All right, Revelation chapter
3. Lord God of heaven and earth, we thank you for your word, every
part of it. Lord, there's many portions of
it we don't understand, and even those things that we do understand,
we don't understand them perfectly. But we do enjoy coming together,
Lord, and studying to try to understand better. And not just
so that we'll know more, but so that we'll walk better. so
that our life in Christ would be more pleasing to you. Lord,
thank you for these precious words before us this evening. We pray that our hearts would
be encouraged and our minds more securely fastened to the Lord
Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Now we spoke this
morning where the Lord identifies himself as the holy and true
and the one that holds the key of David. We can listen to him
and take in his words, and we don't have to filter them, we
know them to be true. And we can trust him, he is the
absolute sovereign. And he has opened a door of salvation,
a door of deliverance. And he has opened a door which
no man can shut. And this door is before every
believer. Now in some sense we've already
gone through the door, and yet in another sense we're always
going through the door. Because you see, we're always
being confronted, aren't we? Aren't we always being confronted
with temptations to go back? And to not keep going forward,
to not endure. This book deals a great deal
with enduring, with being patient under suffering. And the scriptures
often make the point that he who endures to the end shall
be saved. And so in every moment of our
lives, as we look what lays before us, and I know that we can't
see the future infallibly, but we do make our predictions based
on, you know, as much as we know. But our lives lay before us while
the door of God's salvation is always before us. And we're always
walking through it. We don't turn to the right or
the left. Now the Lord has put this door into his kingdom. He
put this open door there. Nobody can shut it. Nobody can
tell you you're not allowed to go through there. You aren't
fit to go through there. Well of course we're not fit
to go through there. If fitness is an issue, if righteousness
is an issue. But the fact of the matter is
this door is such that the only ones who are fit to go through
it are the ones who are most unfit in the eyes of the world.
What is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God.
And they're overlooking other doors. And they're rattling other
doors, trying to get through. And there are the doors of fitness
in righteousness, and fitness in faith, and fitness in experience. And they're trying to go through
those doors, but those doors are locked shut. No one can go
through there. But the Lord has gone into death.
He has broken the doors outward. No one can ever shut them again.
And we may follow him out through the door of Christ Jesus, the
door of God's grace. It's open before us at all times. Now, he says in verse 8, I know
your deeds. See, I have placed before you
an open door that no one can shut. Now, I know you have little
strength. Now what a promise then. What
a blessing for those that have no strength. There is before
them an open door. Now if you were in need of something
and there was, and I said, well all you got to do is go through
that door over there and here's this door, but it's closed. And it's
got one of those automatic closures on it like we got on the doors
outside, you know. Well, now, what if you needed
to go in and see a doctor because you were desperately weak? I
mean, you were so sick you could barely hold yourself up, and
now you've got to try to push through a door? Well, the door
into God's salvation is so simple, so easy. It's just a passageway. It's an open door. You just go
through. There's nothing to push. There's
no resistance, whatever. The only resistance you'll ever
face in going through this door is a resistance that arises from
your own flesh. There is no hindrance to you
going through that door other than those hindrances which are
in your own heart. But that's a blessing for those
that have little strength. He says, I know you have little
strength, yet you have kept my word. Now when he says little
strength, I don't believe that he means that this church was
weak in spiritual things. They had little strength in the
eyes of the world. They had little influence in their town. Rest of Philadelphia hardly knew
they were there. Do you know how many little churches of little
strength there are all over this world? Why, there's churches
so small, you and I never even heard of them. And you know,
we got the Internet and everything. Once in a while, I look for Sovereign
Grace churches. And you can find them. And I find some I've never
heard of in just little tiny groups here and there. But I'm
sure there's a lot more of them out there that don't even have
the wherewithal to get themselves on the Internet. to be seen.
Philadelphia was a nothing in the eyes of the world, a small
collection of, as the world would see it, kind of crazy people,
worshipping a man that Rome crucified. And they said he raised from
the dead, but nobody there ever saw him. So they're trusting
their souls to a man they never saw, whose voice they never heard.
And they're believing an outlandish story about him. I'm sure they're
thinking, well, whatever, you know, teach his own. But there
were no senators among them, no congressmen among them, there
wasn't even a mayor, not a dog catcher. Now in Corinth, there
were some people of note. Paul said to them, you see, you're
calling an election. Not many. Significant. Not many. No, there
were some. In fact, there was one, I believe
it's in the book of 1 Corinthians. Quirinius, I think might be his
name. I'm not sure just exactly how it was pronounced. But he
was in charge of the public works, it says. And sure enough, they
did some excavating over there, and they took up a brick street,
and there's his name on the back of the brick. You know, because
he had commissioned this work to be done. Corinth had some
people of significance and influence. Not many, but some. But not Philadelphia.
There's nobody there that amounted to anything. He said, I know
you're weak. You don't amount to anything in this world. He
says, but you have kept my word and have not denied my name. You know, I don't know how long
Grace Community Church will last. It may last one generation, it
may last two. No telling. That's in the Lord's
hands. But when that generation that was here when I came, when
it passes from the scene, that may be the end of it. And the world will have hardly
noticed that we came and went. But let this be said of us, O
God give grace that this was said of us, we kept his word,
we didn't deny his name. I'm much more interested in the,
I can't think of another word than this, but the applause of
God than the applause of men, aren't you? And that's what the
Lord's doing, he's applauding these people. Now I realize,
we're not doing this to seek applause, are we? I mean, you
know, we're not looking for self-glory. but the lord god honors them
that honor him the lord god honors him that honor his son and he said i know that you are
much in this world but you have kept my word and you didn't deny
my name and among the churches among these seven churches this
is one of only two that received no rebuke from the lord oh let us be so weak as Philadelphia,
so weak that we keep His Word and don't deny His name. They had not corrupted God's
Word by their conduct. There were those who claimed
to believe the Word of God, but the way they lived was so contrary
to that which God had had laid out and they not only live that
way, they only fell into sins, but they jumped headlong into
them saying it was okay. That's what you find in a lot
of those churches, those Nicolaitans. And the Gnostics were doing the
same kind of things back in this day. They said, hey, it's just
okay to live like you want. After all, we're just sinning
in the flesh. That's all. The flesh is going
to die. So who cares what happens in the flesh? In our spirits,
we're okay. And he said, you didn't Or, you
kept my word. You didn't fall for that nonsense.
You kept the content of it. I was talking to a fellow the
other day, goes to a church here in town, and there, I guess there's
been a big squabble coming up in the denomination, I don't
know if it's in their particular church, but it sounded to me
like a discussion's being made in that church, whether or not
to accept into the ministry practicing homosexuals. Now friends, I'm
not going to jump up and down on those people, because that's
right where we'd be, from the grace of God. But let's face
it, God has a word, doesn't he? And there's something about homosexuals
and that word. That's not the biggest issue in the Bible, but
it's a pretty clear one. How come people think it's alright
to just change it? I read on a website, and they
were talking about how to reach the people of the 21st century. What? Has the Bible gone dead
or something? Has it got no use anymore? Is the Word of God powerless? Have we got to come up with a
different message or a different method than that which God ordained? My friends, we keep His Word,
the very same thing that Christ declared, that Paul preached,
that Peter laid out, that John wrote down, all these things.
That's what we stick with. Why? Because it's true. And truth
doesn't change. Can you imagine if they came
out with a new math book for the 21st century? Well, what's
2 and 2 equal now? You know, friends, it equals
the same thing. And 2 plus 2 equals 4 is as good
for the 21st century as the 20th and the 19th. And Christ and
Him crucified is as good for the 21st century as it was for
the 1st century, as it was for Abraham of whom it is written,
Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced at the sight of it. In fact, the first message that
God gave after the fall of man was a message of Christ and Him
crucified. And friends, if it was good enough
for Adam and Eve, freshly fallen from their state of innocence,
it's good enough for you and me, thousands of years removed. You've kept my word. He said, you not denied my name.
They had not bowed to the demands of the world. to call on other
names than the name of Christ. As I've pointed out to you before,
in Roman, certain times in Roman history, all the Roman citizens
were required to go make a sacrifice to Caesar once a year and say,
Caesar is Lord. The Lord says, you've kept my
name. You've said Jesus is Lord and nobody else is. And they
suffered for it. I mean, they hurt when they did
that. That Mark of the Beast says they couldn't do business
without it. Some claim, and I don't know that it's true or not, but
I have read that they claim that when you'd go make your sacrifice
there to Caesar, they'd give you a certificate that said you'd
done what you needed to do, kind of like a license. And that's
how you were able to do business. And those people would take that
Mark of the Beast, so to speak, upon them. They would accept
it. They would bow down to Caesar,
and then they could do business. Believers wouldn't do it. Man,
it was tough to do business. It was almost all black market
business for them. They had to do it under the table. They suffered, but they kept
His name. They had not bowed down to Caesar,
nor fortune, nor pleasure, nor fame, no other name than the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the Lord vindicates His people. He says, I will make those who
are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews, though
they are not, but are liars, I will make them come and fall
down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. The closest story that you and
I are familiar with, that I think illustrates this, he's told a
Cinderella story here. You're familiar with Cinderella.
She was the daughter of a wealthy man. And this wealthy man married
a woman that brought some daughters with her. And then the man died. And the woman inherited all the
money and she despised Cinderella, the natural-born daughter of
the man. And she doted on her stepsisters.
And then the prince fell in love with Cinderella, not knowing
who she was. But then it came time to look for him. slipper
that she had dropped. And everybody thought it was
someone else, anybody but Cinderella. And he put the shoe on that fit
her. And those two nasty sisters and that horrible stepmother
had to acknowledge that Cinderella was the woman. And here's what
our Lord is saying. His bride, His wife, His chosen
in this world is despised and rejected just like he was. Held
in contempt, especially by the religious world. Like Cinderella,
she was heir to a great inheritance, but nobody can see it. And all of the world gussies
itself up thinking that when the Lord returns, he'll be coming
for them. And the Lord says no. I'm not
coming for the synagogue of Satan, who say they're Jews, but they
are not. They're just liars. Not coming for the church of
Satan, who says they worship me, but they really don't. They
worship a Jesus of their own imagination. He said, I'm coming
for you. And when I come, I'm going to make all these people
that persecuted you and hounded you and deprived you of your
rightful place, they're going to come and they're going to
fall down at your feet. And they're going to say, you're
the one. You're the one Christ loved. it says because of what our Lord
did that God highly exalted him and gave him a name above every
name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every
tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father.
And you know the Lord's Church can't wait for that day. Why?
Because the Lord's Church loves the Lord. And they know that
he's despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, or was a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief, and even though the sorrows and grief
are over, he's still despised and rejected in this world. And
they long to see him vindicated. Man has gone around saying, I'm
Lord, I'm Lord, I'm Lord. One of these days, they're going
to fall at his feet and acknowledge that he is Lord. But such is
the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for his church, that in that
day, when they fall down and acknowledge him as Lord, once
they've said, Jesus is Lord, he's going to say, you're not
done. You see this my bride over here? You abused her. You persecuted
her. She was hungry and you wouldn't
feed her. She was naked and you wouldn't clothe her. She was
in prison and you never went to visit her. uh... initially when he told
that he said you didn't know i was hungry you didn't feed
me i was naked you didn't clothe me i was in prison and you didn't
feed me they said when do we avoid doing that he said you
didn't do it to my brother you didn't do it to my bride and
now you will fall down before her and you will acknowledge
that she is the one i chose that she indeed is my bride and my
beloved now why would the lord do that? to puff us up with pride? And really, I'm not made proud
by the thought of that. I'm shocked. And I'm overwhelmed
with wonder at the love that the Lord has for His people. That He is concerned that they
be vindicated before those who abused them. He said, they will
acknowledge that I have loved you. I can't remember just what chapter
it is in Isaiah. I think it's 61, but I'm not
sure. It begins, For Zion's sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem's
sake I will not be still, till her vindication goes forth, until she is seen for who she
really is in the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that hell is a good thing
to avoid. I mean, you know, but that's
just kind of looking at things in a negative way. Sure, I want
to avoid hell, but you know something? When I look at the things that
are stored up, held in store for the people of God, I don't
want to miss that. In fact, it'd be hell enough
for me just missing those things. You wouldn't need a fire. you would need the worm that
doesn't die and the fire that's never quenched to make it a hell
for me to think I missed on that what a blessing they will fall
at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you now what
does it mean that he has loved us well Christ's love for us is eternal.
He says in Jeremiah 31 verse 3, I have loved you with an everlasting
love. He loved us with a sacrificial
love. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and
gave himself for her. And it's an active love. He says,
they will acknowledge that I have loved you. Now what does he mean
by that? He didn't just say, they will
acknowledge that I love you. See, I love you can just be a
sentimental phrase. You know, you tell your wives
or your husbands, I love you. And you're talking about the
affections of your heart. And I don't want to act as though
Christ has no affections in his heart for his church. He does.
But he's not talking here about a sentimental love of emotion.
He says, I have loved you. Look back at Malachi chapter
1. Malachi chapter 1, beginning
in verse 2. That's the last book in the Old Testament. Malachi
1, verse 2. I have loved you. Now the Lord
is speaking to the Jews. And He says, I have loved you,
says the Lord. But you ask, how have you loved us? Things have
been tough on them. And the Lord's answer is this.
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? These Jews were all the descendants
of Jacob, not the descendants of Esau. It says, How have I
loved you? Was not Esau Jacob's brother?
The Lord says, Yet have I loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated,
and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his
inheritance to the desert jackals. Edom may say, Though we have
been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins. But this is what the
Lord Almighty says, they may build, but I will demolish. They
will be called the wicked land, a people always under the wrath
of the Lord. You will see it with your own
eyes and say, great is the Lord, even beyond the borders of Israel. Now what's the Lord telling Israel
here? He says, I have loved you. And they said, how in the world
have you loved us? He said, well, now Esau was Jacob's
brother. Look what I did to him. I demolished him. And when they
said, we will rebuild, I wouldn't let them rebuild. And I called
them the wicked land. And they are always under the
wrath of the Lord. Now he didn't have to give the
contrary side. The Jews already knew what it was. Oh yes, he
had crushed, and they deserved it well. In discipline he had
crushed them, but he called them back to rebuild. He did not keep
His wrath upon them. He did not make His anger burn
against them forever. He restored them and called them
the righteous land. Friends, that's us. The love
of God for us. Think about the love of God for
you. Look where you are this evening. Where might you be?
Where are a lot of other people? Just think of it. I'm talking
about people still alive. You could think about hell, and
that would be a good thing to compare it to. You aren't in
hell. There's some love right there. But just think about this. Where are you now? At about 7
o'clock or whatever it is on a Sunday evening, you're sitting
here listening to the glorious grace of God. You might be sitting
listening to a lie, just like God's letting a lot of other
people listen to. You might be under a terrible sense of bondage.
You might be sitting in a church where they're just laying heavy
load upon you and heavy load upon you. And you came in miserable
and you leave miserable. And you do everything you can
all week to forget everything you heard because it's too tough
to deal with. Or you could be in a church where they treat
the wound of God's people as though it were nothing. And they
just try to make you happy and they grin a silly grin and hold
their hands up and say, God loves you. And you sit there and say,
well, this is just wonderful. And you never hear the truth
about what you are and the desperate need of your soul and that that
desperate need is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Or you
could be one of those people that doesn't care at all, doesn't
go to church anywhere. You could be sitting at home
watching a football game tonight. I suppose there's some playing
tonight. But God didn't let you do that.
It's not like you wouldn't have. In fact, it was in situations
like that that God found many of you. They will acknowledge that I
have loved you. And they'll have to acknowledge it because they're
going to be looking at us glorified to be like Christ. And they're
going to be looking at their own wretched state for the first
time in their whole existence. They will find out what they
are, but there will not be a remedy for it. They will be under the
wrath of God forever. They will be the wicked land. Don't ever think that God doesn't
love you. If he's brought you to Christ, all the love that
he has shown to you, and more love will be heaped upon you. He has loved us. Verse 10, since you have kept
my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the
hour of trial that's going to come upon the whole world to
test those who live on the earth. Now, we could take this as our
Lord talking about Judgment Day coming. And there's a way that
that could apply for sure. And that the Lord God is going
to spare us that judgment, and I believe He will. I mean, Judgment
Day has already been taken care of for the believer. It happened
in Christ. However, this word, trial, is actually a word meaning
to examine, to test. It's the same word when it says
that Satan tempted the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the same word used
when the Pharisees would come to Christ and put him to the
test. And what were they trying to do? They're trying to find
out what he's about. And I believe this is what he's saying, that
Brother Fortner took it this way in his notes, and it makes
good sense to me, because, you know, near as I can tell from
the Scriptures, when a resurrection happens, when the Lord Jesus
Christ comes, it's the end for everybody. You know, it's not
like he's saying here that there's going to be some huge tribulation
coming on the earth, he's going to take the church out of the
way, or at least the faithful church out of the way, before
that tribulation comes. I think he's talking about something
that was just about to happen right then and has been going
on ever since. And that's a great apostasy.
And there is no greater trouble, no greater test in all the earth
than the test of false religion. And you know, you and I are constantly
tested by it. We're confronted with it all
the time, and the world's confronted with it all the time. But God's
people are never overwhelmed in it. You know, at church, churches
go under testing. We've seen people come into this
congregation, and then we've seen them leave. And it's always,
sometimes we shake our head, you know, what are they thinking?
But here's what's happening. This great test has come upon
them, and they were proven to be false. Our Lord is saying
not so much that He'll keep us from that, that we'll never be
tested. Rather, He'll keep us in it.
He will not let us fall. Look over here at 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. beginning right at verse one.
We were through this several months ago. Concerning the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we
ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by
some prophecy, report, or letter supposed to have come from us,
saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone
deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion
occurs. Here's that word apostasy. I
mean, in Greek it's apostasy or something like that it means
a falling away and the man of lawlessness is revealed and the
man doomed to destruction now this shows us that we're going
to be here that is the church is going to be here when that
happens because it says the Lord won't return until after that
happens and I believe what is being said here to this church
of Philadelphia because you've endured patiently and kept my
word when that time comes you'll not fall with all them that fall
In that hour of great testing, you won't fall. Do you ever think
you're going to fall? Do you ever feel within yourself,
I'm not going to make it. I feel the temptation in me.
I feel the testing. I feel the attraction to, for
lack of a better word, happier religion. Or I feel the attraction
to more legalistic religion. Or I feel the attraction of the
world. I just don't know that I can make it, preacher. You
can. But the Lord has promised He'll keep you. You keep His Word. And when that
day comes, and don't be afraid of it, when that day comes, you
will stand. Because He'll keep you in that
hour. And the whole world may fall, but you won't. What did
He say to David? What did David say to us? Thousand
may fall at your right hand, ten thousand may fall at your
left, but it will not come near you. You will only see it with
your eyes. Oh, it'll be a horrible thing
to see. In fact, it already came. It's been going on ever since.
It wasn't that long after the apostles started preaching that
there was a great falling away in the church. But you know something? And this is in Brother Fortner's
notes. I assume he researched it historically. The church at
Philadelphia, There are records that for 800 years it remained
faithful to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. When nearly
the rest of the world fell away, there they were. For 800 years
her pastors held forward the message of Christ and Him crucified. Now friends, that's some kind
of record. I mean, that's way into what's called the Dark Ages,
way into what's called the Medieval Period, when the Roman Catholic
Church had a tyrannical grasp on everyone. Not on them. Not
on them. I'll tell you, if we trust our
leaders, if we trust our pastors, we're in a mess. But if we'll
trust Him, who rules all things, and believe His promise, we will
be kept. When He says in verse 13, excuse
me, verse 11, I'm coming soon, You know that's been a real troublesome
thing to a lot of people who believe that whenever the Lord
talks about coming, He's always referring to the second coming. I think maybe instead of the
second coming, we just ought to talk about the last coming.
Because our Lord has returned many times. Now not, there's
only going to be one time when He comes back the same way He
left. But friends, He's come so many times to rescue His church.
If you didn't see it, But He came by His Spirit. He came by
power by which He gave to her pastors and leaders to lead them
out of their troubles. And He worked in all of history
to deliver them out of their troubles. He says to these Philadelphians,
I'm coming soon. You're in trouble. You're suffering.
Don't worry. I'm going to get you out of this soon. One way
or the other. You see, if you take that view
of His Word soon, or what it means for Him to come, you don't
have to try to say, well, you know, comparatively it's soon, compared
to eternity it's soon. Well, you know, these people
were only going to live 70 years at most, and I'm sure some of
them were pretty quick. For our Lord to say, I'm coming soon,
and that could be any time in the next 10,000 years, that wouldn't
have been a lot of comfort to them, I don't think. Imagine. I remember one time,
this was when I was in 7th grade and I was on the wrestling team.
75 pound weight class. And they invented a new weight
class for me and two other guys in the county. The only ones
that small. But one day, you know, I was waiting for mom and
dad to come. They didn't come, they didn't come. But you know,
they'd always been there soon, but soon went way too long. I don't know why I remember it
so vividly, but the only hope I had of it, this is just awful,
but the only hope I had of it was Wednesday night. Maybe they'd
get there so late we couldn't make it to church. Nope, they
got there late, but we made it to church anyway. But the thing
is, it doesn't do any good to say I'm coming soon if soon is
going to be too long for it to do you any good anyway. He came
to them soon and he put his protection around
them. And for 800 years that we know
of, He guarded that church and kept them from falling. It says,
hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown.
Our job isn't to lay hold of more things. I've heard people
say, well, you know, I'm just going to go conquer territory
for Jesus. Well, don't waste your time. The territory is already
His anyway. It's His for the taking when
He wants it. He says, hold on to what you
have. And friends, that's the tough part. And you know why
it's so tough to hold on to what we have? Because we're always
being tempted to set it down in favor of something else. And it comes to us in very slick
words, very slightly. I want a deeper life. You know something? I wish that
my walk with the Lord Jesus Christ was consciously closer than it
is now. I wish I was more sensible for
His presence and everything, but I'll tell you something.
One quick way to leave Christ is to try to gain some kind of
experience like that. It just, it happens. Because
you get wound up or you get tied up trying to reach for an experience
Instead of just reaching for Christ. Instead of holding on
to Him and let the experiences come and go as the Lord ordains.
Or the higher life. I don't know how you get any
higher than being in Christ, that's pretty high. But they
talk about it. Oh, hold on to what you have. Don't give it up for something
more. As I said, the big problems back then with those Nicolaitans,
with their Fleshly enticements. He says don't don't let go of
what you have just so you can go out there and run around like
pigs He said that just don't do that and or don't do like
the Gnostics and go for the higher deeper life And let go of what
you have hoping for some kind of in your mind nirvana like
experience. No the plain white bread Gospel
of Jesus Christ you hold on to that Because it's all you need
for now. We have through the knowledge
of Him, says the Scriptures, all we need for life in Godliness. And we need nothing more than
what we already have. We just need to hang on to it.
Don't let go of it, so that no one will take your crown, meaning
that crown of victory. Him who overcomes, who's that? That's the one that hangs on
to what he's got. Him who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the temple
of my God. Now, A pillar, that's a column. It's a weight-bearing column.
It's necessary to the temple. Why would he put that there?
Why would he call us a pillar? He says, the last part, never
again will he leave it. You know, something that's necessary
to a building is never taken away. I know that we're not necessary
to the kingdom of God. He said, I'm going to treat you
like you are. I'll make you like a pillar in a temple. They may
take off an ornament or two, you know, on a building, but
they are never going to be able to grab ahold of a pillar and
just make it leave. You know, just say, are you going with
me? It ain't going to happen. They will never leave it. And then
he goes, I will write on him the name of my God and the name
of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down
out of heaven from my God. And I will also write on him
my new name. Now what's all this name writing?
This is one of those things that shows us that That mark of the
beast is not something that can be seen. The Lord says he's gonna
write his name on us. Well, I don't see it on anybody,
do you? No, but the Lord does. And notice this, he says, I will
write on him the name of my God, the name of the city of my God,
and all this. What's he indicating there? He's saying you belong
to God. You belong to the heavenly Jerusalem.
You belong to me. When I was at home last time,
my dad gave me this suede jacket that his brother had given him.
It's a nice jacket. Much better, probably, than anything
I would buy. And I brought it home. My wife
said, well, don't you wear that anywhere. Put your name on it. You know,
like I'd leave something somewhere, you know. In fact, do you realize
I wore it for the first time today? Because I was going with
her. I said, you think it's safe enough for me to wear the jacket?
She says, I'll watch out for it. But I did. I took a piece
of paper, wrote my name, address, phone number, and stuck it in
the inside pocket. But you put your name on what you own so
that you don't lose it. And that's what he's saying here.
God writes his name on us so that everybody will know who
we belong to. He writes the name of the city on us. We've got
an address on us. If we get lost, they know where to ship us back. What is that New Jerusalem coming
down from? That's the Church of the Living God is what it
is. And he said, and I'll write my new name on you. Friends, I could lose me. My
mother used to say, it's a good thing your head's attached or
you'd leave it somewhere. And that's true. I'm that way. I
imagine I'm just about as absent-minded spiritually as I am anything
else. And I'd leave me somewhere. But I'll always be easy to find.
Because God put his name on me. He put an address on me. with
one of those attention lines at the bottom. God, the church,
attention, Jesus Christ. That's a pretty safe situation,
don't you think? I can't think of any other name
I want written on me. And then one other point to make
here, you notice how the Lord says, I will write on him the
name of my God." Now isn't the Lord Jesus Christ God? Yeah. And yet he calls God, my God. Look back here in John chapter
20, verse 17. In fact, this scripture is, I
believe, part of the scriptures that inspired that song, I Come
to the Garden Alone. Yeah, when the Lord appeared
to Mary Magdalene, the man who wrote that song said that he
was in his study, and this word here in verse 16, you know, and
Mary Magdalene had been there to tend to the Lord's body, and
found that he's gone, and she's really upset about it, and saw
Jesus, thought he was the gardener, and then Jesus said to her, Mary,
she turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabboni, which
means teacher. And the person who wrote that
song said he was standing there looking out the window. And it
was just as though he was taken to that scene. And the garden
that's spoken of in that song is the garden in which the tomb
of the Lord was. And the person speaking in the
song is Mary Magdalene. But it says, in verse 17, Jesus said, Don't hold
on to me. Now, it's not like she was going
to corrupt him or something like that. He's incorruptible. I've
heard people say, I couldn't touch him because he hadn't gone
to the Father yet. It's not at all what he means here. I think
what he's saying, the word actually means don't cling to me. I think
what happened, when she realized who it was, she last told him,
I lost you once, I'm not losing you again. That was her attitude. You got out of my hands once
and she probably just fell at his feet and wrapped her arms
around his ankles and he wasn't going anywhere without taking
her. And he said, Mary, don't cling to me. I'm not leaving
yet. I'm not going to the Father yet. But notice this. He says,
Go instead to my brothers and tell them, I'm returning to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God. What does our Lord teach you
there at the garden tomb and here through the mouth of John
or through the handwriting of John? that He has joined Himself
to us so much that He says, God is my God. I worship Him right
along with you. He's my Father and He's your
Father too. Is there any more notable way
that our Lord could tell us that we've been put on the same plane
as Him? That's why it doesn't make any
sense to sing, I'm pressing on the upward way, new heights I'm
gaining every day. Friends, we're on the same plane as Jesus Christ.
Do you get any higher than that? Verse 13, He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Do you
have an ear? Not everybody does. Do you understand what the Spirit
is saying to the churches? saying, look to Christ, trust
in Him, don't leave Him, no matter what it looks like out there,
remember this, when it's all said and done, Jesus Christ will
own you. He'll call you His and He'll
make the whole world acknowledge it. There's not a thing between
here and there worth giving up the Lord Jesus Christ. Now do
you believe that? That's an easy thing to sit here
in a church service. Yeah, I believe that preacher. I tell you, there's
nothing I can't think of a thing worth giving up Christ for. And the devil is probably never
going to come to you and say, all right, Bob, I don't think there's a
Bob here. Good. I can say Bob and they won't think I'm picking
on them. Bob, it's this or Christ. What do you have? It's little
by little. A little time here. A little
thoughtfulness there. A little energy here. A little attention there. And let some time go by once
you look back and think, where's Christ? I've let my whole life
be eaten up by things other than Him. Be careful. Hold on to what you
got. so that you won't lose that crown
of victory. It'll be because you'll never cross the finish
line. Somewhere along the line you will have got stopped. But I tell you, why in the world
would we ever want to stop when we think of such love as the
Lord Jesus Christ shows toward us? I'm not afraid of hell. But sometimes I fear that through
foolishness I'll miss what is truly heaven. God give us a watchful
heart and mind to hang on to what he's given us. Heavenly
Father, the blessings held out to us in the scriptures are just
unfathomable to us. And in our day-to-day lives it's
easy to be forgetful of them. Lord, we want to be attentive
and we want to hold on to what we've got We don't want to trust
ourselves either to be the ones that have to do the whole knot.
Hold on to us. Preserve us from that test that
comes upon the whole world. Preserve us in it. May we be
proven to be true and sincere believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don't let us fall away with the wicked. In the name of Christ
we pray. Amen. Okay, you're dismissed.