He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches;

Revelation 2:7

The text to which i shall call your attention to are to be found in the book of Revelation chapter 2 verse 7. This is not the only address where we find this same saying, that is, it's not only to the church in Ephesus that the Spirit of the Lord gave such words but to all the other churches( Smyrna, Pergamum, Tyathira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea) which are the seven to whom the Spirit spoke to their angels.

But what made the Spirit of God to repeat this to all the churches? It's always important to note that most of the ancient languages use repetitions to emphasise on an important thing. And we have witnessed this in the book of Matthew, chapter 7 where he said that "Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. So here in a similar way, he made emphasis on the "lord" to make it clear to us the urgency in the peoples' confession of Jesus Christ.

What is so important about this message that he had to attach this same saying to the message he gave to every church? Well I think it's because some people hear without perceiving. Now it's obvious that everybody has an ear despite the fact that some might be without an ear or two due to some accident. So this message is not necessarily to those who have one ear or two. But there are some people who hear without understanding. So the word hear as used in these texts are not to merely listen to what the Lord was saying but that they should hear and obey.

In addition ,he said that because the message he was giving to the individual churches were not for them alone but for all Christians in that time and to all generations to come. So we are under same command ; listen and apply what the Lord said to the churches. The message to the Ephesians isn't for them alone but also for those in Laodicea, Smyrna and others. Therefore whatever be the church you are in, hear what the Lord said to those ancient churches and apply them. They are for you and I

This also teaches us that there should be unity among the churches in the world. And when I say unity I dont mean what some exumenists imply by saying that we need some unity void of doctrine and faith. Proper unity is been taught from these letters to the churches through the sharing of the one true message. Therefore it would be a great advantage to unite in doctrine and faith. It would be great to have the whole Christians worldwide beleiving in the same one and true Gospel. But as I said, it's the same lord who wrote to the churches and therefore he did not contradict himself although the message differed. So although our message differ in some aspects, that's on different topics , they should all agree basically with biblical doctrines.

Someone once asked me whether it's good to listen to preachers from other churches? I think that listening to variety of preachers is good and advantageous to us. It sometimes helps us to form a balance from what they preach. The message to the church in Ephesus was not the same to the one in Smyrna due to their situation so by virtue of the believers hearing what the Lord said to the Ephesians will broaden their knowledge about the Lord and what he expects us to do. This leads to edification and finally contributes to our sanctification. Listening to other preachers can also help us discern whether our church doctrines are right. I am not saying that another preacher should be the authoritative voice when it comes to discernment and judgement but that maybe through their preaching, God will enlighten us about what is wrong with the doctrines taught at our churches and help us escape.

So what we are supposed to do is to take every part of the bible into practice for although they weren't directly written to us, yet we may learn from it the ways of God. These same situations are been encountered in the churches nowadays and we ought to go to the letters written to these churches so that we will repent and come back to him so that for his glory .



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