedly threatened the religious leaders. Jesus told us to beware of the religious leaders who were wolves in sheep’s clothing and He warned us of  the leaven of the Pharisees. The second death is a person being judged and found guilty of committing this unforgivable sin and then being destroyed for it. The called and chosen, the Bride, the saved, are empowered by the Holy Spirit to hear the Truth and therefore we have no fear of being thrown into the Lake of Fire; we have no fear of the second death. 

·         Also that is just a guess as to what Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is; the Bible never really spells it out word for word. This is why I believe that it is an incredibly hard and rare sin to commit. I honestly believe that only one person has ever committed it, Judas, John 17:12. Jesus forgave those who killed Him, even though they were leading the people astray from the power of the Holy Spirit working through them. Also in Jesus’ parable of the Marriage Supper only was found to be unfit to stay. So I believe that this sin is really the sin of the fallen angels and not for man.

·         We will study later that the fallen angels have been cast to the earth and that they are the ones who truly attack us, Ephesians 6:12. They will be thrown into the Lake of Fire, 2 Peter 2:4.

·         Let’s review here what Jesus showed us with these first two churches: one church had left its first love and the second church was poor and abused and their people were being killed. Sound like Churches today? So many churches in the world have left Jesus and those in the poorer countries are finding Him, and they are being killed for it. To me if these seven churches represent seven different church ages, they are all still in action today. As I am sure they were all in action years ago. 

·         When I hear that these churches that Jesus has John write to represent seven distinct periods of our history in Christ, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. What makes more sense is that these are seven specific church types, and they have always existed. Like the parable of the ten virgins, five were of Jesus and five were not. Here we see seven churches, one is of Him and six are not. You might say that two of the churches are, Philadelphia as we will study, and Smyrna. But with Smyrna we don’t see Jesus as being the active force in them, as we will see that He is in the Church of Philadelphia. Jesus tells Smyrna to endure, not that He will cause them to endure, as He tells the Church of Philadelphia.