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Bro. Bill Nichols
Well, I was going to pray at the end of the reading, so I'm going to start right here. At the beginning of chapter 3 of Revelation, the angel speaking to the church of Sardis, and here's what he says.
And unto the angel of the church of Sardis write, These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars, I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead.
The members of the church of Sardis were Christians in name only. They had a reputation that they lived, but they were dead. He goes on to say, Jesus goes on to say, Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
Remember, therefore, how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come. We're now at verse 4, and this will be the verse that we will take off from today.
We did all the rest of that earlier, last time. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this place to come together to study your holy word and to be informed by the Holy Spirit what your word has in store for us.
Thank you for giving us a place where we can come safely and meet. Thank you for giving us the time. Thank you for giving us each other, each to add to the other's edification. And finally, we pray that we might remain worthy.
Last week, we ended with the question, why would one of the worthy, why would one of the elect, why would one of God's elect choose to remain in a church populated with members who are Christian in name only?
Remember 3, verse 1, thou hast a name that thou livest and are dead. That's the church. That's not every member in the church. There are worthy members in the church that remain in the church. Yes, sir.
But that was in Revelation chapter 3, verse 1, and we read down to verse 4, I believe. Is that right? Sometimes I number these things after I post them in and then I number them. Sometimes I get them wrong.
So our question today is, or not our question today, but this morning, we're going to focus on the nominal Christians. Then we're going to focus on what will happen to the elect who do choose to remain in such a church, in a church filled with Christians in name only.
Well, sometimes they don't know it. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they know it for a purpose. We talked about this last week. In fact, Brother David mentioned that your husband, his dad, chose to remain in a church that he knew was filled with nominal Christians.
He said, if I can remember this right, that he chose to remain to be a bird under the saddle of the pastor. Now, I may be wrong on that. That may be close. So he had a purpose there, and there came a time when his purpose was fulfilled and then he left.
So sometimes they remain. Well, he felt like he had a bigger target. No, I was sure all the time that he was here. I know how he acted in this church. He was a sweet man, and I don't describe very many men as sweet.
He was a gentleman. He was a scholar. He was the most informed person about the world that I have known. He was really a well-educated man. He was an FBI agent when they were honorable. I'm glad he didn't, too.
It would have broken his heart. Okay, the first thing we're going to look at is the lost man. The lost man is a man with a plan, but not God's plan. The plan he has is a demonic plan. I want you to go to John chapter 14, verse 5.
And I'm really looking for verse 6, but I want to read 5 to give you a little bit of background. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest. How can we know the way? And Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Is there any other way, Mark? Is that what the world thinks? So you're going to say there's no other way, but that's not the world thinks. Who's the first? What is the first alternate way?
Do you get thought to that? What is the first proponent of an alternate way? Or the first to act on an alternate way? I'm sorry? Oh, no, I'm way that further than that. The first was when Satan fell from heaven.
That was the first alternate way proposed. Satan says, I have a way. I'm going to be like the most high. I'm going to be above the most high. Now, he wasn't a man. He was an angel, but he fell. And his demonic angels fell with him.
But not all of them, because not all of them chose to follow that alternate way. Some subsequent alternate ways. And I'm not going to go into these in detail. I thought, you know, this would be a great series to teach.
But not, I don't think, in Sunday school. Adam and Eve in the garden. Tempted by Satan, seduced, chose to follow an alternate way. They wanted to be like God. Eating the fruit, disobeying the law, all that will do, it'll make you like God.
God doesn't want you to be like him. God wants to be better than you. Well, frankly, God is better than them. And he is better than me. And he is better than all of us. So much better that we can't even compare.
But that's not what they wanted. They wanted to see good and evil just like God did. The first commercial for a product, eat this apple and know. There's other examples of alternate ways. Nimrod, when he built the Tower of Babel, was choosing a different way to get to God.
I am going to build a building that will reach to the sky and I will be like God. We know how that turned out. Not everything started out bad. What about the corruption of the law given to Moses? Was the law good at the beginning?
Was the law that Moses brought down, I could write a name on it, the law that Moses brought down from the mountain, was it a good law? A perfect law? Well, it was perfect in what it was designed to do.
But it was not designed to save you. It was only designed to tell you that you could not save yourself. And in that, it was perfect. But it was corrupted. The snake that was hung on the post to cure the diseases as the children of Israel wandered through the desert, it cured everybody that looked at it.
And yet it was corrupted so much so that a subsequent king had to take it down and destroy it. I think that was Hezekiah, but I may be wrong on the name. I didn't look that up. That just popped in my head just now.
I should have spent more time. But Brother David, I got sidetracked last morning and I am not going where I'm meant to go at eight o 'clock. So I may not get to what I'm meant to get to today. But the law was corrupted by the children of Israel into being a set of rules that if one kept them, they would be saved.
We could attain righteousness by following the law if we followed it well enough. That was the problem that Paul was dealing with. How well do you have to follow the law? Well, the rich young ruler said, I've done it all.
From the day of my youth, I've followed the law, every one of them. Well, that was a lie and that was a breaking of one of the laws in itself. But not a minute went by. Well, maybe a minute. Not a week went by when he didn't break a law.
Not a week goes by when we don't break a law. Could we? I've heard Brother David say, we can if we walk with the Lord, hand in hand with the Lord, we can walk without committing a sin. But how long do we hold on to his hand?
How long is it before we decide to walk away? And when we walk away from him, we are subject to sinning. Well, what about all false religions? Every false religion that exists is a false religion inspired by Satan.
Every other way to salvation except Jesus as the Savior is a demonic way. And I know that's strong. And if we had a lot of people in here, if I didn't know all of you, I probably would be a little bit more cautious about saying that.
But I know everyone here. I'm sorry? The Bible says it, but that doesn't mean that I would be bold enough to say it. Paul was bold enough to say what the Bible says. I am sometimes bold enough to say what the Bible says.
And I just admit that at that time, I'm only a nominal Christian, a Christian in name only. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often. Now, what does it have to be? When John is talking about these Christians at Sardis, what does he say?
You have a reputation that you're alive. Everybody thinks you're just the cat's meow, but you're dead. You have the name of being a Christian, but you don't have the substance. Now, there's ways that we can guess that a person has substance, has Christian substance, but we really can't know.
Who can know? Jesus can know, God can know, the Holy Spirit can know, and we can guess. And we can guess sometimes pretty accurately. Well, we know this, that the church in Sardis was full of people that were Christian in name only.
Because Jesus himself said, you have the name that you're alive and you're dead. He wouldn't have said that if they had a name that they were dead and they were alive. He tells the church of Philadelphia, people say you're poor and you're rich.
He told the church at Laodicea, people say you're rich and you're poor. He knows. Well, we're not going to take a glimpse because we're not going to stay there. We could spend weeks on this. But we can take a glimpse at the elect scattered among the nominal Christians.
Here's what John MacArthur said. Even in a church like Sardis, there is yet a remnant that is undefiled. In the midst of this dead church, filled with unregenerate people, a few true Christians were scattered like flowers in a desert.
There were not enough of them, however, to change Christ's overall evaluation of the church as dead. But then he goes on to say probably the most important statement that he makes regarding these people that are in the true Christians scattered in this church.
But he, God, Jesus, had not forgotten those who remain faithful to him. He can look at the church at Sardis and see that for the most part, the people in the church were just pretending to be Christians.
But here and there were two or three scattered like flowers in a desert that were true Christians, and he did not forget them. So just because you attend a church that is full of nominal Christians doesn't mean God doesn't recognize who and what you are.
And if you're his, he will not forget you. He never does. Look at Malachi chapter 3, verse 16. Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament. After Malachi was completed, there was no more word from God until the Gospels, until the New Testament.
We're going to start at verse 16, chapter 3, verse 16 of Malachi. Now he's talking about the children of Israel now, not a church. But you can take the lesson from the children of Israel and apply it to the church.
Now that implies that not everybody that was there amongst the children of Israel feared the Lord. There are several different books that are spoken of in the Scripture. This is not the first mention of a book in the Scripture.
It's probably the last mention of a book in the Old Testament. But just exactly what book is this? What book is he talking about? This book of remembrance. I'm sorry, the oracles of God. But this is a book of remembrance.
Who is remembering and what is he remembering? I think this one could be described fairly as the book of life, the book of the elect, the book of the people that belong to him. Only he knows the names that are in that book and he'll remember them.
And he will spare them as a man spares his own son. What did the son do to become the son? What did your son do to become a son? Nothing. In some sense, you chose him to be your son. All the input was from the parents.
None of the input was from the son. This could be described as the elect. In fact, I believe this is described in other places as the book of life. Now we get to the promise to the overcomer. Verse 5, Revelation 3, verse 5.
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white rabbit. And I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. We come to another book here, but we're not going to deal with that first.
First, we're going to deal with the first phrase. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white rabbit. Now, first of all, who is he that overcometh? The elect and what did they do to overcome?
Okay, I'm going to take both of those answers. They didn't do anything and yet they stayed true to the Lord. Why did they stay true to the Lord? Because they wanted to. Why were they elected in the first place?
Because God wanted them. Okay, he that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment. And what's the white raiment? Brother Davey, this is where I got sidetracked. Right here is where I got off tangent.
I was trying to do a passage on the different books because that came up last week and I wanted to clarify, but I got hung up right here. What is this white raiment? Anybody want to take a shot at it?
Purity, the blood of Christ, righteousness. Now, if I'm wearing white raiment, am I wearing my raiment? Is it my righteousness we're talking about? It's Christ's righteousness. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
So, who will be wearing this raiment? He has chosen the elect. Okay, will they ever lose the righteousness? You mean they're going to wear this white robe forever? They can take it on and put it off? Have I ever behaved as if I, I mean, I'm not saying that.
I'm going to get you to say, I'm going to get you to really let the hammer down on me. Uh, do any of you ever behave as if you are unrighteous? Of course we do. Anytime we don't obey, uh, when we had the question, the truth, the purity and, uh, doing what was the Lord's will, those two comments.
Yes, you're elect. And yes, because you're elect, you want to do God's will, but you don't always do it. We will be, we will occasionally behave as if we're unrighteous, unrighteous, but since the righteousness is not of our doing, we cannot undo it either.
We can't take back what we didn't give. We can't give back what we didn't receive. In John six, verse 36, Jesus is talking to Pharisees. Jesus is talking to a group that should have seen they were royal schools.
They knew more about the scripture than any other single group of people did. And here's what he says to them. But I said unto you that you also have seen me and you believe not. He said, well, why? How could, how could they?
Because all that the father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the father's will, which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again in the last day.
And this is the will of him that sent me. And every one that seeth the son and believeth on me may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day. Now, here's what was interesting to me.
These scholars, these Pharisees, these people that knew the scripture more than anyone else. These to whom these Jews to whom Jesus spoke did not hear him. They didn't hear anything he said, except the last thing he said.
What did they not hear? They did not hear that he would save everyone that believed in him. And that everyone that believed in him would believe in him because it was the will of God. Why didn't they hear him?
Because they didn't have ears that heard. And so Jesus, therefore, answered among them, answered. Jesus, therefore, answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him.
And I will raise him in the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they all, they shall all be taught of God. Every man, therefore, that has heard and hath learned of the father cometh unto me. There is, that was one of Brother Otis's favorite passages.
And he's told me more than one time, son, if you have learned anything, you only have learned it because you belong to him. Because if you don't belong to him, you won't learn anything. I don't know. Brother Otis is not, what's the word we say?
Infallible. That was not the word that I was looking for, but that's good enough. Brother Otis was not infallible. When we say the scripture is, it doesn't matter. I was trying to think of a word that we always use.
I'm sorry. No, that's what he meant. All I'm trying to say is the words of Brother Otis are not scriptural. It's just the words of a wise man. And that's a level down from what it is that's scriptural.
But in any case, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him. That's not Brother Otis talking. That's God talking. That is scriptural. God the father is the elector or God the son.
I'm not exactly sure which one of those, but it is one of the, it is either God the father or God the son that selects who, well, it says here it's God the father. You're right. I didn't read it carefully enough yesterday.
No man can. It's no man can. No man is able to. That's what it means. Now, that's enough. But I'm going to do more. Second Corinthians 518. And all of these things, did I give you the verse? Second Corinthians 518.
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the word unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now, then we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God. Now, a couple of things you need to get out of that. You are an ambassador for Christ, whether you want to be or not.
If you're his, you are an ambassador for Christ. To say what? To say he hath made him, Jesus, to be sin for us. Jesus, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So what righteousness we have, the raiment of white that we're dressed in, the righteousness that we're dressed in, who does it belong to?
Well, I'm going to disagree with you virtually and say it belongs to you. But it only belongs to you because Christ gave it to you. Now, so I'm not really disagreeing with y 'all. It is his, and he gave it to you, and there's no other way you can get it.
It does. That's right. And the death that we should have, he took it. So in a sense, we are alive forevermore, even right now. And we talked about this yesterday. My body, unless I live until the rapture in three more years, unless I live to the rapture, my body will depart.
My body will die, and I will be separated from the old man. The new man will live forevermore, and the old man will die. Well, in some sense, the old man has already died, and I'm already alive, but I'm just dragging it along with me.
And that's worth at least a full morning's discussion. Romans 8, 14. I told you I got totally sidetracked yesterday. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God. We're not anymore our father's son. We're now our father's son. We're now the sons of God. How did we become a son of God?
We were adopted into his family. And if we're children, we're heirs. If we're children of God, we're heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. If so be it, we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Someone once asked, if there is a God, and he is a good God, then why do good people suffer?
My answer always was, good people don't suffer, there are no good people. But that's not quite right. What's right is, if we want to be glorified with God, with Jesus, then we must experience all of Jesus.
We must experience his suffering. We won't experience it to the extent that he did. But to the extent that we can stand the suffering, we will be glorified along with him. It is the suffering that gives you the glory.
I had issues with John Piper back years ago, and that was kind of what he taught, that if you want to be glorified with God, you must suffer with him. I kind of rebelled against that. I didn't want to have to go through that, but in a sense he was right.
It is the suffering that we have that elevates the glory that we receive. For I reckon that the suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that hath subject the same in hope.
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and treveleth in pain together until now.
And that creature is not just the people in the world, the created world. It is the created world. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting the adoption to it, the redemption of our body.
We know that we will be redeemed. We know that in some sense, when he named us and allowed us to know that we were his, that the old man was dead and the new man was alive. And now we are subject to the new man.
And yet we're waiting to put the old man aside and have nothing but the new man. For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, then we do with patience wait for it.
Likewise, the spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we ought to pray for as we ought. But the spirit itself maketh intercessions for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knoweth what is in the mind of the spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
According to what? According to the will of God, not according to what your will is. You can't pray and say, Lord, remove from me my weak sight or my aching back or my bruised head. But the spirit will make intercessions for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them who are called according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them also he called. And whom he called, he also justified. And whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say, if God be for us, who can be against us?
He that spareth not his own Son, but delivereth him up. For us all, how shall he not with him also freely give all things? He's given us the best gift he could possibly give us. He's given us his Son.
All other good things that we need, he'll give us. All good things that we want, maybe he'll give them, maybe he won't, depends upon whether we need them. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God that justifieth. Satan can't make a charge against you, because even though we sometimes behave unrighteously, we have the righteousness of God. We have the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and he is totally righteous.
It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of God?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all day long. We're accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loveth us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is Christ Jesus.
Now, we read that yesterday morning, part of it, and I couldn't pass by without doing that. There's also, it's worth your reading to stop at, not to stop at the end of this chapter, but go right through 9, and 10, and 11 of Romans, and you will see why it is that Paul was able to say in Romans 11, verse 1, I say then, hath God cast away his people?
God forbid, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. Were you not what the scripture said to Elias? How he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and have digged down thine altar, and I am left alone, and they seek my life?
But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. No, he wasn't alone. At least 7 ,000 men were with him. He just didn't know it.
Even so then, at this present time, now this is Paul back in the days of when he was writing the letters to Romans. Even so at this present time, there is also a remnant according to the grace of election, not because of anything that they had done, but by the righteousness of Christ.
God had his remnant in the dead church at Sardis. Even in the dead and dying churches of today, there's a remnant among the worldly, a few sheep among the goats, a few stalks of wheat among the tares, some interspersed among the worldly, and some gathered in small assemblies like this one, but all remembered by God.
And I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. Now John MacArthur said this, Christ promises every true Christian that he will not erase his name from the book of life, but will confess his name before the Father and before his angels.
And as incredible as this text is, some people say that it teaches just the opposite, that a Christian's name can be erased from the book of life. They foolishly turn a promise into a threat. They claim that Exodus 32, 33 supports the idea that God may remove someone's name from the book of life.
Now, I was going to go back and read Exodus 32, but I'm not going to, I'm just going to tell you, Moses was up on the mountain and he was receiving the word of God and he was delaying to come down. He'd been up there a while, I don't know how long, but the people were beginning to worry.
And so they said to Aram, make us some gods. And so he said, okay, give me the earrings and the jewelry of the gold of your wives and we'll make it into a god. And so he did and they did and they made a molten calf.
And they said, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Hey, the golden calf didn't even exist when they came up out of Israel. They made it now. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it.
And Aaron made proclamations and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings to whom? To the golden calf. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
And the Lord was not happy. And the Lord said to Moses, go, get thee down for thy people, which thou broughtest out of Israel, out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned quickly out of the way, which I have commanded.
And they have made them a molten calf and have worshiped it and have sacrificed. Therefore, and said, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold, it is a stiff neck people.
Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and I may consume them and I will make of thee a great nation. What's he saying to Moses? He's saying, Moses, I want to kill them all.
And I'm going to start over. And I'm gonna make a new nation out of you. Well, technically, he would still have been true to his original commitment. What commitment did he make to Abraham? What commitment did the Lord make to Abraham?
I will make of thee a great nation. If he destroys them all, pardon me, if he destroys them all, except for Moses and makes out of Moses a great nation, would he have violated the promise that he made to Abraham?
No, because Abraham was out of Moses. Moses was out of Abraham. So technically, he would have been true. To his commitment to Abraham. But Moses didn't like that. And Moses besought the Lord. And he said, Lord, why dost thou wax hot against thy people, which thou brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
Wherefore, should the Egyptians speak and say, for mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth? That's what the Egyptians will say. Did you bring them out to kill them?
They wouldn't say, did you bring them out to condemn them to eternal hell? Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham and Isaac and Israel, thy servants, to whom they sweareth out of thine own self and said, I will multiply your seed as stars of the heaven and all of this land I've spoken of will I give to your seed and they shall inherit it forevermore.
Now he is arguing with God, but God knows better. God knows that if he does this, if he kills them all, if he kills every one of them except Moses, he will still preserve enough that from the seed of Abraham, a great nation could and would still be formed.
But the Lord, it says, repented of this evil, which he thought to do until his people. And Moses turned and went down from the mountain and two tables of testimony were in his hands. And the tables were written on both sides and the tables were the work of God.
And I'm going to go on down because we're running out of time. And when Moses gets down, he hears sounds coming up out of the camp. But he says, it's dancing. It's not war. It's not the cries of them that overcome or them that are being overcome.
It's the noise of singing that I hear. And so what he did was he took the calf and he burned it in the fire and he grounded into powder and he made them drink it. But that's not enough. He said, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, who is on the Lord's side?
Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him. And he said unto them, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother and every man his companion and every man his neighbor and the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses and there fell on that day people about 3 ,000 men.
Now, do you think God really approved this carnage? He did. He ordered it. And Moses said unto the people, ye have sinned a great sin. And now I will go unto the Lord. Prevent your, I shall make an atonement for your sin.
Was Moses able to do that? The answer is no, he wasn't. What was anybody able to do it? Yes, it was done by Jesus. Now I am way over. So I'm gonna stop now and we'll pick up somewhere around here next time.
I'm sorry, I ran over. Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for this day. Thank you for all the many blessings. Bless us and keep us and go through the rest of the services today. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.