Well we've been looking at these
letters to the churches in Revelation chapter 2 and it goes on into
chapter 3, but we've seen it's from the glorious risen Lord
who is our confidence, he is our hope, he's in the midst of
us, he tells us that he now walks among the seven golden candlesticks
which represent his church in the world. And these are seven
letters which John the apostle is told in A.D. 95, thereabouts,
give or take a year or two, to write to these seven churches.
Seven because that's the number of God's perfection. They're
symbolical. They were real historical churches
at that time where where the Gospel had been preached, often
by the Apostle Paul and those with him, and where people had
believed the truth, for the Holy Spirit uses the preaching of
men He's raised up, and He calls them with an irresistible call,
irresistible grace. He makes His people willing in
the day of His power. They hear the truth declared.
and their logic might tell them otherwise, but their souls believe,
they believe, they embrace the Saviour. And they form churches,
which are companies of the Lord's people in different geographical
places, in different times. These letters were to specific
true historical churches, but they apply to all true churches. Now I say true because there
are many false churches. There are many churches which
do not have They have the name, and they use the words, but they
do not have the Christ of Scripture. They do not proclaim the gospel
of Scripture. They proclaim a man-made gospel.
They proclaim falsehood. They're not true, but there are.
God has his true churches throughout history, from Christ's ascension. What is the church? As I've said,
it's a company of people who believe the gospel of God's grace. And as such, the church in this
world there physically in companies of people and in these days increasingly
added to by people who cannot be located in the same place
but are drawn together by the technology that we have in the
mercies and providence of God for exactly the days in which
we live. They're companies of people who
are united together in love and fellowship, love for Christ,
love of the truth of the Gospel, love of the Word of God preached,
and love for one another in Him, with the hope of heaven. This
is the manifestation of the Kingdom of God in the world. The world
is by contrast the kingdom of Satan. This world in which we
live is the kingdom of Satan. It's the kingdom of Antichrist.
It's the kingdom of the beasts, the beast from the sea and the
beast from the land of Revelation 13 that we read last week. This
is the battle lines drawn between the kingdom of God and the kingdom
of Satan. Believe me, when you read the
Scriptures, when you read the Psalms, we were reading Psalms
this morning, you can only understand it truly in the sense of realizing
that the world in which we live and the experience we have as
believers is one of being in the Kingdom of God as the Church,
in the enemy territory of this world. Lines of separation. And the line of separation, what
is it? What is the mark of distinction? I keep repeating it, I will carry
on repeating it. The line of separation is this. The kingdom of this world, the
kingdom of Satan, thinks that the justice and righteousness
of God is irrelevant. We can all get on very nicely
because we're all pretty nice people. So long as we treat one
another nicely, we'll have a lovely utopian situation in which to
live. But the kingdom of God says otherwise.
The kingdom of God says that God is a God who is of purer
eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon sin. That
he is angry with the wicked every day, for he in his justice must
punish sin. Sin is the rejection of the rule
of God. It is unbelief. What is it to
do the will of God? It is to believe on him whom
God has sent, the Lord Jesus Christ whom he has sent, because
in him the righteousness of God is established. In the Lord Jesus
Christ, the law of God is honored and upheld. In the Lord Jesus
Christ, the justice of God is satisfied. Why? Because He took
upon Him, when He became man, when He was born and grew and
raised, and as a man, He took upon Him the sins of His people. The sins of His people. All the
sins of His people. Not in part, but the whole. All
of them. The bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but
the whole, all of the sins of all of his people. Who's all
of his people? All of his people are the multitude
that God the Father gave to him before the beginning of time,
chosen in Christ before the beginning of time. given salvation in Him
before the world began. The Scripture couldn't be clearer.
It is sovereign grace. And Christ came and represented
that multi-ethnic multitude that no man can number, and He paid
the penalty for the sins of those people. This is it. This is the
distinction. It is all established in redeeming
blood. The redeeming blood for the price
of sin is death. The soul that sins it shall die.
The life is in the blood. Therefore, he must come and his
blood must be shed. There must be death. That's why
he says, I am he that lives and was dead, but I am alive forevermore. The fact that he was dead is
the proof that his kingdom is established on redeeming blood. And so there's conflict between
the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. The one truly,
when it comes to the point you can go along and you can blur
the edges and things can be okay and we can all get on and we
can, as the scripture tells us and encourages us, as much as
is in us, to live at peace with all men. Don't go out looking
for a fight. Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. If it were,
my servants would take up arms and fight, but they don't, because
the weapons of our warfare are not that. The weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, they're not fleshly, but they're mighty,
through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, because they're
conceptual ideas. They're ideas of eternity. They're ideas, it's the word
of God which is the sharp two-edged sword, that is the weapon of
our warfare. But there's a conflict between
this world and the Kingdom of God. And it's like, in many ways,
a military situation without those physical weapons. Some
religions, of course, as you know, as society has been afflicted
by it for so many years, and not least in recent years, they
think that the kingdom of their religion is this world, and their
objective is to conquer this world, and the weapons that they
use are physical weapons of bombs and terrorism and everything
of that sort of nature. But Jesus said his kingdom is
not of this world, and our warfare is fought with weapons which
are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
Now, fundamental to military success is discipline. Isn't
it? It's discipline. Obedience. The
soldiers, the troops, must obey the principles and command structure
of the army. They must do. You cannot tolerate
it. It's got to be utterly intolerant
of anything. That's why they have courts martial,
for anybody stepping out of line. And the punishments are severe.
You've got to have military discipline for success. Well, if we relate
that to the conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom
of this world, the kingdom of Satan, then that's what this
letter to the church at Pergamos is about. It's in verse 12. Chapter 2, verse 12. The angel of the church in Pergamos
write, These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with
two edges, I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even
where Satan's seat is. And thou holdest fast my name,
and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas
was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth.
But I have a few things against you, because there you have there
them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast
a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things
sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou
also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing
I hate. Repent, or else I will come unto
thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of
my mouth. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone,
and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving
he that receiveth it. Let's look then at this, because
this letter to Pergamos is primarily about the need for discipline
in the Church in the conflict between the Kingdom of God and
the Kingdom of Satan. And as we did last week, let's
look at the Speaker and the situation of the Pergamos Church and the
way in which they're commended by the Risen Lord. and the way
in which they're rebuked, the things for which they're rebuked,
and yet it finishes with an encouragement. So we don't have much time, but
let's come to it and let's look at it. So the speaker then is
in verse 12. He announces himself as, These
things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges. Write
this letter to the pastor, the angel, the messenger, to the
church at Pergamos. and to others who preach in our
day. Write these things, says He. Says who? Says Christ, who
is God in glory. Christ who walked amongst His
people with the disciples. They touched Him. They leaned
upon Him. They were with Him. They spent time with Him. Three
and a half years they spent with Him. They saw Him. They beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth, yet to ordinary other people, He
had no comeliness that we should desire Him. And here He is in
His risen glory. Here He is, the Ancient of Days,
manifested to His people as the Son of Man in glory, as we saw
in the second half of chapter 1. He is God in glory in the
glory of eternity. Yet, although he's in eternity,
out of time, he says he walks in the midst of the seven candlesticks,
the churches, in time, during time. He's with us now. Where
two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst. And His name is the Word, because
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. And He has the sword of the Spirit. He has the sharp sword with two
edges. The sword of the Spirit, Ephesians
tells us, it's the Word of God. The sword of the Spirit is the
Word of God. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid
for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than
to you he has said, you who unto Jesus for refuge have fled. This
is what he says. This is thus says the Lord. We
don't have any charismatic extra revelations. There are no tongues
and prophecies today. If you hear it, it's a lie. Have
nothing to do with it. Flee from it. It's nonsense.
God will not honour it. This is the truth of God. His
word and His word alone. The cry of the Reformation, sola
scriptura, the scriptures alone, is our rule. You'll see it in
the bulletin, I've put a little piece by Don Faulkner. That's
our rule for all doctrine. And He has this sword, which
is His word. It's a sword which is honed,
sharpened to cut. As it says in Hebrews chapter
4 and verse 12, the word of God is quick, alive. The Word of
God is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and
of the joints and marrow. and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart." That's this book that is in your hands
this morning. That is this book. And He, our
Lord Jesus Christ, who is God revealed in glory, is the one
who speaks it. Cutting edge on both sides. When
He speaks, You listen and respond whenever, wherever He speaks
to you. He knows their situation, He
says. He says this to all the church.
I know our Lord Jesus Christ knows. We cannot hide from Him.
As with Ephesus and Smyrna, He knows the situation. So then,
what is the situation? Verse 13, I know thy works and
where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is. And you hold
fast my name, et cetera, where Satan dwelleth. Right. The situation
then for Pergamos. You know, most of these churches
are in Turkey, modern-day Turkey, Asia Minor. And we started out
at Ephesus, which you can visit today, and then we went north
to Smyrna, which is, I think I said it's Izmir, isn't it,
today? It's the city of Izmir in Turkey. And then you go further
north still, and I think Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think
somewhat inland, I don't think it was on the coast exactly.
And there you find Pergamos. Now, Pergamos was a commercial,
vibrant city. The time we're talking about
is about A.D. 95, A.D. 95, just over 1,900
years ago, 1,925 years ago. It wasn't some isolated commune
where there was a church, where there was a company of people
who believed the gospel of God's grace, and sought to follow and
obey the Christ of the gospel, who sought to bear his banner
and his testimony in this world. No, they were not in some isolated
monastery, some monastic community, They were well and truly in the
core of the world. They were in the world, in this
prosperous, commercial, vibrant city. You know, look at the cities
of this world as they were six months ago. Not as they are today.
They're dead, deserted today. They're dead and deserted, aren't
they? Completely. But as they were, you know what
London was like this time last year. It was absolutely buzzing
and vibrant with life of all sorts, whole spectrum. And that's
what Pergamos was like. And the church was there in this
city. And we're told in that verse
that it was Satan's seat of power and of rule. There, Satan was
on the throne of rule of that city, of its philosophy, of its
society, of the way it acted. It was an idolatrous society,
very idolatrous, unbelieving. What's idolatry? It's anything
which doesn't believe the true God. It either exalts a false
god or it exalts man. It's something which is not the
true God. It was idolatrous. And there
was one God in particular whom they honoured and revered and
worshipped, and I think he was called, you'll find various variations
on the name, but it's Aesculapius, Aesculapius. And the symbol was
a serpent going up a pole, a serpent going up a pole. And this serpent
was reputed to be able to save people from the effects of sin
and all diseases. Medical. Medical. What's the
symbol of doctors these days, and the health service, and the
British Medical Association? Yeah? It's the snake, isn't it?
Aesculapius. Aesculapius. Because it's symbolizing
the ability to save from sin and from all diseases. It also
had the name Soter, Soter, which is Saviour. This, in Pergamos,
the culture of Pergamos worshipped Aesculapius, this snake symbol
which they said could save from the effects of sin and diseases. And it's a symbol of medicine
today. But it's also a symbol of Satan. Genesis chapter 3,
how did Satan come to Eve in the Garden of Eden? The serpent
was more subtle than all the beasts of the field. The serpent. And it's hailed as the savior
of men. You know, Revelation 13, 15 that
we read last week. The world worshipped, worshipped
the image of the beast, the beast. the worship, the image, the image,
the thing that was set up, the beast, the kingdoms of this world,
man as his own savior. And Pergamos was also the center
for the worship of the Roman Caesars. You know, Julius Caesar,
Augustus Caesar, the Caesars. The Caesars proclaimed themselves
to be gods, in that they were lords over mankind. They all
proclaimed themselves in their corruption and everything else
to be gods. They deified themselves. People
worshipped them. There was the worship of Soter,
Aesculapius, this snake symbol, and there was also Caesar worship. The Roman emperor was worshipped
as the lord of mankind. Saviour and lord, there, in Pergamos. That was the culture of the society.
But displacing the true God who alone is Lord, and the Christ
who alone is Saviour, for any other Saviour is unable to save. And just as today, man aims,
tries, claims to be Lord and Saviour of man, But until Christ
returns in this wicked world, God leaves his people, his church,
in this alien territory. You know, we read Revelation
12 just before, so just turn there, just for a moment if you
can. In Revelation chapter 12, we have a picture of a woman,
which is the church. Down history, it's the people
of God. It's the woman, and from the people of God comes a child. That's why the line of Israel
and Judah had to be preserved. That's why God could not allow
the kingdoms of this world to subsume and crush Israel and
Judah. It had to continue. It had to
continue. Assyria couldn't succeed. God
made them believe a rumor that they would go away so that Judah
would be preserved because from Judah would come the child, the
Messiah. the Messiah in whom his people,
the elect of God, would be redeemed from the curse of the law. And
so there it is, Satan wants to devour. Why does Satan want to
devour? Because of Genesis chapter 3, he remembers what God said,
that he would send a seed of the woman. to bruise the head
of the serpent. He knew that his time was limited. He knew that. So he was going
to try to destroy this child before it was born. And we haven't
got time to go into it, but we could. You know, Herod and all
the things that happened around that time. But Christ was successful. And in verse 6, so Christ has
succeeded. He's gone to Calvary, he's risen
from the dead, he's ascended on high, and it says in verse
6, the woman, the church, fled into the wilderness. Wilderness
separation from this world. It's a mental separation. It's
a separation from the philosophy and the culture of this world.
Into the wilderness, where she hath a place, listen, prepared
of God. The place that the church is
in, in this world, is prepared of God, by God. And he's put
her there to feed her. For how long? A thousand, two
hundred and three score days. That's the time, times and half
a time. That's this time until Christ comes again. Then look
at verse 14. And to the woman were given two
wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness,
into her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half
a time, from the face of the serpent. That's where the woman
is. That's where she is. In the wilderness,
in a wilderness separation from the world around, the church
in alien territory. This is where the true church
is located, even today, wherever you are. If you believe, that's
where you are. You're in that place. What are
your wings? What are the wings of an eagle that you've been
given? They're the wings of faith. It's a picture throughout Scripture
of faith. God gives his people wings of faith. to fly out of
conformance with the philosophy of this world into a separation,
a wilderness separation from it. in the world, but not of
the world. Wilderness separation in terms
of principles of life, yet having to breathe its air, and eat its
food, and use its resources, and to trade, and to interact
with its peoples, whilst holding fast Christ's name, which is
what they did in verse 13. They held forth, they held fast
Christ's name in that enemy territory. What was that enemy territory?
It was where Satan lives, where his seat is, where Satan dwells.
I've called this message, Living Where Satan Lives. Not denying
Christ's faith. Christ's faith is the gospel
of his grace. Not denying it. Proclaiming it
boldly. Letting people know. Being prepared
to give a reason to anybody that asks. The hope that is in them.
That it's based on nothing else than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
That's it. Until he come. Now, they're commended. He says, I know your works. You've
held fast my name. You haven't denied my faith.
And in the past, it's even been, as the world around has tried
to get you to deny my faith, there was my faithful martyr
Antipas, who was slain. He was killed. This world around
killed him for not renouncing his faith. You've done well,
says Christ to his people. They've been faithful in face
of extreme persecution, especially in the past when Antipas was
martyred rather than deny Christ. They hadn't wavered from proclaiming
Christ crucified. redemption accomplished for God's
elect multitude, eternal life and heaven secured by sovereign
grace for them and for all his people. They hadn't kept silent
about sin and judgment. They had declared that God is
angry with the wicked every day. They were not, as in so many
churches down history, and so much so in the day in which we
live, churches that call themselves churches, The representatives of Christ
in this world, and yet their preachers preach, as Jeremiah
says, they preach peace, peace when there is no peace. There
is no peace for the wicked, says the Word of God. No, for sin
must be judged. There is none under the name,
under heaven, given amongst men, whereby we must be saved. It
is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what they faithfully
proclaimed without wavering. When they said, no, Soter, Aesculapius,
Caesar, is your God and Savior, the one who will heal you from
all diseases. They said, no, there is none other name than
Christ, and they upheld him. And they felt the backlash of
that society in terms of hatred, and ostracization, and violence,
and even death. They felt it. These were good
frontline soldiers in the army of God's kingdom. Oh, that we
might be so commended. In the same way, by our Lord,
for remaining faithful to the cause of Christ in the face of
this society's opposition to what we stand for and seek to
proclaim. But it seems that in Pergamos, the worst of the persecution
had passed. Antipas was in the past. It had
got easier for them. Unlike Smyrna, the church we
were looking at last week, they were warned it's going to get
worse for you. Things are going to get much harder. The heat
is going to be turned up. Do you know, ease is always dangerous. God says to his people, I think
it is in Malachi, on their lees. They're settled on their lees.
The people of God are at ease in Zion. Woe to them who are
at ease in Zion. They're settled on their lees.
They're not stirred up in any way. Ease is dangerous, especially
for troops in battle situations. They become careless. There's
laxity of discipline. So there's a rebuke, verse 14,
and this is the key point. I have a few things against thee.
They were good frontline soldiers, but here is a rebuke. There was
no rebuke at all at Smyrna. Here is a rebuke. I have a few
things against thee. Thou hast there them that hold
the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block
before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto
idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Pergamos
had allowed to remain members some people who held ideas contrary
to the principles of God's kingdom. You imagine troops in a conflict
situation, allowing some of their ranks to undermine the plans
for the battle, to disobey orders. to have one foot in the enemy
camp and one foot in our camp. You couldn't do it. They were
allowing some who professed faith, professed it, it's one thing
to profess it, it's another thing completely to have it, they allowed
some who said they were believers there to teach and act contrary
to true faith. They continued to allow these
people to share fellowship with them, to be identified with them
in the eyes of the society that hated them, and to share communion
with them. They allowed it, so that the
world around might say, hey do you know, some of these people,
they're not that bad. Some of these Christians are not that
bad, because look, they act like us. They do the things that we
do. Look at this. In what respect? What was their
error? It says here quite clearly, the doctrine of Balaam, and the
doctrine of the Nicolaitans. We've seen that with the Ephesians.
Christ praised the Ephesians, they'd lost their first love,
they were in a perilous situation. But at least they had this, they
hated the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, they wouldn't allow it. We'll
see what it was in a moment, but first the doctrine of Balaam.
What's the doctrine of Balaam? Do you remember Balaam? You have
to go to Numbers 22, 23, 24, the latter half of Numbers, but
those chapters especially. As Israel was on its wilderness
wanderings towards the Promised Land, they were militarily very
successful against some peoples, the Amalekites and others. And
the country of Moab was one that they had to go through. And the
king of Moab was a man called Balak at this time, and he was
terrified of Israel. So he thought he would get someone
he recognizes as a prophet of God, Balaam, to come and curse
this people, bring down God's curse upon them, and then they
won't be able to do to us Moabites what they've done to the Amalekites
and the others that God told them to destroy for their sin.
And so Balaam Balaam tried for monetary gain from Balak to curse
Israel, but of course he couldn't. In Numbers 22, 23, 24, you know,
he tries, but every time the words that flow from his mouth,
four times, the words that flow from his mouth are words of great
blessing, and Balak's furious. and Israel is not cursed. But
then a little later, he finds a subtle way to do it. He goes
and he tells Balak what to do, no doubt for monetary gain because
he'd tried it before. He advised Balak to get the people
of God cursed another way. How? How? This is how he did
it. You can read about it in the
latter half of Numbers. Numbers 31 says exactly what
he did. He persuaded Balak, king of Moab,
to get the daughters of Moab, the beautiful young women of
Moab, to seduce the Israelites, to commit fornication with them,
to teach them about their idolatrous gods. And soon, Israel is cursed
because they committed fornication with the enemy, with the people
that God had told them to have nothing to do with. And they
adopted their idols, and their false gods, and their false religion.
They adopted their idolatry, and God cursed them, and many
died under his wrath. That's it. That's what they did.
He said, this is what you need to do, Balak. You need to make
Israel blend in with Moab. That's the way to get them cursed.
Remove the line of difference between Israel and the kingdom
of this world. Remove that line of difference
and get them to come over and worship your idols. That's what
they did. That's no doubt what the people
in Pergamos wanted the church in Pergamos to do. Come and worship
Aesculapius. Come and worship Caesar with
us. He's the saviour, he's the lord. The Nicolaitans, they were
probably antinomians. In a nutshell, antinomians say
this. Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law. He's dealt with all of our sins.
There's nothing that we can do. Therefore, let us sin that grace
may abound. It doesn't matter how you live.
You can live as you want. Christ has paid the penalty for
your sins. Go and commit fornication. Go and commit this, that, and
the other sin. It doesn't matter, for Christ
has paid for it. That's antinomianism. So these
people at Pergamos, threatened by their doctrine and lifestyle,
These teachers of Balaam and Nicolaitans, by their doctrine
and lifestyle, they threatened to obliterate the distinction
between the true church there and the world, between the kingdom
of God and the kingdom of Satan. In Revelation 12, again, in verse
15, It's exactly as it says here. The serpent, there's the woman
in her wilderness separation, being nourished by God for times
and time and a half a time, and the serpent cast out of his mouth
water as a flood, after the woman, that he might cause her to be
carried away of the flood. This isn't a flood intended to
drown the woman. This is a flood intended to sweep
her off her feet, to sweep her out of her wilderness separation
from the world, into complete conformity to it. This is what
Balaam's advice had done in making Israel no different to Moab,
in sin and idolatry. So also the Nicolaitans, in living
exactly as the world, in immorality and laxity of behavior. Like
troops in a military situation, wearing enemy uniforms and obeying
the orders of the enemy. It would be intolerable. That's
what it is. Like so much of the professing church in recent years,
distinctiveness from the world has been removed by false doctrine
and by worldly practice. You can see it up and down this
country of ours at the moment, throughout the world that calls
itself Christian. You will see so little that is
actually true. to the faith of Jesus Christ.
Candlesticks have been removed all over the place. How do we
put discipline into practice? Because that is what this is
talking about. You know, you might think, oh, we've got a
lax situation, we don't have a church building, we don't have
a structure and all the rest of it. Well, we don't have those
things, but we have somewhere to meet, and we have order, and
we seek to do things in a right and proper and ordered way. And
one thing we do is we only allow preaching that is doctrinally
true and correct. Right, so, we're going away for
two weeks, next service will be on the 13th of September.
What do we do? You don't just go anywhere for
a sermon, you go to Free Grace Radio, because you can be absolutely
sure that from the preachers on Free Grace Radio, you will
find a message that is true to the doctrine that we seek to
preach. We don't allow other than that. Don't allow anybody
else to come in and preach anything else. And we don't allow association
or communion with any blatantly committing unrepented sin. Do
you remember what Paul said to the Corinthians about the one,
there was a case of incest and of most immoral behavior, and
he said, it's an utter disgrace, you have to put him out of fellowship,
to teach him. that this must be repented of.
You cannot have fellowship with someone who in the eyes of the
world is committing such heinous crimes. Even the world was disgusted
with what was going on at Corinth. I can't obviously give you any
details for very personal reasons, but there's a faithful pastor
who we spent some time with last year, who was telling me about
a situation where some people, distant from them, but tried
to associate with their church, and they were listening to their
sermons and occasionally visiting. But in their midst, immoral relationships
were going on. Blatantly immoral relationships. Blatantly adulterous relationships
were going on. And he was telling me that they
had to exercise discipline. Oh, we want, you know, bring
them in, and then maybe they'll gradually decide to reform. No,
says the Word of God. You've got to tell them, I'm
sorry, you are not allowed to associate with us as long as
this situation continues. It is a blatant denial of the
gospel of grace. You cannot claim the truth of
Christ and continue to behave in this way. And so they put
them out. I don't know what the situation is now, but that was
the right thing to do, and so it will be. Churches in the name
of love and compassion have let things slip. Christ calls on
the church for repentance. He says, repent or else I will
come unto thee quickly and will fight against you with the sword
of my mouth. We need to repent if there's
any sign of this. We need to be on guard to make
sure it doesn't happen. He threatens his opposition.
if we do not repent. He'll come and fight against
with the sword of his mouth, he says. This is real. These
things really do matter. We must preserve the purity of
that which is preached in the church. We must seek, not to
try and be judgmental to one another, but the standards of
behavior. You know, we seek to live not
by the law of Moses as the believer's rule of life. We don't go along
with that at all. Not at all. It's gospel precepts. We seek to live by gospel precepts. We seek to be people who are
immaculately honest in our dealings with the world around us. Who
are faithful in all things that we seek to do. You know, to be
good and compassionate to others. This is what we seek to do. This
is in accordance with God's precepts. Well then, time's just about
run out, but here's the encouragement in verse 17. He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Do you
have an ear? Do I have an ear to hear? In
other words, yes, you've got ears, but do they hear what God's
Word is saying to you, what the Spirit says to you, what the
Spirit reveals to you, making you willing in the day of His
power to hear Him and believe Him? Hearing God's call, we determine
with God's help to persevere in worldly separation. In doctrinal
purity, I want nothing other than the gospel of God's grace
to be proclaimed clearly every week from this pulpit. Nothing
else. Nothing else will do. I've been sampling some preaching
round about and I can tell you that in the name of that which
is supposed to be good and reformed and traditional and pure, oh,
there's some dreadful preaching around. There's some preaching
which is only works-based, which is only legalism, which is only
academic. It's got no life in it, no spirit,
no power, no Christ. No, we want to remain pure to
that gospel doctrine, doctrinal purity, gospel precepts of living. The reward, look what he says,
the reward is eternal life. I will give the hidden manna
and a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which
no man knoweth save him that receiveth it. It's the reward
of eternal life. It's the knowledge that we're
qualified for heaven. How do we know we're qualified
for heaven? How do we know? We know that Christ has died
for us. How do we know that Christ has died for us? You know, how
do we know that we're amongst them? We believe the gospel of
grace by sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.
Paul knew that the Thessalonians were those who were beloved of
God. We've got assurance that our name is in the Lamb's book
of life. We live in difficult times, they
may get a lot worse. This world is hard, but it is
the battle line between the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God.
But as Paul says, as I closed last week, Romans 8.18, I reckon
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Oh, what a blessing. I heard of one of our brothers
preaching a sermon a few weeks ago, and it was this. It was,
do you know what the best day of your life is? Do you know
what the best day of your life is? It's the day that you depart
to be with Christ, which is far better. That's true. For the
child of God, the best day of your life is the day that you
die. Amen.