Indeed, Lord, please have your way in each
of us today, Lord.
We give you our heart, Lord.
And Lord, we lay it bare before you
and ask you to search it, to know
it.
Lord, we know you do.
We just sometimes need to be reminded that
you do.
And Lord, as you do, you don't seek
to smash us.
You seek to lift us.
Yes, you want us to turn from our
sin.
And thank you, Lord, that you've made the
way that we can turn.
There's not a one of us here this
morning that are too far away from you
to turn.
We wouldn't even be here, Lord, if that
was the case.
So, God, give us ears to hear what
you would say to us.
Lord, we pray for one another.
We ask God that you would just keep
each one, each of our brothers and sisters,
each person that may be visiting here, maybe
that don't even know you, Lord, that you
would keep their hearts open to you, Lord,
that they would receive you today.
Lord, we're mindful of the great need in
our community and in our nation and in
our world today.
The great need to know you.
Lord, there is such wickedness prevailing.
Lord, there is such pain and heartache throughout
this world, such disappointment and frustration and fear.
Lord, we think of those that are in
bondage and in countries, Lord, that they're not
free to express you.
Lord, we think of those suffering through war
and bloodshed, Lord.
Lord, we think of those that are reeling
from the catastrophic hurricanes in Florida, Lord, and
who have lost all of their possessions.
Lord, there's a lot of hurt and pain
in our world today.
Lord, there's such need for you, for the
peace that comes from you, that as you
said, Lord, in this world, we will have
tribulation, but don't be afraid because you have
overcome this world.
And so we ask, Lord, that beginning here,
beginning right here in our own hearts, Lord,
and in our own little community of Escondido,
Lord, that you would light a fire again
in us, God.
And Lord, that we would have a mind
and a heart to serve you and a
broken, yielded, intercessory heart for the needs of
those around us, Lord, in our community and
around the world.
God, have your way in us, we pray,
and use us for your glory in Jesus'
name.
We open your word now.
Teach us.
Amen.
You can be seated.
And if you would, open your Bibles to
the book of Revelation.
And this morning, we're going to begin a
study of the seven letters to the churches
that we have recorded for us from Jesus
in chapters two and three.
At the end of chapter one, John the
Beloved, John the Apostle, while in captivity under
the Roman government on the Roman penal colony
island of Patmos, received just a beautiful vision
of things to come.
And obedient to the Lord, he wrote it
down, that churches, not only in his age,
but down through the ages, would be encouraged
and edified, comforted and strengthened by the fact
that he is coming again, that heaven isn't
that far away, that we have a perfect
judge, and all evil and all wickedness will
be dealt with in ultimate justice.
We can hold on to that when we're
going through tough times.
And as I look out across this congregation,
I know many of your stories.
I know where a lot of you are
at even today.
And you've either been in hard times, as
we're going to talk about this when we
get to one of the other letters, you're
in hard times, or you will be in
hard times.
It's just a fact of life.
But in the midst of it, in the
midst of it, our joy for the Lord,
our love for the Lord can be the
sweetest fragrance that not only fills our lives,
but permeates those around us as well.
This is a wonderful book.
So John's caught up, he's caught up in
the heaven.
He has these things beginning to unfold.
He sees a vision of Jesus.
In verse 17, he says, When I saw
him, I fell at his feet as dead.
But he laid his right hand on me
and said to me, Don't be afraid.
I am the first and the last.
I am he who lives and who was
dead and behold, I am alive forevermore.
So be it.
Amen.
Jesus is alive.
He's not still hanging on a cross.
He was taken down from that cross, laid
in a grave, three days later rose victoriously
over sin and death, the very first fruits
of those who would also rise, of whom
you and I are part of.
If you're born again, if you've given your
life to Jesus Christ, we also will live
forever with the Lord.
And that should give us great joy and
great, great passion.
As we realize that life here is not
all there is.
It's not like a couple of guys sitting
on a boat on a lake with a
can of beer going, It doesn't get any
better than this.
Maybe for them, that's as far as it
goes, but that's not God's intent.
It does get better and better and better.
And it'll keep getting better for all eternity.
Hallelujah.
As we as Christians, we know that this
life is just a way station.
It's just a stop on the way to
eternity.
It's not the end in itself.
It's a very important stop.
It's a very critical place because it is
here where we choose which way we're going
to go.
God gives us that choice.
Are we going to follow him?
Or are we going to follow the lies
of the world around us?
It blesses my heart.
I'm so thankful that God intruded into my
life so many years ago and got ahold
of me.
And I'm so thankful he upset your lives
and got ahold of you.
And now we're gathered together as a church
family, just so grateful, so thankful for what
he's done.
He is alive forevermore.
He has the keys of Hades and of
death.
And so he says to John, write the
things which you have seen, the things which
are, and the things which will take place
after this.
The things which you have seen would be
John's vision of the glorified Christ, which we
saw in chapter one.
The things which are would be the letters
to the seven churches in Asia Minor in
chapters two and three, or to the church
age as a whole.
And then that which will take place after
the church age, after the church is finished,
when the time of the Gentiles is complete,
when the last person to be saved is
saved.
And then the church, the bride of Christ
is taken up to be forever with the
Lord.
Verse 20, the mystery of the seven stars,
which you saw on my right hand and
the seven golden lampstands.
Well, the seven stars are the angels of
the seven churches and the seven lampstands, which
you saw are the seven churches.
So for the next two chapters, Jesus will
be dictating seven letters to these seven churches.
And each of these letters follows a structural
pattern.
Each letter has a to and from beginning.
It says to the angel of, and then
that particular church.
Now, what's does each church have its own
angel?
Maybe, but the aim, the word for angel
and the Greek can also be messenger, which
was the duty of the different pastors that
were over those churches.
They were churches like ours, gatherings of people
who love Jesus, who were gathered together initially
when they were planted around the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
And they had leaders in those churches that
had the responsibility of instructing and guiding and
teaching and protecting.
So I believe that John had in mind
those churches that were within his sphere of
immediate influence there in Asia minor.
And he probably knew who each of the
pastors of those churches were.
Jesus sure knew who they were and he
had a word for them.
How'd you like to get an email or
a certified letter from Jesus?
And it starts off.
I know your works.
Now, how would we react?
I think that was a nervous laugh, wasn't
it?
I know your works.
I go busted.
God, you know.
Yes, he does know.
And the fact that he knows isn't there
to destroy us.
It's there to draw us to him, to
turn from things that aren't pleasing him and
to get right with him.
So it has a to and from.
The to is to the church.
The from is a self-description of Jesus.
Each one of them kind of, as you
read through them, each description of Jesus kind
of looks back to the vision that John
had, a portion of the vision that John
had in chapter one.
Then he commends them for what they are
doing good, except for the church at Sardis
and the church of Laodicea.
He also points out what they're doing bad,
except for the church at Smyrna and the
church at Philadelphia.
Then he makes a statement of exhortation or
counsel, followed by a call to commitment.
He who has an ear to hear and
a promise to him who overcomes, I will
give, I will make, he will be.
So it's important to look at each of
those.
And as we look at these letters, we're
going to this morning look at the first
four letters.
I was going to try to do all
seven of them, but I think that was
ambitious.
And I think we're going to look at
the first four this morning.
How do we take these letters?
Yes, we've already mentioned they were written to
real historical churches that existed around 95 AD.
And we're also to take them as a
whole, because there are seven letters and seven
in the scripture is a number of completion.
The letters are applicable to the complete church.
In a sense, there are seven churches in
existence today, just as there have been throughout
history.
And Jesus saw in these particular churches, a
combination of the strengths and weaknesses that would
be characteristic of all churches during the church
age while he was absent from the earth.
It would be characteristic of all churches.
So we would have to know that that
would mean that even in Escondido, there are
those seven churches, those the characteristics of these
churches are right here.
In fact, right within our own church, we
could have those seven characteristics.
Each letter applies to each individual church today.
Jesus says in each letter, he who has
an ear, let him hear what the spirit
says to the churches.
And in this sense, each letter also applies
to each of us as individuals, because the
characteristics, both the good and the bad that
are mentioned in these letters, we can have
going on in our own lives at different
times.
How do we deal with that?
How do we respond to that?
And then fourthly, we can take these letters
prophetically.
There's an interesting flow of the church through
history, amazingly portrayed here.
As the church has grown through the years,
through the last 20 centuries, it's very parallel
to the flow of issues from church to
church as we read them here, starting with
Ephesus in the apostolic age, going all the
way through Laodicea in that final age of
apostasy before the Lord comes back.
It's interesting.
We're not going to take that view dogmatically
because it's not really supported in detail in
other sections of scripture.
But God is a God of order.
And even in the letters to the churches,
there's kind of an orderly circular pattern starting
with geographically Ephesus, and then Smyrna, and then
Pergamos, and then Thyatira, and then Sardis, and
then Philadelphia, and then Laodicea from where John
was at.
It's like the Lord says, we're going to
start here, and then there, there, there, there,
and there.
It would be just like the Lord to
give a pattern, to give us history in
advance, which is really what prophecy is.
It's that which has already happened.
God already knows what's going to happen, and
he clues us in to what's going to
happen.
Thank you, Lord.
That helps us to be more prepared and
more ready.
And that's really why we study the word
of God, not just the book of Revelation,
but the entire counsel of scripture.
That's to be ready because we know not
the day or the hour when the Lord's
going to come back.
We don't know if today might be our
last day here.
And I see a few of you going,
oh, Maranatha.
Come quickly, Lord.
May today be that day.
Why is he waiting?
There may be a few more that still
need to be saved, but we don't know
when that's going to take place.
And so we need to be ready each
and every day.
Of course, none of us know when our
own personal calling is going to be, amen?
We don't know when it's going to be
our time to go.
There have been millions of saints who have
died before the rapture already.
We don't know when our time is going
to be up.
So God, help us not to live brashly
and ignorantly in these days.
As you have let us know you, may
we live for you.
Help us not to get distracted by the
temptations of the pleasures of the world all
around us.
And so we have those different ways of
looking at it.
For our study this week, I'd really like
to focus on how these strengths or weaknesses
show up in our own church and more
specifically in our own lives.
We'll look a little bit at the history,
but I really want to focus on how
how are we being dealt with?
What is the Lord saying to us this
morning?
And what are we going to do about
it?
So we begin with Ephesus chapter two.
Ephesus historically speaks of the zealous church of
the first century AD.
Yet even in a church so close time
-wise to the time of Jesus, a mere
couple generations from the time of Jesus' physical
presence on the earth, they were developing serious
problems.
They had some great ministry going in Ephesus,
but had allowed their personal passion for Jesus
to fade, to fade away.
And the Lord warns them that they needed
to repent.
And ignoring those problems would result in a
removal of that church from the flow and
purposes of God as a testimony for Jesus
Christ.
And Ephesus is in ruins today, didn't last
much past the fifth century.
So let's read from through verse seven.
To the angel of the church of Ephesus
write, these things says he who holds the
seven stars in his right hand, who walks
in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.
Hey, isn't that, that's good to know that
the Lord, the Lord's desire is to walk
in the midst of the church.
He said, lo, I will be with you
always, even until the end of the ages.
He's here with us today.
And I know your works.
He says, I know your works, your labor,
your patience, and that you cannot bear those
who are evil.
And you've tested those who say they are
apostles and not, and have found them liars.
And you have persevered and you have patience
and you've labored for my name's sake, and
you've not become weary.
So you think, yeah, this church is pretty
right on, isn't it?
They're doing it.
They're doing the work.
They're booming, man.
They got ministries going and they're checking all
the, all the charlatans, the wolves and sheep's
clothing.
You know, they're, they're recognizing them.
They're exposing them.
They're holding on for the truth.
And then can you imagine the pastor reading
this letter?
He's going, yes, yes, yes, yes.
And then verse four, nevertheless, oh, I have
this against you.
Gets his attention.
And here it is that you have left
your first love.
Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent
and do the first works or else I
will come to you quickly and remove your
lampstand from its place unless you repent.
But this you have that you hate the
deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
The Nicolaitans were, were thought to be a,
a group that was infiltrating the churches, establishing
themselves as the voice of God for the
people.
Kind of the beginning of the, the separation
between clergy and laity, where there was elite
group of so like priests that they would
hear from God and then they would tell
it all to the people.
The people themselves couldn't hear.
And the Lord says, I hate that.
I hate that because I've come to have
relationship with each and every individual sheep that
comes to know me, each and every person
who comes to know the Lord God, who
comes to Jesus by faith and his death
and burial and resurrection.
You have from that day forward through all
eternity, intimate fellowship with the living God.
You don't need a human mediator.
You don't need somebody else to go to
God for you.
You know him, you are already in him.
And oftentimes I know because of this separation,
you often have people coming and say, well,
you know, pastor, I, I really need you
to pray because God hears your prayers.
I hope he hears my prayers, but I
don't have a red phone, you know, hotline
to heaven that I, oh, okay, Pat, Pat
knows the Lord.
Yeah, I know the Lord, but so do
you.
And you have just as much access to
him as I do.
There's no greater access for a pastor than
there is for the person in the pew.
We're just brothers and sisters in this.
God's blessed me with a gift, a gab
and, and I love to shepherd and teach
and, and God's allowed me to do that
by his mercy.
He's allowed me to do that, but that
doesn't set me above you.
Pastor Mark, pastor Richard, these other men that,
that are, that are helping to, to nurture
and care for you are not above you.
They are alongside you.
They are there to lift you up.
They are not here for you to serve
them.
We're here to serve you.
And the Lord said that when you get
that mixed up, that totally misrepresents who he
is and the relationship that he wants to
have with us.
So he who has an ear, let him
hear what the spirit says to the churches,
to him who overcomes, I will give to
eat from the tree of life, which is
in the midst of the paradise of God.
God wants us to be eaten of him
forever and ever and ever.
And if you know him, if you know
the truth, the truth will set you free
forever and ever and ever, and you will
be satisfied as you eat of him.
So as we look at this letter as
a whole, we see how important it is
to stay close to and in love with
our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we first met the Lord and gave
our lives to him, a passion for Jesus
burned in us.
We wanted to follow and obey the Lord
wherever he would lead, whatever the cost, every
chance we get, we talk about him.
And then we got busy, oftentimes busy with
the work and with the service.
And we're warned here that if we're not
careful, we can forget who it is we
are laboring so hard for.
We learned that labor is no substitute for
love.
You can be working real hard, but if
you're not loving the Lord, if that, if
the motivation to do that work is not
your love and your passion for Jesus Christ,
then it's not going to bear lasting fruit.
Ephesus depicts the careless church and warns us
today not to let our love grow cold.
You know, you'd look at them on the
outside and you say, well, they do have
attention to detail.
What do you mean?
They're careless.
They're doing it all and they're diligent at
what they're doing.
But the Lord says, I see their hearts
and there's something not right with their heart.
God always will expose our heart.
We're great actors.
Amen.
I mean, we are.
And we can put on a, I'm fine
sort of front to people around us, but
we can't do that to the Lord.
He searches our hearts.
And evidently there was something blocking that searching
in these people.
They were more boasting perhaps in their works
than they were in their relationship with Jesus.
God help us to stay fixed on him.
So what to do if we've left our
first love?
Maybe you found yourself in that place.
Yeah, I got saved back in the seventies
or the eighties or the nineties, you know,
and it was, I was just so on
fire.
And, and then we were singing, don't let
my love grow cold.
And I'm convicted because I'm not on fire
anymore.
And I know sometimes people say, well, you've
just matured.
Be careful.
There is something about true love that just
blazes in one's heart.
When you fall in love the first time,
you can't hide that.
Everybody knows something's wrong with you.
Isn't that the truth when we're truly in
love?
What was that Disney thing?
We were Twitter painted, you know, just something
in us.
It's just, it's a passion.
It's a burning.
It's, it's so real.
You know, it's so alive in us.
And when we first met Jesus, he, he
filled us.
He forgave us.
He changed us.
We've for the first time in our lives,
we had hope and real purpose and we
were ready.
The Lord's coming back, you know, at any
moment and Lord, I'm going to be going
home with you.
Can't wait.
I want to tell everybody and I'm not,
I'm not pointing fingers.
I'm, I'm, but I know in my own
heart, in my own life, there've been those
seasons where I've just gotten so into the
work and so far away from, pardon me,
from the intimacy of the relationship.
You know, I can spend hours and hours
on the technical things of pastoring and have
days, months, even years sometimes go by without
that fire.
I've had that in my life.
Perhaps you've had that in yours as well,
but the Lord wants to light the fire
again and the Lord is able to light
the fire again.
Well, what do we have to do?
Aren't you glad for the simplicity of the
letter?
He just, he tells us just point out.
First of all, praise God.
There is something we can do.
Amen.
I'm so thankful that when, when we have,
when we've grown cold, when we've slipped, when
we've gotten so busy in the work that
God doesn't leave us any option.
Oh, he does, but we've got to, here
it is.
We've got to remember, repent, return.
We've got to remember from where we fall
to correct any departure from God.
The first step is to go back to
the place of departure.
Remember the passion that once gripped your heart,
the causes for it, the wonder of your
newfound salvation and the joy and satisfaction that
was yours in Christ.
So often spiritual defection, whether of mind or
heart comes from forgetting that which was once
known.
Go back to your testimony.
Remember, write it down again.
Just go back to when the Lord started
dealing with your heart.
I would dare say that some of us
have forgotten what an amazing work that was
that God had done.
Let's not forget it.
Let's go back to that.
Are we regressing?
No, we're being obedient because the Lord doesn't
want us to forget amazing grace.
Amen.
How sweet to sound that saved a wretch
like me.
I don't want to forget how lost I
was and how the Lord found me.
Second thing we need to do is repent.
They were to change their attitude and their
actions in regard to Christ and his work.
When you discover where you went wrong, don't
become bitter.
Don't make excuses.
Don't be resentful.
Don't grieve.
Rather, make up your mind that you were
wrong and that you'll do everything necessary to
go back to that which is right.
That's so important.
Repent.
Have a change of heart and mind towards
Jesus and who he is.
And then return.
Do the first works.
Start telling people about Jesus again.
That's what you did when you first got
saved.
Get back into the word of God.
Be hungry for it.
Lord, stir up a hunger in my heart
for more of you.
Stir it up.
Let me devour your word.
Now, that might mean that you have to
sacrifice some things.
Amen.
Because a lot of times we've allowed our
eyes and our minds to be filled with
so many other interesting, there's a Jeff Jackson,
interesting things, you know, but they're diversions.
And if we don't learn to put down
the book, turn off the TV, limit the
frantic pace that we sometimes find ourselves in.
If your kids are in three sports, maybe
they should be in one.
It's okay to say, we don't have time
for that, honey.
Nowadays, kids go, oh, abuse.
You're not giving me everything I want.
That's a whole nother sermon.
I don't want to go there too much.
But I think sometimes even as parents, we
just get so, so wrapped up, so frantic.
And then we're so exhausted that we just
sit there, return, return.
You know, true repentance will never drive a
Christian to despair, but it will lead him
or her to cast themselves upon the grace
and mercy of God.
And that in turn will bring them back
to fellowship and to fruitfulness.
Don't let my love grow cold, Lord.
I'm calling out, light the fire again.
How many of you honestly need to have
that fire lit again in you?
You know what I'm talking about.
I'm not talking to this church down the
street.
I'm talking to our church.
God, we need, you to light us up
again, to refresh us.
Some of you are so beautifully on fire.
So much so that it's almost embarrassing being
around you.
But that's an indication of how our love
may have grown cold.
Because we all should be so excited to
be serving the Lord.
We should all be so passionate to be
serving the Lord.
Stir that up in us, Lord.
The second church, Smyrna.
Now, Smyrna fits the time of church history
of the second to the fourth centuries, a
time of great persecution by the Roman government.
Emperor after emperor came up with new and
creative ways to kill Christians.
It is thought that perhaps as many as
six million Christians were martyred for their faith
during the Roman government's attempt to wipe out
Christianity.
And it's interesting, the name Smyrna signifies myrrh.
Myrrh was one of the ingredients in the
anointing oil of the high priests, as well
as that used in the burial of dead
bodies.
Though its taste was bitter, it gave off
a very fragrant smell.
And even the way myrrh was made, it's
an interesting picture of suffering.
There was a particular tree from which the
sap of which the myrrh was made, and
they'd slash the tree and the sap would
pour out and it would sort of crystallize.
And then they would smash the crystals and
then they'd mix it with oil and it
would bring this amazing sweet perfume that would
come from it.
And I think that's really depictive of persecution,
of hard things.
It's bitter to us as we go through
it.
But to God, our sufferings that we go
through in the name of Jesus, being persecuted
for following after him, is a beautiful fragrance.
And when you choose to endure sufferings for
the sake of being a Christian, it is
very, very precious to the Lord.
And I think that's a comforting word that
we need to have.
Smyrna is one of the two churches that
there wasn't any rebuke given to.
It was a church that was pure and
straight and right on in the midst of
such great suffering.
I've heard it said before that what the
church needs for revival is persecution, because it's
easy to slip into churchianity rather than a
full-on, surrendered, sacrificial walk with the Lord.
So let's read it.
Verse 8, And to the angel of the
church of Smyrna, in Smyrna, write this, These
things says the first and the last, who
was dead and came to life.
I know your works, your tribulation and poverty,
but you are rich.
And I know the blasphemy of those who
say they are Jews and are not, but
are a synagogue of Satan.
Do not fear any of those things which
you are about to suffer.
Indeed, the devil is about to throw some
of you into prison, that you may be
tested.
You'll have tribulation ten days, but be faithful
until death, and I will give you the
crown of life.
He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches.
And he who overcomes shall not be hurt
by the second death.
There are many in our church that are
going through hard times, and those who aren't
will someday.
The encouragement to us is clear, be faithful
because he is faithful.
There's no question in my mind that when
you choose to follow Jesus Christ, that there
are sacrifices that are made.
Perhaps you are in a particular line of
work, and in that particular line of work,
you are used to being dishonest.
You can't turn a profit unless you are
a little dishonest.
And so you've developed this pattern, and then
you get saved and you realize, I'm not
being honest and truthful.
But Lord, if I'm truthful, I'm going to
lose a lot of business.
What's more important, the gain you get from
business or the gain you get from the
Lord, that peace and that joy and that
certainty that you're pleasing the Lord and you're
going to be living with him forever?
What's more important, forever or right now?
Many people just live for right now, and
they compromise.
The church at Smyrna wasn't compromising.
When they committed their lives to Christ, like
we mentioned last week, you may well put
a target on them.
It was a death sentence for many of
them.
How many of you would say, I choose
to follow Jesus, if you knew there was
a firing squad out there waiting for you?
If you knew that you'd lose your family
and your job, or your job and your
family.
If you knew you'd lose your status in
your community.
And yet many who choose to follow the
Lord, that exact thing happens, even in our
culture.
And there's suffering as a result.
There's hardship as a result.
But what kind of attitude do we have?
Oh, I knew I shouldn't have accepted Christ.
Is that the kind of attitude?
No.
Lord, I know who you are, and I
know what you've done, and nothing that this
world can offer can match that.
I've got the best, and I'm going to
reject the rest, and follow after you.
And though you may suffer, to the Lord,
it is a sweet fragrance.
And that's really what matters, isn't it?
How the Lord sees it.
In verse 8, we're reminded of the eternal
nature of Jesus.
He existed before all else.
He's the one who'll be there right up
to the end and beyond.
And that's comforting to those going through the
hardest trials.
When we're under the worst times, we can
tend to start thinking that maybe God has
left us or doesn't care.
Maybe God just isn't there anymore.
But the fact that you're going through hard
times doesn't mean that he doesn't care, or
that somehow something got away from him.
He just sees things from a different perspective
than you and I.
So don't get discouraged by the hard times,
beloved.
God is at work in you.
Philippians 1.6 says, being confident of this
very thing, that he who has begun a
good work in you will complete it until
the day of Jesus Christ.
And in Ephesians 2.7, we read that
in the ages to come, he might show
the exceeding riches of his grace and his
kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
We only see what's right now, but he
sees the whole picture.
He sees the refining and the beauty that's
going to come from that refining in our
lives.
So take heart and press on.
The Lord says, I know your difficult times.
Everything may be going crazy around you, and
you're tempted to think, I've got nothing, nothing
stable.
Everything's hurting.
I feel so alone.
But what you're going through is not the
whole picture.
The Smyrnians thought they were poor.
But notice what the Lord says in this,
you're rich.
They thought they were poor, but the Lord
saw a sweet richness in them.
And as we'll read in chapter 3, the
Laodicean church thought they were rich, but the
Lord saw their hearts.
The Lord knew what was going on.
He said, you're poor.
Most often a church has the wrong idea
about itself.
They think they're doing great when they're really
doing poorly and vice versa.
The only opinion of the church that really
counts is the Lord's.
So Lord searched the church.
And in the midst of trial and hardship
and difficulty, trust in the Lord.
Do not fear.
Be faithful.
Matthew 10, 28 says, don't fear those who
kill the body, but cannot kill the soul,
but rather fear him who is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell.
That's the proper perspective we need to have.
John 16, 33, again, these things I've spoken
to you that in me, you may have
peace.
Where is true peace?
It's in relationship with him.
I can't force peace to happen in this
world.
I can try, but the only ultimate peace
that's going to come in this world is
when Jesus comes back.
The United Nations is not going to bring
peace.
The armed forces are not going to bring
peace.
God bless those that are sacrificing for our
freedom.
But the ultimate peace that we also crave
for is only going to come when either
A, each and every individual gets right with
the Lord, or B, Jesus himself comes back
and sets up his peace.
Right now we live in the age of
A, where each of us have that opportunity
to choose to follow after him.
That's where the peace comes from.
And therefore, in the midst of tribulation, we
can be of good cheer.
God can be working through us.
As Joyce and I have gone through this
past year, there have been a lot of
really low times.
A lot of times of fear, of uncertainty,
of despair.
And then we'd run into somebody from the
church who would say, we're so blessed on
how strong you're doing.
You know, we'd kind of scratch our heads,
where'd that come from?
But as we were going through those things,
as we'd hit that deep pit, the Lord
would mercifully bring us up.
We wouldn't stay there.
And we'd realize that God's doing something.
And even though we don't understand it, the
one solid thing we have is him.
And we'd hold on to that.
And I can tell you, night after night
after night, we'd pray.
And we'd reaffirm that.
And God would sustain.
And we'd have strength for another day.
And to the Lord, that's sweet.
That's precious.
So dear Saint, whatever it is you might
be suffering, whatever it is you might be
going through, hold on.
Hold on to him.
Fear not.
Be faithful.
I think suffering brings out the true state
of one's faith.
When the pressure is on to give up,
you hold on to the sweet comfort of
Jesus, knowing that even if death takes you,
you still win.
And those are riches the world can never
give.
At the end of the book of Revelation,
chapter 20, verse 6, we read, blessed and
holy is the one who has part in
the first resurrection.
Over these, the second death has no power.
And at the end of verse 11, we
read, he who overcomes shall not be hurt
by the second death.
You know, everyone's going to go through one
of two scenarios.
Either you'll be born twice and die once,
or you'll be born once and die twice.
What?
When you're born twice, you die once.
But if you're only born once, you're going
to die two times.
There'll be the death of your physical body,
and then there will be that eternal separation,
that second death at the great white throne
judgment.
Jesus said in John 3, 3, truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Oh, give your life to Jesus today.
Know the Lord today.
And he will be your comfort.
And he will be your strength.
The next church is Pergamos.
And Pergamos comes from a word meaning mixed
marriage.
And it has the idea of a church
that had compromised or that was in compromise,
that was married to the world, allowed the
influences of the world to take over in
the church.
And it seems to parallel a period from
around A.D. 300 to A.D. 600,
excuse me, known as the imperial age, when
the church came under the umbrella of protection
from the Roman emperor Constantine in the first
part of the 300s A.D. And pagan
doctrines and practices began to creep into the
church at that time.
Constantine assumed headship of the church and repealed
the persecution acts of the most recent, the
last of the Roman emperors prior to him,
Diocletian.
Constantine didn't command people to become Christians, but
it became the popular thing to do, especially
as he began to promote Christians to high
state office.
Eventually, he moved the center of Christianity from
Rome to Constantinople, his new capital of the
Roman empire.
And later, when the church split into east
and west, it was the Greek Orthodox church
that stayed centered in Constantinople, modern Istanbul.
And the ones to the west moved to
Rome, and that's where the papacy, the popery,
you know, came from.
So in a nutshell, what happened?
I'm not being insulted, that's just what it's
called theologically, popery.
What happened at 300 A.D. and in
the subsequent few centuries is that heathenism became
Christianized.
Pagan temples became Christian churches.
Pagan festivals became Christian holidays.
Pagan priests slipped into office as Christian priests.
And most of these changes seem to be
through name only, not true changes.
And it's these changes that were brought to
the church, the mixing of pagan rituals, changing
them to Christianize them that is seen at
this church of Pergamos.
There's great pressure in this church to be
open-minded, tolerant of sinful and immoral behavior.
In a word, Pergamos was a compromising church.
Does that sound very familiar today?
There's a lot of that going on in
the church at large today, where the church
is looking more like the world than the
true church.
And we're constantly bombarded by the world to
be tolerant and accepting of that which God
says is wicked.
Quickly, let's look at this church.
And to the angel of the church in
Pergamos write, these things says he who has
the sharp two-edged sword, I know your
works, I know where you dwell, where Satan's
throne is.
And you hold fast to my name and
did not deny my faith even in the
days in which Antipas, my faithful martyr who
was killed among you where Satan dwells.
But I have a few things against you,
because you have there those who hold the
doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put
a stumbling block before the children of Israel,
to eat things sacrificed to idols and to
commit sexual immorality.
You can look at that story later on
in Numbers chapter 23.
Thus you also have those who hold to
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I
hate.
We spoke of that already.
Repent, or else I will come to you
quickly and will fight against them with the
sword of my mouth.
So he who has an ear to hear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to
the churches.
To him who overcomes, I will give some
of the hidden manna to eat, and I
will give him a white stone, and on
the stone a new name written, which no
one knows except him who receives it.
So this council of Balaam, what was that?
It was a mixing of pagan practices with
true worship.
Israeli men began to break God's commandment by
sexual immorality and getting involved with the Moabite
gods.
The Moabites wanted to conquer Israel, but Israel
was too big and too strong.
So they hired this prophet Balaam to come
and curse them.
And Balak, the king of the Moabites, takes
Balaam up to the mount, says, curse these
people.
Balaam says, okay, here's what you do.
Bring the bulls, set up the altar, sacrifice
the bulls, and he gets up there to
speak, and instead he blesses the children of
Israel.
He says, excuse me, I'm sorry, I told
you I could only speak what God puts
in my mouth.
So the king says, well, let's go to
another mountain, maybe a different angle, we'll change
it.
He did that three or four times.
But finally, Balaam says to him, look, I
can't curse these people, but here's how you
can get to them.
Send the pretty girls into the camp.
The guys will fall, the guys will fall
from them, the little girls will bring their
little Moabite idols, and it won't be too
long before they begin worshiping your gods and
you'll have them.
And you know, when you read that story
in Numbers 23, that's what happened.
God intervened.
23,000 Israelites lost their life because of
it.
The judgment of God was very serious.
But it's a warning to the church.
Don't mix it.
Be careful of mixing what's popular in the
world today, what's accepted in the world today,
and try to bring it into the church.
Try to Christianize it.
Be careful of that.
Because it happens.
In the early church, there were those who
felt that since they weren't under the law
of Moses, then they could live any way
they pleased.
You remember in the Corinthian church, they were
rather proud of the fact that they were
so tolerant with a man who was sleeping
with his stepmother.
The doctrine of Balaam is effectually any teaching
that causes a Christian to compromise in God's
standard for them.
It's teaching people that things that God forbids
is okay.
We've got to be on the guard to
that.
We see plenty of examples of this in
the church at large today.
Gay rights, abortion rights, animal rights, all seem
to be more important than what God says
is right.
And that's what the church as an institution
battles.
But what about the inside battles that confront
us, that confront each of us daily?
Satan wants to cloud and confuse your ability
to choose the right way every day.
And we're told in 1 Thessalonians, test all
things, hold fast what is good, abstain from
every form of evil.
So how do we hold fast to what
is right?
Feast on the bread of life, the word
of God.
He says to him who overcomes, I will
give some of that hidden manna to eat.
In John 6, 32, Jesus said, assuredly, I
say to you, Moses did not give you
the bread from heaven, but my father gives
you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he who
comes down from heaven and gives life to
the world.
And they said to him, Lord, give us
this bread always.
And Jesus said to them, I am the
bread of life.
And he who comes to me shall never
hunger.
And he who believes in me shall never
thirst.
Jesus is the satisfying portion of his people
and for his people.
In the midst of this world's corruption, the
child of God draws from that eternal source
of sustenance and supply, which is hidden in
the secret of God's presence.
Know him and it's no longer hidden.
So in Pergamos, we have a vitally important
lesson for the church today.
Jesus calls upon his own to accept his
principle of separation, thereby refusing to compromise with
either moral evil or religious error.
He who has an ear to hear, let
him hear.
Have you compromised?
Has there been compromising in your heart, either
to moral evil or to religious error?
God calls you to repent, to turn from
that and to turn to him.
And when you do, he'll feed you the
truth.
He'll lead you in the right way.
But if you don't, he's coming with his
sword.
Are you in an immoral relationship today?
Are you living in a relationship that you
are justifying by convenience and you're going like
this to the command of God to abstain
from fornication, to flee it, to stay away
from it, to give no appearance of evil.
I just got to tell you honestly, if
you keep coming to this church and you
keep doing that, God's going to judge you.
God is going to deal with you.
And out of a heart that is broken,
I would plead for you and to you
to turn from those things that God says
are evil and walk his way.
To him who follows, you're an overcomer and
God will bless you and sustain you and
hold you up.
Might there be a lot of rough things
you have to go through in order to
do what is right?
So be it.
That'll be a sweet savor to the Lord
as well.
And the testimony of your life will be
established.
So we've got a couple of rebukes in
these.
We're not going to get the letter four.
Okay.
We've got a couple of rebukes, a couple
of strong rebukes and warnings in the first
and third letter and sandwiched in between.
We have a word of comfort that if
you choose to follow the Lord and there's
flack that comes because you made the right
choice, that's a sweet savor to the Lord
and God is honored and your life will
be established as you make those right decisions.
Today, God calls us to get right with
him.
Return to your first love.
Turn away from any mixed marriage sort of
thing where you've allowed through either your own
mind or the rationalization of modern society to
justify ungodly behavior.
Confess your sin and get right with him
today and live as God has called you
to live.
That's the charge from these first three books.
Are you going to come back next week
for the next ones?
I pray so because we need this as
a church.
We need these things today.
May God just pour out his spirit upon
us and stir us up and present us
before his throne.
A sweet sacrifice to him, a living sacrifice
to him.
God wants to do that in our lives.
Amen.
Let's stand together.
Okay.
I really do believe that today can be
a day of brand new beginning for many
of you, that you may have come here
just out of religious duty.
It's Sunday you came, but as we were
talking about first love and the passion of
God in your heart, you realize, you know,
bottom line, the love's grown cold.
And the Lord says, return.
Remember, repent, and return.
And you go on.
Thank you, Lord, for that.
I do want to remember.
I do want to repent.
I do want to turn and return to
those things at the beginning.
Pastors will be up here after the service,
and we'd love to pray for you.
And it doesn't have to be, you know,
a huge, long, loud prayer.
It's simple.
That simple cry of your heart, Lord, I
want to be right with you.
And God will do that.
Lord, I want to know that I'm going
to be with you forever.
I want to be born again so that
when I die, it's to live forevermore with
you.
And if you've allowed separation, if you've allowed
compromise to come into your life, and that
can happen in many ways, it can be
sexual, it can be drugs, it can be
any number of things.
Maybe you're sneaking off to the casinos.
Never had to say that too much 10
years ago, but, you know, thinking, no, I'll
just, if I hit this, I'll give half
of it to the church.
Repent and stay away from it.
You are separate.
God has separated you from the world.
Guard your heart.
If you find yourself being entertained by things
that are evil, get rid of it and
get right.
Amen.
Father, we praise you.
And we thank you for this time this
morning.
God, we know that there's a lot of
work going on in each of our hearts
and lives.
And your word, we've asked you to search
us, to know us, to try our ways,
to see if there be any wicked way
in us at all.
And as you expose it, let us not
make excuses.
Let us not run from it.
Let us just come before your throne of
grace and receive your mercy and renew our
hearts and lives today to follow hard after
you, Jesus.
Light the fire again, Lord, we pray in
your precious name, Jesus.
Amen.
If you need to pray, if you need
to confess, come on up, we'll pray with
you after the service.
God bless you.
You're dismissed.