I want to speak plainly to you
this evening about warnings from our master. My text will be Revelation
chapters 2 and 3. Revelation chapters 2 and 3. I have had this passage of scripture
on my mind and been studying it for several weeks. And I feel
strongly impressed of God to bring this message and probably
some others to follow from these two chapters. The one speaking
here is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who declares that he
holds the stars, that is the angels of the churches, those
who are God's messengers to his people, he holds them in his
right hand. Happy is that pastor, that gospel
preacher, who is firmly convinced that Jesus Christ holds him in
his right hand. Not only does he hold his servants
in his right hand, But he walks in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks, always. He's always present with his
church. He's always in the midst of his
church. He's always caring for his church,
for every individual local church and every member of his visible
as well as his invisible church who are truly members of him. In these two chapters, We have
seven letters which our Lord dictated to the angels, the pastors
of seven churches in Asia Minor during the days of the apostolic
era who existed during John's ministry. Now these seven churches
were literal churches in these literal cities established during
the apostolic era. But these churches represent
all local churches in every age of the gospel. They do not represent
various prophetic ages of the church, but rather they represent
every true New Testament church throughout the world. They represent
the various stages and conditions to which God's churches are always
subject in this world. In other words, these letters
from Christ to these churches in Asia Minor are really words
of Christ to you and me. They are as pertinent and as
meaningful and as applicable to the life and ministry of Great
Baptist Church in Danville, Kentucky in 1999 as they were in the first
century to the seven churches to which they were originally
addressed. Our Lord says in these two chapters seven times, because
he means for us to understand seven times, he that hath ears
to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Now may God the Holy Spirit graciously
give us ears to hear and cause us to hear what the Spirit here
says to you and me in this passage of scripture. First, here is
a fact that we must face and never forget. The Lord Jesus
says in verse two of chapter two, and he repeats it seven
times, It is a word that is given to all seven of the churches.
He says, I know thy works. He says to every church and to
every professed believer, to you and to me, I know thy works. He says this to those who are
true believers, and he says it to those who are mere professed
believers. Now, works are important. Very
important. We recognize that our works have
absolutely nothing to do with our standing before God. We are
not justified, sanctified, or saved to any degree at any point
by what we do. Our works do not give us acceptance
with God, nor will they maintain us in acceptance with God, nor
will they give us any imaginary higher place of honor and reward
in heaven's glory before God at last. Our works, however,
are very, very important. It is the nature of spiritual
men and women to walk in the spirit. and walking in the Spirit
to maintain good work for necessary uses. All who are saved by the
grace of God, all believing men and women, all who trust the
Lord Jesus Christ, perform good work from a principle of grace,
never from a principle of law, never in order to avoid God's
wrath and judgment or to gain anything from him, but from a
principle of grace. The Apostle James tells us most
plainly, faith without works is dead. Good works are those
things which give evidence to others that we indeed believe
God. Abraham believed God and he proved
that he believed God by his works. Rahab believed God and she demonstrated
her faith in God when she hid the spies who had come to spy
out the city. Now God Almighty has ordained
Bob Ponce that you and I, who are his, walk in good works. This is what the Apostle Paul
tells us in Ephesians 2. He states that we are saved by
grace, through faith, that not of yourselves, and not of works,
lest any man should boast. But we are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Now, if God has ordained that
we walk in good works, not only has he purposed it, but he will
bring it to pass, so that those who are born of his spirit are
inclined by his grace to walk in good works. The indwelling
presence of God the Holy Spirit, making us new creatures in Christ,
gives us this bent and direction in our lives to walk in the spirit. And this is what the scripture
says. Walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust
of the flesh. That's what the word says. Galatians
chapter 5 and verse 16. If you walk in the spirit, you
shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And if you and I are
born of God, we walk in the spirit. Believers are people who walk
in the spirit. Now to walk in the spirit is
not talking about some kind of a charismatic Pentecostal experience
where you foam at the mouth and roll in the aisle and feel like
you've gotten something whoopee from God. That's not what it
is at all. To walk in the Spirit like Chris is to walk, believe
in God. That's what it is. It is to trust
the Son of God. And those who trust the Son of
God have been made new creatures in Christ, and they shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now that does not mean, and we
know it does not mean, both from the Word of God and from experience,
that we shall not have the lust of the flesh. Paul spoke plainly
about that in the passage you read in Romans 7. We certainly
constantly struggle with the lust of the flesh. But the believer,
the man, the woman who is born of God, does not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. He walks in the Spirit. His dint,
the inclination of his heart, is toward Christ and righteousness. Now this I'm certain. If I profess
faith in Christ, But by my works deny him, then my profession
is an abomination to God, and I am reprobate. Hold your hands
here in Revelation 2 and turn back to Titus chapter 1. I want
you to see this. The same thing is true of you.
Those who profess faith in Christ, but in their works deny him,
are reprobate, no matter how doctrinally orthodox they may
be. This is not a debatable issue. Believers glorify God before
men by their good works. Faith works by love. Faith does
not work by law, but faith always works, and it works by love. Now look here in Titus chapter
1 verse 16. This is what I'm saying. No matter
what we profess, if in the biggest and tenor of our lives, by our
works, we deny our God, then our faith is but the faith of
a reprobate man. Look here in Titus chapter one,
verse 16. They profess that they know God,
these cretins, these evil beasts, these slow bellies who live in
lasciviousness. They profess that they know God,
but in works, they deny him. being abominable and disobedient
unto every good work reprobate. Now in the light of these facts,
let all who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ hear his
words. He says, I know thy works. I can think of nothing more terrifying
to a religious hypocrite than that. The whole religious world
uses this statement and this fact as a basis for holding men
constantly in legal bondage and fear, causing men to be terrified. The Lord knows your works. He's
going to get you. The Lord knows your works. He's
going to get you. For the hypocrite, that's terrifying. The eyes of the Lord are in every
place beholding the evil and the good. His eyes are a flaming
fire so that darkness is as light before him. A man may deceive
his pastor, his family, even himself, but the Son of God sees
everything. All things are naked and open
to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. He sees through
the facade men put up. He sees through what men call
their righteous deeds. He sees through their pretense. He sees through their outward
works which they have established by which they hope to make themselves
stand in good stead before God. And he will bring it to light.
He said, you are they which justify yourselves before men, but God
knows your heart. For that which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God. Now that makes hypocrisy
a losing game. So pastor, why are you talking
to us about that? Because hypocrisy is Satan's most crafty snare. Be careful. that your hope is
not the hope of the hypocrite. The hope of the hypocrite shall
perish. But the believer understands that the Lord knows his works. And while he fully acknowledges
the guilt of his sin, the corruption of his heart, the depravity of
his nature, and the evil of his best works, the believer looks
on Christ and says, Lord, you know all this. And I'm glad you
do. You know that I love you. Because
you see, the Lord looks beyond the deeds. He looks to our hearts
and sees why we do what we do. And looking to the motive of
faith, the motive of glorifying Him, the motive of looking to
Him and honoring His name, He accepts that which we do, not
on the merit of our motive, but on the merit of His Son, because
His Son makes our works acceptable in His sight. This is what Peter
tells us in 1 Peter 2, 5. He tells us that our sacrifices
are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, but only by Jesus Christ. And yet, as we walk before God
and serve him, trusting his dear son, the Lord God accepts our
works. as being his works and honors
us for them. Let me sit down and illustrate
it. Our Lord Jesus said to his disciples when they saw that
woman take the alabaster box of ointment and break it and
sacrifice that just to anoint him for his burial and Judas
holding the bag said why this could have been sold and fed
the poor and now the disciples began to murmur and our Lord
said you leave her alone. You leave her alone. She has
wrought a good work on you. Well, how could that be? She
wrought a good work of what good did it do? She did it because
she believed me. She anointed me for my burial.
She did it at a matter of great cost and sacrifice to herself.
She did it purely for me. She did what she could. That's
what the Master said in Mark chapter 14. She done it for me. This is what This is what God
looks at, as he sees us endeavoring to honor him, as he sees us as
believers seeking to obey him, he sees us walking to him. The
other day, we were over at Faith and Doug's, got to spend as much
time over there with that baby as we can, you know, and she
took her first step. I like to tease a little bit
that she took them to me. She didn't. I got the second.
First step that girl took, she walked to her daddy. You ought
to have seen the beam on his face. Oh, he was so happy. She's walking to me. Now she
wasn't walking much. She just took two or three, maybe
four steps. And then she had to hold on to
something. Just as soon as she started to
fall, he reaches out and grabs her. But she's walking toward
him. Do you understand that? We who
believe with our altering spirits, with our, with our works that
in themselves are utterly and wholly before God, but accepted
with him because of the merit of his son. Father, because we're
walking to him. We're walking to him. And he
accepts us as his sons for Christ's sake. The scripture tells us
God won't forget your works of faith and labors of love. The
works of those who die in the Lord shall follow them into glory,
and they shall be named by Christ himself in the day of judgment.
Imagine that. I can't tell you, but you read
Matthew chapter 25, and our Lord speaks plainly and says, in the
day of judgment, as he names the works of the wicked, he will
name the works of the righteous to their honor and his honor. Because our works are but the
work of his grace in us. Believers are obedient to the
master. That's all there is to it. Now
I know a lot of folks who are believers who aren't obedient.
No you don't. No you don't. You know a lot of folks who profess
to be believers. A lot of folks who say they're
believers. A lot of folks who like to convince themselves they're
believers. But those who are believers are obedient to the
Son of God. Now this book says that and plainly
knows on your face. I read an article about Brother
Mahan today. A missionary years ago was trying
to translate various words to communicate to a tribe and he
was looking, had looked for a long time for a word for obedience. And there was no word in their
language that would correspond with our word obedience. And
one day as he started to leave the village, he was walking out
and his dog lingered behind and he called his dog to come after
him. Watch that dog and said to him
as you went out, said, your dog's all ears. He said, that's it,
that's it. Believers are all ears to the
master. Speak, Lord, thy servant here
to see. All right, now here's the second
thing. Our Lord warns us in these two chapters of certain dangers
that we must overcome. He identifies here six conditions
Which, if they are not resisted, if they are not overcome, will
most certainly result in the apostasy and eternal ruin of
our souls. If these conditions are not checked,
if they're allowed to go unchecked in any local church, that church
will soon wither and die. It may continue to exist in name,
but it will have a name that it lives while it's dead, nothing
more. How often I've seen it happen.
I've seen it happen to individuals. I've seen it happen to churches.
I warn you, if as we go through these six warnings our master
gives, you find yourself described in a condition of decline, turn
immediately to him again. As often as you find yourself
in a condition of decline, turn again to Christ. Now let me just
give you these quickly, for God give me your attention. The first
danger is described in verse 4 of chapter 2. The Lord Jesus says, I have somewhat
against thee because thou hath left thy first love. I worked on this today and kept
working on my heart, or trying to. And I become more and more convinced
all the time I see work on my heart. I find a coldness and
indifference so easily, so quickly, so constantly steaming over my
soul. And my prayer constantly is,
turn us. and we will run after thee. Turn
me, O Lord God, and I shall be turned. Draw us, and we will
run after thee. Speak, and we will hear. But unless he turns us, unless
he draws us, unless he speaks to us, there's no recovery for
our souls. We can't, we can't muster this
from within ourselves. These Ephesians were zealous
in good works and patient in trials. They were patient in
the afflictions of life. They were fairly orthodox in
doctrine, but there was a dreadful decay in the matter of love for
Christ. Let me see if I can make this
pointedly personal to you and me. A woman may be married to a man.
She was once just wrapped up with him. She just, oh, she was
enthralled by him. And in her early days, she spent
her life just to honor that man, make him happy, served him, took
care of things at the house. And she did so with great delight
because her heart burned with love for him. But then somebody
came along and stole her heart. You've got too much invested,
you can't leave the man. But somebody else has a heart.
In order to hide that apostasy from him, she goes about her
duties, and she takes care of the house, and cooks the food,
and does what she knows he likes for her to do, but there's no
bounce in herself, no joy in herself, no delight in what she's
doing, because she left her first love. And when we begin to have
our hearts turned aside from Christ, so that the word of the
gospel becomes just a word to us, the message of redemption just kind of passes through our
ears. Because we are so enwrapped in
other things, We go through the motions of
religious duty and service. But there's an apostasy from
here. Are you like these Ephesians?
Am I? God forgive me all too much. Then repent and turn to Christ. Take your place with Mary at
his feet and hear his word and pray that he may cause you to
hear his word and call you after him. And then we're warned about
the doctrine of Balaam. Now, we won't tonight go back
to Numbers, but let me encourage you to read carefully Numbers
chapters 22 through 25. When we came to this in our scripture
reading A couple of weeks ago Shelby asked me, she said, what
about this man Balaam? What is it that he did that was
so wrong? What was it that he seemed to say so much that was
right? He seemed to do so much that was good. Balaam, however,
finally did one thing which shows him to be a false prophet. He
never denied the truth of God. He never denied the blessings
of God upon God's chosen people Israel. He never denied the worship
of God. No sir, not one time. But this
is what he did. He persuaded the people by this
to mix the worship of God with the worship of the idols around
them. And God says he persuaded the people to commit fornication. He persuaded the people to go
whoring after other gods. be warned. Compromise with false
religion is damning. It's damning to the souls of
men. Compromise is the way of least
resistance. It's the way approved of by the
world, the way that's easiest for the flesh. But any compromise
of divine truth is an outright denial of Jesus Christ. Do you
hear me? Any compromise of divine truth
is an outright denial of the Son of God. You see, the only
way we can remove the offense to the cross is to deny the gospel. We must never give any credibility
to the religion of this world. Those who preach free will deny
free grace. Those who preach the freedom
of man deny the sovereignty of God. Those who declare salvation
by the free will of man deny that sinners are saved by free
grace alone. Those who declare universal atonement
deny the efficacy of the atonement. In fact, they deny that atonement
was actually accomplished. It is not a doctrine of our brethren,
it is the doctrine of blasphemers. And for us to compromise with
it is to go a whoring from God and to worship at the altar of
Baal. Read 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Our Lord says plainly for
us not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. He
says plainly for us not to be. He tells us not to have any association
in any way with the religion of idolatry. Not to do it. I
don't know how many times it needs to be said. I don't know
how many times it's going to have to be said before folks
start paying attention. People ask me all the time, well, it's
better to go to church over here than not go to church anywhere.
No, it's not. No, it's not. Better not to go to church anywhere
than go to a house with a building of mutant colors going to church.
Better not to go to any altar than to go to an altar of a false
god. Nothing is more damning to the souls of men than Arminian
free will works religion. And I'm telling you, nobody knows
God and nobody worships God who worships at the altar of Baal.
We worship at the altar of God's free grace in Jesus Christ and
that's the only place where men worship God. Our Lord warns us
to avoid the doctrine of Balaam. And then in chapter 2, verse
15, he warns us against the temptation to embrace the doctrine of the
Nicolaitans. So thou has also, so hast thou
also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing
I hate. Now, let me give you a summary
of their doctrine. Nicolaitans were a group of heretics
in John's day. who thought that it was all right
for men and women as believers to indulge themselves in sexual
immorality, in the sexual immoralities of pagan religion. Those things,
after all, were acceptable among the Gentiles. If you read about
Gentile heathenism in the religion, you'll find that throughout the
Gentile world, throughout the history of the world of the Gentiles,
there was constantly a terrible, terrible inclination toward immorality
being involved in the religion of the Gentiles. It was something
exceptional, just ordinary exceptional. Kind of like it is in our day.
Kind of like it is in our day. Everybody, everybody's all right. It's all right. These Nicolaitans
were genuine antinomians. They said, let us sin that grace
may abound. We're saved by grace. What we
do doesn't matter. Without question, any man who
preaches salvation by God's free grace will be charged with being
an antinomian, a promoter of licentiousness. But you hear
me well. Any man who is indeed an antinomian,
a promoter of licentiousness in the name of grace, is a lost
man, he doesn't know God. No sir. Believers avoid, and
must surely avoid, the deeds of the Nicolaitans. And then
fourthly, in verse 20 of chapter 2, the churches of Christ and
you and I as individual believers are constantly pressured by the
world to be tolerant of false prophets and false religions.
This church at Thyatira is here described, the Lord says, 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 and titled. The church at Thyatira was charitable
and Diligent in service and patient in trial, well established in
orthodox doctrine, but it was also tolerant of that woman Jezebel. There was a woman in the church
who claimed to be called of God and gifted of God as a preacher. Our Lord calls her Jezebel after
Ahab's wife because she was a deceiver. Now the word of God clearly forbids
such, you know that and I do. Anybody who reads this book knows
the Word of God forbids women to teach and you serve authority
in the house of God. It doesn't matter whether we live in the
20th century or the 2nd century, it's the same. The Word of God
doesn't change. Well, what are we to do with such folks? They
claim, how can you say she's not called of God? Because God
says so. That's not too plain, is it?
How can you say this man is not called of God? Because what he
preaches is contrary to the grace of God. God says he's not called
of God. Those who do not preach the gospel
of God's free grace in Christ are not to be embraced even in
the name of charity, love, and unity as God's servants, but
they are to be identified as false prophets. and identified
plainly so that you make no mistake about it. You make no mistake
about it. They're not helpful to men's souls. They're deceivers
of men's souls. And then fifthly, in chapter
three, verse one, our Lord warns us that we must guard against
the tendency of our flesh toward hypocrisy, ritualism, and lifeless
orthodoxy. He says in the last part of this
verse, I know thy works. Thou hast the name that thou
livest, and you're dead. Oh, beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees. I'll tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is. Are you
listening? The leaven of the Pharisees is the love of outward
religion. with no inward confidence. And we're all prone to it. We're
all prone to it. Let us strive on this then. For that which is right, but
let us seek more than just outward uprightness and an outward uprightness
of conduct in the house of God. Oh God give us power of godliness
in our hearts. And then there's one more thing
here. In verse 16, our Lord warns us against these fleshly tendencies
of ours toward lukewarmness, apathy, and indifference. He said, because you're lukewarm,
I'll spew you out of my mouth. Would to God you either cold
or hot. And there's nothing more frightening
to my soul, Lindsay Campbell, than for me to find lukewarmness
and indifference in being. Nothing. Nothing. So let's heed his words. He says, repent, and buy of me
without money, without pride, by the gold of my grace, by the
white raiment of my righteousness. Come now by faith, just as you
first came to the Son of God with your empty, cold, hard,
indifferent, lukewarm heart, and come to him as a sinner,
and buy of him by faith the sweet eyesalve of his grace, in the
gospel that you may again see them fresh. Oh God, anoint our
eyes, make us see. See Jesus Christ the Lord everywhere
and in all things. Draw us and cause us to run after
him. Lord, hear our prayer. Don't leave us to our saviors. Oh God, don't leave us to our
saviors. But turn us, ever turn us to
our Redeemer. And calls us to run after Him. For Christ's sake, I pray. Thank you. You come this way.