Book of Revelation - Ch. 3, Vs. 14-22 (05/27/2018)

Yeah, this is definitely working now, it's definitely working,

I can hear it up there. Now we're ready to begin or are we still waiting?

We are still, oh, that's a little bit, okay, yeah

I think, can you hear any, yeah I can hear it now. This is better for me, I would have to sit right on the phone, but I can lean a little bit away.

We're still in Revelation chapter 3 and we're going to go back to verse 14 to begin.

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.

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

I will spew thee out of my mouth. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together once again in your house of worship, a place that you have given us where we are free to study your word and to worship you.

Thank you for providing for us the Holy Spirit to lead us in our studies and in our understanding of your text.

Thank you for giving us the spirit and the desire to wish to know about you. Help keep us on fire for you.

We pray that you keep us from becoming a lukewarm church. In Jesus' name we pray,

Amen. Well, we were dealing with the lukewarm church last week, and this is how far we got, the lukewarm church.

We ended with the question, to whom does the church really belong?

I see some people come in, I'm going to wait just a second. Is John on his way?

I'll wait just another second. We are in Revelation chapter 3, and we are on the passage to the church of the

Laodiceans. We actually began there last week, and we spent the whole time dealing with basically to whom does the church belong?

That was the question we ended with, to whom does the church really belong?

Does it belong to the people? Is the church a congregational church?

Is it like the church of the Laodiceans, a church that voted on everything, a church that bent to the will of the people?

Is that necessarily a bad thing? If you look back into your past, and I can look back into mine,

I grew up as a Southern Baptist, and what we did was we voted on everything. We voted on the coat on the carpet, we voted on the deacons, we voted on the pastor, we voted on everything, and everybody voted.

Everybody that came into church voted. We were a very democratic church. Everybody had the same voice.

That was the way the Laodicean church was. They bent to the will of the people. It was, after all, called the church of the

Laodiceans. Every other church was called the church at a place. The Ephesus church was the church at Ephesus.

The Smyrna church was identified as in Smyrna. At Philadelphia it was identified as in Philadelphia, but the church of the

Laodiceans was identified as the church of the Laodiceans, not the church at Laodicea.

It wasn't identified by where it was. It was identified by who owned the church, who the church belonged to.

It belonged to the Laodiceans. Well, that's the way the

Southern Baptists were. The Southern Baptists were a congregational church, and they voted on everything. What the

Lord said about the Laodicean church is it was a church that he said he would spew out of his mouth.

We translate that now, vomit. It's even stronger than spew.

That was not a very helpful, healthy thing to be. Well, does it belong to the leaders?

That's another style of the church, a church that belongs to the leaders of the church, the church that belongs to the elders, the church that is run by the elders of the church.

Is it a church like Pergamos, a church holding the doctrine of the Nicolaitans?

The word Nicolaitia means power over the people. That's a church which the

Lord said he hates. Or does the church belong to Christ?

Now that's where we were last time. We came to the conclusion that really the church we should model ourselves after is a church that belongs to Christ, not a church that belongs to the people, not a church that belongs to the elders, a church that belongs to Christ.

So let's go on. Back to the church of the Laodiceans.

So then, because thou art neither lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold,

I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

Now that's a good contrast between the way they viewed themselves and the way the church of Smyrna viewed themselves.

The church of Smyrna had a self -perception that they were poor.

But the angel identified them as rich. They were identified as poor but rich.

Every church in this list had a perception of themselves that was not true.

That was untrue, an erroneous self -perception.

This comment to the Laodicean church is the ultimate rebuttal to affluent contentment and to spiritual complacency that usually results from affluent contentment.

If you think you have everything that you need, or you can get everything you need, then you do not rely on the

Lord as much as you should, and you are spiritually poverty -stricken. So what advice does the

Lord have for this church, for the church of Laodicea? He said, I counsel thee to buy of me, tried in the furnace, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be closed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see.

So how is it that the Lord, that God, views the church of the

Laodiceans? How does the Lord see the church of the

Laodiceans? Okay, it's what you ought not do.

You ought not be self -content. You ought not be self -sufficient.

You ought not believe that you are the ultimate answer to all of your problems.

That they need to understand what? The word ought? Yes.

The church is the body of Christ, yes. Yes, and I really like your analogy, and that takes me to a tie -in point that is better than what

I have. So you are the body of Christ, and how are you clothed?

The body of Christ, that's the white garment. It's unfortunate the way this is translated.

It says, I counsel thee to buy of me, gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed.

You're not going to buy that white raiment. That white raiment is what? It is a free gift of God.

It's something that you got whether you wanted it or not. It was given to you because the

Lord chose you to be one of His, one of His body. Now you can either clothe yourself in your own righteousness and be naked and filthy, or you can clothe yourself in His righteousness and be pure and clean, not as clean as you can be, but as clean as He was because He gave you

His cleanliness, and that was a much better way. I'm going to skip what I was going to say.

All I said was, it would be the white raiment that he's talking about later on in the verse, would be the free gift of Jesus Christ.

And now we get to the exhortation. These things always come in groups of seven.

The name of the church, the title of the speaker of the angel, a commendation, a criticism, and then an exhortation.

Now if we go back through the list, and there's two more, if we go back through the list, the title was the

Church of the Laodiceans. And the person talking to them was the

Amen, the beginning of the creation and all of that. The commendation was, he didn't have a single good thing to say about them, not one.

So he goes straight to the criticism, and we just read the criticism. And now we're to number five, the exhortation.

Okay, you have been identified, you have been, it's been spelled out what you are,

I've told you all the good stuff about you, which in this case is nothing, and the things you need to correct, which in this case is a lot, now what?

As many as I love, he says, this is the exhortation, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.

Be zealous therefore, and repent. So what is he telling you? He's saying, I still love you even in your filthy condition.

Does he want you to stay in that filthy condition? No, he wants you to cleanse yourself, to repent, and to clothe yourself in the righteousness that he has provided for you, and not to try to rely on your own.

So is there any hope for the lukewarm Christian? Evidently there is, he says, repent, so evidently there is hope.

Is there any hope for this church? Not this church, this church we're sitting in, this church we're talking about.

I hope we're not sitting in this church. Is there any hope for the lukewarm church?

That's the way I said it, I shouldn't have said it, that's the way to start with. If they repent.

So he goes on to say in verse 20, behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man,

I highlighted any man, and I would like for you to underline any man, if you are in the highlighting or underlining business, underline any man.

If any man in this church hear my voice and open the door,

I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.

We had a really long and I thought wonderful sermon from Spurgeon that I read last week, and it's titled the earnest something of the lukewarm church.

I forgot the title, I can look it up in a minute. But if you did Spurgeon and the word earnest spelled with an e -a -r -n -e -s -t, it would pop it up and you could get the entire sermon and it would be worth your reading.

This is down toward the latter part of this sermon, and here's what Spurgeon said about this passage, and I'll bet every one of you have heard this passage preached to in the way that Spurgeon describes.

Tell me if that's the case as we go. Behold he said, behold saith he,

I stand at the door and knock. This is Spurgeon and he is quoting. I have known this text preached upon to sinners numbers of time, as though Christ knocked at their door and they had to open it and so on.

So this is preached a lot as an evangelical passage.

I stand at the door and knock and it's your duty to open the door. He goes on to say the preacher, talking about the preacher that is preaching this text that way, has never managed to keep to the free grace.

It's not something that he is preaching to, to get you to do something so that he may come into your life.

He is not asking you to come down to the front and commit in front of everybody that you belong to him.

That's not what he's, he's not even talking to that person. For this reason,

Spurgeon goes on to say, that the text was not meant to be so used and if men will write a text the wrong way, it will not go.

This text belongs to the church of God, not to the unconverted.

It is addressed to the Laodicean church. There is Christ outside the church, driven there by her unkindness.

But he has not gone far away and he loves his church too much to leave her altogether.

He longs to come back and therefore he waits at the door post. He knows that the church will never be restored till he comes back and he desires to bless her.

So he stands there waiting, knocking and knocking, again and again. He does not merely knock once, but he stands knocking by earnest sermons, by providence, by impressions upon consciousness, by the quickening of the

Holy Spirit. And while he knocks, he speaks. He uses all of his means to awaken his church.

Most condescendingly and graciously does he do this. For as having threatened to spew her out of his mouth, he might well have said,

I will get me gone and I will never come back to thee again. That would have been natural and just.

He offered you, he selected you, he offered you his righteousness and you chose your own.

You chose to present yourself to him naked and filthy. He would like for you to repent of that, to cleanse yourself and to come back to him.

But he's not talking about John Doe out in the street. He is talking to you who has been selected, has been given his grace and his righteousness and you have rejected it because you think you have a better way to go.

That's the way I interpreted what Mr. Spurgeon is saying. But how gracious is he when having expressed his disgust, he says, disgusted as I am with your condition,

I do not wish to leave you. I have taken my presence from you, but I love you.

And therefore I knock at your door and I wish to be returned into your heart. He does not break bolt and bar.

He does not break bolt and bar and come in as he often does into the sinner's heart, carrying the soul by storm because that man is dead in sin and Christ must do it all or the sinner will purchase, will perish.

But he is sure speaking to living men and women who ought to also be loving men and women.

And he says, I wish to be among you. Open the door to me. We ought to open the door at once and say, come in, good

Lord. We grieve to think that we should ever have put thee outside that door at all.

That is a wonderful sermon. If I could say anything to you, I would say, look that passage up and read it.

You can get all of his sermons or almost all of his sermons free if you go on the

Internet. He goes on. This is

Revelation 3 .20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door,

I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me. Spurgeon goes on to say, and see what he promises, see what promises he gives.

He will come and sup with us. That is, we shall be the host and shall entertain him.

But he adds, and he with me. That is, he will be the host and the guest by turns.

We will give of him our best, but poor fare that is. Too poor for him and yet he will partake of it.

Then he shall be the host and we will be the guest and oh how we will feast on what he gives.

I will come in to him if he opens the door and sup with him and he with me.

And now to the overcomer. To him that overcometh

I will grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame.

And I'm sitting down with my father on his throne. If you wish you can turn to 1

John 5 verse 4 and it will talk about who is the overcomer.

And what it is that you're overcoming. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.

And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Who is he that overcometh the world? But he that believeth that Jesus is the

Son of God. So who's the overcomer? Those that have been selected by God and who believe that Jesus is the

Son of God. And you can believe all the things you want to believe. And all the things you want to believe are good.

You can believe if I were to get up and walk over there and sit down on that chair, that chair would support me and hold me up.

But if you knew what it was really made of and what I'm made of you would be amazed I didn't fall right on through. You can believe what you want to believe but there's only one belief that you can have that will lead you, take you to be an overcomer.

And what is that? That Jesus is the Son of God. If you don't believe that, you don't have a belief that will save you.

And then we get to the closure, the last thing, the thing that he ends every passage with.

He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Now we had said that many times and I'll just ask it one more time. Who is it that has an ear to hear?

The elect. The ones that the Lord has given the ability to hear what he says and to see what he does.

We must examine ourselves. This is Spurgeon again finishing out his sermon. We must examine ourselves and we must confess the fault if we have declined in grace.

If you don't have as much grace as you used to have, whose fault is it? It's your fault.

And then we must not talk about setting the church right. We must set ourselves right.

And then we must not talk about setting the church right. We must pray for grace for each one for himself.

For the text does not say if the church will open the door, but it says if any man hear my voice and open the door.

It must be done by individuals. The church will only get right by each man getting right.

Oh that we might get back to an earnest zeal for our Lord's service and love.

And we shall only do so by listening to his rebukes and then falling into his arms, clasping him once again and saying, my

Lord, my God. That healed Thomas, didn't it? Putting his fingers into the prints of the nails, putting his hands into the side, that cured him.

Poor, unbelieving, staggering Thomas only had to do that and he became one of the strongest believers.

And he said, my Lord and my God. Come close to me and what's getting close to him, never go away from him anymore.

The Lord bless you, dear brethren, and the Lord bless you in this thing.

We have now finished the last of the seven letters to the seven churches. In one sense, we can view these letters.

Okay, we're in good shape. We can view these letters as seven literal letters to seven literal churches, which indeed they are.

Each church is a real, literal, concrete church. And each one is filled with literal people.

And each one has a message given to it. But in a broader sense, the seven can be viewed as a number of completion.

And we can symbolically view the seven letters as a unified message from God to his complete church.

Because it does say, if you remember, to the churches. Each time it says to the churches, not simply to the church at Philadelphia.

So now in the narrow sense, what is his message to these several literal churches? We're going to sum it up.

To the church at Ephesus, the message was, remember your first love and return to it.

Doctrinal and moral purity, undiminished zeal for the truth and disciplined service are admirable.

But they're no substitute for the love of Christ. A love that this church had forsaken.

And the Lord instructed them to return to the first love. The next message was the one to the suffering church, the church at Smyrna.

Those who prove the genuineness of their faith by remaining faithful to the

Lord even unto death. They will receive as their reward the crown.

The victor's crown. The crown of life. James said in chapter 1 verse 12,

Blessed is the man that endures temptation. For when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life.

Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Perseverance proves the genuineness of their faith.

As they endure the suffering. The scriptures teach that true Christians will persevere.

That biblical truth was understood by the authors of the Westminster Confession of Faith. They wrote this.

They whom God hath accepted in his beloved. Effectually called and sanctified by his spirit.

Can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace. But shall certainly persevere therein to the end.

And be eternally saved. There was a message to the church at Pergamos.

It could repent and receive all the blessings of eternal life. In the glory of heaven.

Or it could refuse to repent. And face the terrifying reality of having the

Lord Jesus Christ declare war upon it. Maintaining the path of compromise ultimately leads to judgment.

You can't compromise. You can't be of God and of the world.

That was the message to the third church. Christians can't not repent and be

Christians. Christians must repent. Yes. I can't add anything to that.

That is exactly right. It is so easy to become distracted.

And that's the role of Satan. We'll get to that in not too distant of a future.

When we look at the war that has gone on between good and evil.

When it began, where it is right now.

Right now, Satan's focus, the forces of evil, the focus is on the people.

Putting things in your path. Not necessarily bad things. It's not bad to be a basketball coach and love the game.

But it is when you put it ahead of Christ. It is when you even put it close to Christ. All the things that we love.

It's not bad to be a golfer. But it is bad if it comes between you and the

Lord. And what Satan does, he puts things out that are attractive. And it comes in the place in between God and us.

And Satan celebrates. We should celebrate when we repent.

And if we don't repent, the church could refuse to repent.

And face the terrifying reality of having the Lord Jesus Christ declare war on it. Maintaining the path of compromise ultimately will lead to judgment.

Then we have the message to the church at Thyatira, number four. Three important truths stand out.

First, this letter reveals the seriousness of practicing and tolerating sin.

And that God will judge continued, unrepentant sin in the church.

Second, a pattern of obedience marks true Christians. If you're a true

Christian, John, you are required to repent. The obedience to that requirement to repent can be seen.

And finally, God's gracious promise to His own is that in spite of the struggles with sin and errors in the church, and there will be many in every church you go to, and in every life there will be struggles and errors, they will still experience all the fullness of Christ as they reign with Him in His kingdom.

Those in His church who fail to heed the message will receive divine judgment.

Those who do heed His message will receive divine blessing. If you refuse to heed the message, you'll be judged.

Your judgment may be entirely worldly. It may only be that you're taken out of this life and moved into the next one.

Sometimes that is the erasure from the book of the living. Sometimes that's

His choice. Sometimes He chooses to take us out. In every case, you'll experience judgment if you do not obey.

But if you do, you will receive divine blessings.

Message five, the message to the church at Sardis. The spiritually dead, playing church needed to heed

Christ's warning of impending judgment. The indifferent believers needed to wake up before it's too late to save their church.

And the faithful few could take comfort in the knowledge that their salvation is eternally secure.

Just because you're attending church in a church that is on the verge of being dead doesn't mean you have to be dead yourself.

The message to the church at Philadelphia. The holy, true, sovereign, omnipotent

God pours out His blessings on churches that remain loyal to Him.

He will bless them with open doors for evangelism, eternal salvation, kingdom blessings and deliverance from or through the great time of testing that will come on the earth.

He will ultimately bring all of those who persevere in their faith to the eternal bliss in heaven where He will reveal

Himself fully to them. And the final message, the message to the apostate church of the

Laodiceans was threefold. First, to the straying sheep, repent.

To the lost sheep, open the door to Christ before judgment falls.

And to the lost goats, beware, judgment is at hand. That was the message to the literal church.

The collection of all those who met together, whether they were sheep or whether they were goats, there was a message to them.

Now in a broader sense, what message does God have for us? For those who have already been brought into God's family.

We're going to go through the same list of churches, but with a quicker message. Number one, we're to remember our first love.

We're not to stray, and if we have strayed, we're to return to Him. Number two, we who are effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit cannot fall away from the state of grace but shall certainly be eternally saved.

Number three, if we follow the path of compromise, we will surely be judged.

Number four, if we do not heed the Lord's message to repent, we will receive divine judgment.

If we do heed His message, we'll receive divine blessing. Number five, the indifferent believers need to wake up before it's too late to save their church.

And the faithful few can take comfort in the knowledge that even if they're unable to save their church, their own salvation is eternally secure.

And number six, He will ultimately bring all of those who persevere in their faith to the eternal bliss in heaven where He will reveal

Himself fully to them. And to number seven, repent before judgment falls.

Now that's the end of what I have today, but I'm going to open the floor to questions and comments.

And maybe I can respond to them, or maybe one of you can, or maybe we can just hear them. No church is perfect, that's correct,

Brother David. On a church that didn't repent,

I think that either one of two things, either it would continue being an assembly where God was absent, or it would cease to exist, or maybe do one for a while and then the other.

Eventually they all die. Yes, sir. I think it certainly can.

Now, was the church left in a better condition? And so the ultimate fate of the church, the church can totally cease to exist, and there's many examples of churches that don't exist anymore.

It can be apostate. Yes. It's an assembly of the people, a true legacy in church.

And that's sometimes the outcome when you fail to repent.

Well, some of them are, and see, that's the good thing. There were some good people that came out of that church,

I know for certain, because I know that in some sense Brother David came out of that church, and Mrs.

Mitchell came out of that church, and a lot of good came out of that church, and the good that he had in that church had the minister there they needed to have when they needed to have him.

And he could have written Ichabod on the whole church at some point, and probably did, yes.

Yes, and every time that woman was his wife, and every time she ran away and rejected him and rejected his righteousness, she came back to him, he had to reclothe her, and he did.

And that is a wonderful thing. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for all of our many blessings.