Matthew 28. Matthew 28. Let's bow and have
a word of prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we are once again humbled today by the fact that we have been
included in that number that has been bought by your blood.
We are truly grateful for the grace and the mercy that's given
to us. We stand today to worship and
honor the Lord Jesus Christ and his church that he's bought with
his blood. He is commissioned to be the
instrument of overseeing his kingdom and delivering his gospel. Father, we can find no greater
privilege than to be a part of the Lord's Church. So Father, we just ask today
that you might speak and minister to this church today. We ask
for the Holy Spirit's guidance in uttering these words that
are about to be spoken, the thoughts of our hearts and our minds as
we Become a tenant to that word, Father, that the Holy Spirit
might enable us to hear, to understand, to learn, to worship, to truly
desire the things of Christ and His worship. Father, Lord, we're
so grateful that we have been saved by grace. The Lord Jesus
Christ who died for us, whose righteousness stands before you
now, as our only hope. We trust in him. We look to him.
We know that there's no conditions of man that could ever merit
your salvation for us by grace. We know that we do not come to
you by choice. We know that we do not come to
you by will. We know that we only are saved because you have
chosen from all eternity to place your love upon us, to give us
your son, to save us from our sins. So Father, we're so grateful
today to be included in that number of people. Father, we
pray for our church. We pray for Sovereign Grace Baptist
Church here in Joplin. We ask, Lord, that you might
bring other believers from this town, from this area, Lord, to
not only come and worship with us and find a place of refuge,
a place of safety, a place of love, and edification, but Father,
a place where they can serve and to join in in the labors
of the gospel here. Lord, we ask that you bring those
folks to us as you see fit in your purpose and in your plan.
And Father, if it ever be that any other people ever join our
assembly and ever be a part of what we do here, Lord, we pray
that you continue just to give us grace, to keep us faithful,
not let us be discouraged, but Lord, that we might continually
keep our eyes on you and be faithful in the gospel, no matter what
the numbers are. Lord, we love you and we praise
you today, and we ask that you just might be with us once again.
It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Well, last week we finished up
our subject of the church's commission. Uh-oh. The camera lighting passed
out. The Church's Commission was our
subject for the last several weeks. Again, just to kind of
recap, to kind of get everybody back on track of where we're
at, we have been preaching and teaching on the subject of the
Ecclesia of Christ, or the Church of Christ. And within that subject,
within that topic, We have had several sub-sections in that,
in dealing with the church. I told you guys a while back
that it was going to be an extensive study. I'm trying to keep up
with my words. It's an extensive study. We have
looked at the nature of the church, and we've seen that the nature
of the church is that it is a local, visible, gathered assembly. It is not a universal invisible
body of elect all over the world. It is an actual local congregation
of people. We've seen that the beginning
of the church or the origin of the church was with the Lord
Jesus Christ. It wasn't in the Old Testament
and it wasn't with John. It wasn't at Pentecost. It was with the Lord Jesus Christ
as he took up the material that John prepared, and he began to
build his church. And that first church was that
church in Jerusalem, made up of all those men and women who
accompanied with Jesus for three and a half years before his crucifixion. And who had within that church
first placed apostles as the men that Jesus began to began
to teach and instruct and to train in leadership over this
church upon his ascension. And then within that time period,
as the churches were being established by the apostles, through the
preaching of the gospel of the local church, then we began to
see that there were pastors and teachers, officers of the church
who began to be appointed within the local churches under the
leadership of the Holy Spirit as the churches did that. So
we've seen that the nature of the church is a local congregation.
We've seen that the beginning of the church, or the origin
of the church, was with Jesus and his earthly ministry. Then
we began to see the commission of the church, or excuse me,
the gospel of the church, which is no other gospel but the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the gospel and doctrine that Jesus taught. And
we found that in that study, that Jesus taught the doctrine
of sovereign grace. We didn't even go extensively
through several places in scripture to find that. We found that basically
in the first few chapters of John's gospel. That within the
first three chapters, we've seen that Jesus had already taught
all five points, quote unquote points, of the doctrines of grace,
the tulip, whatever you want to call it, but he has already
expressed those things in the first three chapters. And then,
of course, we went through all of John there and seen where
Jesus in many occasions made it perfectly clear that he preached
predestination, that he preached election, unconditional election,
sovereign election, that he preached Irresistible grace or overcoming
grace, limited or particular redemption, limited atonement,
particular redemption, that he preached preservation of God's
people, sovereign preservation of God's people. And so in that
teaching, he also taught that the natural man is totally depraved
or unable to do anything. And so all five points of the
doctrines of grace that we hold here, and some points stronger
than others, we see Jesus taught. So we've seen that the gospel
of the church is a finished, sovereign gospel. It is a gospel that had nothing
to do with man's conditions, man's will, man's responsibility,
faith, man's anything, that it was an eternal salvation, and
that eternal salvation was purposed before the foundation of the
world, was ratified, or was made clear and set before the foundation
of the world, but was made manifest by the appearing and the death
of Jesus Christ. It was that death that God had
based all of his purpose in salvation upon. And though even though
death came in time at a particular point, everything before that
time was just as secured as it was after that time because salvation
was made very clear and very settled in heaven before the
foundation of the world. So the gospel of the church is
Jesus's gospel. We don't err and preach another
gospel. We don't receive another gospel.
We don't promote another gospel. We don't acknowledge another
gospel, and we surely don't give hope to others in those gospels. Then we begin to look at what
we just finished up is the commission of the church. Once we've seen
that there is a specific gospel that's given to the church as
the ones who have the keys to the kingdom, who is the executors
of the kingdom, that that gospel is to be carried out. and Jesus
commissioned the church to carry it out. And we've seen in that
study that the commission is given to the local assembly,
not to just everyone in general, not to some universal body of
elect, that it is given to the local church. And we've seen
that in Matthew 28. Matter of fact, let's look there, if you
would. We'll go ahead and read our scriptures again. Matthew
28, starting in verse... 17 and when they saw him they
worshipped him but some doubted and Jesus came and spake unto
them saying and now remember the them isn't just the 11 disciples
which is found in verse 16. If you remember going back all
the way through chapter 28 we've seen that Jesus instructed Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary to go to the mount that they
instructed uh that the excuse me that the angel instructed
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to go and to tell the disciples
to all meet in the mountain where Jesus had instructed that whenever
they started to go back to do that, they actually met Jesus
on the road. And Jesus told them to go get
the brethren and have the brethren meet them in the mountain. And so the women, the brethren,
which is also included in the brethren, by the way, okay? The
only reason I make that distinction that it's the women and the brethren
is because there are some that believe that brethren only refers
to the men. And that there are some who also
teach that the women of the church have no place in the church as
members or as ones who voted on anything within the church,
that they were to be submissive to their husbands and their husbands
cast their vote. Okay, so whatever their husband
voted was the vote for that whole family. But we see in the scriptures
that the women did vote, the women were part of the membership
of the local church. And so the reason I make that
distinction between the women and the brethren and the disciples
or the apostles is because I want everybody to see that although
brethren has its larger view as everybody who is a part of
that local assembly. The disciples were the ones who
was first made apostles. Those 12 disciples were made
apostles and was laid in the church first, okay? And they were the ones who Jesus
began to train as the leadership of that local church. But we
also see that the women are a part of that as well. So I'm not trying
to make a trifold distinction among three different groups
within the church, but to just make clear that The women were
there. He said, go get the brethren.
So everyone who was not a disciple or an apostle was there and the
disciples and apostles were there. So everybody there, and of course,
as we remember again, when we got to Acts chapter one, we found
that those same people that was in that mountain came down and
met in the upper room. And the Bible says that there
was 120 that were there. So we assume and we believe that that 120 that came down
and met in that upper room is that 120 that Jesus gave the
commission to. So the commission of the church,
first and foremost, goes to the local church. It's to the church.
It's the church's responsibility to carry out the commission.
It's not the parachurch organizations that are out there, all these
ministries that's out there, you know, the Billy Graham crusade
ministry, okay? That is not where the Great Commission
was to be carried out. The Great Commission is to be
carried out by a local church, not by an individual in his local
ministry, or his televised ministry, or radio ministry. That is not
that. Now, if those people are sent
by that local church to carry out things, and that is through
the auspice of the local church, the funding of the local church,
the overseeing of the local church, That's a totally different story.
A good example of that, I don't know if anybody in here ever
hear on the radio throughout the years, the Baptist Bible
Hour with LaSara Bradley. That is a ministry of Cincinnati
Permanent Baptist Church. And they are the ones who funded
that. It wasn't LaSara Bradley's ministry
apart from Cincinnati Permanent Baptist Church. It was primitive
Baptist churches ministry, just like how we have sermon audio
and have messages on sermon audio. So someone can go on the internet
and hear me preach on that. Well, that's not Michael Smith's
ministry. You know, some preachers that are out there, they would
say a ministry of Michael Smith, you know, or something like that,
you know, or they'd have some name on it, you know, the sheepfold
ministry or whatever you want to call it. And it's a ministry
of, you know, pastor or teacher, Michael Smith. Well, that's not
what we believe. I am a servant of this local
church, and I pastor here. My responsibility is here. Now,
should that ministry be made public through sermon audio or
Facebook, like we're streaming live, and things like that, administer
it with people, that's wonderful. But my responsibility as a pastor,
my place, and we'll get into this here later in my studies,
is to this local assembly. The commission is by this church. And so any preaching that I do,
just like when I go, like I said last week, when I go to Bible
conferences and things like that, that's one of the reasons why
I go on behalf of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church when we're introduced
at these Bible meetings and places where I'm asked to preach. That's
why we say greetings from Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. Why? Because
I am going as a messenger, as a minister of Sovereign Grace
Baptist Church. You are sending me as a minister
of the gospel, and you have ordained me as a minister of the gospel. And so I am that person that
goes and does that, and whoever the Lord will call up within
our assembly to do that, that has the gift or has the characteristics
of that ministry. So the commission is carried
out by the local church. And we've seen that that commission
was a three-fold commission, right? It was a commission that
said, go ye and make disciples. Then those disciples that are
made, you are to baptize. And then those that are baptized,
you are then to teach them all things whatsoever Christ has
commanded. And that assumes or that entails
bringing them back into the assembly and teaching them through the
ministry of teaching that the Lord has placed within the church,
all things whatsoever. And we've seen that there was
a distinction between the ye and the them. The ye is responsible
for the baptizing and the catechizing or the indoctrination of the
them. So it is our responsibility to
whenever we are out there being witnesses of Christ and preaching
and sharing the gospel, if anybody made a disciple, they show belief
in that gospel, then we are to instruct them that they need
to be baptized and we encourage them and exhort them and even
admonish them that they need to come and they need to be baptized.
And then once they are baptized, then we make them members of
the church and we begin to teach and to make them further disciples
of Christ by the teaching of all things whatsoever. But it's
a threefold commission, and that commission is given to the church.
And for us to complete that commission, we must take part in all three
aspects of the commission. And it's an age-long, we found
out that it was an age-long commission, that the Lord has promised His
presence among us, and that it's an age-long thing, until the
end of the world. He said there at the very, and
lo, I'm with you, even until the end of the world. He has
placed his promise and presence within the New Testament church.
As long as they're faithful to this and he doesn't remove that
candlestick, as long as he doesn't remove that witness or that light
from that church and write Ichabod over that church, then he has
promised the presence of that. Listen, we have some churches
in the United States that was constituted and began back in
the 1700s that are still in existence today. I mean, that's a long
time for churches nowadays. You don't see too many churches
that stick around that long. But we see that there are many
churches today that the Lord had brought together and that
they have been faithful to the doctrine and to the practices
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they have been kept all these
years and have been a ministry in their place of origin or region,
wherever they've been at. So there's the commission of
the church, which is the commission of the local assembly to carry
out that gospel and to further indoctrinate or reciprocate other
disciples who believe that same doctrine and practice as Jesus
Christ. So that's where we left off last
week is with the commission of Jesus Christ. Again, that was
just kind of a quick skim over all of what we've looked at so
far. If you want to listen or view those things, then go back
and check the videos. They're all there. By the way,
for Facebook people, I've had some questions this week asking
about this. If you go on the main page, there's a place up
kind of at the top that says Videos. If you click Videos,
it will bring up all the videos. You can click view all, and it
will show you the list of all of our sermon videos that we've
done, and they've all got titles up at the top. You can go down
and find where we began each series and start listening. All
right, this morning, we're gonna move into a new section. We've
now seen where the church began. We've seen the gospel of the
church. We've seen the commission of the church. But if you remember,
look there in Matthew 28 with me. where Jesus said this in
verse 18, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye. Okay. Jesus here has all authority,
all power in heaven and in earth. And so one thing we must understand
as the church is that he has the authority. He's the one in
authority. It's not the pastor, it's not
anybody else. The church has been delegated
to carry out the authority of Jesus Christ. We have been given
the keys to the kingdom, and in doing so, we are the administrators
of the kingdom as the local church. And so Jesus has that. So we
never need to get away from that fundamental understanding is
that although the church has been delegated authority, it
is not our authority. It's the authority of Christ.
He is the head of the church. He is the one who is the husband. He is the one who is in control
and over the church. He is the one who sets all the
laws within the church. Not us. Okay? So we need to understand
that. But today we're going to look
at the church's polity. The church's polity. Y'all heard
that term before, polity? Anybody here know what the word
polity means? You probably do, you just probably
forgot. The word polity means government. or it means the form of government. The church's government, or the
way that the church governs. What's the form of government
that the church has? Does anybody know what kind of
form of government we have here at our church? I sure hope somebody doesn't
say dictatorship. Baptist, and this church particularly,
but Baptist in general, have always held to, but more importantly,
the Bible teaches that the polity of the church or the church's
government is a congregational government. We have a congregational
government. Now, before I get into a lot
of that, I want to maybe kind of contrast some of the other
church governments that are out there. But again, I want to reiterate
Christ He instituted the church and placed the church, the local
church, over the work of his kingdom. And so in any organization,
there's always got to be some kind of a structure or a government
set up in the way that it governs. See, if we are to be the governors
over the kingdom of God, of Christ and his kingdom, then we need
to know how it is we are to govern. Okay? If we're to govern the
kingdom, then we need to know how is it that we are to govern. What is the way in which we are
to govern? True churches are unique among
self-governing societies in that they operate under the lordship
of Christ. Now, in the rest of society,
they operate under a CEO or a a shareholders group or something like that,
you know, a president or an owner or somebody. I work for Ozark
Imaging, Sales and Service Incorporated, LLC, okay? And there is an owner. J.D. Smith is the owner of that
company. And so I work for J.D. Smith. And all decisions for
Ozark Imaging is made by J.D. Smith. He can change those when
he wants to. He can make up any rules that
he wants to. He can do whatever he wants to with that business.
It's his business. He owns it. He can employ who
he wants to employ. He can fire who he wants to fire.
He makes up all the rules for Ozark imaging. The church doesn't operate that
way. While we've been given authority, delegated authority, as the church,
That authority is under the headship of Jesus Christ. He is the one
who makes the rules. He is the one who sets up the
way things are to be. He is the one who decides who
comes in. He is also the one who decides
who goes out. He's the one that decides how long it stays together
or how long it doesn't stay together. He is the head of the church.
And so we operate under his lordship. He is the head, the only lawgiver
over the assembly. Let's look at a few passages
of Scripture because I want to reiterate this in the Word of
God. Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians
chapter 1. Look with me if you would down
to... Let's see, let me start in... Let's start in verse 17, that the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The
eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know
what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory
of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us who believe according to the working of His
mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly
places. Far above all principality and
power and might and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and
have put all things under His feet, and gave him to be the
head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth all in all." So here we see the word of God
clearly makes clear, clearly makes clear, that's a kind of
a redundancy, isn't it? Clearly makes known that Jesus
Christ is the head of the church and has been given all authority
over the church in all things. Okay, there are some things that
we look to Christ for. We look to Christ for everything.
That's why it's important, don't you think, that we study the
Word of God? That's why it's important why we ought to study
the Word of God, so that we know what God's Word says, not only
about the church, but about everything else. Because if we are going
to be the executors or the governors of the Kingdom of God, We need
to know what God's word says about everything, right? That's
why we are to teach them all things whatsoever Christ has
commanded. So that we know, why? Because
those who are made disciples and have not the knowledge of
those things need to be indoctrinated into those things so that they
too can join in into the ministry and service of the local church.
That's why we're here, is to be a service to Christ in the
local church. And so we need to have somebody
who tells us what is what and what is not and to tell us how
to do that. Okay? And so Jesus is the head
over the church. He's placed all things under
his feet and gave him to be the head over all things. Now, again,
we're going to get into, at the end of these subjects that we're
going to be looking at, I'm going to kind of have a quote unquote
appendix and we're going to hit on some certain topics that come
up here and there and disputes and things like that. But one
of them is this whole deal about the body. He is the head, it
says here, and he is given him to be the head over all things
to the church, which is the body, the fullness of him, that filleth
all in all, okay? And so a lot of people view this
one big giant organism, and Jesus is this upper part that's from
the neck up. He's the head, and the rest are
his limbs, and his body, and that's, you know, the metaphor. Well, I agree with that. That's
true. Okay, there is a metaphor here that we are one body with
Christ. Okay, we are one with him, united
in him, and we have been made one body. And he's the one that
makes all the decisions and controls all things that has to do with
the body, just like how our head does, okay? And I think that's
true. But that is a metaphor that the
Bible uses to talk about or to illustrate the local church and
its relationship with Christ. The local church and its relationship
with Christ is a one-type thing. We look to Christ for all things,
and we only exercise that which Christ has given us to exercise.
We are only to speak those things which Christ has told us to speak.
We are only to do those things which Christ has told us to do.
And we are a witness of Him. And so it says here that he has
been given head over all things to the church. So whenever it
says head over all things, it's talking about the fact that he
has the authority. He is the head, just like J.D. Smith is the head over Ozark
Imaging, okay? That means he has all the authority.
He's the authority maker. He's the authority giver. He's
the authority person in Ozark Imaging. Christ is the authority
in the local church. We are the instruments or the
body that carries out what the head tells us to do. Okay? And so we are his body in that,
carrying out our filling that filleth all, which is the body,
the fullness of him that filleth all in all. We fulfill the things
that the head wants us to fulfill. Okay? Now, So with that being
established, we see that the church is the Lord's property. Look again back in Matthew, if
you would. This is one of the verses we
started out with in our study. Matthew 16 and verse 18. It says, and I say unto thee
that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build the Baptist
church. Is that what it said? No. That I will build the megachurch. No. It said, upon this rock I
will build my church. It's his church. We reiterated
that at the very beginning. We iterated that at the very
beginning. I'm reiterating that now. It
is his church. And he's the one who built it.
And he is the one who is continually building upon what he built. And so that church is his. He
is the ruler. He's the one that has supreme
rule. And he does that through his word and through his leadership
of the Holy Spirit. You know, I was mentioning that,
can't remember a few messages back, how much the Holy Spirit
has been delegated as nothing within the churches anymore.
We don't look to the Holy Spirit for guidance, for direction,
for empowerment. We don't trust that the Lord,
what he promised, he promised that his Holy Spirit would do
these things. He would teach us, lead us into
all truth, that he would bring us into unity. Listen, I don't
know if you guys have recognized it or not, and I don't mean to
get off too much of a tangent here, but I don't know if you
guys have recognized it here, but for the most part, this church
has been in pretty much unity ever since it began. There's
been a few things that's happened here and there, but in just about
every instance, we've had unity on just about anything. Well,
that ain't normal. There's one, two, three, four,
four members here. Five members here. Some that's not here. But we've
had members that's been here. And all of us have our own opinions. All of us have our own likes
and dislikes and things like that. But somehow the Lord has
brought us together to be in unity on just about everything
that we've ever done here. That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
How does the Holy Spirit make all these people in different
locations that have different ideas, different upbringings,
different thoughts about stuff in scripture on some things,
but all of a sudden can become united? Well, that's only the
work of the Holy Spirit. I think one of the best examples
that I can think of is whenever I first came here and we were
discussing the Lord's Supper. When I first came here, And we
were discussing the Lord's Supper whenever I first, you know, talked
about with everybody about the Lord's Supper and how the church
was conducting the Lord's Supper. And I found out that there were
split ideas about the Lord's Supper on the elements. Do we
use wine or do we use grape juice? And we, you know, there were
some that had a conviction that you shouldn't drink alcohol at
all. And so it was grape juice that you should be drinking in
the Lord's supper. There were others in the church who believe,
know that the biblical way of taking the Lord's supper is with
wine. And so instead of forcing that
issue, instead of, um, instead of harming someone's conscience,
uh, instead of causing someone to be in disunity with the other
brethren, We just tabled the Lord's Supper. We just said,
well, we won't observe the Lord's Supper for a while until we teach
and go through the scriptures and pray that the Lord would
lead us in this very thing. And so I did a study and we preached
and taught a few weeks, two or three weeks or so on the Lord's
Supper. We talked about wine, what the
Bible says about wine. what the Bible says about drinking
and things like that. And we've seen where the Bible
taught that the sin that the Bible prohibits or says to be
careful of is drunkenness and not actually consuming alcohol. And so after we talked through
there and I showed through all the scriptures where the word,
the Greek words and the Hebrew words for wine or strong drink
that are used are used interchangeably with places that talk about it
in a good sense and in a bad sense. And so you can't say,
well, let's talk about this kind of wine or this kind of wine.
There was non-alcoholic wine and there was alcoholic wine.
That don't make sense. There's no such thing as non-alcoholic
wine. What makes wine wine is the fact
that it ferments and becomes alcoholic. And Jesus didn't turn
water into grape juice. He turned it into wine. So anyway,
not to get off on that, we did a study on that for weeks and
we prayed that the Holy Spirit would bring us into unity on
that. And after that study, those who had the conscientious, you
know, abstaining from alcohol, they said that, you know, that
the Lord taught them that that was, You know, they've seen that,
and they can understand now that it is, and the Bible teaches
that it's drunkenness that we should be careful of. And while
they themselves wanted to continue to abstain from alcohol and private
consumption and all that kind of stuff, yet they was freed
in their conscience to go ahead and drink the wine in the Lord's
Supper and know that they weren't being condemned for that, that
they weren't being, that they weren't gonna be chastised for
that. And so that's how the Holy Spirit
works. Well, that's how the Holy Spirit,
under the headship of Christ, comes in and leads and directs
just like that. The Holy Spirit's work within
the local church. And so whenever we as a congregation
govern, a lot of people say, well, how can you just let everybody
have a say-so? It's going to be chaotic. It's
going to be anarchy. You have to have a group of elders
that preside over the group, or you have to have a pastor
who makes all the decisions. Well, there again, just like
in some of the other areas, you're negating the work of the Holy
Spirit. Whenever we look at church polity
and we say, well, obviously all these people can't make one decision,
then you're not trusting that the Holy Spirit can bring the
church into unity. You're not believing that the
Holy Spirit can come in and undergird all the work of the local church
as Christ as the head is dictating it. You believe that the church
is going to do whatever's right in its own eyes, each member
doing what's right in its own eyes, but that the Holy Spirit
can't overcome that. Listen, man, what do we preach
here? We preach irresistible grace, right? We preach that
the vilest sinner with the hardest heart Maybe the most hater of
God can be overcome by the grace of God and that heart be turned
to flesh, or that heart of stone be turned to flesh, and that
person become a child of God and become believers in Jesus
Christ and believe on his imputed righteousness alone. But yet
we can't believe that the Holy Spirit can't move the hearts
of people to be unified in their understanding, direction, and
service, making decisions about things. See, that's crazy. We shouldn't neglect the work
of the Holy Spirit. And so when we look at the polity
or the government of the church, to have congregational government
does not mean that there's going to be anarchy or chaos, or just
all the time there's just going to be, well, nothing's going
to get done because there's never going to be agreement on anything.
Well, that's not true. That's not true. But there are
a lot of people who think that the Holy Spirit can't govern,
or that it's better to put people in charge and let them be the
rulers over the Lord's church. And that can't be. It's the Lord's
church. He says, I will build my church. So Christ is to rule through
the word of God and through the Holy Spirit. Look with me if
you would at Revelations chapter two. Revelations chapter two. Revelation chapter 2, look with
me down to verse 7. He that hath an ear to hear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Who's
the one speaking the things of Christ to the church? It's the
Spirit. If we neglect the Holy Spirit's
work in the local church and in the government of our church, then we're neglecting the very
voice piece in which God directs us. How Christ governs over His
church is through the work of the Holy Spirit. Now remember,
this is Jesus talking to John, telling John to write these words
down and send them to this church, to this church, to this church,
to this church. And so Jesus is talking to this
church, but how does he do that? How does he, and of course John
is the pen writer, but the hearing and understanding of what's being
said to that church is by the Holy Spirit. He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Look down if you would at verse
11. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches. He re-identifies that. Look at
verse 17. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Look at verse 19. I know thy
works in charity, and faith in thy patience in thy works, and
the last to be more than the first. I think I wrote that number
down. No, I'm sorry, it was 29, not 19. He that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Look at chapter three, verse
six. Again, every church that he had drawn right to. He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Verse 13. He that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Verse 22. Even the dreaded lay
out a sin church. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the church. So the Lord is the Lord over
his house, and he speaks and leads and guides and enables
and empowers and rules by his Holy Spirit. So that's why congregational
polity can work is because of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Now, what time is it? Is it 11? Okay, let's stop and
we'll take a break there and we'll come back and we'll pick
up from there.