- Enough Rope For Satan

Before I pursue that theme, however, let me speak of Satan’s big mistake. We have a familiar saying, “Give a person enough rope and he will hang himself.” Satan must have congratulated himself when he succeeded in having John shut away in the lonely isolation of exile. But the plot boomeranged. Instead of getting an obituary notice announcing John’s death, the churches received messages of great encouragement and the outline of Christ’s future victory. Satan should never have stirred up the Roman authorities to arrest and banish the saintly John. God allowed His faithful disciple to see farther from his island prison than any king has been able to see from his palace!

John wrote what he saw and what he heard concerning the heavenly scene. He detailed the judgments of God that would ultimately take place on earth. The messages he conveyed to the churches were brief but significant. Many eminent Bible scholars through the years have expressed their belief that the spiritual mountains and valleys of Christian church history are portrayed in the divine descriptions of both spiritual life and spiritual drought at Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. This raises a question often asked: Why were these messages directed to these seven churches? Why were not some of the older churches—those in Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome and Corinth, for instance—included?

We are finite, and we do not know the reasons. But we do accept the fact that the Spirit of God was dictating a special message that would ultimately convey God’s burden to the entire Christian community throughout the world. And we know from its use elsewhere in the Bible that the number seven suggests wholeness and completeness. The fact that seven churches were selected speaks of the possibility that the seven so named were indeed representative examples of the entire believing body of Christ on the earth.