I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to the book of Revelation, if you will. Revelation chapter
2. You can also follow me in your
pastor's commentary. Your outline is in your bulletin.
Revelation chapter 2. I first of all want to say happy
Father's Day to all my soldiers out there. Happy Father's Day
to all my brothers out there. Y'all laughing. These are my
soldiers. Happy Father's Day to you brothers. This is a man's
world. This is a man's world. And we'll
save the last part till next Mother's Day. This is a man's
world. We still believe that, don't
we, brother? Now, you ladies have the keys and the credit
cards and the bank accounts and much dominion. But this is a
man's world. At least today it is. And I understand
that some of our sisters has been so gracious to prepare some
cupcakes. They may be in your bulletin.
So you brothers get you a cupcake. A token of our love for you. A real token of our love for
you. We live in a hostile world. It's hostile against humanity.
The devil is. He is certainly hostile against
our sisters. No doubt about it. The atrocities
engaged in this world against women has been clear from the
beginning of time. But you also know that the one
objective and goal of the enemy is to destroy the seed, to destroy
the seed. And we need men. We need men. We need godly men. And we need
men that know God, that love God, and are committed to God's
word. We don't need church men. We
need saved men. Because church men will get you
in trouble. We need saved men. And those are the kind of men
that Christ died for. He died for real men. Not that
he purchased men, but he purchased what was necessary to make them
men. And he will have men. I've said it before, this gospel
we preach is a manly gospel. The true gospel is a man's gospel. It has been perverted today,
but the true gospel is still a manly gospel. Our Savior is
a man of war. He's a man of war. And we will
engage today in our text, in the book of Revelation, that
wonderful book, that mysterious book, that alluring book, that
profoundly significant book, that book that draws some and
causes others to shrink back. But we love God's Word, do we
not? And we love every bit of God's Word from Genesis to Revelation
22. Verse 21 in the book of Revelation
is a special gift to us because it actually depicts for us the
one man who is the quintessential man, and that man is Jesus Christ,
our great High Priest, King and our Savior and he cannot be missed
in the book of the revelation of himself Which was given to
him by his father. He cannot be missed in his depiction
as a real man You can't read the book of Revelation and walk
away from that book not knowing that Jesus was a real man Now,
let me help you as we work our way into the text today. We are
in the church at Pergamos and And we are dealing with a very
controversial issue that our master deems worthy of warning. Now, as we go through these churches,
seven churches, and we are on our third church, remember now
we are dealing with a letter written to each assembly, to
every church particularly, which letters are also allowed for
all of us who are the children of God to peer into and learn. But it's a real letter, a formal
letter by, as it were, a dignitary to his people. The framework
of the letters in the book of Revelation are written in the
same fashion in which an imperial ruler would have written to his
subjects. The same structure is here when
the imperial rulers of Rome would have written to the ambassadors
or the governors or the magistrates over the regions of which he
had dominion. He would have been very personal
in his opening address. He would have also been very,
very demonstrative in setting forth his authority when he wrote
to them. Then he would have acknowledged
his awareness of the State of the Union. He would have given
his advice to the leaders, and he would have expected the leaders
to actually do what he said. That's the framework that we
have here. The letters open with an address.
to the church, each church with a revelation unique to each assembly. Then there's an acknowledgment
and an assurance that he knows and is concerned with their life,
with their life's lot. And then he gives his fervent
commendation of all their good deeds, which were shown towards
his name. This formulation, this structure
of the letter goes all the way through all seven. And then he
exposes in these seven churches where it's necessary, the misdeeds
of those churches and our churches. He exposes the misdeeds, the
bad deeds. And in some cases, as we'll see,
no deeds at all. And then he will call them to
correction if needed. He will tell them they must repent. And then he will encourage them
to be overcomers so as to enter into the promises that are theirs
at the end of their sojourn we are in the third church and we
are dealing with the third point from last week the third point
from last week in our third and final message to the church at
pergamos and if you will you can follow me in your outline
is point number one today as our lord deals with this very
very trying situation in pergamos we note In our first point, holding
bad doctrine leads to evil what? You can be very sure of that,
child of God. Holding bad doctrine leads to
evil deeds. Now, I only say that because
it's very clearly implied in our text that our Lord is concerned
with doctrine. I only say that because the text
here teaches us that our master is concerned with doctrine. You
and I live in an age where people are not concerned with doctrine.
We live in an age where people really are not all that interested
in commitment to biblical truth. But it appears to me, based on
the text, that our Lord is concerned with doctrine. Is that true?
Listen to what he says over in verse 14 and 15. I have a few
things against you. Really, literally is, I have
something against you. Because you have there them that
hold the what? Doctrine of Balaam. The word doctrine is teaching.
Didaskalon, didaske. This is teaching. This is a set
of truths or a set of ideas, a set of concepts by which the
people now embrace as an understanding and the impact of that doctrine
leads to a lifestyle. Do you know everything that you
do in life is a consequence of something you believe? Everything
you and I do is a consequence of something you believe. You
may not be cognizant of it, you may not be overtly aware of your
underlying premise for why you do what you do, but it's always
motivated by something you believe. You and I never act in terms
of our deeds and our actions apart from some underlying set
of assumptions. We believe something and therefore
we do what we do. It's incumbent upon us then to
ask the question, am I doing the right things? And if I'm
not, what doctrine underlies the error that has engaged me
in the wrong deed? In any event, what I do want
to call to your attention right now is this truth. If you say
you are a child of God and you believe in the true and the living
God, and you know Jesus Christ as Lord, here is what you and
I must know. Christ is concerned with doctrine. See, because as I said, we live
in a culture where not only do we have a group of Christians
who actually are very confident that they are believers in Christ,
but hold to no doctrinal truths consistent with that Christ they
call on. We have a culture of people who
are very confident in their so-called relationship with God. But who
are not rooted and grounded in truth. Who could not defend their
alleged relationship with God to get themselves out of a paper
bag. They couldn't do it. And they really don't want you
to ask them any questions about the grounds upon which they say
they know God. They simply want you to accept
their assumptions. Isn't that true? Now, you know,
my relationship with God is personal. We grant that. But it's not so
personal that nobody knows about it. Not even you. It can't be that personal. Your
salvation with God can't be so personal that you don't even
know God. So as to explain him. So we are told in John 17 3,
just in case you don't know, this is eternal life. that they
might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he
has sent. So the people of God must know
their God, must know them, know him, must know how to declare
his truth, must know how to declare his word, must know how to defend
their claims that they have a relationship with God. After all, Christ is
concerned about what you believe. Can you imagine that here is
the Lord? of the church, the savior of the world, the king
of glory, saying in verse 14, I have something against you
because you have there them in your church, people who hold
to a set of credo statements that amount to the doctrine and
teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block
before the children of Israel and to eat things sacrificed
unto idols and to commit fornication. So you and I worked that out
last week rather extensively, and we saw that The nature of
the teaching of Balaam amounted to finding ways to cause the
people of God to stumble into sin, to bring them into traps
and snares. The stumbling block is a trap,
remember that? The word is used as a snare,
a trap that you open and set and hide covertly so that the
animal or the bird can come into the trap and the trap closes
and captures them. And the idea is that there are
teachings and there are doctrines and there are false gospels of
which people unaware, undiscerning, not sounding their knowledge
of God, will walk right into those traps and be trapped and
become now the plunder and spoil of false religion and false religionists. Our elder opened up reading 2
Peter chapter 2. Did you guys follow that reading?
what he described in that text really applies to our account
here that's why we saw in 2nd Peter chapter 2 a commentary
on Balaam remember what he said now Balaam this mad prophet who
loved the wages of unrighteousness in the narrow context that's
money see we've gone a long way from first century Christianity
Because see, today it's not a sin or even looked upon as a vice
when men laud themselves in pursuit of wealth and still call themselves
the people of God, the men of God, the woman of God. They immerse
themselves in the seem like unbridled lust and avarice of wealth and
they flaunt it as if God has blessed them. And we buy into
that as if that's a sure mark of the blessing of God. that
their doctrines which are constantly alleging that here God has meant
to bless you, the only reason you are not blessed as you ought
to be blessed is because you don't know how to tap into the
blessing. If you knew how to tap into the blessing, God would
pour out on you And those are the great swelling words, the
wanton words of the text, the wanton words. He says they use
great swelling words, wanton words, lustful words. They build
and they frame and they put together teachings that simply incite
your lust. And it says the only people that
get trapped by these are unstable souls. Who are the unstable souls? The folks I talked about the
first five minutes of this message. People who are not grounded and
rooted in God's word. unstable souls. They lure you through
those words. It's the idea of a hook being
on the front of a line, a fishing pole. You cast it out, and that
lure starts calling your attention. And you chase that lure with
all of its glitter. And you get hooked by it, and
he tows you in bit by bit. That's the trap that has consumed
much of Western Christianity. And somehow people gravitate
to that as if it's a hallmark Spirituality and here our Lord
is saying in verse 14 you have there them that hold this doctrine
and what it leads to is debauchery it leads to vice it leads to
sin it leads to immorality it leads to an open profligate lifestyle
of immorality eating things sacrificed to idols that's idolatry and
to commit fornication those are the Those are the cultural or
trends of the culture that we have stated last week that basically
come out of bad teaching. See, bad doctrine leads to bad
deeds. Bad doctrine leads to bad deeds.
And because the church has been infiltrated by false teachers
and false prophets for so long, we have now a plethora of bad
deeds in the church as a consequence of bad doctrine. Are you guys
hearing me? Bad doctrine leads to bad deeds. And what are the
bad deeds that are dominating the evangelical church today?
Idolatry, self-centeredness. Everything revolves around you.
You are sure God is in the house when the whole message starts
with you, it's sustained about you, and it ends with you. This
is what we call humanism. It is narcissism wrapped up in
the clothing of religion. And I've told my men and I've
told my sisters this, we who understand the truth ask the
question whenever we are listening to someone, who is he talking
about? How long is he talking about
him? And what is his conclusion about
him? And if the man or woman is not
preaching Christ, we have not heard the word of God at all. Now I know most of you guys don't
believe this because your diet is largely the diet of the things
of which I am speaking. And as a consequence, you have
suffered the effect of it. What do I mean by that? Our lives
largely are dominated by idolatry. And we wonder where is the underlying
premise? What is the reinforcement of
this idolatrous trend in our life? It's the doctrine that
you subject yourself to when you listen to all these crooks.
It's the doctrine. You are what you eat. It's the
doctrine. And then when we look at the
very, very serious implications of false teaching error, I'm
going to get into that more here in a moment. That leads to the
immorality that is the payoff for idolatry. So you better write
this down just in case you've never been taught this. This
church has been taught this for years. Idolatry. always has as its payoff, immorality. When you are the center of your
universe, you will pay yourself in some kind of carnal gratification,
which amounts to immorality. This is why the whole issue of
fornication in every form of perverse sex is so huge on the
chart of man's expression. It's wide open. This is our Belpior
of the day, right? Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? This is our bail P or of the day. And this is why everywhere
you go, the, uh, the basic expression of self-satisfaction is rooted
in sex outside of covenant, outside of the honor of God. And it's
being legislated as being acceptable everywhere in the world. And
in the church, while it's not legislated because men pretend
to be godly, they, they, they, however, tacitly approve of it
because they don't deal with it in the church. So if you tacitly
approve of it, you might as well approve of it openly because
the Lord of the church sees it. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So I'm glad you came back from last week because that means
you're ready to deal with it. And for those of you who are visitors,
we are so glad to have you at least this time. Here's the proposition. Holding bad doctrine leads to
evil deeds. Doctrine matters to Christ. It
matters so much. He is not only willing to let
us know about it, but he is also willing actually to do something
about it. Will you notice what he says
over in verse 16? Watch this now. Repent or else
I will come unto thee quickly and I will fight against them
with the sword of my mouth. Again, you don't see that depiction
of Jesus anywhere in the church today. The Jesus we hear every
day, 24-7, incessantly is a Jesus of love who affirms everything
that we do. You don't ever hear about a Jesus
who is willing to destroy men and women who oppose his truth. He said, I will fight against
them. We're going to develop that in a moment. Now, not only
is he concerned about doctrine, he's also so concerned about
it that he will stop it in his church. So stay with me now,
because I know a lot of you thinking, what church am I in today? I
had an individual come into our church about two months ago.
And he barely made it into the corridor. He picked up the bulletin. And he looked at the title of
the message. And it said, he that believeth
not shall be damned. He said, I did not come to church
to hear this. He put the bulletin down and
walked right out. Letting people know I did not
come here to hear this. Do you understand the mindset
of people? They are utterly oblivious to what a true gospel church
is. Utterly oblivious. Utterly oblivious. It doesn't
matter what he came to church to hear. That statement stands
true today. He that believeth not shall be
damned. It still remains true. The Lord
of the church said it. He was the one who said it. And
so it's very important for you and I to endure sound doctrine
so as to make our calling and election sure. Since why on earth
would you come to church on a good Sunday like this? This is a wonderful
day to not hear truth. Why would you subject yourself
to the whole protocol of religion and not be in a disposition of
soul to hear the truth? Do you know all the stuff you
could be doing right now at 12 o'clock? instead of hearing the
word of God and having your soul examined by its truth and maybe
discovering that you're not right with God, you could be doing
a whole lot of other stuff than what we're doing right now. And
I'm thankful that you're here. Let's try to work through this.
There are a lot of things that need to be said about this, but
I'm going to try to be as temperate and brief as possible. Under
point number one, there are a number of sub points that I want to
establish. When it says, and there we go,
when it says that there are those who are holding to bad doctrine
in that church, it's in what we call the present indicative
verb form. That means they are continually holding it. They're
holding it continually. It's not like somehow they woke
up one day and they had a doctrine on their shoulder. They didn't
inadvertently find themselves holding to certain ideas. Holding
bad doctrine is intentional. Not only is it intentional, listen
to me now, it's something with which it requires strength on
your part to do. The text says they are holding
bad doctrine. You have them there that hold
the doctrine of Balaam. You know what that means, ladies
and gentlemen? Holding takes strength. It's not a passive
act. It's a very active thing. It's
a dynamic of possessing something and possessing it with the objective
of retaining it. It takes strength to do that.
If you and I were weak from a car accident or weak from a stroke
or something and we didn't have any kind of strength or vigor
in our limbs and our hands, you could put a jar in our hands
and we would not be able to retain it. Gravity would force it out
of our hands. Would it not be so? What that means is we have
no capacity to hold it if we did have the capacity to hold
it It would mean that we would have strength to hold it. That's
our root word for power Kratos is one of the Greek terms that
is prominently used in the New Testament for power or Dominion
or strength and it's used in its verbal form to hold Literally,
it means to seize It means to capture It's a verb that's often
used in describing the attempts on the part of the Pharisees
to catch Jesus. To trap Jesus. To get a hold
of Jesus. And finally when they got him,
they seized him. That's our Greek term. They seized
him as a prisoner or a criminal is seized by the authorities.
You guys got that? Seized by the authority. It's
a powerful verb and I just want to make sure you understand that
when we know people and are aware of persons or churches that are
holding false doctrines, it's not a passive thing. It's a very
active thing, a very intentional thing. Turn with me in your Bible
to Revelation chapter 7 verse 1. I want to make this vivid
before I deal with the implications of the strength that people have
who hold error. When people hold error, falsehood,
false doctrine, they are not weak. They are very strong. Because if they were not strong,
you'd be easily capable of toppling their doctrine. But they hold
their doctrine. Chapter 7 verse 1, are you there?
The word is going to be very clearly here in the first verse.
And after these things, I saw four angels standing on the four
corners of the earth. We're dealing with revelation,
right? Hyperbolic symbolism, right? Imagery, right? Spiritual
things. These are real angels who are
sustaining this world in an orderly fashion, holding back something. Look at it. The four corners
of the earth doing what? Holding the four winds of the
earth. Now that takes strength. They're
holding the four winds. The four winds are a metaphor
for the universal impact of the sovereign Spirit of God. It's
not the Spirit of God, the wind, the Ruah, the Pneuma. He's the
wind that blew upon the waters. The Spirit of God is being held
back by the angels, as it were. These are messengers that are
holding back the judgments of God that are going to come by
the Spirit of God upon humanity. Look at verse 2. Look at it.
It says, I'm sorry, the latter part of verse 1. They are holding
the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the
earth nor on the sea or any tree. I saw another angel ascending
from the east having the seal of the living God and he cried
with a loud voice, watch this, to the angels. What were they
doing? Holding back the wind. To whom
it was given? To hurt the earth and the sea.
Saying, do not hurt the earth nor the sea nor the trees Until
we have sealed the servants of our God and their foreheads The
implication of this text is very clear. There is a deluge of evil
Waiting to be unleashed on this world in a unmitigated fashion
of which we have never seen before in our life It's being held back
by the mercy of God and his angels. They are holding it back while
God is hunting down his elect and through the preaching of
the gospel, calling them to Christ, saving them and then sealing
them with the presence of his spirit. And when the last of
God's elect are sealed, the judgment will unleash. That takes strength
to hold it back. Go with me back to chapter two
so we can look at this a little bit more strength to hold back
the doctrine. Listen to what he says in chapter
two, verse 13, to affirm this. In fact, you can see this very
clearly. He says, I know thy works, and I know where you dwell,
even where Satan's seed is, and how thou what? Holdest fast my
name. Saints, it takes grace to hold
fast Christ's name. Same word. And has not denied
my faith in the days in which my faithful martyr Antipas was
killed. See, you see then that there's
this tension between two groups. There are folks who hold fast
tenaciously. with strength, false doctrine.
And then there are the people who hold fast tenaciously to
the truth of the gospel. Which camp are you in? In any
event, it takes strength on both sides, doesn't it? It takes strength
for us to be able to hold to the gospel by his grace. It takes
strength for the wicked to hold to their teachings, to their
errors. And when you hold a false teaching
or an error, you have to avoid the truth to do it. Let me work
this through. I want you to get this now because
you're not holding error in a vacuum. You're holding error in the context
of a world full of God's truth over against your error. When
you hold error, you are holding error with strength over against
the truth that would utterly demolish your error. Are you
following this? So I want you to see the pathology
because our Lord wants you to understand why it's necessary
for you and I to be concerned about false doctrine. When a
man or a woman holds a lie, a false truth, and there are only two
spirits in the world, the spirit of error and the spirit of truth,
1 John chapter 4. Only two spirits. There's no
middle ground spirit. There's only two spirits in the
world, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And when
a man holds falsehood, Being dominated by the spirit of error.
Guess what you have to do? You have to avoid truth. You
have to avert truth. You have to oppose truth. You
have to deny truth. And you have to suppress truth.
See, when you're holding error, stay with me now. When you see,
you can't hold error and truth together. They are truly a law
of non-contradiction. They cannot coexist in the same
space. They are mutually what? Exclusive. Did you guys get that? See, I
know people would love to be able to hold truth and error,
but you can't. Truth will always, by nature, militate against error. And error will, by nature, militate
against truth. And so those who hold error have
to actually, in order to be comfortable, in order to coexist in this world,
you have to avoid the truth. Ah, now you have one of those
little signals by which you can determine when your children
go to school and their teachers tell them something that's wrong,
epistemologically or sociologically or psychologically, and certainly
theologically, and they embrace that error, You'll know it because
they won't want to talk to you about the Bible. When your brother
or your sister or your husband or your wife begins to imbibe
psychology, humanism, doctrines and teachings that actually deny
the biblical revelation of who God is and who man is in relationship
to the truth, and when they actually divulge that error and start
actually inculcating it in their life, you know what they're going
to do with you? Avoid you. And when they get strong enough
in their error, guess what they're going to do? Challenge you. They're
going to oppose you. And if they're not solid enough
to oppose you because you know the word of God, they're going
to suppress the truth. Because that's the only thing
you can do when you buy into error, suppress the truth. So how do I know when I'm in
a church where the truth is not upheld? Because in those churches,
they avoid it. They avert it. They deny it and
they suppress it. Are you hearing me? So when you
open your Bible and say, Pastor, you know, you know, I don't mean
to be contentious, but I heard you say, and this is what the
Bible says. And when that individual says,
well, you know, we all have our own opinion, suppressing of the
truth, suppression of the truth, avoidance of the truth and aversion
of the truth. You know, we don't want to fight.
We love each other. We don't want to fight. See now holding
truth and error in the same space. We don't want to fight. See,
as soon as you're simply asking to cut the lights on on your
proposition, they call you wanting to fight. No, we don't want to
fight. We just want to walk in the light.
Will you help me understand what you're saying in light of the
word of God? I'm not here to fight you, but I certainly don't
want the Lord fighting against me because I've been told by
the book if I hold something contrary to him, he will fight
against me. Are you guys hearing me? So let's keep working with this.
You only got about 40 minutes. It takes strength to hold on
to it. We're pulling back our PowerPoint. And it's critical
that you understand the pathology, the behavior of those who now
are inculcating heretical notions or philosophical suppositions
that are alien to and contrary to God's word. The enemy's whole
objective is to infiltrate the world, even the church. And as
it were, inseminated with false doctrine and false teaching so
that you and I become idolaters and consumed with self-gratification. And so it's very clear that the
progression goes like this. When a man or a woman is subjected
to error, they begin to contemplate that error, a little bit concerned
about how that error stands over against the truth, if they know
anything about truth. But over time, the error becomes
comfortable with them. If they're operating out of a
spirit of error, they become comfortable with it. In their
mind, they were a little bit conflicted about truth and error.
But the error is so pleasurable and has so many carnal, earthly
rewards that eventually you settle down with that error. And what
you do with the truth is you just kind of start distancing
yourself from it. Am I telling the truth? You distance
yourself from that truth. And you try to get, you try to
go as long as you possibly can without having to actually talk
to somebody about that diabolical doctrine that you have now embraced. And over time you get strong
in your doctrine, as I said, and now you're starting to battle
with and oppose that truth proposition in your own conscience. And once
you deceive yourself that you're right, then you start looking
for the weak Christian who really don't know their Bible, and then
you start sucking them up. See, this is what our Master
is concerned about. When we get back to our text, we'll see that
he's got to fight against that for his elect. Because his elect
are dumb sheep. Not a whole lot of them are willing
to wage war against error because we are so inclined to our own
sinful passions that we will open ourselves up to error. I'm
so glad that when Christ died for me, he committed himself
to saving me from me. Am I making some sense? Because
you see, if he left me to me, I might be inclined to buy into
the error. That's true. That's very true. That's very true. And so we have
the fact that it's not only passive but very active. Ultimately it's
in opposition to Christ. This is why in our present culture
we have so many people coming out of the closet. How come they're
coming out of the closet? They're coming out of the closet
because they're strong now. And they're coming out of the
closet because the Christian is weak. They're coming out of the closet
because we have now made so many, listen to me now, we have created
so many truth zones in the world, including in the church. So many
truth-free zones that they don't have to worry about being challenged
in their ridiculous claims for what they assert to be true.
Listen, if the unbelieving, ignorant individual holding to error were
challenged everywhere they went with regards to the ideas that
they hold, they wouldn't be so audacious about it. See, if you
have to actually defend logically and rationally and propositionally
your doctrine, you now have to be serious about what truth is,
even what error is, in order to hold your error. But if the
enemy can create an environment where you can hold to your error
and it never ever really be challenged, now you can walk around with
your butt out and talk about, God made me this way. God made
you this way. And no one will challenge it.
Are you hearing me? This is why I said to my men
this morning, this is a man's gospel. And you have to be men. You have to be men. See, the
man in our text that's writing to his church, he's the man of
the house. You know what he's doing? He's
taking care of his family. Do you know what he's doing?
He's protecting his children. You know what he's doing? He's
protecting his wife. Because somebody left the back
door open. Do you hear what I'm saying?
See, the man of the house is saying, I'm coming. That's our
verb form. It's in what we call the present
tense. I'm on my way. I'm on my way. I will deal with
these matters. If they continue to hold to them,
I will deal with them. And so let's move on. Listen
to the second proposition. This is an invasion into the
church. It's an invasion into the church. It's not an outside
issue. You and I, we don't really ultimately get wrapped up in
what the world is doing out there. My concern is what the world
is doing out there impacting in here. Are you hearing? And so we go now to Ephesians
chapter 2 verse 20 so that we can mark what the Lord Jesus
had told the church through Paul concerning the invasion of the
cultural trends that are out there that are now where? In
the church. See, we would be fine if when
we came to church, everywhere we went to church, that the church
was doing the right thing. But the problem is, is we come
into most of our churches and you never ever see a line of
demarcation distinguishing the difference between church folk
and people of the world. So see, ostensibly, the kingdom
of God should have been represented by the church. And when people
come into your church, they should have immediately experienced
a radical change of atmosphere. They should have immediately
experienced a new dimension of consciousness, of awareness,
of worldviews. They're not supposed to come
into an assembly of nuts and fruity and weird people. We're
not talking about weird people. You understand what I'm saying?
I'm not talking about cultic stuff where people are walking
around as if their feet are not touching the ground. No, we got
a place called John George for folks like that. I'm talking
about, listen to me now, I'm talking about a place where people,
however, are very serious about truth. And who acknowledge the presence
of the Lord in the church. Acknowledge Him. So much so that
what you do in the parking lot is radically different than what
you do in here. So when you cross over into those doors, you see
the sign over the top, beware, this is not a truth-free zone. Did you get that? you may get
hit right between your eyes with the truth. And the vast majority
of the members here want it that way. That's the way a gospel
church ought to be. And so what we're concerned with
and our Lord is concerned with in the Pergamos church is the
infiltration of error that's taken hold of the leadership.
And so the apostle says in Acts chapter 20, these words, listen
to this loving fatherly oversight that he renders in the book of
Acts concerning this particular matter, very, very concerned
with their behavior. In Acts chapter 20, he says to
them, as he is about to depart, he says in verse 27, listen to
this, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel
of God. Take heed to yourselves and to the flock over which the
Holy Ghost has made you overseers To feed the church of God which
he has purchased with his own blood for I know this He says
I know something that after my departing See here. Paul is a great type of Christ
As long as Christ is in the house things are well, but as soon
as Christ is out of the house grievous wolves Shall enter in
among you Do you see the picture he painted? Now, see, what Paul
was describing himself as. Is a faithful shepherd. The metaphor
is a shepherd watching over the sheep, and Paul says, I'm faithful. I'm faithful. That's what his
implication is. While I'm there, the grievous
wolves are not coming in because I'm not having that. She like
me and my brothers learned last night. Paul was a thug. He was
thug on the other side. Now he's a thug on this side
for Christ. He's a soldier. And so wolves not coming in where
their soldiers are. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Paul says, as long as I'm here, it's cool. But I can tell by
the attitude of some of you, as soon as I leave, grievous
wolves are coming in. Are you hearing me, brother?
Now, this ought to cause you to appreciate strong leadership.
Because again, in our 21st century churches, we have such an overbearing
feminism, a sense of weakness draping over the church. You
don't even like your men to be strong. Am I telling the truth? And most of our churches, our
men are passive. And they're in the background.
Weak. But what you going to do when
the wolf comes in? Are women going to protect? The
children and the men? That's lopsided, wouldn't you
say? Am I making some sense to you
guys? If you don't understand your Bible, listen to this. If
you don't understand the book of Revelation, it encompasses
two realities. Worship and warfare. Write it
down. If I do not understand the underlying
framework of the book of Revelation, it's worship and warfare. Worship
and warfare. worship and warfare, wherever
true worship is, warfare is impending. And you have to simply accept
those conditions in order to serve in the Lord's army. I am
not going to digress to build this on a biblical theological
construct, but your Bible is clear. Whenever you join the
kingdom of God, you are a soldier in the Lord's army. But you can't
get out of rank like most churches are today out of rank. So our
women are leading and the men are retreating. You can't win
a war like that. You cannot win. In fact, the
battle is lost. I'm going to show you that here
in a moment. Listen to what the text says. Listen to what it
says. He says grievous wolves entering
in among you, not sparing the flock. That's an ominous, ominous
depiction of slaughter by everyone that's vulnerable. Isn't that
true? Listen to the next text. Also, of your own selves shall
men arise. Do you see it? Speaking perverse
things. I want you to mark that. Perversion
of the truth. That's what we are in our text
This is precisely what our Lord is concerned about and he's doing
it to draw away disciples after himself or after themselves Therefore
what watch and remember as the Apostle said I preached to you
day and night with tears Seeking to warn you from these things
When we look at the church at Ephesus in the book of Revelation
chapter 2, they did a good job of opposing these false crooks
Remember that? Their problem is that they wore
down and moved away from a fervent love. But the enemy is persistent,
isn't he? He started killing the folks
in Smyrna, and now he's infiltrating the church here in Pergamos.
And our Lord says, deal with this, or I will fight against
them. Pulling our PowerPoint up to
deal with our last point. So under our first point, To
hold error requires strength. An individual is not nice and
passive or indifferent. They're holding with tenacious
strength truths that do not glorify God. And we have to be able to
deal with it. Secondly, we have to recognize when there's an
invasion into the church. And when there's an invasion,
then the people are set up to be seduced. They are set up to
fall. And once there is a falling taking
place in the church, the plague that starts to set in. Why? Because our Lord is taking us
back to the Numbers 25 account. I won't take you there again,
but if you understand that we are dealing with old and new
things, and the Balaamite doctrine is what we are now considering,
back in Numbers 25, remember what happened? Balaam couldn't
get him through the front door, he had to come through the what?
Back door? He couldn't get him with an overt cursing, he had
to get him through what? Seduction? We saw the beast in
Revelation chapter 12 last week, beast 1 and 2, and we saw the
whore in Revelation 17, did we not? The whore, the seductive
whore, the false church with her salacious temptations drawing
men and women to error and falsehood through seduction. We saw that,
right? And so what we're dealing with here in Numbers 25 is precisely
what happened where he told the king of Balak to set up whore
houses everywhere. And that trend runs all the way
through the Old Testament. Everywhere the children of Israel
went apostate, they were always engaged in idolatry. sexual perversion
and nothing is new today nothing is new today and it only can
happen where leadership corrupts in the church will you hear me
it can only happen where leadership corrupts It cannot happen where
strong leadership is. We'll see that here in a moment.
But quite interesting, children of God, what you and I are dealing
with as we are concerned about the plague, the fall, the plague,
and then ultimately the destruction, is we're dealing with a process.
Okay, the church gets seduced, your local church. And some of
you have been there. You've been in churches that
were quasi-conservative. That was a long time ago, but
there were some days like that. where they actually held to the
Bible. And then over time you saw their doctrines change little
by little. We call it incrementalism. They
started actually implementing doctrines that were much more
centered on love and good words and And and and and social consciousness
and and other activities instead of the centrality of Jesus Christ
You guys remember those days when they started emphasizing
other things and many of our african-american churches. They
started emphasizing music Emotionalism hyper sensuality And so that
became a substitute for the real Holy Ghost. See, because the
real Holy Ghost doesn't necessarily make you happy on the outside.
And He doesn't necessarily make you happy first. The real Holy
Ghost first makes you sad, breaks your heart, brings you under
conviction of sin, creates a mourning in your soul. causes your soul
to hunger and thirst for righteousness, produces repentance and faith,
puts you on your camel and start searching for Jesus. Jesus. That's what the Holy Ghost does.
This is why we don't have folks getting up running around the
church. Listen, hold on. It's not time to run around the
church. It's time to repent. That's what time it is, to repent. Because we're not right with
God. So see, My men are not going to stop preaching what we preach
until the church repents, until we experience revival, or until
Jesus comes, or until we die. Because we understand the problem. There's a plague in the church.
There's a plague and it's spreading. It's cancerous. It's destructive. And the Lord of the church has
to enter in to save his people. Now you and I get to examine
ourselves now over the next 20 minutes or so whether or not we are on
his side. Title of our message, I will fight against them. We get to ask the question, whose
side are we on now? Because everybody on the Lord's
side. Everybody on the Lord's side. I beg to differ. I beg to differ. Point number
D, such things must be addressed by leadership before Christ responds. So when you have false doctrine
and false teaching that enters into the church and starts to
take a foothold, it starts to develop a movement and a following,
and it starts to interrupt. the call of the church to preach
Christ and to be committed to biblical truth and to be committed
to faithfulness to Christ in our own obedience to him. That's
the natural outcome of the power of the gospel is a love for Christ
and a service to Christ based on all that Christ has done for
us. When that starts to be thwarted and sidetracked by all these
other things, if leadership does not see it and if leadership
does not deal with it, God will deal with leadership in destroying
the leadership and destroying the church. So that's why the
letter is to the angels of the church. Do you understand that?
And he's saying to the leadership of the church, it's time for
you to do your job, which pulls us to our next point. Let's go
to work. Point number two, compromisers of the faith will be dealt with. Let me just set that proposition
out there so you can work with that. If you actually think you
can compromise the gospel and still go into heaven, let me
help you understand that right now. You have secured a ticket for
hell for yourself. If you actually think you can
twist God's word and you can still end up in heaven, let me
help you understand right now, that's the surest way to end
up in hell. The surest way for you to end
up in hell is to play games with God's word. The surest way for
you to perish is somehow think that God will allow you to live
like hell and enter into his heaven. That's the surest way
for you to perish. The surest way for you to perish
is to adopt the philosophy of this world, the trend and cultural
things of this world, of which the Bible is so effective in
letting us know what it looks like. Through good teaching,
you guys have a very vivid picture of what's right and wrong. You
understand what's right and wrong. Your issue is whether or not
you are actually walking with the Lord, because if you're not
walking with the Lord, if you are living in rebellion against
God, if you are actually walking in the very cultural, trendy,
idolatrous, fornicating things of this world and think somehow
you're going to God's heaven, you are wrong, ladies and gentlemen.
You are wrong. Right now, you are wrong. You
need to know that. OK, and so I'm doing my job right
now for some of you. And for those who will hear my
voice, and I'm so thankful that our voice goes out to millions
of people. For those of you who are listening,
understand you will not enter into God's glory until you bow
the knee to the crown rights of Jesus Christ and acknowledge
him as sovereign Lord in the totality of your life. You will
perish under the wrath of God. God is a just God and he will
not be made a liar by you. I'm talking to your family and
I'm talking to my family. I'm talking to your husband and
I'm talking to his husband. I'm talking to your wife and
my wife. I'm talking to your children
and my children. I'm talking to your grandchildren
and my grandchildren. I'm talking to your neighbor
on the side of you. Are you hearing me? It's very
important for you to know this. Don't waste your time if you
want to go to hell. Leave right now. and go live
it up, eat, drink, for tomorrow you're gonna die. It's very important
for us to understand this. So under point number three,
compromisers of the faith are to be dealt with. Let me start
moving quickly. He fights against them. He fights against them. That's what he plainly says to
us in the latter part of verse 16. I will fight against them
with the what? Sword of what? I will fight against them with
the sword of my mouth. Remarkable. Remarkable. There are several sub points
here that I want to deal with, but let me first start at point
number C. Do you see point number C? He fights in order to deliver
his elect. Let me run this through for you
right now without going to the passages. Hebrews chapter 13
around verse 7 already tells us that Jesus is the same yesterday,
today, and forevermore. And everywhere that God has a
people that represent his glory, Christ is in the midst to protect
them. Are you hearing me? So the children
of Israel are the first typical son of God in the Old Testament
economy of which God would set down his paradigmatic truths
and demonstrate to us what his plan of redemption was. When
he brought Israel out of Egypt, he brought them out of Egypt
with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm. Did he not? He
gloriously manifested himself as a man of war. Did he not?
Isn't that the song that Moses and his sister sang? Jesus, the
Lord is a man of what? War! Brought them out. They worship. They worship 30 days later. They
were bowing down to a golden calf See, this is called hypocrisy
in the church Right. Do you know what happened on
that day in the wilderness when they bowed down to a golden calf?
You know what? God told moses to do go separate the people
Separate them and and everyone who is on Your side moses take
up your sword And thrust through everyone who engaged in the idolatry.
That's tough, isn't it? See the pattern God ain't no
joke. Are you hearing me? Then we move
down the line a little bit and God finally tells Israel, you
know what? You know what? You guys are a mess. So I'm going to have
to separate myself from you. So he had to actually pitch a
tent down the road from them because he said, if I hang out
with you the way you acting, I'm going to have to kill all
y'all. But I care enough about you to distance myself. That's
a strategy. So like when you feel like killing
somebody, first distance yourself. That's the strategy. And it's
called godliness. You understand that? Just get
some distance. I love you. I don't want to kill
you. So I'm going to just keep some distance. Right? And so
he put some space between them and him. And they really wanted
the Lord to be among them because they knew that without the Lord,
they couldn't make it. That's true, right? We'd be crying,
Lord, we can't make it without you. We are such religious hypocrites. You spend all day long without
the Lord. Then you get in trouble. Lord,
we can't make it without you. Hypocrites. Are you with me so
far? Take a breath. Here we go. So
you know what our Lord told them when they said this in Exodus
chapter 32, 33? He says, I'm not going to walk among you because
I'm way too holy for you. That's the God we actually know.
Way too holy. He is not the God that's heard
in most pulpits today. You don't hear this God. Sorry
you don't. But you know what he said? I'm
going to send my angel before you. I'm going to send my angel
before you. That's Exodus 33 verse 2. I'm
going to send my angel before you. He's going to actually lead
you into the promised land. Isn't he good? Do you know who
that angel is? Christ. Christ. He's the forerunner. We need an angel to go in front
of us to clear out the path. To clear out the path. Cut down
the weeds, expose the traps, pick up the gins and pick up
the traps so God's people can go through. Because see, we can't
see what we can't see. But God sees everything. His
eyes are a flame of fire. Even with Him, light and darkness
are the same. I need someone going in front
of me like that, right? To find all the mines and all
the bombs, right? And to detect them and pick them
up so we can get through. And do you know how good God
was when Israel finally made it into the promised land? Guess
who was there already? The Lord Jesus. See, Joshua met
him in the fifth chapter. And when he saw him, he saw a
soldier standing with what drawn? A sword. See, old and new things. Old and new things. What was
that about? It was about Christ protecting
his church. Do you understand that? Joshua
recognized that it was not merely a physical battle now. That this
was a spiritual battle to boot. That if God doesn't go in front
of us, pull his sword and deal with all of our adversaries,
we will never make it. Joshua said, But who you for? For our enemies or for us? He
said, boy, you got this twisted. You got this twisted. I'm for
Jehovah. Now, let me ask you the question.
Who you with? Did you get that? Who you with?
See, that's the real question. When you see a brother like that,
all you ask is, am I on his side? My point is this. What you are
reading in Revelation 2 is consistent with all the scriptures. Our
Lord is going to protect his people. He's going to protect
his people. Now go with me in your Bible
to Numbers chapter 31 verse 8. I want you to see how consistent
the analogy is to the account. Many people have bought into
the notion that Balaam was not a bad guy. I would beg to differ
with you. Here's where I will agree with
you. that most people are in love with false prophets. And that if Balaam was here today,
he would have a church of 500,000 people. God hated him. God hated him and the Nicolaitans.
But today, Balaam would be lauded as the greatest thing on earth
in religion. And everybody would flock to
him. Because in his own personality, he was winsome. Debonair, slick,
smooth as oil. You couldn't detect the error
to save your life. He'd get you. He knew scripture.
He was a man who had his eyes open. He was in a trance and
he actually told truth, did he not? He told great truths. He could mesmerize you with his
falsehood, but his heart was an open suffocator. It was a
vile tomb. of abominable wickedness. God
knows the heart, does he not? What happened to Balaam? What
happened to Balaam as a consequence of God's judgment? Listen to
what it says in Numbers chapter 31 verse 8. Are you there? Listen
to what it says. And as they went to war, slaying
the Midianites, of whom we are talking, they slew the kings
of Midian, besides the rest of them that were slain. He goes
on to say, Evi, Rechem, Zer, Er, Reba, five kings of Midian.
Oh, guess who we got here? Balaam, also the son of Beor. Listen to the language. They
slew with the sword. They slew with the sword. Do you see why our Lord used
the terminology? And I will fight with them with
the sword of my mouth. You know why? Because the same
Lord that's in Revelation 2 was in the Exodus account. The same
Lord that was in Joshua chapter 5 is in the Exodus account. And
the judgment that came upon Balaam then, 1500 years before Jesus,
is the same judgment that's coming on the Balaamites in the first
century church of which we are reading. See, God does not change. Are you ladies and gentlemen
hearing me? God will punish sin. Go with me back to our PowerPoint.
Let's move forward. Let me get through these points. I want
to make sure you get this. See, my desire today, while setting
forth to you just a faithful exposition of the text, is for
you to actually change your mind about how you think about Jesus.
Because I think our Jesus is just a bit too weak today. I need you to get a better handle
on the Savior, that He does make war. Our text tells us that he
will fight against him. Do you see that? And the term,
ladies and gentlemen, means to wage war. It means to go to war. It means to enter into a quarrel
and a conflict in your own time. Take the word war and look it
up in the book of Revelation alone. Dozens of times it speaks
of war. This is why I said the book corresponds
around two things, worship and what? Warfare. And see, the beast
rises up out of the pit in Revelation chapter 11 to make war against
the saints. Is that right? The beast rises
up out of the pit. Those locusts that you and I
talked about several weeks ago came out of the bottomless pit
to make war against men. Revelation chapter 12 says that
he will make war against the saints and he will kill them.
But Revelation chapter 19 verse 11 depicts the Lord Jesus Christ
coming on a white horse with a sword drawn and he's called
the judge of the earth and in righteousness that the judge
and guess what he makes war to Revelation chapter 12 says that
Michael the archangel and all of the holy angels went to war
Against Satan and his angels. What are we talking about a warfare
in spiritual dimensions? Am I making some sense? The battle
is around worldviews The battle is around spirituality. The battle
is around allegiance to Christ or not. The battle is around
whether or not you know God or do not know God. Serve God or
do not serve God. The battle is around the truth
over this error. That's the battle. And watch
this. All of us are on one side or the other. All of us are on
one side or the other. You are not a wall in this battle.
You may be holding the water bucket. You may be washing the
dishes, you may be scrubbing the floors, you may be putting
band-aids on the wounded, but you're putting band-aids on the
wounded, scrubbing floors, washing dishes for one team or the other.
That's true. That's very true. And you need
to know which team you are on. And so our Lord very clearly
depicts Himself as the process of coming to make war he hasn't
done it yet he's warning the church deal with it preacher
deal with the elders let them know now if our Lord begins to
exercise judgment and that's what this point is if he begins
to exercise judgment pastor what does that look like we need to
deal with that we need to deal with how God works spiritually
when he exercises judgments in the church because he does does
he not judge his people It's an awful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God Paul said in first Corinthians chapter
11 to the church called Corinth Which was very much like the
church at Pergamos. It had its problems, didn't it?
You remember what Paul said in first Corinthians 11 verse 30
and 31. He says to the church you better
judge yourself So that you are not judged with the world Because
if you do not judge yourself Christ himself will judge you
and this is the reason why many of you are sick and And many
of you are dying. That was his assessment. What
he was saying was you are not right with the master. Examine
yourself whether you be in the faith or not. These are serious
matters when it comes to dealing with the true and the living
God. Pastor, what does it look like when the Lord begins to
fight against people in his church? Well, here's what it looks like.
I'm going to give you just a brief expose of it. It's very important.
What does it look like? It looks like people who come
under the prophetic warnings of God's Word, first and foremost. When God begins to trend in His
teaching of warning you consistently, He doesn't speak into the air.
He's just not speaking into vaporous ether. He's speaking into the
ears of people. You know what that means? When
you come into the church, God has sovereignly made an appointment
with you. He's brought you, you could not be here if God, who
is sovereign, did not wake you up this morning, incline your
heart to come, bring you and set you in your seat. I'm talking
to people who do not know our God. He brought you here today.
And it's in all likelihood, He has been dealing with you many,
many times hence. And today, of all days, you are
being confronted with a warning, a warning that God will punish
the rebels in the church. That warning is God's mercy.
Hosea chapter 6 verse 5, God plainly says, I have hewn them.
I have hewn them by my prophets. God hews people down. How does
he hew them down? Like this. When you hear the
truth, when you hear the truth, either you yield to it or you
resist it. At that point, you are in the
process of going to war with God and him against you. And
what God begins to do The Lord Jesus Christ is to divide. There
is a division that begins to take place. Anytime truth is
preached, division is taking place. That's what the sword
does. Will you hear me, ladies and
gentlemen? The sword divides. Stay with me now for a few more
minutes, because you need this. The sword divides. That's Matthew
chapter 10, around verse 32. Think not that I came to bring
peace, but a sword. You're going to
see the division between the husband and the wife, the brother
and the sister, the mother and the father, parents, children.
A division takes place. You know what the division is?
It's a division of worldviews. It's a division of ideas. In
the Spirit, there begins to be a separation between people who
believe truth People who don't now we have not moved in a geographical
sense. We are all under the same roof
Pretending that everything is alright, but in reality, there's
a division He has separated between the light and the darkness Between
the day and the night those who are born of God walk in the what?
Those who are not walking darkness he separates and Now, the light
and the darkness cannot coexist together in any kind of amalgamation,
but they can certainly dwell in the same area and thus be
a conflict with one another. That's the hush-hush that goes
on in the house. And then he begins to divide
in this way. The man or the woman who has heard biblical truth,
like Balaam, and has begun to contemplate error, like Balaam,
then has now adopted a wholesale theology of error like Balaam
the truth that they had God begins to take away he divides them
from the truth remember we talked about a takeaway period a takeaway
period where God takes away that's why Luke's gospel chapter 8 around
verse 13 and 14 says it like this take heed how you hear take
heed how you hear because with what measure you hear it will
also be measured unto you let me ask you the question Since
last year up to this day, are you hearing better or less? Since
last year to the day, has the Word of God penetrated into your
life in such a way that it has advanced you in your walk with
God? Are you more sensitive to and committed to biblical truth?
Do you understand more clearly? Are you committed more vividly
to the glory of God? Has God strengthened you in your
soul by giving you hearing ears? Or has God cut your ear off?
Stay with me now. Because that's what he does.
He cuts ears off. See, the hearing ear and the
seeing eye, they come from the Lord. And so when we are in rebellion
against God and we take for truth the gospel of God and we assume
that somehow we can continue to walk in our evil way, he's
going to cut your capacity to hear the gospel off. So that
the gospel now does not make sense. Not only does he cut your ears
off, He also plucked your eyes out so that you cannot see His
glory. The most dreadful condition a
soul can be in is to be under the hearing of noise with no
revelation of His glory. To come to church and not see
the Lord of glory is dreadful. You are wasting your time. Get
up and leave now! To come to church and not see
Christ and His glory is a dreadful condition. Get up and leave now
or bow the knee in your soul and say, Lord, open my eyes again. Again, because he closes eyes. He blinds people. That's a judgment
that comes. You don't get to go deeper with
Christ. You don't get to go greater with
Christ. You don't get to go longer with Christ. You don't get to
abound in the glories of Christ. You don't get to ascend in the
glories of Christ. You don't get to walk at length
with the glories of Christ until by degree you are submitting
to and acknowledging the preciousness of the truth you hear week in
and week out. You don't go deeper with Christ
without it. He will leave you in the dust. You will wake up
and you won't even know how to spell faith. Are you hearing me? To whom much
is given, much is required. He that hath, more shall be given.
That's when you're holding. See, that's when you're holding.
He that's holding, more shall be given. This is how you know
you are in a vital gospel church because you're actually growing.
Christ is becoming more vivid to you, clearer to you, so crystal
clear that you can see error a long ways away. And your soul
has no desire for error over against the beauty and the splendor
and the effulgence of Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world. And every day, every day, you
ought to want a revelation of His glory. Listen, because it's
how you are transformed We are only transformed in the present
continuous tense of seeing His glory every day. Read it yourself, 2 Corinthians
3, 18. We all be holding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord. Stay there. If somebody raises
up another mirror, kick them in their toe. The only mirror
you want is the mirror that reveals the glory of God in Christ, so
that as you look into that mirror, you become like Him. See, Jesus
Christ, is the image of the invisible God. He is the glory of God.
He is the God-man himself. Listen to me now. He is the true
and the living God. And everyone that looks to Him
becomes like Him. And everything else are idols. Now, if they're idols, they may
have ears, but they do not hear. They may have eyes, but they
do not see. Mouths they have, but they do
not speak. Dumb idols, which is what most
people look to, don't know anything. And those who look to them become
just like them. So when you run across our lauded,
agnostic brethren who says, I don't know, you know what idol they've
been looking at in the mirror. The idol that can't see, can't
hear, can't talk. But the true and the living God
who made us in his image is gloriously alive. He is the source of life. He is the truth. He has eyes. He can see. He has ears. He can
hear. He has a mouth. He has a heart.
Does he not? And God speaks, does He not? And He speaks powerfully
enough for those who are captivated by His glory to be impacted by
His revelation. See, we know because we felt
the power, haven't we, saints? We know the power of the Gospel.
We know the drawing power of the Gospel. We know its changing
power. We know how it renews our mind.
We know how it changes our affections. We know how it cuts us away from
error. By the way, when the sword divides,
It divides for His elect. Can I keep talking? It divides
for His elect. So let's say you're one of God's
elect, and you're just stupid enough to think that you can
hold in tension the diabolical false doctrines of this world
system, live like hell, and have Jesus too. Are you ready? You're His elect, but He's gonna
cut your arm off. That's right. Your life is going
to be difficult. Because he's going to show you
that you can't hold the two. Watch this. And when God deals with
you, he's going to cut off people in your life that mean, you know,
eternal good. You're trying to hold to him.
He's going to cut him off. You're his elect. He will not
let you be deceived. He will cut off every friend,
every pretended friend. Every co-worker, every boss,
every relative that's trying to send you to hell. And as long
as you are ignorant, you will cry and whine. Oh Lord, I love
my dog. Why, why, why? He cut him out. Because your dog didn't die for
you. Your dog didn't pay your sin debt. Your dog didn't redeem
you from hell. Your girlfriend didn't pardon
your sins. Your girlfriend, your boyfriend
didn't justify you in the bar of God's justice. Christ did. They didn't purchase your soul
from hell. They didn't deliver your soul off the selling block
of sin and slavery. Christ bought you. He gonna have
you if he cuts off all your arms and legs. make you look so ugly
that nobody wants you but him. That's good. That's good. That's
good stuff right there. That's good stuff right there.
Lord, what you gonna do with a stump? I can love a stump. Give me your
heart. I don't need your arms. I don't
need your legs. I need your heart. Did you hear what I just said?
He see, he don't wanna, he don't, he don't, he will cut you down
to a stump. and he'll put you on a cart and
roll you around with him. And he'll use you, he'll use
you right there. He will destroy all your refuges
of lies, all of your idols, all of your friends, and you will
go around glorifying God as a stump. And guess what else? Over time,
he will make you thankful of it. Thankful for it. Are you hearing me? He will make
you thankful for it. He will make you thankful for
it. He will cut them off. He will cut them off. Gradually
separate you from them and it will become clear to you that
you and them, you guys don't have anything in common on an
eternal level. It will hurt, but over time you
will come to understand the sufficiency of your walk with Jesus. One
more point, I want to make sure I close. Go to my next point,
my final point. The promise of eternal citizenship. Do you see that? The promise
of eternal citizenship. This is what Christ does in His
recognition of the weakness of His people. He ought not have
to do this, but He does. And I'm going to run through
this quick. This can be a message in itself, but I'm going to run
through this quick. He ought not to have to promise us these
kinds of blessings. But we're so weak and so pitiful
that he has to actually cudgel us with promises. Now it ought
to be enough that he secures your eternity. But now he has
to give overtures of the blessings of the covenant to you. For you
that overcome, I'll do this. For you that overcome, I'll do
that. For you that overcome, I'll do this. This is because
you and I are pitiful. Pitiful! Pitiful on our end towards
Christ. Don't you ever act like somehow
you got the world by the tail on the downhill slide You are
not better than the next Christian in the house. You're pitiful
You're pitiful and your God knows how to encourage us Here's what
he does four things He tells us if you overcome I've got a
place with me where you get to enjoy hidden manna The hidden
manna that never decays, never worms, never spoils. The word hidden right there is
the word crypto, and it simply means that God brings us into
the riches of His Word, into the depths of His Word, on such
a level that not only by faith do we enter into those blessings,
but in reality, there's a day coming when we will feed on the
manna of glory with Christ for all eternity, and it will be
a rich, rich feast that makes it worth us being cut off by
people right now. See, this is over against the
folks in the world that don't let you in their clubs. That
wouldn't let the folks at Pergamos in their clubs. You can't eat
with them because you don't bow down to their idols. Are you
hearing me? Jesus says, I got food, saints. I got food in my
house. When you get here, you get to
eat all you want. And the riches of the treasures
of the blessings of the manna which is stored up for you will
far outweigh the fasting you go through here. Far outweigh
it. That manna is Christ in all of
his glory and all the experience of who he is when we enter into
the fullness of the unity of him in us and us in him. Are you hearing me? See, he implicated
that truth when the disciples were wondering, how come you
not hungry, man? We've been walking for hours. You remember that
time when he talked to the woman at the well? They went way back
to town to get them a bunch of big old Togo sandwiches. Remember
that? They come back, big old Togo sandwiches. We know the
Lord gonna eat now. We know he ready to eat us. Middle of the
day, we've been walking for hours. They get to the Lord. Lord, we
got some food for you. I have food that you have no knowledge
of. Our master was feeding on the
riches of his father's favor. presence my meat is to do the
will of him that sent me you don't know nothing about the
shit fellas are y'all hearing what I'm saying rich was our
Lord in feeding upon the favor of God I wish you knew something
about how good it is to feed on Christ versus the pitiful
food of this world system second one second one the white stone
listen to this language He says, and to him that overcomes, I
will give a white stone. Do you see it? To him that overcomes,
I will give a white stone. And in that stone, a new name,
which no man knows, saving he that receives it. Now, you and
I are third party listeners to an account between two other
people. They knew exactly what our master meant by that context.
And I want to share it with you briefly. When he says, I have
a white stone for you, when he says, I have a white stone for
you, I have a white stone. You know what he's saying? I
do not have a black stone. See, the black stone is the antithesis
to the white stone. And the black stone is the stone
of condemnation. It's the stone of guilt and judgment.
It was the mechanism by which judges made a ruling as to whether
or not a criminal was guilty or justified. Will you hear me? He said to his people, in this
world, they may call you guilty. They may condemn you. They may
put you in prison and they may even put you to death turning
the black stone up guilty of blasphemy. He says my stone for
you is always white. Do you know what that means?
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
That means the people of God will never ever face God's judgment. They are already justified. They are already pardoned. They
are already, in fact, he doesn't even carry black stones. The
stone that he has is always yes to you. Yes, you are righteous. Yes, you are free. You will never
come into condemnation. Beautiful. Then the other thing
that stone points to is the reward that he gives everyone who finishes
the race. It was a stone that was used
in the Olympic Games. right along with the wreath that
was given to the person that broke the line. Break that yellow
tape. Enter into glory trusting God
by faith. He will put a wreath on your
head and give you a white stone. In the book of Revelation, the
white always symbolizes triumph and victory. White belongs to
Christ and it belongs to his people alone. You and I possess
the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It makes us white as snow. It connotes our triumph. It connotes
our victory. It connotes our always triumphing
in him. And so he's telling them, you
will be more than conquerors. Through me who loved you, when
you cross over, you get the victory stone. And finally, listen to
the last one. Finally, listen to what it says. He will give them a white stone
and put his new name in there. Oh, I better stop. That's it.
I don't know why I was getting ready to do something else. Let
me close with this statement. Take the gospel seriously. Just
take it seriously. Every day you come under the
hearing of the word of God, you're accountable. Take him seriously. Ask God to give you grace to
fight, to fight for his glory. He died for you if you're his
child. Do you understand that? And he's not going to let you
perish. He'll tear the world up. He'll tear your world up
before he lets you perish. We at least can honor him. Amen.