Overcomers; Revelation 2:26-29
A rhetorical question: What
is your spiritual success ceiling? Some people are just satisfied that they are
going to go to heaven. It doesn’t matter what else God has to say for them or how
well they know their Bible as long as their ultimate destiny is not the lake of
fire they are happy. That is a s far as they are going
to go. Other folks are a little more ambitious. They want to at least have a
talking acquaintance with God, so they want to learn how to pray effectively
and perhaps learn a few promises about God’s faithfulness and what God is going
to provide for them. They are usually those basic baby promises that are more
“me” oriented than anything else. Then there are a few other folks who at least
want to have a passing intimacy with the God who provided their salvation, so
they will show up on a regular basis, maybe not only on Sunday but might even
show up in the middle of the week. They don’t want anybody to think they’re too
fanatical. Then there are other folks who recognize that there is indeed
something that goes far beyond salvation and that God saved us for a purpose.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to
do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” He created us to be
witnesses in the angelic conflict. He created us at regeneration that we might
have this new remarkable spiritual life to grow to maturity so that when He
returns we will be qualified to rule and reign with Him. That is real
achievement orientation there if you are oriented to really pressing on to the
high ground of spiritual maturity. But there are a lot of folk for whom that
doesn’t come to their consciousness until later in life. When they are 18, 20,
25 years of age they are more concerned with their career, getting married,
finding romance, a little later on having babies and raising kids and making
sure that those kids get exposed to all the important areas of life. Of course,
that Bible doctrine is the most important area somehow escapes them. That is
more important than piano lessons, than football, than everything else. If you
get those kids grounded in the Word then that is the most important thing.
Everything else somehow seems to take care of itself. It is usually not a
matter of either-or, it is a matter of how you
structure your life.
But the issue is, how much of a spiritual achiever are you? Are you just one
of the nod-to-God crowd that shows up now and then to
make sure that God knows you are still around? Or are you a little more dedicated, a little more interested? One day we all come to
that point where we realize that this isn’t just an academic study, it is not
just about learning a few things about God. It is our life, it is our heartbeat.
It is the air we breathe, the water we drink; it is everything to us as
believers because this is what our eternal destiny is.
This is the subject that we
hit in these last couple of verses in Revelation chapter two. Related to the
overcomer there is a passage that comes to mind in Luke 14. Luke records more
of what Jesus said related to discipleship than the other Gospel writers. In
Luke
Then He shifts to a political
analogy in verse 31ff. “"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against
another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with
ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty
thousand? If he is not able, he will
send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for
terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does
not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”
What Jesus is pointing out
here is that there is a cost to advancing in the spiritual life, to being an
achiever in the spiritual life. What kind of student are you? Are you the kind
of student who is satisfied with a C, or do you want something a little more
ambitious and are satisfied with a B? Or, are you the kind of student that is
only satisfied with an A or an A+? What kind of student are you? What is your spiritual
success ceiling? That is what these overcomer passages at the end of these
letters to these seven churches are all about. They are designed to motivate us
to recognize that salvation is a free gift but it comes with an incentive
clause. It is an incentive to go beyond simple salvation to pursuing spiritual
maturity. It is that Jesus Christ has in mind and has called us not simply to
salvation but to form a spiritually elite cadre that will go into the Millennial kingdom to rule and reign with Him. What He is
calling us to is a level of excellence that goes far beyond what you normally
see in a local church.
Revelation 2:26. The
challenge for us is to be overcomers. “To him who overcomes and does my will to
the end, I will give authority over the nations.” These are the spiritual elite
just mentioned. In Hebrews there is another term for them. They are called
“companions of Christ.” The Greek word is METOCHOI [metoxoi].
These are the one who will be that cadre of kings and priests who rule and
reign with Jesus Christ in the Millennial kingdom. The
question we ought to ask is, what makes them
different? What makes them overcomers, these METACHOI, different from the rest
of the pack? It boils down to one primary thing: volition—day in and day out.
It is not a one-shot thing. The first thing that makes them different is their
volition. The second thing that makes them different is their priorities. The
overcomer believer has a different set of priorities. He recognizes that he is
living this life in light of eternity and that shapes how he manages his time.
That is why Paul says in Ephesians that we are to redeem the time. We are going
to manage our time differently, we are going to decide what we are going to do
some days, some nights, in terms of going to Bible class, rather than doing
other things that are fine and good and enjoyable but are not going to advance
our spiritual life. They are different, too, because they are faithful. That is
really the key issue in this: faithfulness. It is not whether you went to
seminary or how much of the Bible you know, or how adept you are in theological
reasoning. There is possibility that the real winner believers that show up in
heaven, the ones who are really victorious, are going to be folks in the pew,
not pastors. They are people who are consistently learning the Word and
applying it. We will be amazed at who some of these overcomers really are. But
what makes them different is not that they have a higher IQ, not that
they are smarter, not that they are adept at theological reasoning, but because
they are faithful. 1 Corinthians 4:2, “Now it is required that those who have
been given a trust must prove faithful.” That is the issue: faithful in
listening to doctrine, assimilating doctrine; faithful in applying doctrine on
a daily basis in their life; faithful in maintaining those priorities.
The word in verse 26 for the
overcomer is NIKAO [nikao].
It is a present active participle and as a participle with an article it
function s like a noun. The basic meaning is a victor, someone who is
victorious in the games. It refers to someone who is a conqueror, someone who
is militarily victorious, or someone who has overcome various obstacles. So we
will translate it “winners”: “He who is
a winner.” As we have seen in the past this is a special elite class. These are
the believers who advance, the real disciples, those who press forward in the
spiritual life. We have to recognize that all believers have certain things in
common.
1)
All believers in
the church age are going to get Raptured—total Rapture, not a partial Rapture.
2)
All believers in
the church age are going to get resurrection bodies.
3)
All believers are going to have perfect
happiness, though we have to recognize that the non-overcomer in the spiritual
life is going to experience shame at the judgment seat of Christ—1 John
4)
All believers
have eternal life and spend eternity in heaven.
But there are differences
among believers in the Millennial kingdom and on into
eternity. So we need to contrast those who are victorious believers and those
who are failures in the spiritual life.
1)
The victorious
believer receives rewards at the judgment seat of Christ: rewards, privileges
and blessings, 1 Corinthians 3:12ff.
2)
The victorious
believer is praised personally by the Lord Jesus Christ. We have this from
several parables in the New Testament where the faithful servant is praised:
Well done, good and faithful servant.”
3)
Victorious
believers have different levels of privilege and authority in the Millennial kingdom. There will be different capacities for
happiness, different grades of authority, different
levels of responsibility. Cf. 2:7, 11. The victorious believer is going to be
given the hidden manna which relates to a special intimacy with the Lord. He is
given a white stone with his name written on it, and that is a picture of special
access to God. The new name indicates a new recognition related to spiritual
advance and spiritual achievement. Then we see in verse 26 that they are given
authority over the nations, they will rule over the nations, and they are going
to be given the morning star. There is some question as to just what that “morning
star” relates to but it seems to be an overt sign that they are individuals in
authority with responsibilities to rule. It is a visible indication that this
person is a person who has authority over the nations and the kingdom.
4)
The victorious
believer is at the wedding supper following the marriage of the Bride (the
church) to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the victorious believer is invited to the
wedding feast, and he is present there when the church consummates its union
with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is described in Matthew 25:1-3; Revelation 19:6-8.
5)
The victorious
believers participate with the Lord Jesus Christ in His final defeat of Satan.
They return with Him in that mighty army that returns with the Lord Jesus
Christ described in Revelation 19:9ff.
6)
Victorious
believers will then rule in the Millennial kingdom
with Jesus Christ as kings and priests, Revelation 20:6.
All of this is to motivate us
and stimulate us to press on to spiritual maturity. That is what the real
doctrine of perseverance is. It is not the Calvinistic distortion that the true
believer will persevere in good works necessarily. The true doctrine of
Scripture is that if you persevere as a believer and endure in the spiritual
life then there are special rewards, blessings and privileges for you which
will be distributed at the judgment seat of Christ as you reach that level of
being a METOCHOI or companion for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some
of the things the Scriptures say that believers lose of they are a failure
1)
Failure believers
fail to put doctrine first. They fail to count the cost, they fail to apply the
Word, and they fail to grow spiritually. They constantly get distracted by all
the things that come up in life, things that are fine and well and good, but
they keep us from making doctrine our priority.
2)
Failure believers
are often wonderful people. They may be very successful in this life. They may
advance in terms of their temporal responsibilities but often at the expense of
learning doctrine and advancing in their spiritual life.
3)
Failure believers
become distracted by the details of life.
4)
Those who are failure
believers will experience shame at the judgment seat of Christ, according to 1
John
5)
There will be a
loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. They may end up entering heaven
with nothing, but they will be saved. 1 Corinthians 3:15; Revelation 2:11.
6)
They will enter
but will not inherit the kingdom. Galatians 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 6:10.
7)
Their rewards will
be destroyed in the lake of fire. Revelation 21:8.
Revelation
Revelation
Then we have the promise: “I
will give authority over the nations.” The word “authority” is EXOUSIA [e)cousia] and it
indicates authority or control over something or someone. It is the potential
to command, to control or to govern. In this case it is governing
responsibility over the nations. There will be a hierarchy of governments in
the Millennial kingdom and the focus is the nations. These
are the Gentile nations, not
In Revelation
In Psalm 2:8, 9 we read about
this rule and Hebrews 1:8, 9 expands on that. Hebrews 1:8, “But about the Son
he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness
will be the sceptre of your kingdom.’” It is a sceptre of righteousness. In
Psalm 2 it is a sceptre of iron which is the application of a righteous rule. Verse
9, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God,
has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” The
word “companions” is METOCHOI, meaning those who partake and participate with the
Lord Jesus Christ in His rule.
Back to Revelation 2:27, “…
dash them to pieces.” This is the Greek verb SUNTRIBO [suntribw] meaning to subdue completely or to crush. So this
indicates something about the nature of the Millennial
kingdom. This is not a tyrannical rule, it will only
seem that way to those with sin natures who want to get away with things. That
is why there will be a certain number of dissatisfied people who will reject
the Messiah and at the end of the Millennial kingdom
they will be deceived by Satan and there is a brief revolt, and then God
destroys them.
Revelation 2:28, “I will also
give him the morning star.” This is a somewhat enigmatic reference because
there are only a few other places where there is a reference to a star related
to the Lord Jesus Christ. One is in Numbers 24:7 where there is a prophecy that
a star will come from Jacob and a sceptre shall rise from
Then the challenge in Revelation 2:29, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” That is a decision we make. It is our volition. It is not a matter of the circumstances in life, it is what you make of your circumstances in life in terms of growing and advancing in your spiritual life. It is a matter of your volition. “He who has an ear” is the one who is ready to listen, the one who is truly positive, the one who really wants to learn doctrine. “Let him hear,” is a third person imperative, “to what the Spirit says to the churches.”