When we turn to the epistle to the Seven Churches (Rev. ii., iii.) written in the next ensuing period, we find a fierce battle raging, resembling that for which this letter warns the Asian Churches to prepare. The storm which our apostle foresees, had then burst. The message addressed to each Church concludes with a promise to "him that overcometh." To the faithful it is said: "I know thy endurance." The angel of the Church of Pergamum dwells where is "the throne of Satan," and where "Antipas the faithful martyr was killed." There also, says the Lord Jesus, "are those who hold the teaching of Balaam, and the teaching of the Nicolaitans," with whom "I will make war with the sword of my mouth" (comp. Eph. vi. 17). Laodicea has shrunk from the trial, and grown rich by the world's friendship. Thyatira "suffers the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce" the servants of Christ. Sardis has but "a few names that have not defiled their garments." Even Ephesus, though she had tried the false teachers and found them wanting (surely Paul's epistles to Timothy had helped her in this examination), has yet "left her first love." The day of trial has proved an evil day to these Churches. Satan has been allowed to sift them; and while some good wheat remains, much of the faith of the numerous and prosperous communities of the province of Asia has turned out to be faulty and vain. The presentiments that weighed on St Paul's mind when four years ago he took leave of the Ephesian elders at Miletus, and which reappear in this passage, were only too well justified by the course of events. Indeed, the history of the Church in this region has been altogether mournful and admonitory.
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But it is time to look at the _armour_ in which St Paul bids his readers equip themselves against the evil day. It consists of seven weapons, offensive or defensive--if we count prayer amongst them: the _girdle of truth_, the _breastplate of righteousness_, the _shoes of readiness to bear the message of peace_, the _shield of faith_, the _helmet of salvation_, the _sword of the word_, and the continual _cry of prayer_.
1. In girding himself for the field, the first thing the soldier does is to fasten round his waist the military _belt_. With this he binds in his under-garments, that there may be nothing loose or trailing about him, and braces up his limbs for action. Peace admits of relaxation. The girdle is unclasped; the muscles are unstrung. But everything about the warrior is tense and firm; his dress, his figure and movements speak of decision and concentrated energy. He stands before us an image of resolute conviction, of _a mind made up_. Such a picture the words "girt about with truth" convey to us.
The epistle is pervaded by the sense of the Church's need of intellectual conviction. Many of the Asian believers were children, half-enlightened and irresolute, ready to be "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine" (iv. 14). They had "heard the truth as it is in Jesus," but had an imperfect comprehension of its meaning.[171] They required to add to their faith knowledge,--the knowledge won by searching thought respecting the great truths of religion, by a thorough mental appropriation of the things revealed to us in Christ. Only by such a process can truth brace the mind and knit its powers together in "the full assurance of the understanding in the knowledge of the mystery of God, which is Christ" (Col. ii, 2, 3).
Such is the faith needed by the Church, now as then, the faith of an intelligent, firm and manly assurance. There is in such faith a security and a vigour of action that the faith of mere sentiment and emotional impression, with its nerveless grasp, its hectic and impulsive fervours, cannot impart. The luxury of agnosticism, the languors of doubt, the vague sympathies and hesitant eclecticism in which delicate and cultured minds are apt to indulge; the lofty critical attitude, as of some intellectual god sitting above the strife of creeds, which others find congenial--these are conditions of mind unfit for the soldier of Christ Jesus. He must have sure knowledge, definite and decided purposes--a soul girdled with truth.