As churches, in all ages, are often in the several conditions ascribed to the seven churches, the warnings, admonitions, and consolations addressed to them, may serve for instruction to all Christians, as implied in the declaration: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches,” 2:29. “By αγγελος, angel [or messenger], we are to understand the _messenger_, or person sent by God to preside over the church; and to him the epistle is directed, not as pointing out his state, but the state of the church under his care. The Angel of the Church, here answers exactly to that officer of the synagogue among the Jews, called the _messenger_ of the church, whose business it was to _read_, _pray_, and _teach_ in the synagogue.”—DR. CLARKE. Timothy is supposed to have had the care of the Ephesian church till A. D. 97, when he was martyred. Ephesus was a large, idolatrous city, “a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which,” as they claimed, “fell down from Jupiter,” Acts 19:35. The gospel was first preached there by Paul, and with such success, that “Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver: So mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed,” _Ib._ 19, 20. They continued a fine and prosperous church, but had fallen away from their first love. Therefore He who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and holdeth in his hand the messengers of the churches, admonished them that, unless they repented he would remove their candlestick, _i.e._, their church, of which the candlestick was a symbol, out of its place. They did not repent; and, says Gibbon, “In the year 1312, began the _captivity_, or ruin of the seven churches by the Ottoman power. In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the loss of the first _Angel_, the extinction of the first _candlestick_ of the Revelations. The desolation is complete, and the temple of _Diana_, or the church of _Mary_, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller.” The Nicolaitanes, whose deeds God hated, were a sect of heretics, who assumed the name from Nicholas of Antioch, one of the first seven deacons of the church in Jerusalem. It is believed that he was rather the innocent occasion, than the author of the infamous practices of those who assumed his name,—who allowed a community of wives, and ate meats offered in sacrifice to idols. It was a short-lived sect.