Revelation 1:16 says, “He had in His right hand seven stars.” As verse 20 makes clear, “the seven stars are the messengers of the seven churches.” The messengers are the spiritual ones in the churches bearing the responsibility of the testimony of Jesus. Like stars, they should be of the heavenly nature and in a heavenly position. In the Acts and the Epistles the elders were the leading ones in the operation of the local churches (Acts 14:23; 20:17; Titus 1:5). The eldership is somewhat official, and at the time that Revelation was written, the offices in the churches had deteriorated in the degradation of the church. In Revelation the Lord calls our attention back to spiritual reality. Hence, it emphasizes the messengers of the churches rather than the elders. The office of the elders is easily perceived, but the believers need to see the importance of the spiritual and heavenly reality of the messengers for the proper church life to bear the testimony of Jesus in the darkness of the church’s degradation.
Both the lampstands and the stars are for shining in the night. A lampstand, representing a local church, is a collective unit, whereas a star, representing a messenger of a local church, is an individual entity. In the dark night of the church’s degradation, there is the need of the shining both of the collective churches and of the individual messengers. While churches need the care of Christ, their messengers need His keeping grace. As Christ walks among the churches, He holds the leading ones in His right hand. How comforting this is! The leading ones must praise Him that they are in His hands and that He is holding them. Since the leading ones are in His hands, there is no need for them to shrink back, to be weak, or to be mistaken. Christ truly takes the responsibility for His testimony.
The saints who are taking the lead in the churches as the messengers are held in Christ’s right hand. This One is the holder of the leading ones in the churches. However, some of the so-called church leaders may not be held by Him. Christ holds in His hand only those He recognizes. To be held by Him, we must first be recognized by Him. We should realize that the leading ones in the churches in the Lord’s recovery are held in His right hand. When we see this, it will save us from disappointment and discouragement and strengthen us to the uttermost.
In Revelation the Lord repudiates all formalities. Being an elder may be somewhat legal or formal. We should not aspire to be one who is merely in the position of an elder; instead, we should desire to be a shining star. We who are the serving ones need to be aware that we are not in our own hands but His. He administrates the lampstands and holds the stars.
It is significant that every one of the seven epistles to the seven churches was written to the messengers of the churches. Under normal circumstances the messengers of the churches are the elders of the churches. It is true that the different churches are God’s lampstands in the different places. Yet when the Lord came to speak, He did not speak directly to the churches; rather, He spoke to the messengers of the churches. In the Lord’s recovery today, position means nothing. What we can do and how much we can accomplish also mean nothing. What matters is how much we are shining and how bright we are. In other words, what matters is not how much we can do but how much we shine. This is what it means to be a messenger of the Lord in the churches today. The night is so evil and dark that there is absolutely no light. But there are shining stars in the churches. Their presence in the church means very much. When they are in the churches, everything is in light. When they are gone, the whole situation is full of darkness.
As shining stars in the church, we do not have any light in ourselves. We can shine only by reflecting Christ as the sun (Luke 1:78). Hence, we must look unto Him with unveiled face that we might reflect His glory (2 Cor. 3:18). This causes us to become the shining stars.
In Revelation 1:16 we are told that “out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword.” In Song of Songs 5:16 “His mouth is sweetness itself,” and in the Gospels “words of grace” proceeded out of His mouth (Luke 4:22). But in Revelation 1:16 “out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword.” This is His divine, discerning, judging, and slaying word (Heb. 4:12; Eph. 6:17). The “words of grace” are for His supply of grace to His favored ones, whereas the “sharp two-edged sword” is for His dealing with negative persons and things. The Spirit speaks to the churches, and the speaking Spirit today is this Christ who speaks with a two-edged sword. There is judgment here, and we have experienced this. Because of the church’s degradation, we need a certain amount of judgment. Today all Christians need the judgment of the Lord by His word. Many times we have experienced this judgment because of our being mistaken and going astray from the Lord. Since we had wandered away from Him, He came to judge us. His speaking today is mainly a type of judgment. The Lord’s call for His overcomers involves judgment. If the Lord would speak to us, most of His words would be words of judgment. When He speaks, He judges. Every word out of His mouth in the churches today is like a sharp knife which judges us. The words which proceed out of the Lord’s mouth are sharp, piercing into our being, dividing our soul from our spirit, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of our heart (Heb. 4:12). This is the Christ we experience today in the church life.
In the Lord’s recovery today we have One who is walking in our midst. He watches over us with His seven burning eyes, and out of His mouth proceeds a sharp two-edged sword. This sword kills all the different concepts among us and eliminates debates in the churches. Every time an opinion rises up, the sword cuts it to pieces. The more we think about our opinion, the more we are cut. This is not doctrine—this is our experience. Whenever two brothers are close to arguing, the third party, the strongest party, appears, using the sharp sword to cut the opinions of both brothers. The two-edged sword quells all the turmoil. This third party is Christ, the Son of Man, who, as the High Priest, walks among the churches and cares for them in love. In the Old Testament there was the need for the priests to trim the lamps. Today our Priest, the Son of Man, knows the right time to trim us. As a result, we enjoy calm in the church life.