The seven Churches in history had its beginning on the Day of Pentecost in 30 AD barely 49 days after the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus was born on 5 BCE for he started His ministry when he was thirty years old. We must also take into account that Herod the Great died on 4 BCE and there is no year zero. Many people erred in their estimate of the year that Jesus died. His ministry lasted for 3 and ½ years only as prophesied.

Daniel prophesied of the ministry of Jesus, its length and His mission objective, as it is written,” And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease…” (Daniel 9:27). It should last for one complete week, but in the midst of that prophetic week (seven years), Jesus died on the cross. Daniel wrote how Jesus had strengthened the covenant between God and the people of Israel by means of His sacrificial death.

What is about to die was infused with life by the blood and the death of our Lord Jesus the Promised Messiah of Israel.

Interpretation of biblical prophecy is not based on popularity contest.

In exactly the same way, the religious people today that believe the true disciples and followers of Jesus Christ had called themselves Christians are also mistaken. They have no idea that it was the Apostolic Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church that officially adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Gentile believers in Jesus Christ. The true Church of God during New Testament times continued practicing the Jewish religion known as Judaism.

During New Testament times, Simon Magus had successfully counterfeited the New Testament Church of God in the city of Rome. Many Gentile believers had associated themselves with the Christian Bishops within the Roman territories. But John the Beloved with the little group of Jewish believers in Asia Minor had continued with the Torah and with the Jewish religion of Judaism.

The History of the Church bears witness to the fact that the Roman Bishops during the days of Emperor Hadrian had abandoned and separated themselves from the religion of Judaism. When the Jewish people in Judea had rebelled the second time against their Roman conqueror, Hadrian had gone to war against all things and all people that appeared Jewish.

The Christian people in Rome declared their faith and religion as non-Jewish and totally cut themselves off from Judaism. They apologized for being Jewish and converted their religion into a pagan one. Idolatry was quickly adopted. Jesus was presented immediately as a Jew who had abandoned His own people and forsaken the Jewish religion. Paul the apostle became the champion of the religion of Christianity for it appeared in his letters that God did not impose upon the Gentile believers His commandments written in the Law of Moses.

John had recorded in a little book the prophetic seven letters of Jesus Christ to the seven Churches that had appeared one after the other throughout the history of the Church of God.

In Revelation 2, the prophetic letter of Jesus Christ for the remnant of the Church of Ephesus has found its own place in the little book of prophecy.

“Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;

“I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:1-7, KJV).

The era of the Church of Ephesus in history has been calculated to last from 30 CE until the year that John the last Apostle had passed the baton to Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna. God had brought an end to the work of Church of Ephesus at that same time the Christians in Rome had severed their ties completely from Judaism.

The death of Apostle John is our starting point in the Church of Smyrna era. When Bishop Polycarp had taken the helm of leadership among the Jewish believers in Asia Minor, a new era had begun in Church history. The seven Church eras followed the same pattern established in the beginning of the history of the seven churches.

It was the death of Garner Ted Armstrong in 2003 that brought the end to the history of the seven Churches.

Once an era had ended, the next era quickly followed until all of the seven successive Church eras had finished and wasted the years God has allotted for each of the seven Churches. The end of a Church era marked the appearance of the prophesied remnant of the Church that worked in that particular period of time in the annals of ecclesiastical history.

When the Ephesus era had ended, the remnant of the Church of Ephesus manifested herself quickly like a Santa Claus dressed in scarlet clothing. The prophesied remnant of this Church era is not populated by the same group that had done the work of God. Throughout the history of the seven Churches the prophesied remnants that appeared to whom Jesus had actually addressed His prophetic letters are not the same Churches nor do they bear the name of the seven Churches that performed the works of God.

Take for instance the remnant of the Church of Sardis whose name bears the word ‘seven,’ it is not the same Church organization that had done the work of God in Sardis era. The Church of Seventh Day is not the same Church of God group wherein Herbert W. Armstrong had been trained by God for his work in the era of Philadelphia.

It is not easy to precisely pinpoint all the remnants of the seven Churches that are still in existence at this present time. No one has thought and figured out before that each of the seven Churches has its own remnant that still working a work at this time. It is even so hard for most of the believers today to discern and understand that Jesus is a Jew. Think of Jesus as the Promised Messiah of the Jewish people in Israel. The Gentile people have underestimated the love of a Jew for the Torah of Moses and the Sabbath Day.

Jesus is a Jew. Anyone who claims today that Jesus is a Christian has probably lost his mind or simply a fool or a nincompoop. The Christian people think Jesus was a Jew. They said Jesus is not a Jew because the Jews had him killed. I still could not understand what kind of logic their minds are running.

In Judaism we believe that when all the people of Israel keep the Sabbath Day even for one day, our Promised Messiah would come. We love the Sabbath Day. Jesus loves the Sabbath Day. The members of the Church of Ephesus—the New Testament Church of God—in the 1^st Century CE loved so much the Sabbath Day. There is no reason to teach and preach the Sabbath laws at all. But its remnant in existence today has lost their love for the Sabbath Day.

That is what Jesus is trying to point out to the remnant of the Church of Ephesus.

“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love” (Revelation 2:4, KJV).

They lost their love for the Sabbath Day and went to worship the Devil on Sunday instead.

The history of the seven Churches shows us that most of the members that composed the succeeding Churches after the Smyrna era ended came from the remnant of the Church of Ephesus. Peter Waldo was also from the Church of Ephesus but he repented. Martin Luther was an Ephesian and he repented as well. I am an Ephesian by birth but I repented in time.

When Jesus returns, it is the Church of Ephesus that would be taken out first. The unrepentant shall experience the bowl of the wrath of God in the day of the Lord. The remnant of the Church of Ephesus shall be gone as it is written in the book of Revelation.

Do you have an idea now who the true remnant of the Church of Ephesus really is?

What you were told before about the seven Churches may not really be the complete truth?

Listen to me now.

The Angel of Ephesus

"To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, ‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary.

“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place--unless you repent.

“But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God" ' (Revelation 2:1-7, NKJV).

Jesus had sent a coded message not only to the remnant of the Church of Ephesus in this end of times but to all the seven churches. It is not easy to figure out what Jesus wanted the members of the prophesied Church of Ephesus to do. Not only that, most of the believers nowadays, whatever generation they are, have no idea to whom Jesus was addressing His message.

There is only one man who can decipher the code and make the messages to the seven Churches understandable.

Who can this man be?

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

The verse above implicitly tells us of someone who can enlighten us concerning the seven messages of Jesus to the Churches. A man with the Spirit of God is bringing to us in this end of time, the secret messages of Jesus Christ to the seven Churches of God.

That is what I have written on Revelation 1.

Historical Background

Many bible scholars before had agreed in unison that the history of the seven cities in Asia Minor can help us understand the seven Churches. History can show us what had become of the seven Churches at the end of their respective eras. It might even help us determine who the remnant or the people are that composed each of the seven churches today. History can also show us who the people are that had done the work of God during the seven Church eras. In saying that I am pointing to you that each of the seven Churches has their own respective remnant still existing today. Jesus has addressed His seven messages to those seven remnants of the seven Churches today not to the churches that had done the work of God before.

The book of Revelation is shedding a light today on the prophesied seven churches in history and in this end of time.

Ephesus is a city of the Roman Province, located 3 miles from the western coast of Asia. It has an artificial harbor accessible to the largest ships that sailed the seas. It was a sanctuary to many merchants that sailed at seas. It was the most easily accessible city in Asia and the mail route in Asia Minor started here, which is the rationale why the first letter of Jesus was addressed to the Church of Ephesus.

Tradition says that in early times near the place where the mother goddess of the earth was born, the Amazons built a city and a temple in which they might worship. The temple was conspicuous at the harbor of Ephesus. The city was a place of idolatry, where a woman goddess named Diana was worship in ancient times. Ephesus became the commercial center of Asia Minor because of the Temple of Diana. Its great wealth and prominence are largely due to it. Consequently, the people in Asia Minor stored their money here for safe-keeping. Ephesus is like the Bank of England in the ancient world. But history also says the city of Ephesus was destroyed seven times by fire.

In 356 BCE, on the night Alexander the Great was born, the city was burned.

The city was known as a sanctuary for the criminal. It was a kind of city of refuge, for none might be arrested for any crime whatever when the person is within a bowshot of its walls. Thieves and murderers and other criminals made their homes in the city of Ephesus. Vast numbers of pilgrims came to the city during ancient times as if it was Mecca of this present time. It is a place where people came to buy idols made of gold, silver, even wood and stone. In consequence of the devotion of the city of Ephesus to the Goddess Diana, it was called neo'koros, or "warden" of Diana (Acts19:35).

According to Pliny the historian, the city had been called by many names before Ephesus. At the time of the Trojan War, it was called Alopes, then Ortygia and Morges. It was also called by the name of Smyrna Trachea that sometimes the city is indistinguishable from the nearby city Smyrna. They said it was called Ephesus, because Hercules permitted the Amazons to dwell in it. Ephesus in the Greek language signifies "permission." Pausanias said the temple of Diana was not built first by the Amazons but it was Ephesus the son of Caystrus who built it, which is the reason why the city had its name.

The city has fallen into the hands of Carians, the Leleges and Ionians in ancient times. In 560 BCE, the Lydians possessed and 3 years later it was taken by the Persians. In 190 BCE it became a part of the Roman Empire.

Finally in 262 CE, when the temple of Diana was again burned, its influence had so far departed that it was never again rebuilt. Ephesus is nothing but a fallen city in the end. The whole place is now utterly desolate, with the exception of the small Turkish village at Ayasalik. Its ruins are of vast extent today.

Chandler’s Travels in Asia Minor, gives us a curious account of the fate of city of Ephesus: “The Ephesians are now a few Greek peasants, living in extreme wretchedness, dependence, and insensibility: the representative of an illustrious people, and inhabiting the wrecks of their greatness: some beneath the vaults of the Stadium, once the crowded scene of their diversions; and some live by the abrupt precipice, in the sepulchres which received the ashes of their ancestors. Such are the present citizens of Ephesus; and such is the condition to which that renowned city has been gradually reduced. Its streets are obscured and overgrown; a herd of goats was driven to it for shelter from the sun at noon; and a noisy flight of crows from the quarries seemed to insult its silence. We heard the partridge call in the area of the theater, and of the Stadium. The glorious pomp of its heathen worship is no longer remembered; and Christianity, which was there nursed by apostles, and fostered by general councils, until it increased to fullness of stature, barely lingers on, in an existence hardly visible” (Travels in Asia Minor, Chandler, p. 130).

We can certainly find a symbolical semblance of the history of the city of Ephesus to the destiny of the remnant-Church of Ephesus in the seven letters of Jesus Christ. It is like the seven cities in Asia Minor were chosen to symbolically represent the fate of the seven remnants of the seven churches.

The people on earth today that are adherents and members of the remnant Church of Ephesus should heed the call of Jesus Christ to get out of this prophesied city that would be removed from its place very soon.

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her” (Revelation 18:4-8).

The Prophetic Salutation

“Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks” (Revelation 2:1).

Jesus identifies himself in the salutation portion of His letter as he that holds the seven stars in his right hand and he who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars symbolize the seven angels or seven messengers of the seven churches. Strong’s Greek lexicon says, the angels or aggelos in Greek implicitly denotes the pastors of the seven churches.

Jesus said he holds the seven angels in his right hand. What would happen once Jesus drops from His right hand any one of the seven stars? There are many bible students of prophecy who say the angel of the Church denotes the head pastor or the head priest of the Church. Will the leaders of the seven churches die as a consequence of being dropped from Jesus’ right hand?

God through the salutation of Jesus has given seven things to the prophesied remnant of the Church of Ephesus as a means for us to identify who, where and what it is. Look for a Church organization whose beginning can be traced as far back as the New Testament times, when John was still alive. That Church of God has seven something in its possession today like the history of the city of Ephesus, it burned down seven times.

The last line in verse 1 that states ‘who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlestick’ signifies to us that as Jesus is with the believers till the end of the world (Matthew 28:20), the remnant of the Church of Ephesus shall also exist throughout the history of the seven churches. Remember the seven golden candlesticks are the seven churches (Revelation 1:20).

We are looking for a Church that walks and exists throughout the entire seven periods or seven eras in the history of the Church. It is a church that has a seven something just like the salutation of the message of Jesus to the Church in Sardis.

“And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1).

The true remnant of the Church in Sardis has the number seven in its name but that seven something  denotes life in itself yet the members of the Church in Sardis  are dead spiritually speaking. They have a work still extant today but it is a dead work in itself.

We are making a comparison here between the remnant of the Church of Ephesus and the remnant of the Church in Sardis concerning the salutation portion of the seven prophetic messages. Both of these two Church organizations are not the same Churches that had done the work of God during their supposed-to-be Church eras, namely, Ephesus era and Sardis era. They came out of their respective Church era after it ended.

They are the resulting products or the end-result of the work of God in those two Church eras. For instance, the Worldwide Church of God under Mr. Herbert Armstrong has done the work of God from 1933 until 2003 CE. When both the Philadelphia era and Laodiceans era ended in 2003, there is a group of Philadelphians that became the remnant of the Church in Philadelphia era. But that group we know as the New Jerusalem is not the same Church organization we know as the Worldwide Church of God.

The New Jerusalem is a new Church of God organization.

The Holy Bible shows us that the New Testament Church under the leadership of the twelve apostles is indeed the Church of Ephesus that had done the work of God during the Ephesus era. Paul the Apostle is also part of the New Testament Church of God. All of the local churches that Paul the Apostle had established wherein he wrote his epistles for them were all part of that New Testament Church of God, which is the reason we refer to them as the New Testament Church. They are all listed or included in the New Testament writings of the Holy Bible.

But they are not the remnant of the Church of Ephesus.

They are actually the Church of Ephesus in the history of the seven Churches.

The remnant of Ephesus appeared after the Smyrna era has ended in the same way that the remnant of the Church in Philadelphia came to be when both the Philadelphia and Laodicea eras had ended at the same time. There is a clear connection between the Church of Ephesus and the Church of Smyrna that they can be mistaken as one and the same group. Similarly the Church in Philadelphia and the Church of the Laodiceans have a very obvious connection. They all originated from the same Church organization known as the Worldwide Church of God.

The end of the seven Church eras came when Garner Ted Armstrong died in the year 2003.

The seven prophetic letters of Jesus Christ are addressed not to the seven churches that had done the work of God in their respective era. The seven prophetic messages are actually written for the seven remnants of the seven churches in existence today all over the world. We became aware of the existence of the seven church eras because of the seven letters of Jesus Christ to the seven churches. But it was only the Worldwide Church of God under Herbert W. Armstrong that almost decoded completely the prophetic seven messages of Jesus.

The members of the Worldwide Church of God during latter part of the Philadelphia era were taught that they are the Church that is doing the work of God in the era of Philadelphia. But the Church had no inkling at all that its members were being groomed to become the prophesied Church of the Laodiceans at the end of time.

Similar thing occurred to the group of Polycarp in Smyrna era. Polycarp is part of the Church of Ephesus but when John the last Apostle died, the Ephesians were simply transformed into the members of the Church in Smyrna. History only shows us the true remnant of the Church of Ephesus at the end of the Smyrna era. We could hardly pinpoint that Church as the prophesied remnant of the Church of Ephesus when God enlightened the believers in Jesus about the Church eras.

The First Church of God

“I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted” (Revelation 2:2-3).

This part of the message of Jesus Christ, in all of the seven letters, somehow helps us distinguish the Church of God that did the work of God earlier in history. The period in Church history that the Roman Catholic Church labeled as Early Christianity has a vast amount of recorded materials describing to us what really happened back then. But the period we know as Early Christianity is not Christian or Messianic at all.

To be continued …

So tell me now who the first Church of God is among the remnants of the seven Churches. The Sabbath is coming very soon. I will finish this article later on. The public gets to read this for free. When it is complete, you have to register to gain access.

What you were told about the book of Revelation may not be exactly true?

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