e same behind the
different manifestations.

There is rare combination and adaptation in this message. It was meant
for the Church of that day, and of every day since, and for some future
day. For it stands as the one message from Christ to His Church between
Olivet and His return. It is meant distinctively for the Church as a
whole, and yet it makes an intense personal appeal to each one in the
Church.

It is spoken to the little groups of Churches in Asia Minor grouping
about the city of Ephesus, which had been founded by Paul and ministered
to by John. And without doubt it fitted into the conditions and
tendencies of those particular seven Churches.

But these are representative of all. Probably any group of seven would
be representative of all in varying degree. The mother Church at
Jerusalem is not named, nor the great Gentile missionary Church at
Antioch. But these messages with their approval and criticism, their
warning and promise, were meant for all the Church in Asia and Europe
and Africa at that time.

They are found to fit into the need of the Church scattered throughout
the world in every generation since then. Always there have been little
groups that were faithful and true, always some suffering because of
their faithfulness and remaining faithful in spite of suffering. And
always those who have been formal, who have companioned with evil, who
have been swamped by the evil with which they companioned, and those
practically asleep or dead.

This Patmos message will be found to fit the Church of to-day with
remarkable accuracy and faithfulness. And the whole probability is in
favor of finding that it will fit peculiarly the future Church, the
Church at the end of this present period.

This whole book of the Revelation is peculiarly a Church book. While it
is full of instruction and plea for our individual lives, yet it is
distinctively _the_ Church book. It stands out among the books of the
New Testament as the one book addressed to the Church and to the whole
Church.

It gives the great bulk of its space to an awful time of persecution
that is coming to the Church at some future time. This is spoken of
elsewhere, notably by Jesus in His talk with the disciples on Mount
Olivet, but it is the chief subject treated here. And it is treated with
great detail. The name commonly applied to this coming persecution is
the great tribulation.

It is significant that the book that clearly is distinctively