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Bible preaching from the pulpit of Choice Hills Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina
All right, very good. Let's get our Bible and go to the book of Revelation.
The book of Revelation, chapter 2, this morning.
Revelation, chapter 2.
We're actually going to take a peek at chapter 1 to begin,
but our main text will be in chapters 2 and 3 this morning.
Revelation. Let's start and hold your place in chapter two. Let's go to chapter one. I want to read verse number four and then go down to verse number 11. Verse number four says,
John to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be unto you and peace from him which is Drop down to verse 11.
Verse 10 kind of picks up and says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying,
I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.
And what thou seest, write in a book
and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia,
unto Ephesus and unto Smyrna and unto Pergamos
and unto Thyatira and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto
Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and being turned, I saw seven golden
candlesticks.
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man,
clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet were like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.
And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
Verse 1. Amen. And have the keys of hell and of death. Write the things which thou hast seen,
and the things which are,
and the things which shall be hereafter.
The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks.
The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches,
and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are
the seven churches. Would you pray with me this morning? Our Father in heaven, we thank you so much
that you have saved us. We thank you that you have called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to your own purpose and grace. Lord, we thank you for the church of God that you have established.
Lord, our church, this church, and the church is not an invention, a scheme of man,
but it is an invention and a creation of your own will and purpose.
and a creation of your own will and purpose.
And Lord, in the book of Revelation, as we read these things and we see the things that you wrote to the churches,
I pray that you would help us to draw from them
truths and principles and applications and commandments
that you would have us to see and hear and do.
Lord, would you please incline our heart to what your word says this morning?
Especially as we think about our church's anniversary, 52 years,
organized as a local church, and Lord, we desire,
it is our heartfelt desire, Lord, that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
would be glorified through this church
for many, many years to come in greater ways than we have ever thought or imagined.
But Lord, we know that that is only possible by the work and the power of your Spirit,
not by our own strength whatsoever.
As we look in your Word and as we think about these things and where our church is
and where you've put it
and what the job and the duty
you've given us to do here
Lord again help our hearts
to be inclined to these truths
that we see in Revelation 2 and 3
that we might see what we need to do
what you desire us to do
what you've told us to do
not just as a church
but also as individuals.
So, Lord, guide us in our study, we pray, and help us, Lord.
I have no power to help your people except that you grant grace and give me wisdom to
say the things they need to hear.
In Jesus' name we ask, amen.
As you can see in chapter one, that the book of Revelation is itself one big long letter
written from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. You know,
some cults, they mince that and they say, well, the Alpha and the Omega is the Father,
but the first and the last is Jesus. And it's like, no, it's all from Jesus. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,
which is what that means.
And this is a letter, the book of Revelation is a letter,
prophetic, primarily a prophetic letter written from the Lord Jesus.
But notice in chapter 1, verse 4, it's written to the seven churches,
which is why we have it in our Bible.
the seven churches, which is why we have it in our Bible.
And down starting in verse, about verse 11,
we see that these, specifically that this letter was written and intended for the seven churches in Asia.
And as I was thinking about, you know, the church's anniversary,
and especially trying to think of a couple of things,
trying to think of and really pray about where is our church, right?
What is a fair and honest assessment?
What would the Lord say about where our church is collectively, corporately, as a body?
Where are we right now?
And that's kind of looking at the present,
and then also looking forward and asking the Lord,
Lord, what do you want for our church collectively?
What are your directions for Choice Hills Baptist Church as one of your churches?
That's what we have here.
We have seven local assemblies in Asia that the Lord is addressing.
Each one of them has different characteristics,
as we see in the seven letters in chapters 2 and 3.
And although these local churches are probably, no doubt, much different than ours,
I doubt they had a building this nice.
They probably and surely spoke a different language than we do.
Their culture was a lot different. But the common factor, and this is why we can draw from these seven letters, is they did have like precious faith with us. They believed. Because we believe the Scripture, we can know for certain that we believed as they believed. Because that is the common factor.
as they believed, because that is the common factor of the Scripture.
So as I was thinking about that, my mind was drawn to this passage and thinking about what was the Lord's message,
what were His messages to these seven churches.
And so as I started reading them, I started to pick up on a few things
I just want to share with you this morning in these seven letters in chapters 2 and 3.
Of course, it begins with Ephesus.
And there are some common things between these seven churches,
these letters to the seven churches, that I'd like to point out to you,
the common elements between them.
And as you can see in the first one, and we'll just kind of go through these very quickly,
verse 1 of chapter 2 says,
Go to verse number 8.
The Bible says, And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write, These things saith the first and the last,
which was dead and is alive. Chapter 8, verse 12.
And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write, These things
saith he which hath the sharp sword with
two edges. Chapter 12, verse number 18. Chapter 2,
verse number 18, rather.
And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira, right,
these things saith the Son of God,
who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire,
and his feet are like fine brass.
Chapter 3, verse 1.
And unto the angel of the church in Sardis, right,
these things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God
and the seven stars.
I know thy works, he goes on.
Chapter 3, look at verse 7.
And unto the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,
These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David,
he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth.
And lastly, chapter 3, verse 14.
In each case, in each letter, the Lord presents Himself a little bit differently.
And all of them blend to be the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it is so important for us to understand
that Choice Hills Baptist Church,
I want us all to get this,
both corporately and individually,
is that in the midst of us,
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks,
like you see in chapter 2,
at the end of chapter 2,
you see Jesus standing in the midst
of the seven golden candlesticks,
walking between them. The idea of a candlestick, not a wax candle, I know we think of that,
but this is a place that would have a little bowl that would contain olive oil that would be,
maybe would have a wick and would be lit. It held up the light. And that's the idea of the
churches, is they are the light. And the oil representing, of course, the Lord, the Holy
Spirit in us. But I want you to see, and I want us to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is walking
in our midst. You know, we know the passage, we studied it in our study in Matthew, that Jesus said,
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be in the midst.
And we must not forget that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the midst of us. That is the
entire purpose of this church. It has no other purpose for existence. We exist not just individually, although that is true. We live and breathe for the purpose of Christ.
We are His.
We are at His disposal.
We belong to Him.
Our life is His.
I hope that doesn't make anyone here uncomfortable.
We are not our own.
Not as individuals.
But certainly for the church.
Why does this church exist?
We know that, especially around here, what do we see?
We see that church has become a kind of a cultural phenomenon, right?
And it's been that way down here in the South a long time.
Not just in the South, in other countries it's the same way.
We're in countries that have churches, have Christianity, so to speak.
It becomes a part of the culture where you're a part of the church
and it's a part of your status in the community and those kinds of things.
But that's not scriptural.
That is not what the Bible says.
The church has one purpose and it exists.
This church exists because our Savior and our Lord walks among us.
If He's not here among us, we have no reason to meet.
If He's not here among us, we have no reason to do anything,
no reason to have any social function or any act of service to one another
or to the community or to those that don't know Christ.
We have no reason to exist.
We have to keep our focus on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are the candlestick. He's walking
around about us. Our whole purpose is the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 2, verse 2, notice this.
This is another one of the common elements in each of these seven letters. In all of these verses,
the Lord says, I know thy works. Chapter 2, verse 2.
Chapter 2, verse 9.
He begins, I know thy works.
Chapter 2, verse number 13.
I know thy works.
Verse 19.
Jesus says, I know thy works.
Chapter 3, verse 1.
He says in the middle of the verse, I know thy works.
3, verse 8. I know thy works. 3 verse 8, I know thy works.
And of course, 3 verse number 15, I know thy works.
You know, the Lord is among us.
He's among his people.
He's walking among the candlesticks,
which represent the churches.
And he knows just exactly what is going on.
He knows just exactly what is going on. He knows just exactly what is going on.
And the Bible says that the Lord Jesus Christ will bring, he says, I know thy works.
He says, I will bring every work into judgment, right?
With every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
The Lord knows just exactly what's going on here,
just as He knows just exactly what is going on in every local church that might exist,
because Jesus is present.
We have to keep that in mind as well.
We'll look at this a little bit later, but there's another common element in these,
as well. We'll look at this a little bit later, but there's another common element in these, is in all seven
letters to the churches, there is a call
to individuals that have ears to
hear, that they hear. As an example, look at chapter 2,
verse number 7. He that hath
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
And then finally, there's another common element in these letters here.
There's a promise.
Same verse.
There's a promise to overcomers within these seven churches.
And again, we'll talk about that in a minute more fully.
He says, verse seven, the middle of the verse,
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
So this is the kind of format that the Lord is using
in writing these letters to the seven churches.
I just want to tell you,
some of these churches are in a pretty bad state.
Some of these churches are in a bad state.
Look at an example with me in chapter 3, verse number 1.
The church at Sardis.
Notice what the Bible says, verse 1,
And unto the angel of the church in 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. That's a pretty sad state, is it not?
And of course, we're probably most familiar with Laodicea,
the church that is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm.
You know, and I thought about the sad state of these churches,
but yet we see that the Lord is still among them.
Now, he does threaten to take away the candlestick.
When he's talking about Ephesus in chapter 2, he says, verse 5,
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works,
or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out removed, and some people have interpreted that to say,
see, this shows that when a person believes in Christ, and if they turn from Him, or they do not obey the Lord,
the Lord will take their candlestick, that is, take their eternal life, and they'll lose their salvation.
But the Lord is not speaking to an individual here.
He's speaking to the church collectively.
He's speaking to their function as the light.
He's gonna take them away.
But even though that's the case,
as bad as it gets in Sardis and in Laodicea
and some of these other churches that we read about,
yet the Lord has not left them.
And I think it shows the amount of patience the Lord shows us.
Would you agree that among churches,
I'm speaking generally, speaking broadly,
there's a lot of junk that goes on in churches.
Would you agree with that?
There's a lot of junk that goes on in churches.
Yesterday, Ben and I were out knocking doors
and we met a guy, met a man that
came out and he was nice enough to talk to us, and we were able to share the gospel with him some,
and one of the first things he said was, you know, he mentioned how that he didn't go to church,
he goes to the mountains to commune with God and that kind of thing, and he's actually the first
person I've ever heard say that.
I've heard preachers say it a lot,
but he's the first person I've ever heard say it actually in my hearing.
But he said he doesn't go to those churches because, you know,
he just knows too many people that came to church
and the way they lived outside was a lot different
than the way they were, you know, at church.
Is that true?
Everybody's just sitting there kind of silently,
kind of stoic.
They're not nod.
Absolutely.
Everybody give me a nod.
Everybody give me a nod.
Yes, that is true.
That is true.
You know, it is a shame and a reproach
for someone to live differently outside of the church
than they do in the church.
That ought not be. And it gives
much cause for the name of Christ to be
reproached when people turn away from Him. Now they shouldn't, right?
Because of His command, right? They are responsible to Him directly
but we give them a pretext, do we not?
So that's just one example of many that is recent,
but there is a lot of stuff.
There's a lot of junk that goes on inside of churches
in the name of Christ.
And the Lord, although the junk that we see in our day around us, right,
is maybe a little bit different than the junk we read about in these seven churches,
the common thing is the junk, that the junk exists.
That there are things that should not be going on in churches.
And I want you to understand, we should all remember that the Lord Jesus Christ,
the one who walks among us, sees it and has not overlooked it.
He has not winked at the things that go on under the banner of His name, under the banner of church.
He is paying attention.
And He has promised, even in these seven letters, He has promised that he is going to deal with those
things. So take heart, because some of you, some of us, have actually been on the receiving end of
that junk. And there are a lot of people like that. There are a lot of people like that. But take heart.
Take heart. The Lord is going to deal with it. It was never his will, those things done in his name
that are against his will,
and he is going to deal with it.
But let it be a lesson to us.
Let it be a lesson to us.
Let me give you a...
I better just show you.
Look at chapter 2, verse 20.
Just as an example of some of the junk that's going on in the church at Thyatira.
Verse 20.
Notwithstanding, the Lord Jesus tells the church,
notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee,
because thou, what's that next word say?
Sufferest.
What does that mean?
They're tolerating.
That's the catchphrase of the day, toleration.
The Lord rebukes the church at Thyatira
because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel,
which calleth herself a prophetess
to teach and to seduce my servants,
to commit fornication,
and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
What does the Lord rebuke?
What is the cause of the Lord's rebuke?
It is not even that the church is doing these things
because they're not.
It's that the church is tolerating these things.
That the church is tolerating these things.
And we see it in our day all the time.
Well, you know, we're just trying to love.
We're just trying to love.
Yeah, we should love.
We should have Christian charity.
We talked about that not too long ago in our August Family Focus.
However, there comes a point where it is sinful to tolerate junk.
Right?
Choice Hills Baptist Church, we've got to keep that in mind.
We've got to keep that in mind.
And take the commandments of the Lord to us seriously.
As a body now.
I'm referring to us as a body.
To take it seriously.
And not tolerate wickedness and allow it to be unmolested among us.
It should not have free reign among us.
Because remember, our Lord is walking in the midst of us.
He's paying attention.
He's paying attention.
So even though these churches are in a bad way,
several of them,
we see the Lord demonstrating His patience
by remaining among them.
And really, He describes these seven churches,
some of them at least,
as mostly faithful but containing some bad elements.
And then he describes some of the other churches as almost completely gone
with just a few elements that remain faithful.
So it's the reverse.
And the other churches are kind of a mix.
Now, if you look at Smyrna and you look at Philadelphia,
the Lord has no rebuke of them at all.
Smyrna because they're under the heavy hand of oppression and persecution.
And Philadelphia because God has set before them an open door.
And they have been faithful because of God's giving them strength to do it.
But I do, as I was, I'm just trying to be honest with you.
As I was thinking about our anniversary and thinking about where our church is,
the question I was asking is this,
is Lord, where do I see,
where do you see our church in these seven letters?
What elements of these exist in our church
for good, for bad?
Where is our church?
Just trying to do an honest assessment.
And to be honest with you, I didn't come up with an answer.
I don't know exactly how to judge it.
And I like it that way because I'm not the judge.
In fact, if you read in chapter 1, you read about the seven stars
that are in the right hand of the Lord. He mentions
the seven stars. He says those are the angels to the seven churches. The angel there not being the
heavenly angel, but just angel as a general word just means a messenger, someone who delivers a
message. In this case, that's kind of the way I see myself is the one who delivers the message.
That's the whole point of looking at these two chapters,
is to Choice Hills Baptist Church,
for us to do an assessment,
to look at what the Lord says to these churches
and then look at ourselves and say,
all right, where are we at?
And to be honest with you,
I can't really make that judgment
because I can't see the hearts of all men,
even among our congregation.
But the Lord does. He does. He walks among us. So I don't have an answer of how our church is doing. But I would say this, like most of these churches, I would be honest, and I think
you would be honest too. And you would say, our church has some good elements and it has some
things we need to work on.
I think probably most churches fall into that category.
Probably Philadelphia and Smyrna,
although no negative thing is mentioned,
there were no doubt negative things there.
They're just not mentioned in Scripture.
Our church is probably a mix, right?
There's things to be commended
and there's things to work on. There's things to be commended
in us individually and there's things to work on, right?
Individually. I think all of us would be honest and say, yes, that's where we are.
The key thing is to pay close attention and
take seriously what the Lord says to us and not to just, not to get
into a kind of, be
lulled into a kind of complacency, a kind of lethargy and spiritual laziness that seems
to be happy with keeping things as they are.
I'm sure all these, I'm sure all these seven, these seven churches, they were kind of content
where they are until the Lord shows up and says,
hey, wake up, wake up.
I have not found thy works perfect before God.
And that probably took them by surprise.
And it probably, a few of them
were probably a little bit offended
that the Lord would say what he said to them.
But he did anyway,
because the Lord,
he is the Lord of the church.
So I think our church is somewhere in the mix.
And I don't say that because I see some glaring problem.
I don't.
I don't.
I think we've got to be honest, though, about where our church is.
And we've got to think.
And it's not just the pastor's job to ask this question.
Lord, what do you want for our church in the future?
That's not just my job.
Obviously, as the pastor, the pastor is supposed to provide guidance according to the scripture, of course.
But that's a job for every one of us to ask ourselves.
Lord, what do you want for our church?
Because the answer to that question is an answer to you and to me individually.
Now there are some things in the churches, in these seven letters, that though some of these people that are, I guess you could say members or whatever,
in these churches, though they have the name of Christ,
there are certainly some things that are listed here that are not, they are not Christ's.
Look at a few examples. Chapter 2, verse number 16. Notice this.
Verse 15 and 16.
So hast thou them also, also them on the good side of the Lord.
Chapter 2, verse 22.
He's speaking of that woman Jezebel.
He says,
He's speaking of that woman Jezebel. He says, behold, I will cast her into a bed
and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation,
except they repent of their deeds.
And I will kill her children with death
and all the churches shall know
that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts
and I will give to every man according,
every one of you according to your works.
Chapter three, look at what it says.
Verse one.
He tells them, I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. Chapter 3, look at what it says, verse 1.
He tells them, I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead.
And we could go on and on.
You get to Laodicea and the Lord says, I'm going to spew you out of my mouth.
So the Lord is addressing, just follow me here. The Lord is addressing these seven churches, but there are,
it's like he's addressing the congregation that meets every Sunday. And there are elements within that congregation
that are not his. Right? And he says it. He actually says it. And those are the ones that
have brought in evil into the church. And he says that those will be ultimately lost. And it's no surprise in our study in Matthew,
we saw in Matthew chapter seven, there are many that will say in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not done this and that? And the Lord said, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. So it's
not a surprise that the Lord is speaking to the, you might, some people call it the visible church,
those in the church, right? And there are elements that shouldn't, that things going on
and people there, they're kind of a mixed multitude.
Now there's three things I want to show you
in these churches, three basic points I want to make
as far as the pattern that the Lord uses to speak to these churches, three basic points I want to make as far as the pattern that the Lord uses
to speak to these churches.
The first one is that He speaks
to the church collectively.
You can identify that just as an example.
Look at chapter two, verse number five.
Well, we can look.
Let's just, I know we've read some of these before,
but this is just a good example for us to see the point.
Start in verse 2. I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience
and how thou canst not bear them which are evil.
And thou hast tried them which say they're apostles and are not
and hast found them liars and hast borne and hast patience and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
This is a good example of why the these and thows matter.
Here's why.
In these seven letters, when the Lord Jesus Christ is talking to the church collectively,
as a group, as a body, he uses thou, thee, thy. He uses the singular second person pronoun.
That's how you can identify it. That's how you can identify it. The Lord speaks in all seven cases. He speaks to the churches corporately. Now,
here's the thing when you speak corporately, because the Lord has the power, He has the
place and the prerogative to speak to us corporately. Now, imagine, in your mind, think of a mosaic.
How many of you have seen some of these mosaics? Well, they'll have a picture of like some political
leader, you know, Barack Obama or Donald Trump, and it's zoomed way out, and you can tell it's made up of little
squares, and then when you zoom way in, you see all the individual squares are actually
little pictures in and of themselves. You understand what I'm saying? It's kind of a
neat illustration of the church, because when the Lord speaks speaks he uses the thee and the thou and the thy
he's zooming out and he's looking at the church as a whole and going back to that that illustration
when you have all these little say you have a mosaic of a flower but but those little pixels those little squares are all made up of individual flowers
and when you add them together you get an overall picture right whether the flower is red or what kind of flower it is or whatever.
But how is that collective picture made up?
When the Lord speaks to the churches collectively,
he's not speaking to individuals.
He's speaking to the church as a body.
And you know what he's describing?
He's describing trends.
He's not speaking to every person,
that every person, this applies to every person equally.
What he's saying is this is the overall trend of the church.
These are the things that are being done, generally speaking.
And when we listen to that, here's what I want you to kind of take away from that
because the Lord does speak to us as a body.
And I'm talking now to Choice Hills Baptist Church. Whatever it is that we want our church to be,
whether our church will be an evangelistic church. How many of you believe that our church should be
an evangelistic church? Would you raise your hand? How many of you believe that our church should be a prayerful church?
Right?
What about a holy church or a zealous church?
What about a church that exhibits Christian charity and love to one another?
See, we all tend to raise our hand because we know that's the right answer. We want a church that when you zoom out, this is what you see.
And listen, that's not to be judged by just a church that when you zoom out, this is what you see. And listen,
that's not to be judged by just a visitor that comes in one Sunday service. That is not how you judge that. People can get right and wrong impressions from that and get the complete
opposite impression based upon that. We're talking about what the Lord sees.
So we know that we should be an evangelistic church.
Again, looking at it kind of in the macro sense, in the big picture, as a body.
But my question is this.
How can we be that?
Whatever that thing, that characteristic that we know the Lord wants us to be moving forward as Choice Hills Baptist Church.
How can we do that?
How can we be an evangelistic church if I am not evangelistic?
How can we be a church that's filled with love
if I, as an individual who makes up the church,
am not a person who exhibits consistent love?
How can we be a church that is a church
that's considered to be a prayerful church
as a body collectively if I am not prayerful or faithful? How can we be a church that's zealous
if I am not zealous? Do you know why that the Lord says, hey, like going back to the worst example,
Sardis, he says, thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead.
Be watchful.
Strengthen the things which remain.
They are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
Notice he's saying, thy, thy, thou.
He's talking to the church as a group.
That doesn't mean that every person was in that spiritual condition, that low point.
No.
But he's looking at the congregation as a whole,
and you know what he's seeing?
He's seeing a trend.
So what happens if you take, you have a mosaic,
a beautiful mosaic of a red flower,
and you zoom in,
what are you going to find in the individual little boxes?
You're going to find a whole bunch of red flowers.
Right? Is everybody with me? That's what you're going to find a whole bunch of red flowers, right? Is everybody with me?
That's what you're going to find when you zoom in. Yeah, the mosaic looks red because there are so many individual boxes that are red. That doesn't mean everyone is red. It doesn't mean it's red to
the same degree. But what you see is you see the red repeated over and over and over and over.
So, Choice Hills Baptist Church, when we think about our anniversary,
where our church is right now, whatever characteristics we have,
we know there's some good things.
We know there's some things we could probably work on and get better on.
But whatever we want our church to be in the future,
I wish our church would be more loved.
I wish our church would be more evangelistic.
I wish our church would pray more.
I wish our church would have better singing. Whatever we think is God's will for our church in be more loved. I wish our church would be more evangelistic. I wish our church would pray more. I wish our church would have better singing.
Whatever we think is God's will for our church in the future,
it is made up of individuals
who together add up to that thing.
The church is only, its character is only
what you and I are as individuals put together.
If I am not a prayerful person and you are not a prayerful person
and 20 and 30 or 40 of other of us are not prayerful people,
do you know what the result is?
The church is not a prayerful church.
result is? The church is not a prayerful church. And when the Lord looks at us, He says,
I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou lovest prayer, but thus not. Right? The Lord's not going to pull punches. But isn't it so easy for us to kind of sit on the sidelines,
listen, as the body of Christ, as the church,
to sit on the sidelines and say,
well, our church, it needs this improvement and that improvement.
It needs to do better here and do better there.
As if we stand on the outside.
Not one of us that is a part of this church stands on the outside. Not one of us that is a part of this church
stands on the outside.
We are the mosaic.
We are the mosaic.
If we want a church that's evangelistic,
we're going to have to start telling people about Jesus.
If we want a church that prays
and gets answers to prayer,
we're going to have to start praying.
If we're going to be a church that's in love with the Lord Jesus Christ,
we're going to have to start loving Him as individuals.
If we're going to be a church that is well acquainted and knowledgeable in Scripture,
that means each one of us is going to have to be well acquainted with the Scripture.
If we're going to be a church that's known for just fervent love,
If we're going to be a church that's known for just fervent love,
then you and I will have to be that person collectively.
So the Lord definitely, He is definitely focusing in on the trends that he sees in the church.
And that's a good thing.
That's a good thing.
And I know that people that have come to our church,
they also have assessed, you know,
people that have joined our church recently over the past couple of years say,
have come to our church and have, I was going to say obsessed,
have assessed, have assessed what kind of church?
What's the tenor?
What's the attitude?
What's the emphasis?
What's the values?
Like that.
But that's something we should be assessing of ourselves.
But we should not make the mistake of looking any further than us.
This is where it is.
Right here.
If you and I want a red picture in the future,
we have to be red.
Me and you.
Me and you, together. I'm not excluded, neither are you.
So the Lord speaks to the church collectively.
That's number one.
Number two is this.
The Lord speaks to evil elements
within these seven churches.
He doesn't use thou and thee and thy.
No, no, no, he doesn't do that.
Let me show you what he uses to refer to these evil elements.
Chapter 2, verse number 6.
Look at this.
I know we've read some of these before, but just to kind of catch up.
This thou hast, that thou hatest.
Notice thou,
speaking to the church collectively,
thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate.
Notice he's referring to a different group.
Now this church has not fallen into this trap at this point,
but he's referring to this group.
Now go to chapter 2,
verse number 14.
But I have a few things against thee.
There's the church collectively.
Because thou hast there them.
You see that?
Them.
Third person now.
Thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam,
who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel
to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication.
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, Look at chapter 2, verse 20.
Chapter 3, verse 4.
Again, Sardis is such a sad state.
The Lord says,
Thou hast a few names,
even in Sardis,
which have not defiled their garments.
Let me just stop because I said something a minute ago
and I want to just clarify.
I said, you know,
just like most churches,
just like we see in these seven,
there's good things and then there's bad things, right?
There's points of praise and points that need to be worked on.
I just want to give God thanks.
I don't think verse four applies to us.
Choice Hills Baptist Church.
I don't think this church is comprised of people where there's only a few names that have been faithful to us. Choice Hills Baptist Church. I don't think this church is comprised of people where
there's only a few names
that have been faithful to God.
Can I
at least get an amen on that?
I am glad
toward God that
this church has a lot of people
that desire to
and indeed have and are faithful
to God. That it's not, we're not reduced down to a small little minority,
a very small couple of people that are faithful.
That this doesn't, because I truly don't believe it applies to us.
But notice, I want you to see,
thou hast a few names, even in Sardis,
that have not defiled their garments,
and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
Here it's switched.
The they is now the faithful, and the they is now the faithful.
And the majority is now the them.
The ones that brought evil into the church.
So the Lord using the they, sorry, the they, them.
I hate to use that.
But the Lord using that third person terminology
addresses the evil that is found within the church.
And he pronounces judgment against them.
The one who walks among the candlesticks
is aware of the evil elements within the church.
And this is not a surprise to us.
It should not be a surprise
that evil elements are found within the church.
It's true in these five of these seven churches.
It should not be a surprise to us.
In Matthew chapter 13, how many times did we,
in the parables, three of the parables,
the parable of the wheat and the tares,
the parable of the leaven, the parable of the net,
all three of them that we studied, remember,
show that evil elements are found within the kingdom of God.
And so it is in the church. But we must
be aware of them so that we might resist
them. You know, I honestly think
there are Christians, I mean, kind
sincere children of God who live in such a state of
naivete that they think,
if it's at church, it's good.
Please don't think that.
There is no scripture to back that up.
We have to be aware.
We have to be on guard.
We have to be cautious.
Listen, if we, Choice Hills Baptist Church, please listen,
if we are going to protect our church from satanic attempts at destruction,
we have to be aware of those elements that seek to come in and destroy us and resist them. You know
what? That is not necessarily going to be some false doctrine that comes in. It might not be
some gross sort of kind of big ticket item.
Sometimes it comes in the form of small little strife because that also
has a satanic root as well. We have to be aware of these
things, these evil elements that come in and start to affect
the church. Listen, you men, that's why God put you here.
You're not just a man in your house. You're also a man in this church. Listen, you men, that's why God put you here. You're not just a man in your house. You're also
a man in this church.
Quit ye like
men. And that means when you
see something that shouldn't be,
either in your life or somewhere else, that
means you've got to identify that thing and you
have to have the gumption to stand up and say,
hold on a second.
Hold on a second.
That's our job.
Not to passively let evil go unmolested among us.
That's how you protect your wife, your children.
That's how you protect other members in the church in love.
That's how you do it.
By being the man.
By taking your place.
And recognizing that there is evil that tries
to get in. The Lord
points it out. The last thing I want you to see is this.
You have the church is addressed collectively
with the thou and thee and thy.
We have the evil elements are addressed often with the they and the them
that have entered in.
But the last thing I want you to see is the individuals addressed.
I love this.
The Lord doesn't just address the church collectively.
He also addresses the church, individuals within the church.
He actually does it in all seven letters.
In all seven letters, the Lord says,
he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
In all seven of the letters, he says,
he that overcometh.
And then he follows that with a promise.
So this idea is whether the church has,
whether the church is doing mostly good
or whether the church is like Sardis and doing mostly bad
and there's just a few names
or whether the church is somewhere in the middle
and there's good elements and there's bad elements,
the Lord in each case addresses each individual.
Remember, you and I as a Christian, as a child of God,
we are a priest of God.
That means there is no mediator between God and us except Christ himself.
There is, I'm not your mediator.
You have direct access to speak to God directly.
And as such, you and I as priests of God are directly accountable to him,
regardless of the trend or tendency of the church and what it might be.
And that's exactly what, even in the churches that are in a bad way, like Sardis, where
Jesus calls it, you have a name that you're alive, but you're dead.
Even in those, the Lord says, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Pay attention to me
look if you would at Laodicea
chapter 3
the end of chapter 3
bad way
look at this
verse 17
because thou sayest I am rich
this is the church now
corporately
see the thou
and increased with goods and have need of nothing,
and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
I counsel thee, church, to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich,
and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed,
and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear,
and that anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eye salve
that thou mayest see. As many as I
love, I rebuke and chase and be zealous therefore
and repent. Now look at verse 20. It switches.
The language changes.
And
if we didn't have those mean old these
and thous we wouldn't recognize the change because
it would be you throughout.
Behold, I
stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice.
You know what this is?
This is a call to the individuals.
And open the door.
I will come into him and sup with him and he with me.
So I want to make a call to you to Choice Hills Baptist Church
but not corporately anymore.
I want to make a call to you as an individual.
We know that churches have trends
for good or for bad
and our tendency is it not to go along to get along.
Our tendency is to follow the crowd.
But if you're in Laodicea, now I don't think our church is necessarily like Laodicea.
We might have, I think we would all agree, we probably have some elements that tend to be like Laodicea.
Lukewarmness and coldness and kind of things like that.
But I want to make a call to you to not go with the crowd.
I want to make a call to you to take heed and listen to the call of the Lord Jesus Christ,
to respond to His invitation,
to His call to those who have ears,
whose ears are open,
to hear His voice
and to respond to Him individually.
To be that man
and to be that woman
who's going,
even though the church is going downhill,
even though the church is sliding,
even though there perhaps are people around you
that are not following the Lord as they should,
for you to be the one who answers the individual call of the Lord Jesus
when he's knocking at the door.
Because even if you were the only one
in a congregation of people that are sliding away from the Lord,
even if you were the only one,
if you open the door, he promises
he will come in and he will sup with you and fellowship with you.
And here's the reality. If every single one of us were to say, I will be that one.
I will answer the individual call of Christ to me, which is what this is.
I will answer that call to me. I will
respond to Christ as if he and I are the only two people in the universe. I will say yes to him. I
will walk with him. I will be zealous for him. I will share his name. I will do his will. If each
one of us does that, you know what you have? You start one by one to have a mosaic that starts to change,
that looks different than it did before. Because all the little squares are starting to change
into something else. Because each person individually said, I will be that one. I am
not going to go with the crowd. I'm not going to be lulled into this kind of easy, lukewarm
Christianity that is so commonplace in our day, is it not?
And we have to fight against that.
Listen, that is the spirit of our time, is it not?
Rich, increased with goods, that is the spirit of our time.
We cannot, we must not be lulled into that.
The Lord calls us, he calls you, he calls me as individuals
to respond to his call and to say,
I don't care what anybody else does,
I am going to follow Christ because he's calling to me.
So I want to tell you, he is calling to you.
He's calling to you, brother Joseph.
Brother Dennis.
He's calling to you, Andrew.
He's calling to you, John Paul.
He's calling to you, Sister Rita.
He's calling to you.
He's calling to each one of us.
Open the door. Follow me. Be zealous for me.
Live for me. Love me.
And he will not overlook you.
In every one of these seven cases he says, he that overcometh.
And he gives a promise. You know who that overcomer is?
That's that individual.
He, that.
That's the individual that responded to the call of the person who has ears to hear.
And he gives him a promise.
He is not overlooking the individual.
I want to close with this.
Look at Numbers chapter 25.
Numbers 25.
Verse 1.
And Israel abode in Shittim,
and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.
And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods,
and the people did eat.
Notice the people, the people, the people, the people.
And bowed down to their gods.
And Israel joined himself unto Baal Peor,
and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun,
that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.
And Moses said unto the judges of Israel,
Slay ye every man, his men that were joined unto Baal Peor.
And behold, one of the children of Israel came Pause here a second.
What would you say is the spiritual condition of Israel at this moment?
It's not good.
The people, spoken collectively,
have collectively gone to worship idols and thrown themselves into immorality.
That's a bad way.
Well, and at that point, the temptation is,
well, I mean, they're Christians and they're doing it,
so, you know.
The temptation is, well, I mean, they're Christians and they're doing it, so, you know.
But there was one guy.
There was one man who had ears to hear and who was having none of it.
One man, an overcomer, if you will.
Verse 7.
And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw it,
he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand,
and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through the man of Israel and the woman,
through her belly, so the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
Just so you know, what that man was doing was a capital offense.
Not Phinehas, but what that man was doing with that woman
was a capital offense on two counts.
Adultery and idolatry in the laws of Israel.
And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
Now, here's what I want you to see.
Verse 10.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest,
hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel. saying, What did God remember?
Did God overlook Phinehas because of the downgrade of the children of Israel? No way. The Lord pointed it out.
So my question to you is, are you going to be in our church as a Christian, are you going
to be a man like Phineas who hears the call of God and says, I hear your voice, Lord, and I am responding.
Whether anybody else does, no matter what anybody else says,
I am responding to your voice, I am opening the door,
and I am going to walk with you, and I'm going to be holy,
and I'm going to share your name,
and I'm going to live before you in the will of the Lord all my life by your grace.
I'm going to do it regardless of what anybody else does.
That's the call of Christ to the seven churches, to be that
individual. I want to tell you something. As we look at
Choice Hills Baptist Church into the future,
I think you could say Pastor Craig was that.
Can't you?
Was a man who heard the call of God
and acted upon it as an individual,
despite, you think of all the things
that the church went through
because heard the call of God,
said, I don't know what anybody else is doing,
but this is what we're doing
because I'm following the Lord in the way here.
If this church, if all of us in this church
were those individuals,
then when the Lord looked at our mosaic,
he would see a different picture.
Wouldn't you agree?
If all of us were that individual.
So are you going to respond?
Will you respond to that call?
To you as an individual?
Let's pray together.