Overview: Seven Churches

This sermon is an overview of the first three chapters of Revelation, with a focus on the seven churches. These letters in the book of Revelation were specifically written to seven literal churches in Asia Minor at the end of the first century A.D., involving praise, warnings, commands, rebukes and promises. Each church that is addressed receives a very personal, practical and powerful challenge. These messages do not describe "church ages" covering the last two thousand years, nor were they written as allegory (non-literal story) that can have a number of symbolic meanings, but they were literally addressed to specific people with real needs living back in the first century. Though the words "church" or "churches" appear 20 times in the book of Revelation, they only describe one or all of these seven churches - the universal church is never addressed, nor is it raptured in 4:1. Believers and unbelievers alike can profit from and respond to each of these seven messages, as everyone with an ear to hear is commanded to obey.