Book of Revelation - Ch. 3, Vs. 14-15 (05/20/2018)

Well, the very beginning is going to be at Revelation 3, verse 14, and we'll get to that eventually.

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, These things saith the

Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

Let's pray. Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for giving us this place to come together to worship you and to study your holy word.

Thank you for giving us your son, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

Thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit to guide us as we study your word.

In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. This is the last letter to the churches.

It's the letter addressed to the church of the Laodiceans. We're going to go to that letter pretty quickly, but before we do,

I'd like to first look back at the nation of Israel, where we see a wayward and a rebellious people.

We see God select that nation to receive his blessings, with that selection depending upon no merit of their own.

In fact, Moses tells the Israelites this in Deuteronomy 7, beginning at verse 6, so we'll go there first.

I did such a good job, the first time I'm going to say it again, Deuteronomy. I've been practicing,

I'm doing better with that. In about two more years I'll be able to actually pronounce that word correctly.

I'm not going to push my luck on it anymore. Chapter 7, verse 6,

For thou art a holy people. That means a set apart people. Sometimes we get the wrong idea of what holy means.

Holy doesn't mean especially good. Holy means set apart for God's work.

For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy

God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people.

But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the

Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondsmen, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

Moses then goes on to describe the blessings that they would receive if they were obedient.

Now they've already been chosen. And he's talking about the blessings that they will receive if they were obedient.

As well as the curses that they would bring upon themselves if they were disobedient.

And I'd like to just say here, choices do matter. But not as to election.

The election was separate than any choices that the children of Israel or that we make.

But in spite of all that, in spite of all the blessing, and in spite of all the curses, the children of Israel abandoned

God. Oh, they kept a semblance of religion. They even purported to worship the one true

God. But it was in form only, not in substance. Listen to the assessment by Jesus.

This you'll find in Luke chapter 13, beginning at verse 34. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto thee.

How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and yet you would not.

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. And my question to you is, is that desolate forever?

Well yes and no. Okay, so you would say it's not forever.

There are some people that teach that the house of Israel is left desolate forever.

There's even a name for this teaching. It's called replacement theology.

What they teach is, and you've heard this, what they teach is the unconditional promises that God made to Abraham that are passed on to Israel have somehow been transferred to the church.

And that God has no further plans for the Jewish people. What would have been their blessing is as a result of their disobedience forfeited to the church.

And so now the church gets the blessings that were originally designed for Israel. That of course misses the entire point of an unconditional covenant.

If there was nothing that Abraham could have done to earn the covenant, there's nothing he could have done to unearn it.

Moreover, to hold that position, one would have to stop reading this passage in mid -sentence.

Not even at the end of a sentence, right in the middle of a sentence. Let's go on. Behold your house is left unto you desolate, colon.

And verily I say unto you, ye shall not see me until the time when you shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the

Lord. So there's a time when this desolation is over. And when is that? When you say, when as a group of people,

Israel says, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Has that happened yet?

Well, Diane told me, she and I went over this, Diane told me that in an almost sense, it happened at his triumphal entry.

When they spread the palm branches in front of him and said, blessed is he who cometh in the name of the

Lord. But that wasn't the nation. That was some in the nation.

The nation did not accept him as the Messiah. In fact, I think it was three days later that the nation crucified him.

If it wasn't three days later, it was within a week. Paul addresses this in his letter to the

Romans. Turn to Romans 11, and if you wanted to, we could have begun at chapter, at verse 1, but I'm going to skip down all the way to verse 25.

He sums up what he's been saying for the first 24 verses.

He starts out by saying, hath God abandoned Israel? He said,

I certainly hope not, because I am an Israelite. That's how he began this chapter. Here's how he sums it up.

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness, in part, is happened to Israel until the fullness of the

Gentiles be come in. Okay, there's a time when this is going to happen. It hasn't happened yet because the fullness of the time of the

Gentiles has not come in. Well, when would that happen? When would that fullness come in?

When the last Gentile believer believes,

I think you're right, but I'm not going to take your position yet, because there might be room for some

Gentiles later. Well what he said,

I will come back when you, I will bring Israel back into the fullness of blessingness when you proclaim that Jesus is the

Messiah. So there is that time, and that time may or may not involve the time after which all

Gentiles that are going to be saved will be saved.

I don't think that's quite it, but that is a position. But at least we know there's a time when the fullness of the

Gentiles be come in, whether that's way at the end of the Millennial Kingdom, or whether that's at the beginning of the

Millennial Kingdom. That's where the debate is, John, whether it's at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom or at the end of the

Millennial Kingdom. Are any, are any Gentiles saved during the

Millennial Kingdom? See that would be, that would mitigate against that.

That's not where I wanted to go though. What I wanted to go is just to say that Jesus, God, and Jesus are not through with the

Jews. And so all of Israel shall be saved as it is written.

All of Israel will be saved. There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

For this is my covenant to them, when I shall take away their sins.

As concerning the Gospel, they are enemies for your sake. Think about that a minute.

Why are they right now enemies of God? For the sake of the

Gentiles who are going to in this time be grafted into the promise of Abraham.

It is a great and wonderful gift that the Gentiles have. But as touching election, they are beloved for the

Father's sake. They are enemies for your sake to make room for you to be grafted in, but they are beloved for the

Father's sake. He selected them. For the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.

He's not going to, He's not an ending giver. He's not going to give and take away. He's not going to offer and then take back the offer.

For as ye in times past have not believed in God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief, even so these also now not believed that through your mercy they might also obtain mercy.

For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon them all.

Then he goes on to say, O the depth and riches both of wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

For who hath known the mind of God, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again.

For of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be the glory forever, amen.

So to sum it up, a great and wonderful gift has been given to the

Gentiles. A grafting into the promise given to the

Israelites. And for that portion of the Gentiles that make up the church, a plan of salvation.

The gospel, a savior, all of these things we would not have available to us had we not been grafted in to the promise given to Abraham.

But as is the nature of man, a large number of Gentiles have abandoned the gift.

And that's where we are right now in this letter to this church, the church of the

Laodiceans. So we're going to go back now to verse 14 of Revelation 3 and pick it up.

And I'm going to re -read the verse that I started today with. And unto the church,

I'm sorry I messed up. And unto the angel of the church of the

Laodiceans write, these things saith the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

So there we have it, right off the bat. Probably the most controversial thing

I'm going to say today. The church of the

Laodiceans, all of the other churches were identified by their location.

I went back to check to make sure that statement was correct. It says the church of Ephesus, and then it said the church in Smyrna, then in Pergamos, then in Thyatira, then in Sardis, then in Philadelphia, but it doesn't say that here.

What it says here is the church of the Laodiceans. The name of the church,

Laodicea, means the rule of the people. The Laodiceans are the people who rule.

The Laodicean is a church run by majority rule, instead of God.

It is a congregational church. It's a church like the church I grew up in.

When the church had a decision to make, we took a vote. What he's saying is

God's not involved in the activities of the church. Maybe he is, maybe he's not, but the intent of the church is to control their own path.

We have in this country a really strong affinity for democracy. Democracy is good as opposed to an oligarchy or as opposed to an imposed rule.

We don't like an imposed rule. We like to be responsible for ourselves.

My favorite poem as I was growing up, I think I told you all before, was Invictus, where it says,

I am the master of my soul. I am the captain of my ship.

I thank whatever gods may be for my inconquerable soul. That was my motto. I thought that was a good thing to be, in charge of myself.

Well, it wasn't such a good thing. I remember we'd vote, and we would have maybe a hundred people in the church, and a hundred people would vote, and little kids this size would vote, and the little kids this size would vote, and the guy that just came off the street would vote.

We would come to a consensus, and we would agree that this is what we were going to do.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. A lot of you did. Some of you didn't. That's a congregational church.

Its name, Laodicea, designates it as a church of majority rule.

It is a democratic church, a church in which everything is swayed and decided by popular opinion and is voted on.

It's a church in which the course of the church is determined by how the congregation feels, rather than by what the written word of God says.

Now, there's another way of running a church, and that's like Ephesus was run.

That's like, remember we studied about the Nicoladians, where there were a group of people in the church that thought they had more knowledge than the other people in the church.

Power over the people, Nicoladia. Nicol means power over the people.

The Nicoladians ruled the people. An elite group ruled over the congregation.

Now, I want to ask you a question. I want to ask you two questions. The first question

I want to ask you, I don't want you to answer, I just want you to think about it. To whom does the church belong?

Does it belong to Christ, or does it belong to man? Well, okay,

I'm sorry, the Laodicean church belonged to the people. The Nicoladian church belonged to the leaders.

Neither belonged to Christ. And for that, they will both be judged. I certainly think it is, yes.

I think that in some sense, the Laodicean church is a foreshadowing of the church of today.

I'm sorry? I'm going to agree with you wholeheartedly.

We have to submit to elder rule, but that's not necessarily to a group of people that think that they are more knowledgeable than anyone else.

If the elders are true elders, if they are moved by what?

By the scripture. If they control themselves by the scripture, by the

Bible, then we can see that the elders are progressing in the correct fashion.

And then we can and must submit to them. Yes. Well, which did

God dislike more? Did He dislike more the Nicoladians, or did

He dislike more the Laodiceans? Well, let me tell you,

God hated the Nicoladians. He said that in no uncertain terms. This doctrine

I hate. But what did He say about the Laodiceans? That's exactly what

He said. So He didn't care for either one of them? He didn't care all that much for either one of them.

Who does He care about? His elect.

And what does He want His elect doing? He wants

His elect wearing the righteousness of Christ. In fact,

I've heard brother David say many times, He doesn't even see us. When He looks at us,

He sees Christ. And if He doesn't see Christ, He doesn't see us at all.

And that got me out of a quandary as to how I was going to end that section. So, the

Nicoladian church will be judged. The Laodicean church will be judged.

Judged by whom? Well, He says clearly. And unto the angel of the church of the

Laodiceans. Now that I saw that, I can't not see it. Every time it's the church of the

Laodiceans. The church of the people. Maybe we should get a sign and put it out front.

This church belongs to Christ. I would like for it to be, if not a sign, at least a sign in our heart.

The ones that need to see it can see it. That this church belongs to Christ.

It doesn't belong to brother David. It doesn't belong to any of you.

It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to Christ. In fact, everything that we think we own belongs to Christ.

We said that earlier. Who is it that has something that they can give to God? That He hasn't first given to them.

If He hasn't given it to them, they don't have it. It's like when your son is going to give you,

I know in a coming month, it's going to be Father's Day. And seeing your son and seeing how respectful he is of you, he's going to buy you a

Father's Day present. He bought you one last year, didn't he? Yeah. He might have even, this

I don't know. He might have even saved up money of his own to buy it. He may have gone out and mowed the lawns for somebody else to earn the money.

But when it was me, I got my money from my dad. And I was just so generous to give him back part of it.

But everything that I gave him came from him in the first place. And I can even say that with your son, because even if he went out and got a job and earned it from somebody else, you gave him or helped give him the work ethic that taught him how to do it.

So, we don't have anything we can give to God. I don't know where that came from.

Yes? If Pam and I didn't want to be on the jury, this world, those people don't have the, because of, you know, those are the people that my mom wouldn't let me associate with that I had to go to trial with.

And it was a very eye -opening experience to me. It matured me in the fact of what in the association that we're in in this.

Well, the world is even dirtier than you think.

I mean, we talk a lot about the depravity of men here in this church. And as much as we talk about it, we don't scratch the surface.

At the risk of getting political, and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, there was a controversy this week about something that Donald Trump said about the

M13 gang members. He called them animals. And it was said, well, you shouldn't call anybody an animal.

That's a bad thing. There's a spark of divinity in us all. I remember that one. And then the little girl,

Huckabee's daughter, whatever her name is, the spokesperson said, if anything, he didn't speak strongly enough.

They're even worse than animals. Not even animals kill and dismember just for the sake of it.

Well, she didn't say it exactly that way. That's what I was thinking. Yes, we are more depraved than you can imagine.

And to the church of the angel of the Laodiceans write, these things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

Now, I'm off. My thing quit working. Come on.

The beginning of the creation of God. Not that he was created, but that he was the creator.

And I thought it was very interesting that this letter corresponds to an era or foreshadows an era in which the denial of creation, that is to say evolution, characterizes society.

The next thing that we go to as we look through the letters, we look at the title of the church or the name of the church and that tells something about the church.

We look at the title of Jesus and that says something about Jesus, the

Amen, the truth, and faithful witness, the all -seeing God, the beginning of the creation of God.

And then we go to the commendations, the good things that this church has done. And we don't find any.

Not a word is said. We go straight from verse 14.

These things saith the Amen, the faithful witness, and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God straight to 15 where it says

I know thy works, that thou art neither hot, thou art neither cold nor hot.

I would that thou were hot or cold so then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,

I will spew thee out of my mouth. That's what you were quoting a while ago,

Brother Ron. The lukewarm are not genuinely saved yet they do not openly reject the gospel.

They attend church and they claim to know the Lord but like the Pharisees, they're content to practice a self -righteous religion.

They're hypocrites playing games. The Lord Jesus Christ described such people in Matthew chapter 7 verse 22 and 23.

Wait a minute, turn there. I think that's worth doing. He's talking about many self -righteous religious people.

People that see themselves as religions. Matthew 7 verse 22

Many will say to me in that day Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works.

They're listing to the Lord all the great things that they have done and then

I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity.

Pretty strong statement. Way back in the time of Spurgeon and I think that was about 100 years ago.

Was Spurgeon 100 years ago? 1850? Whoa! 1950

Almost 175 Almost 200 years ago.

In his sermon An Earnest Warning Against Lukewarmness If you want to look that up you can go and google it and type in an earnest e -a -r like earnest like earnest an earnest warning against lukewarmness and it will spit out the sermon to you.

Spurgeon described the lukewarm church and I jumped down into the sermon because I don't have time to do one of his.

The conditions described in our text is secondly one of mournful indifference and carelessness.

Talking about the latest sins. They were not cold but they were not hot. They were not infidels yet they were not earnest believers.

They did not oppose the gospel neither did they defend it. They were not working mischief neither were they doing any great good.

They were not disreputable in moral character but they were not distinguished for their holiness.

They were not irreligious but they were not enthusiastic in piety nor imminent for zeal.

They were what the world calls moderates. That's what

Spurgeon thought they were in then. He just didn't realize how moderate they were.

They were of the broad church school. They were neither bigots nor puritans.

They were prudent and avoided fanaticism.

They were respectful and adverse to excitement. Good things were maintained among them but they did not make too much of them.

I'm sorry? They worked at the food bank. They had prayer meetings but they were few present for they liked quiet evenings at home.

And when Moore attended the meetings they were still very dull for they did their praying very deliberately and were afraid of being too excited.

They were content to have all things done decently and in order but without vigor and zeal.

Vigor and zeal they considered to be vulgar. Such churches have schools,

Bible classes, preaching rooms and all sorts of agencies but they might as well be without them for no energy is displayed and no good comes of them.

They have deacons and elders who are excellent pillars of the church if the chief quality of pillars is to stand still and exhibit no motion or emotion.

They have ministers who may be the angels of the church but if so they have their wings clipped closely for they do not fly very far in their preaching of the everlasting gospel.

And they're certainly not flames of fire they may be shining lights of eloquence but they certainly are not burning lights of grace, setting men's hearts on fire.

In such communities everything is done in half -hearted listless dead and alive way as if it didn't matter much whether it was done or not.

It makes one's flesh creep to see how sluggishly they move. I long for a knife to cut their red tape to pieces and for a whip to lay about their shoulders to make them bestir themselves.

Things are respectively done respectively done. The rich families are not offended.

The skeptical party is conciliated conciliated. The good people are not quite alienated.

Things are made pleasant all around. Right things are done but as to doing them with all your might and soul and strength the

Laodicean church has no notion of what that means. They're not so cold as to abandon their work or to give up their meaningful prayer or to reject the gospel.

If they did so, they could be convinced of their error and brought to repentance. But on the other hand, they're neither hot for the truth nor hot for conversions nor hot for holiness.

They're not fiery enough to burn the stubble of sin nor zealous enough to make Satan angry nor fervent enough to make a living sacrifice of themselves upon the altar of their

God. They are neither hot nor cold. Paul speaks of such in 2

Timothy 3 -5 when he warns Timothy of avoiding those that have a form of godliness but denying the power thereof from such turn away.

Now can go on a little bit further I guess. That would have been a good stopping place.

I'm going to stop there and that will let me have a full time next time.

So anybody got anything to say about Yes sir. Self deceived?

Self deceived? I didn't quite understand what you said.

They are self deceived? Yeah. They deceive themselves.

In fact if we read the next verse it will say because thou sayest I am rich and increased with good and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

They are just exactly opposite of what they thought they were. Just like Smyrna was just exactly opposite of what they thought they were.

They thought they were poor and he said and yet you're rich. And they thought they were rich and yet they were poor.

You know what? I don't think that. I think that by the time they get to hell they will know exactly why they're there.

Now they might fool themselves up to that point and I suspect that there are many who die thinking that I'm better than I'm better than Ron.

I'm better than John. I'm almost as good as Ben. And that's what we are required to do.

Preach the gospel. In season and out. And don't worry about whether it offends someone.

It's better to offend man than God. Yes. I think that is very insightful and very much true.

Spurgeon had another look at it. What he said was if they just I can't remember exactly how he said it but I'll kind of paraphrase it.

If they would take the position strongly enough against they could be convicted that they were wrong and that they might repent.

But because they are kind of wishy -washy in between, never taking a stance, they never

Oh, I just happened to go to it. Let me read this.

They are not so cold as to abandon their work nor to give up their meaningful prayer or to reject the gospel.

If they did so then they could be convinced of their error and be brought to repentance.

But on the other hand, they are neither hot for the truth nor hot not zealous enough to make

Satan angry, not fervent enough to make a sacrifice. So, if they were cold they could be convinced of their error and they could be maybe brought to repentance.

But because they're not they think they're okay. They think they're rich, but they're poor.

But I certainly think that it is true that a lukewarm person in the church has a greater influence than a person that is so cold and so obviously off path that they won't affect anybody.

So, I think that is a very important addition. He was bad enough in his own eyes that he knew he needed repentance.

And the Pharisee was so good in his own eyes that he knew he had no need of repentance and would never need any until he was worse than that Republican.

Oh, that's true. But we can also deceive people within the church.

And I don't think God has a high opinion of those who deceive his children.

And that's what Katie's talking about. Being in a position to deceive his people and lead them astray.

Jesus takes a very dim view of that. And I would think that in my thought process, maybe he hates the

Nicolaitans more than he hates the Laodiceans. It would be.

And see, that's the intent of the church. The intent of the church is to meet together to build up the church.

Now, to build up the church, not in how many people attend the church, but to build up the individual members that are in the church.

Now, more people come in, that's good. If the Lord brings them in. If Satan brings them in, maybe that's not so good.

They'll... You're right. You're right. It won't take long. That's right.

It's good that we don't know because we would jump the gun and we would invite the birds in and throw out the lost sheep.

I promise you we would do it. We would do it backwards. We'd kick out the lost sheep and we'd invite in the goats to keep my metaphor together.

Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for all the many blessings that you've given us. Thank you for giving us this

Bible, your written word that we may go to it over and over again and seek and find new truths.

Bless us and keep us and protect us as we go through the rest of the services this morning. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Okay. I didn't mark my place so I won't know. Thank you.