Revelation chapter 2. I want so much by God's Spirit
somehow to impress upon your heart and mine the urgency of
the warnings our Lord gives in these two chapters as he gives
these letters to the churches. Some of you here are yet without
Christ I'm concerned for your soul I pray God will be pleased to
grant you life and faith in his son and yet I understand what I can't
seem to get you to understand believing on the son of God is
your responsibility and if you despise his grace you will perish
under his wrath justly. God help you now to believe his
song. For you who are believers, I
am aware that nothing is going to destroy our souls. Nothing. God's elect are as secure as
God's own throne. Nothing will ever cause one of
God's elect to be damned. As our brother prayed the blood
of Jesus Christ will never lose its power till all the ransomed
church of God is saved to sin no more. And yet perseverance
is your responsibility in life. I've seen many, many in whom I had great confidence,
many who appeared to be believers, many who appeared to be The genuine,
genuine, faithful, faithful men and women depart and walk no
more with God's people. I've seen preachers forsake the
gospel. I've seen deacons forsake the gospel. I've seen missionaries
forsake the gospel. And the dangers we face are real. We must constantly guard against
the corrupting influence of this world. We can't live in a balloon. We can't live in one of those
atmospheric conditions that are pure. It's not going to happen.
We can't separate ourselves from the world. And yet at the same
time, we must not allow ourselves to be influenced by the world.
Don't do it. Just don't do it. Of course,
we got one little granddaughter now, and I thought about it a
lot when we was raising Faith, but things seem to be so much
worse now. You look at television, you think, what on this earth? What on this earth? Going to
use for entertainment again. There's not a thing on television
fit to be said. Not a thing. I mean, nothing.
Nothing being produced. Absolutely nothing. But you who
are God's children, don't you allow the filth the corruption,
the immorality, the decadence, the utter barbaric philosophy
of this age to influence you. Don't do it. If you do, it'll
get you. I promise you, it'll get you. We must not allow the cares of
this world to turn our hearts away from Christ. This is particularly
a trial for men, raising families, caring for their wives and children.
We want to care for them, we want to exercise responsibility. Men ought to give great concern
to those things, but Rex, we can't, we just can't allow the
legitimate cares of this world to turn our hearts away from
God. We just can't do it. If your job, your livelihood,
your providing for your family takes you away from the Son of
God, give it up. Don't give him up. Just don't
do it. Just don't do it. And we must
guard against the religion of this age. The danger here, knowing that
we swim against the tide, knowing that we're set in opposition
to the whole religious world. The danger is either just give
up altogether. What's the use? We keep laboring,
we keep giving, we keep sacrificing time and money, and nobody pays
attention. Nobody. We play the tapes on the radio,
I prepare broadcast every day, preach the gospel, over the radio,
we send out bulletins, we send out tracks, we send out tapes,
we send out videotapes, we do everything we can, everything
we can, try to get the gospel to men, but nobody's paying any
attention. Nobody. Once in a while, God
calls out one of his sheep. Once in a while, God's pleased
to grant life and faith to one of his own, and we rejoice in
it, but our tendency is to look at things and say, well, what's
the use? Let's just quit. Let's just quit. Or else we find
some way to justify compromise. Union with the world. After all,
you know, surely not everybody's wrong. Surely not everybody. I've often thought to myself
and said to you, can you imagine what a temptation it was for
Israel in the wilderness? And they succumbed to it. They
succumbed to it. They're out worshiping God, carrying
along a tent made out of badger skin. Nothing impressive, just
a little old tent, smaller than this building, just a little
old tent, nothing impressive about it, nothing. And folks
who all through the land, religious folks, just like there are in
Danville, Kentucky, with great temples, great edifices, multitudes,
multitudes following after them. And here's this little band of
Jews. And they said, where do you say you worship God? In that
tent. And you really think, you really
think that's the only way you worship God? You really think
you're the only people who know God? Come on now, come on. And they succumb to the temptation.
All right, we'll recognize your God. We'll recognize your religion. And they perished in the Lord. Pastor, what do we do?
Here's the words of our Lord. Revelation 2 verse 18. Unto the angel of the church
in Thyatira write, These things saith the Son of God, who hath
his eyes like unto a flame of fire, sees everything perfectly,
and his feet are like fine brass, tried and refined in the furnace. I know thy works, and charity,
and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, and
the last to be more than the first. Notwithstanding, I have
a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel,
which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants
to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her space to repent
of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her
into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great
tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill
her children with death. I'll kill them. I'll kill them.
Not just temporarily, eternally. I'll kill them. And the churches,
all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins
and the hearts. And I will give to every one
of you according to your works. But unto you I say, to you who
believe, to you who are yet not corrupted by Jezebel's doctrine,
to you who are yet steadfast, And to the rest in Thyatira,
as many as have not this doctrine, this doctrine of this whore,
this doctrine of Jezebel, and which have not known the depth
of Satan." And he's talking about religion, the depth of Satan. As they speak, I will put upon
you none other burden but this one thing. That which you have
already, hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth
my works to the end. He that keepeth my works. Now that's what I want to talk
about today. Keeping the Savior's works. He that keepeth my works
unto the end, to him will I give power over the nation. He shall
rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall
they be broken to shivers, even as I received of my Father. And
I will give him the morning star, and he that hath an ear, let
him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Now in these
days of darkness and delusion, these days when God Almighty
has sent a strong delusion upon the nations of the earth because
they received not the love of the truth. In these days when
God has sent darkness, blindness, and delusion to folks all around
us, your family and mine, your neighbors and mine, your friends
and mine, your associates and mine, in these days of apostasy
on every hand, There are three things we absolutely must not
do. And one thing we absolutely must
do. Number one, we simply must not
neglect the ministry of the word and the worship of God our Savior
in the assembly of his saints. I tell folks this all the time.
I've told you about a dozens of times, dozens of times. Nothing. Bobby Estes, nothing
in your life is more important than what you're doing right
now. Nothing. Nothing is more important than
the public assembly of God's saints for worship. Nothing. If you neglect this, I'll guarantee
you're neglecting everything else. I'll guarantee it. This is the easiest part of worship.
Nothing's more important. Somehow, somehow in this day,
We've gotten the idea that worshiping God, the ministry of the word,
is sort of irrelevant. It really doesn't matter. Now,
I don't know how to say this and be understood. God's preachers
are not priests. You can't come to me and me automatically
somehow confer to you God's blessings. The assembly of God's saints
is not a temple. You can't, you don't come in
here and say, well now we come into the house of the Lord, we're
going to be blessed. That's not the case. But you can't get along
without God's servants. And you can't get along without
God's people. Can't do it. Years ago, I read a story. A
pastor, a young man, had an older man in his congregation who had
just kind of begun to fall by the wayside, neglect one service,
then another, then another. It wasn't that. And the pastor
This young man still had hope for the old man, hope maybe that
he had just gotten turned aside and he wanted not to give him
up, just let him go altogether. So he went to visit in the wintertime. And they sat and chatted. And
the posture exercise was more wisdom than young men usually
do. They didn't say a thing about what the man was doing or not
doing. They just chatted and he took the tongs and scratched
out a little hot, red, hot ember out of the fire. Set it over
by itself. Put it right on the edge of the
hearth. They talked, talked. After a while, the pastor reached
and picked up that ember that was red hot. Now just as cold
as the stone on which it lay. And he said, we sure had been
listening to the house of God. The old man with tears running
down his cheeks, he said, Pastor, I understand. I'll be in my place.
I'll be in my place. Because that red-hot ember out
by itself soon became utterly useless. Let me tell you something. God's
sheep simply cannot get along by themselves. They simply cannot
get along without the ministry of the Word. Turn to Ephesians
4. Hold your heads here and turn
to Ephesians chapter 4. This can't be done. God did not give
pastors for no reason, and he did not give his churches for
no reason. If you'll take time to read the
New Testament through, just look at the opening lines of each
book in the epistles. You'll observe that the epistles
were all addressed either to local churches, or to groups
of men gathered as churches are scattered abroad in persecution,
or to individuals who had churches gathered in their homes. The
church of God is necessary for our welfare. Look here at Ephesians
chapter 4 verse 11. He gave some apostles and some
prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
Now the offices of apostles and prophets and evangelists in this
sense of the word no longer exist. But in this gospel age, pastors
and teachers, pastors who are teachers continue. And this is
why God gave them, for the perfecting of the saints. Well, we will
go to perfection without them. No you won't. It's not going
to happen. the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the building
of the body of Christ. Till we all come in unity, the
unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto
a perfect mature man, unto the measure, the stature, the fullness
of Christ. That we henceforth be no more
children, listen now, tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine by the slice of men and cunning
craftiness whereby they lie in wait to be saved." You will not grow in the grace
and knowledge of Christ apart from the ministry of the Word
of God and the fellowship of God's saints and the ascended
saints. It will not happen. You will
not continue in the way of faith if you neglect the worship of
our God. These letters were addressed
to the angel of the church to be delivered to the church because
that's how God ministers to his people. So if you would keep
yourself in the way of faith, if you would keep yourself in
the love of Christ, if you would keep yourself in obedience to
the master, yourself in the house of God, neglecting not the assembly
of yourselves together as the manner of some is. All right,
here's the second thing we simply must not do. We must not quit
following Christ. We must not cease to serve him. Children of God don't ever get
over the wonder God wants you. That means, Larry
Chris, you're his lock, stock and barrel. He sets you free. You're now his servant. And that's
just reasonable. To glorify God in your body and
in your spirit, which are God. Our Lord speaks to these folks
at Thyatira about their charity and their service and their faith
or faithfulness about their patience and all things. And he says,
these things I command. Now I commend these things in
you and I urge you to give yourself relentlessly to the business
of serving one another, of serving our master, of serving the interest
of his kingdom, of serving his gospel. Give yourself relentlessly
to the pursuit of his and his will in this world. Whenever
you find something in a fit. Whenever you find anything in
a fit. Just cut it off. Just cut it off. Just cut it
off. So if a pastor, you talk like
this is something we do ourselves, it dead sure is. Yes, sir. You won't cut it off unless God
gives you grace to, but it's your responsibility to pluck
out the right eye, cut off the right hand, cut off the right
foot that offends you so that you may follow God. We must allow
nothing and no one to keep us from serving our Redeemer faithfully. The one thing God requires of
you and I is faithfulness. Faithfulness. Oh, I admire faithfulness. Brother
Walter Gruber, dead down in Mexico 35 years, faithfully serving
the cause of Christ. There ain't nothing on this earth
I admire like faithfulness. I was talking to Milton Howard
earlier this week. He's gone down there to Ball,
Louisiana. Faithfully served those folks.
I told him, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Oh,
faithfulness, faithfulness. I'll give you another word for
it, buddy. It's just dogged dependability. That's all. Somebody say I'm
gonna do something? You count on it. The people of God, you
count on them. You count on them. Make sure
you are one of those to be counted on. All right, thirdly, we simply must not tolerate. I mean tolerate. I don't mean
must not tolerate it in the sense of persecution or anything of
that kind. You know better than that. But we must not tolerate
in the sense of embracing or accepting the religion of this
world. Must not. Our Lord says to this church
in verse 20, I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest
that woman Jezebel. You put up with that woman. You
put up with her. You tolerate her doctrine. You
tolerate her religion. You embrace her as one of your
own. And my friends, the religion of this world, is the enemy of
the cross of Christ. The doctrine of this world is
opposed to the doctrine of Christ. I want to be specifically clear,
any form of religion It doesn't matter whether it wears the name
Baptist or whether it wears the name Mormon. It doesn't matter
whether it wears the name conservative or liberal or fundamental. It
doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter whether it's
Calvinistic or Arminian. It doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter whether it calls itself Reformed or whether it calls itself New
Age. It doesn't matter. Any form of religion that makes
salvation in any way dependent upon you is contrary to the gospel
of Christ and is anti-Christ and it is damning to all who
believe it. Look what it says here. These
are our Lord's words. Verse 22, I will cast her into
a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation
except they repent of their deeds and I will kill her and her children
with death. What's he saying? You seek after
your own way, I'll give it to you. You follow your own will,
I'll let you have it. I'll bring you to the end of
your ways, which is death. I know there is a way that seems
right to a man. The wise man said it twice in
Proverbs. There's a way that seems right
to a man. It's all the same way. It's the
way of will worship, it's the way of works, it's the way of
religion based upon you and what you do and what you feel, what
you experience. There's a way that seems right
to man, but the ends there are, are the ways of death. It all
results in death. Now our Lord commands us to come
out of Babylon, Revelation 18, verse 4, lest we be partaker
of her sin, and be partaker of her fornication, and be partaker
of her damnation. What do you do? coming out, coming
out. This reproof here is directed
both to the wicked within the church and to the church itself
because the church here at Thyatira was at fault because she tolerated
and gave her stamp of approval to Jezebel and her doctrine.
Turn to second John chapter, not the one chapter, second John
and verse 10. 2 John verse 10. I want you to look at it. Please don't ever speak to me
again. Please don't ever speak to me
again about anyone in any church, in any religion, in any denomination
where the gospel of God's free grace is not believed about being
fine Christians. I'm going to quit biting my tongue
and say you don't know what you're talking about. It's just not
so. It's just not so. Oh, they don't
believe like we do, but they love the Lord. No, they don't.
If they did, they'd love his gospel. That's just fact. Look in 2 John verse 10. If there come any unto you and
bring not this doctrine, The gospel of God's free and sovereign
grace in Jesus Christ. Well, let's be nice and receive
him into your house and have coffee with him and say, well,
we can work this out. What does he say? Receive him
not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. Don't you say
the Lord go with you. Don't you do it. Don't say, I'll
pray for you. No, sir. Don't you bid him Godspeed.
For he that biddeth him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds.
Now this is what he's saying. This is what he's saying. He's
saying, David Coleman, if you in any way encourage a man in
false religion and in a false gospel, you're as guilty as if
you were preaching it yourself. That's what he's saying. You're
partaker of his evil deeds. Don't you dare. You go out and
I drive downtown, I take Paul Winder with me Paul takes a machine
gun into the bank, robs the bank. I'm just sitting there in the
car with the motor running. And we get caught going down
the road. Police say, you're under arrest. I said, I didn't do anything.
You were the one driving the car, weren't you? But I didn't
go in there and rob that bank. You're just as guilty as he is
because you provided the means for him to do it. Don't you dare. We must not tolerate false religion. We must not, we must not receive
as truth that which is contrary to the gospel of God's free grace.
But what must we do? Here's the one thing we simply
must do. Our Savior says in verse 24,
but unto you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as
have not this doctrine, this doctrine of Jezebel, this doctrine
of free will, work, religion, and which have not known the
depths of Satan. That's what it is. The religion
of this world that makes righteousness depend on what you do. The religion
of this world that makes acceptance with God determined by your free
will. The religion of this world that
denies the gospel of God's free grace in Jesus Christ the Lord.
It is the depths of Satan. Satan. Not known the depths of Satan
as they speak. I will put upon you none other
burden. but that which you have already,
hold fast till I come. Let us never be turned away from
Christ crucified to the delusions of Satan. The gospel of Christ
must be alone our message. Christ alone the object of our
faith. Christ alone the theme of our
preaching. Christ alone the center of worship. Christ alone the motive in all
things in our lives. It's our responsibility to hold
fast the doctrine of Christ until he comes again. That is first
and foremost above everything else the business of every local
church and every believer. Hold fast that form of sound
words which you have received of me, Paul said. The Church
of God is the pillar and ground of truth. We do not bring truth
and add a little light to it and improve it a little and add
this to it and take that away from it. No, no, no. We simply
receive the truth as it's been handed down in the Word of God
and we hold it without compromise, without alteration, without addition,
without subtraction. Hold it on and pass it to the
next generation. That's our responsibility. So
that we hold fast the faithful word, the message of God's absolute
sovereignty. Our God is that God who declares,
I have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
And I'm telling you, anybody who doesn't worship that God
does not worship God, if God's an idol. Our God declares blessed
is the man whom God chooses and calls us to approach unto him.
Our God is the God who graciousness with irresistible power and grace
brings sinners to life and faith in Jesus Christ. Our God is that
God who by the sacrifice of himself has put away our sin satisfying
divine justice. He didn't just make a stab at
it. And I'm telling you, folks who deny the efficacy of God's
grace, The efficacy of Christ's shed blood, the efficacy of God's
work, do not know God. They're guilty of the works of
that prophetess Jezebel. And their religion is the religion
of the great whore by which the world is drunk with fornication
in their own free will. Our Lord says here in verse 26,
he that overcometh and keepeth thy word. This is what it means. Hold fast what you have. Keepeth
thy works to the end. How on earth do we keep his works?
I looked at that today. Looked at it several times and
I uh... This is what it means. This is what it means. The world says keep his works,
you know. He that overcomes and keeps his
works to the end. It'll be alright. No, no, no, no. The Bible constantly
says we keep. Our eye fixed on Christ's finished
work is obedience, is death, is intercession. That's all.
The word keep here means to guard by looking to. That's exactly
what it means. It is our responsibility to guard
Christ's finished work. Constantly looking to him alone
as the object of our faith. You do that, He says, I'll give
you the morning star. I'll give you myself. And if
I've got Him, I don't have to have anything or anybody else. That's exactly right, isn't it? My heart, my flesh faileth, David
said. But I will trust in the living
God, whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon
earth that I desire beside thee. Now, this is my resolve. This is my determination. God,
give me grace to fulfill it. I'm going to keep His work about
you. Anything that has the smell of
free will about it, I'm going to run from it. I'm going to
keep His work. That's all the hope I've got.
And that's all the hope you've got. Hey, as long as you come
lead us in the end place.